The gens Tarquinia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, usually associated with Lucius Tarquinius Priscus and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the fifth and seventh Kings of Rome. Most of the Tarquinii who appear in history are connected in some way with this dynasty, but a few appear during the later Republic, and others from inscriptions, some dating as late as the fourth century AD.
The legendary origin of the Tarquinii who reigned at Rome begins with Demaratus of Corinth, a member of the house of the Bacchiadae at Corinth, which was expelled in 657 BC.[1][2][3][4] Demaratus settled at Tarquinii in Etruria, where he married an Etruscan noblewoman, and had two sons, Lucius and Arruns, who took the surname Tarquinius after the town of their birth. Denied political advancement due to his father's foreign birth, Lucius, encouraged by his wife, Tanaquil, determined to settle at Rome, where he could hope to attain high station based solely on his merits. He fell into the retinue of Ancus Marcius, the fourth Roman king, becoming his trusted advisor. Since the Roman monarchy was elective, rather than strictly hereditary, when Marcius died, Tarquinius successfully argued that he should be named the next king, in preference to the sons of Marcius.[5][6]
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh and last Roman king, was said to have been the son or grandson of the elder Tarquin, while Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, one of the first Roman consuls, was his cousin.[7] Other Tarquinii are mentioned as part of this family, although it is not entirely clear how some of them were related. It is likely that there were additional kings and perhaps other members of the Tarquin dynasty during this period.[8]
It is not clear whether the early Tarquinii should be regarded as patricians or plebeians. The consul Collatinus is generally regarded as a patrician,[9] but as Cornell explains, none of the families that claimed descent from or kinship with the Roman kings were considered patrician in later times, while none of Rome's leading patrician families is represented among the kings. The patricians may have chosen the king, but were probably not eligible for the office, and it is unlikely that the kings themselves were admitted to the patriciate once chosen.[10] It may be that Collatinus was granted patrician status on the overthrow of the Roman monarchy; but as he then accepted exile according to the demand of his colleague, Lucius Junius Brutus, the matter becomes academic, as there was no tradition of patrician Tarquinii at Rome in later times. The Tarquinii of the later Republic were plebeians.
The nomen Tarquinius appears to be the Latin form of the Etruscan Tarchna, apparently the same as the Tarchunies named in one of the frescoes in the famous François Tomb at Vulci.[11][12] The nomen is certainly derived from the city of Tarquinii, in Etruscan Tarchna or Tarchuna, after its legendary founder, the folk-hero Tarchon, although in historical times the Tarchna family had branches at both Tarquinii and Caere.[13]