PRAETOR, AND WAS ENTRUSTED WITH THE SUPERVISION OF THE KING’S CHILDREN AND OF THE KINGDOM.  HE SHOWED HIMSELF AN EXCELLENT MAN, SHARING HIS MONEY WITH THOSE IN NEED AND BESTOWING HIS SERVICES READILY IF ANY ONE NEEDED HIM TO HELP.  HE NEITHER DID NOR SAID ANYTHING MEAN TO ANY ONE.  IF HE RECEIVED A KINDNESS FROM PERSONS HE MADE MUCH OF THE ATTENTION, WHEREAS IF ANY OFFENCE WAS OFFERED HIM, HE EITHER DISREGARDED THE INJURY OR MINIMIZED IT AND MADE LIGHT OF IT, AND FAR FROM MAKING REPRISALS UPON THE MAN THAT HAD DONE THE INJURY, HE WOULD EVEN BENEFIT HIM.  THUS HE CAME TO DOMINATE BOTH MARCIUS HIMSELF AND HIS CIRCLE, AND ACQUIRED THE REPUTATION OF BEING A SENSIBLE AND UPRIGHT MAN.

But the aforesaid estimate of him did not continue permanently.  For at the death of Marcius he behaved in a knavish way to the latter’s two sons and made the kingdom his own.  The senate and the people were intending to elect the children of Marcius, when Tarquinius made advances to the most influential of the senators;—­he had first sent the fatherless boys to some distant point on a hunting expedition:—­and by his talk and his efforts he got these men to vote him the kingdom on the understanding that he would restore it to the children when they had attained manhood.  And after assuming control of affairs he so disposed the Romans that they should never wish to choose the children in preference to him:  the lads he accustomed to indolence and ruined their souls and bodies by a kind of kindness.  As he still felt afraid in spite of being so placed, he secured some extra strength for himself in the senate.  Those of the populace who felt friendly towards him he enrolled (to the number of about two hundred) among the patricians and the senators, and thus he put both the senate and the people within his own control.  He altered his raiment, likewise, to a more magnificent style.  It consisted of toga and tunic, purple all over and shot with gold, of a crown of precious stones set in gold, and of ivory sceptre and chair, which were later used by various officials and especially by those that held sway as emperors.  He also on the occasion of a triumph paraded with a four-horse chariot and kept twelve lictors for life.

He would certainly have introduced still other and more numerous innovations, had not Attus Navius prevented him, when he desired to rearrange the tribes:  this man was an augur whose equal has never been seen.  Tarquinius, angry at his opposition, took measures to abase him and to bring his art into contempt.  So, putting into his bosom a whetstone and a razor, he went among the populace having in his mind that the whetstone should be cut by the razor,—­a thing that is impossible.  He said all that he wished, and when Attus vehemently opposed him, he said, still yielding not a particle:  “If you are not opposing me out of quarrelsomeness, but are speaking the truth, answer me in the presence of all these witnesses whether what I have in mind