Editing Tarpeian Rock (section)

==Roman legend==
According to early Roman histories, when the [[Sabines|Sabine]] ruler [[Titus Tatius]] attacked Rome after the [[Rape of the Sabines]] (8th century BC), the [[Vestal Virgin]] [[Tarpeia]], daughter of [[Spurius Tarpeius]], governor of the citadel on the Capitoline Hill, betrayed the Romans by opening the [[Porta Pandana]] gate for Titus Tatius in return for "what the Sabines bore on their arms" (golden bracelets and bejeweled rings). In Book 1 of Livy's ''[[Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Livy)|Ab Urbe Condita]]'', the Sabines "having been accepted into the citadel, [the Sabines] killed her, having been overwhelmed by weapons, and "{{lang|la|scuta congesta}}", meaning, "[they] heaped up shields [on her]".<ref>{{cite book |author=Livy |author-link=Livy |title=[[Ab Urbe Condita Libri (Livy)|Ab Urbe Condita]] |date=June 1991 |publisher=Macmillan Education Ltd. |isbn=0-86292-296-8 |page=20}}</ref> The invaders crushed her to death with their shields ("what the Sabines bore on their arms"), and her body was buried in the rock that now bears her name. Regardless of whether or not Tarpeia was buried in the rock itself, it is significant that the rock bore the name of the traitress.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pseudo-Plutarch |author-link=Pseudo-Plutarch |title=Parallela Graeca et Romana |quote=Tarpeia, one of the maidens of honourable estate, was the guardian of the Capitol when the Romans were warring against the Sabines. She promised Tatius that she would give him entry to the Tarpeian Rock if she received as pay the necklaces that the Sabines wore for adornment. The Sabines understood the import and buried her alive. So Aristeides the Milesian in his Italian History. |edition=Loeb |others=(Authorship disputed)}}</ref>

About 500 BC, [[Lucius Tarquinius Superbus]], the seventh legendary [[king of Rome]], levelled the top of the rock, removing the shrines built by the Sabines, and built the [[Temple of Jupiter (Capitoline Hill)|Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus]] on the ''{{lang|la|intermontium}}'', the area between the two summits of the hill. The rock itself survived the remodelling and was used for executions well into [[Sulla]]'s time<ref>{{cite book |last=Plutarch |author-link=Plutarch |title=Lives – Sylla |quote=And afterwards, when he had seized the power into his hands, and was putting many to death, a freedman, suspected of having concealed one of the proscribed, and for that reason sentenced to be thrown down the Tarpeian rock, in a reproachful way recounted how they had lived long together under the same roof, himself for the upper rooms paying two thousand sesterces, and Sylla for the lower three thousand; so that the difference between their fortunes then was no more than one thousand sesterces, equivalent in Attic coin to two hundred and fifty drachmas. |url=http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/sylla.html |others=trans. Joseph Dryden |access-date=2008-02-16 |archive-date=2011-06-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110629075504/http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/sylla.html |url-status=live }}</ref> (early 1st century BC).  However the execution of [[Simon bar Giora]] in 71 AD was as late as the time of [[Vespasian]].

There is a Latin phrase, ''{{lang|la|Arx tarpeia Capitoli proxima}}'' ('the Tarpeian Rock is close to the Capitol'), a warning that one's fall from grace can come swiftly.

Early Romans allegedly [[infanticide | disposed of handicapped children]] at the Tarpeian Rock.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Cavalli-Sforza
 |first1               = Luigi Luca
 |author-link1         = Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
 |last2                = Bodmer
 |first2               = Walter Fred
 |author-link2         = Walter Bodmer
 |date                 = 1 January 1999
 |orig-date            = 1971
 |chapter              = Eugenics, Euphenics, and Human Welfare
 |title                = The Genetics of Human Populations
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=rdZNbApUGUsC
 |edition              = revised
 |publication-place    = Mineola, New York
 |publisher            = Courier Corporation
 |page                 = 754
 |isbn                 = 9780486406930
 |access-date          = 17 December 2024
 |quote                = When infanticide is not regarded by a society as necessarily being a crime, and is used as a means of birth control, it is easily extended to the elimination of the malformed. Negative eugenics reappears over and over again throughout human history. In early Roman times, the Tarpeian rock was said to be the place for the disposal of handicapped children.
}} 
</ref>

To be hurled off the Tarpeian Rock was, from a certain perspective, a fate worse than mere death because it carried with it the stigma of shame. The standard method of execution in ancient Rome was by [[Strangling|strangulation]] in the [[Tullianum]]. The rock was reserved for the most notorious traitors and as a place of unofficial, extra-legal executions such as the near-execution in 491 BC of legendary then-Senator [[Gaius Marcius Coriolanus]] by a mob whipped into frenzy by a [[tribune of the plebs]].<ref>{{cite book | last=Plutarch | author-link=Plutarch | title=Lives – Coriolanus | quote=But, when, instead of the submissive and deprecatory language expected from him, he began to use not only an offensive kind of freedom, seeming rather to accuse than apologize, but, as well by the tone of his voice as the air of his countenance, displayed a security that was not far from disdain and contempt of them, the whole multitude then became angry, and gave evident signs of impatience and disgust; and Sicinnius, the most violent of the tribunes, after a little private conference with his colleagues, proceeded solemnly to pronounce before them all, that Marcius was condemned to die by the tribunes of the people, and bid the Aediles take him to the Tarpeian rock, and without delay throw him headlong from the precipice.... Sicinnius then, after a little pause, turning to the patricians, demanded what their meaning was, thus forcibly to rescue Marcius out of the people's hands, as they were going to punish him; when it was replied by them, on the other side, and the question put, ‘Rather, how came it into your minds, and what is it you design, thus to drag one of the worthiest men of Rome, without trial, to a barbarous and illegal execution?’ |translator=Joseph Dryden}}</ref>