1The plebs, embracing Volero with their favour, at the next elections make him tribune of the plebs for the year which had Lucius Pinarius and Publius Furius as consuls. 2And contrary to the expectation of everyone, who believed that he would give his tribunate over to harassing the consuls of the previous year, he put the public cause before his private grievance and, without assailing the consuls by so much as a word, brought a bill before the people that plebeian magistrates should be elected in the assembly of the tribes. 3It was no small matter that was being proposed under a title that at first sight was not at all alarming, but one that would take from the patricians all power of electing the tribunes they wanted through the votes of their clients.
4Though the senators resisted with the utmost force this measure, which was most welcome to the plebs, and though none of the college could be induced by the influence either of the consuls or of the leading men to interpose his veto, which was the one means of resistance, the matter, weighty in its own momentum, is nevertheless dragged out by contests into the following year. 5The plebs re-elect Volero tribune; 5the senators, thinking that the matter would come to a fight to the finish, make Appius Claudius, son of Appius, consul, a man hated by the plebs and hostile to them ever since his father's struggles. 5Titus Quinctius is given to him as colleague.
6At the very beginning of the year nothing was taken up before the law. 6But while Volero was the originator of the law, Laetorius, his colleague, was its champion, both newer to it and more ardent. 6He was made bold by his great glory in war, because no one of his age was readier with his hand. 7While Volero spoke of nothing but the law, refraining from attacking the consuls, Laetorius himself launched into an indictment of Appius and of his family, the most arrogant and cruel towards the Roman plebs, and when he maintained that the senators had created not a consul but an executioner to harass and mangle the plebs, the untrained tongue of the soldier could not keep up with his outspokenness and passion.
9And so, as words failed him, he said: 'Since, Quirites, I do not speak as easily as I make good what I have spoken, be present tomorrow. 9I will either die here in your sight or carry the law.' 9The next day the tribunes take possession of the sacred precinct; 10the consuls and the nobility take their stand in the assembly to obstruct the law. 10Laetorius orders everyone to be removed except those going to vote. 11Young nobles stood there, giving no ground to the officer. 11Then Laetorius orders some of them to be seized. 11The consul Appius declared that the tribune had no rights over anyone except a plebeian; 12for his was a magistracy not of the people but of the plebs; 12nor could he himself, by the custom of their ancestors, remove anyone by virtue of his authority, since the formula ran: 'If it seems good to you, withdraw, Quirites.' 12By arguing contemptuously about the law he could easily throw Laetorius into confusion.
13So, burning with anger, the tribune sends his officer to the consul, the consul his lictor to the tribune, shouting that he was a private citizen, without authority, without office; 14and the tribune would have been violated, had not the whole assembly risen up fiercely on the tribune's behalf against the consul, and a crowd of people, a multitude roused from the whole city, rushed into the Forum. 14Nevertheless Appius withstood so great a storm with obstinacy; 15and there would have been a fight, and not a bloodless one, had not Quinctius, the other consul, having given the former consuls the task of leading his colleague out of the Forum, by force if they could not otherwise, himself calmed the raging plebs now with entreaties, now begged the tribunes to dismiss the assembly; 16let them give their anger time: time would not take away their power, but would add judgement to their strength, and the senators would be in the power of the people, and the consul in the power of the senators.