d to find in the Sybil's leaves whatever the
government might require. However this was, he chose proper persons to
keep them, who, though but two at first, were afterwards increased to
fifteen, under the name of _Quindecemviri_. The important volumes were
put into a stone chest, and a vault in the newly designed building was
thought the properest place to secure them.[2]

13. The people, having been now for four years together employed in
building the Capitol, began, at last, to wish for something new to
engage them; Tarquin, therefore, to satisfy their wishes, proclaimed
war against the Ru'tuli, upon a frivolous pretence of their having
entertained some malefactors, whom he had banished; and invested their
chief city, Ar'dea, which lay about sixteen miles from Rome. 14. 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. Collati'nus offered to
decide the dispute by putting it to an immediate trial, whose wife
should be found possessed of the greatest beauty, and most sedulously
employed at that very hour: being heated with wine, the proposal was
relished by the whole company; and, taking horse without delay, they
posted to Rome, though the night was already pretty far advanced.

15. There they found Lucre'tia, the wife of Collati'nus, not like the
other women of her age, spending the time in ease and luxury, but
spinning in the midst of her maids, and cheerfully portioning out
their tasks. Her modest beauty, and the easy reception she gave her
husband and his friends, so charmed them all, that they unanimously
gave her the preference, but kindled, in the breast of Sextus
Tarquin'ius, a detestable passion, which occasioned the grossest
insult and injury to Lucre'tia, who, detesting the light, and
resolving to destroy herself for the crime of another, demanded her
husband Collati'nus, and Spu'rius, her father, to come to her; an
indelible disgrace having befallen the family. 16. They instantly
obeyed the summons, bringing with them Valerius, a kinsman of her
father, and Junius Bru'tus, a reputed idiot, whose father Tarquin had
murdered, and who had accidentally met the messenger by the way. 17.
Their arrival only served to increase Lucre'tia's poignant anguish;
they found her in a state of the deepest desperation, and vainly