Roman Elite Ethnicity 459culminates in a formal treaty between the Romans and Sabine communities (Hemker
1985: 41–8; Joplin 1990: 56–8; Brown 1995; Miles 1995: 215–19). While the result
is an expansion of the Roman populace in general, the implications for the Roman elite
are signaled by the joint kingship of Romulus and the Sabine leader Titus Tatius. The
initial consequence of the rape and the treaty that follows is to multiply the ethnicity of
the Roman aristocracy rather than integrate Sabine and Roman. This is made clear in
accounts of the election of the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, a Sabine from
Cures. Numa is chosen despite some concern among thepatresthat a Sabine king would
give the advantage to the Sabine sections of the population (referred to by Livy at this
point as simplySabini, Livy 1.18.5). Such accounts suggest that, at the death of Romu-
lus, “Sabine” and “Roman” are still discrete ethnic identities in potential competition
for the political direction of Rome (Lee-Stecum 2005: 25). The explicit distinction of
Sabine and Roman sections of the population does not seem to outlast Numa. How-
ever, these narratives of Romulus’ and Numa’s Rome reflect a persistent strategy among
the Roman elite of ethnic distinction through familial myths of descent. Sabine origins
in particular continue to provide a respectable etiology for Roman aristocratic families,
whether tracing their descent from the original Romano-Sabines or from later Sabines
(Farney 2007: 29–32).
As with genealogical connections to Trojan progenitors, best known from the mythic
decent of thegens Julia(the family of Julius Caesar and his adopted heir the emperor,
Augustus) from Venus through the Trojan hero Aeneas (Horsfall 1987: 22–4), descent
from Sabine and other Italian peoples carried potent associations for aristocratic fami-
lies in their struggles for status, prestige, and political position. The association of Italic
peoples with hardiness (duritas), simplicity (simplicitas), and rusticity (rusticitas)iswell
expressed by Numanus Remulus, an Italian hero in Virgil’s late first centuryBCEepic the
Aeneid:
We are a hard race. We take our newborn children to the river and harden them in the bitterly
cold stream. Our boys devote themselves to hunting and scour the forests. They break horses
and notch arrows to the bow for sport. Our young men endure toil and are accustomed to
scarcity. They master the land with mattocks and shake towns with war. Our whole lives are
spent with weapons—we even goad the backs of our oxen with a reversed spear. No slow old
age enfeebles our minds or depletes our vigor. We press down our grey hair with the helmet,
always rejoice to carry home fresh plunder, and live off what we take. (Aeneid9.603–13)Numanus Remulus is an enemy of Aeneas and his followers, and Virgil describes his words
as “arrogant” (verbis superbis,Aeneid9.604). Although exaggerated, the qualities that
Numanus claims for Italians had high value for a Roman aristocratic male. Numanus’
name itself is suggestive of the Romans’ appropriation of the qualities he claims: “Nu-
manus” evokes the Sabine king of Rome (Numa), while Remulus conflates the names of
the Alban founders of Rome (Romulus and Remus). Immediately following his speech,
Numanus Remulus is slain by the son of Aeneas, Ascanius (also known as Julus, and
so the eponymous ancestor of thegens Julia). The defeat of Numanus foreshadows the