Ab urbe condita

[*](If a censor died or resigned before the legal expiry of this office his colleague as a rule resigned also rather than bear the responsibility of such vast powers alone.) It was owing to his action that the Potitii, whose family had always possessed

the right of ministering at the Ava Maxima of Hercules, transferred that duty to some temple servants, whom they had instructed in the various

observances. There is a strange tradition connected with this, and one well calculated to create religious scruples in the minds of any who would disturb the established order of ceremonial usages. It is said that though when the change was made there were twelve branches of the family of the Potitii[*](They are first introduced to us on p. 10, Vol. I.) comprising thirty adults, not one member, old or young, was alive twelve months

later. Nor was the extinction of the Potitian name the only consequence; Appius himself some years afterwards was struck with blindness by the unforgetting wrath of the gods.

The consuls for the following year were C. Junius Bubulcus (for the third time) and Q. Aemilius Barbula (for the second time). At the beginning of their year of office they laid a complaint before the Assembly touching the unscrupulous way in which vacancies in the senate had been filled up, men having been passed over who were far superior to some who had been selected, whereby the whole senatorial order had been sullied and disgraced.

They declared that the selection had been made solely with a view to popularity and out of sheer caprice, and that no regard whatever had been paid to the good or bad characters of those chosen.