The Romans, in the mean time, seemed to find the young wives which they had procured by these transactions a great acquisition to their colony. It proved, too, that they not only prized the acquisition, but they exulted so much in the ingenuity and success of the stratagem by which their object had been effected, that a sort of symbolical violence in taking the bride became afterward a part of the marriage ceremony in all subsequent weddings. For always, in future years, when the new-married wife was brought home to her husband's house, it was the custom for him to take her up in his arms at the door, and carry her over the threshold as if by force, thus commemorating by this ceremony the coercion which had signalized the original marriages of his ancestors, the founders of Rome. CHAPTER XII. THE SABINE WAR. B.C. 750-746 King Acron.--Cænina.--Its distance from Rome.--Acron's hostility to the new city.--His plans.--Romulus and Acron meet on the field.--Anticipations of the spectators.--Romulus victorious.--Results of his victory.--Subsequent policy of the Romans.--The trophy of the victory.--First Roman triumph.--Annexation of more cities.--Women summoned.--The address of Romulus.--His promises.--Generous policy pursued by Romulus.--Enlargement of the city.--Plans of the Sabines.--They mature their preparations.--Titus Tatius.--Preparations of the Romans.--Final negotiations.--The Roman herdsmen.--Flocks and herds called in.--The citadel.--Tarpeia.--The Campus Martius.--Parley with Tarpeia.--Agreement made with Tarpeia.--The Sabines admitted.--Tarpeia killed.--The two armies meet on the plain.--A truce to bury the dead.--Fresh combats.--Romulus in great personal danger.--The story of Curtius.--The lake.--Distress of the Sabine women.--Their perplexity.--The plan of Hersilia.--The women admitted to the senate house.--Arrangements for the intercession of the women.--The address of Hersilia.--Effect of it.--Conditions and terms of peace. While the negotiations with the Sabines were still pending, Romulus became involved in another difficulty, which for a time assumed a very threatening aspect. This difficulty was a war which broke out, somewhat suddenly, in consequence of the invasion of the Roman territories by a neighboring chieftain named Acron. Acron was the sovereign of a small state, whose capital was a town called Cænina.[F] This Cænina is supposed to have been only four or five miles distant from Romulus's city,--a fact which shows very clearly on how small a scale the deeds and exploits connected with the first foundation of the great empire, which afterward became so extended and so renowned, were originally performed, and how intrinsically insignificant they were, in themselves, though momentous in the extreme in respect to the consequences that flowed from them. [Footnote F: See Map of Latium, page 134.]