1Gaius Claudius, who out of loathing for the crimes of the decemvirs, and hostile above all to the arrogance of his brother's son, had withdrawn to Regillum, his ancestral home, now a man of great age, having returned to plead against the dangers facing the man whose vices he had fled, went about the Forum in mourning dress with his kinsmen and clients, taking men one by one by the hand and begging them not to wish to brand the Claudian clan with such a stain that they should seem to deserve prison and chains. 2A man whose portrait mask would be held in the highest honour by posterity, the proposer of the laws and founder of Roman jurisprudence, was lying in chains among night thieves and robbers.
3Let them turn their minds for a little while from anger to inquiry and reflection, and rather pardon one man at the plea of so many Claudii than spurn the prayers of many out of hatred of one. 4He himself too was doing this for the sake of his family and name, and he had not been reconciled with the man whose misfortune he wished to relieve. 4By courage their liberty had been recovered; 4by clemency the harmony of the orders could be made firm. 5There were some whom he moved, more by his own devotion than by the cause of the man for whom he pleaded; 5but Verginius begged them rather to pity him and his daughter, and to listen to the prayers not of the Claudian clan, which had obtained by lot a kingship over the plebs, but of Verginia's kinsmen, the three tribunes, who, though created to help the plebs, were themselves imploring the protection and help of the plebs.
6These tears seemed more just. 6And so, his hope cut off, before the appointed day arrived Appius took his own life. 7Soon afterwards Spurius Oppius was seized by Publius Numitorius; he stood next in odium, because he had been in the city when the unjust award of custody was pronounced by his colleague. 8Yet an injury he had committed brought Oppius more odium than the one he had not prevented. 8A witness was brought forward who, having counted up twenty-seven campaigns and been decorated eight times for special distinction, and wearing those decorations in sight of the people, tore open his garment and showed his back mangled by rods, making no objection, if the defendant could name any offence of his, to his raging against him a second time as a private citizen.
9Oppius 9too was led off to prison, and before the day of his trial he ended his life there. 9The tribunes confiscated the property of Claudius and Oppius. 9Their colleagues left their native soil to go into exile: their property was confiscated. 10Marcus Claudius too, the claimant of Verginia, was condemned on the day appointed, but, since Verginius himself remitted the extreme penalty, he was released and went off to Tibur in exile; and the shade of Verginia, happier in death than in life, having wandered through so many houses in quest of vengeance, at last found rest, with no guilty man left.