We may readily believe that Sextus Tarquinius committed the outrage against Lucretia, as indeed similar things happen even now in Turkey, and are told in the middle ages, of the Italian princes down to Pietro Luigi Farnese (in the sixteenth century), and in ancient history of Demetrius Poliorcetes at Athens. Cicero is quite right when he says that the misfortune was this, that the offence was committed against a matron of one of the most powerful families. To all the other details linked with it, from which the history derives its individuality, to the connexion with the campaign against Ardea, not the slightest credit is to be given. The king is said to have been in the camp before Ardea, and a truce to have been concluded there for fifteen years. Yet Ardea had already before been dependent upon Rome, and was one of those towns in the name of which she concluded the alliance with Carthage. Nothing, therefore, is likely to be true but the ill usage of Lucreia, and that her death kindled into a blaze the fire which had long been smouldering. We are in just as much perplexity with regard to the character of Brutus. He is said to have feigned himself half-witted, concerning which there exist several accounts. The mission to Delphi with the sons of Tarquin, although such a one had already before been sent from Agylla, seems to betray a later hand, the same which put in the stories from Herodotus. It is said, moreover, that Tarquin, in order to render harmless the dignity of tribune of the _Celeres_, which was second only to that of the king, had conferred it upon Brutus. There is every likelihood, however, that the story of the stupidity of Brutus was merely derived from his name. Brutus is without doubt an Oscan word, the same which is in the name of the Bruttians; it means a run-away slave, a designation which the overbearing _factio regis_ gave the leader of the rebels because he was a plebeian,--a case just like that of the Gueux. Is it conceivable that an eminent king should have made an utter fool (whom he might have put to death) tribune of the Celeres, in order to bring the dignity into contempt? Tarquin was not the kind of tyrant who was obliged to paralyze the state that he might rule over it; he could allow it strength, and yet govern it by the superior weight of his own personal qualities. Nor does the opinion which the Romans had of him incline that way; his statue remained in the Capitol together with those of the other kings.