And I know not whether by fencing it on every side to excess, even in the most trivial matters, they may not have exceeded bounds.

For when there was nothing else to offend, the name of one of the consuls became an object of dislike to the state.

"That the Tarquinii had been too much habituated to sovereignty; Priscus first commenced; that Servius Tullus reigned next; that though an interval thus intervened, that Tarquinius Superbus, not losing sight of the kingdom as the property of another, had reclaimed it by crime and violence, as the hereditary right of his family.

That Superbus being expelled, the government was in the hands of Collatinus: that the Tarquinii knew not how to live in a private station; the name pleased them not; that it was dangerous to liberty."-- Such discourses were at first gradually circulated through the entire state by persons sounding their dispositions; and the people, now excited by jealousy, Brutus convenes to a meeting.

There first of all he recites the people's oath: "that they would suffer no one to be king, nor any thing to be in Rome whence danger might result to liberty.