The horrid deed was carried out, and old Servius, seeing what a wicked pair were likely to come after him, began to consider with the Senate whether it would not be better to have two consuls or magistrates chosen every year than a king.

This made Lucius Tarquin the more furious, and going to the Senate, where the patricians hated the king as the friend of the plebeians, he stood upon the throne, and was beginning to tell the patricians that this would be the ruin of their greatness, when Servius came in and, standing on the steps of the doorway, ordered him to come down.

Tarquin sprang on the old man and hurled him backward, so that the fall killed him, and his body was left in the street.

The wicked Tullia, wanting to know how her husband had sped, came out in her chariot on that road.

The horses gave back before the corpse.