defending every one that begged protection and rescuing every one that called upon them not only from private persons, but from the very magistrates, except the dictators.  If any one ever invoked them when absent, he, too, was released from the person holding him prisoner and was either brought before the populace by them or was set free.  And if ever they saw fit that anything should not be done, they prevented it, whether the person acting were a private citizen or an official:  and if the people or the senate were about to do or vote anything and a single tribune opposed it, the action or the vote became null and void.  As time went on, they were allowed or allowed themselves to summon the senate, to punish whoever disobeyed them, to practice divination, and to hold court.  And in case they were refused permission to do anything, they gained their point by their incontestable opposition to every project undertaken by others.  For they introduced laws to the effect that whoever should obstruct them by deed or word, be he private citizen or magistrate, should be “hallowed” and incur pollution.  This being “hallowed” meant destruction; for this was the name applied to everything (as, for instance, a victim) that was consecrated for slaughter.  The tribunes themselves were termed by the multitude “sacrosanct”, since they obtained sacred enclosures for the shelter of such as invoked them.  For sacra among the Romans means “walls”, and sancta “sacred”.  Many of their actions were unwarrantable, for they threw even consuls into prison and put men to death without granting them a hearing.  Nobody ventured to oppose them; or, in case any one did, he became himself “hallowed.”  If, however, persons were condemned not by all the tribunes, they would call to their help those who had not concurred in the verdict, and so they went duly through the forms of court procedure before the tribunes themselves or before some arbiters or before the populace, and became the possession of the side that won.  In the course of time the number of the tribunes was fixed at ten, [Sidenote:  FRAG. 16^7] AND AS A RESULT OF THIS MOST OF THEIR POWER WAS OVERTHROWN.  FOR AS THOUGH BY NATURE (BUT REALLY, OF COURSE, BY REASON OF JEALOUSY) FELLOW OFFICIALS INVARIABLY QUARREL; AND IT IS DIFFICULT FOR A NUMBER OF MEN, ESPECIALLY IN A POSITION OF INFLUENCE, TO ATTAIN HARMONY.  No sooner did outsiders, planning to wreck their influence, raise factional issues to the end that dissension might make them weaker, than the tribunes actually attached themselves some to one party, some to another. [Sidenote:  FRAG. 16^7] IF EVEN ONE OF THEM OPPOSED A MEASURE, he rendered the decisions of the rest null and void.