The increase of the senate, whereby the number of senators was raised to three hundred, is ascribed uniformly, with a single, and that too a doubtful, exception, to the first Tarquinius. On the other hand, there are great differences in the statements as to the number he introduced; with respect to which, and to my opinion that this increase was effected by the admission of the third class, it would be an idle repetition for me to speak again.

But the most difficult point in the whole earlier history of the constitution is the formation of the three new centuries attributed to the same king: an innovation which, in consonance to the spirit of such personifications, inasmuch as it confines itself to an extension of the constitution established by Romulus, is placed before the time of Servius Tullius; while it is later than the calling up of the Luceres into the senate, by which act that constitution received its complete developement.