15.5
However, if anyone who is amazed at the costliness of the Capitol had seen a single colonnade in the palace of Domitian, or a basilica or a bath, or the apartments for his concubines, then, as Epicharmus says to the spendthrift, ’Tis not beneficent thou art; thou art diseased; thy mania is to give, so he would have been moved to say to Domitian: ’Tis not pious, nor nobly ambitious that thou art; thou art diseased; thy mania is to build; like the famous Midas, thou desirest that every thing become gold and stone at thy touch. So much, then, on this head.
16.1
But to return to Tarquin, after the great battle in which he lost his son in a duel with Brutus, he fled for refuge to Clusium, and became a suppliant of Lars Porsena, the most powerful king in Italy, who was thought also to be a man of worth and noble ambitions. He promised Tarquin his aid and assistance. So in the first place he sent to Rome and ordered them to receive Tarquin as their king. Then when the Romans refused, he declared war upon them, proclaimed the time and place of his attack, and marched thither with a great force.Cf. Livy, ii. 9.
16.2
Publicola was chosen consul for the second time, in his absence, and Titus Lucretius as his colleague. Returning, therefore, to Rome, and wishing, in the first place, to surpass Porsena in the loftiness of his spirit, he built the city of Sigliuria, although his adversary was already near at hand. After he had fortified it at great expense, he sent to it a colony of seven hundred men, indicating that he had no concern or fear about the war.
16.3
However, a sharp assault was made upon its wall by Porsena, and its garrison was driven out. They fled to Rome, where the pursuing enemy almost followed them into the city. But Publicola promptly sallied out to their aid in front of the gate, joined battle by the river side with the enemy, who pressed on in great numbers, and held out against them until he was desperately wounded and carried bodily out of the battle.
