heir stronger wing. The valour of none shone more conspicuous in that
battle. The consul provided for all emergencies; he applauded the brave,
rebuked wherever the battle seemed to slacken. When reproved, they
displayed immediately the energy of brave men; and a sense of shame
stimulated them as much as praises excited the others. The shout being
raised anew, and making a united effort, they drive the enemy back; nor
could the Roman power be any longer resisted. The Sabines, driven in
every direction through the country, leave behind them their camp as
plunder for the enemy. There the Roman recovers the effects not of the
allies, as at Algidum, but his own property, which had been lost by the
devastations of their lands. For this double victory, obtained in two
battles, in two different places, the senate through jealousy decreed
merely supplications in the name of the consuls for one day only. The
people went, however, on the second day also in great numbers of their
own accord to offer thanksgiving; and this unauthorized and popular
supplication was even more zealously attended. The consuls by concert
came to the city within the same two days, and called out the senate to
the Campus Martius. Where, when they were relating the services
performed by themselves, the chiefs of the patricians complained that
the senate was convened among the soldiers designedly for the purpose of
intimidation. The consuls therefore, lest there might be any foundation
for such a charge, called away the senate to the Flaminian meadows,
where the temple of Apollo now is (even then they called it
Apollinaris). Where, when a triumph was refused by a large majority of
the patricians, Lucius Icilius, tribune of the commons, proposed to the
people regarding the triumph of the consuls, many persons coming forward
to argue against the measure, but in particular Caius Claudius,
exclaiming, "That it was over the senate, not over the enemy, the
consuls 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 was the matter of a triumph managed through the people; but
that the consideration concerning the honour and the disposal of it,
always lay with the senate; that not even the kings had infringed on the
majesty of this highest order. That the tribunes should not thus occupy
every department with their own authority, so as to allow the existence
of no public counci