way of your liberty, Romans; the Velian mount shall be secure to you. I
will not only bring down my house into the plain, but I will build it
beneath the hill, that you may dwell above me a suspected citizen. Let
those build on the Velian mount to whom liberty is more securely
intrusted than to P. Valerius." Immediately all the materials were
brought down to the foot of the Velian mount, and the house was built at
the foot of the hill where the temple of Victory now stands.
[Footnote 70: _Uno plus Tuscorum._ ?? ??? p?e???? ?? t? µ??? te????as?
???????? ? ??µa???.]
[Footnote 71: _A year_, scil. of ten months.]
8. After this laws were passed, which not only cleared him of all
suspicions of aiming at the regal power, but had so contrary a tendency,
that they made him popular. From thence he was surnamed Poplicola. Above
all, the laws regarding an appeal to the people against the magistrates,
and that devoting the life and property of any one who should form a
design of assuming regal authority, were grateful to the people. And
after he had passed these while sole consul, so that the merit in them
was exclusively his own, he then held an assembly for the election of a
new colleague. Sp. Lucretius was elected consul, who being very old, and
his strength being inadequate to discharge the consular duties, dies in
a few days. M. Horatius Pulvillus was substituted in the room of
Lucretius. In some old writers I find no mention of Lucretius as consul;
they place Horatius immediately after Brutus. I believe that, because no
important event signalized his consulate, it has been unnoticed.
Jupiter's temple in the Capitol had not yet been dedicated; the consuls
Valerius and Horatius cast lots which should dedicate it. It fell by lot
to Horatius. Publicola departed to the war of the Veientians. The
friends of Valerius were more annoyed than they should have been, that
the dedication of so celebrated a temple should be given to
Horatius.[72] Having endeavoured by every means to prevent that, when
all other attempts had been tried in vain, when the consul was now
holding the door-post during his offering of prayer to the gods, they
suddenly announce to him the shocking intelligence that his son was
dead, and that his family being defiled[73] he could not dedicate the
temple. Whether he did not believe the fact, or possessed such great
firmness of mind, is neither handed down for certain, nor is a
conjecture easy. Diverted from his purpose at this intelligence in no
other way than to order that the body should be buried,[74] he goes
through the prayer, and dedicates the temple. These were the
transactions at home and abroad the first year after the expulsion of
the kings. After this P. Valerius, a second time, and Titus Lucretius,
were elected consuls.
[Footnote 72: The Horatii being of the _minores patres_. Nieb. i. p.
533.]
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