his attention to one of them pleading his cause, the other slew him.

VII, 9.--Such was the end that befell Tarquinius who had ruled for
thirty-eight years. By the coöperation of Tanaquil, wife of
Tarquinius, Tullius succeeded to the kingdom of Rome. He was the child
of a certain woman named Ocrisia, the wife of Spurius Tullius, a
Latin; she had been captured in the war and chosen by Tarquinius: she
had either become pregnant at home or conceived after her capture;
both stories are current. When Tullius had reached boyhood he went to
sleep on a chair once in the daytime and a quantity of fire seemed to
leap from his head. Tarquinius, seeing it, took an active interest in
the child and on his arriving at maturity had him enrolled among the
patricians and in the senate.

The murderers of Tarquinius were arrested and his wife and Tullius
learned the plan of the plot; but instead of making Tarquinius's death
known at once, they took him up and tended him (pretending that he was
still alive), and meantime exchanged mutual pledges that Tullius
should take the sovereignty but surrender it to Tanaquil's sons when
they became men. And when the multitude ran together and raised an
outcry, Tanaquil, leaning out of an upper story, said: "Be not afraid.
My husband both lives and shall be seen by you shortly. But in order
that he may regain health at leisure and that no hindrance to business
may arise from his being incapacitated, he entrusts the management of
the public weal for the present to Tullius." These were her words and
the people not unwillingly accepted Tullius: for he was thought to be
an upright man.

So, having been granted the administration of public affairs, he
managed them for the most part according to orders supposed to emanate