LEGENDARY WOMEN AFTER “THE SABINE WOMEN”
looked at how the “Seizure of the Sabine Women”, “Hersilia’s Intervention” at
Antemnae, and the “Intervention” of the women themselves between their fathers and
their new husbands at Rome have been treated in art over the centuries (especially since
the Renaissance).
2. We glanced in particular at treatments by such artists as
• a) Pietro da Cortona (1627-29)
• b) Nicolas Poussin (1633-34)
• c) Peter Paul Rubens (1635-1637)
• d) Niccolò Bambini (life: 1651 – 1736)
• e) Charles Christian Nahl (1871)
• f) Pablo Picasso (1962) and even
• g) John Leech (life: 1817 – 1864) [as part of his “Comic History of Rome”]; then
• h) Giovanni Francesco Barbieri “Guercino” (1591 – 1666) and
• i) Jacques-Louis David (1799)
1. We
3. And
we saw how no known depictions of this legendary event survive from the
Roman period until 89 BC when the seizure (“rape”) of the women is a theme on
some of the coin issues of the moneyer Lucius Titurius Sabinus.
TARPEIA
1. In the midst of the events surrounding the seizure of the Sabine women and
the return of their parents seeking restitution, another woman, TARPEIA,
played a treacherous role – at least according to some historians of the Roman
period, including Livy.
2. In Livy’s account [Book 1. 11]
• The fathers of the Sabine women had planned their assault on Rome well and it
was backed by treachery.
• The commander of the Roman citadel, Spurius Tarpeius had a daughter,
TARPEIA, a young girl, who had gone outside the walls to fetch water.
• She was bribed by the Sabine king, Titus Tatius, to admit a party of Sabine
soldiers into the citadel.
• Once inside, the soldiers crushed her under their shields to make it look as if
they had taken the place by storm or to show that there must be no trust of a
traitor.
• There was also a story, Livy continues, that she had demanded as her price
what was on the soldiers’ shield-arms, by which she meant the heavy gold
bracelets and fine jewelled rings the Sabines wore, but they rewarded her with
the shields they were carrying.
2. Juxtaposing the two accounts Livy emphasizes the female ideal and its
antithesis:
a) the Sabine women, though foreigners who have become Romans by
force, show loyalty both to their parents and to their husbands, reconciling
the two, whereas
b) Tarpeia, though Roman by birth, shows a greed which fails her father, her
country, and her gods.
3. But Livy’s is not the only version.
• The contemporary of Livy, the Augustan poet PROPERTIUS, does not see
TARPEIA so much as a traitor but as a woman torn between her love for the
Sabine king and her duty to country.
• She realizes the implications of her love but sees how, by marrying Titus Tatius,
she will, like the Sabine women, combine marriage and peace-making.
• Her hope is that the two communities, Roman and Sabine, will come together –
just as marriage brings two families together and strengthens society.
• Tarpeia’s story has also been a theme for sketches and some paintings over the
centuries too (including a painting by a follower of Giulio Mazzoni):
TARPEIA MAKES A DEAL
TARPEIA ADMITS SABINE TROOPS
INTO THE ROMAN CITADEL
FANCIFUL DEPICTIONS OF TARPEIA’S FATE
“THE
PUNISHMENT
OF TARPEIA”
- AFTER THE
SCHOOL OF
GIULIO MAZZONI
(1525 – 1618)
Tarpeia does not appear in any known pictorial presentation during the Roman
period until 89 BC when, again, the moneyer Lucius Titurius Sabinus made her
death a theme for some of his coin issues:
LUCIUS TITURIUS SABINUS,
MONEYER IN 89 BC. HE STILL
REFERS TO THE SABINE KING
TITUS TATIUS BUT ON THESE
COINS RECORDS THE FATE OF
TARPEIA.
But then she appears again on the state’s coinage some seven decades later under
the first Princeps, Augustus (27 BC – AD 14) when the moneyer Publius
Petronius Turpilianus (active from 19 to 4 BC) again made her story a theme.
THE HEAD OF AUGUSTUS AND
TARPEIA OVERWHELMED BY THE
SHIELDS OF THE SABINE TROOPS
PUBLIUS PETRONIUS TURPILIANUS
CHOSE (FOR NO CLEAR REASON) TO
RECORD TARPEIA’S FATE
Tarpeia’s fate is also depicted on a relief on part of the Basilica Aemilia (originally
erected in 179 BC) in the Roman Forum, the relief itself seemingly belonging to
the first century AD rather than earlier.
A FRIEZE IN THE BASILICA AEMILIA IN THE FORUM ROMANUM
(usually dated to the first century AD)
Tarpeia’s greatest claim to fame in antiquity was, perhaps, her lending her name to
the infamous ROCK in Rome (“the Tarpeian Rock”) from which the convicted,
especially traitors, were very occasionally thrown.
But whether the rock was named after her or her story was ‘invented’ to explain
the name of the rock isn’t clear.
ARTIST’S IMPRESSION OF
THE TARPEIAN ROCK
FROM WHICH TRAITORS
WERE VERY OCCASIONALLY
CAST
Continuing with “the period of the kings”, we should not omit the role of
TANAQUIL, the foreign wife (who became Roman) of King Tarquin I – although
later artists do not appear to have been eager to represent her pictorially.
TANAQUIL
Livy [1.33] tells how ……
• in the Etruscan state of Tarquinii an aristocratic young woman named
TANAQUIL married Lucumo, the son of a Greek refugee.
• Her husband seemed unlikely to advance in his career there since he was not of
pure Etruscan descent.
• Determined to see Lucumo enjoy the respect he deserved, TANAQUIL
“smothered all feelings of natural affection for her native town and determined to
abandon it for ever.”
• The couple moved to Rome as emigrés and bought a house, Lucumo changing
his name to ‘Lucius Tarquinius Priscus’.
• Establishing his reputation, Tanaquil’s husband became well known to King
Ancus Marcius [traditional dates 642-617 BC] and was eventually chosen as his
successor (no doubt encouraged by his wife).
• When Tarquinius, after a 37-year reign, was fatally attacked by the sons of his
predecessor, TANAQUIL, hiding his death, urged her young protégé, Servius
Tullius, to prepare himself to take over the throne.
• TANAQUIL then hurried to an upper window in the palace and began to
address the gathering crowds.
• “She declared that the king had been stunned by a blow, had suffered only a
superficial wound and was already recovering”.
• She begged them, in the meantime, to give their support to Servius Tullius who
would see the attackers of the king brought to justice and who would deputize
for the king.
And so TANAQUIL played a role both by urging her husband on and by
manipulating the situation after his death and was successful in putting two of
Rome’s kings on the throne.
Furthermore, she was the ‘mother’ or ‘grandmother’ (Livy was unsure which) of
the final king, Tarquinius Superbus [Tarquin II] who ruled tyrannically and was
expelled from the state with the whole Tarquin clan, bringing the monarchy to an
end.
To Romans of the historical period it is likely to have been a matter of concern that
a woman (a foreign woman at that) had such influence in the political affairs of the
state.
LUCRETIA
1. a) The “tyrannical” rule of the second Tarquin (Tarquinius Superbus) brought the
Tarquins into disrepute.
b) But it was the behaviour of a particular member of the family, Sextus
Tarquinius, in forcing himself on the noblewoman LUCRETIA which, more
than anything, led to the expulsion of the whole clan (gens) and the overthrow
of ‘kings’ for ever.
2. a) Sextus, developing a passion for Lucretia, raped her and rode away.
b) She wrote to her father and her husband begging them to come to her.
3. When asked whether she was well, she replied: “No. What can be well with a
woman who has lost her honour? …. My body only has been violated. My heart
is innocent, and death will be my witness.”
This Livy’s account.
4. Livy then relates how she made both her father and her husband promise to
avenge her.
5. He continues:
a) “The promise was given. One after another they tried to comfort her. They
told her that she had been helpless and, therefore, innocent; that Sextus
alone was guilty.
b) It was the mind, they said, that sinned, not the body: without intention
there could not be guilt. ‘What is due to him,” Lucretia said, “is for you to
decide. As for me, I am innocent of fault, but I will take my punishment.
Never shall Lucretia provide a precedent for unchaste women to escape
what they deserve.’
6. With these words she drew a knife from under her robe, drove it into her heart,
and fell forward, dead.”
Lucretia’s story has been almost endlessly depicted by artists:
Tiziano Vecelli (TITIAN)
(ca 1488/90 – 1576)
[In the Fitzwilliam Museum]
Hans von
Aachen
(1552 – 1615)
Peter Paul Rubens
(1577-1640)
Artemisia Gentileschi
(1593 - ca 1656)
[The Earliest Female Artist to
depict the Theme]
Rembrandt
Harmenszoon
van Rijn
(1606-1669)
Jacques-Louis David
(1748-1825)
Felice Ficherelli
(1605-1660)
(late 1630s)
Giuseppe Maria Crespi
(1665-1747)
Lucas Cranach the Elder
(ca 1472 – 1553)
Jacopino del Conte
(1510 – 1598)
[1532]
Rembrandt
Harmenszoon
van Rijn
(1606-1669)