fice a second year. This indeed was done; but Appius Claudius so
ordered matters that there were elected together with him none of the
chief men of the state, but only such as were of an inferior condition and
fortune.

After this the Ten began more and more to set aside all law and right.
Thus whereas at the first one only on each day was followed by the twelve
lictors, each of the Ten came daily into the market-place so attended, and
whereas before the lictors carried bundles of rods only, now there was
bound up with the rods an axe; whereby was signified the power of life and
death. Their actions also agreed with this show, for they and their
ministers plundered the goods and chattels of the people. Some also they
scourged, and some they beheaded. And when they had so put a man to death,
they would divide his substance among those that waited upon them to do
their pleasure.

Among their misdeeds two were especially notable. There was a certain
Sicinius in the host, a man of singular strength and courage, who took it
ill that the Ten should thus set themselves above all law, and was wont to
say to his comrades that the commons should depart from the city as they
had done in time past, or should at the least make them tribunes to be
their champions as of old. This Sicinius the Ten sent on before the army,
there being then war with the Sabines, to search out a place for a camp;
and with him they sent certain others, bidding them slay him when they
should have come to some convenient place. This they did, but not without
suffering much loss; for the man fought for his life and defended himself,
slaying many of his enemies. Then they that escaped ran into the camp,
saying that Sicinius had fallen into an ambuscade, and had died along with
certain others of the soldiers. At the first, indeed, this story was
believed; but afterward, when, by permission of the Ten, there went some
to bury the dead, they found that none of the dead bodies had been
spoiled, and that Sicinius lay with his arms in the midst, the others
having their faces toward him; also that there was no dead body of an
enemy in the place, nor any track as of them that had gone from the place;
for which reasons they brought back tidings that Sicinius had certainly
been slain by his own comrades. At this there was great wrath in the camp;
and the soldiers were ready to carry the body of Sicinius to Rome, but
that the Ten made a military funeral for him at the pu