e
in the recital, before persons alarmed for themselves, exciting greater
indignation in the hearers than was felt by themselves, they affirmed
"that there never would be any other limit to their occupying the lands,
or to their butchering the commons by usury, unless the commons were to
elect one consul from among the plebeians, as a guardian of their
liberty. That the tribunes of the commons were now despised, as being an
office which breaks down its own power by the privilege of protest. That
there could be no equality of right, where the dominion was in the hands
of the one party, assistance only in that of the other. Unless the
authority were shared, the commons would never enjoy an equal share in
the commonwealth; nor was there any reason why any one should think it
enough that plebeians were taken into account at the consular elections;
unless it were made indispensable that one consul at least should be
from the commons, no one would be elected. Or had they already
forgotten, that when it had been determined that military tribunes
should be elected rather than consuls, for this reason, that the highest
honours should be opened to plebeians also, no one out of the commons
was elected military tribune for forty-four years? How could they
suppose, that they would voluntarily confer, when there are but two
places, a share of the honour on the commons, who at the election of
military tribunes used to monopolize the eight places? and that they
would suffer a way to be opened to the consulship, who kept the
tribuneship so long a time fenced up? That they must obtain by a law,
what could not be obtained by influence at elections; and that one
consulate must be set apart out of the way of contest, to which the
commons may have access; since when left open to dispute it is sure ever
to become the prize of the more powerful. Nor can that now be alleged,
which they used formerly to boast of, that there were not among the
plebeians qualified persons for curule magistracies. For, was the
government conducted with less activity and less vigour, since the
tribunate of Publius Licinius Calvus, who was the first plebeian elected
to that office, than it was conducted during those years when no one but
patricians was a military tribune? Nay, on the contrary, several
patricians had been condemned after their tribuneship, no plebeian.
Quaestors also, as military tribunes, began to be elected from the
commons a few years before; nor ha