There are two primary difficulties for anyone wishing to argue that Tarpeia was worshipped: the first lies in the prevailing opinion of surviving Latin sources that she was a traitor, and the second is that even those authors who say that she had a tomb disagree over its placement.1 Thus the majority of scholarship ignores the possibility of such cult honors. The difficulty with their position is that the Roman historian Lucius Calpurnius Piso, in a lost historical work that is quoted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, explicitly claims that Tarpeia did receive cult: χοὰς αὐτῇ Ῥωμαῖοι καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ἐπιτελοῦσι, (λέγω δὲ ἃ Πείσων γράφει) (“the Romans perform liquid sacrifices to her each year – I relate what Piso writes”).2 In this paper, I argue that Piso’s evidence should not be dismissed. My argument proceeds in four parts: (I) I first situate the worship of Tarpeia in contemporary scholarship on her myth. (II) Next, I argue that the Pisonian tale of Tarpeia as a hero (or at least as a figure worthy of worship) was more prevalent than scholars have thought. (III) I then suggest some parallels to Tarpeia’s tomb, culminating in (IV) an alternative outline of Tarpeia’s worship; due to the extremely scanty evidence for Tarpeia’s tomb, this section will by necessity be speculative.
I. Scholarship on Tarpeia
That Tarpeia received some form of cult has been suggested before, often in connection with her iconography. Several scholars argue that Tarpeia was originally a goddess, and that it is this divine Tarpeia who was worshipped.3 Ancient authors, however, always refer to Tarpeia as a human, and this includes the authors who refer to her cult; indeed, our best evidence specifies that the cult site was Tarpeia’s tomb. Thus, while euhemerism is not an impossible explanation for how Tarpeia’s worship began, it is not supported by the surviving evidence nor does it adequately explain the persistence of Tarpeia’s cult into the historical period; thus, euhemerism plays little role in this paper. Others have suggested that Tarpeia was a human sacrifice.4 A more notorious suggestion, that Tarpeia was worshipped by the Vestals, was put forward by Theodor Mommsen in his commentary on Philocalus’ 4th-century CE calendar. Despite the age of this suggestion, it still carries weight: Tara Welch, in her recent and wide-ranging study of Tarpeia, states that Tarpeia’s worship was “refuted convincingly” by Kurt Latte’s rebuttal of Mommsen in 1960,5 and therefore chose not to pursue the idea of a cult to Tarpeia.6 It is thus worth revisiting both Mommsen’s evidence and Latte’s counterargument in greater detail; in my view, neither scholar convincingly made his case.
Mommsen indeed did not present an argument. A fourth-century work, the calendar of Philocalus, states in its entry on Feb. 13, Virgo ⋅ Vesta ⋅ Parentat, without mention of Tarpeia;7 Mommsen, in his commentary, asserts “videntur autem eo die inferiae publicae factae esse Tarpeiae (Dion. 2.40), quas ei utpote et ipsi virgini Vestali consentaneum est obtulisse Vestales” (“Moreover, on that day public funerary rites seem to have been made to Tarpeia (Dion. [Hal.] 2.40), which naturally the Vestals offered her, since it is generally agreed that she herself was a Vestal virgin”; emphasis mine).8 He ties this statement to the beginning of the parentatio, or mourning period for the dead, on the same day, which was noted in a different calendar from a century later.9 No further discussion is offered. Mommsen seems to have thought that the Dionysius passage, quoted briefly above, spoke for itself.10
Latte correctly noted that Mommsen’s source, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, never mentions that Tarpeia was a Vestal;11 this information comes from other sources, such as Varro and Propertius.12 Although Mommsen may have assumed that the discrepancy did not matter, I have elsewhere argued that the “Vestal version” was an option rather than a requirement of Tarpeia’s story.13 Authors who do not mention a Vestal Tarpeia were not necessarily thinking of a Vestal Tarpeia. There is thus little reason to follow Mommsen’s assumption that the Vestals would sacrifice to Tarpeia the traitor because she was a Vestal. However, it is important to note that some texts named the first Vestal – living under Numa – as Tarpeia.14 Robin Lorsch Wildfang and Meghan DiLuzio have argued that this first Vestal, rather than the Romulean-era Tarpeia, was the object of the Vestal’s cult at the Parentalia;15 although this suggestion is certainly more understandable, it is not well supported by the evidence, which clearly associates the tomb and libations with the Tarpeia who died under Romulus.16 Charles King, moreover, cogently argues that the Vestal rites at the Parentalia must be a later addition to the Roman calendar, due to the fact that Cicero disapproved of Caesar’s public funeral (as opposed to the private or even semi-public17 rite of the Parentalia).18 In King’s view, public cult personnel participating in the Parentalia would make this distinction meaningless.
Similarly, it must also be noted that Rome had multiple festivals of the dead,19 and Dionysius does not mention at which festival Tarpeia received her libation – if indeed the libation was connected to a festival in the first place, a point to which I return below.20 However, Latte’s dismissal goes too far in rejecting Tarpeia’s cult: he also claims, without argument, that “das Opfer ist von der Umformung der Novelle [of Scylla and other women] nicht zu trennen; sie … ist also sein eigentum” and that “auf dem Kapital konnte wirklich kein Grab liegen.”21 The first of these claims is questionable, and the second is patently incorrect, as I will show shortly. Latte’s own explanation, that Tarpeia’s story derived from a trophy, has itself been repeatedly proven false.22
Tarpeia’s story shows obvious parallels to the treasonous women of Greek history, as Welch and others have shown.23 Some of these women were well-known in antiquity; some continue to be well-known today; most were, like Tarpeia, eponyms or aetiologies of some sort. They were not all worshipped. Thus Latte’s statement that worship is inseparable from the Greek plot is difficult to understand; his assertion that it was Piso’s invention is taken up below. It is likewise untrue that there were no graves on the Capitoline, although burial there was illegal for much of Rome’s history. Archaeologists working on the Capitoline have found archaic tombs on both the northern and southern summits of the hill,24 and Romans themselves seem to have been aware of burials in the area of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.25 In sum, while I agree with Latte that Mommsen’s interpretation of the rites has no factual basis, I disagree with his refutation. Rather, I believe that we must accept the clear statement in Piso/Dionysius of Halicarnassus that Tarpeia received libations.
II. Tarpeia: traitor or hero?
Tarpeia’s characterization as a traitor has been a major impediment to the belief that she received worship. This characterization is found in ancient authors from the Republic to Late Antiquity, and hardly represents a minority view. It is important to note, however, that there is a significant distinction between Greek authors who discuss Tarpeia and Latin authors who discuss Tarpeia. The two Greek authors who discuss Tarpeia in detail, Plutarch and Dionysius of Halicarnassus,26 provide access to a rich tradition of alternative stories that is largely lacking from the Latin authorities; Latin-language authors of the imperial period primarily follow Livy.27 Their reuse of Livian vocabulary suggests that their accounts derive from his, and more importantly from a single source that Livy used. Rather than representing a consensus, these imperial Latin authors instead show a flattening of the historical tradition.
Livy’s account shows awareness of a broad group of stories regarding early Rome that existed in the late Roman Republic. This tradition is preserved at least in part in Livy, Dionysius, and Plutarch.
(a) Consilio etiam additus dolus. Sp. Tarpeius Romanae praeerat arci. Huius filiam virginem auro corrumpit Tatius ut armatos in arcem accipiat; aquam forte ea tum sacris extra moenia petitum ierat. Accepti obrutam armis necavere, (1) seu ut vi capta potius arx videretur (2) seu prodendi exempli causa ne quid usquam fidum proditori esset. (b) Additur fabula, quod volgo Sabini aureas armillas magni ponderis brachio laevo gemmatosque magna specie anulos habuerint, pepigisse eam quod in sinistris manibus haberent; eo scuta illi pro aureis donis congesta. (c) Sunt qui eam ex pacto tradendi quod in sinistris manibus esset derecto arma petisse dicant et fraude visam agere sua ipsam peremptam mercede.28
To this plan a trick was added too. Spurius Tarpeius commanded the Roman citadel. Tatius paid off his unmarried daughter with gold to allow armed men into the citadel; by chance at that time she had gone outside the walls to seek water for rites. Allowed in, they killed her by burying her in weapons, either so that the citadel would seem to have been captured by force rather [than treachery] or in order to make an example of treachery, i.e. that there is never any good faith for a traitor. The story is added on that because the Sabines commonly had golden armbands of great weight on their left arms and jeweled rings of great beauty, she had asked them for what they had in their left hands; she was showered with shields29 instead of golden gifts. There are those who say that she had tried to betray them for contracting “what was in their left hands”, meaning weapons; when she was discovered to be double-dealing, she was repaid with her own price.
Livy’s account itself clearly refers to at least four previous sources: (a1-2) a narrative that runs from the beginning of 1.11.6 to 1.11.7, and includes two options for Tatius’ motivation in killing Tarpeia (seu…seu); (b) a second, marked by additur fabula, in 1.11.8; and (c) a final sunt qui in 1.11.9.30 The later authors who follow this account, however, relate at most two versions, and in particular the version related to treachery. Valerius Maximus most explicitly adopts the version in which Tarpeia’s death is a punishment for treachery, as well as most explicitly copying Livy’s language:
Romulo regnante Spurius Tarpeius arci praeerat. cuius filiam virginem aquam sacris petitum extra moenia egressam Tatius ut armatos Sabinos in arcem secum reciperet corrupit, mercedis nomine pactam quae in sinistris manibus gerebant: erant autem in his armillae et anuli magno ex pondere auri. loco potitum agmen Sabinorum puellam praemium flagitantem armis obrutam necavit, perinde quasi promissum, quod ea quoque laevis gestaverant, soluisset.31
When Romulus was king Spurius Tarpeius commanded the citadel. Tatius paid off his [Tarpeius’] unmarried daughter, who had gone to seek water for rites outside the walls, to let him and the armed Sabines into the citadel. The price she named was “what they carried on their left hands”; for there were armbands and rings of a great weight of gold on these men. Having gained access to the place, the troop of Sabines killed the girl, who demanded her price, by burying her in shields, as if this fulfilled the terms because they carried these on their left arms as well.
Valerius relates only Livy’s (b) version. The degree of borrowing in this passage is exceptional, and Tara Welch has analyzed it in detail;32 it is also present in Silius Italicus,33 Florus,34 and Servius’ commentary on the Aeneid. While these authors have not copied Livy, their reuse of his language goes beyond sharing the basic outline of the plot (girl, Capitoline, gold, and left hands). This can be seen by the avoidance of synonyms or near-synonyms (e.g., sinistris rather than laevis; obruere rather than a compound of premere or abdere; virgo rather than puella; in Servius, scuta rather than clipeos) and the similar structure of the story between Livy and the prose authors. Silius’ tale is simple; Tarpeia is a girl who betrays Rome for gold. The other two Latin authors offer more complexity. Florus, like Livy, presents two options for Tatius’ motivations, but unlike Livy he does not provide any other narratives (that is, he relates Livy’s versions [a2] and [b]). Servius, in contrast, discusses Tarpeia twice, in comments on Aeneid 1 and 8. The comment on the eighth book is similar to Florus’ account and relates Livy’s (b) version.35 His note in the first book, however, also shows familiarity with Ovid’s brief reference to Tarpeia in the Metamorphoses.36 Ovid’s account does not agree with any of Livy’s four versions, and Servius does not try to reconcile them. The accounts of Tarpeia that we have in post-Augustan Rome, thus, relate a compressed version of Livy’s Tarpeia. This version focuses on the clever ambiguity of “what the Sabines wore on their left arms” and depicts Tarpeia only as a traitor. None of these later Latin accounts include Livy’s versions (a1) or (c), and they also omit reference to water – a fact which may have been important to the cult site, as discussed in section IV below.
Although Livy does not promote the version in which Tarpeia tries to save Rome, it nonetheless appears in his account,37 and this version is related in more detail and attributed to Piso by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Only Dionysius adds the additional detail that Tarpeia’s tomb received some sort of cult practice, but he obviously thinks that this information is important:38 he draws attention to the fact by first noting that there is disagreement among Roman sources at this juncture, then “quotes” Piso, and finally reiterates why he prefers Piso’s version. This emphasis is important, because Dionysius was not a naïve historian: he does not blindly follow Piso, nor does Piso always disagree with earlier writers.39 Instead, Dionysius prefers the account that he thinks is most likely.40 Ancient ideas of what is probable differ from modern ideas; however, there is no reason to reject what Dionysius reports about archaic Rome given what we know about his writing choices. He was aware of Piso’s position as a censor and, as a Greek living in Rome, he understood the role that censors performed; he perhaps took the moral role of censors41 into account in believing Piso that Tarpeia received some form of sacrifice and in basing his interpretation of her story on Piso’s account.
At this point, it is useful to examine Dionysius’ evidence in more detail. Although Tarpeia’s story runs from 2.38.2 to 2.40.3, for reasons of space I am reproducing only the last section:
τάφου τε γὰρ ἔνθα ἔπεσεν ἠξίωται τὸν ἱερώτατον τῆς πόλεως κατέχουσα λόφον, καὶ χοὰς αὐτῇ Ῥωμαῖοι καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ἐπιτελοῦσι, (λέγω δὲ ἃ Πείσων γράφει) ὧν οὐδενὸς εἰκὸς αὐτήν, εἰ προδιδοῦσα τὴν πατρίδα τοῖς πολεμίοις ἀπέθανεν, οὔτε παρὰ τῶν προδοθέντων οὔτε παρὰ τῶν ἀποκτεινάντων τυχεῖν, ἀλλὰ καὶ εἴ τι λείψανον αὐτῆς ἦν τοῦ σώματος ἀνασκαφὲν ἔξω ῥιφῆναι σὺν χρόνῳ φόβου τε καὶ ἀποτροπῆς ἕνεκα τῶν μελλόντων τὰ ὅμοια δρᾶν.42
For there where she fell, she was honored with a tomb set on the most sacred hill of the city, and the Romans perform liquid sacrifices to her each year – I relate what Piso writes – which it is unlikely she would have gained from anyone if she had died betraying her country to the enemy, neither from those who were betrayed nor from those who killed her. Instead, in time they would have dug up any part of her body that was left and thrown it away to inspire fear and ward off anyone who would act similarly.
Scholarship on this passage has largely confined itself to noting the Roman chauvinism of Piso’s information, rather than engaging with its content. Piso is “patriotic”;43 he rationalizes;44 he morally purifies.45 Yet these statements seem to dismiss the option that Piso’s evidence reflects reality: that is, they are uninterested in the possibility that Piso’s evidence records an alternative living tradition about Tarpeia, rather than clever reasoning.46 As Elizabeth Rawson argued almost a half century ago, Piso’s work is not especially rationalizing, although the fragments we have suggest a strong interest in topography that is in keeping with his censorial stature.47 Moreover, the story of Tarpeia as it is transmitted is no more rational or moral in Piso than it is in Fabius Pictor: the only distinction between the two lies in Tarpeia’s characterization and subsequent tomb. As we see in other stories told about early Rome, such as the death of Remus, the creation of the lacus Curtius, or the authority granted to Servilius Ahala, multiple competing and contemporary versions were not unusual.48 Thus it is not necessary to suggest that “Piso altered the tale by the time honored ancient historiographical method of τὸ εἰκός … in order to harmonize the myth” with the offerings;49 rather, Piso may represent an understanding of Tarpeia that was held in the Rome of his day, even if that understanding was also rejected by other Romans.50
Interpretation of this passage hinges on four points which have been overlooked by critics who deny or ignore the possibility of cult honors.51 First, Dionysius is not unique in suggesting that Tarpeia’s tomb was monumentalized.52 It is also suggested by Propertius and Plutarch, and to a lesser degree by Festus (whose evidence is discussed in section IV) and perhaps even Varro and Servius, who all speak of the buried Tarpeia as the eponym of (at least part of) the Capitoline. Moreover, Piso’s account does, in fact, appear in Livy; it is not emphasized by him, but neither is any other version of Tarpeia’s story.53 Second, the continuing use of “Tarpeian mount” or “seat” (mons Tarpeius or sedes Tarpeia) to refer to the Capitoline (and often, by extension, to Jupiter Optimus Maximus) strongly implies that the name did not recall heinous activities;54 contrast, by way of example, the vicus Sceleratus which memorialized the abhorrent behavior of Tullia, or the refusal to countenance the nomen Tarquinium in Rome after the expulsion of the kings.55 This poetic use seems rather to recall Varro’s more anodyne statement that the entire hill was a memorial to Tarpeia.56 Third, the idea that libations would be given at a person’s tomb fits well within Roman burial practice, as known from Pompeii and elsewhere; in other words, we do not need to invent new ritual practices to accommodate Dionysius’ evidence.57 Nor is aetiology incompatible with worship; in fact, recent studies on aetiology have emphasized its ties to ritual behavior.58 And lastly, the information that we have does not clearly indicate when the libations at Tarpeia’s tomb began or when they stopped. Although Dionysius’ phrasing suggests that he is quoting Piso directly, he is not; Piso wrote in Latin, so Dionysius’ words are, at best, a paraphrase. This paraphrase raises important questions about how to interpret the libations at Tarpeia’s tomb, which will be pursued in sections III and IV below.
Thus, we can conclude that (a) Piso’s version of Tarpeia was known outside of Dionysius’ research, and (b) the libations that are described may have continued for some time. It is important to accept Piso’s evidence as reflective of reality, rather than an attempt to gloss over an unsavory aspect of Rome’s history. Piso’s work suggests that he was interested in factual accuracy;59 moreover, he had to be able to defend his arguments to contemporary Romans. If Tarpeia truly did not receive libations and Piso claimed that she did, his audience would be aware that he was lying. Yet from the little we know about his life, Piso was known for his scrupulous honesty and severe discipline.60 These characteristics seem difficult to reconcile, and it is considerably more likely that there was a tomb of Tarpeia than that a censor would lie so obviously about such a minor matter when he could easily have followed the narrative of his predecessors such as Fabius Pictor.
III. Parallels for the tomb of Tarpeia
Although Greeks like Dionysius worshipped exceptional humans after death as heroes, Roman practices are generally considered to have been different. The reality is a bit more complex; we know that family members did engage in ritual practices such as regular libations and other offerings61 at the tomb of deceased relatives on the one hand, and on the other hand we have examples of a small number of deified demigods who unequivocally did receive cultic honors at Rome: Romulus, for example, and Hercules. Both of these men were believed to have been born to divine fathers; the situation is different for Acca Larentia, whose worship is also well attested and whose divine parentage appears to be non-existent.62 We do not need to call these figures “heroes”, but it is clear that Romans did have at least a theory of humans who became gods due to exceptional benevolence.63 These examples seem to be confined to a single period of Roman history: its foundations.
Perhaps the closest parallel to Dionysius’ words about Tarpeia comes only a few chapters later, where he describes rites that take place at the tomb of Titus Tatius on the Aventine. The information on Tatius’ burial immediately follows the description of Tatius’ death by stoning, which Dionysius attributed to Licinius Macer.64 This information is unusual, and may have had contemporary relevance: Macer was usually believed to be writing in the time of Sulla,65 an era in which Roman generals faced stoning as a form of field mutiny, and this form of death may be reflected in early first-century imagery of Tarpeia buried by shields:66 it is possible that crushing as a form of death was viewed as broadly similar. Dionysius writes:
Τάτιος μὲν οὖν τοιαύτης τελευτῆς… θάπτεται δ’ εἰς Ῥώμην κομισθεὶς ἐντίμῳ ταφῇ καὶ χοὰς αὐτῷ καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ἡ πόλις ἐπιτελεῖ δημοσίᾳ.67
Tatius, then, died in this way… and he was buried in Rome, where he was granted a venerated tomb. Every year, the city performs libations to him at public expense.
There are two important similarities between Dionysius’ description of Tatius and of Tarpeia. First is his suggestion that these two characters were honored (ἐντίμῳ, ἠξίωται), in contrast to their relatively negative depiction in most other authorities. The second is the language Dionysius uses to describe their rites, which is almost identical: χοὰς… καθ’ ἕκαστον ἐνιαυτὸν ... ἐπιτελεῖν. This is a rare description in Dionysius’ work, as discussed in more detail at the end of this section. Aside from the difference in gender, the only variation in language is Dionysius’ reference to the city (ἡ πόλις) performing Tatius’ rites, compared to the vaguer “Romans” (Ῥωμαῖοι) who carry out Tarpeia’s. It is likely that the latter description is more than variatio and implies that only a subset of Romans carried out Tarpeia’s rites; this may also be implied by the lack of reference to public expenditure (δημοσίᾳ) on Tarpeia’s rites, unlike Tatius’.
It is not clear where Dionysius found the information about Tatius’ rites; although he may have continued to use Macer, this is not guaranteed. This uncertainty yields three outcomes: either (1) Dionysius had firsthand experience with these rites, a possibility discussed in more detail below; (2) Dionysius continued to use Macer; or (3) Dionysius used a different source, writing in either (a) Latin or (b) Greek. Both options (2) and (3a) have similar conclusions for this paper: Dionysius translated the information that he received from his source text into Greek. Dionysius is, where he can be checked, an accurate reporter; however, there are occasions where he silently adds details from his own knowledge.68 It is therefore within keeping with Dionysius’ practice to assimilate Roman practices to other Roman practices that he found similar. Option (3b) suggests a similar conclusion, but with the direction reversed: whereas (2) and (3a) suggest that Dionysius has taken Piso’s words about Tarpeia and applied them to Tatius, (3b) suggests that Dionysius found a Greek-language description of Tatius’ rites and felt that they were a suitable representation of Piso’s description of Tarpeia. All three options show that Dionysius perceived a relationship between Tarpeia’s tomb and Tatius’ tomb.
Another notable feature of Dionysius’ description of both tombs is his use of the present tense (ἐπιτελοῦσι, ἐπιτελεῖ) to describe the rites. Scholars have assumed that he does not report events from his own time.69 Yet at least in the case of Tarpeia, Dionysius’ description lacks enough verbs to allow us to place his information temporally with confidence:70 he describes the rites in the present tense, but also ascribes these words directly to Piso. In this case, we know that Dionysius was using a Latin-language author, Piso, as his source; this was perhaps also true in the case of Tatius with Macer. To take these verbs as a present tense transmitted from the original source rather than Dionysius’ own, as all commentators do, depends on Dionysius’ precision in translating.71 Dionysius, who lived and worked in Rome, could easily have changed either author’s words into a past tense if required, and he does use a mix of past and present tenses elsewhere to represent the different status of archaic and contemporary sites.72 The possibility that his present tense reflects an active rite in his own time should remain open.
Dionysius seems to think of Tarpeia’s tomb and Tatius’ tomb along similar lines: he uses almost exactly the same words to describe the rites paid to them. This similar description is found only in Dionysius, although there is some evidence that he did not invent it:73 Diana Spencer has argued that Varro too saw a connection between the groves and quarries of the Capitoline and the Aventine, locations that are linked to both Tarpeia and Tatius.74 Both of Dionysius’ passages report the existence of libations to a deceased mythological Roman in the present tense, and both of the deceased Romans could be considered to have died under treasonous circumstances. In Greek culture, these are characteristics of the hero cult; it is therefore notable that Dionysius avoids this language in his description of Tarpeia and Tatius, perhaps indicating his understanding that Romans understood these cults differently from Greek heroes.75 Unlike Tarpeia’s tomb, however, we do have other suggestions that Tatius’ tomb continued to be recognized into the last years of the Republic: Varro offers Tatius’ burial place, and particularly the fact of his violent death, as part of his etymology of the Lauretum.76 This brief discussion suggests that Tatius’ tomb was still visible in Varro’s day, since Varro does not use words such as ante to indicate a situation that was no longer true. If Varro could have seen Tatius’ tomb, it is likely that Dionysius could as well; Varro died only a few decades before Dionysius wrote the Roman Antiquities and Dionysius offers no indication that the tomb had recently been destroyed or decommissioned; indeed, Plutarch also uses the present tense to discuss the tomb of Tatius.77 Christopher Hallett, moreover, has suggested that Tatius’ tomb may have inspired the design of Augustus’ Mausoleum.78 If correct, Tatius’ tomb would not only have been visible, but also quite relevant in Dionysius’ time.
Although there is no positive evidence that Tarpeia’s or Tatius’ worship continued into the first century BCE, there is likewise no positive evidence that it had stopped. It is thus possible that Dionysius was reporting on a practice that he had heard about in more recent times as well as in the time of Piso. Although the argument that I present in the following pages assumes that Tarpeia and Tatius were worshipped in at least the late second and early first centuries BCE, when Piso and Macer were active, I have therefore not ruled out the possibility of a longer period of ritual activity. Indeed, Dionysius does elsewhere report on rites that were not being practiced. He explicitly rejects the idea, which he attributes to Polybius, that there was a tomb to Pallas on the Palatine and that there were continuing rites for Pallas in his own day. This denial uses similar language to what we have seen him use with Tatius and Tarpeia:
ἐγὼ μέντοι οὔτε τάφον ἐθεασάμην ἐν Ῥώμῃ Πάλλαντος οὔτε χοὰς ἔμαθον ἐπιτελουμένας οὔτε ἄλλοτῶν τοιουτοτρόπων οὐδὲν ἠδυνήθην ἰδεῖν.79
I at least have seen no tomb for Pallas in Rome nor have I learned of libations being made to him nor have I been able to observe anything else like that.
These three tombs are the only tombs in his surviving work whose rites are described with the words χοᾶς έπιτελεῖν, and indeed they mark the only three uses of χοᾶς in Dionysius’ surviving work; therefore they seem to constitute a special category that comprised only Tarpeia, Tatius, and Pallas. This category, based on what Dionysius says about Pallas, may have involved first-hand knowledge: he emphasizes that in Pallas’ case he was not able to see or observe rites, using two visual terms, which suggests that he may have had visual knowledge of the other rites he discussed.80 Although claims to autopsy are common in the first book of Dionysius,81 they are less common in the following books,82 and critics have noted that there is a qualitative difference in the first book of Roman Antiquities.83 He certainly does not mention all surviving monuments that he could have seen; for example, although the lapis niger in the Forum is connected with the death of a variety of early Roman figures,84 Dionysius does not mention it explicitly. Similarly, he does not mention personally viewing the sororium tigillum although according to Livy this still existed in contemporary Rome.85 Moreover, he does state that other monuments have disappeared: for example, the “lake” of the Lacus Curtius was filled up, though its name remains.86
The fact that Dionysius does not say that he saw the tomb of Tarpeia need not mean that he did not; his far more assertive denial of Pallas’ tomb and rites could have been repeated for both Tatius and Tarpeia. Since Tatius’ tomb seems to have been preserved until Plutarch’s day, and Tarpeia’s is perhaps mentioned by Propertius, we should take Dionysius’ present tense at face value, and assume that this tomb, or a monument believed to be her tomb, did exist in the late first century BCE. This may, but need not, mean that rites of some type also continued to be carried out at this late date. Livy’s silence on this tomb is not surprising; he is reticent on the topic of worship, and does not mention (for example) the cults of either Acca Larentia or Romulus at the time of their deaths, although both cults are well known from other ancient authors.
It must be equally emphasized, however, that Tarpeia’s libations need not have been a public ritual, as suggested by Mommsen and dismissed by subsequent scholars (see above, section I). Dionysius’ evidence does not require that, and he elsewhere does clearly indicate when sacrifices are publicly funded: for example, in the similar case of Titus Tatius, discussed above. Instead, it is possible that only a subset of Romans worshipped Tarpeia; indeed, as modern scholarship on Roman religion has increasingly emphasized, individual choice played a major factor in the city’s rituals.87 Dionysius’ Ῥωμαῖοι need not be understood as “the Roman state”, but rather as “(some) Romans”, whose identities may have been too diverse to elucidate in detail.88 Given the themes of her myth, Tarpeia may have received libations primarily from women and foreigners, whose rites were less likely to attract the attention of the wealthy men who wrote Roman histories.89 Indeed, the libation-only offering might suggest that participants in this cult were of lower social status. Charles King suggests, on the basis of Propertius 2.10, that incense and a libation would have been the expected offering from Rome’s poor, who could not afford a blood sacrifice.90 We also cannot rule out the possibility that Tarpeia’s cult site was dedicated unofficially91 or was re-situated during the destruction of the Capitol under Sulla or the Flavians.92 It is possible that the active worship of Tarpeia continued for some time outside the frame of reference of the literary elite. The paucity of information regarding her rites means that arguments about the nature and workings of the cult must by necessity be speculative; however, given the many occasions on which Romans worshipped the dead, it is equally speculative to tie her rites to a particular festival and specific cult personnel, as argued by Mommsen and others.93
IV. Rites to Tarpeia
Aside from the question of Dionysius’ accuracy, arguments for the historicity of Tarpeia’s tomb must confront the problem that it is difficult to place topographically.94 Plutarch (who read Dionysius, but disagreed with him) and Festus (whose evidence is harder to decipher) suggest that the story of Tarpeia’s tomb lasted through the Augustan transition, but they disagree both with Dionysius/Piso and with each other over its location. Dionysius in the passage quoted above suggests that Tarpeia was worshipped on the Tarpeian rock – the location of which is itself a matter a controversy. The majority of historians follow Peter Wiseman and Filippo Coarelli in locating it on the northeastern slope of the Capitoline, above the Tullianum.95 This also seems to be the location implied by Propertius and Ovid, in whose poems water plays a significant role;96 the Tullianum, which lies directly below the Wiseman/Coarelli Tarpeian rock, has been recognized as a source of natural springs,97 and it was known as a wet location in antiquity.98
Based on Dionysius’ description of troop dispositions in the Romano-Sabine wars, this was also his understanding of where the tomb was located: he puts the Romans on the Esquiline and Quirinal, while Tatius camps between the Quirinal and Capitoline.99 These locations suggest that the major action of this war took place to the north of the Capitoline hill, and would place Tarpeia’s tomb on the spur of the Capitoline known as the Arx. Plutarch, in contrast, sets Tarpeia’s tomb on the southwestern section of the hill, near the later temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus; this also seems to be the tradition followed by Livy, who sets the Roman troops on the Palatine and the Sabine troops on the Capitoline.100 Both of these authors thus thought that the main action of the war took place to the south of the Capitoline hill, which marks the alternative location for the Tarpeian rock. Finally, Festus, whose evidence is quite unusual, associates Tarpeia’s statue with the temple of Metellan Jupiter, in the later Porticus Octaviae. Although this is similar to Livy and Plutarch in locating Tarpeia’s myth at the south end of the hill, Festus uniquely places Tarpeia’s statue outside the boundaries of the Capitoline. Propertius seems to speak of a grove, rather than a statue; its location is unclear, but may be more likely to agree with Livy’s and Plutarch’s understanding because of the mention of Jupiter (antiqui limina capta Iovis “the captured threshold of age-old Jupiter”; Iuppiter unus / decrevit poenis invigilare suis, “Jupiter alone decided to pay attention to her punishment”).101 However, it is not entirely clear that the Jupiter referred to is Optimus Maximus. This question of which Jupiter is best associated with Tarpeia recurs when examining Festus, and is taken up below. In Varro, the entire hill seems to be named for Tarpeia and no other monument is mentioned.102 There were, then, at a minimum three mooted locations for the worship of Tarpeia.
This conundrum is perhaps less problematic than it might seem. Livy does not include a tomb to Tarpeia; indeed, he seems to have purposefully omitted this information from Piso’s account. Thus his placement of the war between Romulus and Titus Tatius does not affect our understanding of where her tomb is located. This leaves us with Plutarch and Festus, whose evidence may be reconcilable with a tomb on the Arx, rather than on the Capitol as Pier Luigi Tucci has argued.103 While arguments in favor of Tarpeia’s cult on the Capitol struggle to explain the movement of her cult away from the rock which bears her name, the assumption that the tomb site was on the Arx and near the Tarpeian rock requires only the belief that two authors have made a common mistake.
Plutarch’s passage implies that Tarpeia’s burial spot was under the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, rather than on the Arx: τῆς μέντοι Ταρπηίας ἐκεῖ ταφείσης, ὁ λόφος ὠνομάζετο Ταρπήιος, ἄχρι οὗ Ταρκυνίου βασιλέως Διὶ τὸν τόπον καθιεροῦντος ἅμα τά τε λείψανα μετηνέχθη (“the hill was named ‘Tarpeian’ since Tarpeia was buried there, until King Tarquin dedicated the place to Zeus and at the same time moved the remains”).104 It is likely that here Plutarch has confused the Capitoline and the Capitol. It is well-known that writing on early Rome conflates the Capitol and the Arx, probably because, as Tucci has pointed out,105 by the time that they were writing the archaic landscape had disappeared. In the archaic period, the hill was divided into three sites: two hills (Capitol and Arx) and a valley between them (Asylum), but by the late Republic, the hill was unified by the construction of an artificial platform linking the Capitol and the Arx. Plutarch’s evidence reflects this later stage of development, since he at no point in his narrative of the Sabine wars refers to the Arx, but only to the “Capitoline”, taking the hill as a unit.
We know from various references in Plutarch’s works that he had read Dionysius, and Dionysius is cited by name at the end of the account of Romulus’ triumph, immediately before the story of Tarpeia.106 There is thus reason to believe that Dionysius’ account of Roman history was in Plutarch’s mind at this point in the narrative.107 Dionysius’ account of the building of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline helps explain the information that we see in Plutarch. First, although Dionysius himself never mentions the removal of Tarpeia’s bones and does not directly explain why the hill changed its name from Tarpeian to Capitoline, he does make explicit reference to both a Sabine war and the hill’s former “Tarpeian” name when he discusses the building of the Capitoline Temple in book 3:
(1) Ἐνεχείρησε δὲ καὶ τὸν νεὼν κατασκευάζειν τοῦ τε Διὸς καὶ τῆς Ἥρας καὶ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς ὁ βασιλεὺς οὗτος εὐχὴν ἀποδιδούς, ἣν ἐποιήσατο τοῖς θεοῖς ἐν τῇ τελευταίᾳ πρὸς Σαβίνους μάχῃ … (2) τοὺς δὲ θεμελίους οὐκ ἔφθασε θεῖναι … πολλοῖς δ᾿ ὕστερον ἔτεσιν ὁ τρίτος βασιλεύσας ἀπ᾿ ἐκείνου Ταρκύνιος, ὁ τῆς ἀρχῆς ἐκπεσών, τούς τε θεμελίους κατεβάλετο … (3) ἐπειδὴ γὰρ ἔμελλε κατασκευάζειν ὁ Ταρκύνιος τὸν ναόν, συγκαλέσας τοὺς οἰωνομάντεις ἐκέλευσε τοῖς ἀνδράσι περὶ αὐτοῦ πρῶτον διαμαντεύσασθαι τοῦ τόπου, τίς ἐπιτηδειότατός ἐστι τῆς πόλεως χῶρος ἱερὸς ἀνεῖσθαι καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς αὐτοῖς μάλιστα κεχαρισμένος. (4) ἀποδειξάντων δ᾿ αὐτῶν τὸν ὑπερκείμενον τῆς ἀγορᾶς λόφον, ὃς τότε μὲν ἐκαλεῖτο Ταρπήιος, νῦν δὲ Καπιτωλῖνος… τοῦτο δὲ οὐ πάνυ ῥᾴδιον ἦν· πολλοὶ γὰρ ἦσαν ἐν αὐτῷ βωμοὶ θεῶν τε καὶ δαιμόνων ὀλίγον ἀπέχοντες ἀλλήλων, οὓς ἔδει μετάγειν ἑτέρωσέ ποι… (5) οἱ μὲν οὖν ἄλλοι θεοί τε καὶ δαίμονες ἐπέτρεψαν αὐτοῖς εἰς ἕτερα χωρία τοὺς βωμοὺς σφῶν μεταφέρειν, οἱ δὲ τοῦ Τέρμονος καὶ τῆς Νεότητος οὐκ ἐπείσθησαν … τοιγάρτοι συμπεριελήφθησαν αὐτῶν οἱ βωμοὶ τῇ κατασκευῇ τῶν ἱερῶν, καὶ νῦν…108
This king also attempted the construction of a temple to Zeus, Hera, and Athena, fulfilling a vow which he had made to the gods in the final battle against the Sabines… but he did not lay the foundation of the shrine before [he died] … (2) many years later the third king after him, Tarquin, who was banished from the throne, began to establish the foundations…. (3) When he was preparing to build the temple, he called together diviners and ordered the men to consult the gods first regarding the location itself, to determine which part of the city was holy and dearest to the gods themselves; (4) and when they indicated that it was the hill which at that time was called “Tarpeian”, but is now called “Capitoline” … but this was not easy, for there were many altars of gods and demigods a short distance from each other which he would have to move somewhere else… (5) The other gods and demigods yielded their altars to move to a different place, but Terminus and Juventas… were not persuaded … and so their altars were included within the borders of the shrine and even now [they are there].
Dionysius claims that the entire Capitoline hill was cleared for the temple, including all of the shrines that had been located in the area with the exceptions of Terminus and Juventas. This description helps explain the confusion we see in Plutarch’s evidence: Dionysius said in book 2 that Tarpeia was buried where she fell and the hill was named after her. This creates a clear landmark, which could be visualized by his readers who were familiar with Rome and the Tarpeian rock. He then says in book 3 that this Tarpeian hill was renamed “Capitoline”, and that all but two of the shrines were cleared to make way for the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. This statement does not differentiate between the two summits of the Capitoline hill, and therefore has the potential to cause confusion if we assume that the Tarpeian side of the hill was primarily the Arx. The logical conclusion, which we see reflected in Plutarch’s narrative, is that the shrine of Tarpeia was moved along with other shrines to make space for the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, and therefore that the shrine of Tarpeia had been located on the same spot as the shrine of Jupiter. This confusion is especially likely if, as Pelling has suggested, Plutarch was primarily familiar with this evidence from Dionysius.109
Festus’ evidence is a little more complicated due both to the fragmentary nature of the text and to its abridgement of an earlier work written by the Augustan-era author Verrius Flaccus. The surviving work discusses the Tarpeia story twice, albeit in substantially different versions. These differences suggest that even in the second century CE, when the Tarpeia-traitor version was prevalent (as discussed in section II), variants continued to circulate. Although Festus’ text is complete at one of the two entries where he discusses Tarpeia, the degree of abridgement may impede our understanding of its contents. Additionally, as Marie-Karine Lhommé has argued, Festus took the title of De Verborum Significatu seriously, and was frustrated when Verrius strayed off topic.110 These issues are crucial to the interpretation of this passage:
Tarpeiae esse effigiem appellari putant quidam in aede Iovis Metellinae, eius videlicet in memoriam virginis, quae pacta a Sabinis hostibus ea, quae in sinistris manibus haberent, ut sibi darent, intro miserit eos cum rege Tatio; qui postea in pace facienda caverit a Romulo ut ea Sabinis semper pateret.111
Some think that there is an image of Tarpeia in the Metellan temple of Jupiter, so called, apparently, in memory of the virgo who made a deal with the Sabine army: they were to give her what they had on their left arms, and she would let them in along with their king, Tatius. When he later made peace with Romulus, he made sure that it [the citadel?112] would always be open to the Sabines.
Festus identifies a statue of Tarpeia in the shrine of “Metellan Jupiter,”113 which was located near the Circus Maximus. This shrine was called “Metellan” because of its location in the Porticus Metelli, which was later rebuilt by Augustus and renamed Porticus Octaviae. The 2nd-century CE author Festus does not appear to have updated the terminology he found in the Augustan-era work of Verrius Flaccus, and this suggests that the Augustan period may have seen disagreement over the location of Tarpeia’s tomb, grove, or statue.
Tara Welch has argued that the tortured syntax and extreme hedging of this entry suggest that a statue in the Porticus Metelli may have been assimilated to Tarpeia without being directly related.114 In her view, “the name [Tarpeia] had become so associated with the traitoress that any others bearing that name were subsumed into her strong presence.”115 This interpretation is incorrect; stories of other Tarpeiae living at other times continued to exist in Roman historiography. Plutarch tells us that the first Vestal under Numa was named Tarpeia, and Vergil makes a Tarpeia the companion of Camilla.116 Ana Mayorgas, in contrast, has suggested a different interpretation of the lemma: rather than explaining a site, it instead explains the phrase Tarpeiae esse effigiem.117 Although her explanation does have the benefit of easing the grammatical difficulty of the passage, it is not clear from her discussion why the saying Tarpeiae esse effigiem would exist or what it would mean outside the context of Festus’ book, where it clearly refers to a distinct item rather than (for example) a personality or visual type. I have thus followed Lindsay in assuming that the headword of the lemma is “Tarpeiae,” and thus that it is the grammar of the clause that is challenging.
The double infinitive does not present an insurmountable difficulty in the context of Festus’ work. Rather, the syntax suggests that information about Tarpeia’s shrine has been purposefully removed, presumably because it was either no longer relevant to the Rome of Festus’ day or it interfered with Festus’ own project, which seems to have been different from the project of Verrius Flaccus. Festus by his own admission suppressed Verrian information with which he disagreed,118 and it is not unlikely that this has happened here. The structure provided by Festus often offered two (or three or four) competing aetiological explanations, in the form quidam… alii or qui… vel: some people think this, but other people think something different.119 In fact, we see the same structure in the other lemma that mentions Tarpeia.120 In 496L, we are missing one half of this formula: the quidam is there, but not the alii. Because the somewhat alphabetical structure of the book requires that “Tarpeia” be kept as a headword, this compression leads to the awkward grammar found today. In other words, Festus (or the copyist of this manuscript) seems to have omitted a section of the text. Since the structure of the entry suggests that Tarpeia’s statue is under discussion, it is possible that the omitted information referred to the cult on the Capitol, which for his own reasons Festus felt no need to include.
However, Festus’ temple site may also be understood differently. The “Jupiter” to whom Metellus dedicated his temple was Jupiter Stator. In Livy’s version of the Romano-Sabine wars, a temple to Jupiter Stator was vowed by Romulus soon after Tatius took the citadel. There is thus a logical connection between Jupiter Stator and Tarpeia, and it is possible that this connection was also made by Verrius Flaccus. But Romulus did not, in the end, build a temple to Jupiter Stator; other Romans did. This resulted in two temples of Jupiter Stator in close proximity:121 one in the Forum, associated with Romulus, and another in the Porticus Metelli. Festus has perhaps confused these two temples. If so, his evidence would be closer to that provided by Livy and Plutarch in placing the site of Tarpeia’s death at the southeastern edge of the Capitoline. In this case, my discussion above regarding Plutarch’s confusion of Arx and Capitol would also apply to Festus. This interpretation is made less likely, however, by Festus’ other lemma on Tarpeia. The extremely fragmentary entry on the Tarpeian rock reasserts its separateness from the Capitol: noluerunt funestum locum r… Capitoli coniugi, “they [the Romans?] did not want a mournful space to be joined [to the] … of the Capitol.”122 Because the rest of the lemma seems to discuss the punishment of Tarpeia’s father, the use of funestus here most likely refers to the Tarpeian rock’s function as a mode of execution; however, readers may also have thought of Tarpeia’s tomb or statue. It is also possible that Tarpeia’s statue was moved from an original location on the Arx to the temple of Metellan Jupiter at some point between the Augustan period and Festus’ day. This may have involved moving or decommissioning the tomb, an act which was not uncommon.123
This lemma thus provides evidence that a more Pisonian version of Tarpeia was extant in at least the Augustan period, if not in Festus’ own day. If some people believe that a statue is a statue of Tarpeia, then Tarpeia must be thought worthy of a statue: in other words, the key issue is not whether this statue actually was Tarpeia’s, but whether Tarpeia was the sort of character who was deemed an appropriate recipient of honors. It seems that, to at least some Romans, she was. Taken together, the fragmentary evidence for rites to Tarpeia becomes more substantial: she has a tomb (according to Dionysius, Propertius, and Plutarch), a grove (according to Propertius), offerings (according to Dionysius), and a statue (according to Festus). This certainly sounds like Tarpeia received cultic honors.
The tomb’s existence needs not imply the existence of a “real” Tarpeia,124 dating back to the time of Romulus, but rather it suggests continuing rituals at a site deemed worthy of respect: perhaps an ancient monument, or a grove125 as suggested by the nemus/lucus of Propertius 4.4.1-3. The rites described by Dionysius are typical of Roman burial practice.126 Families gathered at tombs at death anniversaries and festivals to share a meal with the deceased; these practices are not only described in ancient literary works, but have been observed in archaeological remains, such as libation tubes with food residues, at sites throughout Italy.127 Such liquid offerings suit Dionysius’ description of the rites as χοαί, an offering typical of the dead in Greek religion.128 Moreover, burials on the Capitoline are known from the earliest phases of Roman settlement,129 and could have been a focus of continuing ritual. This is the process that Claudia Moser suggests occurred at the lapis niger:130 the cippus, whose original purpose was obscure, nonetheless continued to be sacred.
In some classical Greek writings χοαί are associated with the unburied or unmourned dead. This association, taken literally, could explain Dionysius’ evidence. For example, Romans building monuments on the Capitoline in the historical period might have discovered one of the bodies from the Latial-era necropolis131 and relocated this into a tomb, with annual offerings. It is possible that the location of such a monument was described using the adjective Tarpeius, based either on a magistrate at the time, the name of the hill, or a gens living nearby; over time, this forgettable origin was replaced by a more exciting story about the burial of a traitor (or misunderstood heroine) on the site of the monument. Any rituals at this site would not necessarily take place at a public festival. Some scholarship on the Lemuria has suggested that this festival marked rituals for the “angry” family dead. Fanny Dolansky has argued, following the work of Daniel Ogden and Sarah Iles Johnston in the Greek world, that unmarried women and people who died violently were among those most likely to become lemures.132 The character of the lemures is obscure;133 however, it must be noted that the limited evidence that we possess about the Lemuria does not accommodate the rituals described by Dionysius/Piso. Instead, they appear in Ovid as a primarily household rite that was performed by the paterfamilias, who would walk backwards tossing beans over his shoulder.134 As described by Ovid, the Lemuria does not involve either tombside libations or public ceremony.
Perhaps more promising as a comparison than the Lemuria, archaeologists in the Forum of Caesar have found Iron Age burials with evidence of ritual activity; the team suggests that the rites were intended to ensure the goodwill of spirits disturbed by the construction of the Forum.135 Such a ritual would cohere with the fear that King argues Romans had of the unknown dead, rather than the friendly Manes of those whom Romans had known in life.136 Another option would be the smaller-scale annual rites carried out to deified humans such as Acca Larentia.137 Much like the rites of the Dea Dia performed by the Arval brethren, Acca’s rites were assigned to a specific priest and seem to have been carried out without large-scale ceremony.138 As Jörg Rüpke has argued in a series of recent works, Roman religion was much more individualized than modern researchers have historically believed.139 In regard to Tarpeia, this individualization can help explain how Tarpeia could have been remembered as a traitor by one segment of the population while concurrently receiving cult as a person unjustly slain by another group. These two explanations are not mutually exclusive for a society in which religious flexibility was the norm.
Two works of scholarship also suggest parallels to the development of the Tarpeia myth. Daniele Miano’s outline of the development of the Libitina cult also starts from evidence of Piso, preserved in Dionysius. He argues that Piso’s discussion of the beginning of this cult cannot be taken at face value: rather, it shows Piso’s methodology. Piso began with some known facts, the names of deities, assumed that they were “part of a coherent system,” and created a narrative accordingly.140 For Tarpeia, the problem with this method is that the dedicatee was not divine or the deity was forgotten, a concept that seems unlikely. This would not mean that the Romans stopped paying cult honors to her; instead, they continued her rites based on other rituals with which they were familiar. Claudia Moser, in her work on Republican altars, discusses the enduring sacred status of a place, even when the original reason or deity had been forgotten.141 Her argument, which uses the lapis niger as an example, is relevant to Tarpeia in both mythological time (the era of Romulus) and contemporary space (around the Forum). Taken together, these arguments illuminate the case of Tarpeia: we can assume, with Propertius, that there was a sacred grove, named perhaps after the property of a nearby gens; that within that grove there was a sacred space whose sacralization was, like the lapis niger, too archaic to understand or forgotten – or that was created due to construction of new spaces; and that these details were, over time, elevated into a narrative by virtue of the beliefs that isolated facts must be connected, that cults needed to be founded early in the city’s history, and that the dead ought to be familiar. While attempts to explain the reason behind the ritual continued, regular libations maintained the space’s sense of sacredness.
V. Conclusion
Pier Luigi Tucci, in excavating the Capitoline, has uncovered a monument containing funerary vessels.142 Although his initial research suggested a connection of Tarpeia, he has reconsidered, because “apparently Dionysios is not reporting what he has seen with his eyes.”143 Alison Emmerson too thinks it more likely that this tomb belonged to a vir clarus and was perhaps a focus of household worship;144 indeed, the space was found specially demarcated in a late antique house, in accordance with Roman burial practices that venerated tombs even after the family had died out.145 Yet both arguments seem to be based on the idea that Tarpeia could not have had a tomb. Indeed, Tucci argues explicitly that silence about Tarpeia’s tomb, in contrast to the well-attested tomb of Acca, means it could not have existed.146 Yet in Tarpeia’s case, there is no argument from silence: rejecting Tarpeia’s tomb and rites means rejecting the evidence of Piso/Dionysius, Propertius, Plutarch, and Festus. We should instead listen to what these authors are telling us, and give credence to the idea that Tarpeia received some form of worship during at least the Roman Republic, and possibly later as well. As Rüpke reminds us, “it is the human, not the god, who sacralizes”147 – the fact that rites were paid to Tarpeia in itself makes her into an object of cult, even when these rites are performed by a single person or family. Once that happened, the task, for Piso and for those who followed him, was not to explain them away or to ignore them, but to figure out why she was deemed worthy.