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On the expiration of their year of office all parties were so well satisfied with the manner in which the Decemvirs had discharged their duties that it was resolved to continue the same form of government for another year, more especially as some of them said that their work was not finished. A new Council of Ten was accordingly elected, of whom Appius Claudius alone belonged to the former body. He had so carefully concealed his pride and ambition during the previous year that he had been the most popular member of the council, and the Patricians, to prevent his appointment for another year, had ordered him to preside at the Comitia for the elections, thinking that he would not receive votes for himself. But Appius set such scruples at defiance, and not only returned himself as elected, but took care that his nine colleagues should be subservient to his views. He now threw off the mask he had hitherto worn, and acted as the tyrant of Rome. Each Decemvir was attended by twelve lictors, who earned the fasces with the axes in them, so that 120 lictors were seen in the city instead of 12. The Senate was rarely summoned. No one was now safe, and many of the leading men quitted Rome. Two new Tables were added to the Code, making twelve in all; but these new laws were of the most oppressive kind, and confirmed the Patricians in their most odious privileges.

The promised restoration of light and commencement of a new era were therefore hailed with rejoicings and thanksgivings. The Saxon and other northern nations kept a festival at this time of the year in honour of Thor, in which they mingled feasting, drinking, and dancing with sacrifices and religious rites. It was called Yule, or Jule, a term of which the derivation has caused dispute amongst antiquaries; some considering it to mean a festival, and others stating that Iol, or Iul (spelt in various ways), is a primitive word, conveying the idea of Revolution or Wheel, and applicable therefore to the return of the sun. The _Bacchanalia_ and _Saturnalia_ of the Romans had apparently the same object as the Yuletide, or feast of the Northern nations, and were probably adopted from some more ancient nations, as the Greeks, Mexicans, Persians, Chinese, &c., had all something similar.

Throughout the reservation those most deeply affected by the messiah belief have been appointed spies over the others. If any persist in the use of old medicine paraphernalia, they are reported at once and harassed by threats of plague, sickness, ill-luck, disaster, and even death, which Das Lan claims to be able to cause or to dispel at pleasure. Once the threat is made, nothing unwelcome can happen to one under the ban that is not immediately attributed, by all the medicine-man's disciples, to the disfavor of the gods; and nothing more potent is necessary to convert the unbeliever, for there is no Indian reared in the wilds who is not steeped in the belief that his gods are all-powerful in both causing and eradicating every ill.

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