t, and that there was no reason why they
should remove the axes from the fasces.--_Crev._]

[Footnote 138: _Provocatione_--intercessionem. The _provocatio_ was to
the people, whilst the _intercessio_ referred to the decemvirs against a
colleague.]

37. The plebeians then began to watch narrowly the countenances of the
patricians, and (hoped) to catch the breeze of liberty from that
quarter, by apprehending slavery from which, they had brought the
republic into its present condition. The leading members of the senate
detested the decemvirs, detested the commons; they neither approved of
what was going on, and they considered that what befell the latter was
not without their deserving it. They were unwilling to assist men who,
by rushing too eagerly towards liberty, had fallen into slavery: they
even heaped injuries on them, that, from their disgust at the present
state of things, two consuls and the former mode of government may at
length become desirable. The greater part of the year was now passed,
and two tables of laws had been added to the ten tables of the former
year; and if these laws also were once passed in an assembly of the
centuries, there now remained no reason why the republic should require
that form of government. They were anxiously waiting to see how soon
the assembly would be proclaimed for the election of consuls. The
commons were only devising by what means they should re-establish the
tribunitian power, that bulwark of their liberty, a thing now so long
discontinued. When in the mean time no mention was made of the
elections, and the decemvirs, who had at first exhibited themselves to
the people, surrounded by men of tribunitian rank, because that was
deemed popular, now guarded themselves by collecting young patricians;
troops of these beset the tribunals. These seized and drove about the
commons, and the effects of the commons; when success attended the more
powerful individual, as far as obtaining any thing he might covet.[139]
And now they spared not even their backs. Some were beaten with rods;
others had to submit to the axe; and lest such cruelty might go for
nothing, a grant of his effects followed the punishment of the owner.
Corrupted by such bribes, the young nobility not only made no opposition
to oppression, but openly avowed their preference of their own
gratification to the general liberty.

[Footnote 139: _Quum fortuna, qua quicquid cupitum foret, potentioris
esset_. Stroth consi