Ab urbe condita

Titus Livius (Livy)

Livy. History of Rome, Volumes 1-2. Roberts, Canon, Rev, translator. London, New York: J. M. Dent and Sons; E. P. Dutton and Co., 1912.

It[*](The New Settlement.) is of a Rome henceforth free that I am to write the history —her civil administration and the conduct of her wars, her annually elected magistrates, the authority of her laws supreme over all her citizens.

The tyranny of the last king made this liberty all the more welcome, for such had been the rule of the former kings that they might not undeservedly be counted as founders of parts, at all events, of the city; for the additions they made were required as abodes for the increased population which they themselves had augmented.

There is no question that the Brutus who won such glory through the expulsion of Superbus would have inflicted the gravest injury on the State had he wrested the sovereignty from any of the former kings, through desire of a liberty for which the people were not ripe.