The Kingdom period of Roman history is as much a part of myth and legend as the founding of the city. Stories passed down from generation to generation would eventually find their way into the historical records of such writers as Livy and Plutarch. There is evidence which supports the period of Kings, but exact rulers, dates, events and accomplishments will likely forever be unknown with any certainty.
The growth of the city and development of its culture during this period, however, is widely accepted.
Anybody who has studied ancient Roman history knows that most of the time study is split into two very distinct periods: the Roman Republic, where the elected Senate controlled the government, and Imperial Rome, which was ruled by a series of autocratic emperors. An era of Roman history that is much less discussed is the time immediately following the founding of the city, when it was ruled by a monarch as the Roman Kingdom.
The Roman Kingdom existed from the traditional date of Rome's founding, 753 BC, until a public uprising overthrew the monarchy and established the Roman Republic in or around 509 BC.
When looking back that far into ancient history, there is very little in terms of direct sources that can be utilized, since very few written records from that time have survived. Most of what historians know about this era when Rome was ruled by kings comes from written sources that were recorded much later.
These more recent Roman sources are recording remembered oral traditions that were often sensationalized and steeped in mythology. For these reasons, discerning precise facts about the history of the Roman Kingdom is a difficult endeavor.
Romulus, Remus, and the Founding of Rome
When it comes to the founding of the city of Rome, it becomes impossible to differentiate the facts from the myths.
As the story goes, Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, were born to the daughter of a king who was impregnated by the god of war, Mars, in the real historical city of Alba Longa.
The king, Amulius, saw the twins as a threat to his rule and ordered them executed by drowning in the River Tiber, but they survived and were raised in the wilderness by a she-wolf.
Once they were grown, they went back to Alba Longa and killed King Amulius before returning to the place they were abandoned as children on the banks of the River Tiber to found a new kingdom.
Romulus and Remus were soon divided about precisely where they should found their new kingdom. This dispute became untenable and Romulus - or one of his followers - eventually killed Remus. Afterwards, Romulus founded a city on the Palatine Hill that would be named Rome in his honor, in or around the year 753 BC.
Romulus ruled as the first King of Rome for 37 years, from 753 - 715 BC. At the age of 54, he suddenly disappeared without any warning. Legend says he vanished in a thunderstorm, being swooped away to Mount Olympus and made into a god (he was subsequently worshipped as the god Quirinus), but there were those who feared he had been secretly murdered by his nobles.
According to Livy, he populated Rome with fugitives from other countries and gave them wives abducted from the Sabine tribe. He is also credited with founding the Roman Senate and establishing Roman military traditions; a warrior King who developed Rome's first army while expanding Rome's territory, as well as the establishment of the patrician, or tribal elder, citizen class.
While this mythological beginning was accepted as truth by most ancient Romans, whether or not any of it is based in historical fact is the subject of extensive debate by modern historians.
The earliest known mention of the myth of Romulus and Remus doesn't come until the 3rd century BC, which leads many to conclude that this entire tale was concocted by later Romans to explain the founding of their city.
However, there is agreement by a wide array of contemporary Roman historians and writers such as Dionysius, Plutarch, Ovid, and Livy that Romulus founded the Roman Kingdom in 753 BC, which leads some to believe that Romulus was an actual historical figure.
The Roman Kingdom's Political Structure
When Rome was a kingdom, the ruler held absolute political, military, and religious power. He was appointed for life and made all the major decisions himself. However, Romulus also established the Roman Senate, a legislative governing body consisting of representative officials who were elected by voters from thirty so-called curiae.
These curiae were created by dividing each of Rome's three traditional ethnic tribes into ten roughly equal groups. While this may seem like a highly egalitarian institution, very few members of these tribes could actually vote.
In practice, this democratically elected Senate had very little political power (a precursor of what was to come many centuries later during the Imperial period of the Roman emperors). They could vote to pass laws, but only laws that were submitted to them by the king. They were not even allowed to meet or discuss matters of state without being summoned by the monarch. They existed almost entirely in an advisory capacity.
The one time the Roman Senate did hold real political power was when a king died, as the members of the Senate would get to elect the next king. While they were doing this, they would appoint interim rulers, called an interrex, to five-day terms where they would temporarily hold the powers of the king. This would repeat as needed until a new monarch could be chosen.
Three Kings of the Early Roman Kingdom
With Romulus gone, there was uncertainty about how the government would proceed. A series of ten interrexes were chosen by the Senate in an attempt to expand the period of time that they could control the Kingdom. However, the public eventually pressured them to select a new king.
Numa Pompilius (reigned 715-673 BC)
In 715 BC, they would eventually choose Numa Pompilius, a Sabine, who was chosen for his sense of justice and religious piety.
Numa immediately went to work establishing Rome's long-term security by coming to peace terms with most of Rome's surrounding neighbor states. He also established Rome's major religious traditions, solidifying Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus (the name of the god Romulus transformed into) as the Kingdom's major deities.
Finally, Numa added two months to the Roman calendar, bringing it up to 12 months, and much more like the one we use today.
Numa is credited with the foundation of most of the Roman religious rites and offices such as pontifices, flamens (sacred priests), vestal virgins, the building of the temple of Janus and the reorganization of the calendar into days. Livy suggests that his reign was one of peace and religious reflection for the city:
"Once Rome's neighbors had considered her not so much as a city as an armed camp in their midst threatening the general peace; now they came up to revere her so profoundly as a community dedicated wholly to worship, that the mere thought of offering her violence seemed like sacrilege." (Livy, History I, xxi)
Tullus Hostilius (reigned 672-641 BC)
After ruling for 44 years, Numa Pompilius died in 672 BC and the Senate chose a new king, Tullus Hostilius. Tullus was unlike his predecessor in every way. He was a warlike ruler who believed Rome was weakened by Numa's peaceful rule. According to Livy:
"In his view, Rome had been allowed to lapse into senility, and his one object was to find cause for renewed military adventure." (Livy, History I, xviii)
He would destroy Romulus' home town of Alba Longa and incorporate its population and aristocracy into the Roman Kingdom. This increase in nobles led to the need for a larger Senate building, so Tullus built the Curia Hostila to house them. It was used for this purpose for centuries after the king died.
Tullus died in 640 BC after reigning for 32 years. He is described as a man who spurned the gods, and legend has it that his neglect of the Roman gods led to a plague on the city, and that an angered Jupiter sent a thunderbolt down which struck his house, burning it to the ground with him inside.
Ancus Marcius (reigned 640-616 BC)
After Tullus' death, the Senate chose Numa's grandson, Ancus Marcius, to rule Rome. Like his grandfather, Ancus was a pious and peaceful man who sought to bring growth to his kingdom by way of a prolonged period of peacetime.
He accomplished this by diplomatically assimilating many surrounding kingdoms and city-states, although some Latin tribes were also conquered through military force.
Ancus also built the first bridge across the River Tiber, the Pons Sublicius, and the first of Rome's famous aqueducts. He died a natural death in 616 BC after reigning for 25 years.
When it comes to Romulus and these other three Roman Kings, very little is known for certain. While many of these ruler's alleged accomplishments - such as the assimilation of Alba Longa, engineering works like the Curia Hostila and the bridge across the Tiber - were confirmed historical occurrences, it is unclear if the credited rulers are the ones who actually achieved those things.
Furthermore, historians cannot even agree if these four men really existed, or are just mythological inventions to explain Rome's founding.
Three Kings of the Late Roman Kingdom
Since these last three kings lived more recently, there is much more evidence recorded of their reigns, making it possible to confirm that they are real historical figures.
Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (reigned 616-579 BC)
The next King of Rome is said to be Ancus' adopted son, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (Tarquinius I), the first Etruscan ruler, one of the three primary ethnic groups that comprised Rome's population.
He was said to have been made guardian of Ancus Marcius' children, but sent them away after Ancus' death and convinced the Romans to elect him as king. After being chosen to lead, Priscus would leave an indelible impact on Rome for centuries to come, gaining the moniker of Tarquin the Elder.
First, he greatly expanded Rome by conquering lands from the nearby Latin and Sabine tribes, and doubled the size of the Senate so that these conquered peoples could have representation. Next, he launched an ambitious number of building projects that would drain the swamps around the hills of Rome to create more open land, some of which would be used to build the Roman Forum.
Priscus also built the advanced sewer system, the Cloaca Maxima, and the famous chariot race stadium, the Circus Maximus, as well as being credited with the foundation of the Roman games (ludi Romani).
Much of Rome's military symbolism (the auila eagle, etc.) and civil offices are believed to have been developed during this period. He was the first ruler to perform the Roman triumph (based on the one that the Etruscans already performed); the famous ritual of victory that would become such a tangible sign of Roman dominance.
According to legend, Priscus was assassinated in 578 BC when the biological sons of Ancus killed him to install someone of their own preference.
Servius Tullius (reigned 578-534 BC)
After Priscus' death, his son-in-law, Servius Tullius, would take the throne. The exact mechanism of his ascension is unclear, but most historians believe that he was not elected by the Senate as previous Roman monarchs had been, but instead won the crown from the support of the nobles and citizenry.
Tullius conquered land from the Etruscans and supposedly built the first wall around the seven hills of Rome - the Servian Walls - but modern archeology indicates that the existing walls were built in the 4th Century BC. He is also credited with the construction of the Temple of Diana on the Aventinus hill.
Tullius is renowned for implementing a new constitution further developing the citizen classes. He revolutionized the social organization of the citizens by instituting the first census and separating citizens into five socioeconomic classes, with the wealthy elites holding most of the political power.
He, too, would also be assassinated. He was supposedly killed in 534 BC by his daughter, Tullia, who wanted to install her husband, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, as the new king.
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (reigned 534-510 BC)
Superbus was the son of Priscus and did indeed ascend to the throne after the assassination of Servius Tullius.
Like both the kings before him, he would wage wars of conquest and expand Rome's territory, making it the dominant political and military force in the region.
Despite this apparent success, Superbus was an unpopular ruler with both the upper and lower classes of Roman society, who is now remembered mostly for the way he controlled Rome's population by oppression, and refused to give the Senate any respect or esteem.
Under his rule, the authority of the monarchy was absolute. He repealed several earlier constitutional reforms and used violence and murder to keep his hold on power. His tyrannical rule was despised by the Romans and the final straw was the rape of Lucretia, a patrician Roman, at the hands of Tarquinius' son Sextius.
The Tarquins and the monarchy were cast out of Rome in 510 BC in a revolt led by Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. More on this can be seen in the section "The End of the Roman Kingdom" below.
His heavy-handed rule would lead to the end of the Roman Kingdom and establishment of an entirely new governmental system in the form of the Republic.
Click here to find out more about Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud)
The End of the Roman Kingdom
Towards the end of Superbus' rule, the tensions between him and Rome's aristocracy were growing stronger all the time. This situation became untenable when the king's son, Sextus Tarquinius, attacked and raped a woman named Lucretia, who was a Roman noblewoman both by marriage and by birth.
After telling her family what had happened, Lucretia committed suicide to escape dishonor, in a famous scene that has been depicted in art ever since. Enraged by this incident, four prominent Roman nobles incited a revolt in the city that would lead to the overthrow of Superbus' government and the exile of him and his family in 509 BC.
'Tarquinius and Lucretia' by Titian, circa 1571.
Superbus would try unsuccessfully to retake Rome multiple times before dying in obscurity in 495 BC.
In the wake of Superbus' exile, the Roman aristocracy decided to reorganize the government instead of electing a new king. They would take the monarch's absolute authority and break it up into several appointed and elected offices.
The most powerful of these was that of the consuls; two men who were elected to one-year terms and possessed incredible political power but could each veto the other's actions so that one man could no longer have complete and total control.
Two noblemen who were instrumental in the overthrow of the monarchy - Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus - were chosen as the first two Roman consuls. This new political structure, combined with the existing Roman Senate, would come to be known as the Roman Republic, which would last 500 years and come to dominate the Mediterranean world.
Legacy of the Roman Kingdom
While it is difficult to nail down exact dates and events in this early period of Rome's history, it is clear that many of what would become quintessentially Roman traditions began in this time.
The democratically elected Senate and organization of the Roman legions comes from this period. So do many of Rome's timeless architectural and engineering feats like the sewer system, aqueducts, and city walls.
Temples to the gods Mars, Jupiter, and Diana, which were still standing and were visited hundreds of years later by Romans whose written record has come down to historians in the modern day, were constructed in this mysterious era.
Whether Romulus existed or not, the city he supposedly founded was well on its way to being the greatest cultural force in the world by the time it entered our clear historical consciousness.
Did you know...
A descendent of Lucius Junius Brutus, "Founder of the Republic", was one Marcus Junius Brutus. Much like his ancestor expelling the Etruscan King, this Brutus is the most famous of the assassins of Julius Caesar in 44 BC.
