Ab urbe condita

Titus Livius (Livy)

Livy. History of Rome, Volumes 1-2. Roberts, Canon, Rev, translator. London, New York: J. M. Dent and Sons; E. P. Dutton and Co., 1912.

They ran into the Forum and from there in a compact body to the Senate-house.

In face of this sudden outbreak the consuls felt it necessary to convene a meeting of the senate at once, and as the members entered the House the crowd exhibited the lacerated back of the youth and flung themselves at the feet of the senators as they passed in one by one. The strongest bond and support of credit was there and then overthrown through the mad excesses of one individual.

The consuls were instructed by the senate to lay before the people a proposal “that no man be kept in irons or in the stocks, except such as have been guilty of some crime, and then only till they have worked out their sentence; and, further, that the goods and not the person of the debtor shall be the security for the debt.”