VII. When he left the Forum all men were silent for a long while, shuddering at what had been done. The Aquillii took heart at the mildness of Collatinus, and asked for time to prepare their defence. They also begged that Vindicius might be given up to them, because he was their servant, and ought not to be on the side of their accusers. Collatinus was willing to allow this, but Valerius said that he was not able to give the man up, because he was surrounded by so large a crowd, and called upon the people not to disperse without punishing the traitors. At last he laid his hands upon the two corpses, called for Brutus, and reproached Collatinus for making his colleague act against nature by condemning his own sons to death, and then thinking to please the wives of these traitors and public enemies by saving their lives. The consul, vexed at this, ordered the lictors to seize Vindicius. They forced their way through the crowd, tried to lay hold of him, and struck those who defended him, but the friends of Valerius stood in front of him and beat them off, and the people raised a shout for Brutus. He returned, and when silence was restored said that he had, as a father, full power to condemn his sons to death, but that as for the other culprits, their fate should be decided by the free vote of the citizens, and that any one might come forward and address the people. The people, however, would listen to no speeches, but voted unanimously for their death, and they were all beheaded.
Collatinus, it seems, had been viewed with suspicion before because of his connection with the royal family, and his second name, Tarquinius, was odious to the people. After these events, having utterly failed as consul, he voluntarily laid down that office, and left the city. So now there was another election, and Valerius received the due reward of his patriotism and was gloriously made consul. Thinking that Vindicius ought to receive something for his services, he made him a freedman, the first ever made in Rome, and allowed him to vote in whatever tribe he chose to be enrolled. The other freedmen were not allowed the suffrage till, long after, it was given them by Appius to obtain popularity among them. The whole ceremony is up to the present day called vindicta, after Vindicius, we are told.
VIII. After this they allowed the king's property to be plundered, and destroyed the palace. Tarquinius had obtained the pleasantest part of the Field of Mars, and had consecrated it to that god. This field had just been cut, and the corn lay on the ground, for the people thought that they must not thresh it or make any use of it, because of the ground being consecrated, so they took the sheaves and threw them into the river. In the same way they cut down the trees and threw them in, leaving the whole place for the god, but uncultivated and unfruitful. As there were many things of different sorts all floating together in the river, the current did not carry them far, but when the first masses settled on a shallow place, the rest which were carried down upon them could not get past, but became heaped up there, and the stream compacted them securely by the mud which it deposited upon them, not only increasing the size of the whole mass, but firmly cementing it together. The waves did not shake it, but gently beat it into a solid consistency. Now, from its size, it began to receive additions, as most of what the river brought down settled upon it. It is now a sacred island close by the city, with temples and walks, and in the Latin tongue it has a name which means "between two bridges." Some state that this did not happen when Tarquinia's field was consecrated, but in later times when Tarquinia gave up another field next to that one, for the public use. This Tarquinia was a priestess, one of the Vestal virgins, and she was greatly honoured for having done so, and was allowed to appear as a witness in court, which no other woman could do; she also was permitted to marry, by a decree of the senate, but did not avail herself of it. These are the legends which they tell about this island.
IX. Tarquin now gave up all hopes of recovering his throne by intrigue, and appealed to the Etruscans, who willingly espoused his cause and endeavoured to restore him with a great army. The consuls led out the Romans to fight against them, posting them in holy places one of which is called the Arsian grove, and another the Aesuvian meadow. When they were about to join battle, Aruns, the son of Tarquin, and Brutus, the Roman consul, attacked one another, not by chance, but with fell hatred and rage, the one urging his horse against the tyrant and enemy of his country, the other against the man who drove him into exile. Falling upon one another with more fury than judgment, they made no attempt to defend themselves, but only to strike, and both perished. The struggle, so terribly begun, was continued with equal ferocity on both sides, until the armies, after great losses, were separated by a tempest. Valerius was in great straits, not knowing how the battle had gone, and observing that his soldiers were despondent when they looked at the corpses of their comrades, and elated when they saw those of the enemy, so equal and undecided had been the slaughter. Yet each side, when it viewed its own dead close by, was more inclined to own itself defeated, than to claim the victory because of the supposed losses of the enemy. Night came on, and it was spent as may be imagined by men who had fought so hard. When all was quiet in both camps, we are told that the grove was shaken, and that from it proceeded a loud voice which declared that the Etruscans had lost one man more than the Romans. Apparently it was the voice of a god; for immediately the Romans raised a bold and joyous shout, and the Etruscans, panic–stricken, ran out of their camp and dispersed. The Romans attacked the camp, took prisoners all that were left in it, something less than five thousand, and plundered it. The dead, when counted, proved to be eleven thousand three hundred of the enemy, and of the Romans the same number save one. This battle is said to have been fought on the Calends of March. Valerius triumphed after it in a four–horse chariot, being the first consul that ever did so. And it was a magnificent sight, and did not, as some say, offend the spectators; for, if so, the habit of doing it would not have been so carefully kept up for so many years. The people were also pleased with the honours which Valerius paid to his colleague in arranging a splendid funeral for him; he also pronounced a funeral oration over him, which was so much approved of by the Romans that from that day forth it became the custom for all good and great men at their deaths to have an oration made over them by the leading men of the time. This is said to have been older even than the Greek funeral orations, unless, as Anaximenes tells us, Solon introduced this custom.
X. But the people were vexed and angry, because though Brutus, whom they thought the author of their liberty, would not be consul alone, but had one colleague after another, yet "Valerius," they said, "has got all power into his own hands, and is not so much the heir of the consulship of Brutus as of the tyranny of Tarquin. And what use is it for him to praise Brutus while he imitates Tarquin in his deeds, swaggering down into the Forum with all the rods and axes before him, from a house larger than the king's palace used to be." Indeed, Valerius lived in rather too splendid a house on the Velian Hill, looking down into the Forum, and difficult to climb up to, so that when he walked down from it he did indeed look like a tragedy king leaving his palace. But now he proved how valuable a thing it is for a statesman engaged in important matters to keep his ears open to the truth, and shut against flattery. Hearing from his friends what the people thought of him, he did not argue or grieve at it, but suddenly assembled a number of workmen and during the night destroyed his entire house down to the very foundations, so that on the next day the Romans collected in crowds to see it, admiring the magnanimity of the man, but sorrowing at the destruction of so great and noble a house, which, like many a man, had been put to death undeservedly, and expressing their concern for their consul, who had no house to live in. Valerius, indeed, had to be entertained by his friends, until the people gave him a site and built him a house upon it, of more moderate proportions than the other, in the place where at the present day stands the temple of Vica Pota. Wishing to make not only himself but his office cease to be an object of terror to his countrymen, he removed the axes from the bundles of rods carried by the lictors, and when he entered the assembly of the people he ordered his fasces to be bowed and lowered before them, to show respect to the majesty of the people. This custom the consuls observe to this day. By these acts he did not really humble himself as he appeared to the Romans to be doing, but he so completely destroyed any illwill which had been felt against him that by giving up the semblance of power he really gained the reality, as the people were eager to serve him and obey him. For this reason they surnamed him Poplicola, which means "lover of the people," and this name so took the place of his former one that we shall use it during the remainder of this account of his life.