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VIRGINIA, or VERGINIA

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 117 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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VIRGINIA, or VERGINIA , in See also:Roman legendary See also:history, daughter of L. Virginius, a plebeian See also:centurion. Her beauty attracted the See also:notice of the decemvir Appius See also:Claudius, who instructed See also:Marcus Claudius, one of his clients, to claim her as his slave. Marcus accordingly brought her before Appius, and asserted that she was the daughter of one of his See also:female slaves, who had been stolen and passed off by the wife of Virginius as her own See also:child. Virginius presented him-self with his daughter before the tribunal of Appius, who, refusing to listen to any See also:argument, declared Virginia to be a slave and the See also:property of Marcus. Virginius thereupon stabbed her to the See also:heart in the presence of Appius and the See also:people. A See also:storm of popular indignation arose and the decemvirs were forced to resign. The people for the second See also:time "seceded " to the Sacred See also:Mount, and refused to return to See also:Rome until the old See also:form of See also:government was re-established. See See also:Livy iii. 44-58; See also:Dion. Halic. xi. 28-45, whose See also:account differs in some respects from Livy's; See also:Cicero, De finibus, ii.

20; Val. Max. vi. I. 2; for a See also:

critical examination of the See also:story and its connexion with the downfall of the decemvirs, see See also:Sir G. Cornewall See also:Lewis, Credibility of See also:Early Roman History, ii.; See also:Schwegler, Romische Geschichte, bk. See also:xxx. 4, 5; also E. Pais, See also:Ancient Legends of Roman History (Eng. trans. 1906), p. 185, according to whom the legends of Virginia and See also:Lucretia (two different versions of one and the same story, connecting the history of Roman See also:liberty with the martyrdom of a woman) are nothing but See also:late elaborations of legends connected with the cults of See also:Ardea.

End of Article: VIRGINIA, or VERGINIA

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