Ab urbe condita

They all successively pledged their word, and tried to console the distracted woman , by turning the guilt from the victim of the outrage to the perpetrator, and urging that it is the mind that sins not the body, and where there has been no consent there is no guilt “It is for you,” she said, “to see that he gets his deserts:

although I acquit myself of the sin, I do not free myself from the penalty; no unchaste woman shall henceforth live and plead Lucretia's example.”

She had a knife concealed in her dress which she plunged into her, heart, and fell dying on the floor.

Her father and husband raised the death-cry.[*](As soon as life was extinct, those round the death-bed raised a loud cry of woe and called out the name of the deceased. For a similar custom among the Hebrews, comp. 2 Sam. xviii. 33.)

Whilst[*](The Expulsion of the Tarquins.) they were absorbed in grief, Brutus drew the knife from Lucretia's wound and holding it, dripping with blood, in front of him, said, “By this blood - most pure before the outrage wrought by the king's son —I swear, and you, 0 gods, I call to witness that I will drive hence Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, together with his cursed wife and his whole brood, with fire and sword and every means in my power, and I will not suffer them or any one else to reign in Rome.”

Then he handed the knife to Collatinus and then to Lucretius and Valerius, who were all astounded at the marvel of the thing, wondering whence Brutus had acquired this new character. They swore as they were directed; all their grief changed to wrath, and they followed the lead of Brutus, who summoned them to abolish the monarchy forthwith.

They carried the body of Lucretia from her home down to the Forum, where, owing to the unheard-of atrocity of the crime, they at once collected a crowd.