There are two points addressed in this article: the first concerns the process of secularisation of political power that intervened early in Roman history and of which there is a clear echo in the tradition concerning the emergence in 5ome, around the 6th century, of the last kings of Etruscan origin. Tradition insists on the irregular character of their ascent to the throne, which was also associated with a more explicit popular consensus and where the ceremony of inauguratio was absent. From then on, supreme power would be separated from the sacred dimension that had originally characterised Roman kingship. The second aspect, which is also associated with this same late phase of the monarchy, concerns instead, with the introduction of the new organisation of citizens in the centuriae, the de facto formation of a military oligarchy capable of controlling power even in the new republican order and destined to perpetuate itself even after the full integration oI the plebeians into the political community.
