Part 859

"It may … be stated, as the result of this inquiry, that the narrative of Roman affairs, from the foundation of the city to the expulsion of the Tarquins, is formed out of traditionary materials. At what time the oral traditions were reduced into writing, and how much of the existing narrative was the arbitrary supplement of the historians who first framed the account which has descended to us, it is now impossible to ascertain, … The records of them, which were made before the burning of Rome, 300 B. C., were doubtless rare and meagre in the extreme; and such as there were at this time chiefly perished in the conflagration and ruin of the city. It was probably not till after this period—that is to say, about 120 years after the expulsion of the kings—and above 350 years after the era assigned for the foundation of the city, that these oral reports—these hearsay stories of many generations—began to be entered in the registers of the pontifices. … The history of the entire regal period, as respects both its external attestation and its internal probability, is tolerably uniform in its character. … Niebuhr, indeed, has drawn a broad line between the reigns of Romulus and Numa on the one hand, and those of the five last kings on the other. The former he considers to be purely fabulous and poetical; the latter he regards as belonging to the mythico-historical period, when there is a narrative resting on a historical basis, and most of the persons mentioned are real. But it is impossible to discover any ground, either in the contents of the narrative; or in its external evidence, to support this distinction. Romulus, indeed, from the form of his name, appears to be a mere personification of the city of Rome, and to have no better claim to a real existence than Hellen, Danaus, Ægyptus, Tyrrhenus, or Italus. But Numa Pompilius stands on the same ground as the remaining kings, except that he is more ancient; and the narrative of all the reigns, from the first to the last, seems to be constructed on the same principles. That the names of the kings after Romulus are real, is highly probable; during the latter reigns, much of the history seems to be in the form of legendary explanations of proper names. … Even with respect to the Tarquinian family, it may be doubted whether the similarity of their name to that of the city of Tarquinii was not the origin of the story of Demaratus and the Etruscan origin. The circumstance that the two king Tarquins were both named Lucius, and that it was necessary to distinguish them by the epithets of Priscus and Superbus, raises a presumption that the names were real. {2661} Müller indeed regards the names of the two Tarquins as merely representing the influence exercised by the Etruscan city of Tarquinii in Rome at the periods known as their reigns. … The leading feature of the government during this period is that its chief was a king, who obtained his office by the election of the people, and the confirmation of the Senate, in the same manner in which consuls and other high magistrates were appointed after the abolition of royalty; but that, when once fully elected, he retained his power for life. In the mode of succession, the Roman differed from the early Greek kings, whose office was hereditary. The Alban kings, likewise, to whom the Roman kings traced their origin, are described as succeeding by inheritance and not by election. … The predominant belief of the Romans concerning their regal government was, that the power of the kings was limited by constitutional checks; that the chief institutions of the Republic, namely, the Senate and the Popular Assembly, existed in combination with the royalty, and were only suspended by the lawless despotism of the second Tarquin. Occasionally, however, we meet with the idea that the kings were absolute."

_Sir G. C. Lewis, Inquiry into the Credibility of Early Roman History, chapter 11, sections 39-40 (volume 1)._

"Of the kings of Rome we have no direct contemporary evidence; we know them only from tradition, and from the traces they left behind them in the Republican constitution which followed. But the 'method of survivals' has here been applied by a master-hand [Mommsen]; and we can be fairly sure, not only of the fact that monarchy actually existed at Rome, but even of some at least of its leading characteristics. Here we have kingship no longer denoting, as in Homer, a social position of chieftaincy which bears with it certain vaguely-conceived prerogatives, but a clearly defined magistracy within the fully realised State. The rights and duties of the Rex are indeed defined by no documents, and the spirit of the age still seems to be obedience and trust; but we also find the marks of a formal customary procedure, which is already hardening into constitutional practice, and will in time further harden into constitutional law. The monarchy has ceased to be hereditary, if it ever was so; and the method of appointment, though we are uncertain as to its exact nature, is beyond doubt regulated with precision, and expressed in technical terms."

_W. W. Fowler, The City-State of the Greeks and Romans, pages 74-75._

"The analogy of other states, no less than the subsequent constitution of Rome, which always retained the marks of its first monarchical complexion, leaves us in no doubt that kings once reigned in Rome, and that by a determined uprising of the people they were expelled, leaving in the Roman mind an ineradicable hatred of the very name. We have to be content with these hard facts, extracted from those thrilling stories with which Livy adorns the reign and the expulsion of Tarquinius Superbus."

_R. F. Horton, History of the Romans, chapter 2._

The names of the kings, with the dates assigned to them, are as follows: Romulus, B. C. 753-717; Numa Pompilius, B. C. 715-673; Tullus Hostilius, B. C. 673-642; Ancus Martius, B. C. 641-617; Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, B. C. 616-579; Servius Tullius, B. C. 578-535; Tarquinius Superbus, B. C. 534-510.

According to the legend of early Rome, Romulus attracted inhabitants to the city he had founded by establishing within its walls a sanctuary or refuge, for escaped slaves, outlaws and the like. But he could not in a fair way procure wives for these rough settlers, because marriage with them was disdained by the reputable people of neighboring cities. Therefore he arranged for an imposing celebration of games at Rome, in honor of the god Consus, and invited his neighbors, the Sabines, to witness them. These came unsuspectingly with their wives and daughters, and, when they were absorbed in the show, the Romans, at a given signal, rushed on them and carried off such women as they chose to make captive. A long and obstinate war ensued, which was ended by the interposition of the women concerned, who had become reconciled to their Roman husbands and satisfied to remain with them.

_Livy, History, chapter 9._

"We cannot … agree with Niebuhr, who thinks he can discover some historical facts through this legendary mist. As he supposes, the inhabitants of the Palatine had not the right of intermarriage ('connubium') with their Sabine neighbours on the Capitoline and the Quirinal. This inferiority of the Palatine Romans to the Sabines of the Capitoline and Quirinal hills caused discontent and war. The right of intermarriage was obtained by force of arms, and this historical fact lies at the bottom of the tale of the rape of the Sabines. Such a method of changing legends into history is of very doubtful utility. It seems more natural to explain the legend from the customs at the Roman marriage ceremonies"—in which the pretence of forcible abduction was enacted.

_W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 2._

"With the reign of the fifth king, Tarquinius Priscus, a marked change takes place. The traditional accounts of the last three kings not only wear a more historical air than those of the first four, but they describe something like a transformation of the Roman city and state. Under the rule of these latter kings the separate settlements were for the first time enclosed with a rampart of colossal size and extent. The low grounds were drained, and a forum and circus elaborately laid out; on the Capitoline Mount a temple was erected, the massive foundations of which were an object of wonder even to Pliny. … The kings increase in power and surround themselves with new splendour. Abroad, Rome suddenly appears as a powerful state ruling far and wide over southern Etruria and Latium. These startling changes are, moreover, ascribed to kings of alien descent, who one and all ascend the throne in the teeth of established constitutional forms. Finally, with the expulsion of the last of them—the younger Tarquin—comes a sudden shrinkage of power. At the commencement of the republic Rome is once more a comparatively small state, with hostile and independent neighbours at her very doors. It is difficult to avoid the conviction that the true explanation of this phenomenon is to be found in the supposition that Rome during this period passed under the rule of powerful Etruscan lords. Who the people were whom the Romans knew as Etruscans and the Greeks as Tyrrhenians is a question, which, after centuries of discussion, still remains unanswered; nor in all probability will the answer be found until the lost key to their language has been discovered. That they were regarded by the Italic tribes, by Umbrians, Sabellians, and Latins, as intruders is certain. Entering Italy, as they probably did from the north or northeast, they seem to have first of all made themselves masters of the rich valley of the Po and of the Umbrians who dwelt there. {2662} Then crossing the Apennines, they overran Etruria proper as far south as the banks of the Tiber, here too reducing to subjection the Umbrian owners of the soil. In Etruria they made themselves dreaded, like the Northmen of a later time, by sea as well as by land. … We find the Etruscan power encircling Rome on all sides, and in Rome itself a tradition of the rule of princes of Etruscan origin. The Tarquinii come from South Etruria; their name can hardly be anything else than the Latin equivalent of the Etruscan Tarchon, and is therefore possibly a title (='lord' or 'prince') rather than a proper name. … That Etruria had, under the sway of Etruscan lords, forged ahead of the country south of the Tiber in wealth and civilisation is a fact which the evidence of remains has placed beyond doubt. It is therefore significant that the rule of the Tarquins in Rome is marked by an outward splendour which stands in strong contrast to the primitive simplicity of the native kings. … These Etruscan princes are represented, not only as having raised Rome for the time to a commanding position in Latium, and lavished upon the city itself the resources of Etruscan civilisation, but also the authors of important internal changes. They are represented as favouring new men at the expense of the old patrician families, and as reorganising the Roman army on a new footing, a policy natural enough in military princes of alien birth."

_H. F. Pelham, Outlines of Roman History, book 1, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _F. W. Newman, Regal Rome._

_T. H. Dyer, History of the Kings of Rome._

ROME: B. C. 510. Expulsion of Tarquin the Proud. The story from Livy.

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud, son of Tarquinius Priscus and son-in-law of Servius Tullius, brought about the assassination of the latter, and mounted the throne. "Lucius Tarquin, having thus seized the kingdom (for he had not the consent either of the Senators or of the Commons to his deed), bare himself very haughtily, so that men called him Tarquin the Proud. First, lest some other, taking example by him, should deal with him as he had dealt with Tullius, he had about him a company of armed men for guards. And because he knew that none loved him, he would have them fear him. To this end he caused men to be accused before him. And when they were so accused, he judged them by himself, none sitting with him to see that right was done. Some he slew unjustly, and some he banished, and some he spoiled of their goods. And when the number of the Senators was greatly diminished by these means (for he laid his plots mostly against the Senators, as being rich men and the chief of the State), he would not choose any into their place, thinking that the people would lightly esteem them if there were but a few of them. Nor did he call them together to ask their counsel, but ruled according to his own pleasure, making peace and war, and binding treaties or unbinding, with none to gainsay him. Nevertheless, for a while he increased greatly in power and glory. He made alliance with Octavius Mamilius, prince of Tusculum, giving him his daughter in marriage; nor was there any man greater than Mamilius in all the cities of the Latins; and Suessa Pometia, that was a city of the Volsei, he took by force, and finding that the spoil was very rich (for there were in it forty talents of gold and silver), he built with the money a temple to Jupiter on the Capitol, very great and splendid, and worthy not only of his present kingdom but also of that great Empire that should be thereafter. Also he took the city of Gabii by fraud. … By such means did King Tarquin increase his power. Now there was at Rome in the days of Tarquin a noble youth, by name Lucius Junius, who was akin to the house of Tarquin, seeing that his mother was sister to the King. This man, seeing how the King sought to destroy all the chief men in the State (and, indeed, the brother of Lucius had been so slain), judged it well so to bear himself that there should be nothing in him which the King should either covet or desire. Wherefore he feigned foolishness, suffering all that he had to be made a prey; for which reason men gave him the name of Brutus, or the Foolish. Then he bided his time, waiting till the occasion should come when he might win freedom for the people." In a little time "there came to Brutus an occasion of showing what manner of man he was. Sextus, the King's son, did so grievous a wrong to Lucretia, that was the wife of Collatinus, that the woman could not endure to live, but slew herself with her own hand. But before she died she called to her her husband and her father and Brutus, and bade them avenge her upon the evil house of Tarquin. And when her father and her husband sat silent for grief and fear, Brutus drew the knife wherewith she slew herself from the wound, and held it before him dripping with blood, and cried aloud, 'By this blood I swear, calling the Gods to witness, that I will pursue with fire and sword and with all other means of destruction Tarquin the Proud, with his accursed wife and all his race; and that I will suffer no man hereafter to be king in this city of Rome.' And when he had ended he bade the others swear after the same form of words. This they did and, forgetting their grief, thought only how they might best avenge this great wrong that had been done. First they carried the body of Lucretia, all covered with blood, into the marketplace of Collatia (for these things happened at Collatia), and roused all the people that saw a thing so shameful and pitiful, till all that were of an age for war assembled themselves carrying arms. Some of them stayed behind to keep the gates of Collatia, that no one should carry tidings of the matter to the King, and the rest Brutus took with him with all the speed that he might to Rome. There also was stirred up a like commotion, Brutus calling the people together and telling them what a shameful wrong the young Tarquin had done. Also he spake to them of the labours with which the King wore them out in the building of temples and palaces and the like, so that they who had been in time past the conquerors of all the nations round about were now come to be but his hewers of wood and drawers of water. Also he set before them in what shameful sort King Tullius had been slain, and how his daughter had driven her chariot over the dead body of her father. With suchlike words he stirred up the people to great wrath, so that they passed a decree that there should be no more kings in Rome, and that Lucius Tarquin with his wife and his children should be banished. {2663} After this Brutus made haste to the camp and stirred up the army against the King. And in the meanwhile Queen Tullia fled from her palace, all that saw her cursing her as she went. As for King Tarquin, when he came to the city he found the gates shut against him; thereupon he returned and dwelt at Cære that is in the land of Etruria, and two of his sons with him; but Sextus going to Gabii, as to a city which he had made his own, was slain by the inhabitants. The King and his house being thus driven out, Brutus was made consul with one Collatinus for his colleague."

_A. J. Church, Stories from Livy; chapter 5._

ALSO IN: _B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, lectures 8-9 (volume 1)._

_T. H. Dyer, History of the Kings of Rome, chapter 10._

ROME: B. C. 509. The establishment of the Republic. The Valerian Laws.

"However much the history of the expulsion of the last Tarquinius, 'the proud,' may have been interwoven with anecdotes and spun out into a romance, it is not in its leading outlines to be called in question. … The royal power was by no means abolished, as is shown by the fact that, when a vacancy occurred, a 'temporary king' (interrex) was nominated as before. The one life-king was simply replaced by two year-kings, who called themselves generals (prætores), or judges (iudices), or merely colleagues (consules) [consules are those who 'leap or dance together.' Foot-note]. The collegiate principle, from which this last—and subsequently most current—name of the annual kings was derived, assumed in their case an altogether peculiar form. The supreme power was not entrusted to the two magistrates conjointly, but each consul possessed and exercised it for himself as fully and wholly as it had been possessed and exercised by the king; and, although a partition of functions doubtless took place from the first—the one consul for instance undertaking the command of the army, and the other the administration of justice—that partition was by no means binding, and each of the colleagues was legally at liberty to interfere at any time in the province of the other.

See CONSUL, ROMAN.

… This peculiarly Latin, if not peculiarly Roman, institution of co-ordinate supreme authorities … manifestly sprang out of the endeavour to retain the regal power in legally undiminished fulness. … A similar course was followed in reference to the termination of their tenure of office. … They ceased to be magistrates, not upon the expiry of the set term, but only upon their publicly and solemnly demitting their office: so that, in the event of their daring to disregard the term and to continue their magistracy beyond the year, their official acts were nevertheless valid, and in the earlier times they scarcely even incurred any other than a moral responsibility."

_T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 2, chapter 1._

"No revolution can be undertaken and completed with success if the mass of the people is not led on by some superior intellect. At the dissolution of an existing legal authority the only authority remaining is personal and de facto, which in proportion to the danger of the position is more or less military and dictatorial. The Romans especially acknowledged the necessity, when circumstances required it, of submitting to the unlimited power of a dictator. Such a chief they found, at the time of the revolution, in Brutus. Collatinus also may, during a certain time, have stood in a similar manner at the head of the state, probably from less pure motives than Brutus, in consequence of which he succumbed to the movement which he in part may have evoked. After Brutus, Valerius Publicola was the recognised supreme head and the arbiter of events in Rome with dictatorial power, until his legislation made an end of the interregnum, and with all legal forms founded the true and genuine republic with two annual consuls. The dictatorship is found in the Latin cities as a state of transition between monarchy and the yearly prætorship; and we may conjecture that also in Rome the similar change in the constitution was effected in a similar way. In important historical crises the Romans always availed themselves of the absolute power of a dictator, as in Greece, with similar objects, Aesymnetae were chosen. … How long the dictatorial constitution lasted must remain undecided; for we must renounce the idea of a chronology of that time. It appears to me not impossible that the period between the expulsion of the kings and the Valerian laws, which is our authorities is represented as a year, may have embraced ten years, or much more."-

_W. Ihne, Researches into the History of the Roman Constitution, page 61._

"The republic seems to have been first regularly established by the Valerian laws, of which, unfortunately, we can discover little more than half obliterated traces in the oldest traditions of the Romans. According to the story, P. Valerius was chosen as consul after the banishment of Tarquinius Collatinus, and remained alone in office after the death of his colleague, Brutus, without assembling the people for the election of a second consul. This proceeding excited a suspicion in the minds of the people, that he intended to take sole possession of the state, and to re-establish royal power. But these fears proved groundless. Valerius remained in office with the sole design of introducing a number of laws intended to establish the republic on a legal foundation, without the danger of any interference on the part of a colleague. The first of these Valerian laws threatened with the curse of the gods anyone who, without the consent of the people, should dare to assume the highest magistracy. … The second law of Valerius … prescribe that in criminal trials, where the life of a citizen was at stake, the sentence of the consul should be subject to an appeal to the general assembly of the people. This Valerian law of appeal was the Roman Habeas Corpus Act."

_W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1)._

See, also, CONSUL, ROMAN; COMITIA CURIATA; COMITIA CENTURIATA; CENSORS; QUÆSTORS, ROMAN; SENATE, ROMAN.

ROME: B. C. 494-492. The first secession of the Plebs. Origin of the Tribunes of the Plebs, and the Ædiles. Original and acquired power of the Tribunes. The two Roman peoples and their antagonism.