tus
Tarquinius, who had gone to Gabii, as if to his own kingdom, was slain
by the avengers of the old feuds, which he had stirred up against
himself by his rapines and murders. Lucius Tarquinius Superbus reigned
twenty-five years: the regal form of government lasted, from the
building of the city to its deliverance, two hundred and forty-four
years. Two consuls, Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius
Collatinus, were elected by the prefect of at the comitia of
centuries, according to the commentaries of Servius Tullius.

[Footnote 1: Books I-III are based upon the translation by John Henry
Freese, but in many places have been revised or retranslated by
Duffield Osborne.]

[Footnote 2: The king was originally the high priest, his office more
sacerdotal than military: as such he would have the selection and
appointment of the Vestal Virgins, the priestesses of Vesta, the
hearth-goddess. Their chief duty was to keep the sacred fire burning
("the fire that burns for aye"), and to guard the relics in the Temple
of Vesta. If convicted of unchastity they were buried alive.]

[Footnote 3: Surely there is no lack of "historical criticism" here
and on a subject where a Roman writer might be pardoned for some
credulity.--D.O.]

[Footnote 4: Livy ignores the more accepted and prettier tradition
that this event took place where the sacred fig-tree originally stood,
and that later it was miraculously transplanted to the comitium by
Attius Navius, the famous augur, "That it might stand in the midst of
the meetings of the Romans"--D.O.]

[Footnote 5: According to Varro, Rome was founded B.C. 753; according
to Cato, B.C. 751. Livy here derives Roma from Romulus, but this is
rejected by modern etymologists; according to Mommsen the word means
"stream-town," from its position on the Tiber.]

[Footnote 6: The remarkable beauty of the white or mouse-coloured
cattle of central Italy gives a touch of realism to this story.--D.O.]

[Footnote 7: The introduction of the art of writing among the Romans
was ascribed to Evander. The Roman alphabet was derived from the
Greek, through the Grecian (Chalcidian) colony at Cumae.]

[Footnote 8: The title patres originally signified the heads of
families, and was in early times used of the patrician senate, as
selected from these. When later, plebeians were admitted into the
senate, the members of the senate were all called patres, while
patricians, as opposed to plebeians, enjoyed certain