tradition freezes a standard chronology for the monarchical period in Rome government regime that covers the years between 753 BC, the year of the city's foundation and 510-509 BC, age that coincides with the establishment of the Republic During this period, seven kings ruled over Rome Romulus Numa Pompilius Tullus Hostillius Ancus Marcius Tarquinius Priscus Servius Tullius Tarquinius Superbus Romulus and Tullus were Romans Numa and Ancus were Sabines and from Tarquinius Priscus to Tarquinius Superbus, kings become Etruscans the main problem of the monarchical period is to find out the truth of literary sources we own, it is mandatory for archeology, from time to time, to confirm data, but unfortunately many aspects of the monarchical period are somewhat obscure considering that the same "annales pontificum" are not exhaustive in this regard Roman monarchy is elective as a key feature and also restricted to Assembly of the Representatives of the most illustrious Roman noble families as a matter of fact the king was chosen among these families and supported in his functions by a Council of Elders composed of the most noble heads of households represented in a way the original core of the future Roman Senate the so-called Albanian dynasty, founded by Ascanio, could be just an antiquarian invention as well as those sources indicating Romulus as a tyrant as far as the last phase of his reign is concerned from which his tragic disappearance as Plutarch reports as well in The Life of Romulus the mythical founding king seemed to disappear mysteriously in the month of Quintilis the month of July, without leaving any trace of his person however there were people arguing that Senators killed him since they could no longer take the yoke of his tyranny after killing Romulus in Vulcan's temple they even took the man to bits to hide the body one piece after another under the clothes, to make Romulus disappear forever still others believe that, near the the Goat's pool, while Romulus was holding a rally the sky got dark and there was a big storm and when the light returned, Romulus was no longer there so they screamed out a miracle as the king had ascended to heaven and deified as a consequence even if Plutarch does not exclude that it could be a story artfully sewn by his assassins Also Dionysius of Halicarnassus specifically mentions the tendency of Romulus to assume autocratic behavior among which the choice to throw from the Tarpeian rock without even asking the elders some Romans of noble families accused of theft from the Dionysius'passage, among other things, you can see some future charges brought against Sulla during his dictatorship, including the granting of citizenship and the opposition between old and new citizens, to point out how since the archaic era, the tyrant was not a figure appreciated by the Roman world just as he was not for the Greeks but did a monarchical age really exist in Rome? the archaeological evidence supporting a directing phase refers to the existence of a priest called rex sacrorum with the task of orchestrating the rites performed by the king in the monarchical age of great importance is also the presence the interrex relevant figure, an interim magistrate who took over in case of unavailability of both consuls Titus Livius, in his Ab Urbe Condita Libri mentions the interrex as a "selective evidence" of the first Roman monarchy which thus implied a transition period between the king's death and the appointment of his successor, elected in turn by an assembly convened precisely for this purpose an element that also appears in the interregnum of the succession to Tullus Hostilius as far as religious practices are concerned a pertinent testimony is the one form Festus outlining a hierarchy of Roman sacerdotes among which the most important was the rex sacrorum who inherits the skills of the old monarch and hands down his title they follow in order: the three Flamini of Jupiter, Mars and Quirinus as personifications of these divinities, and, last but not least, the Pontifex Maximus, or rather the sacerdote, who in the Republican age would assume a fundamental role and weight within the priestly colleges the power of the king was therefore not absolute with the danger that could degenerate into tyranny but it was, on the contrary, limited by the leaders of the nobles however, the king was entitled to lead the cults as supreme authority in religious matters even though in the management of the ritual, the king was supported by colleges of sacerdotes, as unique custodians and interpreters of legal norms at least until a corpus of written laws was drafted a special place belonged to the college of Augurs who interpreted the divine will for propitiatory purposes that might ensure the happy outcome of a military enterprise to complete the picture, we also have the Vestals women vowed to thirty-year chastity, who had the delicate task of guarding the sacred fire that burned perpetually in the temple of Vesta to which Romans associated the famous cult of the hearth and home that played a first-order role in the Roman religion and related ceremonies Dionysius of Halicarnassus wonders whether the cult of Vesta was introduced by Romulus or Numa regardless of the creator the Roman cult is very close, in some respects, to the Greek one of Hestia also the distinction between fasti and nefasti which is typical of the Roman calendar is undoubtedly functional to religious reasons Varro in De Lingua Latina explains etymologically, oddity aparts, the names of the different days Fasti: "allowed days" recalling the verb "fari" which means "to say" as during these days the Praetors were authorized to pronounce any formula without committing a sin Nefasti: "prohibited days" as the perfect opposite of "fasti" Comitiales: days in which people could gather to participate in the votes except in case of coincidence between votes and movable feasts such as the Compitalia and the Feriae Latinae Intercisi or days interrupted which could perhaps have been prohibited in the morning or in the evening and permitted in the afternoon regardless of Romulus tyrannical turn just mentioned the first king promoted important innovations for the future of the city to Romulus, is also attributed, foundation apart, the establishment of the very first political institutions including a sort of proto-senate composed of 100 members as previously said Dionysius of Halicarnassus specifically says that Romulus appointed one hundred patricians among the noble exponents with the priority task of worrying about everything strictly related to the State and among these patricians one, the best of all, would also have dealt with issues relating to administrative acts, supervising the citizens in the absence of Romulus, as if he were one of his deputies this senatorial corpus, an echo of the gerousia was so called by the Romans themselves who defined gérontes as the oldest and therefore, given their seniority, the best and wisest another name for the proto-senators was that of "conscripted fathers", an expression also referring to the Greek world which identified the royal council, that supported the king to make decisions, a council of which, Homer as well as the ancient poets expressly tell us about it is interesting to remember that by tradition, even in the Republican age, Cicero appealed to the Senators as Patres, recalling the members of the proto-senate of Romulus who also divided the State into religious and military groups called curiae, to be precise 10 curias per tribe being the tribes equal to 3, we have a total of thirty curias including all the free inhabitants of a territory, with the exception of the slaves who were not considered free men the origin of the Curias is rather uncertain Varro explains in a very creative way the etymology of the word "curia" which normally refers to the locution "cum + viris" translating as a "group of men" Varro instead, firmly convinced that words always hide a hidden meaning, attributes to the word "curia" a peculiar semantic domain referring to the Latin phrase "cor urat" namely the "heart burns", evoking the concerns for the "matters of the State" or Res Publica in a certain sense it is known that religious rites were practiced in the curiae and that the curiae themselves embodied the foundation of the most ancient city assembly called comitia curiata and of course, the association between religion and politics has never failed even in later times we do not know if the curiae were organized on a territorial or noble basis, but it is proven that in a later period, comitia curiata retained only functions related to civil law such as adoptions, drafting of wills or the task of voting the lex de imperio which legitimately conferred power on the elected magistrate the origin of the famous tribes founded by Romulus is not certain Tities, Ramnes and Luceres the second and the third reveal an Etruscan origin but the first, which can be connected to Tito Tazio co-ruler of Romulus, undoubtedly alludes to the Sabine sphere therefore three "curiae" in proportion to the three constituent ethnic nucleuses of Rome: two Etruscans and one Sabine Titus Livius in Ab Urbe Condita Libri points out that even the Luceri, however, the origin is uncertain but it certain the interpretation of the famous acronym SPQR undoubtedly linked to the tribes initials of the expression Senatus Populusque Quiritium Romanus according to the dictionary of the Latin language Castiglioni Mariotti namely "the Senate and the Roman People of the Quirites" whereas the Quiris was the citizen of ancient Rome who enjoyed full civil, political and even military rights the expression SPQR then passed to the standard Senatus Populusque Romanus namely the Senate and the Roman People and there are also other forms used including Populus Romanus Quiritesque and Populus Romanus Quritium however, juridically speaking, the term "populus" did not follow the definition of people normally understood but it rather referred to the civic body meant as the comple of armed men since the word "populus" echoes the Latin verb "populor" that means "to devastate" and therefore "people" in the sense of "people in arms" Quirites, on the other hand, alluding to the curiae could also be interpreted in terms of civilians and therefore similar to the modern meaning of people regarding number 10 that indicates the number of curiae by tribe this choice follows the 10 lunar months from March to December, according to Ovid it is not a coincidence that the count of the months started from March Romulus actually chose to do so to dedicate the first month of the year, presumably to the biological father, Mars another important Romulus institution, mentioned by Dionysius of Halicarnassus is the asylum of Romulus, an organism that from the beginning demonstrates to what extent Rome had always been a city open to exiles from all over Italy to whom Romulus had given, in his magnanimity, citizenship and lands lastly Valerius Maximus writes that Romulus and Remus created the well-known Lupercalia festival a ceremony organized in honor of the legendary she-wolf who raised the twins when they were abandoned on the river above all, Romulus was also the one who organized the famous rape of the Sabine women, once he realized that a city of men only could never last for many generations without women with whom to marry and procreate giving him a good example in having chosen Ersilia, the most beautiful woman among the Sabines after an initial phase of impaired relations between the Sabines and Romans, things were stabilized as evidenced by the co-regency of the city for a certain period entrusted jointly to Romulus and the Sabine king,Titus Tatius modern historiography, supported by archeology, has effectively confirmed a very important fact about coexistence in the territories that fell under the jurisdiction of Romulus of populations belonging to different ethnic groups: Latins and Sabines, an aspect which, at this point, would tend to corroborate the episode of the rape of the Sabine women, of which even Livius tells us about Numa succeeded Romolus the king that organized the first religious institutes Plutarch leaves us a Life of Numa, specifically mentioning a void in history as a result of the fire of 390 BC it seems that after the fire, many stories were deliberately falsified by someone who chose to lie in order to curry favor with some noble city family Numa Pompilius, according to Plutarch, was also the one who gave life to the first craft guilds, among other things attested by archaeological documentation and functional to the creation of a new city cohesion capable of neutralizing the ethnic division between Sabines and Latins which put Roman unity at risk in short, the aim was to create a kind of trade unions Numa would have also added two more months to the Romulean calendar to be placed before those of his predecessor after the careful comparison between the Roman calendar and that of the other Italic peoples regarding Numa's reform of the calendar, we have attestation in Tito Livio where in matter of evolution of the calendar in a later period, a leading role belongs to a gramaticus of the III century AD named Censorinus, whose data were integrated by the erudite explanations provided by Macrobius, the author of the Saturnalia, about a century later various military campaigns of conquest are attributed to Tullus Hostilius and above all the destruction of the city of Alba Longa whereas Ancus Marcius founded of the colony of Ostia and the outlet to the sea for Rome Ancus Marcius, moreover, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus he would also be the author of the victorious military campaigns downriver Tiberis which led to the destruction of Tellenae, Politorium and Ficana, destruction by which would have resulted, as a natural completion, the foundation of Ostia port of Rome, although in reality, the resolution of various docking problems over the centuries made the port of Ostia finally functional in the imperial age to be precise under Claudius and Trajan with the construction of an artificial port in the period of Ancus, according to Titus Livius, were also arranged some laws of religious subjects promulgated by the predecessor kings and Dionysius of Halicarnassus agrees with Livius, adding that this collection would have been republished and saved by the Pontefix Caius Papirius during the years of the first Republic and for this reason the corpus was then renamed Ius Papirianum Macrobius seems to be of the same mind but slightly different is the position of Pomponius who called Papirus as Sextus and it does not seem that he held any public office and moreover Pomponius would place Sextus during the regency of Tarquinius Superbus therefore, Pomponius anticipates the events, although his hypothesis does not seem founded, if only one considers the high rate of illiteracy found in the archaic period which makes it hard the diffusion of writing finally it is strictly related to Ancus Marcius the complex Roman ceremonial that precedes the declaration of war whose origins date back precisely to the military campaigns of Ancus against some community of Prischi Latini, located at a short distance from Rome the second phase of the Roman monarchy is characterized by the presence of Etruscan kings specifically it is with the figure of Tarquinius Priscus that Rome enters the aforementioned second Etruscan phase, coinciding precisely with the Etruscan dominion, which is fully confirmed by the archeology which thus confirms the truth of the literary tradition the tradition attributes to to Tarquinius Priscus defensive works a water canalization system, a large sewage system and the construction of Jupiter Capitolinus temple, news also attested by Titus Livius many of these interventions actually date back to the monarchy of Tarquinius Superbus in a time which, among other things, appears more probable as a matter of fact Cicero just talked about of Priscus' reforms only who doubled the number of Senators Priscus then gave the equites the order still in force at the time of Cicero, increasing its number as well but Tarquinius was Etruscan of adoption since he had greek origins the man was in fact a native of Corinth and his father was a certain Demaratus who married in Tarquinia a young local noble woman inheriting all the family wealth upon her father's death the foreign origin of Tarquinius, unfortunately, prevented him from any kind of social ascent and it is for this reason that at a certain point Tarquinius wanted to go to Rome, where the hospitality towards foreigners was much warmer In Rome, Tarquinius earned the favor of King Ancus Martius, inheriting his throne upon his death and changing his name to Lucius Tarquinius the key figure of the Etruscan monarchy, however, is certainly Servius Tullius successor of Tarquinius Priscus according to an Etruscan tradition well known to Roman antiquarians and even mentioned by the emperor Claudius in an oration of 48 AD handed down in an epigraphic text discovered in Lyon and even reported by Tacitus it seems that Servius Tullius was of Etruscan origin and was called Mastarna he was linked to another Etruscan leader, a certain Cele Vibenna (or Celius in Roman form) and both are in fact depicted in the act of fighting ere against a certain Cneus Tarquinius in the frescoes of the François tomb in Vulci the name of Cele Vibenna also refers to the origin of Celian hill's related name evidence verified in Tacitus and Claudius but already known to Varro in the 1st century BC Titus Livius in Ab Urbe Condita Libri writes that the sons of Ancus Macius did not welcome the news of having been excluded from the succession in favor of Servius and their reaction was certainly not friendly, considering that Servius was the biological son of a slave named Ocresia and of a noble named Tullius however Livius also points out that it was Tanaquilla, Tarquinius Priscus'wife who devised a clever ploy to legitimize the succession in favor of Servius that Tanaquilla, loved like his own son and not at all annoyed by the humble origins of the young Tarquinius Priscus was murdered in the brutal assassination hatched by the sons of Ancus Marcius who didn't see the succession in favor of Servius Tullius, at the time still Mastarna but Tanaquilla as described by Livius, preferred Mastarna to the legitimate sons of Ancus the smart woman, without revealing to the people any news about Tarquinius Priscus' death but limiting herself to spread the rumor that the king was ill he entrusted Servio Tullio-Mastarna with the regency of Rome until the king recovered the female intuition of Tanaquilla was right as Servius was such a good king ad interim that once revealed at the right time the news of king in charge people saw in Tullius was the worthy successor of the king thanks to the merits demonstrated at this point it is quite clear the weight of the historiographical reworking of the figure of Servius Tullius and related biographical events that apart from the huge variants of the Roman annalistic reveal a powerful folkloric base, almost along the lines of a saga Servius was born into a family of humble conditions and was then raised by King Tarquinius Priscus the which, in turn, has a similar history behind it, not of slavery but of social marginalization in a certain sense, because, being a Greek from Corinth in Tarquinia, he had been deprived of any possibility of social ascent, which Rome instead gave him that demonstrates the well-known reputation of Rome as a culturally open city and favorable to welcome foreign people, a value which, in the imperial age, will even be mentioned by the emperor Claudius, fond of history, antiquity and etruscology Claudius' writings, of course, are lost but Tacitus, fortunately, a century later, saved something in his Annales although the portrait of Claudius left us by historiography was not exactly as edifying as that of Tiberius, it seems instead that the emperor Claudius, to justify his opening to the Senators of Gallia Comata, he made use of that custom in ancient Rome to welcome foreign people in the city therefore, Servius Tullius, his manner his making himself available for the family of Tarquinius Priscus and the trust he managed to get, earned him the succession to the throne as an adopted son and it is precisely on this fable-like system that developed the future political action of Servius Tullius king who in short put the elective system of transmission of monarchical power into crisis it is clear that in an age where the power of Rome is a fact the imperial age a revision of this legendary ground was mandatory and unavoidable to make it functional to make it clear that Rome, since the monarchical age, was predestined to success therefore the reformist action of Servius justifies the Roman statehood present since its origins as claimed by several later historians in short, the reconstruction of the past, through selection mechanisms and filters, must be interpreted in the light of political interests contingent on Servius Tullius, traditionally the construction of the first city walls called "servian" and even the establishment of comitia centuriata, the most important Roman electoral assembly an element that tradition associates with Servius is above all all the centuriate organization mentioned by Titus Livius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Cicero in De re publica it would seem apparently that the purpose of the Servian reform according to the sources cited, was a timocratic one because quoting Livius and Dionysius Servius evaluated the census of citizens in axis actually for many historians we are faced with a historical anachronism of which, moreover, Livius and Dionysius are not responsible since their testimonies were based on the coinage of Hannibalic Rome which is much later than the Servian period if Servius was moved by truly timocratic intentions it would be more correct to interpret them in the light of a coin not properly so called but rather symbolic currency in terms of the weight of the metal and not of actual coinage the Servian centuriate organization was not moved by timocratic intentions but merely pragmatic since it aimed to identify only and exclusively, who, among the citizens, could fight as perfectly able to afford the maintenance of defensive or offensive weapons in this perspective it would be more correct to speak of census and lustrum since the choice of soldiers took place every 5 years and unfortunately was accompanied by a bloody ritual in which three poor animals were paraded in the Campus Martius in front of the soldiers to then be killed therefore census and lustrum were used to identify the civium capita namely the adult males who could pay for a heavy hoplite-type weaponry the centuriate organization will pass through a more complex articulation in the republican age when citizens will end up acquiring rights on the basis of the fulfillment of the Roman duty par excellence, that is to say, to fight and possibly give one's life for Rome the post-servian centuriate organization therefore implied the economic and numerical evaluation of the population the historiography, moreover, insists a lot on this factor because it is susceptible to create a diversification among citizens, first distributed in the curiae depending on the birth and then distinguished according to "orders" defined on the basis of wealth and dignity which thus calls into question the concept of Roman dignitas that will cross over the course of the history of the city and of Latin literature, various changes considering the emergence, for example, of "new men" on the political scene of Rome such as Marius and Cicero the criterion of the census at the age of Servius must be rigorously applied to the people understood as populus-exercitus or people who differentiated who could enter the army or classis composed of citizens able to obtain heavy armament and who was not able to, therefore belonging to the infra classem, lightly armed soldiers Servius also added to the tribes of Romulus a fourth tribe with relative distinction between urban and rustic communities attested in a later period following a territorial expansion, up to the last years of republican age which counted a number of tribes equal to 35 the census criterion subsequently determined an evolution of Roman society, directly proportional to the expansion of the power of the city, testified by Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Solinus an aspect that would thus justify the need to build defensive walls the populus-exercitus of Servius was then divided into 5 classes with an evident preponderance of the political weight of the richest in relation to the war effort the testimony of Dionysius of Halicarnassus is substantially in line with Titus Livius and Cicero with some slight differences in the effective number of centuries, which are structured in a pyramidal pattern having the richest at the top and the poor at the base it seems, inter alia, that Servius had even been the creator of the multiple uses associated with money, such as, for example, the idea of reproducing the effigy of oxen or sheep on the bronze ingots, a custom reported in a rather obscure passage by Plinius actually there are many historical doubts on the association between Servius and the minting of coins, considering that the oldest Roman coinage dates back to 320/300 BC and therefore it is highly improbable to think of an earlier minting of the metal by Servius Tullius indicative in this regard is the testimony of Gaius in the Institutiones which seems to confirm how this association between Servius and the coin cannot be considered historically valid in its entirety Servius, however independently from everything he became a kind of second Romulus, a reforming and re-founding king who cared not only about the territorial structure of the city but also the administrative one and in order to articulate the citizenship within it, Servius created territorial tribes on the basis of the effective domicile of people, a practice which translated into interesting innovations of a cultural and institutional type, closely connected to the organization of the territory it is rather evident that a king who reorganized the territory was also granted the creation of religious festivals and, in the case of Servius, through the establishment of territorial districts, called pagi, was attributed to therefore the creation of the relative feasts, the Paganalia Dionysius of Halicarnassus, specifically, associates the name of Servius with the introduction of these pagi, functional within a broader context of articulation of citizenship in limited numerical units in order to proceed easily to the census operations, considering the consistent demographic growth a completely different figure of monarch was that of Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome, who, after assuming the typical features of the tyrant who inflicted all kinds of vexation on the citizens, was driven out by popular acclaim with the Superb the principle of succession enters into crisis which now becomes "dynastic" and therefore the king was no longer chosen within an assembly of heads of families of equal prestige, but the discriminating factor, now, was blood as for the government of Tarquinius Superbus, the traits are largely compatible with those of the typical Greek tyrant it is true that Tarquinius promoted a whole series of public works and an expansionist policy, but in practice, as a king he was always unpleasant to the people according to tradition, Tarquinius Superbus was driven out following a conspiracy led by a man named Publius Valerius, known as Publicola , who was essentially the man who established the republican regime from the portrait of Tarquinius left by Tito Livio emerges a strong resemblance to the hated tyrants of the autocratic regimes of the Greek world especially the fact of having obtained and then maintained power by force, an element that suggests the sons of Peisistratos in Greece Tarquinius, like them, always let himself be guided by greed and personal interests without ever making use of the collaboration of the Senate preferring indeed the support of foreigners, the Latins specifically Dionysius of Halicarnassus, instead it seems wanting to reconcile two versions concerning the construction Jupiter Capitolinus relevant temple, clarifying that the works began under Priscus but they were completed under Tarquinius the Superbus and it was, among other things, such an exhausting work that Plinius the Elder writes that many men of the plebs committed suicide out of despair and it was then, in a cruel and sadistic way, that Superb devised the terrible stratagem of crucifying the bodies of the suicides in the street so that they everyone could see them as a warning of what happened if they tried to kill themselves in short, a real destruction of bodies left in the sun at the mercy of birds and wild animals this horror also seems to be reported by the historian Cassio Emina an interesting testimony because, even in the case of a legend, it is absolutely certain and sure that in order to create such an incredible public work, in Rome, at that times a strong centralized power and autocratic methods of government must be existing