state messengers were despatched to their houses, both to levy the penalties,[46] and to make inquiries whether they purposely refused to attend.  They brought back word that the senate was in the country.  This was more pleasing to the decemvirs, than if they brought word that they were present and refused obedience to their commands.  They commanded them all to be summoned, and proclaimed a meeting of the senate for the following day, which assembled in much greater numbers than they themselves had expected.  By this proceeding the commons considered that their liberty was betrayed by the patricians, because the senate had obeyed those persons, as if they had a right to compel them, who had already gone out of office, and were mere private individuals, were it not for the violence displayed by them.

However, they showed more obedience in coming into the senate than obsequiousness in the opinions expressed by them, as we have learned.  It is recorded that, after Appius Claudius laid the subject of debate before the meeting, and before their opinions were asked in order, Lucius Valerius Potitus excited a commotion, by demanding permission to express his sentiments concerning the state, and—­when the decemvirs prevented him with threats [47]—­by declaring that he would present himself before the people.  It is also recorded that Marcus Horatius Barbatus entered the lists with no less boldness, calling them “ten Tarquins,” and reminding them that under the leadership of the Valerii and Horatii the kings had been expelled.  Nor was it the mere name that men were then disgusted with, as being that by which it was proper that Jupiter should be styled, as also Romulus, the founder of the city, and the succeeding kings, and a name too which had been retained also for the ceremonies of religion,[48] as a solemn one; that it was the tyranny and arrogance of a king they then detested:  and if these were not to be tolerated in that same king or the son of a king, who would tolerate it in so many private citizens?  Let them beware lest, by preventing persons from expressing their sentiments freely in the senate, they obliged them to raise their voice outside the senate-house.  Nor could he see how it was less allowable for him, a private citizen, to summon the people to an assembly, than for them to convene the senate.  They might try, whenever they pleased, how much more determined a sense of wrong would be found to be, when it was a question of vindicating one’s own liberty, than ambition, when the object was to preserve an unjust dominion.  That they proposed the question concerning the war with the Sabines, as if the Roman people had any more important war on hand than that against those who, having been elected for the purpose of framing laws, had left no law in the state; who had abolished elections, annual magistrates, the regular change of rulers, which was the only means of equalizing liberty; who, though private citizens, still possessed