e manner of the Romans, or
for wrath at that which had befallen them, as is wont to be with men
in such case, had ceased from worship altogether. The Romans also, by
reason of this same voice that was heard on Mount Alba, or by warning of
the soothsayers, kept a festival of nine days. And this became a custom
for the time to come, that when there came tidings of such marvels to
Rome, there was kept a like festival. Now the end of King Tullus was
this. There came a pestilence upon the land. And when for this cause
the people were wearied of war, nevertheless the King, both because he
delighted in war, and because he believed that the young men should have
better health if they went abroad than if they tarried at home, gave
them no rest But after a while he also fell into a tedious sickness,
which so brake him both in body and mind that, whereas in time past he
thought it unworthy of a King to busy himself with matters of religion,
now he gave himself up wholly to superstition, and filled the minds of
his people also with the like thoughts, so that they regarded nothing
but this, how they should make atonement to the Gods, and so be rid of
their present distress. As for the King himself, men say that reading
the sacred book of King Numa he found therein certain sacrifices, very
secret and solemn, that should be done to Jupiter by such as would
bring him down from heaven, and that he shut himself up to do these
sacrifices; but because he set not about them rightly or did them not in
due form, there appeared to him no similitude of the immortal gods
(for such he had hoped to see); but Jupiter, having great wrath at such
unlawful dealings, struck him with lightning, and consumed both him and
his house.

CHAPTER III. ~~ THE STORY OF THE ELDER TARQUIN.

Demaratus was lord of Corinth in the land of Greece. This Demaratus had
a son who, having been driven from Corinth by strife among the citizens,
came to Tarquinii that is in the land of Etruria, and dwelt there. And
having married a wife, he had two sons born to him, Lucumo and Aruns.
(It was the custom of the princes of the Etrurians to call the eldest
son Lucumo and the younger Aruns.) This Lucumo, being very wealthy (for
his father had left to him all his riches, his brother Aruns having
died), took to wife a certain Tanaquil that was a noble lady in those
parts. Now Tanaquil could not endure that any should be preferred before
him, wherefore when the people of Tarqui