Return to Barbarians, Captives, and Enemies (to this coin) See also Sabine Women Reverse (another Titurius Sabinus Denarius)
Roman Republican. Titurius Sabinus AR Denarius (3.5g, 20.5mm, 3h). Rome, 89 BCE.
Obverse: SABIN. Bearded bare head of the Sabine king, Tatius right; palm frond right below chin.
Reverse: L • TITVRI. Tarpeia, hair dishevelled, facing forward, buried to her waist in shields, hands raised fending off two soldiers about to throw their shields on her; star in crescent above.
Reference: Crawford 344/2b.
Provenance: Ex-Numismática Lucernae/Antonio Hinosa Pareja (Alcala La Real, 8 July 2015)
Hist./Numis. Notes: This reverse was copied by another famous denarius, struck ~80 years later by Augustus (c. 19 – 4 BCE; BMCRE 29; RIC I 299). It was also a pun on the moneyer’s name (Titurius Sabinus & Tarpeia the Sabine partisan).
A classic scene invoking the contemporary relevance of Rome’s mythical founding to the ongoing “Social War” (91 – 87 BCE). The Republic was at war with its own allies & Italic neighbors, largely over the matter of (not) bestowing Roman citizenship. (Citizenship was worth fighting over; it was highly consequential for safety & well-being, and political & military decision-making). Though Rome “won,” it granted citizenship anyway, eventuating in “the Romanization of Italy.”
The coin’s reverse depicts Tarpeia, the Vestal Virgin who betrayed Rome to the Sabines during a siege. Her punishment was to be crushed to death under Sabine shields & hurled from a cliff, later known as the “Tarpeian Rock.”
Famous traitors would be publicly executed in the same fashion: In 70 CE, the Flavians gave a traditional traitor’s execution to Simon bar Giora (famous rebel leader in the First Jewish–Roman War, 66-70 CE, defender against Titus in the Siege of Jerusalem). After being paraded through Rome in Vespasian’s great Triumph, he was publicly hurled from the Tarpeian Rock.
As explained by Triskeles (Auction 31-165; 27 Mar 2020):
“The story of Tarpeia as depicted on this coin was well-known in ancient Rome, and is recounted by Livy:
“The last of these wars was commenced by the Sabines and proved the most serious of all… Spurius Tarpeius was in command of the Roman citadel. Whilst his daughter had gone outside the fortifications to fetch water for some religious ceremonies, Tatius bribed her to admit his troops within the citadel. Once admitted, they crushed her to death beneath their shields, either that the citadel might appear to have been taken by assault, or that her example might be left as a warning that no faith should be kept with traitors. A further story runs that the Sabines were in the habit of wearing heavy gold armlets on their left arms and richly jeweled rings, and that the girl made them promise to give her ‘what they had on their left arms,’ accordingly they piled their shields upon her instead of golden gifts. Some say that in bargaining for what they had in their left hands, she expressly asked for their shields, and being suspected of wishing to betray them, fell a victim to her own bargain” (Livy I, 11.5-9).
Tarpeia’s body was then hurled from a steep cliff on the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill, and the Tarpeian Rock, as it became known subsequently, was where notorious traitors were executed in ancient Rome. The head of Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, relates to the Sabine origin of the moneyer’s gens. On one variety of this type, in place of the palm branch which alludes to Roman successes in the Social War…”