stop short in the middle of a victorious campaign to hinder their consul
from having a triumph. Even Sicinius is said once to have acted thus,
and it began to be plain that Rome must fall if it continued to be thus
divided against itself.

[Illustration]




CHAPTER X.

THE DECEMVIRS.

B.C. 450.


The Romans began to see what mischiefs their quarrels did, and they
agreed to send three of their best and wisest men to Greece to study the
laws of Solon at Athens, and report whether any of them could be put in
force at Rome.

To get the new code of laws which they brought home put into working
order, it was agreed for the time to have no consuls, prætors, nor
tribunes, but ten governors, perhaps in imitation of the nine Athenian
archons. They were called Decemvirs (_decem_, ten; _vir_, a man),
and at their head was Lucius Appius Claudius, the grandson of him who had
killed himself to avoid being condemned for his harshness. At first they
governed well, and a very good set of laws was drawn up, which the
Romans called the Laws of the Ten Tables; but Appius soon began to give