Page:Catullus, Tibullus and Propertius.djvu/184

172 the Tarpeian rock where, to the native fancy, La belle Tarpeia still is to be seen at intervals, bedecked with gold and jewels, and dreaming of the Sabine leader for whose love she was content to prove traitress. To a stream or fountain which it enclosed she had been wont to repair to draw water for Vesta's service, and thence chanced to espy Titus Tatius, the Sabine leader, engaged in martial exercises. With no sordid thirst of gold, as the Tarpeia of Livy, but smitten by the kingly form, the maiden lets Vesta's fire go out in her preoccupied dreams:—

and so often did she brood and soliloquise over her comely knight, that at last her scheme of treachery took form and substance, and the rural festival, which was Rome's founder's holiday, afforded meet opportunity for her betrayal of the city by the secret postern, from which she found daily egress:—