g you depend
on so mere a trifle? Does your confidence in me rest on such slight
foundations, that it matters more where I am than what I am? The
house of Publius Valerius shall not stand in the way of your liberty,
Quirites; the Velian Mount shall be secure to you. I will not only
bring down my house into the plain, but will build it beneath the
hill, that you may dwell above me, the suspected citizen. Let those
build on the Velian Mount, to whom liberty can be more safely
intrusted than to Publius Valerius." Immediately all the materials
were brought down to the foot of the Velian Mount, and the house was
built at the foot of the hill, where the Temple of Vica Pota[7] now
stands.

After this laws were proposed by the consul, such as not only freed
him from all suspicion of aiming at regal power, but had so contrary
a tendency, that they even made him popular. At this time he was
surnamed Publicola. Above all, the laws regarding an appeal to the
people against the magistrates, and declaring accursed the life and
property of any one who should have formed the design of seizing regal
authority,[8] were welcome to the people. Having passed these laws
while sole consul, so that the merit of them might be exclusively his
own, he then held an assembly for the election of a new colleague.
Spurius Lucretius was elected consul, who, owing to his great age, and
his strength being inadequate to discharge the consular duties, died
within a few days. Marcus Horatius Pulvillus was chosen in the room of
Lucretius. In some ancient authorities I find no mention of Lucretius
as consul; they place Horatius immediately after Brutus. My own belief
is that, because no important event signalized his consulate, all
record of it has been lost. The Temple of Jupiter on the Capitol had
not yet been dedicated; the conuls Valerius and Horatius cast lots
which should dedicate it. The duty fell by lot to Horatius. Publicola
departed to conduct the war against the Veientines. The friends of
Valerius were more annoyed than the circumstances demanded that the
dedication of so celebrated a temple was given to Horatius. Having
endeavoured by every means to prevent it, when all other attempts had
been tried and failed, at the moment when the consul was holding the
door-post during his offering of prayer to the gods, they suddenly
announced to him the startling intelligence that his son was dead, and
that, while his family was polluted by death, he could