1Informed through Marcus Duillius, who had been a tribune of the plebs, that nothing was being settled by the constant disputes, the plebs moves from the Aventine to the Sacred Mount, Duillius assuring them that concern would not sink into the fathers' minds until they saw the city being deserted; 2the Sacred Mount would remind them of the plebs' steadfastness, and they would learn whether affairs could be brought back to harmony without the tribunes' power being restored. 2Setting out by the Via Nomentana, which was then called the Ficulensis, they pitched camp on the Sacred Mount, imitating the restraint of their fathers by harming nothing. 3The plebs followed the army, with no one who was of an age to go holding back.
4Their wives and children escort them, asking piteously again and again to whom they were leaving them, in a city where neither chastity nor liberty was sacred. 4When an unaccustomed emptiness had made everything at Rome desolate, when there was no one in the Forum except a few of the older men, and, once the fathers had been called into the senate, the Forum had been seen to be deserted, more men now than Horatius and Valerius began to cry out: 'What will you wait for, conscript fathers? 6If the decemvirs do not make an end of their obstinacy, will you let everything fall in ruins and go up in flames?
6And what is this authority of yours, decemvirs, that you embrace and cling to? 7Are you going to dispense justice to roofs and walls? 7Are you not ashamed that almost a greater number of your lictors is seen in the Forum than of other citizens in togas? 7What are you going to do if enemies come to the city? 7What if the plebs soon come in arms, when they see that we are little moved by their secession? 8Do you want to end your authority with the fall of the city? 8And yet either we must do without the plebs, or we must have tribunes of the plebs. 8We would sooner do without patrician magistrates than they without plebeian ones.
9That power, new and untried, they wrested from our fathers; 9much less, now that they have once been captivated by its sweetness, will they bear the loss of it, especially when we do not restrain ourselves in our use of authority so that they have no need of help.' 10When these things were being thrown out on every side, the decemvirs, overcome by the general agreement, declare that, since it seems best, they will put themselves in the fathers' hands. 11They only beg and at the same time warn that they themselves should be protected from hatred, and that the fathers should not by their blood accustom the plebs to punishing patricians.