...At this place, as a result of the intervention of the Sabine women, had the fathers and the husbands formed the fundamental compact of the united nations. Venus Cloacina thus became recognized as the goddess of chaste and holy matrimony. The cult of Venus Cloacina is strictly patrician; and, if it is related that the plebeian Virginius slew his daughter near the statue of that goddess, such a statement proves still further that the legend of Virginia was connected with the patrician cult of Venus Cloacina, and demonstrates the foreign origin of the tale localized in the Forum Romanum. The transference occurred only after the neighboring tabernae had been altered in 192 B.C. by the plebeian M. Junius Brutus and had consequently been called plebeian. In other words, it occurred only after alterations made by a member of that plebeian family which aspired to trace its origin to L. Junius Brutus, the pseudo-patrician recognized as the first consul of the Republic. From the macellum, therefore, that had thus been repaired by the plebeian Brutus sprang the characteristic element of the butcher's knife with which Virginius slew his daughter...

Ettore Pais, trans. Mario E. Cosenza, Ancient Legends of Roman History (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1905), 199.