The state of affairs became clearer to the senators and consuls。They were, however, apprehensive lest behind these openly declared aims there should be some design of the Veientines or Sabines and whilst there was this large hostile force within the City the Etruscan and Sabine legions should appear, anal then the Volscians and }Eq qui, their standiniz foes, J.护、侧砂J should come, not into their territory to ravage, but into the City itself, already partly captured. Many and various were their fears. what they most dreaded was a rising of the slaves, when man would have an enemy iii his own house, whom drawing confidence he might be made1-4 IT .. It T 12 .“more determ1怜d eneIV my. ouch threatening and overwhelming dangers could only be surmounted by unity and concord, anal no fears were felt as to the tribunes or the plebs. 'What evil was mitigated, for as it only broke out when there was a respite from other evils, it was believed to hav e subsided now in the dread of foreign aggression. 摹 almost anything else, helped to further depressthe fortunes of the sinking State. For such madness seized thetribunes that they maintained that it was not war but an. emptyphantom of war which had settled in the Capitol, .in order todivert the thoughts of the people from the Law. Those friends,they said, and clients of the patricians would depart more silently than they had come if they found their noisy demonstra- TheD eeemvirate is9 tion frustrated by the passing of the Law. They then summoned the people to gay asiae tneir arms ana Corm an Assembly for the purpose of carrying the .Law. meantime the consuls, more alarmed at the action of the tribunes trian at the nocturnal enemy, convened a meeting of the senate.