A sex scandal brought down the king. Allegedly, Tarquinius allowed his son, Sextus Tarquinius, to rape Lucretia, a patrician Roman. Sextus had threatened Lucretia that if she refused to copulate with him, he would kill a slave, then kill her, and have the bodies discovered together, thus creating a gigantic scandal. Lucretia then told her relatives about the threat, and then committed suicide to avoid any such scandal. Lucretia’s kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus (ancestor of Marcus Brutus), summoned the Senate and had Tarquinius and the monarchy expelled from Rome in 510 BC.