Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/338

THE THIRD BOOK OF THE COURTIER who escaped that great disaster, some in one direction and some in another; of whom one part, who were buffeted by many storms, came to Italy at that place where the Tiber flows into the sea. Landing here in search of necessaries, they began to roam about the country : the women, who had remained in the ships, bethought themselves of a good plan that would put an end to their perilous and long wandering by sea and give them a new fatherland in place of that which they had lost; and after consulting together in the absence of the men, they burned the ships; and the first to begin the work bore the name Roma. Yet fearing the wrath of the men, who were returning, they went out to meet these; and embracing and kissing, some their husbands, some their kinsmen, with tokens of affection, they softened the first impulse of anger; then they quietly explained to the men the reason of their wise device. Whereupon the Trojans, either from necessity or from having been kindly re- ceived by the natives, were well pleased with what the women had done, and dwelt there with the Latins in the place where afterwards was Rome; and from this arose the ancient custom among the Romans that the women kissed their kinsfolk when they met.*^ Now you see how much these women helped to make a beginning of Rome. 30.—" Nor did the Sabine women contribute less to its increase than the Trojan women did to its beginning. For Romulus, having excited general enmity among all his neighbours by the seizure of their women, was harassed by wars on every side; which (he being a man of ability) were soon brought to a suc- cessful issue, except that with the Sabines, which was very great because Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, was very powerful and wise. Wherefore, a severe conflict having taken place between Romans and Sabines, with very heavy loss on both sides, and a new and cruel battle making ready, the Sabine women, — clad in black, with hair loose and torn, weeping, sorrowful, fearless of the weapons that were already drawn to strike, — rushed in between the fathers and husbands, imploring them to refrain from defiling their hands with the blood of fathers-in-law and sons-in-law. And if the men were still displeased with the alli- ance, let the weapons be turned against the women, for it were ig8