the partisans of both, the people rushed into the senate-house, and it
was evident that whoever came off victor would gain the throne. Then
Tarquin, forced by actual necessity to proceed to extremities, having
a decided advantage both in years and strength, seized Servius by the
waist, and having carried him out of the senate-house, hurled him
down the steps to the bottom. He then returned to the senate house
to assemble the senate. The king's officers and attendants took to
flight. The king himself, almost lifeless (when he was returning home
with his royal retinue frightened to death and had reached the top of
the Cyprian Street), was slain by those who had been sent by Tarquin,
and had overtaken him in his flight. As the act is not inconsistent
with the rest of her atrocious conduct, it is believed to have been
done by Tullia's advice. Anyhow, as is generally admitted, driving
into the forum in her chariot, unabashed by the crowd of men present,
she called her husband out of the senate-house, and was the first to
greet him, king; and when, being bidden by him to withdraw from such a
tumult, she was returning home, and had reached the top of the Cyprian
Street, where Diana's chapel lately stood, as she was turning on the
right to the Urian Hill, in order to ride up to the Esquiline, the
driver stopped terrified, and drew in his reins, and pointed out to
his mistress the body of the murdered Servius lying on the ground.
On this occasion a revolting and inhuman crime is said to have been
committed, and the place bears record of it. They call it the Wicked
Street, where Tullia, frantic and urged on by the avenging furies of
her sister and husband, is said to have driven her chariot over her
father's body, and to have carried a portion of the blood of her
murdered father on her blood-stained chariot, herself also defiled
and sprinkled with it, to her own and her husband's household gods,
through whose vengeance results corresponding with the evil beginning
of the reign were soon destined to follow. Servius Tullius reigned