was confined not merely to rules respecting days, but also included the forms of actions. (212) Pomponius, in the extract in the Digest, represents Appius himself as the compiler of a book on the forms of actions, and says that Flavius, his scribe, stole the book from him, and gave it to the public. This collection was, he says, called 'Jus Civile Flavianum.'(218) The history of the origin of this ancient legal compilation is perhaps not altogether unmixed with fiction: it may be observed that Atticus seems to have suggested to Cicero some difficulty respecting the chronology of the received story: (214) the disclosure, however, is related to have been considered by the aristocratic party, as so great a detraction from their power, that they laid aside their rings for a time in token of grief.(215)

Diodorus states that when the censorship of Appius had expired, and he dreaded the displeasure of the Senate, he simulated blindness, and remained in his own house. (216) It is however certain that when Appius, near the close of his life, was led into the Senate-house by his sons to deliver his famous speech against the peace with Pyrrhus, his blindness was not simulated but real.(217) An entirely different cause for the

(212) Livy, ix. 46; Cic. de Orat. i. 41; Pro Mur. 11; Val. Max. ii. 5, § 2; Macrob. Saturn, i. 15, § 9. The passage respecting Flavius, cited from Calpurnius Piso, in Gell. vi. 9, is closely followed by Livy, ubi sup. Livy adds that, according to Licinius Macer, Flavius had ceased to act as a clerk before he was elected curule edile; for he had previously filled three offices inconsistent with that employment.

(213) Dig. i. 2, 2, § 7.

(214) Nam illud de Flavio et fastis, si secus est, commune erratum est; et tu belle rópηoas, et nos publicam prope opinionem secuti sumus, ut multa apud Græcos; Epist. ad Att. vi. 1, § 14.

(215) Quo facto tantâ senatus indignatione exarsit, ut annulos ab eo abjectos fuisse in antiquissimis reperiatur annalibus. . . . Annulos quoque depositos a nobilitate, in annales relatum est, non a senatu universo; Plin. ib. Livy states that this mark of grief was caused by the election of Flavius as curule edile, not by his publication of the fasti. Tantumque Flavii comitia indignitatis habuerunt, ut plerique nobilium annulos aureos et phaleras deponerent;' ix. 46.

(216) Diod. xx. 36.

(217) Appian, Samn. 10; Plut. Pyrrh. 18-9; Cic. Tusc. Quæst. v. 38; Victor de Vir. Ill. 34; Dig. iii. 1, 1, § 5. Appius Claudius Cæcus was censor in 312 B.C., and consul in 307 and 296. His speech against the peace with Pyrrhus was delivered in 279. If he was forty years old at the time of his censorship, he would have been seventy-three years old when he delivered this speech.

blindness of Appius is assigned by Livy. His account is that Appius, during his censorship, authorized the Potitii, who had the performance of certain hereditary sacerdotal rites at the Ara Maxima of Hercules, to delegate their functions to public slaves. The result of this change was reported to have been that twelve families of the Potitii, containing thirty adult men, became extinct within the year, and that Appius himself, was, within a few years, smitten with blindness. (218) A different version of this religious legend has been preserved by Festus, (219) who relates that Appius when censor induced the Potitii, by the payment of 50,000 asses, to instruct certain public slaves in the performance of their peculiar rites; whereupon the entire family of the Potitii, which consisted of twelve persons, became extinct within thirty days. It will be observed that the numbers in this story are the same as in that of Livy: but that they are differently applied. On the blindness of Appius, Festus is silent another writer, however, who speaks of the corruption of the Potitii by Appius, makes the anger of the gods fall upon him, as well as on the Potitii.(220)

The measures of Appius with respect to the Senate and the

(218) Livy, ix. 29; Val. Max. i. 1, § 17; Serv. Æn. viii. 179, gives the following account: In sacris Herculis nec servi intererant, nec liberti; adeo ut Appius, qui sacra hæc transtulit in libertos, velut quidam volunt, in servos publicos, et caruerit oculis, et intra annum omnem familiam perdiderit Pinariorum.'

(219) Quæ familia et posteri ejus non defuerunt decimantibus usque ad Ap. Claudium censorem, qui quinquaginta millia æris gravis his dedit, ut servos publicos edocerent ritum sacrificandi: quo facto Potitii, cum essent ex familiâ numero duodecim, omnes interierunt intra diem xxx.; p. 237.

(220) Potitios Herculis sacerdotes pretio corrupit, ut sacra Herculea servos publicos edocerent; unde cæcatus est; gens Potitiorum funditus periit; Victor de Vir. Ill. 34. Verum postea Appius Claudius acceptâ pecuniâ Potitios illexit, ut administrationem sacrorum Herculis servos publicos edocerent, necnon etiam mulieres admitterent. Quo facto aiunt intra dies triginta omnem familiam Potitiorum, quæ prior in sacris habebatur, extinctam; Script. de Orig. Gent. Rom. c. 8. The story is thus related by Lactantius: Appius Claudius censor, cum adversus responsum ad servos publicos sacra Herculis transtulisset, luminibus orbatus est; et Potitiorum gens, quæ prodidit, intra unius anni tempus extincta est;' De Div. Inst. ii. 7. Compare above, vol. i. p. 293.

tribes were highly popular in their tendency. (221) Nevertheless, Sempronius, in his speech against Appius for holding the censorship beyond the term fixed by law, treats him as an adherent of the high patrician party, and as sharing the hereditary political opinions of his family.(222) He is likewise described by Livy as the leader of the patrician party in resisting the proposal made by the two Ogulnii, in 300 B.C., for rendering plebeians eligible as pontiffs and augurs, and thus removing the last plebeian disqualification. (223) Hypotheses may be made for reconciling the apparent inconsistency in the political conduct of Appius ;(224) but no light is thrown upon it by Livy, or any of the ancient writers.

The distribution of the inferior town voters among all the tribes, effected by Appius, produced, according to Livy, the result, that the people was divided into two parts; the sound part of the citizens, and the faction of the forum. When however Q. Fabius and P. Decius became censors, the former, in order to diminish the influence of the lower class of voters, threw them altogether into four tribes, which he called city tribes. This measure was so well received by the people, that it earned for him his surname of Maximus, which his long series of victories had not conferred upon him.(225) What relation these four tribes bore to the four city tribes said to have been instituted by Servius, (226) is not explained.

(221) Ceterum Flavium dixerat ædilem forensis factio, Ap. Claudii censurâ vires nacta, qui senatum primus libertinorum filiis lectis inquinaverat; et postquam eam lectionem nemo ratam habuit, nec in curiâ adeptus erat quas petierat opes urbanas, humilibus per omnes tribus divisis, forum et campum corrupit; Livy, ix. 46.

(222) Livy, ix. 34.

(223) Livy, x. 7.

(224) See Niebuhr, Hist. vol. iii. p. 301-3; Lect. vol. i. p. 384-9; Arnold, vol. ii. p. 286.

(225) Livy, ix. 46; Val. Max. ii. 2, § 9. Compare Becker, ii. 1, p. 194. Dr. Arnold discredits the account of the origin of the name Maximus; he thinks that it had reference originally to personal size rather than to greatness of mind or exploits; vol. ii. p. 297. Much uncertain hypothesis is founded by Niebuhr upon the brief passage of Livy respecting the censorship of Fabius and Decius; Hist. vol. iii. p. 320-49. It is not adopted by Dr. Arnold, vol. ii. p. 297.

(226) Above, vol. i. p. 487.

The strange account in Livy, under the year 331 B.C., of an extensive system of poisoning established among the Roman matrons, is probably derived from an ancient, and perhaps from a contemporary record. In consequence of secret information given by a slave woman to Q. Fabius Maximus, who was then edile, Cornelia and Sergia, both of patrician families, were charged with the crime, and being required to drink their own mixture, died of its effects. Further investigation led to the condemnation of one hundred and seventy matrons; the prevalence of this atrocious crime was considered to amount to a prodigy, and to be the result rather of a divine seizure, than of natural pravity; and a dictator was appointed to drive a nail in the temple, a religious ceremony which was held to be a proper expiation for the calamity.(227)

The examples of the Neapolitan Tofana and of the Marquise de Brinvilliers, in modern times, show that women of a high social condition are sometimes capable of engaging in a systematic course of poisoning; but it is incredible that one hundred and seventy Roman matrons could have been really accomplices in such a crime. It is however possible that the malicious reports of slaves, combined with the fear of so secret and dangerous an offence, and the entire ignorance of toxicology which then prevailed, (228) may have created a belief in their guilt.

Notices of religious affairs-such as of the dedication of temples, of the punishment of an unchaste vestal, in 337 B.C.,(229) or of the migration of the pipe-players, in 311 B.C. (230)—are likely to have been derived from contemporary records. The accounts

(227) Livy, viii. 18; Val. Max. ii. 5, § 3; Orosius, iii. 10. The latter raises the number to 370. See above, p. 409.

(228) The account of the death of the Emperor Claudius, in Tacit. Ann. xii. 66-7, shows that even professional poisoners were not at that time very skilful.

(229) Livy, viii. 15.

(230) Livy, ix. 30. The tibicines refused to pipe at the sacrifices, and went in a body to Tibur, because the censors had deprived them of their privilege of taking their meals in the temple of Jupiter. The people of Tibur made them drunk at a festival, and sent them back to Rome in carts, where their privilege was restored them.

of the sacred offerings of the curule ediles in 296 B.C., including the statue of the she-wolf, with Romulus and Remus,(231) and of the introduction of the Greek practice of giving palms to the conquerors at the Roman games, in 293 B.C.,(232) are likewise probably authentic.

Livy has no detailed mention of prodigies at this period. In 296 B.C. he states, generally, that many prodigies occurred, and that a supplication of two days, with some other ceremonies, was in consequence decreed by the Senate.(2) In the following year, likewise, he relates that there had been showers of earth, and that several persons in the army of Appius Claudius had been struck by lightning. (234) Some prodigies recounted by Zonaras appear also to belong to this time, namely, that the altar of the Capitoline Jupiter distilled blood for three days, and honey and milk on the two consecutive days; and that a statue of Victory in the forum fell from its pedestal.(235) It is mentioned by Livy, that in 293 B.C., in consequence of the mortality caused by pestilence, the Sibylline books were consulted; and the response obtained was, that Esculapius should be brought from Epidaurus to Rome. Nothing was done in this year, beyond the appointment of a day's supplication to Æsculapius; but soon afterwards, envoys were sent to Epidaurus to fetch a statue of the god to Rome. When the Romans reached Epidaurus, the sacred serpent descended from the temple, and embarked on board their ship: it went on land, and remained for a short time on a palm-tree near a temple at Antium, and finally rested in the Insula Tiberina, where a fane was erected to Esculapius. (236)

(233) Ib. c. 23. Compare the remarks above, vol. i. p. 161–5. (234) Ib. c. 31.

(235) Zon. viii. 1. Niebuhr, on conjecture, identifies these prodigies with those mentioned in Livy, x. 23; Hist. vol. in. p. 374. See also Arnold, vol. ii. p. 335.

(236) See Livy, Epit. xi.; Val. Max. i. 8, § 2, whose account is probably derived from the lost book of Livy; Victor de Vir. Ill. 22; Ovid, Met. xv. 622-744; Orosius, iii. 22; Plut. Quæst. Rom. 94: Plin. N. H. xxix. 22.