Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 4 (1897).djvu/468

444 I shall not repeat the well-known story of the Decemvirs, who sullied by their actions the honour of inscribing on brass, or wood, or ivory, the of the Roman laws. They were dictated by the rigid and jealous spirit of an aristocracy, which had yielded with reluctance to the just demands of the people. But the substance of the Twelve Tables was adapted to the state of the city; and the Romans had emerged from barbarism, since they were capable of studying and embracing the institutions of their more enlightened neighbours. A wise Epliesian was driven by envy from his native country; before he could reach the shores of Latium, he had observed the various forms of human nature and civil society; he imparted his knowledge to the legislators of Rome; and a statue was erected in the forum to the perpetual memory of Hermodorus. The names and the divisions of the copper-money, the sole coin of the infant state, were of Dorian origin; the harvests of Campania and Sicily relieved the wants of a people whose agriculture was often interrupted by war and faction; and, since the trade was established, the deputies who sailed from the Tiber might return from the same harbours with a more