The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

FROM THE ACCESSION OF TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS TO THE BANISHMENT
OF THE ROYAL FAMILY, AND THE ABOLITION OF THE KINGLY DIGNITY.

arquinius had ascended the throne more by the force of his fists, than by the strength of his arms; for he had aimed a blow, not only at the crown, but at the face of the unhappy sovereign who had preceded him. Carrying his hostility beyond the grave, Tarquinius refused to bury his animosity, or to grant his victim a funeral. The upstart nature of the new king gained for him the nickname of Superbus, or the proud, though he had as little to be proud of as some of the most contemptible characters in history. He, however, asserted himself with so much audacity, that the people were completely overawed by his pretensions, and many made away with themselves, to insure their lives, by a sort of Irish policy, against Tarquin's violence. He took away the privileges of the plebeians, and sent many to the scaffold, by employing them as common bricklayers; but there were several who preferred laying violent hands on themselves, to laying a single brick of the magnificent buildings which he planned, in the hope, perhaps, that the splendour of the constructions of his reign would induce posterity to place the best construction on his character.

He coolly assumed the whole administration of the law, and added the office of executioner to that of judge, while he combined with both the character of a criminal, by seizing the property of all those whom he punished, and thus adding robbery to violence. To prevent the possibility of a majority against him in the Senate, he cut off several of the heads of that body; and though he never condescended to submit to the Assembly a single question, he treated the unhappy members as if they had much to answer for.

Finding the continued ill-treatment of his own people getting rather monotonous, he sought the pleasures of variety, by harassing the Volscians, whom he robbed of a sufficient sum to enable him to commence a temple to Jupiter. Bricks and mortar soon ran up above the estimated cost; and Tarquin had scarcely built the lower floor, when he came to the old story of shortness of funds, which he supplied by making the people pay as well as work, and taxing at once their time and their pockets. This temple was on the Capitoline Hill; and it is said that in digging the foundations the workmen hit upon a freshly-bleeding human head, which, of course, must be regarded as an idle tale; nor would it be right for history to hold an elaborate inquest on this head, since it would be impossible to find a verdict without having first found the body. The augur, who, according to the legend, was present on the occasion, is reported to have made a post-mortem examination of the head, which he identified as that of one Tolus; but who Tolus was, or whether he ever was at all, we are told nothing on any competent authority. The augur, whose duty it was to be ready to interpret anything that turned up, no sooner saw the head, than putting upon it the best face he could, he declared it to be a sign that Rome was destined to be the head of the world—an obvious piece of fulsome adulation, worthy of being offered to the flattest of flats, by one disposed to flatter. The temple itself was a great fact, notwithstanding the numerous fictions that are told concerning it; and there is little doubt that though, as some say, Tarquinius Priscus (the old one) may have begun it, Tarquinius Superbus put to it the finishing touch, and surmounted it with a chariot and four in baked clay, which, had it been preserved to this day, would have been one of the most interesting of Potter's Antiquities.

Tarquinius Superbus has the Sibylline Books valued.

A curious anecdote, connected with the bookselling business of the period, has been handed down to us; and it is sufficiently interesting to be handed on to the readers of this work, who are at liberty either to take it up, or to set it down at its real value. It is said that Tarquin was waited upon by a female, who brought with her nine books, and, expressing herself willing to do business, asked three hundred pieces of gold for the entire set of volumes. The King pooh-poohed the proposition, on the ground of the exorbitant price, and desired her to be off with the books, when she solemnly advised him not to off with the bargain. Finding him obstinate, the woman, who was, it seems, a sibyl, and eked out her bookseller's profits by the business of a prophetess, threw into the flames three of the volumes, which, assuming, for a few minutes, the aspect of illuminated copies, soon left no traces—not even a spark—of any genius by which they might have been inspired. The sibyl, soon after, paid a second visit to Tarquin, bringing with her the six remaining volumes; and having asked in vain the same sum for the imperfect copy as she had done for the whole work, she went through a sort of second edition of Burns, by throwing three more of her books into the fire. To the surprise of Tarquin, she appeared a third time with her stock of books, now reduced to three; and upon the King's observing to her "What do you want for these?" she replied that three hundred pieces of gold was her price; that she made no abatement; that if the books were not instantly bought, they would speedily be converted into light literature, and being condensed into one thick volume of smoke, would, of course, take their final leaves of the royal residence. The King, astonished at the woman's pertinacity, resolved at last to send for a valuer, to look at the books, who declared them to be well worth the money. They contained a variety of remedies for diseases, directions for preparing sacrifices, and other interesting matter, with a collection of the oracles of Cumæ, by way of appendix, so that the volumes formed a sort of encyclopædia, embracing the advantages of a Cookery Book, a Buchan's Domestic Medicine, and a Complete Fortune-teller. Tarquin[10] became the purchaser of these three very odd volumes, which seem to have been estimated less according to their intrinsic value, than the price they had brought; and they were carefully put away in the Temple library.