[5] Though a double victory had been gained in two separate battles, the senate was so mean as to decree thanksgivings in the name of the consuls for one day only. The people went unbidden on the second day also in great numbers, to offer up thanks to the gods; and this unorganized and popular supplication was attended with an enthusiasm which almost exceeded that of the other. [6] The consuls had arranged to approach the City within a day of one another, and summoned the senate out into the Campus Martius. [7] While they were there holding forth on the subject of their victories, complaints were made by leading senators that the senate was being held in the midst of the army on purpose to inspire fear. [8] And so the consuls, to allow no room for the accusation, adjourned the senate from that place to the Flaminian Meadows, where the temple of Apollo [p. 215]is now, and which was called even then Apollo's2 Precinct. When the Fathers, meeting there, refused with great unanimity to grant a triumph, Lucius Icilius the plebeian tribune laid the issue before the people. [9] Many came forward to dissuade them, and Gaius Claudius was particularly vehement. It was a triumph, he said, over the patricians, not Rome's enemies, which the consuls desired; they were seeking a favour in return for personal services they had done the tribune, not an honour in requital of valour. [10] Never before had a triumph been voted by the people; the decision whether this honour had been deserved had always rested with the senate; not even the kings had infringed the majesty of the highest order in the state; let not the tribunes so dominate all things as not to suffer the existence of any public council; if each order retained its own rights and its own dignity, then, and only then, would the state be free and the laws equal for all. [11] After many speeches had been made to the same purpose by the other older members of the senate, all the tribes voted in favour of the motion. Then, for the first time, a triumph which lacked the authorization of the senate was celebrated at the bidding of the people.3