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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1782149, member: 19463&quot;]Perhaps everyone already realizes these points but there are two things necessary to understand these coins.&nbsp; First, the moneyer was descended from a family of Sabine origin so using an art style not exactly standard Roman would be a bit like someone in the US employing a style recalling his Native American, Asian or Hispanic heritage.&nbsp; The portrait on these coins probably spoke more clearly to those of Sabine heritage in that day than it does to us now.&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&#039;Rape&#039; as in &#039;Rape of the Sabines&#039; refers to a fact that early Rome had a great surplus of young men and a shortage of young women.&nbsp; An answer to this problem would be to raid neighboring towns and steal no gold or other treasures but daughters.&nbsp; Livy points out that the women involved were treated with great respect and became the mothers of the Roman people.&nbsp; Latin raptio means abduction rather than sexual violation.&nbsp; The losers here would have been the fathers of the volunteer brides who had no say if their daughters chose to go Roman and who probably got no dowry as might be expected if a proper young man sought their daughters in a standard way.&nbsp;&nbsp; </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>When it comes to historical coins, these are hard to beat.&nbsp; Of course there is always a problem deciding where history and mythology separate just as we in the US have when dealing with George Washington and his cherry tree.&nbsp; I suspect Rome raided the Sabines for women.&nbsp; Whether they carried the off underarm as shown on the coin is another question.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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