The important volumes were put into a stone chest, and a vault in the newly designed building was thought the properest place to secure them.[2] 13.

The people, having been now for four years together employed in building the Capitol, began, at last, to wish for something new to engage them; Tarquin, therefore, to satisfy their wishes, proclaimed war against the Ru'tuli, upon a frivolous pretence of their having entertained some malefactors, whom he had banished; and invested their chief city, Ar'dea, which lay about sixteen miles from Rome.14.

While the army was encamped before this place, the king's son Sextus Tarquinius, Collati'nus a noble Roman, and some others, sitting in a tent drinking together, the discourse turned upon wives, each man preferring the beauty and virtue of his own.

Collati'nus offered to decide the dispute by putting it to an immediate trial, whose wife should be found possessed of the greatest beauty, and most sedulously employed at that very hour: being heated with wine, the proposal was relished by the whole company; and, taking horse without delay, they posted to Rome, though the night was already pretty far advanced.
15.

There they found Lucre'tia, the wife of Collati'nus, not like the other women of her age, spending the time in ease and luxury, but spinning in the midst of her maids, and cheerfully portioning out their tasks.