Shortly afterwards, when the authors of the false charges had removed to Tarentum, they began to see how they had been hoodwinked, but it was then too late, events were no longer in their power, and nothing remained but unavailing repentance.

This year (326 B.C.> was marked by the dawn, as it were, of a new era of liberty for the plebs; creditors were no longer allowed to attach the persons of their debtors. This change in the law was brought about by a signal instance of lust and cruelty upon the part of a moneylender.

L. Papirius was the man in question. C. Publilius had pledged his person to him for a debt which his father had contracted. The youth and beauty of the debtor which ought to have called forth feelings of compassion only acted as incentives to lust and insult.

Finding that his infamous proposals only filled the youth with horror and loathing, the man reminded him that he was absolutely in his power and sought to terrify him by threats. As these failed to crush the boy's noble instincts, he ordered him to be stripped and beaten.

Mangled and bleeding the boy rushed into the street and loudly complained of the usurer's lust and brutality.

A vast crowd gathered, and on learning what had happened became furious at the outrage offered to one of such tender years, reminding them as it did of the conditions under which they and their children were living.

They ran into the Forum and from there in a compact body to the Senate-house.

In face of this sudden outbreak the consuls felt it necessary to convene a meeting of the senate at once, and as the members entered the House the crowd exhibited the lacerated back of the youth and flung themselves at the feet of the senators as they passed in one by one. The strongest bond and support of credit was there and then overthrown through the mad excesses of one individual.

The consuls were instructed by the senate to lay before the people a proposal “that no man be kept in irons or in the stocks, except such as have been guilty of some crime, and then only till they have worked out their sentence; and, further, that the goods and not the person of the debtor shall be the security for the debt.”

So the nexi The nexi were those who had given personal security, and if they failed to redeem themselves by payment on the given day, they were brought before the praetor to be adjudged(addictus) to the creditor, who then took them as his bondsmen. By these laws, therefore, the nexum as a form of security was declared illegal. were released, and it was forbidden for any to become nexi in the future.

TheWar with the Vestinians. Samnite war, the sudden dejection of the Lucanians, and the fact that the Tarentines had been the instigators were quite sufficient in themselves to cause the senators anxiety.

Fresh trouble, however, arose this year through the action of the Vestinians, who made common cause with the Samnites The matter had been a good deal discussed, though it had not yet occupied the attention of the government. In the following year, however, the new consuls, L. Furius Camillus and Junius Brutus Scaeva, made it the very first question to bring before the senate.

Though the subject was no new one, yet it was felt to be so serious that the senators shrank from either taking it up or refusing to deal with it They were afraid that if they left that nation unpunished, the neighboring states might be encouraged to make a similar display of wanton arrogance, while to punish them by force of arms might lead others to fear similar treatment and arouse feelings of resentment.

In fact, the whole of these nations —the Marsi, the Paeligni, and the Marrucini —were quite as warlike as the Samnites, and in case the Vestinians were attacked would have to be reckoned with as enemies.

The victory, however, rested with that party in the senate who seemed at the time to possess more daring than prudence, but the result showed that Fortune favours the bold.