Servius Tullius was the sixth legendary king of ancient Rome and the second king of the Etruscan dynasty. The traditional dates of his reign are 578-535 BC. Described in one account as originally a slave, he is said to have married a daughter of Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, and succeeded him after the latter’s assassination in 579 BC. He was the first king to cometo power without the consultation of the plebeians, having gained the throne by the contrivance of Tanaquil, his mother-in-law. In this account (found in Livy) Tullius was anointed as a young child to become king, after a ring of fire was seen around his head. He was then raised as a prince.
Incidentally, Livy did not believe that Servius Tullius was born a slave. Livy postulated that Tullius’ mother was a queen of an Etruscan city which had been sacked by the Romans. His mother was captured and to pay homage to her regal origins she was allowed to live in the palace. Another version, quoted in a speech to the Senate by Claudius, represented him as a soldier of fortune originally named Macstarna, from Etruria, who attached himself to Caelius Vibenna. After various adventures Caelius was beaten but Macstarna came to Rome with the remnants of his army. Macstarna named the Caelian Hill after his deceased friend, but some suppose Caelius Vibenna to have placed a settlement there.
King Servius Tullius, according to the Roman historians, initiated the first census. The noun comes from the participle of the Latin verb, censere, “to judge†or “to estimateâ€. The census was an estimation of the total personal assets of Rome. Servius Tullius used it as a gauge of military capability.
The Roman census as practiced by Servius was quite different from our census, which aims at counting and locating people. Servius made sure those functions were performed, but he was primarily interested in property assessments. Dividing the populace into classes according to their wealth, he used the census to determine the number of potential soldiers and the amount of arms and equipment they could provide to Rome, as the army at that time was primarily funded by private, not public resources. Servius wanted to know who could fund what, who was bearing an unfair burden, and who may have been shirking their responsibilities to the kingdom.
Neither the census nor the classification significantly altered social status in Rome. Servius ordered that Roman senators must own at least 800,000 sesterces to sit in the Senate, although the senators already all owned that and much more. Similarly, Roman equites or knights, needed to own at least 400,000 sesterces, but there is no record of equites being disenfranchised because of a lack of property or assets.
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