20. Ju'nius Brutus was the son of Marcus Ju'nius, who was put to death
by Tarquin the Proud, and the grandson of Tarquin the elder. He had
received an excellent education from his father, and had, from nature,
strong sense and an inflexible attachment to virtue; but knowing that
Tarquin had murdered his father and his eldest brother, he
counterfeited a fool, in order to escape the same danger, and thence
obtained the surname of Bru'tus. Tarquin, thinking his folly real,
despised the man; and having possessed himself of his estate, kept him
as an idiot in his house, merely with a view of making sport for his
children.
21. Brutus, however, only waited this opportunity to avenge the cause
of his family. He ordered Lucre'tia's dead body to be brought out
to view, and exposing it in the public forum, inflamed the ardour of
the citizens by a display of the horrid transaction. He obtained a
decree of the senate, that Tarquin and his family should be for ever
banished from Rome, and that it should be capital for any to plead
for, or to attempt his future return.
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