decemvirate

There was also a very strange practice during the first Decemvirate; the friends often abstracted a finger of the deceased, or some part of the body, and performed fresh obsequies, in some other place; erecting there a cenotaph or empty sepulchre, in which they fancied the ghost of the departed took occasional refuge, when wandering about—in case of a sudden shower, perhaps; or being caught out too near daylight.

During the first Decemvirate the members had taken the Government alternately for twenty-four hours at a time, on the principle of every lucky dog having his day: but now the whole ten assumed, at once, the insignia of royalty.

For, of course, at an earlier period, in the midst of the learned club of so many linguists,—i. e. books of linguists, of eclectics, upper-rabbins,—of ten wise men from the East and from Greece, and, by reason of the uncommonly dazzling Epictetus'-lamps which the said Decemvirate of wise men had lighted at the day-star of the wise ones,—at such a time, I say, it was hardly to be expected of thee that love's little Turin-lantern, which he kept as yet unopened in his pocket, should strike thy eye very strongly!

The decemvirate, one of the triumphs of the plebs, could hardly have been abolished by that body, but would naturally have been overthrown by the patricians.

The first Consuls after the abolition of the Decemvirate in 449 B.C.