At this crisis the Sabine women, from the outrage on whom the war had
arisen, with dishevelled hair and torn garments, the timidity natural
to women being overcome by the sense of their calamities, were
emboldened to fling themselves into the midst of the flying weapons,
and, rushing across, to part the incensed combatants and assuage their
wrath: imploring their fathers on the one hand and their husbands
on the other, as fathers-in-law and sons-in-law, not to besprinkle
themselves with impious blood, nor to fix the stain of murder on their
offspring, the one side on their grandchildren, the other on their
children. "If," said they, "you are dissatisfied with the relationship
between you, and with our marriage, turn your resentment against us;
it is we who are the cause of war, of wounds and bloodshed to our
husbands and parents: it will be better for us to perish than to
live widowed or orphans without one or other of you." This incident
affected both the people and the leaders; silence and sudden quiet
followed; the leaders thereupon came forward to conclude a treaty;
and not only concluded a peace, but formed one state out of two. They
united the kingly power, but transferred the entire sovereignty to
Rome. Rome having thus been made a double state, that some benefit at
least might be conferred on the Sabines, they were called Quirites
from Cures. To serve as a memorial of that battle, they called the
place--where Curtius, after having emerged from the deep morass, set
his horse in shallow water--the Lacus Curtius.[11]
This welcome peace, following suddenly on so melancholy a war,
endeared the Sabine women still more to their husbands and parents,
and above all to Romulus himself. Accordingly, when dividing the
people into thirty curiae, he called the curiae after their names.
While the number of the women were undoubtedly considerably greater
than this, it is not recorded whether they were chosen for their age,
their own rank or that of their husbands, or by lot, to give names
to the curiae. At the same time also three centuries of knights were
enrolled: the Ramnenses were so called from Romulus, the Titienses
from Titus Tatius: in regard to the Luceres, the meaning of the name
and its origin is uncertain.[12] From that time forward the two kings
enjoyed the regal power not only in common, but also in perfect
harmony.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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