When Romulus had fixed his settlement upon the Palatine, he opened an asylum for fugitive slaves upon the then deserted Saturnus, and here, at a sacred oak, he is said to have offered up the spoils of the Cæcinenses, and their king Acron, who had made a war of reprisal upon him, after the rape of their women in the Campus Martius; here also he vowed to build a temple to Jupiter Feretrius, where spoils should always be offered. But in the mean time, the Sabines, under Titius Tatus, besieged and took the hill, having a gate of its fortress (said to have been on the ascent above the spot where the arch of Severus now stands) opened to them by Tarpeia, who gazed with longing upon the golden bracelets of the warriors, and, obtaining a promise to receive that which they wore upon their arms, was crushed by their shields as they entered. Some authorities, however, maintain that she asked and obtained the hand of king Tatius. From this time the hill was completely occupied by the Sabines, and its name became partially merged in that of _Mons Tarpeia_, which its southern side has always retained. Niebuhr states that it is a popular superstition that the beautiful Tarpeia still sits, sparkling with gold and jewels, enchanted and motionless, in a cave in the centre of the hill. After the death of Tatius, the Capitoline again fell under the government of Romulus, and his successor, Numa Pompilius, founded here a Temple of Fides Publica, in which the flamens were always to sacrifice with a fillet on their right hands, in sign of fidelity. To Numa also is attributed the worship of the god Terminus, who had a temple here in very early ages. Under Tarquinius Superbus, B.C. 535, the magnificent _Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus_, which had been vowed by his father, was built with money taken from the Volscians in war. In digging its foundations, the head of a man was found, still bloody, an omen which was interpreted by an Etruscan augur to portend that Rome would become the head of Italy. In consequence of this, the name of the hill was once more changed, and has ever since been _Mons Capitolinus_, or Capitolium. The site of this temple has always been one of the vexed questions of history. At the time it was built, as now, the hill consisted of two peaks, with a level space between them. Niebuhr and Gregorovius place the temple on the south-eastern height, but Canina and other authorities, with more probability, incline to the north-eastern eminence, the present site of Ara-Cœli, because, among many other reasons, the temple faced the south, and also the Forum, which it could not have done upon the south-eastern summit; and also because the citadel is always represented as having been nearer to the Tiber than the temple: for when Herdonius, and the Gauls, arriving by the river, scaled the heights of the Capitol, it was the _citadel_ which barred their path, and in which, in the latter case, Manlius was awakened by the noise of the sacred geese of Juno.