The Age of the Seven Kings

For almost 250 years, during the Age of the Seven Kings, the city grew by conquest and alliance, spreading to encompass all seven hills, with temples and palaces, a forum lined by arcades and shops, and the whole surrounded by ditches, embankments, and a strong wall. The Thybrine River was secured as far as the Tyrrian Sea, where a great port was built at Ostia. The city's population continued to grow, largely owing to Regulus' establishment of an asylum for all fugitives atop Capitoline Hill; here freemen and slaves alike could claim protection and seek Augustan citizenship. To allow this growing population of young men to expand, Augusta looked to the neighboring tribes for wives, with little scruple as to how such wives could be acquired. Those tribes who went to war over the abduction of their women found the Augustan forces more than capable of responding. As nearby neighbors were conquered, the refugees were relocated to Augusta itself, swelling the city to, first, twice and, later, four times its size.

As Augusta grew in power and influence, it eclipsed even the city-state of Ilea. Under Turgidus Hextor, third and most warlike of the Seven Kings, the city even turned against Ilea itself, reducing it first to vassalage and then laying waste to it and forcing its people to relocate to Augusta itself. His lust for battle was rivaled only by his impiety. After declaring himself to be the reincarnation of Raxos and forbidding the worship of all divinities save himself, Turgidus was struck down by the Nine Gods. They walked the streets that night, killing all who dared to venture forth, finally reducing Turgidus, his family, his servants, and his house, to rubble. Only the foundations remain standing, for no other building would ever be constructed on that site.

Later kings took a wiser course, never neglecting the gods, forging alliances with neighboring cities and tribes, and building the city's infrastructure, including its salt works, aqueduct, circus, forum, and the network of catacombs and sewers for draining the swampy area between the hills. In this, the city was ever assisted by the dwarf holds, for the men of the city loved the stone work of the dwarfs and the dwarfs loved the goods that poured in from the trade routes on the Tyrrian Sea.

But the great families of Augusta, feeling their individual power grow, at last grew weary of their kings. The last three kings, all of Targonian lineage, increasingly turned their attention to the army, using it to control the citizens. The last of these, Tarquin the Proud, finally overreached himself in attempting to take as a mistress the virtuous daughter of a prominent senator. When the girl killed herself rather than submit to the tyrant's embraces, the patrician class rose in revolt. They drove Tarquin from the city and declared Augusta a Republic.