Why The Story of The Rape of Lucretia is Important to Rome

The Rape of Lucretia is an important story in Rome’s history. In the story, King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus falls in love with Lucretia, so he goes in to her house and holds up a sword to her throat and rapes her. At the end of the story she kills herself so that she can still honor her name. At this point in history in ancient Rome, they had been a democracy, but Julius Caesar was about to become king. The author of the story was one of his workers and did not agree with him becoming king and could not say that directly, so he wrote this story about the rape of Lucretia. In the story, Lucretia represents Rome and the king represents kingship in general and it explains that instead of having a king, that Rome should kill themselves before it happened since it would bring dishonor to their society if they had a king. This is also a major story in Rome because at the end Brutus vows to kill King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus and in real life, Julius Caesar is killed by Brutus. Overall, this story is important to Rome because it shows how criticism was expressed at a major moment in its history.