Then Tarquinius, commencing his invectives against his immediate ancestors: "that a slave, and born of a slave, after the untimely death of his parent, without an interregnum being adopted, as on former occasions, without any comitia (being held), without the suffrages of the people, or the sanction of the fathers, he had taken possession of the kingdom as the gift of a woman.

That so born, so created king, ever a favourer of the most degraded class, to which he himself belongs, through a hatred of the high station of others, he had taken their land from the leading men of the state and divided it among the very meanest; that he had laid all the burdens, which were formerly common, on the chief members of the community; that he had instituted the census, in order that the fortune of the wealthier citizens might be conspicuous to (excite) public envy, and that all was prepared whence he might bestow largesses on the most needy, whenever he might please." [Footnote 59: _Younger families_.

These had been brought into the senate, as we have seen, by Tarquinius Priscus, and consequently favoured the Tarquinian interest.Nieb.i.p.

372.] 48.

When Servius, aroused by the alarming announcement, came in during this harangue, immediately from the porch of the senate-house, he says with a loud voice, "What means this, Tarquin?
by what audacity hast thou dared to summon the fathers, while I am still alive?
or to sit on my throne ?" To this, when he fiercely replied "that he, the son of a king, occupied the throne of his father, a much fitter successor to the throne than a slave; that he (Servius) had insulted his masters full long enough by his arbitrary shuffling," a shout arises from the partisans of both, and a rush of the people into the senate-house took place, and it became evident that whoever came off victor would have the throne.