in history, reigned as a tyrant and oppressor, while his
wife was viewed with horror by all virtuous matrons. At length the
people rose against a base deed of the tyrant's son, and the wicked
Tullia fled in terror from her house. No one sought to stop her in her
flight; but all, men and women alike, cursed her as she passed, and
prayed that the furies of her father's blood might take revenge for her
dreadful deed.

She never saw Rome again. Tarquin sought long to regain his crown, but
in vain, and the wicked usurpers died in exile. No king ever again ruled
over the Romans. Tarquin's tyranny had given the people enough of kings,
and the law of good Servius Tullius was at last carried out.

_THE BOOKS OF THE SIBYL._

While Tarquin the Proud was king a strange thing happened at Rome. One
day an unknown woman came to the king, bearing in her arms nine books,
which she offered to sell to him at a certain price. She told him that
they contained the prophecies of the Sibyl of Cumae, and that from them
might be learned the destiny of Rome and the way to carry out this
destiny.

But the price she asked for her books seemed to the king exorbitant, and
he refused to buy them, whereupon the woman went away from the palace
and burned three of the volumes. She then returned with six only and
offered them to the king, but demanded the same price for the six as she
had before done for the nine. King Tarquin heard this demand with
laughter and mockery, and again refused to buy. The woman once more left
the palace, and burned three more of the books.

To the king's astonishment his strange visitor soon returned, bearing
the three books that remained. On being asked their price, she named the
same sum as she had demanded for the six and the nine. This was ceasing
to be matter for mockery. There might be some important mystery
concealed behind this strange demand. The king sent for the augurs of
the court, told them what had happened, and asked what he should do.
They told him that he had done very wrong. In refusing the books he had
refused a gift of the gods. By all means he must buy the books that were
left. He bought them, therefore, at the Sibyl's price. As for the woman,
she was never seen again.

The books were placed in a chest of stone, and kept underground in the
great temple which his father had begun on the Capitoline Hill, and
which he had completed. Two men were appointed to guard them, who were
called the two