Foundation of Rome: the monarchy

The founding of Rome is deeply shrouded in legend and myth. There is first the myth of the Trojan prince Aeneas, epically narrated by the Augustan-era poet Virgil in his Aeneid, in which Aeneas leads survivors from the fallen Troy on a voyage across the Mediterranean to Italy.

For more than two centuries, kings ruled Rome. The king was the supreme lawgiver, the chief executive, and the judge of the community. He was Rome’s leader in war and its chief priest. He was its official representative in religious relations with the gods and in political relations with foreign communities. As Rome’s first king, Romulus laid the political foundations of the city by establishing the Senate and dividing the people into three great tribes, probably ethnic in origin: the Ramnes, the Tities, and the Luceres. Each tribe consisted of ten curiae, or assemblies of men. Under the curiae were the patrician-led family clans (gentes), and under them, individual families. Members of the same clan were united by a common name and a common cult. It is probable that patrician land belonged to the collective ownership of the gentes.

The curiae formed the basic political unit of primitive Rome. Their members took an oath of allegiance to the king at his inauguration; they took part in some of the king’s religious activities, and they delegated their power (imperium) to senior magistrates. At no time were they a legislative body. The curiae did, however, play an important role in military organization. Each curia provided (at least originally) one hundred infantrymen (centuria) and one squadron of knights (equites). Here lay the origin of the comitia centuriata, a popular assembly with military functions but no political ones, whose creation has been attributed to king Servius Tullius. This king carried out an important reform in Roman organization that was instrumental to the development of republican institutions: the Servian constitution. Tullius divided the city into four geographical districts (thus abandoning ethnic criteria), each encompassing a single tribe. He also instituted a census of every male citizen, gathering information about each man’s wealth, military duties, and tax liabilities.

The Senate was the royal council and consisted of aristocratic patricians. Senators gathered when called together by the king, who appointed them in accordance with tradition (mos maiorum). The number of senators increased gradually, until three hundred senators were fixed as the maximum. After the death of the king, supreme power rested in the Senate until the election of a new one. In the meantime, a senator appointed as interrex assumed the charge of all public affairs for a period of five days. After this short deadline, if the new king was not yet elected, a new interrex was designated.

Of the seven kings whose names we know, the last three - Tarquin the Elder (Tarquinius Priscus), Servius Tullius, and Tarquin the Proud (Tarquinius Superbus) - formed the Etruscan dynasty, which is certainly historical, not mythical. This dynasty expanded royal power, functions, and influence. Legend attributes to the Etruscans the development of the royal insignia to dignify the figure of the king: the golden crown, the ivory scepter, the curule chair, the toga praetexta (white robe with purple borders), the twelve lictors, and so on.

According to Roman tradition, Tarquin the Proud, son or grandson of Tarquin the Elder and son-in-law of Servius Tullius, was a cruel tyrant. Tarquin the Proud brutally murdered Servius Tullius and established a despotic govern­ment based on terror. Many senators were put to death during his reign. After the rape of an aristocratic woman named Lucretia, or Lucrece, by Tarquin’s youngest son, Sextus, a group of senators, led by Lucius Junius Brutus, raised a revolt and expelled the Tarquin family from Rome. The hateful Etruscan dynasty was overthrown, and the Roman Republic was established (in 509 bce by tradition). With the inauguration of the Republic, the king was replaced by two magistrates called consuls.

With the expulsion of the Tarquins, the figure of the king, now degraded to that of an oppressor, a despot, and a tyrant, became a sort of political trauma in the memory and imagination of Rome. Owing to its wide and sudden impact, the rape of Lucrece turned into a major theme in European music, literature, and art. As William Shakespeare put it at the end of his narrative poem on this rape: “The Romans plausibly did give consent / To Tarquin’s everlasting banishment” (The Rape of Lucrece, lines 1854-55).