attempted to give her relief. After passionately charging Sextus
Tarquin'ius with the basest perfidy towards her husband and injury to
herself, she drew a poinard from beneath her robe, and instantly
plunging it into her bosom, expired without a groan. 18. Struck with
sorrow, pity, and indignation, Spu'rius and Collati'nus gave vent to
their grief; but Bru'tus, drawing the poinard, reeking, from
Lucre'tia's wound, and lifting it up towards heaven, "Be witness, ye
gods," he cried, "that, from this moment, I proclaim myself the
avenger of the chaste Lucretia's cause; from this moment I profess
myself the enemy of Tarquin and his wicked house; from henceforth this
life, while life continues, shall be employed in opposition to
tyranny, and for the happiness and freedom of my much-loved country."
19. A new amazement seized the hearers: he, whom they had hitherto
considered as an idiot, now appearing, in his real character, the
friend of justice, and of Rome. He told them, that tears and
lamentations were unmanly, when vengeance called so loudly; and,
delivering the poinard to the rest, imposed the same oath upon them
which he himself had just taken.

20. Ju'nius Brutus was the son of Marcus Ju'nius, who was put to death
by Tarquin the Proud, and the grandson of Tarquin the elder. He had
received an excellent education from his father, and had, from nature,
strong sense and an inflexible attachment to virtue; but knowing that
Tarquin had murdered his father and his eldest brother, he
counterfeited a fool, in order to escape the same danger, and thence
obtained the surname of Bru'tus. Tarquin, thinking his folly real,
despised the man; and having possessed himself of his estate, kept him
as an idiot in his house, merely with a view of making sport for his
children.

21. Brutus, however, only waited this opportunity to avenge the cause
of his family. He ordered Lucre'tia's dead body to be brought out
to view, and exposing it in the public forum, inflamed the ardour of
the citizens by a display of the horrid transaction. He obtained a
decree of the senate, that Tarquin and his family should be for ever
banished from Rome, and that it should be capital for any to plead
for, or to attempt his future return. 22. Thus this monarch, who had
now reigned twenty-five years, being expelled his kingdom, went to
take refuge with his family at Ci'ra, a little city of _Etru'ria_. In
the mean time the Roman army made a truce with the enemy