The Ancient Origins News Desk
Tarpeia and Hersilia: The Two Faces of Loyalty in Early Rome | Ancient Origins
Tarpia and Hercelia, the two faces of loyalty in early Rome. Tarpia and Hercelia, two women featured in the early tales of Rome, had diametrically opposed stories and very different life outcomes. In ancient Roman folklore, Tarpia has become a symbol of avarice and betrayal, with her name used as a warning against putting personal ambition ahead of loyalty to Rome. In contrast, Hercelia emerges as a symbol of reconciliation and unification, mediating between Romans and Sabines to establish peace and togetherness amidst strife. These women represent two completely different paths for women in early Roman history, one representing a cautionary tale of betrayal and the other standing as a model of concord and civic virtue, the Sabine women and the founding of Rome. The heroic Romulus, founder of Rome, is portrayed in ancient sources as shaping the people into an elite citizen body, which unfortunately lacks women among their numbers. Thus early Rome experienced a population crisis. Romulus approached the neighboring Sabines to secure alliances between his men and the Sabine women. Romulus advances were rejected by the Sabine Fathers, who sneered at any alliance with their chase daughters and the proposal of turning them into Romans, implying the Romans were outcasts with loose morals. How to empress, first imperial women of Rome, keepers of the sacred flame from ancient Rome to India. However, the Sabine families were unable to resist an invitation to a feast in celebration of Neptune and arrived, according to Livy, out of curiosity. At some point, each of Romulus' men violently took a girl captive and forced them to marry Roman men. Livy reports that only virgins were taken for this purpose. However, the number of the virgins vary. Valerius Antius claims 527 women were taken, while Juba suggests that there were 683 women. One exception to this was one married woman, Hersilia who, in the chaos, was taken by the Romans by mistake. The abduction sparked indignation and further skirmishes with neighboring villages, culminating in a war between Rome and the Sabines, which was led by Titus Tacius, the Sabine king. Despite the initial violence, the Sabine women went on to play an important role in brokering peace by positioning themselves and their children between the warring sides. Their deeds brought Romans and Sabines together, with the Sabine parents eventually becoming integrated into Roman society and areas of the city named after the women. Livy tries his best to write about this distasteful episode of abduction and rape before moving on as quickly as he can. It was therefore left to ovid to highlight the severity of the event, including the shift of blame to the victims, alluding to the Sabine women's reluctance as a quality that stirred the Romans' passion, a reflection of the cultural perception of feminine modesty and resistance being desirable traits in romantic pursuits during his time. Livy's contemporaries accepted the story on its own terms, which would have included a sincere desire to represent Rome's founding mothers as attractive and virginal descendants of a pure bloodline, emphasizing the feminine role as perpetrator of the familia. Read more by Martini Fisher