then was flowing with shallow water, as is usual in the heat of summer; thus the heaps of corn as they stuck in the shallows settled down, covered over with mud; by means of these and other substances carried down to the same spot, which the river brings along hap-hazard, an island[3] was gradually formed.  Afterward I believe that substructures were added, and that aid was given by human handicraft, that the surface might be well raised, as it is now and strong enough besides to bear the weight even of temples and colonnades.  After the tyrant’s effects had been plundered, the traitors were condemned and punishment inflicted.  This punishment was the more noticeable, because the consulship imposed on the father the office of punishing his own children, and to him, who should have been removed even as a spectator, was assigned by fortune the duty of carrying out the punishment.  Young men of the highest rank stood bound to the stake; but the consul’s sons diverted the eyes of all the spectators from the rest of the criminals, as from persons unknown; and the people felt pity, not so much on account of their punishment, as of the crime by which they had deserved it.  That they, in that year above all others, should have brought themselves to betray into the hands of one, who, formerly a haughty tyrant, was now an exasperated exile, their country recently delivered, their father its deliverer, the consulate which took its rise from the Junian family, the fathers, the people, and all the gods and citizens of Rome.  The consuls advanced to take their seats, and the lictors were despatched to inflict punishment.  The young men were stripped naked, beaten with rods, and their heads struck off with the axe, while all the time the looks and countenance of the father presented a touching spectacle, as his natural feelings displayed themselves during the discharge of his duty in inflicting public punishment.  After the punishment of the guilty, that the example might be a striking one in both aspects for the prevention of crime, a sum of money was granted out of the treasury as a reward to the informer:  liberty also and the rights of citizenship were conferred upon him.  He is said to have been the first person made free by the vindicta; some think that even the term vindicta is derived from him, and that his name was Vindicius. [4] After him it was observed as a rule, that all who were set free in this manner were considered to be admitted to the rights of Roman citizens.

On receiving the announcement of these events as they had occurred, Tarquin, inflamed not only with grief at the annihilation of such great hopes, but also with hatred and resentment, when he saw that the way was blocked against stratagem, considering that war ought to be openly resorted to, went round as a suppliant to the cities of Etruria, imploring above all the Veientines and Tarquinians, not to suffer him, a man sprung from themselves, of the same stock, to perish before their eyes, an exile and in want, together with