9.33
The
consuls for the following year were Q. Fabius and C. Marcius Rutilus. Fabius
took over the command at Sutrium, and brought reinforcements from Rome.
A fresh army was also raised in Etruria and sent to support the besiegers.
Very many years had elapsed since there had been any contests between the
patrician magistrates and the tribunes of the plebs. Now, however, a dispute
arose through that family which seemed marked out by destiny to be the
cause of quarrels with the plebs and its tribunes. Appius Claudius had now
been censor eighteen months, the period fixed by the Aemilian Law for the
duration of that office. In spite of the fact that his colleague, C. Plautius, had
resigned, he could under no circumstances whatever be induced to vacate his
office. P. Sempronius was the tribune of the plebs who commenced an action
for limiting his censorship to the legal period. In taking this step he was
acting in the interests of justice quite as much as in the interests of the
people, and he carried the sympathies of the aristocracy no less than he had
the support of the masses. He recited the several provisions of the Aemilian
Law and extolled its author, Mamercus Aemilius, the Dictator, for having
shortened the censorship. Formerly, he reminded his hearers, it was held for
five years, a time long enough to make it tyrannical and despotic, Aemilius
limited it to eighteen months. Then turning to Appius he asked him: "Pray
tell me, Appius, what would you have done had you been censor at the time
that C. Furius and M. Geganius were censors?" Appius Claudius replied that
the tribune's question had not much bearing on his case. He argued that
though the law might be binding in the case of those censors during whose
period of office it was passed, because it was after they had been appointed
that the people ordered the measure to become law, and the last order of the
people was law for the time being, nevertheless, neither he nor any of the
censors subsequently appointed could be bound by it because all succeeding
censors had been appointed by the order of the people and the last order of
the people was the law for the time being.