The Kingdom

Before the Republic, Rome was ruled by kings. Roman tradition counted seven, from Romulus, who is said to have founded the city in 753 BC, to Tarquin the Proud, driven out around 509 BC. Almost everything we know of these years was written down centuries later, by Livy and others, so this collection lives where history meets legend: Aeneas before the Sibyl of Cumae, the furrow Romulus is said to have ploughed around his new city, the Sabine women stepping between their fathers and their husbands, and the oath that ended the monarchy.