SERVIUS TULLIUS, sixth legendary king of Rome (S78 534 B.c.). According to one account he was the son of the household genius (Lar) and a slave named Ocrisia, of the house hold of Tarquinius Priscus. He married a daughter of Tarquinius and succeeded to the throne by the contrivance of his mother-in law, Tanaquil, who was skilled in divination and foresaw his greatness. Another legend, alluded to in a speech by the emperor Claudius (fragments of which were discovered on a bronze tablet dug up at Lyons in 1524), represented him as an Etruscan soldier of fortune named Mastarna, who attached himself to Caeles Vibenna (Caelius Vivenna), the founder of an Etruscan city on the Caelian Hill (see also Tacitus, Annals, iv. 65). An important event of his reign was the conclusion of an alliance with the Latins, whereby Rome and the cities of Latium became members of one great league. His reign of forty-four years was ended by a conspiracy headed by his son-in-law, Tarquinius Superbus.
Servius was regarded as the originator of a new classification of the people, which laid the foundation of the gradual political enfranchisement of the plebeians (for the constitutional altera tions with which his name is associated, see ROME: Ancient His tory; for the Servian Wall, see ROME: Archaeology).
For a critical examination of the story see Schwegler, Rdmische Geschichte, bks. xvi., xvii. ; Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, Credibility of early Roman History, ch. xi.; W. Ihne, History of Rome, i.; E. Pais, Storia di Roma, i. (1898) ; and Ancient Legends of Roman History (Eng. trans., 1906) ; C. Pascal, Fatti e legende di Roma antica (Florence, 1903) ; also 0. Gilbert, Geschichte und Topographie der Stadt Rom im Altertum (1883-85), and J. B. Carter, The Religion of Numa (1906), on the reorganization of Servius.