Nor was Tarquin, though a tyrannical prince in peace, a despicable general in war; nay, he would have equalled his predecessors in that art, had not his [62]degeneracy in other respects likewise detracted from his merit here.

He began the war against the Volsci, which lasted two hundred years after his time, and took from them Suessa Pometia by storm; and when by the sale of the spoils he had amassed forty talents of silver and of gold, he designed such magnificence for a temple to Jupiter, as should be worthy of the king of gods and men, of the Roman empire, and of the majesty of the place itself: for the building of this temple he set apart the money arising from the spoils.

Soon after a war came upon him, more tedious than he expected, in which, having in vain attempted to storm Gabii, a city in his neighbourhood, when being repulsed from the walls all hopes of taking it by siege also was taken from him, he assailed it by fraud and stratagem, arts by no means Roman.
For when, as if the war was laid aside, he pretended to be busily taken up with laying the foundation of the temple, and with his other works in the city, Sextus, the youngest of his three sons, according to concert, fled to Gabii, complaining of the inhuman cruelty of his father, "that he had turned his tyranny from others against his own family, and was uneasy at the number of his own children, intending to make the same desolations in his own house which he had made in the senate, in order that he might leave behind him no issue, nor heir to his kingdom.

That for his own part, as he had escaped from amidst the swords and other weapons of his father, he was persuaded he could find no safety any where but among the enemies of L.Tarquin.And, that they might not be led astray, that the war, which it is now pretended has been given up, still lies in reserve, and that he would attack them when off their guard on the occurrence of an opportunity.

But if there be no refuge for suppliants among them, that he would traverse all Latium, and would apply to the Volscians, and AEquians, and Hernicians, until he should come to those who knew how to protect children from the impious and cruel persecution of parents.