, and should be binding
alike upon Patricians and Plebeians.

3. That the persons of the Tribunes, AEdiles, and other Plebeian
magistrates should be sacred, and whoever injured them should be sold as
a slave.

Virginius now accused Appius Claudius, who was thrown into prison to
await his trial. But the proud Patrician, seeing that his condemnation
was certain, put an end to his own life. Oppius, another of the
Decemvirs, and the personal friend of Appius, was condemned and
executed. The other Decemvirs were allowed to go into exile, but they
were all declared guilty, and their property confiscated to the state.

The Twelve Tables were always regarded as the foundation of the Roman
law, and long continued to be held in the highest estimation. But they
probably did little more than fix in a written form a large body of
customary law, though even this was a benefit to the Plebeians, as they
were no longer subject to the arbitrary decisions of the Patrician
magistrates. The Patricians still retained their exclusive privileges;
and the eleventh table even gave the sanction of law to the old custom
which prohibited all intermarriage (_connuubium_) between the two
orders.

[Footnote 17: See note on p. 31. (Footnote 16 of this
e-text--Transcriber)]

[Illustration: View in the neighborhood of Veii.]

CHAPTER VI.

FROM THE DECEMVIRATE TO THE CAPTURE OF ROME BY THE GAULS. B.C. 448-390.

The efforts of the leaders of the Plebeians were now directed to two
subjects, the removal of the prohibition of intermarriage between the
two orders, and the opening of the Consulship to their own order. They
attained the first object four years after the Decemvirate by the Lex
Canuleia, proposed by Canuleius, one of the Tribunes (B.C. 445). But
they did not carry this law without a third secession, in which they
occupied the Janiculum. At the same time a compromise was effected with
respect to the Consulship. The Patricians agreed that the supreme power
in the state should be intrusted to new officers bearing the title of
_Military Tribunes with Consular Power_, who might be chosen equally
from Patricians and Plebeians. Their number varied in different years
from three to six. In B.C. 444 three Military Tribunes were nominated
for the first time. In the following year (443) two new magistrates,
called _Censors_, were appointed. They were always to be chosen from the
Patricians; and the reason of the institution clearly was to de