24. A Rebel With a Cause
Lucius Junius Brutus pulled the knife out of Lucretia’s breast, waved the bloody blade around to stir up the public, vowed revenge against her assailant and the royal family and led a popular revolt. By 507 BC, the monarchy was done with, and Rome had become a republic, with Brutus its first chief magistrate. He epitomized the ideal of devotion to duty and severe impartiality in its fulfillment: he condemned his own sons to death when they joined a conspiracy to restore the kings.
Tradition holds that Brutus was killed in a battle against a royal army, in single combat with the son of the king he had ousted. He established many of the basic institutions of the Roman Republic, which lasted for half a millennium before it collapsed and was done away with by Julius Caesar and Augustus. Many of Brutus’ Republican institutions continued for centuries more, in altered and reduced form, as emperors strove to at least pay lip service to the republican facade.