wished to triumph; and that it
was intended as a return for a private service to a tribune, and not
as an honour due to valour. That never before had the matter of a
triumph been managed through the people; but that the consideration of
that honour and the disposal of it, had always rested with the senate;
that not even the kings had infringed on the majesty of this most
august body. The tribunes should not so occupy every department with
their own authority, as to allow the existence of no public council;
that the state would be free, and the laws equalized by these means
only, if each order retained its own rights and its own dignity. After
much had been said by the other senior patricians also to the same
purpose, all the tribes approved the proposition. Then for the first
time a triumph was celebrated by order of the people, without the
authority of the senate.

This victory of the tribunes and people was well-nigh terminating in
an extravagance by no means salutary, a conspiracy being formed among
the tribunes that the same tribunes might be re-elected, and, in
order that their own ambition might be the less conspicuous, that
the consuls also might have their office prolonged. They pleaded, in
excuse, the combination of the patricians by which the privileges of
the commons were attempted to be undermined by the affronts of the
consuls. What would be the consequence, when the laws were as yet not
firmly established, if they attacked the new tribunes through consuls
of their own party? Men like Horatius and Valerius would not always be
consuls, who would regard their own interests as secondary after the
liberty of the people. By some concurrence of circumstances, useful in
view of the situation, it fell by lot to Marcus Duillius before
all others to preside at the elections, a man of prudence, and who
perceived the storm of public odium that was hanging over them from
the continuance of their office. And when he declared that he would
take no account of any of the former tribunes, and his colleagues
struggled to get him to allow the tribes to vote independently, or to
give up the office of presiding at the elections, which he held by
lot, to his colleagues, who would hold the elections according to law
rather than according to the pleasure of the patricians; a contention
being now excited, when Duillius had sent for the consuls to his
seat and asked them what they contemplated doing with respect to the
consular elec