people wanted. According to Asimov, when he was off at war withthe Volscians, the Senate voted to exile him, and he wasn't let back into the city. After his reign, the people vowed never to have a king again, and a law was made where anybody who even talked about having a king back was executed. A senator named Brutus said,"I swear, and you, o gods, I call to witness that I will drive [away]... Tarquinius Superbus, together with his wicked wife and his whole family, with fire and sword and every means in my power, and I will not [allow] them or anyone else to reign in Rome." (Nardo 25)Republic is English for the Latin Res Publica, meaning the public thing. A republic is "a country governed by the elected representatives of the people" (Encarta "Republic"). Instead of a president or king, the Republic has two praetors, later known as consuls, who were elected annually. The one exception was emergency dictators, who served for six months and six months only. The Senators served for life. The object of the Republic was to give the people a voice in the government, and to keep just one person from having all the power. Noting the Greek government, the Romans created the Centuriate Assembly of citizens. This was an assembly where citizens discussed and voted on important issues. Many of the members were Patricians, but there were a few Plebs, or commoners too poor to own land. Only free Roman adult men who owned weapons were citizens. Not long after the Republic was formed, the Patricians closed off immigration of new patriarchal families.In the early years of the Republic, the Patricians often made laws unfair to the Plebs. Only Patricians could become consul, thesenate was almost all Patricians, and the Patricians controlled the Plebs in the Assembly by giving the Plebs financial aid, who in turn voted the way they were told. Public Officials weren't paid, so only wealthy people could afford to serve on a regular basis. One time, the Pleb...
