Tarpeia- Roman FigureMortal

The Opened Gate

The betrayal of Tarpeia belongs to the war between the Romans and the Sabines that followed Romulus's seizure of the Sabine women. The Sabines, led by their king Titus Tatius, marched on Rome to recover their daughters. They camped near the Capitoline Hill, which Spurius Tarpeius, Tarpeia's father, commanded as garrison commander.

Livy's account is spare and damning. Tarpeia went outside the walls to fetch water for a sacrifice and encountered the Sabine soldiers. Seeing the gold armlets and jeweled rings the warriors wore on their left arms, she offered to open the gates in exchange for what they carried there. Titus Tatius agreed. That night Tarpeia unbarred the citadel gates, and the Sabines streamed into Rome's most sacred stronghold. When she demanded her payment, the Sabines gave her what their left arms bore: they heaved their heavy shields upon her and crushed her to death beneath the weight.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus offers a more sympathetic variant: that Tarpeia had secretly intended to disarm the Sabines by demanding their shields, planning a double betrayal in Rome's favor, but was killed before her scheme could unfold. Propertius, in his fourth book of elegies, reimagines her motivation entirely, portraying Tarpeia as a young woman struck with love for Titus Tatius after glimpsing him exercising on the Campus Martius. In his version, desire rather than greed drove the betrayal.

The Rock

Tarpeia was buried on the Capitoline, and the place of her death became a landmark. The Tarpeian Rock, the steep cliff on the hill's southern face, was where Rome executed its traitors. The condemned were hurled from its edge throughout the Republic and into the early Empire. Varro connects the name directly to Tarpeia in his etymological writings, and Romans needed no explanation: the Capitol, where generals celebrated triumphs, and the cliff where traitors fell stood on the same hill.