people, entreated him that he would
not involve in vexation their unoffending general, in whose case
nothing but fortune could be blamed, Hortensius took offence, thinking
it to be a trying of his perseverance, and that the accused depended not
on the entreaties of the tribunes, which were merely used for show, but
on their protection. Therefore now turning to him, he asked, "Where were
those patrician airs, where the spirit supported and confiding in
conscious innocence; that a man of consular dignity took shelter under
the shade of the tribunes?" Another time to his colleagues, "What do you
intend doing, if I go on with the prosecution; will you wrest their
jurisdiction from the people and overturn the tribunitian authority?"
When they said that, "both with respect to Sempronius and all others,
the power of the Roman people was supreme; that they had neither the
will nor the power to do away with the judgment of the people; but if
their entreaties for their commander, who was to them in the light of a
parent, were to prove of no avail, that they would change their apparel
along with him:" then Hortensius says, "The commons of Rome shall not
see their tribunes in the garb of culprits. To Caius Sempronius I have
nothing more to say, since when in office he has attained this good
fortune, to be so dear to his soldiers." Nor was the dutiful attachment
of the four tribunes more grateful alike to the commons and patricians,
than was the temper of Hortensius, which yielded so readily to their
just entreaties. Fortune no longer indulged the AEquans, who had embraced
the doubtful victory of the Volscians as their own.

43. In the year following, when Numerius Fabius Vibulanus and Titus
Quintius Capitolinus, son of Capitolinus, were consuls, nothing worth
mentioning was performed under the conduct of Fabius, to whom that
province had fallen by lot. When the AEquans had merely showed their
dastardly army, they were routed by a shameful flight, without any great
honour to the consul; therefore a triumph is refused. However in
consequence of having effaced the ignominy of Sempronius's defeat, he
was allowed to enter the city with an ovation. As the war was terminated
with less difficulty than they had apprehended, so in the city, from a
state of tranquillity, an unexpected mass of dissensions arose between
the commons and patricians, which commenced with doubling the number of
quaestors. When the patricians approved most highly of