1But after the elections for appointing decemvirs had been proclaimed for the third market day ahead, such canvassing blazed up that even the leading men of the state — from fear, I suppose, that possession of such great power might lie open to men hardly worthy of it if they left the place empty — were buttonholing people, humbly seeking, from the very plebs with whom they had contended, an office which they had fought against with all their might. 3His dignity, now put at risk at his time of life and after the offices he had held, spurred on Appius Claudius. 3You could not have told whether to count him among the decemvirs or among the candidates.
4At times he was closer to seeking office than to holding it: he would attack the nobles, extol all the most frivolous and lowly of the candidates, flit about the forum himself in the midst of former tribunes, the Duillii and the Icilii, and through them advertise himself to the plebs, until even his colleagues, who until then had been wholly devoted to him, turned their eyes on him, wondering what he meant by it. 6It was plain, they thought, that there was nothing sincere in it; 6surely such affability in so proud a man would not come without its price; 6to lower himself so far to the ranks and to mix with private citizens was the conduct not so much of a man hurrying to leave office as of one seeking a way to prolong it.
7Not daring to oppose his ambition openly, they set about softening its drive by humouring it. 7By common consent they lay on him, as the youngest, the duty of holding the elections. 7The trick was this: that he should not be able to elect himself, a thing no one had ever done except the tribunes of the plebs, and that itself with the worst of precedents. 8He, however, declaring that he would hold the elections, and may it turn out well, seized on the obstacle as an opportunity; and, having had the two Quinctii, Capitolinus and Cincinnatus, kept from office by a coalition, along with his own uncle Gaius Claudius, a most steadfast man in the cause of the nobles, and other citizens of the same eminence, he gets decemvirs elected who were in no way their equals in distinction of life, and himself first of all — a deed which good men disapproved of no less than nobody had believed he would dare to do it.
11Elected with him were Marcus Cornelius Maluginensis, Marcus Sergius, Lucius Minucius, Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, Quintus Poetelius, Titus Antonius Merenda, Kaeso Duillius, Spurius Oppius Cornicen and Manius Rabuleius.