The Birth of the Roman Republic (535–494 BC)

Vocabulary flashcards covering key historical figures, events, offices, and terminology from the establishment of the Roman Republic (535–494 BC).

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud)

The seventh and final King of Rome (c. 535–534 BC) who took power by assassinating Servius Tullius. He established an autocracy, terrorized opponents, and used forced labor to build the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

Rape of Lucretia

A tragic 509 BC domestic outrage in which Sextus Tarquinius assaulted the noblewoman Lucretia; her subsequent suicide served as the catalyst that sparked the uprising to overthrow the Roman Monarchy.

Lucius Junius Brutus

The leader of the 509 BC revolution that banished the Tarquins, led citizens in swearing an oath against kingship, and became one of the first two Consuls of the Roman Republic.

Res Publica (Roman Republic)

The government system established in Rome in 509 BC following the banishment of the Tarquins, replacing royal power with two annually elected executive Consuls.

Consuls

Two annually elected executive magistrates created in 509 BC to replace royal authority in the Roman Republic; Lucius Junius Brutus and Collatinus were the first to hold the office.

Lars Porsenna

The Etruscan King of Clusium who allied with the exiled Tarquin in c. 509–508 BC and marched on Rome in an attempt to reinstate the monarchy.

Horatius Cocles

A legendary Roman hero who single-handedly held off the Etruscan army at the Sublician Bridge while Roman soldiers destroyed the bridge behind him.

Dictator (Magister Populi)

An extraordinary, absolute military magistracy created by the Senate in 501 BC during severe emergencies, granted unappealable authority and restricted to a maximum tenure of six months.

Titus Larcius

The first person appointed to the office of Dictator in 501 BC to manage domestic instability and an imminent Sabine invasion.

Battle of Lake Regillus

A major early battle in c. 499 or 496 BC where Roman forces led by Dictator Aulus Postumius Albus narrowly defeated the Latin League and the exiled King Tarquin.

Foedus Cassianum

A treaty resulting from Rome's victory at the Battle of Lake Regillus that permanently crushed Tarquin the Proud's hopes of reclaiming the Roman throne.

First Secession of the Plebs

History's first recorded general strike in 494 BC, in which plebeian soldiers protesting crushing debt (nexum) and political exclusion refused their draft and marched out to Mons Sacer.

Nexum

The crushing wartime debt condition experienced by working-class Plebeians that served as a key cause of the First Secession of the Plebs in 494 BC.

Mons Sacer (The Sacred Mountain)

The hill outside Rome where striking Plebeian soldiers camped during the First Secession of the Plebs in 494 BC, leaving the Patricians defenseless.

Tribune of the Plebs

A protected political office created in 494 BC exclusively to represent Plebeians, equipped with the power of Veto and sacrosanct status.

Sacrosanctity

A radical legal status granted to the Tribunes of the Plebs that made harming them an offense punishable by immediate execution.

Veto

The unilateral authority granted to the Tribunes of the Plebs to halt any state or legislative action that threatened commoners.