§1.56.1intentus perficiendo templo fabris undique ex Etruria accitis non pecunia solum ad id publica est usus, sed operis etiam ex plebe.
Intent on completing the temple, having summoned craftsmen from all over Etruria, he used for this purpose not only public money but also labor from the common people.
qui cum haud parvus et ipse militiae adderetur labor, minus tamen plebs gravabatur se templa deum exaedificare manibus suis, quam postquam §1.56.2et ad alia ut specie minora sic laboris aliquanto maioris traducebantur opera, foros in circo faciendos cloacamque maximam, receptaculum omnium purgamentorum urbis, sub terra agendam; quibus duobus operibus vix nova haec magnificentia quicquam adaequare potuit.
Although this labor was added as a not inconsiderable burden of its own to their military service, the common people were nevertheless less unwilling to build the temples of the gods with their own hands than they were after, they were transferred to other works which, though apparently smaller, required considerably greater labor, such as making the seats in the circus and constructing underground the Great Sewer, the receptacle of all the city's waste; to which two works this modern magnificence has scarcely been able to produce anything comparable.
§1.56.3his laboribus exercita plebe, quia et urbi multitudinem, ubi usus non esset, oneri rebatur esse, et colonis mittendis occupari latius imperii fines volebat, Signiam Circeiosque colonos misit, praesidia urbi futura terra marique.
Having employed the common people in these labors, because the king thought that a multitude was a burden to the city when there was no use for them, and because he wished the boundaries of the empire to be occupied more widely by sending colonists, he sent colonists to Signia and Circeii, to serve as outposts for the city by land and sea.
haec agenti portentum terribile visum: §1.56.4anguis ex columna lignea elapsus cum terrorem fugamque regia fecisset, ipsius regis non tam subito pavore perculit pectus, quam anxiis inplevit curis.
While he was doing these things, a terrible portent appeared: a snake, having slipped out of a wooden column, created terror and flight in the palace, and struck the breast of the king himself not so much with sudden fear as it filled him with anxious cares.
§1.56.5itaque cum ad publica prodigia Etrusci tantum vates adhiberentur, hoc velut domestico exterritus visu Delphos ad maxime inclitum in terris oraculum mittere statuit; §1.56.6neque responsa sortium ulli alii committere ausus duos filios per ignotas ea tempestate terras, ignotiora maria in Graeciam misit.
Therefore, although only Etruscan prophets were employed for public prodigies, terrified by this as if by a domestic sight, he decided to send to Delphi, to the most famous oracle on earth; and not daring to entrust the answers of the lots to any other, he sent his two sons to Greece through lands unknown at that time, and through even more unknown seas.
§1.56.7Titus et Arruns profecti.
Titus and Arruns set out.
comes iis additus L. Iunius Brutus, Tarquinia sorore regis natus, iuvenis longe alius ingenio, quam cuius simulationem induerat.
Added to them as a companion was L. Junius Brutus, born of Tarquinia, the sister of the king, a young man of a character far different from that whose simulation he had assumed.
is cum primores civitatis, in quibus fratrem suum ab avunculo interfectum audisset, neque in animo suo quicquam regi timendum neque in fortuna concupiscendum relinquere statuit contemptuque tutus esse, ubi in iure parum praesidii esset.
When he heard that the leading men of the state, among whom was his own brother, had been killed by his uncle, he decided to leave nothing in his mind for the king to fear, nor anything in his fortune to be coveted, and to be safe through contempt, where there was too little protection in the law.
§1.56.8ergo ex industria factus ad imitationem stultitiae cum se suaque praedae esse regi sineret, Bruti quoque haud abnuit cognomen, ut sub eius obtentu cognominis liberator ille populi Romani animus latens opperiretur tempora sua.
Therefore, having intentionally adapted himself to the imitation of foolishness, while he allowed himself and his possessions to be a prey to the king, he did not refuse the cognomen of Brutus, so that under the cover of that cognomen, that mind which was to be the liberator of the Roman people, remaining hidden, might await its own time.
§1.56.9is tum ab Tarquiniis ductus Delphos, ludibrium verius quam comes, aureum baculum inclusum corneo cavato ad id baculo tulisse donum Apollini dicitur, per ambages effigiem ingenii sui.
Having been conducted then by the Tarquins to Delphi, more a laughing-stock than a companion, he is said to have carried as a gift to Apollo a golden staff enclosed within a cornel-wood staff hollowed out for this purpose, a representation of his own character through a riddle.
§1.56.10quo postquam ventum est, perfectis patris mandatis cupido incessit animos iuvenum sciscitandi, ad quem eorum regnum Romanum esset venturum.
When they arrived there, after completing their father's commands, a desire seized the minds of the young men to inquire to which of them the Roman kingdom would come.
ex infimo specu vocem redditam ferunt: “imperium summum Romae habebit, qui vestrum primus, o iuvenes, osculum matri tulerit. ” §1.56.11Tarquinii, ut Sextus, qui Romae relictus fuerat, ignarus responsi expersque imperii esset rem summa ope taceri iubent; ipsi inter se, uter prior, cum Romam redissent, matri osculum daret, sorti permittunt.
They say that a voice was returned from the bottom of the cavern: "He of you, O young men, who shall first give a kiss to his mother, shall have the supreme power at Rome." The Tarquins, in order that Sextus, who had been left at Rome, might be ignorant of the response and excluded from the empire, command that the matter be kept silent with the greatest effort; they themselves leave to lot which of them, when they returned to Rome, should first give a kiss to their mother.
§1.56.12Brutus alio ratus spectare Pythicam vocem, velut si prolapsus cecidisset, terram osculo contigit, scilicet quod ea communis mater omnium mortalium esset.
Brutus, thinking that the Pythian voice pointed to something else, as if he had slipped and fallen, touched the earth with a kiss, because, of course, she was the common mother of all mortals.
§1.56.13reditum inde Romam, ubi adversus Rutulos bellum summa vi parabatur.
Thence they returned to Rome, where a war against the Rutulians was being prepared with the greatest force.