for early periods was followed in later times, and as there is nothing in these occurrences which a skilful restorer might not have produced, it is impossible for us to form any sure judgment on their authenticity.(219)

(219) See above, vol. i. p. 165.

PART III.-FROM THE TERENTILLIAN ROGATION TO THE OVERTHROW OF THE DECEMVIRAL GOVERNMENT.

(462-449 B.C.)

§ 36 IT is a peculiarity of the constitutional history of Rome, as it is related to us, that after an agitation of some years for one demand of the popular party, another demand succeeds, without any apparent redress of the former grievance, or any distinct explanation of the reason why one claim is abandoned, and another takes its place. The first grievance of the plebeians is the Law of Debt, which produces the first secession: but Livy and Cicero both describe this movement as leading only to the establishment of the tribunate, and not to a remission of debts, or to an alteration of the law of insolvency. Yet from this time the complaints about the law of debt cease, and the agrarian movement takes its place. Both historians represent the patricians as making a successful stand against a division of public land among the plebeians, until the sending of a colony to Antium in 467 B.C.: nevertheless, from this year the agrarian question falls into the background, and another subject steps into the most prominent place. Livy and Dionysius indeed differ as to the course of the agrarian agitation; for whereas the former conceives the tribunes as proposing a series of laws, all of which are successfully resisted by the patricians, the latter states that the Senate in the year of Cassius passed a general measure for the division of the public lands, but that the successive consuls never would carry it into effect; that a solemn compact made between the Senate and the plebs was broken; and that the efforts of the tribunes were directed exclusively towards procuring the execution of the unexecuted decree. In the practical result however, that the division of the public lands was averted by the patricians, they concur.

The question which now supersedes the agrarian movement in importance, is the proposal for a code of written laws, made by the tribune Terentillus. The account which Dionysius gives

is, that under the kings there were no written laws, and that their jurisdiction was arbitrary; that this system had been continued under the Republic, with a mere transfer of the jurisdiction to aristocratic magistrates; and that a few regulations, having the force of law, were alone preserved in sacred books, accessible to none but patricians. A proposal to meet this evil, and to introduce a written enactment of equal rights to all the citizens, was made by C. Terentillus, and reduced into a more precise form by A. Virginius in the following year. The proposition of Virginius was, that ten men, of advanced age, distinguished by their wisdom and good character, should be elected by the people in a legal assembly: that these persons should collect and put in writing the laws on all subjects affecting the public and private rights of the citizens; and that this written statute should be preserved in the forum, as a standard both for magistrates and private persons. The tribunes announced their intention of putting this measure to the vote in comitia tributa. (1) Livy places the subject in a different light: he describes the law proposed by Terentillus as having no reference to the want of written laws, or to the inequality of the rights of the citizens, but as aimed exclusively at the excessive powers of the consuls, and as intended to limit their discretionary authority. According to his statement, the proposition is that five commissioners be appointed to prepare a law for defining the powers of the consuls.)

8 37 This rogation (whatever was its precise nature) was met with strenuous opposition by the patricians, and violent commotions took place, in which Kæso Quinctius, the son of L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, distinguished himself by his impetuosity. The tribunes decide to impeach him, but the people, moved by his father's arguments and entreaties, are about to

;

(1) Dion. Hal. x. 1-3. Dionysius calls the tribune Caius Terentius Livy calls him C. Terentillus Arsa: but his MSS. vary between Terentius, Terentillus, and Terentillius, or Terentilius, iii. 9. See Niebuhr, vol. ii. n. 634. (2) iii. 9-10. The words attributed to him are: Quæ ne æterna illis licentia sit, legem se promulgaturum, ut quinque viri creentur legibus de imperio consulari scribendis. Legibus here does not mean 'laws,' but conditions,' 'restrictive regulations.'

vote his acquittal, when M. Volscius Fictor() charges him from his personal knowledge, with a brutal homicide and outrage, committed two years before, at the time of the plague, upon his own brother. The trial of Kæso for this new charge is postponed, and he is admitted to bail;(4) but before the day of trial, he goes into exile: the money is exacted from his ten sureties by the tribunes, but is replaced by his father, who is thus reduced to live in penury in a small cabin beyond the Tiber.(5) These circumstances are clearly narrated by both historians. They agree in considering Volscius as a false witness; though it is difficult to reconcile this view with their account of the conduct of K. Quinctius when the accusation is made. Dionysius states distinctly that the testimony of Volscius was false; that the charge was fabricated by the tribunes, and that Kæso, as became afterwards manifest, was the victim of a malicious conspiracy.(6) He does not indeed mention how or when this discovery was made; nor does he revert to the subject; but we obtain from Livy an account of the circumstances to which he probably alludes. Two years after the exile of Kaso, the quæstors Cornelius and Servilius gave notice of trial to Volscius, on the ground that he testified falsely against Kæso: they undertook to prove that the brother of Volscius, whom he alleged to have been killed by Käeso in the open street, had died of the plague, and had never risen from his bed; they likewise offered to establish an alibi by the evidence of witnesses who had been with Kæso in the field with the army at the time when the supposed offence was committed. Volscius did not venture to meet the charge: but the tribunes were able to postpone the

(3) Dionysius says that he was one of the tribunes of the year; Livy, that he had been a tribune some years before.

(4) According to Livy, this was the first occasion on which a person accused of a public crime was admitted to bail: hic primus vades publicos dedit, ii. 13.

(5) Dion. Hal. x. 4-8: Livy, iii. 11-14. The latter states that the money was exacted with severity from the father by the tribunes: pecunia a patre exacta crudeliter, iii. 13. Dionysius says that it was paid voluntarily to the sureties.

(6) Καίσων μὲν οὖν τοιαύτη περιπεσὼν ἐπιβουλῇ, κατασκευασαμένων ἅπαντα

trial till the following year, when the notice was renewed by the quæstors, and the trial was finally brought on by the dictator, L. Quinctius Cincinnatus, the father of Kæso, when Volscius was condemned, and went into exile at Lanuvium; but this proceeding could only purge the memory of Kæso, and could not restore him to his country, as he had already died in exile.(^) From this account it follows that Livy means to represent Volscius as having given wilfully false testimony against Kæso, and as having been justly condemned but it is not so easy to understand why, if Kæso had been absent from Rome with the army at the time when the homicide was alleged to have been committed, and if the murdered man had died a natural death, he should not have met his accuser, and have made an attempt to establish a defence which rested on such patent facts, instead of shrinking from a trial, and going, before the day appointed for it, into exile. A similar view as to the innocence of Quinctius is also contained in the speech Pro Domo (which, if it be not the genuine work of Cicero, is earlier than Quintilian). He is there stated not only to have been unjustly condemned, but to have been afterwards recalled from banishment by the people.()

The improbabilities of the preceding account seem so great to Hooke, that he supposes Kæso to have been guilty not only of the misdemeanors with which the tribunes charged him, but

τῶν δημάρχων, καὶ Οὐολουσκίου ψευδῆ μαρτυρήσαντος, ὡς ἐγένετο φανερὸν σὺν χρόνῳ, φεύγων εἰς Τυρρηνίαν ᾤχετο; Dion. Hal. x. 8. In a subsequent speech, Appius blames the senate for having allowed K. Quinctius to be condemned upon false charges: ὅτε Κοίντιον Καίσωνα τῷ παρελθόντι ἐνιαυτῷ κρίνειν ἐπ ̓ αἰτίαις ψευδέσιν εἰάσατε, c. 13.

(7) Livy, iii. 13, 24, 25, 29. The notice of Kæso's death is given obliquely in the following sentence: Is [T. Quinctius Capitolinus, one of the quæstors] quoniam neque Quinctiæ familiæ Kæso, neque reipublicæ maximus juvenum restitui posset, falsum testem, qui dicendæ caussæ innoxio potestatem ademisset, justo ac pio bello persequebatur.' c. 25. From this passage it appears that Livy considers Kæso to be already dead, and Volscius to have been a false witness. In what manner Volscius deprived Kæso of the power of making his defence, does not appear.

(8) At vero, ut annales populi Romani et monumenta vetustatis loquuntur, Caso ille Quintius, et M. Furius Camillus, et M. Servilius Ahala, cum essent optime de republicâ meriti, tamen populi incitati vim iracundiamque subierunt; damnatique comitiis centuriatis cum in exilium profugissent, rursus ab eodem populo placato sunt in suam pristinam dignitatem restituti. Cic. pro Domo, c. 32. Dionysius represents the trials of