1The new tribunes of the plebs, in co-opting colleagues, indulged the wishes of the senators; they even co-opted two patricians and former consuls, Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Aternius. 2The consuls elected, Spurius Herminius and Titus Verginius Caelimontanus, inclining strongly to neither the senators' nor the plebs' cause, had peace at home and abroad. 3Lucius Trebonius, a tribune of the plebs hostile to the senators, because he said he had been tricked by them in the co-opting of tribunes and betrayed by his colleagues, brought forward a bill that whoever put the election of tribunes of the plebs to the Roman plebs should go on taking the vote until he had elected ten tribunes of the plebs; 4and he spent his tribunate harassing the senators, from which he was even given the surname Asper.
4Next Marcus Geganius Macerinus and Gaius Julius, who were made consuls, calmed the disputes that had arisen between the tribunes and the young nobles, without attacking that office and while preserving the majesty of the senators. 6By holding the plebs in check with a levy decreed for the war with the Volsci and Aequi, they kept the state from sedition, declaring that when the city was at peace all was calm abroad too, but that through civil discord foreigners raised their spirits. 7Care for peace was also the cause of harmony within. 7But one order was always oppressive to the other's moderation; 7when the plebs was quiet, wrongs began to be done to it by the younger senators.
8Where the tribunes came to the aid of the humbler folk, at first it did little good, and later not even they themselves were inviolate, especially in the last months, when wrongs were done through combinations of the more powerful and the force of every office was generally somewhat weaker in the latter part of the year. 9And now the plebs was placing some hope in the tribunate only if it had tribunes like Icilius: for two years it had had mere names. 10The elder senators, on the other hand, though they believed their young men too aggressive, still preferred, if moderation had to be exceeded, that their own side rather than their opponents should have spirit to spare.
11So hard is moderation in defending liberty, while each man, by pretending to want equality, raises himself so as to press another down; and in guarding against fear, men actually make themselves to be feared, and the injury we have warded off from ourselves we inflict on others, as if one must either do wrong or suffer it.