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34. But in proportion as the successful wars of that year had everywhere secured tranquillity abroad, in the City the violence of the patricians and the sufferings of the plebs were increasing from one day to another, since the very fact that payment was compulsory made it more difficult to pay. [2] And so, now that a man could make no compensation with his property, his reputation and his person [p. 313]were made over and assigned to his creditor by way1 of satisfaction, and punishment had come to take the place of payment. [3] So abject indeed was the surrender not only of the lowest of the plebs but even of their leaders, that, far from contending with patricians for the military tribuneship —a [4] privilege for which they had striven with such energy —there was not a man of them of sufficient force and enterprise to seek or to administer the plebeian magistracies. The patricians seemed therefore to have regained possession in perpetuity of an office which the plebeians had merely assumed for some few years.

[5] That this state of affairs might not inspire excessive joy in the patricians, a trivial cause —as often happens —set on foot a mighty change. Marcus Fabius Ambustus2 was very influential, not only amongst his fellows, but with the plebs as well, for the members of that class felt that he was far from looking down upon it. This man had married his two daughters, the elder to Servius Sulpicius, the younger to Gaius Licinius Stolo, a man of mark, albeit a plebeian; and the very fact that he had not rejected such an alliance had won regard for Fabius with the common people. [6] It fell out that the sisters Fabia were together in the house of Servius Sulpicius, then a consular tribune, and were whiling away the time in talk, as women will, when a lictor of Sulpicius, who was returning from the Forum, rapped on the door, in the usual manner, with his rod. At this the younger Fabia, being unused to the custom, went white, which made the elder laugh with surprise at her sister's ignorance. But that laugh rankled in the other's mind, for a woman's feelings [p. 315]are influenced by trifles. [7] I suppose, too, that the3 crowd of people who attended the tribune and took a ceremonious leave of him made her look upon her sister's marriage as a fortunate one and regret her own, in that ill-judging spirit which makes us all so very loath to be outdone by our nearest friends. [8] She was still suffering from the smart of wounded pride, when her father, happening to see her, asked if anything was wrong. [9] She would fain have concealed the reason of her grief, which was too little consistent with sisterly affection and did no great honour to her husband; but he brought her by tender inquiries to confess that she was unhappy in being mated to one beneath her, having married into a house where neither dignities nor influence could enter. [10] Ambustus then comforted his daughter and bade her be of good cheer: she would see ere long in her own home the same state she beheld at her sister's. [11??] From that moment he began to make plans with his son-in-law, taking into their counsels also Lucius Sextius, a strenuous youth, whose aspirations were thwarted only by his lack of patrician blood.

1 B. C. 377

2 Father of the three envoys to the Gauls whose story is told at v. xxxv.-xxxvi.

3 B.C. 37

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load focus Summary (Latin, W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1898)
load focus Summary (Latin, Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., 1924)
load focus English (Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912)
load focus Latin (W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1898)
load focus English (D. Spillan, A.M., M.D., 1857)
load focus Latin (Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., 1924)
load focus Latin (Charles Flamstead Walters, Robert Seymour Conway, 1919)
hide References (48 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (6):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 31-32, commentary, 31.35
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 31-32, commentary, 32.20
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 33-34, commentary, 34.7
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 35-38, commentary, 35.15
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 39-40, commentary, 39.12
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 41-42, commentary, 41.2
  • Cross-references to this page (14):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, C. Licinius Calvus Stolo
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Lictor
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Patricii
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Plebs
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Ser. Sulpicius
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Addicti
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Aes
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Virga
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, Fabiac
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita, Index, M. Fabius Ambustus
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), CONSUL
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), LICTOR
    • Smith's Bio, Fa'bia
    • Smith's Bio, Praetexta'tus, Sulpi'cius
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (28):
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