So as we head off from Greece, we head to the next-door neighbors over in Rome. Now, Greece is the place where you want art, culture, and philosophy. Rome's the place where you want practical action.
Now, before I head too far into Rome, let me remind you of where we've been up to this point. This is a map. If you're not sure where it is, this is going to be the area of Europe, the Middle East, and the north coast of Africa. The blue stuff, the blue stuff is water. Now, when we started, after we had talked about prehistory with the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods, once we got to the Bronze Age, we began looking at the area of Mesopotamia, the land between the rivers.
Remember, Mesopotamian culture was filled with conflict, but it was also filled with creativity, because the people had to be creative in order to survive in a place torn by war, with easy access to conquest. and many people fighting for the same areas of land. We also looked south to a similar time period, but very different culture down in Egypt. Egypt, of course, was on the banks of the Nile, a secure and stable country with very little changing over thousands and thousands of years.
Egypt had a culture that was creative and innovative, but that creativity and innovation focused far more on their religion than it did on practical day-to-day life. From there we moved out into the Aegean. Now we believe the Aegean culture probably started thanks to the Phoenicians, those sea traders who traded back and forth between Mesopotamia and Egypt.
As those sea traders moved into the Aegean they found themselves in a region where living was relatively easy, where there was plentiful food and good soil. Therefore the Aegean became a hotbed of art and culture. Some of the actual areas out in the region of the Aegean, particularly the Minoan culture, showed us some of the most advanced aspects of culture in the world at the time.
When those cultures gradually declined, or, depending on who you believe, were destroyed, those people, we believe, moved onto, or further moved, onto the peninsula of Greece. Greece, of course, gave us some of the world's best art, some remarkable culture, and philosophy that still influences our world and our way of thinking today. While the Greeks were busy philosophizing and arting, their neighbors next door on the peninsula of Italy were busy farming. Those farmers were what were known as the Latins. Now, Latins, as far as we can tell, were largely ruled by slave owners, and most of those Latins were what you and I would consider to be slaves.
They did the tough work, the grunt work, the manual labor. They did farming. They were occasionally trained as infantry soldiers.
They were the guys who sailed the ships while their owners, their bosses, controlled the farm's land itself. They controlled the ships. They commanded the troops.
Their bosses were a group of people who go down in history as the Etruscans. Now, we know that the Etruscans ruled the coastline of central western... Italy around 750 to 500 BCE. We know that the Etruscans acted as leaders, owners, and that most of the Latins appear to have been involved in some sort of slave culture where they were under the direct control of the Etruscans. We don't know a huge amount about the Etruscans because we have almost no written records of the Etruscans.
The written records of Etruscan culture were completely destroyed, or almost completely destroyed at least. Now, Why those records were destroyed depends on whose story you believe. The Etruscans are a mystery, and they're still a mystery that people are fighting over today. Many people believe that the Etruscans were overthrown by the Latins, and when they were, almost all of their language was destroyed.
There are other theories that the Etruscans simply integrated in with Latin culture. Slaves and masters began living together because of outside political circumstances. and the Etruscan culture gradually blended into Roman culture and then disappeared.
What we know about the Etruscans is largely courtesy of the Greeks. Of course, the Greeks tell us everything. The problem with the Greeks writing about the Etruscans, we know that the Etruscans were sea traders. They took their ships and traded goods and services across the Mediterranean. The problem with that is the fact that the Greeks were also sea traders, and therefore the Etruscans were direct competitors to the Greeks.
That means when the Greeks write about the Etruscans, you like so can't trust them. I mean, that's like trusting something Apple wrote about Microsoft or Microsoft wrote about Apple. It's not something that you can necessarily consider purely factual and unbiased because the people writing have a stake in this. The Greeks said terrible things about the Etruscans, but we're not sure what's true and what is not.
Contemporary sources say the Etruscans came from the east, although many modern scholars may doubt that. They say, some say that the Greeks actually came from as close as the peninsula of Greece. However, some scholars believe that the Etruscans came from as far away as perhaps western China or at least Indochina. Part of the reason that that's theorized is because although we have very little writing from Etruscan culture, we do have artwork from Etruscan culture.
And one of the things we see in Etruscan culture are the way that they create their horses. Etruscan horses have very powerful bodies, rounded forequarters and hindquarters. We see that shape of horse appear elsewhere in artwork, particularly in Asian cultures.
One of the best examples I can give you are actually the sculptures from the first emperor's tomb in China. The sculptures of the Etruscan horses actually bear a lot of similarities to those earlier sculptures from Asia and some scholars believe that perhaps the Etruscans actually came all the way from the east from Asia. Others are not willing to say that they came from that far field but we don't really know. Now I keep saying we don't really know.
We don't have their writing. Why not? Well largely because the Latins destroyed or absorbed Etruscan culture, and almost all of their written documents were completely destroyed. We have very few, and when we do find a written Etruscan document, we get very excited. For example, one of the few documents that we find is actually what is known as the Piergi tablets.
The Piergi tablets are three documents, two in Phoenician and one in Etruscan. that actually give us a hint of the Etruscan language and how it worked. They're a religious inscription. However, the Piergi tablets are one of the few examples we have of actual written Etruscan. When the Latins overthrew or absorbed the Etruscans, almost all Etruscan writing was destroyed.
The only writing that was not destroyed was Etruscan writing in graveyards, mostly because, as you'll find out later, the Latins are horribly superstitious. Latins, all the way after they become Romans, continue to be incredibly superstitious. They are fascinated, almost obsessed with their ancestors. We know that the Romans can trace their family histories back and they're proud of their ancestors. Romans visit graveyards to go visit their ancestors and they believe passionately that their ancestors can actually give them help, advice, and warnings from the afterlife.
They also believe that if you make your ancestors angry, they will haunt your butt. There are crazy stories about the Romans and their ancestors. They are deathly afraid of spirits, or they are fascinated by spirits because they believe the spirits can help them.
Because of that superstition, we believe that the Latins refrained from destroying Etruscan graveyards because they were afraid of the vengeance of the Etruscan ghosts, the spirits. The problem with that is that we have lots of inscriptions in Etruscan graveyards, which are mostly people's names. And guys...
getting someone's name in a graveyard does not help you learn how to speak their language. That would be like trying to learn English by reading a phone book. It's not exactly helpful.
So when we do find something like the PRG tablets, we're fascinated and we do our best to understand as much of the Etruscan language as we can from those few words that we have on the tablets. Now, if you believe the Greeks, the Etruscans would have known the Phoenicians because they were both sea traders. this idea of influence between trading cultures makes a lot of sense.
What you can't believe from the Greeks is their opinion of Etruscan culture. The Greeks claim that the Etruscans are pretty darn villainous. For example, the Greeks actually claim that the Etruscans practice herespicy on their prisoners of war.
Now, herespicy is a fairly common practice in the ancient world which is pretty horrifying to 21st century people. Herespicy is actually foretelling the future based on the entrails, on the guts of a slaughtered animal. The picture on the upper left on your screen is actually a horuspicy guide written in Etruscan that basically tells you what different parts of a sheep's liver represent. When you take it out, if there's any kind of anomaly, any kind of bump, any kind of shape there, you know that that actually foretells the future in some way. It represents something.
Now, horuspicy is practiced fairly commonly in ancient cultures. Yes, that's horrifying to us. You're killing animals and telling the future based on their guts. But the Greeks actually accused the Etruscans of doing this with prisoners, with human beings, which the Greeks thought was thoroughly horrible.
Now, did the Etruscans do that? Possibly. Like I said, horispicy with animals is fairly common in the ancient world.
With humans, maybe, maybe not. But it's actually some of the Greeks'other allegations against the Etruscans that make us so distrustful. For example, the Greeks actually claim that the Etruscans have horribly liberal sexual activities. The Greeks claim that the Etruscans have huge orgies and they practice wife-swapping. They have no moral value and no commitment to their spouse.
However, we're really cynical about that, simply because the one thing we do have from the Etruscans are their tombs. And their tombs do not seem to support what the Greeks say about them. The one big thing that Etruscan tombs tell us about them, which is very important, the one big thing that Etruscan tombs tell us about them is that the Etruscans have a strong sense of remembering someone the way they were when they were alive.
Etruscan tombs have this remarkable sense of personality and life to them that we don't find in depictions on other tombs. I mean, for example, go back. You remember in the Greeks, they made Koran Koros, and those were those generic statues. It was like naked dude. Lady in a dress.
It wasn't an individual person. It was a generic stereotype of that kind of person. The Etruscans are exactly the opposite of the Corian Coros. They want to depict the dead person, the person who's buried, as they were in life.
They want to depict them at their best. I always think of this today in a funeral. Sometimes they'll have a photograph of the person who's deceased or several photographs.
And it's not always the most recent photograph they pick. It's the photograph of them that their family loves best, their favorite photograph, something that represents that person's life in a way. That's what the Etruscans do. For example, on your screen, that's actually an Etruscan tomb, a sarcophagus.
The bottom of it would be where the body was buried. And on the top of it is an image of the woman who was buried there. She's shown in her prime.
Now, from the body, we know that this was actually an old lady when she died. but she's shown as a younger woman. She's reclining as if that's a couch and not a coffin, and she's lifting her veil up in a way that is, in the ancient world, quite flirtatious. So it's this beautiful young image of her flirting with anyone who sees her, just the way the woman who is buried there or her family wanted her to be remembered.
This sense of life and lifelikeness shows up, and we get a glimpse of these people's lives. This is part of the reason we doubt the Greek interpretation. For example, this is actually a double burial. It is a coffin that contained two bodies, a husband and wife, and the top of the coffin was carved with images of the couple.
Now, for the record, when I say double burial, that doesn't mean they died at the same time. They died at different times. The tomb was opened and the second person was buried later on so they could have their body with their dead spouse. Now, the couple is depicted, again, as if the coffin were a bed this time instead of a couch. They're depicted holding each other and looking at each other, and the depiction seems to be fairly realistic.
Unlike a lot of Greek art, they're not idealized. They appear to look like, well, real people. Now, this idea of a couple wanting to be buried together and being pictured as if they were holding each other in this intimate embrace doesn't really fit in with the Greek depiction of the Etruscans.
Again, though, it reminds us how important that lifelikeness is to the Etruscans. Now, that... idea of capturing personality, of remembering someone's life, comes through in Etruscan culture even when someone is cremated.
Etruscan cremation urns actually include like this little sculpted lid that goes on top of the cremation urn that is a portrait of the person whose ashes are contained inside the cremation urn. They get this image of that person so you know who it was even after they've passed. Now, when we find Etruscan burials, we constantly find examples of this, from the small cremation urns to larger tombs, like what we call the tomb of the spouses.
The tomb of the spouses depicts, again, an Etruscan couple. The coffin is, the same way as before, a double burial, and it is depicted as a couch. In the ancient world, people often ate on a long couch where they could support themselves sitting up on one elbow as they ate.
Now this couple is depicted as if they are sitting together at a banquet. She's leaning back against him and the way their hands are posed, they were originally holding glasses and plates as if they were toasting at the beginning of a banquet. This depiction is personal. It's charming.
It's again a reminder of how important life was to the Etruscans and how they create burials that honor the lives of the people who died. Beyond that, we know so little about Etruscan culture. We know. Not much about what actually happened to the Etruscans.
There's still scholars who are trying to figure out what happened, trying to find traces of the Etruscans. Where did they come from? Where did they go?
Now, we know that their history was well documented in ancient Rome. An emperor named Claudius actually wrote a multi-volume history of the Etruscans. We wish we had a copy. Many scholars today simply believe that the Etruscans were overthrown.
They were slave owners. and when the Latins overthrew them, instead of completely killing them and destroying them, as some legends claim, instead, the Etruscans settled in, intermarried with their former slaves, and became a part of continuing Latin culture. Now, all of that stuff about the Etruscans is great. It's accurate. It's historical.
We can talk about graveyards and tablets and what we found. But guys, honestly, none of that is how an ancient Roman would have told you about the origins of his country. For the Romans, ah, don't worry about history.
What's really important here is the legend. Now, that legend is how the Romans tell about the history of their country. It's not true.
It's mythology. It may be based on truth, but it's certainly made fantastic. They make it a lot more spectacular than anything really happened.
Now, what it does tell us, though, is something about the people telling the stories. Those legends tell us what's important to them, how they want to be remembered. So even though it's not true, even though it's just mythology, it's still worth talking about.
Now in one of the greatest versions of this Roman story, the entire story of the Latins and the Romans starts at the Trojan War in Ancient Greece. Now in that version of the story, the Greeks pull this trick with a Trojan horse. And they end up going into the city and destroying Troy.
However, before they come in, the night of the attack, a Trojan prince named Aeneas is awakened in the middle of the night. Now, Aeneas is awakened by the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. She introduces herself as his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother and says her name is Venus. Now, Venus is the Roman version of Aphrodite. The Romans borrow a lot of the Greek gods, change their stories a bit and give them new names, but essentially they fulfill the same roles as they did in Greek culture.
So Venus is the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, just as Aphrodite was. Venus tells Aeneas that he and his family is descended from hers. Now tuck that away somewhere in your memory that's gonna come back to haunt us later.
Venus is the ancestress of Aeneas. And when we get to Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar's family is going to claim to be descended from Aeneas. So it goes all the way back to Julius Caesar is descended from Venus. Now, that's history.
This is mythology. In the story, Venus appears to Aeneas and tells him that he has to escape because the Greeks are going to come in. She wants to preserve Aeneas because what the Greeks are doing is tricky.
And she wants to preserve, this is your magic word for Rome, your magic word for Greece was balance, your magic word for Rome. honor. What the Greeks are doing is dishonorable and so Venus wants to rescue the honorable Trojans. She gets the Trojan prince Aeneas out and sets him on a journey which is suspiciously like Homer's Odyssey. Now the entire story of this journey is actually told in a epic Roman poem called the Aeneid that traces the travels of Aeneas.
Finally, in the Aeneid, Aeneas lands on the western coast of Italy, and Venus appears to him and tells him this is where he should settle, this is where he should actually begin his family, and a new nation. Now, I mentioned that Venus is basically the Roman version of Aphrodite. These gods and goddesses from ancient Greece are adopted by the Romans as the Romans study Greek culture. The Romans give them new names and change their stories a bit more to fit Roman culture. But overall, like I said, they fulfill the same jobs as the Greek gods and goddesses.
So, for example, Zeus in ancient Greek mythology is going to become Jupiter in Roman mythology. Poseidon will become Neptune. Kronos will become Saturn. Yes, in case any of you are wondering, we tend to name everything after the Roman versions of these gods. Everything from space shuttles to planets to ships to you name it, we name them after the Roman.
versions. Aphrodite becomes Venus. Aries becomes Mars. Athena, I think Athena gets one of the worst changes. Athena becomes Minerva.
And actually Mercury gets one of the best upgrades in my opinion because his Greek name was Hermes, which just sounds entirely too close to a venereal disease to be comfortable. Now, again, the gods get changes. Jupiter, for example, is much more kingly, much more noble, much less of a skank and a creeper than Zeus was. Hephaestus, the crippled blacksmith, becomes Vulcan, and he becomes much more violent and active in his Roman version than he ever was in his Greek iteration.
All of these gods and goddesses, however, continue to appear in Roman mythology. Now, getting back to the myth. Aeneas is guided to this location by Venus and told to settle down.
He settles down, he starts a family, but actually things begin to go wrong within the family. One of Aeneas'descendants, a noble king named Numitor, is ultimately the victim of his jealous brother. Now his jealous brother overthrows and kills Numitor and takes the throne of the country.
Numitor does have a child, however, a daughter. Now, the daughter is not a prince, she couldn't inherit, she couldn't be the next king, but still she is the daughter of Numitor, the king who was assassinated. Her uncle doesn't want to kill her, but he doesn't want her to be a problem, so he forces her to become a Vestal virgin.
Now, if you look down at the list on your screen, you'll see Vesta is the Roman version of the Greek Hestia, who was the goddess of the hearth. The Romans had priestesses honoring the goddess of the hearth, who took care of the hearth, kept a fire burning, and remained virgins throughout their lives as a way of honoring the purity of that goddess. Numitor's daughter is forced to become one of the Vestal Virgins and live in celibacy so she can never produce children who might challenge their uncle for the throne.
However, In the stories, one of the gods sees her, and she is so beautiful that the god must have her. There are several different versions of the story, and most of them, it's actually Ares, the god of war, who sees her and decides to romance or rape her, depending on which version you're talking about. She ends up getting pregnant from her encounter with the god, and she has two sons. Those two sons are named Romulus and Remus. Now when she gives birth to the boys, she's terrified that her uncle will find out about them and murder them.
So she hides them in one of a variety of ways. According to the stories, their divine father, their godly father, takes care of them. And in most stories where the father is Ares, Mars, the god of war, that he actually sends one of his sacred animals.
The sacred animal is actually a female wolf, which according to tradition actually nurses Romulus and Remus. There's a very famous depiction of the she-wolf, this female wolf nursing Romulus and Remus. She's sometimes referred to as the Capitoline she-wolf. Actually, we believe that the sculpture is actually two different parts from two different time periods.
We do believe the wolf is actually ancient, possibly Etruscan, but the two babies beneath her come from a much later sculptural time period. Now in the story, Romulus and Remus are helped to survive by this female wolf. Ultimately, they're adopted by shepherd, a farmer locally, and when they grow up they discover their past history.
They return home to where their mother and their uncle live and they kill their uncle, effectively taking back the kingdom that he had taken from their father. Now if any of you guys end up down at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, you'll actually be able to see a casting and a sculpture taken directly from the Capitoline She-Wolf. You'll be able to see her and Romulus and Remus.
Again, the wolf we believe is an ancient Etruscan sculpture and for the record, she's really happy about the babies. I mean look at her, she's so happy! You can see the style again.
We believe it is Etruscan in style, which is very different than that of the two babies. We think that that change in style reflects two different time periods. We don't believe both parts of the sculpture were originally intended to go together. Now getting back to the myth of Romulus and Remus. As Romulus and Remus grow up, they decide that they want to take their father's kingdom and turn it into something bigger and grander.
In some stories, they actually give over control of that kingdom to their mother and set out to find a better place. The two of them end up finding a location that is near a river, the Tiber River, and has seven hills all together in one location. They decide to set up their new kingdom, their new country at this point.
Now, this is, of course, going to be the city of Rome. And to this day, some people do refer to the Rome as the city of seven hills. If you go to Rome today, there really aren't seven hills anymore because Rome has been destroyed and rebuilt so many times on top of old ruins that there's so much rubble that it's kind of filled in the valleys between the hills.
But it's still sometimes referred to as the city of seven hills. Now, this river provides access to the Mediterranean Sea. The hills provide good places for security and safety.
Romulus and Remus begin building here. And the story, again, it's a myth, the story says that Romulus and Remus cannot agree which hill to start building on. One of them wants to build on the Palatine Hill.
One of them wants to build on the Capitol Hill. They try a variety of different ways to agree on where they want to build. everything from one of them saying that the person who sees the most crows at their location will get to build there, to looking for other superstitious means of deciding. In the end, Romulus decides to start building because he's tired of waiting for Remus to decide. So Romulus begins digging a foundation.
He begins putting up some blocks. Remus returns and looks at what Romulus has done and basically laughs at him and tells him what he's doing is stupid. And he just sucks.
He can't do anything right. Now, by telling Romulus that his work, his hard work, is inadequate, he has insulted Romulus. Here's your magic word again.
He's insulted Romulus'honor. Romulus falls into a fit of anger, and he actually kills his brother Remus. He continues building the city and names it after himself. He names it the City of Rome.
Now, the myth, the legend continues by saying that, of course, Romulus and his fellow gentlemen who are building the city of Rome cannot found a country on their own because, well, they're all male. They need women. So they actually find a group of women from another town nearby.
They're part of a tribe called the Sabine. And these women are left at home to tend their houses while the men from the Sabine tribe go off into battle. Now, Romulus and company go into the town where these Sabine women are left alone, and they carry them off. They kidnap them. They bring them home.
They marry them. They tell them they have their new wives, and they start new families. When the Sabine men, when their first husbands return, they are furious to find that their village has been stripped clean. Their women are gone.
They're angry, and they go looking for their wives. They find the Sabine women in Rome. where they immediately demand that the women return.
The women say they can't. They've been taken, and they have new husbands. The Sabine men challenge the Roman men to a battle, and the Sabine women, of course, get in the middle of this, because this is awkward.
This is like their first husband fighting their second husband. It's kind of horrifying. And there are many very dramatic artistic depictions of the Sabine women out in the middle of a battle between two groups of men with their arms stretched wide. begging them not to fight because they don't want the two men that they love to kill each other.
In the end, Romulus gives the Sabine women a choice. He tells them that they can go back to their first husbands, to the Sabine men, if they choose, but they will only be considered housewives and servants, birthing children who will just grow up to be tribesmen. They will never be able to have free sons. And Romulus promises the Sabine women that if they stay with the Romans, They will be considered to have honor, and their children will be born free, they will be born honorable men.
Don't they want to stay with the Romans where they and their children will have all these blessings and advantages? And of course, because this is mythology instead of history, the Sabine women totally go for Romulus'offer. They remain with their Roman husbands and have children, they have sons who will be honorable Roman men. Now, all of that is the mythological version with probably very little basis in history.
It still tells us what the Romans value. It tells us they value honor above everything else. It tells us that they value courage and honoring one's past and one's ancestors.
Romulus and Remus go back and retake their father's kingdom. And it also tells us that the god of love and beauty and the god of war are very important in Roman culture. The Romans want both that beauty and fertility, and they want strength in battle. Now, we do have one other legend we've got to talk about, and it is a legend.
It's a story, not a true story as far as we know. But it does seem to have a little more historical context, because it actually tells the story of an Etruscan king. He's one of a group of Etruscan kings called the Tarquinas monarchs.
And he's coming to visit an enslaved group of Latins. Now, in the story, the way this works, and we believe, again, that this is probably fairly historical, the Latins are enslaved on large farms, farming areas, plantations, if you will. And there is a Latin overseer who runs the day-to-day handling of the plantation. The Latin overseer then sends the taxes and the food to the king, who is Etruscan, who... owns the farm and the Latins.
In the story, one of these Tarquinas kings shows up at a Latin overseer's house. He tells the Latin overseer, your king has arrived. I expect a grand banquet.
Set the rest of your Latins to working on it because I am your king. Honor me. The king begins creating a banquet and he puts on a beautiful spread for the Tarquinas king.
The problem is that as the Tarquinas king eats dinner, he looks over and sees the Latin governor's wife. Her name is Lucretia. Now, the Tarquinas king looks at Lucretia and dang it, she's hot.
He's obsessed with her. He can't stop looking at her. And that night when he goes to bed, he can't stop thinking about her. The next day, he decides not to leave quite yet.
He wants to get another look at Lucretia. And so he tells the Latin governor that he wants to go hunting. The Latin governor, well, he's a slave.
He doesn't really have much choice. So he takes the king hunting. As they're out hunting, the king just keeps talking about the dude's wife.
It's kind of creepy. And finally, the king stops. He looks at his host and he says, Dude, if we turn around and go back right now, I will bet you money.
I will bet you money. And he names a dollar amount. I will bet you money that your wife is screwing the servants.
She is just too hot to be with you. She has to be getting some on the side. The Latin governor is just as offended as he should be that the Tarquinus king is talking like this about his wife.
What the heck? And he says, sir, you're wrong. My wife Lucretia is a good wife. She's faithful.
She's loyal to me. Fine, we'll turn around and go right back home. I mean, you can, I'll take your bat, man.
I mean, she's not doing anything off color. They go back home and sure enough, Lucretia's embroidering. She is a good wife.
Darkinus King has to pay his servant, his slave, the money for the bat. And it burns. Ooh, it burns. He hates it. He goes back home.
the Tarquanus king goes back home but it bothers him he lost the bet and that woman that woman shouldn't belong to a slave she's just too fine he needs her so he sends a message to the Latin governor telling him he has to go on a business trip he has to go do a mission for his king and one when he knows the Latin governor is gone he goes to his house and shows up in Lucretia's room in the middle of the night now if you're out there thinking oh my gosh that's so creepy yes yes it is so creepy in fact there's actually a version of the Lucretia myth where the Tarquinas king actually wakes her in the middle of the night by bathing her stomach with warm water which is just like unbelievable creepy anyway he wakes her up and he tells her she's got a choice the choice is that she can have sex with him and he'll get his fantasy and they'll never talk about what happened he'll never tell anybody he'll just go away and it'll be done you The other option is that she can refuse him, remain faithful to her husband, and he will rape her anyway and pose her with two of the servants all murdered. So it looks like she was having sex with servants while her husband was gone. Lucretia agrees to have sex with the Tarquanus monarch.
She doesn't want to, but she needs to survive. So she gives in. She has sex with him. Trudas promises he leaves. After he's left, she waits, and she waits until her husband comes home.
When her husband comes home, she tells her husband that she needs to talk to him, but more than that, she needs to talk to their town. Her husband gathers together the entire slave population, that, if you want to call it a plantation, and says his wife needs to speak to them. Lucretia stands up in front of the entire town, and she tells them what happened. She tells them what the Tarquinus king did, she tells them what choice he gave her, and she tells them the choice that she made. She tells them that this was the last thing she wanted, but she wanted them to know what had happened to her.
But what the Tarquinus monarch made her do was a direct violation of her honor. And because she has been dishonored, she can't live with herself. She pulls out a knife, stabs herself in the heart, and falls down dead.
Lucretia's village goes nuts. They riot. They overthrow the Tarquinas kings and they inspire other Latins to overthrow the Etruscans, forever destroying the Etruscans and chasing them out of the peninsula of Italy. They declare they will never be ruled by a king again because they've learned their lessons. Kings are corrupt and abuse their power and they swear that Rome will never, ever have a king.
Now the story of Lucretia shows the importance of honor and it shows that for a Roman woman, the two things that are most valuable to her are are her purity and her faithfulness and her honor For Lucretia, Lucretia is a hero to the Romans whose story is told over and over again because she is a woman who would rather die than live without her honor. For the Romans, that honor is everything. And they take the honor that they tell in their stories and take it into the practical realm.
Rome is going to be your main theme for Roman and Latin culture.