![]() ![]() Most Roman sources name Servius' mother as Ocrisia, a young noblewoman taken at the Roman siege of Corniculum and brought to Rome, either pregnant by her husband, who was killed at the siege: or as a virgin. ![]() Dionysius and Plutarch offer various alternatives not found in Livy, and Livy's own pupil, the etruscologist, historian and emperor Claudius, offered yet another, based on Etruscan tradition. ![]() Livy's sources probably included at least some official state records, he excluded what seemed implausible or contradictory traditions, and arranged his material within an overarching chronology. 46 – 120 AD) their own sources included works by Quintus Fabius Pictor, Diocles of Peparethus, Quintus Ennius and Cato the Elder. The main literary sources for Servius' life and achievements are the Roman historian Livy (59 BC – AD 17), whose Ab urbe condita was generally accepted by the Romans as the standard, most authoritative account Livy's near contemporary Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and Plutarch (c. The oldest surviving source for the overall political developments of the Roman kingdom and Republic is Cicero's De republica ("On the State"), written in 44 BC. Servius Tullius has been described as Rome's "second founder", "the most complex and enigmatic" of all its kings, and a kind of "proto-Republican magistrate". On the other, Romans of the Republic and Empire saw each king as contributing in some distinctive and novel way to the city's fabric and territories, or its social, military, religious, legal or political institutions. On the one hand, Romulus was held to have brought Rome into being more-or-less at a stroke, so complete and purely Roman in its essentials that any acceptable change or reform thereafter must be clothed as restoration. In Republican mores and institutions kingship was abhorrent and remained so, in name at least, during the Empire. ![]() Later Romans had a complex ideological relationship with this distant past. Some were native Romans, others were foreign. The nature of Roman kingship is unclear most Roman kings were elected by the senate, as to a lifetime magistracy, but some claimed succession through dynastic or divine right. Servius Tullius was the sixth, and his successor Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud) was the last. In Roman tradition, Rome's founder Romulus was the first. Background īefore its establishment as a Republic, Rome was ruled by kings (Latin reges, singular rex). This cleared the way for the abolition of Rome's monarchy and the founding of the Roman Republic, whose groundwork had already been laid by Servius' reforms. In consequence of this "tragic crime" and his hubristic arrogance as king, Tarquinius was eventually removed. According to Livy, he reigned for 44 years, until murdered by his daughter Tullia and son-in-law Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. He is traditionally credited with the institution of the Compitalia festivals, the building of temples to Fortuna and Diana and, less plausibly, the invention of Rome's first true coinage.ĭespite the opposition of Rome's patricians, he expanded the Roman franchise and improved the lot and fortune of Rome's lowest classes of citizens and non-citizens. He had military successes against Veii and the Etruscans, and expanded the city to include the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline hills. Servius was a popular king, and one of Rome's most significant benefactors. The Emperor Claudius discounted such origins and described him as an originally Etruscan mercenary, named Mastarna, who fought for Caelius Vibenna. Livy depicts Servius' mother as a captured Latin princess enslaved by the Romans her child is chosen as Rome's future king after a ring of fire is seen around his head. Several traditions describe Servius' father as divine. The constitutional basis for his accession is unclear he is variously described as the first Roman king to accede without election by the Senate, having gained the throne by popular and royal support and as the first to be elected by the Senate alone, with support of the reigning queen but without recourse to a popular vote. Roman and Greek sources describe his servile origins and later marriage to a daughter of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, Rome's first Etruscan king, who was assassinated in 579 BC. Servius Tullius was the legendary sixth king of Rome, and the second of its Etruscan dynasty. ![]()
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