A greater man than he, was Spurius Cassius, who rendered public services of the greatest magnitude, yet a man whose illustrious deeds no poet sang. He lived in a great crisis, when the Etruscan war had destroyed the Roman dominions on the right bank of the Tiber, and where the Volscians and Acquians were advancing with superior forces. Rome was in danger of being conquered, and not only conquered, but reduced to servitude. But he concluded a league with the Latins, and also with the Hernicians—a Sabine people, who dwelt in one of the valleys of the Appenines, by which the power of Rome was threatened. He is also known as the first who proposed an agrarian law. It seems that the patricians had occupied the public lands to the exclusion of the plebeians. Spurius Cassius proposed to the Comitia Centuriata that the public domain—land obtained by conquest—should be measured, and a part reserved for the use of the State, and another portion distributed among the needy citizens—a just proposition, since no property held by individuals was meddled with. This popular measure was carried against violent opposition, but when the term of office of Cassius as consul expired, he was accused before the curiæ, who assumed the right to judge a patrician, and he lost his life. He was accused of seeking to usurp regal power, because he had sought to protect the commons against his own order. “His law was buried with him, but its spectre haunted the rich, and again and again it arose from its tomb, till the conflicts to which it led destroyed the commonwealth.”
Fabius. Increased power of plebians.
The following seven years was a period of incessant war [pg 415] with the Acquians and Veientines, as well as dissensions in the city, during which the great house of the Fabii arose to power, for Fabius was chosen consul seven successive years, and even proposed the execution of the agrarian law of Cassius, for which he was scorned by the patricians, and left Rome in disgust, with his family, and all were afterward massacred by the Veientines. But one of the tribunes accused the consuls for their opposition of the tribunes for the execution of the agrarian law. He was assassinated. This violation of the sacred person of a tribune created great indignation among the commons, and Volero, a tribune, proposed the celebrated “Publilian Law,” that the tribunes henceforth, as well as the plebeian ædiles, should be elected by the plebeians themselves in the Comitia Tributa. Great disorders followed, but the commons prevailed, and the Senate adopted the plebiscitum, and proposed it to the Comitia Curiata, and it became a law. This step raised the authority of the tribunes, and added to Roman liberties.
The dictatorship of Cincinnatus.
The critical condition of Rome, from the renewed assaults of the Acquians and Volscians, led to the appointment of another very remarkable man to the dictatorship—L. Quintius Cincinnatus, a patrician, who maintained the virtues of better days. He cultivated a little farm of four jugera with his own hands, and lived with great simplicity. He summoned every man of military age to meet him in the Campus Martius, and these were provided with rations for five days. He then marched against the triumphant enemy, surrounded them, and compelled them to surrender. He made no use of his political power, and after sixteen days, laid down the dictatorship, and retired to his farm, B.C. 458. All subsequent ages and nations have embalmed the memory of this true patriot, who preferred the quiet labors of his small farm of three and a half acres to the enjoyment of absolute power.
But his victory was not decisive, and the Romans continued to be harassed by the neighboring nations, and they, [pg 416] moreover, suffered all the evils of pestilence. It was at this time, in the three hundredth year of the city, that they sought to make improvements in their laws—at least, to embody laws in a written form. Greece was then in the height of her glory, in the interval between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, and thither a commission was sent to examine her laws, especially those of Solon, at Athens. On the return of the three commissioners, a new commission of ten was appointed to draw up a new code, composed wholly of patricians, at the head of which was Appius Claudius, consul elect, a man of commanding influence and talents, but ill-regulated passions and unscrupulous ambition. The new code was engraved upon ten tables, and subsequently two more tables were added, and these twelve tables are the foundation of the Roman jurisprudence, that branch of science which the Romans carried to considerable perfection, and for which they are most celebrated. The jurisprudence of Rome has survived all her conquests, and is the most valuable contribution to civilization which she ever made.
The decemvirs.—Appius Claudius.
The decemvirs—those who codified the laws—came into supreme power, and suspended the other great magistracies, and ruled, under the direction of Appius Claudius, in an arbitrary and tyrannical manner. Their power came to an end in a signal manner, and the history of their fall is identified with one of the most beautiful legends of this heroic age, which is also the subject of one of Macaulay's lays.
His injustice and punishment.
Appius Claudius, who perhaps aspired to regal power, became enamored of the daughter of a centurion, L. Virginius. In order to gratify his passions, Claudius suborned a false accuser, one of his clients, who was to pretend that the mother of Virginia had been his slave. Appius sat in judgment, and against his own laws, and also the entreaties of the people, declared her to be the slave of the accuser. Her father returned from the army, and in his indignation plunged a dagger in her breast, preferring her [pg 417] death to shame. The people and soldiers rallied around the courageous soldier, took the capitol, and compelled the decemvirs to lay down their office. The result of this insurrection was the creation of ten tribunes instead of the old number, and ten continued to be the regular number of tribunes till the fall of the republic. It was further decreed that the votes of the plebs, passed in the Comitia Tributa, should be binding on the whole people, provided they were confirmed by the Senate and the assemblies of the curias and centuries. The persons of the tribunes were declared to be inviolable, under the sanctions of religion, and they, moreover, were admitted to the deliberations of the Senate, though without a vote. Thus did the commons ascend another step in political influence, B.C. 449. The next movement of the commons was to take vengeance on Appius Claudius, who ended his life in prison.