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Sweet Virginia : ancient version

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lundi 12 décembre 2005 [n° 904]

Verginius was Verginia‘s father in Livy‘s account, Ab urbe condita liber III.xliv-lviii, who stabs his daughter in the marketplace to save her from the lecherous judge Appius. 1

(Livy, Ab urbe condita liber III.xliv-lviii). Livy places the story in 449 B.C.


“During the historical struggles between the Patricians and the Plebians during the rule of the Decemvirs (451 BC), Verginia (or Virginia) was the educated young daughter of a well-respected army officer, Verginius, and the fiancée of a young and prominent plebian, Icilius. The patrician nobleman Appius Claudius was one of the ten ruling Decemvirs. As such, he served as a judge of civil disputes. Appius fell in love – or lust – with Verginia and, in the absence of her father and fiancé with the army, attempted to seduce her, but was repeatedly rebuffed. Appius then devised a brutal plot. While Verginia was passing through the Forum on her way to school, she was seized by a client of Claudius who took her before the magistrate claiming that Verginia was not, indeed, the daughter of her father, but his own slave, stolen in infancy and insinuated into Verginius’ household as his own child without the father’s knowledge. He demanded that, as a slave, the court must return Verginia to the client’s custody and ultimately into Appius’ power. Appius was only persuaded to delay giving judgment against Verginia by the timely arrival of Icilius and the distress of the indignant crowd. It was agreed to delay the hearing until Verginius could be summoned. The next morning, the father and daughter returned and testimony was heard; to the horror of the crowd, Appius gave judgment that Verginia was a slave and must be returned immediately to her former “owner.” Verginius then begged that he be permitted to question his daughter and her nurse in private to determine the true facts of her birth. Taking her some distance from the tribunal, Verginius grabbed a knife from a nearby butcher’s stand and stabbed his child to death, crying out that it was only by her death that he could secure her freedom. The abuse of power by Appius allegedly led to the overthrow of the corrupt Decemvirate.”

Virginia THE REPUBLICAN PARADIGM: HEROINES OF EARLY ROME


  1. source : Chaucer Name Dictionary Chaucer follows Livy and Jean de Meun in making Apius a judge in The Physician’s Tale. Jacqueline de Weever
    New York & London GARLAND PUBLISHING, INC. 1996 [back]
Antiquity

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