BOOK I. Results of historical Roman people, its constitution and religion, at the beginning of the republic. But how the different parts arose one after another, how they were modified and enlarged, is not to be learnt from the traditional story of the kings. The ancients themselves knew nothing of it, and endeavoured to supply by guesses the want of evidence. Whether with such a view as this we gain or lose is a question with which we are not concerned; for the search after truth is independent of all calculations of the possible gain. Yet it is a real gain to get rid of deception, and to draw the line between that which precedes and that which follows the beginning of genuine history. CHAPTER VI. THE LEGEND OF LUCIUS TARQUINIUS PRISCUS. CHAP. At the time when Ancus Marcius was king, there lived in the town of Tarquinii, in the land of the Etruscans, a rich and intelligent man called Lucumo, the son of Demaratus, How a noble of the race of the Bacchiads of Corinth, who had Lucumo been driven by the tyrant Kypselos out of his native town, Rome. and had fled to Etruria. Now, because Lucumo was the son of a stranger, the people of Tarquinii despised him, and refused him every place of honour and dignity. His wife Tanaquil therefore advised him to leave the town of Tarquinii and to emigrate to Rome, where strangers were kindly received. Thus Lucumo went to Rome. And when he had come to the hill of Janiculus, near the town, an eagle shot down from the air, and took his hat from his head and flew away with it; and after he had wheeled about for a time over the carriage in which Lucumo and his wife Tanaquil sat, he flew down again and replaced the hat on the head of Lucumo. Then Tanaquil, who was familiar with heavenly signs, knew that her husband was destined to attain high honours in Rome. came to who called Lucius Tarqui Now in Rome Lucumo altered his name, and called How himself Lucius Tarquinius, after his native town, and he Lucumo, was soon highly regarded, for he was wise in council, himself courageous in war, as well as kind and generous towards his inferiors. For this reason King Ancus took him for nius, his counsellor, confided to him the most weighty matters, great in and before he died appointed him the guardian of his sons. Then Tarquinius so contrived that the people chose him, and not one of the sons of Ancus, for their king; and thus became Rome. BOOK I. Of Lucius Tarquinius, the king. How Attus the divine omen which Tanaquil, his wife, had explained to him, was fulfilled. Now when Tarquinius had become king, he carried on war with the Latins and conquered many of their towns. He made war also on the Sabines, who had invaded the Roman country with a large and powerful army, and had penetrated even to the walls of the city. And when Tarquinius was at war with them and was in great danger, he vowed a temple to Jupiter, and so he overcame his enemies. Then he waged war against the Etruscans, and subdued the whole land of Etruria, so that the Etruscans recognised him as their king and sent him the royal insignia, the golden crown, the sceptre, the ivory chair, the embroidered tunic, and the purple toga, and the twelve axes in the bundles of rods. Thus these emblems of royal power came to Rome, and remained to the Roman kings as a sign of their dominion over the people. When all enemies were conquered, and Rome had inwithstood creased in power, in size, and in the number of its citizens, the king. Tarquinius determined to arrange the people anew and to appoint other tribes in the place of the tribes of the Ramnes, the Tities, and the Luceres which Romulus had ordained. But the gods sent unfavourable signs, and the augur Attus Navius opposed the king, and forbade an alteration of the old division of the people against the will of the gods. Then Tarquinius thought to mock and to humble the augur, and told him to consult the sacred birds, whether what he had now in his mind could come to pass. And when Attus Navius had consulted the birds and had obtained a favourable answer, Tarquinius gave him a whetstone and a razor, and said, 'This is what I had in my mind; you shall cut through the stone with. this knife.' Then Attus cut the stone through with the knife and compelled Tarquinius to give up his intentions. But the knife and the stone were buried in the Forum, and hard by the spot a statue of Attus Navius was set up in remembrance of the miracle he wrought. How Tar As Tarquinius could not alter the names of the old tribes CHAP. nor increase their number, he doubled the number of the noble houses in each tribe, and called those which he now admitted the younger houses of the Ramnes, the Tities, quinius and the Luceres. And the centuries of the knights he dealt with doubled also, and the senate, so that the division of the and the people which Romulus had made remained unaltered with senate. the old names, only in each division was the number of the houses doubled. the tribes And to fulfil the vow that he had made in the war with Of the Capitoline the Sabines, Tarquinius began to build a temple to Jupiter Jupiter. on the Capitoline hill. And he levelled a place on the hill to lay the foundation of the temple. And as they were digging into the mountain, they found a human head. This was interpreted as a sign that that place should be the head of all the earth. And the old sanctuaries which stood in the place where the temple of Jupiter was to be built were transferred to other places, according to the sacred rites which the pontifices prescribed. But the altars of the god of youth and of the god of boundaries could not be transferred, so they had to be left in their places, and were inclosed in the temple of Jupiter. This was a sign that the boundary-line of the Roman commonwealth would never recede, and that its youth would be everlasting. great Moreover Tarquinius built large sewers underground, Of the and drained the lower valleys of the city which lay between works of the hills, and which, till then, were marshy and uninhabi- King Tarquinius. table. And in the valley between the Capitoline and the Palatine hills, he laid out the Forum for a market-place, and surrounded it with covered walks and booths. He drained also the valley of Murcia, between the Aventine and the Palatine, and there he levelled a race-course, and introduced games like those of the Etruscans. These were celebrated every year, and were called the Roman games. Thus Tarquinius gained great renown in peace and in war, and he reigned for thirty-seven years, until he reached a great age. BOOK I. Attributes of Tarquinius Priscus. His political changes. Critical examination of the Legend of Tarquinius Priscus. The story of Tarquinius Priscus has at the first glance the appearance of a plausible historical tradition. Yet upon closer examination this picture also vanishes before our eyes, and resolves itself into the elements of legend and fiction. There are two distinct political measures which, apart from his wars, are ascribed to Tarquinius Priscus ; namely, the alterations he made in the constitution, and the works and buildings with which he improved the town. With reference to the former, Tarquinius appears like another Romulus or Tullus Hostilius, and with reference to the latter he is identical with Tarquinius Superbus. The substance of the internal reform is nothing more than a doubling of the number of citizens, and is, therefore, a measure similar to those which are ascribed to Romulus after the Sabine war, and to Tullus after the conquest of Alba. Nor is it possible to discover in the acts of the three kings any essential difference. Different writers represent the innovation in different ways, namely: 1. As a doubling of the three old tribes of the Ramnes, the Tities, and the Luceres.1 2. As a doubling of the corresponding three centuries of knights.2 3. As an increase of the senate.3 These different representations do not contradict each other. For as the tribes, the centuries of knights, and the senate were all organised on the basis of the threefold division of the people, in such manner that the numbers of each were three, or multiples of three, it is clear that an alteration in any one of these parts implied a corresponding alteration in the other parts. It was therefore sufficient for a writer to refer to the change in one or the other body in order to characterise the whole 3 Dionysius, iii. 71. Festus, s. v. Navia, p. 169, ed. Müll. 2 Livy, i. 36. Livy, i. 36. Dionysius, iii. 67. Plutarch, Numa, 2; Eutrop. i. 6. |