The next day Lucretia dressed in black, and went to her father's house in Rome and cast herself down in the suppliant's position (embracing the knees), weeping.

Asked to explain herself she insisted on first summoning witnesses and after disclosing the rape called on him and them for vengeance, a plea that could not be ignored, as she was speaking to the chief magistrate of Rome.

"This dreadful scene struck the Romans who were present with so much horror and compassion that they all cried out with one voice that they would rather die a thousand deaths in defence of their liberty than suffer such outrages to be committed by the tyrants."

Livy records Lucretius' involvement in the matter:"At first Collatinus was struck dumb with astonishment at this extraordinary request; then, when he was beginning to speak, the foremost men in the commonwealth gathered round him and repeatedly urged the same plea, but with little success.

The consul, fearing that after his year of office had expired and he returned to private life, the same demand should be made upon him, accompanied with loss of property and the ignominy of banishment, formally laid down the consulship, and after transferring all his possessions to [the Latin town of] Lanuvium, withdrew from the state.