nus walked forward from the crowd, and in submissive terms
began to speak of peace, and to argue with Vatinius. But their
conversation was suddenly interrupted by darts thrown from all sides,
from which Vatinius escaped by being protected by the arms of the
soldiers. However, several were wounded; and among them Cornelius
Balbus, Marcus Plotius, and Lucius Tiburtius, centurions, and some
privates; hereupon Labienus exclaimed, "Forbear, then, to speak any more
about an accommodation, for we can have no peace unless we carry
Caesar's head back with us."

XX.--At the same time in Rome, Marcus Caelius Rufus, one of the
praetors, having undertaken the cause of the debtors, on entering into
his office, fixed his tribunal near the bench of Caius Trebonius, the
city praetor, and promised if any person appealed to him in regard to
the valuation and payment of debts made by arbitration, as appointed by
Caesar when in Rome, that he would relieve them. But it happened, from
the justice of Trebonius's decrees and his humanity (for he thought that
in such dangerous times justice should be administered with moderation
and compassion), that not one could be found who would offer himself the
first to lodge an appeal. For to plead poverty, to complain of his own
private calamities, or the general distresses of the times, or to assert
the difficulty of setting the goods to sale, is the behaviour of a man
even of a moderate temper; but to retain their possessions entire, and
at the same time acknowledge themselves in debt, what sort of spirit,
and what impudence would it not have argued! Therefore nobody was found
so unreasonable as to make such demands. But Caelius proved more severe
to those very persons for whose advantage it had been designed; and
starting from this beginning, in order that he might not appear to have
engaged in so dishonourable an affair without effecting something, he
promulgated a law, that all debts should be discharged in six equal
payments, of six months each, without interest.

XXI.--When Servilius, the consul, and the other magistrates opposed him,
and he himself effected less than he expected, in order to raise the
passions of the people, he dropped it, and promulgated two others; one,
by which he remitted the annual rents of the houses to the tenants, the
other, an act of insolvency: upon which the mob made an assault on Caius
Trebonius, and having wounded several persons, drove him from his
tribunal. The co