. And now the crowd of Manlius' partisans was
become more remarkable, both by their squalid attire and by the
appearance of persons under prosecutions, and terror being removed by
the resignation of the dictatorship, after the triumph had set both the
tongues and thoughts of men at liberty.

17. Expressions were therefore heard freely uttered of persons
upbraiding the multitude, that "by their favour they always raised their
defenders to a precipice, then at the very critical moment of danger
they forsook them. That in this way Spurius Cassius, when inviting the
commons to a share in the lands, in this way Spurius Maelius, when
warding off famine from the mouths of his fellow-citizens at his own
expense, had been undone; thus Marcus Manlius was betrayed to his
enemies, whilst drawing forth to liberty and light one half of the
state, when sunk and overwhelmed with usury. That the commons fattened
their favourites that they might be slaughtered. Was this punishment to
be suffered, if a man of consular rank did not answer at the nod of a
dictator? Suppose that he had lied before, and that on that account he
had had no answer to make; what slave was ever imprisoned in punishment
of a lie? Did not the memory of that night present itself, which was
well nigh the last and an eternal one to the Roman name? nor any idea of
the band of Gauls climbing up the Tarpeian rock? nor that of Marcus
Manlius himself, such as they had seen him in arms, covered with sweat
and blood, after having in a manner rescued Jupiter himself from the
hands of the enemy? Was a recompence made to the preserver of their
country with their half pounds of corn? and would they suffer a person,
whom they almost deified, whom they had set on a footing with Jupiter,
at least with respect to the surname of Capitolinus, to drag out an
existence subject to the will of an executioner, chained in a prison and
in darkness? Was there thus sufficient aid in one person for all; and no
relief for one in so many?" The crowd did not disperse from that place
even during the night, and they threatened that they would break open
the prison; when that being conceded which they were about to take by
force, Manlius was discharged from prison by a decree of the senate; by
which proceeding the sedition was not terminated, but a leader was
supplied to the sedition. About the same time the Latins and Hernicians,
as also the colonists of Circeii and Velitrae, when striving to clear
t