Page:The history of Rome. Translated with the author's sanction and additions.djvu/276

256 ever afterwards was regarded in Rome; and above all by the enactment that the "king for sacrifice" (rex sacrorum)—whom they considered it their duty to create that the gods might not miss their accustomed mediator—should be disqualified from holding any further office, so that this official was at once the first in rank and the least in power of all the Roman magistrates. Along with the last king all the members of his gens were banished—a proof how close at that time the gentile ties still were. The Tarquinii transferred themselves to Cære, perhaps their ancient home (P. 132), where their family tomb has recently been discovered. In the room of one president holding office for life two annual rulers now were placed at the head of the Roman community.

This is all that can be looked upon as historically certain in reference to this important event. It may easily be conceived that in a great community with extensive dominions like the Roman, the royal power, particularly when it had been in the same family for several generations, would be more capable of resistance, and the struggle would thus be keener, than in smaller states. There is, however, no certain indication of foreign states mingling in the struggle. The great war with Etruria (which, moreover, has been placed so close upon the expulsion of the Tarquins only perhaps in consequence of chronological confusion in the Roman annals) cannot be regarded as an intervention of Etruria in favour of a countryman who had been injured in Rome, for the very sufficient reason that the Etruscans, notwithstanding their complete victory, neither restored the Roman monarchy, nor even brought back the Tarquinian gens.