4.44
The election of consular
tribunes was the first to be held. They were all
patricians; L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, for the third
time, L. Furius Medullinus, for the second, M.
Manlius, and A. Sempronius Atratinus. The last-named
conducted the election of the quaestors. Amongst
other plebeian candidates were the son of Antistius,
tribune of the plebs, and a brother of Sextus
Pompilius, another tribune. Their authority and
interest were not, however, strong enough to prevent
the voters from preferring on the ground of their
high birth those whose fathers and grandfathers they
had seen in the consul's chair. All the tribunes of
the plebs were furious, Pompilius and Antistius,
more especially, were incensed at the defeat of
their relations. "What," they angrily exclaimed, "is
the meaning of all this? In spite of our good
offices, in spite of the wrongs done by the
patricians, with all the freedom you now enjoy of
exercising powers you did not possess before, not a
single member of the plebs has been raised to the
quaestorship, to say nothing of the consular
tribuneship! The appeals of a father on behalf of a
son, of a brother on behalf of a brother, have been
unavailing, though they are tribunes, invested with
an inviolable authority to protect your liberties.
There has certainly been dishonesty somewhere; A.
Sempronius has shown more adroitness than
straightforwardness." They accused him of having
kept their men out of office by illegal means. As
they could not attack him directly, protected as he
was by his innocence and his official position, they
turned their resentment against Caius Sempronius,
the uncle of Atratinus, and having obtained the
support of their colleague, M. Canuleius, they
impeached him upon the ground of the disgrace
incurred in the Volscian war.
These same tribunes frequently mooted the
question in the senate of a distribution of the
public domain, a proposal which C. Sempronius always
stoutly resisted. They thought, and rightly as the
event proved, that when the day of trial came, he
would either abandon his opposition and so lose
influence with the patricians, or by persisting in
it give offence to the plebeians. He chose the
latter, and preferred to incur the odium of his
opponents and injure his own cause than prove false
to the cause of the State. He insisted that "there
should be no grants of land, which would only
increase the influence of the three tribunes; what
they wanted now was not land for the plebs, but to
wreak their spite upon him. He, like others, would
meet the storm with a stout heart; neither he nor
any other citizen ought to stand so high with the
senate that any leniency shown to an individual
might be disastrous to the commonwealth." When the
day of trial came there was no lowering of his tone,
he undertook his own defence, and though the
patricians tried every means to soften the
plebeians, he was condemned to pay a fine of 15,000
"ases." In this same year Postumia, a Vestal virgin,
had to answer a charge of unchastity. Though
innocent, she had given grounds for suspicion
through her gay attire and unmaidenly freedom of
manner. After she had been remanded and finally
acquitted, the Pontifex Maximus, in the name of the
whole college of priests, ordered her to abstain
from frivolity and to study sanctity rather than
smartness in her appearance. In the same year,
Cumae, at that time held by the Greeks, was captured
by the Campanians.