the hearts of men was that the father of Horatius constantly affirmed that his daughter had been rightly slain. "Nay," said he, "verily, if the young man had not slain her, I had used against him my right as a father, and had condemned him to die." Then again he besought them that they should not leave him desolate and bereaved of his children, he who but the day before had had so fair a stock. Afterwards, throwing his arms about the young man, he stretched out his hands to the spoils of the Curiatii, crying, "Will ye endure, men of Rome, to see him bound under the gallows and beaten with stripes whom ye beheld but yesterday adorned with these spoils and rejoicing in his victory? Not so. Surely the men of Alba themselves had not borne to see such a sight. Go, lictor, bind his hands, though but yesterday they won so great a dominion for the people of Rome. Go, cover the head of him that made this people free; hang him upon the accursed tree; scourge him, whether within the walls, so that thou do it among the spoils of them that he slew, or without the walls, so that it be near to the sepulchres of the champions of Alba. Whither can ye take this youth that the memorials of his valour shall not save him from so foul a punishment?" And when the people saw the tears of the old man, and bethought them also what great courage the youth had shown in danger, they could not endure to condemn him; but regarding his valour rather than the goodness of his cause, let him go free. Only, because the deed had been so manifest, a command was laid upon the father that he should make a trespass offering for his son at the public charge. Then the father, having made certain sacrifices of expiation--which are performed to this day in the house of Horatius--set up a beam across the way and covered his son's head, and led him beneath it. As for the maiden, they built her tomb of hewn stone in the place where she was slain.