“Lucrezia and the History”

An invisible thread traces unusual trajectories that unite the ancient city of Ardea to the equally ancient Collatia, to Tarquinia and finally (obviously) arrives in Rome. It is a thread that runs along the original urban route and still mysterious of the consular Ardeatina. In some way it marks its destiny and ennobles its path. And it does so through one of the founding stories of primeval Rome. Lucrezia was the honest wife of a senior Roman soldier, Collatino. At the moment of the unleashing of the events – a moment that takes place in the sixth century BC, during the reign of Tarquinius the Superb, last of the seven kings and the lineage of the Etruscan monarchs according to legendary history – was in fact engaged in a tiring siege for to win the resistance of the city of Ardea. With him his faithful friend Lucio Giunio Bruto and the prince in person, the antagonist of this story, the evil Sixth Tarquinio. Among the many who have told the sad story of Lucrezia, the historian Tito Livio reports the episode with a wealth of details. It all stemmed from the bets born among the besieging officers to go to their respective domus to check if their wives were at home, as expected from an honest Roman mater familias. Collatino also participated willingly, certain that at Collazia, Lucrezia would wait for him in the sign of the maximum virtue required of the women of Rome. For all the participants in the game went very badly. The wives were discovered in the midst of the most disparate pastimes, not at all contrite, nor worried about the prolonged and risky absence of their husbands at war. For everyone except for Collatino. Lucrezia, in fact, unlike the others, was a spectacle of austerity, conjugal fidelity and, consequently, loyalty to the highest moral values ​​of Rome. However, the victory did not bring any benefits to the officer. Indeed, he contributed more than anything else to unleash him against the envy of Prince Sixth Tarquinio, who immediately wished to possess the wife of one of his soldiers, which he did not long after, surprising Lucrezia in the middle of the night and, under the threat of tarnishing the family name forever, forcing her to lie with him. The woman agreed to save her husband’s honor, but immediately after having had Collatino da Ardea convoked – who arrived with his closest friend in arms, Brutus, a particular determinant of history – and his father from Rome, he swore on his dignity as a Roman woman and committed suicide in front of everyone. It was that spark that made Brutus swear to avenge Lucretia’s loyalty. It was the gesture of this mater familias that has always been exemplary for the ancient Roman society to determine the expulsion of Tarquinius the Superb, the end of the monarchy and the birth of republican Rome. It is the sacrifice of a woman who triggers a change in the official history of antiquity. Along this ideal route, whose path is still the subject of studies and debates among scholars, therefore an epochal passage of events, values, decisions, as well as of armies and trades took place. Throughout antiquity Roman women were asked to behave in the same way, to show the same modesty, the same attachment to virtue. The history of Lucrezia, celebrated especially in the imperial age, has finally gone beyond the centuries, revitalizing itself in paintings, engravings, theatrical works (including that of Shakespeare, The rape of Lucrece, The rape of Lucrezia) and thus penetrating into culture forever global of the Western world. Through the centuries, the ever more idealized account of a dignity ready to face the extreme sacrifice has transformed the painful gesture of this woman of the Roman world into the founding act of the most studied and admired institution of all ages. Of the glorious and ancient Republic, Lucrezia became a martyr and foundress. And his fate is in this affair the most classic beating of the wings of a butterfly, where the insurrection headed by Brutus would represent the inevitable tsunami. Mother, muse and testimonial, then. Example of the highest virtue in a world suitable for men.