"Rape of the Sabine Women," Lucretia and the fall of Roman Monarchy; validity of historicity

[Mangalore]

Raiding for the purpose of capturing women was a common practice back then and it seems it is still commonplace in some parts of the world barely touched by modern civilization. Therefore while the details of the Sabines story as we know it today might be the product of imagination, there is a high likelihood that the Romans did something like that at least once in their history.

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The weird part in the story is that the Sabine women are essential in resolving the conflict by convincing the men to make peace with each other. This is kind of weird when this is supposedly an instance of war booty because enslaved men or women would not be in such a position and the Romans or Sabines in no hurry to comply with anything. The resolution of the conflict is not them being returned to the Sabines afterall so it is not really fathomable what the Sabines got out of agreeing to the deal if it was about their enslaved people. Maybe the Romans left out the part where they legalized the unions by paying the Sabines good dowries or returned whoever didn't want to stay? In reverse it is weird that the Romans would see the need to have enslaved women whitewash their actions. They are war booty. By any Greek or Roman standards they lost their social position until they or their children regained freedom again.


To me this is the most indicative that something else was going on and the story conflates something because by straight ancient standards it makes little sense if the women were war spoils.

[Ludicus]

... their whole mission, if I remember correctly, was to kidnap the women and forcefully convince them to marry them instead of the guys they were originally wed to.

Indeed. It's one of the best musical films ever made, AFI "100 Years of Musicals" - American Film Institute

[Cyclops]

The weird part in the story is that the Sabine women are essential in resolving the conflict by convincing the men to make peace with each other. This is kind of weird when this is supposedly an instance of war booty because enslaved men or women would not be in such a position and the Romans or Sabines in no hurry to comply with anything. The resolution of the conflict is not them being returned to the Sabines afterall so it is not really fathomable what the Sabines got out of agreeing to the deal if it was about their enslaved people. Maybe the Romans left out the part where they legalized the unions by paying the Sabines good dowries or returned whoever didn't want to stay? In reverse it is weird that the Romans would see the need to have enslaved women whitewash their actions. They are war booty. By any Greek or Roman standards they lost their social position until they or their children regained freedom again.


To me this is the most indicative that something else was going on and the story conflates something because by straight ancient standards it makes little sense if the women were war spoils.

I think it more likely Livy who confabulated all this rubbish was stacking lie on lie with the clear objective of attaching Roman ancestry to cool Hellenic ancestry myths. He did this by reinterpreting rude Latin tales or outright inventing new ones.

Having invented Romulus from whole cloth as the eponymous founder of Rome (see, Rome isn't actually an Etruscan word for the river Tiber, there was a guy, see, and his name was, wait for it, Rome-u-lus! Geddit?), and having given him Trojan ancestry (possibly to explain the presence of Etruscan culture in Rome, but also adding cool Homeric ancestry, the real objective here) as well as Latin language (falsifying another eponymous figure, King Latinus...see, the guy who gave his name to the Latins was Latin-us...geddit?...he wasn't trying very hard) he had to explain why Romans had Sabine culture as well.

Romans were also known among themselves as Quirites, a Sabine term, and they had many Sabine cultic practices: the possibly historical Numa Pompilius was said to be Sabine so I imagine the real course of events was a minor Latin tribe on the hills by the ford in the Tiber was conquered by a Sabine chief (possibly Numa) who forced his cults on them, and later conquered by Etruscan Maxtarnas such as the Tarquins of Tarquinia and for a brief time Lars Porsena (confusingly from Clusium, not Porsenia which doesn't exist-we're lucky they didn't change his name to Lars Clusinia).

Its very typically of Roman historians to lie about shameful past events.

[Condottiere 40K]

He also committed fratricide, which is condoned, considering intervening Roman history.

[Mangalore]

I think it more likely Livy who confabulated all this rubbish was stacking lie on lie with the clear objective of attaching Roman ancestry to cool Hellenic ancestry myths. He did this by reinterpreting rude Latin tales or outright inventing new ones.
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Which is kind of my point. Your interpretation is something else than simply the Romans seeking an excuse why they had war slaves when that was normal, but as you put it explain away why they are still awesome despite looking so ordinarily similar to their neighbors.