Lucretia (traditionally, ca. 510 BC) was the virtuous young wife of Collatinus during the decadent last years of the Tarquin the Proud. A woman's most special virtue was supposed to be her pudicitia, a mixture of chaste modesty, sexual fidelity, and fertility. While at war near the town of Ardea, not far from Rome, the young warriors boasted one night about what their wives were doing back in Rome, each claiming his wife would be faithful and virtuous in his absence. Collatinus claimed his wife, Lucretia, would surpass the rest. Racing disguised to Rome, the young men found their wives were partying with friends at a great banquet. Only Lucretia was found in her atrium with her maid servants, working wool by lamplight and worrying about her beloved husband's safety. The king's son, Sextus Tarquinius, became obsessed with desire for the virtuous young wife. Returning some nights later in her husband's absence, he forcibly raped her after threatening that, if she refused, he would simply kill her and place the body of a murdered slave next to her in bed, telling everyone that she had been killed when taken in adultery. After the rape, Lucretia sent urgent messages to her husband and father, who arrived with friends. After hearing the facts of the rape, the horrified men absolved Lucretia and promised that Tarquinius would pay for his crime. However, the woman's grief was such that she did not absolve herself from paying the penalty for adultery, however forced; in the men's presence, she stabbed herself to death, crying that, from now on, no woman could use the example of Lucretia to live unchaste. The public horror over her rape and suicide led to a revolution, toppling the Tarquin dynasty and establishing the Republic.