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For when these honours have been paid to Servius Sulpicius, the evidence of his embassy having been insulted and rejected by Antonius will remain for everlasting.
But still more striking than these analogies is the internal similarity of the monarchy of Servius Tullius and the monarchy of Caesar; if those old kings of Rome with all their plenitude of power had yet been rulers of a free community and themselves the protectors of the commons against the nobility, Caesar too had not come to destroy liberty but to fulfil it, and primarily to break the intolerable yoke of the aristocracy.
On the other hand, one of them was descended from a former king through his mother, not through his father, and three of the kings, namely Tatius, the elder Tarquin, and Servius Tullius, were succeeded by their sons-in-law, who were all either foreigners or of foreign descent.
Accius immediately took the one instrument and the other, and performed the prodigy in the face of the assembled people. Servius Tullius, the sixth king of Rome, was the model of a disinterested and liberal politician, and gave to his subjects those institutions to which, more than to any other cause, they were indebted for their subsequent greatness.
A temple of Diana was erected on the Aventine, besides two temples to Fortune, one to Juno, and one to Luna. Servius also dedicated the Campus Martius, and enlarged the Mamertine Prison by adding a subterranean dungeon of impenetrable strength. On the assassination of Servius Tullius, B.C. 535, his son-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus, usurped the power, and did much for the adornment of the city.
And yet even this is not strictly correct, for Servius stands not so much for the coming into existence of certain facts, as for the recognition of the existence of these facts.
Having thus arranged and distributed the infantry, he enrolled twelve centuries of knights from among the chief men of the state. While Romulus had only appointed three centuries, Servius formed six others under the same names as they had received at their first institution.
But when Cato was in the decline of life, a crowd of Orators, all younger than himself, made their appearance at the same time: For A. Albinus, who wrote a History in Greek, and shared the Consulship with L. Lucullus, was greatly admired for his learning and Elocution: and almost equal to him were Servius Fulvius, and Servius Fabius Pictor, the latter of whom was well acquainted with the laws of his country, the Belles Lettres, and the History of Antiquity.
Yet the plebeians were making their way, and at last succeeded in gaining the plebeian magistracies and equal honors with the patricians. A curious story is told of the cause of the last effort which gained the day. A patrician named Fabius Ambustus had two daughters, one of whom he gave in marriage to Servius Sulpicius, a patrician and military tribune, the other to Licinius Stolo.
About the thirty-eighth year of Tarquin's reign, Servius Tullius enjoyed the highest esteem, not only of the king, but also of the senate and people.
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