Livy: AB VRBE CONDITA LIBRI

[1] Iam primum omnium satis constat Troia capta in ceteros saevitum esse Troianos, duobus, Aeneae Antenorique, et vetusti iure hospitii et quia pacis reddendaeque Helenae semper auctores fuerant, omne ius belli Achivos abstinuisse; casibus deinde variis Antenorem cum multitudine Enetum, qui seditione ex Paphlagonia pulsi et sedes et ducem rege Pylaemene ad Troiam amisso quaerebant, venisse in intimum maris Hadriatici sinum, Euganeisque qui inter mare Alpesque incolebant pulsis Enetos Troianosque eas tenuisse terras. Et in quem primo egressi sunt locum Troia vocatur pagoque inde Troiano nomen est: gens universa Veneti appellati. Aeneam ab simili clade domo profugum sed ad maiora rerum initia ducentibus fatis, primo in Macedoniam venisse, inde in Siciliam quaerentem sedes delatum, ab Sicilia classe ad Laurentem agrum tenuisse.

[1] First of all, it is quite agreed that, Troy having been captured, savage treatment was wreaked upon the other Trojans, but that for two men, Aeneas and Antenor, both by the right of ancient hospitality and because they had always been promoters of peace and of Helen’s being returned, the Achaeans abstained from every right of war; then, after various chances, Antenor, with a multitude of the Eneti, who, driven by sedition from Paphlagonia and seeking both settlements and a leader, their king Pylaemenes having been lost at Troy, came into the inmost recess of the Adriatic Sea, and, the Euganei who dwelt between the sea and the Alps having been driven out, the Eneti and the Trojans held those lands. And the place on which they first disembarked is called Troy, and from there the district has the name Troianus: the whole nation was called the Veneti. Aeneas, a refugee from home by a like disaster, but with the fates leading to greater beginnings of affairs, first came into Macedonia; thence, seeking settlements, he was borne to Sicily, and from Sicily with his fleet he made for the Laurentine land.

Troia et huic loco nomen est. Ibi egressi Troiani, ut quibus ab immenso prope errore nihil praeter arma et naves superesset, cum praedam ex agris agerent, Latinus rex Aboriginesque qui tum ea tenebant loca ad arcendam vim advenarum armati ex urbe atque agris concurrunt. Duplex inde fama est.

And Troy is also the name of this place. There the Trojans, having disembarked—since after an almost immense wandering nothing remained to them except arms and ships—while they were driving off plunder from the fields, King Latinus and the Aborigines, who then held those places, to ward off the force of the newcomers, armed, rush together from the city and the fields. From there the report is twofold.

Alii proelio victum Latinum pacem cum Aenea, deinde adfinitatem iunxisse tradunt: alii, cum instructae acies constitissent, priusquam signa canerent processisse Latinum inter primores ducemque advenarum evocasse ad conloquium; percontatum deinde qui mortales essent, unde aut quo casu profecti domo quidve quaerentes in agrum Laurentinum exissent, postquam audierit multitudinem Troianos esse, ducem Aeneam filium Anchisae et Veneris, cremata patria domo profugos, sedem condendaeque urbi locum quaerere, et nobilitatem admiratum gentis virique et animum vel bello vel paci paratum, dextra data fidem futurae amicitiae sanxisse. Inde foedus ictum inter duces, inter exercitus salutationem factam. Aeneam apud Latinum fuisse in hospitio; ibi Latinum apud penates deos domesticum publico adiunxisse foedus filia Aeneae in matrimonium data.

Others hand down that Latinus, conquered in battle, joined peace with Aeneas and thereafter an affinity by marriage; others that, when the drawn-up battle-lines had taken their stand, before the standards could sound, Latinus advanced among the chiefs and summoned the leader of the newcomers to a colloquy; then, after inquiring what mortals they were, whence or by what mishap they had set out from home, and what seeking they had gone forth into the Laurentine field, after he heard that the multitude were Trojans, their leader Aeneas, son of Anchises and Venus, exiles with their fatherland burned, seeking a seat and a place for founding a city, and, admiring the nobility of the nation and of the man and a spirit prepared alike for war or for peace, with the right hand given he ratified the faith of future friendship. Thence a treaty was struck between the leaders, and a salutation was made between the armies. Aeneas was in guest-friendship with Latinus; there Latinus, before the Penates, the household gods, joined the domestic covenant to the public one, with his daughter given in marriage to Aeneas.

Ea res utique Troianis spem adfirmat tandem stabili certaque sede finiendi erroris. Oppidum condunt; Aeneas ab nomine uxoris Lavinium appellat. Brevi stirpis quoque virilis ex novo matrimonio fuit, cui Ascanium parentes dixere nomen.

This event at any rate confirms for the Trojans the hope, at last, of ending their wandering with a stable and certain seat. They found a town; Aeneas names it Lavinium from his wife’s name. Shortly, there was also male offspring from the new matrimony, whom his parents named Ascanius.

[2] Bello deinde Aborigines Troianique simul petiti. Turnus rex Rutulorum, cui pacta Lavinia ante adventum Aeneae fuerat, praelatum sibi advenam aegre patiens simul Aeneae Latinoque bellum intulerat. Neutra acies laeta ex eo certamine abiit: victi Rutuli: victores Aborigines Troianique ducem Latinum amisere.

[2] Then the Aborigines and the Trojans were simultaneously assailed in war. Turnus, king of the Rutulians, to whom Lavinia had been betrothed before the advent of Aeneas, bearing with difficulty that a newcomer had been preferred to himself, had at the same time brought war upon Aeneas and Latinus. Neither battle-line went away glad from that contest: the Rutulians were defeated: the victors, the Aborigines and the Trojans, lost their leader Latinus.

Inde Turnus Rutulique diffisi rebus ad florentes opes Etruscorum Mezentiumque regem eorum confugiunt, qui Caere opulento tum oppido imperitans, iam inde ab initio minime laetus novae origine urbis et tum nimio plus quam satis tutum esset accolis rem Troianam crescere ratus, haud gravatim socia arma Rutulis iunxit. Aeneas adversus tanti belli terrorem ut animos Aboriginum sibi conciliaret nec sub eodem iure solum sed etiam nomine omnes essent, Latinos utramque gentem appellavit; nec deinde Aborigines Troianis studio ac fide erga regem Aeneam cessere. Fretusque his animis coalescentium in dies magis duorum populorum Aeneas, quamquam tanta opibus Etruria erat ut iam non terras solum sed mare etiam per totam Italiae longitudinem ab Alpibus ad fretum Siculum fama nominis sui implesset, tamen cum moenibus bellum propulsare posset in aciem copias eduxit.

Then Turnus and the Rutulians, diffident of their fortunes, fled for refuge to the flourishing resources of the Etruscans and to their king Mezentius, who, ruling at that time over the wealthy town of Caere, from the very beginning was by no means pleased at the origin of the new city, and then judged the Trojan cause to be growing far more than was safe for the neighbors; he not at all reluctantly joined allied arms to the Rutulians. Aeneas, against the terror of so great a war, in order to win the minds of the Aborigines to himself, and that all might be under not only the same law but also the same name, called both peoples “Latins”; nor thereafter did the Aborigines yield to the Trojans in zeal and loyalty toward King Aeneas. And relying on these spirits of two peoples coalescing more and more day by day, Aeneas—although Etruria was so great in resources that the fame of its name had already filled not only the lands but even the sea along the whole length of Italy from the Alps to the Sicilian Strait—yet, although he could ward off the war with walls, led his forces out into the battle line.

Secundum inde proelium Latinis, Aeneae etiam ultimum operum mortalium fuit. Situs est, quemcumque eum dici ius fasque est super Numicum flumen: Iovem indigetem appellant.

Then the second battle was favorable to the Latins; for Aeneas it was also the last of his mortal works. He was laid to rest—whatever it is right and lawful to call him—by the river Numicus: they call him Jupiter Indiges.

[3] Nondum maturus imperio Ascanius Aeneae filius erat; tamen id imperium ei ad puberem aetatem incolume mansit; tantisper tutela muliebri—tanta indoles in Lavinia erat—res Latina et regnum avitum paternumque puero stetit. Haud ambigam—quis enim rem tam veterem pro certo adfirmet?—hicine fuerit Ascanius an maior quam hic, Creusa matre Ilio incolumi natus comesque inde paternae fugae, quem Iulum eundem Iulia gens auctorem nominis sui nuncupat. Is Ascanius, ubicumque et quacumque matre genitus—certe natum Aenea constat—abundante Lavinii multitudine florentem iam ut tum res erant atque opulentam urbem matri seu novercae relinquit, novam ipse aliam sub Albano monte condidit quae ab situ porrectae in dorso urbis Longa Alba appellata.

[3] Ascanius, the son of Aeneas, was not yet mature for command; nevertheless that command remained intact to him until the age of puberty; meanwhile, under feminine tutelage—so great was the disposition in Lavinia—the Latin commonwealth and the ancestral and paternal kingship stood fast for the boy. I will not assert—who, indeed, would affirm for certain a matter so ancient?—whether this Ascanius was he, or one older than he, born of Creusa while Ilium was still intact and thence a companion of his father’s flight, whom the Julian gens names Iulus, the author of its name. This Ascanius, wherever and from whatever mother begotten—certainly it is agreed he was begotten by Aeneas—with the multitude of Lavinium overflowing, left the city, already flourishing and opulent as matters then were, to his mother or to his stepmother; and he himself founded another new city under the Alban Mount, which from the site, stretched along the city’s ridge, was called Alba Longa.

Inter Lavinium et Albam Longam coloniam deductam triginta ferme interfuere anni. Tantum tamen opes creverant maxime fusis Etruscis ut ne morte quidem Aeneae nec deinde inter muliebrem tutelam rudimentumque primum puerilis regni movere arma aut Mezentius Etruscique aut ulli alii accolae ausi sint. Pax ita convenerat ut Etruscis Latinisque fluvius Albula, quem nunc Tiberim vocant, finis esset.

Between Lavinium and the colony led out to Alba Longa, nearly thirty years intervened. Yet so greatly had the resources grown—especially with the Etruscans routed—that not even at the death of Aeneas, nor afterward under a woman’s tutelage and the first rudiment of a puerile kingship, did Mezentius and the Etruscans, or any other neighbors, dare to move arms. Peace had been agreed on thus: that for the Etruscans and the Latins the river Albula, which they now call the Tiber, should be the boundary.

Silvius deinde regnat Ascani filius, casu quodam in silvis natus; is Aeneam Silvium creat; is deinde Latinum Silvium. Ab eo coloniae aliquot deductae, Prisci Latini appellati. Mansit Silviis postea omnibus cognomen, qui Albae regnarunt.

Then Silvius, the son of Ascanius, reigns, born by a certain chance in the woods; he begets Aeneas Silvius; he then Latinus Silvius. From him several colonies were led out, called the Prisci Latini. The cognomen remained thereafter for all the Silvii who reigned at Alba.

Latino Alba ortus, Alba Atys, Atye Capys, Capye Capetus, Capeto Tiberinus, qui in traiectu Albulae amnis submersus celebre ad posteros nomen flumini dedit. Agrippa inde Tiberini filius, post Agrippam Romulus Silvius a patre accepto imperio regnat. Aventino fulmine ipse ictus regnum per manus tradidit.

From Latinus was born Alba; from Alba, Atys; from Atys, Capys; from Capys, Capetus; from Capetus, Tiberinus, who, submerged in the crossing of the river Albula, gave the river a renowned name for posterity. Then Agrippa, the son of Tiberinus; after Agrippa, Romulus Silvius, having received the imperium from his father, reigns. Aventinus, himself struck by lightning, handed the kingdom down from hand to hand.

Is sepultus in eo colle qui nunc pars Romanae est urbis, cognomen colli fecit. Proca deinde regnat. Is Numitorem atque Amulium procreat, Numitori, qui stirpis maximus erat, regnum vetustum Silviae gentis legat.

He was buried on that hill which now is a part of the Roman city; he gave the hill its cognomen. Then Proca reigns. He begets Numitor and Amulius; to Numitor, who was the eldest of the stock, he bequeaths the ancient kingdom of the Silvian gens.

Plus tamen vis potuit quam voluntas patris aut verecundia aetatis: pulso fratre Amulius regnat. Addit sceleri scelus: stirpem fratris virilem interemit, fratris filiae Reae Silviae per speciem honoris cum Vestalem eam legisset perpetua virginitate spem partus adimit.

Yet force proved more potent than a father’s will or the reverence due to age: with his brother expelled, Amulius reigns. He adds crime to crime: he exterminates his brother’s male lineage; to his brother’s daughter, Rhea Silvia, under the guise of honor, since he had appointed her a Vestal, he removes the hope of issue by perpetual virginity.

[4] Sed debebatur, ut opinor, fatis tantae origo urbis maximique secundum deorum opes imperii principium. Vi compressa Vestalis cum geminum partum edidisset, seu ita rata seu quia deus auctor culpae honestior erat, Martem incertae stirpis patrem nuncupat. Sed nec di nec homines aut ipsam aut stirpem a crudelitate regia vindicant: sacerdos vincta in custodiam datur, pueros in profluentem aquam mitti iubet.

[4] But, as I think, the Fates were owed the origin of so great a city and the beginning of an empire greatest, second to the powers of the gods. The Vestal, forced by violence, when she had brought forth a twin birth, whether she supposed it thus, or because a god, as the author of the fault, was more honorable, names Mars the father of the uncertain stock. But neither gods nor men vindicate either herself or her offspring from the royal cruelty: the priestess, bound, is delivered into custody, he orders the boys to be sent into the flowing water.

Forte quadam divinitus super ripas Tiberis effusus lenibus stagnis nec adiri usquam ad iusti cursum poterat amnis et posse quamvis languida mergi aqua infantes spem ferentibus dabat. Ita velut defuncti regis imperio in proxima alluvie ubi nunc ficus Ruminalis est—Romularem vocatam ferunt—pueros exponunt. Vastae tum in his locis solitudines erant.

By a certain divine chance, the Tiber, having been effused over the banks in gentle pools, and the stream could nowhere be approached to its just course, and, although the water was languid, it was giving to those bearing them the hope that the infants could be submerged. Thus, as though discharging the command of the deceased king, in the nearest alluvion where now the Ruminal fig is—they report it was called the Romulian—they expose the boys. Vast solitudes then were in these places.

Tenet fama cum fluitantem alveum, quo expositi erant pueri, tenuis in sicco aqua destituisset, lupam sitientem ex montibus qui circa sunt ad puerilem vagitum cursum flexisse; eam submissas infantibus adeo mitem praebuisse mammas ut lingua lambentem pueros magister regii pecoris invenerit—Faustulo fuisse nomen ferunt—ab eo ad stabula Larentiae uxori educandos datos. Sunt qui Larentiam volgato corpore lupam inter pastores vocatam putent; inde locum fabulae ac miraculo datum. Ita geniti itaque educati, cum primum adolevit aetas, nec in stabulis nec ad pecora segnes venando peragrare saltus.

Report holds that, when the floating cradle in which the boys had been exposed had been left by the shallow water on dry ground, a she‑wolf, thirsty from the hills round about, turned her course toward the childish wailing; that she offered her teats, lowered to the infants, so gentle that, as she was licking the boys with her tongue, the master of the royal herd found her— they say his name was Faustulus— and from him they were given to the byres, to his wife Larentia, to be brought up. There are those who think that Larentia, her body made common, was called “she‑wolf” among the shepherds; thence a place was given to the fable and to the marvel. Thus born and thus reared, as soon as their age first ripened, they were sluggish neither in the stalls nor at the herd, but by hunting they traversed the glades.

Hinc robore corporibus animisque sumpto iam non feras tantum subsistere sed in latrones praeda onustos impetus facere pastoribusque rapta dividere et cum his crescente in dies grege iuvenum seria ac iocos celebrare.

From this, having taken strength in body and spirit, they now not only stood up to wild beasts, but made attacks upon brigands laden with booty, and divided the seized goods with the shepherds; and with these, as the band of youths grew day by day, they celebrated serious matters and jests.

[5] Iam tum in Palatio monte Lupercal hoc fuisse ludicrum ferunt, et a Pallanteo, urbe Arcadica, Pallantium, dein Palatium montem appellatum; ibi Evandrum, qui ex eo genere Arcadum multis ante tempestatibus tenuerit loca, sollemne allatum ex Arcadia instituisse ut nudi iuvenes Lycaeum Pana venerantes per lusum atque lasciviam currerent, quem Romani deinde vocarunt Inuum. Huic deditis ludicro cum sollemne notum esset insidiatos ob iram praedae amissae latrones, cum Romulus vi se defendisset, Remum cepisse, captum regi Amulio tradidisse, ultro accusantes. Crimini maxime dabant in Numitoris agros ab iis impetum fieri; inde eos collecta iuvenum manu hostilem in modum praedas agere.

[5] Already then on the Palatine hill they say this game was in being, and that from Pallanteum, an Arcadian city, the hill was called Pallantium, then Palatium; there Evander, who, from that stock of Arcadians, had held those places many seasons before, established a solemn rite brought from Arcadia: that naked youths, venerating Lycaean Pan, should run in play and wantonness, whom the Romans afterward called Inuus. To this sport, to which they were devoted, when the solemnity was well known, robbers, in anger over lost booty, laid an ambush; when Romulus defended himself by force, they seized Remus, delivered the captive to King Amulius, bringing accusations besides. They chiefly put to the charge that an attack was being made by them upon Numitor’s fields; from there, with a band of youths gathered, they drove off plunder in the manner of enemies.

Sic Numitori ad supplicium Remus deditur. Iam inde ab initio Faustulo spes fuerat regiam stirpem apud se educari; nam et expositos iussu regis infantes sciebat et tempus quo ipse eos sustulisset ad id ipsum congruere; sed rem immaturam nisi aut per occasionem aut per necessitatem aperiri noluerat. Necessitas prior venit: ita metu subactus Romulo rem aperit.

Thus Remus is handed over to Numitor for punishment. Already from the beginning Faustulus had had the hope that the regal stock was being reared with him; for he knew both that the infants had been exposed by the king’s order and that the time at which he himself had taken them up was congruent with this very thing; but he had not wished the immature matter to be disclosed except either by occasion or by necessity. Necessity came first: thus, subdued by fear, he reveals the matter to Romulus.

Forte et Numitori cum in custodia Remum haberet audissetque geminos esse fratres, comparando et aetatem eorum et ipsam minime servilem indolem, tetigerat animum memoria nepotum; sciscitandoque eodem pervenit ut haud procul esset quin Remum agnosceret. Ita undique regi dolus nectitur. Romulus non cum globo iuvenum—nec enim erat ad vim apertam par—sed aliis alio itinere iussis certo tempore ad regiam venire pastoribus ad regem impetum facit; et a domo Numitoris alia comparata manu adiuvat Remus.

By chance also to Numitor—when he had Remus in custody and had heard that the twins were brothers—by comparing both their age and their very indoles in no way servile, the memory of his grandsons touched his mind; and by inquiring he came to the same point, that he was not far from recognizing Remus. Thus on every side a stratagem is woven against the king. Romulus, not with a band of youths—for he was not a match for open force—but, after ordering the shepherds to come to the royal palace by different routes at a fixed time, makes an attack upon the king; and from Numitor’s house Remus assists with another force made ready.

Ita regem obtruncat.

Thus he cuts down the king.

[6] Numitor inter primum tumultum, hostes invasisse urbem atque adortos regiam dictitans, cum pubem Albanam in arcem praesidio armisque obtinendam avocasset, postquam iuvenes perpetrata caede pergere ad se gratulantes vidit, extemplo advocato concilio scelera in se fratris originem nepotum, ut geniti, ut educati, ut cogniti essent, caedem deinceps tyranni seque eius auctorem ostendit. Iuvenes per mediam contionem agmine ingressi cum avum regem salutassent, secuta ex omni multitudine consentiens vox ratum nomen imperiumque regi efficit.

[6] Numitor, amid the first tumult, repeatedly declaring that enemies had invaded the city and had attacked the royal house, when he had drawn the Alban youth away to the citadel to be held with garrison and arms, after he saw the youths, the slaughter perpetrated, proceed to him with congratulations, instantly, a council having been summoned, set forth the crimes of his brother against himself, the origin of his grandsons—how they had been begotten, how reared, how recognized—then the slaying of the tyrant, and showed himself the author of it. The youths, entering in a column through the middle of the assembly, when they had saluted their grandfather as king, a consenting voice following from the whole multitude renders ratified the title and the sovereignty to the king.

Ita Numitori Albana re permissa Romulum Remumque cupido cepit in iis locis ubi expositi ubique educati erant urbis condendae. Et supererat multitudo Albanorum Latinorumque; ad id pastores quoque accesserant, qui omnes facile spem facerent parvam Albam, parvum Lavinium prae ea urbe quae conderetur fore. Intervenit deinde his cogitationibus avitum malum, regni cupido, atque inde foedum certamen coortum a satis miti principio.

Thus, with the Alban state entrusted to Numitor, a desire seized Romulus and Remus to found a city in those places where they had been exposed and there had been reared. And there remained a multitude of Albans and Latins; to this the shepherds also had come in addition, who all easily created the expectation that Alba would be small, Lavinium small, in comparison to that city which would be founded. Then into these thoughts there intervened the ancestral evil, the cupidity of kingship, and from a quite mild beginning a foul contest arose.

Quoniam gemini essent nec aetatis verecundia discrimen facere posset, ut di quorum tutelae ea loca essent auguriis legerent qui nomen novae urbi daret, qui conditam imperio regeret, Palatium Romulus, Remus Aventinum ad inaugurandum templa capiunt.

Since they were twins and the modesty of age could make no discrimination, they resolved that the gods, under whose tutelage those places were, should by auguries choose who should give a name to the new city, who should rule the founded one with imperium; Romulus takes the Palatine, Remus the Aventine, to mark out templum-precincts for inauguration.

[7] Priori Remo augurium venisse fertur, sex voltures; iamque nuntiato augurio cum duplex numerus Romulo se ostendisset, utrumque regem sua multitudo consalutaverat: tempore illi praecepto, at hi numero avium regnum trahebant. Inde cum altercatione congressi certamine irarum ad caedem vertuntur; ibi in turba ictus Remus cecidit. Volgatior fama est ludibrio fratris Remum novos transiluisse muros; inde ab irato Romulo, cum verbis quoque increpitans adiecisset, "Sic deinde, quicumque alius transiliet moenia mea," interfectum.

[7] It is reported that the augury came first to Remus—six vultures; and now, with the augury announced, when a double number had shown itself to Romulus, each was hailed king by his own multitude: those were drawing the kingdom by priority of time, but these by the number of birds. Thence, meeting with altercation, they are turned from a contest of angers to slaughter; there, in the crowd, Remus, struck, fell. The more widespread report is that Remus, in mockery of his brother, had leapt over the new walls; then, by an angered Romulus—who, rebuking with words as well, had added, "Thus then, whoever else shall leap over my walls"—he was slain.

Ita solus potitus imperio Romulus; condita urbs conditoris nomine appellata.

Thus Romulus alone gained possession of the imperium; the founded city was called by the founder’s name.

Palatium primum, in quo ipse erat educatus, muniit. Sacra dis aliis Albano ritu, Graeco Herculi, ut ab Evandro instituta erant, facit. Herculem in ea loca Geryone interempto boves mira specie abegisse memorant, ac prope Tiberim fluvium, qua prae se armentum agens nando traiecerat, loco herbido ut quiete et pabulo laeto reficeret boves et ipsum fessum via procubuisse.

First he fortified the Palatine, on which he himself had been brought up. He performs sacred rites to the other gods in the Alban rite, to Hercules in the Greek, as they had been instituted by Evander. They relate that Hercules, with Geryon slain, drove off into those places cattle of wondrous aspect, and near the Tiber river, where, driving the herd before him, he had transported them by swimming, in a grassy spot, in order to refresh the cattle with rest and with gladsome fodder, he and the cattle took their ease, and he himself, weary from the road, lay down.

Ibi cum eum cibo vinoque gravatum sopor oppressisset, pastor accola eius loci, nomine Cacus, ferox viribus, captus pulchritudine boum cum avertere eam praedam vellet, quia si agendo armentum in speluncam compulisset ipsa vestigia quaerentem dominum eo deductura erant, aversos boves eximium quemque pulchritudine caudis in speluncam traxit. Hercules ad primam auroram somno excitus cum gregem perlustrasset oculis et partem abesse numero sensisset, pergit ad proximam speluncam, si forte eo vestigia ferrent. Quae ubi omnia foras versa vidit nec in partem aliam ferre, confusus atque incertus animi ex loco infesto agere porro armentum occepit.

There, when slumber had overpowered him, weighed down with food and wine, a shepherd, an inhabitant of that place, by name Cacus, fierce in strength, captivated by the beauty of the cattle, when he wished to divert that booty—since, if by driving the herd he had forced them into the cave, the tracks themselves would have led the searching master thither—dragged the cattle backward, each one exceptional in beauty, by the tails into the cave. Hercules, at the first light of Aurora, roused from sleep, when he had surveyed the herd with his eyes and sensed that a portion was absent from the count, proceeds to the nearest cave, to see whether by chance the tracks bore that way. When he saw that all the footprints were turned outward and did not lead in any other direction, bewildered and uncertain in mind, he began to drive the herd forward from the dangerous place.

Inde cum actae boves quaedam ad desiderium, ut fit, relictarum mugissent, reddita inclusarum ex spelunca boum vox Herculem convertit. Quem cum vadentem ad speluncam Cacus vi prohibere conatus esset, ictus claua fidem pastorum nequiquam invocans morte occubuit. Evander tum ea, profugus ex Peloponneso, auctoritate magis quam imperio regebat loca, venerabilis vir miraculo litterarum, rei novae inter rudes artium homines, venerabilior divinitate credita Carmentae matris, quam fatiloquam ante Sibyllae in Italiam adventum miratae eae gentes fuerant.

Then, when some of the driven cows, out of desire, as happens, for those left behind, had lowed, the answering voice of the cows shut within the cave turned Hercules back. When Cacus tried by force to prevent him as he went toward the cave, struck by the club, invoking in vain the good faith of shepherds, he fell in death. Evander then, a refugee from the Peloponnesus, was ruling those places by authority rather than by command, a venerable man by the miracle of letters—a new thing among men rude in the arts—and more venerable by the divinity believed of his mother Carmenta, whom, fate-speaking, those peoples had admired before the advent of the Sibyl into Italy.

Is tum Evander concursu pastorum trepidantium circa advenam manifestae reum caedis excitus postquam facinus facinorisque causam audivit, habitum formamque viri aliquantum ampliorem augustioremque humana intuens rogitat qui vir esset. Ubi nomen patremque ac patriam accepit, "Iove nate, Hercules, salve," inquit; "te mihi mater, veridica interpres deum, aucturum caelestium numerum cecinit, tibique aram hic dicatum iri quam opulentissima olim in terris gens maximam vocet tuoque ritu colat." Dextra Hercules data accipere se omen impleturumque fata ara condita ac dicata ait. Ibi tum primum bove eximia capta de grege sacrum Herculi, adhibitis ad ministerium dapemque Potitiis ac Pinariis, quae tum familiae maxime inclitae ea loca incolebant, factum.

Then Evander, roused by the concourse of shepherds trembling around the newcomer, manifestly charged with a killing, after he heard the deed and the cause of the deed, beholding the bearing and form of the man somewhat larger and more august than human, asks who the man was. When he learned the name, the father, and the fatherland, he said, “Son of Jove, Hercules, hail; my mother, a truth-speaking interpreter of the gods, sang that you would augment the number of the celestials, and that for you here an altar would be dedicated which the most opulent nation on earth would one day call the greatest and would cultivate according to your rite.” Hercules, with his right hand given, says that he accepts the omen and will fulfill the fates, an altar established and dedicated. There then for the first time, with an exceptional ox taken from the herd, a sacrifice to Hercules was made, the Potitii and the Pinarii—families then most renowned who inhabited those places—being called in for the service and the banquet.

Forte ita evenit ut Potitii ad tempus praesto essent iisque exta apponerentur, Pinarii extis adesis ad ceteram venirent dapem. Inde institutum mansit donec Pinarium genus fuit, ne extis eorum sollemnium vescerentur. Potitii ab Evandro edocti antistites sacri eius per multas aetates fuerunt, donec tradito servis publicis sollemni familiae ministerio genus omne Potitiorum interiit.

By chance it so happened that the Potitii were on hand at the appointed time and the entrails were set before them, while the Pinarii, the entrails having been eaten, came to the rest of the banquet. Thence an instituted usage remained, so long as the Pinarius race existed, that they were not to eat of the entrails of those solemn rites. The Potitii, taught by Evander, were the antistites—priests—of that sacred rite through many ages, until, the solemn family ministry having been handed over to the public slaves, the whole stock of the Potitii perished.

Haec tum sacra Romulus una ex omnibus peregrina suscepit, iam tum immortalitatis virtute partae ad quam eum sua fata ducebant fautor.

Then Romulus, alone among all, took up these foreign sacred rites, already then a favorer of immortality wrought by virtue, toward which his own fates were leading him.

[8] Rebus divinis rite perpetratis vocataque ad concilium multitudine quae coalescere in populi unius corpus nulla re praeterquam legibus poterat, iura dedit; quae ita sancta generi hominum agresti fore ratus, si se ipse venerabilem insignibus imperii fecisset, cum cetero habitu se augustiorem, tum maxime lictoribus duodecim sumptis fecit. Alii ab numero avium quae augurio regnum portenderant eum secutum numerum putant. me haud paenitet eorum sententiae esse quibus et apparitores hoc genus ab Etruscis finitimis, unde sella curulis, unde toga praetexta sumpta est, et numerum quoque ipsum ductum placet, et ita habuisse Etruscos quod ex duodecim populis communiter creato rege singulos singuli populi lictores dederint.

[8] The divine rites having been duly performed, and the multitude having been called to an assembly—which could be fused into the body of a single people by nothing other than laws—he gave laws; judging that they would be thus sacrosanct for a race of rustic men, if he made himself venerable by the insignia of imperium, he made himself more august by his other attire, but most of all by adopting twelve lictors. Others think he followed that number from the count of birds which by augury had portended his kingship. I am not displeased to be of the opinion of those to whom it seems good that both apparitors of this kind were taken from the neighboring Etruscans—whence the curule chair, whence the toga praetexta was taken—and that the very number also was derived, and that the Etruscans had the practice thus: from twelve peoples, when a king was created in common, each people gave a single lictor.

Crescebat interim urbs munitionibus alia atque alia appetendo loca, cum in spem magis futurae multitudinis quam ad id quod tum hominum erat munirent. Deinde ne vana urbis magnitudo esset, adiciendae multitudinis causa vetere consilio condentium urbes, qui obscuram atque humilem conciendo ad se multitudinem natam e terra sibi prolem ementiebantur, locum qui nunc saeptus descendentibus inter duos lucos est asylum aperit. Eo ex finitimis populis turba omnis sine discrimine, liber an servus esset, avida novarum rerum perfugit, idque primum ad coeptam magnitudinem roboris fuit.

Meanwhile the city was growing with fortifications, by aiming at one place and then another, since they were fortifying more in hope of a future multitude than in proportion to the number of men that there was then. Then, lest the city’s magnitude be empty, for the sake of adding a multitude, by the old counsel of those founding cities—who, by mustering to themselves an obscure and lowly multitude, were feigning for themselves a progeny born from the earth—he opened as an asylum the place which is now enclosed, for those descending, between the two groves. To that place from the neighboring peoples every crowd without distinction, whether free or slave, eager for new things, fled for refuge, and this was the first reinforcement of strength to the greatness begun.

Cum iam virium haud paeniteret consilium deinde viribus parat. Centum creat senatores, sive quia is numerus satis erat, sive quia soli centum erant qui creari patres possent. Patres certe ab honore patriciique progenies eorum appellati.

When now he had no cause to regret his strength, he then prepares counsel to match his forces. He creates one hundred senators, either because that number was sufficient, or because only one hundred were those who could be created Fathers. The Fathers, certainly, were so called from the honor, and their progeny were appellated patricians.

[9] Iam res Romana adeo erat valida ut cuilibet finitimarum civitatum bello par esset; sed penuria mulierum hominis aetatem duratura magnitudo erat, quippe quibus nec domi spes prolis nec cum finitimis conubia essent. Tum ex consilio patrum Romulus legatos circa vicinas gentes misit qui societatem conubiumque novo populo peterent: urbes quoque, ut cetera, ex infimo nasci; dein, quas sua virtus ac di iuvent, magnas opes sibi magnumque nomen facere; satis scire, origini Romanae et deos adfuisse et non defuturam virtutem; proinde ne gravarentur homines cum hominibus sanguinem ac genus miscere. Nusquam benigne legatio audita est: adeo simul spernebant, simul tantam in medio crescentem molem sibi ac posteris suis metuebant.

[9] Already the Roman commonwealth was so strong that it was equal in war to any one of the neighboring cities; but for want of women its greatness was going to last only a man’s lifetime, since they had neither hope of offspring at home nor conubia with their neighbors. Then, by the counsel of the Fathers, Romulus sent envoys around to the neighboring peoples to seek for the new people alliance and intermarriage (conubium): that cities too, like other things, are born from the lowest; then those which their own virtue and the gods aid make for themselves great resources and a great name; that they knew well both that the gods had been present at the Roman origin and that virtue would not be lacking; accordingly, let men not be reluctant to mingle blood and stock with men. Nowhere was the embassy heard kindly: so much at once they spurned, and at once they feared so great a mass growing in their midst for themselves and for their posterity.

Ac plerisque rogitantibus dimissi ecquod feminis quoque asylum aperuissent; id enim demum compar conubium fore. Aegre id Romana pubes passa et haud dubie ad vim spectare res coepit. Cui tempus locumque aptum ut daret Romulus aegritudinem animi dissimulans ludos ex industria parat Neptuno equestri sollemnes; Consualia vocat.

And, after they were dismissed, with many repeatedly asking whether they had also opened any asylum for women—for only then would the marriage be on equal terms. The Roman youth bore that with difficulty, and without doubt the affair began to look toward force. To give a suitable time and place for this, Romulus, dissembling the grief of his mind, by design prepares solemn games to Equestrian Neptune; he calls them the Consualia.

Indici deinde finitimis spectaculum iubet; quantoque apparatu tum sciebant aut poterant, concelebrant ut rem claram exspectatamque facerent.

He then orders the spectacle to be announced to the neighboring peoples; and with as great an apparatus as they then knew or were able, they concelebrated it, so that they might make the affair renowned and awaited.

Multi mortales convenere, studio etiam videndae novae urbis, maxime proximi quique, Caeninenses, Crustumini, Antemnates; iam Sabinorum omnis multitudo cum liberis ac coniugibus venit. Inuitati hospitaliter per domos cum situm moeniaque et frequentem tectis urbem vidissent, mirantur tam brevi rem Romanam crevisse. Ubi spectaculi tempus venit deditaeque eo mentes cum oculis erant, tum ex composito orta vis signoque dato iuventus Romana ad rapiendas virgines discurrit.

Many mortals came together, also by zeal for seeing the new city, chiefly all the nearest, the Caeninenses, the Crustuminians, the Antemnates; already the whole multitude of the Sabines came with children and spouses. Invited hospitably through the homes, when they had seen the site and the walls and the city frequent with roofs, they marvel that in so brief a time the Roman affair has grown. When the time of the spectacle came and minds along with eyes were devoted to it, then by pre-arrangement violence arose, and the Roman youth, the signal given, ran about to seize the virgins.

Magna pars forte in quem quaeque inciderat raptae: quasdam forma excellentes, primoribus patrum destinatas, ex plebe homines quibus datum negotium erat domos deferebant. Unam longe ante alias specie ac pulchritudine insignem a globo Thalassi cuiusdam raptam ferunt multisque sciscitantibus cuinam eam ferrent, identidem ne quis violaret Thalassio ferri clamitatum; inde nuptialem hanc vocem factam.

A great part, by chance, were snatched by whichever man each had fallen to: certain ones excelling in form, destined for the foremost of the Fathers, men of the plebs to whom the business had been given were carrying to their houses. They say that one, far before the others distinguished in appearance and pulchritude, was seized by the band of a certain Thalassius; and as many kept inquiring to whom they were carrying her, again and again it was shouted that she was being borne to Thalassius, lest anyone violate her; from this this nuptial cry was made.

Turbato per metum ludicro maesti parentes virginum profugiunt, incusantes violati hospitii foedus deumque invocantes cuius ad sollemne ludosque per fas ac fidem decepti venissent. Nec raptis aut spes de se melior aut indignatio est minor. Sed ipse Romulus circumibat docebatque patrum id superbia factum qui conubium finitimis negassent; illas tamen in matrimonio, in societate fortunarum omnium civitatisque et quo nihil carius humano generi sit liberum fore; mollirent modo iras et, quibus fors corpora dedisset, darent animos; saepe ex iniuria postmodum gratiam ortam; eoque melioribus usuras viris quod adnisurus pro se quisque sit ut, cum suam vicem functus officio sit, parentium etiam patriaeque expleat desiderium.

With the spectacle thrown into confusion by fear, the sorrowful parents of the maidens flee, accusing a compact of hospitality violated and invoking the gods, to whose solemnity and games they had come, deceived, by right and good faith. Nor among the seized is either hope for themselves better or indignation less. But Romulus himself went around and explained that this had been done by the pride of the fathers, who had refused connubium to their neighbors; that nevertheless the young women would be in matrimony, in a partnership of all fortunes and of citizenship, and would have children—than which nothing is dearer to the human race; only let them soften their angers and, to those to whom chance had given their bodies, give their spirits; that often afterwards from an injury gratitude has arisen; and that they would therefore enjoy better husbands, because each would strive on his own behalf that, when he had performed his own part of duty, he should also fulfill the longing of their parents and of the fatherland.

Accedebant blanditiae virorum, factum purgantium cupiditate atque amore, quae maxime ad muliebre ingenium efficaces preces sunt.

There were added the blandishments of the men, purging the deed by desire and love, entreaties which are most effective with the womanly disposition.

[10] Iam admodum mitigati animi raptis erant; at raptarum parentes tum maxime sordida veste lacrimisque et querellis civitates concitabant. Nec domi tantum indignationes continebant sed congregabantur undique ad T. Tatium regem Sabinorum, et legationes eo quod maximum Tati nomen in iis regionibus erat conveniebant. Caeninenses Crustuminique et Antemnates erant ad quos eius iniuriae pars pertinebat.

[10] By now the spirits of the seized women were very much softened; but the parents of the abducted, then most of all, with sordid clothing, tears, and complaints, were stirring up the communities. Nor did they confine their indignations at home only, but they gathered from everywhere to King T. Tatius of the Sabines, and delegations assembled there, because the name of Tatius was the greatest in those regions. The Caeninenses, the Crustumini, and the Antemnates were those to whom a share of that injury pertained.

Lente agere his Tatius Sabinique visi sunt: ipsi inter se tres populi communiter bellum parant. Ne Crustumini quidem atque Antemnates pro ardore iraque Caeninensium satis se impigre movent; ita per se ipsum nomen Caeninum in agrum Romanum impetum facit. Sed effuse vastantibus fit obvius cum exercitu Romulus levique certamine docet vanam sine viribus iram esse.

Tatius and the Sabines seemed to be acting slowly: they themselves, the three peoples among themselves, jointly prepare war. Not even the Crustuminians and the Antemnates, in proportion to the ardor and wrath of the Caeninenses, bestir themselves vigorously enough; thus the Caenine nation by itself makes an onrush into the Roman territory. But while they are laying waste in an unrestrained manner, Romulus meets them with his army and, by a slight skirmish, shows that anger without forces is vain.

Exercitum fundit fugatque, fusum persequitur: regem in proelio obtruncat et spoliat: duce hostium occiso urbem primo impetu capit. Inde exercitu victore reducto, ipse cum factis vir magnificus tum factorum ostentator haud minor, spolia ducis hostium caesi suspensa fabricato ad id apte ferculo gerens in Capitolium escendit; ibique ea cum ad quercum pastoribus sacram deposuisset, simul cum dono designavit templo Iovis fines cognomenque addidit deo: "Iuppiter Feretri" inquit, "haec tibi victor Romulus rex regia arma fero, templumque his regionibus quas modo animo metatus sum dedico, sedem opimis spoliis quae regibus ducibusque hostium caesis me auctorem sequentes posteri ferent." Haec templi est origo quod primum omnium Romae sacratum est. Ita deinde dis visum nec inritam conditoris templi vocem esse qua laturos eo spolia posteros nuncupavit nec multitudine compotum eius doni volgari laudem.

He routs the army and puts it to flight, and pursues it when routed: he hews down the king in battle and despoils him; the leader of the foes having been slain, he takes the city at the first assault. Then, with the victorious army led back, he himself—at once a man magnificent in deeds and no less an ostentator of his deeds—ascending to the Capitol, bearing the spoils of the slain leader of the enemies, hung up on a litter fabricated aptly for that purpose; and there, when he had laid them down at an oak sacred to shepherds, at once with the gift he marked out the temple’s boundaries and added a cognomen to the god: “Jupiter Feretrius,” he says, “these royal arms I, King Romulus, the victor, bear to you, and I dedicate a temple with these regions which I have just measured in my mind, a seat for the opima spoils, which, with kings and leaders of enemies slain, our descendants, following me as author, shall bear.” This is the origin of the temple which of all was the first consecrated at Rome. Thus thereafter it so seemed to the gods both that the voice of the founder of the temple should not be ineffectual—wherein he declared that the descendants would bear spoils thither—and that the praise of that gift should not be vulgarized by a multitude being partaker of it.

Bina postea, inter tot annos, tot bella, opima parta sunt spolia: adeo rara eius fortuna decoris fuit.

Afterwards, twice, among so many years, so many wars, the opima spoils were gained: so rare was the fortune of that distinction.

[11] Dum ea ibi Romani gerunt, Antemnatium exercitus per occasionem ac solitudinem hostiliter in fines Romanos incursionem facit. Raptim et ad hos Romana legio ducta palatos in agris oppressit. Fusi igitur primo impetu et clamore hostes, oppidum captum; duplicique victoria ouantem Romulum Hersilia coniunx precibus raptarum fatigata orat ut parentibus earum det veniam et in civitatem accipiat: ita rem coalescere concordia posse.

[11] While the Romans are carrying on those matters there, the army of the Antemnates, taking advantage of opportunity and of the deserted state, makes a hostile incursion into Roman territory. Swiftly, too, a Roman legion led against them overwhelmed them, scattered in the fields. Therefore, the enemies routed at the first onset and clamor, the town was captured; and Romulus, exulting in a double victory, is begged by Hersilia, his consort—wearied by the prayers of the abducted women—to grant pardon to their parents and to receive them into the citizen-body: thus the affair can coalesce by concord.

Facile impetratum. Inde contra Crustuminos profectus bellum inferentes. Ibi minus etiam quod alienis cladibus ceciderant animi certaminis fuit.

It was easily obtained. Thence he set out against the Crustuminians, who were bringing war. There there was even less of a contest, because their spirits had fallen by the calamities of others.

Utroque coloniae missae: plures inventi qui propter ubertatem terrae in Crustuminum nomina darent. Et Romam inde frequenter migratum est, a parentibus maxime ac propinquis raptarum.

Colonies were sent to both; more were found who, because of the fertility of the soil, gave in their names for Crustuminum. And from there there was frequent migration to Rome, especially by the parents and relatives of the abducted women.

Novissimum ab Sabinis bellum ortum multoque id maximum fuit; nihil enim per iram aut cupiditatem actum est, nec ostenderunt bellum prius quam intulerunt. Consilio etiam additus dolus. Sp. Tarpeius Romanae praeerat arci.

The latest war arose from the Sabines, and by far it was the greatest; for nothing was done through wrath or cupidity, nor did they display the war before they launched it. To the counsel there was added deceit as well. Sp. Tarpeius was in command of the Roman citadel.

Huius filiam virginem auro corrumpit Tatius ut armatos in arcem accipiat; aquam forte ea tum sacris extra moenia petitum ierat. Accepti obrutam armis necavere, seu ut vi capta potius arx videretur seu prodendi exempli causa ne quid usquam fidum proditori esset. Additur fabula, quod volgo Sabini aureas armillas magni ponderis brachio laevo gemmatosque magna specie anulos habuerint, pepigisse eam quod in sinistris manibus haberent; eo scuta illi pro aureis donis congesta.

Tatius corrupts this man’s daughter, a virgin, with gold, that she might admit armed men into the citadel; by chance at that time she had gone outside the walls to fetch water for sacred rites. Having been admitted, they slew her, overwhelmed with arms—either so that the citadel might rather seem taken by force, or for the sake of setting an example of betrayal, that nowhere should anything be faithful to a traitor. A tale is added, that commonly the Sabines had golden armlets of great weight on the left arm and rings bejeweled with great show, and that she bargained for what they had on their left hands; for that reason their shields were heaped upon her in place of golden gifts.

Sunt qui eam ex pacto tradendi quod in sinistris manibus esset derecto arma petisse dicant et fraude visam agere sua ipsam peremptam mercede.

There are those who say that, by the pact for delivering what was on the left hands, she asked directly for arms, and, seen to be acting by fraud, she herself was slain by her own reward.

[12] Tenuere tamen arcem Sabini; atque inde postero die, cum Romanus exercitus instructus quod inter Palatinum Capitolinumque collem campi est complesset, non prius descenderunt in aequum quam ira et cupiditate reciperandae arcis stimulante animos in adversum Romani subiere. Principes utrimque pugnam ciebant ab Sabinis Mettius Curtius, ab Romanis Hostius Hostilius. Hic rem Romanam iniquo loco ad prima signa animo atque audacia sustinebat.

[12] Nevertheless the Sabines held the citadel; and from there, on the following day, when the Roman army, drawn up, had filled the stretch of plain which is between the Palatine and Capitoline hill, they did not descend into the level ground before the Romans, with ire and the cupidity of recovering the citadel goading their spirits, advanced in opposition. Leaders on both sides were setting the fight in motion: on the Sabine side Mettius Curtius, on the Roman side Hostius Hostilius. This man sustained the Roman cause, in an unfavorable place, at the front standards, with spirit and audacity.

Ut Hostius cecidit, confestim Romana inclinatur acies fusaque est. Ad veterem portam Palati Romulus et ipse turba fugientium actus, arma ad caelum tollens, "Iuppiter, tuis" inquit "iussus avibus hic in Palatio prima urbi fundamenta ieci. Arcem iam scelere emptam Sabini habent; inde huc armati superata media valle tendunt; at tu, pater deum hominumque, hinc saltem arce hostes; deme terrorem Romanis fugamque foedam siste.

As Hostius fell, at once the Roman battle line wavered and was routed. To the old gate of the Palatine Romulus himself, driven by the crowd of those fleeing, raising his arms to the sky, said, "Jupiter," he said, "ordered by your birds I here on the Palatine laid the first foundations for the city. The Sabines now hold the citadel, bought by crime; from there, armed, they are making for here, the middle valley having been crossed; but you, father of gods and men, from here at least ward off the enemies; take away terror from the Romans and stop the foul flight.

Hic ego tibi templum Statori Iovi, quod monumentum sit posteris tua praesenti ope servatam urbem esse, voveo." Haec precatus, veluti sensisset auditas preces, "Hinc" inquit, "Romani, Iuppiter optimus maximus resistere atque iterare pugnam iubet." Restitere Romani tamquam caelesti voce iussi: ipse ad primores Romulus provolat. Mettius Curtius ab Sabinis princeps ab arce decucurrerat et effusos egerat Romanos toto quantum foro spatium est. Nec procul iam a porta Palati erat, clamitans: "Vicimus perfidos hospites, imbelles hostes; iam sciunt longe aliud esse virgines rapere, aliud pugnare cum viris." In eum haec gloriantem cum globo ferocissimorum iuvenum Romulus impetum facit.

Here I vow to you a temple to Jupiter the Stayer, that it may be a monument for posterity that by your present aid the city was preserved." Having prayed these things, as though he had sensed that his prayers were heard, he said, "From here, Romans, Jupiter Best and Greatest orders [you] to stand firm and to renew the fight." The Romans stood fast as if ordered by a celestial voice; Romulus himself flies forth to the foremost men. Mettius Curtius, leader from the Sabines, had run down from the citadel and had driven the scattered Romans through all the space that the Forum comprises. And now he was not far from the gate of the Palatine, shouting: "We have conquered the perfidious guests, unwarlike enemies; now they know that to seize virgins is one thing, to fight with men another." Against him, boasting these things, Romulus makes an attack with a band of the most ferocious youths.

Ex equo tum forte Mettius pugnabat; eo pelli facilius fuit.

Mettius then by chance was fighting on horseback; on that account he was more easily driven back.

Pulsum Romani persequuntur; et alia Romana acies, audacia regis accensa, fundit Sabinos. Mettius in paludem sese strepitu sequentium trepidante equo coniecit; averteratque ea res etiam Sabinos tanti periculo viri. Et ille quidem adnuentibus ac vocantibus suis favore multorum addito animo evadit: Romani Sabinique in media conualle duorum montium redintegrant proelium; sed res Romana erat superior.

The Romans pursue the repulsed; and another Roman battle-line, inflamed by the audacity of the king, routs the Sabines. Mettius hurled himself into a marsh, his horse panicking at the noise of the pursuers; and that circumstance had even turned aside the Sabines, at the peril of so great a man. And he indeed, with his own men nodding and calling to him, with the favor of many added, escapes with spirit increased: the Romans and the Sabines renew the battle in the middle of the valley between the two hills; but the Roman cause was superior.

[13] Tum Sabinae mulieres, quarum ex iniuria bellum ortum erat, crinibus passis scissaque veste, victo malis muliebri pavore, ausae se inter tela volantia inferre, ex transverso impetu facto dirimere infestas acies, dirimere iras, hinc patres, hinc viros orantes, ne sanguine se nefando soceri generique respergerent, ne parricidio macularent partus suos, nepotum illi, hi liberum progeniem. "Si adfinitatis inter vos, si conubii piget, in nos vertite iras; nos causa belli, nos volnerum ac caedium viris ac parentibus sumus; melius peribimus quam sine alteris vestrum viduae aut orbae vivemus." movet res cum multitudinem tum duces; silentium et repentina fit quies; inde ad foedus faciendum duces prodeunt. Nec pacem modo sed civitatem unam ex duabus faciunt.

[13] Then the Sabine women, from whose injury the war had arisen, with hair disheveled and garment torn, their womanly fear overcome by their woes, dared to thrust themselves amid the flying missiles, and, with a crosswise rush made, to break apart the hostile battle-lines, to break apart the angers—on this side begging their fathers, on that their husbands—not to spatter themselves with unspeakable blood as fathers-in-law and sons-in-law, not to stain their offspring with parricide, to those grandsons, to these a freeborn progeny. “If you repent of kinship by affinity between you, if of marriage, turn your angers upon us; we are the cause of the war, we are the cause of wounds and killings to your husbands and parents; it will be better that we perish than that, without one or the other of you, we live widowed or bereft.” The matter moves both the multitude and the leaders; silence and a sudden calm arise; then the leaders come forth to make a treaty. They make not peace only, but one city out of two.

Regnum consociant: imperium omne conferunt Romam. Ita geminata urbe ut Sabinis tamen aliquid daretur Quirites a Curibus appellati. Monumentum eius pugnae ubi primum ex profunda emersus palude equus Curtium in vado statuit, Curtium lacum appellarunt.

They associate the kingship: they confer all command upon Rome. Thus, with the city doubled, so that something might nevertheless be given to the Sabines, the citizens were called Quirites from Cures. The memorial of that battle—where, when first the horse, having emerged from the deep marsh, set Curtius in the shallows—they called the Lake of Curtius.

Ex bello tam tristi laeta repente pax cariores Sabinas viris ac parentibus et ante omnes Romulo ipsi fecit. Itaque cum populum in curias triginta divideret, nomina earum curiis imposuit. Id non traditur, cum haud dubie aliquanto numerus maior hoc mulierum fuerit, aetate an dignitatibus suis virorumue an sorte lectae sint, quae nomina curiis darent.

From so sad a war, a gladsome peace suddenly made the Sabine women more dear to their husbands and parents, and before all to Romulus himself. And so, when he divided the people into thirty curiae, he imposed their names upon the curiae. This is not transmitted—since without doubt the number of these women was somewhat greater than this—whether they were selected by age, or by their own dignities or those of their husbands, or by lot, to give names to the curiae.

Eodem tempore et centuriae tres equitum conscriptae sunt. Ramnenses ab Romulo, ab T. Tatio Titienses appellati: Lucerum nominis et originis causa incerta est. Inde non modo commune sed concors etiam regnum duobus regibus fuit.

At the same time three centuries of horsemen were enrolled. The Ramnenses were named from Romulus, the Titienses from T. Tatius; the cause of the name and the origin of the Luceres is uncertain. Thence the kingdom was not only common but even concordant for the two kings.

[14] Post aliquot annos propinqui regis Tati legatos Laurentium pulsant; cumque Laurentes iure gentium agerent, apud Tatium gratia suorum et preces plus poterant. Igitur illorum poenam in se vertit; nam Lavinii cum ad sollemne sacrificium eo venisset concursu facto interficitur. Eam rem minus aegre quam dignum erat tulisse Romulum ferunt, seu ob infidam societatem regni seu quia haud iniuria caesum credebat.

[14] After several years, the kinsmen of King Tatius assault the legates of the Laurentines; and when the Laurentines were proceeding by the law of nations, with Tatius the favor of his own and their prayers had greater power. Therefore he turned their punishment upon himself; for at Lavinium, when he had come there for a solemn sacrifice, a rush having been made, he was slain. They report that Romulus bore that matter less painfully than was fitting, either on account of the faithless partnership of the kingship, or because he believed that he had been cut down not unjustly.

Itaque bello quidem abstinuit; ut tamen expiarentur legatorum iniuriae regisque caedes, foedus inter Romam Laviniumque urbes renovatum est.

Therefore he indeed abstained from war; but, so that the injuries to the legates and the king’s slaughter might be expiated, the treaty between the cities of Rome and Lavinium was renewed.

Et cum his quidem insperata pax erat: aliud multo propius atque in ipsis prope portis bellum ortum. Fidenates nimis vicinas prope se conualescere opes rati, priusquam tantum roboris esset quantum futurum apparebat, occupant bellum facere. Iuventute armata immissa vastatur agri quod inter urbem ac Fidenas est; inde ad laevam versi quia dextra Tiberis arcebat, cum magna trepidatione agrestium populantur, tumultusque repens ex agris in urbem inlatus pro nuntio fuit.

And with these indeed there was an unhoped-for peace: another war, much nearer and almost at the very gates, arose. The Fidenates, thinking that resources too near themselves were convalescing, before there should be as much vigor as it was apparent there would be, seize upon making war. With the armed youth sent in, the land which is between the city and Fidenae is laid waste; then, turned to the left because on the right the Tiber was warding them off, they plunder with great trepidation among the country-folk, and a sudden tumult, brought in from the fields into the city, served in place of a message.

Excitus Romulus—neque enim dilationem pati tam vicinum bellum poterat—exercitum educit, castra a Fidenis mille passuum locat. Ibi modico praesidio relicto, egressus omnibus copiis partem militum locis circa densa obsita virgulta obscuris subsidere in insidiis iussit: cum parte maiore atque omni equitatu profectus, id quod quaerebat, tumultuoso et minaci genere pugnae adequitando ipsis prope portis hostem excivit. Fugae quoque, quae simulanda erat, eadem equestris pugna causam minus mirabilem dedit.

Roused, Romulus—for so near a war could not suffer delay—leads out the army and pitches camp a thousand paces from Fidenae. There, a modest garrison having been left, having gone out with all his forces he ordered part of the soldiers to settle in ambush in places around, obscure, covered with dense brushwood; setting out with the larger part and all the cavalry, by riding up with a tumultuous and minatory kind of combat, he drew forth the enemy almost at their very gates—the very thing he was seeking. The same cavalry fight also supplied a less remarkable pretext for flight, which had to be simulated.

Et cum, velut inter pugnae fugaeque consilium trepidante equitatu, pedes quoque referret gradum, plenis repente portis effusi hostes impulsa Romana acie studio instandi sequendique trahuntur ad locum insidiarum. Inde subito exorti Romani transversam invadunt hostium aciem; addunt pavorem mota e castris signa eorum qui in praesidio relicti fuerant.

And when, with the cavalry quaking as though in a counsel between battle and flight, the foot-soldiers too were drawing back a step, the enemy, suddenly poured out with the gates thrown wide, are, with the Roman line driven back, drawn by zeal for pressing-on and pursuing to the place of the ambush. From there the Romans, suddenly sprung up, assail the enemy’s line crosswise; the standards, set in motion out of the camp by those who had been left in garrison, add panic.

Ita multiplici terrore perculsi Fidenates prius paene, quam Romulus quique avehi cum eo visi erant circumagerent frenis equos, terga vertunt; multoque effusius, quippe vera fuga, qui simulantes paulo ante secuti erant oppidum repetebant. Non tamen eripuere se hosti: haerens in tergo Romanus, priusquam fores portarum obicerentur, velut agmine uno inrumpit.

Thus, smitten by manifold terror, the Fidenates turn their backs almost before Romulus and those who had seemed to be carried off with him could wheel their horses with the reins; and far more in rout—since it was a true flight—those who a little before, while simulating, had pursued were now making again for the town. Yet they did not snatch themselves from the enemy: the Roman, clinging to their rear, before the doors of the gates could be barred, bursts in as if in a single column.

[15] Belli Fidenatis contagione inritati Veientium animi et consanguinitate—nam Fidenates quoque Etrusci fuerunt—et quod ipsa propinquitas loci, si Romana arma omnibus infesta finitimis essent, stimulabat. In fines Romanos excucurrerunt populabundi magis quam iusti more belli. Itaque non castris positis, non exspectato hostium exercitu, raptam ex agris praedam portantes Veios rediere.

[15] The spirits of the Veientes, irritated by the contagion of the Fidenaean war and by consanguinity—for the Fidenaeans too were Etruscans—and because the very propinquity of the place, if Roman arms were hostile to all the neighbors, was goading them. They dashed out into Roman borders, marauding rather than in the just manner of war. And so, without camps having been pitched, without the enemy’s army having been awaited, carrying booty snatched from the fields, they returned to Veii.

Romanus contra postquam hostem in agris non invenit, dimicationi ultimae instructus intentusque Tiberim transit. Quem postquam castra ponere et ad urbem accessurum Veientes audivere, obviam egressi ut potius acie decernerent quam inclusi de tectis moenibusque dimicarent. Ibi viribus nulla arte adiutis, tantum veterani robore exercitus rex Romanus vicit; persecutusque fusos ad moenia hostes, urbe valida muris ac situ ipso munita abstinuit, agros rediens vastat, ulciscendi magis quam praedae studio; eaque clade haud minus quam adversa pugna subacti Veientes pacem petitum oratores Romam mittunt.

The Roman, on the other hand, after he did not find the enemy in the fields, prepared and intent for an ultimate combat, crosses the Tiber. When the Veientes heard that he would pitch camp and would approach the city, they went out to meet him, so that they might rather decide it by a battle-line than, shut in, fight from the roofs and the walls. There, with their forces aided by no artifice, the Roman king conquered solely by the veteran robustness of his army; and having pursued the routed foes to the walls, he refrained from the city, strong in its walls and fortified by its very site; returning, he lays waste the fields, with a zeal for avenging rather than for booty; and by that disaster, subdued no less than by a contrary fight, the Veientes send orators to Rome to petition for peace.

Agri parte multatis in centum annos indutiae datae.

Mulcted of a portion of their land, a truce for 100 years was granted.

Haec ferme Romulo regnante domi militiaeque gesta, quorum nihil absonum fidei divinae originis divinitatisque post mortem creditae fuit, non animus in regno avito reciperando, non condendae urbis consilium, non bello ac pace firmandae. Ab illo enim profecto viribus datis tantum valuit ut in quadraginta deinde annos tutam pacem haberet. Multitudini tamen gratior fuit quam patribus, longe ante alios acceptissimus militum animis; trecentosque armatos ad custodiam corporis quos Celeres appellavit non in bello solum sed etiam in pace habuit.

These things, for the most part, were done, with Romulus reigning, at home and in the field; of which nothing was dissonant with the faith in his divine origin and in the divinity believed after death—neither the spirit for recovering the ancestral kingdom, nor the plan for founding a city, nor for strengthening it by war and peace. For by that source, assuredly, with powers bestowed, he was so strong that thereafter for forty years he had secure peace. He was, however, more pleasing to the multitude than to the Fathers, by far most acceptable to the minds of the soldiers; and he had three hundred armed men for the guard of his person, whom he called the Celeres, not in war only but also in peace.

[16] His immortalibus editis operibus cum ad exercitum recensendum contionem in campo ad Caprae paludem haberet, subito coorta tempestas cum magno fragore tonitribusque tam denso regem operuit nimbo ut conspectum eius contioni abstulerit; nec deinde in terris Romulus fuit. Romana pubes sedato tandem pavore postquam ex tam turbido die serena et tranquilla lux rediit, ubi vacuam sedem regiam vidit, etsi satis credebat patribus qui proximi steterant sublimem raptum procella, tamen velut orbitatis metu icta maestum aliquamdiu silentium obtinuit. Deinde a paucis initio facto, deum deo natum, regem parentemque urbis Romanae salvere universi Romulum iubent; pacem precibus exposcunt, uti volens propitius suam semper sospitet progeniem.

[16] After these immortal deeds had been brought forth, when he was holding an assembly for reviewing the army in the field at the Caprae Marsh, suddenly a tempest having arisen, with great crashing and thunders, covered the king with so dense a nimbus that it took away from the assembly the sight of him; nor thereafter was Romulus on earth. The Roman youth, fear at last calmed, after from so turbulent a day a serene and tranquil light returned, when it saw the royal seat empty, although it sufficiently believed the Fathers who had stood nearest that he had been snatched aloft by the squall, nevertheless, as if struck by a fear of orphanhood, it maintained a mournful silence for some time. Then, a beginning having been made by a few, all together bid hail to Romulus, a god born from a god, the king and parent of the city of Rome; they entreat with prayers for peace, that, willing and propitious, he may always preserve safe his own progeny.

Fuisse credo tum quoque aliquos qui discerptum regem patrum manibus taciti arguerent; manavit enim haec quoque sed perobscura fama; illam alteram admiratio viri et pavor praesens nobilitavit. Et consilio etiam unius hominis addita rei dicitur fides. Namque Proculus Iulius, sollicita civitate desiderio regis et infensa patribus, gravis, ut traditur, quamvis magnae rei auctor in contionem prodit.

I believe that then also there were some who silently alleged that the king had been torn to pieces by the hands of the fathers; for this rumor too spread, but very obscure; the other report admiration for the man and present fear made notable. And by the counsel of a single man credibility is said to have been added to the matter. For Proculus Julius, with the state anxious from longing for the king and hostile to the fathers, a weighty man, as it is handed down, although the author of a great matter, comes forth into the assembly.

"Romulus" inquit, "Quirites, parens urbis huius, prima hodierna luce caelo repente delapsus se mihi obvium dedit. Cum perfusus horrore venerabundusque adstitissem petens precibus ut contra intueri fas esset, ""Abi, nuntia"" inquit ""Romanis, caelestes ita velle ut mea Roma caput orbis terrarum sit; proinde rem militarem colant sciantque et ita posteris tradant nullas opes humanas armis Romanis resistere posse."" Haec" inquit "locutus sublimis abiit." Mirum quantum illi viro nuntianti haec fides fuerit, quamque desiderium Romuli apud plebem exercitumque facta fide immortalitatis lenitum sit.

"Romulus," he said, "Quirites, the parent of this city, at today’s first light, having suddenly descended from heaven, presented himself to me as I met him. When I, suffused with awe and standing in reverence, asked by prayers that it might be permitted to look upon him face to face, ""Go, announce,"" he said, ""to the Romans that the celestials so will that my Rome be the head of the orb of lands; therefore let them cultivate the military art, and know and thus hand down to posterity that no human opes can resist Roman arms."" Having spoken these things," he said, "he departed on high." Wondrous how much trust there was in that man announcing these things, and how the longing for Romulus among the plebs and the army was soothed by the faith established of his immortality.

[17] Patrum interim animos certamen regni ac cupido versabat; necdum ad singulos, quia nemo magnopere eminebat in novo populo, pervenerat: factionibus inter ordines certabatur. Oriundi ab Sabinis, ne quia post Tati mortem ab sua parte non erat regnatum, in societate aequa possessionem imperii amitterent, sui corporis creari regem volebant: Romani veteres peregrinum regem aspernabantur. In variis voluntatibus regnari tamen omnes volebant, libertatis dulcedine nondum experta.

[17] Meanwhile the minds of the Senators were tossed by the contest for kingship and by desire; nor had it yet come down to individuals, because no one greatly stood out in the new people: by factions it was being contended between the orders. Those sprung from the Sabines, lest, since after Tatius’ death there had not been rule from their side, they should lose the possession of imperium in an equal partnership, wanted a king to be created from their own body; the old Romans spurned a foreign king. Amid varied wills, nevertheless all wished to be ruled by a king, the sweetness of liberty not yet experienced.

Timor deinde patres incessit ne civitatem sine imperio, exercitum sine duce, multarum circa civitatium inritatis animis, vis aliqua externa adoriretur. Et esse igitur aliquod caput placebat, et nemo alteri concedere in animum inducebat. Ita rem inter se centum patres, decem decuriis factis singulisque in singulas decurias creatis qui summae rerum praeessent consociant.

Then fear seized the Fathers, lest, with the civitas without imperium, the army without a dux, and the spirits of many surrounding civitates provoked, some external vis should make an assault. And so it was pleasing that there be some head; yet no one could bring himself to concede to another. Thus the hundred Fathers joined the matter among themselves, ten decuries having been formed, and with a single man appointed over each decury to preside over the supreme control of affairs.

Decem imperitabant: unus cum insignibus imperii et lictoribus erat: quinque dierum spatio finiebatur imperium ac per omnes in orbem ibat, annuumque interuallum regni fuit. Id ab re quod nunc quoque tenet nomen interregnum appellatum. Fremere deinde plebs multiplicatam servitutem, centum pro uno dominos factos; nec ultra nisi regem et ab ipsis creatum videbantur passuri.

Ten held command: one was with the insignia of imperium and with lictors: the imperium was ended in a span of five days and went in turn through all, and the interval of kingship was one year. That, from the fact, was called the interregnum, a name which even now it holds. Then the plebs clamored at the multiplied servitude, a hundred masters made in place of one; nor did they seem likely to endure anything further unless a king—and one created by themselves.

Cum sensissent ea moveri patres, offerendum ultro rati quod amissuri erant, ita gratiam ineunt summa potestate populo permissa ut non plus darent iuris quam detinerent. Decreverunt enim ut cum populus regem iussisset, id sic ratum esset si patres auctores fierent. Hodie quoque in legibus magistratibusque rogandis usurpatur idem ius, vi adempta: priusquam populus suffragium ineat, in incertum comitiorum eventum patres auctores fiunt.

When the Fathers sensed these things were being set in motion, thinking that what they were about to lose should be offered unasked, they enter into favor on these terms—since the supreme power was entrusted to the people—that they should grant no more right than they retained. For they decreed that, when the people had ordered a king, it should be valid thus, if the Fathers should become authors (i.e., authorizers). Even today the same right is employed in the proposing of laws and magistracies, with the force removed: before the people enters upon the suffrage, into the uncertain outcome of the assemblies the Fathers become authors.

Tum interrex contione advocata, "Quod bonum, faustum felixque sit" inquit, "Quirites, regem create: ita patribus visum est. Patres deinde, si dignum qui secundus ab Romulo numeretur crearitis, auctores fient." Adeo id gratum plebi fuit ut, ne victi beneficio viderentur, id modo sciscerent iuberentque ut senatus decerneret qui Romae regnaret.

Then the interrex, the assembly having been called together, said, "May it be good, favorable, and fortunate, Quirites, create a king: thus it has seemed good to the Fathers. The Fathers then, if you shall have created one worthy to be counted second after Romulus, will become ratifiers." So pleasing was this to the plebeians that, lest they seem conquered by a benefaction, they decreed and ordered only this: that the Senate should determine who should reign at Rome.

[18] Inclita iustitia religioque ea tempestate Numae Pompili erat. Curibus Sabinis habitabat, consultissimus vir, ut in illa quisquam esse aetate poterat, omnis divini atque humani iuris. Auctorem doctrinae eius, quia non exstat alius, falso Samium Pythagoram edunt, quem Servio Tullio regnante Romae centum amplius post annos in ultima Italiae ora circa Metapontum Heracleamque et Crotona iuvenum aemulantium studia coetus habuisse constat.

[18] Illustrious in justice and religion at that time was Numa Pompilius. He lived at Cures among the Sabines, a most consultive man—so far as anyone in that age could be—in all divine and human law. As the author of his doctrine, because no other is extant, they falsely put forward the Samian Pythagoras, who, with Servius Tullius reigning at Rome, more than 100 years later, is agreed to have held assemblies—circles of study of emulous youths—on the farthest coast of Italy, around Metapontum, Heraclea, and Croton.

Ex quibus locis, etsi eiusdem aetatis fuisset, quae fama in Sabinos? Aut quo linguae commercio quemquam ad cupiditatem discendi excivisset? Quove praesidio unus per tot gentes dissonas sermone moribusque pervenisset?

From what places—even if he had been of the same age—what fame would have reached the Sabines? Or by what commerce of language would he have excited anyone to a desire for learning? And with what protection would a single man have made his way through so many peoples dissonant in speech and in customs?

Suopte igitur ingenio temperatum animum virtutibus fuisse opinor magis instructumque non tam peregrinis artibus quam disciplina tetrica ac tristi veterum Sabinorum, quo genere nullum quondam incorruptius fuit. Audito nomine Numae patres Romani, quamquam inclinari opes ad Sabinos rege inde sumpto videbantur, tamen neque se quisquam nec factionis suae alium nec denique patrum aut civium quemquam praeferre illi viro ausi, ad unum omnes Numae Pompilio regnum deferendum decernunt. Accitus, sicut Romulus augurato urbe condenda regnum adeptus est, de se quoque deos consuli iussit.

Therefore, by his own innate genius, I suppose his mind, tempered, to have been rather furnished with virtues, and equipped not so much by foreign arts as by the grim and austere discipline of the ancient Sabines, a race than which once none was more incorrupt. Upon the name of Numa being heard, the Roman fathers, although the power seemed to be inclining toward the Sabines with a king taken from there, nevertheless neither did anyone dare to prefer himself nor another of his faction, nor, finally, any of the fathers or citizens, to that man; to a man all decree that the kingship be conferred upon Numa Pompilius. Having been summoned, just as Romulus obtained the kingship by augury for the city to be founded, he ordered that the gods be consulted concerning himself as well.

Inde ab augure, cui deinde honoris ergo publicum id perpetuumque sacerdotium fuit, deductus in arcem, in lapide ad meridiem versus consedit. Augur ad laevam eius capite velato sedem cepit, dextra manu baculum sine nodo aduncum tenens quem lituum appellarunt. Inde ubi prospectu in urbem agrumque capto deos precatus regiones ab oriente ad occasum determinavit, dextras ad meridiem partes, laevas ad septentrionem esse dixit; signum contra quo longissime conspectum oculi ferebant animo finivit; tum lituo in laevam manum translato, dextra in caput Numae imposita, ita precatus est: "Iuppiter pater, si est fas hunc Numam Pompilium cuius ego caput teneo regem Romae esse, uti tu signa nobis certa adclarassis inter eos fines quod feci." Tum peregit verbis auspicia quae mitti vellet.

Then, by the augur—who thereafter, for the sake of honor, held that public and perpetual priesthood—he was led up into the citadel, and sat upon a stone facing toward the meridian (south). The augur took his seat to his left, with head veiled, holding in his right hand a knotted-less, hooked staff, which they called the lituus. Then, when he had taken a view over the city and the countryside and prayed to the gods, he delimited the regions from east to west, and said that the right-hand parts were toward the south, the left toward the septentrion (north); he fixed in mind, as a mark opposite, the point to which his eyes carried the farthest sight. Then, after transferring the lituus into his left hand, and placing his right upon Numa’s head, he prayed thus: “Father Jupiter, if it is lawful that this Numa Pompilius, whose head I hold, be king of Rome, do you make clear to us sure signs within those bounds which I have set.” Then he declared in words the auspices that he wished to be sent.

Quibus missis declaratus rex Numa de templo descendit.

When these had been sent, Numa, declared king, descended from the temple.

[19] Qui regno ita potitus urbem novam conditam vi et armis, iure eam legibusque ac moribus de integro condere parat. Quibus cum inter bella adsuescere videret non posse—quippe efferari militia animos—, mitigandum ferocem populum armorum desuetudine ratus, Ianum ad infimum Argiletum indicem pacis bellique fecit, apertus ut in armis esse civitatem, clausus pacatos circa omnes populos significaret. Bis deinde post Numae regnum clausus fuit, semel T. Manlio consule post Punicum primum perfectum bellum, iterum, quod nostrae aetati di dederunt ut videremus, post bellum Actiacum ab imperatore Caesare Augusto pace terra marique parta.— Clauso eo cum omnium circa finitimorum societate ac foederibus iunxisset animos, positis externorum periculorum curis, ne luxuriarent otio animi quos metus hostium disciplinaque militaris continverat, omnium primum, rem ad multitudinem imperitam et illis saeculis rudem efficacissimam, deorum metum iniciendum ratus est.

[19] He, having thus gained the kingship, since the city had been founded by force and arms, prepares to found it afresh by right, by laws, and by mores. Since he saw that to these things they could not grow accustomed amid wars—for military service makes spirits wild—thinking that the ferocious people must be softened by the desuetude of arms, he made Janus at the lowest end of the Argiletum the indicator of peace and war: open, to indicate that the commonwealth was in arms; closed, to signify that all the peoples around were pacified. Then thereafter, after Numa’s reign, it was closed twice: once, with T. Manlius as consul, after the First Punic war had been brought to completion; a second time, which the gods granted to our age that we might see, after the Actian war, when peace on land and sea had been achieved by the emperor Caesar Augustus.— With it closed, since he had united the minds of all the neighboring peoples by alliance and treaties, and with the cares of external dangers set aside, lest the spirits—whom fear of enemies and military discipline had kept in check—should luxuriate in leisure, first of all he judged that the fear of the gods, a thing most efficacious upon an untrained multitude and in those crude ages, must be instilled.

Qui cum descendere ad animos sine aliquo commento miraculi non posset, simulat sibi cum dea Egeria congressus nocturnos esse; eius se monitu quae acceptissima dis essent sacra instituere, sacerdotes suos cuique deorum praeficere. Atque omnium primum ad cursus lunae in duodecim menses discribit annum; quem quia tricenos dies singulis mensibus luna non explet desuntque sex dies solido anno qui solstitiali circumagitur orbe, intercalariis mensibus interponendis ita dispensavit, ut vicesimo anno ad metam eandem solis unde orsi essent, plenis omnium annorum spatiis dies congruerent. Idem nefastos dies fastosque fecit quia aliquando nihil cum populo agi utile futurum erat.

Since he could not descend to their minds without some contrived pretext of a miracle, he simulates that he has nocturnal congresses with the goddess Egeria; by her monition he institutes rites (sacra) which would be most acceptable to the gods, and sets his own priests over each of the gods. And first of all he divides the year according to the courses of the moon into twelve months; but because the moon does not fill thirty days in each month, and six days are lacking to the full year which is carried around in the solstitial circuit, by interposing intercalary months he so dispensed it that, in the 20th year, at the same goal of the sun from which they had begun, the days would agree with the full spans of all the years. He likewise made days nefasti and fasti, because sometimes it would be useful that nothing be transacted with the people.

[20] Tum sacerdotibus creandis animum adiecit, quamquam ipse plurima sacra obibat, ea maxime quae nunc ad Dialem flaminem pertinent. Sed quia in civitate bellicosa plures Romuli quam Numae similes reges putabat fore iturosque ipsos ad bella, ne sacra regiae vicis desererentur flaminem Iovi adsiduum sacerdotem creavit insignique eum veste et curuli regia sella adornavit. Huic duos flamines adiecit, Marti unum, alterum Quirino, virginesque Vestae legit, Alba oriundum sacerdotium et genti conditoris haud alienum.

[20] Then he applied his mind to creating priests, although he himself performed very many sacred rites, especially those which now pertain to the Flamen Dialis. But because in a warlike commonwealth he thought that more kings would be like Romulus than like Numa, and that they themselves would go to wars, lest the sacred rites of the royal office be abandoned, he created for Jupiter a constant (assiduous) priest, the flamen, and adorned him with a distinctive garment and the royal curule seat. To this he added two flamines, one for Mars, the other for Quirinus, and he chose the Virgins of Vesta, a priesthood originating from Alba and by no means alien to the clan of the founder.

His ut adsiduae templi antistites essent stipendium de publico statuit; virginitate aliisque caerimoniis venerabiles ac sanctas fecit. Salios item duodecim Marti Gradiuo legit, tunicaeque pictae insigne dedit et super tunicam aeneum pectori tegumen; caelestiaque arma, quae ancilia appellantur, ferre ac per urbem ire canentes carmina cum tripudiis sollemnique saltatu iussit. Pontificem deinde Numam Marcium Marci filium ex patribus legit eique sacra omnia exscripta exsignataque attribuit, quibus hostiis, quibus diebus, ad quae templa sacra fierent, atque unde in eos sumptus pecunia erogaretur.

For these, that they might be constant antistites of the temple, he established a stipend from the public treasury; by virginity and other ceremonies he made them venerable and sacred. Likewise he chose twelve Salii for Mars Gradivus, and he gave as insignia a painted tunic and, over the tunic, a brazen covering for the chest; and he ordered them to carry the celestial arms, which are called the Ancilia, and to go through the city singing songs with tripudia and a solemn dance. Then he chose as Pontifex Numa Marcius, son of Marcus, from the patricians, and to him he assigned all the sacred rites written out and sealed, with which victims, on which days, at which temples the rites should be performed, and whence money should be disbursed for those expenses.

Cetera quoque omnia publica privataque sacra pontificis scitis subiecit, ut esset quo consultum plebes veniret, ne quid divini iuris neglegendo patrios ritus peregrinosque adsciscendo turbaretur; nec caelestes modo caerimonias, sed iusta quoque funebria placandosque manes ut idem pontifex edoceret, quaeque prodigia fulminibus a Iove quo visu missa susciperentur atque curarentur. Ad ea elicienda ex mentibus divinis Iovi Elicio aram in Aventino dicavit deumque consuluit auguriis, quae suscipienda essent.

He also subjected all the other public and private sacred rites to the decrees of the pontiff, so that there might be a place to which the plebs could come for counsel, lest anything of divine law be disturbed by neglecting the ancestral rites and by adopting peregrine ones; and so that the same pontiff might instruct not only the celestial ceremonies, but also the due funerary rites and the appeasing of the Manes, and by what appearance the prodigies sent by lightnings from Jupiter should be received and remedied. For eliciting these from the divine minds he dedicated an altar to Jupiter Elicius on the Aventine and consulted the god by auguries as to what things should be undertaken.

[21] Ad haec consultanda procurandaque multitudine omni a vi et armis conversa, et animi aliquid agendo occupati erant, et deorum adsidua insidens cura, cum interesse rebus humanis caeleste numen videretur, ea pietate omnium pectora imbuerat ut fides ac ius iurandum [proximo] legum ac poenarum metu civitatem regerent. Et cum ipsi se homines in regis velut unici exempli mores formarent, tum finitimi etiam populi, qui antea castra non urbem positam in medio ad sollicitandam omnium pacem crediderant, in eam verecundiam adducti sunt, ut civitatem totam in cultum versam deorum violari ducerent nefas. Lucus erat quem medium ex opaco specu fons perenni rigabat aqua.

[21] For consulting upon and procuring these things, with the whole multitude turned away from force and arms, both their spirits were occupied by doing something, and the constant, overhanging care of the gods, since the celestial numen seemed to take part in human affairs, had so imbued all hearts with pietas that fides and the ius iurandum, [next] to fear of laws and penalties, governed the commonwealth. And as men themselves were forming their morals on those of the king as upon a single exemplar, so even the neighboring peoples, who before had believed that a camp, not a city, had been placed in their midst to agitate everyone’s peace, were brought into such reverence that they deemed it impious for a civitas wholly turned to the cult of the gods to be violated. There was a grove, which a spring, from a dusky cave, watered through its middle with perennial water.

Quo quia se persaepe Numa sine arbitris velut ad congressum deae inferebat, Camenis eum lucum sacravit, quod earum ibi concilia cum coniuge sua Egeria essent. Et [soli] Fidei sollemne instituit. Ad id sacrarium flamines bigis curru arcuato vehi iussit manuque ad digitos usque inuoluta rem divinam facere, significantes fidem tutandam sedemque eius etiam in dexteris sacratam esse.

Because Numa very often, without witnesses, would bring himself there as though to a meeting with the goddess, he consecrated that grove to the Camenae, because their councils there with his consort Egeria were held. And he established a solemn rite of Faith [alone]. To that shrine he ordered the flamines to ride in two-horse chariots with an arched chariot, and, with the hand wrapped even up to the fingers, to perform the divine rite, signifying that faith must be safeguarded and that her seat has been consecrated even in right hands.

Multa alia sacrificia locaque sacris faciendis quae Argeos pontifices vocant dedicavit. Omnium tamen maximum eius operum fuit tutela per omne regni tempus haud minor pacis quam regni. Ita duo deinceps reges, alius alia via, ille bello, hic pace, civitatem auxerunt.

He dedicated many other sacrifices and places for performing sacred rites, which the pontiffs call the Argei. Yet the greatest of all his works was the tutelage, throughout the whole time of his reign, no less of peace than of the realm. Thus two kings in succession, each by a different way—the former by war, this one by peace—augmented the commonwealth.

Romulus septem et triginta regnavit annos, Numa tres et quadraginta. Cum valida tum temperata et belli et pacis artibus erat civitas.

Romulus reigned 37 years, Numa 43. The state was both strong and well-tempered in the arts of war and of peace.

[22] Numae morte ad interregnum res rediit. Inde Tullum Hostilium, nepotem Hostili, cuius in infima arce clara pugna adversus Sabinos fuerat, regem populus iussit; patres auctores acti. Hic non solum proximo regi dissimilis sed ferocior etiam quam Romulus fuit.

[22] On Numa’s death, affairs reverted to an interregnum. Then the people ordered Tullus Hostilius, grandson of Hostilius, whose renowned fight against the Sabines had been on the lower citadel, to be king; the Fathers were brought in as ratifiers. He was not only unlike the preceding king, but even more ferocious than Romulus.

Cum aetas viresque tum avita quoque gloria animum stimulabat. Senescere igitur civitatem otio ratus undique materiam excitandi belli quaerebat. Forte evenit ut agrestes Romani ex Albano agro, Albani ex Romano praedas in vicem agerent.

As both his age and his forces, and also ancestral glory, were goading his mind. Therefore, thinking that the state was growing old through leisure, he was seeking on all sides matter for exciting war. By chance it befell that the Roman rustics from the Alban territory, and the Albans from the Roman, were in turn driving off booty.

Imperitabat tum Gaius Cluilius Albae. Utrimque legati fere sub idem tempus ad res repetendas missi. Tullus praeceperat suis ne quid prius quam mandata agerent; satis sciebat negaturum Albanum; ita pie bellum indici posse.

At that time Gaius Cluilius was commanding at Alba. On both sides legates were sent at nearly the same time to demand restitution. Tullus had instructed his own that they should do nothing before they executed the mandates; he knew well enough that the Alban would refuse; thus war could be declared piously.

Ab Albanis socordius res acta; excepti hospitio ab Tullo blande ac benigne, comiter regis convivium celebrant. Tantisper Romani et res repetiverant priores et neganti Albano bellum in tricesimum diem indixerant. Haec renuntiant Tullo.

By the Albans the matter was conducted more slothfully; received with hospitality by Tullus, blandly and benignly, they courteously celebrate the king’s convivium. Meanwhile the Romans had both previously demanded the return of the property, and, with the Alban denying, had declared war for the 30th day. These things they report back to Tullus.

Tum legatis Tullus dicendi potestatem quid petentes venerint facit. Illi omnium ignari primum purgando terunt tempus: se invitos quicquam quod minus placeat Tullo dicturos, sed imperio subigi; res repetitum se venisse; ni reddantur bellum indicere iussos. Ad haec Tullus "Nuntiate" inquit, "regi vestro regem Romanum deos facere testes, uter prius populus res repetentes legatos aspernatus dimiserit, ut in eum omnes expetant huiusce clades belli."

Then Tullus grants the legates the power to speak, to state for what, seeking what, they have come. They, ignorant of everything, first waste time by offering purgation: that, unwilling, they would say anything which might please Tullus less, but that they were subjected to command; that they had come to demand restitution; that, unless the things be returned, they were ordered to declare war. To these things Tullus says: "Announce to your king that the Roman king makes the gods witnesses as to which people first dismissed with scorn the legates demanding restitution, so that upon him may be directed all the disasters of this war."

[23] Haec nuntiant domum Albani. Et bellum utrimque summa ope parabatur, civili simillimum bello, prope inter parentes natosque, Troianam utramque prolem, cum Lavinium ab Troia, ab Lavinio Alba, ab Albanorum stirpe regum oriundi Romani essent. Eventus tamen belli minus miserabilem dimicationem fecit, quod nec acie certatum est et tectis modo dirutis alterius urbis duo populi in unum confusi sunt.

[23] These things the Albans report home. And war on both sides was being prepared with the utmost effort, very like a civil war, almost between parents and children, both Trojan progeny, since Lavinium was from Troy, Alba from Lavinium, and the Romans were sprung from the Alban stock of kings. Nevertheless the event of the war made the struggle less miserable, because it was not contested in pitched battle, and, with only the buildings of one city torn down, the two peoples were fused into one.

Albani priores ingenti exercitu in agrum Romanum impetum fecere.

The Albans were the first to launch an attack, with a huge army, into Roman territory.

Castra ab urbe haud plus quinque milia passuum locant, fossa circumdant; fossa Cluilia ab nomine ducis per aliquot saecula appellata est, donec cum re nomen quoque vetustate abolevit. In his castris Cluilius Albanus rex moritur; dictatorem Albani Mettium Fufetium creant. Interim Tullus ferox, praecipue morte regis, magnumque deorum numen ab ipso capite orsum in omne nomen Albanum expetiturum poenas ob bellum impium dictitans, nocte praeteritis hostium castris, infesto exercitu in agrum Albanum pergit.

They locate a camp not more than five miles from the city and surround it with a ditch; the ditch was appellated the Cluilian Ditch from the leader’s name for several centuries, until, together with the thing itself, the name too was abolished by antiquity. In these camps Cluilius, the Alban king, dies; the Albans create Mettius Fufetius dictator. Meanwhile Tullus, ferocious especially because of the king’s death, repeatedly declaring that the great divine numen of the gods, beginning from the very head, would exact penalties upon the whole Alban name for an impious war, by night, having passed by the enemy’s camp, proceeds with a hostile army into the Alban territory.

Ea res ab stativis excivit Mettium. Ducit quam proxime ad hostem potest; inde legatum praemissum nuntiare Tullo iubet priusquam dimicent opus esse conloquio; si secum congressus sit, satis scire ea se allaturum quae nihilo minus ad rem Romanam quam ad Albanam pertineant. Haud aspernatus Tullus, tamen si vana adferantur in aciem educit.

That matter called Mettius out from the stationary camp. He leads as near to the enemy as he can; then he orders a legate sent ahead to announce to Tullus that, before they engage, there is need of a colloquy; if he should meet with him, he knows well that he will bring forward things which pertain no less to the Roman interest than to the Alban. Tullus, not spurning it, nevertheless, in case vain things should be brought, leads out into the battle line.

Exeunt contra et Albani. Postquam instructi utrimque stabant, cum paucis procerum in medium duces procedunt. Ibi infit Albanus: "Iniurias et non redditas res ex foedere quae repetitae sint, et ego regem nostrum Cluilium causam huiusce esse belli audisse videor, nec te dubito, Tulle, eadem prae te ferre; sed si vera potius quam dictu speciosa dicenda sunt, cupido imperii duos cognatos vicinosque populos ad arma stimulat.

The Albans also go out to meet them. After they stood drawn up on both sides, the leaders advance into the midst with a few of the nobles. There the Alban begins: "The injuries and the things not returned under the treaty, which were demanded back—I too seem to have heard that our king Cluilius said these were the cause of this war; nor do I doubt, Tullus, that you bring the same charges forward; but if things true rather than things specious to say are to be spoken, the desire of empire is goading two cognate and neighboring peoples to arms.

Neque, recte an perperam, interpretor. Fuerit ista eius deliberatio qui bellum suscepit: me Albani gerendo bello ducem creavere. Illud te, Tulle, monitum velim: Etrusca res quanta circa nos teque maxime sit, quo propior es Volscis hoc magis scis.

Nor do I interpret—whether rightly or wrongly. Let that be the deliberation of him who undertook the war: the Albans have created me leader for waging the war. This, Tullus, I would wish to have you warned of: how great the Etruscan power is around us, and especially about you—the nearer you are to the Volsci, by so much the more you know it.

Multum illi terra, plurimum mari pollent. Memor esto, iam cum signum pugnae dabis, has duas acies spectaculo fore ut fessos confectosque simul victorem ac victum adgrediantur. Itaque si nos di amant, quoniam non contenti libertate certa in dubiam imperii servitiique aleam imus, ineamus aliquam viam qua utri utris imperent sine magna clade, sine multo sanguine utriusque populi decerni possit." Haud displicet res Tullo quamquam cum indole animi tum spe victoriae ferocior erat.

"They are powerful much on land, most of all at sea. Be mindful, when you give the signal of battle, that these two battle lines will be for their spectacle, so that, when we are weary and worn out, they may at once attack both victor and vanquished. Therefore, if the gods love us, since, not content with assured liberty, we are going into the doubtful alea of dominion and servitude, let us enter upon some way by which it may be decided which of the two shall command the other, without great disaster, without much blood of either people." The matter was not displeasing to Tullus, although he was more ferocious both by the inborn temper of his spirit and by hope of victory.

Quaerentibus utrimque ratio initur cui et fortuna ipsa praebuit materiam.

For those on both sides seeking, a plan is entered upon, to which even Fortune herself provided material.

[24] Forte in duobus tum exercitibus erant trigemini fratres, nec aetate nec viribus dispares. Horatios Curiatiosque fuisse satis constat, nec ferme res antiqua alia est nobilior; tamen in re tam clara nominum error manet, utrius populi Horatii, utrius Curiatii fuerint. Auctores utroque trahunt; plures tamen invenio qui Romanos Horatios vocent; hos ut sequar inclinat animus.

[24] By chance, in the two armies at that time there were triplet brothers, not unequal either in age or in strengths. That they were Horatii and Curiatii is sufficiently agreed, nor is scarcely any other ancient affair more noble; yet in so clear a matter an error about the names remains—of which people the Horatii were, of which the Curiatii. Authorities pull to either side; yet I find more who call the Horatii Romans; my mind inclines to follow these.

Cum trigeminis agunt reges ut pro sua quisque patria dimicent ferro; ibi imperium fore unde victoria fuerit. Nihil recusatur; tempus et locus convenit. Priusquam dimicarent foedus ictum inter Romanos et Albanos est his legibus ut cuiusque populi cives eo certamine vicissent, is alteri populo cum bona pace imperitaret.

The kings make arrangements with the triplets that each should fight with steel for his own fatherland; there the imperium will be where the victory shall have come. Nothing is refused; time and place are agreed. Before they fought, a foedus was struck between the Romans and the Albans on these terms: that whichever people’s citizens had won in that contest, that people should rule the other people with good peace.

Foedera alia aliis legibus, ceterum eodem modo omnia fiunt. Tum ita factum accepimus, nec ullius vetustior foederis memoria est. Fetialis regem Tullum ita rogavit: "Iubesne me, rex, cum patre patrato populi Albani foedus ferire?" Iubente rege, "Sagmina" inquit "te, rex, posco." Rex ait: "Pura tollito." Fetialis ex arce graminis herbam puram attulit.

Treaties are made by different laws, but otherwise all are done in the same manner. Then it was done thus, as we have received; nor is there any memory of a treaty more ancient. The fetial asked King Tullus thus: “Do you order me, king, to strike a treaty with the pater patratus of the Alban people?” The king giving the order, he said, “I ask of you, king, the sagmina.” The king said: “Take them pure.” The fetial brought from the citadel a pure sprig of grass.

Postea regem ita rogavit: "Rex, facisne me tu regium nuntium populi Romani Quiritium, vasa comitesque meos?" Rex respondit: "Quod sine fraude mea populique Romani Quiritium fiat, facio." Fetialis erat M. Valerius; is patrem patratum Sp. Fusium fecit, verbena caput capillosque tangens. Pater patratus ad ius iurandum patrandum, id est, sanciendum fit foedus; multisque id verbis, quae longo effata carmine non operae est referre, peragit. Legibus deinde, recitatis, "Audi" inquit, "Iuppiter; audi, pater patrate populi Albani; audi tu, populus Albanus.

Afterwards he thus asked the king: "King, do you make me the royal envoy of the Roman People, the Quirites, along with my vessels and my companions?" The king replied: "What may be done without deceit of me and of the Roman People, the Quirites, I do." The fetial was Marcus Valerius; he made Spurius Fusius pater patratus, touching his head and hair with verbena. The pater patratus is appointed for accomplishing the oath, that is, for consecrating the treaty; and with many words, which, uttered in a long chant, it is not worth the effort to recount, he brings it to completion. Then, the laws having been recited, he said: "Hear, Jupiter; hear, pater patratus of the Alban people; hear you, Alban people.

Ut illa palam prima postrema ex illis tabulis cerave recitata sunt sine dolo malo, utique ea hic hodie rectissime intellecta sunt, illis legibus populus Romanus prior non deficiet. Si prior defexit publico consilio dolo malo, tum ille Diespiter populum Romanum sic ferito ut ego hunc porcum hic hodie feriam; tantoque magis ferito quanto magis potes pollesque." Id ubi dixit porcum saxo silice percussit. Sua item carmina Albani suumque ius iurandum per suum dictatorem suosque sacerdotes peregerunt.

"As those matters have been read aloud openly, from first to last, out of those tablets or the wax, without malicious fraud, and as indeed they have been most correctly understood here today, under those laws the Roman People shall not be the first to default. If they first default by public counsel with malicious fraud, then let Diespiter smite the Roman People just as I here today smite this pig; and so much the more let him smite, by how much more he is able and prevails in power." When he had said this, he struck the pig with a flint stone. Likewise the Albans accomplished their own chants and their own oath through their own dictator and their own priests.

[25] Foedere icto trigemini, sicut convenerat, arma capiunt. Cum sui utrosque adhortarentur, deos patrios, patriam ac parentes, quidquid civium domi, quidquid in exercitu sit, illorum tunc arma, illorum intueri manus, feroces et suopte ingenio et pleni adhortantium vocibus in medium inter duas acies procedunt. Consederant utrimque pro castris duo exercitus, periculi magis praesentis quam curae expertes; quippe imperium agebatur in tam paucorum virtute atque fortuna positum.

[25] With the treaty struck, the triplets, as had been agreed, take up arms. While their own men on both sides exhort them—the ancestral gods, the fatherland and parents, that whatever citizens are at home, whatever in the army, are then looking upon their arms, looking upon their hands—fierce both by their very own nature and full of the voices of the exhorters, they advance into the middle between the two battle-lines. On either side before the camps the two armies had taken their seats, more devoid of present peril than of care; for indeed the imperium was being contested, set upon the virtue and fortune of so few.

Itaque ergo erecti suspensique in minime gratum spectaculum animo incenduntur. Datur signum infestisque armis velut acies terni iuvenes magnorum exercituum animos gerentes concurrunt. Nec his nec illis periculum suum, publicum imperium servitiumque obversatur animo futuraque ea deinde patriae fortuna quam ipsi fecissent.

And so, uplifted and hanging in suspense at a most unpleasing spectacle, they are enflamed in spirit. The signal is given, and with hostile arms, like a battle-line, the three youths, bearing the spirits of great armies, rush together. Neither to these nor to those does their own peril present itself to the mind; rather the public imperium and servitude, and that future fortune of the fatherland which they themselves would have fashioned.

Ut primo statim concursu increpuere arma micantesque fulsere gladii, horror ingens spectantes perstringit et neutro inclinata spe torpebat vox spiritusque. Consertis deinde manibus cum iam non motus tantum corporum agitatioque anceps telorum armorumque sed volnera quoque et sanguis spectaculo essent, duo Romani super alium alius, volneratis tribus Albanis, exspirantes corruerunt. Ad quorum casum cum conclamasset gaudio Albanus exercitus, Romanas legiones iam spes tota, nondum tamen cura deseruerat, exanimes vice unius quem tres Curiatii circumsteterant.

As at the very first clash the arms clattered and the flashing swords gleamed, a huge horror seizes the spectators, and with hope inclined to neither side, both voice and breath were torpid. Then, with hands joined in close combat, when now not only the motions of bodies and the wavering agitation of missiles and arms, but wounds too and blood were the spectacle, two Romans, the one upon the other, with the three Albans wounded, collapsed expiring. At whose fall, when the Alban army shouted for joy, hope had now altogether deserted the Roman legions—yet not as yet their concern—breathless for the fate of the one whom the three Curiatii had surrounded.

Forte is integer fuit, ut universis solus nequaquam par, sic adversus singulos ferox. Ergo ut segregaret pugnam eorum capessit fugam, ita ratus secuturos ut quemque volnere adfectum corpus sineret. Iam aliquantum spatii ex eo loco ubi pugnatum est aufugerat, cum respiciens videt magnis interuallis sequentes, unum haud procul ab sese abesse.

By chance he was uninjured; as he alone was by no means equal to all together, so he was fierce against individuals. Therefore, to segregate their combat he takes to flight, thinking they would follow in such a way as each, with his body affected by a wound, would permit. Already he had fled a considerable space from the place where it had been fought, when, looking back, he sees them following at great intervals, that one was not far from himself.

In eum magno impetu rediit; et dum Albanus exercitus inclamat Curiatiis uti opem ferant fratri, iam Horatius caeso hoste victor secundam pugnam petebat. Tunc clamore qualis ex insperato faventium solet Romani adiuvant militem suum; et ille defungi proelio festinat. Prius itaque quam alter—nec procul aberat—consequi posset, et alterum Curiatium conficit; iamque aequato Marte singuli supererant, sed nec spe nec viribus pares.

He returned upon him with great impetus; and while the Alban army cries out to the Curiatii to bear aid to their brother, already Horatius, the enemy cut down, as victor was seeking a second combat. Then, with a clamor such as is wont to arise unexpectedly from those favoring, the Romans help their own soldier; and he hastens to be done with the battle. Therefore, before the other—who was not far off—could overtake, he finishes off the second Curiatius; and now, with Mars made equal, single combatants remained, but equal neither in hope nor in strength.

Alterum intactum ferro corpus et geminata victoria ferocem in certamen tertium dabat: alter fessum volnere, fessum cursu trahens corpus victusque fratrum ante se strage victori obicitur hosti. Nec illud proelium fuit. Romanus exsultans "Duos" inquit, "fratrum manibus dedi; tertium causae belli huiusce, ut Romanus Albano imperet, dabo." Male sustinenti arma gladium superne iugulo defigit, iacentem spoliat.

The one, with a body untouched by iron, and with his victory doubled, was fierce for a third contest; the other, dragging a body weary with wound and weary with running, and overcome by the slaughter of his brothers, is cast before the victorious foe. Nor was that a battle. The Roman, exulting, says, "Two I have given to the Manes of my brothers; the third I will give to the cause of this war, that the Roman may command the Alban." Into the man ill sustaining his arms he drives the sword from above into the jugular, and he despoils the fallen.

Romani ouantes ac gratulantes Horatium accipiunt, eo maiore cum gaudio, quo prope metum res fuerat. Ad sepulturam inde suorum nequaquam paribus animis vertuntur, quippe imperio alteri aucti, alteri dicionis alienae facti. Sepulcra exstant quo quisque loco cecidit, duo Romana uno loco propius Albam, tria Albana Romam versus sed distantia locis ut et pugnatum est.

The Romans, exultant and congratulating, receive Horatius, with the greater joy, in proportion as the affair had been near to fear. Thence they turn to the burial of their own, by no means with equal spirits, since the one party had been increased in imperium, the other made subject to alien dominion. The sepulchres stand where each fell: two Roman ones in one place nearer to Alba, three Alban ones toward Rome, but separated in their sites, just as the fighting had been.

[26] Priusquam inde digrederentur, roganti Mettio ex foedere icto quid imperaret, imperat Tullus uti iuventutem in armis habeat: usurum se eorum opera si bellum cum Veientibus foret. Ita exercitus inde domos abducti. Princeps Horatius ibat, trigemina spolia prae se gerens; cui soror virgo, quae desponsa, uni ex Curiatiis fuerat, obvia ante portam Capenam fuit, cognitoque super umeros fratris paludamento sponsi quod ipsa confecerat, solvit crines et flebiliter nomine sponsum mortuum appellat.

[26] Before they departed from there, to Mettius asking, in accordance with the treaty struck, what he ordered, Tullus orders that he keep the youth under arms: that he would make use of their service if there should be war with the Veientes. Thus the armies from there were led away to their homes. At the front Horatius went, bearing the triple spoils before him; his sister, a maiden who had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii, met him before the Capene Gate; and, having recognized upon her brother’s shoulders the military cloak (paludamentum) of her fiancé, which she herself had fashioned, she loosened her hair and tearfully calls the dead fiancé by name.

movet feroci iuveni animum comploratio sororis in victoria sua tantoque gaudio publico. Stricto itaque gladio simul verbis increpans transfigit puellam. "Abi hinc cum immaturo amore ad sponsum," inquit, "oblita fratrum mortuorum vivique, oblita patriae.

the lamentation of his sister moves the mind of the ferocious youth, in his own victory and in such great public joy. Therefore, with the sword drawn, and at the same time rebuking with words, he transfixes the maiden. "Go from here with your immature love to your betrothed," he says, "oblivious of your brothers, dead and living, oblivious of your fatherland."

Sic eat quaecumque Romana lugebit hostem." Atrox visum id facinus patribus plebique, sed recens meritum facto obstabat. Tamen raptus in ius ad regem. Rex ne ipse tam tristis ingratique ad volgus iudicii ac secundum iudicium supplicii auctor esset, concilio populi advocato "Duumuiros" inquit, "qui Horatio perduellionem iudicent, secundum legem facio." Lex horrendi carminis erat: "Duumuiri perduellionem iudicent; si a duumuiris provocarit, provocatione certato; si vincent, caput obnubito; infelici arbori reste suspendito; verberato vel intra pomerium vel extra pomerium." Hac lege duumuiri creati, qui se absolvere non rebantur ea lege ne innoxium quidem posse, cum condemnassent, tum alter ex iis "Publi Horati, tibi perduellionem iudico" inquit.

"So may it befall whatever Roman woman shall mourn an enemy." That deed seemed atrocious to the patres and the plebs, but his recent desert stood in the way of action against him. Nevertheless he was seized and dragged to law before the king. The king, lest he himself be the author, in the eyes of the common crowd, of so gloomy and thankless a judgment, and, following the judgment, of a punishment, having called an assembly of the people, said: "I appoint Duumvirs to judge Horatius for perduellio (high treason), according to the law." The law was of horrendous wording: "Let the Duumvirs judge a case of perduellio; if he shall have appealed from the Duumvirs, let the matter be contested by provocatio (appeal); if they prevail, cover his head; hang him by a rope on the ill-omened tree; scourge him either within the pomerium or outside the pomerium." By this law the Duumvirs were created, who did not think that even an innocent man could be absolved by that law; when they had condemned him, then one of them said: "Publius Horatius, I judge you guilty of perduellio."

"I, lictor, colliga manus." Accesserat lictor iniciebatque laqueum. Tum Horatius auctore Tullo, clemente legis interprete, "Provoco" inquit. Itaque provocatione certatum ad populum est.

"Go, lictor, bind the hands." The lictor had come up and was already putting the noose on. Then Horatius, with Tullus as instigator, a clement interpreter of the law, said, "I appeal." And so, by appeal, the case was contested before the people.

Moti homines sunt in eo iudicio maxime P. Horatio patre proclamante se filiam iure caesam iudicare; ni ita esset, patrio iure in filium animadversurum fuisse. Orabat deinde ne se quem paulo ante cum egregia stirpe conspexissent orbum liberis facerent. Inter haec senex iuvenem amplexus, spolia Curiatiorum fixa eo loco qui nunc Pila Horatia appellatur ostentans, "Huncine" aiebat, "quem modo decoratum ouantemque victoria incedentem vidistis, Quirites, eum sub furca vinctum inter verbera et cruciatus videre potestis?

The people were stirred in that judgment, especially as Publius Horatius the father kept proclaiming that he judged his daughter to have been slain by right; if it were not so, he would, by a father’s right, have visited punishment upon his son. He then begged that they not make him, whom a little before they had seen with a distinguished offspring, bereft of children. Meanwhile the old man, embracing the youth, and displaying the spoils of the Curiatii fastened in that place which now is called the Horatian Pila, kept saying, “Is this man, whom just now you saw proceeding adorned and ovating in victory, Quirites, can you bear to see him bound under the furca, amid blows and tortures?”

Quod vix Albanorum oculi tam deforme spectaculum ferre possent. I, lictor, colliga manus, quae paulo ante armatae imperium populo Romano pepererunt. I, caput obnube liberatoris urbis huius; arbore infelici suspende; verbera vel intra pomerium, modo inter illa pila et spolia hostium, vel extra pomerium, modo inter sepulcra Curiatiorum; quo enim ducere hunc iuvenem potestis ubi non sua decora eum a tanta foeditate supplicii vindicent?" Non tulit populus nec patris lacrimas nec ipsius parem in omni periculo animum, absolveruntque admiratione magis virtutis quam iure causae.

That which scarcely the eyes of the Albans could endure—so deformed a spectacle. Go, lictor, bind the hands which but a little before, armed, brought sovereignty to the Roman people. Go, veil the head of the liberator of this city; suspend him on an unlucky tree; scourge him either within the pomerium—provided it be among those pillars and the spoils of enemies—or outside the pomerium—provided it be among the sepulchres of the Curiatii; for where can you lead this youth where his own honors will not vindicate him from so great a foulness of punishment?" The people could not bear either the father’s tears or his own spirit, equal in every peril, and they acquitted him more from admiration of valor than by the justice of the cause.

Itaque ut caedes manifesta aliquo tamen piaculo lueretur, imperatum patri ut filium expiaret pecunia publica. Is quibusdam piacularibus sacrificiis factis quae deinde genti Horatiae tradita sunt, transmisso per viam tigillo, capite adoperto velut sub iugum misit iuvenem. Id hodie quoque publice semper refectum manet; sororium tigillum vocant.

And so, in order that the manifest slaughter might nevertheless be atoned for by some expiation, it was ordered to the father to expiate the son at public expense. He, certain piacular sacrifices having been performed—which were thereafter handed down to the Horatian clan—after a small beam had been set across the road, with head veiled, sent the youth as if under a yoke. That, even today, remains publicly, always repaired; they call it the Sororian Tigillum.

Horatiae sepulcrum, quo loco corruerat icta, constructum est saxo quadrato.

Horatia’s sepulchre, on the spot where she had collapsed when struck, was constructed of squared stone.

[27] Nec diu pax Albana mansit. Invidia volgi quod tribus militibus fortuna publica commissa fuerit, vanum ingenium dictatoris corrupit, et quoniam recta consilia haud bene evenerant, pravis reconciliare popularium animos coepit. Igitur ut prius in bello pacem, sic in pace bellum quaerens, quia suae civitati animorum plus quam virium cernebat esse, ad bellum palam atque ex edicto gerundum alios concitat populos, suis per speciem societatis proditionem reservat.

[27] Nor did the Alban peace last long. The envy of the crowd, because the public fortune had been committed to three soldiers, corrupted the dictator’s vain disposition; and since straight counsels had not turned out well, he began to reconcile the minds of the populace by crooked ones. Therefore, as earlier in war he sought peace, so in peace he seeks war; because he perceived that his own city had more spirit than strength, he incites other peoples to a war to be waged openly and by edict, while for his own, under the appearance of alliance, he reserves treachery.

Fidenates, colonia Romana, Veientibus sociis consilii adsumptis, pacto transitionis Albanorum ad bellum atque arma incitantur. Cum Fidenae aperte descissent, Tullus Mettio exercituque eius ab Alba accito contra hostes ducit. Ubi Anienem transiit, ad confluentes conlocat castra.

The Fidenates, a Roman colony, with the Veientes taken on as partners in counsel, are incited to war and to arms by a pact for the defection of the Albans. When Fidenae had openly revolted, Tullus, having summoned Mettius and his army from Alba, leads against the enemies. When he crossed the Anio, he stations the camp at the confluence.

Inter eum locum et Fidenas Veientium exercitus Tiberim transierat. Hi et in acie prope flumen tenuere dextrum cornu; in sinistro Fidenates propius montes consistunt. Tullus adversus Veientem hostem derigit suos, Albanos contra legionem Fidenatium conlocat.

Between that place and Fidenae the army of the Veientes had crossed the Tiber. These also in the battle-line near the river held the right wing; on the left the Fidenates took their stand nearer the mountains. Tullus directs his men against the Veientine enemy, and posts the Albans opposite the legion of the Fidenates.

Albano non plus animi erat quam fidei. Nec manere ergo nec transire aperte ausus sensim ad montes succedit; inde ubi satis subisse sese ratus est, erigit totam aciem, fluctuansque animo ut tereret tempus ordines explicat. Consilium erat qua fortuna rem daret, ea inclinare vires.

The Alban had no more spirit than faith. And so, daring neither to remain nor to cross openly, he slowly moves up toward the hills; from there, when he judged he had gone up enough, he sets up the whole battle line, and, wavering in mind, he unfolds the ranks to wear away time. The plan was to incline his forces to that side to which fortune should give the affair.

Miraculo primo esse Romanis qui proximi steterant ut nudari latera sua sociorum digressu senserunt; inde eques citato equo nuntiat regi abire Albanos. Tullus in re trepida duodecim vovit Salios fanaque Pallori ac pavori. Equitem clara increpans voce ut hostes exaudirent, redire in proelium iubet: nihil trepidatione opus esse; suo iussu circumduci Albanum exercitum ut Fidenatium nuda terga invadant; idem imperat ut hastas equites erigerent.

At first it was a miracle to the Romans who had stood nearest, when they sensed that their flanks were being laid bare by the departure of their allies; then a horseman, with his horse hastened, announces to the king that the Albans are going away. Tullus, in a troubled crisis, vowed twelve Salii and shrines to Pallor and to Panic. Rebuking the horseman with a clear voice so that the enemies might overhear, he orders him to return into the battle: there is no need of trepidation; by his command the Alban army is being led around so that they may assault the naked backs of the Fidenates; likewise he orders that the horsemen raise their spears.

Id factum magnae parti peditum Romanorum conspectum abeuntis Albani exercitus intersaepsit; qui viderant, id quod ab rege auditum erat rati, eo acrius pugnant. Terror ad hostes transit; et audiverant clara voce dictum, et magna pars Fidenatium, ut quibus coloni additi Romani essent, Latine sciebant. Itaque ne subito ex collibus decursu Albanorum intercluderentur ab oppido, terga vertunt.

That deed intercepted, for a great part of the Roman infantry, the sight of the Alban army going away; those who had seen it, thinking that what had been heard from the king was so, fight all the more keenly. Terror passes to the enemies; both they had heard it spoken in a clear voice, and a great part of the Fidenates, since Romans had been added to them as colonists, knew Latin. And so, lest they be cut off from the town by a sudden descent-charge of the Albans from the hills, they turn their backs.

Instat Tullus fusoque Fidenatium cornu in Veientem alieno pavore perculsum ferocior redit. Nec illi tulere impetum, sed ab effusa fuga flumen obiectum ab tergo arcebat. Quo postquam fuga inclinavit, alii arma foede iactantes in aquam caeci ruebant, alii dum cunctantur in ripis inter fugae pugnaeque consilium oppressi.

Tullus presses on, and with the wing of the Fidenates routed he returns more ferocious against the Veientine, smitten by another’s panic. Nor did they sustain the onset, but a river, set in the way behind them, was barring a headlong flight. When the flight inclined toward it, some, shamefully casting away their arms, blindly rushed into the water; others, while they hesitate on the banks, overwhelmed, caught between the counsel of flight and of fight.

Non alia ante Romana pugna atrocior fuit.

No earlier Roman battle was more atrocious.

[28] Tum Albanus exercitus, spectator certaminis, deductus in campos. Mettius Tullo devictos hostes gratulatur; contra Tullus Mettium benigne adloquitur. Quod bene vertat, castra Albanos Romanis castris iungere iubet; sacrificium lustrale in diem posterum parat.

[28] Then the Alban army, a spectator of the contest, was led down into the plains. Mettius congratulates Tullus that the enemies have been conquered; in turn Tullus addresses Mettius kindly. May this turn out well, he orders the Albans to join their camp to the Roman camp; he prepares a lustral sacrifice for the following day.

Ubi inluxit, paratis omnibus ut adsolet, vocari ad contionem utrumque exercitum iubet. Praecones ab extremo orsi primos excivere Albanos. Hi novitate etiam rei moti ut regem Romanum contionantem audirent proximi constitere.

When it grew light, with everything prepared as is customary, he orders both armies to be called to an assembly. The heralds, beginning from the far end, summoned the Albans first. These, moved also by the novelty of the affair, took their stand nearest so that they might hear the Roman king haranguing.

Ex composito armata circumdatur Romana legio; centurionibus datum negotium erat ut sine mora imperia exsequerentur. Tum ita Tullus infit: "Romani, si unquam ante alias ullo in bello fuit quod primum dis immortalibus gratias ageretis, deinde vestrae ipsorum virtuti, hesternum id proelium fuit. Dimicatum est enim non magis cum hostibus quam, quae dimicatio maior atque periculosior est, cum proditione ac perfidia sociorum.

According to the arrangement, the Roman legion, under arms, was drawn up around; the centurions were given the task to execute the commands without delay. Then thus Tullus begins: "Romans, if ever before, beyond all others, in any war there was that for which you should first give thanks to the immortal gods, then to your own virtue, that was yesterday’s battle. For the combat was waged not so much with enemies as—with which combat is greater and more dangerous—against the betrayal and perfidy of our allies."

Nam ne vos falsa opinio teneat, iniussu meo Albani subiere ad montes, nec imperium illud meum sed consilium et imperii simulatio fuit, ut nec vobis, ignorantibus deseri vos, averteretur a certamine animus, et hostibus, circumveniri se ab tergo ratis, terror ac fuga iniceretur. Nec ea culpa quam arguo omnium Albanorum est: ducem secuti sunt, ut et vos, si quo ego inde agmen declinare voluissem, fecissetis. Mettius ille est ductor itineris huius, Mettius idem huius machinator belli, Mettius foederis Romani Albanique ruptor.

For, lest a false opinion hold you, the Albans went up to the hills not by my order, and that was not my command but a counsel and a simulation of command, so that neither your spirit for the contest—since you were unaware that you were being deserted—might be turned away, and upon the enemies, reckoning that they were being surrounded from the rear, terror and flight might be thrown. Nor is the blame which I charge the blame of all the Albans: they followed their leader, as you too would have done, if I from there had wished to deflect the column to some direction. Mettius is the guide of this march, the same Mettius is the contriver of this war, Mettius the breaker of the Roman and Alban treaty.

Audeat deinde talia alius, nisi in hunc insigne iam documentum mortalibus dedero." Centuriones armati Mettium circumsistunt; rex cetera ut orsus erat peragit: "Quod bonum faustum felixque sit populo Romano ac mihi vobisque, Albani, populum omnem Albanum Romam traducere in animo est, civitatem dare plebi, primores in patres legere, unam urbem, unam rem publicam facere; ut ex uno quondam in duos populos divisa Albana res est, sic nunc in unum redeat." Ad haec Albana pubes, inermis ab armatis saepta, in variis voluntatibus communi tamen metu cogente, silentium tenet. Tum Tullus "Metti Fufeti" inquit, "si ipse discere posses fidem ac foedera servare, vivo tibi ea disciplina a me adhibita esset; nunc quoniam tuum insanabile ingenium est, at tu tuo supplicio doce humanum genus ea sancta credere quae a te violata sunt. Ut igitur paulo ante animum inter Fidenatem Romanamque rem ancipitem gessisti, ita iam corpus passim distrahendum dabis." Exinde duabus admotis quadrigis, in currus earum distentum inligat Mettium; deinde in diversum iter equi concitati, lacerum in utroque curru corpus, qua inhaeserant vinculis membra, portantes.

"Let anyone else then dare such things, unless I shall have given in this man a signal example for mortals." Armed centurions surround Mettius; the king carries through the rest as he had begun: "May it be for good, auspicious, and fortunate to the Roman people and to me and to you, Albans: it is my intention to transfer the whole Alban people to Rome, to give citizenship to the plebs, to enroll the foremost men among the Fathers, to make one city, one republic; as once the Alban state, divided from one into two peoples, so now let it return into one." At this the Alban youth, unarmed, hemmed in by armed men, with wills diverse yet with a common fear compelling, keeps silence. Then Tullus says, "Mettius Fufetius, if you yourself could learn to keep faith and treaties, that discipline would have been applied to you by me while you lived; now, since your disposition is incurable, do you by your own punishment teach the human race to hold as sacred those things which have been violated by you. Therefore, just as a little while ago you bore a mind wavering between the interest of Fidenae and of Rome, so now you shall give your body to be torn asunder in all directions." Then, with two chariots brought up, he ties Mettius, stretched out, to the cars of them; thereafter the horses, driven on in opposite directions, carry off the mangled body in each chariot, the limbs, where they had stuck fast to the bonds, being dragged along.

avertere omnes ab tanta foeditate spectaculi oculos. Primum ultimumque illud supplicium apud Romanos exempli parum memoris legum humanarum fuit: in aliis gloriari licet nulli gentium mitiores placuisse poenas.

all averted their eyes from so great a foulness of the spectacle. That punishment, the first and the last among the Romans, as a precedent was too little mindful of the laws of humanity; in other matters it is permitted to boast that to no nation have milder penalties been pleasing.

[29] Inter haec iam praemissi Albam erant equites qui multitudinem traducerent Romam. Legiones deinde ductae ad diruendam urbem. Quae ubi intravere portas, non quidem fuit tumultus ille nec pavor qualis captarum esse urbium solet, cum effractis portis stratisve ariete muris aut arce vi capta clamor hostilis et cursus per urbem armatorum omnia ferro flammaque miscet; sed silentium triste ac tacita maestitia ita defixit omnium animos, ut prae metu obliti quid relinquerent, quid secum ferrent deficiente consilio rogitantesque alii alios, nunc in liminibus starent, nunc errabundi domos suas ultimum illud visuri pervagarentur.

[29] Meanwhile horsemen had already been sent ahead to Alba to lead the multitude across to Rome. Then the legions were led to demolish the city. When they entered the gates, there was not indeed that uproar nor panic such as is wont to be of captured cities, when, the gates broken open or the walls laid low by the battering-ram, or the citadel seized by force, the hostile clamor and the running of armed men through the city confound all things with iron and flame; but a sad silence and mute gloom so fixed the spirits of all that, for fear, forgetful of what they were leaving, what they were carrying with them, with counsel failing and asking one another questions, now they would stand on the thresholds, now, wandering, they would roam through their homes to see them that last time.

Ut vero iam equitum clamor exire iubentium instabat, iam fragor tectorum quae diruebantur ultimis urbis partibus audiebatur pulvisque ex distantibus locis ortus velut nube inducta omnia impleverat, raptim quibus quisque poterat elatis, cum larem ac penates tectaque in quibus natus quisque educatusque esset relinquentes exirent, iam continens agmen migrantium impleverat vias, et conspectus aliorum mutua miseratione integrabat lacrimas, vocesque etiam miserabiles exaudiebantur, mulierum praecipue, cum obsessa ab armatis templa augusta praeterirent ac velut captos relinquerent deos. Egressis urbe Albanis Romanus passim publica privataque omnia tecta adaequat solo, unaque hora quadringentorum annorum opus quibus Alba steterat excidio ac ruinis dedit. Templis tamen deum—ita enim edictum ab rege fuerat—temperatum est.

But when now the shout of the horsemen urging them to go out was pressing, already the crash of roofs that were being torn down in the farthest parts of the city was heard, and dust, arisen from distant places, had filled everything as if with a cloud drawn over; with things snatched up hastily, whatever each could carry, as, leaving the Lar and the Penates and the roofs under which each had been born and reared, they went out, already a continuous column of migrants had filled the roads, and the sight of others, by mutual commiseration, renewed their tears, and even piteous voices were heard distinctly, especially of the women, when they passed by the august temples beset by armed men and were leaving the gods, as it were, captive. With the Albans having gone out from the city, the Roman everywhere levels to the ground all buildings, public and private alike, and in a single hour he gave to destruction and ruins the work of 400 years during which Alba had stood. The temples of the gods, however—for so it had been decreed by the king—were spared.

[30] Roma interim crescit Albae ruinis. Duplicatur civium numerus; Caelius additur urbi mons, et quo frequentius habitaretur eam sedem Tullus regiae capit ibique habitavit. Principes Albanorum in patres ut ea quoque pars rei publicae cresceret legit, Iulios, Servilios, Quinctios, Geganios, Curiatios, Cloelios; templumque ordini ab se aucto curiam fecit quae Hostilia usque ad patrum nostrorum aetatem appellata est.

[30] Meanwhile Rome grows upon the ruins of Alba. The number of citizens is doubled; the Caelian hill is added to the city, and, in order that that seat might be more thickly inhabited, Tullus takes it for the royal residence and lived there. He chose the chiefs of the Albans into the Fathers, that that part also of the commonwealth might grow—the Iulii, Servilii, Quinctii, Geganii, Curiatii, Cloelii; and he made for the order, by himself augmented, a temple—the curia—which was called the Hostilia down to the age of our fathers.

Et ut omnium ordinum viribus aliquid ex novo populo adiceretur equitum decem turmas ex Albanis legit, legiones et veteres eodem supplemento explevit et novas scripsit.

And, so that something from the new people might be added to the forces of all the orders, he enrolled ten squadrons of horse from the Albans, filled up the legions—both the old—with the same supplement, and enrolled new ones.

Hac fiducia virium Tullus Sabinis bellum indicit, genti ea tempestate secundum Etruscos opulentissimae viris armisque. Utrimque iniuriae factae ac res nequiquam erant repetitae. Tullus ad Feroniae fanum mercatu frequenti negotiatores Romanos comprehensos querebatur, Sabini suos prius in lucum confugisse ac Romae retentos.

With this confidence in his forces, Tullus declares war on the Sabines, a people at that time, next to the Etruscans, most opulent in men and arms. On both sides injuries had been done and matters had been demanded back in vain. Tullus complained that at the fane of Feronia, with the market crowded, Roman merchants had been seized; the Sabines [claimed] that their own had earlier fled into the grove and had been detained at Rome.

Hae causae belli ferebantur. Sabini haud parum memores et suarum virium partem Romae ab Tatio locatam et Romanam rem nuper etiam adiectione populi Albani auctam, circumspicere et ipsi externa auxilia. Etruria erat vicina, proximi Etruscorum Veientes.

These were the causes of the war. The Sabines, not a little mindful both that a part of their own forces had been placed at Rome by Tatius, and that the Roman commonwealth had recently also been augmented by the addition of the Alban people, looked around themselves too for external auxiliaries. Etruria was nearby; the nearest of the Etruscans were the Veientes.

Inde ob residuas bellorum iras maxime sollicitatis ad defectionem animis voluntarios traxere, et apud vagos quosdam ex inopi plebe etiam merces valuit: publico auxilio nullo adiuti sunt valuitque apud Veientes—nam de ceteris minus mirum est—pacta cum Romulo indutiarum fides. Cum bellum utrimque summa ope pararent vertique in eo res videretur utri prius arma inferrent, occupat Tullus in agrum Sabinum transire. Pugna atrox ad silvam Malitiosam fuit, ubi et peditum quidem robore, ceterum equitatu aucto nuper plurimum Romana acies valuit.

Thence, because of the residual angers of the wars, with spirits greatly agitated toward defection, they drew volunteers, and among certain vagabonds from the needy plebs even wages had effect: they were aided by no public assistance, and among the Veientes— for as to the rest it is less a wonder— the pledged good faith of the truce made with Romulus prevailed. While on both sides they were preparing war with the utmost effort, and it seemed that the issue turned on which of the two would first bring arms to bear, Tullus preempts by crossing into Sabine territory. A fierce battle was at the Malitiosa Wood, where the Roman battle-line prevailed most, indeed by the strength of the infantry, but especially by the cavalry, lately augmented.

Ab equitibus repente invectis turbati ordines sunt Sabinorum, nec pugna deinde illis constare nec fuga explicari sine magna caede potuit.

With the cavalry suddenly borne in, the ranks of the Sabines were thrown into disorder, and thereafter neither could the fight hold firm for them nor could their flight be extricated without great slaughter.

[31] Devictis Sabinis cum in magna gloria magnisque opibus regnum Tulli ac tota res Romana esset, nuntiatum regi patribusque est in monte Albano lapidibus pluvisse. Quod cum credi vix posset, missis ad id visendum prodigium in conspectu haud aliter quam cum grandinem venti glomeratam in terras agunt crebri cecidere caelo lapides. Visi etiam audire vocem ingentem ex summi cacuminis luco ut patrio ritu sacra Albani facerent, quae velut dis quoque simul cum patria relictis oblivioni dederant, et aut Romana sacra susceperant aut fortunae, ut fit, obirati cultum reliquerant deum.

[31] With the Sabines conquered, when the reign of Tullus and the whole Roman Commonwealth were in great glory and great resources, it was reported to the king and to the Fathers that on the Alban Mount stones had rained down. Since this could scarcely be believed, with men sent to view that prodigy, stones fell thick from the sky before their eyes, no otherwise than when winds drive agglomerated hail onto the earth. Men were even said to hear a mighty voice from the grove on the highest summit, bidding that the Albans perform the sacred rites according to the ancestral rite—rites which they had consigned to oblivion, as though the gods too had been forsaken together with their fatherland—and that either they had adopted Roman rites, or, wroth with Fortune, as happens, had abandoned the worship of the gods.

Romanis quoque ab eodem prodigio novendiale sacrum publice susceptum est, seu voce caelesti ex Albano monte missa—nam id quoque traditur—seu haruspicum monitu; mansit certe sollemne ut quandoque idem prodigium nuntiaretur feriae per novem dies agerentur.

To the Romans also, from the same prodigy, a nine-day solemn rite was publicly undertaken, either by a celestial voice sent from the Alban Mount—for this too is handed down—or by the monition of the haruspices; the observance certainly remained, that whenever the same prodigy was announced, holy days were kept for nine days.

Haud ita multo post pestilentia laboratum est. Unde cum pigritia militandi oreretur, nulla tamen ab armis quies dabatur a bellicoso rege, salubriora etiam credente militiae quam domi iuvenum corpora esse, donec ipse quoque longinquo morbo est implicitus. Tunc adeo fracti simul cum corpore sunt spiritus illi feroces ut qui nihil ante ratus esset minus regium quam sacris dedere animum, repente omnibus magnis parvisque superstitionibus obnoxius degeret religionibusque etiam populum impleret.

Not long after, they labored under a pestilence. Whence, although a sloth for campaigning arose, nevertheless no rest from arms was granted by the bellicose king, believing even that the bodies of the youths were healthier in military service than at home, until he himself too was entangled by a long-continued disease. Then to such a degree were those fierce spirits broken along with the body that he who before had judged nothing less regal than to give his mind to sacred rites suddenly passed his days subject to all superstitions, great and small, and he even filled the people with religious observances.

Volgo iam homines eum statum rerum qui sub Numa rege fuerat requirentes, unam opem aegris corporibus relictam si pax veniaque ab dis impetrata esset credebant. Ipsum regem tradunt volventem commentarios Numae, cum ibi quaedam occulta sollemnia sacrificia Iovi Elicio facta invenisset, operatum his sacris se abdidisse; sed non rite initum aut curatum id sacrum esse, nec solum nullam ei oblatam caelestium speciem sed ira Iovis sollicitati prava religione fulmine ictum cum domo conflagrasse. Tullus magna gloria belli regnavit annos duos et triginta.

By now people at large, seeking that state of affairs which had been under King Numa, believed that the one help left for sick bodies was, if peace and pardon from the gods were obtained. They hand down that the king himself, while leafing through the Commentaries of Numa, when he had found there certain secret solemn sacrifices made to Jupiter Elicius, withdrew himself to perform these rites; but that the rite had not been duly inaugurated or conducted, and not only was no appearance of the celestials offered to him, but, by the wrath of Jupiter—stirred by perverse religion—he was struck by lightning and burned up together with his house. Tullus reigned, with great glory in war, for 32 years.

[32] Mortuo Tullo res, ut institutum iam inde ab initio erat, ad patres redierat hique interregem nominaverant. Quo comitia habente Ancum Marcium regem populus creavit; patres fuere auctores. Numae Pompili regis nepos filia ortus Ancus Marcius erat.

[32] With Tullus dead, the affairs, as had been instituted from the very beginning, had returned to the Fathers, and they had nominated an interrex. While he was holding the comitia, the people created Ancus Marcius king; the Fathers were the authors. Ancus Marcius was a grandson of King Numa Pompilius, born from his daughter.

Qui ut regnare coepit et avitae gloriae memor et quia proximum regnum, cetera egregium, ab una parte haud satis prosperum fuerat aut neglectis religionibus aut prave cultis, longe antiquissimum ratus sacra publica ut ab Numa instituta erant facere, omnia ea ex commentariis regiis pontificem in album elata proponere in publico iubet. Inde et civibus otii cupidis et finitimis civitatibus facta spes in avi mores atque instituta regem abiturum. Igitur Latini cum quibus Tullo regnante ictum foedus erat sustulerant animos, et cum incursionem in agrum Romanum fecissent repetentibus res Romanis superbe responsum reddunt, desidem Romanum regem inter sacella et aras acturum esse regnum rati.

When he began to reign, both mindful of his grandfather’s glory and because the previous reign—excellent in other respects—had from one aspect not been quite prosperous, either with religions neglected or perversely cultivated, considering it by far the soundest course to perform the public sacred rites as they had been established by Numa, he orders the pontiff to publish in public all those things, brought into an album, from the royal commentaries. Thence hope arose both for citizens eager for leisure and for the neighboring communities that the king would turn to his ancestor’s customs and institutions. Therefore the Latins, with whom a treaty had been struck in the reign of Tullus, had lifted their spirits; and when they had made a raid into Roman territory, they returned a proud answer to the Romans demanding restitution, thinking that the Roman king, a sluggard, would carry on his kingship among little shrines and altars.

Medium erat in Anco ingenium, et Numae et Romuli memor; et praeterquam quod avi regno magis necessariam fuisse pacem credebat cum in novo tum feroci populo, etiam quod illi contigisset otium sine iniuria id se haud facile habiturum; temptari patientiam et temptatam contemni, temporaque esse Tullo regi aptiora quam Numae. Ut tamen, quoniam Numa in pace religiones instituisset, a se bellicae caerimoniae proderentur, nec gererentur solum sed etiam indicerentur bella aliquo ritu, ius ab antiqua gente Aequiculis quod nunc fetiales habent descripsit, quo res repetuntur. Legatus ubi ad fines eorum venit unde res repetuntur, capite velato filo—lanae velamen est—"Audi, Iuppiter" inquit; "audite, fines"—cuiuscumque gentis sunt, nominat—; "audiat fas.

The disposition in Ancus was in the middle, mindful both of Numa and of Romulus; and besides the fact that he believed peace to have been more necessary to his grandfather’s reign, with a people both new and fierce, he also believed that the leisure without injury which had befallen him he himself would hardly have; that patience is tried, and once tried is despised, and that the times were more suited to King Tullus than to Numa. Yet, since Numa had established religions in peace, he determined that from himself warlike ceremonies should be handed down, and that wars should not only be waged but also declared by some rite; he set down the law from the ancient people, the Aequiculi, which the fetials now have, by which claims are demanded back. When the legate comes to the borders of those from whom the things are demanded back, with head veiled with a fillet—it is a covering of wool—“Hear, Jupiter,” he says; “hear, boundaries”—he names of whatever nation they are—; “let Right hear.

Ego sum publicus nuntius populi Romani; iuste pieque legatus venio, verbisque meis fides sit." Peragit deinde postulata. Inde Iovem testem facit: "Si ego iniuste impieque illos homines illasque res dedier mihi exposco, tum patriae compotem me nunquam siris esse." Haec, cum fines suprascandit, haec, quicumque ei primus vir obvius fuerit, haec portam ingrediens, haec forum ingressus, paucis verbis carminis concipiendique iuris iurandi mutatis, peragit. Si non deduntur quos exposcit diebus tribus et triginta—tot enim sollemnes sunt—peractis bellum ita indicit: "Audi, Iuppiter, et tu, Iane Quirine, dique omnes caelestes, vosque terrestres vosque inferni, audite; ego vos testor populum illum"—quicumque est, nominat—"iniustum esse neque ius persolvere; sed de istis rebus in patria maiores natu consulemus, quo pacto ius nostrum adipiscamur."

I am the public envoy of the Roman people; justly and piously as a legate I come—let there be trust in my words." Then he carries through the demands. Next he makes Jupiter a witness: "If I unjustly and impiously demand that those men and those things be surrendered to me, then suffer me never to be a partaker of my fatherland." These words he performs when he oversteps the boundaries, these to whatever man shall first meet him, these as he enters the gate, these on entering the forum, with a few words of the formula and of composing the oath altered. If those whom he demands are not surrendered, when three and thirty days—for so many are solemn—have elapsed, he thus declares war: "Hear, Jupiter, and you, Janus Quirinus, and all you celestial gods, and you terrestrial and you infernal, hear; I call you to witness that that people"—whatever it is, he names it—"is unjust and does not render right; but concerning those matters in our fatherland we shall consult the elders, by what method we may obtain our right."

Tum nuntius Romam ad consulendum redit. Confestim rex his ferme verbis patres consulebat: "Quarum rerum litium causarum condixit pater patratus populi Romani Quiritium patri patrato Priscorum Latinorum hominibusque Priscis Latinis, quas res nec dederunt nec solverunt nec fecerunt, quas res dari fieri solvi oportuit, dic" inquit ei quem primum sententiam rogabat, "quid censes?" Tum ille: "Puro pioque duello quaerendas censeo, itaque consentio consciscoque." Inde ordine alii rogabantur; quandoque pars maior eorum qui aderant in eandem sententiam ibat, bellum erat consensum. Fieri solitum ut fetialis hastam ferratam aut praeustam sanguineam ad fines eorum ferret et non minus tribus puberibus praesentibus diceret: "Quod populi Priscorum Latinorum hominesque Prisci Latini adversus populum Romanum Quiritium fecerunt deliquerunt, quod populus Romanus Quiritium bellum cum Priscis Latinis iussit esse senatusque populi Romani Quiritium censuit consensit conscivit ut bellum cum Priscis Latinis fieret, ob eam rem ego populusque Romanus populis Priscorum Latinorum hominibusque Priscis Latinis bellum indico facioque." Id ubi dixisset, hastam in fines eorum emittebat.

Then the messenger returns to Rome to take counsel. At once the king consulted the fathers with words roughly to this effect: "Of which things, lawsuits, and causes the pater patratus of the Roman people, the Quirites, has formally stipulated with the pater patratus of the Ancient Latins and the men of the Ancient Latins; which things they have neither delivered nor paid nor done—things which it was proper to be delivered, done, and paid—say," he says to him whom he first asked for an opinion, "what do you judge?" Then he: "I judge that they must be sought by a pure and pious war, and thus I consent and I resolve." Then in order the others were asked; and whenever the greater part of those present went with the same opinion, war was agreed. It was the custom that a fetial should carry to their borders a spear iron-shod or charred, blood-red, and, with not fewer than three who had come of age present, should say: "Because the peoples of the Ancient Latins and the men of the Ancient Latins have acted against and have transgressed toward the Roman people, the Quirites; because the Roman people, the Quirites, has ordered that there be war with the Ancient Latins, and the senate of the Roman people, the Quirites, has judged, consented, and resolved that war be made with the Ancient Latins, for that reason I and the Roman people do declare and make war upon the peoples of the Ancient Latins and the men of the Ancient Latins." When he had said this, he would cast the spear into their borders.

Hoc tum modo ab Latinis repetitae res ac bellum indictum, moremque eum posteri acceperunt.

Then in this way by the Latins demands for restitution were made and war was declared, and posterity adopted that custom.

[33] Ancus demandata cura sacrorum flaminibus sacerdotibusque aliis, exercitu novo conscripto profectus, Politorium, urbem Latinorum, vi cepit; secutusque morem regum priorum, qui rem Romanam auxerant hostibus in civitatem accipiendis, multitudinem omnem Romam traduxit. Et cum circa Palatium, sedem veterum Romanorum, Sabini Capitolium atque arcem, Caelium montem Albani implessent, Aventinum novae multitudini datum. Additi eodem haud ita multo post, Tellenis Ficanaque captis, novi cives.

[33] Ancus, the care of the sacred rites having been entrusted to the flamens and the other priests, with a new army levied set out, and took by force Politorium, a city of the Latins; and, following the custom of the earlier kings who had augmented the Roman state by admitting enemies into citizenship, he transferred the whole multitude to Rome. And since around the Palatine, the seat of the ancient Romans, the Sabines had filled the Capitol and the citadel, and the Albans the Caelian hill, the Aventine was given to the new multitude. Added to the same place not much later, with Tellenae and Ficana captured, were new citizens.

Politorium inde rursus bello repetitum quod vacuum occupaverant Prisci Latini, eaque causa diruendae urbis eius fuit Romanis ne hostium semper receptaculum esset. Postremo omni bello Latino Medulliam compulso, aliquamdiu ibi Marte incerto, varia victoria pugnatum est; nam et urbs tuta munitionibus praesidioque firmata valido erat, et castris in aperto positis aliquotiens exercitus Latinus comminus cum Romanis signa contulerat. Ad ultimum omnibus copiis conisus Ancus acie primum vincit; inde ingenti praeda potens Romam redit, tum quoque multis milibus Latinorum in civitatem acceptis, quibus, ut iungeretur Palatio Aventinum, ad Murciae datae sedes.

Politorium then was again attacked in war, because, left empty, it had been occupied by the Ancient Latins; and this was a cause for the Romans to have that city torn down, lest it be always a receptacle of enemies. Finally, when the whole Latin war had been driven back to Medullia, for some time there, with Mars uncertain, the fighting went with varying victory; for both the city was secure by fortifications and strengthened by a strong garrison, and, with a camp pitched in the open, the Latin army had several times, at close quarters, joined standards with the Romans. At the last, Ancus, exerting all his forces, wins in pitched battle; thence, powerful with vast booty, he returns to Rome, then also with many thousands of Latins received into the city, to whom, that the Aventine might be joined to the Palatine, dwellings were assigned at Murcia.

Ianiculum quoque adiectum, non inopia loci sed ne quando ea arx hostium esset. Id non muro solum sed etiam ob commoditatem itineris ponte sublicio, tum primum in Tiberi facto, coniungi urbi placuit. Quiritium quoque fossa, haud parvum munimentum a planioribus aditu locis, Anci regis opus est.

Also the Janiculum was added, not from lack of space but lest ever that citadel be the enemy’s. It pleased that it be connected to the city not by a wall only but also, for the convenience of travel, by the Sublician Bridge (a pile-bridge), then for the first time made on the Tiber. The Quirites’ Ditch too, no small fortification on the side with a flatter approach, is the work of King Ancus.

Ingenti incremento rebus auctis, cum in tanta multitudine hominum, discrimine recte an perperam facti confuso, facinora clandestina fierent, carcer ad terrorem increscentis audaciae media urbe imminens foro aedificatur. Nec urbs tantum hoc rege crevit sed etiam ager finesque. Silva Maesia Veientibus adempta usque ad mare imperium prolatum et in ore Tiberis Ostia urbs condita, salinae circa factae, egregieque rebus bello gestis aedis Iovis Feretri amplificata.

With a vast increment, as affairs were augmented, since in so great a multitude of men, the discrimination whether a deed was done rightly or wrongly was confounded and clandestine crimes were occurring, a prison, for the terror of the increasing audacity, looming over the Forum in the middle of the city, was built. Nor did the city grow only under this king, but also the field and the borders. The Maesian forest, taken from the Veientes, extended the dominion as far as the sea, and at the mouth of the Tiber the city of Ostia was founded, salt-works were made round about, and, his exploits in war being outstanding, the temple of Jupiter Feretrius was amplified.

[34] Anco regnante Lucumo, vir impiger ac divitiis potens, Romam commigravit cupidine maxime ac spe magni honoris, cuius adipiscendi Tarquiniis—nam ibi quoque peregrina stirpe oriundus erat—facultas non fuerat. Demarati Corinthii filius erat, qui ob seditiones domo profugus cum Tarquiniis forte consedisset, uxore ibi ducta duos filios genuit. Nomina his Lucumo atque Arruns fuerunt.

[34] With Ancus reigning, Lucumo, a man energetic and powerful in riches, migrated to Rome chiefly from a desire and hope of great honor, the opportunity of acquiring which at Tarquinii—for there too he was sprung from a foreign stock—had not been available. He was the son of Demaratus the Corinthian, who, on account of seditions, a fugitive from home, when he had by chance settled at Tarquinii, with a wife taken there begot two sons. Their names were Lucumo and Arruns.

Lucumo superfuit patri bonorum omnium heres: Arruns prior quam pater moritur uxore gravida relicta. Nec diu manet superstes filio pater; qui cum, ignorans nurum ventrem ferre, immemor in testando nepotis decessisset, puero post avi mortem in nullam sortem bonorum nato ab inopia Egerio inditum nomen. Lucumoni contra, omnium heredi bonorum, cum divitiae iam animos facerent, auxit ducta in matrimonium Tanaquil, summo loco nata et quae haud facile iis in quibus nata erat humiliora sineret ea quo innupsisset.

Lucumo survived his father, heir of all the goods; Arruns dies before his father, his wife left pregnant. Nor does the father remain long surviving his son; and when—ignorant that his daughter‑in‑law was carrying in the womb, forgetful in making a testament concerning the grandson—he had deceased, for the boy, born after the grandfather’s death into no share of the goods, the name Egerius was assigned from want. To Lucumo, on the contrary, heir of all the goods, since riches were now emboldening his spirit, he increased his prospects by taking in matrimony Tanaquil, born of the highest rank, and one who would not easily allow that what she married into be humbler than those among whom she had been born.

Spernentibus Etruscis Lucumonem exsule advena ortum, ferre indignitatem non potuit, oblitaque ingenitae erga patriam caritatis dummodo virum honoratum videret, consilium migrandi ab Tarquiniis cepit. Roma est ad id potissima visa: in novo populo, ubi omnis repentina atque ex virtute nobilitas sit, futurum locum forti ac strenuo viro; regnasse Tatium Sabinum, arcessitum in regnum Numam a Curibus, et Ancum Sabina matre ortum nobilemque una imagine Numae esse. Facile persuadet ut cupido honorum et cui Tarquinii materna tantum patria esset.

With the Etruscans spurning Lucumo, born of an exile, a newcomer, she could not bear the indignity, and—forgetful of her innate affection toward her fatherland, provided that she might see her husband honored—she formed the plan of migrating from Tarquinii. Rome seemed the most suitable for that: in a new people, where every nobility is sudden and out of virtue, there would be a place for a brave and strenuous man; that Tatius the Sabine had reigned, that Numa had been summoned into the kingship from Cures, and that Ancus, sprung from a Sabine mother, was noble as well by the one ancestral image of Numa. She easily persuades him, being desirous of honors, and for whom Tarquinii was a native land only through his mother.

Sublatis itaque rebus amigrant Romam. Ad Ianiculum forte ventum erat; ibi ei carpento sedenti cum uxore aquila suspensis demissa leviter alis pilleum aufert, superque carpentum cum magno clangore volitans rursus velut ministerio divinitus missa capiti apte reponit; inde sublimis abiit. Accepisse id augurium laeta dicitur Tanaquil, perita ut volgo Etrusci caelestium prodigiorum mulier.

Accordingly, with their goods taken up, they migrate to Rome. By chance they had come to the Janiculum; there, as he was sitting in the carriage with his wife, an eagle, with wings gently lowered, takes off his cap, and, flying above the carriage with great clangor, again, as if sent by divinity for a ministry, aptly replaces it upon his head; then it went away aloft. Tanaquil is said to have gladly received this augury, a woman skilled, as the Etruscans commonly are, in celestial prodigies.

Excelsa et alta sperare complexa virum iubet: eam alitem ea regione caeli et eius dei nuntiam venisse; circa summum culmen hominis auspicium fecisse; levasse humano superpositum capiti decus ut divinitus eidem redderet. Has spes cogitationesque secum portantes urbem ingressi sunt, domicilioque ibi comparato L. Tarquinium Priscum edidere nomen. Romanis conspicuum eum novitas divitiaeque faciebant; et ipse fortunam benigno adloquio, comitate invitandi beneficiisque quos poterat sibi conciliando adiuvabat, donec in regiam quoque de eo fama perlata est.

Embracing the man, she bids him to hope for exalted and lofty things: that bird had come from that region of the sky, a messenger of that god; it had made an augury about the highest summit of the man; it had lifted the ornament set upon the human head so that by divine agency it might restore it to the same man. Bearing these hopes and thoughts with them, they entered the city; and, a dwelling having been procured there, they put forth the name Lucius Tarquinius Priscus. Novelty and riches made him conspicuous to the Romans; and he himself aided his fortune by benign address, by the affability of inviting, and by benefits, winning over to himself whom he could, until even into the royal palace the report about him was conveyed.

Notitiamque eam brevi apud regem liberaliter dextereque obeundo officia in familiaris amicitiae adduxerat iura, ut publicis pariter ac privatis consiliis bello domique interesset et per omnia expertus postremo tutor etiam liberis regis testamento institueretur.

And that acquaintance, in a short time, by liberally and dexterously discharging duties, had been brought with the king into the rights of familiar friendship, so that he took part alike in public and private counsels, in war and at home, and, proved through all things, was at last even appointed by testament guardian to the king’s children.

[35] Regnavit Ancus annos quattuor et viginti, cuilibet superiorum regum belli pacisque et artibus et gloria par. Iam filii prope puberem aetatem erant. Eo magis Tarquinius instare ut quam primum comitia regi creando fierent.

[35] Ancus reigned twenty-four years, equal to any of the former kings in war and peace and in arts and in glory. Already his sons were near the age of puberty. All the more for that reason did Tarquinius press that the comitia for creating a king be held as soon as possible.

Quibus indictis sub tempus pueros venatum ablegavit. Isque primus et petisse ambitiose regnum et orationem dicitur habuisse ad conciliandos plebis animos compositam: cum se non rem novam petere, quippe qui non primus, quod quisquam indignari mirarive posset, sed tertius Romae peregrinus regnum adfectet; et Tatium non ex peregrino solum sed etiam ex hoste regem factum, et Numam ignarum urbis, non petentem, in regnum ultro accitum: se ex quo sui potens fuerit Romam cum coniuge ac fortunis omnibus commigrasse; maiorem partem aetatis eius qua civilibus officiis fungantur homines, Romae se quam in vetere patria vixisse; domi militiaeque sub haud paenitendo magistro, ipso Anco rege, Romana se iura, Romanos ritus didicisse; obsequio et observantia in regem cum omnibus, benignitate erga alios cum rege ipso certasse. Haec eum haud falsa memorantem ingenti consensu populus Romanus regnare iussit.

With the elections announced, at the critical moment he sent the boys away to hunt. And he is said to have been the first both to have sought the kingship ambitiously and to have delivered an oration composed for conciliating the minds of the plebs: that he was not asking for a new thing, since he was not the first—at which anyone might be indignant or amazed—but the third at Rome, a peregrine, to aspire to the kingship; and that Tatius had been made king not only from a foreigner but even from an enemy, and Numa, ignorant of the city and not seeking it, had been summoned of their own accord into the kingship. That from the time he was his own master he had migrated to Rome with his wife and all his fortunes; that he had lived the greater part of that span of life in which men discharge civic duties at Rome rather than in his old fatherland; that at home and in the field, under a by-no-means-regrettable master, King Ancus himself, he had learned Roman laws and Roman rites; that he had vied with all in obedience and observance toward the king, and with the king himself in benignity toward others. As he recounted these things not falsely, the Roman people, by vast consensus, ordered him to reign.

Ergo virum cetera egregium secuta, quam in petendo habuerat, etiam regnantem ambitio est; nec minus regni sui firmandi quam augendae rei publicae memor centum in patres legit qui deinde minorum gentium sunt appellati, factio haud dubia regis cuius beneficio in curiam venerant.

Therefore the ambition—which had attended the man, outstanding in other respects, in seeking the kingship—attended him also when reigning; and, no less mindful of strengthening his own rule than of augmenting the republic, he chose a hundred into the Fathers, who thereafter were called of the lesser gentes, an unmistakably royal faction, by whose benefaction they had come into the Curia.

Bellum primum cum Latinis gessit et oppidum ibi Apiolas vi cepit; praedaque inde maiore quam quanta belli fama fuerat revecta ludos opulentius instructiusque quam priores reges fecit. Tum primum circo qui nunc maximus dicitur designatus locus est. Loca divisa patribus equitibusque ubi spectacula sibi quisque facerent; fori appellati; spectavere furcis duodenos ab terra spectacula alta sustinentibus pedes.

He first waged war with the Latins and there took the oppidum Apiolas by force; and, the plunder brought back from there being greater than the fame of the war had been, he held games more opulently and more elaborately equipped than the earlier kings. Then for the first time the site of the circus, which is now called the Circus Maximus, was marked out. Places were apportioned to the Fathers and the Equites where each might make viewing-stands for himself; they were called “fori”; they watched from high stands, supported by forked props that held them twelve feet above the ground.

Ludicrum fuit equi pugilesque ex Etruria maxime acciti. Sollemnes deinde annui mansere ludi, Romani magnique varie appellati. Ab eodem rege et circa forum privatis aedificanda divisa sunt loca; porticus tabernaeque factae.

The spectacle consisted of horses and pugilists, summoned chiefly from Etruria. Thereafter the annual solemn games remained, variously called the Roman and the Great. By the same king, too, places around the forum were apportioned to private persons for building; porticoes and shops were made.

[36] Muro quoque lapideo circumdare urbem parabat cum Sabinum bellum coeptis intervenit. Adeoque ea subita res fuit ut prius Anienem transirent hostes quam obviam ire ac prohibere exercitus Romanus posset. Itaque trepidatum Romae est; et primo dubia victoria, magna utrimque caede pugnatum est.

[36] He was also preparing to gird the city with a stone wall when a Sabine war intervened in his undertakings. And the matter was so sudden that the enemies crossed the Anio before the Roman army could go to meet and prevent them. And so there was trepidation at Rome; and at first, with the victory doubtful, it was fought with great slaughter on both sides.

Reductis deinde in castra hostium copiis datoque spatio Romanis ad comparandum de integro bellum, Tarquinius equitem maxime suis deesse viribus ratus ad Ramnes, Titienses, Luceres, quas centurias Romulus scripserat, addere alias constituit suoque insignes relinquere nomine. Id quia inaugurato Romulus fecerat, negare Attus Navius, inclitus ea tempestate augur, neque mutari neque novum constitui nisi aves addixissent posse. Ex eo ira regi mota; eludensque artem ut ferunt, "Age dum" inquit, "divine tu, inaugura fierine possit quod nunc ego mente concipio." Cum ille augurio rem expertus profecto futuram dixisset, "Atqui hoc animo agitavi" inquit, "te novacula cotem discissurum.

With the enemy’s forces then led back into their camp and time given to the Romans to prepare the war anew, Tarquinius, thinking that cavalry especially was lacking to his forces, resolved to add other centuries to the Ramnes, Titienses, Luceres, which centuries Romulus had enrolled, and to leave them distinguished with his own name. Because Romulus had done that with inauguration taken, Attus Navius, a renowned augur at that time, asserted that neither could it be changed nor something new be established unless the birds had ratified it. From that the king’s anger was stirred; and, mocking the art, as they tell, “Come then,” he says, “you diviner, inaugurate whether what I now conceive in my mind can be brought to pass.” When he, having tested the matter by augury, had said that it would indeed come to pass, “But this have I planned,” he says, “that you will split a whetstone with a razor.

Cape haec et perage quod aves tuae fieri posse portendunt." Tum illum haud cunctanter discidisse cotem ferunt. Statua Atti capite velato, quo in loco res acta est in comitio in gradibus ipsis ad laevam curiae fuit, cotem quoque eodem loco sitam fuisse memorant ut esset ad posteros miraculi eius monumentum. Auguriis certe sacerdotioque augurum tantus honos accessit ut nihil belli domique postea nisi auspicato gereretur, concilia populi, exercitus vocati, summa rerum, ubi aves non admisissent, dirimerentur.

"Take these and accomplish what your birds portend can be done." Then, they say, he without hesitation split the whetstone. A statue of Attus, with head veiled, stood where the deed was done—in the Comitium, on the very steps to the left of the Curia; they also relate that the whetstone was set in the same place, so that there might be for posterity a monument of that miracle. To auguries and to the priesthood of the augurs, assuredly, so great honor accrued that thereafter nothing in war or at home was conducted except under auspice; the assemblies of the people, armies when summoned, the highest affairs—whenever the birds had not admitted—were broken off.

Neque tum Tarquinius de equitum centuriis quicquam mutavit; numero alterum tantum adiecit, ut mille et octingenti equites in tribus centuriis essent. Posteriores modo sub iisdem nominibus qui additi erant appellati sunt; quas nunc quia geminatae sunt sex vocant centurias.

Nor then did Tarquinius change anything concerning the equestrian centuries; he added only as much again in number, so that one thousand eight hundred horsemen were in three centuries. The later ones were merely called by the same names as the former; which now, because they are doubled (geminated), they call six centuries.

[37] Hac parte copiarum aucta iterum cum Sabinis confligitur. Sed praeterquam quod viribus creverat Romanus exercitus, ex occulto etiam additur dolus, missis qui magnam vim lignorum, in Anienis ripa iacentem, ardentem in flumen conicerent; ventoque iuvante accensa ligna et pleraque in ratibus impacta sublicisque cum haererent, pontem incendunt. Ea quoque res in pugna terrorem attulit Sabinis, et fusis eadem fugam impedit; multique mortales cum hostem effugissent in flumine ipso periere, quorum fluitantia arma ad urbem cognita in Tiberi prius paene quam nuntiari posset insignem victoriam fecere.

[37] With this part of the forces increased, again conflict is joined with the Sabines. But besides the Roman army’s having grown in strength, a stratagem also is added from concealment: men were sent to hurl into the river a great mass of timber, lying on the bank of the Anio, set ablaze; and, the wind aiding, when the kindled logs, most having been driven against the rafts and the piles and clinging there, they set the bridge on fire. This too brought terror upon the Sabines in the battle, and, with them routed, the same thing impeded their flight; and many mortals, though they had escaped the enemy, perished in the river itself—whose floating arms, recognized at the city in the Tiber almost before it could be announced, made the victory conspicuous.

Eo proelio praecipua equitum gloria fuit; utrimque ab cornibus positos, cum iam pelleretur media peditum suorum acies, ita incurrisse ab lateribus ferunt, ut non sisterent modo Sabinas legiones ferociter instantes cedentibus, sed subito in fugam averterent. Montes effuso cursu Sabini petebant, et pauci tenuere: maxima pars, ut ante dictum est, ab equitibus in flumen acti sunt. Tarquinius, instandum perterritis ratus, praeda captivisque Romam missis, spoliis hostium—id votum Volcano erat—ingenti cumulo accensis, pergit porro in agrum Sabinum exercitum inducere; et quamquam male gesta res erat nec gesturos melius sperare poterant, tamen, quia consulendi res non dabat spatium, ire obviam Sabini tumultuario milite; iterumque ibi fusi, perditis iam prope rebus pacem petiere.

In that battle the chief glory was the cavalry’s; posted on both flanks, when already the middle battle-line of their own infantry was being driven, they are said to have charged in from the sides in such a way that they not only halted the Sabine legions, fiercely pressing upon the retreating, but suddenly turned them to flight. The Sabines sought the mountains at full speed, and few gained them; the greatest part, as was said before, were driven by the horsemen into the river. Tarquinius, thinking pressure must be applied to the terrified, after sending booty and captives to Rome, with the spoils of the enemy—that was the vow to Vulcan—kindled in a huge heap, proceeds further to lead the army into the Sabine territory; and although the affair had gone ill and they could not hope to manage it better, nevertheless, since the situation gave no space for consultation, the Sabines went to meet him with a tumultuary soldiery; and there again routed, with their affairs now almost ruined, they sought peace.

[38] Collatia et quidquid citra Collatiam agri erat Sabinis ademptum; Egerius—fratris hic filius erat regis—Collatiae in praesidio relictus. Deditosque Collatinos ita accipio eamque deditionis formulam esse: rex interrogavit: "Estisne vos legati oratoresque missi a populo Collatino ut vos populumque Collatinum dederetis?"—"Sumus."—"Estne populus Collatinus in sua potestate?"—"Est."—"Deditisne vos populumque Collatinum, urbem, agros, aquam, terminos, delubra, utensilia, divina humanaque omnia, in meam populique Romani dicionem?"—"Dedimus."—"At ego recipio."

[38] Collatia and whatever land on this side of Collatia there was was taken from the Sabines; Egerius—he was the son of the king’s brother—was left at Collatia in garrison. And I take it that the Collatines were surrendered thus, and that this was the formula of surrender: the king asked: "Are you envoys and orators sent by the Collatine people, that you may surrender yourselves and the Collatine people?"—"We are."—"Is the Collatine people in its own power?"—"It is."—"Do you surrender yourselves and the Collatine people, the city, fields, water, boundaries, shrines, utensils, all things divine and human, into my dominion and that of the Roman people?"—"We surrender."—"And I accept."

Bello Sabino perfecto Tarquinius triumphans Romam redit. Inde Priscis Latinis bellum fecit; ubi nusquam ad universae rei dimicationem ventum est, ad singula oppida circumferendo arma omne nomen Latinum domuit. Corniculum, Ficulea vetus, Cameria, Crustumerium, Ameriola, Medullia, Nomentum, haec de Priscis Latinis aut qui ad Latinos defecerant, capta oppida.

With the Sabine war finished, Tarquinius, triumphing, returns to Rome. Thence he made war upon the Old Latins; where it nowhere came to an engagement of the whole, by carrying arms around to the individual towns he subdued the entire Latin name. Corniculum, Old Ficulea, Cameria, Crustumerium, Ameriola, Medullia, Nomentum—these were captured towns, of the Old Latins or of those who had defected to the Latins.

Pax deinde est facta. Maiore inde animo pacis opera incohata quam quanta mole gesserat bella, ut non quietior populus domi esset quam militiae, fuisset. Nam et muro lapideo, cuius exordium operis Sabino bello turbatum erat, urbem qua nondum munierat cingere parat, et infima urbis loca circa forum aliasque interiectas collibus conualles, quia ex planis locis haud facile euehebant aquas, cloacis fastigio in Tiberim ductis siccat, et aream ad aedem in Capitolio Iovis quam voverat bello Sabino, iam praesagiente animo futuram olim amplitudinem loci, occupat fundamentis.

Peace was then made. Thereupon, with greater spirit the works of peace were initiated than the magnitude on which he had waged wars, so that the people might not be more at rest at home than they had been in military service. For he both prepares to gird with a stone wall the city where he had not yet fortified it—the beginning of which work had been disturbed by the Sabine war—and he dries the lowest places of the city around the forum and the other valleys interposed among the hills, because from level places they did not easily carry off the waters, by sewers led with a gradient into the Tiber; and the site for the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline, which he had vowed in the Sabine war, his mind already presaging the future grandeur of the place, he occupies by laying foundations.

[39] Eo tempore in regia prodigium visu eventuque mirabile fuit. Puero dormienti, cui Servio Tullio fuit nomen, caput arsisse ferunt multorum in conspectu; plurimo igitur clamore inde ad tantae rei miraculum orto excitos reges, et cum quidam familiarium aquam ad restinguendum ferret, ab regina retentum, sedatoque eam tumultu moveri vetuisse puerum donec sua sponte experrectus esset; mox cum somno et flammam abisse. Tum abducto in secretum viro Tanaquil "Viden tu puerum hunc" inquit, "quem tam humili cultu educamus?

[39] At that time in the royal palace there was a prodigy, marvelous in sight and in outcome. They relate that, while a boy was sleeping—his name was Servius Tullius—his head burned in the sight of many; therefore, with a very great clamor having arisen at the marvel of so great a thing, the king and queen were roused; and when a certain one of the household was bringing water to extinguish it, he was held back by the queen, and, the tumult having been calmed, she forbade the boy to be moved until he had awakened of his own accord; soon, with the sleep, the flame too departed. Then, with her husband led away into a private place, Tanaquil said, "Do you see this boy, whom we are rearing in so humble a condition?"

Scire licet hunc lumen quondam rebus nostris dubiis futurum praesidiumque regiae adflictae; proinde materiam ingentis publice privatimque decoris omni indulgentia nostra nutriamus." Inde puerum liberum loco coeptum haberi erudirique artibus quibus ingenia ad magnae fortunae cultum excitantur. Evenit facile quod dis cordi esset: iuvenis evasit vere indolis regiae nec, cum quaereretur gener Tarquinio, quisquam Romanae iuventutis ulla arte conferri potuit, filiamque ei suam rex despondit. Hic quacumque de causa tantus illi honos habitus credere prohibet serva natum eum parvumque ipsum servisse.

"It is permitted to know that this light will someday be for our doubtful affairs and a praesidium for the afflicted royal house; accordingly let us nurture, with every indulgence of ours, the material of immense honor both publicly and privately." Thence the boy began to be held in the place of a freeborn and to be educated in the arts by which talents are stirred to the cultivation of great fortune. It eventuated easily what was to the gods’ heart: he emerged a young man of truly royal indoles; and, when a son-in-law was being sought for Tarquinius, no one of the Roman youth could by any art be compared, and the king betrothed his daughter to him. This—whatever the cause for which so great honor was paid to him—forbids one to believe that he was born of a slave-woman and that he himself, when small, served.

Eorum magis sententiae sum qui Corniculo capto Ser. Tulli, qui princeps in illa urbe fuerat, gravidam viro occiso uxorem, cum inter reliquas captivas cognita esset, ob unicam nobilitatem ab regina Romana prohibitam ferunt servitio partum Romae edidisse Prisci Tarquini in domo; inde tanto beneficio et inter mulieres familiaritatem auctam et puerum, ut in domo a parvo eductum, in caritate atque honore fuisse; fortunam matris, quod, capta patria in hostium manus venerit, ut serva natus crederetur fecisse.

I am rather of the opinion of those who relate that, with Corniculum captured, the wife of Servius Tullius—who had been the princeps in that city—pregnant, her husband having been slain, when she had been recognized among the remaining captive women, was kept by the Roman queen from servitude on account of her singular nobility, and that she bore her child at Rome in the house of Priscus Tarquinius; thence, by so great a benefaction, both her familiarity among the women was increased, and the boy, as one reared in the house from a small child, was in affection and honor; the fortune of the mother—because, her fatherland having been taken, she had come into the hands of enemies—brought it about that he was believed to have been born of a slave-woman.

[40] Duodequadragesimo ferme anno ex quo regnare coeperat Tarquinius, non apud regem modo sed apud patres plebemque longe maximo honore Ser. Tullius erat. Tum Anci filii duo etsi antea semper pro indignissimo habuerant se patrio regno tutoris fraude pulsos, regnare Romae advenam non modo vicinae sed ne Italicae quidem stirpis, tum impensius iis indignitas crescere si ne ab Tarquinio quidem ad se rediret regnum, sed praeceps inde porro ad servitia caderet, ut in eadem civitate post centesimum fere annum quam Romulus deo prognatus deus ipse tenuerit regnum donec in terris fuerit, id servus serva natus possideat.

[40] In about the 38th year from when he began to reign, Tarquin, not with the king only but with the Fathers and the plebs, held Servius Tullius in by far the greatest honor. Then the two sons of Ancus, although previously they had always held that they had been expelled from their paternal kingship most undeservedly by the fraud of their tutor, now felt the indignity grow more intense—if the kingship should not return to them even from Tarquin, but should from there plunge headlong onward into slavery—so that in the same city, after almost the 100th year since Romulus, begotten of a god and himself a god, held the kingship as long as he was on earth, a slave, born of a slave-woman, should possess it: that a newcomer to reign at Rome was of not only not neighboring, but not even Italian, stock.

Cum commune Romani nominis tum praecipue id domus suae dedecus fore, si Anci regis virili stirpe salva non modo advenis sed servis etiam regnum Romae pateret. Ferro igitur eam arcere contumeliam statuunt; sed et iniuriae dolor in Tarquinium ipsum magis quam in Servium eos stimulabat, et quia gravior ultor caedis, si superesset, rex futurus erat quam privatus; tum Servio occiso, quemcumque alium generum delegisset, eundem regni heredem facturus videbatur; ob haec ipsi regi insidiae parantur. Ex pastoribus duo ferocissimi delecti ad facinus, quibus consueti erant uterque agrestibus ferramentis, in vestibulo regiae quam potuere tumultuosissime specie rixae in se omnes apparitores regios convertunt; inde, cum ambo regem appellarent clamorque eorum penitus in regiam pervenisset, vocati ad regem pergunt.

They judged it both a common disgrace of the Roman name and especially a dishonor of their own house, if, with the virile stock of King Ancus safe, the kingdom at Rome lay open not only to adventive newcomers but even to slaves. Therefore they resolve to ward off that contumely with iron; but both the pain of the injury was goading them against Tarquinius himself more than against Servius, and because the avenger of the murder, if he should survive, would be heavier as a king than as a private man; then, with Servius slain, whichever other son-in-law he had chosen, he seemed likely to make that same man the heir of the kingdom; on account of these things plots are prepared against the king himself. From among the shepherds two most ferocious were chosen for the crime, each accustomed to rustic iron-tools; in the vestibule of the royal house, as tumultuously as they could, under the semblance of a brawl, they turn all the royal apparitors toward themselves; then, when both appealed to the king and their clamor had penetrated deep within the palace, summoned to the king they proceed.

Primo uterque vociferari et certatim alter alteri obstrepere; coerciti ab lictore et iussi in vicem dicere tandem obloqui desistunt; unus rem ex composito orditur. Cum intentus in eum se rex totus averteret, alter elatam securim in caput deiecit, relictoque in volnere telo ambo se foras eiciunt.

At first each of them vociferated and, vying, one tried to drown the other; coerced by the lictor and ordered to speak in turn, at last they cease to interrupt; one begins the matter as pre-composed. When the king, intent upon him, turned himself wholly toward him, the other brought down the raised axe upon his head, and, the weapon left in the wound, both of them hurl themselves outside.

[41] Tarquinium moribundum cum qui circa erant excepissent, illos fugientes lictores comprehendunt. Clamor inde concursusque populi, mirantium quid rei esset. Tanaquil inter tumultum claudi regiam iubet, arbitros eiecit.

[41] When those who were around had taken up the dying Tarquinius, the lictors apprehended the fugitives. Then a clamor and a concourse of the people, marveling what the matter was. Tanaquil, amid the tumult, orders the palace to be closed, and casts out the onlookers.

Simul quae curando volneri opus sunt, tamquam spes subesset, sedulo comparat, simul si destituat spes, alia praesidia molitur. Servio propere accito cum paene exsanguem virum ostendisset, dextram tenens orat ne inultam mortem soceri, ne socrum inimicis ludibrio esse sinat. "Tuum est" inquit, "Servi, si vir es, regnum, non eorum qui alienis manibus pessimum facinus fecere.

At the same time she diligently provides the things needed for tending the wound, as though hope were present; at the same time, if hope should fail, she contrives other safeguards. When she had quickly summoned Servius and had shown that her husband was almost bloodless, holding his right hand she begs that he not allow the death of his father-in-law to go unavenged, nor his mother-in-law to be a mockery to enemies. “It is yours,” she says, “Servius, if you are a man, the kingship, not theirs who have perpetrated a most wicked deed by the hands of others.”

Erige te deosque duces sequere qui clarum hoc fore caput divino quondam circumfuso igni portenderunt. Nunc te illa caelestis excitet flamma; nunc expergiscere vere. Et nos peregrini regnavimus; qui sis, non unde natus sis reputa.

Rouse yourself, and follow the gods as guides, who once portended that this head would be illustrious when divine fire had been circumfused around it. Now let that celestial flame rouse you; now truly awaken. Even we foreigners have reigned; reckon who you are, not whence you were born.

Si tua re subita consilia torpent, at tu mea consilia sequere." Cum clamor impetusque multitudinis vix sustineri posset, ex superiore parte aedium per fenestras in Nouam viam versas—habitabat enim rex ad Iovis Statoris—populum Tanaquil adloquitur. Iubet bono animo, esse; sopitum fuisse regem subito ictu; ferrum haud alte in corpus descendisse; iam ad se redisse; inspectum volnus absterso cruore; omnia salubria esse; confidere propediem ipsum eos visuros; interim Ser. Tullio iubere populum dicto audientem esse; eum iura redditurum obiturumque alia regis munia esse.

"If your counsels grow torpid at the sudden affair, then follow my counsels." When the clamor and onrush of the multitude could scarcely be sustained, from the upper part of the house through the windows turned toward the Nova Via—for the king dwelt by Jupiter Stator—Tanaquil addresses the people. She bids them be of good courage; that the king had been lulled by a sudden blow; that the steel had not gone down deep into the body; that he had already come back to himself; that the wound had been inspected, the gore wiped away; that all things were healthful; that they should trust they would see him himself shortly; in the meantime she orders that the people be obedient to Servius Tullius; that he would render judgments and discharge the other regal duties.

Servius cum trabea et lictoribus prodit ac sede regia sedens alia decernit, de aliis consulturum se regem esse simulat. Itaque per aliquot dies cum iam exspirasset Tarquinius celata morte per speciem alienae fungendae vicis suas opes firmavit; tum demum palam factum est comploratione in regia orta. Servius praesidio firmo munitus, primus iniussu populi, voluntate patrum regnavit.

Servius, with the trabea and lictors, comes forth and, sitting in the royal seat, decrees some matters, while for others he pretends that he, as king, will consult. And so for several days, after Tarquinius had already expired, his death concealed, under the pretext of discharging another’s office he strengthened his own powers; then at last it was made public, a wailing having arisen in the palace. Servius, fortified with a firm guard, was the first to reign without the order of the people, by the will of the Fathers.

Anci liberi iam tum comprensis sceleris ministris ut vivere regem et tantas esse opes Servi nuntiatum est, Suessam Pometiam exsulatum ierant.

The sons of Ancus, already then—when, with the ministers of the crime apprehended, it had been announced that the king was alive and that so great were the resources of Servius—had gone into exile to Suessa Pometia.

[42] Nec iam publicis magis consiliis Servius quam privatis munire opes, et ne, qualis Anci liberum animus adversus Tarquinium fuerat, talis adversus se Tarquini liberum esset, duas filias iuvenibus regiis, Lucio atque Arrunti Tarquiniis iungit; nec rupit tamen fati necessitatem humanis consiliis quin invidia regni etiam inter domesticos infida omnia atque infesta faceret.

[42] And now Servius secured his power no more by public counsels than by private ones; and, lest the spirit of the sons of Ancus against Tarquin should be matched by that of the sons of Tarquin against himself, he joined his two daughters in marriage to the royal youths, Lucius and Arruns Tarquinius; yet he did not break the necessity of fate by human counsels, to prevent the envy of the kingship from making even among his household all things unfaithful and hostile.

Peropportune ad praesentis quietem status bellum cum Veientibus—iam enim indutiae exierant—aliisque Etruscis sumptum. In eo bello et virtus et fortuna enituit Tulli; fusoque ingenti hostium exercitu haud dubius rex, seu patrum seu plebis animos periclitaretur, Romam rediit. Adgrediturque inde ad pacis longe maximum opus, ut quemadmodum Numa divini auctor iuris fuisset, ita Servium conditorem omnis in civitate discriminis ordinumque quibus inter gradus dignitatis fortunaeque aliquid interlucet posteri fama ferrent.

Very opportunely for the present quiet of the state, a war with the Veientines— for already the truces had run out— and with other Etruscans was undertaken. In that war both the valor and the fortune of Tullius shone forth; and, the huge army of the enemy routed, the king, not in doubt whether he should test the minds of the patres or of the plebs, returned to Rome. And from there he undertakes, in peace, the greatest work by far: that, just as Numa had been the author of divine law, so posterity might carry the report of Servius as the founder of every distinction in the commonwealth and of the orders by which, between the steps of dignity and of fortune, something shines through.

Censum enim instituit, rem saluberrimam tanto futuro imperio, ex quo belli pacisque munia non viritim, ut ante, sed pro habitu pecuniarum fierent; tum classes centuriasque et hunc ordinem ex censu discripsit, vel paci decorum vel bello.

For he instituted a census, a most salutary measure for so great a future empire, from which the duties of war and peace were performed not individually, as before, but according to the measure of pecuniary means; then he distributed the classes and centuries, and this order, on the basis of the census, fitting either for peace or for war.

[43] Ex iis qui centum milium aeris aut maiorem censum haberent octoginta confecit centurias, quadragenas seniorum ac iuniorum; prima classis omnes appellati; seniores ad urbis custodiam ut praesto essent, iuvenes ut foris bella gererent; arma his imperata galea, clipeum, ocreae, lorica, omnia ex aere; haec ut tegumenta corporis essent: tela in hostem hastaque et gladius. Additae huic classi duae fabrum centuriae quae sine armis stipendia facerent; datum munus ut machinas in bello ferrent. Secunda classis intra centum usque ad quinque et septuaginta milium censum instituta, et ex iis, senioribus iunioribusque, viginti conscriptae centuriae; arma imperata scutum pro clipeo et praeter loricam omnia eadem.

[43] From those who had a census rating of 100,000 asses of bronze or greater he formed eighty centuries, forty of seniors and forty of juniors; all were called the first class; the seniors were to be at hand for the guarding of the city, the youths to wage wars abroad; the arms imposed on these were a galea, clipeus, ocreae, lorica, all of bronze; these were to be coverings of the body: missiles against the enemy, and the hasta and gladius. To this class were added two centuries of fabri, who should do their service without arms; the duty given was to carry machines in war. The second class was established within a census from 100,000 down to 75,000 asses, and from these, seniors and juniors alike, twenty centuries were enrolled; the arms imposed were a scutum in place of a clipeus, and, except for the lorica, all the same.

Tertiae classis in quinquaginta milium censum esse voluit; totidem centuriae et hae eodemque discrimine aetatium factae; nec de armis quicquam mutatum, ocreae tantum ademptae. In quarta classe census quinque et viginti milium, totidem centuriae factae, arma mutata: nihil praeter hastam et verutum datum. Quinta classis aucta; centuriae triginta factae; fundas lapidesque missiles hi secum gerebant; in his accensi cornicines tubicinesque in duas centurias distributi; undecim milibus haec classis censebatur.

He willed that the Third Class be at a census of 50,000; just as many centuries, and these too made with the same distinction of ages; nor was anything changed about the arms, only the greaves were taken away. In the Fourth Class the census was 25,000, the same number of centuries were made, the arms changed: nothing was given except a spear and a javelin. The Fifth Class was increased; 30 centuries were made; these carried slings and throwing stones with them; among these the accensi, the horn‑blowers and trumpeters were distributed into two centuries; this class was rated at 11,000.

Hoc minor census reliquam multitudinem habuit; inde una centuria facta est, immunis militia. Ita pedestri exercitu ornato distributoque, equitum ex primoribus civitatis duodecim scripsit centurias; sex item alias centurias, tribus ab Romulo institutis, sub iisdem quibus inauguratae erant nominibus fecit. Ad equos emendos dena milia aeris ex publico data, et, quibus equos alerent, viduae attributae quae bina milia aeris in annos singulos penderent.

This lower census held the remaining multitude; from it one century was made, exempt from military service. Thus, the infantry army having been equipped and distributed, he enrolled twelve centuries of cavalry from the foremost men of the state; likewise he made six other centuries, under the same names under which the three established by Romulus had been inaugurated. For buying horses, 10,000 asses were given from the public funds, and, that they might maintain the horses, widows were assigned who would pay 2,000 asses each year.

Haec omnia in dites a pauperibus inclinata onera. Deinde est honos additus. Non enim, ut ab Romulo traditum ceteri servaverant reges, viritim suffragium eadem vi eodemque iure promisce omnibus datum est; sed gradus facti, ut neque exclusus quisquam suffragio videretur et vis omnis penes primores civitatis esset; equites enim vocabantur primi, octoginta inde primae classis centuriae, ibi si variaret—quod raro incidebat—[fiebat] ut secundae classis vocarentur; nec fere unquam infra ita descenderunt ut ad infimos pervenirent.

All these burdens were tilted toward the wealthy and away from the poor. Then an honor was added. For not, as handed down by Romulus and preserved by the other kings, was the suffrage man-by-man, with the same force and the same right, promiscuously given to all; but steps were made, so that no one might seem excluded from the vote and yet all the power would be in the hands of the foremost men of the state; for the knights (equites) were called first, then the eighty centuries of the first class, and there, if there were variation—which rarely occurred—[it would happen] that those of the second class were called; nor did they almost ever go down lower in such a way as to reach the lowest.

Nec mirari oportet hunc ordinem qui nunc est post expletas quinque et triginta tribus, duplicato earum numero centuriis iuniorum seniorumque, ad institutam ab Ser. Tullio summam non convenire. Quadrifariam enim urbe divisa regionibus collibus qui habitabantur, partes eas tribus appellavit, ut ego arbitror, ab tributo; nam eius quoque aequaliter ex censu conferendi ab eodem inita ratio est; neque eae tribus ad centuriarum distributionem numerumque quicquam pertinuere.

Nor ought one to marvel that the order which now exists, after the thirty-five tribes were completed, with their number doubled into centuries of the juniors and the seniors, does not agree with the total instituted by Ser. Tullius. For the city, being divided fourfold into regions of the hills which were inhabited, he called those parts “tribes,” as I judge, from “tribute”; for the plan also of contributing it equally according to the census was initiated by the same man; and those tribes had nothing to do with the distribution and number of the centuries.

[44] Censu perfecto quem maturaverat metu legis de incensis latae cum vinculorum minis mortisque, edixit ut omnes cives Romani, equites peditesque, in suis quisque centuriis, in campo Martio prima luce adessent. Ibi instructum exercitum omnem suovetaurilibus lustravit, idque conditum lustrum appellatum, quia is censendo finis factus est. Milia octoginta eo lustro civium censa dicuntur; adicit scriptorum antiquissimus Fabius Pictor, eorum qui arma ferre possent eum numerum fuisse.

[44] The census having been completed, which he had hastened through fear of the law passed concerning the unregistered, with threats of chains and of death, he proclaimed that all Roman citizens, equestrians and infantry, should be present, each in his own century, in the Campus Martius at first light. There he purified the whole army, drawn up, with suovetaurilia, and that was called the lustrum, because by it an end was made to the census. Eighty thousand citizens are said to have been registered in that lustrum; Fabius Pictor, most ancient of the writers, adds that that was the number of those who were able to bear arms.

Ad eam multitudinem urbs quoque amplificanda visa est. Addit duos colles, Quirinalem Viminalemque; Viminalem inde deinceps auget Esquiliis; ibique ipse, ut loco dignitas fieret, habitat; aggere et fossis et muro circumdat urbem; ita pomerium profert. Pomerium verbi vim solam intuentes postmoerium interpretantur esse; est autem magis circamoerium, locus quem in condendis urbibus quondam Etrusci qua murum ducturi erant certis circa terminis inaugurato consecrabant, ut neque interiore parte aedificia moenibus continuarentur, quae nunc volgo etiam coniungunt, et extrinsecus puri aliquid ab humano cultu pateret soli.

To that multitude the city too seemed to require enlargement. He adds two hills, the Quirinal and the Viminal; then, in succession, he augments it on the Viminal with the Esquiline; and there he himself dwells, in order that dignity might accrue to the place; with an agger and ditches and a wall he girds the city; thus he carries forward the pomerium. Those who consider only the force of the word interpret pomerium to be postmoerium; but it is rather a circum-moerium, a space which, in founding cities, the Etruscans once consecrated by augural inauguration with fixed boundaries around the line where they were about to draw the wall, so that neither on the inner side would buildings be continued to the walls—which now commonly they even connect—and on the outer side some pure ground, free from human cultivation, would lie open.

Hoc spatium quod neque habitari neque arari fas erat, non magis quod post murum esset quam quod murus post id, pomerium Romani appellarunt; et in urbis incremento semper quantum moenia processura erant tantum termini hi consecrati proferebantur.

This space, which it was not divinely lawful to inhabit nor to plough, the Romans called the pomerium—not so much because it was “after” the wall as because the wall was after it; and in the city’s increment, always by as much as the walls were going to advance, by so much were these consecrated termini carried forward.

[45] Aucta civitate magnitudine urbis, formatis omnibus domi et ad belli et ad pacis usus, ne semper armis opes adquirerentur, consilio augere imperium conatus est, simul et aliquod addere urbi decus. Iam tum erat inclitum Dianae Ephesiae fanum; id communiter a civitatibus Asiae factum fama ferebat. Eum consensum deosque consociatos laudare mire Servius inter proceres Latinorum, cum quibus publice privatimque hospitia amicitiasque de industria iunxerat.

[45] With the commonwealth augmented by the magnitude of the city, with everything at home shaped for the uses both of war and of peace, lest resources be acquired always by arms, he strove to augment the imperium by counsel, and at the same time to add some adornment to the city. Already then there was the renowned fane of Diana at Ephesus; common report bore that it had been made jointly by the cities of Asia. Servius marvellously praised that consensus and the gods made partners, among the chiefs of the Latins, with whom he had, by design, linked both public and private ties of guest-friendship and friendships.

Saepe iterando eadem perpulit tandem, ut Romae fanum Dianae populi Latini cum populo Romano facerent. Ea erat confessio caput rerum Romam esse, de quo totiens armis certatum fuerat. Id quamquam omissum iam ex omnium cura Latinorum ob rem totiens infeliciter temptatam armis videbatur, uni se ex Sabinis fors dare visa est privato consilio imperii reciperandi.

By often reiterating the same points he at last prevailed, that at Rome the Latin people together with the Roman people should make a temple of Diana. This was a confession that Rome is the head of affairs, about which so often there had been contest with arms. Although that aim now seemed to have been dropped from the concern of all the Latins, because the matter had so often been tried unsuccessfully by arms, to one man from the Sabines Chance seemed to offer herself, by a private counsel for recovering the imperium.

Bos in Sabinis nata cuidam patri familiae dicitur miranda magnitudine ac specie; fixa per multas aetates cornua in vestibulo templi Dianae monumentum ei fuere miraculo. Habita, ut erat, res prodigii loco est, et cecinere vates cuius civitatis eam civis Dianae immolasset, ibi fore imperium; idque carmen pervenerat ad antistitem fani Dianae Sabinusque ut prima apta dies sacrificio visa est, bovem Romam actam deducit ad fanum Dianae et ante aram statuit. Ibi antistes Romanus, cum eum magnitudo victimae celebrata fama movisset, memor responsi Sabinum ita adloquitur: "Quidnam tu, hospes, paras?" inquit, "inceste sacrificium Dianae facere?

A cow in the Sabine country is said to have been born to a certain paterfamilias, of wondrous magnitude and appearance; horns fastened for many ages in the vestibule of the temple of Diana were a monument to this marvel. The matter, as it was, was held in the place of a prodigy, and the seers chanted that of whatever city a citizen should have sacrificed it to Diana, there would be the imperium; and that chant had reached the priest of the shrine of Diana. And a Sabine, when the first day seemed fit for the sacrifice, drives the cow, brought to Rome, down to the shrine of Diana and sets it before the altar. There the Roman priest, since the greatness of the victim, celebrated by report, had moved him, mindful of the response, addresses the Sabine thus: “What, pray, are you preparing, stranger,” he says, “to perform the sacrifice of Diana impiously?”

Quin tu ante vivo perfunderis flumine? Infima valle praefluit Tiberis." Religione tactus hospes, qui omnia, ut prodigio responderet eventus, cuperet rite facta, extemplo descendit ad Tiberim; interea Romanus immolat Dianae bovem. Id mire gratum regi atque civitati fuit.

"Why don’t you first be drenched in the living stream? The Tiber flows by at the lowest valley." Touched by religion, the guest, who desired that everything be done in due rite so that the outcome might answer to the prodigy, at once went down to the Tiber; meanwhile the Roman sacrifices the cow to Diana. That was marvelously pleasing to the king and to the commonwealth.

[46] Servius quamquam iam usu haud dubie regnum possederat, tamen quia interdum iactari voces a iuvene Tarquinio audiebat se iniussu populi regnare, conciliata prius voluntate plebis agro capto ex hostibus viritim diviso, ausus est ferre ad populum vellent iuberentne se regnare; tantoque consensu quanto haud quisquam alius ante rex est declaratus. Neque ea res Tarquinio spem adfectandi regni minuit; immo eo impensius quia de agro plebis adversa patrum voluntate senserat agi, criminandi Servi apud patres crescendique in curia sibi occasionem datam ratus est, et ipse iuvenis ardentis animi et domi uxore Tullia inquietum animum stimulante. Tulit enim et Romana regia sceleris tragici exemplum, ut taedio regum maturior veniret libertas ultimumque regnum esset quod scelere partum foret.

[46] Although Servius had by now, in practice, without doubt possessed the kingship, nevertheless, because he sometimes heard words being bandied about by the young Tarquin that he was reigning without the order of the people, after first winning over the goodwill of the plebs by dividing, man by man (viritim), land captured from the enemies, he dared to bring before the people whether they wished and ordered him to reign; and he was declared king with as great a consensus as scarcely any other king before. Nor did this matter lessen Tarquin’s hope of aiming at the kingship; rather, all the more, because he had perceived that the business about the land for the plebs had been carried on against the will of the patres, he thought an occasion had been given for accusing Servius before the patres and for increasing his own standing in the curia—he himself a young man of burning spirit, and at home his wife Tullia spurring his restless mind. For the Roman regia too bore an example of tragic crime, so that, through weariness of kings, liberty might come more mature, and the last kingship should be that which had been gotten by crime.

Hic L. Tarquinius—Prisci Tarquini regis filius neposne fuerit parum liquet; pluribus tamen auctoribus filium ediderim—fratrem habuerat Arruntem Tarquinium mitis ingenii iuvenem. His duobus, ut ante dictum est, duae Tulliae regis filiae nupserant, et ipsae longe dispares moribus. Forte ita inciderat ne duo violenta ingenia matrimonio iungerentur fortuna, credo, populi Romani, quo diuturnius Servi regnum esset constituique civitatis mores possent.

This L. Tarquinius—whether he was the son or the grandson of King Tarquinius Priscus is not quite clear; yet, on the authority of the more numerous authors, I would set him down as the son—had had a brother, Arruns Tarquinius, a youth of mild disposition. To these two, as was said before, the two Tullias, the king’s daughters, had been married, and they themselves were far unlike in character. By chance it had fallen out thus, that two violent temperaments were not joined in marriage—the fortune, I believe, of the Roman people—so that Servius’s reign might be more long-lasting and the customs of the state might be able to be established.

Angebatur ferox Tullia nihil materiae in viro neque ad cupiditatem neque ad audaciam esse; tota in alterum aversa Tarquinium eum mirari, eum virum dicere ac regio sanguine ortum: spernere sororem, quod virum nacta muliebri cessaret audacia. Contrahit celeriter similitudo eos, ut fere fit: malum malo aptissimum; sed initium turbandi omnia a femina ortum est. Ea secretis viri alieni adsuefacta sermonibus nullis verborum contumeliis parcere de viro ad fratrem, de sorore ad virum; et se rectius viduam et illum caelibem futurum fuisse contendere, quam cum impari iungi ut elanguescendum aliena ignavia esset; si sibi eum quo digna esset di dedissent virum, domi se propediem visuram regnum fuisse quod apud patrem videat.

The ferocious Tullia was vexed that there was no material in her husband either for cupidity or for audacity; wholly turned toward the other, Tarquinius, she admired him, called him the man and one sprung from royal blood: she scorned her sister, because, having gotten a husband, she lingered with womanly lack of daring. Likeness quickly draws them together, as commonly happens: an evil is most apt to an evil; but the beginning of throwing everything into confusion arose from the woman. She, accustomed to secret conversations with another woman’s husband, spared no contumelies of words—about her husband to the brother, about her sister to the husband; and she contended that it would have been more proper that she herself be a widow and that he be unmarried, than to be joined with an unequal, so that she must grow languid through another’s ignavia; if the gods had given to her as a husband that man to whom she was worthy to be given, she would before long have seen at home the kingship which she sees in her father’s house.

Celeriter adulescentem suae temeritatis implet; Arruns Tarquinius et Tullia minor prope continuatis funeribus cum domos vacuas novo matrimonio fecissent, iunguntur nuptiis, magis non prohibente Servio quam adprobante.

She quickly fills the young man with her own temerity; Arruns Tarquinius and Tullia the Younger, with funerals almost continuous, when they had made their homes vacant for a new marriage, are joined in nuptials, with Servius rather not forbidding than approving.

[47] Tum vero in dies infestior Tulli senectus, infestius coepit regnum esse; iam enim ab scelere ad aliud spectare mulier scelus. Nec nocte nec interdiu virum conquiescere pati, ne gratuita praeterita parricidia essent: non sibi defuisse cui nupta diceretur, nec cum quo tacita serviret; defuisse qui se regno dignum putaret, qui meminisset se esse Prisci Tarquini filium, qui habere quam sperare regnum mallet. "Si tu is es cui nuptam esse me arbitror, et virum et regem appello; sin minus, eo nunc peius mutata res est quod istic cum ignavia est scelus.

[47] Then indeed day by day the old age of Tullius was more beleaguered, and the kingdom began to be more beleaguered; for now the woman was looking from one crime toward another crime. She let her husband rest neither by night nor by day, lest the past parricides be gratuitous: that it had not been lacking to herself to have someone to whom she might be said to be married, nor someone whom she might silently serve; what had been lacking was someone who would think himself worthy of the kingship, who would remember that he was the son of Priscus Tarquinius, who would prefer to have a kingdom rather than to hope for it. “If you are the man to whom I reckon myself married, I call you both husband and king; but if not, the matter is now changed for the worse in this respect, that there crime is coupled with cowardice.”

Quin accingeris? Non tibi ab Corintho nec ab Tarquiniis, ut patri tuo, peregrina regna moliri necesse est: di te penates patriique et patris imago et domus regia et in domo regale solium et nomen Tarquinium creat vocatque regem. Aut si ad haec parum est animi, quid frustraris civitatem?

Why do you not gird yourself? It is not necessary for you to contrive foreign kingdoms from Corinth or from Tarquinii, as for your father: the gods, the Penates of your fatherland, and your father’s image, and the royal house, and in the house the regal throne, and the name Tarquin create you and call you king. Or if for these things there is too little spirit, why do you frustrate the commonwealth?

Quid te ut regium iuvenem conspici sinis? Facesse hinc Tarquinios aut Corinthum; devolvere retro ad stirpem, fratri similior quam patri." His aliisque increpando iuvenem instigat, nec conquiescere ipsa potest si, cum Tanaquil, peregrina mulier, tantum moliri potuisset animo ut duo continua regna viro ac deinceps genero dedisset, ipsa regio semine orta nullum momentum in dando adimendoque regno faceret. His muliebribus instinctus furiis Tarquinius circumire et prensare minorum maxime gentium patres; admonere paterni beneficii ac pro eo gratiam repetere; allicere donis iuvenes; cum de se ingentia pollicendo tum regis criminibus omnibus locis crescere.

"Why do you allow yourself to be looked upon as a royal youth? Begone hence to Tarquinii or to Corinth; roll back down to your stock, being more like your brother than your father." By these and other rebukes she goads the young man, nor can she herself rest if, whereas Tanaquil, a foreign woman, could by spirit undertake so much as to have given two successive kingdoms to her husband and then to her son-in-law, she herself, sprung from royal seed, should make no weight in the bestowing and the taking away of the kingdom. Instigated by these womanly furies, Tarquinius began to go round and grasp the hands of the senators, especially of the lesser clans; to remind them of his father’s beneficium and in return to demand gratitude; to allure the young men with gifts; both by promising vast things concerning himself and by charges against the king, to grow in influence everywhere.

Postremo ut iam agendae rei tempus visum est, stipatus agmine armatorum in forum inrupit. Inde omnibus perculsis pavore, in regia sede pro curia sedens patres in curiam per praeconem ad regem Tarquinium citari iussit. Convenere extemplo, alii iam ante ad hoc praeparati, alii metu ne non venisse fraudi esset, novitate ac miraculo attoniti et iam de Servio actum rati.

At last, when the time now seemed for the affair to be carried out, surrounded by a column of armed men he burst into the forum. Then, with all smitten with fear, sitting in the royal seat before the Curia, he ordered the Fathers to be summoned into the Curia by a herald to King Tarquinius. They assembled immediately—some already beforehand prepared for this, others from fear lest not to have come should be a harm—astonished at the novelty and the marvel, and thinking that it was already over with Servius.

Ibi Tarquinius maledicta ab stirpe ultima orsus: servum servaque natum post mortem indignam parentis sui, non interregno, ut antea, inito, non comitiis habitis, non per suffragium populi, non auctoribus patribus, muliebri dono regnum occupasse. Ita natum, ita creatum regem, fautorem infimi generis hominum ex quo ipse sit, odio alienae honestatis ereptum primoribus agrum sordidissimo cuique divisisse; omnia onera quae communia quondam fuerint inclinasse in primores civitatis; instituisse censum ut insignis ad invidiam locupletiorum fortuna esset et parata unde, ubi vellet, egentissimis largiretur.

Thereupon Tarquinius began his maledictions from his very lineage: that one born of a slave man and a slave woman, after the unworthy death of his own parent, had seized the kingship not with an interregnum, as before, having been entered upon, not with the comitia held, not through the suffrage of the people, not with the Fathers as authorities, but by a womanly gift. Such born, such created a king, a favorer of the lowest class of men, from which he himself is, out of hatred for another’s respectability he had snatched away land from the foremost and divided it to each most sordid; he had shifted all burdens which once had been common onto the leading men of the state; he had instituted the census so that the fortune of the wealthier might be conspicuous to envy, and so that resources might be prepared whence, whenever he wished, he could lavish upon the neediest.

[48] Huic orationi Servius cum intervenisset trepido nuntio excitatus, extemplo a vestibulo curiae magna voce "Quid hoc" inquit, "Tarquini, rei est? Qua tu audacia me vivo vocare ausus es patres aut in sede considere mea?" Cum ille ferociter ad haec—se patris sui tenere sedem; multo quam servum potiorem filium regis regni heredem; satis illum diu per licentiam eludentem insultasse dominis—, clamor ab utriusque fautoribus oritur et concursus populi fiebat in curiam, apparebatque regnaturum qui vicisset. Tum Tarquinius necessitate iam et ipsa cogente ultima audere, multo et aetate et viribus validior, medium arripit Servium elatumque e curia in inferiorem partem per gradus deiecit; inde ad cogendum senatum in curiam rediit.

[48] To this oration, when Servius had come in, roused by a tremulous messenger, immediately from the vestibule of the curia in a great voice he said, "What is this, Tarquin, matter? With what audacity have you, while I live, dared to call the Fathers or to sit in my seat?" When he fiercely in reply to these things — that he held his father's seat; that far preferable to a slave was the king's son, heir of the kingdom; that that man had long enough, under license, mocked and insulted his masters —, a clamor arises from the supporters of each, and a concourse of the people into the curia was occurring, and it was apparent that he would rule who had conquered. Then Tarquin, with necessity now itself compelling him to dare the utmost, much stronger both in age and in strength, seizes Servius in the midst and, lifted up out of the curia, hurled him down the steps to the lower part; from there he returned into the curia to compel the senate.

Fit fuga regis apparitorum atque comitum; ipse prope exsanguis cum sine regio comitatu domum se reciperet ab iis qui missi ab Tarquinio fugientem consecuti erant interficitur. Creditur, quia non abhorret a cetero scelere, admonitu Tulliae id factum. Carpento certe, id quod satis constat, in forum invecta nec reverita coetum virorum evocavit virum e curia regemque prima appellavit.

Flight of the king’s apparitors and companions ensues; he himself, almost bloodless, as he was withdrawing home without a royal retinue, is slain by those who, sent by Tarquin, had overtaken him as he fled. It is believed—because it does not disagree with the rest of the crime—that this was done at Tullia’s instigation. Certainly, conveyed into the forum in her carriage, as is sufficiently agreed, and not having revered the assembly of men, she called her husband out from the curia and was the first to style him king.

A quo facessere iussa ex tanto tumultu cum se domum reciperet pervenissetque ad summum Cyprium vicum, ubi Dianium nuper fuit, flectenti carpentum dextra in Urbium clivum ut in collem Esquiliarum eueheretur, restitit pavidus atque inhibuit frenos is qui iumenta agebat iacentemque dominae Servium trucidatum ostendit. Foedum inhumanumque inde traditur scelus monumentoque locus est—Sceleratum vicum vocant—quo amens, agitantibus furiis sororis ac viri, Tullia per patris corpus carpentum egisse fertur, partemque sanguinis ac caedis paternae cruento vehiculo, contaminata ipsa respersaque, tulisse ad penates suos virique sui, quibus iratis malo regni principio similes propediem exitus sequerentur.

Having been ordered by him to be gone, when she was withdrawing home from so great a tumult and had reached the top of the Cyprian Street, where recently the Dianium was, as she was turning the carriage to the right into the Slope of the Urbii that she might be carried up onto the Esquiline hill, the man who was driving the team, terrified, halted and checked the reins, and showed to his mistress Servius lying there butchered. A foul and inhuman crime is related to have been done therefrom, and the place is a monument—They call it the Street of Crime—where Tullia, mad, the furies of her sister and her husband goading her, is said to have driven the carriage over her father’s body, and, herself defiled and bespattered, to have borne part of the blood and paternal slaughter on the bloody vehicle to her own Penates and to those of her husband; and, they being enraged, to the evil beginning of the kingship similar outcomes would presently follow.

Ser. Tullius regnavit annos quattuor et quadraginta ita ut bono etiam moderatoque succedenti regi difficilis aemulatio esset; ceterum id quoque ad gloriam accessit quod cum illo simul iusta ac legitima regna occiderunt. Id ipsum tam mite ac tam moderatum imperium tamen quia unius esset deponere eum in animo habuisse quidam auctores sunt, ni scelus intestinum liberandae patriae consilia agitanti intervenisset.

Servius Tullius reigned forty-four years, such that emulation would be difficult even for a good and moderate king succeeding him; moreover, this too was added to his glory, that with him at the same time just and legitimate reigns perished. That very rule, so mild and so moderate, however, because it was that of one man, some authorities say he had had it in mind to lay down, if a domestic crime had not intervened while he was prosecuting plans for freeing the fatherland.

[49] Inde L. Tarquinius regnare occepit, cui Superbo cognomen facta indiderunt, quia socerum gener sepultura prohibuit, Romulum quoque insepultum perisse dictitans, primoresque patrum, quos Servi rebus favisse credebat, interfecit; conscius deinde male quaerendi regni ab se ipso adversus se exemplum capi posse, armatis corpus circumsaepsit; neque enim ad ius regni quicquam praeter vim habebat ut qui neque populi iussu neque auctoribus patribus regnaret. Eo accedebat ut in caritate civium nihil spei reponenti metu regnum tutandum esset. Quem ut pluribus incuteret cognitiones capitalium rerum sine consiliis per se solus exercebat, perque eam causam occidere, in exsilium agere, bonis multare poterat non suspectos modo aut invisos sed unde nihil aliud quam praedam sperare posset.

[49] Then Lucius Tarquinius began to reign, to whom the cognomen “the Proud” his deeds affixed, because, as a son-in-law, he forbade burial to his father-in-law, repeatedly saying that Romulus too had perished unburied, and he killed the foremost of the senators whom he believed had favored the cause of Servius; conscious then that a precedent of ill-seeking the kingship could be taken from himself against himself, he fenced his person about with armed men; for he had nothing toward the right to the kingship besides force, seeing that he reigned neither by the order of the people nor with the senators as his authorizers. To this was added that, placing no hope in the affection of the citizens, the kingdom had to be safeguarded by fear. And, to strike this into more people, he conducted inquiries into capital cases without councils, by himself alone; and on that pretext he could kill, drive into exile, and mulct of their goods not only those merely suspected or hated, but also those from whom he could hope for nothing other than booty.

Praecipue ita patrum numero imminuto statuit nullos in patres legere, quo contemptior paucitate ipsa ordo esset minusque per se nihil agi indignarentur. Hic enim regum primus traditum a prioribus morem de omnibus senatum consulendi solvit; domesticis consiliis rem publicam administravit; bellum, pacem, foedera, societates per se ipse, cum quibus voluit, iniussu populi ac senatus, fecit diremitque. Latinorum sibi maxime gentem conciliabat ut peregrinis quoque opibus tutior inter cives esset, neque hospitia modo cum primoribus eorum sed adfinitates quoque iungebat.

Especially with the number of the patres thus diminished, he resolved to enroll no one into the patres, in order that the order, by its very paucity, might be more contemptible and be less indignant that nothing was transacted through themselves. For he, first of the kings, dissolved the custom handed down by his predecessors of consulting the senate about all matters; he administered the commonwealth by domestic counsels; war, peace, treaties, alliances he, by himself, with whom he wished, without the order of the people and the senate, made and unmade. He was chiefly conciliating to himself the nation of the Latins, so that by foreign resources he might be safer even among citizens, and he was linking not only guest-friendships with their chiefs but also affinities.

Octavio Mamilio Tusculano—is longe princeps Latini nominis erat, si famae credimus, ab Ulixe deaque Circa oriundus—, ei Mamilio filiam nuptum dat, perque eas nuptias multos sibi cognatos amicosque eius conciliat.

To Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum—he was by far the chief of the Latin name, if we trust to report, sprung from Ulysses and the goddess Circe—to this Mamilius he gives his daughter in marriage, and through that marriage he conciliates to himself many kinsmen and that man’s friends.

[50] Iam magna Tarquini auctoritas inter Latinorum proceres erat, cum in diem certam ut ad lucum Ferentinae conveniant indicit: esse, quae agere de rebus communibus velit. Conveniunt frequentes prima luce: ipse Tarquinius diem quidem servavit, sed paulo ante quam sol occideret venit. Multa ibi toto die in concilio variis iactata sermonibus erant.

[50] Already great was Tarquin’s authority among the nobles of the Latins, when he proclaims a fixed day that they should convene at the grove of Ferentina: that there were matters which he wished to transact concerning common affairs. They gather in great numbers at first light: Tarquinius himself indeed kept the day, but came a little before the sun set. Many matters there had been bandied about all day in the council with various speeches.

Turnus Herdonius ab Aricia ferociter in absentem Tarquinium erat invectus: haud mirum esse Superbo inditum Romae cognomen—iam enim ita clam quidem mussitantes, volgo tamen eum appellabant—an quicquam superbius esse quam ludificari sic omne nomen Latinum? Principibus longe ab domo excitis, ipsum, qui concilium indixerit, non adesse. Temptari profecto patientiam ut, si iugum acceperint, obnoxios premat.

Turnus Herdonius from Aricia had ferociously inveighed against Tarquinius in his absence: it was no wonder that at Rome the cognomen “the Proud” had been affixed to him—already indeed, though muttering it in secret, they were nonetheless commonly calling him that—; was anything more proud than thus to make a mockery of the whole Latin name? The princes having been called far from home, he himself, who had proclaimed the council, was not present. Their patience, assuredly, was being tested, so that, if they should accept the yoke, he might press them as subject.

Cui enim non apparere, adfectare eum imperium in Latinos? Quod si sui bene crediderint cives, aut si creditum illud et non raptum parricidio sit, credere et Latinos quamquam ne sic quidem alienigenae debere: sin suos eius paeniteat, quippe qui alii super alios trucidentur exsulatum eant bona amittant, quid spei melioris Latinis portendi? Si se audiant, domum suam quemque inde abituros neque magis observaturos diem concilii quam ipse qui indixerit observet.

For whom does it not appear that he is aspiring to imperium over the Latins? But if his own citizens have trusted him well, or if that was a thing entrusted and not snatched by parricide, yet the Latins ought not to entrust themselves to an alien-born man—not even so. But if his people are disgusted with him—inasmuch as they are being butchered one upon another, go into exile, and lose their goods—what hope of anything better is being portended for the Latins? If they listen to me, each will depart from there to his own home, and they will no more observe the day of the council than he who summoned it observes it.

Haec atque alia eodem pertinentia seditiosus facinorosusque homo hisque artibus opes domi nactus cum maxime dissereret, intervenit Tarquinius. Is finis orationi fuit; aversi omnes ad Tarquinium salutandum. Qui silentio facto monitus a proximis ut purgaret se quod id temporis venisset, disceptatorem ait se sumptum inter patrem et filium cura reconciliandi eos in gratiam moratum esse, et quia ea res exemisset illum diem, postero die acturum quae constituisset.

While this seditious and facinorous man—having by these arts gained wealth at home—was just then discoursing on these and other matters tending to the same point, Tarquinius intervened. That was the end of the oration; all turned away to greet Tarquinius. He, silence having been made, when prompted by those nearest to excuse himself for having come at that time, said that he had been taken as an arbitrator between father and son, had been delayed by the concern of reconciling them into favor, and, because that matter had taken up that day, on the next day he would carry out what he had determined.

Ne id quidem ab Turno tulisse tacitum ferunt; dixisse enim nullam breviorem esse cognitionem quam inter patrem et filium paucisque transigi verbis posse: ni pareat patri, habitrum infortunium esse.

They report that not even this did Turnus bear in silence; for he said that no adjudication is briefer than that between father and son, and that it can be transacted with a few words: unless he obey his father, he will have misfortune.

[51] Haec Aricinus in regem Romanum increpans ex concilio abiit. Quam rem Tarquinius aliquanto quam videbatur aegrius ferens confestim Turno necem machinatur, ut eundem terrorem quo civium animos domi oppresserat Latinis iniceret. Et quia pro imperio palam interfici non poterat, oblato falso crimine insontem oppressit.

[51] With these things the Arician, inveighing against the Roman king, departed from the council. Tarquinius, taking that matter more grievously than he appeared, straightway plots the death of Turnus, so that he might cast upon the Latins the same terror with which he had crushed the minds of his fellow citizens at home. And because he could not have him killed openly under color of his imperium, by the tendering of a false charge he crushed the innocent man.

Per adversae factionis quosdam Aricinos servum Turni auro corrupit, ut in deversorium eius vim magnam gladiorum inferri clam sineret. Ea cum una nocte perfecta essent, Tarquinius paulo ante lucem accitis ad se principibus Latinorum quasi re nova perturbatus, moram suam hesternam velut deorum quadam providentia inlatam ait saluti sibi atque illis fuisse. Ab Turno dici sibi et primoribus populorum parari necem ut Latinorum solus imperium teneat.

Through certain Aricinans of the adverse faction he corrupted Turnus’s slave with gold, to allow a great quantity of swords to be secretly brought into his lodging. When these things had been completed in a single night, Tarquinius, a little before dawn, having summoned to himself the princes of the Latins, as if perturbed by a new affair, said that his delay of yesterday, as though imposed by a certain providence of the gods, had been for the safety of himself and of them. He says that by Turnus death is being prepared for himself and for the foremost men of the peoples, so that he alone may hold the imperium of the Latins.

Adgressurum fuisse hesterno die in concilio; dilatam rem esse, quod auctor concilii afuerit quem maxime peteret. Inde illam absentis insectationem esse natam quod morando spem destituerit. Non dubitare, si vera deferantur, quin prima luce, ubi ventum in concilium sit, instructus cum coniuratorum manu armatusque venturus sit.

that he would have made an attack the previous day in the council; that the matter had been deferred because the author of the council, whom he was especially aiming at, had been absent. From that was born that insectation of the absentee, because by delaying he had disappointed hope. He does not doubt, if true reports are brought, that at first light, when the council has met, he will come equipped and armed with a band of conspirators.

Dici gladiorum ingentem esse numerum ad eum convectum. Id vanum necne sit, extemplo sciri posse. Rogare eos ut inde secum ad Turnum veniant.

It is said that an immense number of swords has been conveyed to him. Whether that be vain or not can be known at once. He asks them to come with him thence to Turnus.

Suspectam fecit rem et ingenium Turni ferox et oratio hesterna et mora Tarquini, quod videbatur ob eam differri caedes potuisse. Eunt inclinatis quidem ad credendum animis, tamen, nisi gladiis deprehensis, cetera vana existimaturi. Ubi est eo ventum, Turnum ex somno excitatum circumsistunt custodes; comprehensisque servis qui caritate domini vim parabant, cum gladii abditi ex omnibus locis deverticuli protraherentur, enimvero manifesta res visa iniectaeque Turno catenae; et confestim Latinorum concilium magno cum tumultu advocatur.

The matter was made suspect both by Turnus’s fierce character and yesterday’s oration and by Tarquin’s delay, because on that account the slaughter seemed able to have been deferred. They go with minds indeed inclined to believe, yet, unless swords should be apprehended, they would judge the rest vain. When they came thither, the guards surround Turnus, roused from sleep; and with the slaves seized who, from affection for their master, were preparing violence, when hidden swords were drawn forth from every place of the nooks, indeed the matter seemed manifest, and chains were thrown upon Turnus; and forthwith the council of the Latins is summoned with great tumult.

Ibi tam atrox invidia orta est gladiis in medio positis, ut indicta causa, novo genere leti, deiectus ad caput aquae Ferentinae crate superne iniecta saxisque congestis mergeretur.

There so savage an invidia arose, with the swords placed in the midst, that, the cause not having been stated, by a new kind (genus) of death, he was cast down at the head (source) of the Ferentine water, with a crate thrown over him from above and stones piled on, and he was submerged.

[52] Revocatis deinde ad concilium Latinis Tarquinius conlaudatisque qui Turnum nouantem res pro manifesto parricidio merita poena adfecissent) ita verba fecit: posse quidem se vetusto iure agere, quod, cum omnes Latini ab Alba oriundi sint, [in] eo foedere teneantur, quo sub Tullo res omnis Albana cum colonis suis in Romanum cesserit imperium; ceterum se utilitatis id magis omnium causa censere ut renovetur id foedus, secundaque potius fortuna populi Romani ut participes Latini fruantur quam urbium excidia vastationesque agrorum, quas Anco prius, patre deinde suo regnante perpessi sint, semper aut exspectent aut patiantur. Haud difficulter persuasum Latinis, quamquam in ea foedere superior Romana res erat; ceterum et capita nominis Latini stare ac sentire cum rege videbant, et [Turnus] sui cuique periculi, si adversatus esset, recens erat documentum. Ita renovatum foedus, indictumque iunioribus Latinorum ut ex foedere die certa ad lucum Ferentinae armati frequentes adessent.

[52] Then, the Latins having been called back to the council, Tarquinius—after praising those who had inflicted upon Turnus, who was renewing affairs (a would-be revolution), the deserved penalty for manifest parricide—spoke thus: that he could indeed proceed by ancient right, since, as all the Latins are sprung from Alba, they are held [in] that treaty by which, under Tullus, the whole Alban commonwealth with its colonists ceded into Roman imperium; but that he judged it more for the utility of all that that foedus be renewed, and that the Latins should rather, as participants, enjoy the favorable fortune of the Roman people than either ever expect or suffer the destructions of cities and the devastations of fields, which they had endured—first with Ancus, then with his own father reigning. The Latins were not with difficulty persuaded, although in that foedus the Roman cause was superior; moreover, they saw both that the chiefs of the Latin name stood and felt with the king, and that the case of [Turnus] was a fresh proof to each man of his own peril, if he had opposed. Thus the foedus was renewed, and it was proclaimed to the younger men of the Latins that, according to the foedus, on a set day they should be present in arms, in great numbers, at the grove of Ferentina.

Qui ubi ad edictum Romani regis ex omnibus populis convenere, ne ducem suum neve secretum imperium propriave signa haberent, miscuit manipulos ex Latinis Romanisque ut ex binis singulos faceret binosque ex singulis; ita geminatis manipulis centuriones imposuit.

When they had assembled at the edict of the Roman king from all the peoples, so that they might have neither their own leader nor a separate command nor their own standards, he mingled the maniples from Latins and Romans, so as to make from pairs singles and from singles pairs; and thus, with the maniples doubled, he set centurions over them.

[53] Nec ut iniustus in pace rex, ita dux belli pravus fuit; quin ea arte aequasset superiores reges ni degeneratum in aliis huic quoque decori offecisset. Is primus Volscis bellum in ducentos amplius post suam aetatem annos movit, Suessamque Pometiam ex iis vi cepit. Ubi cum divendita praeda quadraginta talenta argenti refecisset, concepit animo eam amplitudinem Iovis templi quae digna deum hominumque rege, quae Romano imperio, quae ipsius etiam loci maiestate esset; captivam pecuniam in aedificationem eius templi seposuit.

[53] Not as an unjust king in peace, so as a faulty leader in war; indeed, by that art he would have equaled the earlier kings, had not a degeneracy in other things impeded this glory too. He first moved war against the Volscians, a conflict which, for more than 200 years after his own lifetime, continued, and he took Suessa Pometia from them by force. When, the booty having been sold off, he had realized forty talents of silver, he conceived in mind such an amplitude for the Temple of Jupiter as would be worthy of the king of gods and men, of the Roman imperium, and of the majesty of the very site; he set apart the captive money for the building of that temple.

Excepit deinde lentius spe bellum, quo Gabios, propinquam urbem, nequiquam vi adortus, cum obsidendi quoque urbem spes pulso a moenibus adempta esset, postremo minime arte Romana, fraude ac dolo, adgressus est. Nam cum velut posito bello fundamentis templi iaciendis aliisque urbanis operibus intentum se esse simularet, Sextus filius eius, qui minimus ex tribus erat, transfugit ex composito Gabios, patris in se saevitiam intolerabilem conquerens: iam ab alienis in suos vertisse superbiam et liberorum quoque eum frequentiae taedere, ut quam in curia solitudinem fecerit domi quoque faciat, ne quam stirpem, ne quem heredem regni relinquat. Se quidem inter tela et gladios patris elapsum nihil usquam sibi tutum nisi apud hostes L. Tarquini credidisse.

Then the war proceeded more slowly than hoped: in it he, having assailed Gabii, a neighboring city, by force in vain, since even the hope of besieging the city had been taken away with him driven back from the walls, at last attacked it—least of all in Roman fashion—by fraud and deceit. For when, as though the war were laid aside, he pretended that he was intent on laying the foundations of the temple and on other urban works, his son Sextus, who was the youngest of the three, by prearrangement fled over to Gabii, complaining of his father’s intolerable savagery toward himself: that already he had turned his arrogance from outsiders upon his own, and that even the very multitude of children wearied him, so that the solitude which he had made in the Curia he should make at home also, that he leave no stock, no heir of the kingship. He himself, having slipped away amid his father’s spears and swords, believed nothing anywhere to be safe for him except among the enemies of L. Tarquinius.

Nam ne errarent, manere iis bellum quod positum simuletur, et per occasionem eum incautos invasurum. Quod si apud eos supplicibus locus non sit, pererraturum se omne Latium, Volscosque se inde et Aequos et Hernicos petiturum donec ad eos perveniat qui a patrum crudelibus atque impiis suppliciis tegere liberos sciant. Forsitan etiam ardoris aliquid ad bellum armaque se adversus superbissimum regem ac ferocissimum populum inventurum.

For, lest they should be mistaken, the war which is simulated to have been laid aside remains for them, and on an occasion he will invade them incautious. But if among them there is no place for supplicants, he will traverse all Latium, and from there he will seek the Volsci and the Aequi and the Hernici, until he may come to those who know how to shelter children from the cruel and impious punishments of fathers. Perhaps he will even find some ardor for war and arms against a most overproud king and a most ferocious people.

Cum si nihil morarentur infensus ira porro inde abiturus videretur, benigne ab Gabinis excipitur. Vetant mirari si, qualis in cives, qualis in socios, talis ad ultimum in liberos esset; in se ipsum postremo saeviturum, si alia desint. Sibi vero gratum adventum eius esse, futurumque credere brevi ut illo adiuvante a portis Gabinis sub Romana moenia bellum transferatur.

Since, if they were to delay him in nothing, he, hostile in ire, seemed about to depart further from there, he is benignly received by the Gabines. They forbid him to marvel if, such as he was toward citizens and such as toward allies, so at the last he was toward his children; upon himself finally he would be savage, if other victims were lacking. For their part, his advent is welcome, and they believe it will soon come to pass that, with him aiding, the war will be transferred from the Gabine gates to beneath the Roman walls.

[54] Inde in consilia publica adhiberi. Ubi cum de aliis rebus adsentire se veteribus Gabinis diceret quibus eae notiores essent, ipse identidem belli auctor esse et in eo sibi praecipuam prudentiam adsumere quod utriusque populi vires nosset, sciretque invisam profecto superbiam regiam civibus esse quam ferre ne liberi quidem potuissent. Ita cum sensim ad rebellandum primores Gabinorum incitaret, ipse cum promptissimis iuvenum praedatum atque in expeditiones iret et dictis factisque omnibus ad fallendum instructis vana adcresceret fides, dux ad ultimum belli legitur.

[54] Thence he is admitted to the public councils. There, when on other matters he said that he assented to the old Gabinians, to whom those things were better known, he himself was repeatedly the author of war, and in that he claimed for himself exceptional prudence, because he knew the forces of both peoples and knew that regal pride was assuredly hateful to citizens, which not even free men could have borne. Thus, while he was gradually inciting the chiefs of the Gabinians to revolt, he himself, with the most forward of the youths, went out to plunder and on expeditions; and, with every word and deed equipped for deceiving, his empty credit increased; at last he is chosen leader of the war.

Ibi cum inscia multitudine quid ageretur, proelia parva inter Romam Gabiosque fierent quibus plerumque Gabina res superior esset, tum certatim summi infimique Gabinorum Sex. Tarquinium dono deum sibi missum ducem credere. Apud milites vero obeundo pericula ac labores pariter, praedam munifice largiendo tanta caritate esse ut non pater Tarquinius potentior Romae quam filius Gabiis esset.

There, while the multitude was unaware of what was being done, small battles took place between Rome and the Gabii, in which for the most part the Gabine cause was superior; then, vying eagerly, the highest and the lowest of the Gabii believed that Sextus Tarquinius had been sent to them as a leader, a gift of the gods. Among the soldiers, indeed, by undergoing perils and labors alike, and by munificently bestowing the plunder, he was in such favor that the father Tarquinius was not more potent at Rome than the son at Gabii.

Itaque postquam satis virium conlectum ad omnes conatus videbat, tum ex suis unum sciscitatum Romam ad patrem mittit quidnam se facere vellet, quando quidem ut omnia unus publice Gabiis posset ei di dedissent. Huic nuntio, quia, credo, dubiae fidei videbatur, nihil voce responsum est; rex velut deliberabundus in hortum aedium transit sequente nuntio filii; ibi inambulans tacitus summa papaverum capita dicitur baculo decussisse. Interrogando exspectandoque responsum nuntius fessus, ut re imperfecta, redit Gabios; quae dixerit ipse quaeque viderit refert; seu ira seu odio seu superbia insita ingenio nullam eum vocem emisisse.

Therefore after he saw that enough strength had been collected for all attempts, then he sends one of his own to Rome to his father to inquire what he would wish him to do, since indeed the gods had granted to him that he alone could do everything publicly at Gabii. To this messenger, because, I suppose, he seemed of dubious trust, nothing was answered by voice; the king, as if deliberating, passes into the garden of the house with the messenger of his son following; there, walking about silent, he is said to have cut off with his staff the topmost heads of the poppies. The messenger, tired by asking and waiting for an answer, returns to Gabii, the matter, as it were, unfinished; he reports what he himself had said and what he had seen; that, whether from anger or hatred or pride inborn in his nature, he had emitted no word.

Sexto ubi quid vellet parens quidve praeciperet tacitis ambagibus patuit, primores civitatis criminando alios apud populum, alios sua ipsos invidia opportunos interemit. Multi palam, quidam in quibus minus speciosa criminatio erat futura clam interfecti. Patuit quibusdam volentibus fuga, aut in exsilium acti sunt, absentiumque bona iuxta atque interemptorum divisui fuere.

When, for Sextus, what his parent wished and what he prescribed became evident by tacit ambages, he, by bringing accusations, made away with the foremost men of the state—some before the people, others, themselves made opportune by their own unpopularity. Many were slain openly; certain persons, in whose case a less specious criminatio would have been forthcoming, were killed secretly. Escape lay open to some who wished it, or they were driven into exile; and the goods of the absent, equally as those of the slain, were put to division.

Largitiones inde praedaeque; et dulcedine privati commodi sensus malorum publicorum adimi, donec orba consilio auxilioque Gabina res regi Romano sine ulla dimicatione in manum traditur.

Then largesses and spoils; and by the sweetness of private profit the sense of public evils was removed, until the Gabine commonwealth, bereft of counsel and aid, is delivered into the hand of the Roman king without any fight.

[55] Gabiis receptis Tarquinius pacem cum Aequorum gente fecit, foedus cum Tuscis renovavit. Inde ad negotia urbana animum convertit; quorum erat primum ut Iovis templum in monte Tarpeio monumentum regni sui nominisque relinqueret: Tarquinios reges ambos patrem vovisse, filium perfecisse. Et ut libera a ceteris religionibus area esset tota Iovis templique eius quod inaedificaretur, exaugurare fana sacellaque statuit quae aliquot ibi, a Tatio rege primum in ipso discrimine adversus Romulum pugnae vota, consecrata inaugurataque postea fuerant.

[55] With Gabii recovered, Tarquinius made peace with the nation of the Aequians, and renewed the treaty with the Tuscans. Then he turned his mind to urban affairs; the first of which was that he should leave on the Tarpeian hill a temple of Jupiter as a monument of his kingship and name: that both the Tarquin kings had been concerned with it—the father had vowed it, the son completed it. And, in order that the whole area of Jupiter and of his temple, which was to be built, might be free from the other religions, he resolved to exaugurate—that is, to deconsecrate—the shrines and little chapels, several of which there had first been vowed by King Tatius in the very crisis of the battle against Romulus, and afterwards had been consecrated and inaugurated.

Inter principia condendi huius operis movisse numen ad indicandam tanti imperii molem traditur deos; nam cum omnium sacellorum exaugurationes admitterent aves, in Termini fano non addixere; idque omen auguriumque ita acceptum est non motam Termini sedem unumque eum deorum non evocatum sacratis sibi finibus firma stabiliaque cuncta portendere. Hoc perpetuitatis auspicio accepto, secutum aliud magnitudinem imperii portendens prodigium est: caput humanum integra facie aperientibus fundamenta templi dicitur apparuisse. Quae visa species haud per ambages arcem eam imperii caputque rerum fore portendebat; idque ita cecinere vates quique in urbe erant quosque ad eam rem consultandam ex Etruria acciverant.

Among the beginnings of founding this work it is handed down that the gods stirred the numen to indicate the mass of so great an imperium; for while the birds admitted the deconsecrations of all the little shrines, in the shrine of Terminus they did not assent; and this omen and augury was thus received—that the seat of Terminus was not moved, and that he alone of the gods was not evoked from the boundaries consecrated to himself, portending that all things would be firm and stable. With this auspice of perpetuity received, another prodigy followed, portending the magnitude of the empire: a human head with an intact face is said to have appeared to those opening the foundations of the temple. Which appearance, seen, portended without circumlocutions that that citadel would be the head of empire and the head of affairs; and thus the seers chanted it, both those who were in the city and those whom they had summoned from Etruria for consulting on that matter.

Augebatur ad impensas regis animus; itaque Pometinae manubiae, quae perducendo ad culmen operi destinatae erant, vix in fundamenta suppeditavere. Eo magis Fabio, praeterquam quod antiquior est, crediderim quadraginta ea sola talenta fuisse, quam Pisoni, qui quadraginta milia pondo argenti seposita in eam rem scribit, summam pecuniae neque ex unius tum urbis praeda sperandam et nullius ne horum quidem operum fundamenta non exsuperaturam.

The king’s spirit for expenses was being increased; and so the Pometine spoils, which had been destined for bringing the work to its summit, scarcely supplied even the foundations. For that reason I would believe Fabius the more—besides the fact that he is earlier—that they amounted to only 40 talents, rather than Piso, who writes that 40,000 pounds of silver were set aside for that matter, a sum of money neither to be hoped for from the booty of one city at that time, and which not even the foundations of any of these works would surpass.

[56] Intentus perficiendo templo, fabris undique ex Etruria accitis, non pecunia solum ad id publica est usus sed operis etiam ex plebe. Qui cum haud parvus et ipse militiae adderetur labor, minus tamen plebs gravabatur se templa deum exaedificare manibus suis quam postquam et ad alia, ut specie minora, sic laboris aliquanto maioris traducebantur opera foros in circo faciendos cloacamque maximam, receptaculum omnium purgamentorum urbis, sub terra agendam; quibus duobus operibus vix nova haec magnificentia quicquam adaequare potuit. His laboribus exercita plebe, quia et urbi multitudinem, ubi usus non esset, oneri rebatur esse et colonis mittendis occupari latius imperii fines volebat, Signiam Circeiosque colonos misit, praesidia urbi futura terra marique.

[56] Intent on completing the temple, with craftsmen summoned from all Etruria, he made use not only of public money for that, but also of labor from the plebs. And though this labor itself was no small addition to military service, nevertheless the plebs felt less burdened at building out the temples of the gods with their own hands than after they were also transferred to other works, smaller in appearance yet of somewhat greater toil: tiers to be made in the Circus, and the Cloaca Maxima, the receptacle of all the refuse of the city, to be driven under the earth; by which two works scarcely has even this new magnificence been able to match them in anything. With the plebs exercised by these labors, because he both reckoned that a multitude in the city, where there was no need of it, was a burden, and wished by sending out colonists to occupy more widely the borders of the imperium, he sent colonists to Signia and Circeii, garrisons for the city to be on land and sea.

Haec agenti portentum terribile visum: anguis ex columna lignea elapsus cum terrorem fugamque in regia fecisset, ipsius regis non tam subito pavore perculit pectus quam anxiis implevit curis. Itaque cum ad publica prodigia Etrusci tantum vates adhiberentur, hoc velut domestico exterritus visu Delphos ad maxime inclitum in terris oraculum mittere statuit. Neque responsa sortium ulli alii committere ausus, duos filios per ignotas ea tempestate terras, ignotiora maria in Graeciam misit.

To him busied with these things a terrible portent appeared: a snake, having slipped out from a wooden column, when it had caused terror and flight in the royal palace, struck not so much the king’s own heart with sudden fear as filled it with anxious cares. And so, although for public prodigies only Etruscan vates were employed, frightened by this vision as, so to speak, a domestic one, he resolved to send to Delphi, to the most illustrious oracle on earth. Nor did he dare entrust the responses of the lots to any other; he sent two sons through lands then unknown, and seas still more unknown, into Greece.

Titus et Arruns profecti; comes iis additus L. Iunius Brutus, Tarquinia, sorore regis, natus, iuvenis longe alius ingenii quam cuius simulationem induerat. Is cum primores civitatis, in quibus fratrem suum, ab avunculo interfectum audisset, neque in animo suo quicquam regi timendum neque in fortuna concupiscendum relinquere statuit contemptuque tutus esse ubi in iure parum praesidii esset. Ergo ex industria factus ad imitationem stultitiae, cum se suaque praedae esse regi sineret, Bruti quoque haud abnuit cognomen ut sub eius obtentu cognominis liberator ille populi Romani animus latens opperiretur tempora sua.

Titus and Arruns set out; a companion was added to them, L. Junius Brutus, born of Tarquinia, the king’s sister, a young man of a character far other than that whose simulation he had put on. When he had heard that the leading men of the state, among whom his own brother, had been killed by his uncle, he resolved to leave in his own mind nothing for the king to fear, nor in his fortune anything to be coveted, and to be safe by contempt where in law there was too little of protection. Therefore by design made to the imitation of stupidity, since he allowed himself and his possessions to be a prey to the king, he did not refuse the surname Brutus either, so that under the pretext of that cognomen the spirit—destined to be the liberator of the Roman people—lying hidden might await its own time.

Is tum ab Tarquiniis ductus Delphos, ludibrium verius quam comes, aureum baculum inclusum corneo cavato ad id baculo tulisse donum Apollini dicitur, per ambages effigiem ingenii sui. Quo postquam ventum est, perfectis patris mandatis cupido incessit animos iuvenum sciscitandi ad quem eorum regnum Romanum esset venturum. Ex infimo specu vocem redditam ferunt: imperium summum Romae habebit qui vestrum primus, O iuvenes, osculum matri tulerit.

He then, led by the Tarquins to Delphi, a mockery rather than a companion, is said to have carried as a gift to Apollo a golden rod enclosed within a cornel-wood staff hollowed out for that purpose, through circumlocutions a likeness of his own ingenuity. After they had come there, once the father’s commands were fulfilled, a desire seized the minds of the youths to inquire to which of them the Roman kingship would come. They report that a voice was given back from the deepest cavern: “He will have the supreme imperium at Rome who of you first, O youths, shall have brought a kiss to his mother.”

Tarquinii ut Sextus, qui Romae relictus fuerat, ignarus responsi expersque imperii esset, rem summa ope taceri iubent; ipsi inter se uter prior, cum Romam redisset, matri osculum daret, sorti permittunt. Brutus alio ratus spectare Pythicam vocem, velut si prolapsus cecidisset, terram osculo contigit, scilicet quod ea communis mater omnium mortalium esset. Reditum inde Romam, ubi adversus Rutulos bellum summa vi parabatur.

The Tarquinii, so that Sextus—who had been left at Rome—might be ignorant of the response and have no share of command, order the matter to be kept silent with the utmost effort; they commit to the lot among themselves which one, when he had returned to Rome, should first give a kiss to his mother. Brutus, thinking the Pythian voice pointed to something else, as if he had slipped and fallen, touched the earth with a kiss, of course because she is the common mother of all mortals. From there a return was made to Rome, where war against the Rutulians was being prepared with the utmost force.

[57] Ardeam Rutuli habebant, gens, ut in ea regione atque in ea aetate, divitiis praepollens; eaque ipsa causa belli fuit, quod rex Romanus cum ipse ditari, exhaustus magnificentia publicorum operum, tum praeda delenire popularium animos studebat, praeter aliam superbiam regno infestos etiam quod se in fabrorum ministeriis ac servili tam diu habitos opere ab rege indignabantur. Temptata res est, si primo impetu capi Ardea posset: ubi id parum processit, obsidione munitionibusque coepti premi hostes. In his stativis, ut fit longo magis quam acri bello, satis liberi commeatus erant, primoribus tamen magis quam militibus; regii quidem iuvenes interdum otium conviviis comisationibusque inter se terebant.

[57] Ardea was held by the Rutulians, a people, as in that region and in that age, preeminent in riches; and this very thing was the cause of the war, because the Roman king—both seeking to enrich himself, exhausted by the magnificence of public works, and striving to soothe the minds of the populace with booty—made them hostile to the kingship by his other arrogance, and also because they were indignant that they had been kept by the king so long in the ministries of craftsmen and in servile toil. The attempt was made to see whether Ardea could be taken at the first onset; when that advanced too little, the enemies began to be pressed by siege and fortifications. In these stationary camps, as happens in a war long rather than sharp, there was fairly free coming-and-going, yet for the foremost men more than for the soldiers; indeed the royal youths sometimes wore away their leisure among themselves with banquets and carousals.

Forte potantibus his apud Sex. Tarquinium, ubi et Collatinus cenabat Tarquinius, Egeri filius, incidit de uxoribus mentio. Suam quisque laudare miris modis; inde certamine accenso Collatinus negat verbis opus esse; paucis id quidem horis posse sciri quantum ceteris praestet Lucretia sua.

By chance, as they were drinking at Sextus Tarquinius’s, where also Tarquinius Collatinus, son of Egerius, was dining, mention fell to wives. Each praised his own in marvelous ways; then, the contest enkindled, Collatinus says there is no need of words; that indeed within a few hours it can be known how much his Lucretia surpasses the rest.

"Quin, si vigor iuventae inest, conscendimus equos invisimusque praesentes nostrarum ingenia? Id cuique spectatissimum sit quod necopinato viri adventu occurrerit oculis." Incaluerant vino; "Age sane" omnes; citatis equis avolant Romam. Quo cum primis se intendentibus tenebris pervenissent, pergunt inde Collatiam, ubi Lucretiam haudquaquam ut regias nurus, quas in convivio luxuque cum aequalibus viderant tempus terentes sed nocte sera deditam lanae inter lucubrantes ancillas in medio aedium sedentem inveniunt.

"Why not, if the vigor of youth is present, mount the horses and visit in person the dispositions of our wives? Let that be to each the most notable sight which, at the unlooked-for arrival of the husband, has met his eyes." They had grown warm with wine; "Come then, by all means," they all say; with horses spurred they fly off to Rome. When they had arrived there as the first shadows were lengthening, they proceed thence to Collatia, where they find Lucretia by no means like the royal daughters-in-law, whom they had seen at a banquet and in luxury with their peers passing the time, but late at night devoted to wool, among maidservants working by lamplight, sitting in the middle of the house.

Muliebris certaminis laus penes Lucretiam fuit. Adveniens vir Tarquiniique excepti benigne; victor maritus comiter invitat regios iuvenes. Ibi Sex.

The praise of the womanly contest was with Lucretia. Her husband arriving, and the Tarquinii, were kindly received; the victorious husband courteously invites the royal youths. There Sextus.

Tarquinium mala libido Lucretiae per vim stuprandae capit; cum forma tum spectata castitas incitat. Et tum quidem ab nocturno iuvenali ludo in castra redeunt.

Tarquin is seized by an evil libido to rape Lucretia by force; both her form and her proven chastity incite him. And then indeed they return to the camp from the nocturnal juvenile game.

[58] Paucis interiectis diebus Sex. Tarquinius inscio Collatino cum comite uno Collatiam venit. Ubi exceptus benigne ab ignaris consilii cum post cenam in hospitale cubiculum deductus esset, amore ardens, postquam satis tuta circa sopitique omnes videbantur, stricto gladio ad dormientem Lucretiam venit sinistraque manu mulieris pectore oppresso "Tace, Lucretia" inquit; "Sex.

[58] After a few days had intervened, Sextus Tarquinius, Collatinus being unaware, came to Collatia with one companion. There, received benignly by those ignorant of the plan, when after dinner he had been led into the guest bedchamber, burning with amorous desire, after the surroundings seemed sufficiently safe and all seemed asleep, with his sword drawn he came to the sleeping Lucretia, and with his left hand pressing down the woman’s breast, “Be silent, Lucretia,” he said; “Sextus

Tarquinius sum; ferrum in manu est; moriere, si emiseris vocem." Cum pavida ex somno mulier nullam opem, prope mortem imminentem videret, tum Tarquinius fateri amorem, orare, miscere precibus minas, versare in omnes partes muliebrem animum. Ubi obstinatam videbat et ne mortis quidem metu inclinari, addit ad metum dedecus: cum mortua iugulatum servum nudum positurum ait, ut in sordido adulterio necata dicatur. Quo terrore cum vicisset obstinatam pudicitiam velut vi victrix libido, profectusque inde Tarquinius ferox expugnato decore muliebri esset, Lucretia maesta tanto malo nuntium Romam eundem ad patrem Ardeamque ad virum mittit, ut cum singulis fidelibus amicis veniant; ita facto maturatoque opus esse; rem atrocem incidisse.

“I am Tarquin; steel is in my hand; you will die, if you emit a voice.” When the woman, startled from sleep, saw no help, with death almost impending, then Tarquin confessed his love, begged, mixed threats with prayers, and turned the woman’s mind in all directions. When he saw her obstinate and not bending even at the fear of death, he adds disgrace to fear: he says that when she is dead he will place a naked slave, slaughtered, beside her, so that she may be said to have been killed in sordid adultery. By this terror, when the obstinate pudicity (chastity) was overcome—lust, as a conqueror, as it were by force—and Tarquin, fierce, had departed thence, female decorum having been stormed, Lucretia, mournful at so great an evil, sends a messenger to Rome to her father and to Ardea to her husband, that they should come with one faithful friend each; that there is need for the deed to be done, and with haste; a horrible matter has fallen out.

Sp. Lucretius cum P. Valerio Volesi filio, Collatinus cum L. Iunio Bruto venit, cum quo forte Romam rediens ab nuntio uxoris erat conventus. Lucretiam sedentem maestam in cubiculo inveniunt. Adventu suorum lacrimae obortae, quaerentique viro "Satin salve?" "Minime" inquit; "quid enim salvi est mulieri amissa pudicitia?

Spurius Lucretius with Publius Valerius, son of Volesus, and Collatinus with Lucius Junius Brutus came, with whom, as he was by chance returning to Rome, he had been met by the messenger of his wife. They find Lucretia sitting, sorrowful, in her bedchamber. At the arrival of her own, tears sprang up, and to her husband asking, "Are you well enough?" "By no means," she says; "for what salvation is there for a woman, with chastity lost?"

Vestigia viri alieni, Collatine, in lecto sunt tuo; ceterum corpus est tantum violatum, animus insons; mors testis erit. Sed date dexteras fidemque haud impune adultero fore. Sex.

The traces of an alien man, Collatine, are in your bed; but otherwise the body only has been violated, the spirit is guiltless; death will be witness. But give your right hands and your pledge that it will not be unpunished for the adulterer. Six.

est Tarquinius qui hostis pro hospite priore nocte vi armatus mihi sibique, si vos viri estis, pestiferum hinc abstulit gaudium." Dant ordine omnes fidem; consolantur aegram animi avertendo noxam ab coacta in auctorem delicti: mentem peccare, non corpus, et unde consilium afuerit culpam abesse. "Vos" inquit "uideritis quid illi debeatur: ego me etsi peccato absolvo, supplicio non libero; nec ulla deinde impudica Lucretiae exemplo vivet." Cultrum, quem sub veste abditum habebat, eum in corde defigit, prolapsaque in volnus moribunda cecidit. Conclamat vir paterque.

"It is Tarquinius who, an enemy in place of a host, armed with force, on the previous night stole from here the pestiferous joy—for me, and for himself—if you are men." They all in turn give their pledge; they console the sick-in-spirit woman by diverting the guilt from the compelled one onto the author of the crime: that the mind sins, not the body, and that where intent was absent, fault is absent. "You," she says, "will see to it what is owed to him; I, though I acquit myself of the sin, do not free myself from punishment; nor henceforth shall any unchaste woman live by the example of Lucretia." The knife, which she had kept hidden beneath her garment, she plunges into her heart, and, slipping down upon the wound, dying she fell. The husband and the father cry out together.

[59] Brutus illis luctu occupatis cultrum ex volnere Lucretiae extractum, manantem cruore prae se tenens, "Per hunc" inquit "castissimum ante regiam iniuriam sanguinem iuro, vosque, di, testes facio me L. Tarquinium Superbum cum scelerata coniuge et omni liberorum stirpe ferro igni quacumque dehinc vi possim exsecuturum, nec illos nec alium quemquam regnare Romae passurum." Cultrum deinde Collatino tradit, inde Lucretio ac Valerio, stupentibus miraculo rei, unde novum in Bruti pectore ingenium. Ut praeceptum erat iurant; totique ab luctu versi in iram, Brutum iam inde ad expugnandum regnum vocantem sequuntur ducem.

[59] Brutus, while they were occupied with lamentation, the knife drawn from Lucretia’s wound, holding it before him dripping with gore, said: “By this blood, most chaste before the royal injury, I swear, and I make you, gods, my witnesses, that I will pursue Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, with his criminal consort and the whole stock of his children, with steel and with fire and with whatever force I can henceforth, and that I will suffer neither them nor anyone else to reign at Rome.” He then hands the knife to Collatinus, then to Lucretius and to Valerius, they being astounded at the marvel of the matter, whence a new nature in Brutus’s breast. As it had been instructed, they swear; and wholly turned from mourning into anger, they follow Brutus as leader, now from that point calling them to storm the kingship.

Elatum domo Lucretiae corpus in forum deferunt, concientque miraculo, ut fit, rei novae atque indignitate homines. Pro se quisque scelus regium ac vim queruntur. Movet cum patris maestitia, tum Brutus castigator lacrimarum atque inertium querellarum auctorque quod viros, quod Romanos deceret, arma capiendi adversus hostilia ausos.

They carry the body, taken from Lucretia’s house, into the forum, and they arouse the men by the marvel, as happens, of a new affair and by the indignity. Each man for himself complains of the royal crime and violence. They are moved both by the father’s mourning, and by Brutus, a castigator of tears and of idle complaints, and a promoter of that which would befit men, which would befit Romans, namely, the taking up of arms against those who had dared hostile acts.

Ferocissimus quisque iuvenum cum armis voluntarius adest; sequitur et cetera iuventus. Inde patre praeside relicto Collatiae [ad portas] custodibusque datis ne quis eum motum regibus nuntiaret, ceteri armati duce Bruto Romam profecti. Ubi eo ventum est, quacumque incedit armata multitudo, pavorem ac tumultum facit; rursus ubi anteire primores civitatis vident, quidquid sit haud temere esse rentur.

All the fiercest of the young men, with arms, are present as volunteers; the rest of the youth follows. Then, with the father left as presider at Collatiae [ad portas] and guards assigned lest anyone report that movement to the kings, the others, armed, set out for Rome with Brutus as leader. When they came there, wherever the armed multitude advances, it makes terror and tumult; again, when they see the foremost men of the city going before, they reckon that, whatever it may be, it is not done rashly.

Nec minorem motum animorum Romae tam atrox res facit quam Collatiae fecerat; ergo ex omnibus locis urbis in forum curritur. Quo simul ventum est, praeco ad tribunum celerum, in quo tum magistratu forte Brutus erat, populum advocavit. Ibi oratio habita nequaquam eius pectoris ingeniique quod simulatum ad eam diem fuerat, de vi ac libidine Sex.

Nor did so atrocious a matter make a lesser movement of minds at Rome than it had made at Collatia; therefore from all quarters of the city they run to the forum. As soon as they came there, the herald summoned the people to the tribune of the Celeres, in which magistracy at that time by chance Brutus was. There an oration was delivered by no means of that heart and genius which had been simulated up to that day, about the violence and lust of Sextus.

Tarquini, de stupro infando Lucretiae et miserabili caede, de orbitate Tricipitini cui morte filiae causa mortis indignior ac miserabilior esset. Addita superbia ipsius regis miseriaeque et labores plebis in fossas cloacasque exhauriendas demersae; Romanos homines, victores omnium circa populorum, opifices ac lapicidas pro bellatoribus factos. Indigna Ser.

of Sextus Tarquinius, about the unspeakable stupration of Lucretia and her pitiable slaughter, about the bereavement of Tricipitinus, for whom, by the death of his daughter, the cause of death would be more unworthy and more miserable. Added were the arrogance of the king himself, and the miseries and labors of the plebeians sunk into draining ditches and sewers; Roman men, victors over all the peoples around, made artisans and stonecutters instead of warriors. Indignities unworthy of Ser.

Tulli regis memorata caedes et invecta corpori patris nefando vehiculo filia, invocatique ultores parentum di. His atrocioribusque, credo, aliis, quae praesens rerum indignitas haudquaquam relatu scriptoribus facilia subicit, memoratis, incensam multitudinem perpulit ut imperium regi abrogaret exsulesque esse iuberet L. Tarquinium cum coniuge ac liberis. Ipse iunioribus qui ultro nomina dabant lectis armatisque, ad concitandum inde adversus regem exercitum Ardeam in castra est profectus: imperium in urbe Lucretio, praefecto urbis iam ante ab rege instituto, relinquit. Inter hunc tumultum Tullia domo profugit exsecrantibus quacumque incedebat invocantibusque parentum furias viris mulieribusque.

The remembered murder of King Tullius and the daughter carried over her father’s body in a nefarious chariot, and the gods invoked as avengers of parents—these things, and, I believe, other more atrocious ones which the present indignity of affairs suggests to writers as by no means easy for narration, having been recounted, drove the incensed multitude to abrogate the power from the king and to order L. Tarquinius with his consort and children to be exiles. He himself, with the younger men who were of their own accord giving in their names having been selected and armed, set out to Ardea into the camp to excite from there an army adverse to the king; he leaves the command in the city to Lucretius, the prefect of the city already earlier instituted by the king. Amid this tumult Tullia fled from home, while men and women execrated her wherever she advanced and called upon the Furies of parents.

[60] Harum rerum nuntiis in castra perlatis cum re nova trepidus rex pergeret Romam ad comprimendos motus, flexit viam Brutus—senserat enim adventum—ne obvius fieret; eodemque fere tempore, diversis itineribus, Brutus Ardeam, Tarquinius Romam venerunt. Tarquinio clausae portae exsiliumque indictum: liberatorem urbis laeta castra accepere, exactique inde liberi regis. Duo patrem secuti sunt qui exsulatum Caere in Etruscos ierunt.

[60] When the reports of these things had been conveyed into the camp, as the king, alarmed at the new development, was proceeding to Rome to suppress the disturbances, Brutus turned his route—for he had perceived his approach—so as not to meet him; and at nearly the same time, by different roads, Brutus came to Ardea, Tarquinius to Rome. For Tarquin the gates were shut and exile was indicted; the joyful camp received the liberator of the city, and the king’s children were driven out from there. Two followed their father, who went into exile to Caere among the Etruscans.

Sex. Tarquinius Gabios tamquam in suum regnum profectus ab ultoribus veterum simultatium, quas sibi ipse caedibus rapinisque concierat, est interfectus.

Sextus Tarquinius, having proceeded to Gabii as if into his own kingdom, was slain by the avengers of ancient feuds, which by slaughters and rapines he himself had stirred up against himself.

L. Tarquinius Superbus regnavit annos quinque et viginti. Regnatum Romae ab condita urbe ad liberatam annos ducentos quadraginta quattuor. Duo consules inde comitiis centuriatis a praefecto urbis ex commentariis Ser.

L. Tarquinius Superbus reigned for 25 years. Kingship was held at Rome from the city’s founding to its liberation for 244 years. Two consuls then in the centuriate comitia by the prefect of the city from the commentaries of Ser.

Tulli creati sunt, L. Iunius Brutus et L. Tarquinius Collatinus.

Consuls were created, L. Junius Brutus and L. Tarquinius Collatinus.