So Romulus has died and as we know the senate will now elect a new king, this process stayed the same till the overthrow of monarchy. Now there were 7 Kings of Rome starting with Romulus and I have to make a confession I don’t know much about the kings who followed Romulus so if you have listened to the history of Rome podcast you could probably skip this episode as I wont be covering anything new and to be honest ill be covering a bit less as I intend to get through all 6 kings in this blog in order to move forward to the republic and all the good stuff.

So after a interregnum of a year the Sabine noble Numa Pompilius was elected king after it was agreed Rome’s next King would be a Sabine man chosen by the Romans. Now Numa was a clever and pious man and as most of the military institutions were attributed to Romulus the religious initiations were credited to Numa and many historians believe Numa was Rome’s most influence king. He first constructed the temple of Janus which would always remained closed when Rome was at peace and while it was at war the gates would be open and its testament to the character of Numa that the doors was always closed while we was king but for the 1000 years the doors would almost always be open. He also wrote many books called the sacred texts which were supposedly commands from the Gods he had received. The vestal virgins in Rome was created in Rome during the reign of Numa and from then on they would keep the sacred fire in Rome burning till the rise of Christianity, so to some up Numa he transformed the image of Rome from a City of armed bandits to a city of impeccable moral virtue who even the thought of attacking was sacrilege. He created most of religious institutions that we will cover throughout the series and put the fear of god into the Romans.

Numa’s successor was Tullus Hostilius who was the opposite of Numa and believed Numa had made the Romans soft and was desperate for a fight to invigorate the marshal spirit of Rome. This is most evident in his defeat of Alba Longa where he used a border dispute to reignite the Roman fighting spirit and even made it appear as if Alba was the aggressors. On the day of the battle however instead of fighting, the Albans came to the Romans and instead of a Full scale battle said that with the Etruscans waiting in the wings a battle could lead to the destruction of both civilizations and to decide the battle single combat between a set of triplets on each side was proposed to settle the dispute, Tulles seeing the logic of these words agreed. The Romans were victorious and Alba became a vassal to Rome until Albas dictator betrayed Rome and then Tullus had the City destroyed and its population relocated to Rome. Alba must be destroyed? Some things never change. For Tullus legacy I’d day he ended any notion of a peaceful Rome from now on war would be an inherent institution of Roman Culture.

The next king was Ancus Marcius who was the Grandson of Numa and attempted to bring the Romans back to the Gods but failed as a attempt by a federation of Latin communities who believed Ancus would be an easy target conspired to war with Rome which forced Ancus into military action. But if they did think Ancus was an easy mark then they would have been mistaken as he crushed each army in turn and forced each community to abandoned their homes and relocated to Rome while settling the conquered territory with Roman citizens. Ancus Contribution to Roman society was the creation of a procedure to how Rome would declare war bringing a sacred and religious element to warfare forever combining the Military and Gods forever in the Roman State.

Our next king was the rich Etruscan man Tarqunius Priscus the first of the Tarquin dynasty.Bitter about not being able to rise up the political ladder in Etruria he moved to Rome a city known for welcoming everyone.As soon as he arrived he decided to put his wealth to good use and buy popularity by spending lavishly on public works and projects and he even became so popular that he was taken into the confidence of the king Ancus and made godparent for his two sons.This Tarquin was a very shrewd and ambitious man he reminds me of Littlefinger from Game of thrones cause you see when Ancus died and his two sons were away (possibly sent away by Tarquin) he immediately lobbied the Senate to elect a new king as any lengthy time without a king would invite attack. The popularity Tarquin had bought was obviously worth it as he was immediately elected the new king of Rome and he demonstrated his shrewdness by adding 100 new men to the Senate bringing it’s number to 300 meaning he now had 100 senators who were all loyal to him personally for their position.As king he was effective in terms of administration and military defeating numerous Latin and Sabine communities in his reign but what he was most famous for was after one of his victories he celebrated the first of one of Rome’s most famous festivals a triumph the victorious general rides into the city on a chariot pulled by 4 horses followed by his legions and then followed by the prisoners of war and the booty from the battle.In his reign he also began construction on the hippodrome the circus maximums which would remain in operation for the 1000 year span of the empire.



Now we come to the Last good king of Rome Servius Tullius who was adopted by Tarquin as he was supposedly a miracle child who burst into flames yet did not die it was a true rags to riches story as Servius was born a slave to a captured Latin mother.He took the thrones without election i might add, after Tarquin was assassinated by agents of Ancus sons resentful for having their apparent birthright taken from them.To avoid a power struggle Servius at first with the aid of Tarquin’s wife ruled pretended to rule acting for Tarquin and then eventually took the throne out right after the conspirators had been silenced.As king like most of the others he warred against Rome’s neighbors successfully celebrating 3 triumphs during his reign.His enduring legacy was the first census and attempting to increase the power of the masses with increased voting rights for more citizens (still only land owners though and no women or slaves of course). The Census is very complicated but to put it simply it was to determine in war who could provide what with the riches the equities providing things like cavalry and well armored troops and the poorest being exempt from military services,The census also determined the future voting blocks of Rome and again to put it simply the rich even though much smaller in number had the weighted voting power to win elections by themselves meaning the poorer would never really get much of a say in the running of Rome and to be honest this never changed for the duration of the republic.



And now we come to man who would forever have the infamy of being the last king of Rome Tarquinius Suberbus.He took the throne by simply just sitting on the throne while Servius was away and told the senators present to name his king using Servius low birth and claiming his census was a plot to steal their wealth, this worked and when he was declared king and was confronted by Servius he had his followers murdered the old king.As king he was tyrant electing himself to all positions of authority and ruling the city by fear working the people to exhaustion on vanity projects like statues of himself and killed anyone who opposed him if i had to draw a historical parallel I would say the red terror by Stalin in the soviet union would be an apt comparison. Despite this he was quite successful as a military commander defeating the Volsci and the Sabines during his reign.The events that would set in motion his downfall would his son who raped a noblewoman Lucretia who’s husband Collantinus a popular military man and Brutus head of the kings bodyguard swore a vow to overthrow the king and never again let Rome be rules by kings.With the people who at this point had had enough of Tarquin heard of this they didn’t require much convincing to side with Brutus and just like that Tarquin was exiled 2 men would share power annually Brutus and Collantinus the first ever consuls and the most famous Republic in history was born



Covered quite a lot today and had to miss out a few details but i still hope you enjoyed this lighting fast tour of the history of the Roman Kingdom see you next time!

