The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

While the rest of the Decemvirs were disgusting the people by their tyranny, Appius was proceeding to render himself one of those objects of contempt at which not only the Roman nose, but the nose of all humanity, was destined to turn up, and at which scorn was to point her imperishable finger-post.

Virginia carried off by a Minion in the pay of Appius.

A centurion, named Virginius, had an only daughter, named Virginia, whom her father, with a want of caution pardonable, perhaps, in a widower, permitted to go backwards and forwards alone through the public streets to a private day-school.[20] The young lady, in all the playful innocence of sixteen, was in the habit of dancing and singing along the thoroughfare, when the smallness of her feet, and the beauty of her voice, struck the eye and ear of Appius. According to some authorities, Virginia was attended by a nurse-maid; but it is scarcely necessary to remark, that the same fatal fascination, which in military neighbourhoods attracts female attention from children that ought to be, to men that are, in arms, was no less powerful in the Via Sacra than in Rotten Row,—by the banks of the Tiber, than on the shores of the Serpentine. One morning, as Virginia was passing through the market-place, on her way to the seminary, with her tablets and school-bag—or more familiarly speaking, her slate and satchel—on her arm, a minion, under the dominion of Appius, seized an opportunity for seizing the maiden by the wrist. The nurse was either absent, or more probably talking to one of the officers on duty round the corner; for the fasces were as irresistible to the female servants of the day, as the honied words and oilskin capes of a similar class of officials at a much later period. Virginia screamed for assistance, and they only who have heard the cry of a female in distress, can imagine the shrillness of the shriek that rang through the market. Marcus—for such was the minion's name—was instantly surrounded by a circle of respectable tradesmen, who knew and desired to rescue Virginia. The smith, though he had other irons in the fire, left his bellows to deal Marcus a blow; the butcher, with uplifted cleaver, was preparing a most extensive chop; and the money-changer was just on the point of paying off the ruffian in a new kind of coin, when he declared Virginia to be his slave, and announced himself as the client of the dreaded Appius. At this formidable name, the smith's work seemed to be done, the butcher became a senseless block, and there was a sudden change in the note of the money-changer.

The officer on duty, who had arrested the attention of the nurse, being at length called away by some trifling charge, had left her at leisure to look after the more precious charge with which she had been entrusted. As those usually talk the loudest who do the least, the remonstrances of the female attendant were, no doubt, vehement in proportion to her neglect; and, indeed, the confusion created by the shrieks of the nurse was rather calculated to draw off the attention of the crowd from Virginia herself, who was carried away by Marcus, with an intimation that he should at once take the case before a magistrate. Among the other consequences of the neglect of the maid, was an attachment that had sprung up between the day-school miss and a young gentleman, named Icilius. This impetuous youth, having heard of what had happened, proceeded to the court at which the case was about to come on, and which was presided over by the tyrant Appius. Icilius prayed for an adjournment, on the ground of the absence of the young lady's father; and it was found impossible to resist the application of such an earnest solicitor. This point having been conceded, the friends of Virginia applied for her admission to bail; and there was such a general tender of securities among the throng, that Appius felt he could not calculate on his own security if he refused the request that had been made to him. The next morning the matter again came on, in the shape of a remanded case; and Virginius, who had been on duty with his regiment the day before, was now present at the hearing.

Had there been in those days the same love of the horrible that has prevailed in our own times, the startling incident of a girl killed by her own father, would have probably come down to us, through the medium of the fullest reports, amplified by "other accounts," and a long succession of "latest particulars." We must, however, on the present occasion, be satisfied with the merest summary; for the Romans, in the time of Appius, were equally destitute of relish for the details of the spilling of blood, and of "family Sunday newspapers," whose respectable proprietors are always ready to avail themselves of a sanguinary affair, with an eagerness that seems to show that they look upon blood as essential to the vitality of a journal, and involving the true theory of the circulation. It remains only to be told, that Virginius, after taking leave of his daughter, and finding her escape from the power of Appius impossible, stabbed her with a knife, snatched up from a butcher's stall, and, brandishing the weapon in the air, threatened perdition to the tyrant. Appius, at the sight of the blood-stained steel, felt his heart fluttering, as if affected by magnetic influence; and losing, for the time, his own head, he offered ten thousand pounds of copper for that of Virginius.[21]

It is the common characteristic of a moving spectacle to strike every one motionless; and the guards of Appius, when ordered to seize Virginius, found themselves fixed to the spot by so many stirring incidents. In vain did Appius call upon his clients and his lictors to do their duty. Among all his numerous attendants there was not a sole but shook in its shoe, while the tyrant trembled from head to foot with bootless anger. Urged at length by the commands of Appius, the officers attempted to clear the spot, when a severe scuffle ensued, and the authorities were assailed with all sorts of missiles. The market-place supplied abundance of ammunition. Ducks and geese flew in all directions. Some of the lictors found calves' heads suddenly lighting on their shoulders. Others, who were treated, or rather maltreated, with oysters, suffered severely from an incessant discharge of shells, and many received the entire contents of a Roman feast, ab ovo usque ad malum,—from the assault and battery of the egg, to the malum in se of a well-aimed apple. The stalls of the dealers in vegetables were speedily cleared of their contents; and a trembling lictor, smothered—like a rabbit—in onions, might be seen, trying to creep away unperceived, while others, who were receiving their desert in the form of fresh fruit, fled, under a smart shower of grape, from the fury of the populace. At length, the stock of the market being exhausted, the assailants had recourse to stones; and Appius, feeling that he was within a stone's throw of his life, entreated the lictors to remove him from the scene of danger. Four of the stoutest of his attendants, hoisting his curule chair on to their shoulders, made the best of their way home, where Appius at length arrived, with the apple of his eye damaged by a blow from a pear, his mouth choked with indignation and mud, his lips blue with rage and grape juice, his robe caked with confectionary, and his head, which had been made spongy with the loaves thrown at it, affected with a sort of drunken roll.[22] Such is the melancholy portrait which historical truth compels us to draw of the unhappy Appius, for whom, however, no pity can be felt, even though his case and his countenance presented many very sad features. The assault in the market-place must have rendered it difficult for an artist of the day to have taken his likeness, after the carrots, whirling about his head, had settled in his hair, the rich oils having given to his Roman nose a touch of grease, and the eggs thrown by the populace, who continued to egg each other on, having lengthened his round cheeks into an oval countenance.

Appius Claudius punished by the People.

Having gained his palace, the wretched tyrant ran up stairs, in the hope that he might save himself by such a flight; but he was overtaken, and thrown into gaol, where he, who had hitherto been permitted to do precisely as he pleased, was allowed just rope enough to hang himself; a process, it is believed, he performed, though the subject is so knotty, that we are not prepared to disentangle it.