Licinius and Sextius were reëlected Tribunes. Year after year, if
the narrative which has come down to us is to be trusted, they
continued to exert, to the full extent, their power of stopping
the whole machine of government. No curule magistrates could be
chosen; no military muster could be held. We know too little of
the state of Rome in those days to be able to conjecture how,
during that long anarchy, the peace was kept, and ordinary
justice administered between man and man. The animosity of both
parties rose to the greatest height. The excitement, we may well
suppose, would have been peculiarly intense at the annual
election of Tribunes. On such occasions there can be little doubt
that the great families did all that could be done, by threats
and caresses, to break the union of the Plebeians. That union,
however, proved indissoluble. At length the good cause triumphed.
The Licinian laws were carried. Lucius Sextius was the first
Plebeian Consul, Caius Licinius the third.

The results of this great change were singularly happy and
glorious. Two centuries of prosperity, harmony, and victory
followed the reconciliation of the orders. Men who remembered
Rome engaged in waging petty wars almost within sight of the
Capitol lived to see her the mistress of Italy. While the
disabilities of the Plebeians continued, she was scarcely able to
maintain her ground against the Volscians and Hernicans. When
those disabilities were removed, she rapidly became more than a
match for Carthage and Macedon.

During the great Licinian contest the Plebeian poets were,
doubtless, not silent. Even in modern times songs have been by no
means without influence on public affairs; and we may therefore