endured even for two centuries after the time assigned to Coriolanus.
We have now, indeed, arrived at a period of their sore trial, though it
was preceded by some events that seemed to promise them good. In the
year 454, Lucius Icilius, one of the tribunes of the people, managed to
have the whole of the Aventine Hill given up to them, and as it was,
after the Capitoline, the strongest of all the seven, their political
importance was of course increased. It was but a few years later (B.C.
451) when, according to tradition, after long and violent debates it
was decided that a commission should be sent to Athens, or to some
colony of the Greeks, to learn what they could from the principles of
government adopted by that ancient and wise people, which was then at
the very height of its prosperity and fame. After this commission had
made its report (in the year B.C. 450), all the important magistrates,
including the consuls, tribunes, and ædiles, were replaced by ten
patricians, known as Decemvirs (_decem_, ten, _vir_, a man), appointed
to prepare a new code of laws.

The chief of this body was an Appius Claudius, son of the haughty
patrician of the same name, and equally as haughty as he ever was. The
laws of Rome before this time had been in a mixed condition, partly
written and partly unwritten and traditional; but now all were to be
reduced to order, and incorporated with those two laws that could not
be touched--that giving the Aventine to the plebeians, and the sacred
law settled on the Roman Runnymede after the first secession to the
Sacred Mount. After a few months the ten men produced ten laws, which
were written out and set up in public places for the people to read and
criticise. Suggestions for alterations might be made, and if the ten
men approved them, they made them a part of their report, after which
all was submitted to the senate and the curiæ, and finally approved.
The whole code of laws was then engraved on ten tables of enduring