Around 450 BCE, the decemvirs (Decemviri Legibus Scribundis Consulari Imperio) were charged with drawing up a legal code. The history of the Law of the Twelve Tables (Lex Duodecim Tabularum) and its extant excerpts can be found here. The laws were drawn up during two consecutive decemvirates. Appius Claudius Crassus Inregillensis Sabinus was a member of both decemvirates, and the story goes that he was an evil man – thus portraying the Claudian trait of violence and arrogance – and lusted after Verginia, the daughter of Lucius Verginius. He had her abducted, claiming she was actually a slave of one of his freedmen. In the end, Verginius asked to question his daughter himself and stabbed her to death. This affair led to the overthrow of the decemviri.
Livy compares this to the rape of Lucretia and the overthrow of the monarchy in 509 BCE. Read at History of Rome, Book 3 [3.44 ff.], called in the OCD "a magnificent narrative."
The story may or may not be an invention or a play on the story of Lucretia; it seems that the jury is still out.
There is some treatment in literature:
- Geoffrey Chaucer: The Physician's Tale (Interlinear translation)
- Thomas Babington Macaulay: Lays of Ancient Rome/Virginia (1842)
- Appius and Virginia by John Webster, a play which includes the following lines:
Have in their ruins rais'd declining Rome,
Lucretia and Virginia, both renowned
For chastity.
All Images courtesy Wikimedia Commons
Any Wikipedia page handle with care
