said, scoffingly, "Romulus too went without burial;" and this impious
mockery is said to have given rise to his surname of Superbus, or the
Proud. Servius had reigned forty-four years.

7. Reign of LUCIUS TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS, or, THE PROUD, B.C.
534-510.--Tarquin commenced his reign without any of the forms of
election. One of his first acts was to abolish all the privileges which
had been conferred upon the Plebeians by Servius. He also compelled the
poor to work at miserable wages upon his magnificent buildings, and the
hardships which they suffered were so great that many put an end to
their lives. But he did not confine his oppressions to the poor. All the
senators and patricians whom he mistrusted, or whose wealth he coveted,
were put to death or driven into exile. He surrounded himself with a
body-guard, by whose means he was enabled to carry out his designs. But,
although a tyrant at home, he raised the state to great influence and
power among the surrounding nations, partly by his alliances and partly
by his conquests. He gave his daughter in marriage to Octavius Mamilius,
of Tusculum, the most powerful of the Latins, by whose means he acquired
great influence in Latium. Any Latin chiefs like Turnus Herdonius, who
attempted to resist him, were treated as traitors, and punished with
death. At the solemn meeting of the Latins at the Alban Mount, Tarquin
sacrificed the bull on behalf of all the allies, and distributed the
flesh to the people of the league.

Strengthened by this Latin alliance, Tarquin turned his arms against the
Volscians. He took the wealthy town of Suessa Pometia, with the spoils
of which he commenced the erection of a magnificent temple on the
Capitoline Hill, which his father had vowed. This temple was dedicated
to the three gods of the Latin and Etruscan religions, Jupiter, Juno,
and Minerva. A human head (_caput_), fresh, bleeding and undecayed, is
said to have been found by the workmen as they were digging the
foundations, and being accepted as a sign that the place was destined to
become the head of the world, the name of CAPITOLIUM was given to the
temple, and thence to the hill. In a stone vault beneath were deposited
the Sibylline books, containing obscure and prophetic sayings. One day a
Sibyl, a prophetess from Cumae, appeared before the king and offered to
sell him nine books. Upon his refusing to buy them she went away and
burned three, and then demanded the same sum for the remain