y
summoned the people to an assembly: and ordered them to go and read
the laws that were exhibited, [43] and Heaven grant it might prove
favourable, advantageous, and of happy result to the commonwealth,
themselves, and their children. That they had equalized the rights of
all, both the highest and the lowest, as far as could be devised by
the abilities of ten men: that the understanding and counsels of a
greater number had greater weight; let them turn over in their minds
each particular among themselves, discuss it in conversation, and
bring forward for public discussion whatever might be superfluous or
defective under each particular: that the Roman people should have
such laws only as the general consent might appear not so much to have
ratified when proposed as to have itself proposed. When they seemed
sufficiently corrected in accordance with public opinion regarding
each section of the laws as it was published, the laws of the ten
tables were passed at the assembly voting by centuries, which, even at
the present time, amid the immense heap of laws crowded one upon
the other, still remain the source of all public and private
jurisprudence. A rumour then spread that two tables were needed, on
the addition of which a digest, as it were, of the whole Roman law
could be completed. The desire for this gave rise, as the day of
election approached, to a request that decemvirs be appointed again.
The commons by this time, besides that they detested the name
of consuls no less than that of kings, did not even require the
tribunician aid, as the decemvirs in turn allowed an appeal.

But when the assembly for the election of decemvirs was proclaimed for
the third market-day, the flame of ambition burst out so
powerfully that even the first men of the state began to canvass
individuals--fearing, I suppose, that the possession of such high
authority might become accessible to persons not sufficiently worthy
if the post were left unoccupied by themselves--humbly soliciting,
from those very commons with whom they had often contended, an honour
which had been opposed by them with all their might. The fact of their
dignity being now laid aside in a contest, at their time of life, and
after they had filled such high official positions, stimulated the
exertions of Appius Claudius. You would not have known whether to
reckon him among the decemvirs or the candidates; he resembled at
times more closely one canvassing for office than o