Tanaquil (fl. late 7th–early 6th bce)

Etruscan woman who was the reason her husband and her son-in-law became the first two Etruscan kings of Rome. Name variations: Caia Caecilia. Flourished between late 7th and early 6th bce; died after 579 bce; married Lucumo, later known as Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (or Tarquin); children: sons Lucius and Arruns; daughters (names unknown).

It cannot be known for certain whether the deeds attributed by much later sources to Tanaquil, a shadowy figure from Rome's regal period, are truly historical. Nevertheless, it is probable that she was a figure of history, and not merely of myth. She was probably from the Etruscan city of Tarquinii, and of noble birth. It is attested that she married Lucumo, one of two sons of a Demaratus, a wealthy Greek from Corinth who had settled in Tarquinii after being politically exiled from his native city. As the tale goes, Arruns, the second son of Demaratus, and then Demaratus himself, died in quick succession. Before he passed away, however, Arruns fathered a son by his wife, whose pregnancy never became known to her father-in-law before he expired. Thus, when Demaratus bequeathed his estate, he did so only to Lucumo, who never shared any of it with his nephew, which he would have been forced to do had Demaratus known of the latter's existence. Such avarice was characteristic of Lucumo, as was ambition: two traits he held in common with Tanaquil, who is said to have been unwilling in marriage to endure any less lofty a level of material comfort or influence than she had known in the house of her father. Both husband and wife yearned for a social status which the citizens of Tarquinii were unwilling to grant them, because, although wealthy when he came to Tarquinii, Demaratus was a foreigner and was known to be of illegitimate birth. Hence, Lucumo was tainted by the liminality of his father.

Frustrated because her husband would never attain the honor that she wanted him to win in her native city, Tanaquil is said to have convinced Lucumo to emigrate to Rome, a younger city with a growing population where there would be room for an intrepid and ambitious man. Tanaquil is also alleged to have known that Rome already had been ruled by two kings of foreign birth, while the mother of the reigning monarch, Ancus Marcius, was non-Roman. Tradition has it that while Tanaquil and Lucumo were on the Janiculum (then not within Rome's limits) and about to enter the city for the first time, an eagle gently swooped down upon Lucumo in order to remove his hat, only to descend a second time to replace it on his head. Tanaquil is said to have been a gifted seer (the Romans believed the Etruscans to have been especially skilled in the reading of religious signs), who at this strange sequence of events joyously predicted that her husband was bound for greatness. Her reasons for doing so were as follows: the eagle (Jupiter's special bird) had approached Lucumo from an auspicious quadrant of the sky (probably from the right-front), it had seized his hat while not coming into contact with some baser part of his body, and had returned the hat to its appropriate place in an act of homage.

Thus came Lucumo and Tanaquil to Rome where they procured a home, and where in order to break from the past, Tanaquil convinced her husband to adopt a new name, which he did. Henceforth, Lucumo would be known as Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (or Tarquin). Rome's newest sensations ingratiated themselves with the local population through diplomatic speech, robust hospitality, and liberal beneficence. Their arrival so impressed the locals that it soon drew the attention of Rome's king. Ancus Marcius called Tarquin into his presence and was allegedly so affected by his deportment that he soon made it his habit to consult Tarquin on a number of topics, both public and private. Tarquin's stock rose with the king to the point that when he was on his deathbed (traditionally 617 bce), he appointed Tarquin as the guardian of his two sons, both of whom were close to, but not quite yet at, the age of their majority. When Ancus Marcius died, Tarquin sent these would-be heirs on a hunting expedition while he canvassed the Roman Senate and people for the royal throne. (This is an eteliological story, for Tarquin was later believed to have established the model by which magistrates during the Republic campaigned for office.) Pointing out that Rome had known kings of foreign birth before, that he had held Ancus Marcius' confidence, that he had bestowed benefactions on most Romans since his arrival in their city, and that the former king's sons were still minors, Tarquin won the day and the throne. Goaded by Tanaquil, Tarquin had fulfilled the omen of greatness to come.

Among the accomplishments attributed to Tarquin were victories in war against several Latin cities and the Sabines, the drainage of the marshy lowlands which heretofore had prevented the isolated settlements on Rome's seven hills from meshing together into one continuous urban center, the fortification of the city with a wall of stone, and the foundation of what was to become Rome's most important temple, that dedicated to Jupiter "the Greatest and Best" on the Capitoline Hill.

Throughout all of her husband's reign, Tanaquil is said to have prodded his endeavors. More specifically, she is also alleged to have played the dominant role in the selection of Tarquin's successor, just as she had been germinal to his own accession. Although Tanaquil and Tarquin would eventually produce two sons—Lucius and Arruns—an omen recognized for what it was by Tanaquil proved decisive when it came to the issue of Tarquin's successor. It is said that one day a boy of servile status, although of noble birth, exhibited signs of future greatness. This child, Servius Tullius (578–535 bce), was a son of the king (of the same name) of Corniculum, a town which Tarquin had subjected to Rome. In the process of this conquest, the elder Servius Tullius had been slain, and his pregnant wife captured. She was brought to Tarquin's palace, where her son was raised modestly, as befit one who was essentially war booty. One day this youth fell asleep in some public place, during which time his head was observed by many witnesses to have been engulfed in flames. The hue and cry which followed attracted the attention of the Roman king and queen. When Tanaquil arrived, a minion was about to fetch some water so as to douse the flames. Tanaquil forbade this action and commanded all to leave Servius Tullius alone until such time as he awoke by himself. Not long after, he is supposed to have done just that, at which time the fire was miraculously extinguished. Taking her husband aside, Tanaquil advised Tarquin to raise the boy as if he were a member of their own family. This was done, and Servius Tullius is said to have matured into the noblest "Roman" of his generation. Eventually, Tarquin—with Tanaquil's approval—married a daughter to Servius Tullius, who was thereafter favored in the succession.

After Tarquin had reigned for 38 years, and as it became increasingly clear that he intended to make Servius Tullius his successor, the bitter sons of Ancus Marcius, who felt that Tarquin had stolen their royal legacy from them, decided to take their revenge. It is maintained that they induced two shepherds to carry out the assassination of Tarquin so that they might challenge the ever more likely accession of Servius Tullius before his position became too entrenched to upset. These assassins staged a mock argument before the gates of the palace, and raised such a ruckus that it attracted the attention of Tarquin. Making an appearance as an arbiter of justice, Tarquin attempted to resolve the feigned dispute, but while he attended to the impassioned complaints of one of the parties, the other is said to have split his head in two with an axe.

Although the shepherds attempted an escape, both were captured by the king's lictors (guards and symbols of political authority) before they cleared the palace grounds. Amid the chaos that followed these actions, Tanaquil arrived to find her husband on the threshold of death. She assumed control of the situation by ordering the lictors to eject all of the witnesses to the assassination and by sealing off the palace grounds. Although she tried to save Tarquin's life, Tanaquil soon realized that her husband would die. Nevertheless, she is said to have decisively acted to procure Rome's political stability by ordering Servius Tullius to do as she commanded: to take vengeance upon his enemies, to protect her interests in a world which had been suddenly redefined, and to follow the "guidance" of the gods. Then, it is asserted that she went to a window on the second floor of the palace from which she could address the confused crowd of citizens which had begun to congregate before the closed palace gate. There, she asserted that the news was good: the king had been stunned by the blow of an attempted assassin, but he had survived and the prognosis for his recovery was good. All the same, she continued, Tarquin needed time for recovery. In the meantime, she added, he had decided to appoint Servius Tullius as his royal proxy. Tanaquil's son-in-law was thereafter bedecked in the royal robes-of-state, was escorted by the lictors who traditionally accompanied the king, and was set upon the accustomed royal chair, from which he began to sit in legal judgment and to act as king.

After a few days, the true fate of Tarquin became known throughout Rome, but Servius Tullius, with the consent of the Senate, continued to rule. The sons of Ancus Marcius, knowing about Servius Tullius' popularity and understanding that their agents had been captured alive, had already gone into self-imposed exile. Meanwhile, Tanaquil's sons, Lucius and Arruns, deprived of their mother's political support and bought off by marriages to the two daughters of Servius Tullius, saw fit to maintain low profiles and to postpone any ambitions either might have maintained towards the throne, at least for a time. (It is alleged that Lucius' first wife Tullia was a docile soul, while the Tullia who married Arruns was cut more in the mold of Tanaquil. This second Tullia was said to have fretted over Arruns' lack of political ambition. Eventually she approached Lucius and offered herself as a political ally if each would first murder their current spouses. To this Lucius agreed, and after the gentle Tullia and Arruns had been removed from the scene, an unenthusiastic Servius Tullius, who was not aware of the murders, agreed to the marriage of the ambitious Tullia and Lucius. These later planned and carried out a coup against Servius Tullius, and eventually murdered him. The brazen Tullia is even said to have driven her chariot over the remains of her dead father. Years later, the rape of Roman matron Lucretia by Tullia's and Lucius' son Sextus Tarquin would lead to the overthrow of Lucius' reign and the establishment of the Roman Republic.)

It is not unlikely that Tanaquil could have played a decisive role in the accessions of her husband and son-in-law, for women in Etruscan society, and to a certain extent in Roman, had much more freedom of action in both private and public affairs than did many of their counterparts in other ancient societies. Again, it is not known precisely how much of the material cited here is historical, although some of it likely is. Regardless, however Machiavellian Tanaquil's reputation might have been, during the historical period her liberality as a queen was revered for centuries after her death (after 579 bce). So too were one of her girdles and the robe-of-state worn by Servius Tullius, both of which were said to have been woven by Tanaquil herself. Even so, by the 1st century of the common era, the name "Tanaquil" had become a readily accepted synonym for an "imperious woman."

William S. Greenwalt , Professor of Classical History, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California