, as a monument to posterity, that this
city was saved by thy immediate aid." Having offered up this prayer, as
if he had felt that his prayers were heard, he cries out, "At this spot,
Romans, Jupiter, supremely good and great, commands you to halt, and
renew the fight." The Romans halted as if they had been commanded by a
voice from heaven; Romulus himself flies to the foremost ranks. Mettus
Curtius, on the part of the Sabines, had rushed down at the head of his
army from the citadel, and driven the Romans in disorder over the whole
ground now occupied by the forum. He was already not far from the gate
of the Palatium, crying out, "We have defeated these perfidious
strangers, these dastardly enemies. They now feel that it is one thing
to ravish virgins, another far different to fight with men." On him,
thus vaunting, Romulus makes an attack with a band of the most
courageous youths. It happened that Mettus was then fighting on
horseback; he was on that account the more easily repulsed: the Romans
pursue him when repulsed: and the rest of the Roman army, encouraged by
the gallant behaviour of their king, routs the Sabines. Mettus, his
horse taking fright at the din of his pursuers, threw himself into a
lake; and this circumstance drew the attention of the Sabines at the
risk of so important a person. He, however, his own party beckoning and
calling to him, acquires new courage from the affection of his many
friends, and makes his escape. The Romans and Sabines renew the battle
in the valley between the hills; but Roman prowess had the advantage.

13. At this juncture the Sabine women, from the outrage on whom the war
originated, with hair dishevelled and garments rent, the timidity of
their sex being overcome by such dreadful scenes, had the courage to
throw themselves amid the flying weapons, and making a rush across, to
part the incensed armies, and assuage their fury; imploring their
fathers on the one side, their husbands on the other, "that as
fathers-in-law and sons-in-law they would not contaminate each other
with impious blood, nor stain their offspring with parricide, the one
[19]their grandchildren, the other their children. If you are
dissatisfied with the affinity between you, if with our marriages, turn
your resentment against us; we are the cause of war, we of wounds and of
bloodshed to our husbands and parents. It were better that we perish
than live widowed or fatherless without one or other of you." The