1The Ides of May came. 1No magistrates having been elected in their place, the decemvirs come forth as private citizens, with neither their resolve to exercise power nor the emblems that gave the appearance of office in any way diminished. 1That indeed seemed beyond doubt to be kingship. 1Liberty is mourned as lost for ever, and no champion appears or seems likely to appear. 2Not only had they themselves lost heart, but they had begun to be despised by neighbouring peoples, who resented that dominion should rest where there was no liberty. 3The Sabines made an incursion into Roman territory with a large force and ravaged far and wide; and when they had driven off plunder of men and cattle unpunished, they withdrew their column, which had straggled everywhere, to Eretum and pitched camp, placing their hope in Roman discord: it would hinder the levy.
4Not only the messengers but also the flight of country people through the city caused alarm. 4The decemvirs consult about what must be done, left isolated between the hatred of senators and plebs; fortune adds yet another terror besides. 5The Aequi pitch camp on Algidus on the other side and from there ravage Tusculan territory with raids. 5Envoys from Tusculum, begging for protection, report this. 6This panic so struck the decemvirs that they consulted the senate, with two wars surrounding the city at once. 7They order the senators to be summoned to the senate house, well aware how great a storm of resentment hung over them: everyone would heap upon them the blame for the devastation of the fields and for the dangers that threatened, and this would be an attempt to abolish their magistracy, unless they resisted with one accord and, by exercising their power sharply against a few of overbold spirit, crushed the attempts of the rest.
8When the voice of the herald was heard in the forum summoning the senators to the senate house before the decemvirs, it was like something new, because they had long since dropped the custom of consulting the senate, and it set the plebs wondering what on earth had happened that they should revive a disused practice after so long an interval: they had the enemy and the war to thank, they said, that anything customary in a free state was being done. 9They looked round in every part of the forum for a senator and scarcely recognised one anywhere; 10then they gazed at the senate house and the emptiness round the decemvirs, while both the decemvirs themselves took the senators' failure to assemble to mean that their power was hated by common consent, and the plebs to mean that private citizens had no right to call the senate; 10now a lead was being given to those who sought their liberty back, if the plebs would make itself the senate's companion, and, just as the senators when summoned did not assemble in the senate, so the plebs would refuse the levy.
10So the plebs murmur. 11Of the senators hardly any were in the forum, and few were in the city. 11Disgusted with the state of affairs, they had withdrawn to the country and, neglecting the public interest, were attending to their own, thinking themselves as far removed from injury as they had removed themselves from the meetings and company of their unbridled masters. 11When, after being summoned, they did not assemble, attendants were sent round to their houses, both to take pledges and to inquire whether they were refusing on purpose, and they report that the senate is in the country. 12That was more welcome to the decemvirs than if they had reported that the senators were present and refusing their authority.
13They order them all to be fetched, and proclaim a meeting of the senate for the next day; 13it assembled in considerably greater numbers than they themselves had hoped. 13When this happened, the plebs thought their liberty betrayed by the senators, because the senate had obeyed, as though they had a lawful right to compel, men who had already gone out of office and were private citizens, if only force were absent.