code of laws be drawn up, in accordance with which the consuls, who
exercised judicial powers, should render their decisions. The patricians
offered a stubborn resistance to their wishes, but finally were forced to
yield to the popular clamor.

A commission was sent to the Greek cities of Southern Italy and to Athens
to study the Grecian laws and customs. Upon the return of this embassy, a
commission of ten magistrates, who were known as decemvirs, was appointed
to frame a code of laws (451 B.C.). These officers, while engaged in this
work, were also to administer the entire government, and so were invested
with the supreme power of the state. The patricians gave up their consuls
and the plebeians their tribunes. At the end of the first year, the task
of the board was quite far from being finished, so a new decemvirate was
elected to complete the work. Appius Claudius was the only member of the
old board that was returned to the new.

The code was soon finished, and the laws were written on twelve tablets of
brass, which were fastened to the rostrum, or orator's platform in the
Forum, where they might be seen and read by all. These "Laws of the Twelve
Tables" were to Roman jurisprudence what the good laws of Solon (see p.
120) were to the Athenian constitution. They formed the basis of all new
legislation for many centuries, and constituted a part of the education of
the Roman youth--every school-boy being required to learn them by heart.

MISRULE AND OVERTHROW OF THE DECEMVIRS.--The first decemvirs used the
great power lodged in their hands with justice and prudence; but the
second board, under the leadership of Appius Claudius, instituted a most
infamous and tyrannical rule. The result was a second secession of the
plebeians to the Sacred Hill. This procedure, which once before had proved
so effectual in securing justice to the oppressed, had a similar issue