At the advance of the Sabines, some of the Latin towns maintained their ground, others gave way. Fidenæ belongs to the former class: north of it all is Sabine. Now we find at the side of Old Roma a Sabine town on the Quirinal and Capitoline, hard by the Latin one; yet the existence of this town is all that we know of it. A tradition is extant, that before that there had once been a Siculian town, Saturnia,[55] on the Capitoline; this then must have been conquered by the Sabines. Whatever may have been the case with regard to this, and to the existence of an old town on the Janiculum, there were here a number of small towns. The two cities could exist together, as there was a deep marsh between them.
The town on the Palatine may have been for a long time dependent on the Sabine conqueror, who, according to tradition, was Titus Tatius, and hence it is that his memory has been so hated. He was slain at the sacrifice of Laurentum. Ennius calls him a tyrant in the well-known line:
O Tite, tute, Tati, tibi tanta tyranne tulisti.
The existence of a Sabine town on the Quirinal hill is confirmed by the number of Sabine chapels which undoubtedly stood there, as Varro still knew, who proved from this fact that the Sabine ritual was received by the Romans. This Sabine element in the Roman worship has almost always been mistaken.[56]
The legend that by the rape of the virgins war had arisen between the Sabines and Romans, is without doubt a symbolical account of the relation between the two places, when as yet there was no intermarriage between them. The Sabines had the upper hand, and denied it; the Romans conquered it by force of arms. The Sabines were certainly originally the masters; but by some movement of the Romans, other Sabine places like Antemnæ and Fidenæ, were subjected, and the Sabines were thus isolated from their countrymen. The Romans again insisted upon their independence, and from thence arose war, the issue of which may have been that which is handed down to us,—only that Romulus is to be set aside,—namely, that both places formed a sort of confederacy as two closely united towns, each with a senate of a hundred men and a king, with an offensive and defensive alliance; and that in common deliberation, the assembly of their clans met on that spot between the two cities which afterwards bore the name of Comitium. Thus they formed against the foreigner only one state.
The account of a double state existed already among the ancients; yet the only proofs of it which have been preserved are scattered notices here and there, chiefly among the scholiasts. The head of Janus which in the earliest times is represented on the Roman As, is symbolical of it. Roman antiquaries have quite correctly understood this. The empty royal throne by the side of the Curule seat of Romulus refers to the time when there was one king only, and is emblematical of the equal but dormant right of the other people.[57]
It is also historical that this agreement was not of long duration; and that the Roman king usurped the rule over the Sabines; and that the two councils combined and formed one senate under one king, it being also settled that the king should by turns be a Roman and a Sabine; and that each time the king should be chosen by the other people, yet that no one should be forced upon the non-electing people whom they did not like, but that he should only be able to enter upon the imperium, if in the first place the auguries were favourable, and moreover the whole people had confirmed him. The other tribe had therefore the right of recognising or rejecting the king elect. This is told of Numa as a fact; yet it is merely a representation of the right taken from the books of rituals. This strange double act of election, which seems such a riddle, and was formerly so entirely misunderstood, is in this manner quite intelligible.
When the two states amalgamated, after having existed separately perhaps for ages, the towns ceased to be towns, and the collective mass of their clans formed itself into tribes. The nation consisted therefore of two tribes. From the earliest times the style of addressing the Roman people was, Populus Romanus Quirites, out of which, when the origin was forgotten, Populus Romanus Quiritium was made; just as lis vindiciæ afterwards was into lis vindiciarum. This change is older than Livy; yet the correct use of the phrase is still met with in his time, though much encroached upon by the false one. The old tradition says that the name Quirites had after the union of the two tribes been adopted as a common one. But this is false. The name first becomes common at a very late period only. When for a long time there had been no more difference between Romans and Sabines, nor between these and the Luceres; and even later, when that between the patricians and plebeians had become almost wholly extinct, this denomination still remained, and was transferred to the plebeians. Thus the two towns stood side by side as tribes (tribus), and it is merely in acknowledgment of the old tradition that we call the Latins Ramnes, and the Sabines Tities. That the derivation from Romulus and T. Tatius is incorrect, does not impair the truth of the main assertion.
Dionysius, who had good materials, and made use of very many of them, must indeed, for the time of the Consuls, have sometimes had more than he gives; especially concerning one important change in the constitution, where he has a few words only, and has either not seen clearly, or has been careless.[58] Yet with regard to the olden times of the kings he was clear. He says that there had been a dissension between the two tribes concerning the senates, which Numa had compromised, by not taking any thing for the Ramnes as the first tribe, but bestowing honours upon the Tities. This is perfectly plain. The senate, which at first consisted of one hundred, but now of two, was divided into ten decuries, each of which had a president. These are the decem primi, and these were taken from the Ramnes. They formed among themselves the Collegium, which, when there was no king, held the government by rotation; each for five days, yet so that the same always came back in their turn, as we must correctly assume with Livy. As for Dionysius, he brings in his Greek notions, taken from the Attic Prytanies; and Plutarch quite misunderstands the matter.
Not only the senate, but also the augurs and pontiffs, were doubled in number; so that each college consisted of four members, two of them from the Ramnes, and two from the Tities. These changes were attached indeed by Dionysius and Cicero to the names of certain kings; yet this must not hinder us from acknowledging them as quite historical.