libertatem_; Appius wanted to give them _contra libertatem_. Upon this, all who were in the Forum flocked together, and adjured him to put off the sentence, at least until the father, who was serving in the field, should be able to return. When the lictor tried to use force, such a number of plebeians filled the market-place, that Appius had not the courage to insist upon his decision, but requested the plaintiff to rest content with the surety until the next court-day; yet in order to prevent any thing that might appear like a conspiracy, the morrow was named for the trial. At the same time, he sent messengers into the camp to have the father detained with the army; but the latter had already been fetched beforehand by the betrothed lover of the maiden, and other kinsmen, and he appeared on the following day in the Forum. The semblance of justice was now abandoned. Had Appius allowed the cause to be tried in due form, the father would have unmasked the lie; and so he said that he was satisfied that the damsel was the slave of the plaintiff, and ordered her to be taken away. Amidst the general dismay at this decision, Virginius collected himself; and while pretending to bid farewell to his daughter, and to put some questions to the nurse, he stabbed her with a knife taken from one of the stalls in the Forum, under a portico, and with the bloody weapon walked unmolested out of the city back into the camp again. Here the soldiers unanimously refused obedience to the decemvirs, the two armies joining. But the accounts contradict each other: some state that they occupied the Sacred Mount, and at the first secession the Aventine; others the reverse. It is to be remarked that the commonalty has now twenty leaders, and is therefore standing again under the guardianship of its tribunes (phylarchs). These elected among themselves two men who were to hold the presidency, and to treat with the authorities, whom the people in the city had abandoned. The _tribuni sacrosancti_ were abolished by the decemviral constitution; but the _tribuni_ had continued as wardens of their tribes. With these at their head, they held out against the senate and the decemvirs in a more decided insurrection than that of forty years before; for at that time they had separated themselves in order to recover their rights, but now they were completely armed as for war. In this contest the decemvirs must needs have succumbed, especially as many patricians evidently fell off from them, although, as Livy correctly remarks, they were for the most part well pleased with the decemviral constitution, as they were freed by it from the tribunician power. Nevertheless there were many, as for instance Valerius and Horatius, who were for the restoration of the old constitution, because they were convinced that the tribunate worked in a very wholesome manner as a check upon the power of the consuls. Thus it was determined to treat with the _Plebes_, and a peace was concluded.