draw up a code
of written laws. When it was decided to elect decemvirs for another
year, he who had formerly been looked upon as the champion of the
aristocracy, suddenly came forward as the friend of the people, and was
himself re-elected together with several plebeians. But no sooner was
the new body in office, than it treated both patricians and plebeians
with equal violence, and refused to resign at the end of the year.
Matters were brought to a crisis by the affair of Virginia. Enamoured
of the beautiful daughter of the plebeian centurion Virginius, Claudius
attempted to seize her by an abuse of justice. One of his clients,
Marcus Claudius, swore that she was the child of a slave belonging to
him, and had been stolen by the childless wife of the centurion.
Virginius was summoned from the army, and on the day of trial was
present to expose the conspiracy. Nevertheless, judgment was given
according to the evidence of Marcus, and Claudius commanded Virginia to
be given up to him. In despair, her father seized a knife from a
neighbouring stall and plunged it in her side. A general insurrection
was the result; and the people seceded to the Sacred Mount. The
decemvirs were finally compelled to resign and Appius Claudius died in
prison, either by his own hand or by that of the executioner. For a
discussion of the character of Appius Claudius, see Mommsen's appendix
to vol. i. of his _History of Rome_. He holds that Claudius was never
the leader of the patrician party, but a patrician demagogue who ended
by becoming a tyrant to patricians as well as plebeians. The
decemvirate, one of the triumphs of the plebs, could hardly have been
abolished by that body, but would naturally have been overthrown by the
patricians. The revolution which ruined Claudius was a return to the
rule of the patricians represented by the Horatii and Valerii.

Livy iii. 32-58; Dion. Halic. x. 59, xi. 3.

3. CLAUDIUS, APPIUS, surnamed CAECUS, Roman patrician and author. In 312
B.C. he was elected censor without having passed through the office of
consul. His censorship--which he retained for five years, in spite of
the lex Aemilia which limited the tenure of that office to eighteen
months--was remarkable for the actual or attempted achievement of
several great constitutional changes. He filled vacancies in the senate
with men of low birth, in some cases even the sons of freedmen (Diod.
Sic. xx. 36; Livy ix. 30; Suetonius, _Claudius_, 24). His mo