Editing Servius Tullius (section)

==Historical appraisals==

===Birth===
Claims of divine ancestry and divine favour were often attached to charismatic individuals who rose "as if from nowhere" to become dynasts, tyrants and hero-founders in the ancient Mediterranean world.<ref>Cornell, 132–133: these include [[Caeculus]], legendary founder of [[Praeneste]]: dynastic founders such as [[Sargon of Akkad|Sargon]], [[Cyrus the Great|Cyrus]] and [[Ptolemy I Soter|Ptolemy Soter]]: and tyrants and usurpers such as [[Cypselus]], [[Agathocles of Syracuse|Agathocles]] and [[Hiero II of Syracuse|Hiero II]].</ref> Yet all these legends offer the father as divine, the mother – virgin or not – as princess of a ruling house, never as slave. The disembodied phallus and its impregnation of a virgin slave of Royal birth are unique to Servius.<ref>Servius' extraordinary paternity and maternity as native Roman founder-traditions are discussed in Wiseman, T. P.  ''Remus: A Roman Myth''.  New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 58–60.</ref> Livy and Dionysius ignore or reject the tales of Servius' supernatural virgin birth; though his parents came from a conquered people, both are of noble stock. His ancestry is an accident of fate, and his character and virtues are entirely Roman. He acts on behalf of the Roman people, not for personal gain; these Roman virtues are likely to find favour with the gods, and win the rewards of good fortune.<ref>Cornell, 130–133.</ref>

The details of Servius' servile birth, miraculous conception and links with divine Fortuna were doubtless embellished after his own time, but the core may have been propagated during his reign.<ref>[[Alexandre Grandazzi|Grandazzi]], 45.</ref> His unconstitutional and seemingly reluctant accession, and his direct appeal to the Roman masses over the heads of the senate may have been interpreted as signs of tyranny. Under these circumstances, an extraordinary personal charisma must have been central to his success. When Servius expanded Rome's influence and boundaries, and reorganised its citizenship and armies, his "new Rome" was still centered on the ''Comitium'', the ''[[Casa Romuli]]'' or "hut" of Romulus. Servius became a second Romulus, a benefactor to his people, part human, part divine;<ref>Grandazzi, 206–211.</ref> but his slave origins remain without parallel, and make him all the more remarkable: for Cornell, this is "the most important single fact about him".<ref>Cornell, 131, 146.</ref> The story of his servile birth evidently circulated far beyond Rome; [[Mithridates VI of Pontus]] sneered that Rome had made kings of ''servos vernasque Tuscorum'' (Etruscan slaves and domestic servants).<ref>Cornell, p. 132.</ref>

===Etruscan Servius===
[[File:Tomba Francois - Liberazione di Celio Vibenna.jpg|thumb|300px|Painting from the [[François Tomb]] at Vulci, depicting the liberation of Caelius Vibenna. Macstarna is second from left]]
Claudius' story of Servius as an Etruscan named ''Macstarna'' (title for "[[dictator]]" in Etruscan) was published as an incidental scholarly comment within the ''Oratio Claudii Caesaris'' of the [[Lugdunum Tablet]]. There is some support for this Etruscan version of Servius,<ref>Eleanor Huzar, in Temporini/Haase (eds), Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, (ANRW), Sprache und Literatur (Literatur der julisch-claudischen und der flavischen Zeit), 1984, p. 623.[https://books.google.com/books?id=2z4-KqzNu2IC&dq=Servius+Tullius+Momigliano&pg=PA623] No evidence remains to attest the quality of Claudius' Etruscan scholarship or his grasp of the Etruscan language, despite his production of a multi-volume work, now lost, on Etruscan history.</ref> in wall paintings at the [[François Tomb]] in Etruscan [[Vulci]]. They were commissioned some time in the second half of the 4th century BC. One panel shows heroic Etruscans putting foreign captives to the sword. The victims include an individual named Gneve Tarchunies Rumach, interpreted as a Roman named Gnaeus Tarquinius,<ref name="Cornell"/> although known Roman history records no Tarquinius of that praenomen. The victors include Aule and Caile Vipinas – known to the Romans as the [[Caelius Vibenna|Vibenna]] brothers – and their ally Macstrna [Macstarna], who seems instrumental in winning the day. Claudius was certain that Macstarna was simply another name for Servius Tullius, who started his career as an Etruscan ally of the Vibenna brothers and helped them settle Rome's Caelian Hill. Claudius' account evidently drew on sources unavailable to his fellow-historians, or rejected by them. There may have been two different, Servius-like figures, or two different traditions about the same figure. ''Macstarna'' may have been the name of a once celebrated Etruscan hero, or more speculatively, an Etruscan rendering of Roman ''magister'' (magistrate). Claudius' "Etruscan Servius" seems less a monarch than a freelance Roman ''magister'', an "archaic [[Condottieri|condottiere]]" who placed himself and his own band of armed clients at Vibenna's service,<ref>In Claudius' speech, Macstarna is Caelius Vibenna's ''sodalis fidelissimus'' (most faithful companion)</ref> and may later have seized, rather than settled Rome's Caelian Hill. If the Etruscan Macstarna was identical with the Roman Servius, the latter may have been less monarch than some kind of proto-Republican magistrate given permanent office, perhaps a ''magister populi'', a war-leader, or in Republican parlance, a ''[[Roman dictator|dictator]]''.<ref>Cornell, 133–141, 143–145, 235; Cornell describes these speculated connections as attractive but flimsy, being based entirely on the slight orthographic similarities of "macstrna" and "magister".</ref>

===Legacy===
Servius' political reforms and those of his successor Tarquinius Superbus undermined the bases of aristocratic power and transferred them in part to commoners. Rome's ordinary citizens became a distinct force within Roman politics, entitled to participate in government and bear arms on its behalf, despite the opposition and resentment of Rome's patricians and senate. Tarquinius was ousted by a conspiracy of patricians, not plebeians.<ref>Servius' reforms reflect a general trend in the Graeco-Roman world, whose rulers increasingly sought a popular base of support, appealing directly to the commoner-soldiery and if possible, bypassing the aristocracy; in the ancient world, this was effectively the definition of tyranny. See Cornell, 148, 238.</ref> Once in existence, the ''comitia centuriata'' could not be unmade, or its powers reduced: as Republican Rome's highest court of appeal, it had the capacity to overturn court decisions, and the Republican senate was constitutionally obliged to seek its approval. In time, the ''comitia centuriata'' legitimized the rise to power of a plebeian nobility, and plebeian [[Roman consul|consul]]s.<ref>Cornell, pp. 195–197, 334–335.</ref>

Servius' connections to the Lar and his reform of the vici connect him directly to the founding of [[Compitalia]], instituted to publicly and piously honour his divine parentage – assuming the Lar as his father – to extend his domestic rites into the broader community, to mark his maternal identification with the lower ranks of Roman society and to assert his regal sponsorship and guardianship of their rights. Some time before the Augustan Compitalia reforms of 7 BC, [[Dionysius of Halicarnassus]] reports Servius' fathering by a Lar and his founding of Compitalia as ancient Roman traditions. In Servius, Augustus found ready association with a popular benefactor and refounder of Rome, whose reluctance to adopt kingship distanced him from its taints. Augustus brought the Compitalia and its essentially plebeian festivals, customs and political factions under his patronage and if need be, his censorial powers.<ref>Lott, 31: citing Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 4.14.3–4. See also Beard, North, Price, ''Religions of Rome, Vol. 1, A History'', Cambridge University Press, 1998. p 184, for Augustan reforms and their connection to older, traditionally Servian social and religious institutions.</ref> He did not, however, trace his lineage and his re-founding to Servius – who even with part-divine ancestry still had servile connections – but with [[Romulus]], patrician founding hero, ancestor of the divine [[Julius Caesar]], descendant of Venus and Mars. Plutarch admires the Servian reforms for their imposition of good order in government, the military and public morality, and Servius himself as the wisest, most fortunate and best of all Rome's kings.<ref>Plutarch, ''Moralia,'' On the fortune of the Romans, 10.58–63. English version (Loeb) at Thayer's website [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Fortuna_Romanorum*.html#ref6459]</ref>