with which the gods had surrounded his head in his youth arouse him to
action. "The kingdom is yours!" she exclaimed; "if you have no plans of
your own, then follow mine!" For several days the king's death was
concealed, and Servius took his place on the throne, deciding some
cases, and in regard to others pretending that he would consult
Tarquinius (B.C. 578). Thus he made the senate and the people
accustomed to seeing him at the head of affairs, and when the actual
fact was allowed to transpire, Servius took possession of the kingdom
with the consent of the senate, but without that of the people, which
he did not ask. This was the first king who ascended the throne without
the suffrages of the Populus Romanus. The sons of Ancus went into
banishment, and the royal power, which had passed from the Romans to
the Etruscans, now fell into the hands of a man of unknown citizenship,
though he has been described as a native of Corniculum, one of the
mountain towns to the northeast of Rome, which is never heard of
excepting in connection with this reign.




IV.

THE RISE OF THE COMMONS.



Whatever may have been the origin of the new king, he was evidently not
of the ruling class, the Populus Romanus, and for this reason his
sympathies were naturally with the Plebeians, or, as they would now be
called, the Commons. The long reign of Servius was marked by the