After their minds were inflamed by these remonstrances, according as they made applications to each, a great number of young men were enlisted.

Thus the youth of all the states were drawn together to Antium: there they pitched their camp and awaited the enemy.

When these accounts are reported at Rome with much greater alarm than the circumstance warranted, the senate instantly ordered a dictator to be nominated, which was their last resource in perilous circumstances.

They say that Julius and Cornelius were much offended at this proceeding, and that the matter was accomplished with great warmth of temper: when the leading men of the patricians, complaining fruitlessly that the military tribunes would not conform to the judgment of the senate, at last appealed even to the tribunes of the commons, and stated that force had been used even with the consuls by that body on a similar occasion.

The plebeian tribunes, overjoyed at the dissension among the patricians, said, "that there was no support in persons who were not held in the rank of citizens, nor even of human beings; if ever the posts of honour were open, and the administration of government were shared, that they should then see that the decrees of the senate should not be invalidated by the arrogance of magistrates; that in the mean while, the patricians, unrestrained as they were by respect for laws or magistrates, must manage the tribunitian office also by themselves." 57.