As the first bill undertook
to prohibit the bondage springing from too much poverty, so the second
aimed at preventing the oppression springing from too great opulence. A
third bill declared the office of military tribune with consular power
to be at an end. In its place the consulate was restored with full[5]
provision that one of the two consuls should be taken from the plebeians.
The argument produced in favor of this bill appears to have been the urgent
want of the plebeians to possess a greater share in the government than was
vested in their tribunes, aediles, and quaestors. Otherwise, said Licinius
and his colleague, there will be no security that our debts will be settled
or that our lands will be obtained.[6] It would be difficult to frame three
bills, even in our time, reaching to a further, or fulfilling a larger
reform. "Everything was pointed against the power of the patricians[7]
in order to provide for the comfort of the plebeians." This to a certain
degree was true. It was chiefly from the patrician that the bill concerning
debts detracted the usurious gains which had been counted upon. It was
chiefly from him that the lands indicated in the second bill were to be
withdrawn.
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