at
home and abroad; his own unfortunate zeal towards the Roman commons;
that he had resigned the consulship, to the great displeasure of the
patricians, for the purpose of equalizing the laws; (he then mentioned)
his laws; which, though they still remained in force, the framer of them
was dragged to a prison. But the peculiar advantages and disadvantages
of his case he would then make trial of, when an opportunity would 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. That he did not dread popular rage so much as not to place any
hope in the equity 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 acknowledge themselves bound in the same
confederacy for abolishing the right of appeal, which they charged the
decemvirs with having formed, then he appealed to the people: he
implored the benefit of the laws passed that very year, both by the
consuls and tribunes, regarding the right of appeal. For who would
appeal, if this were not allowed a person as yet uncondemned, whose case
has not been heard? what plebeian and humble individual would find
protection in the laws, if Appius Claudius could not? that he would
afford 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 empty words, or
effectually granted.

57. Virginius, on the other hand, affirmed that Appius Claudius was the
only person not entitled to a participation in the laws, nor in civil or
human society. That men should look to the tribunal, the fortress of all
villanies; where that perpetual decemvir, venting his fury on the
properties, backs, and blood of the citizens, threatening all with his
rods and axes, a despiser of gods and men, attended with executioners,
not lictors, changing his mind from rapine and murder to lust, before
the eyes of the Roman people, tore a free-born maiden, as if a prisoner
of war, from the embraces of her father, and gave her as a present to a
dependant, the pander to his secret pleasures. Where by a cruel decree,
and by a most villainous decision, he armed the right hand of