events
entries
the seizure of the sabines
to stave off rome's extinction, romulus engineered a mass deception against the neighbouring tribes. the rape of the sabines as a founding myth of the forced assimilation of peoples, and of how two enemy communities ended up fused into one.
the first assassination of rome
the mysterious disappearance of romulus and the rumour of a state crime orchestrated by the senate. how rome solved its first power vacuum by electing a foreigner, numa pompilius, who founded the religion of the state without drawing the sword.
the duel that changed rome
rome and alba longa staked the future of their cities on a duel to the death of three against three. the legend of the horatii and the curiatii and the mythic origin of the provocatio, the citizen's right to appeal to the people.
the crime that destroyed the kings
the roman monarchy did not fall through a war or an economic crisis, but through prince sextus tarquinius's assault on the noblewoman lucretia. the crime that unleashed the fury of the aristocracy and founded the roman republic in 509 bce.
the consul and the ultimate penalty
the blind justice of rome. consul brutus must condemn his own sons to death for conspiring to return the kings to the throne. the message of absolute loyalty to the state.
the first general strike
the plebs paralyse rome by walking out of the city in the secessio plebis of 494 bce. weary of debt-bondage, they force the patrician senate to capitulate and create the tribunate of the plebs.
the kidnapping of the republic
rome suspends its government in 451 bce and hands absolute command to ten men, the decemvirs, to draft laws. how the aristocrat appius claudius turned the legal project into a brutal tyranny.
the blood on the twelve tables
appius claudius's crime against young verginia unleashes military chaos. a father kills his daughter to save her from slavery, bringing down the decemvirs and clearing the way for the publication of the twelve tables in 449 bce.
the siege beneath the earth
the siege of veii dragged on for a decade and led the dictator camillus to drive a colossal tunnel beneath the walls. the psychological-warfare tactic of the evocatio to take from the etruscans their protecting goddess.
the gallic sack and humiliation
the gauls sack and burn rome. the senators are massacred and the chieftain brennus humiliates the republic by demanding gold and pronouncing the legendary phrase vae victis.
the hill and the sacred birds
the roman resistance entrenched on the capitoline survives a night-time ambush by the gauls thanks to the geese of juno, sparing the citadel from falling in the sack of rome.
the father who executed his son
in 340 bce, during the latin war, the consul titus manlius torquatus orders his own son put to death for having won a duel without permission. from that severity a proverb was born, the "manlian discipline".
the sacrifice to the underworld
in 340 bce, with the roman left wing giving way before the latins at the foot of vesuvius, the consul publius decius mus covered his head and charged alone at the enemy, offering himself in the devotio to the gods of the underworld in exchange for victory.
the shame of the caudine forks
in 321 bce, in a defile of the apennines, two roman consular armies are trapped with no way out. the samnite general gaius pontius does not kill them: he forces them to surrender their arms and pass under the yoke, the worst affront a roman soldier could suffer.
the stained toga and the just war
in 282 bce a roman fleet enters forbidden waters off tarentum and sets off the war. tradition justified it with the stained toga of an ambassador, but the real mechanism was the bellum iustum, the ritual machinery by which rome always cast itself as the victim.