On This Day in History: March 1

The end of the Roman Kingdom

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You know about Ancient Rome, but what about ancient Ancient Rome? Before the empire there was a republic, and before the republic there was a kingdom. This is about the end of that kingdom.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: March 1, 509 BCE--

The traditional date for the founding of Rome is 753 BCE. The mythical Romulus was its first king. Romulus had a twin brother, Remus, and their dad was Mars, the god of war. I did say “mythical.” Also, the whole my dad is the god of war thing explains a lot. Oh, and the impregnation of their mom, Vestal Virgin Rhea Silvia, was not consensual. Mars raped her. That also explains some things.

Over the next quarter millennium there would be six more kings of Rome, the last of which was Lucius Tarquinius Superbus. That’s pronounced superb-us, not super bus. I interviewed the guitarist for Def Leppard on his tour bus and it was pretty fucking super. King Excellent Conveyance was not popular. He weakened the senate and acted all autocratic and shit. His son was also a dick. As legend has it, his son raped a Roman noblewoman in 510 BCE. She told her father and other high-ranking nobles what Son of Superbus had done, demanded vengeance, then plunged a dagger into her heart.

The aristocracy gathered and decided yeah fuck Superbus we need to punt that douche and establish a republic. So they did and Superbus (I should be referring to him as Tarquinius but fuck that) and his family fled into exile, but all was not over. Superbus tried to regain the throne, and there were senators who were down with that, secretly plotting to see Superbus back in power. But those senators were discovered because a slave overheard the plotting and narked. The plotters were stripped, beaten with sticks, and had their heads liberated from their bodies.

Yet Superbus wasn’t done. He went to cities that were enemies of Rome and raised an army. What followed in 509 was the Battle of Silva Arsia. It was a close thing, fought on the last day of February (according to Plutarch, who wrote about it six centuries later so who fucking knows?), but the Romans were victorious. The next day in Rome it was all let’s muthafuckin’ partay! The Romans had been led by their newly elected consul (the highest political office) Publius Valerius. After sending Superbus packing, he returned to Rome with the spoils of battle and celebrated the first triumph of the new republic on March 1, 509 BCE. It wasn’t just an epic piss up. Such celebrations of military victory had been around since the founding of Rome; it was also a religious ceremony giving thanks to various gods for guiding your side’s sword arms toward spilling the enemy’s guts on the ground. Or something like that. Probably a lotta sex and booze too though.

Superbus tried to reclaim the throne again, failed again, and died in 495. The Roman Republic lasted until 27 BCE, when the adopted son of Julius Caesar, Octavian, became first emperor.

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