The Historians' History of the World 05

Lucius Tarquinius gained his power wickedly, and no less wickedly did he exercise it. He kept a guard of armed men about him, and he ruled all things at his own will; many were they whom he spoiled of their goods, many were they whom he banished, and many also whom he slew. He despised the senate, and made no new senators in the place of those whom he slew, or who died in the course of nature, wishing that the senators might become fewer and fewer, till there should be none of them left. And he made friends of the chief men among the Latins, and gave his daughter in marriage to Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum; and he became very powerful amongst the Latins, insomuch that when Turnus Herdonius of Aricia had dared to speak against him in the great assembly of the Latins, Tarquinius accused him of plotting his death, and procured false witnesses to confirm his charge; so that the Latins judged him to be guilty, and ordered him to be drowned. After this they were so afraid of Tarquinius, that they made a league with him, and followed him in his wars wherever he chose to lead them. The Hernicans also joined this league, and so did Ecetra and Antium, cities of the Volscians.

Then Tarquinius made war upon the rest of the Volscians, and he took Suessa Pometia, in the lowlands of the Volscians, and the tithe of the spoil was forty talents of silver. So he set himself to raise mighty works in Rome; and he finished what his father had begun, the great drains to drain the low grounds of the city, and the temple on the Capitoline Hill. Now the ground on which he was going to build his temple was taken up with many holy places of the gods of the Sabines, which had been founded in the days of King Tatius. But Tarquinius consulted the gods by augury whether he might not take away these holy places to make room for his own new temple. The gods allowed him to take away all the rest, except only the holy places of the god of youth, and of Terminus the god of boundaries, which they would not suffer him to move. But the augurs said that this was a happy omen, for that it showed how the youth of the city should never pass away, nor its boundaries be moved by the conquest of an enemy. A human head was also found, as they were digging the foundations of the temple, and this too was a sign that the Capitoline Hill should be the head of all the earth.[7] So Tarquinius built a mighty temple, and consecrated it to Jupiter, and to Juno, and to Minerva, the greatest of the gods of the Etruscans.

At this time there came a strange woman to the king, and offered him nine books of the prophecies of the Sibyl for a certain price. When the king refused them, the woman went and burned three of the books, and came back and offered the six at the same price which she had asked for the nine; but they mocked at her and would not take the books. Then she went away, and burned three more, and came back and asked still the same price for the remaining three. At this the king was astonished, and asked of the augurs what he should do. They said that he had done wrong in refusing the gift of the gods, and bade him by all means to buy the books that were left. So he bought them; and the woman who sold them was seen no more from that day forwards. Then the books were put into a chest of stone, and were kept underground in the Capitol, and two men were appointed to keep them, and were called the two men of the sacred books.

Now Gabii would not submit to Tarquinius, like the other cities of the Latins, so he made war against it; and the war was long, and Tarquinius knew not how to end it. So his son Sextus Tarquinius pretended that his father hated him, and fled to Gabii; and the people of Gabii believed him and trusted him, till at last he betrayed them into his father’s power. A treaty was then made with them, and he gave them the right of becoming citizens of Rome, and the Romans had the right of becoming citizens of Gabii, and there was a firm league between the two people.

Thus Tarquinius was a great and mighty king; but he grievously oppressed the poor, and he took away all the good laws of King Servius, and let the rich oppress the poor, as they had done before the days of Servius. He made the people labour at his great works: he made them build his temple and dig and construct his drains; and he laid such burdens on them, that many slew themselves for very misery; for in the days of Tarquinius the tyrant it was happier to die than to live.b

FOOTNOTES

[6] The two Roman champions, we have seen, fell in the one place, super alium alius; consequently were buried together; whilst the Curiatii fell in different places, as Horatius contrived to separate them to avoid their joint attack.

[7] [“After the work had been carried down to a great depth there was found the head of a man newly killed, with the face like that of a living man, and the blood which flowed from the abrasion warm and fresh.”—Dionysius.d]