Episode 9.3.b
>Rome, Outside the Gates of Collatinus's House, 509 BCE<
Now you stand outside the gates of Collatinus's house. Brutus and his friends have sent runners through the whole city, and a crowd has gathered, packed close and still growing. Brutus and Collatinus stand before it, and there is a great deal of blood on their togas.
(In the shadows beside you stands Lucretia. Her eyes are full of flame. There is no grief left in her anywhere. She watches her husband and Brutus and does not look away, and she is smiling, and the smile is hard and full of anger. This woman truly frightens you.)
"My wife, my bride, my own Lucretia... whom I love... whom I loved... whom Sextus Tarquinius... wronged..." Collatinus can barely hold his voice together.
"SHE HAS TAKEN HER OWN LIFE!" cries Brutus.
The crowd erupts. Words run through it like fire through stubble. "Kill the Tarquins!" a man shouts. "They did this! Kill them!" And the crowd takes it up, chanting: "KILL THEM. KILL THEM. KILL THEM."
Brutus and Collatinus look at one another, and each finds what he is looking for in the other's face. Then they turn to you.
"What now?" Brutus asks. "The king is driven out. But what do we set in a king's place? How are we to build this new res publica?"
Prompt: Advise the rebels on how to shape the future of a king-less Rome. Think about what the Lapis has taught you: what happens when one man holds too much? Brutus is asking in earnest.
