encamped round it, some of the young patricians began to dispute which
had the best wife. They agreed to put it to the test by galloping late
in the evening to look in at their homes and see what their wives were
about. Some were idling, some were visiting, some were scolding, some
were dressing, some were asleep; but at Collatia, the farm of another of
the Tarquin family, thence called Collatinus, they found his beautiful
wife Lucretia among her maidens spinning the wool of the flocks. All
agreed that she was the best of wives; but the wicked Sextus Tarquin
only wanted to steal her from her husband, and going by night to
Collatia, tried to make her desert her lord, and when she would not
listen to him he ill-treated her cruelly, and told her that he should
accuse her to her husband. She was so overwhelmed with grief and shame
that in the morning she sent for her father and husband, told them all
that that happened, and saying that she could not bear life after being
so put to shame, she drew out a dagger and stabbed herself before their
eyes--thinking, as all these heathen Romans did, that it was better to
die by one's own hand than to live in disgrace.

Lucius Brutus had gone to Collatia with his cousin, and while Collatinus
and his father-in-law stood horror-struck, he called to them to revenge
this crime. Snatching the dagger from Lucretia's breast, he galloped to
Rome, called the people together in the Forum, and, holding up the
bloody weapon in his hand, he made them a speech, asking whether they
would any longer endure such a family of tyrants. They all rose as one
man, and choosing Brutus himself and Collatinus to be their leaders, as
the consuls whom Servius Tullus had thought of making, they shut the
gates of Rome, and would not open them when Tarquin and his sons would
have returned. So ended the kingdom of Rome.

[Illustration]