The painting depicts Romulus's wife Hersilia – the daughter of Titus Tatius, leader of the Sabines – rushing between her husband and her father and placing her babies between them.

According to legend, when Tatius attacked Rome, he almost succeeded in capturing the city because of the treason of the Vestal Virgin Tarpeia, daughter of Spurius Tarpeius, governor of the citadel on the Capitoline Hill.

The towering walls in the background of the painting have been interpreted as an allusion to the Bastille, whose storming on 14 July 1789 marked the beginning of the French Revolution.

France was at war with other European nations after a period of civil conflict culminating in the Reign of Terror and the Thermidorian Reaction, during which David had been imprisoned as a supporter of Robespierre.

[5] Numerous apocryphal anecdotes arose in Paris about the involvement of Adèle de Bellegarde and her sister Aurore, who modelled for the two central Sabine women.

[12] According to Delécluze, however, it was Adèle's long, dark hair that most interested him: at the time, he had already painted the crouching figure next to Hersitia (which had been completed by October 1796),[3] and expressed regret that he had not had de Bellegarde's face as a model from which to do so.

[11] The Intervention of the Sabine Women was first exhibited at the Louvre on December 21 1799,[16] a few weeks after the Coup of 18 Brumaire,[17] in what has been described as "the major artistic event of the late 1790s in Paris.

"[18] The diaphanous gowns worn by its female characters were credited for starting a fashion for similar outfits, known as dresses à la antique ("Ancient-style"),[19] among Parisian high society.

[citation needed] Starting in 1977, France issued a series of stamps featuring the head of Hersilia based on David's painting.