Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 42
Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. and Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., Ed.

22. Then at last the consuls set out for their¹ province and took over the army from Marcus Popilius. [2] The ex-consul, however, did not dare to return to Rome for fear of having to stand his trial, in the face of an unfriendly senate and still more hostile commons, before the praetor who had put to the senate the question of the investigation directed against him. [3] This reluctance of his was met by the threat of another decree sponsored by the tribunes of the people, to the effect that if Popilius did not enter Rome before the thirteenth of November, Gaius Licinius was to determine the facts and pass judgment in his absence. [4] When he returned, dragged home by this fetter, he came before the senate amid great ill-feeling. [5] After he had been assailed there by the attacks of many, a resolution of the senate was passed that those Ligurians who had not been enemies since the consulship of Quintus Fulvius and Lucius Manlius² should be restored to freedom under the supervision of the praetors Gaius Licinius and Gnaeus Sicinius, and should be given land across the Po by the consul Gaius Popilius. [6] Many thousand persons were restored to freedom by this resolution of the senate, and after they had been led across the Po, land was allotted to them. [7] Marcus Popilius twice stood trial before Gaius Licinius in accordance with the Marcian decree;³ on the third occasion the praetor, overcome by the influence of the absent consul and the entreaties of the house of Popilius, ordered the defendant to appear on the fifteenth of March, the day on which the new magistrates were to enter upon their offices, so that Licinius himself, [p. 355]since he would be a private citizen, need not pass⁴ judgment. [8] Thus the decree about the Ligurians was evaded by trickery.