| Giunio Bruto | |
|---|---|
 | |
| The head of this bust from the Capitoline Museums is traditionally identified as a portrait of Brutus. | |
| Consul of the Roman Republic | |
| In office 509 BC – 509 BC Serving with Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus Publius Valerius Publicola | |
| Preceded by | None (Republic founded) |
| Succeeded by | Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus and Publius Valerius Publicola |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Unknown Ancient Rome |
| Died | 509 BC Silva Arsia, Rome |
| Children | Titus Junius Brutus, Tiberius Junius Brutus |
Giunio Bruto was the founder of the Roman Republic and traditionally one of the first consuls in 509 BC.
He was claimed as an ancestor of the Roman gens Junia, including Decimus Junius Brutus and Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Caesar's assassins.
Prior to the establishment of the Roman Republic, Rome had been ruled by kings.
Giunio Bruto led the revolt that overthrew the last king, Tarquinio, after the rape of the noblewoman (and kinswoman of Bruto) Lucretia at the hands of Tarquin's son Sextus Tarquinius.
The account is from Livy's Ab urbe condita and deals with a point in the history of Rome prior to reliable historical records (virtually all prior records were destroyed by the Gauls when they sacked Rome under Brennus in 390 BC or 387 BC).
Brutus was the son of Tarquinia, daughter of Rome's fifth king Lucio Tarquinio Prisco and sister to Rome's seventh king Tarquinio Superbo.
According to Livy, Giunio Bruto had a number of grievances against his uncle the king, amongst them was the fact that Tarquinio had put to death a number of the chief men of Rome, including Brutus' brother.
Brutus avoided the distrust of Tarquinio's family by feigning slow-wittedness -- in Latin brutus translates to dullard.
Lucio Giunio -- detto "Il Bruto" -- accompanied Tarquinio's sons on a trip to the Oracle of Delphi.
Tarquinio's sons asked the oracle who would be the next ruler of Rome.
The Oracle responded the next person to kiss his mother would become king.
Bruto, rightly, took "mother" to mean the Earth, so he pretended to trip and kissed the ground.
Lucio Giunio, detto il Bruto, was one of the four men summoned by Lucrezia to Collatia (along with Spurius Lucrezio Tricipitinus, Publius Valerius Publicola, and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus) after she had been raped by Tarquinio il Giovane, the son of king Tarquinio.
Lucrezia, believing that the rape dishonoured her and her family, committed suicide by stabbing herself with a dagger after telling of what had befallen her.
According to legend, Bruto grabbed the dagger from Lucrezia's breast after her death and immediately shouted for the overthrow of Tarquinio.
Bruto and the other three men (Lucrezio, Publicola and Collatino) gathered the youth of Collatia, then went to Rome where Bruto, being at that time Tribunus Celerum, summoned the people to the forum and exhorted them to rise up against King Tarquinio.
The people VOTED for the deposition of Tarquinio, and the banishment of the royal family.
Bruto, leaving Lucrezio in command of Roma, proceeded with armed men to the Tarquinio's army then camped at Ardea.
King Tarquinio, who had been with the army, heard of developments at Rome, and left the camp of Ardea for the city of Rome before Brutus' arrival.
The army received Bruto as a hero.
The king Tarquinio's son was expelled from the camp.
King Tarquinio, meanwhile, was refused entry at Rome, and fled with his family into exile at Porsenna.
According to Livy, Brutus' first act after the expulsion of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was to bring the people to swear an oath
NEVER to allow any man again to be king in Rome.
OMNIVM PRIMVM AVIDVM NOVAE LIBERTATIS POPVLVM NE POSTMODVM FLECTI PRECIBVS AVT DONIS REGIIS POSSET IVRE IVRANDO ADEGIT NEMINEM ROMAE PASSUROS REGNARE.
first of all, by swearing an oath that
they would suffer no man to rule Rome,
it forced the people, desirous of a new liberty,
not to be thereafter swayed by the entreaties or bribes of kings.
This is, fundamentally, a restatement of the private oath sworn by the conspirators to overthrow the monarchy:
- Per hunc... castissimum ante regiam iniuriam sanguinem iuro, vosque, di, testes facio me L. Tarquinium Superbum cum scelerata coniuge et omni liberorum stirpe ferro igni quacumque dehinc vi possim exsecuturum, nec illos nec alium quemquam regnare Romae passurum.
By this guiltless blood before the kingly injustice I swear – you and the gods as my witnesses – I make myself the one who will prosecute, by what force I am able, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus along with his wicked wife and the whole house of his freeborn children by sword, by fire, by any means hence, so that neither they nor any one else be suffered to rule Rome.
There is no scholarly agreement that the oath took place.
It is reported, although differently, by Plutarch (Poplicola, 2) and Appian (B.C. 2.119).
Brutus and Lucrezia's bereaved husband, Lucius Tarquinius Collatino, were elected as the first consuls of Rome (509 BC).
However, Tarquinio Collatino was soon replaced by Publius Valerius Publicola.
Brutus' first acts during his consulship, according to Livy, included administering an oath to the people of Rome to never again accept a king in Rome and replenishing the number of senators to 300 from the principal men of the equites.
The new consuls also created a new office of rex sacrorum to carry out the religious duties that had previously been performed by the kings.
During Bruto's consulship the royal family made an attempt to
regain the throne, firstly by their ambassadors
seeking to subvert a number of the leading
Roman citizens in the Tarquinian conspiracy.
Amongst the conspirators
were two
brothers of Brutus' wife Vitellia, and
Brutus' two sons, Titus Junius Brutus and Tiberius Junius Brutus.
--- This is the topic of the opera by Cimarosa, "Giunio Bruto".
The Tarquinian conspiracy was discovered and Giunio Bruto determins to punish the conspirators -- including his son Tito -- with death.
Brutus gains respect for his stoicism in watching the execution of his son, even if he showed emotion during the punishment.
Tarquin again sought to retake the throne soon
after at the Battle of Silva Arsia, leading the forces of Tarquinii and Veii against the Roman army.
Valerio led the infantry, and Giunio Bruto led the cavalry.
Aruns, the king's son, led the Etruscan cavalry.
The cavalry first joined battle and Aruns, having spied from afar the lictors, and thereby recognising the presence of a consul, soon saw that Brutus was in command of the cavalry.
The two men, who were cousins, charged each other, and speared each other to death.
The infantry also soon joined the battle, the result being in doubt for some time.
The right wing of each army was victorious, the army of Tarquinii forcing back the Romans, and the Veientes being routed.
However the Etruscan forces eventually fled the field, the Romans claiming the victory.
The surviving consul, Valerio, after celebrating a triumph for the victory, held a funeral for Giunio Bruto with much magnificence.
The Roman noblewomen mourned him for one year, for his vengeance of Lucretia's violation.
Brutus in literature and art
Giunio Bruto is quite prominent in English literature, and he was quite popular among British and American Whigs.
A reference to Giunio Bruto
is in the following lines from Shakespeare's
play The Tragedie of Julius Cæsar, (Cassio to Marco Bruto, Act 1, Scene 2).
O, you and I have heard our fathers say
There was a Giunio Bruto once that would have brookt
th'eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
as easily as a king.
One of the main charges of the senatorial faction that plotted against Giulio Cesare after he had the Roman Senate declare him dictator for life, was that he was attempting to make himself a "king", and a co-conspirator Cassio, enticed Giunio Bruto' direct descendant, Marco Bruto, to join the conspiracy by referring to his ancestor.
L. J. Brutus is a leading character in Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrezia and in Nathaniel Lee's Restoration tragedy (1680), Giunio Bruto, padre dell'Italia.
In The Mikado, Nanki-poo refers to his father as
"the Lucius Junius Brutus of his race".
The memory of Giunio Bruto also had a profound impact on Italian patriots, including those who established the Roman Republic in February 1849.
Brutus was a hero of republicanism during the Enlightenment and Neoclassical periods.
In 1789, at the dawn of the French Revolution, master painter Jacques-Louis David publicly exhibited his politically charged masterwork, The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons, to great controversy.
See also
[edit] References
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.56
- ^ http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/13883/Lucius-Junius-Brutus.html
- ^ Davies, Norman ([1996]1998) Europe. New York NY, Harper Perennial ISBN 0-06-097468-0 pg. 113
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.58-59
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.59
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.59-60
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, ed. R.S Conway & C.F. Walters (Oxford, 1914), 2.1.9.
- ^ Livy, "Ab urbe condita" 1.59.1.
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 2.1-2
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 2.3-4
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 2.6-7
- ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 2.7
- ^ Brookner, Anita (1980). Jacques-Louis David. New York: Harper & Row. p. 90. ISBN 0-06-430507-4.
[edit] External links
Media related to Lucius Junius Brutus at Wikimedia Commons| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by New creation | Consul of the Roman Republic with Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus then with Publius Valerius Publicola 509 BC | Succeeded by Spurius Lucretius Tricipitinus and Publius Valerius Publicola 509 BC |
No comments:
Post a Comment