with, and the people would not have remained quiet. Much besides may be guessed. The plebeians had been mistaken in the men of their order who had become decemvirs. Just at first indeed, the protection of the tribunes is stated not to have been missed; but gradually these persons thought fit to use their power for their own benefit, and to show the same exclusive spirit as the rest. It is easy to understand that the plebeian Sp. Oppius was decidedly most obnoxious, since he addicted the debtor as much as Ap. Claudius did. Such accusations had until then been brought against patricians only. That a war broke out with the Æquians and Sabines, was an event of which the decemvirs might indeed have been glad, as they gained by it an opportunity of giving the people employment. We are now told that patriots, L. Valerius Potitus and M. Horatius Barbatus, had got up in the senate, and had required the decemvirs first to resign their power; but that the majority of the senate had decided upon the levy. The speeches which are found in Livy on this occasion, I look upon as empty declamations which have arisen from the belief, that the decemvirs had usurped their office. The enemy had invaded and plundered the country; resistance was necessary; there was no time for deliberation. Also there was nothing more easy than such an enlistment, as there were no more tribunes. Just as little foundation does there seem to be for the story of the assassination of L. Siccius; it looks too poetical. The only fact which we can gather from it is, that two Roman armies took the field, of which the larger host stood on the Algidus against the Æquians. In the meanwhile a crime happened in Rome, of a nature which was quite common in the Greek oligarchies, Appius Claudius having fallen in love with the daughter of a centurion L. Virginius, very likely a relative of the tribune Virginius. That her death, like that of Lucretia, became the cause of the downfall of the decemvirs, is uniformly stated by all the accounts; the story is most ancient, and there is no reason to doubt it. The rape of women and boys is quite a common crime of the tyrants against their subjects. Aristotle and Polybius also tell us explicitly that the overthrow of oligarchies was often brought about by such outrages against female virtue. Appius Claudius suborned a false accuser, one of his clients, to assert that the real mother of Virginia had been his slave, who had sold her to the wife of Virginius, as the latter, being barren, wished to pass off the child as her own; and this he offered to prove by the testimony of false witnesses. Appius was resolved upon adjudging the slave to him; yet this was contrary to the law of the Twelve Tables, for, if the freedom of a Roman citizen was impugned, he could claim to remain in possession of it; only he had to give bail, as the value of the person might be estimated in money. This was called _vindiciæ secundum