BOOK I. The myth connected with 2 The same freedom appears to be used in dealing with the statements as to the number of the ravished Sabines. The old legend mentioned only thirty, and traced the names of the thirty Curies to the names of these thirty Sabine women. The number thirty, which occurs so often in the stories of ancient Rome,' betrays their legendary origin. Accordingly it was rejected by those who tried as much as possible to turn the legends into history. Livy considers thirty too small a number; he thinks there must have been many more, and he cannot discover on what grounds the selection was made of those whose names were to be given to the thirty Curies (Livy, i. 13). The annalist, Valerius of Antium, who is pre-eminent among the Roman historians for circumstantial descriptions of unascertainable facts, and who is never at a loss for accurate numbers, informs us that the number of the Sabine women was five hundred and twenty-seven. This accuracy seems to settle the question. But Valerius found a rival in the historian Juba, the son of the Numidian king, who seems to have made equally erudite researches in Roman antiquities, and to have discovered that 683 was the right number. This uncertainty with regard to dates and numbers stamps the story of the rape of the Sabines as void of all historical truth. We cannot, therefore, agree with Niebuhr, who thinks he can discover some historical facts through this legendary mist. As he supposes, the inhabitants of the Palatine had not the right of intermarriage (connubium) with their Sabine neighbours on the Capitoline and the Quirinal. This inferiority of the Palatine Romans to the Sabines of the Capitoline and Quirinal hills caused discontent and war. The right of intermarriage was obtained by force of arms, and this historical fact lies at the bottom of the tale of the rape of the Sabines.3 Such a method of changing legends into history is of very doubtful utility. It seems more natural to explain Niebuhr, Röm. Gesch., i. 306; English translation, i. 292. Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., i. 494. CHAP. cere II. the legend from the customs at the Roman marriage ceremonies. The Roman maiden was carried away from her parents by her bridegroom with pretended force; 2 she was Roman led by three youths to her new home and lifted over the marriage threshold, her hair having been previously parted by the monies. point of a spear. Under compulsion and with sorrow the Roman bride entered her husband's dwelling.'3 A woman could not be married on a day sacred to the celestial gods, because violence, lamentation, and mourning were as hateful to them as they were acceptable to the deities of the nether world. All these references to force and violence are so striking, that the ancient writers explained them by referring to the rape of the Sabines. We reverse the argument, and trace the story of the rape, which is evidently a fable, to the ceremonies which were assuredly customary, and did not arise from a single historical event, but from an ancient popular feeling interwoven with religious conceptions." 5 the Sa bines. The only feature in the story of Romulus which is in a Tatius and certain degree historical is the narrative of the advance of the Sabines under Tatius, and of their capture of the Capitol. It cannot be doubted that the Sabines, the inhabitants of the central mountains of Italy, penetrated in the earliest period into the plains, as they did repeatedly in historical times, and it is equally certain that a large 'Schwegler, Rom. Gesch., i. 468. 2 Festus, s. v. rapi, p. 289, ed. Müller: 'Rapi similatur virgo ex gremio matris. quum ad virum trahitur, quod videlicet ea res feliciter Romulo cessit.' .. * Varro in Plutarch, Quæst. Rom., 105. Hartung, Religion der Römer, ii. 88. The god Consus, in whose honour the Consualia were celebrated, was not Neptunus Equester, but a terrestrial god, and author of fruitfulness in plants and animals. Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., i. 472, has shown this in a masterly manner. See also Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, i. 346, note 9. Plutarch, Rom., 15. The custom is not confined to Italy. Among the Spartans also it was customary for the bridegroom to carry away the bride by pretended violence. Plutarch, Lycurg., 15; Müller, Dorians, ii. 292. Hermann, Griech. Privat. Alterthümer, § 31, Anm. 13. 'See the Author's Forschungen, p. 32; En lish translation, Researches, p. 44; Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., i. 24. BOOK I. portion of the Roman people were of Sabine origin. The Latins also, the inhabitants of the plain, were related to the Sabines,' and had in early times immigrated from their native land. It appears that at the time which is assumed as that of the foundation of Rome, a body of these bold mountaineers settled on the Quirinal and Capitoline hills. The Quirinal indicates by its name, and by many Sabine sanctuaries on it, that it was inhabited by Sabines. Sabine altars were likewise consecrated on the Capitol. The distinguishing name of these Sabines was Quirites, a word either derived from the Sabine word quiris, a lance, or from the town of Cures, from which these conquerors are said to have come. The Quirites, who settled on the Quirinal and Capitoline hills, were a conquering race. Their god Quirinus became identified with Romulus, the patronymic hero of the Roman people; and their name of Quirites was joined with the name of Romans, to form the official designation of the united people, the Romans and Quirites.' Much in the customs of the Romans may be traced back to the Sabines with tolerable certainty. The strict organisation of the Roman family, and of the gens, the enlarged family or house, was Sabine; as were also the laws of paternal authority and of property-the real groundwork of the Roman political discipline. The Roman religion is constantly declared by the Romans themselves to be Sabine in its most important elements, and its introduction is attributed to the Sabine king Numa. It may therefore be assumed that, at one time, when on one or another of the seven hills there were independent Latin communities, Sabine conquerors also settled in the same locality. But the Roman pride would not allow that Rome had ever been conquered by strangers. Accordingly the legend partially obliterates the Sabine invasion and conquest, and represents the two nations as joined together by a league between Romulus and Tatius; but through the mist of the early traditions, thus much See the Author's Forschungen, p. 31; English translation. p. 40. seems manifest, that the conviction of a Sabine conquest of Rome was general at a very remote period. What is reported of the legislation of Romulus rests on the plausible supposition that he, as founder of the state, must also have formed the constitution of the state and the groundwork of civil order. Accordingly Romulus is said to have divided the people into three tribes, the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres; that he formed three centuries of knights, of a hundred horsemen each, and a senate of a hundred members, which he doubled after the union with the Sabines. In these statements genuine traditions are altogether out of the question, inasmuch as irreconcilable contradictions prevail most capriciously among the different reports as to the original form and meaning of the several institutions. This is particularly evident in the reports about the institution of the senate and the origin of the three tribes. senate. In the organism of the state the most important member The after the king was the senate. On this subject, therefore, one would expect certain information, however vague the traditions might be in other respects. Yet what our authorities say about the formation of the senate and the original number of its members shows that they report their speculations as if they were facts. Livy relates that Romulus selected a hundred senators, and he knows of no further extension in the reign of Romulus.' Dionysius says that a hundred Sabine senators were added to the senate after the peace with Tatius. Others say that the new members only numbered fifty.3 Plutarch, in one place, makes the number of the senators to have been 150, in another 200. It is impossible to reconcile such contradictory statements, or to separate what is true in them from what is false. Every writer related capriciously, and almost at random, what appeared to him most probable, without having the least foundation for his assertions, 2 Dionysius, ii. 47, mentions this. BOOK I. Mode of clecting senators. and without even pretending to have trustworthy information.1 With regard to the mode of appointing the senators, the same difference of opinion and the same caprice prevail. While Cicero, Livy, and most other authors leave to the king the free choice of the senators, the ingenuity of Dionysius has invented a most intricate mode of election.3 He says that each of the three tribes and each of the thirty curies chose three senators, and to these ninetynine Romulus added the hundredth. Dionysius tried in this way to solve a difficulty which he felt, and to bring into arithmetical harmony the number of the hundred senators with that of the three tribes. In later times the senate consisted of three hundred members, and this number answers to the number of the three tribes and thirty curies, so that a proportion is manifested in the respective numbers which in a certain measure makes the senate represent the tribes. The number of a hundred senators, therefore, in the time of Romulus, is very surprising. The attempt which Dionysius made to solve this. difficulty is of course a failure. There can be no doubt, that the oldest narrative which ascribed to Romulus the formation of the constitution, attributed to him also the nomination of a senate of three hundred members, just as it ascribed to him the division of the people into three tribes. But the origin of these three tribes (the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres) is as obscure as everything else. Concerning two of them there is indeed tolerable harmony of opinion among all writers, as from an apparently selfevident etymology the Romans were universally supposed to be the Ramnes of Romulus, and the Tities the Sabines of Tatius. But there is no clue to explain the tribe of the Luceres; and hence we have an abundance of conjecture. Some thought of the Etruscan Lucumo, whom Niebuhr, Röm. Gesch., i, 418. English translation, i. 400. Becker, Röm. Alterthümer, ii. p. 1. 341 ff. Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., i. 660. * Cicero, De Rep., ii. 8, 14. Livy, i. 8. Dionysius, ii. 12. |