At this juncture the Sabine women, from the outrage on whom the war originated, with hair dishevelled and garments rent, the timidity of their sex being overcome by such dreadful scenes, had the courage to throw themselves amid the flying weapons, and making a rush across, to part the incensed armies, and assuage their fury; imploring their fathers on the one side, their husbands on the other, that as fathers-in-law and sons-in-law they would not contaminate each other with impious blood, nor stain their offspring with parricide, the one their grandchildren, the other their children. “If you are dissatisfied with the affinity between you, if with our marriages—turn your resentment against us; we are the cause of war, of wounds and of bloodshed to our husbands and parents. It were better that we perish than live widowed or fatherless without one or other of you.” The circumstance affected both the multitude and the leaders. Silence and a sudden suspension ensued.
Upon this the leaders came forward in order to concert a treaty, and they not only concluded a peace, but formed one state out of two. They associated the regal power, and transferred the entire sovereignty to Rome. The city being thus doubled, that some compliment might be paid to the Sabines, they were called Quirites, from Cures. As a memorial of this battle, they called the place where the horse, after getting out of the deep marsh, first set Curtius in shallow water, the Curtian Lake. This happy peace following suddenly a war so distressing, rendered the Sabine women still dearer to their husbands and parents, and above all to Romulus himself. Accordingly, when he divided the people into thirty curiæ, he called the curiæ by their names. Since, without doubt, the number of the Sabine women was considerably greater than this, it is not recorded whether those who were to give their names to the curiæ were selected on account of their age, or their own or their husbands’ rank, or by lot. At the same time three centuries of knights were enrolled, called Ramnes from Romulus; Tities, from Titus Tatius. The reason of the name and origin of the Luceres is uncertain.c
A Critical Study of the Legends
From the bare account of these two famous legends, it is interesting to turn to their critical consideration. The myth of the Trojan colony is said to have been handed down from generation to generation, but it nowhere bears the characteristic features of genuine popular tradition. It is wholly devoid of poetic feeling, it has every appearance of being a made-up thing, the result of a dispassionate study of facts, customs, cults, antiquities, memorials, and names of places, out of which a spurious history has been spun. If real heroic deeds, performed by Æneas in the home-land of Latium, had passed from mouth to mouth, in what different and how much richer colours would the story have been painted. The sow of Lavinium and her thirty piglings would not play such a prominent part as it does. Æneas never became the national hero of the Romans: not all the art of Virgil could accomplish that. None of the numerous Roman festivals, none of the public games, celebrate his memory. Doubtless the tradition of him and his settlement in Latium rests upon no real historical tradition. In considering the Roman tradition of Æneas we must bear in mind the fact that it is not the only one of its kind.
Altar and Sarcophagi
(After Hope)
A host of Italian towns date their origin from the heroes of Greek legends, particularly those of the Homeric period. Thus Tusculum was supposed to have been built by Telegonus, the son of Ulysses and Circe; Præneste by the same Telegonus, or by a grandson of Ulysses and Circe, named Prænestes; Lanuvium by Diomedes; Ardea by the son of Circe so named, or by Danaë, the mother of Perseus; Antium by a son of Ulysses and Circe; Politorium by Polites son of Priamus; the towns of the Veneti by Antenor; the names of Diomedes, Ulysses, Philoctetes constantly appear in the myths of the foundations of the cities.
There is no lack of supposed settlements of fugitive Trojans. Besides the city of Segesta, and the tribe of the Elymi in Sicily, the town of Siris on the river Siris was a supposed Trojan settlement; and Cora owed its foundation to Dardanians. The tradition of the settlement of Æneas in Latium is to be judged by the same criterion as these sagas, which were no doubt generally credited in the various towns concerned. It is, however, no better authenticated or more worthy of belief than the rest, which have no historical foundation, and only arose from the attempt of many Italian cities to trace their origin to the figures of Greek mythology, and especially to connect themselves with the Trojan myth. The analogy therefore forces us to realise that the connection of the story of the settlement in Latium with the Æneas myth has no better authority.
The argument that this story became the state religion of the Romans eight hundred years later rests on a very slight foundation; moreover the religion of the Roman state taught that Mars was the father of the founder of the city. There are countless traditions which (albeit at one time officially recognised) are mere historical fictions.
The test of the historical accuracy of a tradition is the age and the authenticity of the witness for it, not the universality of its recognition at a time in which there was neither the demand for, nor the means of, critical examination. Granted, for example, that Rome had been the city of Tusculum, which owed its origin to Telegonus, and that Rome was the seat of the Mamilii, who traced their descent from the same Telegonus, the Telegonus legend would then no doubt have been invested with the same glory as that of Æneas, and as much honour would have fallen to the Mamilii as was reflected on the Julii from Æneas in Rome.
The Swiss national story of Tell shows how easily romances of this kind grow from popular tales into popular beliefs, and even popular dogma, when they flatter the self-esteem of a people.
Confidently as we may speak of the want of historical foundation for the Roman legend of Æneas, we must recollect the many difficulties in the way of establishing its origin and motive. The Latin legend of Æneas cannot be satisfactorily explained unless light be thrown upon the relation of Æneas to Lavinium.
Lavinium was the Lares and Penates of the whole of Latium. According to Latin religious ideas, every city, every household, every greater community, every street, every crossway, every quarter of the town, had its Lares. In like manner public Lares were appointed for the political family to which all Latium belonged, and we must suppose that at the foundation of the Latin league a spot was appointed for the cult of the Lares of the community. Lavinium bore for Latium the same significance as the temple of Vesta and the temples of the Penates and the Lares bore for Rome. It was the religious centre, the spiritual capital of the Latin confederation.
The Lares and Penates of Rome, as a member, were naturally represented in the Lavinium sanctuary of the confederation. Hence solemn sacrifices were offered annually to the Penates, in the name of the Roman people, by the Roman augurs and flamens, and other sacred rites were performed in their honour. The Roman consuls, prætors, and dictators offered sacrifices to Vesta and the Penates on assuming and resigning office, as did also the Roman emperors when they visited the provinces. The custom may have originated at the time when Rome was a co-ordinate member of the Latin confederation, the members of which alternately appointed the prætor or general of the confederation, who had of course to sacrifice in his official capacity.
The miracles which occurred at the foundation of Lavinium likewise arose from the idea of a city of the Lares and Penates. The first of these prodigies is the sow which indicated the seat of the Penates at the foundation of the city. That a four-footed animal should indicate the seat of a colony is not unprecedented. At Ephesus it was a wild boar; the part is often played by an ox, a fact which led to the frequent appearance of the sacrificial ox in Latin legends. The choice of the sow to indicate the site of the city of the Lares and Penates at the building of Lavinium has its ground in the close association of swine with the Lares.