me in her chariot through throngs that followed her with threats
and curses. Brutus, perhaps with the crimsoned knife still in his hand,
bade the young men to follow him, and set off in haste to Ardea, to
spread through the army the story of the deed of crime and blood.

Meanwhile, Tarquin had been told of the revolt, and was hurrying to Rome
to put it down. Brutus turned aside from the road that he might not meet
him, and hastened on to the camp, where the story of the revolt and its
cause was told the soldiers. On hearing the story the whole army broke
into a tumult of indignation, drove the king's sons from the camp, and
demanded to be led to Rome. The siege of Ardea was at once abandoned and
the backward march began.

Meanwhile, Tarquin had reached the city, but only to find the gates
closed against him and stern men on the walls. "You cannot enter here,"
they cried. "You are banished from Rome, you and all of yours, and shall
never set foot within its walls again. And you are the last of our
kings. No man after you shall ever call himself king of Rome."

Just in what threats, promises, and persuasions Tarquin indulged we do
not know. But the men on the walls were not to be moved by threats or
promises, and he was obliged to take himself away, a crownless wanderer.
As for Sextus, to whom all the trouble was due, some say that he was
killed in a town whose people he had betrayed, while others say that he
was slain in battle while his father was fighting to regain his throne.

But this is certain, no king ever reigned in Rome again. The people,
talking among each other, said, "Let us follow the wise laws of good
King Servius. He bade us to meet in our centuries (or hundreds) and to
choose two men year by year to govern us, instead of a king. This let us
do, as Servius would have done himself had he not been basely murdered."

So the centuries of the people met in the Campus Martius (Field of
Mars), and there chose two men,--Brutus, the leader in the revolution,
and Lucius Tarquin, the husband of the fated Lucretia. These officials
were afterwards called Consuls, and were given ruling power in Rome.
But they had to lay down their office at the end of the year and be
succeeded by two others elected in their stead. The people, however,
were afraid of the very name of Tarquin, and in electing Lucius to the
consulate it seemed as if they had put a new Tarquin on the throne. So
they prayed him to leave the city; and, tak