Tullus Hostilius- Roman FigureMortal"Third King of Rome"

The Combat of Champions and the War with Alba Longa

Tullus Hostilius came to the throne after the peaceful reign of Numa Pompilius, and where Numa had cultivated religion and law, Tullus turned Rome toward war. He was the grandson of Hostus Hostilius, a companion of Romulus who had fallen fighting the Sabines, and he inherited his ancestor's ferocity. When conflict arose between Rome and its mother city Alba Longa over mutual border raids, Tullus challenged the Albans to settle the matter by combat rather than exhaust both peoples in open war.

Each side chose three champions: the Roman Horatii triplets against the Alban Curiatii triplets. In the famous duel recounted by Livy (Ab Urbe Condita 1.24-26), two of the Horatii fell quickly, but the surviving brother, feigning retreat, turned and slew each wounded Curiatius one by one. Rome won supremacy over Alba Longa.

The Destruction of Alba Longa and the King's Death

The peace won by combat did not hold. When Tullus led a joint campaign against Fidenae and Veii, the Alban dictator Mettius Fufetius withdrew his forces from the battlefield in deliberate treachery, hoping to let both sides destroy each other. Tullus improvised a lie to prevent panic, claiming the withdrawal was planned, and won the battle. Afterward he had Mettius Fufetius torn apart by chariots driven in opposite directions, a punishment Livy calls the first and last of its kind in Roman history (1.28).

Tullus then ordered the complete destruction of Alba Longa. Its temples were leveled, its people resettled on the Caelian Hill in Rome, and the leading Alban families, including the Julii and Servilii, were enrolled among the Roman patricians (Livy 1.30). The annexation doubled Rome's population.

In his later years, Tullus attempted to perform the secret rites of Jupiter Elicius to summon the god, but executed them improperly. Lightning struck his palace and burned him alive (Livy 1.31; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 3.35).