Philip Matyszak and Joanne Berry OF THE ROMANS With 217 illustrations, 135 in color -<�;- Thames Hudson & HALF-TITLE Bronze bust of (1616). Decius Mus typified the Augustus, formerly Octavian, warrior aristocracy of the early 27-25 BC. Republic, when Roman leaders FRONTISPIECE Fourth-century were expected to command from mosaic of a house on a lake. the front. PREVIOUS PAGE Bust of Lucius OPPOSITE Romulus and Remus Cornelius Sulla, 138-78 BC. being suckled by the wolf, thought BELOW Decius Mus addressing the to be an Etruscan statue of the sth Legions, by Peter Paul Rubens century BC. © 2008 Thames & Hudson Ltd, London All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. First published in 2008 in hardcover in the United States of America by Thames & Hudson Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10110 thamesandhudsonusa.com Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2008901001 ISBN 978-o-soo-25144-7 Printed and bound in Singapore by Tien Wah Press (Pte) Ltd 5 I BRUTUS LIBERATOR OF ROME The history of the Roman Republic both begins and ends with a Brutus. Marcus Brutus assassinated Julius Caesar soo years after Lucius Brutus expelled Rome's last king and established the Republic which Caesar over­ threw. Both Marcus and Lucius Brutus were known and trusted by the autocrats they destroyed. Lucius Junius Brutus was part of the royal family. His maternal grand­ father was Tarquin Superbus, Tarquin the Proud, who came to power through a palace coup and ruled through awe and fear (no. 4). Brutus' father was SERVIUS TULLIUS I BRUTUS 25 Marcus, one of the richest men in Rome. Unfortunately for Marcus, Tarquin ABOVE The Lictors bringing Brutus the needed money for a building programme which included a massive temple to Bodies of his Sons. A painting by Capitoline Jupiter. Consequently Marcus met an untimely, if not unexpected, jacques-Louis David from 1789 which poignantly illustrates the death and soon afterwards his older son was murdered. Tarquin became the choice which Brutus was forced to guardian of the family estate and the surviving son, Lucius. make between his duty to the state and his obligations to his family. Although still a boy, Lucius realized that, as a ward of the Tarquin family, survival lay in seeming as unthreatening as possible. He pretended to OPPOSITE Severe archaic bronze bust be simple-minded, so successfully that he received the cognomen (nickname) traditionally believed to be of Brutus. 'Brutus' for his doltish behaviour. His status was little better than a delicatus, In Republican times, statues of the kings of Rome stood on the a slave-child household pet who entertains the other children. The 'other chil­ Capitoline Hill, and a statue of dren' were Tarquin's sons Titus, Arruns and Sextus, who made Brutus the Brutus stood among them with an unsheathed sword in his hand- a butt of their jokes and games. reminder of the hostility to the kings Brutus was taken with the Tarquin brothers to Delphi to ask the enig­ which was a long-standing tradition of the Roman Republic. matic oracle about the significance of an omen. But while they were there, the brothers could not resist an additional question, 'who among us will rule next in Rome?' The oracle replied: 'Whosoever is the next to kiss his mother.' As the brothers left, Brutus, who had tagged along; fell flaton his face. This was BRUTUS 27 consistent with his character and the brothers did not notice that when he fell, Brutus had taken care to kiss the Earth, Gaia, the mother of all. In Rome the political situation was deteriorating. The plebs seethed beneath Tarquin's oppression, and every supposed treachery that the king brutally punished among the aristocrats further alienated the rest. Tarquin, like many a politician in trouble, tried to distract his people with a foreign adventure, in this case against the nearby Rutulians, who not coincidentally had the fabulously wealthy Ardea as their principal city. Brutus was made tri­ bunus celerum, Tarquin's second-in-command. This reflected less Tarquin's faith in Brutus than his distrust of anyone he considered more competent. During the Rutulian war, the young Sextus met Lucretia (no. 6), wife of Tar­ quinius Collatinus, a cousin of the royal clan. This lady so impressed the youngest Tarquin with her modesty and beauty that he returned to her a few days later and raped her. Unable to live with the dishonour, Lucretia killed herself, but not before telling of her ravishment. To everyone's surprise it was Brutus who turned the crime of the king's son into a campaign against the king himself. Livy tells how 'Brutus, while the others were absorbed in grief; drew out the knife from Lucretia's wound. Holding it up, dripping with her blood, he shouted, "By this blood, so innocent until a prince befouled it, I swear before the gods, that I will hunt down Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, his accursed wife, and all his children, with sword, with fire, yes, using as much force as it takes; and I will not permit them- nor anyone else- to be kings in Rome!"' Using the authority that Tarquin himself had given him, Brutus sum­ moned an assembly. He reminded the common people of Tarquin's tyranny, and described the rape of Lucretia as the last act of a wicked regime which had begun when Tarquin's wife had killed the previous king, her own father (no. 4). Now this lady fl ed the city one step ahead of the mob. Lucretia's father was the prefect of the city, so Brutus left him in charge while he and a body of chosen men rushed to the army at Ardea, neatly sidestepping Tarquin who was hurrying back to Rome along the same road. The army enthusiastically welcomed Brutus, and threw out Tarquin's sons. The two oldest rejoined their father who had found Rome barred against him. Sextus, perhaps doubting his father's welcome, went to the town of Gabii where he was quickly killed by the many enemies he had made there. Brutus forced Collatinus into exile. Although one of the leaders of the revolution and the husband of the victim of Sextus' rape, Collatinus was a member of the Tarquin family, and the people of the city did not trust him 28 ROYAL SUBJECTS TO REPUBLICAN CITIZENS completely. Nor was their suspicion of Tarquinian plots unjustified. The Tar­ quins still had friends in Rome, and to these they sent ambassadors, who pretended to discuss the return of Tarquin's personal property while secretly fomenting insurrection. Among those who became involved were Brutus' own sons, Titus and Tiberius. Consequently, as one of the two praetors governing Rome, Brutus had to order the death of his own children. 'During the whole time, the father's countenance betrayed his feelings, but the father's stern res­ olution was still more apparent as he superintended the public execution.' Next Tarquin tried military force instead of subversion, allying with the Etruscans and marching on Rome. Two men with a grudge, Brutus and Tarquin's son Arruns, sought out and killed each other in the subsequent con­ flict. Although Tarquin was defeated, Rome's liberator died while the Republic he founded was less than a year old. Was Brutus man or myth? Although descendants of a family known as the Iunian Bruti are a historical fact, the Lucius Brutus they claimed as an ancestor was of royal blood, undoubtedly a patrician, whereas his 'descen­ dants' were plebeian. And as Brutus died within months, if not weeks, of killing his sons, where did that later line come from? Also, the sources are sure that Tarquin reigned for 25 years, in the course of which our Brutus went from a boy to the father of almost adult children- a tight but not impossible chronology. Lucius Brutus stands at that juncture when the myths of the origins of Rome begin to solidify into history, but in his day the process was certainly very far from complete. BRUTUS I LUCRETIA 29 .