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uncertainty regarding the number of the Sabine maidens we are unfor- 

 tunately not rescued by a statement of an old annalist, Valerius of 

 Antium, who is never at a loss for a number. He boldly and unscru- 

 pulously states the number to have been 627 ! The same Valerius 

 knows also, how many senators were left at the expulsion of Tarquin the 

 Proud, and how many new ones were added by Brutus or Publicola. To 

 him, no doubt, we owe the various highly accurate statements respecting 

 the number of slain in the early battles ; as for instance in a battle 

 which his namesake Valerius Publicola is said to have gained over the 

 Sabines in the 4th year of the Republic, and in which 1,300 Sabines 

 were killed, wliilst the Romans did not lose a single man ! 



Another writer, Juba, quoted by Plutarch,* has a statement pretend- 

 ing to a similar accuracy respecting the number of the Sabine maidens, 

 which he asserts to have amounted to 683. These figures prove nothing 

 but the barefaced impudence of those who give them; and instead of 

 imparting to the legend in question a character of greater authenti- 

 city, they tend to prove that it was not firmly established in the ima- 

 gination of the Romans, and could be treated ad libitum by every 

 successive writer. 



I am therefore not inclined to approve of Niebuhr's conjecture, 

 that there is nevertheless some historical foundation for the tale. He 

 fancies, that the aboriginal Romans, settled on the Palatine hill, lived in 

 a sort of dependence on the Sabines, who occupied the Capitol and the 

 Quirinal ; that they had not the connuhium, i. e. the right of inter- 

 marriage with them ; that, however, at one time they were aroused to a 

 consciousness of their strength and importance, and in a war with their 

 proud neighbours compelled them to grant the right in question, which 

 they were too haughty to concede to their entreaties ; that in conse- 

 quence of this war and a subsequent alliance, the Romans and Sabines 

 became one people by intermarriage, and formed one body poHtic. f 



This hypothesis, ingenious as it is, does not satisfy me. Tt inverts 

 the order of events in the legend, by placing the war of the Sabines 

 before, instead of after the intermarriage. It is another, though more 

 refined and clever mode of coining history out of fables. I would lay 

 it down as a leading principle of historical investigation, that when a 

 popular tradition is intended to explain the origin of some national 

 custom, a religious ceremony, the introduction of some peculiarity in 

 social or political life, it is to be assumed, that the matter intended to be 

 explained by the stoiy has given rise to it ; that the story is a fiction, 

 intended to explain the thing ; in other words, that in general popular 



* Romulns 14. 

 4 Niebnhr, Roman Hist I., page of note 746- 

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