Anthony Everitt - The Rise of Rome

All these emblems of power were the natural marks of self-assertion by an autocrat who relied on the People’s support. Splendor awes and attracts. As an Italian version of the Greek turannos, we may wonder whether Roman patricians—“old blood” from the time of Romulus—were any more enthusiastic about their king than the Bacchiads of Corinth had been when confronted with Cypselus. Tarquin was surely trying to weaken their position when he recruited an additional hundred senators from outside the patriciate.

He also enlarged the number of cavalrymen, or equites , in the army; these citizens were wealthy enough to pay for their own horses and represented another nonpatrician power center. He tried to bolster their position further by enrolling them into three new “tribes” or voting groups, in the Assembly. A leading patrician, Nevius, opposed the reform. The king was infuriated and decided to take his revenge.

Nevius was an augur, a priest responsible for the interpretation of the flight of birds. Tarquin wanted to show him up as a charlatan who did not speak a word of truth. He summoned Nevius into his presence and said, “I have a project in mind and would like to know if it is feasible or not. Please take the auspices and come back quickly. I will sit here and wait for you.”

The augur did as he was told and reported that he had obtained favorable omens and that the undertaking was possible. “You have convicted yourself of openly lying about the will of the gods,” crowed the king. “I wanted to know whether if I strike this whetstone with a razor I will be able to cut it in half.” This feat was obviously out of the question, and a watching crowd laughed.

Unabashed, Nevius replied, “Go ahead, strike it and you will cut it in half. If not I will submit to any punishment you choose.” Tarquin did so, and the steel sliced so easily through the stone that it nicked the hand of the man holding it.

Wisely, the king acknowledged defeat. He canceled his planned reform and had a bronze statue of Nevius erected in the Forum as recognition of his accomplishments. Dionysius of Halicarnassus recalled: “This statue remained down to my time. It stands in front of the Senate House near the sacred fig tree. It is less than life-size and the head is covered with a mantle [like a priest at a sacrifice]. A little way off, the whetstone and the razor are said to be buried under an altar.”

LUCIUS TARQUINIUS HAD not touched Ancus Marcius’s sons. Over the years, their sense of grievance grew and from time to time they plotted unsuccessfully against him. Loyal to their father’s memory, he always pardoned the offense. Now, when Nevius unexpectedly disappeared from the city, the sons drew the obvious conclusion that there had been foul play and the king was to blame. They financed bands of partisans who accused Tarquin of murder. Such a man, they said, should not be allowed to pollute the religious rituals over which he presided as king. It only made matters worse that he was “not a Roman, but some newcomer and a man without a country.”

Tarquin, now an old man in his eighties, went to the Forum and defended himself vigorously against the charge. The public supported him, viewing the accusation as self-interested slander. Ancus Marcius’s sons apologized to the king, who, as usual, forgave them. Three years passed without incident, and then they entered into a new conspiracy.

They dressed up two of their most fearless accomplices as shepherds, armed uncontroversially with billhooks, and gave them instructions on what to do and say. Then they sent them to the palace at midday. As the men approached the building, they apparently fell into an argument and came to blows. A crowd, ostensibly of people from the countryside, gathered and cheered on the quarrelers.

Eventually, Tarquin had the two men brought before him. They pretended that their dispute was about some goats, and bawled at each other, saying nothing to the point. Amid much laughter at the horseplay, they suddenly attacked the king and one of them hit him on the head with his billhook, a mortal blow. Leaving the weapon in the wound, the assassins ran out of doors but were caught by the lictors. Under torture, they revealed the authors of the plot, who fled into exile, and were then executed.

The king was dead, but the regime was more than capable of handling the crisis. Tanaquil, the queen, closed the palace doors and ejected all witnesses. She then sent out for medical supplies, as if Tarquin were still alive, and hastily summoned her son-in-law for an urgent consultation.

This was Servius Tullius, about whose origins there are various traditions. According to most acccounts, he was the son of a slave woman who belonged to the queen; his father was unknown or quickly forgotten. Cicero writes:

Though he was brought up as a slave, and served at the king’s table, yet the spark of genius, which shone even then in the boy, did not remain unnoticed, so capable was he in every duty and in every word he spoke. On this account Tarquin, whose children were still very young, became so fond of Servius that the latter was popularly regarded as his son; and the king took the greatest care to have him educated in all the branches which he himself had studied, in accordance with the most careful practice of the Greeks.

Portents added to the favorable impression that the boy made on the king and queen. Some report that Servius’s mother had a very surprising experience when sacrificing at the palace’s hearth. A phallus rose up from the hearth and inserted itself inside her. She told Tanaquil what had happened. The queen realized at once that a god must have been responsible. She watched over the woman’s pregnancy and tried to ensure that her baby’s divine parentage was kept a secret. This was no easy task, for portents continued to intervene. Once, when the child was asleep, his head burst into flames without his being harmed in any way, and from time to time people noticed a nimbus around his head. It was generally understood that his father must have been the fire god, Vulcan.

Tanaquil advised her husband that young Servius obviously had great promise (greater than that of their own children, incidentally). The boy was brought up as their son, and in due course the adult Servius married the king’s daughter.

In the wake of Tarquin’s murder, his widow advised Servius Tullius to seize the throne. Outside the palace, a crowd was shouting and pushing, so she went to a first-floor window and gave a short speech. “The king has been stunned by a sudden blow, but the steel has not sunk deep into his body,” she announced. “He has already recovered consciousness, the blood has been wiped off and the head examined. I assure you that you will soon be able to see him. In the meantime everyone should obey Tullius, who will dispense justice and perform the other duties of the king.”

For the next few days, Servius acted as regent. This gave him time to strengthen his political position and appoint a strong guard. When everything was ready, lamentations were heard from inside the palace, signaling Tarquin’s death. Although he had not yet been endorsed at an assembly of the People, Servius’s claim to the throne was backed by the Senate and from then onward he acted as king both in name and in deed. He later took care to win popular endorsement and astutely married his two daughters to the dead king’s sons, Lucius and Aruns, hoping by this precaution to avoid his predecessor’s fate.

Servius Tullius, like great men later in Rome’s history, believed devoutly in his luck. He claimed a special relationship with Fortuna, the goddess of chance, to whom he dedicated numerous shrines throughout the city. An ancient temple has been discovered in the Forum Boarium, or Ox Forum (a traffic hub where various streets met, it was so named after the statue of a bronze ox, not because it was a cattle market), and may be one of the king’s foundations. The goddess was said to visit him at night, climbing through a window to enter his bedroom. He may have conducted a ritual called “sacred marriage,” whereby a ruler had sex with a divinity in her temple, legitimizing his authority and ensuring the fertility and well-being of his realm. (Naturally, a female slave or temple prostitute would stand in for the goddess.)