He then turned the contest from the enemy to his countrymen; and when during the assault he had proclaimed, that the plunder should belong to the soldiers, after the town was taken he broke his word.

I am more inclined to believe that this was the cause of the displeasure of the army, than that in a city lately sacked and in a colony still young there was less booty found than the tribune had represented.

An expression of his heard in the assembly, which was very silly and almost insane, after he returned into the city on being sent for on account of some tribunitian disturbances, increased this bad feeling; on Sextus, a tribune of the commons, proposing an agrarian law, and at the same time declaring that he would also propose that colonists should be sent to Bolae; for that those who had taken them by their arms were deserving that the city and lands of Bolae should belong to them, he exclaimed, "Woe to my soldiers, if they are not quiet;" which words, when heard, gave not greater offence to the assembly, than they did soon after to the patricians.

And the plebeian tribune being a sharp man and by no means devoid of eloquence, having found among his adversaries this haughty temper and unbridled tongue, which by irritating and exciting he could urge into such expressions as might prove a source of odium not only to himself, but to his cause and to the entire body, he strove to draw Postumius into discussion more frequently than any of the college of military tribunes.

Then indeed, after so brutal and inhuman an expression, "Romans," says he, "do ye hear him threatening woe to his soldiers as to slaves?
Yet this brute will appear to you more deserving of so high an honour than those who send you into colonies, after having granted to you cities and lands; who provide a settlement for your old age, who fight against such cruel and arrogant adversaries in defence of your interests.