3252 AM · 509 BCE · world history
The Founding of the Roman Republic
Rome expels its last king and invents power that is shared and limited in time.
After expelling Tarquin the Proud, the Romans decide they need no king. In his place: two consuls elected for a single year, a senate of former magistrates, and popular assemblies. Later the plebeians win tribunes with veto power. The system is cumbersome, but it becomes the model of divided power the American founders would cite.
Sources
Documents of the period
- inscriptions and coinage of the Roman Empire — the consular lists (fasti) and the earliest Roman inscriptions
Scholarship
- Roman authors: Tacitus, Suetonius, Livy — Livy, books I–II: the expulsion of Tarquin and the first consuls
Basis: documents and evidence.