Founding of the Roman Republic (509 BC): End of the Kings

The founding of the Roman Republic is traditionally dated to 509 BC, when the Romans expelled their seventh and last king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, “Tarquin the Proud”, and handed power to two magistrates elected for one year. Roman tradition traced the revolt to the rape of the noblewoman Lucretia by the king’s son. The new system of consuls, Senate and assemblies governed Rome for nearly five centuries and became a model for later republics.

Rome under the kings

According to Roman tradition, Rome was ruled by seven kings from the founding of Rome in 753 BC. The kings were not hereditary in a simple sense: each was chosen with the approval of the Senate and the people. The last three, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius and Tarquinius Superbus, are associated with strong Etruscan influence and with a period in which Rome became a large and prosperous city.

Tarquinius Superbus, traditionally king from 535 to 509 BC, came to power after the murder of Servius Tullius. Roman writers portrayed him as a tyrant who ignored the Senate, executed opponents and forced ordinary Romans to labour on great building projects, such as the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill and the drain later known as the Cloaca Maxima. He was also a successful war leader who extended Roman power in Latium.

Lucretia and the revolt

The best-known account is that of the historian Livy, written around 500 years after the events. While the Roman army was besieging the town of Ardea, a group of young nobles argued over whose wife was the most virtuous. Riding home unannounced, they found the king’s daughters-in-law feasting, while Lucretia, wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, was spinning wool with her maids late at night.

Some days later, the king’s son Sextus Tarquinius returned alone to Collatia and raped Lucretia, threatening her with disgrace if she resisted. Lucretia summoned her father, Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus, and her husband, who arrived with Publius Valerius and Lucius Junius Brutus. She told them what had happened, asked them to avenge her and then took her own life.

Brutus, the king’s nephew, had reputedly survived the tyrant’s purges by pretending to be dull-witted; his name means “stupid”. He drew the knife from Lucretia’s body and swore to drive out the king and his family and never to allow anyone to be king in Rome again. The body was carried into the Forum at Collatia and then to Rome, where Brutus roused the people.

The expulsion of the Tarquins

Brutus persuaded the assembled Romans to strip the king of his power and exile him with his wife and children. When Tarquin hurried back from Ardea, he found the gates of Rome shut against him, while Brutus went to the army and won it over. The king went into exile at the Etruscan city of Caere. Sextus fled to Gabii, where, according to Livy, he was killed in revenge for old crimes.

In place of the king, the Romans elected two magistrates for a year at a time. Tradition names Brutus and Collatinus as the first pair. Because Collatinus belonged to the Tarquin family, suspicion soon fell on him; he resigned and left Rome, and Publius Valerius was chosen in his place. Valerius later earned the surname Publicola, “friend of the people”, for laws that allowed citizens to appeal against a magistrate’s sentence.

The fight to keep the Republic

The new state faced conspiracy at once. A group of young aristocrats plotted to restore the Tarquins, and among them were Brutus’s own sons, Titus and Tiberius. When the plot was discovered, Brutus, as consul, watched their execution. This scene of duty placed above family became one of the most celebrated stories in Roman history.

Tarquin then sought help from the Etruscan cities of Veii and Tarquinii. At the battle of the Silva Arsia, Brutus and the king’s son Arruns killed each other in single combat. Spurius Lucretius was chosen to replace Brutus but died soon after, and Marcus Horatius Pulvillus took his place. According to tradition Horatius dedicated the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitol in the Republic’s first year.

The next threat came from Lars Porsenna, king of the Etruscan city of Clusium. Roman legend celebrated heroes of this war: Horatius Cocles, who held the bridge across the Tiber; Gaius Mucius, who burned his own right hand to show Roman courage and was nicknamed Scaevola, “left-handed”; and the young woman Cloelia, who escaped from Porsenna’s camp. Other ancient writers, including Tacitus and Pliny the Elder, hint that Porsenna actually captured Rome and imposed harsh terms, a version many historians find more believable.

Tarquin’s last attempt at a return came with the Latin league. Rome defeated the Latins at the Battle of Lake Regillus, traditionally in 496 BC. The exiled king died at Cumae in Campania, under the protection of its tyrant Aristodemus, in 495 BC.

How the new Republic worked

The Romans called their state the res publica, “the public thing” or commonwealth. Power was divided so that no individual could become a king again:

• Consuls: two chief magistrates, elected annually by the citizens, who commanded the army and presided over government. Each could block the other. In the earliest period they may have been called praetors.
• The Senate: a council of leading men, mostly former magistrates, which advised the consuls and in practice guided policy.
• The assemblies: citizens voted for magistrates, on laws and on war and peace.
• The rex sacrorum: a “king of sacred rites” kept the king’s religious duties but was barred from political office.
• The dictator: in emergencies, a single leader could be appointed for up to six months. The first is traditionally dated to 501 BC.

Real power at first lay with the patricians, a small group of aristocratic families. The struggle of the poorer plebeians for a share in power began within a generation, with the First Secession of the Plebs in 494 BC.

What historians believe

The story of 509 BC was written down centuries later, by historians such as Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the late 1st century BC, who drew on earlier annalists, family traditions and lists of magistrates. Some details look like literary invention. The expulsion of the Tarquins happens almost at the same moment as the fall of the tyrant Hippias in Athens in 510 BC, and Lucretia’s story echoes Greek tales of tyrants brought down by sexual crimes.

Some scholars have argued that the monarchy ended later, or that there was a gradual shift through a period of military strongmen. Most, however, accept that the kings were replaced by elected magistrates around the end of the 6th century BC. The Greek historian Polybius dates Rome’s first treaty with Carthage to the consulship of Brutus and Horatius, and archaeology shows the great Capitoline temple was built in the late 6th century.

A striking piece of evidence came in 1977, when a stone inscription was found at Satricum, south of Rome. Dated to about 500 BC, this Lapis Satricanus records a dedication by the “companions of Publius Valerius”. Many scholars link him with Publius Valerius Publicola, though the identification cannot be proved.

Key people

• Lucius Junius Brutus: leader of the revolt and one of the first two consuls; died fighting the Tarquins in the Republic’s first year.
• Lucretia: the noblewoman whose rape and suicide, in the traditional story, triggered the uprising.
• Lucius Tarquinius Superbus: Rome’s seventh and last king, remembered as a tyrant and a capable builder and general.
• Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus: Lucretia’s husband and fellow consul, forced to resign and leave Rome because of his family name.
• Publius Valerius Publicola: consul in the first years of the Republic, credited with the law of appeal to the people.
• Lars Porsenna: king of Clusium, whose war against Rome was the most serious early threat to the new state.

Timeline

• 535 BC: Traditional start of Tarquinius Superbus’s reign.
• 509 BC: Rape and death of Lucretia; Tarquin is expelled and the first consuls take office.
• 509 BC: Execution of Brutus’s sons; Brutus dies at the battle of the Silva Arsia.
• 509 BC, 13 September: Traditional dedication of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.
• 508 BC: Traditional war with Lars Porsenna of Clusium.
• c. 504 BC: Latins and Cumae defeat Porsenna’s son Arruns at Aricia.
• 501 BC: Traditional appointment of the first dictator.
• 496 BC: Battle of Lake Regillus; Rome defeats the Latins.
• 495 BC: Tarquinius Superbus dies in exile at Cumae.

Legacy

Hatred of the title “rex” became a lasting part of Roman political culture. When Julius Caesar seemed to aim at kingship in 44 BC, the conspirators were led by Marcus Junius Brutus, who claimed descent from the founder of the Republic. Even Augustus, who ended the Republic in practice, avoided calling himself king.

The story of Lucretia inspired works such as Shakespeare’s poem The Rape of Lucrece (1594) and paintings by Titian, Rembrandt and others. Jacques-Louis David’s painting of Brutus and his dead sons was exhibited in Paris in 1789, the year the French Revolution began, and was read as a symbol of republican virtue. The framers of the United States Constitution drew on Roman ideas of mixed government, checks on power and a Senate.

Why it matters

The end of the Roman monarchy created a system of elected, time-limited and shared power that governed Rome for nearly 500 years. Its institutions and the ideals attached to them, of citizens ruling themselves under law, have shaped republican thinking in Europe and the Americas ever since.