THE LIFE

OF

ROMULUS.

SUMMARY,

Different opinions about the origin of Rome; and of the twin brothers, Romulus and Remus. Most probable account of their birth. They are suckled by a wolf. Their first employments; and quarrel with Numitor's herdsmen. Remus addresses that prince with great intrepidity. Faustalus arrested by Amulius's guards. Amulius slain by Romulus and Remus. Foundation of Rome. Dispute between the brothers. Remus slain by Romulus. Ceremonies observed in marking out the walls of the city. Epoch of its foundation. Distribution of the people; establishment of the senate. Right of patronage. Rape of the Sabines. Origin of the Talassio. Embassy of the Sabines. Romulus's victory over the Caninenses. Origin of the triumph. Conquests of Romulus; war of the Sabines. Battle in Rome between the Romans and Sabines. Romulus pressed by the enemy, invokes Jupiter Stator. The Sabine women declare in favour of the Romans. The two nations unite. Form of public deliberations. Festivals of the Romans. Vestals and the sacred fire. Laws of Romulus. Death of Tatius. Fidenæ ta ken. The Camerini defeated. War with Veii. Romulus abuses his power. The patricians discontented. He suddenly disappears Conjectures about his death. The people restrained from insurrection by Proculus. Some Grecian fables, like those circulated about Romulus. Reflections upon the nature of the soul. Different interpretations of the name "Quirinus.' The Caprotine Nones.

:

FROM whom, and for what cause, the city of Rome obtained that name,* whose glory has diffused itself over the

* Upon this subject, to adopt the most generally received date, we must place the foundation of Rome at B. C. 753, Ol. vi. 4. and the death of Romulus B. C. 716. A. U C. 38. But, though these events are universally allowed to have happened at a period not long prior ́to the Christian æra, they are involved in much uncertainty. Some

Some say that the

world, historians are not agreed.* Pelasgi, after they had overrun great part of the globe, and conquered many nations, settled there; and gave their city the name of Rome,‡ on account of their strength in war. Others inform us that, when Troy was taken, some of the Trojans having escaped and gained their ships, put to sea, and being driven by the winds upon the coasts of Tuscany, came to an anchor in the river Tiber: that here, their wives being much fatigued, and no longer able to bear the hardships of the sea, one of them, superior to the rest in birth and prudence, named Roma, proposed that they should burn the fleet; that, this being effected, the men were first much exasperated; but afterwards through necessity fixed their seat on the Palatine hill, and in a short time found things succeed beyond their expectation; for the country was good,§ and the people hospitable that therefore, besides other honours paid to Roma, they called their city (as she was the cause of its being built) after her name. Hence too, we are informed,

represent them as astronomical allegories ; others confine the obscurity of the history of Rome to the reigns of its seven kings; which include a space of 244 years; while a third class admit of little as well authenticated, which is referred to any of the first five centuries from its foundation. The writers of Greece indeed (at that time almost the only writers, and they too chiefly poets or fabulist historians) cared little for what was passing in Italy; and Numa left nothing behind him, except what had reference to religion or philosophy. The annalists of Rome began to make their appearance only about the time of the first Punic war.*

Such is the uncertainty of the origin of imperial Rome, and indeed of most cities and nations, that are of any considerable antiquity. That of Rome might be the more uncertain, because its first inhabitants, being a collection of fugitives and outlaws from other nations, could not be supposed to leave histories behind them. Livy however, and most of the Latin historians, agree that Rome was built by Romulus, and both the city and the people named after him; while the vanity of the Greek writers seeks to refer almost every thing, and Rome among the rest, to a Grecian original.

†These, originally from Arcadia, were the oldest inhabitants of Greece; whence they were driven into Thessaly, and thence into Epirus, Macedon, Italy, Crete, and Asia.

'Paua signifies "strength." See also Festus, voc. Roma.

Whatever desirable things Nature has scattered frugally in other countries, were formerly found in Italy as in their original seminary. But there has been so little encouragement given to the cultivation of the soil, since it became subject to the pontiffs, that it is now com..... paratively barren.

the custom arose for the women to salute their relations and husbands with a kiss; because those women, when they had burned the ships, used such kind of endearments to appease their husbands' resentment.

Among the various accounts of historians, it is said that Roma was the daughter of Italus and Leucaria; or of Telephus the son of Hercules, and married to Æneas: or of Ascanius the son of Æneas, and that she gave name to the city; or that Romanus, the son of Ulysses and Circe, built it; or Romus, the son of Emathion, whom Diomedes sent from Troy; or Romus king of the Latins, after he had expelled the Tuscans,* who passed originally from Thessaly into Lydia, and from Lydia into Italy.Even they who, with the greatest probability, declare that the city had its name from Romulus, are far from agreeing about his extraction for some state that he was the son of Æneas and Dexithea, the daughter of Phorbus, and was brought an infant into Italy with his brother Remus; that all the other vessels were lost by the violence of the flood, except that containing the children, which driving gently ashore where the bank was level, they were saved beyond expectation, and the place from them called Rome. Some will have it that Roma, daughter of the Trojan woman who was married to Latinus, the son of Telemachus, was the mother of Romulus. Others say that Emilia, the daughter of Æneas and La inia, had him by Mars: and others again give an account of his birth, which is entirely fabulous. There appeared, it seems, to Tarchetius king of the Albans, who was the worst and most barbarous of men, a supernatural vision in his own house, the figure of Priapus rising out of the chimney-hearth, and staying there many days. The goddess Tethys had an oracle in Tuscany,f which being consulted on the occasion, gave this answer to Tarchetius; That it was necessary some virgin should admit the embraces of the phantom, from which would spring a son eminent for valour, good fortune, and strength

·

*That these Tuscans however were not the same as the Pelasgi, nor even a colony from Lydia, is inferred by Dion. Halic. with great probability, from the difference of their language, customs, religion, and laws.*

+There was no oracle of Tethys, but of Themis there was.Themis was the same with Carmenta, the mother of Evander, which last name she had, because she delivered her oracles in carmine, ⚫ in verses.'

of body. Upon this Tarchetius acquainted one of his daughters with the prediction, and ordered her to entertain the apparition; but she, declining it, sent her maid. When Tarchetius knew this, he was highly offended, and confined them both, intending to put them to death. Vesta however appeared to him in a dream, and forbade his killing them; but directed, that the young woman should weave a certain web in their fetters, and when that was finished be given in marriage. They wove therefore in the day-time; while others, by Tarchetius's order, unravelled it in the night. The woman having twins by this commerce, Tarchetius delivered them to one Teratius, with an injunction to destroy them.But, instead of that, he exposed them by a river-side; where a she-wolf came and gave them suck, and various kinds of birds brought food for their support; till at last a herdsman who beheld it with surprise, ventured to approach and take up the children. Thus secured from danger, they grew up, and then attacked Tarchetius and overcame him. This is the account which Promathion gives, in his History of Italy.

But the principal parts of that account, which deserves the most credit, and has the greatest number of vouchers, were first published among the Greeks by Diocles the Peparethian, whom Fabius Pictor* commonly follows; and, though there are different relations of the matter, yet to despatch it in a few words, the story is this: The kings of Albaf descending lineally from Æneas, the succession fell to two brothers, Numitor and Amulius. The latter divided the whole inheritance into two parts, set

* Peparethus was one of the Cyclades, eminent for its wine. Who Diocles was, is unknown; but Fabius Pictor, called by Livy,' the oldest Roman writer,' was one of the deputies sent to Delphi after the fatal battle of Cannæ, to inquire into the means of conciliating the offended gods. He is charged, by Polybius, with having treated the Carthaginians unjustly in his annals. (Voss. de Hist. Lat. i. 3.)*

+ From Æneas, down to Numitor and Amulius, there were thirteen kings of the same race; but we scarcely know any thing of them, except their names and the years of their respective reigns. Amulius the last of them, who surpassed his brother in courage and understanding, drove him from the throne; and, in order to secure it for himself, murdered Ægestus, Numitor's only son, and consecrated his daughter Rhea Sylvia to the worship of Vesta.

Of this division Dion. Halic. (i. 17.) makes no mention, but only says that Amulius by force seized the throne, to the exclusion of his elder brother, whose claim was incontestable: and his statement is apparently proved by a passage in Livy (i. 6) who remarks that, as

ting the treasures brought from Troy against the kingdom; and Numitor made choice of the kingdom. Amulius then having the treasures, and consequently being more powerful than Numitor, easily possessed himself of the kingdom too; and fearing the daughter of Numitor might have children, appointed her priestess of Vesta, in which capacity she was always to live unmarried and a virgin. Some say her name was Ilia, some Rhea, and others Sylvia. This lady, contrary to the law of the Vestals, was soon discovered to be with child. But Antho, the king's daughter, by much entreaty prevailed upon her father, that she should be delivered without Amulius's knowledge. On the completion of her time, shé was delivered of two sons of uncommon size and beauty; upon which Amulius, still more alarmed, directed one of his servants to destroy them. Some say, the name of the servant was Faustulus; others, that this was the nanie of the person who took them up. Pursuant to his orders,

he put the children into a small trough or cradle, and went down towards the river with a design to cast them in; but seeing it very rough, and running with a strong current, he was afraid to approach it. He therefore laid them down near the bank, and departed. The flood increasing continually set the trough afloat, and carried it gently down to a pleasant place now called Cermanum, but formerly (as it should seem) Germanum, because they call brothers · Germani.'

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Near this place was a wild fig-tree,. which, they called Ruminalis, either on account of Romulus (as is generally supposed) or because the cattle there ruminated, or chewed the cud, during the noon-tide in the shade; or rather because of the suckling of the children there; for the ancient Latins called the breast ruma, and the goddess who presides over the nursery Rumilia, whose rites they celebrated without wine, and only with libations of milk. The infants, as the story goes, lying there were suckled by a she-wolf, and fed and taken care of by a wood-pecker. These animals are sacred to Mars; and the wood-pecker Romulus and Remus were twins, there was no method of determining which of them, in right of seniority, should rule the other.*

The Romans called that goddess not Rumilis, but Rumina. (L.) Heyne, in his Excurs. IV. on Virg. Æn. vii. rejects this derivation, and the fable of the wolf as grafted upon it; and thinks it much more probable that the city had its name from Rumon, the old appellation of the Tiber. (Serv. ad. En. viii. 90. &c.)*

† As pernicious to that period of life.*