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The First Consul of Rome: Brutus

 Following the Founding of Rome, a line of kings ruled the city. After a while, the Tarquins were running the place. They were not great. The people didn’t like them and they were very focused on themselves instead of the glory of Rome. After many Tarquin Kings, each worse than the last, someone came along and removed the king and the whole idea of having a king, and replaced it with the office of consul. This someone was Brutus.


Brutus was actually related to the Tarquins. He was the son of the king’s sister. After a 

particularly bloody change in power involving the assassination of various family members, Brutus decided the best way to protect himself from assassination would be to hide his intelligence. Being a male relative of the new king, he was a potential heir, and was very aware that if he became too close to becoming the next king, it was very likely he would be killed. Though he was actually quite intelligent, he put on a façade of idiocy, and played dumb, waiting for his time to strike. As Livy describes it:


            When he heard of the massacre of the chiefs of the State, amongst them his own brother, by his uncle's orders, he determined that his intelligence should give the king no cause for alarm nor his fortune any provocation to his avarice, and that as the laws afforded no protection, he would seek safety in obscurity and neglect. Accordingly he carefully kept up the appearance and conduct of an idiot, leaving the king to do what he liked with his person and property, and did not even protest against his nickname of ‘Brutus’; for under the protection of that nickname the soul which was one day to liberate Rome was awaiting its destined hour. (Livy 1.56)


The story goes that one day, the king saw a snake emerge from a wooden column. The king was full of foreboding, and sent his sons to Delphi to ask the oracle what it meant. The brothers took Brutus along with them to entertain themselves along the way. Brutus was the butt of every joke, and endured it, having his own agenda for the trip. He secretly brought with him a gift for Apollo, which he planned to use as proof of his good character. When they arrived at Delphi, the brothers asked who the next ruler of Rome would be. The oracle pronounced that the next ruler of Rome would be the one who first kissed his mother. The brothers had a third brother who had remained behind. They decided not to tell that brother about the oracle’s prophecy, and cast lots to decide who would kiss their mother first when they got home.

However, Brutus, being more intelligent and having the favor of Apollo, interpreted the 

prophecy a little differently. Rome was his mother. When they returned to Roman soil, he pretended to trip, and kissed the ground, thus sealing his fate as the next ruler of Rome.

Upon returning to Rome, a series of events unfolded, centered around a woman named Lucretia, which provided Brutus a way to overthrow the king and take control of Rome. Once he was in control, he expelled the Tarquins, and he declared that there would no longer be a king, but instead, two consuls. This was the beginning of what would become the Roman Republic.

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