and Tarpeius their captain. But Tarpeia, daughter to the captain,
coveting the golden bracelets she saw them wear, betrayed the fort
into the Sabines' hands, and asked, in reward of her treachery,
the things they wore on their left arms. Tatius conditioning thus
with her, in the night she opened one of the gates and received
the Sabines in. And truly Antigonus, it would seem, was not
solitary in saying he loved betrayers, but hated those who had
betrayed; nor Caesar, who told Rhymitalces the Thracian that he
loved the treason, but hated the traitor; but it is the general
feeling of all who have occasion for wicked men's services, as
people have for the poison of venomous beasts; they are glad of
them while they are of use, and abhor their baseness when it is
over. And so did Tatius behave towards Tarpeia, for he commanded
the Sabines, in regard to their contract, not to refuse her the
least part of what they wore on their left arms; and he himself
first took his bracelet off his arm, and threw that, together with
his buckler, at her; and all the rest following, she, being borne
down and quite buried with the multitude of gold and their
shields, died under the weight and pressure of them; Tarpeius also
himself, being prosecuted by Romulus, was found guilty of treason,
and that part of the Capitol they still call the Tarpeian Rock,
from which they used to cast down malefactors.

The Sabines being possessed of the hill, Romulus, in great fury,
bade them battle, and Tatius was confident to accept it. There
were many brief conflicts, we may suppose, but the most memorable
was the last, in which Romulus having received a wound on his head
by a stone, and being almost felled to the ground by it, and
disabled, the Romans gave way, and, being driven out of the level
ground, fled towards the Palatium. Romulus, by this time