A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Lucretia
LUCRETIA.
This celebrated female was the daughter of Lucretius, and the wife of Collatinus, an officer of rank, who, at the siege of Ardes, in the course of conversation, unfortunately boasted of the virtues she possessed. Several other young men likewise expressed an entire confidence in the chastity and virtue of their wives. A wager was the consequence of this conversation; and it was agreed that Sextus, the son of Tarquin, should go to Rome, for the purpose of seeing how the different females were employed. Upon his arrival at the capital, he found all the other ladies occupied in paying visits, or receiving different guests; but, when he went to the house of Collatinus, Lucretia was bewailing the absence of her husband and directing her household affairs. As Sextus was distantly related to Collatinus, and son of the monarch who reigned upon the throne, Lucretia entertained him with that elegance and hospitality due to a man of such elevated rank.
How he repaid these attentions is known to all readers of Roman history. The death of the chaste Lucretia by her own hand, the terrible vengeance executed on the ravisher and his family by her relations; and the consequent overthrow of the kingly power in Rome, and establishment of the republic, have been too often dwelt on by the historian and the poet to need repeating here. Suffice it, that an inscription is said to have been seen at Rome, in the diocese of Viterbo, composed by Collatinus, in honour of Lucretia, to the following purport:—"Collatinus Tarquinius, to his most dear and incomparable wife, honour of chastity, glory of women. She who was most dear to me, lived two-and-twenty years, three months, and six days."