without the least movement against the domestic tyrants Quiet prevailed until Appius Claudius, the leading man among the decemvirs, and the one who held the position. of chief judge, undertook, with lustful motives, to use his judicial authority for the purpose of enslaving Virginia, a beautiful and virtuous maiden of a respectable plebeian family. Virginius, her father, unable otherwise to defeat the scheme of the tyrant, slew her in the Forum, and then, appealing to the multitude, gained their approval, and started a revolution which brought about the overthrow of the decemvirate.

Livy's story, which has been accepted in nearly all the histories of Rome, and the main points of which have been given here, abounds with improbabilities. It requires us to believe that, without receiving any guaranty of compensation, the plebeians consented to the abolition of the tribuneship and the tribal assembly; that though all the decemvirs chosen in 450 B. C. were patricians, half of the number elected on the next year were plebeians; that this change was made without any known reason; that for several years afterwards no plebeian. was elected to or was qualified to hold the consular office; that the five plebeian decemvirs consented to the clauses excluding their order from office and forbidding the intermarriage of their order with the nobles; and that the ten decemvirs, instead of quarreling about their respective shares of usurped power, agreed as to the manner of its distribution, and then exercised it harmoniously for month after month!

The conduct of the legions in this revolution was not less wonderful, according to the story of Livy, than that of the patricians and decemvirs. Two armies, nearly all plebeians, numbering together 30,000 men, having heard,

while in service against foreign enemies, of the affair of Virginia and of the outbreak in the city, returned to Rome, for the purpose of overthrowing the tyrants. These armies entered the city without resistance, remained there several days in idleness, and then, though the tyrants had no military force, imitating the conduct ascribed to their fathers and grandfathers in 495 B. C., deserted their city, houses, wives, children, provisions, and fortifications, for the Sacred Mount, where they camped. Thither they were followed by the other men of their own order, leaving Rome almost without male inhabitants. The decemvirs perceiving that their rule was at an end, convened the senate, which body deputed Valerius and Horatius, two of their number known to be in favor with the plebeians, to make a compromise These deputies went to the Sacred Mount and induced the plebeians to return to their homes by promising that the tribuneship and the tribal assembly should be restored; that the enactments of the tribal assembly should be accepted as laws by all classes; and that Appius Claudius should be punished. The plebeians are here represented as having separated themselves completely in a territorial and in a political sense from the patricians, and as possessing unquestioned power to dictate their own terms, and as having made no effort to abolish slavery for debt, or to open the highest offices of state to all citizens, or to repeal the prohibition of marriage between plebeian and patrician. If this be truth, then truth may be more incredible than fiction. Authentic history records many instances of civil war between nobles and commoners, but not one in which the poor, when they acquired the power, neglected to put themselves on a complete political equality with the rich; and it records

many cases in which the commoners, besides depriving the nobles of their superior political privileges, banished them, confiscated their property, or declared them incompetent to hold office. Legendary Rome is a solitary exception.

Although we are told that the first ten tables were framed by the good board of decemvirs, and the last two by the bad board; yet the most barbarous section in the whole code and the one that was the source of the greatest misery to the plebeians as a class, was the one on the fourth table authorizing the enslavement of the insolvent debtor. We are told further that the last two sections never were adopted by the people, and yet they were recognized as valid, and were treated with the same honor and reverence given to the other parts of the decemviral code. Historians and jurists never spoke of "the Ten Tables," nor of any attempt to repudiate or repeal them.

The statements of Livy about the decemvirs and their code are, as Arnold says of a portion of the Roman history two centuries later, "as perplexing and incongruous as a dream." More probable are the conjectures that the decemviral office was not organized as a concession to the plebeians; that all the members of two boards were patricians; that the revolution of 448 B. C. was provoked, not by the tyranny of the decemvirs but by the harshness of the XII Tables to the plebeians; that a civil war ensued; and that peace was restored by a compromise providing for the establishment of the tribuneship and the tribal assembly. These conjectures harmonize, as Livy's statements do not, with the general tendency of political development in Rome, previous to the establishment of the empire.

SEC. 441. Valerian Laws.-Valerius and Horatius, who had acted as representatives of the patricians in making the compromise with the plebeians, were chosen consuls at the first election after the overthrow of the decemvirate, and, in accordance with their promises, they induced the senate and centuriate assembly to adopt certain measures which were known as the Valerian or Valerian-Horatian laws. The tribal assembly was reestablished, with some modifications, perhaps admitting all members of the tribes, patricians as well as plebeians, and excluding all save freeholders from a vote. It is possible, too, that the centuriate organization was changed at this time so as to divide the groups on the basis, not of wealth, but of residence, giving to every tribe or district five senior and five junior groups. Such a change was introduced at some unknown time, and perhaps shortly after the middle of the Vth century B. C. The number of tribes in the late republic was thirty-five, so that then there were three hundred and fifty centuriate groups, or group votes.

The amendment conferring the power to enact laws on the tribal assembly was an important change in the constitution, but its phraseology is not quoted, nor is its precise effect described in any ancient book, and much doubt prevails in regard to it. Further remarks about the participation of the plebeians in the legislation of Rome will be reserved until we reach the Hortensian amendment, which was adopted in 286 B. C., as a re-enactment, or an amplification, of the Valerian law.

The compromise of 448 B. C. was the beginning of an active movement to enlarge the political privileges of the plebeians. The organization of the tribal assembly gave so much influence to the commoners that the

patricians were compelled to yield point after point in rapid succession. About this time the tribunes acquired, if they did not previously possess, authority to convene the senate, to take seats in the senate chamber, and to call the people together in the Forum for the purpose of listening to addresses on public questions. Only five years after the adoption of the Valerian amendments the law prohibiting marriage between patrician and plebeian was repealed, notwithstanding the angry protests of many patricians that the reform was sacrilegious.

In this matter of matrimony, as in many others, the patricians were unable to see their own interests. The bill was beneficial, not hurtful, to their class. It was a step towards depriving them of their great preponderance in the government, but it saved them from extinction. A close nobility dies out, even in a state of peace, and rapidly disappears in a community like that of Rome, engaged in arduous and destructive warfare every year, with its leaders always in the front rank, and in the most dangerous posts. The repealing bill imposed no burden on the nobles; and it offered them great privileges. It gave their young men opportunities to get rich wives, in families of superior energy and intelligence. It supplied them with a large re-enforcement of numbers, money, and brains, points in which they needed additional supplies.

SEC. 442. Censors, etc.-One year after the law was enacted legalizing marriage between patrician and plebeian, in 444 B. C., a law was enacted giving commoners the right of election to the consular tribuneship. Under Roman law there were three kinds of tribunitian office, those of the military tribune, of the tribune of the people or plebeian tribune, and of the consular tribune. The military tribunes were regimental officers, each legion