Lucretia, Caspar Netscher (1665)
The beautiful wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, a Roman nobleman of the sixth century B.C., Lucretia was renowned for her virtue and loyalty. She was raped by Sextus Tarquinius, son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the tyrannical Etruscan king of Rome. Lucretia revealed the defilement before her father, husband, and other male relatives and then—to preserve her honor and the good name of her family—committed suicide by stabbing herself in the breast. To avenge the rape, one of Lucretia’s kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus, led a revolt to overthrow the monarchy. Brutus and Lucretia’s bereaved husband, Collatinus, subsequently became the first consuls of the Roman Republic.
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