16.
Quinctius then commanded the man's house
1 to be pulled down, that the bare site might commemorate the frustration of his wicked purpose. The
[p. 311]place was named Aequimaelium.
2
[
2]
Lucius Minucius
3 was presented with an ox and a gilded statue outside the Porta Trigemina, without opposition even on the part of the plebs, since Minucius divided the corn of Maelius among them at the price of one
as the peck.
[
3]
I find it stated by some historians that this Minucius went over from the patricians to the plebeians, and being co-opted an eleventh tribune of the plebs, allayed the rebellious feeling which arose from the killing of Maelius;
[
4]
but it is hardly credible that the patricians should have permitted the number of tribunes to be increased, and that this precedent, of all others, should have been introduced by a patrician; or that the plebs, having once obtained this concession, should not have held fast to it, or at least have tried to do so. But what proves more conclusively than anything the falsity of the inscription on his portrait is this, that it was enacted by law a few years before that the tribunes might not co-opt a colleague.
4
[
5]
Quintus Caecilius, Quintus Junius, and Sextus Titinius were the only members of the college of tribunes who had not supported the law conferring honours on Minucius, and had never ceased to accuse now Minucius, now Servilius, before the plebs, and to complain of the unmerited death of Maelius.
[
6]
So they forced through a measure providing that military tribunes should be elected instead of consuls, not doubting that for some of the six places —for this was now the number that might be filled —plebeians would be chosen, if they would promise to avenge the death of Maelius.
[
7]
The plebeians, though they had been aroused that year by many different commotions, elected no more than three tribunes with consular powers, and among
[p. 313]these Lucius Quinctius, son of Cincinnatus, from
5 whose dictatorship men were trying to derive the odium for inspiring a mutiny.
[
8]
Aemilius Mamercus, a man of the highest standing, was ahead of Quinctius in the voting; Lucius Julius was elected third.