Background
Before its establishment as a Republic, Rome was ruled by kings (Latin reges, singular rex). In Roman tradition, Rome's founder Romulus was the first. Servius Tullius was the sixth, and his successor Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud) was the last. The nature of Roman kingship is unclear; most Roman kings were elected by the senate, as to a lifetime magistracy, but some claimed succession through dynastic or divine right. Some were native Romans, others were foreign. Servius Tullius has been described as "the most complex and enigmatic" of all the Roman kings, and a kind of "proto-Republican magistrate".
Read more about this topic: Servius Tullius
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)