Source Verification: The Rape of the Sabine Women

What the Sources Attest

Where Accounts Differ

• motive-of-the-abduction
• number-of-women
• date-of-the-abduction
• god-of-the-games
• the-first-enemy
• tarpeia-motive-and-fate
• who-arranged-the-intervention
• hersilia-status
• honours-to-the-women
• end-of-the-joint-rule
• framing-of-consent

• The motive is disputed. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.9, gives necessity: no wives and no right of intermarriage. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 14, reports a view that Romulus wanted war and took only thirty women, and rejects it as unlikely. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 2.31.1, lists a scarcity of women, a pretext for war and alliance by kinship, and prefers the last.
• The number of women differs. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 14, gives thirty, 527 (Valerius Antias) and 683 (Juba). Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 2.30.6, counts 683, and at 2.47.4 gives Varro's 527 as the women who went on the embassy, not the women seized.
• The date differs. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 14, says the fourth month after the founding, following Fabius, and names 18 August, the Consualia, at 15. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 2.31.1, says some place it in Romulus's first year and Gnaeus Gellius in the fourth, which he thinks likelier.
• The god of the games is uncertain. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.9, says Equestrian Neptune. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 14, says Consus, god of counsel or an equestrian Neptune. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 2.31.2-3, gives Consus as an earth-god or a hidden divinity of counsels, and says the truth is hard to tell.
• The first enemy is told differently. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.10, has the Caeninenses raid Roman land and Romulus kill their unnamed king in the fighting. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 16, names the king Acron and has the two leaders fight a single combat. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 2.33, has Romulus kill the king as he meets the Caeninenses.
• Tarpeia's motive and fate are disputed. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.11, gives bribery and two versions of her price, gold or shields, and two reasons for her death. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 17, adds that some make her the daughter of Tatius acting at his command, and that Simylus makes her betray Rome to the Gauls. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 2.38-2.40, records Lucius Piso's version, in which she meant to disarm the Sabines.
• Who arranged the women's intervention differs. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.13, gives it as a spontaneous act. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 19, and Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 2.45, name Hersilia as the leader, and Dionysius has the senate approve the embassy. Ovid, Fasti 3.205-228, has the women meet in Juno's temple on a daughter-in-law of Mars's advice.
• Hersilia's status differs. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.11, calls her Romulus's wife. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 14, says she was the one married woman taken, wife of Hostilius or, in other accounts, of Romulus. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 2.45.2, says some make her a married woman seized as a virgin, but the more probable account is that she stayed of her own free will with her daughter.
• The honours to the women are disputed. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.13, says the curiae took their names from the women and admits tradition is silent on how they were chosen. Plutarch, Life of Romulus 20, calls that false, since many curiae bear place names. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 2.47.3-4, reports both views, with Varro against.
• The end of the joint rule differs. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.14, has Tatius killed at Lavinium after his kinsmen ill-treated Laurentine envoys. Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 2.50.4, says the kings reigned together five years first, and at 2.52 gives two versions of the killing.
• The ancient accounts frame the abduction as a route to marriage and record the women's persuasion. Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.9, says the women were despondent and indignant until Romulus reasoned with them, and Dionysius, Roman Antiquities 2.30.5, says he told them it was for marriage. The consent this implies is the historians' claim, not the women's. This page reports the framing and does not endorse it.

Sources