From the eighth through to the end of the sixth century Rome was ruled by ‘kings’ Almost nothing is known of these early rulers and their names and stories attached to them must be seen to be legendary. Kingship was not hereditary and each new king seems to have been acclaimed by the people of Rome meeting in the comitia curiata, an assembly of thirty groups of clans, after auspices had first been taken to ensure he had divine support. (The taking of auspices became a part of any political and religious activity in Rome.) He now had imperium, divine authority through which he could exercise his power in political, military, and religious affairs. The symbol of imperium was the fasces, a bundle of rods bound round an axe that was carried in front of the king. It originated with the Etruscans and it is in this same period that Etruscan influence became pervasive. King Tarquin I (traditional dates 616-579 Bc), for instance, is recorded as having migrated to Rome from Etruria and engineered his acclamation as king. With him came the first public embellishment of the city. The Forum was paved and surrounded by ceremonial buildings, including temples and sanctuaries, and an open area cleared for assemblies of citizens. The remains of palaces suggest the city was controlled by an aristocratic elite. (However, Rome remained predominantly Latin in culture. Under the Lapis Niger, a black pavement found in the Forum (and traditionally the burial place of the shepherd who looked after Romulus and Remus), are sixth-century ceremonial inscriptions in Latin, not Etruscan.)
Legend tells how Tarquin was murdered in 579 and his successor Servius Tullius, probably a Latin rather than an Etruscan, seized power by force. It was clearly a time of upheaval in the city and Servius Tullius might be compared with the Greek tyrants (see Chapter 11) who swept to power on a wave of popular resentment against an aristocratic elite. There is evidence that Servius expanded the citizen body by enfranchising the local rural population and, more important than this, by creating a citizen army of all those able to afford arms. This was the first legion, with a reported strength of 4,000 men and 600 cavalry. The men were grouped into centuries (probably of ninety-six men each). At some point, possibly in Servius’ reign, it became customary to call the centuries together to meet on the Campus Martius, the Field of Mars, outside the city wall. The comitia centuriata, as this assembly was called later, became the most powerful of the Roman popular assemblies with the formal duty of declaring war or peace and making alliances, as well as voting on constitutional changes. (In republican times it formed the electoral body for the consuls and praetors.)
This expansion of the citizen body was crucial to Rome’s later success. In Greece citizenship depended on membership of a polis community and it was a privilege jealously guarded against outsiders. It is certainly true that Rome was cautious
About accepting citizens until they had proved themselves loyal (and to some extent Romanized) but Rome was more open about extending her citizen body than any other city of the ancient world. To the astonishment of the Greeks even the descendants of freed slaves would become citizens as a matter of course. The result was a citizen body that grew rapidly. One consequence of this, however, was that the citizen assemblies became so large that democracy on the Athenian model soon became impractical and those who did attend the assemblies were restricted to voting for or against issues placed before them.
World History
