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The City of God

Chapter 16.--Of the First Roman Consuls, the One of Whom Drove the Other from the Country, and Shortly After Perished at Rome by the Hand of a Wounded Enemy, and So Ended a Career of Unnatural Murders.

To this epoch let us add also that of which Sallust says, that it was ordered with justice and moderation, while the fear of Tarquin and of a war with Etruria was impending. For so long as the Etrurians aided the efforts of Tarquin to regain the throne, Rome was convulsed with distressing war. And therefore he says that the state was ordered with justice and moderation, through the pressure of fear, not through the influence of equity. And in this very brief period, how calamitous a year was that in which consuls were first created, when the kingly power was abolished! They did not fulfill their term of office. For Junius Brutus deprived his colleague Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, and banished him from the city; and shortly after he himself fell in battle, at once slaying and slain, having formerly put to death his own sons and his brothers-in-law, because he had discovered that they were conspiring to restore Tarquin. It is this deed that Virgil shudders to record, even while he seems to praise it; for when he says:

"And call his own rebellious seed

For menaced liberty to bleed,"

he immediately exclaims,

"Unhappy father! howsoe'er

The deed be judged by after days;"

that is to say, let posterity judge the deed as they please, let them praise and extol the father who slew his sons, he is unhappy. And then he adds, as if to console so unhappy a man:

"His country's love shall all o'erbear,

And unextinguished thirst of praise." ¹

In the tragic end of Brutus, who slew his own sons, and though he slew his enemy, Tarquin's son, yet could not survive him, but was survived by Tarquin the elder, does not the innocence of his colleague Collatinus seem to be vindicated, who, though a good citizen, suffered the same punishment as Tarquin himself, when that tyrant was banished? For Brutus himself is said to have been a relative ² of Tarquin. But Collatinus had the misfortune to bear not only the blood, but the name of Tarquin. To change his name, then, not his country, would have been his fit penalty: to abridge his name by this word, and be called simply L. Collatinus. But he was not com pelled to lose what he could lose without detriment, but was stripped of the honor of the first consulship, and was banished from the land he loved. Is this, then, the glory of Brutus--this injustice, alike detestable and profitless to the republic? Was it to this he was driven by "his country's love, and unextinguished thirst of praise?"

When Tarquin the tyrant was expelled, L. Tarquinius Collatinus, the husband of Lucretia, was created consul along with Brutus. How justly the people acted, in looking more to the character than the name of a citizen! How unjustly Brutus acted, in depriving of honor and country his colleague in that new office, whom he might have deprived of his name, if it were so offensive to him! Such were the ills, such the disasters, which fell out when the government was "ordered with justice and moderation." Lucretius, too, who succeeded Brutus, was carried off by disease before the end of that same year. So P. Valerius, who succeeded Collatinus, and M. Horatius, who filled the vacancy occasioned by the death of Lucretius, completed that disastrous and funereal year, which had five consuls. Such was the year in which the Roman republic inaugurated the new honor and office of the consulship.

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XVI: De primis apud Romanos consulibus, quorum alter alterum patria pepulit moxque ipse post atrocissima parricidia a uulnerato hoste uulneratus interiit.

Huic tempori adiciamus etiam tempus illud, quousque dicit Sallustius aequo et modesto iure agitatum, dum metus a Tarquinio et bellum graue cum Etruria positum est. quamdiu enim Etrusci Tarquinio in regnum redire conanti opitulati sunt, graui bello Roma concussa est. ideo dicit aequo et modesto iure gestam rempublicam metu premente, non persuadente iustitia. in quo breuissimo tempore quam funestus ille annus fuit, quo primi consules creati sunt expulsa regia potestate. annum quippe suum non conpleuerunt. nam Iunius Brutus exhonoratum eiecit urbe collegam Lucium Tarquinium Collatinum; deinde mox ipse in bello cecidit mutuis cum hoste uulneribus, occisis a se ipso primitus filiis suis et uxoris suae fratribus, quod eos pro restituendo Tarquinio coniurasse cognouerat. quod factum Vergilius posteaquam laudabiliter commemorauit, continuo clementer exhorruit. cum enim dixisset: natosque pater noua bella mouentes ad poenam pulchra pro libertate uocabit, mox deinde exclamauit et ait: infelix, utcumque ferent ea facta minores. quomodolibet, inquit, ea facta posteri ferant, id est praeferant et extollant, qui filios occidit, infelix est. et tamquam ad consolandum infelicem subiungit: uincit amor patriae laudumque inmensa cupido. nonne in hoc Bruto, qui et filios occidit et a se percusso hosti filio Tarquinii mutuo percussus superuiuere non potuit eique potius ipse Tarquinius superuixit, Collatini collegae uidetur innocentia uindicata, qui bonus ciuis hoc Tarquinio pulso passus est, quod tyrannus ipse Tarquinius? nam et idem Brutus consanguineus Tarquinii fuisse perhibetur; sed Collatinum uidelicet similitudo nominis pressit, quia etiam Tarquinius uocabatur. mutare ergo nomen, non patriam cogeretur; postremo in eius nomine hoc uocabulum minus esset, L. Collatinus tantummodo uocaretur. sed ideo non amisit quod sine ullo detrimento posset amittere, ut et honore primus consul et ciuitate bonus ciuis carere iuberetur. etiam ne ista est gloria, Iunii Bruti detestanda iniquitas et nihilo utilis reipublicae? etiam ne ad hanc perpetrandam uicit amor patriae laudumque inmensa cupido.? iam expulso utique Tarquinio tyranno consul cum Bruto creatus est maritus Lucretiae L. Tarquinius Collatinus. quam iuste populus mores in ciue, non nomen adtendit. quam inpie Brutus collegam primae ac nouae illius potestatis, quem posset, si hoc offendebatur, nomine tantum priuare, et patria priuauit et honore. haec mala facta sunt, haec aduersa acciderunt, quando in illa republica aequo et modesto iure agitatum est. Lucretius quoque, qui in locum Bruti fuerat subrogatus, morbo, antequam idem annus terminaretur, absumptus est. ita P. Valerius, qui successerat Collatino, et M. Horatius, qui pro defuncto Lucretio suffectus fuerat, annum illum funereum atque tartareum, qui consules quinque habuit, conpleuerunt, quo anno consulatus ipsius nouum honorem ac potestatem auspicata est Romana respublica.