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submit to have our daughters taken away from us by treachery and force." Reasonable as this proposition seems, Romulus did not think it best to accede to it. It was, in fact, too late, for such deeds once done can hardly be undone. Romulus replied, that the women, being now the wives of the Romans, could not be surrendered. The violence, he said, of which the Sabines complained was unavoidable. No other possible way had been open to them for gaining the end. He was willing, he added, to enter into a treaty of peace and alliance with the Sabines, but they must acknowledge, as a preliminary to such a treaty, the validity of the marriages, which, as they had already been consummated, could not now be annulled. The Sabines, on their part, could not accede to these proposals. Being, however, still reluctant to commence hostilities, they continued the negotiations--though while engaged in them they seemed to anticipate an unfavorable issue, for they were occupied all the time in organizing troops, strengthening the defenses of their villages and towns, and making other vigorous preparations for war. The Romans, in the mean time, seemed to find the young wives which they had procured by these transactions a great acquisition to their colony. It proved, too, that they not only prized the acquisition, but they exulted so much in the ingenuity and success of the stratagem by which their object had been effected, that a sort of symbolical violence in taking the bride became afterward a part of the marriage ceremony in all subsequent weddings. For always, in future years, when the new-married wife was brought home to her husband's house, it was the custom for him to take her up in his arms at the door, and carry her over the threshold as if by force, thus commemorating by this ceremony the coercion which had signalized the original marriages of his ancestors, the founders of Rome. CHAPTER XII. THE SABINE WAR. B.C. 750-746 King Acron.--Caenina.--Its distance from Rome.--Acron's hostility to the new city.--His plans.--Romulus and Acron meet on the field.--Anticipations of the spectators.--Romulus victorious.--Results of his victory.--Subsequent policy of the Romans.--The trophy of the victory.--First Roman triumph.--Annexation of more cities.--Women summoned.--The address of Romulus.--His promises.--Generous policy pursued by Romulus.--Enlargement of the city.--Plans of the Sabines.--They mature their preparati
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