History of Rome, Book 2

Livy (Titus Livius, 59 BC to AD 17) spent some forty years writing Ab Urbe Condita, a history of Rome from its foundation in 142 books, of which 35 survive. Book 2 begins with the words 'from this point the Roman people was free' and covers the first generation of the Republic, from the expulsion of the kings in 509 BC to the 460s.

The first consuls, Brutus and Collatinus, take office; Collatinus is driven out for bearing the hated name of Tarquin, and Brutus has his own sons executed for plotting a restoration before he dies in single combat with Arruns. Lars Porsenna of Clusium besieges Rome, and three famous episodes follow: Horatius Cocles holding the bridge, Mucius Scaevola thrusting his hand into the fire, and the hostage Cloelia swimming the Tiber. Rome defeats the Latins at Lake Regillus and appoints its first dictator. Debt and the levy set plebeians against patricians until the plebs withdraw to the Sacred Mount, are coaxed back by Menenius Agrippa's fable of the belly and the limbs, and gain their own tribunes. Coriolanus, exiled, leads the Volsci against Rome and is turned back by his mother Veturia. The book ends with the agrarian law of Spurius Cassius, the destruction of the Fabii at the Cremera, and continuing struggles between the orders and wars with Veii, the Volsci and the Aequi.

Livy writes rich, balanced periodic prose with vivid speeches. These are legends as much as history, told as moral examples, and the early chapters have long been school reading.