The year is 509 BC (although this date is probably incorrect as it was most likely changed by later Romans so there democracy would precede Athens’s by a year, the Romans loved to be first and best at everything) and the Tarquins have been overthrown and in the kings place 2 men, Brutus and Collatinus have been elected to serve as consuls. Today I’ll be going over what a consul was and how this new political entity faced internal and external threats in it’s first year when it was most vulnerable.

So what was a consul? how did it differ to having a king? Well a consul was like a king, president and a chief executive all rolled into one.They were responsible for setting the legislation for the senate for the year, calling the senate to meet and the public assembly, they lead armies, oversaw elections, judged cases and had the power of life and death. I’ll be going into this in a separate blog so don’t worry about it too much for now.

For simplicity sake and to get back to the original question a consul pretty much was a king with the same authority and powers but with this new system it differed in 2 key ways. First was that a man could only serve as a consul for a year and then couldn’t serve again for another 10 years, this is what helped the Romans sleep soundly at night as one year was not enough time for one person to gain enough power to make himself a king and when a consul’s term expired if he did try to make himself a king the full legal weight of the state could be brought down on him when his term expired. The second difference was the addition of an extra consul to keep the other in check as both held the power of Veto over the other meaning any attempts at Tyranny could be easily and legally stopped by the other consul.

Now back to the story, the first thing Brutus did was to make all men swear a sacred oath to never let a king rule Rome ever again, and generally this worked as no men ever did despite a few attempts. Despite this Oath however the new republic had an issue Collatinus was a relative of Tarquin and the people began to regret his election to the consulship in fear he’d inherited his uncles tyrannical traits which was ridiculous as he was one the key instigators of the revolution but in a selfless act he would resign the consulship and go into exile to allow the new republic to be permanently separated from the Tarquin’s. In his place Publius Valerius would be elected and he would be eventually be given the title Publicola which means “one who courts the people” as he became a great hero of the people of Rome by the end of his term.

At the end of my last blog I said there are 2 things a revolution always faces, counter revolution and attacks from external forces and this revolution was no different. 2 ambassadors of Tarquin now residing with the Veii entered Rome to ask for the return of some of the exiled kings belongings but this request was a ruse, their real mission was to seek allies in the city who could help overthrow the new republic and restore Tarquin to his throne. There were many men who were doing fine under the Tarquin’s so willing conspirators were found and 2 of them ended up being Brutus’s own sons but this plot was discovered and Brutus ordered all conspirators executed for treason including his own sons where it is said he watched the execution stoically. Now as I’ve said most of this stuff is fictional it certainly didn’t happen like this but the reason I’m telling these stories is because tales like Brutus and his sons is what shaped the Roman psyche for generations installing a fierce loyalty to the state above all other things “Our lives mean nothing, the survival of the republic is all that matters”.

That’s the counter revolution out the way now onto the attack by your neighbours wanting to test the new political stability. Tarquin who as I said had been residing in Veii convinced their king that the freedom bug of republic could spreak across Italy presenting a threat to the established order, this had the desired effect and with a army of Veii and Latins they rode out to confront the Roman army at the battle of Silvia Arsia, Brutus and Publius commanding the Roman cavalry and infantry respectively, defeated Tarquin and his allies but in the battle Brutus was slain and this great Roman hero was takne back to the city and the people went into mourning for a full year.

Battle of Silva Arsia

The victorious Publius now sole consul was greeted back to Rome with almost instant unjust suspicion that he would try and make himself king. He called a meeting of the people and shamed them by saying “I have just liberated Rome, bravely, but now I am slandered, like being either an Aquillius or a Vitellian. I am the bitterest enemy of the former kings, so I shouldn’t be accused of wanting to be king.” And after this he introduced his 2 most famous reforms which would earn him the honorific Publicola, first that any man who tries to make himself king can be killed by any citizen without fear of repocusions and second he decreed any decision by a magistrate could be appealed to the peoples assembly and after this he oversaw the elections for another consul for the rest of the year which would eventually be occupied by Marcus Horatius Pulvillus after Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus died of old age soon after taking the consulship.

So there we have it the first year of the Republic is over, a coup averted, a battle won, the people satisfied and the political structure put in place all in all a good start. Next time we’ll look at how this institution began to expand in the east and how the class divisions in Roman society nearly brought the state to its knees in what was history’s first recorded strike. See you next time.