e plebs was again
established. The impeachment of the decemvirs terminated in the two
most guilty, Appius Claudius and Spurius Oppius, committing suicide
in prison, while the other eight went into exile and the state
confiscated their property. The prudent and moderate tribune of
the plebs, Marcus Duilius, prevented further judicial prosecutions
by a seasonable use of his veto.

So runs the story as recorded by the pen of the Roman aristocrats;
but, even leaving out of view the accessory circumstances, the great
crisis out of which the Twelve Tables arose cannot possibly have
ended 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
jurisdict