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 afterwards, 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 towards 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 public cost. So they buried Sicinius with great lamentation; but the
Ten were thereafter in very ill repute among the soldiers.

Again, there was a certain centurion, Lucius Virginius by name, an
upright man and of good credit both at home and abroad. This Virginius
had a daughter, Virginia, a very fair and virtuous maiden, whom he
had espoused to a certain Icilius that had once been a tribune of the
Commons. On this maiden Appius C