34. In the reign of Ancus, Lucumo, a rich and enterprising man, came to
settle at Rome, prompted chiefly by the desire and hope of obtaining
great preferment there, which he had no means of attaining at Tarquinii
(for there also he was descended from an alien stock). He was the son of
Demaratus, a Corinthian, who, flying his country for sedition, had
happened to settle at Tarquinii, and having married a wife there, had
two sons by her. Their names were [48]Lucumo and Aruns. Lucumo survived
his father, and became heir to all his property. Aruns died before his
father, leaving a wife pregnant. The father did not long survive the
son, and as he, not knowing that his daughter-in-law was pregnant, died
without taking any notice of his grandchild in his will, to the boy that
was born after the death of his grandfather, without having any share in
his fortune, the name of Egerius was given on account of his poverty.
And when his wealth already inspired Lucumo, on the other hand, the heir
of all his father's wealth, with elevated notions, Tanaquil, whom he
married, further increased such feeling, she being descended from a very
high family, and one who would not readily brook the condition into
which she had married to be inferior to that in which she had been born.
As the Etrurians despised Lucumo, because sprung from a foreign exile,
she could not bear the affront, and regardless of the innate love of her
native country, provided she might see her husband advanced to honours,
she formed the determination to leave Tarquinii. Rome seemed
particularly suited for her purpose. In this state, lately founded,
where all nobility is recent and the result of merit, there would be
room for her husband, a man of courage and activity. Tatius a Sabine had
been king of Rome: Numa had been sent for from Cures to reign there:
Ancus was sprung from a Sabine mother, and rested his nobility on the
single statue of Numa. She easily persuades him, as being ambitious of
honours, and one to whom Tarquinii was his country only on the mother's
side. Accordingly, removing their effects they set out together for
Rome. They happened to have reached the Janiculum; there, as he sat in
the chariot with his wife, an eagle, suspended on her wings, gently
stooping, takes off his cap, and flying round the chariot with loud
screams, as if she had been sent from heaven for the very purpose,
orderly replaced it on his head, and then flew aloft. Tanaquil is said
to have received this omen with great joy, being a woman well skilled,
as the Etrurians generally are, in celestial prodigies, and embracing
her husband, bids him hope for high and elevated fortune: that such bird
had come from such a quarter of the heavens, and the messenger of such a
god: that it had exhibited the omen around the highest part of man: that
it had lifted the ornament placed on the head of man, to restore it to
the same, by direction of the gods. Carrying with them these hopes and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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