Crawford 344/2b, Roman Republic, L. Titurius L. F. Sabinus, Rome mint, AR-Denarius.

Roman Republic, L. Titurius L. F. Sabinus, Rome mint, 89 BC.,
AR Denarius (18-19 mm / 3.60 g).
Obv.: SABIN , behind bearded head king Tatius r., branch before.
Rev.: L. TITVR (in exergue), the killing of Tarpeia by two Sabinian soldiers, star in crescent above.
Crawford 344/2b ; Sydenham 699 ; Bab. (Tituria) 4 .

According to legend, when Titus Tatius attacked Rome after the Rape of the Sabines, 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 she was thrown from the rock which now bears her name. The Tarpeian Rock (rupes Tarpeia) was a steep cliff of the southern summit of the Capitoline Hill, overlooking the Roman Forum in Ancient Rome. It was used during the Roman Republic as an execution site. Murderers and traitors, if convicted by the quaestores parricidii, were flung from the cliff to their deaths. About 500 BC, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh legendary king of Rome, leveled the top of the rock, removing the shrines built by the Sabines, and built a temple to Jupiter Capitolinus on the intermontium, the area between the two summits of the hill. The rock was also the site of a temple of Saturn, which contained the Roman treasury that Julius Caesar raided in 49 BC.