Has it not been the practice of all other nations to hold their lands as their personal estate in absolute dominion?
But it could hardly be called humanitarian in the modern and sometimes derogatory sense of the word.
He plunged into the work of the complete reorganization of the State judicial machinery, with all the enthusiastic zeal of a born jurist, and his capacity for precise, minute work was once more brought into play.
The Bill for the more General Diffusion of Knowledge is far more philosophical in its terms.
Jefferson's practice of law had convinced him of the obscurities, contradictions, absurdities, and iniquities of the assemblage of English laws on top of which had been superimposed local regulations.
The transformation undergone by the old statutes can more easily be observed because Jefferson was careful to indicate in footnotes his authorities from the old texts, in Latin, and even in French and Anglo-Saxon.
Pendleton and Lee stood for the former methods, Wythe, Mason, and Jefferson for the latter, and this was the procedure finally adopted.
If there is "philosophy" in this statement it is common sense and certainly not sentimentality.
But are they not all that government will admit, and that human prudence can devise?
Duty, gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the chords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people.
The Decemvirs of Rome, whose name denotes their number,3 were more to be dreaded in their usurpation than any ONE of them would have been.
The Decemvirs had neglected to import the sanction of Zaleucus, which so long maintained the integrity of his republic.
The rigor of the decemvirs was tempered by the equity of the praetors.
Olivet) affirms that the decemvirs made libels a capital offence: cum perpaucas res capite sanxisent--perpaucus!
The Decemvirs had been named, and their tables were approved, by an assembly of the centuries, in which riches preponderated against numbers.
The work was accomplished in fourteen months; and the twelve books or tables, which the new decemvirs produced, might be designed to imitate the labors of their Roman predecessors.
As the manners of Rome were insensibly polished, the criminal code of the decemvirs was abolished by the humanity of accusers, witnesses, and judges; and impunity became the consequence of immoderate rigor.
The rude jurisprudence of the decemvirs had confounded all hasty insults, which did not amount to the fracture of a limb, by condemning the aggressor to the common penalty of twenty-five asses.
The decemvirs distributed with much liberality the slighter chastisements of flagellation and servitude; and nine crimes of a very different complexion are adjudged worthy of death.
The office or term of office of the decemvirs in Rome.
The most celebrated decemvirs framed "the laws of the Twelve Tables," about 450 B.
Imperial Sparta did this, and much worse—her harmosts and decemvirs are more complained of than the fact of her empire.
Such appointments presented abundant illicit profits, easy to acquire, and even difficult to avoid, since thedecemvirs in each city were eager thus to purchase forbearance or connivance for their own misdeeds.
But former assurances, though Sparta was in a condition to disregard them, were not forgotten by others; and the recollection of them imparted additional bitterness to the oppressions of the decemvirs and harmosts.
This was of itself an unspeakable exemption, when compared with the condition of cities subject, not only to the Spartan empire, but also under that empire to native decemvirslike Kritias, and Spartan harmosts like Aristarchus or Aristodemus.
It was through the instigation of Lysander, and with a view to his presence, that the decemvirs and other partisans in the subject cities had sent to Sparta to petition for Agesilaus; a prince as yet untried and unknown.
The decemvirs and the harmosts (some of the latter being Helots), the standing instruments of Spartan empire, are felt as more sorely painful than the empire itself; as the language held by Brasidas at Akanthus admits them to be beforehand.
The decemvirs of the year 303 submitted their law to the people, and it was confirmed by them, engraven on ten tables of copper, and affixed in the Forum to the rostra in front of the senate-house.
It only remained--so runs the story--for the decemvirs to publish the last two tables, and then to give place to the ordinary magistracy.
The intention seems to have been that the decemvirs should, on their retiring, propose to the people to re-elect the consuls who should now judge no longer according to their arbitrary pleasure but according to written law.
But as a supplement appeared necessary, decemvirs were again nominated in the year 304, who added two more tables.
Previously however an embassy was sent to Greece to bring home the laws of Solon and other Greek laws; and it was only on its return that the decemvirs were chosen for the year 303.
Still the decemvirs refused to lay down their power; then the army with its tribunes appeared in the city, and encamped on the Aventine.
Fall of the Decemvirs The end of the decemvirate is involved in much obscurity.
The impeachment of the decemvirs terminated in the two most guilty, Appius Claudius and Spurius Oppius, committing suicide in prison, while the other eight went into exile and the state confiscated their property.
Decemvirs A further attempt was made to get rid of the tribunician power by securing to the plebeians equality of rights in a more regular and more effectual way.
On account of these prodigies, thedecemvirs were ordered to consult the books; the nine days' festival was celebrated, a supplication proclaimed, and the city purified.
At last, the decemvirs were ordered to consult the books; and, in pursuance of their answer, a supplication was performed during three days.
Notwithstanding they ordered the decemvirs to inspect the books in regard of that prodigy; and the decemvirs, from the books, directed the same religious ceremonies which had been performed on an occasion of the same kind.
In view of the ancient tradition that the decemvirs sent to Athens a committee to study the laws written by Solon (c.
The decemvirs were finally compelled to resign and Appius Claudius died in prison, either by his own hand or by that of the executioner.
Nevertheless, thedecemvirs themselves never claimed the right to pass any law merely on their own authority.
If their term had been longer, they might well have tried to prolong it still further, as the decemvirs did when chosen for a year.
The decemvirs became exceedingly ostentatious and haughty, too, in their bearing, as well as tyrannical in their acts, so that the city was all excitement and opposition to the government that a few weeks before had been liked so well.
When the new decemvirs came into power, they soon added two new laws to the original ten, and the whole are now known, therefore, as the "Twelve Tables.
The most celebrated decemvirsframed "the laws of the Twelve Tables," about 450 B.
Then followed two events which were preserved in well-known legends, and which give the popular narrative of the manner in which the power of the decemvirs was at last overthrown.
At the close of the year the first decemvirs laid down their office, just as the consuls and other officers of state had been accustomed to do before.
The decemvirs had fallen, and the state was without any executive government.
The decemvirs probably, like the patrician burgesses in former times, regarded these inroads not without satisfaction; for they turned away the mind of the people from their sufferings at home.
As soon as the bail was given, Appius also sent a message to the decemvirs in command of that army, ordering them to refuse leave of absence to Virginius.
It was, no doubt, expected that the second decemvirs also would have held comitia for the election of successors.
This gallant veteran had taken an active part in the civil contests between the two orders, and was now suspected, by the decemvirs commanding the Sabine army, of plotting against them.
Whatever may be the truth of the legends of Siccius and Virginia, there can be no doubt that the conduct of the decemvirs had brought matters to the verge of civil war.
By the end of the year the decemvirs had added two more tables to the code, so that there were now twelve tables.
It has been supposed, as we have said above, that the government of the decemvirs was intended to be perpetual.
The first decemvirs had earned the respect and esteem of their fellow-citizens.
The only one of the olddecemvirs reelected was Appius Claudius.
No one could be appointed who was not present in Rome, which excluded Pompey, and the authority of the decemvirs was to be sanctioned by a curiate law.
The decemvirs had also the power of compelling all the generals, Pompey excepted, to account for the booty and money received during war, but not yet deposited in the treasury, or employed upon some monument.
The first board of decemvirs (apparently consisting wholly of patricians) was appointed to hold office during 451 B.
The priestly board of decemvirs (sacris faciundis) was an outcome of the claim of the plebs to a share in the administration of the state religion.
The decemvirs ruled with singular moderation, and submitted to the Comitia Centuriata a code of laws in ten headings, which was passed.
So popular were the decemvirs that another board of ten was appointed for the following year, some of whom, if the extant list of names is correct, were certainly plebeians.
The judicial board of decemvirs (stlitibus judicandis) formed a civil court of ancient origin concerned mainly with questions bearing on the status of individuals.
Five of thedecemvirs were patricians, and five plebeians.
The other eight decemvirs went into exile; and Clau'dius, the pretended master of Virgin'ia, was ignominiously banished.
The city was become almost a desert, with respect to all who had any thing to lose, and the rapacity of the decemvirs was then only discontinued when they wanted fresh subjects to exercise it upon.
If the decemvirs do not put an end to their obstinacy, will you suffer all things to go to wreck and ruin?
The decemvirs considered the violence of Appius better suited to suppress commotions in the city; that Fabius possessed a disposition rather lacking in firmness in a good purpose than energetic in a bad one.
They refused to go on any other condition than that the decemvirs should lay down the badges of that office, which they had resigned at the end of the previous year.
The story of Verginia and of the deposition and punishment of the decemvirs is unexcelled in historical narrative.
Because the official acts of the decemvirs seemed displeasing to the greater portion of the patricians, this step quieted the people with the hope that the government would be abolished through the senate.
Accordingly, some of the junior patricians, being sent to the camp which was at that time on Mount Vecilius, announced to the decemvirs that they should do their utmost to keep the soldiers from mutinying.
The commons by this time, besides that they detested the name of consuls no less than that of kings, did not even require the tribunician aid, as the decemvirs in turn allowed an appeal.
When he entered on his tribuneship, Lucius Icilius immediately brought before the people, and the people enacted, that the secession from the decemvirs which had taken place should not prove detrimental to any individual.
When the year came to a close the Decemvirs neither resigned nor held Comitia for the election of successors, but continued to hold their power in defiance of the Senate and of the People.
The other Decemvirs were allowed to go into exile, but they were all declared guilty, and their property confiscated to the state.
The Patricians compelled theDecemvirs to resign, and sent L.
The Decemvirs prevented an immediate outbreak only by burying Dentatus with great pomp, but the troops were ready to rise in open mutiny upon the first provocation.
Cassius to the appointment of the Decemvirs was a period of more than thirty years.
Decemvirs as well as triumvirs were at times appointed to make distributions of domain lands in accordance with the provisions of an agrarian law.
The fourth bill, concerning the decemvirs was almost instantly laid before the tribes and carried through them.
The Decemvirs stuck to their places with an adhesiveness that might suggest a comparison with Roman cement, but for the fact that the adhesiveness is not uncommon in modern times, though the secret of the Roman cement has perished.
The Decemvirs had now completed their allotted task; but, though elected for a limited time, they seemed determined to remain in their offices after their office hours were fairly over.
Thus it came to pass in the ninety and first year from the driving out of the kings, that decemvirs were appointed in the stead of consuls, Appius Claudius being the chief of the ten.
When the troops arrived, they and the people joined in demanding that the Decemvirs should be given up to them to be burnt alive, and that the old magistrates should be restored.
Then the true history was found out, but the Decemvirs sheltered the commanders, and would believe nothing against them.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "decemvirs" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
