Servius Tullius

Servius Tullius
King of Rome
Servius Tullius by Frans Huys.jpg
A 16th century depiction of Servius Tullius.
Reign 578 – 535 BC
Predecessor Lucius Tarquinius Priscus
Successor Lucius Tarquinius Superbus
Father Unknown
Mother Ocrisia
For the personal name, see Servius (praenomen).

According to Roman tradition, Servius Tullius was the sixth king of ancient Rome, the second king of the Etruscan dynasty and reigned 578-535 BC. Roman and Greek sources describe his servile origins and later marriage to a daughter of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, Rome's first Etruscan King, assassinated in 579 BC. He was said to be the first Roman king to accede without being elected by the Senate, having gained the throne by the contrivance of his mother-in-law.

No contemporary inscriptions attest his existence. Several later traditions describe his birth as servile and many imply his father as divine. Livy postulates his 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. The Emperor Claudius seems to discount such origins as fabulous and describes him as an originally Etruscan mercenary who fought for Caelius Vibenna.

Ancient Roman and Greek historians regard Servius as one of Rome's most significant regal benefactors whose reforms and institutions laid the groundwork for Republican government. They credit him with military successes against Veii and the Etruscans, with social, administrative, military, political and religious reforms, building projects and the expansion of the city to include the Quirinal, Viminal and Esquiline hills. He is supposed to have instituted some of Rome's religious festivals, built temples to Fortuna and Diana, and a palace for himself on the Esquiline. He is also said to have improved the lot and fortunes of Rome's lowest classes of citizens and non-citizens despite opposition from the patrician order.

According to Pliny, Servius was the first Roman king to stamp pieces of metal with the images of cattle, oxen and swine. Before this time, the Romans simply used lumps of metal in their commerce.[1]

In Livy's account, Servius reigned for 44 years, until murdered by his treacherous daughter Tullia and son-in-law Tarquinius Superbus. In consequence of this "tragic crime" and his overweening arrogance as king, Tarquinius was removed. This cleared the way for the abolition of Rome's monarchy and the founding of the Roman Republic.

Contents

Parentage and birth

Plutarch collates various traditions attached to Servius Tullius. His mother is Ocrisia, a young, virginal and beautiful captive taken at the Roman siege of Corniculum and given to king Tarquinius's wife, Tanaquil. Ocrisia is treated with respect and kindness. In one account, she marries one of Tarquinius's clients. In most, she seems to have served in the capacity of a Vestal, or at least attended the domestic hearth rites of the royal household. On one such occasion, as the flames are damped by her sacrificial offering, a phallus arises from the hearth and to her great terror, penetrates her. Ocrisia tells only Tanaquil what has happened. Tanaquil knows the apparition must be divine – either the household Lar or Vulcan himself – so she dresses Ocrisia as a bride, and shuts her in the room again. In due course and in great secrecy Ocrisia gives birth to Servius, whose divine parentage is betrayed even in childhood by the numinous light about his head. His accession would appear guaranteed by this divine portent, but other stories represent Servius as an unexpected and virtuously reluctant king.[2] In one version, as his wife Gegania lies dying, he falls into a heartbroken and exhausted sleep, in which his face is surrounded by a nimbus of sacred fire. Again, his divine paternity seems revealed and his destiny assured; but Servius consents to the kingship only at the death-bed insistence of Tanaquil, who speeds his accession by disposing of her husband, King Tarquinius.[3]

Servius is clearly an extraordinary mortal, an admixture of the divine and servile. Whatever its mythographic or symbolic intent, and whether it belongs to Vulcan or the Lar of the household, the disembodied phallus is as peculiarly Roman as the virgin-slave mother. Greek wonder-child legends offer the father as divine and the mother – virgin or not – as princess of a ruling house, not a slave.[4] Some elements of these stories seem to justify a traditionally Servian founding of Compitalia, instituted by him to publicly and piously honour his parentage (assuming the Lar as his father), to extend 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. These connections are part of a durable popular tradition; before the Augustan Compitalia reforms of 7 BC, Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports Servius' fathering by a Lar and his founding of Compitalia as anciently received Roman traditions. Augustus found a ready association with one of Rome's ancient benefactors, whose reluctance to adopt kingship distanced him from its taints. The reformed Compitalia brought these essentially plebian festivals, customs and political factions under the protective patronage and if need be, the censorial powers of the Emperor.[5]

Plutarch admires the Servian reforms for their imposition of good order in government, the military and public morality, and Servius himself as the best of all Rome's kings: wise, personally courageous and so exceptionally fortunate that "it was even thought that Fortune consorted with him, descending into his chamber through a certain window which they now call the Porta Fenestella". Plutarch credits Servius not only with the appreciative foundation of two Temples to the goddess - one to Fortuna Primigenia and one to Fortuna Obsequens – but "the greater part" of her titles and honours. Servius' personal dedication to the goddess befitted one who "through good fortune, had been promoted from the family of a captive enemy to the kingship."[6]

Livy's account of Servius Tullius is rational, historicised and moral. It sets little store by tales of Servius' divine origin, and emphasises his mother's noble ancestry. His humble birth is an accident of fate and his excellence of character and virtues are entirely Roman. His high destiny is confirmed in his early days by a miraculous fiery nimbus or wreath that suddenly appears around his head, remains a short while then disappears. Fortuna plays her part and is duly acknowledged, but not to excess; though evidently favoured by the gods, Servius earns his good fortune through his own merit and his deeds on behalf of the people of Rome.[7]

In a speech to the senate, the emperor Claudius identifies Servius as an Etruscan mercenary named Macstarna who fought for Caelius Vibenna. With Caelius' defeat, Macstarna brought the remnants of his army to Rome and settled one of its hills, name the Caelian thereafter.[8]

Reforms and innovations credited to Servius

The main source for Servius' life and achievements is Livy (ca 59 BC – AD 17) whose history of Rome, known as Ab Urbe Condita offers a detailed chronology from Rome's foundation. Livy claimed authority based on sources now lost.

As Rome's population was enlarged by treaty and conquest, Servius formed a comitia centuriata to replace Rome's comitia curiata as its central legislative body. This required the development of a census[9] to determine voting rights among an expanded and culturally diverse population. People were assembled by tribe in the Campus Martius. Under oath, each man told his name, address, social rank, family members, servants, tenants, and property to the registrar. Land, wealth and the ability to muster arms for military service remained the major qualifications, and provided the basis for traditionally Servian social classifications; Servius is credited as Rome's first censor. Neither the census nor the classification significantly altered social status in Rome. Servius required a minimum wealth qualification of 800,000 sesterces for Senators, and a half of this for equites("knights").

Classes

Rome's expanded voting population was thus divided into classes according to age, wealth and occupation. These classes were further subdivided into centuriae, or centuries.[10]

The comitia centuriata met when summoned by the senate to vote on legislation. Each century had some vote; the order of voting was determined by the number of centuries within a class, with the largest voting first. If these classes failed to reach unanimity, others were convened to break the deadlock; those with the most centuries met most frequently and had the most power. The classes are as follows:

The classes below the classici were the infra classem. The fixed parameters were the number of centuries, regardless of population density.

New tribal division

Before Servius Tullius, society at Rome was divided into three ancestral tribes: the Ramnes, the Tities, and the Luceres, divided into 30 curiae and held to represent the entire populus Romanus (Roman people). By tradition, the Ramnes were Latins who lived on the Palatine, the Tities were Sabines who lived on the Quirinal and Viminal, and the Luceres were Etruscans who lived on the Caelian. These tribes and their curiae were further divided into approximately 200 gentes (clans). Each clan contributed one senator ("elder") to the deliberative and consultative body of the senate, who advised the rex (king) and devised laws in his name. These laws required the approval of the 30 curiae into which the three tribes were divided; the curiae met as the comitia curiata ("the going together of the curiae" to vote on new laws or their amendments, probably one curia at a time, and probably by voice ("yes" or "no").

The senators were the patres (fathers) of their clans. In time Rome was flooded with other people than members of the gens, who lived in districts around the ones cited. They had no say in the government. It is significant that they were not originally the Etruscan word populace, but were the plebs, an Indo-European word, root *ple-, "fill", in the sense of multitude. These were Italics. In contrast they called the clans the patricii, "of the fathers."

By the time of Servius the patricii had become the minority, excluding the better part of the city from governing themselves. What Servius did to correct the imbalance is to move the pomerium, the sacred boundary of the city, to add to the existing hill districts, thus completing the "Septimontium". The space enclosed he divided into four urban tribes, the Suburana, Esquilina, Collina, and Palatina. According to Livy the taxes, the "tribute," derived from the word "tribe."

The new tribal division brought new families into the social structure. It isn't clear that they received their own curiae; probably not, as Servius innovated a new class system. The classes met on the same field and took over most functions of the curiae, and yet the curiae continued to exist.

Army

Servius established the Roman army's centuria system and its order of battle, based on the civilian classifications established for his 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 wealthier men of combat age were armed as hoplites, heavy infantry with helmet, greaves, breastplate, shields (clipeus), and spears (hastae). Each battle line in the phalanx formation was composed of a single class.[11]

Specialists were chosen from the 5th class. Officers were not part of the class selection process but were picked beforehand, often by vote of the civilian century.

Religion

Servius is credited with the foundation of Diana's temple on the Aventine Hill to mark the foundation of the so-called Latin League.[12] Traditionally, the Aventine was associated with Alba Longa, with Remus (the murdered bother of Romulus in Rome's founding-myth), with the Sabines settled there by Romulus, the Latins resettled there once defeated by Ancus Marcius (Rome's fourth legendary king) and a later secession by Rome's plebians.[13]

Servius' traditional birth-mythos and social reforms appear to justify his foundation of Compitalia, celebrated by the local communities of his re-organised vici.

Servian Wall

Servius Tullius is also credited with the expansion of Rome's defensive perimeter to include it's then suburban population. In modern Rome, an ancient portion of surviving wall is attributed him, the remainder supposedly being rebuilt after the sack of Rome in 390/387 BC by the Gauls. No firm evidence can be offered in support of either attribution.

Later life and death

For Livy, Servius' death is a "tragic crime" (tragicum scelus), a dark episode in Rome's history and just cause for the abolition of the monarchy. His death is parricide, the worst of all crimes, perpetrated by his own daughter Tullia and his murderous son-in-law, Tarquinius. Livy's account is historicised and morally instructive as ever but more than usually dramatic. Tullia lacks all restraint; in her greed for power she murders first her unambitious husband, and then her own sister, Tarquinius's wife. Tarquinius proves usefully weak and malleable; once married, his new wife goads him into furious action. He convenes the Senate and treats it to a diatribe from Servius' own chair in the curia; their king is unworthy of them, nothing more than a slave. When the aged Servius arrives, his son-in-law throws him down the steps of the curia; his daughter drives her chariot over him. 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).[14] His murder paves the way for the just expulsion of Tarquin 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.[15]

Historical appraisals

There is some evidence to support the Macstarna story, which comes from the Oratio Claudii Caesaris of the Lugdunum Tablet and represents an Etruscan explanation being told by the emperor Claudius (a savant in matters Etruscan). The evidence is a painting of Etruscan heroes in the Francois Tomb at Vulci. A figure labelled Mastarna and others labelled the Vibenna brothers (Caile and Avle Vipinas) appear there. If Macstarna was Servius, the questions remain as to why he changed his name, and why he chose that name.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Pliny Natural History33.3; Ovid Fasti5.281
  2. ↑ Plutarch, Moralia, On the fortune of the Romans, 10, 64: available online (Loeb) at Thayer's website [1]. The Loeb edition cites Plutarch's source for this variant as Valerius Antias, Fragment 12; in Peter, Frag. Hist. Rom. p154.
  3. ↑ Plutarch, Moralia, On the fortune of the Romans, 10, 64: available online (Loeb) at Thayer's website [2]: see also Ovid, Fasti, 6.627 ff; Livy, I.39; Pliny, Natural History, 36 & 70.27.204.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ 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.
  6. ↑ Plutarch, Moralia, On the fortune of the Romans, 10.58-63. English version )Loeb) at Thayer's website [3]
  7. ↑ Livy Ab urbe condita 1.39 - 48.
  8. ↑ Claudius' scholarly claim is made on the Lyon Tablet. Alternatively, Caelius Vibenna himself was said to have founded its settlement.
  9. ↑ Census derives from Latin censere, "to judge" or "to estimate".
  10. ↑ Held to mean "a group", rather than a group of 100 (Latin centum = 100).
  11. ↑ Lendon, J.E., Soldiers & Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity, Yale University Press (2005), ISBN 0300119798, 9780300119794, p. 182: The phalanx was known to the Romans in pre-republic days, whose best fighting men were armed identically to early Greek hoplites.
  12. ↑ Beard, North, Price, Religions of Rome: Vol. 1, a History, 1998, p 3.
  13. ↑ Livy, Ab urbe condita; 6 ff (Romulus, Remus and Rome's foundation); 1.33 (Ancus Marcius); Varro, cited in Maurus Servius Honoratus' commentary on Vergil's Aeneid.
  14. ↑ 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.
  15. ↑ Feldherr, Andrew. Spectacle and Society in Livy's History. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1998 (online) [4]

External links

Regnal titles
Preceded by
Lucius Tarquinius Priscus		 King of Rome
578–535		 Succeeded by
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus
Kings of Rome
Romulus (753–717) · Numa Pompilius (717–673) · Tullus Hostilius (673–642) · Ancus Marcius (642–617) · Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (616–579) · Servius Tullius (578–535) · Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (535– 510/509)