Story of the Greek and the Roman People

CLOACA MAXIMA.

The sons of Ancus seem to have been waiting patiently, expecting that the crown would be theirs at the death of Tarquinius; but when they saw that the king's favor was given to the boy Servius Tullius, they were angry and indignant, and a little later they hired two bold and daring shepherds to assassinate Tarquinius. Probably the sons of Ancus would have been able to seize the crown if Queen Tanaquil had not been so quick-witted. She opened the window and addressed the people. "Be of good cheer," she said. "The king is only stunned, and I hope you will soon see him again. In the mean time, he wishes you to obey Servius Tullius in his place." Then to Servius she said, "Now is your time. If you are a man, the kingdom is yours, not theirs who have brought about the murder of the king." Servius seated himself upon the throne and gave judgment in some cases, while in others he pretended to consult the king. By the time that the king's death was known, Servius had gained so much power that he easily held the kingdom. He was just and kind to his people. He never forgot that his mother had been a slave, and he was so strong a friend to the poorer folk that it is no wonder they called him the good king Servius.

In some ways the reign of Servius Tullius was almost a revolution. First of all, he planned for a larger army. It had always been regarded as an honor to defend the state, and therefore only patricians had been privileged to serve as soldiers. Servius, however, obliged all landowners to join the army. He divided them, not into patricians and plebeians, but into five classes according to the amount of land which they held. The largest landowners were required to provide themselves with horses to form the cavalry; the next largest had to obtain full suits of armor, helmets, coats of mail, shields, and greaves, or protectors for the legs. The poorer people provided less armor. The patricians as a class were more wealthy than the plebeians; in general, therefore, the former continued to serve as cavalry, while the latter made up the infantry.

To make it easier to form the army, Servius paid no attention to the old division of the patricians into three tribes; instead, he divided the city into four wards, or districts, classing all landowners living in one district, whether patricians or plebeians, as of one tribe.

Servius built a wall entirely around the city, parts of which remain to this day. He also established the census, a list of the people of the state, their children, and the amount of their property. This census was taken every five years. It closed with a sacrifice to the gods called a lustrum, or purification, and soon the period of five years came to be called a lustrum.

TULLIA DRIVING OVER THE BODY OF HER FATHER.

The place where the soldiers used to come together to drill was a plain just outside the walls of the city called the Campus Martius, or Field of Mars. The troops were divided into groups of one hundred, and as the Latin word for hundred is centum, the meeting of these groups came to be called the comitia centuriata, or assembly of the centuries.

Servius was loved by his people, but there was one man whom he feared, Lucius, the son of Tarquinius. Lucius had married the daughter of Servius; but she was a wicked woman and plotted that her husband should seize her father's crown. One day Lucius went in royal robes to the forum, or public square, and declared that he, and not the son of a slave, was the rightful king. He caught hold of the aged Servius and flung him down the steps of the senate house, and then sent men to murder him. The wicked daughter of Servius heard what had been done, and she hastened to the forum to salute her husband as king. He bade her withdraw from such a tumult, and she obeyed, ordering her charioteer to drive her chariot over the bleeding body of her father lying in the road.

So it was that a second Lucius Tarquinius became king. He was so cruel and haughty that the people called him Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud, and if he had not always kept a bodyguard around him, some one would surely have murdered him. One day when he was at the height of his power, a strange woman came before him with nine books, and asked him to buy them. Her price was so high that he only laughed scornfully. She went away and burned three of the books, then returned and offered him the six at the same, price that she had asked for the nine. "The woman is surely mad," Tarquinius declared. She made no reply, but went away again, and a little later offered him the last three books, but still at the same price. The affair was so remarkable that Tarquinius began to think the books must have been sent by the gods. He paid the price and took them. They proved to be prophecies about the future of the city. They were preserved with the utmost care and were consulted whenever the city seemed to be in danger. The strange woman was the Sibyl of Cumae. She vanished and was never seen again. The books were known as the Sibylline Books, and were counted among the greatest treasures of Rome.

Tarquinius was successful in war, but he could not subdue the Gabii. This his false son Sextus undertook to do for him. He fled to them covered with blood and begged them to protect him from his father. They treated him kindly, and gave him command of a band of soldiers. In the first engagement, Sextus and his band put the Romans to flight for this was what he and Tarquinius had agreed upon. Now the Gabii were so sure that Sextus was true to them that they made him leader of their whole army. Then Sextus treacherously surrendered the town to the Romans.

Tarquinius had done so many evil deeds that it is small wonder he became afraid the gods would punish him. A serpent gliding out of a wooden pillar frightened him, and he sent two of his sons to the oracle of the Greeks at Delphi to ask what the sight foreboded. With them went their cousin, who was called Brutus, or the fool, because he pretended to be foolish lest Tarquinius should put him to death. The two sons had a question of their own to ask: Who would reign after their father? The oracle replied, "He who first kisses his mother." When they returned to Rome, Brutus pretended to stumble and fell. No one noticed that he slyly kissed the ground, and no one knew until afterwards that he said to himself, "The earth is the mother of us all."