note 51: The god of boundaries. His action seems quite in keeping
with his office.--D.O.]

[Footnote 52: The Cloaca Maxima, upon which Rome still relies for
much of her drainage, is more generally attributed to Tarquinius
Priscus.--D.O.]

[Footnote 53: The modern Segni, upward of thirty miles from Rome, on
the Rome-Naples line.--D.O.]

[Footnote 54: On the coast, near Terracina. The Promontoria Circeo is
the traditional site of the palace and grave of Circe, whose story is
told in the Odyssey.--D.O.]

[Footnote 55: Dullard.--D.O.]

[Footnote 56: In the Pomptine marshes, about twenty miles south of
Rome and five from the coast.--D.O.]

[Footnote 57: Its site, about nine miles from Rome, on the road to
Tivoli, is now known as Lunghezza.--D.O.]

[Footnote 58: The royal body-guard. See the story of Romulus
above.--D.O.]

[Footnote 59: Spurius Lucretius.--D.O.]

BOOK II

THE FIRST COMMONWEALTH

The acts, civil and military, of the Roman people, henceforth free,
their annual magistrates, and the sovereignty of the laws, more
powerful than that of men, I will now proceed to recount. The haughty
insolence of the last king had caused this liberty to be the more
welcome: for the former kings reigned in such a manner that they all
in succession may be deservedly reckoned founders of those parts
at least of the city, which they independently added as new
dwelling-places for the population, which had been increased by
themselves. Nor is there any doubt that that same Brutus, who gained
such renown from the expulsion of King Superbus, would have acted to
the greatest injury of the public weal, if, through the desire of
liberty before the people were fit for it, he had wrested the kingdom
from any of the preceding kings. For what would have been the
consequence, if that rabble of shepherds and strangers, runaways from
their own peoples, had found, under the protection of an inviolable
sanctuary, either freedom, or at least impunity for former offences,
and, freed from all dread of regal authority, had begun to be
distracted by tribunician storms, and to engage in contests with the
fathers in a strange city, before the pledges of wives and children,
and affection for the soil itself, to which people become habituated
only by length of time, had united their affections? Their condition,
not yet matured, would have been destroyed by discord; but the
tranquillizing moderation of the government so fostered this
conditi