Servius Tullius
Servius Tullius was, by tradition, the sixth king of Rome, and the reforms attributed to him shaped the republic's institutions. The tradition makes him the son of a slave woman in the royal household, or of a captured noblewoman, raised in the palace of Tarquinius Priscus, whose daughter he married and whose murder was concealed by the queen until Servius had secured the throne. His accession is presented as irregular, without election by the people or the senate, and his career as a demonstration that merit could override birth — which is part of why the story appealed to later Romans. The reform credited to him is the centuriate organisation. He is said to have conducted the first census, dividing citizens into classes by wealth rather than by birth, and subdividing them into voting units called centuries, each of which supplied a corresponding military contingent equipped at its own expense. The wealthiest classes provided the heavy infantry and cavalry and held a majority of the centuries, so that voting in the comitia centuriata was weighted decisively towards property. That assembly elected the senior magistrates for the next five centuries. He is also credited with dividing the city into four tribes for registration, with the treaty establishing the temple of Diana on the Aventine, and with building the first city wall, remains of which are still called the Servian Wall though they are later. His daughter Tullia and her husband, the future Tarquinius Superbus, had him murdered in the street; she is said to have driven her carriage over his body. He is said to have reigned forty-four years, the longest of the seven kings.
- Lived: 620 BCE – 535 BCE
- Nationality: Roman
- Roles: king, lawgiver, reformer
