The oath on the dagger
Lucretia summoned her father and husband, told them what the prince had done, and stabbed herself in the breast — "I acquit myself of guilt, but I do not spare myself the penalty." Brutus, who had feigned dullness all along, drew out the dagger and raised it high: "By this most chaste blood I swear that I will pursue Tarquin and his wife and children with fire and sword, and never suffer any man to be king in Rome!" Roman history turned the page from monarchy to Republic, and the turning of that page was a speech at a funeral.
Executing his own sons
In the Republic’s first year a group of young nobles plotted to bring back Tarquin, and on the list were the two sons of the consul Brutus. On the day of judgment Brutus sat in the consul’s chair and gave the order himself, watching the whole flogging and beheading. Livy writes that what people could not tear their eyes from was not the execution but the face of that father. The Republic’s first lesson was cruel and clear: the institution stands above blood — a standard set so high that four hundred years later, when his descendant Brutus the Younger killed Caesar, all Rome heard the weight of that name.