Tarquinius Superbus married Tullia Minor after they conspired to murder both their previous spouses, then seized the throne by overthrowing and killing Tullia Minor's father Servius Tullius. Their son Sextus Tarquinius would provoke the fall of the monarchy by his crime against Lucretia.
Tarquinius Superbus was the son of Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, inheriting both his father's ambition and his claim to the Roman throne.
⚠ Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Roman Antiquities 4.6-7) argues on chronological grounds that Superbus was Priscus's grandson, not his son, though Livy treats him as a direct son.
Lucius Junius Brutus feigned idiocy for years under Tarquinius Superbus's tyranny, biding his time until the rape of Lucretia gave him cause to raise Rome against its last king and drive the Tarquins into permanent exile.
Tarquinius Superbus hurled the aged Servius Tullius from the steps of the Senate house, and his henchmen finished the wounded king in the street where Tullia then drove her chariot over her father's body.
The Cumaean Sibyl offered Tarquinius Superbus nine books of prophecy at an exorbitant price, and when he refused she burned three, then three more, until he bought the final three at the original price — these became the Sibylline Books, Rome's sacred oracle of last resort.
Tarquinius Superbus completed and dedicated the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill, a project begun by his father. The temple was inaugurated in the first year of the Republic after Tarquin's expulsion.
Tarquinius Superbus was driven from Rome after his son Sextus raped Lucretia and her kinsmen swore vengeance over her body, turning the crime into the catalyst that ended Roman kingship forever.
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