Titus Tatius

According to theRoman foundation myth,Titus Tatius,also calledTatius Sabinus,was king of theSabinesfromCuresand joint-ruler of theKingdom of Romefor several years.

TwoRoman Republicandenarii,minted by Lucius Titurius Sabinus in 89 BC. TheSabineking Titus Tatius is portrayed on both obverses.

During the reign ofRomulus,the firstking of Rome,Tatius declared war on Rome in response to the incident known asThe Rape of the Sabine Women.After he captured the stronghold atop theCapitoline Hillthrough the treachery ofTarpeia,the Sabines and Romans fought anepic battlethat concluded when the abducted Sabine women intervened to convince the two sides to reconcile and end the war. The two kingdoms were joined and the two kings ruled jointly until Tatius' murder five years later.The joint kingdom was still called Rome and the citizens of the city were still called Romans, but as a community, they were to be calledQuirites.The Sabines were integrated into the existing tribes and curies,yet Tatius is not counted as one of the traditional "SevenKings of Rome".

Tatius had one daughter, Tatia, who marriedNuma Pompilius(Romulus' successor), and one son, who was the ancestor of thepatricianTatiifamily.

War with Rome

Further information:Battle of the Lacus CurtiusandThe rape of the Sabine women

Jacques-Louis David:The Intervention of the Sabine Women,1799; Titus Tatius at left

The Death of TatiusbyGirodet,1788

Dionysius of Halicarnassus(c.60BC– after 7BC) reports that after a year of preparation, Rome and the Sabines engaged in several skirmishes and minor engagements before fighting two major battles. Two days after the first battle, the second and final battle between them took place in between the two Roman hills they were occupying. It was an epic contest, featuring multiple reversals wherein each army had, and then lost the upper hand. At the end of the day, the Sabines retreated to the citadel and the Romans didn't pursue them.

Before combat could be resumed, the Sabine women, some in funerary attire, some carrying their children with them, convinced Tatius and Romulus to end the fighting. After a ceasefire, the nations signed a treaty creating a single kingdom under the joint rule of both kings, who reigned together until the death of Tatius.

Death

Tatius Sabinus, afterengraved sard

The two kings together oversaw an expansion of Rome and the building of several landmarks, as well as the conquest ofCameria.Their first disagreement came in the sixth year of their reign. Dionysius relates that some of Tatius' friends had victimized someLaurentiiand when the city sent ambassadors to demand justice, Tatius would not allow Romulus to hand over the perpetrators. After the ambassadors had left for home, a group of Sabines waylaid them as they slept. Some escaped and when word got back to Rome, Romulus promptly arrested and surrendered the men responsible – including a member of Tatius' own family – over to a new group of ambassadors. Tatius followed the group out of the city and freed the accused men by force. Later, while both kings were participating in a sacrifice inLavinium,he was killed in retribution.

The Death of Tatius,Jacques Réattu

Dionysius also tells the account ofLicinius Macer,wherein Tatius was killed when he went alone to try to convince the victims in Lavinium to forgive the crimes committed. When they discovered he had not brought the men responsible with him, as the senate and Romulus had ordered, an angry mob stoned him to death.

History

According toTheodor Mommsen,the story of Tatius' deathseems to be a legend explaining the abolition of blood-revenge, presented as-if it were actual history, and that Tatius, who in some respects resemblesRemus,is not a historical personage, but the eponymous hero of the religious college calledSodales Titii.The members of the sodales were bound to offer a yearly sacrifice at Tatius' grave; all of its members were of senatorial rank.In two different books,Tacitusexpresses two different opinions, which Mommsen interprets as representing two different traditions:

• That either it was instituted by Tatius himself to preserve aSabinecult in Rome;or
• That it was instituted by Romulus in honour of Tatius.

TheTitiihad fallen into abeyance by the end of the republic, but were revived by emperorAugustusand existed to the end of the 2nd century CE. Augustus himself, and the emperorClaudiusbelonged to the college.Varromentions him as a king of Rome who enlarged the city and established certaincults,but he may just have been theeponymof the tribe Titiae, or even an invention to serve as a precedent for collegial magistracy.

Gary Forsythe suggests instead, that Titus Tatius could well have been the first real king of Rome, who was later replaced in the accepted narrative by an unhistoricalRomulus and Remus,whose names have been construed to derive from that of the city itself.

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911). "Titus Tatius".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp.1032–1033.Endnotes:
  • Livy.Ab urbe condita,1:10-14.
  • Tacitus.Annals,i. 54
  • Tacitus.Histories,ii. 95.
  • Dionysius of Halicarnassus.Roman Antiquities,ii. 36–52.
  • Plutarch,Romulus,19–24.
  • Joachim Marquardt(1885).Romische Staatsverwaltung,iii. 446.
  • Schwegler.Romische Geschichte,bk. ix. 3, 14; x. 5.