y accident. Their plan was to put a few goods of little value
into old and shattered vessels, which they sank in the deep, taking up
the sailors in boats prepared for the purpose, and then returning
falsely the cargo as many times more valuable than it was. This
fraudulent practice had been pointed out to Marcus Atilius, the
praetor in a former year, who had communicated it to the senate; no
decree, however, had been passed censuring it, because the fathers
were unwilling that any offence should be given to the order of
revenue farmers while affairs were in such a state. The people were
severer avengers of the fraud; and at length two tribunes of the
people, Spurius and Lucius Carvilius, being moved to take some active
measure, as they saw that this conduct excited universal disgust, and
had become notorious, proposed that a fine of two hundred thousand
asses should be imposed on Marcus Posthumius. When the day arrived for
arguing the question, the people assembled in such numbers, that the
area of the Capitol could scarcely contain them; and the cause having
been gone through, the only hope of safety which presented itself was,
that Caius Servilius Casca, a tribune of the people, a connexion and
relation of Posthumius, should interpose his protest before the tribes
were called to give their votes. The witnesses having been produced,
the tribunes caused the people to withdraw, and the urn was brought,
in order that the tribes should draw lots which should give the vote
first. Meanwhile, the farmers of the revenue urged Casca to stop the
proceedings for that day. The people, however, loudly opposed it; and
Casca happened to be sitting on the most prominent part of the
rostrum, whose mind fear and shame were jointly agitating. Seeing that
no dependence was to be placed in him for protection, the farmers of
the revenue, forming themselves into a wedge, rushed into the void
space occasioned by the removal of the people for the purpose of
causing disturbance, wrangling at the same time with the people and
the tribunes. The affair had now almost proceeded to violence, when
Fulvius Flaccus, the consul, addressing the tribunes, said, "Do you
not see that you are degraded to the common rank, and that an
insurrection will be the result, unless you speedily dismiss the
assembly of the commons."

4. The commons being dismissed, the senate was assembled, when the
consuls proposed the consideration of the interruption experienced by