by the senators, not as consul, but as executioner, to harass and torture the people:  his tongue, unskilled in speech, as was natural in a soldier, was unable to give adequate expression to the freedom of his sentiments.  When, therefore, language failed him, he said:  “Romans, since I do not speak with as much readiness as I make good what I have spoken, attend here to-morrow.  I will either die before your eyes, or will carry the law.”  On the following day the tribunes took possession of the platform:  the consuls and the nobles took their places together in the assembly to obstruct the law.  Laetorius ordered all persons to be removed, except those going to vote.  The young nobles kept their places, paying no regard to the officer; then Laetorius ordered some of them to be seized.  The consul Appius insisted that the tribune had no jurisdiction over any one except a plebeian; for that he was not a magistrate of the people in general, but only of the commons; and that even he himself could not, according to the usage of their ancestors, by virtue of his authority remove any person, because the words were as follows:  “If ye think proper, depart, Quirites.”  He was easily able to disconcert Laetorius by discussing his right thus contemptuously.  The tribune, therefore, burning with rage, sent his officer to the consul; the consul sent his lictor to the tribune, exclaiming that he was a private individual, without military office and without civil authority:  and the tribune would have been roughly handled, had not both the entire assembly risen up with great warmth in behalf of the tribune against the consul, and a crowd of people belonging to the excited multitude, rushed from all parts of the city into the forum.  Appius, however, withstood this great storm with obstinacy, and the contest would have ended in a battle, not without bloodshed, had not Quinctius, the other consul, having intrusted the men of consular rank with the task of removing his colleague from the forum by force, if they could not do so in any other way, himself now assuaged the raging people by entreaties, now implored the tribunes to dismiss the assembly.  Let them, said he, give their passion time to cool:  delay would not in any respect deprive them of their power, but would add prudence to strength; and the senators would be under the control of the people, and the consul under that of the senators.

The people were with difficulty pacified by Quinctius; the other consul with much more difficulty by the patricians.  The assembly of the people having been at length dismissed, the consuls convened the senate; in which, though fear and resentment by turns had produced a diversity of opinions, the more their minds were called off, by lapse of time, from passion to reflection, the more adverse did they become to contentiousness, so that they returned thanks to Quinctius, because it was owing to his exertions that the disturbance had been quieted.  Appius was requested to give