Servius Tullius
Servius Tullius | |
---|---|
Tullia | |
Father | Uncertain |
Mother | Ocrisia |
Servius Tullius was the legendary sixth king of Rome, and the second of its Etruscan dynasty. He reigned from 578 to 535 BC.[1] Roman and Greek sources describe his servile origins and later marriage to a daughter of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, Rome's first Etruscan king, who was assassinated in 579 BC. The constitutional basis for his accession is unclear; he is variously described as the first Roman king to accede without election by the Senate, having gained the throne by popular and royal support; and as the first to be elected by the Senate alone, with support of the reigning queen but without recourse to a popular vote.[2]
Several traditions describe Servius' father as divine. Livy depicts Servius' mother as a captured Latin princess enslaved by the Romans; her child is chosen as Rome's future king after a ring of fire is seen around his head.[3] The Emperor Claudius discounted such origins and described him as an originally Etruscan mercenary, named Mastarna, who fought for Caelius Vibenna.[4]
Servius was a popular king, and one of Rome's most significant benefactors. He had military successes against
Despite the opposition of Rome's
Background
Before its establishment as a
Ancient sources
The oldest surviving source for the overall political developments of the Roman kingdom and Republic is
Origins
Parentage and birth
Most Roman sources name Servius' mother as Ocrisia, a young noblewoman taken at the Roman siege of Corniculum and brought to Rome, either pregnant by her husband, who was killed at the siege:[13] or as a virgin. She was given to Tanaquil, wife of king Tarquinius, and though slave, was treated with the respect due her former status. In one variant, she became wife to a noble client of Tarquinius. In others, she served the domestic rites of the royal hearth as a Vestal Virgin, and on one such occasion, having damped the hearth flames with a sacrificial offering, she was penetrated and impregnated by a disembodied phallus that rose from the hearth. According to Tanaquil, this was a divine manifestation, either of the household Lar or Vulcan himself. Thus Servius was divinely fathered and already destined for greatness, despite his mother's servile status; for the time being, Tanaquil and Ocrisia kept this a secret.[14]
Early life
Servius' birth to a slave of the royal household would have made him a member of Tarquin's extended domestic familia, and a slave himself. Livy describes Servius as a youth already holding an honourable position, as son of a living, noble mother and noble father. He is singled out for special favour when members of the royal household witness a nimbus of fire about his head while he sleeps, a sign of divine favour, and a great portent. In Livy's version, Servius becomes a protégé of the royal family ("like a son") through this event, and later marries their daughter
Servius proves a loyal, responsible son-in-law. When given governmental and military responsibilities, he excels in both.[17] Plutarch, citing Valerius Antias "and his school", names Servius' wife as Gegania: the nimbus of fire appears around the sleeping Servius much later, when Gegania is dying; "a token of his birth from fire".[18][19]
Reign
In Livy's account, Tarquinius Priscus had been elected king on the death of the previous king,
Early in his reign, Servius
Servian reforms
Most of the reforms credited to Servius extended voting rights to certain groups – in particular to Rome's citizen-commoners (known in the Republican era as
Curiate reform and census
Until the Servian reforms, the passing of laws and judgment was the prerogative of the
Rome's far more populous citizen-commoners could participate in this assembly in limited fashion, and perhaps offer their opinions on decisions but only the comitia curiata could vote. A minority thus exercised power and control over the majority. Roman tradition held that Servius formed a
The institution of the census and the comitia centuriata are speculated as Servius' attempt to erode the civil and military power of the Roman aristocracy, and seek the direct support of his newly enfranchised citizenry in civil matters; if necessary, under arms.[27] The comitia curiata continued to function through the Regal and Republican eras, but the Servian reform had reduced its powers to those of a largely symbolic "upper house"; its noble members were expected to do no more than ratify decisions of the comitia centuriata.[28]
Classes
The census grouped Rome's male citizen population in classes, according to status, wealth and age. Each class was subdivided into groups called centuriae (centuries), nominally of 100 men (Latin centum = 100) but in practice of variable number,
The Roman army's centuria system and its order of battle are thought to be based on the civilian classifications established by the census. The military selection process picked men from civilian centuriae and slipped them into military ones. Their function depended on their age, experience, and the equipment they could afford. The wealthiest class of iuniores (aged 17–45) were armed as
Tribal and boundary expansions
The Servian reforms increased the number of tribes and expanded the city, which was protected by a new rampart, moat and wall. The enclosed area was divided into four administrative regiones (regions, or quarters); the Suburana, Esquilana, Collina and Palatina. Servius himself is said to have taken a new residence, on the Esquiline.
Economy
Some Roman historians believed Servius Tullius responsible for Rome's earliest true, minted coinage, replacing an earlier and less convenient currency of raw bullion. This is unlikely, though he may have introduced the official stamping of raw currency.[38] Money played a minimal role in the Roman economy, which was almost entirely agrarian at this time. Debt and debt bondage, however, were probably rife. The form of such debts would have had little resemblance to those of cash-debtors, compelled to pay interest to money-lenders on an advance of capital. Rather, wealthy landowners would make an "advance loan" of seed, foodstuffs or other essentials to tenants, clients and smallholders, in return for a promise of labour services or a substantial share of the crop. The terms of such "loans" compelled defaulters to sell themselves, or their dependants, to their creditor; or, if smallholders, to surrender their farm. Wealthy aristocratic landholders thus acquired additional farms and service for very little outlay.[39] Dionysius claims that Servius paid such debts "from his own purse", and forbade voluntary and compulsory debt bondage.[40] In reality, these practices persisted well into the Republican era. Livy describes the distribution of land grants to poor and landless citizens by Servius and others as the political pursuit of popular support from citizens of little merit or worth.[41]
Religion
Servius is credited with the construction of Diana's temple on the Aventine Hill, to mark the foundation of the so-called Latin League;[42] His servile birth-mythos, his populist leanings and his reorganisation of the vici appear to justify the Roman belief that he founded or reformed the Compitalia festivals (held to celebrate the Lares that watched over each local community), or allowed for the first time their attendance and service by non-citizens and slaves.[43] His personal reputation and achievements may have led to his historical association with temples and shrines to Fortuna; some sources suggest that the two were connected during Servius' lifetime, via some form of "sacred marriage". Plutarch explicitly identifies the Porta Fenestella ("window gate") of the Royal palace as the window from which Tanaquil announced Servius' regency to the people; the goddess Fortuna was said to have passed through the same window, to become Servius' consort.[44]
Assassination
In Livy's history, Servius Tullius had two daughters, Tullia the Elder and Tullia the Younger. He arranged their marriage to the two sons of his predecessor,
When Servius Tullius arrived at the senate-house to defend his position, Tarquinius threw him down the steps and Servius was murdered in the street by Tarquin's men. Soon after, Tullia drove her chariot over her father's body. For Livy, Tarquinius' impious refusal to permit his father-in-law's burial earned him the sobriquet Superbus (“arrogant” or “proud”),[46] and Servius' death is a "tragic crime" (tragicum scelus), a dark episode in Rome's history and just cause for the abolition of the monarchy. Servius thus becomes the last of Rome's benevolent kings; the place of this outrage – which Livy seems to suggest as a crossroads – is known thereafter as Vicus Sceleratus (street of shame, infamy or crime).[47] His murder is parricide, the worst of all crimes. This morally justifies Tarquin's eventual expulsion and the abolition of Rome's aberrant, "un-Roman" monarchy. Livy's Republic is partly founded on the achievements and death of Rome's last benevolent king.[48]
Historical appraisals
Birth
Claims of divine ancestry and divine favour were often attached to charismatic individuals who rose "as if from nowhere" to become dynasts, tyrants and hero-founders in the ancient Mediterranean world.[49] Yet all these legends offer the father as divine, the mother – virgin or not – as princess of a ruling house, never as slave. The disembodied phallus and its impregnation of a virgin slave of Royal birth are unique to Servius.[50] Livy and Dionysius ignore or reject the tales of Servius' supernatural virgin birth; though his parents came from a conquered people, both are of noble stock. His ancestry is an accident of fate, and his character and virtues are entirely Roman. He acts on behalf of the Roman people, not for personal gain; these Roman virtues are likely to find favour with the gods, and win the rewards of good fortune.[51]
The details of Servius' servile birth, miraculous conception and links with divine Fortuna were doubtless embellished after his own time, but the core may have been propagated during his reign.
Etruscan Servius
Claudius' story of Servius as an Etruscan named Macstarna (title for "
Legacy
Servius' political reforms and those of his successor Tarquinius Superbus undermined the bases of aristocratic power and transferred them in part to commoners. Rome's ordinary citizens became a distinct force within Roman politics, entitled to participate in government and bear arms on its behalf, despite the opposition and resentment of Rome's patricians and senate. Tarquinius was ousted by a conspiracy of patricians, not plebeians.[59] Once in existence, the comitia centuriata could not be unmade, or its powers reduced: as Republican Rome's highest court of appeal, it had the capacity to overturn court decisions, and the Republican senate was constitutionally obliged to seek its approval. In time, the comitia centuriata legitimized the rise to power of a plebeian nobility, and plebeian consuls.[60]
Servius' connections to the Lar and his reform of the vici connect him directly to the founding of Compitalia, instituted to publicly and piously honour his divine parentage – assuming the Lar as his father – to extend his domestic rites into the broader community, to mark his maternal identification with the lower ranks of Roman society and to assert his regal sponsorship and guardianship of their rights. Some time before the Augustan Compitalia reforms of 7 BC, Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports Servius' fathering by a Lar and his founding of Compitalia as ancient Roman traditions. In Servius, Augustus found ready association with a popular benefactor and refounder of Rome, whose reluctance to adopt kingship distanced him from its taints. Augustus brought the Compitalia and its essentially plebeian festivals, customs and political factions under his patronage and if need be, his censorial powers.[61] He did not, however, trace his lineage and his re-founding to Servius – who even with part-divine ancestry still had servile connections – but with Romulus, patrician founding hero, ancestor of the divine Julius Caesar, descendant of Venus and Mars. Plutarch admires the Servian reforms for their imposition of good order in government, the military and public morality, and Servius himself as the wisest, most fortunate and best of all Rome's kings.[62]
See also
- Servio Tullio, a 1686 libretto by Agostino Steffani
References
- ^ According to Livy, Ab Urbe Condita; the dates are accepted by most ancient Romans writers.
- ^ Livy; Foster, Benjamin O. (tr.). The History of Rome. Retrieved Nov 9, 2019.
- ^ Livy; Foster, Benjamin O. (tr.). The History of Rome. Retrieved Nov 9, 2019.
- ^ a b Cornell, TJ (1995). The Beginnings of Rome. London: Routledge. pp. 135–139.
- ab urbe condita libri, I
- ^ Based on the reckoning of Roman historians, the Roman kingdom lasted about 250 years; either the list of kings is implausibly short, or their reigns are implausibly long. The earliest kings in particular could represent the attributes and achievements of several distinct personalities. See further discussion in Cornell, 120–121, 226.
- ^ Cornell, pp. 57–60
- ^ Cornell, pp. 120–121, 226.
- ^ Cornell, p. 2
- ^ Cornell, pp. 6, 199–122.
- ^ Cornell, pp. 21–26.
- Lyons Tablet.
- ^ Livy gives her husband's name as Servius Tullius, chief man of Corniculum ("[…] qui princeps in illa urbe fuerat […]"); the son is named after the father. See Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.39. Dionysius offers a near identical version as "the most likely".
- ^ Plutarch, Moralia, On the fortune of the Romans, 10, 64: available online (Loeb) at Thayer's website [1]
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.39.
- ^ Cornell, 131, 132: see Dionysus of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 4.3.
- ^ Cornell, 131: see Dionysus of Halicarnassus, 4.3.
- ^ Plutarch, Moralia, On the fortune of the Romans, 10, 64: available online (Loeb) at Thayer's website [2]. Plutarch cites Valerius Antias, Fragment 12; in Peter, Frag. Hist. Rom. p. 154.
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.39: see also Dionysius, 4.
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.40
- ^ Livy, 1.41.
- ^ Plutarch, Moralia, On the fortune of the Romans, 10, 64: available online (Loeb) at Thayer's website [3]: see also Ovid, Fasti, 6.627 ff; Livy, 1#39|I.39; Pliny, Natural History, 36 & 70.27.204.
- ^ Livy, 1.42
- ^ Cornell, pp. 144–147, 173–175, 183 (military character of reforms, especially in census).
- ^ Cornell, pp. 115–118.
- ^ Census derives from Latin censere, "to judge" or "to estimate".
- ^ Cornell, pp. 194–197.
- ^ Cornell, p. 25.
- ^ The Servian "centuries" are therefore held to mean "groups".
- sesterce or denarius). See Cornell, pp. 180–181.
- ^ Cornell, pp. 186–190, 194–196.
- ^ See Cornell, p. 179, who is citing Livy, 1.43, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus IV, 16–18. Descriptions of the armour and arms to be supplied by members of each class are almost certainly learned, speculative introjections by Livy and Dionysius.
- ISBN 978-0-300-11979-4, p. 182: The Greek-style phalanx was known to the Romans of the Regal era, and their front-line fighting men were armed identically to early Greek hoplites.
- ^ Cornell, p. 196.
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.44. The named regions, in this sequence (I–IV), are in Varro, Lingua Latina, 5. 45.
- ^ Similar tribal areas, perhaps known as pagi, may have extended into the surrounding Roman territories (ager Romanus), and some of their inhabitants would have qualified for citizenship under the Servian class reforms. Discussion in Cornell, pp. 176–179.
- ^ Cornell, pp. 173.
- Varro credits Servius with the first issues of minted silver coinage. See discussion in Crawford, Michael H., "The Early Roman Economy, 753–280 BC", Publications de l'École française de Rome, 1976, Volume 27 Numéro 1 pp. 197–207:[4]
- ^ See discussion in Cornell, pp. 281–283
- ^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 4.9
- optimates): see Cicero, Pro Sestio, 96.
- ^ Beard, North, Price, Religions of Rome: Vol. 1, a History, 1998, p. 3.
- ^ Lott, John. B., The Neighborhoods of Augustan Rome, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004. p. 31 ff.
- ^ Cornell, pp. 146–148. cf. images of a "goddess at the window" and forms of ruler-marriage to a tutelary deity. Plutarch credits Servius with the appreciative foundation of a temple Fortuna Primigenia, and one to Fortuna Obsequens – and "the greater part" of her titles and honours: due gratitude from one who "through good fortune, had been promoted from the family of a captive enemy to the kingship"–see Plutarch, Moralia, On the fortune of the Romans, 10.58–63. English version (Loeb) at Thayer's website [5]. For possible locations of the Porta Fenestella and the associated Nova Via, see also T. P. Wiseman, "Where Was the Nova Via?", Papers of the British School at Rome, 72, 2004, pp. 167–183.
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.42, 1.46, 1.47.
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.49
- ^ The Compital shrines of the Lares of the vici (s.vicus) or political wards were sited at crossroads; cf their popular association with Servius Tullius.
- ^ Feldherr, Andrew. Spectacle and Society in Livy's History. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1998 (online) [6]
- Praeneste: dynastic founders such as Sargon, Cyrus and Ptolemy Soter: and tyrants and usurpers such as Cypselus, Agathocles and Hiero II.
- ^ Servius' extraordinary paternity and maternity as native Roman founder-traditions are discussed in Wiseman, T. P. Remus: A Roman Myth. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 58–60.
- ^ Cornell, 130–133.
- ^ Grandazzi, 45.
- ^ Grandazzi, 206–211.
- ^ Cornell, 131, 146.
- ^ Cornell, p. 132.
- ^ Eleanor Huzar, in Temporini/Haase (eds), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, (ANRW), Sprache und Literatur (Literatur der julisch-claudischen und der flavischen Zeit), 1984, p. 623.[7] No evidence remains to attest the quality of Claudius' Etruscan scholarship or his grasp of the Etruscan language, despite his production of a multi-volume work, now lost, on Etruscan history.
- ^ In Claudius' speech, Macstarna is Caelius Vibenna's sodalis fidelissimus (most faithful companion)
- ^ Cornell, 133–141, 143–145, 235; Cornell describes these speculated connections as attractive but flimsy, being based entirely on the slight orthographic similarities of "macstrna" and "magister".
- ^ Servius' reforms reflect a general trend in the Graeco-Roman world, whose rulers increasingly sought a popular base of support, appealing directly to the commoner-soldiery and if possible, bypassing the aristocracy; in the ancient world, this was effectively the definition of tyranny. See Cornell, 148, 238.
- ^ Cornell, pp. 195–197, 334–335.
- ^ Lott, 31: citing Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 4.14.3–4. See also Beard, North, Price, Religions of Rome, Vol. 1, A History, Cambridge University Press, 1998. p 184, for Augustan reforms and their connection to older, traditionally Servian social and religious institutions.
- ^ Plutarch, Moralia, On the fortune of the Romans, 10.58–63. English version (Loeb) at Thayer's website [8]
Bibliography
- Beard, M., Price, S., North, J., Religions of Rome: Volume 1, a History, illustrated, ISBN 0-521-31682-0
- Cornell, T., The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000 – 264 BC), Routledge, 1995. ISBN 978-0-415-01596-7
- ISBN 978-0-8014-8247-2 [9]
- Lendon, J.E., Soldiers & Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity, Yale University Press (2005), ISBN 978-0-300-11979-4