"Such feelings ought to be investigated"

One of the most dramatic stories in Livy's history is that of the beautiful girl, Verginia. She was the daughter of a centurion named Verginius, and was engaged to be married to an ex-tribune. One day as she was walking through the forum with her nurse, a man tried to seize her, claiming that she was his slave who had been stolen from him as a baby. Her nurse shouted for help, and a protective crowd formed. The man had to let her go, but her problems weren't over, for this man was Marcus Claudius, sent by Appius Claudius, one of the decemvirs (the ten rulers of Rome at the time). Appius had tried to seduce Verginia earlier with money and promises, and when that failed he had ordered Claudius to make the scandalous claim on her. Though that attempt didn't work, Appius didn't give up. He summoned her and her father to court. Livy records their appearance:

"Verginius entered the Forum leading his daughter by the hand--he in mourning, she in rags. With them were a number of women, and well-wishers in plenty. Moving about amongst the crowd, Verginius accosted one man after another and begged for their support--or rather, demanded it as his due; for, as he did not fail to tell them, it was for their wives and children that he stood every day in the battle-line, and no soldier had to his credit a better war record than he. But what price patriotism, if his children were doomed to suffer within the safe walls of Rome the worst horrors of a captured town?"

Since the case was judged by Appius, the same man who wanted to enslave her, the judgment was given in favor of Claudius. He could claim Verginia as a slave.

Verginius, after learning that there could be no appeal, and that his daughter was about to be taken into slavery, grabbed a knife from a nearby butcher shop and killed her. Livy records that the public outrage over this monstrous injustice ended with the overthrow of the decemvirs and the arrest of Appius, who committed suicide in prison.

Whether or not this story happened exactly the way he tells it, Livy obviously has great faith in the power of the crowd and public opinion. With this story he demonstrates that when injustice is brought to light, it will not be tolerated by the majority of people (he specifically mentions women--perhaps women were especially interested in this case because it concerned a women). The reader feels that Livy expects him to share this respect for the rule of law and the idea that when a citizen's rights are violated by one in power, it will not be tolerated.

One good reason for reading history is that you begin to see where your attitudes and beliefs come from. They have a source and are not necessarily the natural way everybody thinks. Learning about that source helps us understand ourselves. Jane Austen's Catherine Morland, my favorite history critic, finds this out when she receives a letter from her brother telling her that his heart had been broken by the false Isabella Thorpe. Catherine is distressed, but not overcome. She says to Henry Tilney, ". . .I do not feel so very, very much afflicted as one would have thought." to which he replies, "You feel, as you always do, what is most to the credit of human nature.--Such feelings ought to be investigated, that they may know themselves." One wonderful result of reading is that our feelings begin to "know themselves" as we investigate the world, past and present,