Editing Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (section)

==Overthrow of Servius Tullius==
Tullia encouraged her husband to advance his own position, ultimately persuading him to usurp her father, King Servius. Tarquin solicited the support of the patrician [[Roman Senate|senators]], especially those from houses that had been raised to senatorial rank under Tarquin the Elder. He bestowed presents upon them, and spread criticism of Servius the king.<ref name="Livy i 47">Livy, i. 47.</ref>

In time, Tarquin felt ready to seize the throne. He went to the senate house with a group of armed men, seated himself on the throne, and summoned the senators to attend upon him. He then spoke to the senators, denigrating Servius as a slave born of a slave; for failing to be elected by the senate and the people during an [[interregnum]], as had been the tradition for the election of kings of Rome; for having become king through the machinations of a woman; for favouring the lower classes of Rome over the wealthy, and for taking the land of the upper classes for distribution to the poor; and for instituting the census so that the wealth of the upper classes might be exposed in order to excite popular envy.<ref name="Livy i 47"/>

When word of this brazen deed reached Servius, he hurried to the curia to confront Tarquin, who levelled the same accusations against his father-in-law, and then in his youth and vigour carried the king outside and flung him down the steps of the senate house and into the street. The king's retainers fled, and as he made his way towards the palace, the aged Servius was set upon and murdered by Tarquin's assassins, perhaps on the advice of his own daughter.<ref name="Livy i 48">Livy, i. 48.</ref>

Tullia drove in her chariot to the senate house, where she was the first to hail her husband as king. But Tarquin bade her return home, concerned that the crowd might do her violence. As she drove toward the Urbian Hill, her driver stopped suddenly, horrified at the sight of the king's body lying in the street. But in a frenzy, Tullia herself seized the reins, and drove the wheels of her chariot over her father's corpse. The king's blood spattered against the chariot and stained Tullia's clothes, so that she brought a gruesome relic of the murder back to her house. The street where Tullia disgraced the dead king afterwards became known as the ''Vicus Sceleratus,'' the Street of Crime.<ref name="Livy i 48"/>