Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 3
Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D., Ed.

13. There was one charge, besides the general dislike of him, which bore hard upon the accused. [2] Marcus Volscius Fictor, who had been a tribune of the plebs a few years before, had certified that shortly after the epidemic had been in the City he [p. 47]had fallen in with a band of young men swaggering¹ through the Subura.² There a brawl had arisen, and his elder brother, who had not yet fully recovered from the disease, had been felled by a blow from Caeso's fist; he had been picked up halfalive and carried home, and his death, Volscius considered, had resulted from this hurt; yet under the consuls of previous years he had been unable to avenge that wicked crime. [3] As Volscius shouted out this story, men became so excited that Caeso had nearly perished by the fury of the people. Verginius gave orders to seize the fellow and throw him into prison. [4] The patricians resisted force with force. Titus Quinctius cried out that a man who had been charged with a capital crime and whose day of trial was at hand ought not to suffer violence, uncondemned and unheard. The tribune answered that he did not propose to punish him uncondemned, but that he should keep him in prison notwithstanding, till the day of trial, that the Roman People might have it in their power to punish a homicide. [5] The other tribunes, on being appealed to,³ asserted by a compromise their prerogative of protection: [6] they forbade the imprisonment of the accused, but declared it to be their pleasure that he be produced for trial, and that money be pledged to the people in the event of a failure to produce him. [7] How great a sum was proper to be guaranteed was a doubtful point; it was referred to the senate, and Caeso was detained in custody till the Fathers could be consulted. They voted that sureties should be furnished, and fixed the responsibility of one surety at 3,000 asses; how many sureties should be given they left the tribunes to determine. [8] They decided [p. 49]on ten, and with this number of sureties the⁴ accuser admitted the accused to bail. Caeso was the first that ever gave sureties to the people. Being allowed to leave the Forum, he departed that night and went into exile amongst the Etruscans. [9] On the day of trial, when it was pleaded that he had gone into voluntary exile, Verginius nevertheless attempted to hold the comitia, but an appeal was taken to his colleagues, who dismissed the assembly.⁵ [10] The money was exacted from Caeso's father without pity, so that he was obliged to sell all that he had and live for some time on the other side of the Tiber,⁶ like one banished, in a certain lonely hovel.