2. ¶Tarquinius, when he had equipped himself sufficiently to reign over
them even if they were unwilling, first arrested the most powerful
members of the senate and next some of the rest, and put to death many
publicly, when he could bring some real charge against them, and many
besides secretly, while some he banished. Not merely because some of
them loved Tullius more than him, nor because they had family, wealth,
intelligence, and displayed conspicuous bravery and distinguished wisdom
did he destroy them, out of jealousy and out of a suspicion likewise
that their dissimilarity of character must force them to hate him, the
while he defended himself against some and anticipated the attack of
others; no, he slew all his bosom friends who had exerted themselves to
help him get the kingship no less than the rest; for he thought that
impelled by the audacity and fondness for revolution through which they
had obtained dominion for him they might equally well give it to some
one else. So he made away with the best part of the senate and of the
knights and did not appoint to those orders any one at all in place of
the men who had been destroyed: he understood that he was hated by the
entire populace and was anxious to render the classes mentioned
extremely weak through paucity of men. Yes, he even undertook to abolish
the senate altogether, since he believed that every gathering of men and
especially of chosen persons who had some pretence of prestige from
antiquity, was most hostile to a tyrant. But as he was afraid that the
multitude or else his body-guards themselves, in their capacity as
citizens, might by reason of vexation at the change in government
revolt, he refrained from doing this openly, but effected it in a
conveniently outrageous way. He failed to introduce any new member into
the senate to make up the loss, and to those who were left he
communicated nothing of importance. He called the senators together not
to help him in the administration of any important business; no, this