6.35
A
favourable opportunity for making innovations presented itself in the terrible
pressure of debt, a burden from which the plebs did not hope for any
alleviation until they had raised men of their own order to the highest
authority in the State. This, they thought, was the aim which they must
devote their utmost efforts to reach, and they believed that they had already,
by dint of effort, secured a foothold from which, if they pushed forward,
they could secure the highest positions, and so become the equals of the
patricians in dignity as they now were in courage. For the time being, C.
Licinius and L. Sextius decided to become tribunes of the plebs; once in this
office they could clear for themselves the way to all the other distinctions.
All the measures which they brought forward after they were elected were
directed against the power and influence of the patricians and calculated to
promote the interests of the plebs. One dealt with the debts, and provided
that the amount paid in interest should be deducted from the principal and
the balance repaid in three equal yearly instalments. The second restricted
the occupation of land and prohibited any one from holding more than five
hundred jugera. The third provided that there should be no more consular
tribunes elected, and that one consul should be elected from each order.
They were all questions of immense importance, which could not be settled
without a tremendous struggle.
The prospect of a fight over those things which excite the keenest
desires of men -land, money, honours -produced consternation among the
patricians. After excited discussions in the senate and in private houses, they
found no better remedy than the one they had adopted in previous contests,
namely, the tribunitian veto. So they won over some of the tribunes to
interpose their veto against these proposals. When they saw the tribes
summoned by Licinius and Sextius to give their votes, these men,
surrounded by a bodyguard of patricians, refused to allow either the reading
of the bills or any other procedure which the plebs usually adopted when
they came to vote. For many weeks the Assembly was regularly summoned
without any business being done, and the bills were looked upon as dead.
"Very good," said Sextius, "since it is your pleasure that the veto shall
possess so much power, we will use this same weapon for the protection of
the plebs. Come then, patricians, give notice of an Assembly for the election
of consular tribunes, I will take care that the word which our colleagues are
now uttering in concert to your great delight, the word 'I FORBID,' shall not
give you much pleasure." These were not idle threats. No elections were
held beyond those of the tribunes and aediles of the plebs. Licinius and
Sextius, when re-elected, would not allow any curule magistrates to be
appointed, and as the plebs constantly re-elected them, and as they
constantly stopped the election of consular tribunes, this dearth of
magistrates lasted in the City for five years.