The tribunes, however, when the people assembled, made them vote by tribes, and not by centuries;[A] by which device the votes of rich respectable men who had served the State in the wars would be swamped by those of the needy rabble who cared nothing for truth or honour.  In the next place, they passed by the charge of treason, as being impossible to prove, and repeated what Marcius had originally said before the Senate, when he dissuaded them from lowering the price of corn, and advised the abolition of the office of tribune.  A new count in the indictment was that he had not paid over the money raised by the sale of the plunder after his expedition against Antium, but had divided it among his own followers.  This last accusation is said to have disturbed Marcius more than all the rest, as he had never expected it, and was not prepared with any answer that would satisfy the people, so that the praises which he bestowed on those who had made that campaign with him only angered the far greater number who had not done so.  At last the people voted.  Marcius was condemned by a majority of the tribes, and was sentenced to perpetual banishment.  After sentence was passed, the people displayed greater joy than if they had won a pitched battle, while the Senate was downcast and filled with regret at not having run any risks rather than allow the people to obtain so much power, and use it so insolently.  Nor was there any need for distinctions of dress or anything else to distinguish the two parties, because a plebeian might be told at once by his delight, a patrician by his sorrow.

[Footnote A:  See the article “Comitia” in Dr. Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities.]

XXI.  Marcius himself, however, remained unmoved.  Proud and haughty as ever, he appeared not to be sorry for himself, and to be the only one of the patricians who was not.  This calmness, however, was not due to any evenness of temper or any intention of bearing his wrongs meekly.  It arose from concentrated rage and fury, which many do not know to be an expression of great grief.  When the mind is inflamed with this passion, it casts out all ideas of submission or of quiet.  Hence an angry man is courageous, just as a fever patient is hot, because of the inflamed throbbing excitement of his mind.  And Marcius soon showed that this was his own condition.  He went home, embraced his weeping wife and mother, bade them bear this calamity with patience, and at once proceeded to the city gates, escorted by the patricians in a body.  Thence, taking nothing with him, and asking no man for any thing, he went off, accompanied by three or four of his clients.  He remained for a few days at some farms near the city, agitated deeply by conflicting passions.  His anger suggested no scheme by which he might benefit himself, but only how to revenge himself on the Romans.  At length he decided that he would raise up a cruel war against them, and proceeded at once to make application to the neighbouring nation of the Volscians, whom he knew to be rich and powerful, and only to have suffered sufficiently by their late defeats to make them desirous of renewing their quarrel with Rome.