eauty of the maiden, and the cruel lot of the
father.[55] The matrons, following, cried out: Was this the condition
of rearing children? Were these the rewards of chastity? And other
things which female grief on such occasions suggests, when their
complaints are so much the more affecting, in proportion as their
grief is more intense from their want of self-control. The men, and
more especially Icilius, spoke of nothing but the tribunician power,
and the right of appeal to the people which had been taken from them,
and gave vent to their indignation in regard to the condition of
public affairs.

The multitude was excited partly by the heinousness of the misdeed,
partly by the hope of recovering their liberty on a favourable
opportunity. Appius first ordered Icilius to be summoned before
him, then, when he refused to come, to be seized: finally, when the
officers were not allowed an opportunity of approaching him, he
himself, proceeding through the crowd with a body of young patricians,
ordered him to be led away to prison. Now not only the multitude, but
Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius, the leaders of the multitude,
stood around Icilius and, having repulsed the lictor, declared, that,
if Appius should proceed according to law, they would protect Icilius
from one who was but a private citizen; if he should attempt to employ
force, that even in that case they would be no unequal match for him.
Hence arose a violent quarrel. The decemvir's lictor attacked Valerius
and Horatius: the fasces were broken by the people. Appius ascended
the tribunal; Horatius and Valerius followed him. They were
attentively listened to by the assembly: the voice of the decemvir was
drowned with clamour. Now Valerius, as if he possessed the authority
to do so, was ordering the lictors to depart from one who was but a
private citizen, when Appius, whose spirits were now broken, alarmed
for his life, betook himself into a house in the vicinity of the
forum, unobserved by his enemies, with his head covered up. Spurius
Oppius, in order to assist his colleague, rushed into the forum by the
opposite side: he saw their authority overpowered by force. Distracted
then by various counsels and by listening to several advisers from
every side, he had become hopelessly confused: eventually he ordered
the senate to be convened. Because the official acts of the decemvirs
seemed displeasing to the greater portion of the patricians, this
step quieted the peo