ch. 131.13 [Note] Then it was that the Sabine women,
whose wrongs had led to the war, throwing off all womanish fears in their distress, went
boldly into the midst of the flying missiles with dishevelled hair and rent garments.
Running across the space between the two armies they tried to stop any further fighting and
calm the excited passions by appealing to their fathers in the one army and their husbands
in the other not to bring upon themselves a curse by staining their hands with the blood of a
father-in-law or a son-in-law, nor upon their posterity the taint of parricide. If, they
cried, you are weary of these ties of kindred, these marriage-bonds, then turn your anger
upon us; it is we who are the cause of the war, it is we who have wounded and slain our
husbands and fathers. Better for us to perish rather
than live without one or the other of you, as widows or as orphans.
The armies and their leaders were alike moved by this appeal. There was a sudden
hush and silence. Then the generals advanced to arrange the terms of a treaty. It was not
only peace that was made, the two nations were united into one State, the royal power was
shared between them, and the seat of government for both nations was Rome. After thus
doubling the City, a concession was made to the Sabines in the new appellation of Quirites,
from their old capital of Cures. As a memorial of the battle, the place where Curtius got his
horse out of the deep marsh on to safer ground was called the Curtian lake.
[Note] The joyful peace, which put an abrupt close to such a
deplorable war, made the Sabine women still dearer to their husbands and fathers, and
most of all to Romulus himself. Consequently when he effected the distribution of the
people into the thirty curiae, he affixed their names to the curiae. No doubt there were many
more than thirty women, and tradition is silent as to whether those whose names were
given to the curiae were selected on the ground of age, or on that of personal distinction—
either their own or their husbands'—or merely by lot. The enrolment of the three centuries
of knights took place at the same time; the Ramnenses were called after Romulus, the
Titienses from T. Tatius. The origin of the Luceres and why they were so called is uncertain.
Thenceforward the two kings exercised their joint sovereignty with perfect harmony.
