expired, which was the time limited by the Aemilian law for the
duration of the censorship, although his colleague Caius Plautius had
already resigned his office, could not be prevailed on, by any means,
to give up his. There was a tribune of the commons, Publius
Sempronius; he undertook to enforce a legal process for terminating
the censorship within the lawful time, which was not more popular than
just, nor more pleasing to the people generally than to every man of
character in the city. After he frequently appealed to the Aemilian
law, and bestowed commendations on Mamercus Aemilius, who, in his
dictatorship, had been the author of it, for having contracted, within
the space of a year and six months, the censorship, which formerly had
lasted five years, and was a power which, in consequence of its long
continuance, often became tyrannical, he proceeded thus: "Tell me,
Appius Claudius, in what manner you would have acted, had you been
censor, at the time when Caius Furius and Marcus Geganius were
censors?" Appius insisted, that "the tribune's question was irrelevant
to his case. For, although the Aemilian law might bind those censors,
during whose magistracy it was passed,--because the people made that
law after they had become censors; and whatever order is the last
passed by the people, that is held to be the law, and valid:--yet
neither he, nor any of those who had been created censors subsequent
to the passing of that law, could be bound by it."

34. While Appius urged such frivolous arguments as these, which
carried no conviction whatever, the other said, "Behold, Romans, the
offspring of that Appius, who being created decemvir for one year,
created himself for a second; and who, during a third, without being
created even by himself or by any other, held on the fasces and the
government though a private individual; nor ceased to continue in
office, until the government itself, ill acquired, ill administered,