1.
King of Rome
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The King of Rome was the chief magistrate of the Roman Kingdom. According to legend, the first king of Rome was Romulus, seven legendary kings are said to have ruled Rome until 509 BC, when the last king was overthrown. These kings ruled for an average of 35 years, the kings after Romulus were not known to be dynasts and no reference is made to the hereditary principle until after the fifth king Tarquinius Priscus. Consequently, some have assumed that the Tarquins and their attempt to institute a hereditary monarchy over this conjectured earlier elective monarchy resulted in the formation of the republic, early Rome was not self-governing, and was ruled by the king. The king possessed absolute power over the people, the senate was a weak oligarchy, capable of exercising only minor administrative powers, so that Rome was ruled by its king who was in effect an absolute monarch. The senates main function was to out and administer the wishes of the king. Candidates for the throne could be chosen from any source, for example, one such candidate, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus was originally a citizen and migrant from a neighboring Etruscan city-state. The people of Rome, sitting as the Curiate Assembly, could either accept or reject the nominated candidate-king. The insignia of the king was twelve lictors wielding the fasces, a throne of a Curule chair, the purple Toga Picta, red shoes, only the king could wear a purple toga. The people knew the king as a mediator between them and the gods and thus viewed the king with religious awe and this made the king the head of the national religion and its chief executive. Having the power to control the Roman calendar, he conducted all religious ceremonies and appointed lower religious offices and it was Romulus who instituted the augurs and who was believed to have been the best augur of all. Likewise, King Numa Pompilius instituted the pontiffs and through them developed the foundations of the dogma of Rome. Beyond his religious authority, the king was invested with the military, executive. The imperium of the king was held for life and protected him from ever being brought to trial for his actions. As being the owner of imperium in Rome at the time. His executive power and his sole imperium allowed him to issue decrees with the force of law, also, the laws that kept citizens safe from the misuse of magistrates owning imperium did not exist during the times of the king. Another power of the king was the power to appoint or nominate all officials to offices. The king would appoint a tribunus celerum to serve as both the tribune of Ramnes tribe in Rome but also as the commander of the personal bodyguard
2.
Tullus Hostilius
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Tullus Hostilius was the legendary third king of Rome. He succeeded Numa Pompilius and was succeeded by Ancus Marcius, unlike his predecessor, Tullus was known as a warlike king. Tullus Hostilius was the grandson of Hostus Hostilius, who had fought with Romulus, the principal feature of Tullus reign was his defeat of Alba Longa. After Alba Longa was beaten, Alba Longa became Romes vassal state, Tullus also fought successful wars against Fidenae and Veii and against the Sabines. According to Livy, Tullus paid little heed to religious observances during his reign, king Tullus became ill and was filled with superstition. He reviewed the commentaries of Numa Pompilius and attempted to carry out sacrifices recommended by Numa to Jupiter Elicius. However, Tullus did not undertake the ceremony correctly, and both he and his house were struck by lightning and reduced to ashes as a result of the anger of Jupiter. As with those of all the kings of Rome, the events ascribed to the reign of Tullus Hostilius are treated with skepticism by modern historians. Both are brought up among shepherds, carry on war against Fidenae and Veii, double the number of citizens, Hostilius was probably a historical figure, however, in the strict sense that a man bearing the name Tullus Hostilius likely reigned as king in Rome. The first event is the destruction of Alba Longa and it is beyond doubt that the Alban mountains were the site of a large settlement and that this settlement fell under Roman power during the regal period. But when and by whom Alba Longa was destroyed is uncertain and this would bring the construction of the Curia Hostilia well within the time of a possible reign by Tullus Hostilius and also explain the otherwise inexplicable name of the building. Operatic pastiches with the title Tullo Ostilio performed in Prague in 1727, consistent with contemporary conventions, the stories concentrate on concocted love stories involving members of the principal characters family. Tullus Hostilius was played by Robert Keith in the 1961 film Duel of Champions, Tullus is briefly mentioned in the Aeneid in the description of Aeneas shield. He is described as hauling away the remains of the liar Mettius through the brush and he is a character in Philip Jose Farmers novel Riverworld. After the Resurrection, he has teamed up with Hermann Göring to run a slave-state
3.
Lucius Tarquinius Priscus
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Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, or Tarquin the Elder, was the legendary fifth king of Rome from 616 to 579 BC. According to Livy, Tarquin came from Etruria, after inheriting his fathers entire fortune, Lucius attempted to gain a political office. Disgruntled with his opportunities in Etruria, he migrated to Rome with his wife Tanaquil, legend has it that on his arrival in Rome in a chariot, an eagle took his cap, flew away and then returned it back upon his head. Tanaquil, who was skilled in prophecy, interpreted this as an omen of his future greatness, in Rome, he attained respect through his courtesy. The king himself noticed Tarquinius and, by his will, appointed Tarquinius guardian of his own sons, upon the death of Marcius, Tarquin addressed the Comitia Curiata and convinced them that he should be elected king over Marcius natural sons, who were still only youths. In one tradition, the sons were away on an expedition at the time of their fathers death. According to Livy, Tarquin increased the number of the Senate by adding one hundred men from the leading minor families, among these was the family of the Octavii, from whom the first emperor, Augustus, was descended. Tarquins first war was waged against the Latins, Tarquinius took the Latin town of Apiolae by storm and took great booty from there back to Rome. According to the Fasti Triumphales, this war must have occurred prior to 588 BC and his military ability was then tested by an attack from the Sabines, who received auxiliaries from five Etruscan cities. Tarquin doubled the numbers of equites to help the war effort, the Sabines were defeated after difficult street fighting in the city of Rome. In the peace negotiations followed, Tarquin received the town of Collatia. Tarquin returned to Rome and celebrated a triumph on September 13,585 BC, subsequently, the Latin cities of Corniculum, old Ficulea, Cameria, Crustumerium, Ameriola, Medullia and Nomentum were subdued and became Roman. Since Tarquin had kept the captured Etruscan auxiliaries prisoners for meddling in the war with the Sabines, seven other Etruscan cities joined forces with them. The Etruscans soon captured the Roman colony at Fidenae, which became the focal point of the war. After several bloody battles, Tarquin was once again victorious, at the successful conclusion of each of his wars, Rome was enriched by Tarquins plunder. Tarquin is said to have built the Circus Maximus, the first and largest stadium at Rome, raised seating was erected privately by the senators and equites, and other areas were marked out for private citizens. There the king established a series of games, according to Livy. After a great flood, Tarquin drained the damp lowlands of Rome by constructing the Cloaca Maxima and he also constructed a stone wall around the city, and began the construction of a temple in honour of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill
4.
Roman mythology
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Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Romes legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans. Roman mythology may also refer to the study of these representations. The Romans usually treated their traditional narratives as historical, even when these have miraculous or supernatural elements, the stories are often concerned with politics and morality, and how an individuals personal integrity relates to his or her responsibility to the community or Roman state. When the stories illuminate Roman religious practices, they are concerned with ritual, augury. Romes early myths and legends also have a relationship with Etruscan religion. In particular, the versions of Greek myths in Ovids Metamorphoses, written during the reign of Augustus, because ritual played the central role in Roman religion that myth did for the Greeks, it is sometimes doubted that the Romans had much of a native mythology. This perception is a product of Romanticism and the scholarship of the 19th century. From the Renaissance to the 18th century, however, Roman myths were an inspiration particularly for European painting, the Roman tradition is rich in historical myths, or legends, concerning the foundation and rise of the city. These narratives focus on human actors, with only occasional intervention from deities, in Romes earliest period, history and myth have a mutual and complementary relationship. As T. P. Wiseman notes, The Roman stories still matter, as they mattered to Dante in 1300 and Shakespeare in 1600, what does it take to be a free citizen. Can a superpower still be a republic, how does well-meaning authority turn into murderous tyranny. Major sources for Roman myth include the Aeneid of Vergil and the first few books of Livys history as well as Dionysius s Roman Antiquities. Other important sources are the Fasti of Ovid, a six-book poem structured by the Roman religious calendar, scenes from Roman myth also appear in Roman wall painting, coins, and sculpture, particularly reliefs. The Aeneid and Livys early history are the best extant sources for Romes founding myths, material from Greek heroic legend was grafted onto this native stock at an early date. By extension, the Trojans were adopted as the ancestors of the Roman people. Rape of the Sabine women, explaining the importance of the Sabines in the formation of Roman culture, numa Pompilius, the Sabine second king of Rome who consorted with the nymph Egeria and established many of Romes legal and religious institutions. Servius Tullius, the king of Rome, whose mysterious origins were freely mythologized. The Tarpeian Rock, and why it was used for the execution of traitors, lucretia, whose self-sacrifice prompted the overthrow of the early Roman monarchy and led to the establishment of the Republic
5.
Numa Pompilius
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Numa Pompilius was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus. He was of Sabine origin, and many of Romes most important religious, according to Plutarch, Numa was the youngest of Pomponiuss four sons, born on the day of Romes founding. He lived a life of discipline and banished all luxury from his home. Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines and a colleague of Romulus, gave in marriage his daughter, Tatia. After 13 years of marriage, Tatia died, precipitating Numas retirement to the countryside, according to Livy, Numa resided at Cures immediately before being elected king. Livy and Plutarch refer to the story that Numa was instructed in philosophy by Pythagoras, Plutarch reports that some authors credited him with only a single daughter, Pompilia. Pompilias mother is identified as Numas first wife Tatia or his second wife Lucretia. She is said to have married the future first pontifex maximus Numa Marcius, still other writers, writes Plutarch, believed these were fictional genealogies to enhance the status of these families. After the death of Romulus, there was an interregnum of one year in which the power was exercised by members of the Senate in rotation for five days in a row. In 715 BC, after much bickering between the factions of Romulus and Tatius, a compromise was reached, and the Sabine Numa was elected by the senate as the next king, according to Plutarch, Numa was a cunning and calculating person. At first he refused the offer and his father and Sabine kinsmen, including his teacher and the father of Numas son-in law, Marcus, along with an embassy of two senators from Rome, banded together to persuade him to accept. In the account of Plutarch and Livy, Numa, after being summoned by the Senate from Cures, was offered the tokens of power amid an enthusiastic reception by the people of Rome. He requested, however, that an augur should divine the opinion of the gods on the prospect of his kingship before he accepted, Jupiter was consulted and the omens were favourable. Thus approved by the Roman and Sabine people as well as the heavens, according to Plutarch, Numas first act was to disband the personal guard of 300 so-called Celeres with which Romulus permanently surrounded himself. The gesture is variously interpreted as self-protection in the face of their questionable loyalty, based on Roman chronology, Numa died of old age in 673 BC. He was succeeded by Tullus Hostilius, Numa was traditionally celebrated by the Romans for his wisdom and piety. According to Livy, Numa claimed that he held consultations with Egeria on the proper manner of instituting sacred rites for the city. Numa was said to have authored several sacred books in which he had written down divine teachings, mostly from Egeria, the other books dealt with philosophy
6.
Roman Senate
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The Roman Senate was a political institution in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, during the days of the kingdom, it was little more than an advisory council to the king. The last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was following a coup détat led by Lucius Junius Brutus. During the early Republic, the Senate was politically weak, while the executive magistrates were quite powerful, since the transition from monarchy to constitutional rule was most likely gradual, it took several generations before the Senate was able to assert itself over the executive magistrates. By the middle Republic, the Senate had reached the apex of its republican power, the late Republic saw a decline in the Senates power, which began following the reforms of the tribunes Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. After the transition of the Republic into the Principate, the Senate lost much of its power as well as its prestige. Following the constitutional reforms of the Emperor Diocletian, the Senate became politically irrelevant, when the seat of government was transferred out of Rome, the Senate was reduced to a municipal body. This decline in status was reinforced when the emperor Constantine the Great created an additional senate in Constantinople, the Senate in Rome ultimately disappeared at some point after AD603, although the title senator was still used well into the Middle Ages as a largely meaningless honorific. However, the Eastern Senate survived in Constantinople, until the ancient institution finally vanished there c. 14th century, the senate was a political institution in the ancient Roman kingdom. The word senate derives from the Latin word senex, which means old man, the early Roman family was called a gens or clan, and each clan was an aggregation of families under a common living male patriarch, called a pater. When the early Roman gentes were aggregating to form a common community, over time, the patres came to recognize the need for a single leader, and so they elected a king, and vested in him their sovereign power. When the king died, that power naturally reverted to the patres. The senate is said to have created by Romes first king, Romulus. The descendants of those 100 men subsequently became the patrician class, Romes fifth king, Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, chose a further 100 senators. They were chosen from the leading families, and were accordingly called the patres minorum gentium. Romes seventh and final king, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, executed many of the men in the senate. During the years of the monarchy, the senates most important function was to new kings. While the king was elected by the people, it was actually the senate who chose each new king
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ancus Marcius". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 953.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the 
