A Response to Livy's The History of Rome

Reading four pages of The History of Rome is definitely not enough to walk away with a full and satisfying understanding of it, so I won’t claim to be an expert on it. What I’m mainly going to discuss is the role of heroism in the text, because that is perhaps the most prevalent motif.

Perhaps the most obvious hero is Lucretia, the heroin who the story is primarily centered on. She is the virtuous wife of Collatinus who is raped by the tyrannical Sextus Tarquin. Sextus Tarquin rapes her not because he is actually interested in her body, but because he is jealous that she is more virtuous than his own wife. Lucretia is a beacon of goodness, being productive and patient and devoted; she is virtually being the poster child for wifedom.  In raping her he deprives her of her chastity which is a direct attack on her honor. As a means to maintain her honor, Lucretia  commits suicide. The penalty for being unchaste was death, and despite the fact that Lucretia knows that she was wrong, she feels as though she must suffer the consequence anyway so future unchaste women will not be able to claim her name to defend themselves.  She goes so far as to say:  “although I acquit myself of the sin, I do not free myself from the penalty. No unchaste woman shall henceforth live and plead Lucretia’s example.” Her sacrifice for the sake of her virtue is clearly a heroic act; her honor is so important to her that she gives her life in order to maintain it.

 Following Lucretia’s suicide, Brutus steps in to completely cleanse Rome of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus’s tyranny. This act is also very heroic, as it is another figure working to maintain the honor and glory of Rome, promoting welfare for the greater good.  However there is also a small act of heroism that I overlooked the first time I read it that came from neither Lucretia nor Brutus.

The consul L. Tarquinius is a very subtle hero. He had no part in Lucretia’s rape or in the tyranny in Rome, yet when he was urged to leave Rome because he shared the same name as the tyrant, he (unwilling) did so. The simple fact that he shared the same name as the oppressive king was seen as “an obstacle to full liberty,” and even though it seemed to be a “groundless fear,” when the time came L. Tarquinius complied with the will and “yielded to the universal wish.”

Acts like these are what I think makes a hero: making a major sacrifice that you don’t want to make and probably shouldn’t have to, but doing it anyway because it would help protect others is the root of heroism. Lucretia most likely didn’t want to kill herself, but she did it anyway to uphold the Roman ideal. L. Tarquinius is very similar; he exiled himself because the Roman people felt he was an obstacle of liberty and he wanted to promote liberty for the greater good. That’s basically what heroism is: giving yourself up for the greater good.

There is so much more that could be said about Livy’s The History of Rome, but for fear of hopping off of one soap box only to climb onto another one, I’ll let it end there.