Aruns (son of Tarquinius Superbus)

For other people of that name, see Aruns (disambiguation).

Aruns was the middle son of Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome.

History

During his father's reign, he accompanied his elder brother Titus and his cousin Lucius Junius Brutus to consult the Oracle at Delphi to have interpreted an omen witnessed by the king.^[1]

In 509 BC, upon the overthrow of the monarchy, Aruns went into exile at Caere with his father and his brother Titus.^[2]

After the failed Tarquinian conspiracy in 509 BC, Aruns had command of the Etruscan cavalry at the Battle of Silva Arsia. The cavalry first joined battle and Aruns, having spied from afar the lictors, and thereby recognising the presence of a consul, soon saw that his cousin Brutus was in command of the cavalry. The two men charged each other, and speared each other to death. The Romans ultimately claimed victory in the battle.^[3]

Later literature

• Aruns appears in Dante Alighieri's Inferno (of the Divine Comedy). He is seen in the 4th Bolgia in the Eighth Circle of Hell dedicated to sorcerers, astrologers, and false prophets of whom claim to see the future when they cannot.

Tarquinius family tree

• Stemma Tarquiniorum

References

1. ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.56
2. ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.60
3. ^ Livy, Ab urbe condita, 2.6-7

• Ovid Fast. 2.725ff.
• Dionys., iii, 46
• William Smith (ed.) (1870), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, Vol. 1 p. 378, #1.
• The Early History of Rome: Books I-V of The History of Rome from Its Foundations by Livy, Aubrey De Sélincourt, Stephen P. Oakley, p. 72, ISBN 0-14-044809-8
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.