Editing Servius Tullius (section)

==Background==
Before its establishment as a [[Roman Republic|Republic]], Rome was ruled by [[Kings of Rome|kings]] (Latin ''reges'', singular ''rex''). In [[Roman mythology|Roman tradition]], Rome's founder [[Romulus]] was the first. Servius Tullius was the sixth, and his successor [[Tarquinius Superbus]] (Tarquin the Proud) was the last.<ref>Based on the reckoning of Roman historians, the Roman kingdom lasted about 250 years; either the list of kings is implausibly short, or their reigns are implausibly long. The earliest kings in particular could represent the attributes and achievements of several distinct personalities. See further discussion in Cornell, 120–121, 226.</ref> The nature of Roman kingship is unclear; most Roman kings were elected by the senate, as to a lifetime [[Roman Magistrates#Executive magistrates of the Roman Kingdom|magistracy]], but some claimed succession through dynastic or divine right. Some were native Romans, others were foreign. Later Romans had a complex ideological relationship with this distant past. In Republican mores and institutions kingship was abhorrent; and remained so, in name at least, during the Empire. On the one hand, Romulus was held to have brought Rome into being more-or-less at a stroke, so complete and purely Roman in its essentials that any acceptable change or reform thereafter must be clothed as restoration. On the other, Romans of the Republic and Empire saw each king as contributing in some distinctive and novel way to the city's fabric and territories, or its social, military, religious, legal or political institutions.<ref>Cornell, pp. 57–60</ref> Servius Tullius has been described as Rome's "second founder", "the most complex and enigmatic" of all its kings, and a kind of "proto-Republican magistrate".<ref>Cornell, pp. 120–121, 226.</ref>

===Ancient sources===
The oldest surviving source for the overall political developments of the Roman kingdom and Republic is [[Cicero]]'s ''De republica'' ("On the State"), written in 44&nbsp;BC.<ref>Cornell, p. 2</ref> The main literary sources for Servius' life and achievements are the Roman historian [[Livy]] (59&nbsp;BC – AD&nbsp;17), whose ''[[Ab urbe condita libri (Livy)|Ab urbe condita]]'' was generally accepted by the Romans as the standard, most authoritative account; Livy's near contemporary [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]], and [[Plutarch]] (c. 46 – 120 AD); their own sources included works by [[Quintus Fabius Pictor]], [[Diocles of Peparethus]], [[Quintus Ennius]] and [[Cato the Elder]].<ref>Cornell, pp. 6, 199–122.</ref> Livy's [[Ab urbe condita libri (Livy)#Livy's sources|sources]] probably included at least some official state records, he excluded what seemed implausible or contradictory traditions, and arranged his material within an overarching chronology. Dionysius and Plutarch offer various alternatives not found in Livy,<ref>Cornell, pp. 21–26.</ref> and Livy's own pupil, the [[Etruscology|etruscologist]], historian and emperor [[Claudius]], offered yet another, based on Etruscan tradition.<ref>For Claudius' theory on Servius' origins, see the text of the [[Lyons Tablet]].</ref>