reduced the commonwealth to its present desperate situation.” He concluded by seconding the motion of Menenius for sending ambassadours to put a speedy end to the sedition upon the best terms they should be able to obtain. Appius, finding himself thus personally attacked, rose up and replied to Valerius in a hot inflammatory speech full of the most virulent invectives. He denied that he was ever guilty of enslaving his debtors: “he denied too, that those who had acted in that manner could be charged with injustice, since they had done no more than the laws allowed. He affirmed that the imputation of being an enemy to the people, and favouring oligarchy, arose from his steady adherence to the aristocracy, and equally affected all those of superior worth, who like him disdained to be governed by their inferiors, or to suffer the form of government which they had inherited from their ancestors[258] to deviate into the worst of all constitutions, a democracy. He recriminated upon Valerius, and charged him with aiming at tyranny, by courting the most profligate of the citizens, as the most effectual and shortest way of enslaving his country. He termed the seceders, vile, mean wretches, a thoughtless senseless multitude, whose present arrogance had been first inspired by that old man, as he contemptuously called Valerius. He declared absolutely against sending ambassadours, or making the least concession, and advised rather to arm the slaves and send for assistance from their allies the Latins, than submit to any thing that might derogate from the power and dignity of the Patricians. He proposed, if the seceders should appear in arms against them, to put their wives and children to death before their faces by the most severe and ignominious tortures. But if they would submit at discretion to the senate, he advised to treat them with moderation.” This speech produced a violent tumult in the senate, and the young Patricians who adhered to Appius behaved with so much insolence, that the consuls threatened to exclude them from the publick counsels, by a law which should fix the age for the qualification of every senator. Nothing was determined at that time, but in a few days, the moderate party, supported by the firmness of the consuls, prevailed against the still inflexible Appius, and ten ambassadours, at the head of whom were Menenius and Valerius, were sent with full powers to treat with the seceders. After many debates, Menenius in the name of the senate promised full redress of all their grievances with respect to the debts, and offered to confirm this promise by the solemn oaths of all the ambassadours. His offer was upon the point of being accepted, when Lucius Junius, who affected the surname of Brutus, a bold and able Plebeian, interposed and insisted upon such a security from the senate as might protect the Plebeians for the future from the power of their enemies, who might find an