444 Gary D. Farney
Figure 29.5 Reverse of 344/1a: Rape of Sabine Women. Courtesy of Rutgers University
Libraries, Special Collections, Badian Coin Collection.
the heroic Volusus Valerius, Attus Clausus, and Spurius Vettius. Others went to some
length to advertise famous moments in Sabine–Roman “history,” such as the Rape of
the Sabine Women or the Killing of Tarpeia (see Figures 29.5 and 29.6). Some scholars,
such as Cato the Elder, claimed that Volusus and Sabus were, in fact, Spartan emigrants,
or that the Sabines followed legendary Peloponnesian kings such as “Oebalus” and
Orestes to Italy. We shall see that Spartan roots were also assigned to (or rather pro-
moted by) the Apennine peoples of south Italy as a way of explainingtheirmartial skill
and legendary austerity.
In fact, one of the defining characteristics of the Sabine people was their great reputa-
tion for toughness, modesty, frugality, and piety. They were the first of a “mountain-man”
group that produced a figure peculiar to Roman culture, which Dench aptly describes
as “the incorporated outsider who embodies Rome’s morally upright past” (1995: 68).
This image can be found in the writings of Calpurnius Piso Frugi, Varro, and Sallust, all
of whom, one notes, claimed a Sabine origin for themselves. Though widely accepted by
the end of the Republic, this image had not always been in place. At around 200BCE,
Fabius Pictor and Cincius Alimentus knew about Sabines who were as rich and luxury
loving as Etruscans, and, at the same time, Ennius described Titus Tatius as a tyrant. Cato
the Elder may have had a hand in changing this reputation, in his work on the origins of
the all the peoples of Italy, theOrigines(Dench 1995 esp. 67–94; 1996; 1998; Farney
2007: 97–112).