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the spectacle he had beheld, perhaps at the excitement increasing throughout the city. One army in the field, returning with Virginius, soon appeared at the city gates, through which it marched on to the Aventine. Icilius and Numitorius, the lover and the uncle of the murdered maiden, followed the father's example and hurried to the other army, which, like the first, marched back to Rome and through the city to the Aventine. Both forces, though the name of armies be preserved, were undoubtedly composed of Plebeians, who left their officers and Patrician comrades to do as they saw fit, while they themselves returned, as is related, to revenge the outrage that had been done Virginia. The unanimity of the Plebeians and the spirit they showed, as will presently appear, seem to indicate some other purpose of theirs besides the punishment of any single crime, and reasonably magnify their occupation of the Aventine into the decisive step in some fierce contention between the two estates, ensuing upon the publication of the laws by the Decemvirs. However this may be, the soldiers were joined by the Plebeians from the city, equally decided to maintain their rights and liberties. Ten military Tribunes were chosen by each army, and of the twenty thus elected, two were appointed, by the advice of Virginius, to direct the negotiations whose proposal seemed already to be expected from the Senate. After some vain parleys, of which there could be no possible explanation, had the Plebeians taken arms to extort the abdication or even the punishment of the Decem

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virs alone, another measure, in that event still more unaccountable, was taken by those upon the Aven

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They remembered what their fathers had done now five-and-forty years gone by; and at the suggestion of Marcus Duilius, the most trusted man amongst them,10 they marched down together from the Aventine, and took their way, soldiers, citizens, women, and children together, to the Sacred Hill, where they quietly encamped." In the city, or, as the city was now so empty that there were said to be more lictors visible than people, rather in the Senate, there appear to have been the most antagonistic opinions. Many held to the violent measures, that had failed, they would say, because never fairly tried; but a milder course was advocated by Valerius and Horatius, the same who had bearded the Decemvirs, with such success that they themselves were sent forth to make some terms with the seceders. The two were gladly welcomed to the hill, where they explained their own intents and listened to the reply, which Icilius is reported to have made. In the old traditions he was described as having laid peculiar emphasis upon the vindication of the wrongs committed by the Decemvirs; his demands for the restoration of the tribunate and the great right of appeal being mentioned as quite subordinate. 12 If our interpretation of the indistinct

10 Elected Tribune twenty-two years before, at the first election by the Tribes. Liv., II. 58.

11 Liv., III. 52, 54.

12 Liv., III. 53.

history we are reading be correct, the order of Icilius's claims must be reversed, and it may even be believed, besides, that the seceders would have exacted new rights in addition to those they had obtained of old.13

"Ye need a shield," replied Valerius or Horatius to the Plebeians, "more than a sword, just now with other words to persuade the multitude, or their leaders, to make more moderate proposals. As soon as these were obtained, the envoys returned. Straightway the Senate issued an edict declaring the decemvirate at an end, and providing for the instant restitution of the former magistracies, with amnesty to all the seceders. The Tribes, accordingly, were formally convoked to meet under the presidency of the chief Pontiff and elect their Tribunes; a summons that ended the secession. The whole band from the Sacred Hill marched back and up again to the Aventine, then crossed, still under arms, to the Capitol, and there, apparently, with such Patricians, perhaps, as chose to join them, elected ten good men, Virginius, Icilius, Numitorius, and Duilius being of the number, to be their Tribunes.14 A more formal meeting of the Tribes was soon after held, in which, as the national assembly, the ratification of the terms lately granted by the Senate, and the convoca

13 Demanding, it is said, to have their share of the consulship: Tŵv δὲ ὑπάτων τὸν ἕνα πάντως ἀπὸ τοῦ πλήθους καθίστασθαι, κ. τ. λ. Diod. Sic., XII. 25.

Corn., I.) supplies our narrative : "In Aventino consederunt; inde armati in Capitolium venerunt ; decem tribunos plebis per pontificem, quod magistratus nullus erat, creave14 A fragment of Cicero (Pro runt." Cf. De Rep., II. 37.

tion of the Centuries to choose the two Consuls 15 were both proposed and carried. The Centuries elected Valerius and Horatius, as they appear to have well deserved.

The proceedings of the new Consuls were such, in every respect, as to confirm our view of the troubles which are generally represented as having ensued simply upon Virginia's death. To acts of the boldness and the resolution just described there must have been a stronger spur than the murder of a maiden scarcely known beyond her father's dwelling; and yet the laws which bear the names of Horatius and Valerius are the only positive grounds on which we stand, in believing the Plebeians to have revolted and seceded in consequence of the refusal of the Patricians to correct the deficiencies and oppressive purposes of the Twelve Tables. One law, for instance, proposed by the Consuls, granted to the Tribes the right of legislation, disputed since the days of Lætorius and Publilius, and probably omitted or prohibited in the recent code, notwithstanding the admission of the Patricians to the assembly. The bearings, however, of the new law are beyond the reach of precise observation; although it is easy to learn, on comparing the best accounts remaining, that the bills of the Tribes were to have the same force, henceforward, as those of the Centuries, and consequently that the scope of legislation in the hitherto inferior assembly might be enlarged to the full dimensions

15 Dion. Hal., XI. 45.

which any single body in the Commonwealth, in this respect, was allowed. 16 A bill, of course, whether passed by Tribes or Centuries, was still dependent upon the assent of the Senate and the Curies in order to become a law.

Another measure of the Consuls, which they carried with no greater difficulty, but with less obvious advantage as a law, reiterated the right of appeal, established by Valerius Publicola, and more recently confirmed by the Decemvirs.17 A third law was again a repetition, though very likely rendered necessary by the silence of the Tables on the point, by which inviolability was guarantied to the Plebeian magistracies, and especially to the tribuneship; while the fourth and last of the Valerian and Horatian laws, as they were styled, confided the acts of the Senate to the care of the Ediles, in whose keeping the Plebeians, at least, may have believed the acts would be better protected against interpolation or concealment.19 The gift of these laws to the lower estate from the Centuries, the Senate, and the Curies, at the proposal of the Consuls,20 was the omen of juster and happier times.

16 Τοὺς ὑπὸ τοῦ δήμου τεθέντας ἐν ταῖς φυλετικαῖς ἐκκλησίαις νόμους, K. T. X. Dion. Hal., XI. 45. " Quod tributim plebes jussisset, populum teneret." Liv., III. 55.

17 Cic., De Rep., II. 31. Liv., III. 55. Perhaps, however, the appeal was now first declared to exist from all magistrates. It was, at all events, sufficiently important in the

eyes of Duilius to lead him to propose its confirmation by the Tribes. Liv., loc. cit.

18 Liv., III. 55. Again confirmed on the proposal of Duilius, note 24.

19"Quæ [Senatus-Consulta] antea arbitrio consulum supprimebantur, vitiabanturque." Liv., III. 55.

20 Whom Cicero describes with

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