The important volumes were
put into a stone chest, and a vault in the newly designed building was
thought the properest place to secure them.[2]
13. The people, having been now for four years together employed in
building the Capitol, began, at last, to wish for something new to
engage them; Tarquin, therefore, to satisfy their wishes, proclaimed
war against the Ru'tuli, upon a frivolous pretence of their having
entertained some malefactors, whom he had banished; and invested their
chief city, Ar'dea, which lay about sixteen miles from Rome. 14. While
the army was encamped before this place, the king's son Sextus
Tarquinius, Collati'nus a noble Roman, and some others, sitting in a
tent drinking together, the discourse turned upon wives, each man
preferring the beauty and virtue of his own. Collati'nus offered to
decide the dispute by putting it to an immediate trial, whose wife
should be found possessed of the greatest beauty, and most sedulously
employed at that very hour: being heated with wine, the proposal was
relished by the whole company; and, taking horse without delay, they
posted to Rome, though the night was already pretty far advanced.
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