Claudius till it should be proved that she was free. The wretch came up
to seize her, and the lictors kept the people from him. Virginius, now
despairing of deliverance, begged Appius to allow him to ask the maiden
whether she were indeed his daughter or not. "If," said he, "I find I am
not her father, I shall bear her loss the lighter." Under this pretence
he drew her aside to a spot upon the northern side of the Forum,
afterward called the "_Nova Tabernce_" and here, snatching up a knife
from a butcher's stall, he cried: "In this way only can I keep thee
free!"--and so saying, stabbed her to the heart. Then he turned to the
tribunal and said, "On thee, Appius, and on thy head be this blood!"
Appius cried out to seize "the murderer," but the crowd made way for
Virginius, and he passed through them holding up the bloody knife, and
went out at the gate and made straight for the army. There, when the
soldiers had heard his tale, they at once abandoned their decemviral
generals and marched to Rome. They were soon followed by the other army
from the Sabine frontier; for to them Icilius had gone, and Numitorius;
and they found willing ears among men who were already enraged by the
murder of old Siccius Dentatus. So the two armies joined their banners,
elected new generals, and encamped upon the Aventine hill, the quarter
of the plebeians.

Meantime the people at home had risen against Appius, and after driving
him from the Forum they joined their armed fellow-citizens upon the
Aventine. There the whole body of the commons, armed and unarmed, hung
like a dark cloud ready to burst upon the city.

Whatever may be the truth of the legends of Siccius and Virginia, there
can be no doubt that the conduct of the decemvirs had brought matters to
the verge of civil war. At this juncture the senate met, and the
moderate party so far prevailed as to send their own leaders, M.