15.5
And it continues to be a custom down to the present time that the bride shall not of herself cross the threshold into her new home, but be lifted up and carried in, because the Sabine women were carried in by force, and did not go in of their own accord. And some say also that the custom of parting the bride’s hair with the head of a spear is a reminder that the first marriage was attended with war and fighting; on which topic I have spoken more fully in my Roman Questions. Morals, p. 285 c (Question 87). Leaving such matters aside, the rape was committed on the eighteenth day of the month once called Sextilis, but now, August, on which day the festival of the ConsualiaA harvest festival named from Consus. See chapter xiv. 3. is celebrated.
16.1
Now the Sabines were a numerous and warlike people, and dwelt in unwalled villages, thinking that it behoved them, since they were Lacedaemonians colonists, to be bold and fearless.
16.2
Nevertheless, seeing themselves bound by precious hostages, and fearing for their daughters, they sent ambassadors with reasonable and moderate demands, namely, that Romulus should give back to them their maidens, disavow his deed of violence, and then, by persuasion and legal enactment, establish a friendly relationship between the two peoples. But Romulus would not surrender the maidens, and demanded that the Sabines should allow community of marriage with the Romans,
16.3
whereupon they all held long deliberations and made extensive preparations for war. But there was one exception. Acron, king of the Caeninenses, a man of courageous spirit and skilled in war, had been suspicious of the daring deeds of Romulus from the beginning, and now that this violence had been done the women, thinking him a menace to all peoples, and intolerable unless chastised, at once rose up in arms, and with a great force advanced against him. Cf. Livy, i. 10.
