by day: that
as his faults declined, and his virtues ripened, they should allow so
distinguished a man to grow old in the state. Among these his father,
Lucius Quinctius, who bore the surname of Cincinnatus, without
dwelling too often on his services, so as not to heighten public
hatred, but soliciting pardon for his youthful errors, implored them
to forgive his son for his sake, who had not given offence to any
either by word or deed. But while some, through respect or fear,
turned away from his entreaties, others, by the harshness of their
answer, complaining that they and their friends had been ill-treated,
made no secret of what their decision would be.

Independently of the general odium, one charge in particular bore
heavily on the accused; that Marcus Volscius Fictor, who some years
before had been tribune of the people, had come forward to bear
testimony: that not long after the pestilence had raged in the city,
he had fallen in with a party of young men rioting in the Subura;[20]
that a scuffle had taken place: and that his elder brother, not yet
perfectly recovered from his illness, had been knocked down by Caeso
with a blow of his fist: that he had been carried home half dead in
the arms of some bystanders, and that he was ready to declare that
he had died from the blow: and that he had not been permitted by
the consuls of former years to obtain redress for such an atrocious
affair. In consequence of Volscius vociferating these charges, the
people became so excited that Caeso was near being killed through the
violence of the crowd. Verginius ordered him to be seized and dragged
off to prison. The patricians opposed force to force. Titus Quinctius
exclaimed that a person for whom a day of trial for a capital offence
had been appointed, and whose trial was now close at hand, ought not
to be outraged before he was condemned, and without a hearing. The
tribune replied that he would not inflict punishment on him before he
was condemned: that he would, however, keep him in prison until the
day of trial, that the Roman people might have an opportunity of
inflicting punishment on one who had killed a man.[21] The tribunes
being appealed to, got themselves out of the difficulty in regard to
their prerogative of rendering aid, by a resolution that adopted a
middle course: they forbade his being thrown into confinement, and
declared it to be their wish that the accused should be brought to
trial, and that a sum of mone