The Historians' History of the World 05

Servius Tullius was a just and good king; he loved the commons, and he divided among them the lands which had been conquered in war, and he made many wise and good laws, to maintain the cause of the poor, and to stop the oppression of the rich. He made war with the Etruscans, and conquered them. He added the Quirinal and the Viminal hills to the city, and he brought many new citizens to live on the Esquiline; and there he lived himself amongst them. He also raised a great mound of earth to join the Esquiline and the Quirinal and the Viminal hills together, and to cover them from the attacks of an enemy.

He built a temple of Diana on the Aventine, where the Latins, and the Sabines, and the Romans, should offer their common sacrifices; and the Romans were the chief in rank amongst all who worshipped at the temple.

He made a new order of things for the whole people; for he divided the people of the city into four tribes, and the people of the country into six-and-twenty. Then he divided all the people into classes, according to the value of their possessions; and the classes he divided into centuries; and the centuries of the several classes furnished themselves with arms, each according to their rank and order: the centuries of the rich classes had good and full armour, the poorer centuries had but darts and slings. And when he had done all these works, he called all the people together in their centuries, and asked if they would have him for their king; and the people answered that he should be their king. But the nobles hated him, because he was so loved by the commons; for he had made a law that there should be no king after him, but two men chosen by the people to govern them year by year. Some even said that it was in his mind to give up his own kingly power, that so he might see with his own eyes the fruit of all the good laws that he had made, and might behold the people wealthy and free and happy.

Now King Servius had no son, but he had two daughters; and he gave them in marriage to the two sons of King Tarquinius. These daughters were of very unlike natures, and so were their husbands: for Aruns Tarquinius was of a meek and gentle spirit, but his brother Lucius was proud and full of evil; and the younger Tullia, who was the wife of Aruns, was more full of evil than his brother Lucius; and the elder Tullia, who was the wife of Lucius, was as good and gentle as his brother Aruns. So the evil could not bear the good, but longed to be joined to the evil that was like itself: and Lucius slew his wife secretly, and the younger Tullia slew her husband, and then they were married to one another, that they might work all the wickedness of their hearts, according to the will of fate.

Then Lucius plotted with the nobles, who hated the good king; and he joined himself to the sworn brotherhoods of the young nobles, in which they bound themselves to stand by each other in their deeds of violence and of oppression. When all was ready, he waited for the season of the harvest, when the commons, who loved the king, were in the fields getting in their corn. Then he went suddenly to the Forum with a band of armed men, and seated himself on the king’s throne before the doors of the senate house, where he was wont to judge the people. And they ran to the king, and told him that Lucius was sitting on his throne. Upon this the old man went in haste to the Forum, and when he saw Lucius, he asked him wherefore he had dared to sit on the king’s seat. And Lucius answered that it was his father’s throne, and that he had more right in it than Servius. Then he seized the old man, and threw him down the steps of the senate house to the ground; and he went into the senate house, and called together the senators, as if he were already king. Servius meanwhile arose, and began to make his way home to his house; but when he was come near to the Esquiline Hill, some whom Lucius had sent after him overtook him and slew him, and left him in his blood in the middle of the way.

Then the wicked Tullia mounted her chariot, and drove into the Forum, nothing ashamed to go amidst the multitude of men, and she called Lucius out from the senate house, and said to him, “Hail to thee, King Tarquinius!” But Lucius bade her to go home; and as she was going home, the body of her father was lying in the way. The driver of the chariot stopped short, and showed to Tullia where her father lay in his blood. But she bade him drive on, for the furies of her wickedness were upon her, and the chariot rolled over the body; and she went to her home with her father’s blood upon the wheels of her chariot. Thus Lucius Tarquinius and the wicked Tullia reigned in the place of the good king Servius.

LUCIUS TARQUINIUS THE TYRANT

[ca. 534-510 B.C.]