s and atrocity of the extraordinary
occurrence, as usually happens. They complain, each for himself, of the
royal villany and violence. Both the grief of the father moves them, as
also Brutus, the reprover of their tears and unavailing complaints, and
their adviser to take up arms against those who dared to treat them as
enemies, as would become men and Romans. Each most spirited of the youth
voluntarily presents himself in arms; the rest of the youth follow also.
From thence, after leaving an adequate garrison at the gates at
Collatia, and having appointed sentinels, so that no one might give
intelligence of the disturbance to the king's party, the rest set out
for Rome in arms under the conduct of Brutus. When they arrived there,
the armed multitude cause panic and confusion wherever they go. Again,
when they see the principal men of the state placing themselves at their
head, they think that, whatever it may be, it was not without good
reason. Nor does the heinousness of the circumstance excite less violent
emotions at Rome than it had done at Collatia; accordingly they run from
all parts of the city into the forum, whither, when they came, the
public crier summoned them to attend the tribune of the celeres, with
which office Brutus happened to be at that time vested. There an
harangue was delivered by him, by no means of that feeling and capacity
which had been counterfeited up to that day, concerning the violence and
lust of Sextus Tarquin, the horrid violation of Lucretia and her
lamentable death, the bereavement of Tricipitinus, to whom the cause of
his daughter's death was more exasperating and deplorable than the death
itself. To this was added the haughty insolence of the king himself, and
the sufferings and toils of the people, buried in the earth in cleansing
sinks and sewers; that the Romans, the conquerors of all the surrounding
states, instead of warriors had become labourers and stone-cutters. The
unnatural murder of king Servius Tullius was dwelt on, and his
daughter's driving over the body of her father in her impious chariot,
and the gods who avenge parents were invoked by him. By stating these
and other, I suppose, more exasperating circumstances, which though by
no means easily detailed by writers, the heinousness of the case
suggested at the time, he persuaded the multitude, already incensed, to
deprive the king of his authority, and to order the banishment of L.
Tarquin with his wife and children. H