ommons, oppressed with debt, were exposed to one enemy after
another. Wars were now sought out in every direction without
distinction. Troops were marched from Antium to Satricum, from Satricum
to Velitrae, and thence to Tusculum. The Latins, Hernicians, and the
Praenestines were now threatened with hostilities, more through a hatred
of their fellow-citizens than of the enemy, in order to wear out the
commons under arms, and not suffer them to breathe in the city, or to
reflect on their liberty at their leisure, or to stand in an assembly
where they may hear a tribune's voice discussing concerning the
reduction of interest and the termination of other grievances. But if
the commons had a spirit mindful of the liberty of their fathers, that
they would neither suffer any Roman citizen to be assigned to a creditor
on account of debt, nor a levy to be held; until, the debts being
examined, and some method adopted for lessening them, each man should
know what was his own, and what another's; whether his person was still
free to him, or that also was due to the stocks." The price held out for
sedition soon raised it: for both several were made over to creditors,
and on account of the rumour of the Praenestine war, the senate decreed
that new legions should be levied; both which measures began to be
obstructed by tribunitian interposition and the combined efforts of the
commons. For neither the tribunes suffered those consigned to their
creditors to be thrown into prison, nor did the young men give in their
names. While the senate felt less pressing anxiety about enforcing the
laws regarding the lending of money than about the levy; for now it was
announced that the enemy, having marched from Praeneste, had encamped in
the Gabinian territory; meanwhile this very report rather aroused the
tribunes of the commons to the struggle commenced than deterred them;
nor did any thing else suffice to allay the discontent in the city, but
the approach of hostilities to the very walls.

28. For when the Praenestines had been informed that no army was levied
at Rome, no general fixed on, that the senate and people were turned the
one against the other; their leaders thinking that an opportunity
presented itself, making a hasty march, and laying waste the country as
they went along, they advanced their standards as far as the Colline
gate. The panic in the city was great. The alarm was given to take up
arms; persons ran together to the walls