LITMIR.BIZ

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augmented by themselves. Nor is there a doubt but that the very same Brutus who earned so much glory for expelling this haughty monarch, would have done so to the greatest injury of the public weal, if, through an over-hasty desire of liberty, he had wrested the kingdom from any of the preceding kings. For what would have been the consequence if that rabble of shepherds and strangers, fugitives from their own countries, having, under the protection of an inviolable asylum, found liberty, or at least impunity, uncontrolled by the dread of regal authority, had begun to be distracted by tribunician storms, and to engage in contests with the fathers in a strange city, before the pledges of wives and children, and love of the very soil, to which it requires a length of time to become habituated, had united their affections. Their affairs not yet matured would have been destroyed by discord, which the tranquil moderation of the government so cherished, and by proper nourishment brought to such perfection, that, their strength being now developed, they were able to produce the wholesome fruits of liberty. But the origin of liberty you may date from this period, rather because the consular authority was made annual, than that any diminution was made from the kingly prerogative. The first consuls had all their privileges and ensigns of authority, only care was taken that the terror might not appear doubled, by both having the fasces at the same time. Brutus was, with the consent of his colleague, first attended by the fasces, who had not been a more zealous assertor of liberty than he was afterwards its guardian. First of all he bound over the people, whilst still enraptured with their newly-acquired liberty, by an oath that they would suffer no one to be king in Rome, lest afterwards they might be perverted by the importunities or bribes of the royal family. Next in order, that the fulness of the house might produce more of strength in the senate, he filled up the number of the senators, diminished by the king's murders, to the amount of three hundred, having elected the principal men of the equestrian rank; and from thence it is said the custom was derived of summoning into the senate both those who were patres and those who were conscripti.65 Forsooth they styled those who were elected into the new senate Conscripti. It is wonderful how much that contributed to the concord of the state, and to attach the affection of the commons to the patricians.

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      Then attention was paid to religious matters, and as some part of the public worship had been performed by the kings in person, that they might not be missed in any respect, they elect a king of the sacrifices. This office they made subject to the pontiff, that honour being added to the name might be no infringement on their liberty, which was now their principal care. And I know not whether by fencing it on every side to excess, even in the most trivial matters, they may not have exceeded bounds. For when there was nothing else to offend, the name of one of the consuls became an object of dislike to the state. "That the Tarquinii had been too much habituated to sovereignty; Priscus first commenced; that Servius Tullus reigned next; that though an interval thus intervened, that Tarquinius Superbus, not losing sight of the kingdom as the property of another, had reclaimed it by crime and violence, as the hereditary right of his family. That Superbus being expelled, the government was in the hands of Collatinus: that the Tarquinii knew not how to live in a private station; the name pleased them not; that it was dangerous to liberty."—Such discourses were at first gradually circulated through the entire state by persons sounding their dispositions; and the people, now excited by jealousy, Brutus convenes to a meeting. There first of all he recites the people's oath: "that they would suffer no one to be king, nor any thing to be in Rome whence danger might result to liberty. That it ought to be maintained with all their might, and nothing that could tend that way ought to be overlooked; he said it with reluctance, for the sake of the individual; and would not say it, did not his affection for the commonwealth predominate; that the people of Rome do not believe that entire liberty has been recovered; that the regal family, the regal name, was not only in the state but even in the government; that was unfavourable, that was injurious to liberty. Do you, L. Tarquinius," says he, "do you, of your own accord, remove this apprehension. We remember, we own it, you expelled the royal family; complete your kindness; take hence the royal name—your property your fellow citizens shall not only restore you, by my advice, but if any thing is wanting they will generously supply. Depart in amity. Relieve the state from a dread which is perhaps groundless. So firmly are they persuaded in mind that only with the Tarquinian race will kingly power depart hence." Amazement at so extraordinary and sudden an occurrence at first impeded the consul's utterance; then, when he was commencing to speak, the chief men of the state stand around him, and by many importunities urge the same request. Others indeed had less weight with him. After Sp. Lucretius, superior in age and rank, his father-in-law besides, began to try various methods, by entreating and advising alternately, that he would suffer himself to be prevailed on by the general feeling of the state, the consul, apprehending lest hereafter these same things might befall him, when again in a private station, together with loss of property and other additional disgrace, he resigned his consulship; and removing all his effects to Lavinium, he withdrew from the state.66 Brutus, according to a decree of the senate, proposed to the people, that all the family of the Tarquins should be banished from Rome; and in an assembly by centuries he elected P. Valerius, with whose assistance he had expelled the kings for his colleague.

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      Though nobody doubted that a war was impending from the Tarquins, yet it broke out later than was universally expected; but liberty was well nigh lost by treachery and fraud, a thing they had never apprehended. There were, among the Roman youth, several young men of no mean families, who, during the regal government, had pursued their pleasures without any restraint; being of the same age with, and companions of, the young Tarquins, and accustomed to live in princely style. Longing for that licentiousness, now that the privileges of all were equalized, they complained that the liberty of others has been converted to their slavery: "that a king was a human being, from whom you can obtain, where right, or where wrong may be necessary; that there was room for favour and for kindness; that he could be angry, and could forgive; that he knew the difference between a friend and an enemy; that laws were a deaf, inexorable thing, more beneficial and advantageous for the poor than the rich; that they allowed of no relaxation or indulgence, if you transgress bounds; that it was a perilous state, amid so so many human errors, to live solely by one's integrity." Whilst their minds were already thus discontented of their own accord, ambassadors from the royal family come unexpectedly, demanding restitution of their effects merely, without any mention of return. After their application was heard in the senate, the deliberation on it lasted for several days, (fearing) lest the non-restitution might be a pretext for war, and the restitution a fund and assistance for war. In the mean time the ambassadors were planning different schemes; openly demanding the property, they secretly concerted measures for recovering the throne, and soliciting them as if for the object which appeared to be under consideration, they sound their feelings; to those by whom their proposals were favourably received they give letters from the Tarquins, and confer with them about admitting the royal family into the city secretly by night.

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      The matter was first intrusted to brothers of the name of Vitellii and those of the name of Aquilii. A sister of the Vitellii had been married to Brutus the consul, and the issue of that marriage were young men, Titus and Tiberius; these also their uncles admit into a participation of the plot: several young noblemen also were taken in as associates, the memory of whose names has been lost from distance of time. In the mean time, when that opinion had prevailed in the senate, which recommended the giving back of the property, and the ambassadors made use of this as a pretext for delay in the city, because they had obtained from the consuls time to procure modes of conveyance, by which they might convey away the effects of the royal family; all this time they spend in consulting with the conspirators, and by pressing they succeed in having letters given to them for the Tarquins. For otherwise how were they to believe that the accounts brought by the ambassadors on matters of such importance were not idle? The letters, given to be a pledge of their sincerity, discovered the plot; for when, the day before the ambassadors set out to the Tarquins, they had supped by chance at the house of the Vitellii, and the conspirators there in private discoursed much together concerning their new design, as is natural, one of the slaves, who had already perceived what was going on, overheard their conversation; but waited for the occasion when the letters should be given to the ambassadors, the detection of

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