Lucretia
Lucretia is the Roman noblewoman whose rape and suicide are said to have ended the monarchy and begun the republic. She belongs to legend rather than to documented history; the account comes from Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing five centuries after the traditional date of about 509 BC. The story is that during a siege at Ardea, a group of young noblemen fell to arguing over whose wife was the most virtuous, and rode back to Rome unannounced to see. The royal princes' wives were found feasting; Lucretia, the wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, was found spinning wool with her servants late at night. Sextus Tarquinius, son of the king Tarquinius Superbus, returned some days later and was received as a guest. That night he came to her room with a sword and threatened that if she refused him he would kill her and a slave and lay the bodies together, so that it would appear she had been killed in adultery — a threat aimed at her reputation rather than her life. She submitted. She then summoned her husband and her father with witnesses, told them what had happened, required an oath of vengeance, and stabbed herself, saying that no unchaste woman should live by her example. Lucius Junius Brutus drew the knife from her body and swore on it. The corpse was carried to the forum, the people voted the Tarquins into exile, and the monarchy was abolished. The story was painted repeatedly and dramatised by Shakespeare and Britten.
- Lived: 540 BCE – 509 BCE
- Nationality: Roman
- Roles: noblewoman, martyr
