The panic occasioned hereby urged the decemvirs to consult the senate, two wars at the same time surrounding the city.

They order the patricians to be summoned into the senate-house, well aware what a storm of resentment was ready to break upon them; that all would heap on them the causes of the land laid waste, and of the dangers which threatened them; and that that would occasion an attempt to abolish their office, if they did not unite in resisting, and by enforcing their authority with severity on a few of an intractable spirit repress the efforts of others.

When the voice was heard in the forum of the crier summoning the senators into the senate-house before the decemvirs; as a matter altogether new, because they had long since laid aside the custom of consulting the senate, it attracted the attention of the people, who expressed their surprise: "What could have happened, that after so long an interval they should revive a practice now discontinued.

That they had reason to return thanks to the enemy and to war, that any thing was done that used to be done when their state was free." They looked around for a senator through all parts of the forum, and seldom recognised one any where: they then directed their attention to the senate-house, and to the solitude around the decemvirs: whilst both they themselves referred the non-assembling of the patricians to their own universally detested government, and the commons (would have it, that the cause of the non-assembling was) because, being but private citizens, they (the decemvirs) had no right to convene the senate;[141] "that a head was now formed of those who would demand back their liberty, if the commons would but accompany the senate, and as the patricians, when summoned, did not attend the senate, so the commons also should refuse to enlist." Such were the remarks of the commons.

There was scarcely any of the patricians in the forum, and but very few in the city.