XIX.  While they were preparing to fight as though the battle was only now just begun, they were restrained by a strange spectacle, beyond the power of words to express.  The daughters of the Sabines who had been carried off were seen rushing from all quarters, with loud shrieks and wailings, through the ranks and among the dead bodies, as though possessed by some god.  Some of them carried infant children in their arms, and others wore their hair loose and dishevelled.  All of them kept addressing the Romans and the Sabines alternately by the most endearing names.  The hearts of both armies were melted, and they fell back so as to leave a space for the women between them.  A murmur of sorrow ran through all the ranks, and a strong feeling of pity was excited by the sight of the women, and by their words, which began with arguments and upbraidings, but ended in entreaties and tears.  “What wrong have we done to you,” said they, “that we should have suffered and should even now suffer such cruel treatment at your hands?  We were violently and wrongfully torn away from our friends, and after we had been carried off we were neglected by our brothers, fathers, and relatives for so long a time, that now, bound by the closest of ties to our enemies, we tremble for our ravishers and wrongers when they fight, and weep when they fall.  Ye would not come and tear us from our ravishers while we were yet maidens, but now ye would separate wives from their husbands, and mothers from their children, a worse piece of service to us than your former neglect.  Even if it was not about us that you began to fight, you ought to cease now that you have become fathers-in-law, and grandfathers, and relatives one of another.  But if the war is about us, then carry us off with your sons-in-law and our children, and give us our fathers and relatives, but do not take our husbands and children from us.  We beseech you not to allow us to be carried off captive a second time.”  Hersilia spoke at length in this fashion, and as the other women added their entreaties to hers, a truce was agreed upon, and the chiefs met in conference.  Hereupon the women made their husbands and children known to their fathers and brothers, fetched food and drink for such as needed it, and took the wounded into their own houses to be attended to there.  Thus they let their friends see that they were mistresses of their own houses, and that their husbands attended to their wishes and treated them with every respect.

In the conference it was accordingly determined that such women as chose to do so should continue to live with their husbands, free, as we have already related, from all work and duties except that of spinning wool (talasia); that the Romans and the Sabines should dwell together in the city, and that the city should be called Rome, after Romulus, but the Romans be called Quirites after the native city of Tatius; and that they should both reign and command the army together.  The place where this compact was made is even to this day called the Comitium, for the Romans call meeting coire.