1The year was free from foreign wars, and the following one, in the consulship of Publius Curiatius and Sextus Quinctilius, was quieter still, the tribunes keeping an unbroken silence; this was due at first to waiting for the envoys who had gone to Athens and for the foreign laws, and then to two huge evils that arose at once, famine and pestilence, foul for man and foul for beast. 2The fields were laid waste, the city drained by constant funerals; 2many illustrious houses were in mourning. 3The Quirinal flamen Servius Cornelius died, and the augur Gaius Horatius Pulvillus; 3in his place the augurs chose Gaius Veturius, all the more eagerly because he had been condemned by the plebs.
4The consul Quinctilius died, and four tribunes of the plebs. 4The year was disfigured by disaster upon disaster; 4from the enemy there was peace. 4Next the consuls were Gaius Menenius and Publius Sestius Capitolinus. 5In that year too there was no foreign war at all; 5at home disturbances arose. 6The envoys had now returned with the Attic laws. 6So the tribunes pressed all the more urgently for a start at last to be made on writing down the laws. 6It is decided that decemvirs should be elected without right of appeal, and that there should be no other magistrate that year. 7Whether plebeians should be included among them was disputed for some time; 7in the end the point was conceded to the senators, provided only that the Icilian law about the Aventine and the other sacred laws were not repealed.