The Story of Rome, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Augustus, Told to Boys and GirlsMacgregor, Mary
History
The Story of Rome, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Augustus, Told to Boys and Girls
Macgregor, Mary
Rome -- History -- Juvenile literature
The city which Romulus had built on the Palatine had long ago become
too small for the Romans. Little by little, cities had grown up on
the neighbouring hills, and now Servius was able to enclose all the
seven hills of Rome within the city, building around her a great wall
of stone. This wall was called after the king the ‘Servian Wall,’ and
so strongly was it built that it was still standing in the days of
Augustus. Beyond the wall a deep moat was then dug, a hundred feet in
breadth.
Having thus strengthened the city, Servius divided it into four
regions, while the people were arranged in numerous tribes.
Should a citizen be wanted to appear before the king or the Senate, it
was then an easy task to find the tribe to which he belonged and the
region in which he dwelt.
Servius also made a law which pleased the Romans well, called an
ordinance of the king.
This ordinance forbade the nobles to oppress the poor. It also decreed
that, however lowly the birth of a Roman citizen, if he became rich he
might hold positions of power in the State. This encouraged the poor
man to be industrious, for if he could but gain wealth there was no
ambition which he might not be able to satisfy.
But while the ordinance pleased the common people, it displeased the
nobles, who had no wish to see the plebeians raised to positions which
until now had been sacred to them and to their sons. They bore Servius
no good will for passing this new law.
Trouble, too, was threatening the king through his two daughters, both
of whom, as the Roman custom was, were named Tullia.
But although their names were the same, their natures were as different
as summer is different from winter.
Tullia, the elder, was wicked and ambitious; Tullia, the younger, good
and gentle.
Servius determined to marry his daughters to the sons of King
Tarquinius, whose kindness had placed him on the throne.
The princes, as the princesses, were of strangely different natures.
Lucius was proud, his temper violent; while Aruns was humble and
good-natured.
Now the king thought that if the gentle Tullia married Lucius, he would
become a better man; while he hoped that if his ambitious daughter
married Aruns she would learn from him the grace of humility.
But Servius made a great mistake when he married his daughters. For
before long Lucius hated his quiet wife, and killed both her and his
brother Aruns, so that he and Tullia the elder might be free to marry
each other.
No sooner had Lucius Tarquinius married Tullia, than, encouraged by
her, he joined the discontented nobles, who hated Servius.
Day by day Lucius grew more bold, more rude to Servius, and at length
he put on the royal robes and sat on the king’s seat in the Senate
house, unrebuked by the nobles.
Servius was now no longer young, but when he heard how Lucius had
dared to behave he went at once to the door of the Senate house, and
bade the prince come down from the throne, and lay aside the royal
robes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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