great act
of treachery was perpetrated upon them, but they were wholly in the
dark in respect to the nature and design of it. They were chiefly
unarmed, and wholly unprepared for so sudden an attack, and they fled
in all directions in dismay, protecting themselves and their wives and
children as well as they could, as they retired, and aiming only to
withdraw as large a number as possible from the scene of violence and
confusion that prevailed. The Romans were careful not to do them any
injury, but, on the contrary, to allow them to withdraw, and to take
away all the mothers and children without any molestation. In fact, it
was the very object and design of the onset which they made upon the
company, not only to seize upon the maidens, but to drive all the rest
of their visitors away. The men, therefore, in the excitement and
terror of the moment, fled in all directions, taking with them those
whom they could most readily secure, who were, of course, those whom
the Romans left to them; while the Romans themselves withdrew with
their prizes, and secured them within the walls of the city.

In reading this extraordinary story, we naturally feel a strong
disposition to inquire what part the damsels themselves took, when
they found themselves thus suddenly seized and carried away, by these
daring and athletic assailants. Did they resist and struggle to get
free, or did they yield themselves without much opposition to their
fate? That they did not resist effectually is plain, for the Roman
young men succeeded in carrying them away, and securing them. It may
be that they attempted to resist, but found their strength overpowered
by the desperate and reckless violence of their captors. And yet, it
can not be denied that woman is endued with the power of making by
various means a very formidable opposition to any attempt to abduct
her by any single man, when she is thoroughly in earnest about it. How
it was in fact in this case we have no direct information, and we have
consequently no means of forming any opinion in respect to the light
in which this rough and lawless mode of wooing was regarded by the
objects of it, except from the events which subsequently occurred.

One incident took place while the Romans were seizing and carrying
away their prizes, which was afterward long remembered, as it became
the foundation of a custom which continued for many centuries to form
a part of the marriage ceremony at Rome. It seems that s