in such romantic adventures, and in political issues so
incomprehensible. The decemvirate was, after the abolition of the
monarchy and the institution of the tribunate of the people, the
third great victory of the plebs; and the exasperation of the opposite
party against the institution and against its head Appius Claudius
is sufficiently intelligible. The plebeians had through its means
secured the right of eligibility to the highest magistracy of the
community and a general code of law; and it was not they that had
reason to rebel against the new magistracy, and to restore the
purely patrician consular government by force of arms. This end
can only have been pursued by the party of the nobility, and if the
patricio-plebeian decemvirs made the attempt to maintain themselves
in office beyond their time, the nobility were certainly the first to
enter the lists against them; on which occasion doubtless the nobles
would not neglect to urge that the stipulated rights of the plebs should
be curtailed and the tribunate, in particular, should be taken from it.
If the nobility thereupon succeeded in setting aside the decemvirs,
it is certainly conceivable that after their fall the plebs should
once more assemble in arms with a view to secure the results both
of the earlier revolution of 260 and of the latest movement; and the
Valerio-Horatian laws of 305 can only be understood as forming a
compromise in this conflict.

The Valerio-Horatian Laws

The compromise, as was natural, proved very favourable to the
plebeians, and again imposed severely felt restrictions on the
power of the nobility. As a matter of course the tribunate of the
people was restored, the code of law wrung from the aristocracy was
definitively retained, and the consuls were obliged to judge according
to it. Through the code indeed the tribes lost their usurped
jurisdiction in capital causes; but the tribunes got it back, as a way
was found by which it was possible for them to transact business as
to such cases with the centuries. Besides they retained, in the right
to award fines without limitation and to submit this sentence to the
-comitia tributa-, a sufficient means of putting an end to the civic
existence of a patrician opponent. Further, it was on the proposition
of the consuls decreed by the centuries that in future every
magistrate--and therefore the dictator among the rest--should be bound
at his nomination to allow the right of appeal: any