Aulus told the Romans how he had prayed to Castor and Pollux, the
divine twins, and said that it could be none but they who had broken so
fiercely into the enemy's camp, and had borne the news of victory with
more than mortal speed to Rome. So he built the temple he had vowed to
the hero gods, and gave there rich offerings as the rewards he had
promised to the two who should first enter the camp of the foe.

Thus ended the hopes of King Tarquin, against whom the gods had taken
arms. His sons and all his family slain, he was left ruined and
hopeless, and retired to the city of Cumae, whence formerly the Sibyl had
come to his court. Here he died, and thus passed away the last of the
Roman kings.

_THE REVOLT OF THE PEOPLE._

The overthrow of the kings of Rome did not relieve the people from all
their oppression. The inhabitants of that city had long been divided
into two great classes, the Patricians, or nobles, and the Plebeians, or
common people, and the former held in their hand nearly all the wealth
and power of the state. The senate, the law-making body, were all
Patricians; the consuls, the executors of the law, were chosen from
their ranks; and the Plebeians were left with few rights and little
protection.

It was through the avarice of money-lending nobles that the people were
chiefly oppressed. There were no laws limiting the rate of interest, and
the rich lent to the poor at extravagant rates of usury. The interest,
when not paid, was added to the debt, so that in time it became
impossible for many debtors to pay.

And the laws against debtors had become terribly severe. They might,
with all their families, be held as slaves. Or if the debtor refused to
sell himself to his creditor, and still could not pay his debt, he might
be imprisoned in fetters for sixty days. At the end of that time, if no
friend had paid his debt, he could be put to death, or sold as a slave
into a foreign state. If there were several creditors, they could
actually cut his body to pieces, each taking a piece proportional in
size to his claim.

This cruel severity was more than any people could long endure. It led
to a revolution in Rome. In the year 495 B.C., fifteen years after the
Tarquins had been expelled, a poor debtor, who had fought valiantly in
the wars, broke from his prison, and--with his clothes in tatters and
chains clanking upon his limbs--appealed eloquently to the people in the
Forum, and showed them on his e