Hostius Hostilius.  The latter, in the front of the battle, on unfavourable ground, supported the fortunes of the Romans by his courage and boldness.  When Hostius fell, the Roman line immediately gave way, and, being routed, was driven as far as the old gate of the Palatium.  Romulus himself also, carried away by the crowd of fugitives, cried, uplifting his arms to heaven:  “O Jupiter, it was at the bidding of thy omens, that here on the Palatine I laid the first foundations for the city.  The citadel, purchased by crime, is now in possession of the Sabines:  thence they are advancing hither in arms, having passed the valley between.  But do thou, O father of gods and men, keep back the enemy from hence at least, dispel the terror of the Romans, and check their disgraceful flight.  On this spot I vow to build a temple to thee as Jupiter Stator, to be a monument to posterity that the city has been preserved by thy ready aid.”  Having offered up these prayers, as if he had felt that they had been heard, he cried:  “From this position, O Romans, Jupiter, greatest and best, bids you halt and renew the fight.”  The Romans halted as if ordered by a voice from heaven.  Romulus himself hastened to the front.  Mettius Curtius, on the side of the Sabines, had rushed down from the citadel at the head of his troops and driven the Romans in disordered array over the whole space of ground where the Forum now is.  He had almost reached the gate of the Palatium, crying out:  “We have conquered our perfidious friends, our cowardly foes:  now they know that fighting with men is a very different thing from ravishing maidens.”  Upon him, as he uttered these boasts, Romulus made an attack with a band of his bravest youths.  Mettius then happened to be fighting on horseback:  on that account his repulse was easier.  When he was driven back, the Romans followed in pursuit:  and the remainder of the Roman army, fired by the bravery of the king, routed the Sabines.  Mettius, his horse taking fright at the noise of his pursuers, rode headlong into a morass:  this circumstance drew off the attention of the Sabines also at the danger of so high a personage.  He indeed, his own party beckoning and calling to him, gaining heart from the encouraging shouts of many of his friends, made good his escape.  The Romans and Sabines renewed the battle in the valley between the two hills:  but the advantage rested with the Romans.

At this crisis the Sabine women, from the outrage on whom the war had arisen, with dishevelled hair and torn garments, the timidity natural to women being overcome by the sense of their calamities, were emboldened to fling themselves into the midst of the flying weapons, and, rushing across, to part the incensed combatants and assuage their wrath:  imploring their fathers on the one hand and their husbands on the other, as fathers-in-law and sons-in-law, not to besprinkle themselves with impious blood, nor to fix the stain of murder on their offspring, the one side on their