CHAPTER X.
THE DECEMVIRS.
B.C.

450.
The Romans began to see what mischiefs their quarrels did, and they agreed to send three of their best and wisest men to Greece to study the laws of Solon at Athens, and report whether any of them could be put in force at Rome.
To get the new code of laws which they brought home put into working order, it was agreed for the time to have no consuls, praetors, nor tribunes, but ten governors, perhaps in imitation of the nine Athenian archons.

They were called Decemvirs (_decem_, ten; _vir_, a man), and at their head was Lucius Appius Claudius, the grandson of him who had killed himself to avoid being condemned for his harshness.

At first they governed well, and a very good set of laws was drawn up, which the Romans called the Laws of the Ten Tables; but Appius soon began to give way to the pride of his nature, and made himself hated.

There was a war with the AEqui, in which the Romans were beaten.