Servius Tullius had arranged the marriage of his two daughters to the two sons of his predecessor Lucius Tarquinius Priscus.

The sons were named Lucius Tarquinius and Aruns Tarquinius.

According to Livy, the younger of the two daughters had the fiercer disposition, and yet she was married to Aruns, who was the milder of the two sons.

"Tarquin and the younger Tullia, did not, in the first instance, become man and wife; for Rome was there by granted a period of reprieve."

Livy says that the similar temperament of the younger Tullia and Lucius Tarquinius drew them to each other, and she inspired Lucius to greater daring.

The younger Tullia and Lucius Tarquinius next arranged the murder of their respective siblings, the elder Tullia and Aruns, in quick succession, and Lucius and the younger Tullia were afterwards married.

She then encouraged Lucius Tarquinius to seek the throne.

Lucius was convinced, and began to solicit the support of the patrician senators, especially those families who had been given senatorial rank by his father.

He bestowed presents upon them, and to them he criticized the king.

Tarquinius, seizing the throne in 534, goes to the senate-house with a group of armed men, seats himself on the throne, and summons the senators to attend upon King Tarquinius.

Tarquin then speaks to the senators, criticizing Servius: for being a slave born of a slave; for failing to be elected by the Senate and the people during an interregnum, as had been the tradition for the election of kings of Rome; for being gifted the throne by a woman; for favoring the lower classes of Rome over the wealthy and for taking the land of the upper classes for distribution to the poor; and for instituting the census so that the wealth of the upper classes might be exposed in order to excite popular envy.

When Servius Tullius arrives at the senate-house to defend his position, Tarquinius throws him down the steps.

Servius returns home, but is murdered in the streets of Rome by a group of men sent by Tarquin, possibly on the advice of Tullia.

Tullia then drives in her chariot to the senate house, where she hails her husband as king.

He orders her to return home, away from the tumult.

She drives along the Cyprian street, where the king had been murdered, and turns towards the Orbian Hill, in the direction of the Esquiline Hill.

There she encounters her father's body and, on a street later to become known as wicked street because of her actions, drives her chariot over her father's body.

Livy also says that she took a part of her father's body, and his blood, and returned with it to her own and her husband's household gods, and that by the end of her journey she was, herself, covered in the blood.

Tarquinius refuses to permit Servius to be buried, thereby earning for himself the name "Superbus", translated as 'proud.