Book 3
56.4
So I will pass over, Appius Claudius, all the wicked and impious things that you had the audacity to do, one after another, for the last two years. One charge only will I bring against you, that contrary to law you have adjudged a free person to be a slave, and unless you name an umpire before whom you can prove your innocence,In questions ofsimple fact, each side was at liberty to propose an umpire to sift the evidence on both sides. If they failed to agree the praetor appointed a single umpire. Appius was offered the chance of formally proving his innocence I shall order you to be taken to prison.”
56.5
Appius had nothing to hope for in the protection of the tribunes or the verdict of the people. Nevertheless he called upon the tribunes, and when none intervened to stay proceedings and he was seized by the apparitor, he said, “I appeal.”
56.6
This single word, the protection of liberty, uttered by those lips which had so lately judicially deprived a person of her freedom, produced a general silence.
56.7
Then the people remarked to one another that there were gods after all who did not neglect the affairs of men; arrogance and cruelty were visited by punishments which, though lingering, were not light;
