Among their misdeeds two were especially notable.  There was a certain Sicinius in the host, a man of singular strength and courage, who took it ill that the Ten should thus set themselves above all law, and was wont to say to his comrades that the commons should depart from the city as they had done in time past, or should at the least make them tribunes to be their champions as of old.  This Sicinius the Ten sent on before the army, there being then war with the Sabines, to search out a place for a camp; and with him they sent certain others, bidding them slay him when they should have come to some convenient place.  This they did, but not without suffering much loss; for the man fought for his life and defended himself, slaying many of his enemies.  Then they that escaped ran into the camp, saying that Sicinius had fallen into an ambuscade, and had died along with certain others of the soldiers.  At the first, indeed, this story was believed; but afterward, when, by permission of the Ten, there went some to bury the dead, they found that none of the dead bodies had been spoiled, and that Sicinius lay with his arms in the midst, the others having their faces toward him; also that there was no dead body of an enemy in the place, nor any track as of them that had gone from the place; for which reasons they brought back tidings that Sicinius had certainly been slain by his own comrades.  At this there was great wrath in the camp; and the soldiers were ready to carry the body of Sicinius to Rome, but that the Ten made a military funeral for him at the public cost.  So they buried Sicinius with great lamentation; but the Ten were thereafter in very ill repute among the soldiers.

Again, there was a certain centurion, Lucius Virginius by name, an upright man and of good credit both at home and abroad.  This Virginius had a daughter, Virginia, a very fair and virtuous maiden, whom he had espoused to a certain Icilius that had once been a tribune of the commons.  On this maiden Appius Claudius, the chief of the Ten, sought to lay hands, and for this end gave commandment to one Marcus Claudius, who was one of the clients of his house, that he should claim the girl for a slave.  On the morrow therefore, as Virginia passed across the market-place, being on her way to school (for the schools in those days were held in the market-place), this Claudius seized her, affirming that she was born of a woman that was a slave, and was therefore by right a slave herself.  The maiden standing still for fear, the nurse that attended her set up a great cry and called the citizens to help.  Straightway there was a great concourse, for many knew the maiden’s father Virginius, and Icilius to whom she was betrothed.  Then said Claudius, seeing that he could not take her by force, “There is no need of tumult or of gathering a crowd.  I would proceed by law, not by force.”  Thereupon he summoned the girl before the judge.  When they came to the judgment-seat of Appius the man