The rape of Lucretia by Tarquin. Line engraving by C. Cort after Titian, 1571.

Tarquin enters Lucretia's bedchamber with a drawn sword about to rape her. An episode described by Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.58. Lucretia, wife of L. Tarquinius Collatinus, was raped by Sextus Tarquinius: her subsequent suicide because of her dishonour led to the expulsion of the Tarquins by L. Iunius Brutus. Lucretia became a paradigm of the Roman matron, heroic in her adhesion to the code of female chastity