SEXTUS AND COLLATINUS TARQUINUS DRIVER
As she drove toward the Urbian Hill, her driver stopped suddenly, horrified at the sight of the king's body, lying in the street.
But Tarquin bade her return home, concerned that the crowd might do her violence. Tullia, meanwhile, drove in her chariot to the senate-house, where she was the first to hail her husband as king. The king's retainers fled, and as he made his way, dazed and unattended, toward the palace, the aged Servius was set upon and murdered by Tarquin's assassins, perhaps on the advice of his own daughter. When word of this brazen deed reached Servius, he hurried to the curia to confront Tarquin, who leveled the same accusations against his father-in-law, and then in his youth and vigor carried the king outside and flung him down the steps of the senate-house and into the street. He then spoke to the senators, denigrating Servius as a slave born of a slave for failing to be elected by the senate and the people during an interregnum, as had been the tradition for the election of kings of Rome for being gifted the throne by a woman for favouring the lower classes of Rome over the wealthy, and for taking the land of the upper classes for distribution to the poor and for instituting the census so that the wealth of the upper classes might be exposed in order to excite popular envy. He went to the senate-house with a group of armed men, sat himself on the throne, and summoned the senators to attend upon King Tarquin. In time, Tarquin felt ready to seize the throne. He bestowed presents upon them, and spread criticism of Servius the king. Tarquin solicited the support of the patrician senators, especially those from families who had received their senatorial rank under Tarquin the Elder. Tullia encouraged her husband to advance his own position, ultimately persuading him to usurp the throne. Together, they had three sons: Titus, Arruns, and Sextus, and a daughter, Tarquinia, who married Octavius Mamilius, the prince of Tusculum.
After the murder of their siblings, Lucius and Tullia were married. Her younger sister was of fiercer temperament, but her husband Arruns was not, and she came to despise him, and conspired with his brother to bring about the deaths of the elder sister and younger brother. The elder Tullia was of mild disposition, yet married the ambitious Lucius Tarquinius. Their sister, Tarquinia, married Marcus Junius Brutus, and was the mother of Lucius Junius Brutus. To forestall further dynastic strife, Tullius married his daughters, known to history as Tullia Major and Tullia Minor, to Lucius Tarquinius, the future king, and his brother Arruns. This may recollect an otherwise forgotten attempt by the sons of Tarquin the elder to reclaim the throne. According to an Etruscan tradition, the hero Macstarna, usually equated with Servius Tullius, defeated and killed a Roman named Gnaeus Tarquinius, and rescued the brothers Caelius and Aulus Vibenna. Tanaquil had engineered her husband's succession to the Roman kingdom on the death of Ancus Marcius, and when the sons of Marcius arranged the elder Tarquin's assassination in 579 BC, Tanaquil placed Servius Tullius on the throne, in preference to her own sons. Tarquin was the son or grandson of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, and Tanaquil. His reign is described as a tyranny that justified the abolition of the monarchy. Tarquin was said to have been the son or grandson of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, and to have gained the throne through the murders of both his wife and his elder brother, followed by the assassination of his predecessor, Servius Tullius. He is commonly known as Tarquin the Proud, from his cognomen Superbus (Latin for "proud, arrogant, lofty").Īncient accounts of the Regal period mingle history and legend. Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (died 495 BC) was the legendary seventh and final king of Rome, reigning from 535 BC until the popular uprising in 509 that led to the establishment of the Roman Republic.
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