“At this some of the hot young noblemen returned with the Consuls to the tribunal, before which the people were yet standing; and the Consuls having generally required names in vain, to put it to something, required the name of one that was in their eye particularly; on whom, when he moved not, they commanded a lictor to lay hands, but the people, thronging about the party summoned, forbade the lictor, who durst not touch him; at which the hotspurs that came with the consuls, enraged by the affront, descended from the throne to the aid of the lictor; from whom in so doing they turned the indignation of the people upon themselves with such heat that the Consuls interposing, thought fit, by remitting the assembly, to appease the tumult; in which, nevertheless, there had been nothing but noise. Nor was there less in the Senate, being suddenly rallied upon this occasion, where they that received the repulse, with others whose heads were as addled as their own, fell upon the business as if it had been to be determined by clamor till the Consuls, upbraiding the Senate that it differed not from the market-place, reduced the house to orders. “And the fathers, having been consulted accordingly, there were three opinions: Publius Virginius conceived that the consideration to be had upon the matter in question, or aid of the indebted and imprisoned people, was not to be further extended than to such as had engaged upon the promise made by Servilius; Titus Largius, that it was no time to think it enough, if men’s merits were acknowledged, while the whole people, sunk under the weight of their debts, could not emerge without some common aid, which to restrain, by putting some into a better condition than others, would rather more inflame the discord than extinguish it; Appius Claudius (still upon the old haunt) would have it that the people were rather wanton than fierce; it was not oppression that necessitated, but their power that invited them to these freaks; the empire of the Consuls since the appeal to the people (whereby a plebeian might ask his fellows if he were a thief) being but a mere scarecrow. ‘Go to,’ says he, ‘let us create the dictator, from whom there is no appeal, and then let me see more of this work, or him that shall forbid my lictor.’