578 BC

Events in 578 BC 2

• 616 BC – 578 BC Tarquinius Priscus — Etruscan influence begins Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the fifth king of Rome, is the first of the Etruscan dynasty. Under him Rome begins its transformation from a village into a city: the Forum is drained, the Circus Maximus laid out, the Capitoline temple begun. Etruscan engineering, art and religious practice flood into Rome. The triumphal procession, the fasces, the toga — all are Etruscan borrowings that become permanently Roman.
• 578 BC – 534 BC Servius Tullius — the great reformer Servius Tullius, sixth king, transforms Roman society through the census — a systematic count of citizens classified by wealth into voting classes. The Servian constitution creates the comitia centuriata (assembly of centuries), tying military obligation to political rights. He also expands Rome's boundaries with the Servian Wall and creates the four urban tribes. His reforms lay the constitutional foundations that will persist through the Republic.