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Updated: June 8, 2025
Yes, the very walls around us preach to you the punishment of such a deed: for that offence fell the Tarquins, for that offence were swept away the Decemvirs, for that offence, if ye rush upon it, the blood of your whole house may flow like water.
News of this was brought by ambassadors from Tusculum imploring assistance. The panic thereby occasioned urged the decemvirs to consult the senate, now that two wars at once threatened the city.
On account of these prodigies, the decemvirs were ordered to consult the books; the nine days' festival was celebrated, a supplication proclaimed, and the city purified. At the same time, Marcus Porcius Cato dedicated a chapel to Maiden Victory, near the temple of Victory, two years after he had vowed it.
There the consuls were brought forward before the people, and asked what they would do if the Roman people mindful of their liberty recovered at home through them, mindful also of their services in war, should again elect them consuls: and when they in no way changed their opinions, he held the election, after eulogizing the consuls, because they persevered to the last in being unlike the decemvirs; and five tribunes of the people having been elected, when, through the zealous exertions of the nine tribunes who openly pressed their canvass, the other candidates could not make up the required number of tribes, he dismissed the assembly; nor did he hold one afterward for the purpose of an election.
And not only they themselves sunk into despondence, but they began to be looked down upon by the neighbouring states; and they felt indignant that dominion should exist where liberty was lost. Not only the couriers, but the flight of the country people through the city, occasioned alarm. The decemvirs consult what should be done.
But, in the church, the only point to be aimed at is the discovery of the true meaning of the text of the divine law: no human power can invest the comment with equal authority. The emperor said, and might say to his judges, "You need not consider what was the meaning of the decemvirs, when they wrote the twelve tables, or, of Aquillius, when he drew up the Aquillian law.
For which purpose a commission consisting of ten members, among whom was Appius Claudius, a crafty and ambitious citizen, was appointed for a year; and that the commissioners in framing their laws might act without fear or favour, all the other magistracies, and in particular the consulate and tribuneship, were suspended, and the appeal to the people discontinued; so that the decemvirs came to be absolute in Rome.
"Corrupted by which gifts, these youths came to prefer selfish licence to public freedom." It happened that at this time the Sabines and Volscians began to stir up a war against Rome, and it was during the alarm thereby occasioned that the decemvirs were first made aware how weak was their position.
All permitting them to act just as they think proper, the ambassadors assure them that they would speedily return, having completed every matter. When they went and laid before the patricians the message of the commons, the other decemvirs, since, contrary to their own expectation, no mention was made of their punishment, raised no objection.
For they demanded the restoration of the tribunician office and the right of appeal, which, before the appointment of decemvirs, had been the supports of the people, and that it should be without detriment to any one to have instigated the soldiers or the commons to seek to recover their liberty by a secession.
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