About 655 B.C., proceeds the tradition, Demaratus, a rich merchant banished from Corinth, came to live in Tarquinii, and married an Etruscan woman.38 His son Lucius Tarquinius migrated to Rome, rose to high position there, and, on the death of Ancus, either seized the throne or, more probably, was chosen to it by a coalition of Etruscan families in the city. “He was the first,” says Livy, “who canvassed for the crown, and delivered a set speech to secure the support of the plebs”39—i.e., those citizens who could not trace their ancestry to the founding fathers. Under this Tarquinius Priscus the monarchy increased its power over the aristocracy, and Etruscan influence grew in Roman politics, engineering, religion, and art. Tarquin fought successfully against the Sabines, and subjugated all Latium. He used the resources of Rome, we are told, to adorn Tarquinii and other Etruscan cities, but also he brought Etruscan and Greek artists to his capital and beautified it with majestic temples.V Apparently he represented the growing power of business and finance against the landed aristocracy.
After a reign of thirty-eight years the first Tarquin was assassinated by the patricians, who aimed to limit the kingship again to a religious role. But Tarquin’s widow, Tanaquil, took charge of the situation and was able to transmit the throne to her son Servius Tullius. Servius, says Cicero, was the first “to hold the royal power without being chosen by the people”41—i.e., by the leading families. He governed well, and built a protective moat and wall around Rome; but the great landowners resented his rule and plotted to unseat him. Consequently he allied himself with the richer members of the plebs, and reorganized the army and the voters to strengthen his position. Taking a census of persons and property, he classified the citizens according to wealth rather than birth, so that while leaving the old aristocracy intact, he raised up as a balance to it a class of equites, literally, horsemen—men who could equip themselves with horse (equus) and armor to serve in the cavalry.VI The census reported some 80,000 persons capable of bearing arms; reckoning one woman and one child for each soldier, and a slave for every fourth family, we may estimate at 260,000 the population of Rome and its subject environs about 560 B.C.. Servius divided the people into thirty-five new tribes, arranging them according to place of residence rather than kinship or rank; thereby, like Cleisthenes a generation later in Attica, he weakened the political cohesion and voting power of the aristocracy—the class that rated itself supreme by birth. When another Tarquin, grandson of Tarquinius Priscus, charged Servius with ruling illegally, he submitted himself to a plebiscite and received, says Livy, “a unanimous vote.”42 Unconvinced, Tarquin had Servius assassinated, and announced himself king.VII
Under Tarquinius Superbus (“the Proud”) the monarchy became absolute, and Etruscan influence supreme. The patricians had thought of the rex as the executive of the Senate and chief priest of the national religion; they could not long consent to unlimited royal power. Therefore they had killed Tarquinius Priscus and had raised no hand to protect Servius. But this new Tarquin was worse than the first. He surrounded himself with a bodyguard, degraded freemen with months of forced labor, had citizens crucified in the Forum, put to death many leaders of the upper classes, and ruled with an insolent brutality that won him the hatred of all influential men.44 VIII Thinking to gain popularity by successful wars, he attacked the Rutuli and the Volscians. While he was with the army the Senate assembled and deposed him (508 B.C.), in one of the great turning points of Roman history.