CHAPTER GLIMPSES: THE ROMAN MIND

From its founding in 753 bc, Roman kingly power lasted just over 200 years, and it seems to have left such a bad taste in Roman mouths that by its overthrow, the citizens of this future world power, would set up the most sublime experiment in all history. It is not precisely clear what led the Romans to seek so radical a form of Government as a Republic. It appears to some however, that the main reason would be the degrading and excessively corrupt conduct of its kings culminating in Tarquinus Superbus, which in good judgment does not appear as a proper reason. This being that Tarquinus, was successor to arguably the best and most well meaning king Rome ever had, Servius Tullius. Others might argue that the Romans hated being ruled by their neighbours, the Etruscans. This may just be the more right answer, considering the manner in which the final revolution against the kings was enacted. To be subjected under the rule of foreigners is bad enough, to be colonized by your neighbors however, is beyond shameful. It is no small wonder that the case which instigated Roman revolt against their Etruscan overlords was the raping of a well known Roman wife by an Etruscan prince. In a world more chaotic than our own, such a case might be expected to be given little attention, yet a civil war ensued, with the Romans finally expelling their colonial masters.

This lust for freedom and self-rule was not born under the oppression of the kings, rather it was exasperated by it. By this I mean that the very nature of the Roman mind was a love and desire for freedom, and in order to understand this we must wind back the clock to her founding. According to Livy, the Romans are descended from Troy, which 900 years before Alexander the Great, was stormed by a Greek coalition led by Sparta and Mycenae. Among the survivors of that horrific spectacle, AEneas the great grandfather of Romulus and Remus, was spared by the Greeks on account of his previous entreaties for peace before the Trojan war. He along the others were given safe passage to other lands and migrated to Sicily, where together with a local tribe ruled by King Latinus, they sought a better life for themselves, working their way north. About 400 years later, Romulus killed Remus and formed a new town by the river Tiber, Rome. From the very beginning, Rome was an open city, a haven for all outcasts. Thus explains the Roman nature of love for self rule. “It is said of the Romans that they possessed the faculty of self-government beyond any people of whom we have historical knowledge," It was then inevitable that Rome should one day throw off the yoke of the kings.

From Romulus, there were 7 kings until the age of the Republic, with the final three being Etruscan. The people of Rome decided to prevent any such concentration of power in one man ever again. After the revolution of 509 BC, they elected 2 consuls to serve simultaneously for a year....(cont)