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Updated: June 18, 2025
And, to put the matter shortly, it may be said, that the great valour of Romulus left Numa a period of many years within which to govern Rome by peaceful arts; that after Numa came Tullus, who renewed by his courage the fame of Romulus; and that he in turn was succeeded by Ancus, a prince so gifted by nature that he could equally avail himself of the methods of peace or war; who setting himself at first to pursue the former, when he found that his neighbours judged him to be effeminate, and therefore held him in slight esteem, understood that to preserve Rome he must resort to arms and resemble Romulus rather than Numa.
The patrician house of the Marcii in Rome produced many men of distinction, and among the rest, Ancus Marcius, grandson to Numa by his daughter, and king after Tullus Hostilius. Of the same family were also Publius and Quintus Marcius, which two conveyed into the city the best and most abundant supply of water they have at Rome.
This man accompanied Numa to Rome, was made a member of the Senate, and after Numa's death laid claim to the crown, but was worsted by Tullus Hostilius and made away with himself. His son Marcius, who married Pompilia, remained in Rome, and became the father of Ancus Marcius, who was king after Tullus Hostilius, and who was only five years old when Numa died.
The city was enlarged by Tullus Hostilius, after the destruction of Alba, and the Viminal hill included within the walls; Ancus Martius added mount Aventine, and the Esquiline and Capitoline being enclosed in the next reign, completed the number of the seven hills on which the ancient city stood.
For all the forty years of the prosperous reign of Tarquinius, the traditions would have us believe, the two sons of Ancus had been nursing their wrath and inwardly boiling over with indignation because they had been deprived of the kingship, and now, as they saw the popularity of young Servius, they determined to wrench the crown from him after destroying the king.
Another relic of Ancus is seen in a chamber of the damp Mamertine prison under the Capitoline Hill, the first prison in the city, rendered necessary by the increase of crime. After a reign of twenty-four years, Ancus Martius died, and a new dynasty, of Etruscan origin, began to control the fortunes of the now rapidly growing nation.
King Ancus also was born of a mother that was a Sabine, nor was noble at all save for his kinship to Numa. With these words she easily persuaded her husband, so that, gathering together all his possessions, he departed from Tarquinii to Rome. And when he came near to the city, at the hill that is called Janiculum, there happened to him this marvel.
The sons of Ancus went into banishment, and the royal power, which had passed from the Romans to the Etruscans, now fell into the hands of a man of unknown citizenship, though he has been described as a native of Corniculum, one of the mountain towns to the northeast of Rome, which is never heard of excepting in connection with this reign.
In this state, lately founded, where all nobility is recent and the result of merit, there would be room for her husband, a man of courage and activity. Tatius a Sabine had been king of Rome: Numa had been sent for from Cures to reign there: Ancus was sprung from a Sabine mother, and rested his nobility on the single statue of Numa.
On this Tanaquil foretold that her son would be a great king, and he became so famous a warrior when he grew up, that, as the children of Ancus were too young to reign at their father's death, he was chosen king.
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