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