7. Through the tendency, natural to most persons, to differ with their
fellows in office (it is always difficult for a number of men to
attain harmony, especially in a position of any influence)--through
this natural tendency, then, all their power was dissipated and torn
to shreds. None of their resolutions was valid in case even one of
them opposed it. They had originally received their office for no
other purpose than to resist such as were oppressing their
fellow-citizens, and thus he who tried to prevent any measure from
being carried into effect was sure to prove stronger than those who
supported it. (Mai, ib. Cp. Zonaras 7, 15.)

[Frag. XVII]

1. For it is not easy for a man either to be strong at all points or
to possess excellence in both departments,--war and peace,--at once.
Those who are physically strong are, as a rule, weak-minded and
success that has come in unstinted measure generally does not
luxuriate equally well everywhere. This explains why after having
first been exalted by the citizens to the foremost rank he was not
much later exiled by them, and how it was that after making the city
of the Volsci a slave to his country he with their aid brought his own
land in turn into an extremity of danger. (Mai, p. 146. Cp. Zonaras
7,16.)

[Sidenote: B.C. 491 (_a.u._ 263)] 2. ¶The same man wished to be made
prætor, and upon failing to secure the office became angry at the
populace; and in his displeasure at the great influence of the tribunes
he employed greater frankness in speaking to that body than was
attempted by others whose deeds entitled them to the same rank as
himself. A severe famine occurring at the same time that a town Norba