SABINE PASS, a seaport t. of Texas, the terminus of the St. Louis and Mexican Gulf railroad, and having communication with the interior of the state and Louisiana by the Neches and Sabine rivers; the water in its inner harbor is from 25 to 40 ft. deep. When the railroad to St. Louis is opened the town will become large and important.
SABrNI, an ancient people of central Italy, whose territory lay to the n.e. of Rome. The boundaries of the territory cannot he determined with exactness, but it appears to Mom extended from the sources of the Nar, on the borders of Picenum, as far s. as the Anio. The nations conterminous to the Sabini were the Urnbrians on the n., the Umbrians and Etruscans on the w., the Latins and rEqui on the s., and time Marsi and Picentini on tho east. The entire length of the Sabine territory did not exceed 85 in.. reckoning from the lofty and rugged group of the Apennines, anciently known as the Mona Fiscellus (now Monti della &Ulla), to Eii1en3c on the Tiber, which is nut more than 5 in. from Rome. The principal towns were Reate, Interocrea, Falacrinurn, Nursia, Amiternuni, Casperia, and Cures, but none of these places were of any size or political importance. The inhabitants had no inducements to congregate in large towns. Their country was an interior region; much of it, especially in the n., very mountainous and bleak, though the valleys were and are) often richly productive; and thus cut off from the sea-board, and even from that easy access to their neighbors which lowland districts admit of, they (like all the other races who peopled the sequestered regions of the Apennines) scarcely advanced beyond time rude simplicity of their primitive highland hamlets. The Sabines were a brave, stern, religious race, whose virtues were all of an austere and homely character. Cicero speaks of them as severissimi &manes, and Livy notes the diseiplina tetrica ac tristis veterans, Sabinorum (" the Stern and grave discipline of the old Sabines"), while the poets of the empire—Horace, Virgil, Juve?al, etc., are fond of contrasting
their simple, uncontaminated modes of life with the vicious luxury and dissipation of the capital. What part, if any they had in the foundation of the city of Rome cannot now be ascertained, as the whole story of the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres has come down to us in a purely mythical form (see Roam) Their native tutelary deity was " Sancus," or Semo-Sancus' = Lat. Sanctus, the "holy" or "venerable;" but like the other Latino-Sabellian races, they also worshiped Jove, Mars,.Mi»erva, Sol, etc. That the Sabini were an ancient people in Italy is certain. They were probably most nearly allied to the Umbriaus, whose tutelary god was also " Semo-Sancus;" and, in fact, they Inv generally considered an offshoot of that people; but they themselves, on the other Band. became so numerous that they were obliged to send forth numerous colonies, who founded new nations to the s. and e., the Pieentes, Peligni, Samnites (q.v.) etc.; while the Samnites (a name essentially the same as Sabini; the Greek form Saunitai = &m inks = Oscan name Safini or Sabini) in their turn became the progenitors of the Luca nians, Campanians, and Bruttii. Hence the epithet UMbro-Sabellian, in use among classical ethnologists, to denote the whole of these kindred races, who were also allied, but less closely, to the Latins (see LATINO and Oscans (see Osci). Of the Sabine lan guage only a few words remain, which, however, seem to indicate that it differed from the Latin only dialectically: thus, Lat, /circus, Sab. fircus; Lat. hostis, Sab. fostis. etc.; analogous to the Aberdeen jilk for " whilk," fat for "what," etc. For further informa tion see Boxy:. thsTonv OF.