ony in the city, and that through civil discord
the enemies assumed new courage. Their anxiety for peace was also the
cause of concord at home. But each of the orders ever took advantage of
moderation in the other. Acts of injustice began to be committed by the
younger patricians on the commons when perfectly quiet. When the
tribunes would assist the weaker party, at first it was of little use;
then not even themselves escaped being ill-treated; particularly in the
latter months, when injustice was committed through the combinations
among the more powerful, and the vigour of every magistracy becomes
considerably more lax in the latter part of the year; and now the
commons placed hopes in the tribuneship, only on the condition that they
had tribunes like Icilius; that for the last two years they had had only
mere names. On the other hand, the elder members of the patrician order,
though they considered their young men to be too overbearing, yet would
rather, if bounds were to be exceeded, that a redundancy of spirit
should exist in their own order than in their adversaries. So difficult
a thing is moderation in maintaining liberty, whilst by pretending to
desire equalization, every person raises himself in such a manner as to
depress another; and men, by their very precautions against fear, cause
themselves to become objects of dread; and we saddle on others injustice
thrown off from ourselves, as if it were actually necessary either to
commit injustice or to submit to it.

66. Titus Quintius Capitolinus, for the fourth time, and Agrippa Furius
being then elected consuls, found neither disturbance at home nor war
abroad; both, however, were impending. The discord of the citizens could
now no longer be checked, both tribunes and commons being exasperated
against the patricians, when a day of trial being appointed for any of
the nobility always embroiled the assemblies with new contests. On the
first noise of which the AEquans and Volscians, as if they had received a
signal, took up arms; at the same time because their leaders, desirous
of plunder, had persuaded them that the levy proclaimed two years
previously could not be proceeded with, the commons now refusing
obedience; that on that account no armies were sent against them; that
military discipline was subverted by licentiousness; and that Rome was
no longer considered as their common country; that whatever resentment
and animosity they may have entertained against fo