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He fought against four Latin towns, brought their inhabitants to Rome, and planted them on the Aventine hill. He fortified the hill Janiculum, on the right bank of the Tiber, and connected it by a wooden bridge with the town. The next king was by birth an Etruscan. Lucumo and his wife, Tanaquil, emigrated to Rome.

Now Tanaquil could not endure that any should be preferred before him, wherefore when the people of Tarquinii despised Lucumo, because he was the son of a stranger, Tanaquil could not endure it, and caring not for her country, if only she could see her husband held in honour, purposed to depart thence and dwell elsewhere.

Queen Tanaquil shrewdly told the people that Lucius was only stunned by the blow, and that he wished them to obey the orders of Servius. To the young man she said, "The kingdom is yours; if you have no plans of your own, then follow mine."

The female name Tanaquil or Tanchvil interwoven with the legend, while it is not Latin, is common in Etruria.

He had lost his sons, and had only two baby grandsons, Aruns and Tarquin, who could not reign as yet; but while he was dying, Tanaquil stood at the window and declared that he was only stunned and would soon be well.

The head of this boy, as he slept, was seen to burn with fire; and when the King and the Queen had been called to see this strange thing, and certain of the servants would have fetched water wherewith to quench the fire, Queen Tanaquil would not suffer them, but commanded that they should leave the child as he lay. And when he woke from his sleep, lo! the flame departed.

This was accomplished, and then the wicked wife, whose name was Tullia, told her husband, whose name was Lucius Tarquinius, that what she wanted was not a husband whom she might live with in quiet like a slave, but one who would remember of whose blood he was, who would consider that he was the rightful king; and that if he would not do it he had better go back to Tarquinii or Corinth and sink into his original race, thus shaming his father and Tanaquil, who had bestowed thrones upon her husband and her son-in-law.

Tanaquil, who was well versed in the augury of her countrymen, embraced her husband; told him from what divinity the eagle had come, and from what auspicious quarter of the heavens; and said that it had performed its message about the highest part of the body, which was in itself prophetic of good.

Even now relics of the Tarquinians are found there, and there are many in the museums of Europe that illustrate the ancient civilization of the Etruscans, which was greater at this time than that of the Romans. On his journey Lucomo was himself seated in a chariot with his wife Tanaquil, whom he seems to have honored very highly, and the long train of followers stretched behind them.

Alarmed at the sight, they were about to throw water upon him to extinguish the flame, when Tanaquil, the queen, who had also seen it, forbade them. She told the king of what had happened, and said that the boy whom they were bringing up so meanly was destined to become great and noble. She bade him, therefore, to rear the child in a way befitting his destiny.