Livy
Liber III
a.u.c. 287.I. Antio capto T. Aemilius et Q. Fabius consules fiunt. Hic erat Fabius1 qui unus exstinctae ad Cremeram genti superfuerat. Iam priore consulatu 2Aemilius dandi agri plebi fuerat auctor; itaque secundo quoque consulatu eius et agrarii se in spem legis erexerant, et tribuni, rem contra consules saepe temptatam adiutore utique consule obtineri posse rati, suscipiunt; et consul manebat in sententia sua. 3Possessores et magna pars patrum, tribuniciis se iactare actionibus principem civitatis et largiendo de alieno popularem fieri querentes, totius invidiam 4rei a tribunis in consulem averterant. Atrox certamen aderat, ni Fabius consilio neutri parti acerbo
Book III
Book III
I. After the capture of Antium, Titus Aemilius and b.c. 467 Quintus Fabius were elected consuls. This was that Fabius who had been the sole survivor of his family destroyed at the Cremera.1 In his former consulship Aemilius had already supported the assignment of land to the plebs. Consequently, when he entered a second time upon the office, not only had the agrarians begun to have hopes of a law, but the tribunes, who had often tried to carry the measure against the opposition of the consuls, now took it up in the belief that with the co-operation of a consul it could certainly be made good; and the consul continued of the same mind. The possessors of the land, comprising a large proportion of the patricians, complained that the head of the state was openly supporting tribunician policies and making himself popular by a generosity exhibited at other men’s expense; they thus diverted the resentment awakened by the whole affair from the tribunes to the consul. A bitter struggle was impending, when Fabius, by a proposal which neither side found injurious, set the