and flourishing, because in
honor they were as much before their fellow-citizens as they were
inferior in luxuriousness, and, as a general rule, not superior to them
in wealth. And their public virtues were the more agreeable to the
people, because even in private matters they were ready to serve every
citizen, by their exertions, their counsels, and their liberality.

XXXV. Such was the situation of the Commonwealth when the quaestor
impeached Spurius Cassius of being so much emboldened by the excessive
favor of the people as to endeavor to make himself master of
monarchical power. And, as you have heard, his own father, having said
that he had found that his son was really guilty of this crime,
condemned him to death at the instance of the people. About fifty-four
years after the first consulate, Spurius Tarpeius and Aulus Aternius
very much gratified the people by proposing, in the Comitia Centuriata,
the substitution of fines instead of corporal punishments. Twenty years
afterward, Lucius Papirius and Publius Pinarius, the censors, having by
a strict levy of fines confiscated to the State the entire flocks and
herds of many private individuals, a light tax on the cattle was
substituted for the law of fines in the consulship of Caius Julius and
Publius Papirius.

XXXVI. But, some years previous to this, at a period when the senate
possessed the supreme influence, and the people were submissive and
obedient, a new system was adopted. At that time both the consuls and
tribunes of the people abdicated their magistracies, and the decemviri
were appointed, who were invested with great authority, from which
there was no appeal whatever, so as to exercise the chief domination,
and to compile the laws. After having composed, with much wisdom and
equity, the Ten Tables of laws, they nominated as their successors in
the ensuing year other decemviri, whose good faith and justice do not
deserve equal praise. One member of this college, however, merits our
highest commendation. I allude to Caius Julius, who declared respecting
the nobleman Lucius Sestius, in whose chamber a dead body had been
exhumed under his own eyes, that though as decemvir he held the highest
power without appeal, he still required bail, because he was unwilling
to neglect that admirable law which permitted no court but the Comitia
Centuriata to pronounce final sentence on the life of a Roman citizen.

XXXVII. A third year followed under the authority of th