ere chosen,
three from the liberal and three from the illiberal patricians. The
liberals doubtless received all the votes of the plebeians as they had
no candidates. They had in all probability abstained from running for an
office, bills for the abolition of which were held in abeyance. They showed
increasing inclination to sustain Licinius and his colleague, both by
re-electing them year after year and by at length choosing three other
tribunes with them in favor of the bills. The prospects of the measure were
further brightened by the election of Fabius Ambustus, the father-in-law
of Licinius and his zealous supporter, to the military[12] tribunate. This
seems to have been the seventh year following the proposal of the bills.
This can not be definitely determined, however. During this long period of
struggle, Licinius had learned something. It was constantly repeated[13]
in his hearing that not a plebeian in the whole estate was fit to take
the part in the auspices and the religious ceremonies incumbent upon the
consuls. The same objections had overborne the exertions of Caius Canuleius
three-quarters of a century before. Licinius saw that the only way to
defeat this argument was by opening to the plebeians the honorable office
of _duumvirs_, whose duty and privilege it was[14] to consult the Sibyline
books for the instruction of the people in every season of doubt and peril.
They were, moreover, the presiding officers of the festival of Apollo, to
whose inspirations the holy books of the Sibyl were ascribed, and were
looked up to with honor and respect. This he did by setting forth an
additional bill, proposing the election of _decemvirs_.[15] The passage of
this bill would forever put to rest one question at least. Could he be a
decemvir, he could also be a consul. This bill was joined to the other
three which were biding their time. The strife went on. The opposing
tribunes interposed their vetoes. Finally it seems that all the offices of
tribune were filled with partisans of Licinius, and the bills were likely
to pass when Camillus, the dictator, swelling with wrath against bills,
tribes and tribunes,[16] came forward into the forum. He commanded the
tribunes to see to it that the tribes cast no more votes. But on the
contrary they ordered the people to continue as they had begun. Camillus
ordered his lictors to break up the assembly and proclaim that if a man
lingered in the forum, the dictator would call out every