Also it was decreed that to interrupt a tribune in a public speech deserved death.

But whenever an Appius Claudius was consul he took his revenge, and was cruelly severe, especially in the camp, where the consul as general had much more power than in Rome.

Again the angry plebeians would not fight, but threw down their arms in sight of the enemy.
Claudius scourged and beheaded; they endured grimly and silently, knowing that when he returned to Rome and his consulate was over their tribunes would call him to account.

And so they did, and before all the tribes of Rome summoned him to answer for his savage treatment of free Roman citizens.

He made a violent answer, but he saw how it would go with him, and put himself to death to avoid the sentence.