Neither the threats of the commons, nor the entreaties of the senate, could ever persuade him not only to change his garb, or address persons as a suppliant, but not even so far as to soften or relax any thing from the usual asperity of his style, when his cause was to be pleaded before the people.

The expression of his countenance was the same; the same stubbornness in his looks, the same spirit of pride in his language; so that a great part of the commons felt no less awe of Appius when arraigned, than they had felt of him when consul.

He pleaded his cause once, and with the same spirit of an accuser which he had been accustomed to adopt on all occasions: and he so far astounded both the tribunes and the commons by his intrepidity, that, of their own accord, they postponed the day of trial; then they allowed the matter to be protracted.

Nor was the time now very distant; before, however, the appointed day came, he dies of some disease; and when the tribunes of the people endeavoured to impede his funeral panegyric,[102] the commons would not allow that the last day of so great a man should be defrauded of the usual honours; and they listened to the panegyric of him when dead with as patient ears, as they had listened to the charges brought against him when living, and attended his funeral in vast numbers.
[Footnote 99: Niebuhr, ii.p.231, thinks that it was in this year the Icilian law was passed, according to which, any person interrupting the proceedings of the tribunes, rendered himself liable to capital punishment .-- _Twiss._] [Footnote 100: Several charges were brought against Appius, according to Dion.ix.54, who also states that he did not die of any disease, but that he laid violent hands on himself .-- _Ruperti._] [Footnote 101: The original has _plenus suarum_--_irarum_,--that is, the anger not of Appius against the commons, but of the commons against him.] [Footnote 102: Conf.Nieb.ii.n.754.

It may be well to mention that Niebuhr considered that this account regarding the death of Appius was all fictitious.