(right) their statues in Piazza del Campidoglioīorne by the trustless wings of false desire, (left) Columns of Tempio di Castore e Polluce Tarquin and the Latins were defeated, resulting in Tarquin going into exile to the court of Aristodemus at Cumae, where he died in 495 BC.(left to right: Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Pope Innocent III and Pope Sixtus IV)Ī Difficult Transition and the First Roman Heroes Tarquin’s final attempt to regain his kingdom was at the Battle of Lake Regillus, when he persuaded his son-in-law, Octavius Mamilius, to march on Rome at the head of a Latin army. Leaving Lucretius in charge of the city, Brutus departed to meet the king upon the field at the Battle of Silva Arsia where the Romans won a hard-fought victory over the king and his Etruscan allies. The king, who had been with the army heard of the developments at Rome and sent ambassadors to the senate, and sought support from his allies in Etruria. A new form of republican government was proposed with two consuls, and power that would later be divided among various elected magistracies. Believing that she and her family had been dishonoured, she committed suicide, resulting in Brutus proclaiming for the overthrow of the Tarquin family line.īrutus opened a debate and levelled a barrage of charges against the Tarquin’s that included: the rape of Lucretia, the tyranny of the king, forced labour of plebeians, and the murder of Servius Tullius. In another account, Lucretia summoned Lucius Junius Brutus, a Tribune of the Celeres, along with her father, and several witnesses. In the Dionysius of Halicarnassus it accounts: “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.” The next day, Lucretia went to her father, Spurius Lucretius who was a prefect of Rome, and revealed the rape she endured the night before and stabbed herself in the heart. Lucius’ wife, Lucretia, entertained Sextus in her husband’s absence, but that night Sextus entered her bed chambers and gave her two choices: she could submit to his sexual advances and become his wife and future queen, or he would kill her and one of her slaves, claiming that he had caught the pair committing adultery. A depiction of Lucretia’s rape – Public Domain The most ambitious was the levelling of the Tarpeian Rock on the south side of the Capitoline Hill in order to make way for a Temple in dedication to Jupiter Optimus Maximus.Īround 509-510 BC, Tarquinius went to war with the Rutuli and sent his son, Sextus Tarquinius, on a military errand to the home of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, governor of Collatia. Tarquinius used the spoils of these campaigns to fund a series of expensive construction projects and public works in Rome. Tarquinius began his reign by purging senators who could still hold loyalty to Servius’s memory, and judged capital crimes without counsel, thus removing the threat of opposition through the fear of a now corrupt legal system.Īfter persuading the Latin chiefs of neighbouring tribes to renew their treaty with Rome, Tarquinius then set about waging war with the Volsci, an Italic Osco-Umbrian tribe, and the Latin Gabi that had rejected the terms of his treaty. When Servius came to the Senate to defend his position, he was thrown down the steps of the senate-house by Tarquinius and murdered on the streets by assassins (the place of which became known as Vicus Sceleratus, the Street of Crime). The Comic History of Rome by Gilbert Abbott A Beckett (1850s) – Tarquinius Superbus makes himself King – Public Domain In 535 BC, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus usurped King Servius Tullius by claiming Servius’s illegitimate to rule through his alleged servile origins, and claims that Servius’s ascension without election had strayed from traditional and legal practice via the Curiate Assembly and interregnum. When the king died, Rome entered a period of interregnum (a period of time between the reign of one monarch and the next), for which control of the kingdom was devolved to the Senate to find candidate kings for election.
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