held in booths--calling her the daughter of his slave and
a slave herself, and commanded her to follow him, declaring that he
would drag her off by force if she demurred. The girl being struck
dumb with terror, a crowd collected at the cries of her nurse, who
besought the protection of the citizens. The popular names of her
father, Verginius, and of her betrothed, Icilius, were in every one's
mouth. Esteem for them gained the good-will of their acquaintances,
the heinousness of the proceeding, that of the crowd. She was now
safe from violence, forasmuch as the claimant said that there was no
occasion for rousing the mob; that he was proceeding by law, not by
force. He summoned the girl into court. Her supporters advising her
to follow him, they reached the tribunal of Appius. The claimant
rehearsed the farce well known to the judge, as being in presence of
the actual author of the plot, that the girl, born in his house, and
clandestinely transferred from thence to the house of Verginius, had
been fathered on the latter: that what he stated was established
by certain evidence, and that he would prove it, even if Verginius
himself, who would be the principal sufferer, were judge: that
meanwhile it was only fair the servant should accompany her master.
The supporters of Verginia, after they had urged that Verginius was
absent on business of the state, that he would be present in two days
if word were sent to him, and that it was unfair that in his absence
he should run any risk regarding his children, demanded that Appius
should adjourn the whole matter till the arrival of the father; that
he should allow the claim for her liberty pending judgment according
to the law passed by himself, and not allow a maiden of ripe age to
encounter the risk of her reputation before that of her liberty.

Appius prefaced his decision by observing that the very same law,
which the friends of Verginius put forward as the plea of their
demand, showed how strongly he himself was in favour of liberty: that
liberty, however, would find secure protection in the law on this
condition only, that it varied neither with respect to cases or
persons. For with respect to those individuals who were claimed as
free, that point of law was good, because any citizen could proceed by
law in such a matter: but in the case of her who was in the hands of
her father, there was no other person in whose favour her master need
relinquish his right of possession.[51]