The year was peaceful as regards foreign wars; the following one, when Publius Curiatius and Sextus Quinctilius were consuls, was still more quiet, owing to the tribunes observing uninterrupted silence, which was occasioned in the first place by their waiting for the return of the ambassadors who had gone to Athens, and for the account of the foreign laws; in the next place, two grievous calamities arose at the same time, famine and pestilence, destructive to man, and equally so to cattle.  The lands were left desolate; the city exhausted by a constant succession of deaths.  Many illustrious families were in mourning.  The Flamen Quirinalis, [40]Servius Cornelius, died; also the augur, Gaius Horatius Pulvillus; in his place the augurs elected Gaius Veturius, and that with all the more eagerness, because he had been condemned by the commons.  The consul Quinctilius died, and four tribunes of the people.  The year was rendered a melancholy one by these manifold disasters; as far as foreign foes were concerned there was perfect quiet.  Then Gaius Menenius and Publius Sestius Capitolinus were elected consuls.  Nor in that year was there any foreign war:  but disturbances arose at home.  The ambassadors had now returned with the Athenian laws; the tribunes therefore insisted the more urgently that a beginning should at length be made of compiling the laws.  It was resolved that decemvirs should be elected to rule without appeal, and that there should be no other magistrate during that year.  There was, for a considerable time, a dispute whether plebeians should be admitted among them:  at length the point was conceded to the patricians, provided that the Icilian law regarding the Aventine and the other devoting laws were not repealed.

In the three hundred and second year after the foundation of Rome, the form of government was a second time changed, the supreme power being transferred from consuls to decemvirs as it had passed before from kings to consuls.  The change was less remarkable, because not of long duration; for the joyous commencement of that government afterward ran riot through excess.  On that account the sooner did the arrangement fall to the ground, and the practice was revived, that the name and authority of consuls should be committed to two persons.  The decemvirs appointed were, Appius Claudius, Titus Genucius, Publius Sestius, Lucius Veturius, Gaius Julius, Aulus Manlius, Publius Sulpicius, Publius Curiatius, Titus Romilius, Spurius Postumius.  On Claudius and Genucius, because they had been consuls elect for that year, the honour was conferred in compensation for the honour of the consulate; and on Sestius, one of the consuls of the former year, because he had proposed the plan itself to the senate against the will of his colleague.  Next to these were considered the three ambassadors who had gone to Athens, so that the honour might serve at once as a recompense for so distant an embassy, while at the same time they considered that persons