Page "Tarpeian Rock" Paragraph 3

According to early Roman histories, when the 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 city gates for the Sabines in return for ' what they bore on their arms.

' She believed that she would receive their golden bracelets.

Instead, the Sabines crushed her to death with their shields, and her body was buried in the rock that now bears her name.