Ab urbe condita

At all events, auguries and the college of augurs were held in such honour that nothing was undertaken in peace or war without their sanction; the assembly of the curies, the assembly of the centuries, matters of the highest importance, were suspended or broken up if the omen of the birds was unfavourable.

Even on that occasion Tarquin was deterred from making changes in the names or numbers of the centuries of knights; he merely doubled the number of men in each, so that the three centuries contained eighteen hundred men.

Those who were added to the centuries bore the same designation, only they were called the “Second” knights, and the centuries being thus doubled are now called the “Six Centuries.”