Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 5
Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., Ed.

11. It so happened that in that year one of the tribunes was Gnaeus Trebonius, whose name and family seemed to make it his duty to defend the Trebonian law. [2] This man said that what the Fathers had formerly aimed at (and had been foiled on their first attempting), the tribunes of the soldiers had finally extorted; he asseverated that the Trebonian law had been done away with, and that the tribunes of the plebs had been appointed not by the votes of the people but at the dictation of the nobles; [3] that things had come to such a pass, that they must perforce have either patricians or the satellites of patricians for tribunes of the plebs; their sacred laws were being taken [p. 39]away, the tribunician power wrested from them.¹ [4] This was done, he declared, by the knavery of the patricians, the rascality and the treason of his colleagues.

Men were burning with resentment, not only against the patricians, but also against the tribunes of the plebs, both those who had been co-opted and those who had co-opted them, when three of the college, Publius Curatius, Marcus Metilius, and Marcus Minucius, being alarmed at their own situation, I fell violently upon Sergius and Verginius, the military tribunes of the previous year, and by appointing them a day for trial turned against them the anger and displeasure which the plebs had evinced towards themselves. [5] They reminded their hearers, that those who were aggrieved by the levy, or the tax, or the protracted service and the long duration of the war, those who sorrowed for the calamity that befell at Veii, those whose houses were in mourning for the loss of sons, brothers, kinsmen or connexions, —that [6] all those now had the right and the power, thanks to the speakers, of avenging the nation's grief and their own private sorrow on the two culprits; for of all their sufferings Sergius and Verginius were the cause; [7] and this their accusers were not more forward to maintain than the defendants to confess, who, equally guilty, threw the blame on one another, Verginius taxing Sergius with his flight, while Sergius complained of Verginius's treachery. [8] Their madness had been so incredible, that it was much more probable that they had done the thing upon agreement, with the collusion of the senators; [9] who having before given opportunity to the Veientes to set fire to their works, in order to [p. 41]prolong the war, had now betrayed the army and² delivered up a Roman camp to the Faliscans. [10] They were doing everything to wear out the young men before Veii, and prevent the tribunes from bringing before the people the question of land and other advantages to the plebs, and from pushing their measures in well-attended assemblies and thwarting the conspiracy of the patricians. [11] Judgment was already given against the accused both by the senate and by the Roman People, and also by their own college; for the senate had by its decree removed them from authority, and when they refused to abdicate their office, their colleagues had coerced them by threatening to appoint a dictator, and the Roman People had elected tribunes to assume their duties, not on the thirteenth of December, the usual date, but immediately, on October the first, believing that the state could endure no longer if the incumbents should remain in place; [12] yet, in spite of all, these men, stigmatized and fore-judged by so many adverse verdicts, presented themselves for trial by the people, and fancied that they were quit and sufficiently mulcted because they were made private citizens two months before their time; [13] not perceiving that they had then merely been deprived of the power to do further mischief, not punished, since their colleagues, too, were turned out of office, though they had certainly done no wrong. [14] Let the Quirites call back the spirit they had shown when the recent calamity had occurred, when they had beheld the flight and confusion of their troops, as they stumbled, wounded and dismayed, through the City gates, accusing neither fortune nor any of the gods, but these their [p. 43]leaders. [15] They were sure that there was not a man³ present in the assembly who had not on that day cursed and execrated the lives, the houses, and the fortunes of Lucius Verginius and Manius Sergius. [16] It was not reasonable that their hearers, having a legal and moral right in the matter, should not use their power against those upon whom each one of them had invoked the wrath of Heaven. The gods themselves never laid hands upon the guilty; it was enough if they armed with an opportunity for vengeance those who had been wronged.