Some scholars are still to be found who dispute _in toto_ the Tarquins’ historical existence. Of this ultra-sceptical school the most recent and voluminous exponent is Professor Pais of Naples[1216]. Pais accepts nearly all the views of nearly all the sceptics in so far as they are purely destructive. But the main inspiration of his unbelief is not this destructive criticism but the ease with which he finds that he can explain the growth of our narratives on the assumption that they are false[1217]. In the case of the Tarquins Pais first points out in the usual way the inconsistencies and impossibilities and reduplications[1218] in the narrative, and the uncertainties that hang over it as a whole. Then, after rejecting it as history, he accounts for it as myth. He equates Tarquinius philologically with Tarpeius[1219]. The Tarpeian rock was the slope of the Roman Capitol over which condemned criminals were hurled to meet their doom. There are passages in Varro and elsewhere that make it possible that the whole Capitol was once called the Tarpeian Mount[1220]. On the strength of them Tarquinius is explained as Tarpeius, the original guardian deity of the Roman citadel. All the stories told about Tarquin are, according to Pais, attempts to explain customs and buildings and natural features connected with the Tarpeian Mount. Hence his association with the temple on the top of the Capitol and with the quarries on its sides. Hence the stories of his cruelty and of his own violent death. Hence too we hear of Tarquinian laws: they are merely laws passed on the Mons Tarpeius or sanctioned by the god Tarpeius[1221]. I do not propose to deal in detail with these criticisms. They do not seem to me to need it. So many unquestionably historical characters would succumb to Pais’ treatment. [Sidenote: Pais’ arguments tested by applying them to Alfred the Great.] Imagine for a moment that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle had never circulated, and that the original had perished in a Danish raid. Imagine further that Asser’s life of Alfred had met with a similar fate. Both calamities might easily have happened, and if they had, king Alfred would be as easily disposed of as king Tarquin himself.