Ab urbe condita

The booty was sold and he realised out of the proceeds forty talents of silver. He then sketched out the design of a temple to Jupiter, which in its extent should be worthy of the king of gods and men, worthy of the Roman empire, worthy of the majesty of the City itself.

He set apart the above-mentioned sum for its construction. The[*](Conquest of Gabii.) next war occupied him longer than he expected. Failing to capture the neighbouring city of Gabii by assault and finding it useless to attempt an investment after being defeated under its walls, he employed methods against it which were anything but Roman, namely, fraud and deceit.

He pretended to have given up all thoughts of war and to be devoting himself to laying the foundations of his temple and other undertakings in the City.

Meantime it was arranged that Sextus, the youngest of his three sons, should go as a refugee to Gabii, complaining loudly of his father's insupportable cruelty and declaring that he had shifted his tyranny from others on to his own family and even regarded the presence of his children as a burden and was preparing to devastate his own family as he had devastated the senate so that not a single descendant, not a single heir to the crown might be left.

He had, he said, himself escaped from the murderous violence of his father, and felt that no place was safe for him except amongst Lucius Tarquin's enemies.