ly should henceforward bear the cognomen of
Marcus. Caius Licinius and Lucius Sextius, tribunes of the people,
proposed a law that consuls might be chosen from among the commons;
and after a violent contest, succeeded in passing that law,
notwithstanding the opposition of the patricians, the same tribunes
of the commons being for five years the only magistrates in the
state; and Lucius Sextius was the first consul elected from the
commons._

1. The transactions of the Romans, from the building of the city of Rome
to the capture of the same city, first under kings, then under consuls,
and dictators, and decemvirs, and consular tribunes, their wars abroad,
their dissensions at home, I have exhibited in five books: matters
obscure, as well by reason of their very great antiquity, like objects
which from their great distance are scarcely perceptible, as also
because in those times the use of letters, the only faithful guardian of
the memory of events, was inconsiderable and rare: and, moreover,
whatever was contained in the commentaries of the pontiffs, and other
public and private records, were lost for the most part in the burning
of the city. Henceforwards, from the second origin of the city, which
sprung up again more healthfully and vigorously, as if from its root,
its achievements at home and abroad, shall be narrated with more
clearness and authenticity. But it now stood erect, leaning chiefly on
the same support, Marcus Furius, by which it had been first raised; nor
did they suffer him to lay down the dictatorship until the end of the
year. It was not agreeable to them, that the tribunes during whose time
of office the city had been taken, should preside at the elections for
the following year: the administration came to an interregnum. Whilst
the state was kept occupied in the employment and constant labour of
repairing the city, in the mean time a day of trial was named by Caius
Marcius, tribune of the people, for Quintus Fabius, as soon as he went
out of office, because whilst an ambassador he had, contrary to the law
of nations, appeared in arms against the Gauls, to whom he had been sent
as a negotiator; from which trial death removed him so opportunely that
most people thought it voluntary. The interregnum commenced. Publius
Cornelius Scipio was interrex, and after him Marcus Furius Camillus. He
nominates as military tribunes with consular power, Lucius Valerius
Publicola a