The year is the 6th century, the place is Rome and the person is Lucretia, a woman who contributed to one of the greatest parts of Roman history: the creation of the Roman republic. The rape of the virtuous Lucretia by Sextus Tarquinius, the son of Tarquinius Superbus (Etruscan king) was the straw that broke the camel's back for the Roman people and pushed them to want to move from a monarchy to a republic. From the accounts of the rape of Lucretia by ancient historians like Livy, Cicero, and Dionysius, it is clear that Lucretia's rape not only inspired the Roman people to want to get rid of the Etruscan king and his family, but also revealed the important role of virtue among women in Roman society. There is no doubt that Lucretia, the wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus who was the son of Arruns Tarquinius, was a virtuous woman. This is evident through Cicero who describes her as a "noble and chaste woman" (Cicero 100), Dionysius who describes her as a woman who "surpassed all women in beauty as well as in virtue" (Dionysius, Book IV 64) and finally by Livy who explains how she “won the competition of feminine virtue” (Livy, Book 1, 100). It was this contest that “kindled in Sextus Tarquinius the flame of lust” (Livy 101) and it was launched by Lucretia's own husband, Collatinus, during a drunken dinner in Sextus's quarters. The competition pitted all the men present at the party against each other and aimed to discover which of them had the most virtuous wife. Collatinus, who was very drunk and therefore overconfident, declared that none of the other men's wives could beat "the incomparable superiority of my Lucretia" (Livy 100). The men decided to enter the Collatinus competition and so all returned to Ro...... middle of paper ......public.Works Cited1) Langlands, Rebecca. Sexual morality in ancient Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print.2) MacLachlan, Bonnie. Women in Ancient Rome: A Sourcebook. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Print.3)Gwynn, David M. The Roman Republic: A Very Brief Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.4)Rosenstein, Nathan Stewart. and Robert Morstein-Marx. A Companion to the Roman Republic. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2006. Print.1)De, Selincourt Aubrey. Livy, the First History of Rome: Book I - V of the History of Rome since its foundation. London: Penguin, 1960. Print.2)Cicero, Marcus Tullius., George William Featherstonhaugh and Anthony Imbert. Cicero's Republic. New York: Published by G. & C. Carvill, 108 Broadway., 1829. Print.3) Dionysius, Earnest Cary and Edward Spelman. Roman Antiquities. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 1937. Print.