The Sabines, classified as a tribe of ITALICS, lived east of the Tiber River in the western Apennines in parts of the present-day regions of Lazio, Abruzzi, and Umbria in west-central Italy. Their immediate neighbors to the north were the Latins and to the south the Umbrians, possibly distant relatives. They had early contacts with the ROMANS and perhaps played a part in the founding of Rome. They were possibly the parent group of the Samnites. One of their oldest towns was Amiternum (modern San Vittorino).
Origins
The Sabines may have lived in their homeland as early as the ninth century B. C.E. One theory maintains that they migrated to the italian Peninsula from along the Sava River in the homeland of the Illyrians.
LANGUAGE
The Sabine language was probably one of the Sabellian subgroup of the Oscan branch of italic languages, related to Aequian, Marrucinian, Marsian, Paelignian, Vestinian, and Volscian. The Sabines are thought to have adopted writing from the Etruscans.
History
The Sabines are associated with the founding of Rome—the date, perhaps legendary, given as 753 B. C.E. One tradition maintains that the Sabines settled on the Quirinal and Esquiline Hills and eventually joined with the Latins on the Palatine Hill to form Rome. Another speaks of the capture of Sabine women by the followers of Romulus, supposedly the first
Sabines time line
SABINES
Location:
East of Tiber River in west-central Italy
Time period:
Ninth to first century B. C.E.
Ancestry:
Italic
Language:
Oscan (Italic)
B. C.E.
753 Legendary founding of Rome, perhaps with Sabine involvement 290 Romans defeat Samnites and Sabines.
268 Sabines gain Roman citizenship.
King of Rome. In the legendary event, as told by the Roman historian Livy of the first centuries B. C.E. and C. E. and the Greek historian Plutarch of the first and second centuries C. E., the Romans, in need of women to procreate and populate their newly built town, attempted to intermarry with neighboring tribes. After they were being refused, they invited the Sabines to attend a feast in honor of the god Neptune, whereupon they abducted and raped Sabine maidens. Romulus personally assured the women that the Roman husbands, sympathetic to their wives because they had left their homes, would live in honorable wedlock and that they would be the mothers of free Roman citizens. When the Sabine men returned to rescue their women, the legend goes, the now-wed women interceded and prevented war. The story, whether true or not, indicates a connection between the early Romans and Sabines.
The period of Sabine expansion was probably the sixth-fifth centuries B. C.E. The rise of Rome as the dominant power in the region, after the Romans eliminated the occupying Etruscans in 509 B. C.E., curtailed this growth. Intermittent warfare between the Sabines and Romans occurred in the fifth century B. C.E., with a major Roman victory in 449. One Sabine subtribe requested permission to move their entire population onto Roman territory and become Romans, forming the Claudian family, who were important in Roman history.
In the fourth century the Sabines became caught up in the struggle for power in the region involving the Samnites. After what is known as the Third Samnite War in 295 B. C.E. the Roman general Manius Curius Dentatus conquered the Sabines. In 268 B. C.E. the Sabines were granted full Roman citizenship; they eventually lost their identity as a distinct people. They did not take part in the Social War, a revolt of many of the Italics in 90-88
B. C.E.
CULTURE (see also Italics)
The Sabines were a farming people. The majority of their population lived in small villages in the mountains; there were a few large towns in the valleys.
Because the Sabines inhabited land so close to Rome, it is difficult to distinguish their ruins from those of the Romans who moved to their lands. They were known in the ancient world for their religious cults, especially animal worship, which influenced the Romans. The principal Sabine deity was Sabo, or Sabino, thought to be their original ancestor.
Because of the story of the Sabine women the Sabines are among the best known of the ancient peoples of the Italian Peninsula. Numerous artists have depicted the “Rape of the Sabine Women,” including the Flemish sculptor Giovanni da Bologna in the 16th century, the French painter Nicolas Poussin and Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens in the 17th century, and the French painter Jacques-Louis David in the 18th century.
Sacae See Scythians.
Saii See Esuvii.
World History
