Gcse ancient History
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Theme: The character and reigns of the kings 3.1 The nature of kingship in early Rome Who were the Kings of Rome? According to legend there were seven kings of Rome and there are traditional dates for when they ruled.
Romulus According to the legend, Romulus and his twin brother Remus were sons of Mars the god of war from when he raped a Vestal Virgin called Rhea Silvia. Whether this is true or not, it creates a violent, warlike image. The twins were left to die by the river but saved when a female wolf let them suck her milk. Again this sounds rather suspicious, but it reinforces the wild, dangerous image. The twins were brought up by a shepherd and his wife which implies a simple, down to earth upbringing with no pampering or pretentiousness and this fits in with the Roman ideas of being manly and sensible and not weak or soft. When Romulus was young he and Remus worked hard as shepherds. They also led a gang of shepherds who attacked robbers and took away their stolen goods. This shows leadership qualities, violence and perhaps a sense of justice, but they kept the loot so maybe it makes them as ruthless as the robbers. They led groups of men in an uprising and killed Amulius the evil king of Alba and made their grandfather Numitor king again. Romulus argued with his brother over who should be in charge of the city they were building which shows he liked to be the boss and had a temper. When Remus jumped over the walls Romulus was building, Romulus killed him and said “That’s what will happen to anyone who jumps over my walls”. This reinforces the ‘don’t mess with the Romans’ image and shows a ruthless, violent nature. Romulus set up worshiping customs in the Alban style except for the worship of Hercules which he carried on in the Greek way as Evander had started it. Notice the story involves violence and defeating an enemy. Hercules was made a god after he died just as Romulus was. They don’t let anyone get the better of them. Romulus gave the people laws and so that they would obey them, he made himself look more impressive by having twelve attendants or body guards called lictors. Livy says he got the idea from the Etruscans. Romulus is again shown as knowing how to manipulate people and as resourceful by learning from another culture. Romulus made the city of Rome bigger when there weren’t many people there which shows his ambition. He pretended that his original gang of settlers was his tribe who were born from the earth which shows him manipulating people again. Then he opened up the city to asylum seekers so that he had plenty of men. So Rome’s original inhabitants were a very mixed bunch and Livy portrays a humble, rough and ready start to the city of Rome. Romulus created one hundred senators to help govern the people and this shows his organisational skills and leadership. Romulus tried to get more women for the Roman men to marry by sending ambassadors to ask the neighbours whether they could marry their daughters but they refused so Romulus made a plan and they took the women by force after inviting them to a festival. This shows him always getting what he wants by asking or by force if necessary and also reflects a lack of respect for women. After defeating the Caeninenses tribe in a battle Romulus was just as good at showing off what he had done as he was at doing it in the first place so he climbed up the Capitol carrying the armour he had taken from the dead enemy leader and he hung it up on a specially made frame. This shows his character as a person proud of his achievements but also dutiful to the gods as he dedicated the armour to Jupiter and built a temple for him there. When Romulus came back from the wars with the parents of the abducted women, he was very pleased with his victories. His wife Hersilia had been touched by the begging of the abducted women and she asked him to forgive their parents and let them be citizens. So that Rome could grow in peace Romulus agreed happily. Here we can see Livy shifting the sensitive side onto the woman so it doesn’t make Romulus look soft. This happens again when the abducted women stop the battle between their fathers and husbands and ask them to make peace. During the battle against the Sabines, when the Roman citadel has been taken, Romulus prays to Jupiter offering to build him a temple there if he helps them and then tells the men: “Here, Romans, Jupiter the Best and Greatest orders us to stop running and start fighting” Romulus inspires his men using his ‘piety’ and their faith in the gods. After the war with the Sabines, Romulus makes a deal to share power with the Sabine King Tatius which is rather out of character for Romulus. After a few years, some relatives of King Tatius attacked some Laurentine ambassadors, but when the Laurentines, asked the relatives to make up for it which was the law, Tatius was biased and believed what his relatives said. So he got their punishment himself because when he went Lavinium to an important religious festival, he was killed in the riot he caused by being there. People say that Romulus was less upset by this than he should have been, either because he did not like sharing being king, or because he believed that the killing was fair, so he did not cause a fight about it. To make up for the ambassadors being attacked and the king being killed, he renewed the treaty between the cities of Rome and Lavinium. In the battle against the Fidenates Romulus’ skill as a general is shown as he hides men in the undergrowth and then lets the enemy think his army is disorganized and retreating so the Fidenates come out of the city thinking they can beat the Romans and fall straight in the trap. Romulus is shown as cunning and ruthless. The last thing we are told he did was defeated the Veii in battle then destroyed their farms but gave them a peace treaty when they asked for it in exchange for some of their land.
Romulus’ death matches his birth – mysterious and unusual. The things he is supposed to have done all reflect aspects of Rome’s identity as a strong, ruthless, warlike nation which did go on to be ‘the capital of the world’. Livy says that Romulus ruled for 37 years. Numa Numa Pompilius lived in a Sabine town called Cures and was famous because he was fair and religious and he knew a lot about humans’ and gods’ laws. According to Livy, there was a myth that said Pythagoras of Samos (the man who proved that A2+B2=C2) was his teacher but Livy says this is not possible because Pythagoras lived one hundred years later than Numa. Livy believed that Numa was great because of his own character, because the ancient Sabines had a serious and harsh nature and you could not bribe them. When Numa was nominated to be king, nobody could think of anyone better so the Senators offered him the job. He said they had to ask the gods like Romulus did, which shows he was very religious from the start. The priest saw the good omens and Numa became king. Numa decided that Rome was very warlike so gave the city a new start with laws and religion. First he founded the temple of Janus which showed that the Romans were at war when the doors were open and at peace when they were shut. He made peace with the neighbours and shut it. Livy takes this opportunity to mention the two other times when the doors have been shut. These are: after the war with Carthage which was one of Rome’s greatest wars (they really hated the Carthaginians), and after Octavian/Emperor Augustus won the battle of Actium and made peace. This gives Livy an opportunity to praise Augustus and make him out to be very special and link him to the heroes of the past. Livy then says that Numa decided to use fear of the gods to control the people and he pretended to meet the goddess Egeria and pretended that she told him how to set up the rituals and the priesthoods. This shows clever leadership on the part of Numa and cunning manipulation of the people but is also quite cynical as it does not reflect much real religious feeling and shows Roman religion as a tool for control. Numa went on to set up all the important religious ceremonies the Romans had which seems to show that he was supposed to be a genuinely religious character as well as a shrewd leader. Numa led by example and all the Romans became very religious people, so that the neighbours did not want to attack because the Romans were all very peaceful. Numa continued to pretend to meet Egeria the goddess and made a holy place for her. In complete contrast to Romulus, there were no wars while he was in charge. This meant that by the end of his reign the Romans had skills in both peace and war. Here we see the different sides of the Roman identity being developed. According to Livy, Numa ruled for 43 years. Tullus Hostilius He became the next king by a vote of the people and was very warlike. He led Rome to victory in a war against the Albans and then made war on the Sabines which was also successful. Tullus was not a very religious king but when strange things started to happen and he caught a plague which was affecting the Romans, everyone decided they should revive Numa’s religious ways. Tullus is said to have made Jupiter angry by getting a ceremony wrong and Tullus died when the palace was struck by lightning. He was king for 32 years. Ancus Marcius Ancus Marcius was the grandson of Numa and was chosen by the people to be king. He made sure religion was properly looked after but was also successful in war against the Latins and extended Rome’s lands. He had two sons and in his will said that Lucius Tarquinius Priscus should look after them when he died. He ruled for 24 years. Tarquinius Priscus Lucius Tarquinius Priscus was an ambitious Etruscan with an ambitious wife called Tanaquil. They travelled to Rome with the intention of becoming powerful. (His name was Lucumo then but he changed it.) On the way an eagle took off Priscus’ hat and then put it back on again which was seen as an omen that he would be king. Tarquinius Priscus got the throne after Ancus Marcius by sending his sons out on a hunting trip and then getting the people to vote him in while they were away. He was quite a good man but a bit of a trickster as can be seen from how he made himself king. Tarquinius Priscus increased the size of the senate, made war successfully on the Latins, planned out the Circus Maximus, established games and improved the forum. Then there was a war with the Sabines and Priscus tried to rearrange the cavalry but was told he could not do this without consulting the bird omens. He was very rude about this but in the end was proved wrong by the priest called Navius. In order to defeat the Sabines, the Romans scared them by making a big fire which floated down the river and burnt the bridge they were going to escape across so a lot of them had to jump in the river. Tarquinius Priscus made an offering to Vulcan the god of fire and invaded Sabine territory causing the Sabines to surrender in the end. Tarquinius then made peace with the surrounding people and set about improving Rome’s walls and sewers and he laid the foundations for the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline hill. In the end, Tarquinius Priscus was killed by shepherds hired by the sons of Ancus Marcius who were still upset because they said he cheated them out of the throne. The shepherds pretended to argue with each other and when the king was concentrating on listening to one of them, the other one hit him with an axe. Servius Servius got the throne when his father-in-law was killed by the shepherds and Tanaquil, his mother in law, made it look as though Tarquinius Priscus had named him as his successor. Some said Servius was the son of a slave, but the other story is that his mother was the wife of the chief of Corniculum which was conquered by the Romans. She was pregnant and after her husband was killed Tanaquil the Queen of Rome took her to the palace so she had her baby there. There was something magical about the child from the start. At that time, there was an event in the palace which was amazing in its outcome and appearance. There was a boy called Servius Tullius and, as he slept, his head burst into flames – an event that many people saw. Of course, this caused uproar, and the royal family came excitedly to see the miracle. When one of the slaves had brought water to put out the flames, he was held back by the Queen Tanaquil. She wouldn’t let the boy be disturbed and asked them all to be quiet until he woke up on his own. Soon the flames died away and he woke up. Then she took her husband Tarquinius away in secret and said, “Do you see this boy we are bringing up in our house in such a poor position? It is obvious that he will be the shining light and protector of the royal house when it is in trouble in worrying times. So let’s look after this boy as best we can so that he will be useful to us and to the people.” From then on they started to treat the boy as if he was their own son, and brought him up in a way that would give him a good character for a great role in life. It happened easily because the gods wanted it to. He had a very royal nature and none of the other young men in Rome looked like they would be as good as Servius as a son-in-law, so the king let his daughter get engaged to him Livy 1.39 This was why Tanaquil was so convinced that he should be the next king of Rome. Servius led the Romans in a successful war against the Veii and proved he was a good leader. Servius then set about organizing the Roman society. He called a census so that he could tax people according to what they could afford. The details are given in Livy book 1 chapter 43. Servius extended Rome as there were more people so he added the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline Hills to the city and made the defences better. Servius made peace with the Latins by getting them to help build a temple to Diana in Rome and accept Rome as their capital. The Romans made sure that they made the first sacrifice to Diana in the temple by tricking the Sabine who tried to do it first so as to get their power back. Lucius Tarquinius the son (or possibly grandson) of Tarquinius Priscus was starting to complain that he should have been the king so Servius first gave lots of land away to the people and then asked them to vote him in which they did. Eventually Lucius Tarquinius (Superbus) succeeded in taking the throne from Servius by force. Servius Tullius ruled for 44 years and had a very successful reign. Tarquinius Superbus This king’s name was Lucius Tarquinius but he got the name Superbus (arrogant or proud) because of all the things he did. Lucius Tarquinius and his brother Arruns were the sons of Tarquinius Priscus and they were married to Servius’ daughters who were both called Tullia. Lucius Tarquinius and the younger Tullia (who was married to Arruns) were both very ambitious so they got their partners killed so they could marry one another. Servius was now an old man and Tullia went on and on at her husband telling him to get on with it and take the throne. Eventually he started to gather supporters and one day he went to the forum with a group of armed men. He sat down on the king’s chair and called the senate to come to King Lucius Tarquinius. They came and he started to say terrible things about Servius and how he should not really be the king. Servius soon arrived and there were supporters on both sides. Tarquinius threw Servius out of the senate house and then his assassins killed him. People say that it was Tullia who told the assassins to kill him. She drove into the forum in her carriage and greeted her husband by calling him the king. He told her to go home and the story goes that she ran over Servius’ body on purpose on the way. Tarquinius refused to let his father-in-law be buried and pretended this made him more like Romulus who never got buried. He killed any senators that he thought preferred Servius. He surrounded himself with armed men. He conducted trials with no jury and killed or punished people he did not like or just took their money because he wanted it. He did not consult the senate and made war and peace with other without asking anyone. He made good friends with the Latins and married his daughter to Octavius Mamilius who was the most important Latin chief and had lots of friends.
Tarquinius praised the Latin chiefs for punishing the trouble maker then took control of all their land by saying there was an ancient treaty that said it was his and if they did not give it to him he would destroy them. Then he mixed up the soldiers into one army with his centurions in charge. Tarquinius made war on the Volsci and decided to build a magnificent temple for Jupiter with the money he made out of the war. Then he started a war with the Gabii but they were difficult to conquer so he pretended to be concentrating on building the temple and sent his son Sextus to the Gabii as a refugee pretending that Tarquinius was really cruel to him. The Gabii took him in hoping that he would help them fight back against the Romans. Sextus made the Gabii trust him so much that he was running the city then his father sent him a coded message by knocking the heads of his tallest poppies with a stick. Sextus understood and killed the important men in Gabii then shared out the wealth with the others and finally handed the city over to his father without a fight. Tarquinius then decided to build the temple of Jupiter on the Tarpeian Mountain which his father had promised to build. The omen from the gods allowed him to remove all the other shrines from the area except the one of Terminus which had to stay where it was and then Rome would be safe. While the temple was being built, a human head was found which was said to mean that Rome would be the head or capital of the world because caput means head in Latin. The temple cost a lot of money. Tarquinius hired people to finish the temple and he also made the Roman men help to build it to keep them busy. He also got the Roman men to build seats in the circus and a great big sewer which they didn’t enjoy as much as building the temple. He sent some men to set up towns in places the Romans had conquered. One day a snake crawled out of a column in the palace. This was seen as an omen so Tarquinius sent two of his sons, Titus and Arruns, to Delphi to find out what it meant. They took Lucius Junius Brutus with them. Everyone thought he was stupid but he was just pretending so he could stay safe. While they were at Delphi the boys asked who would have the most power in Rome. The oracle told them it would be the first one to kiss their mother. The boys decided to keep it secret from their brother Sextus and decided by lot (like picking out of a hat) who would kiss their mother first when they got back. Brutus realised what the oracle really meant and he pretended to fall over and kissed the earth which is where we all come from. When they got back, Rome was preparing for war with the Rutuli.
Tarquinius Superbus reigned for 25 years.
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