Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 6
Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., Ed.

36. There was fortunately a respite from¹ other wars, but the colonists of Velitrae, growing insolent in time of peace, because they knew that the Romans had no army, not only made several incursions into Roman territory, but went so far as to lay siege to Tusculum. [2] This circumstance affected not only the senators but even the plebeians; that the Tusculans, who had long been their friends and were now their fellow citizens, should be imploring aid filled them with shame. [3] The tribunes of the plebs relaxing their opposition, elections were held by an interrex, which resulted in the choice of the following military tribunes: Lucius Furius, Aulus Manlius, Servius Sulpicius, Servius Cornelius, and Publius and Gaius Valerius. [4] They found the plebs much less submissive to the levy than they had been to the election; but by strenuous efforts they enrolled an army, and, marching out, not only drove the enemy away from [5??] Tusculum, but even shut him up within his own walls, and Velitrae was besieged with far [p. 321]more vigour than Tusculum had been. Yet those² who had begun the siege were not able to conclude it before the election of new military tribunes. [6] The candidates chosen were Quintus Servilius, Gaius Veturius, Aulus and Marcus Cornelius, Quintus Quinctius, and Marcus Fabius. Even these tribunes accomplished nothing memorable at Velitrae.

At home the situation was more dangerous. [7] For besides Sextius and Licinius, who had proposed the laws and were now for the eighth time re-elected tribunes of the plebs, the military tribune Fabius, Stolo's father-in-law, was openly advocating the adoption of the measures he had himself suggested. [8] And whereas there had been at first eight members of the college of plebeian tribunes who opposed the bills, there were now but five; and these, puzzled and confounded, as is apt to be the case with men who forsake their party, were no more than mouthpieces, repeating in justification of their vetoes only what they had been privately schooled to say, to wit, that a majority of the plebeians were absent at Velitrae with the army; [9] and that the assemblies ought to be put off until the return of the soldiers, so that the entire body of the plebs might vote on matters that concerned them. [10] Sextius and Licinius, with some of their colleagues and one of the military tribunes, Fabius, being experts now —after so many years of practice —in the art of playing on the passions of the commons, would bring the leading senators forward and ply them with questions about each of the measures they were laying before the people: Had they the hardihood to demand that, when land was being assigned to the plebs in parcels of two iugera, they themselves should be authorized to hold more [p. 323]than five hundred iugera? [11] Did they desire that single³ patricians should possess the allotments of almost three hundred citizens; and that the plebeian should have a farm scarce large enough to contain a shelter for his necessities or a place of burial? [12] Or was it their wish that the plebs, undone with usury, should give up their bodies to imprisonment and torture, instead of paying the principal sums they owed? Did they mean every day to drag off gangs of condemned debtors from the Forum? to fill with prisoners the houses of the nobles? to make of every patrician's dwelling a private gaol?