Ab urbe condita

Do you maintain, Appius, that the people are not bound by the Aemilian Law, or do you claim, if they are bound by it, that you alone are exempt from its provisions? That law availed to bind those arbitrary censors C. Furius and M. Geganius, who gave us a proof of the mischief which that office could work in the republic when, in revenge for the limitation of their power, they placed among

the aerarii the foremost soldier and statesman of his time, Mamercus Aemilius. It bound all the succeeding censors for a hundred years, it binds your colleague C. Plautius, who was appointed under the same auspices, with the same powers as yourself.