Читать книгу Why Rome Fell - Michael Arnheim - Страница 21

In the beginning, Rome was a monarchy. According to tradition, Rome, whose conventional founding date was 753 BCE, was first ruled by a succession of seven kings, starting with the eponymous Romulus, who, if he existed at all, must have been named after the city rather than the other way round. The whole period of the monarchy is extremely shadowy. Our main authority for it is the Roman Historian Titus Livius, or Livy, whose great Roman History, titled Ab Urbe Condita (“From the Foundation of the City”), was written some 500 years after the fall of the monarchy, which is commonly dated to 509 BCE. Livy felt obliged to relate traditional tales and legends about the early history of Rome, but he also had access to earlier historical accounts, and he actually provides a list of no fewer than a dozen authors’ names, the earliest being Quintus Fabius Pictor, whose history of Rome, written in Greek in around 200 BCE, survives only in fragmentary form.

The monarchy appears initially to have been not hereditary but elective, with the king being chosen by the Senate, an aristocratic council, and confirmed by the citizens meeting together in the Assembly known as the Comitia Curiata. The last three kings, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and Tarquinius Superbus (“Tarquin the Proud”), were reputedly Etruscans, and the monarchy seems to have become hereditary at that time, as the two Tarquins were either father and son or grandfather and grandson, and Servius Tullius was supposedly the younger Tarquin’s father-in-law.

Livy’s account of the last period of the monarchy paints a very confused picture, with Tarquinius Superbus initially cultivating the support of the Senate against Servius Tullius, his father-in-law, portrayed as a populist king, distributing conquered lands to the whole populace and enjoying widespread popular support. (Livy 1.46.1). Servius Tullius is even said to have been physically attacked by his son-in-law and murdered by Tarquin’s entourage. (Livy 1.48). Once ensconced in power, we are told, Tarquin “…killed the leading senators who he believed had favored the cause of Servius.” (Livy 1.49.2.1). This may indicate aristocratic opposition to his rule, which rather contradicts his earlier stance.

What, then, was the power-structure under the Roman monarchy? If the earlier kings really owed their position to election by the Senate, an aristocratic body, then that may point to an aristocratic regime from the start, with the king as essentially primus inter pares (first among equals). The last three kings, however, may possibly represent a period of Etruscan domination over Rome. So, the uprising that ended the monarchy may then be interpreted as the reclaiming by the indigenous Roman aristocracy of their previous pre-eminence against foreign domination. The only thing that appears to contradict this interpretation is the tradition that Lucius Junius Brutus and his co-conspirator Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, who were chiefly instrumental in overthrowing Tarquin the Proud and would become the first two consuls of the new Republic, were both related to the king, and that Brutus had two of his sons put to death for siding with the ousted king. If there is any truth in this picture of a family feud, then it may be that Tarquin’s overthrow was the result of internecine conflict within the Roman aristocracy.