On the other hand, the consul and soldiers among the AEquans vied with each other in courtesy and acts of kindness:  Quinctius was naturally milder in disposition, and the ill-fated severity of his colleague had caused him to give freer vent to his own good temper.  This remarkable agreement between the general and his army the AEquans did not venture to meet, but suffered the enemy to go through their country committing devastations in every direction.  Nor were depredations committed more extensively in that quarter in any preceding war.  The whole of the booty was given to the soldiers.  In addition, they received praise, in which the minds of soldiers find no less pleasure than in rewards.  The army returned more reconciled both to their general, and also, thanks to the general, to the patricians, declaring that a parent had been given to them, a tyrant to the other army by the senate.  The year which had passed with varied success in war, and violent dissensions at home and abroad, was rendered memorable chiefly by the elections of tribes, a matter which was more important from the victory in the contest[77] that was undertaken than from any real advantage; for more dignity was withdrawn from the elections themselves by the fact that the patricians were excluded from the council, than influence either added to the commons or taken from the patricians.[78]

A still more stormy year followed, when Lucius Valerius and Titus AEmilius were consuls, both by reason of the struggles between the different orders concerning the agrarian law, as well as on account of the trial of Appius Claudius, for whom Marcus Duilius and Gnaeus Siccius appointed a day of trial, as a most active opposer of the law, and one who supported the cause of the possessors of the public land, as if he were a third consul [79].  Never before was an accused person so hateful to the commons brought to trial before the people, overwhelmed with their resentment against himself and also against his father.  The patricians too seldom made equal exertions so readily on one’s behalf:  they declared that the champion of the senate, and the upholder of their dignity, set up as a barrier against all the storms of the tribunes and commons, was exposed to the resentment of the commons, although he had only exceeded the bounds of moderation in the contest.  Appius Claudius himself was the only one of the patricians who made light both of the tribunes and commons and his own trial.  Neither the threats of the commons, nor the entreaties of the senate, could ever persuade him even to change his garb, or accost persons as a suppliant, or even to soften or moderate his usual harshness of speech in the least degree, when his cause was to be pleaded before the people.  The expression of his countenance was the same; the same stubbornness in his looks, the same spirit of pride in his language:  so that a great part of the commons felt no less awe of Appius when on his trial than they had felt for him