But they showed more obedience in coming into the senate than servility in the sentiments expressed by them, as we have learned.

It is recorded that, after Appius's stating the subject of the meeting, and before the opinions were demanded in order, Lucius Valerius Potitus excited a commotion, by demanding permission to express his sentiments concerning the state, and when the decemvirs were prohibiting him with threats, declaring that he would present himself before the people.

(We have also heard) that Marcus Horatius Barbatus entered the lists with no less boldness, calling them "ten Tarquins," and reminding them, "that under the leadership of the Valerii and Horatii[144] the kings had been expelled.

Nor was it of the mere name that men were then tired, it being that by which it was usual to style Jupiter, and by which Romulus, the founder of the city, and his successors were also styled; a name too which has been retained even in the ceremonies of religion, as a solemn one; that it was the tyranny and arrogance of a king they then detested, which if they were not to be tolerated in one who was both a king himself and the son of a king, who was to tolerate it in so many private citizens?
that they should beware lest, by preventing persons from speaking their sentiments freely in the senate, they might oblige them to raise their voice outside the senate-house.

Nor could he see how it was less allowable for him, a private citizen, to summon the people to an assembly, than for them to convene the senate.