Plutarch relates that Tatia, Numa's estimable first wife, was separated from him by death after thirteen years of wedded felicity, and that after this he never married again, but sought to console himself by melancholy ramblings in the fields and woods. This gave rise to the story that, in a certain grove, he was accustomed to meet the goddess Egeria, who not only favored him with her love, but also endowed him with the wisdom to perform his duties with marvellous success. On the other hand, Livy, who probably knew neither more nor less about it, says that Numa consecrated this grove, with its grotto and spring of living water, to the Muses, who were accustomed there to meet his wife Egeria. Whether this Egeria is to be regarded as a mortal woman, perhaps the lawful wife of the king, or, what is considerably less likely, a divine being, cannot be decided from these traditions. But they surely have a value in that they indicate the willingness of the earliest Romans to attribute excellence in statesmanship on the part of their best men to the inspiration of members of the fair and gentle, sex.

After the death of Numa, the Romans elected as their king Tullus Hostilius, and thus a turbulent warrior succeeded the peace-loving lawgiver. In this reign, instead of the poetic anachronism which portrays an abnormally advanced civilization, we are brought back again to earth and to history and to a more accurate description of the progress of the people. Much is revealed in the story by which Livy, in his inimitable manner, accounts for the Sororium Tigillium, or the Sister's Post, a monument which he says was existent in his own day. Here we not only encounter the terrible right of the father of a family over the lives of his children, but we also see that the tender instincts of a woman's love were accounted as nothing in comparison with loyalty to the family and her duty of hatred to the enemies of the State. The heroic Horatius, single-handed after the death of his brothers, had slain the three champions of the Alban army, and thus provided the first taste of the delight of subjugation to the city which was destined to become the mistress of the world. In the triumphal return to Rome, Horatius marched foremost of all the army, carrying before him the spoils of the three Alban brothers. As they neared the Porto Capena, the Roman women came forth to welcome the victors home. Among the rest came Horatia, the sister of the youthful conqueror. As she ran to embrace him, she noticed upon his shoulder a familiar robe; in fact, it was a soldier's tunic which she had wrought with her own hands for one of the vanquished Curiatii, to whom she had been betrothed. The truth flashed upon the damsel's mind in an instant. Her lover was dead, and that by the hand of her brother. With tears and lamentations, she began to call upon the name of her betrothed. Possibly with her cries of grief she joined bitter upbraidings of her brother, who had saved himself and Rome at the cost of her bereavement. His sister's lamentations, in the midst of his own triumph and the great public rejoicing, so greatly angered the excited youth that he drew his sword and stabbed her to the heart. As he did this, he cried: "Go with thy unseasonable love; go and rejoin thy betrothed, thou who forgettest thy dead brothers, and him who remains, and thy country! So perish every woman who shall dare to lament the death of an enemy!" This atrocious murder raised, of course, a profound sensation among the people. They did not know which ought to outweigh the other: his awful crime or his brilliant exploit for the public good. The king appointed duumvirs to try him. By these he was condemned to be beaten with rods, within or without the walls of the city, and then to be hanged.

But the law gave to Horatius the right of appeal to the people, and in this second trial he found an effective advocate in his own father. The old man declared that he considered his daughter deservedly slain. Were it not so, he said, he would by his own authority as father have inflicted punishment on his son. It seems probable, however, that Horatius senior took this course of argument, not because he did not regret his daughter, but because he hoped thereby to save himself from being bereft of all his children. "Go, lictor," he said, "bind those hands which but a little while since, being armed, established sovereignty for the Roman people. Strike him within the town, if thou wilt, but in presence of these trophies and spoils; without the town, but in the midst of the tombs of the Curiatii. Into what place can you lead him where the monuments of his glory do not protest against the horror of his punishment?" The tears of the father and the intrepidity of the son won for the latter absolution; but the father was commanded to make expiatory sacrifices, and these were ever afterward continued in the Horatian family. As a further punishment, a beam was laid across the street and the young man made to pass under it, with veiled head, as under a yoke.

Chronologically, this seems to be the appropriate place to introduce some reference to another race which, to no small extent, affected the early history of Rome and also the status of the Roman woman. From Etruria came the ancestor of the Tarquins, that proud dynasty which provided two legends of the extreme opposite types of women: Tullia, the cruel and ambitious queen, and Lucretia, the ideal of conjugal faithfulness. Tanaquil, the never-forgotten helpmeet of an able man, also came from this people.

The Etruscans have ever been a puzzle to historians and one of the principal enigmas in ethnology. Entirely unlike the Hellenic or Italiote races in appearance as well as in customs, even the ancients were at a loss to surmise whence this remarkable people originated. Dionysius says, "they claimed alliance with no people in the world." Inquiry regarding them would not be so interesting, were it not that they have left such an abundance of proofs of their proficiency in art and advancement in civilized industry. At the time of which we are writing, they possessed the very respectable beginning of a literature. We have nearly two thousand of their inscriptions; but hardly a word are we able to interpret, for the Etruscan language is to-day what the Egyptian hieroglyphics were before Champollion. These people were the artists and the manufacturers for all Italy. In the museums of Europe are to be seen specimens of their art, such as statues, beautifully ornamented vases, bas-reliefs, and jewelry, which can but excite the wonder of the beholder by the richness of their execution. Their tombs have been found to contain great quantities of such treasures, which they were in the habit of burying with their chiefs. Reclining on one of these tombs are the carved effigies of a man and his wife, represented as though resting upon a couch. If these figures give as correct an idea of the appearance of the Etruscans as they indicate artistic ability, they were a thickset people, with retreating foreheads, aquiline noses, and eyes rather oblique--all suggestive of the Asiatic type. The barbarous religious ideas of the Etruscans rendered the race gloomy and fatalistic. Their priests were supposed to be experts in divining the future; and their gods often required to be propitiated with human sacrifices. Their civilization had a powerful effect upon that of Rome. In Etruria women were treated with a respect unusual among the races of that time; and it may have been owing to this influence that the women of Rome enjoyed so much more liberty than their sisters of Greece. On the other hand, to the Etruscans' characteristic delight in cruel sports has been attributed the introduction of gladiatorial contests in the arena at Rome.

The traditional account of the origin of the Tarquin family is very uncertain historical data, the founder being represented as the son of a foreigner in Tarquinii, a city of Etruria, and his name Lucumo; while history seems to indicate that the lucumon was an Etruscan chief magistrate. However, we will take the legendary account