Lucretia's rape is also the subject of Benjamin Britten's 1946 opera The Rape of Lucretia. No child but screamed out curses, and shook its little fist. On the house-tops was no woman but spat toward him and hissed, Sextus Tarquinius is present with the Etruscan army in Thomas Babington Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, when Lars Porsena, King of Clusium, attempts to restore the Tarquin dynasty to the Roman throne: By the right wheel rode Mamilius, prince of the Latian name,Īnd by the left false Sextus, who wrought the deed of shame.īut when the face of Sextus was seen among the foes,Ī yell that rent the firmament from all the town arose. What, Rome? My ancestors did from the streets of Rome the Tarquin drive, when he was call'd a king. In Shakespeare's history play Julius Caesar (Act 2, Scene 1), the character Brutus reflects on his ancestor's role in overthrowing Sextus Tarquinius's father and the monarchy: … Shall Rome stand under one man's awe? In a soliloquy (known as the 'Dagger Soliloquy') from Macbeth, Macbeth alludes to Tarquin as a ' trope of stealth': With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design Our Tarquin thusĭid softly press the rushes, ere he waken'd In Cymbeline (Act 2, Scene 2), Iachimo has slipped into the sleeping Imogen's bedchamber, and compares himself to Tarquin. Shakespeare alludes to Tarquinius in his plays as well. It has sometimes been performed as readers' theatre. The story of Lucretia's rape is the subject of William Shakespeare's narrative poem The Rape of Lucrece, a work as long as many full-length plays, taking about two hours to recite. Death of Lucretia - Ithell Colquhoun (1931) ġ6th-century narrative illustration in the costume of the time, depicting Tarquinius's attack, and Lucretia's demand for justice before witnesses.Tarquin and Lucretia - Tintoretto (c.1578).Lucretia and Tarquinius have been the subject of many paintings, including those by great artists. Sextus Tarquinius fled to Gabii, seeking to make himself king, but he was killed in revenge for his past actions. The revolt that followed, led by her husband's friend Lucius Junius Brutus, brought to an end the kingship of Tarquin the Proud and brought about the beginning of the Roman Republic, Brutus becoming the first consul together with Collatinus. Soon after, Lucretia sent a message to both her husband and her father, Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus, telling them everything.

He forced her to yield to his sexual advances by telling her the alternative was that he would kill her and one of her slaves, place their bodies together, and claim he had defended her husband’s honour when he caught her having adulterous sex. In the dead of night he stealthily entered her chamber with a drawn sword. A few days later he returned to Collatia, where he was hospitably received by Lucretia as her husband's kinsman. The beauty and virtue of Lucretia had fired the evil passions of Sextus. They then hastened to Collatia, and there, though it was late in the night, they found Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, spinning amid her handmaids. They first went to Rome, where they caught the king's daughters unawares at a splendid banquet. As nothing was happening in the field, they mounted their horses to pay a surprise visit to their homes. While the king's sons, and their cousin, Tarquinius Collatinus, the son of Egerius, were feasting together, a dispute arose about the virtue of their wives. The place could not be taken by force, and the Roman army lay encamped beneath the walls. Tarquinius was besieging Ardea, a city of the Rutulians. According to Roman tradition, his rape of Lucretia was the precipitating event in the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Roman Republic. Sextus Tarquinius was the third and youngest son of the last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud). Tarquinius and Lucretia (1610), by Rubens ( Hermitage Museum)

Sextus and collatinus tarquinus