1Accordingly younger senators were sent to the camp, which was then on Mount Vecilius, and they tell the decemvirs to keep the soldiers from mutiny by every means. 2There Verginius stirred up a greater upheaval than he had left in the city. 3For besides being seen arriving with a column of nearly four hundred men, who, inflamed by the outrage of the affair, had joined him from the city as companions, the drawn knife and his own bloodstained person turned the whole camp towards him. 3And togas seen in many parts of the camp had given the impression of a city crowd considerably larger than it was. 4When they asked what had happened, he wept and for a long time uttered no word; 4at last, when the crowd running together had settled after its agitation and there was silence, he set out everything in order, as it had happened.
5Then, stretching out his hands palms upward and appealing to his fellow soldiers, he begged them not to lay to his charge what was the crime of Appius Claudius, nor to shun him as the murderer of his child. 6His daughter's life would have been dearer to him than his own, if she had been allowed to live free and chaste; 6when he saw her being carried off to rape like a slave, thinking it better for children to be lost by death than by disgrace, he had fallen through pity into the semblance of cruelty. 7Nor would he have survived his daughter, had he not had hope of avenging her death in the help of his fellow soldiers.
7For they too had daughters, sisters and wives, and Appius Claudius' lust had not been extinguished with his daughter; rather, the more unpunished it was, the more unbridled it would be. 8In another's calamity a lesson had been given them to guard against a similar wrong. 8As far as he himself was concerned, his wife had been snatched from him by fate; his daughter, because she could no longer have lived chaste, had met a wretched but honourable death; 9there was now no room for Appius' lust in his house; 9from any further violence of his he would defend his own person with the same spirit with which he had defended his daughter's; 9the rest should look to themselves and their children.
10As Verginius shouted this, the multitude shouted back that they would fail neither his grief nor their own liberty. 10And the civilians mingling with the crowd of soldiers, by making the same complaints and explaining how much more shameful these things must have seemed when seen than when heard, and at the same time by reporting that at Rome the business was already all but settled, and those who followed after, saying that Appius had been almost killed and had gone into exile, drove them to cry out 'To arms!', to pull up the standards and to set out for Rome. 12The decemvirs, confounded both by what they saw and by what they had heard had been done at Rome, run off in different directions to different parts of the camp to quell the upheaval.
12And when they acted gently, no answer is given; 12if anyone tried to exert his authority, the answer is that they are men, and armed. 13They go in column to the city and settle on the Aventine, urging the plebs, as each man met them, to regain their liberty and elect tribunes of the plebs. 13No other violent word was heard. 13Spurius Oppius holds a meeting of the senate. 14It is decided that nothing should be done harshly: indeed, the occasion for sedition had been given by themselves. 15Three envoys of consular rank are sent, Spurius Tarpeius, Gaius Julius and Publius Sulpicius, to ask in the name of the senate on whose orders they had deserted the camp, or what they meant by occupying the Aventine in arms and by turning war away from the enemy and capturing their own country.
16There was no lack of an answer to give; 16what was lacking was someone to give the answer, since there was as yet no definite leader, and individuals were not bold enough to expose themselves to resentment. 16Only this was shouted by the multitude, that they should send Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius to them: to these they would give their answer.