Roman History, Books I-III

by Livy

The census being now completed, which he had brought to a speedy close by the terror of a law passed in reference to those who were not rated, under threats of imprisonment and death, he issued a proclamation that all the Roman citizens, horse and foot, should attend at daybreak in the Campus Martius, each in his century. There he reviewed the whole army drawn up in centuries, and purified it by the rite called Suovetaurilia,[43] and that was called the closing of the lustrum, because it was the conclusion of the census. Eighty thousand citizens are said to have been rated in that survey. Fabius Pictor, the most ancient of our historians, adds that that was the number of those who were capable of bearing arms. To accommodate that vast population the city also seemed to require enlargement. He took in two hills, the Quirinal and Viminal; then next he enlarged the Esquiline, and took up his own residence there, in order that dignity might be conferred upon the place. He surrounded the city with a rampart, a moat, and a wall:[44] thus he enlarged the pomerium. Those who regard only the etymology of the word, will have the pomerium to be a space of ground behind the walls: whereas it is rather a space on each side of the wall, which the Etruscans, in building cities, formerly consecrated by augury, within certain limits, both within and without, in the direction they intended to raise the wall: so that the houses might not be erected close to the walls on the inside, as people commonly unite them now, and also that there might be some space without left free from human occupation. This space, which was forbidden to be tilled or inhabited, the Romans called pomerium, not so much from its being behind the wall, as from the wall being behind it: and in enlarging the boundaries of the city, these onsecrated limits were always extended, as far as the walls were intended to be advanced.

When the population had been increased in consequence of the enlargement of the city, and everything had been organized at home to meet the exigencies both of peace and war, that the acquisition of power might not always depend on mere force of arms, he endeavoured to extend his empire by policy and at the same time to add some ornament to the city. The Temple of Diana at Ephesus was even then in high renown; it was reported that it had been built by all the states of Asia in common. When Servius, in the company of some Latin nobles with whom he had purposely formed ties of hospitality and friendship, both in public and private, extolled in high terms such harmony and association of their gods, by frequently harping upon the same subject, he at length prevailed so far that the Latin states agreed to build a temple of Diana at Rome[45] in conjunction with the Roman people. This was an acknowledgment that the headship of affairs, concerning which they had so often disputed in arms, was centred in Rome. An accidental opportunity of recovering power by a scheme of his own seemed to present itself to one of the Sabines, though that object appears to have been left out of consideration by all the Latins, in consequence of the matter having been so often attempted unsuccessfully by arms. A cow of surprising size and beauty is said to have been calved to a certain Sabine, the head of a family: her horns, which were hung up in the porch of the Temple of Diana, remained for many ages, to bear record to this marvel. The thing was regarded in the light of a prodigy, as indeed it was, and the soothsayers declared that sovereignty should reside in that state, a citizen of which had sacrificed this heifer to Diana. This prediction had also reached the ears of the high priest of the Temple of Diana. The Sabine, as soon as a suitable day for the sacrifice seemed to have arrived, drove the cow to Rome, led her to the Temple of Diana, and set her before the altar. There the Roman priest, struck with the size of the victim, so celebrated by fame, mindful of the response of the soothsayers, thus accosted the Sabine: "What dost thou intend to do, stranger?" said he; "with impure hands to offer sacrifice to Diana? Why dost not thou first wash thyself in running water? The Tiber runs past at the bottom of the valley." The stranger, seized with religious awe, since he was desirous of everything being done in due form, that the event might correspond with the prediction, forthwith went down to the Tiber. In the meantime the Roman priest sacrificed the cow to Diana, gave great satisfaction to the king, and to the whole state.

Servius, though he had now acquired an indisputable right to the kingdom by long possession, yet, as he heard that expressions were sometimes thrown out by young Tarquin, to the effect that he occupied the throne without the consent of the people, having first secured the good-will of the people by dividing among them, man by man, the land taken from their enemies, he ventured to propose the question to them, whether they chose and ordered that he should be king, and was declared king with greater unanimity than any other of his predecessors. And yet even this circumstance did not lessen Tarquin's hope of obtaining the throne; nay, because he had observed that the matter of the distribution of land to the people was against the will of the fathers, he thought that an opportunity was now presented to him of arraigning Servius before the fathers with greater violence, and of increasing his own influence in the senate, being himself a hot-tempered youth, while his wife Tullia roused his restless temper at home. For the royal house of the Roman kings also exhibited an example of tragic guilt, so that through their disgust of kings, liberty came more speedily, and the rule of this king, which was attained through crime, was the last. This Lucius Tarquinius (whether he was the son or grandson of Tarquinius Priscus is not clear: following the greater number of authorities, however, I should feel inclined to pronounce him his son) had a brother, Arruns Tarquinius, a youth of a mild disposition. To these two, as has been already stated, the two Tullias, daughters of the king, had been married, they also themselves being of widely different characters. It had come to pass, through the good fortune, I believe, of the Roman people, that two violent dispositions should not be united in marriage, in order that the reign of Servius might last longer, and the constitution of the state be firmly established. The haughty spirit of Tullia was chagrined, that there was no predisposition in her husband, either to ambition or daring. Directing all her regard to the other Tarquinius, him she admired, him she declared to be a man, and sprung from royal blood; she expressed her contempt for her sister, because, having a man for her husband, she lacked that spirit of daring that a woman ought to possess. Similarity of disposition soon drew them together, as wickedness is in general most congenial to wickedness; but the beginning of the general confusion originated with the woman. Accustomed to the secret conversations of the husband of another, there was no abusive language that she did not use about her husband to his brother, about her sister to her sister's husband, asserting that it would have been better for herself to remain unmarried, and he single, than that she should be united with one who was no fit mate for her, so that her life had to be passed in utter inactivity by reason of the cowardice of another. If the gods had granted her the husband she deserved, she would soon have seen the crown in possession of her own house, which she now saw in possession of her father. She soon filled the young man with her own daring. Lucius Tarquinius and the younger Tullia, when the pair had, by almost simultaneous murders, made their houses vacant for new nuptials, were united in marriage, Servius rather offering no opposition than actually approving.

Then indeed the old age of Tullius began to be every day more endangered, his throne more imperilled. For now the woman from one crime directed her thoughts to another, and allowed her husband no rest either by night or by day, that their past crimes might not prove unprofitable, saying that what she wanted was not one whose wife she might be only in name, or one with whom she might live an inactive life of slavery: what she wanted was one who would consider himself worthy of the throne, who would remember that he was the son of Tarquinius Priscus, who would rather have a kingdom than hope for it. "If you, to whom I consider myself married, are such a one, I greet you both as husband and king; but if not, our condition has been changed so far for the worse, in that in your crime is associated with cowardice. Why do you not gird yourself to the task? You need not, like your father, from Corinth or Tarquinii, struggle for a kingdom in a foreign land. Your household and country's gods, the statue of your father, the royal palace and the kingly throne in that palace, and the Tarquinian name, elect and call you king. Or if you have too little spirit for this, why do you disappoint the state? Why suffer yourself to be looked up to as a prince? Get hence to Tarquinii or Corinth. Sink back again to your original stock, more like your brother than your father." By chiding him with these and other words, she urged on the young man: nor could she rest herself, at the thought that though Tanaquil, a woman of foreign birth, had been able to conceive and carry out so vast a project, as to bestow two thrones in succession on her husband, and then on her son-in-law, she, sprung from royal blood, had no decisive influence in bestowing and taking away a kingdom. Tarquinius, driven on by the blind passion of the woman, began to go round and solicit the support of the patricians, especially those of the younger families:[46] he reminded them of his father's kindness, and claimed a return for it, enticed the young men by presents, increased his influence everywhere both by making magnificent promises on his own part, as well as by accusations against the king. At length, as soon as the time seemed convenient for carrying out his purpose, he rushed into the forum, accompanied by a band of armed men; then, while all were struck with dismay, seating himself on the throne before the senate-house, he ordered the fathers to be summoned to the senate-house by the crier to attend King Tarquinius. They assembled immediately, some having been already prepared for this, others through fear, lest it should prove dangerous to them not to have come, astounded at such a strange and unheard-of event, and considering that the reign of Servius was now at an end. Then Tarquinius began his invectives with his immediate ancestors: That a slave, the son of a slave, after the shameful death of his father, without an interregnum being adopted, as on former occasions, without any election being held, without the suffrages of the people, or the sanction of the fathers, he had taken possession of the kingdom by the gift of a woman; that so born, so created king, a strong supporter of the most degraded class, to which he himself belonged, through a hatred of the high station of others, he had deprived the leading men of the state of their land and divided it among the very lowest; that he had laid all the burdens, which were formerly shared by all alike, on the chief members of the community; that he had instituted the census, in order that the fortune of the wealthier citizens might be conspicuous in order to excite envy, and ready to hand, that out of it he might bestow largesses on the most needy, whenever he pleased.

Servius, aroused by the alarming announcement, having come upon the scene during this harangue, immediately shouted with a loud voice from the porch of the senate-house: "What means this, Tarquin? By what audacity hast thou dared to summon the fathers, while I am still alive, or to sit on my throne?" When the other haughtily replied, that he, a king's son, was occupying the throne of his father, a much fitter successor to the throne than a slave; that he had insulted his masters full long enough by shuffling insolence, a shout arose from the partisans of both, the people rushed into the senate-house, and it was evident that whoever came off victor would gain the throne. Then Tarquin, forced by actual necessity to proceed to extremities, having a decided advantage both in years and strength, seized Servius by the waist, and having carried him out of the senate-house, hurled him down the steps to the bottom. He then returned to the senate house to assemble the senate. The king's officers and attendants took to flight. The king himself, almost lifeless (when he was returning home with his royal retinue frightened to death and had reached the top of the Cyprian Street), was slain by those who had been sent by Tarquin, and had overtaken him in his flight. As the act is not inconsistent with the rest of her atrocious conduct, it is believed to have been done by Tullia's advice. Anyhow, as is generally admitted, driving into the forum in her chariot, unabashed by the crowd of men present, she called her husband out of the senate-house, and was the first to greet him, king; and when, being bidden by him to withdraw from such a tumult, she was returning home, and had reached the top of the Cyprian Street, where Diana's chapel lately stood, as she was turning on the right to the Urian Hill, in order to ride up to the Esquiline, the driver stopped terrified, and drew in his reins, and pointed out to his mistress the body of the murdered Servius lying on the ground. On this occasion a revolting and inhuman crime is said to have been committed, and the place bears record of it. They call it the Wicked Street, where Tullia, frantic and urged on by the avenging furies of her sister and husband, is said to have driven her chariot over her father's body, and to have carried a portion of the blood of her murdered father on her blood-stained chariot, herself also defiled and sprinkled with it, to her own and her husband's household gods, through whose vengeance results corresponding with the evil beginning of the reign were soon destined to follow. Servius Tullius reigned forty-four years in such a manner that it was no easy task even for a good and moderate successor to compete with him. However, this also has proved an additional source of renown to him that together with him perished all just and legitimate reigns. This same authority, so mild and so moderate, because it was vested in one man, some say that he nevertheless had intended to resign, had not the wickedness of his family interfered with him as he was forming plans for the liberation of his country.

After this period Lucius Tarquinius began to reign, whose acts procured him the surname of Proud, for he, the son-in-law, refused his father-in-law burial, alleging that even Romulus was not buried after death. He put to death the principal senators, whom he suspected of having favoured the cause of Servius. Then, conscious that the precedent of obtaining the crown by evil means might be borrowed from him and employed against himself, he surrounded his person with a body-guard of armed men, for he had no claim to the kingdom except force, as being one who reigned without either the order of the people or the sanction of the senate. To this was added the fact that, as he reposed no hope in the affection of his citizens, he had to secure his kingdom by terror; and in order to inspire a greater number with this, he carried out the investigation of capital cases solely by himself without assessors, and under that pretext had it in his power to put to death, banish, or fine, not only those who were suspected or hated, but those also from whom he could expect to gain nothing else but plunder. The number of the fathers more particularly being in this manner diminished, he determined to elect none into the senate in their place, that the order might become more contemptible owing to this very reduction in numbers, and that it might feel the less resentment at no business being transacted by it. For he was the first of the kings who violated the custom derived from his predecessors of consulting the senate on all matters, and administered the business of the state by taking counsel with his friends alone. War, peace, treaties, alliances, all these he contracted and dissolved with whomsoever he pleased, without the sanction of the people and senate, entirely on his own responsibility. The nation of the Latins he was particularly anxious to attach to him, so that by foreign influence also he might be more secure among his own subjects; and he contracted ties not only of hospitality but also of marriage with their leading men. On Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum, who was by far the most eminent of those who bore the Latin name, being descended, if we believe tradition, from Ulysses and the goddess Circe, he bestowed his daughter in marriage, and by this match attached to himself many of his kinsmen and friends.

The influence of Tarquin among the chief men of the Latins being now considerable, he issued an order that they should assemble on a certain day at the grove of Ferentina,[47] saying that there were matters of common interest about which he wished to confer with them. They assembled in great numbers at daybreak. Tarquinius himself kept the day indeed, but did not arrive until shortly before sunset. Many matters were there discussed in the meeting throughout the day in various conversations. Turnus Herdonius of Aricia inveighed violently against the absent Tarquin, saying that it was no wonder the surname of Proud was given him at Rome; for so they now called him secretly and in whispers, but still generally. Could anything show more haughtiness than this insolent mockery of the entire Latin nation? After their chiefs had been summoned so great a distance from home, he who had proclaimed the meeting did not attend; assuredly their patience was being tried, in order that, if they submitted to the yoke, he might crush them when at his mercy. For who could fail to see that he was aiming at sovereignty over the Latins? This sovereignty, if his own countrymen had done well in having intrusted it to him, or if it had been intrusted and not seized on by murder, the Latins also ought to intrust to him (and yet not even so, inasmuch as he was a foreigner). But if his own subjects were dissatisfied with him (seeing that they were butchered one after another, driven into exile, and deprived of their property), what better prospects were held out to the Latins? If they listened to him, they would depart thence, each to his own home, and take no more notice of the day of meeting than he who had proclaimed it. When this man, mutinous and full of daring, and one who had obtained influence at home by such methods, was pressing these and other observations to the same effect, Tarquin appeared on the scene. This put an end to his harangue. All turned away from him to salute Tarquin, who, on silence being proclaimed, being advised by those next him to make some excuse for having come so late, said that he had been chosen arbitrator between a father and a son: that, from his anxiety to reconcile them, he had delayed: and, because that duty had taken up that day, that on the morrow he would carry out what he had determined. They say that he did not make even that observation unrebuked by Turnus, who declared that no controversy could be more quickly decided than one between father and son, and that it could be settled in a few words—unless the son submitted to the father, he would be punished.

The Arician withdrew from the meeting, uttering these reproaches against the Roman king. Tarquin, feeling the matter much more sorely than he seemed to, immediately set about planning the death of Turnus, in order to inspire the Latins with the same terror as that with which he had crushed the spirits of his own subjects at home: and because he could not be put to death openly, by virtue of his authority, he accomplished the ruin of this innocent man by bringing a false charge against him. By means of some Aricians of the opposite party, he bribed a servant of Turnus with gold, to allow a great number of swords to be secretly brought into his lodging. When these preparations had been completed in the course of a single night, Tarquin, having summoned the chief of the Latins to him a little before day, as if alarmed by some strange occurrence, said that his delay of yesterday, which had been caused as it were by some providential care of the gods, had been the means of preservation to himself and to them; that he had been told that destruction was being plotted by Turnus for him and the chiefs of the Latin peoples, that he alone might obtain the government of the Latins. That he would have attacked them yesterday at the meeting; that the attempt had been deferred, because the person who summoned the meeting was absent, who was the chief object of his attack? That that was the reason of the abuse heaped upon him during his absence, because he had disappointed his hopes by delaying. That he had no doubt that, if the truth were told him, he would come attended by a band of conspirators, at break of day, when the assembly met, ready prepared and armed. That it was reported that a great number of swords had been conveyed to his house. Whether that was true or not, could be known immediately. He requested them to accompany him thence to the house of Turnus. Both the daring temper of Turnus, and his harangue of the previous day, and the delay of Tarquin, rendered the matter suspicious, because it seemed possible that the murder might have been put off in consequence of the latter. They started with minds inclined indeed to believe, yet determined to consider everything else false, unless the swords were found. When they arrived there, Turnus was aroused from sleep, and surrounded by guards: the slaves, who, from affection to their master, were preparing to use force, being secured, and the swords, which had been concealed, drawn out from all corners of the lodging, then indeed there seemed no doubt about the matter: Turnus was loaded with chains, and forthwith a meeting of the Latins was summoned amid great confusion. There, on the swords being exhibited in the midst, such violent hatred arose against him, that, without being allowed a defence, he was put to death in an unusual manner; he was thrown into the basin of the spring of Ferentina, a hurdle was placed over him, and stones being heaped up in it, he was drowned.

Tarquin then recalled the Latins to the meeting, and having applauded them for having inflicted well-merited punishment on Turnus, as one convicted of murder, by his attempt to bring about a change of government, spoke as follows: That he could indeed proceed by a long-established right; because, since all the Latins were sprung from Alba, they were comprehended in that treaty by which, dating from the time of Tullus, the entire Alban nation, with its colonies, had passed under the dominion of Rome. However, for the sake of the interest of all parties, he thought rather that that treaty should be renewed, and that the Latins should rather share in the enjoyment of the prosperity of the Roman people, than be constantly either apprehending or suffering the demolition of their towns and the devastation of their lands, which they had formerly suffered in the reign of Ancus, and afterward in the reign of his own father. The Latins were easily persuaded, though in that treaty the advantage lay on the side of Rome: however, they both saw that the chiefs of the Latin nation sided with and supported the king, and Turnus was a warning example, still fresh in their recollections, of the danger that threatened each individually, if he should make any opposition. Thus the treaty was renewed, and notice was given to the young men of the Latins that, according to the treaty, they should attend in considerable numbers in arms, on a certain day, at the grove of Ferentina. And when they assembled from all the states according to the edict of the Roman king, in order that they should have neither a general of their own, nor a separate command, nor standards of their own, he formed mixed companies of Latins and Romans so as out of a pair of companies to make single companies, and out of single companies to make a pair: and when the companies had thus been doubled, he appointed centurions over them.

Nor was Tarquin, though a tyrannical prince in time of peace, an incompetent general in war; nay, he would have equalled his predecessors in that art, had not his degeneracy in other ways likewise detracted from his merit in this respect. He first began the war against the Volsci, which was to last two hundred years after his time, and took Suessa Pometia from them by storm; and when by the sale of the spoils he had realized forty talents of silver, he conceived the idea of building a temple to Jupiter on such a magnificent scale that it should be worthy of the king of gods and men, of the Roman Empire, and of the dignity of the place itself: for the building of this temple he set apart the money realized by the sale of the spoils. Soon after a war claimed his attention, which proved more protracted than he had expected, in which, having in vain attempted to storm Gabii,[48] a city in the neighbourhood, when, after suffering a repulse from the walls, he was deprived also of all hope of taking it by siege, he assailed it by fraud and stratagem, a method by no means natural to the Romans. For when, as if the war had been abandoned, he pretended to be busily engaged in laying the foundations of the temple, and with other works in the city, Sextus, the youngest of his three sons, according to a preconcerted arrangement, fled to Gabii, complaining of the unbearable cruelty of his father toward himself: that his tyranny had now shifted from others against his own family, and that he was also uneasy at the number of his own children, and intended to bring about the same desolation in his own house as he had done in the senate, in order that he might leave behind him no issue, no heir to his kingdom. That for his own part, as he had escaped from the midst of the swords and weapons of his father, he was persuaded he could find no safety anywhere save among the enemies of Lucius Tarquinius: for—let them make no mistake—the war, which it was now pretended had been abandoned, still threatened them, and he would attack them when off their guard on a favourable opportunity. But if there were no refuge for suppliants among them, he would traverse all Latium, and would apply next to the Volscians, Aequans, and Hernicans, until he should come to people who knew how to protect children from the impious and cruel persecutions of parents. That perhaps he would even find some eagerness to take up arms and wage war against this most tyrannical king and his equally savage subjects. As he seemed likely to go further, enraged as he was, if they paid him no regard, he was kindly received by the Gabians. They bade him not be surprised, if one at last behaved in the same manner toward his children as he had done toward his subjects and allies—that he would ultimately vent his rage on himself, if other objects failed him—that his own coming was very acceptable to them, and they believed that in a short time it would come to pass that by his aid the war would be transferred from the gates of Gabii up to the very walls of Rome.