This was the first attempt to restore Tarquin the Proud.

When Tarquin saw that the plot at home had failed, he prevailed on the people of Tarquinii and Veii to make war with him against the Romans.  But the consuls came out against them; Valerius commanding the main army, and Brutus the cavalry.  And it chanced that Aruns, the king’s son, led the cavalry of the enemy.  When he saw Brutus he spurred his horse against him, and Brutus declined not the combat.  So they rode straight at each other with levelled spears; and so fierce was the shock, that they pierced each other through from breast to back, and both fell dead.

Then, also, the armies fought, but the battle was neither won nor lost.  But in the night a voice was heard by the Etruscans, saying that the Romans were the conquerors.  So the enemy fled by night; and when the Romans arose in the morning, there was no man to oppose them.  Then they took up the body of Brutus, and departed home, and buried him in public with great pomp, and the matrons of Rome mourned him for a whole year, because he had avenged the injury of Lucretia.

And thus the second attempt to restore King Tarquin was frustrated.

After the death of Brutus, Publius Valerius ruled the people for a while by himself, and he began to build himself a house upon the ridge called Velia, which looks down upon the Forum.  So the people thought that he was going to make himself king; but when he heard this, he called an assembly of the people, and appeared before them with his fasces lowered, and with no axes in them, whence the custom remained ever after, that no consular lictors wore axes within the city, and no consul had power of life and death except when he was in command of his legions abroad.  And he pulled down the beginning of his house upon the Velia, and built it below that hill.  Also he passed laws that every Roman citizen might appeal to the people against the judgment of the chief magistrates.  Wherefore he was greatly honored among the people, and was called “Poplicola,” or “Friend of the People.”

After this Valerius called together the great Assembly of the Centuries, and they chose Sp.  Lucretius, father of Lucretius, to succeed Brutus.  But he was an old man, and in not many days he died.  So M. Horatius was chosen in his stead.

The temple on the Capitol which King Tarquin began had never yet been consecrated.  Then Valerius and Horatius drew lots which should be the consecrator, and the lot fell on Horatius.  But the friends of Valerius murmured, and they wished to prevent Horatius from having the honor; so when he was now saying the prayer of consecration, with his hand upon the doorpost of the temple, there came a messenger, who told him that his son was just dead, and that one mourning for a son could not rightly consecrate the temple.  But Horatius kept his hand upon the doorpost, and told them to see to the burial of his son, and finished the rites of consecration.  Thus did he honor the gods even above his own son.