The term Tarquins refers to the last three kings of Rome: Lucius Tarquinius Priscus (the Elder), Servius Tullius and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus (the Haughty). These kings oversaw a period of urban expansion and development, reformed the army and strengthened Rome's military power.

The name Tarquinius was derived from the fact that Tarquinius Priscus was from Tarquinii, an Etruscan city. He was the Son of Demaratus (an aristocrat and trader from Corinth in Greece who moved to Tarquinii because he was in political trouble there) and an impoverished Etruscan aristocratic woman. He moved to Rome to pursue a public service career there as he was barred from this in Tarquinii because he was only half Etruscan and the Romans did not bar foreigners from public office.

Tarquinius Priscus defeated Latin cities which were in league against Rome and the Sabines who also attacked Rome. According to a dubious source he also defeated an Etruscan alliance. He doubled the size of the cavalry and the size of the senate. He was the first Roman king to celebrate a triumph, whose ceremonial dress and parade was identical until the time of the emperors. He also built the first wooden seating (only for the aristocracy) at the Circus Maximus. He raised the level of the forum and built the first part of the Cloaca Maxima (which at the time was a canal which drained the area) to protect it from floods.

Tarquinius Superbus was the last king. He was a tyrant and was deposed by the patricians, who then formed the republic. He put himself at the head of the Latin League (a league of Latin cities), embarked on wars, and greatly expanded the territory of Rome and the Latins. He built the temple of Jupiter Optimums Capitolinus, a massive temple on the Capitoline Hill.

In between these two kings there was Servius Tullius who is also considered a Tarquin because he was raised at the court of Tarquinius Priscus, who wanted him to succeed him. He introduced the census, reformed the army and created the assembly of the soldiers. He reformed the administrative division of the city from three to four tribes and created the assembly of the tribes. Both institutions were retained by the Republic. He also redefined the boundaries of the city, enlarging them, and completed the walls around it. Because of these radical steps, the Romans saw him as 'the second founder of Rome.'

The Etruscans and Romans did not finally fight. They had quite a number of on-and-off fights over centuries. It has to be noted that there were never fights between Rome and the Etruscans as such. They involved a single Etruscan city or a limited number of them. There was not a united Etruria. It was a collection of independent city-states and there were 12 cities which were the richest and most powerful ones. They never fought altogether and there was never an all-Etruscan military force. Ancient historians at times got confused and were confusing because they reported fights with the Etruscans without specifying which city/cities were involved.

The Etruscans most probably never conquered/ruled Rome. This fashionable theory and its flimsy evidence base has been challenged recently . Unfortunately, what were mere hypotheses were often presented as actual matters of fact/historical 'truths', even though the materials used for it were nothing more than hooks for speculation, rather than actual proof. Similarly, Rome never conquered Etruria as such.

There were quite a number of wars.

The cities of Tarquinii and Veii attacked Rome when the republic was founded (509 BC) and the city of Clusium besieged it the next year.

In 396 BC, Rome destroyed the city of Veii after some 450 years of on-and-off clashes.

In 389 BC some unspecified Etruscans besieged Sutrium, a city allied to Rome. The Romans freed it and then seized two towns in the territory of Tarquinii. Soon after, unspecified Etruscans attacked two cities allied to Rome (one was Sutrium again) and were defeated.

In 358 BC Rome declared war on Tarquinii because it had raided Roman territory. This city was then joined by the city of Caere, traditionally an ally of Rome. They lost and they signed peace treaties of 40 and 100 years respectively.

In 310 BC 4 of the 5 Etruscan cities on the plateau of the Apennine Mountains besieged Sutrium. Rome defeated them and ravaged the territory of Volsinii. A few years later, the Romans came to the aid of the ruling class of this city which was facing a revolution. They suppressed it and decided to destroy the city and relocate it to a defenceless position.

The last war saw Rome defeating an army of Etruscans (probably formed by the 5 cities on the plateau) and Umbrians which was in an alliance with the Samnite and Gaul armies during the 3rd Samnite war. After that the Etruscan civilisation slowly decayed and disappeared. It had been weakened by the above wars and Rome now had hegemony in Italy. Etruria became a backwater in a peninsula that was now centred around Rome. As they were no longer troublesome, Rome did not attack them or try to conquer them.

The Etruscan city of Veii, which was only 10 miles from Rome, on the other side of the river Tiber, was Rome's main rival in the early days of Rome's history. The two cities fought each other 8 times in some 350 years. This ended when Rome destroyed Veii in 396 BC.

However, Veii was not Rome's only rival. The nearby Sabines attacked Roman territory several times. In the early 5th century BC the Etruscan cities of Tarquinii and Clusium also attacked Rome and the other Latin cities allied against Rome and fought her. In that century the most dangerous enemies of Rome were the Aequi and the Volsci who had conquered lands to the south of Rome. Rome had to fight defensive wars against their plundering raids on her territories for most of that century.

Ancient Roman tradition says the there were seven kings : Rolmulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullius Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and Tarquinus Superbus. The last king was overthrown and the Romans established a republic in 509 BC. Romulus is said to have founded the city in 853 BC. We do not have records of wives for the first three kings and no name for the wife of the fourth. Tarquinius Priscus' wife was Tanaquil; Servius Tullius' wife the previous king and queen's daughter and was named by some sources as Gegania. Tarquinius Superbus' wife was servius Tullius' daughter, Tullia.

The monarchy was not hereditary, kings were chosen by the senate and then elected by the assembly of the people. The second king was a foreigner, form the Sabine city of Cures, and so was the fifth, who was a half Greek and half Etruscan from the Etruscan city of Tarquinii. The last king was his son or grandson and seized power through a coup d' etat.

We do not know what the neighbouring peoples thought about Rome because the histories we have were written by Romans and Greeks who described them from Rome's viewpoint.

During the first centuries of Rome's history many of Rome's neighbours fought against her at one point or another. This started with the Etruscan city of Veii which was only 10 miles from Rome. The Sabines, other Latin cities, the Aequi, the Voslci and other Etruscan cities (Clusium, Tarquinii, Vulsci, Volsinii, Perusia and Arretium) also fought against Rome.

When Rome expanded into central and southern Italy in the 4th century BC and the first part of the 3rd century BC, she made alliances with the peoples in these areas. These allies had to pay a tribute and supply soldiers who fought in auxiliary units which supported the Roman legions at their own expense. The system worked because the Romans supported the ruling elites of these peoples and shared the spoils of war, which could be considerable. In this period the allied supplied 60% of the pool of military manpower available to Rome. This was the largest pool in the Mediterranean