VALERO PUBLILIUS, a Tribune, now (471) proposed and carried, notwithstanding violent opposition by the patricians, a measure to the effect that the Tribunes should hereafter be chosen in the _Comitia Tributa_, instead of the _Comitia Centuriata_. Thus the plebeians gained a very important step. This bill is called the PUBLILIAN LAW (_Plebiscitum Publilium_). (Footnote: All bills passed in the Comitia Tributa were called Plebiscita, and until 286 were not necessarily binding upon the people at large; but this bill seems to have been recognized as a law.) For the next twenty years the struggle continued unabated. The plebeians demanded a WRITTEN CODE OF LAWS. We find among all early peoples that the laws are at first the unwritten ones of custom and precedent. The laws at Rome, thus far, had been interpreted according to the wishes and traditions of the patricians only. A change was demanded. This was obtained by the TERENTILIAN ROGATION, a proposal made in 461 by Gaius Terentilius Harsa, a Tribune, to the effect that the laws thereafter be written. The patrician families, led by one Kaeso Quinctius, made bitter opposition. Kaeso himself, son of the famous Cincinnatus, was impeached by the Tribune and fled from the city. Finally it was arranged that the Comitia Centuriata should select from the people at large ten men, called the DECEMVIRATE, to hold office for one year, to direct the government and supersede all other magistrates, and especially to draw up a code of laws to be submitted to the people for approval. A commission of three patricians was sent to Athens to examine the laws of that city, which was now (454) at the height of its prosperity. Two years were spent by this commission, and upon their return in 452 the above mentioned Decemvirate was appointed. The laws drawn up by this board were approved, engraved on ten tables of copper, and placed in the Forum in front of the Senate-House. Two more tables were added the next year. These TWELVE TABLES were the only Roman code. The DECEMVIRI should have resigned as soon as these laws were approved, but they neglected to do so, and began to act in a cruel and tyrannical manner. The people, growing uneasy under their injustice, finally rebelled when one of the Decemviri, Appius Claudius, passed a sentence that brought an innocent maiden, Virginia, into his power. Her father, Virginius, saved his daughter's honor by stabbing her to the heart, and fleeing to the camp called upon the soldiers to put down such wicked government. A second time the army deserted its leaders, and seceded to the SACRED MOUNT, where they nominated their own Tribunes. Then, marching into the city, they compelled the Decemviri to resign.