ought by certain traders, that aid was refused
to the Veientians, and that they were bid to prosecute with their own
strength a war entered into on their own separate views, and not to seek
out persons as sharers in their distresses, to whom they had not
communicated their hopes when flourishing; the dictator, that his
appointment might not be in vain, all opportunity of acquiring military
glory being now taken from him, desirous of performing during peace some
work which might serve as a memorial of his dictatorship, sets about
limiting the censorship, either judging its powers excessive, or
disapproving of the duration rather than the extent of the office.
Accordingly, having summoned a meeting, he says "that the immortal gods
had taken on themselves that the public affairs should be managed
externally, and that the general security should be insured; that with
respect to what was to be done within the walls, he would provide for
the liberty of the Roman people. But that the most effectual guarding of
it was, that offices of great power should not be of long continuance;
and that a limit of time should be set to those to which a limit of
jurisdiction could not be set. That other offices were annual, that the
censorship was quinquennial; that it was a grievance to be subject to
the same individuals for such a number of years in a considerable part
of the affairs of life. That he would propose a law, that the censorship
should not last longer than a year and half." Amid the great approbation
of the people he passed the law on the following day, and says, "that
you may know, Romans, in reality, how little pleasing to me are offices
of long duration, I resign the dictatorship." Having laid down his own
office, and set a limit to the office of others, he was escorted home
with the congratulation and great good will of the people. The censors
resenting Mamercus' conduct for his having diminished the duration of
one of the offices of the Roman people, degraded him from his tribe, and
increasing his taxes eight-fold, disfranchised[155] him. They say that
he bore this with great magnanimity, as he considered the cause of the
disgrace, rather than the disgrace itself; that the principal patricians
also, though they had been averse to the curtailing the privileges of
the censorship, were much displeased at this instance of censorial
severity; inasmuch as each saw that he would be longer and more
frequently subjected to the censors