was not a crime per se in ancient Rome.55 Men dominated society, and women were for the most part a cheap commodity. But the rape of a noblewoman, particularly a married noblewoman, was serious business, involving issues of bloodline and inheritance in addition to honor. It was even more serious when the man in question was a royal prince, as was the case when Lucretia, wife of Brutus’s good friend Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus (a distant relative of the royal family), was raped by Tarquin the Proud’s third son, Sextus.
According to legend, as recounted by Livy, the Roman nation was founded on the abduction and rape of women from the neighboring Sabine clan, which was considered a heroic and patriotic act. Ab urbe condita 1.9.
Like his brothers, Sextus had been brought up with autocratic pretensions. He had also shown himself to be an exemplary liar. Tarquin exploited this talent when he sent Sextus as a double agent to the neighboring town of Gabii, which Rome wanted to conquer. The leading men of Gabii accepted Sextus’s claim that he had betrayed his father to join them, and they made him a general in their army. Having gained their trust by fighting against the Romans, Sextus hatched a plot to murder all the noblemen who had befriended him. Tarquin then sacked the defenseless town.66
Livy, Ab urbe condita 1.52–54.
Sextus rejoined his father’s army and they targeted another unfortunate neighbor. One evening, bored with their maneuvers, the Romans decided to go home and surprise their wives to see how they spent their time while their husbands were away. They found the Tarquinian women dressed in their finest clothes and preparing to have a lavish banquet, while Collatinus’s wife, Lucretia, was working quietly with her maids in her day dress.77
Livy, Ab urbe condita 1.57.
Sextus was annoyed by this display of virtue, which he believed to be just a show to make the royal ladies look bad by comparison. To prove it, he quietly returned to the house of Collatinus the next night and attempted to seduce Lucretia. When it became clear that she would not be persuaded by his promises of love, he drew his sword and threatened her with death. She was still unmoved, so Sextus told her he would kill a male servant along with her and put them naked in bed together so everyone would believe for all eternity that she had been unfaithful. Faced with the threat of perpetual dishonor, Lucretia gave in.
When Sextus was gone, Lucretia sent a message asking her father and husband to come home with one trusted companion; Collatinus chose Brutus. She told them what had happened, and showed them the despoiled marriage bed. Taking her husband by the hand, she begged him through her tears to punish Sextus for his crime.
“Of course,” Collatinus responded, trying to embrace her. “You are blameless – your soul is not responsible for his crime against your body.”
Lucretia pushed him away. “Don’t touch me,” she said. “My body is shamed beyond recovery. It can only be absolved through the proper punishment.” With that, she pulled out a dagger and stabbed herself in the heart.88
Livy, Ab urbe condita 1.58; Dio Cassius, Historia Romana 11.12–19.
Her father and her husband screamed in shock, but Brutus kept his head. Striding forward, he yanked the bloody dagger from the dead woman’s chest. “I swear by the gods,” he shouted, “to expel Superbus Tarquin, his wife, and their disgusting offspring from Rome – by fire, iron, or whatever means I have. Our city shall have no more kings!”99
Livy, Ab urbe condita 1.59.
Rome: 509 BC
The Tarquins were sent into exile in 509 BC. Contrary to expectations, Brutus did not become king of Rome, although he was certainly eligible. He was popular, and – it was quietly known – he was the one chosen by the Delphic sibyl to succeed Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. The prospect of ruling the city as it grew in power and wealth was attractive, but Brutus and his friends had another idea.
Rome was still a backwater around the time the Tarquins were expelled, but the Italian peninsula had many visitors. Rome’s more prosperous neighbors were trading with the Greeks who had settled in Sicily and southern Italy, a region that became known as Magna Græcia, or Greater Greece. Brutus himself had visited Greece as a young man, so he would have been generally aware of what was going on there, including the fledgling development of democracy. Any Athenians the Romans subsequently encountered would have made sure of that.
The Romans were always keenly aware of the cultural superiority of the Greeks (particularly the Athenians), but their appreciation for the Greek model tended toward adaptation rather than flattering imitation. So while Brutus clearly admired a government in which citizens played an active role and no one man dominated, he did not attempt to replicate the Athenian system in Rome. Instead, he forged something specifically Roman: a republic in which citizens voted for the officials who would govern the state, rather than voting on individual pieces of legislation as they did in Athens.
The government established in Rome in 509 BC would change over time and suffer its share of crises and setbacks, but the basic elements endured for more than four centuries – significantly longer than democracy in Athens. The Roman Republic included a revitalized and expanded Senate that was no longer the council of a king, but a formal legislative body that deliberated over and then voted on the laws proposed by smaller regional assemblies of citizens.
Senators served for life and were originally drawn from the patrician class, but later included representatives from the plebs, or commoners, as well as the equites, a class of horsemen with a military origin, just below the patricians. There were between three hundred and six hundred senators, and for official and celebratory occasions they wore distinctive togas to indicate their rank: pure white for the most junior members, while the leading senators had a broad purple border on their togas and special buckles on their shoes.
The Senate was responsible for security and foreign policy, public works, and overseeing the judicial system. Elected officials led by two consuls, and later two tribunes, managed the day-to-day business of the government. In times of emergency a dictator could be appointed, but he was expected to resign voluntarily when the danger passed.
Brutus was already a senator and was a logical choice to be one of the first two consuls, who would serve for a year, alternating the primary power monthly. His partner was Collatinus, the husband of Lucretia. In short order, the new government faced a crisis that threatened to destroy it from within.
The Tarquins had not gone quietly into exile. Instead, they went to their kinsmen in the town of Cære, northwest of Rome, and plotted a return to power. They were furious with Brutus, who they assumed would take the kingship and along with it the substantial fortune they had had to abandon when they fled. For all their bad behavior, the Tarquins were not without supporters in Rome, and they made discreet inquiries to friends in the Senate about the lay of the land. Encouraged by the response, Titus and Arruns approached relatives who were not happy to have lost their royal privileges, promising them a return to the old ways if they supported the Tarquins. A group agreed to help, among them Titus and Tiberius Junius, who were sons of Brutus.1010
Livy, Ab urbe condita 2.3–4.
Titus and Tiberius had, like most, assumed that their father would become king – and that they would hold the same princely position that Titus, Arruns and Sextus had enjoyed. Although pleased that Brutus was the de facto ruler of Rome as consul, they had little use for the democratic system that would end his rule after a year and return him to the status of one among many in the Senate. When Titus and Arruns approached them, the Junius brothers decided they had nothing to lose. If the
