Romulus, being unable to obtain wives for the citizens of his new commonwealth, celebrated public games, to which people of neighboring nations were invited. In the midst of the entertainment he and his soldiers seized a large number of women, principally Sabines, and carried them off to his camp. Their restitution was demanded and refused; but the warlike husbands, anxious to conciliate the affections of wives obtained in a manner so violent, treated them with such tenderness, that the women were themselves unwilling to return to their relatives. This led to a war with the Sabines, and Romulus was closely besieged in his citadel. At this crisis, Hersilia, his wife, asked and obtained an audience with the senate, in which she told them that the women had formed a design of acting as mediators between their husbands and fathers. A decree was immediately passed in favor of the proposition. Every woman was required to leave one of her children, as a hostage of her return; the others they carried in their arms, to soften the feelings of their parents. They proceeded to the Sabine camp, dressed in deep mourning, and knelt at the feet of their relatives. Hersilia described the kindness of their husbands, and their own reluctance to be torn from their families, in a manner so eloquent and pathetic, that an honorable and friendly alliance was soon agreed upon. In consideration of this important service, the Romans conferred peculiar privileges on women. In capital cases, they were exempted from the jurisdiction of ordinary judges; no immodest language or behavior was allowed in their presence; every one was ordered to give way to them in the street; and a festival was instituted in their honor, called Matronalia, during which they served their slaves at table, and received presents from their husbands. Three kinds of marriage were in use among the Romans, called _confarreatio_, _coemptio_, and _usus_. The first was established by Romulus, and was the most solemn, as well as the most ancient. A priest, in the presence of at least ten witnesses, pronounced certain words, and sacrificed to the gods a cake made of salt, water, and wheat-flour. The bride and bridegroom ate of this cake, to signify the union which ought to bind them. This manner of celebrating marriage made a wife the partner of all her husband’s substance, and gave her a right to share in the peculiar sacred rites attached to his family. If he died intestate, and without children, she inherited his whole fortune, as a daughter; if he left children, she shared equally with them. If she committed any fault, the husband judged of it in presence of her relations, and punished her at pleasure. Sometimes when women were publicly condemned by law, the penalty was left to the judgment of her husband and relations. The priests of Jupiter were chosen from sons born of this kind of marriage, and the vestal virgins were selected from the daughters.