Tarquinius Priscus

“ This number was again augmented to three hundred by Tarquinius Priscus, when the third tribe or the Luceres became incorporated with the Roman state. The new senators added by Tarquinius Priscus were distinguished from those belonging to the two older tribes by the appellation patres minorum gentium, as previously those who represented the Tities had been distinguished, by the same name, from those who represented the Ramnes. Under Tarquinius Superbus the number of senators is said to have become very much diminished, as he is reported to have put many to death and sent others into exile. ”

“ That such a state of things could not last, is a truth which must have been felt by every one who was not blinded by his own selfishness and love of dominion. Tarquinius Priscus was the first who conceived the idea of placing the plebeians on a footing of equality with the old burghers, by dividing them into three tribes, which he intended to call after his own name and those of his friends. But this noble plan was frustrated by the opposition of the augur Attus Navius, who probably acted the part of a representative of the patricians. ”

“ The number received some augmentation under Tullus Hostilius; and Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, added a hundred more, who were called Patres minorum gentium; those created by Romulus being distinguished by the name of Patres majorum gentium. Those who were chosen into the senate by Brutus, after the expulsion of Tarquin the Proud, to supply the place of those whom that king had slain, were called Conscripti, i. e. persons written or enrolled among the old senators, who alone were properly styled Patres. ”

“ The legends ascribed to Tarquinius Priscus the introduction of Etruscan divinities and modes of worship into Rome. At a later time, the Senate provided by special decree for the cultivation of “Etruscan discipline” by young men of the highest birth, lest a science so important to the commonwealth should be corrupted by falling into the hands of low and mercenary persons. ”

“ Tarentīnī, ōrum, pl. m., the inhabitants of Tarentum.
Tarentum, ī, n., a flourishing Greek city on the southern coast of Italy.
Tarquinius, ī, m., the name of a gens in early Rome, said to have come from Etruria. 1. (L.) Tarquinius Prīscus, the fifth king of Rome, 616-578 B.C. 2. L. Tarquinius Superbus, the son of Priscus, the last king of Rome, 534-510 B.C. 3. (Sextus) Tarquinius, son of (2) . 4. (L.) Tarquinius Collātīnus, cousin of (3) , and husband of Lucretia, consul 509 B.C.
Tarracō, ōnis, f., a city in Spain.
Tarsus, ī, f., a city in Cilicia in Asia Minor. ”

“ Some were said to have been instituted in the earliest days by Romulus, Servius Tullius, or Tarquinius Priscus, and others were imported from abroad or grew up naturally as the nation progressed in experience or in acquaintance with foreign peoples. The great increase of games and festivals and their enormous cost were signs of approaching trouble for the republic, and foretold the terrible days of the empire, when the rabblement of the capital, accustomed to be amused and fed by their despotic and corrupt rulers, should cry in the streets: "Give us bread for nothing and games forever!" ”

“ For the cavalry he chose the three old double tribes, or six centuries of Tarquinius Priscus; then twelve other centuries of the Plebes, which were the most distinguished among the commonalty. In the six centuries was the entire patrician body; which indeed had on the whole a very insignificant number of votes, but, as we shall see by and by, the upperhand in other respects. Within these, there was perfect equality; there was no distinction of age: every century had a vote. ”

“ The title Basileus was sometimes applied to an officer who discharged the priestly functions of the more ancient kings, as in Athens. [Archon.] — (2) Roman. Rome was originally governed by kings. All the ancient writers agree in representing the king as elected by the people for life, and as voluntarily entrusted by them with the supreme power in the state. No reference is made to the hereditary principle in the election of the first four kings; and it is not until the fifth king Tarquinius Priscus obtained the sovereignty, that anything is said about the children of the deceased king. ”

“ There were several of these Circi at Rome, as those of Flaminius, Nero, Caracalla, and Severus; but the most remarkable, as the very name imports, was Circus Maximus, first built by Tarquinius Priscus. The length of it was four furlongs, the breadth the like number of acres, with a trench of ten feet deep, and as many broad, to receive the water; and seats enough for one hundred and fifty thousand men. It was beautified and adorned by succeeding princes, particularly by Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Caligula, Domitian, Trajan, and Heliogabalus ”

“ In Southern Etruria monumental sculpture must early have attained a certain importance, since Tarquinius Priscus ordered from Vulca, or Vulcanius of Veii, a statue of the Capitoline Jupiter, and a quadriga for the gable ridge of his temple. The material for such colossal works was terra-cotta with a painting, perhaps monochromatic; at least, the nude parts of the image of Jupiter were repeatedly tinted with a red color. The roughness of such conventionalized work can hardly be conceived ”

“ After the foundation of Rome, Demaratus arrived here, bringing with him people from Corinth.1682 He was received at Tarquinia, where he had a son, named Lucumo, by a woman of that country.1683 Lucumo becoming the friend of Ancus Marcius, [Pg 327] king of the Romans, succeeded him on the throne, and assumed the name of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus. ”

“ They are represented as favouring new men at the expense of the old patrician families, and as reorganising the Roman army on a new footing, a policy natural enough in military princes of alien birth." H. F. Pelham, Outlines of Roman History, book 1, chapter 3. ALSO IN: F. W. Newman, Regal Rome. T. H. Dyer, History of the Kings of Rome. ROME: B. C. 510. Expulsion of Tarquin the Proud. The story from Livy. Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud, son of Tarquinius Priscus and son-in-law of Servius Tullius, brought about the assassination of the latter, and mounted the throne. ”

“ Pliny, in his “Natural History,” [17] tells us that Tarquinius Priscus, who died 578 B.C., ordered the dead bodies of suicides to be exposed on a cross. He was a powerful ruler, and an Etruscan, and made his mark on Rome. He came from Etruria when it was in a high state of development, and, no doubt, the practice of gibbeting on a cross was early in use with that ancient and gifted race.
The Romans dreaded the public exposure of their bodies, and shipwreck, no less than did the Greeks; thus Ovid—
[Pg 10]
“I fear not death, nor value how I die ”

“ Some praenomina were taken from the men's names, like Gaia, Lucia, Publia, and Numeria. Moreover, Gaia is famous for one use above all, since they say that Gaia Caecilia, the wife of Tarquinius Priscus was the best wool-worker and as a result the custom was instituted that when young brides were asked what they were called outside their husband's door, they would say that they were Gaia. ”

“ Of the frantic type of diviner, the ἔνθεοϛ, so common in Greece, we hear nothing in the sober Roman annals; the idea of a human being "possessed by a spirit of divination" seems foreign to the Roman character.605 The only soothsayer, so far as I know, who appears in Roman legend in a private capacity is that Attus Navius who gave Tarquinius Priscus the benefit of his knowledge ”

“ After being conquered by Caesar, the Aedui gave them a settlement in the country now called the Bourbonnois. The name of their German colony, Boiemum, is still extant in Bohemia. The aera at which the Helvetii and Boii penetrated into Germany is not ascertained. It seems probable, however, that it was in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus; for at that time, as we are told by Livy, Ambigatus, king of the Bituriges (people of Berry) , sent his sister's son Sigovesus into the Hercynian forest, with a colony, in order to exonerate his kingdom which was overpeopled. (Livy, v. 33; et seq.) ”

“ III. An important alliance with the Latins, by which Rome and the cities of Latium became the members of one great league, was one of the great events which distinguished the reign of Servius.
Map of Rome, showing the Servian Wall and the Seven Hills.
Servius gave his two daughters in marriage to the two sons of Tarquinius Priscus. Lucius, the elder, was married to a quiet and [Pg 21] gentle wife; Aruns, the younger, to an aspiring and ambitious woman. The character of the two brothers was the very opposite of the wives who had fallen to their lot ”

“ This Seruius Tullius, was the sonne of one Seruius Tullius that was a Captaine of a towne called Corniculum, at the apprehension whereof, it chaunced that the sayd Tullius the father was slayne, leauing his wife great with child: the mother being a captiue and bondwoman was delyuered of hir Child at Rome, in the house of Priscus Tarquinius. After Tarquinius had raigned 38 yeres, the yong man began to grow to great honor and estimation, aswell with the kinge himselfe, as also with the Fathers. ”

“ This fray furnished the occasion for one of Cicero's most eloquent speeches,—that in defence of Milo,—which was written, but owing to the disturbances in the Forum at the time was not delivered. On the left of the village, near a railway bridge and [85] several quarries of very old hard lava, is the site of Appiolæ, one of the cities of the Latin League, destroyed by Tarquinius Priscus. All the male population were killed, and the women and children transferred to Rome; and with the spoils the Capitolium was completed. ”

“ Among the Romans, those that kill’d themselves were prohibited all manner of Sepulture, either that others 48might thereby be deterr’d from so making away with themselves, or because they thought it unreasonable any Hands should be employ’d to bury him, whose own had destroy’d himself. Tarquinius Priscus order’d all such dead Bodies to be fix’d on a Cross, to be view’d by all the Citizens, and afterwards to be devour’d by Birds, &c. as Pliny relates in his Natural History, Lib. ”

“ Vēientēs et Fīdēnātēs, quōrum aliī sextō mīliāriō absunt
ab urbe Rōmā, aliī octāvō decimō, bellō superāvit, urbem
ampliāvit adiectō Caeliō monte. Cum trīgintā et duōs annōs 20
rēgnāsset, [10] fulmine ictus cum domō suā ārsit. Ancus Marcius, 640-616 B.C.
5. Post hunc Ancus Mārcius, Numae ex fīliā nepōs, suscēpit
[9] imperium. Contrā Latīnōs dīmicāvit, Aventīnum montem
cīvitātī adiēcit et Iāniculum, apud ōstium Tiberis cīvitātem
suprā mare sextō decimō mīliāriō ab urbe Rōmā condidit.
Vīcēsimō et quārtō annō imperiī morbō periit. Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, 616-578 B.C.
6. ”

“ Sertorius, Q., in Spain, 200; defeats Q. Metellus, 200; is opposed to Pompey, 201; assassinated by Perperna, 202. Servile War at Carthage, 77. Servile War in Sicily, First, 146-7; Second, suppressed by M. Aquillius, 172. Servilius, Q., murdered, 178. Servius Tullius, succeeds Tarquinius Priscus, 18; reforms the constitution, and divides the territory, 18; increases the city, and surrounds it with a wall, 20; forms an alliance with the Latins, 20; his death, 22; his two daughters, 22. Seven hills of Rome, 20 (note) . Sextius, L., first Plebeian Consul, 50. Sicily invaded by the Romans, 69-71 ”

“ The men who dishonour them have their necks inserted in a forked pole in the Forum, and then are scourged naked until they perish. However, an attack was made upon Tarquinius by the sons of Marcius because he would not yield the sovereignty to them, but instead placed a certain Tullius, born to him by a slave woman, at the head of them all. This more than anything else displeased the patricians. The young men interested some of these in their cause, and then they fonned a plot against the king. ”

“ OF THE ROYAL FAMILY, AND THE ABOLITION OF THE KINGLY DIGNITY.
arquinius had ascended the throne more by the force of his fists, than by the strength of his arms; for he had aimed a blow, not only at the crown, but at the face of the unhappy sovereign who had preceded him. Carrying his hostility beyond the grave, Tarquinius refused to bury his animosity, or to grant his victim a funeral. The upstart nature of the new king gained for him the nickname of Superbus, or the proud, though he had as little to be proud of as some of the most contemptible characters in history. ”

“ Getting rather too near the edge of the throne, but holding each other firmly in their respective grasps, the two combatants rolled together down the steps of the throne—an incident not to be met with in the rolls of any other Parliament. Getting immediately on to their legs they again resumed their hostile footing, when Tarquinius being younger and fresher than his antagonist, seized up the old man, now as feeble as an infant in arms, and carried his brutality to such a pitch as to pitch him down the steps of the Senate House. ”

“ Tarquin, therefore, to satisfy their wishes, proclaimed war against the Ru'tuli, upon a frivolous pretence of their having entertained some malefactors, whom he had banished; and invested their chief city, Ar'dea, which lay about sixteen miles from Rome. 14. While the army was encamped before this place, the king's son Sextus Tarquinius, Collati'nus a noble Roman, and some others, sitting in a tent drinking together, the discourse turned upon wives, each man preferring the beauty and virtue of his own. ”

“ Having been outraged by Sextus Tarquinius, one of the sons of Tarquinius Superbus, she informed her father and her husband, and, having exacted an oath of vengeance from them, stabbed herself to death. Lucius Junius Brutus, her husband’s cousin, put himself at the head of the people, drove out the Tarquins, and established a republic. ”