Classics 212: Rome: Culture and Empire.

Spring 2016.

Study Guide Lecture 3.

1. The Kings.
After Romulus, Rome was (according to tradition) ruled by a succession of kings.
The kings were chosen by the patrician or senatorial class, but then elected by
the people.
Livy presents most of the kings (all of them until Tarquinius Superbus) as on
balance good influences on Rome. He suggests that each of them contributed
something important to Roman culture. Most importantly, Romulus successor
Numa Pompilius invented the traditional Roman religion. Like many of the kings
Numa was an outsider, a Sabine. This makes sense in the context of Livys idea
of early Rome the new city with its disorderly citizens would benefit from
outside influence.
The last two kings, Servius Tullius and Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the
Proud), are said to have taken office unconstitutionally. But while Servius Tullius
was (according to Livy) a good king and a reformer, Tarquin the Proud was very
unpopular.
2. The Etruscans.
Some of Tarquin the Prouds unpopularity might be explained by his Etruscan
connections.
The Etruscan language, so far as we can reconstruct it from surviving inscriptions
seems to be a language isolate it does not seem to be related to any other
language. Etruscan religion, art and culture seem to have been quite distinctive,
too. People have always speculated about who the Etruscans were: did they
immigrate to Italy, or were they there before the other cultures who shared Italy in
early Roman times arrived?
Etruscan culture was the leading civilization in north Italy during Romes Regal
Period. Of course, this does not mean that there was one Etruscan nation state.
Rather, there were a number of city-states sharing a common Etruscan culture.
The Etruscan powers had a strong naval presence in the Tyrrhenian Sea, the
area of sea to the southwest of Italy. (Tyrrhenian derives from the Greek name
for the Etruscans.)

They engaged in trade with the wider Mediterranean and evidently had
considerable buying power; many of the classical Greek vases that survive were
found in Etruria.
Some of the Etruscan cities also had good land forces. In Livy, when the forces
of Clusium, an Etruscan city, arrive to besiege Rome and restore Tarquinius
Superbus, the Romans think they are facing a superior force. On the other hand,
the Romans soon beat a number of other Etruscan cities.
The Romans regarded the Etruscans as pious and skilled at divining the will of
the gods. More on this in a future lecture.
Be able to recognize the famous Etruscan chariot now in the Metropolitan
Museum in New York:

The chariot dates from around 530 BC (i.e. the last decades of Romes Regal
Period). It is an exceptionally skilful and lavish piece of work.
The artistic style is distinctively Etruscan, but the scene on the front is thought to
be from Homers Greek epic the Iliad: a goddess hands over to the her son, the
hero Achilles, armour made for him by the gods.

3. The New Republic.

In about 500 BC, the Romans overthrew the kings.
According to Livy, the end of the kings at Rome was provoked by the rape of
Lucretia by one of Tarquinius Superbus sons.
Some Romans, notably Lucius Junius Brutus, organized a coup. With the
consent of the people, Brutus and a member of the Tarquin clan became the first
consuls. Under the Republic the kings imperium or command was held by two
annually elected consuls. These were considered a key element in libertas,
liberty. Livy seems to think of liberty as primarily freedom from rule by one
individual.
Tarquin tried to regain power with the help of a series of allies both at Rome (inc.
Brutus own sons) and outside it (most famously the forces of Clusium).
These attacks from Tarquin were held off, and Livy gives us a series of glorious
vignettes of tough Romans standing up to the various threats, e.g.:
Brutus himself, executing his sons for their Tarquinian sympathies.
Three Roman officers who held a bridge against the whole Clusium army,
and in particular Horatius Cocles, who held it alone as it was destroyed.
Gaius Mucius Scaevola, who stood before Clusian king and thrust his right
hand into a brazier until it had burnt away, showing no pain. Scaevolas
remarkable courage and toughness is supposed to have convinced the
king to make peace with Rome.
Cloelia, a hostage who escaped from the enemy camp by swimming the
Tiber.