acters. It had come to pass,
through the good fortune, I believe, of the Roman people, that two
violent dispositions should not be united in marriage, in order that
the reign of Servius might last longer, and the constitution of
the state be firmly established. The haughty spirit of Tullia was
chagrined, that there was no predisposition in her husband, either to
ambition or daring. Directing all her regard to the other Tarquinius,
him she admired, him she declared to be a man, and sprung from royal
blood; she expressed her contempt for her sister, because, having a
man for her husband, she lacked that spirit of daring that a woman
ought to possess. Similarity of disposition soon drew them together,
as wickedness is in general most congenial to wickedness; but the
beginning of the general confusion originated with the woman.
Accustomed to the secret conversations of the husband of another,
there was no abusive language that she did not use about her husband
to his brother, about her sister to her sister's husband, asserting
that it would have been better for herself to remain unmarried, and he
single, than that she should be united with one who was no fit mate
for her, so that her life had to be passed in utter inactivity by
reason of the cowardice of another. If the gods had granted her the
husband she deserved, she would soon have seen the crown in possession
of her own house, which she now saw in possession of her father. She
soon filled the young man with her own daring. Lucius Tarquinius and
the younger Tullia, when the pair had, by almost simultaneous murders,
made their houses vacant for new nuptials, were united in marriage,
Servius rather offering no opposition than actually approving.

Then indeed the old age of Tullius began to be every day more
endangered, his throne more imperilled. For now the woman from one
crime directed her thoughts to another, and allowed her husband no
rest either by night or by day, that their past crimes might not prove
unprofitable, saying that what she wanted was not one whose wife she
might be only in name, or one with whom she might live an inactive
life of slavery: what she wanted was one who would consider himself
worthy of the throne, who would remember that he was the son of
Tarquinius Priscus, who would rather have a kingdom than hope for it.
"If you, to whom I consider myself married, are such a one, I greet
you both as husband and king; but if not, our condition has been