Rome Overthrows Its Kings — The Republic Begins

The event

Roman tradition traces the end of the monarchy to the crimes of King Tarquin the Proud's son, whose assault on a noblewoman named Lucretia so outraged the Roman aristocracy that they rose up, expelled the entire royal family, and swore never again to be ruled by a king. Leading the revolt was a nobleman named Brutus, whose name would echo five centuries later in the family of another Brutus who helped assassinate Julius Caesar for strikingly similar reasons — a fear of one-man rule.

In place of the monarchy, Rome built a republic: executive power was now shared between two annually elected consuls, who could check one another, while a Senate of aristocratic elders provided ongoing counsel and continuity. Over the following centuries this system would be refined further, adding offices like the tribunes of the plebs to give Rome's common citizens a voice against the aristocracy.

This deep-seated Roman horror of kingship shaped the Republic's entire political culture, and it is worth remembering as Rome's later history unfolds — because it explains much of the drama surrounding Julius Caesar's rise a few centuries later, and it forms the backdrop against which Rome's eventual emperors, careful never to call themselves 'king,' had to govern.

Dating

509 BC is the Roman tradition's own reckoning (handed down through annalistic historians like Livy), tied to the same Varronian chronology used for Rome's founding. Some modern historians think the consolidation of full republican institutions took a bit longer to settle into place, extending into the early 5th century BC, but there is no serious dispute that Rome's monarchy ended and a republic began around this general period.

Other witnesses

• Livy, History of Rome 1.58-60