person
Gaius Servilius Ahala
Servilius Ahala
also: Ahala, Servilius Ahala
Master of the Horse who in 439 BC killed Spurius Maelius, suspected of aiming at tyranny. A stock Roman exemplum of tyrannicide, paired with the founder L. Junius Brutus.
Reading notes
- Ad Atticum 13.40 §1 Ahala and Brutus
C. Servilius Ahala (who killed the would-be tyrant Sp. Maelius in 439 BC) and L. Iunius Brutus (who expelled the kings and founded the Republic in 509 BC), the canonical Roman tyrannicides. They are M. Brutus's claimed ancestors, not the living Brutus, and the depiction makes the wry point about resisting one-man rule.