[Footnote 118: In the original the words are, _Medio decreto jus auxilii sui expediunt_. The tribunes were afraid lest, if they allowed Cæso to go entirely at large, the commons might become irritated; whilst if they refused to listen to the application of a patrician when he craved their assistance, they feared lest they should lose an excellent opportunity of establishing their influence and increasing their power. By adopting a line of conduct then which conceded something both to the commons and to Cæso, they as it were _extricate_ (expediunt) their power from this double danger.] [Footnote 119: _Vadis publicos_. According to Gronovius, _publico_, scil. _plebi_. Niebuhr prefers this reading.] [Footnote 120: _Rigorously exacted_. See Niebuhr ii. p. 289, who expresses a different opinion on the matter.] 14. When the tribunes, flushed as it were with victory, imagined that the law was in a manner passed, the patricians being now dismayed by the banishment of Cæso, and when, with respect to the seniors of the patricians, they had relinquished all share in the administration of the commonwealth; the juniors, more especially those who were the intimate friends of Cæso, redoubled their resentful feelings against the commons, and suffered not their spirits to droop; but the greatest improvement was made in this particular, that they tempered their animosity by a certain degree of moderation. When for the first time after Cæso's banishment the law began to be brought forward, arrayed and well prepared with a numerous body of clients, they attacked the tribunes, on their affording a pretext for it by attempting to remove them, in such a manner, that no one individual carried home from thence any prominent share either of glory or ill-will; the people complained that for one Cæso a thousand had started up. During the intermediate days, when the tribunes made no stir regarding the law, nothing could be more mild or peaceable than those same persons; they saluted the plebeians courteously, entered into conversation, and invited them home; they attended the forum, and suffered the tribunes themselves to hold their meetings without interruption: they never were uncivil to any one either in public or in private, unless when the business respecting the law began to be agitated. On other occasions the young men were popular. And not only did the tribunes transact all their other affairs without disturbance, but they were even re-elected for the following year, without one offensive expression, much less any violence being employed. By soothing and managing the commons they gradually rendered them tractable. By these methods the law was evaded for the entire year.