ch. 582.58 [Note].—During the
disturbances in Rome, the war with the Volscians and Aequi
broke out afresh. They had laid waste the fields, in order
that if there were a secession of the plebs they might find
refuge with them. When quiet had been restored they moved
their camp further away. Appius Claudius was sent against the
Volscians, the Aequi were left for Quinctius to deal with.
Appius displayed the same savage temper in the field that he
had shown at home, only it was more unrestrained because he
was not now fettered by the tribunes. He hated the commons
with a more intense hatred than his father had felt, for they
had got the better of him and had carried their Law though he
had been elected consul as being the one man who could
thwart the tribunitian power—a Law, too, which former
consuls, from whom the senate expected less than from him,
had obstructed with less trouble. Anger and indignation at
all this goaded his imperious nature into harassing his army
by ruthless discipline. No violent measures, however, could
subdue them, such was the spirit of opposition with which
they were filled. They did everything in a perfunctory,
leisurely, careless, defiant way; no feeling of shame or fear
restrained them. If he wished the column to move more quickly
they deliberately marched more slowly, if he came up to urge
them on in their work they all relaxed the energy they had
been previously exerting of their own accord; in his presence
they cast their eyes down to the ground, when he passed by
they silently cursed him, so that the courage which had not
quailed before the hatred of the plebs was sometimes shaken.
After vainly employing harsh measures of every kind, he
abstained from any further intercourse with his soldiers,
said that the army had been corrupted by the centurions, and
sometimes called them, in jeering tones, tribunes of the
plebs, and Voleros.
