people
entries
the millionaire who bought rome
the arrival of the etruscans on the throne. tarquinius priscus, an immensely wealthy immigrant, uses his fortune and rome's first electoral speech to seize the crown, and transforms the city with the circus maximus and the cloaca maxima.
the slave who became king
the life and brutal fall of servius tullius. how a man born to a slave woman reached the throne by deception, invented the census to reorder rome by wealth instead of by blood, and ended up murdered by his own daughter.
the hero who betrayed rome
gnaeus marcius coriolanus was rome's most lethal soldier, but his hatred of the plebs got him exiled. how he allied with the volscian enemy in an attempt to annihilate his own native city.
the farmer who saved rome
lucius quinctius cincinnatus receives absolute command as dictator in 458 bce to rescue the trapped legions. he crushes the enemy in sixteen days and astonishes the world by laying down power to return to his farm.
the second founder of rome
the dictator furius camillus returns from exile and persuades the romans, desperate to flee, to rebuild the capital on its own ashes rather than abandon it. tradition enshrines him as the second founder of rome.