d honour at
Rome; and when in time to come there arose great need or peril in the
city, then there were appointed men of repute who should open the books
and learn what had best be done.

In those days there happened, in the palace of the King, a great marvel.
There was a certain slave boy whose name was Servius Tullius. The head
of this boy, as he slept, was seen to burn with fire; and when the King
and the Queen had been called to see this strange thing, and certain
of the servants would have fetched water wherewith to quench the fire,
Queen Tanaquil would not suffer them, but commanded that they should
leave the child as he lay. And when he woke from his sleep, lo! the
flame departed. Then said Queen Tanaquil to her husband, "Seest thou
this boy whom we rear in this humble fashion? Know that he will be in
time to come a light in our darkness, and a succour to our house in its
great trouble. Let us, therefore, use all favour and kindness to him."
Thereafter they dealt with the lad as though he were free-born and not
a slave, and gave him such teaching as befits them that are born to
high place. The lad also, on his part, showed such parts and temper as
befitted the house of a king; and when Tarquin would choose a husband
for his daughter there was not found one fitter for such honour than
Servius. So the King betrothed to him his daughter. Yet is it scarce
to be believed that he would have done this thing if Servius had been
indeed born of a bond-woman. Some say, therefore, and the story seems
worthy of belief, that he was the son of a great lady of Corniculum,
which was a town of the Latins; that this town being taken by King
Tarquin, Servius Tullius, that was its chief ruler, was slain, whose
wife, being with child, was carried to Rome; and that because she was of
noble birth she was not sold into slavery with the other women but taken
into the King's palace, and there bare this child, of whom, because his
mother had been taken captive in war, men said that he was the son of a
slave.

Now the sons of Ancus, since they had been grown to manhood, had taken
it ill that Tarquin had been preferred before them to the throne of
their father, and now they were the more angry, seeing how he had chosen
another than them to be king after him. "See, now," they said, "this
fellow that is not a Roman, nay, nor an Italian, but a stranger from
Greece, how being made tutor to us by the King our father, he filched
the throne from u