distinctions and
privileges.]

[Footnote 9: This story of the rape of the Sabines belongs to the
class of what are called "etiological" myths--i. e., stories invented
to account for a rite or custom, or to explain local names or
characteristics. The custom prevailed among Greeks and Romans of the
bridegroom pretending to carry off the bride from her home by force.
Such a custom still exists among the nomad tribes of Asia Minor. The
rape of the Sabine women was invented to account for this custom.]

[Footnote 10: The spolia opima (grand spoils)--a term used to denote
the arms taken by one general from another--were only gained twice
afterward during the history of the republic; in B.C. 437, when A.
Cornelius Cossus slew Lars Tolumnius of Veii; and in B.C. 222, when
the consul M. Claudius Marcellus slew Viridomarus, chief of the
Insubrian Gauls.]

[Footnote 11: The place afterward retained its name, even when filled
up and dry. Livy (Book VII) gives a different reason for the name:
that it was so called from one Marcus Curtius having sprung, armed,
and on horseback, several hundred years ago (B.C. 362), into a gulf
that suddenly opened in the forum; it being imagined that it would
not close until an offering was made of what was most valuable in the
state--i. e., a warrior armed and on horseback. According to Varro,
it was a locus fulguritus (i. e., struck by lightning), which was
inclosed by a consul named Curtius.]

[Footnote 12: Supposed to be derived from "Lucumo," the name or,
according to more accepted commentators, title of an Etruscan chief
who came to help Romulus.--D.O.]

[Footnote 13: The inhabitants of Fidenae, about five miles from Rome,
situated on the Tiber, near Castel Giubileo.--D.O.]

[Footnote 14: About twelve and a half miles north of Rome, close to
the little river Cremera; it was one of the most important of the
twelve confederate Etruscan towns. Plutarch describes it as the
bulwark of Etruria: not inferior to Rome in military equipment and
numbers.]

[Footnote 15: A naively circumstantial story characteristically told.
Though a republican, it is quite evident that Livy wishes to convey
the idea that Romulus, having by the creation of a body-guard aspired
to tyrannical power, was assassinated by the senate.--D.O.]

[Footnote 16: The reading in this section is uncertain.]

[Footnote 17: Two interpretations are given of this passage--(1)
that out of each decury one senator was chosen by lo