XXX. * * * * * * Plato described a state more to be desired, than to be hoped for upon the smallest scale. He did not constitute things as they might exist, but in such a manner as the nature of civil affairs might be considered. As to myself, if in any way I am able to accomplish it, with the same principles which he had in view, I will look, not into the picture and shadow of a state, but into a most powerful republic; that I may appear to touch, as it were, the true cause of every public good and evil. After these two hundred and forty years of regal government, and indeed a little more, including the interregnums, Tarquin being banished, the royal title was as odious to the Roman people, as it had been regretted after the death, or rather the disappearance of Romulus, and as much as they wanted a king then, in like manner, after the expulsion of Tarquin, they could not endure the name of one. XXXI. Under this feeling our ancestors then expelled Collatinus, who was innocent, through apprehension of his family connexions, and the other Tarquins from disgust at their names. From the same cause too P. Valerius ordered the fasces to be lowered when he began to speak before the people; and had his building materials taken to the foot of the Velia, as soon as he perceived the suspicions of the people to be raised on account of his having begun to build in a more conspicuous part of the Velia, the very place where King Tullus had dwelt. He also, in the which he greatly deserved the name of Publicola, had that law passed for the people, which was first carried in the meetings of the centuries, that no unfriendly magistrate should put to death, or flog any Roman citizen for appealing. The pontifical books however declare appeals to have existed under the kings; the augural records show it also. The twelve tables too in many laws indicate that it was lawful to appeal from every judgment and punishment. What is brought down to us by tradition, of the Decemvirs who wrote the laws, being created without any appeal, sufficiently shows that the other magistrates had not the power of judging without appeal. The law, too, which for the sake of concord passed in the consulate of Lucius Valerius Potitus, and M. Horatius Barbatus, men very justly popular; sanctioned the principle, that no magistrate should be created without appeal. Nor did the Portian laws, which are three as you know of the three Portii, contain any thing new except the confirmation of it. Publicola therefore, upon the law in favour of appeal being published, immediately ordered the axes to be taken from off the fasces, and the next day had Sp. Lucretius appointed to him as his colleague: being his superior in age, he ordered his own lictors to go to him; and first established the custom that lictors should precede each of the consuls, alternate months, lest the ensigns of command among a free people, should be as numerous as in a kingdom.