Hellenistic Monarchy and Roman Political Invective

Abstract

The origins of the well-known hatred for thenomen regisat Rome are in this way explained by Cicero in theDe Republica, written in the late 50sb.c.Tarquinius Superbus, Rome's last king, so traumatised the Roman people that the termrexstill had a potent effect almost five hundred years after his downfall. Many modern scholars would accept that the Roman hatred of kings was deep-rooted and intense, and it is often called upon to explain Roman behaviour. This approach finds clear expression in the latest edition of theCambridge Ancient History, where one scholar in his discussion of the overthrow of Tarquinius writes: ‘Forever after the Romans hated the very idea of a king’. Yet an examination of Latin writings from the Republican period, rather than confirming this, reveals much that is at odds with this interpretation of the Roman attitude towards kings and the concept of kingship. Surprisingly, even their own kings are generally treated favourably. While there is no doubt that there was hostility to kings in the first centuryb.c., it is necessary to reconsider its origins and nature. I wish to argue that it was neither as long-standing nor as intense as is traditionally assumed. Its origins should be sought not in the distant obscurity of the last years of the regal period, but in Rome's encounters with the hellenistic kings of the East in the second centuryb.c.