1This year too had a tribune proposing an agrarian law. 1It was Tiberius Pontificius. 1Taking the same road, as though it had succeeded for Spurius Licinius, he obstructed the levy for a little while. 2When the senators were again thrown into confusion, Appius Claudius declared that the tribunician power had been defeated the year before — for the moment in fact, and as a precedent for all time — since it had been discovered that it could be broken up by its own strength. 3For there would never be lacking a man willing to win a victory over his colleague for himself and the goodwill of the better party for the public good; 3and several tribunes, if several were needed, would be ready to help the consuls, and indeed one was enough even against all the rest.
3Only let both the consuls and the leading senators take pains to win over to the state and the senate, if not all, at least some of the tribunes. 5Guided by Appius' advice, the senators as a body began to address the tribunes courteously and kindly, and the former consuls, according as each had some private claim on individual tribunes, prevailed, partly by favour, partly by authority, so that they were willing to have the strength of the tribunician power serve the good of the state; 6and with the help of nine tribunes against the one obstructer of the public interest the consuls held the levy. 7Then they set out for the war against Veii, to which auxiliaries had gathered from all over Etruria, stirred not so much by goodwill towards the Veientes as because they had come to hope that the Roman state could be broken up by internal discord.
8And in the councils of all the peoples of Etruria the leading men loudly declared that Roman power would last for ever, unless they raged against one another in civil strife. 8This was the one poison, this the canker found for wealthy states, to make great empires mortal. 9That evil, long held in check partly by the policy of the senators, partly by the patience of the plebs, had now come to the extreme. 9Two states had been made out of one; each party had its own magistrates, its own laws. 10At first they used to rage during the levies, but these same men had nonetheless obeyed their commanders in war.
10Whatever the condition of the city, so long as military discipline remained, things could have been held steady; 10now the habit of disobeying magistrates was following the Roman soldier into the camp as well. 11In the last war, in the very battle line, in the very heat of the fight, by the agreement of the army victory had been handed over unasked to the defeated Aequi, the standards abandoned, the general left behind on the field, and a return made to camp without orders. 11Surely, if pressure were applied, Rome could be conquered by her own soldiers. 11Nothing else was needed but for war to be declared and displayed; 12the fates and the gods would do the rest of their own accord.
12These hopes had armed the Etruscans, who had been by turns conquered and conquerors in many fortunes of war.