proposed by Lucretius as the two first consuls, and unanimously accepted by the people, who thought it impossible to find more implacable enemies to the Tarquins. They entered on their office A. A. C. 508; and the monster Tullia, perceiving that now all was lost, left the city, and retired to her husband at Ardea. She was suffered to depart, though the populace hooted at her, and cursed her as she went along. Tarquin, in the mean time, being informed by some who had got out of Rome before the gate was shut, that Brutus was raising commotions to his prejudice, returned in haste to the city, attended only by his sons and a few friends; but finding the gates shut, and the people in arms on the walls, he returned again to the camp: here again, to his surprise, he found that the consuls had taken the opportunity of gaining over the army to their interest; so that, being refused admittance into the camp also, he was forced to fly for refuge, at the age of seventy-six, with his wife and three sons to Gabii. Here he continued for some time; but, not finding the Latins forward to revenge his cause, he retired into Etruria; where, it being the country of his mother's family, he hoped to find more friends. The Romans now congratulated themselves on their happy deliverance from tyranny. However, as Tarquin had by his policy procured himself many friends abroad, these now became enemies to the Roman name; and, by the defection of the allies, the Roman dominions were left in much the same state as they had been in the time of Romulus. Though almost constantly victorious in war for 143 years, they had not yet gained land enough to supply their city with provisions. The main strength of the state lay in the number of the citizens of Rome; which, by transplanting the inhabitants of the conquered cities, had so prodigiously increased, that it put the Romans in a condition of usurping the authority over other nations, the most inconsiderable of which had an extent of territory far exceeding theirs. By frequent depredations they so harassed the states of Latium and Etruria that many of them were constrained to enter into treaties with Rome, by which they obliged themselves to furnish her with auxiliaries whenever she should invade and pillage the lands of her other neighbours. Submissions of this kind the Romans called making alliances with them, and these useful alliances supplied the want of a large territory; but now, upon the change of her government, all the allies of Rome forsook her at once, and either stood neuter, or espoused the cause of the banished king. The new consuls in the mean time took the most effectual methods for securing the liberties of the republic. The army employed in the siege of Ardea marched home under Herminus and Horatius, who concluded a truce with the Ardeates for fifteen years. The consuls then again assembled the people by centuries, and had the decree of Tarquin's banishment confirmed; and many of the laws of Servius Tullius were revived to the great joy of the people. Tarquin, however, having made Tarquinii the seat of his residence, engaged the inhabitants to send an embassy to Rome, with a submissive letter for himself, di

rected to the Roman people. The ambassadors represented in such strong terms to the senate how reasonable it was to let the king be heard before he was condemned, that the consuls inclined to bring these agents before the people, and to leave the decision to the curiæ; but Valerius, who had been very active in the revolution, strenuously opposed this, and by his influence in the senate got it prevented. Mean time, Tarquin prevailed on the inhabitants of Tarquinii to send a second embassy to Rome, demanding the estates of the exiles, but with private instructions to get the consuls assassinated. The restoration of the estates of the exiles was opposed by Brutus, but Collatinus was for complying with it; whereupon Brutus accused his colleague of treachery, and of a design to bring back the tyrant. The matter was referred to the people, where it was carried by one vote in favor of the Tarquins. But whilst the people were employed in loading carriages with the effects of the exiles, and in selling what could not be carried off, the ambassadors drew some of the nearest relations of the consuls into a plot with them. These were three young noblemen of the Aquilian family (the sons of Collatinus's sister), two of the Vitellii (whose sister Brutus had married); and Titus and Tiberius, the two sons of Brutus. They all bound themselves by solemn oaths, with the dreadful ceremony of drinking the blood of a murdered man and touching his entrails. They met at the house of the Aquilii, where they wrote letters to Tarquin and gave them to the ambassadors. But their proceedings were overheard by one Vindicius a slave, who immediately communicated the whole to Valerius; upor which all the criminals were apprehended. Brutus stood judge over his own sons; and notwithstanding the intercession of the whole assembly, and the tears of his children, commanded them to be beheaded; nor would he depart till he saw the execution of the sentence. Having performed this piece of heroic barbarity, he quitted the tribunal, and left Collatinus to perform the rest.

Collatinus, being inclined to spare his nephews, allowed them a day to clear themselves: and caused Vindicius, the only witness against them, to be delivered up to his masters. This roused the indignation of the people, especially of Valerius, who had promised to protect the witness, and therefore he refused to deliver him up to the lictors. The multitude called for Brutus to return; which when he had done, he told them that he had executed his two sons in consequence of his own paternal authority, but that it belonged to the people to determine the fate of the rest. Accordingly, by a decree of the curiæ, all the delinquents suffered as traitors, except the ambassadors. Vindicius had his liberty granted him; and was presented with 25,000 asses of brass, in value about £80 14s. 7d. of our money. The decree for restoring the estates of the exiled Tarquins was annulled, their palaces were destroyed, and their lands divided among the people. The public only retained a piece of ground near the Campus Martius, which the king had usurped, and which they consecrated to Mars. The severity of Brutus towards his two sons

struck such terror into the Romans, that scarcely any person durst oppose him; and therefore he openly accused Collatinus before the people, and without ceremony deposed him from the consulship, banishing him at the same time from Rome. The multitude refused to hear Collatinus in his own defence; so that the consul was on the point of being driven out with ignominy and disgrace, when Lucretius interposed, and prevailed upon Brutus to allow his colleague to resign his fasces, and retire. Brutus then, to remove all suspicions of personal enmity, procured him a present of twenty talents out of the public treasury, to which he added five of his own. Collatinus then retired to Lavinium, where he lived in peace, and died of old age. Valerius was chosen in his room; and the two consuls lived in great harmony. But Tarquin first engaged the Volsci and Tarquinienses to join their forces to support his rights. Brutus commanded the horse and Valerius the foot. The two armies having met, Brutus advanced with his cavalry, at the same time that Arunx was coming forward with the enemy's horse, the king following with the legions. Arunx no sooner discovered Brutus than he made towards him with all the fury of rage. Brutus advanced towards him with no less speed; and as both were actuated only by motives of hatred, without thoughts of self-preservation, both were pierced through with their lances. The battle continued with the utmost fury till night, when it could not be known which side had got the victory, or which had lost the greatest number of men. The Volsci returned home, and Valerius, having caused the dead to be numbered, found that they had lost 11,300 men, and the Romans only one short of that number. Valerius being left without a colleague in the consulship, and having delayed to choose one, began to be suspected of aspiring at the sovereignty; and these suspicions were countenanced by his building a fine house on the steep part of the hill Palatinus. But of this Valerius was no sooner informed than he caused this house to be pulled down, and immediately called an assembly of the people for the election of a consul, in which he left them entirely free. They chose Lucretius; and complimented Valerius with a large ground plot, where they built him a house. The new consul died a few days after his promotion, so that Valerius was once more left sole governor. In this interval, Valerius gave the people so many striking proofs of his attachment to their interest, that they bestowed upon him the surname of Poplicola, or popular. When Poplicola's consulship expired, the Romans elected him a second time, and joined with him T. Lucretius, the brother of Lucretia. They began by restoring the census and lustrum; and found the number of Roman citizens above puberty to be 130,000. A haughty embassy was received from Porsena king of Clusium in Etruria, commanding them either to take back the Tarquins to Rome, or to restore them to their estates. To both these demands the consuls returned an absolute refusal. The imminent danger of the city procured Valerius a third consulship; and with him was joined Horatius Pul

vilius. While the Romans were making the most vigorous preparations, Porsena, attended by his son Arunx and the exiles, marched towards the city at the head of a formidable army, which was quickly joined by a body of Latins under Mamilius, the son-in-law of Tarquin. The consuls and the senate took all imaginable care to supply the common people with provisions, and they ordered the country people to lodge their effects in the fort Janiculum, the only fortified place possessed by the Romans on that side the Tiber. Porsena, however, soon drove the Romans out of this fort; upon which the consuls made all their troops pass the river, to defend the bridge, while Porsena advanced to engage them. The victory was long doubtful; but at last the Romans fled. Horatius Cocles, nephew to the consul, with Sp. Lartius and T. Herminius, who had commanded the right wing, posted themselves at the entrance of the bridge, and for a long time bravely defended it: but at last, their defensive arms being broken, they retired; and then, Horatius desiring them to advise the consuls to cut the bridge at the other end, he for a while sustained the attack of the enemy alone. At last, being wounded, and the signal given that the bridge was almost broken down, he leaped into the river, and swam across it through a shower of darts. The Romans, for this eminent service, erected a statue to him in the temple of Vulcan, gave him as much land as he, with one yoke of oxen, could plough in one day; and each of the inhabitants, to the number of 300,000, gave him the value of as much food as each consumed in a day. The city was not yet fully invested; but it was very difficult to find provisions for such a multitude. Porsena, hearing of their difficulties, told them that he would supply them with provisions if they would take back their old masters; but to this they replied that hunger was a less evil than slavery. But the constancy of the Romans was on the point of failing when a young patrician, named Mutius Cordus, with the consent of the senate and consuls, undertook to assassinate Porsena. He got access to the Etrurian camp, and made his way to the king's tent. It happened to be the day on which the troops were reviewed, and Porsena's secretary, magnificently dressed, was sitting on the same tribunal with the king. Mutius, mistaking him for Porsena, instantly leaped upon the tribunal, and killed him. He then attempted to escape; but, being seized and brought back, he owned his design; and, with a countenance expressive of desperate rage and disappointment, thrust his hand which had missed the blow into a fire, and there held it for a considerable time. On this Porsena, changing his resentment into admiration, granted him his life and liberty, and even restored him his dagger. Mutius took it with his left hand, having burnt the other; and from this time had the name of Scævola, or left-handed. He then, to induce Porsena to break up the siege, told him that 300 young Romans, as resolute as himself, had sworn to take away his life or perish. This had the desired effect: Porsena sent deputies to Rome, whose only demands were that the Romans should restore the estates of the Tarquins, or give them an equiva

measures to secure the city, and ordered the Roman knights to hold themselves ready, in the houses adjoining to the forum, to execute the orders they should receive. The conspirators met at the time and place appointed by the two Tarquins; and the knights, upon a signal agreed on beforehand, invested the forum, and blocked up all the avenues to it so closely that it was impossible for any of the couspirators to escape. As soon as it was light the two consuls appeared with a strong guard on the tribunal. The people were convened by curiæ, and told of the conspiracy. The accused were allowed to make their defence, if they had any thing to offer against the evidence: but, not one of them denying the fact, the consuls repaired to the senate, where sentence of death was pronounced against the conspirators. This decree of the senate being read, and approved by the assembly, the conspirators were delivered up to the soldiers, who put them all to the sword. The peace of Rome was thought sufficiently secured by this stroke of severity; and therefore, though all the conspirators were not punished with death, it was judged proper not to make any farther enquiries. The two informers were rewarded with all the privileges of Roman citizens, 100,000 asses, and twenty acres of land. Three festival days were appointed for expiations, sacrifices, and public games, &c. But as the people were conducting Manlius Tullius, the consul, from the circus, he fell from his chariot, and died in three days. The city of Fidenæ still held out during the following consulship of T. Ebutius and P. Veturius; but was taken the next year by T. Lartius, who, with Q. Cloelius, was raised to the consular dignity. The Latins, enraged at the loss of this town, began to complain of their leading men; which opportunity Tarquin and Mamilius improved so far as to make all the Latin cities, twenty-four in number, enter into an alliance against Rome, and to bind themselves by oath never to violate their engagements. The Latins made vast preparations, as did likewise the Romans; but the latter could procure no assistance from their neighbours. To add to their distress the poorer sort of people, and the debtors, refused to serve; alleging their poverty and the fruitless hazards they ran in defending a city where they were oppressed and enslaved by their creditors. This spirit of mutiny spread among the inferior classes, most of them refusing to enlist unless their debts were all remitted by a decree of the senate. The senate assembled to deliberate on these troubles. Some were for a free remission of all debts, as the safest expedient; others urged the dangerous consequences of such a condescension, advising them to enlist only such as were willing to serve. At length it was decreed that all actions for debts should be suspended till the end of the war. But this the indigent debtors thought only a suspension of their misery, and therefore it had not the intended effect. The senate might indeed have prosecuted the ringleaders; but Poplicola's law, called the Valerian law, which allowed appeals to the people, was a protection for the seditious, who were sure of being acquitted. The senate, therefore, to elude the effect of a privilege that put such a restraint upon their power, resolved

to create one supreme magistrate, who, with the title of dictator, should have absolute power for a time; but, at this could not be done without striking at the Valerian law, and transferring the power of the people in criminal cases to a magistrate superior to all law, it was necessary to use artifice to obtain the consent of the curia. They therefore represented to them that, in such a crisis, when they had domestic quarrels to decide and a powerful enemy to repulse, it was expedient to put the commonwealth under a single governor, who, superior to the consuls themselves, should be the arbiter of the laws; that his power should have no limits; but, lest he should abuse it, they ought not to trust him with it above six months. The people agreed, not foreseeing the consequences; but the great difficulty was to find a man qualified for so great a trust. T. Lartius, one of the consuls, seemed to be the most unexceptionable; but the senate, fearing to offend his colleague, gave the consuls the power of choosing a dictator, but obliged them to name one of themselves, not doubting but Clalius would yield to the superior talents of his colleague. Lartius, however, with the same readiness, named Cloelius; and the only contest was, which of the two should raise the other to the supreme authority. Each persisted obstinately in remitting the dignity to his colleague, till Clœlius suddenly abdicated the consulship, and, as an interrex, proclaimed Titus Lartius dictator: who was therefore obliged to take upon him the government of the republic.

Lartius began his administration by creating a general of the Roman horse: an office which lasted only during the dictatorship. Sp. Cassius, formerly consul, and honored with a triumph, was the person advanced to this dignity. Having thus secured the Roman knights, the dictator resolved, in the next place, to make the people respect and fear him. With this view he never appeared in public without being attended by twenty-four lictors, to whose fasces he again added the axes which Poplicola had taken from them. This was alone sufficient to awe the seditious, and, without executions, to spread consternation throughout Rome. He then ordered a census to be taken. Every one brought in his name, age, estate, &c., and there were found to be 150,700 men capable of bearing arms. Out of these the dictator formed four armies: the first he commanded himself; the second he gave to Clœlius his late colleague; the third to Sp. Cassius, his general of the horse; and the fourth he stationed at Rome, under his brother Sp. Lartius. The Latins not being forward in their preparations, all their hostilities this campaign amounted only to sending a detachment into the Roman territory to lay it waste. The dictator gained some advantage over this party; and the great humanity with which he treated the prisoners and wounded disposed the Latins to listen to overtures for a suspension of hostilities. A truce was agreed on for a year; when, seeing the republic restored to tranquillity, Lartius resigned the dictatorship. The next consulship of Sempronius Atratinus and Minutius Augurinus produced nothing memorable. But the following year the truce expired, when Aulus Posthumius

and T. Virginius took possession of the consulship. Both Romans and Latins were now busied in preparing for war. The nobility of Latium who were mostly in the interest of the Tarquins, having excluded the citizens from the Latin diets, carried all before them in these assemblies; whereupon many of them removed with their families to Rome. The Latins being bent upon war the senate empowered the two consuls to name one of themselves dictator; and Virginius readily yielded the office to Posthumius, as the more able commander. Having created butius Elva his general of horse, the new dictator divided his army into four bodies, and left one of them, under the command of Sempronius, to guard the city; with the other three, commanded by himself, Virginius, and Æbutius, he marched out against the Latins, who, with an army of 40,000 foot and 3000 horse, under Sextus and T. Tarquinius and Mamilius, had already taken Corbio, a strong hold belonging to Rome. Posthumius encamped on a steep hill near the lake Regillus, and Virgilius on another hill overagainst him. Ebutius was ordered to march silently in the night, with the cavalry and lightarmed infantry, to take possession of a third hill and intercept the provisions of the Latins. Before Æbutius had fortified his camp, however, he was vigorously attacked by T. Tarquinius, whom he repulsed three times with great loss, the dictator having sent him a reinforcement. After this butius intercepted two couriers sent by the Volsci to the Latin generals, and by their letters discovered that a great army of the Volsci and Hernici were to join the Latin forces in three days. Upon this Posthumius drew his three bodies of troops together, amounting in all to 24,000 foot and 1000 horse, with a design to engage the enemy before the arrival of their succors; and the Latins, who were much superior in numbers, did not decline the engagement. T. Tarquinius, at the head of the Roman exiles and deserters, was in the centre, Mamilius in the right wing, and Sextus Tarquinius in the left. In the Roman army the dictator commanded in the centre, Æbutius in the left wing, and Virginius in the right. The dictator's body first advanced; and, as soon as it began to march, T. Tarquinius, singling out the dictator, ran full speed against him. But the latter wounded him with a javelin in the right side. Upon this the first line of the Latins advanced to cover their general; but, he being carried out of the field, they made but a faint resistance, and began to retire, when Sextus Tarquinius brought them back to the charge, and renewed the fight with such vigor that the victory in the centre was still doubtful. Both parties, encouraged by their leaders, fought with incredible bravery. After a long and bloody contest the two generals agreed to determine the doubtful victory by a single combat. Accordingly Ebutius with his lance wounded Mamilius in the breast; and Mamilius with his sword wounded Æbutius in the right arm. Neither of the wounds was mortal; but, both the combatants falling from their horses, put an end to the combat. Marcus Valerius, the brother of Poplicola, now endeavoured, at the head of the Roman

horse, to break the enemy's battalions; but was repulsed by the cavalry of the Roman royalists. Mamilius appeared again in the van, with a considerable body of horse and light-armed infantry. Valerius, with his two nephews, the sons of Poplicola, and a chosen troop of volunteers, attempted to break through the Latin battalions, to engage Mamilius; but, receiving a mortal wound in his side, fell from his horse, and died. His body was carried off by Poplicola's sons, and delivered to Valerius's servants, who conveyed it to the Roman camp; but the young heroes, being afterwards overpowered by numbers, were both killed on the spot. Upon their death the left wings of the Romans began to give ground, but Posthumius, with a body of Roman knights, flying to their assistance, charged the royalists with such fury that they were, after an obstinate resistance, obliged to retire in confusion. Mean time Titus Horminius, having rallied those who had fled, fell upon some close battalions of the enemy's right wing, which still kept their ground under Mamilius, killed him with his own hand, and put his detachment to flight; but received himself a wound, of which he died soon after. Sextus Tarquinius in the mean time maintained the fight with great bravery, at the head of the left wing, against Virginius; and had even broken through that wing of the Roman army, when the dictator attacked him with his victorious squadrons. Sextus then threw himself in despair into the midst of the Roman knights, and sunk under a multitude of wounds. The death of the three generals was followed by the entire defeat of the Latin army. Their camp was taken and plundered, and most of their troops cut in pieces; for, of the 43,000 men who came into the field, scarcely 10,000 returned home. The next morning the Volsci and Hernici came, according to their agreement, to assist the Latins; but, finding upon their arrival how matters had fallen out, sent ambassadors to the dictator, to congratulate him on his victory, and assure him tha they had come to assist the Romans. Posthumius, producing their couriers and letters, showed them, however, that he was apprized of their treachery. But, out of regard to the law of nations, he sent them back unhurt, with a challenge to their generals to fight next day; but the Volsci and their confederates, not caring to engage a victorious army, decamped, and returned to their respective countries. The Latins, having now no alternative but an entire submission, sent ambassadors to Rome, yielding themselves to the judgment of the senate; and, as the Romans had long made it a maxim to spare the nations that submitted, the motion of T. Lartius prevailed; the ancient treaties with the Latins were renewed, on condition that they should restore the prisoners, deliver up the deserters, and drive the Roman exiles out of Latium. Thus ended the last war which the Romans waged on account of their banished king; who, being now abandoned by the Latins, Etrurians, and Sabines, retired into Campania, to Aristodemus, tyrant of Cuma, and there died in the ninetieth year of his age, and fourteenth of his exile.