s, and finally
some of the senators actually were permitted to be tribunes, unless a
man chanced to be a patrician. Patricians the people would not accept:
having chosen the tribunes to defend them against the patricians, and
having advanced them to so great power, they dreaded lest one of them
might turn his strength to contrary purposes and use it against them.
But if a man abjured the rank given him by birth and changed his
social standing to that of a common citizen, they received him gladly.
Many of the patricians whose position was unquestioned renounced their
nobility through desire for the immense influence possible, and so
became tribunes.

Such was the growth of the domination of the tribunes. In addition to
them the people chose two aediles, to be their assistants in the matter
of documents. They took charge of everything that was submitted in
writing to the plebs, to the populace, and to the senate, and kept it,
so that nothing that was done escaped their notice. This and the
trying of cases were the objects for which they were chosen anciently,
but later they were charged with the supervision of buying and
selling, whence they came to be called _agoranomoi_ ("clerks of the
market") by those who put their name into Greek.

_(BOOK 5, BOISSEVAIN.)_

VII, 16.--The first revolution of the Romans, then, terminated as
described. Many of the neighboring tribes had found in the revolution
a hostile incentive, and the Romans with a unified purpose after their
reconciliation conducted vigorously the wars which the latter waged,
and conquered in all of them. It was at this time that in the siege of
Corioli they came within an ace of being driven from their camp, but a
patrician, Gnaeus Marcius, showed his prowess and repelled the
assailants. For this he received various tokens of renown and was
given the title of Coriolanus from the people which he had routed.
[Sidenote: FRAG. 17^2] FOR THE TIME HE WAS THUS EXALTED BUT NOT LONG
AFTERWARD HE WAS ANXIOUS TO BE MADE PRAETOR AND FAILED, AND THEREFORE
GREW VEXED AT THE POPULACE AND EVINCED DISPLEASURE TOWARD THE
TRIBUNES. HENCE THE TRIBUNES (WHOSE FUNCTIONS HE WAS ESPECIALLY EAGER
TO ABOLISH) HEAPED UP ACCUSATIONS AGAINST HIM AND FIXED UPON HIM A
CHARGE OF AIMING AT TYRANNY AND EXPELLED HIM FROM ROME. HAVING BEEN
EXPELLED HE FORTHWITH BETOOK HIMSELF TO THE VOLSCI. The latter's
leaders and those in authority over them were delighted at his arrival
and again made ready