and was
beginning to tell the patricians that this would be the ruin of their
greatness, when Servius came in and, standing on the steps of the
doorway, ordered him to come down. Tarquin sprang on the old man and
hurled him backward, so that the fall killed him, and his body was left
in the street. The wicked Tullia, wanting to know how her husband had
sped, came out in her chariot on that road. The horses gave back before
the corpse. She asked what was in their way; the slave who drove her
told her it was the king's body. "Drive on," she said. The horrid deed
caused the street to be known ever after as "Sceleratus," or the wicked.
But it was the plebeians who mourned for Servius; the patricians in
their anger made Tarquin king, but found him a very hard and cruel
master, so that he is generally called Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin
the proud. In his time the Sybil of Cumae, the same wondrous maiden of
deep wisdom who had guided AEneas to the realms of Pluto, came, bringing
nine books of prophecies of the history of Rome, and offered them to him
at a price which he thought too high, and refused. She went away,
destroyed three, and brought back the other six, asking for them double
the price of the whole. He refused. She burnt three more, and brought
him the last three with the price again doubled, because the fewer they
were, the more precious. He bought them at last, and placed them in the
Capitol, whence they were now and then taken to be consulted as oracles.

[Illustration: SYBIL'S CAVE.]

Rome was at war with the city of Gabii, and as the city was not to be
subdued by force, Tarquin tried treachery. His eldest son, Sextus
Tarquinius, fled to Gabii, complaining of ill-usage of his father, and
showing marks of a severe scourging. The Gabians believed him, and he
was soon so much trusted by them as to have the whole command of the
army and manage everything in the city. Then he sent a messenger to his
father to ask what he was to do next. Tarquin was walking through a
cornfield. He made no answer in words, but with a switch cut off the
heads of all the poppies and taller stalks of corn, and bade the
messenger tell Sextus what he had seen. Sextus understood, and
contrived to get all the chief men of Gabii exiled or put to death, and
without them the city fell an easy prey to the Romans.

Tarquin sent his two younger sons and their cousin to consult the oracle
at Delphi, and with them went Lucius Junius, who was cal