Having thus far hurried forward the matter, it was not in the nature of the woman to wait patiently for death to make vacant the throne of the aged Servius. She said that she wanted a husband who would rather possess a throne than hope for it. She stimulated Lucius's courage by asking why he allowed himself to be called a prince, if he had not the spirit to take his own. She suggested that, his grandfather having been a merchant, perhaps it would be as well for him to return to Tarquinii, the original home of the family, and engage in the same peaceful occupation; which is evidence that the facile keenness of a woman's power of expression is not a development of modern education. Being thus encouraged, Lucius, as probably many another statesman has done, considered it more advisable to take the chances of public strife than to live in the certainty of domestic unrest. The time seeming propitious, he repaired with an armed band to the Senate house and seated himself on the throne. King Servius appeared, but no one thought it worth while to hinder Lucius from throwing the aged ruler down the steps of the Senate house; which he manfully did.
Tullia was the instigator of this _coup d'état_; and impatient to learn its success, she drove to the Forum, and, calling her husband from the Senate chamber, was the first to hail him as king. But Lucius commanded her to return home; and the tradition runs that as she was going thither her chariot wheels passed over the dead body of her royal father as it lay in the narrow street. More of the story of this Roman personification of filial iniquity we are not told, except that, in accordance with the inevitable rule of legendary history, she met the Nemesis of her crimes on a later day. The manner of it we shall see in the expulsion of her family from Rome.
The reign of Lucius Tarquin, surnamed Superbus on account of his extraordinary pride, was strong and tyrannous; but its effect was the aggrandizement of Rome and the increase of her power in Italy. He is credited with some extensive public works, the chief of which was the Capitol. This temple he erected upon the hill which had from time immemorial been held sacred to Jove; for thereupon the people had ofttimes beheld the deity, as Virgil says, "with his right hand shaking his black shield, and summoning the storm clouds to him." For his architectural undertakings the Roman king hired skilled Etruscan workmen, which indicates that his own subjects were as yet laggards in the pursuit of the arts and sciences. Indeed, everything goes to show that the only infant industries which the Romans zealously cultivated at this time were warfare and such agriculture as was necessary to supply the wants of their abstemious life. For their few artistic needs, they depended almost entirely upon the other Italian cities, which in these respects were further advanced.