abolished all right of
appeal; and that he implored the protection of the people, who had
trampled under foot all the rights of the people: and that he was
being dragged off to prison, destitute of the rights of liberty, who
had doomed a free person to slavery, the voice of Appius himself was
heard, amid the murmurs of the assembly, imploring the protection of
the Roman people. He enumerated the services of his ancestors to
the state, at home and abroad: his own unfortunate anxiety for the
interests of the Roman commons, owing to which he had resigned the
consulship, to the very great displeasure of the patricians, for the
purpose of equalizing the laws; he then went on to mention those laws
of his, the framer of which was dragged off to prison, though the laws
still remained in force. However, in regard to what bore especially on
his own case, his personal merits and demerits, he would make trial
of them, when an opportunity should be afforded him of stating his
defence; at present, he, a Roman citizen, demanded, by the common
right of citizenship, that he be allowed to speak on the day
appointed, and to appeal to the judgment of the Roman people: he
did not dread popular odium so much as not to place any hope in the
fairness and compassion of his fellow-citizens. But if he were led to
prison without being heard, that he once more appealed to the tribunes
of the people, and warned them not to imitate those whom they hated.
But if the tribunes acknowledged themselves bound by the same
agreement for abolishing the right of appeal, which they charged the
decemvirs with having conspired to form, then he appealed to the
people, he implored the aid of the laws passed that very year, both by
the consuls and tribunes, regarding the right of appeal. For who
would there be to appeal, if this were not allowed a person as yet
uncondemned, whose case had not been heard? What plebeian or humble
individual would find protection in the laws, if Appius Claudius
could not? That he would be a proof whether tyranny or liberty was
established by the new laws, and whether the right of appeal and of
challenge against the injustice of magistrates was only held out in
idle words, or really granted.

Verginius, on the other hand, affirmed that Appius Claudius was the
only person who had no part or share in the laws, or in any covenant
civil or human. Men should look to the tribunal, the fortress of all
villainies, where that perpetual decemvi