The election of the magistrates, under whose hands what as yet was only a written law was to begin to become a living one, a law that was to gain strength with age, until it amalgamated with the nature of all who were born under it, no less than their language and manners, and then, unless it were continually moulded to suit the changes in the state of things, was to die away and lose its hold,—this election was perfectly free. After a revolution like this it very frequently happens that its strongest adversaries procure seats in the government, in order to subvert the constitution: and this must have been the design with which the leading patricians now exerted their whole influence over the centuries to obtain the election of L. Cincinnatus, C. Claudius, and T. Quinctius. What the aim of these men would be, nobody could doubt: one of them, we know, had wisht to cancel the charter of the Sacred Mount; the second took measures a few years after for effecting a counter revolution by a massacre; and the third tried to check the developement of the new constitution at the moment most favorable for it. He had formerly been one of those in whom the people placed confidence, but had changed his sentiments: Appius on the contrary, from the moment that the reform was irrevocably decided on, had loudly declared himself in its favour, and he past for the soul of the whole decemviral legislation.