Of a plebeian consulship we find no more traces, down to the times of Licinius. In the place of Collatinus Horatius was elected, as may be proved from the treaty with Carthage, and by a passage of Pliny: in the common tradition, Valerius Poplicola is named as the successor of Collatinus. Thus we have these two statements placed side by side, one of which gives the lie to the other, and therefore we may freely have recourse to criticism, just as in the era of the kings. The events which happened under the kings, inasmuch as they fall within larger periods of time, could be extended or compressed; it is therefore quite a natural illusion to consider as better authenticated the subsequent times in which year by year is counted, and private persons only appear as the actors. Yet the age of uncertainty reaches much lower down. The poem, with which we have now to do, goes as far as the battle at the Regillus; in the legend of Coriolanus there again begins a distinct poem. In the Fasti there are the greatest discrepancies. In the first thirty years, there are wanting in Livy three pairs of consuls given by Dionysius. With regard to one of these, Livy seems to have found a gap in the Fasti: those copies which have not these gaps are interpolated. The two other pairs, Lartius and Herminius, are nothing more than subordinate characters which are mentioned along with the heroes. Men felt the necessity of enlarging the Fasti, because they did not suffice for the number which had been calculated; and so they forged consulships, not, however, laying hold of names at pleasure, but taking them from extinct houses and from second-rate heroes, and these they put in between the consulships of the Valerii, in order to disguise the fact of their series being unbroken. We have therefore free room for much conjecture upon other subjects also. Of the Horatii, we know from Dionysius that they belonged to the _gentes minores_, so that we have again one of the Luceres to supply the place of Collatinus; it is therefore my conjecture that alternate pairs, first one of the Ramnes and Tities, and then one of the Luceres and a plebeian, were set to preside over the state. Yet we cannot investigate this any further. Now if Valerius was not the colleague of Brutus, all that is told of him falls to the ground. Valerius Poplicola, it is stated, did not after the death of Brutus choose any successor at first. He is said to have built a stone house on the Velia. The temple of the Penates, falsely called the temple of Romulus, lies at the foot of a steep hill, the Velia: on the top, where the temples of Venus and of Roma and the arch of Titus stand, is _summa Velia_; the temple of Romulus is _infima Velia_. The people, or rather, the sovereign citizens, murmured at the building of that house of stone; on which Valerius had it pulled down during the night, and summoning the people, that is to say, the _concilium_ of the curies, made his appearance