LEGENDS OF THE SEVEN KINGS OF ROME 19
himself upon the throne and gave judgment in some cases, while in others he pretended to consult the king. By the time that the king's death was known, Servius had gained so much power that he easily held the kingdom . He was just and kind to his people . He never forgot that his mother had been a slave, and he was so strong a friend to the poorer folk that it is no wonder they called him the good king Servius .
In some ways the reign of Servius Tullius was almost a revolution . First of all , he planned for a larger army . It had always been regarded as an honor to defend the state , and therefore only patricians had been privileged to serve as sol diers. Servius , however, obliged all landowners to join the army. He divided them, not into patricians and plebeians , but into five classes according to the amount of land which they held . The largest landowners were re quired to provide themselves with horses to form the cavalry ; the next largest had to obtain full suits of ar mor , helmets, coats of mail , shields , and greaves , or protectors for the legs . The poorer people provided less armor . The patricians as a class were more wealthy than the ple beians ; in general, therefore, the former continued to serve as cav alry, while the latter made up the infantry.
To make it easier to form the army, Servius paid no at tention to the old division of the patricians into three tribes ;
ROMAN SOLDIER WITH SCALE ARMOR
20 STORY OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE
instead, he divided the city into four wards, or districts, classing all landowners living in one district, whether patri cians or plebeians , as of one tribe.
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Servius built a wall entirely around the city , parts of which remain to this day . He also established the census , a list of the people of the state , their children , and the amount of their property . This census was taken every five years. It closed with a sacrifice to the gods called a lustrum , or purifica tion , and soon the period of five years came to be called a lus trum .
The place where the soldiers used to come together to drill was a plain just outside the walls of the city called the Cam pus Martius, or Field of Mars. The troops were divided into groups of one hun dred , and as the Latin word for hundred is centum , the meeting of these groups came to be called the comi tia cen - tu - ri - a'ta , or as sembly of the centuries. Servius was loved by his people, but there was one man whom he feared , Lu
cius , the son of Tarquinius . Lucius had married the daughter of Servius ; but she was a wicked woman and plotted that her
TULLIA DRIVING OVER THE BODY OF HER FATHER
LEGENDS OF THE SEVEN KINGS OF ROME 21
husband should seize her father's crown . One day Lucius went in royal robes to the forum , or public square , and de clared that he , and not the son of a slave , was the rightful king . He caught hold of the aged Servius and flung him down the steps of the senate house , and then sent men to murder him . The wicked daughter of Servius heard what had been done , and she hastened to the forum to salute her husband as king . He bade her withdraw from such a tumult , and she obeyed , ordering her charioteer to drive her chariot over the bleeding body of her father lying in the road .
So it was that a sec ond Lucius Tarquinius became king . He was
( From a Statue in Naples ) so cruel and haughty that the people called him Tarquinius Su-per'bus, or Tarquin the Proud, and if he had not always kept a bodyguard around him , some one would surely have murdered him . One day when he was at the height of his power , a strange woman came before him with nine books , and asked him to buy them. Her price was so high that he only laughed scornfully . She went away and burned three of the books , then returned
MOUNTED OFFICER
