SABINAE .-- The rape of the Sabine women
is represented on Contorniate medals one of
which has the image and superscription of Nero ;
another those of Agrippina senior ; and a third
those of Constantius II.-- On these the soldiers
of Romulus are seen engaged in their violent
breach of hospitality and good faith ; behind the
group of men and women are seen three obelisks,
constituting one of the Circensian metae, at Rome.
Eckhel, in his no less instructive than copious
observations on what he terms "Pseudomoneta,"
states that, amongst the various subjects to
which the types of this peculiar class of medals
refer, only one example is to be found drawn
from the history of Rome's earliest age-- viz.,
that flagrant injury inflicted on the whole Sabine
nation, which the denarii of the Tituria family
also typify, but upon which it would have been
more honourable to have remained silent, instead
of restoring its characteristic incidents as the
fabricators of these contorniati have done. The
meta is introduced as indicating the place in
which the affront was given, namely the Circus.
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