grandchildren, the other on their children.  “If,” said they, “you are dissatisfied with the relationship between you, and with our marriage, turn your resentment against us; it is we who are the cause of war, of wounds and bloodshed to our husbands and parents:  it will be better for us to perish than to live widowed or orphans without one or other of you.”  This incident affected both the people and the leaders; silence and sudden quiet followed; the leaders thereupon came forward to conclude a treaty; and not only concluded a peace, but formed one state out of two.  They united the kingly power, but transferred the entire sovereignty to Rome.  Rome having thus been made a double state, that some benefit at least might be conferred on the Sabines, they were called Quirites from Cures.  To serve as a memorial of that battle, they called the place—­where Curtius, after having emerged from the deep morass, set his horse in shallow water—­the Lacus Curtius.[11]

This welcome peace, following suddenly on so melancholy a war, endeared the Sabine women still more to their husbands and parents, and above all to Romulus himself.  Accordingly, when dividing the people into thirty curiae, he called the curiae after their names.  While the number of the women were undoubtedly considerably greater than this, it is not recorded whether they were chosen for their age, their own rank or that of their husbands, or by lot, to give names to the curiae.  At the same time also three centuries of knights were enrolled:  the Ramnenses were so called from Romulus, the Titienses from Titus Tatius:  in regard to the Luceres, the meaning of the name and its origin is uncertain.[12] From that time forward the two kings enjoyed the regal power not only in common, but also in perfect harmony.

Several years afterward, some relatives of King Tatius ill-treated the Ambassadors of the Laurentines, and on the Laurentines beginning proceedings according to the rights of nations, the influence and entreaties of his friends had more weight with Tatius.  In this manner he drew upon himself the punishment that should have fallen upon them:  for, having gone to Lavinium on the occasion of a regularly recurring sacrifice, he was slain in a disturbance which took place there.  They say that Romulus resented this less than the event demanded, either because partnership in sovereign power is never cordially kept up, or because he thought that he had been deservedly slain.  Accordingly, while he abstained from going to war, the treaty between the cities of Rome and Lavinium was renewed, that at any rate the wrongs of the ambassadors and the murder of the king might be expiated.