Dear friends of ancient Mythology! Lately I have been taking care of my republic coins. Coin: Roman Republic, L. Titurius L.f. Sabinus, gens Tituria AR - Denarius, 3.96g, 29.92mm, 225° Rome, 89 BC Obv.: Bearded head of king Tatius, bare-headed, r. behind SABIN, before monogram TA (for Tatius) Rev.: 2 Roman soldiers each carrying away a Sabine woman in ex. .TITVRI Ref.: Crawford 344/1a; Sydenham 698; Tituria 1 VF, slightly toned, somewhat excentric Pedigree: ex Lakeview coll. Note: The reverse shows the robbery of the Sabine women. The mintmaster L. Titurius had a son Q. T. Sabinus, who was Caesar's legate in Gaul. He distinguished himself in the battles against the Belgae, Venetians and the Venetians and its leader Viridovix. In 54/3 he was destroyed by personal failure with 15 cohorts by Ambiorix (Pauly). Mythology: Titus Tatius was the mythological co-king of Romulus. As with all figures of early Roman history, it cannot be determined whether he was actually a historical person. The mythologies mainly emerged in the 3rd-2nd centuries B.C. They owe their origin to the belief, deeply rooted in Roman thinking, that Rome had arisen from a fusion of different peoples, which in fact was not so (Mommsen). That the Etruscans had a great influence on the Romans is beyond doubt. But that there was a great influence of the Sabines on the Romans is very doubtful. If one disregards Varro, who was filled with local patriotism, there is nothing to suggest this (Roscher). According to the mythology Titus Tatius was the king of the Sabines. After the theft of girls by the Romans, he led a campaign of revenge against the Romans. When he besieged the Capitol, where the Romans' castle was located, the daughter of the castle commander Spurius Tarpeius, Tarpeia, who was fetching water, met Titus Tatius. She fell head over heels in love with him and, out of love, promised to open the castle gates. Others said she had been bribed out of greed for gold. In any case, the Sabines were able to conquer the Capitol with her help. Tarpeia, however, was sentenced to death by the Sabines themselves for her treachery. The next day, the armies of the Sabines and the Romans engaged in a battle on the plain between the Palatine and the Capitol, which surged back and forth. When the Romans were in the greatest distress, Romulus promised a temple to Jupiter Stator and the fortunes of battle turned against the Sabines. Then the Sabine women, led by Hersilia, threw themselves between the fighters and achieved a reconciliation (Plutarch; Dionysius of Halicarnassus). She is said to have become the wife of Romulus and had 2 children with him, a daughter Prima and a son Aollius (or Avillius). After his death and deification, she also became a goddess under the name Hora. According to others, she became the wife of the Roman Hostius Hostilius, the grandfather of Tullius Hostilius, the legendary third king of Rome. Afterwards, Romans and Sabines formed an alliance (foedus) and Romulus and Titus Tatius ruled Rome together and decided on common laws. Since then, the Romans called themselves populus Romanus Quiritium or simply Quirites, which was considered a venerable name. In Mars and Quirinus they had 2 war gods side by side. And after the death of the first two kings, Sabine and Roman kings alternated, eventually being joined by Etruscan kings, which speaks for their influence on Rome. Tatius lived in arce (the castle of Rome). He introduced Sabine cults in Rome, e.g. for Ianus and Volcanus. After him, one of the 3 tribus into which the Romans were divided after the foundation of Rome is called Titiensis, and, supposedly in order to preserve Sabine cults, he established the priesthood of the Titii sodales, which was later renewed by Augustus, who was himself Titii sodalis. After the death of Tatius, this cult was extended to himself. He had an only daughter, Tatia, who became the wife of Numa Pompilius. Murder of Tatius: One day, emissaries from Laurentium were mistreated by Tatius' relatives. When they were to be called to account by the Laurentians according to international law, Tatius put love for his family above the law. The evil consequence was that when he came to Lavinium to celebrate the sacrifice, he was slain by the Laurentians. Romulus, however, did not start a war because of this. It was said that he did not take this act as evil as it deserved (Livius). But the alliance between Rome and Lavinium had to be solemnly renewed. Tatius was buried on the Aventine. Art History: I have chosen the painting by Jaques-Louis David (1748-1825) "L'intervention des Sabines", 1799, now in the Louvre, Paris. In the centre is Hersilia holding the fighters apart, Titus Tatius with sword on the left, Romulus with spear on the right. David is famous for his historical paintings in the style of classicism. He was a great admirer of Napoleon Bonaparte. Notes: Arx (Lat. = castle) was the northern, higher hill of the Capitoline double hill, where the Ara coeli church is located today. After the unification of the seven-hill city with the Sabine settlement on the Quirinal, the heavily fortified citadel of Rome was located here (Pauly). Sources: (1) Terentius Varro, De lingua Latina (2) Plutarch, Romulus (3) Titus Livius, ab urbe condita (4) Dionysios von Halikarnassos, Antiquitates Romanae (5) Ovid, Metamorphoses Secondary literature: (1) Theodor Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, dtv (2) Der Kleine Pauly (3) Der kleine Stowasser, Lateinisch-deutsches Schulwörterbuch Online Sources (1) zeno-org (2) Wikipedia Excursus: The beginnings of Rome On the bend of the Tiber, where today's Rome lies, moderately high hills rise on both banks, higher on the right, lower on the left. The latter were inhabited by the Ramnes in the most ancient times. But they were not the only ones. They were joined by the Titians and the Lucerians, from whom a common polity (synoicism) emerged. This tripartite division is ancient, as can be seen from the Latin terms for part (tribus) and divide (tribuere). The Ramnes were a Latin tribe and gave the name (Romani) and the Roman language to the newly emerged polity. The Titians seem to have been a Sabellian community and probably imposed synoicism on the Ramnes. They are considered the more venerable in the oldest traditions and had special rituals. These tribes inhabited the surrounding hills and cultivated their fields from there. Rome later emerged from these settlements. There was never an actual city foundation, as in the saga of Remus and Romulus. And certainly not an asylum on the Capitol as a collection point for all kinds of migrants and runaway slaves. What is more interesting is why Rome developed precisely in the lowlands. This was less fertile, had fewer springs and was frequently flooded by the Tiber, so that the whole area became marshy, which of course also made it very unhealthy. This strangeness was already felt in ancient times. But inland, one encounters narrow borders of powerful communities. Only on both banks of the Tiber could Roman settlement extend unhindered. The right bank with the Ianiculum was also part of the settlement area, and Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber was a citizen colony, a kind of suburb. This gave Rome the advantage of a firm trading post on the Tiber, the natural trade route of Latium, which was far enough away from the coast to protect it from pirates (Mommsen). Literature: (1) Theodor Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, dtv (2) Der Kleine Pauly, dtv Best regards Jochen
Livy wrote that all ancient records dating back to the earliest times were destroyed when the Gauls took and burned the city in BC 390. To write his Roman History from the Founding of the City, he relied on aristocratic families' oral traditions and on the oldest laws of the city. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans had no mythology, they called it History. And because the Romans were jurists, most traditional stories about Rome's origins sound like legal commentaries explaining the context, therefore the spirit of Rome's oldest laws. The story about the "asylum", for example, is the foundation of Roman citizenship considered as open to foreigners and even freedmen. Unthinkable in other cities like Sparta, for example! From Romulus (allegedly in BC 753) to Caracalla (AD 212) Roman citizenship was granted to more and more people. The rape of the Sabine women and their intervention to stop the fratricidal war between their brothers and their husbands is said by Plutarch to be the origin of married women's status and rights in Rome.
