She looked down from the fortress into the Sabine host, and she noticed that, whilst with their right arms the Sabines held their swords, on their left arms were hung massive golden bracelets, such as Tarpeia had never beheld before.

One day, leaning over the precipice, she managed to whisper into the ear of a Sabine soldier her treacherous plan.

She was willing in the dead of night to unlock the gate of the fortress, and to admit the Sabines, provided that they promised on their part to give her what they carried on their left arms.

Tarpeia's proposition was agreed to, and that night the governor's daughter stole the keys of the fortress from her father's room, and admitted the enemy.
But the Sabines had too much right feeling to let her treachery go unpunished.

She stood by the gate, hoping to receive the bracelets, but each Sabine soldier, as he entered, threw at her head his massive iron shield, which he also carried on his left arm, until she was crushed to the ground, and buried beneath a mass of metal.