That this excessive lowering of himself, and putting himself on a level with private citizens, was not so much the conduct to be expected from one hastening to go out of office, as of one seeking the means of continuing that office." Not daring openly to oppose his wishes, they set about baffling his ardour by humouring it.

They by common consent confer on him, as being the youngest, the office of presiding at the elections.
This was an artifice, that he might not appoint himself; which no one ever did, except the tribunes of the people, and that too with the very worst precedent.

He, however, declaring that with the favour of fortune he would preside at the elections, seized on the (intended) obstacle[134] as a happy occasion; and having by a coalition foiled the two Quintii, Capitolinus and Cincinnatus, and his own uncle, Caius Claudius, a man most stedfast in the interest of the nobility, and other citizens of the same eminence, he appoints as decemvirs men by no means equal in rank of life: himself in the first instance, which proceeding honourable men disapproved so much the more, as no one had imagined that he would have the daring to act so.

With him were elected Marcus Cornelius-Maluginensis, Marcus Sergius, Lucius Minutius, Quintus Fabius Vibulanus, Quintus Poetelius, Titus Antonius Merenda, Caeso Duilius, Spurius Oppius Cornicen, Manius Rabuleius.[135] [Footnote 134: _Impedimentum_.

The fact of his presiding at the meeting should have been a bar to his being elected a decemvir.] [Footnote 135: Niebuhr will have it that five of these were of plebeian rank.] 36.