For when they despaired of redress from the consuls and senate, upon seeing a debtor led to the court, they flew together from all quarters.

And neither the decree of the consul could be heard in consequence of the noise and clamour, nor, when he had pronounced the decree, did any one obey it.
All was managed by violence, and the entire dread and danger with respect to personal liberty, was transferred from the debtors to the creditors, who were severally abused by the crowd in the very sight of the consul.

In addition to all this, the dread of the Sabine war spread, and when a levy was decreed, nobody gave in his name; Appius being enraged, and bitterly inveighing against the ambitious arts of his colleague, who by his popular silence was betraying the republic, and besides his not passing sentence against the debtors, likewise neglected to raise the levies, after they had been voted by the senate.

Yet he declared, that "the commonwealth was not entirely deserted, nor the consular authority altogether debased.

That he alone would vindicate both his own dignity and that of the senators." When a daily mob, emboldened by licentiousness, stood round him, he commanded a noted ringleader of the sedition to be apprehended.