ble owing
to this very reduction in numbers, and that it might feel the less
resentment at no business being transacted by it. For he was the first
of the kings who violated the custom derived from his predecessors of
consulting the senate on all matters, and administered the business
of the state by taking counsel with his friends alone. War, peace,
treaties, alliances, all these he contracted and dissolved with
whomsoever he pleased, without the sanction of the people and senate,
entirely on his own responsibility. The nation of the Latins he was
particularly anxious to attach to him, so that by foreign influence
also he might be more secure among his own subjects; and he contracted
ties not only of hospitality but also of marriage with their leading
men. On Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum, who was by far the most eminent
of those who bore the Latin name, being descended, if we believe
tradition, from Ulysses and the goddess Circe, he bestowed his
daughter in marriage, and by this match attached to himself many of
his kinsmen and friends.

The influence of Tarquin among the chief men of the Latins being
now considerable, he issued an order that they should assemble on a
certain day at the grove of Ferentina,[47] saying that there were
matters of common interest about which he wished to confer with them.
They assembled in great numbers at daybreak. Tarquinius himself kept
the day indeed, but did not arrive until shortly before sunset. Many
matters were there discussed in the meeting throughout the day in
various conversations. Turnus Herdonius of Aricia inveighed violently
against the absent Tarquin, saying that it was no wonder the surname
of Proud was given him at Rome; for so they now called him secretly
and in whispers, but still generally. Could anything show more
haughtiness than this insolent mockery of the entire Latin nation?
After their chiefs had been summoned so great a distance from home,
he who had proclaimed the meeting did not attend; assuredly their
patience was being tried, in order that, if they submitted to the
yoke, he might crush them when at his mercy. For who could fail to see
that he was aiming at sovereignty over the Latins? This sovereignty,
if his own countrymen had done well in having intrusted it to him, or
if it had been intrusted and not seized on by murder, the Latins also
ought to intrust to him (and yet not even so, inasmuch as he was a
foreigner). But if his own subjects were dissatis