HKB
dignity was withdrawn from the elections themselves by the fact that the patricians were excluded from the council, than influence either added to the commons or taken from the patricians.[78]
A still more stormy year followed, when Lucius Valerius and Titus Æmilius were consuls, both by reason of the struggles between the different orders concerning the agrarian law, as well as on account of the trial of Appius Claudius, for whom Marcus Duilius and Gnæus Siccius appointed a day of trial, as a most active opposer of the law, and one who supported the cause of the possessors of the public land, as if he were a third consul [79]. Never before was an accused person so hateful to the commons brought to trial before the people, overwhelmed with their resentment against himself and also against his father. The patricians too seldom made equal exertions so readily on one's behalf: they declared that the champion of the senate, and the upholder of their dignity, set up as a barrier against all the storms of the tribunes and commons, was exposed to the resentment of the commons, although he had only exceeded the bounds of moderation in the contest. Appius Claudius himself was the only one of the patricians who made light both of the tribunes and commons and his own trial. Neither the threats of the commons, nor the entreaties of the senate, could ever persuade him even to change his garb, or accost persons as a suppliant, or even to soften or moderate his usual harshness of speech in the least degree, when his cause was to be pleaded before the people. The expression of his countenance was the same; the same stubbornness in his looks, the same spirit of pride in his language: so that a great part of the commons felt no less awe of Appius when on his trial than they had felt for him when consul. He pleaded his cause only once, and in the same haughty style of an accuser which he had been accustomed to adopt on all occasions: and he so astounded both the tribunes and the commons by his intrepidity, that, of their own accord, they postponed the day of trial, and then allowed the matter to die out. No long interval elapsed: before, however, the appointed day came, he died of some disease; and when the tribunes of the people endeavoured to put a stop to his funeral panegyric, the commons would not allow the burial day of so great a man to be defrauded of the customary honours: and they listened to his eulogy when dead as patiently as they had listened to the charges brought against him when living, and attended his obsequies in vast numbers.
In the same year the consul Valerius, having marched with an army against the Aequans, and being unable to draw out the enemy to an engagement, proceeded to attack their camp. A dreadful storm coming down from heaven accompanied by thunder and hail prevented him. Then, on a signal for a retreat being given, their surprise was excited by the return of such fair weather, that they felt scruples about attacking a second time a camp which was defended as it were by some divine power: all the violence of the war was directed to plundering the country. The other consul, Aemilius, conducted the war in Sabine territory. There also, because the enemy confined themselves within their walls, the lands were laid waste. Then the Sabines, roused by the burning not only of the farms, but of the villages also, which were thickly inhabited, after they had fallen in with the raiders retired from an engagement the issue of which was left undecided, and on the following day removed their camp into a safer situation. This seemed a sufficient reason to the consul why he should leave the enemy as conquered, and depart thence, although the war was as yet unfinished.