Horatii and Curiatii

Horatii and Curiatii, in Roman legend, two sets of triplet brothers whose story was probably fashioned to explain existing legal or ritual practices. The Horatii were Roman and the Curiatii Alban, although the Roman historian Livy wrote that some earlier accounts had reversed this order. During the war between Rome and Alba Longa in the reign of Tullus Hostilius (traditionally 672–642 bc), it was agreed that settlement of the dispute should depend on the outcome of combat between the two groups of brothers.

In the contest two of the Horatii were quickly killed; but the third, feigning flight, managed to slay his wounded pursuers one by one. When the survivor entered Rome in triumph, his sister recognized among his trophies a cloak she had made for one of the Curiatii to whom she was betrothed. She could not conceal her grief and was killed by her brother, who declared, “So perish any Roman woman who mourns the enemy.” For this act Horatius was condemned to death, but he was saved by an appeal to the people.

The tale might have been devised to provide an august origin for the legal practice that granted every condemned Roman the right to appeal to the populace. Alternatively, perhaps it was used to explain the ritual of the tigillum sororium (“sister’s beam”), the yoke under which Horatius had to pass to be purified of his crime.

The story forms the subject of Pierre Corneille’s 17th-century French tragedy Horace and of the 18th-century French artist Jacques-Louis David’s painting The Oath of the Horatii in the Louvre in Paris—although there is no oath in Livy’s account.