The decemvirs were brought to justice; Appius Claudius and Sp. Oppius died in prison. The latter was of plebeian extraction, a proof that we need not regard the plebeians as the holders of particular virtues. Wherever a state is divided into factions, the strong party abuses its might, so that our interest turns to the weaker one. Sp. Oppius was perhaps one of those who formerly had talked a great deal against tyranny, and now he had become a tyrant himself. Appius was capitally impeached by L. Virginius (Aulus Virginius is certainly a mistake of the transcriber, as the copyists had in their mind the former tribune of that name): L. Virginius as avenger of the blood of his daughter had been appointed tribune. He wished, by virtue of his tribunitian authority, to have Appius cast into prison. Livy’s account of this leads us to a remarkable point. It is indeed a generally received opinion, that every Roman citizen had the right of saving himself from the punishment of death by exile. If such had been the case, one might well have wondered why capital punishments should indeed have been instituted at all, of which notwithstanding the old Roman laws have so great a number. Yet these facts are to be looked upon quite in another light. The views of the ancients with regard to criminal law are very different from ours, and perhaps more so than with regard to any other object in life. According to our notions, a man has also a right to be tried who has been caught in the very act; it is considered as an obligation of the prisoner to deny his guilt, and to allow himself to be convicted by evidence; the lawyers may defend him, and endeavour to lead the judge into error. Of this the ancients had no idea. If any one was taxed with having committed a _delictum_, the deposition of the witnesses was sufficient to have him instantly arrested and dragged before the magistrate; if it was no _delictum manifestum_, and he was a plebeian, then he applied to the tribune and gave bail. Should he thus manage to get free, he might leave his sureties in the lurch and go into exile. But if, on the contrary, he had been caught in a _delictum manifestum in flagranti_, and the _testes locupletes_ asserted that they had been present, thereby identifying his person, no trial was allowed; but he was, _obtorto collo_, his toga drawn over his head, conducted before the magistrate, who then at once gave judgment. If it did not happen to be a court-day, the culprit was in the meanwhile put into prison. Yet if any body committed a crime worthy of death, but not, however, of a kind in which it would have been possible to catch him _in flagranti_, the plaintiff had still a remedy in law by which the defendant was brought into prison.[106] Thus, for instance, in the case of Appius Claudius, the charge against him was a crime punishable by death; he had deprived a citizen of liberty. For this offence, Virginius prosecuted him; and would not allow him to give