only an administrative, but also a legislative council. On
the one hand, they were to conduct the government, administer justice,
and command the armies. On the other, they were to draw up a code of
laws by which equal justice was to be dealt out to the whole Roman
people, to patricians and plebeians alike, and by which especially the
authority to be exercised by the consuls, or chief magistrates, was to
be clearly determined and settled.

This supreme council of ten, or decemvirs, was first appointed in the
year B.C. 450. They were all patricians. At their head stood Appius
Claudius and T. Genucius, who had already been chosen consuls for this
memorable year. This Appius Claudius (the third of his name) was son and
grandson of those two patrician chiefs who had opposed the leaders of
the plebeians so vehemently in the matter of the tribunate. But he
affected a different conduct from his sires. He was the most popular man
of the whole council, and became in fact the sovereign of Rome. At first
he used his great power well, and the first year's government of the
decemvirs was famed for justice and moderation.

They also applied themselves diligently to their great work of
law-making, and before the end of the year had drawn up a code of ten
tables, which were posted in the Forum, that all citizens might examine
them and suggest amendments to the decemvirs. After due time thus spent,
the ten tables were confirmed and made law at the Comitia of the
Centuries. By this code equal justice was to be administered to both
orders without distinction of persons.

At the close of the year the first decemvirs laid down their office,
just as the consuls and other officers of state had been accustomed to
do before. They were succeeded by a second set of ten, who, for the next
year at least, were to conduct the government like their predecessors.
The only one of the old decemvirs reelected was Appius Claudius. The
patricians, indeed, endeavored to prevent even this, and to this end he
was himself appointed to preside at the new elections; for it was held
impossible for a chief magistrate to return his own name, when he was
himself presiding. But Appius scorned precedents. He returned himself as
elected, together with nine others, men of no name, while two of the
great Quinctian gens, who offered themselves, were rejected.

Of the new decemvirs, it is certain that three--and it is probable that
five--were plebeians. Appius, with the