Timeline The Sabines (US: /ˈseɪbaɪnz/, SAY-bynes, UK: /ˈsæbaɪnz/, SAB-eyens;[1] Latin: Sabini ) were an Italic people who lived in the central Apennine Mountains (see Sabina) of the ancient Italian Peninsula, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome.

The population closer to Rome transplanted itself to the new city and united with the preexisting citizenry, beginning a new heritage that descended from the Sabines but was also Latinized.

The second population remained a mountain tribal state, coming finally to war against Rome for its independence along with all the other Italic tribes.

From Safinim, Sabinus, Sabellus and Samnis, an Indo-European root can be extracted, *sabh-, which becomes Sab- in Latino-Faliscan and Saf- in Osco-Umbrian: Sabini and *Safineis.

This date does not necessarily correspond to any historical or archaeological evidence; developing a synthetic view of the ethnology of proto-historic Italy is an incomplete and ongoing task.

Conjecturing that the -a- was altered from an -o- during some prehistoric residence in Illyria, he derives the names from an o-grade extension *swo-bho- of an extended e-grade *swe-bho- of the possessive adjective, *s(e)we-, of the reflexive pronoun, *se-, "oneself" (the source of English self).

The Sabines settled in Sabinum, around the tenth century BC, founding the cities of Reate, Trebula Mutuesca and Cures Sabini.

[7][8] Dionysius of Halicarnassus mentions the Sabines in relation to the Aborigines, from whom they allegedly stole their capital Lista, with a surprise war action starting from Amiternum.

According to Strabo the Sabines, after a long war with the Umbrians, migrated to the land of the Opici, following the ancient Italic rite of the Ver Sacrum.

Porcius Cato argued that the Sabines were a populace named after Sabus, the son of Sancus (a divinity of the area sometimes called Jupiter Fidius).

Some of the gentes of the Roman republic were proud of their Sabine heritage, such as the Claudia gens, assuming Sabinus as a cognomen or agnomen.