from old Trojan, Latin, or Sabine families, were
called Patricians--from _pater_, a father--because they were fathers of
the people; and the other families were called Plebeian, from _plebs_,
the people. The patricians formed the Senate or Council of Government,
and rode on horseback in war, while the plebeians fought on foot. They
had spears, round shields, and short pointed swords, which cut on each
side of the blade. Tullus is said to have fixed how many men of each
tribe should be called out to war. He also walled in the city again with
a wall five miles round; and he made many fixed laws, one being that
when a man was in debt his goods might be seized, but he himself might
not be made a slave. He was the great friend of the plebeians, and first
established the rule that a new law of the Senate could not be made
without the consent of the Comitia, or whole free people.

The Sabines and Romans were still striving for the mastery, and a
husbandman among the Sabines had a wonderfully beautiful cow. An oracle
declared that the man who sacrificed this cow to Diana upon the Aventine
Hill would secure the chief power to his nation. The Sabine drove the
cow to Rome, and was going to kill her, when a crafty Roman priest told
him that he must first wash his hands in the Tiber, and while he was
gone sacrificed the cow himself, and by this trick secured the rule to
Rome. The great horns of the cow were long after shown in the temple of
Diana on the Aventine, where Romans, Sabines, and Latins every year
joined in a great sacrifice.

The two daughters of Servius were married to their cousins, the two
young Tarquins. In each pair there was a fierce and a gentle one. The
fierce Tullia was the wife of the gentle Aruns Tarquin; the gentle Tulla
had married the proud Lucius Tarquin. Aruns' wife tried to persuade her
husband to seize the throne that had belonged to his father, and when he
would not listen to her, she agreed with his brother Lucius that, while
he murdered her sister, she should kill his brother, and then that they
should marry. The horrid deed was carried out, and old Servius, seeing
what a wicked pair were likely to come after him, began to consider with
the Senate whether it would not be better to have two consuls or
magistrates chosen every year than a king. This made Lucius Tarquin the
more furious, and going to the Senate, where the patricians hated the
king as the friend of the plebeians, he stood upon the throne,