anxiety for the interests of the Roman commons, owing to which he had resigned the consulship, to the very great displeasure of the patricians, for the purpose of equalizing the laws; he then went on to mention those laws of his, the framer of which was dragged off to prison, though the laws still remained in force.  However, in regard to what bore especially on his own case, his personal merits and demerits, he would make trial of them, when an opportunity should be afforded him of stating his defence; at present, he, a Roman citizen, demanded, by the common right of citizenship, that he be allowed to speak on the day appointed, and to appeal to the judgment of the Roman people:  he did not dread popular odium so much as not to place any hope in the fairness and compassion of his fellow-citizens.  But if he were led to prison without being heard, that he once more appealed to the tribunes of the people, and warned them not to imitate those whom they hated.  But if the tribunes acknowledged themselves bound by the same agreement for abolishing the right of appeal, which they charged the decemvirs with having conspired to form, then he appealed to the people, he implored the aid of the laws passed that very year, both by the consuls and tribunes, regarding the right of appeal.  For who would there be to appeal, if this were not allowed a person as yet uncondemned, whose case had not been heard?  What plebeian or humble individual would find protection in the laws, if Appius Claudius could not?  That he would be a proof whether tyranny or liberty was established by the new laws, and whether the right of appeal and of challenge against the injustice of magistrates was only held out in idle words, or really granted.

Verginius, on the other hand, affirmed that Appius Claudius was the only person who had no part or share in the laws, or in any covenant civil or human.  Men should look to the tribunal, the fortress of all villainies, where that perpetual decemvir, venting his fury on the property, person, and life of the citizens, threatening all with his rods and axes, a despiser of gods and men, surrounded by men who were executioners, not lictors, turning his thoughts from rapine and murder to lust, tore a free-born maiden, as if she had been a prisoner of war, from the embraces of her father, before the eyes of the Roman people, and gave her as a present to a dependent, the minister to his secret pleasures:  where too by a cruel decree, and a most outrageous decision, he armed the right hand of the father against the daughter:  where he ordered the betrothed and uncle, on their raising the lifeless body of the girl, to be led away to prison, affected more by the interruption of his lust than by her death:  that the prison was built for him also which he was wont to call the domicile of the Roman commons.  Wherefore, though he might appeal again and again, he himself would again and again propose a judge, to try him on the charge of having sentenced a free person to slavery; if he would not go before a judge, he ordered him to be taken to prison as one already condemned.  He was thrown into prison, though without the disapprobation of any individual, yet not without considerable emotion of the public mind, since, in consequence of the punishment by itself of so distinguished a man, their own liberty began to be considered by the commons themselves as excessive.[63]