Lucretia

Lore & Background

Lucretia was the daughter of magistrate Spurius Lucretius and the wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. The marriage between Lucretia and Collatinus was depicted as the ideal Roman union, as both were faithfully devoted to one another. According to Livy, Lucretia was an exemplar of 'beauty and purity,' as well as Roman standards. While her husband was away at battle, Lucretia would stay at home and pray for his safe return. In a story about men returning home from battle, the men found Lucretia home alone, working with her wool in silence, in contrast to other women socializing. Because of her devotion to her husband, Roman writers Livy and Dionysius outline Lucretia as the role model for Roman girls. While engaged in the siege of Ardea, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome, sent his son, Sextus Tarquinius, on a military errand to Collatia. Tarquin was received with great hospitality at the governor's mansion, home of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus. In a variant of the story, Tarquin and Collatinus, at a wine party on furlough, debated the virtues of wives; Collatinus proposed riding to his home to observe Lucretia, and upon arrival she was weaving with her maids. Later in the night, Tarquin entered Lucretia's bedroom. When she awoke, he threatened to kill her and a slave and place their bodies together to claim adultery if she did not submit to him. In an alternative story, Tarquin returned from camp a few days later, entered her room while she lay naked, and tried to convince her to be with him, ultimately raping her. Accounts of Lucretia's suicide vary. In Dionysius of Halicarnassus' account, the following day Lucretia dressed in black, went to her father's house in Rome, and cast herself down in the supplicant's position. After disclosing that Tarquin had raped her, she asked them for vengeance. While the men debated, Lucretia drew a concealed dagger and stabbed herself in the heart. In Livy's version, Lucretia sent for her father and husband, asked them to bring one friend each as witnesses, and after explaining the rape, exacted an oath of vengeance before stabbing herself. In Dio's version, she called for vengeance and then plunged the dagger into her chest. After her death, Brutus, a politically motivated participant, proposed driving the Tarquins from Rome, and the prominent families instituted a republic.

Reader's Guide

Lucretia's narrative is central to Roman foundational mythohistory, providing an explanation for the transition from monarchy to republic through a recounting of violence against women by men. According to Roman tradition, after Tarquin raped Lucretia, flames of dissatisfaction were kindled over the tyrannical methods of Tarquin's father, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome. As a result, the prominent families instituted a republic, drove the extensive royal family of Tarquin from Rome, and successfully defended the republic against attempted Etruscan and Latin intervention. Specific details vary between historians, and the exact year of her death is debatable within a range of about five years. Much like the rape of the Sabine women, Lucretia's story provides an explanation for historical change in Rome through a recounting of violence against women by men. Her legacy is that of a figure whose personal tragedy catalyzed a political revolution, though the historical accuracy of the details remains uncertain.

Did You Know?

• Lucretia was the daughter of magistrate Spurius Lucretius and the wife of Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus.
• According to Livy, Lucretia was an exemplar of 'beauty and purity' and a role model for Roman girls.

Education and Intellectual Formation

Lucretia Rudolph's intellectual life took root in the quiet of a Garrettsville, Ohio household where her father, carpenter Zebulon Rudolph, and mother Arabella raised four children with reserved affection. Chronic respiratory illness kept the young Crete bedridden for long stretches, and it was during those confined hours that reading became her refuge. Her parents, uncommonly forward-thinking, ensured she received a formal education beyond the household skills her mother taught her. She progressed from the local grammar school to Geauga Seminary in Chester Township, and then to the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, which her father had co-founded and which is today known as Hiram College. There she launched a literary group and contributed to the school magazine, nurturing a passion for letters that would define her. She also voiced convictions that women deserved equal pay and the chance to achieve independently in public life, beliefs she later set aside after leaving college. This foundation of self-directed learning would prove essential throughout the rest of her life.

A Marriage Forged in Distance and Grief

Lucretia and James Garfield first crossed paths at Geauga Seminary, where he would later become one of her teachers. Their courtship stretched over years of letters, complicated by his absences, his reserved regard for her temperament, and his entanglements with other women, including Rebecca Selleck and later Kate Chase. The first five years became what they themselves called their 'years of darkness': James was away as a preacher, legislator, and Civil War officer, and they shared no more than twenty weeks of time together. A brief, tender respite came at a Howland Springs farmhouse where he recovered from jaundice and dysentery, a period historians liken to a belated honeymoon. But the war called him back, and distance reasserted itself.

The Brief White House and the Longest Vigil

Highly educated and well versed in Washington politics, she served as a regular adviser to James and played a visible part in his front-porch presidential campaign. She was well regarded during her short stay in the White House, but a bout of malaria forced her to leave for Long Branch, New Jersey, to recuperate. Over the two months that followed, as infection slowly consumed him, Lucretia remained at his bedside. The public, moved by her steadfast presence, poured out a wave of sympathy that accompanied the nation through its grief. When James finally died in September, she was left a widow at forty-nine, her brief chapter as First Lady closed by the most violent of endings.

Preserving a Legacy from Ohio

After the funeral, Lucretia returned to her former residence in Ohio, where she would live out the remaining three decades of her life. Rather than fading into quiet obscurity, she devoted herself to a singular, painstaking task: gathering, organizing, and safeguarding James's papers, correspondence, and other materials. What she built in those years was, in effect, the first presidential library in American history, a private archive that preserved the record of a presidency cut short by a single gunshot. She worked steadily through the years, protecting documents and mementos that might otherwise have scattered or been lost to time. Her dedication ensured that the Garfield story remained accessible to future generations.