The two consuls had shown sympathy towards the plebeians and, as a result, had been chosen to negotiate the resolution of the rebellion.
The decemviri were also to act as a government exempt from the right to appeal to the people against arbitrary actions on their part.
According to Livy, the second decemvirate was despotic and abused the people, taking advantage of their exemption from the right to appeal.
The plebeians seceded to Mons Sacer (Sacred Mount) outside the city and pledged to remain there until their demands were met.
They restored the right to appeal to the people and passed measures which were favourable to the plebeians to address their grievances which had emerged during the rebellion.
This law also forbade the creation of any official positions that were exempt from the people’s right of appeal.
Livy stated that through this law the right of appeal to the people “was not only restored but strengthened for the future by a fresh enactment.
This forbade the appointment of any magistrate from whom there was no right of appeal, and provided that anyone who did so appoint might be rightly and lawfully put to death, nor should the man who put him to death be held guilty of murder.” [3] Lex Valeria Horatia de tribunicia potestate.
They had the power to stop actions by the consuls or officials which they deemed as summary and harmful to individual plebeians.
In effect this meant that the plebeians swore to kill whoever hurt their tribunes and this was given a religious basis.
Livy said that the consuls renewed the potestas tribunicia “with certain sacred rites revived from a distant past, and in addition to securing their inviolability by the sanctions of religion, they enacted a law that whoever offered violence to the magistrates of the plebs, whether tribunes, aediles [the assistants of the tribunes], or decemviral judges, his person should be devoted to Jupiter, his possessions sold and the proceeds assigned to the temple of Ceres, Liber, and Libera …”.
He added that the law forbade the scourging or execution of those who appealed, but merely provided that if anyone should disregard [its] injunctions it should be deemed a wicked act.
He argues that the law of 449 BC probably established the general principle, “but in some way restricted its freedom to do so, for instance, by making the plebiscites subject to the auctoritas partum or to the subsequent vote of the comitia populi, or indeed both.” Auctoritas patrum meant authority of the fathers (the patricians) through the patrician-controlled senate.