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The honour of the contest regarding the women rested with Lucretia. Her husband on his arrival, and the Tarquinii, were kindly received; the husband, proud of his victory, gave the young princes a polite invitation. There an evil desire of violating Lucretia by force seized Sextus Tarquinius; both her beauty, and her proved chastity urged him on.
While the army was encamped before this place, the king's son Sextus Tarquinius, Collati'nus a noble Roman, and some others, sitting in a tent drinking together, the discourse turned upon wives, each man preferring the beauty and virtue of his own.
When he thought he had obtained a sufficient number of confederates, he one day rushed into the forum at an appointed time, accompanied by a body of armed men, and, in the midst of a commotion that ensued, took his seat upon the throne and ordered the senate to attend "King Tarquinius."
While Tarquinius was thus adding to the greatness of Rome, there appeared in the palace one of those marvels that the early historians delighted to relate, such as, indeed, mankind in all ages has been pleased with.
The king also drained other parts of the city; vowed to build, and perhaps began, the temple on the Capitoline; built a wall about the city, and erected the permanent buildings on the great forum. These works involved vast labor and expense, and must have been very burdensome to the people. Like other oppressive monarchs, Tarquinius planned games and festivities to amuse them.
XVIII. However, as Tarpeia was buried there, the hill was called the Tarpeian hill until King Tarquinius, when he dedicated the place to Jupiter, removed her remains and abolished the name of Tarpeia. But even to this day they call the rock in the Capitol the Tarpeian Rock, down which malefactors used to be flung.
First, in the days of King Tarquinius the Elder, one Ambigatus that was king of the Celts, who inhabited the third part of Gaul, sent his sister's sons to seek out for themselves new kingdoms, of whom one was directed by the oracle to go towards Germany, and the other by a far more pleasant way to Italy.
Brutus, instead of Valerius, whom he would have preferred, had as a colleague Tarquinius Collatinus, the husband of Lucretia, who was not a better man than Valerius, but was elected because the men in power at Rome, seeing what intrigues the exiled king was setting on foot to secure his return, wished to have for their general a man who was his sworn personal enemy.
The two latter, Cossus and Marcellus, made their entries in triumphant chariots, bearing their trophies themselves; but that Romulus made use of a chariot, Dionysius is wrong in asserting. History says, Tarquinius, Damaratus's son, was the first that brought triumphs to this great pomp and grandeur; others, that Publicola was the first that rode in triumph.
That for his own part, as he had escaped from the midst of the swords and weapons of his father, he was persuaded he could find no safety anywhere save among the enemies of Lucius Tarquinius: for let them make no mistake the war, which it was now pretended had been abandoned, still threatened them, and he would attack them when off their guard on a favourable opportunity.
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