The two commissioners appointed were of opinion that, according to this law, they were not authorized to acquit him; and, after they had found him guilty, one of them pronounced judgment in these words: ‘Publius Horatius, I sentence thee to punishment as a murderer; go, lictor, bind his hands.’ The lictor had come up to him, and was fixing the cord, when Horatius, by the advice of Tullus, who wished to give the mildest interpretation to the law, said,‘I appeal;’ so the trial on the appeal came before the Commons. During this trial, the people were very deeply affected, especially by the behavior of Publius Horatius, the father, who declared that ‘in his judgment his daughter was deservedly put to death; had it not been so, he would, by his own authority as a father, have inflicted punishment on his son.’ He then besought them that‘they would not leave him childless, whom they had beheld, but a few hours ago, surrounded by a progeny of uncommon merit.’ Uttering these words, the old man embraced the youth, and pointing to the spoils of the Curiatii, which were hung up in the place where now stands the Horatian column, exclaimed:— ‘O my fellow-citizens! can you bear to behold him laden with chains, and condemned to ignominy, stripes, and torture, whom but just now you saw covered with the ornaments of victory, marching in triumph—a sight so horrid that scarcely could the eyes of the Albans themselves endure it? Go, lictor, bind the arms which but now wielded those weapons that acquired dominion to the Roman people; cover the head of that man to whom your city owes its liberty; hang him upon the gallows. Scourge him within the Pomœrium; but do it between those pillars to which are suspended the trophies of his victory. Scourge him without the Pomœrium; but do it between the graves of the Curiatii. For to what place can ye lead this youth, where the monuments of his glory would not redeem him from the ignominy of such a punishment?” The people could not withstand either the tears of the father, or the intrepid spirit of the youth himself, which no kind of danger could appall; and rather out of admiration of his bravery than regard to the justice of his cause, they passed a sentence of acquittal. Wherefore, that some expiation might be made for the act of manifest murder, the father was ordered to make atonement for his son at the public expense. After performing expiatory sacrifices, which continued afterward to be celebrated by the Horatian family, he laid a beam across the street, and, covering the young man’s head, made him pass, as it were, under the yoke. The beam remains to this day, being constantly kept in repair at the expense of the public, and is called the Sister’s beam. A tomb of squared stone was raised for Horatia on the spot where she fell.”—BAKER.