Tarquins

Roman royal family of Etruscan origin

• Lucius Tarquinius Priscus
• Born: Seventh century b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Tarquinii, Etruria (now Tarquinia, Italy)
• Died: 579 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Rome (now in Italy)

• Lucius Tarquinius Superbus
• Born: Sixth century b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Rome (now in Italy)
• Died: After 510 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Cumae (now Cuma, Italy)

The Tarquins were an influential and aristocratic Etruscan-Roman royal family clan whose members include the last three kings of Rome and the founders of the Roman Republic.

Early Lives

The Tarquins (TAR-kwihns) play a colorful part in the Roman traditions recorded by the historians Livy and Dionysius and, by all accounts, they were the most influential family in Rome’s transition from monarchy to republic in the late sixth century b.c.e. Tradition brings their founder, Demaratus, to Tarquinii as a fugitive from the Corinthian tyrant Cypselus in the sixth century b.c.e. Once settled, Demaratus married his sons, Lucumo and Aruns, into the Etruscan nobility. Lucumo emigrated to Rome with his wife, Tanaquil, as Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (LOO-shus tar-KWIHN-ee-us PRIS-cus). (Whether Lucumo is actually an Etruscan title like “sir” or an Etruscan name equivalent to Lucius is debated.) There, through diligent work and strategic planning, the ambitious couple became influential with the king, Ancus Marcius. Appointed guardian of the king’s sons, Priscus sent the princes out of town on their father’s death and contrived to have himself elected king. Despite his success, some years later, he was assassinated by the disgruntled followers of Ancus’s displaced sons, during an attempt to reclaim the throne.

Nevertheless, rule passed to Priscus’s popular son-in-law, the Latin Servius Tullius, husband of the king’s daughter Tarquinia. Servius’s throne became the object of two ambitious royals: Priscus’s grandson (or possibly son) Lucius and Servius’s daughter Tullia, the wife of Lucius’s brother Aruns. Lucius and Tullia found common cause and, after their respective spouses met convenient ends, married. They then set about undermining Servius’s popularity. During a riotous confrontation in the senate, Lucius threw the aged Servius out into the streets, where he was dispatched by assassins. Tullia, who had rushed into town to be the first to proclaim Lucius king, drove her carriage over her father’s body as she returned home. Lucius, who had already taken care to eliminate other potential family rivals to the throne, seized power with the backing of the army and ruled as Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (soo-PER-bus; “the Proud”). He and his immediate family were ultimately driven out by the aristocratic revolution that established the Roman Republic.

According to tradition, Superbus was both a successful and cunning military leader and a murderous despot. Rome chafed under his rule until his son Sextus Tarquinius raped Lucretia, the wife of his kinsman Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. While Collatinus’s pedigree is uncertain, it looks as though he was a descendant of Lucumo’s brother Aruns. Lucretia committed suicide after exposing the rape to her husband and father. Sextus’s cousin Lucius Junius Brutus, Superbus’s nephew, then led Collatinus and others in an outraged revolt that drove Superbus’s family from Rome. Rome became a republic under the executive power of two Tarquin consuls: Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. The family of Superbus made several attempts to retake power, aided in part by the military support of the Etruscan warlord Lars Porsenna of Clusium and Brutus’s own sons (whom he executed), but the Republic endured.

Lives’ Works

Roman tradition treats Servius as strictly Latin in origin and temperament (and therefore to be excused from his royal connections) and separates the republican heroes Brutus and Collatinus from the monarchy. This entry therefore primarily engages the work of Tarquinius Priscus and Tarquinius Superbus. However, the fact that these other characters were intimately connected with the royal line should not be missed. Lucius Junius Brutus, for example, was an heir to the throne who escaped suspicion by playing a simpleton (hence his cognomen “Brutus,” or “Blockhead”) and who executed his own sons for conspiring to bring back the expelled Tarquin monarchy (to which they were also heirs).

There is also some debate as to whether Priscus and Superbus are two versions of the same historical person (a “doublet”), for many of Priscus’s achievements seem to be echoes of Superbus’s better evidenced accomplishments. Nevertheless, scholarship generally inclines toward tradition in making Priscus a genuine historical figure. Of Superbus, however, Roman tradition, contemporary sources, archaeological evidence, and scholarship all agree: He was Rome’s last king. His primary legacy (whether legitimately earned or promoted by those who deposed him) was to give Rome a distaste for monarchy—and even for the word “rex” (king)—that endured throughout the nearly five hundred years of the Roman Republic. Nevertheless, the Tarquins, especially if the reign of Servius Tullius reflects any measure of continuity in Tarquin policy, must receive a considerable share of credit for Rome’s accomplishments during the sixth century b.c.e.

Both Priscus and Superbus are credited with beginning and completing major civic projects that made a unified city out of Rome’s mixture of ethnic villages and that brought prestige, wealth, and influence to Rome. Principal among these projects were the Cloaca Maxima (“Great Sewer”), which drained the area for Rome’s central forum (creating a common civic and judicial center of the city), and the foundation of an impressive temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus (Jupiter the Best and Greatest) on the Capitoline hill overlooking the forum. It was to this temple that victorious Roman generals proceeded in triumph to offer their spoils as thanks for victory. Superbus is also credited with the erection of wooden stands at the Circus Maximus for citizens to view games and events. Rome’s early defensive wall (the so-called Servian Wall), ascribed to Servius Tullius, was probably a later addition to the city’s defenses.

The last three Roman kings worked to unify and organize their city’s growing population with civil and military reforms and with the foundation of temples to gods revered by Rome’s mixture of Latin, Etruscan, Sabine, and other ethnicities. They made provisions for both the increasing number of clans (and clan leaders) and independent poor who arrived to become part of the city. Under Priscus, clan leaders were added to the senate’s numbers, and tradition assigns to Servius Tullius the most important reforms of the military and civic structure (such as the Comitia Centuriata, an elective assembly of citizen males organized by classes according to wealth and ability to furnish weapons). The so-called Servian Constitution, associated with these reforms, probably reflects the Romans’ desire to anchor all positive elements of their “traditional” constitution firmly to a Latin king. However, the Servian reforms can likely be seen as falling within a greater Tarquin program, at least until the reign of Superbus went awry. In any event, the foundational organization of the Roman army and state were laid down in this regal period.

From these developments, the Tarquins engaged in successful conquests and treaties that expanded Rome’s sphere of influence. Priscus is said to have conquered a number of surrounding Latin and Sabine towns and to have put his sons in charge of them. Servius is (probably correctly) credited with the completion of a favorable treaty with the Latin League. Superbus (whom even Livy concedes was a successful military leader) continued an aggressive policy of expansion, conquest, and inclusion in a protective ring around Rome’s growing domain. A treaty with the city of Gabii, which was inscribed on a hide shield and legible until the late first century b.c.e., names a Tarquin of Rome (probably Superbus) and seems indicative of this policy. In any case, the last three kings increased Rome’s territorial control from a few miles to nearly 350 miles (565 kilometers) around the city, backed by an effective and disciplined citizen army and a growing number of interrelated constituencies.

Given their broad engagement in and around Rome, the Tarquins’ influence outlasted both the fall of the monarchy and the struggles of the young Republic. In fact, a fourth century b.c.e. Etruscan tomb painting (the “François” tomb) by a Marcus Camitlnas at the Etruscan city of Vulci depicts the rescue of a Caelius Vibenna by Mastarna and Aulus Vibenna and the killing of Gnaeus Tarquinius of Rome, who had captured Caelius. While the exact identification of these characters and the story to which the painting refers are a matter of dispute, this and other historical evidence show that the Tarquin family exercised a continuing influence on the entire area’s early development and imagination.

Even against this background, the story of Priscus’s surprise arrival in Rome, Superbus’s tyrannical behavior, Brutus’s clever masquerade, Sextus’s unbridled lust, Lucretia’s noble suicide, and the ensuing revolt of liberation reads much more like political melodrama than history. Indeed, Roman historians modeled much of the story of the Roman tyrants’ fall on the fall of Greek tyrants recorded by Herodotus. After all, besides oral tradition, the Romans had only a scant few relics and records of events until the history of Fabius Pictor, nearly three hundred years after the events. Subsequent evidence by and large corroborates the traditional history in broad outline, and although Roman historians wrote in the personalities, many of the events and accomplishments ascribed to the historical characters seem to cling stubbornly, in a most Roman way, to credibility.

Significance

The Tarquins, as a clan, oversaw enduring civic, military, political, architectural, religious, and cultural developments that marked Rome’s rise from a relatively minor Latin city of mixed peoples to a major player in Latium, the region inhabited by the Latins, now Lazio and Etruria (modern Tuscany and portions of Umbria). Moreover, instead of a history of sharply demarcated ethnic communities (as it is sometimes portrayed), the overall record of the Tarquins’ regime shows a fusion of elements—particularly Etruscan and Latin—that set the stage for Rome’s eventual supremacy in Italy.

Bibliography

Dionysius. The Roman Antiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Translated by Ernest Cary. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971-1990. Dionysius was a Greek who lived in Rome from 30 to 8 b.c.e., and wrote a history of Rome to 246 b.c.e. Contains notes and index.

Gantz, T. N. “The Tarquin Dynasty.” Historia 24 (1975): 539-554. Gantz presents a view of the Tarquins that is sympathetic to the original sources’ contention that there was, in fact, a Tarquin Dynasty. Includes a full family tree and argues for the interesting speculation that the Gnaeus Tarquinius pictured in the François Tomb may be the father of Superbus.

Holloway, R. R. The Archaeology of Early Rome and Latium. New York: Routledge, 2000. A fine presentation of archaeological findings and their significance for an understanding of the development of early Rome and the surrounding area. Holloway also gives the reader a strong understanding of the different controversies involved with interpreting the evidence. Includes notes and index.

Livy. The Early History of Rome. Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt. New York: Penguin Books, 2002. Books 1-5 of Titius Livius’s (late first century b.c.e.) comprehensive history of Rome to the time of Augustus. Contains the traditional and vivid account of the Tarquins and their exploits. Offers a useful introduction as well as the translation. Includes maps, bibliography, and index.

Ogilvie, R. M. Early Rome and the Etruscans. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1976. Ogilvie presents a substantial overview of the evidence for the Etruscan influence on Rome. Includes a date chart, description of primary sources, notes for further reading by chapter, and index.