![]() Whether Livy’s report has any trace of real historical information is not our main concern. Rome was a republic – res publica, meaning “public affair”. However, the Tarquins were abandoned by their soldiers, in spite of their vain efforts to keep control of the situation and take the city by surprise. They didn’t understand their lack of popularity and this sudden change in their fool’s personality, believing he was perhaps controlled by the senatorial magistrates who could be easily overcome. The royal family quickly returned to the city in order to deal with the rebel – to them, he was little more than a usurper. Brutus ran to the Forum, called the people to listen to his speech (it was his legal right as tribune of the Celers, and he could act on his own as long as the king was abroad) and proclaimed the abolishment of the Roman Monarchy and the enactment of the exile of the Tarquins. He grew enraged when confronted with the dead body of this heroine, seized the iron stick which had served as the murder weapon against her chaste resistance and swore to kill all the Tarquins, who were deeply unpopular in Rome, if not odious. However, Brutus did not need not feign imbecility for much longer, because the ill-fated rape and murder of Lucretia by Sextus Tarquinius, one of the king’s sons, gave him the opportunity to finally stage a quick move. The job of praising the emperor and his origins as well as evocating the lost virtues of the ancestors (which could be regained under the protective hand of Caesar Augustus) were major themes in the literature of the time. We can clearly see in this poetic story Livy’s propagandistic role and why he was considered by the Romans to be their “national” historian. Brutus behaved wisely again, as he kissed the land of his ancestors immediately after entering Rome. ![]() Livy also reports that Apollo’s pythia predicted the god would give the empire of Rome to the one who would first embrace his mother after the return. But the great wisdom that Livy praised so much lay in his fine trick of hiding a golden sceptre inside the stick. Brutus brught as an offering to the god Apollo a coarse stick. He grew up in the royal entourage, waiting for the right moment for vengeance.ĭuring a plague which almost overwhelmed Rome, Tarquin’s sons were sent to Delphi in order to consult the oracle and they took Brutus along, obviously to amuse themselves and forget about the boredom and the smaller inconveniences of the trip. Saved by such contempt he was regarded with disdain, being kept in the palace as a laughing stock. When he was still a child, he saw his father and brothers being executed by the tyrant and escaped solely by feigning mental insanity (the origin of his cognomen Brutus). According to ancient sources, Brutus was the son of Marcus Junius and of a sister of Tarquinius Superbus. By ‘ Andraeus Papadopolus Dacicus Maximus’Īccording to Roman traditional history, Brutus was the most important personality of the patrician “revolution” which overthrew monarchic rule in Rome and instituted the Republic.
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