39.
After this, Licinius Stolo stirred up the great dissension in the city which brought the people into collision with the Senate. The people insisted that, when two consuls were appointed, one of them must certainly be a plebeian, and not both patricians. Tribunes of the people were chosen, but the multitude prevented the consular elections from being duly held.
[
2]
Owing to this lack of magistrates, matters were getting more and more confused, and so Camillus was for the fourth time appointed dictator by the Senate, though much against the wishes of the people. He was not eager for the office himself, nor did he wish to oppose men whose many and great struggles gave them the right to say boldly to him:
‘Your achievements have been in the field with us, rather than in politics with the patricians; it is through hate and envy that they have now made you dictator; they hope that you will crush the people if you prevail, or be crushed yourself if you fail.’
[
3]
However, he tried to ward off the threatening evils. Having learned the day on which the tribunes intended to propose their law, he issued proclamation making it a day of general muster, and summoned the people from the forum into the Campus Martius, with threats of heavy fines upon the disobedient.
[
4]
The tribunes, on the contrary, for their part, opposed his threats with solemn oaths that they would fine him fifty thousand silver drachmas if he did not cease trying to rob the people of its vote and its law. Then, either because he feared a second condemnation to exile, a penalty unbecoming to a man of his years and achievements, or because he was not able, if he wished, to overcome the might of the people which was now become resistless and invincible, he withdrew to his house, and after alleging sickness for several days, resigned his office.
[5]
But the Senate appointed another dictator, and he, after making Stolo himself, the very leader of the sedition, his master of horse, suffered the law to be enacted. It was a most vexatious law for the patrician, for it prohibited anyone from owning more than five hundred acres of land. At that time, then, Stolo was a resplendent figure, owing to his victory at the polls; but a little while after, he himself was found to be possessed of what he forbade others to own, and so paid the penalty fixed by his own law.
