in the process, of encroaching upon what is sound, or cles of Peparethus, an author mentioned by no one rooting out what is wholesome and nutritious. Let it else, is said by Plutarch, in his Life of Romulus, to be granted that the rape of the Sabine women is a fic- have been the first to accredit the received accounts of tion, it may still be true that the Sabines became, at the circumstances relative to the origin of Rome; and one time, an element in the population of Rome. it was upon his authority that Fabius Pictor, the earThough it be uncertain, with respect to the Horatii and liest Roman historian, brought them into repute with Curiatii, which belonged to Rome and which to Alba, his countrymen. Now, unless we are informed what we may still believe that the latter city sank beneath peculiar sources of information were open to this ob its more powerful rival. The elder Tarquin's reign scure writer, which were not possessed by the othe does not cease to be an historical fact, because we hear early historians of his nation, to whom the name of an absurd story of an eagle uncovering his head on his Romulus seems to have been known, there can be no arrival at the gates of Rome. The constitution said to reason why we should give him the preference. It have been formed by Servius Tullius may have been will not be enough to say that the approval of Fabius the result of longer experience and more practical wis- is a sufficient testimony in his favour; for, as his acdom than falls to the lot of a single reign; but it was count of the birth of their founder was most flattering such a constitution as Rome did receive, and which it to the vanity of the Romans, their partiality towards was afterward enabled to bring to a state of greater per- him would be easily accounted for, and, by a natural fection than any ancient form of government that we consequence, would tend to lower rather than raise are acquainted with. Suppose the story of Lucretia our opinion of his credibility. But the most solid obfalse, we cannot deny that monarchy was abolished at jection which can be urged against the popular acRome, and made way for consular authority about the count of the foundation of Rome by Romulus, is chieftime that Livy pretends, though that historian may ly grounded on the inconsistency of the circumstanbe wrong in giving Valerius Publicola, and not Hora-ces under which that city is said to have commenced tius Barbatus, as a colleague to Brutus. - (Polyb., 2, its political career, with the character and condition 23.) The valour of Horatius Cocles, and the forti- which is ascribed to it immediately after. If it be tude of Mutius Scævola, may be left to the admiration true that Romulus was surrounded by so much state of schoolboys; but the siege of Rome by Porsenna is and dignity, and possessed not only the insignia of no idle tale invented for their amusement, though it royalty, but also a force such as no despicable city should be proved that the consequences of that event could display, since we are told that he could bring were not so honourable to the Romans as Livy has into the field formidable armies, then we may assert chosen to represent them. (Tacit., 3, 72.-Plin., 34, confidently that Rome did not date its beginning 14.) It is a disputed point whether two or five tribunes from a motley assemblage of lawless depredators and of the people were elected at first; but does that doubt runaway slaves, and that its first walls held within invalidate the fact of the secession to the Mons Sa- their circuit something more than the lowly huts of cer? Cancel three fourths of the Roman victories and shepherds, or the rude palace of a village king. Nor triumphs over the qui and Volsci, will it be less were there traditions wanting to give strength to such true that the former were nearly destroyed, the latter an hypothesis, by ascribing to this great city an existcompletely subjugated? Say it was gold, and not the ence anterior to that which it had afterward as a colony valour of her dictator and his troops, which delivered of Alba. (Cramer's Anc. Italy, vol. 1, p. 347, seqq). Rome from the Gauls; she may surely boast of having-But let us now proceed to the question respecting lived to revenge herself on the barbarian foe, and of the real origin of Rome. having, by a hundred triumphs, blotted out the stain of that transaction, and of the shameful rout on the banks of the Allia. In short, though we may sometimes When we inquire into the real origin of the city of pause when reading the early annals of Rome, and Rome, we meet with a tradition which carries it back hesitate what judgment to form on many of the events to the age of the Pelasgians. (Plut., Vit. Rom. init.) which they record, there are landmarks enough to pre- The Pelasgic origin of Rome is implied in the legend vent us from straying far from our course, and to lead us of the settlement of the Arcadian Evander on the Palon safely to the terra firma of her history. But we have atine Mount. The religion and the language of Rome not the same assistance for tracing our way, nor the sanction this belief. The same opinion was probably same guarantees to certify us that we are treading in the held, at least by the earliest of the many writers who, right path, when we come to explore the truth of the according to Dionysius, supposed it to be a Tyrrhenian accounts on which the origin of Rome, and the actions city. (Dion. Hal., 1, 29.) If any by this expression of its reputed founder, must mainly depend for their meant that it was Etruscan, we may oppose to this credibility. On the contrary, after reading all that the well-grounded opinion that the Etrurian sway was Plutarch has said in the opening of his life of Romu- not extended so far south as the lower part of the Tilus, and all that Dionysius has collected on the sub- ber till about the close of the second century of ject, it is impossible not to feel convinced that the re- Rome. We have, however, express testimony that ceived story of the foundation of Rome rests on very Rome was a Siculian town. Varro informs us, that questionable grounds. Here it is not merely the more the old annals reported that the Siculi were sprung undisguised appearance of fiction, or the greater fre- from Rome (L. L., 4, 10); and the legend of Antioquency of the marvellous, which is calculated to awa- chus has been preserved, which derived the appellaken suspicion; but it is the inconsistency and improb- tion of the Siceli in notria and Sicily from a mythic ability of the whole, as an attempt to explain the first chief Sicelus, who fled from Rome, and was enterrise and progress of unquestionably the most interest-tained by Morges, king of Enotria. (Dion. Hal., 1, ing city of antiquity, which ought to startle the mind 73.) It is scarcely necessary to observe, that Sicelus and revolt the judgment of the philosopher and the is a personification of the nation, and that we have critic. It is not also because these tales are to be here a record of its original seat, and of its subsequent traced to a Greek source that we would reject them; migration. The considerations which tend to show for we are inclined to think that the early Greek his- that the Siceli or Siculi were a Pelasgian tribe, will torians who made the antiquities of Italy their study, be found under another article. (Vid. Siculi.) The and they form a numerous class, were better informed Siceli fled from the Opici; and the Pelasgians of Latiabout what they wrote, and more trustworthy, than um were overpowered by the Casci, who were probaperhaps they are generally allowed to be. The objec-bly an Opican or Oscan tribe. Whether Rome fell tion rather lies against the particular authority on whose into the hands of the conquerors we cannot be certain, testimony they seem entirely to rest for support. Dio- but it is very probable. It is thus we must interpret

1. Origin of Rome.

the legend preserved by Plutarch, that Romus, king of the Latins, expelled the Tyrrhenians. (Plut., Vit. Rom.) Such a conquest would give rise to the tradition that Rome was founded as a colony from Alba. Palatium, the settlement on the Palatine Hill, probably took its name from Palatium, a town of the Oscan Aborigines, on the declivity of the Apennines. (Dion. Hal., 1, 14.)

with a foreign woman as his wife; but, unless the intermarriage were sanctioned by public compact, his children lost their paternal rank. Niebuhr has observed, that even the poetic legend did not regard Rome as a genuine and lawful colony from Alba; otherwise it would, from the very beginning, have enjoyed the right of intermarriage with the mother city and the other Latin towns; and there would have been no consistency in the story of the want of wom2. Original site, and subsequent growth of Rome. en (vol. 1, note 628). In the narrative of the war All traditions agree, that the original site of Rome with the Latins, Livy calls Tatius only king of the Sawas on the Palatine, whether they ascribe its founda- bines; but when he mentions that, at the close of the tion to Evander or to Romulus. The steepness of war, the Sabine appellation Quirites was extended to the sides of the hill would be its natural defence; and the people of Romulus, he derives it from Cures. on one quarter it was still farther strengthened by a (Liv., 1, 10, 13.) Dionysius has followed the Answamp which lay between the hill and river, which nalists, who expressly specified Cures as the seat of was afterward drained and called the Velabrum. In the kingdom of Tatius. Strabo adopted the same the course of time dwellings sprung up around the tradition. Now, when we consider the exceedingly foot of the hill; but the Palatine must still have re- narrow limits within which all the other incidents of mained the citadel of the growing town; just as at the early Roman traditions are confined, and even the Athens that which was the original city (óhes) be- historical events of the first years of the republic, after came eventually the Acropolis (arpórоhis). These the kingly dominion of the city was reduced, it seems suburbs were enclosed with a line, probably a rude very unlikely that Rome, in its infancy, could have fortification, which the learning of Tacitus enabled come into collision with Cures, which was distant him to trace, and which he calls the pomarium of from it more than twenty miles. Moreover, nothing Romulus. (Ann., 12, 24.) It ran under three sides is told of the war before the seizure of the Capitoline of the hill the fourth side was occupied by the swamp Hill. This is the point from which all the attacks of just mentioned, where it was neither needful nor pos- the Sabines proceed. Again, after the termination of sible to carry a wall. The ancient city comprised the war, we hear nothing of the return of Tatius to within this outline, or, possibly, only the city on the Cures. He apparently deserts his old dominion, and summit of the hill, was called by Roman antiquaries establishes himself and his Sabines on the Capitoline the "Square Rome" (Roma Quadrata. — Ennius, ap. and Quirinal Hills. (Dion. Hal., 2, 46, 50.) The Fest., s. v. Quadrata Roma. Plut., Vit. Rom. - senate of the people of Romulus and Tatius met in Dio Cass., fragm.- Dion. Hal., 1, 88). There is conference in the valley between the Palatine and reason to suppose, that some at least of the adjacent Capitoline Hills; and as the Palatine was the proper hills were the seat of similar settlements. The le- seat of the one, so the Capitoline must have been that gend of the twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, ap- of the other. Cures vanishes from our sight; and pears to have arisen from the proximity to Rome of though the union of the Romans with the Sabine peoa kindred town called Remoria, either on the Aven- ple, with whom they had warred, endured unbroken, tine, or on an eminence somewhat more distant to- there is no trace of their possessing a wider territory wards the sea. (Dion. Hal., 1, 85.-Niebuhr, Rom. than the district immediately adjacent to the hills of Hist., vol. 1, note 618.)-The first enlargement of Rome.-These considerations are sufficient to expose Rome seems to have been effected by the addition of the inconsistency of the vulgar legend: but the testithe Cælian Hill, which, as we shall presently show, was mony to the incorporation of a part of the Sabines probably occupied by a different tribe from the people with the Roman people is far too strong to be set of the Palatine. Dionysius speaks of Romulus as aside. The most probable supposition is, as has been holding both the Palatine and the Calian Mount (2, before stated, that the Sabines, who in the early pe50). The next addition to the city was the Esqui- riod of their national existence extended themselves line Hill. The festival of Septimontium preserved down the left bank of the Tiber, had advanced even the memory of a time when Rome included only Pa- to the neighbourhood of Rome, and had established a latium, with its adjacent regions, Velia, Cermalus, and settlement on the Quirinal and Capitoline Hills. Of Fagutal; the Cælian Hill; and Oppius and Cispius, this town the Capitoline must have been the citadel. the two summits of the Esquiline. (Festus, s. v. Sep-It was likewise the seat of its religious worship: for timontium.-Niebuhr, vol. 1, p. 382.) The Capitoline, Quirinal, and Viminal Hills were not yet comprehended in the pomoerium: the Aventine was always excluded from the hallowed boundary, even when it was substantially a part of the city. Thus we see that the notion that Rome was built on seven hills, was fitted originally to circumstances different from those to which it was afterward applied.-The Quirinal and Capitoline Hills seem to have been the seat of a Sabine settlement, distinct from the Rome on the Palatine, and in early times even hostile to it. The most poetical incident in the legend of Romulus, the rape of the Sabine virgins, involves an historical meaning. It appears to refer to a time when the Romans did not possess the right of intermarriage with some neighbouring Sabine states, and sought to extort it by force of arms. (Niebuhr, vol. 1, p. 286.) By the right of intermarriage (connubium) is meant the mutual recognition, that the children of parents, citizens of the two states, were entitled to the full rank of citizens in the state of their father. This right among the ancient states of both Greece and Italy was established only by express treaty. A citizen might live

the pontifical books recorded, that, before the building of the Capitol, its site was occupied by shrines and fanes consecrated by Tatius. (Liv., 1, 55.) Tatius we can scarcely regard as a more certainly historical personage than Romulus, though the story of his death at Lavinium has an historical aspect. He is only the personification of the tribe of the Titienses or Tities, who are said to have taken their name from him. But his people had a real existence. The name of their town has been lost: their own name was undoubtedly Quirites. This people lived in close neighbourhood with the Romans on the Palatine; but they were of different, and even hostile races, and no intercourse subsisted between them. Between two petty states, so situated in immediate neighbourhood, it is not at all improbable that women may have been a cause of contention. We can gather from the traditions that war took place between them, which ended at last in a compact, by which not only the right of intermarriage, and a community of all other rights, were granted, but the two nations were combined into one. We can even trace the stages of their union. It appears at first to have been a federal union. Each

people had its own king and its own senate; and they | tribe, the Luceres. Moreover, there is a tradition, only met to confer upon matters of common interest. though a confused one, that the Calian took its name Afterward one king was acknowledged as the common from a Tyrrhenian or Tuscan chief, Cælius or Cæles, chief of the united people: the two senates became one body, and consulted for the welfare of the whole state the national names of Romans and Quirites were extended indifferently to both divisions of the citizens; and they were no longer distinguished as nations, but only as tribes of the same people, under

the denomination of Ramnes and Titienses.

3. Early Roman Tribes.

an auxiliary of Romulus; in short, the Lucumo from whom the Luceres were supposed to deduce their appellation. (Dion. Hal., 2, 36.-Varro, L. L., 4, 8, 9.-Festus, s. v. Cælius Mons.-Tac., Ann., 4, 65.)' 4. Of Patricians and Clients; and of the Plebeian

Order.

Among the original population of the city, those who could show a noble or free ancestry constituted We are told that the people of Rome were divided the Patrician Order, the term Patricii being equivalent into three tribes; and, besides the Ramnes and Titi-to ingenui (Liv., 10,8.-Cincius, ap. Fest., s. v. Paenses, a third tribe appears, who are called Luceres. tricios); and to them alone belonged a share in the That they were looked upon as an important element government of the state. The rest of the people were in the state, is manifest from the legend that Roma subject to the king and to the body of the Patricians : was the daughter of Italus and Luceria. As the dis- and each man, with his household, was attached, untinction of the two former tribes arose from the dif-der the appellation of Client, to the head of some Paference of their national origin, so we may conclude trician family, whom he was bound to serve, and from that the Luceres were a people of a third race, and whom he looked for protection and help. It has alunited either by confederacy or subjection with the ready been stated, that after the Sabine war and the other two. The origin of the Titienses is distinctly union of the people of Romulus and Tatius, the citimarked they were Sabines. That of the first tribe, zens were distributed into three tribes, to which were the Ramnes, the genuine Romans of the Palatine, is given the names of Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres ; not so clear; but it seems probable that they belonged these three primitive tribes were subdivided into thirty to the Opican stock of the Latins. From these cir- curia, ten in each tribe. In the national assembly the cumstances we might reasonably conjecture that the people were called together in their curia: the votes third tribe, the Luceres, were the remains of a people of the householders in each curia were taken in the of the Pelasgian race. They are always enumerated separate curia; and the votes of the greater number in the third place, as the Ramnes are in the first, which of the thirty curia determined the business before the accords well with the idea that they were a conquered assembly. This assembly was called the Comitia Cuand subject class. But there is evidence that points riata. Besides this popular assembly, there was a semore directly to this conclusion. Though the origin lect and perpetual council, called the senate. At its of the Luceres was accounted uncertain by the Ro- first institution it was composed of a hundred chief man historians, so that Livy does not venture to assign men of the Patrician order. Ten of these were of a cause for their name (Liv., 1, 13), yet it was gen-higher rank than the rest; and to one, the chief of all, erally supposed to be derived from the Etruscan Lu- was intrusted the care of the city whenever the king cumo, who had fought with Romulus against Tatius. should be absent in war. After the completion of the (Varro, L. L., 4, 9.- Cic., Repub., 2, 8.- Propert., union with the people of Tatius, the senate was doubled 4, 1, 29.) Now "Lucumo" was only a title mista- by the addition of a hundred Sabines; and the first ken for a proper name, so that nothing could be de- Tarquinius added a third hundred to the ancient numrived from it, even if the incidents of the legend were ber. The senators admitted by Tarquinius were callreceived as historical facts. Moreover, the Etruscans, ed "Fathers of the Less Houses or Kins" (Patres in the infancy of Rome, had not penetrated so far to Minorum Gentium); and the old senators, "Fathers the south. But the story becomes clear, if we admit of the Greater Houses or Kins" (Patres Majorum that we have here the customary confusion between Gentium). Such is a correct, although imperfect outthe Etruscans and Tyrrhenians, and that the allies of line of the forms of the primitive constitution.-The the Ramnes of the Palatine were a Tyrrhenian or Pe-leading feature in this outline is the position that the lasgian people, a portion of the old inhabitants of La- original population of Rome was composed only of the tium. Dionysius adds a circumstance to the legend Patrician order and their Clients. Upon this statewhich confirms this hypothesis. He says that Lucu- ment all our authorities are agreed, either by express mo brought his Tyrrhenians from the city Solonium assertion or implied consent. But this statement is (2, 37). No such city is known to have existed; but generally accompanied by another, arising from a false the level tract on the seacoast south of the Tiber, conception, which has obscured and embarrassed the lying between Rome on the one hand, and Laurentum whole course of early Roman history. The Clients and Lavinium on the other, was called the Solonian are supposed to have been the same with the Plebeians. plain. This region Dionysius probably found men- They are conceived to have been called Plebeians as a tioned in some annals: this would assuredly be the body, in opposition to the Patrician body, but Clients seat of Pelasgian Latins; and in this very direction individually, in relation to their particular patrons. we are expressly told that the early dominion of Rome Such, at least, is the explicit statement of Dionysius, extended most widely. (Niebuhr, vol. 1, note 739.) and of Plutarch, who has followed his authority; and The Tyrrhenian or Pelasgian origin of the Luceres this view of the matter has been adopted without may be deduced yet more clearly from the legend question by modern writers. This, however, is a poswhich described their leader as Lucerus, king of Ar-itive error. The Plebs, or Commonalty, was of more dea. (Festus, s. v. Lucerenses.) If we inquire for recent origin; and the Plebeians, in their civil rights, the town or chief settlement of the Luceres, we shall held a middle place between the ruling Patricians and find reason to conjecture that it was upon the Calian Hill. We have seen that, according to one tradition, Romulus was supposed to possess the Palatine and the Celian, while Tatius and his Quirites held the Quirinal and the Capitoline. (Dion. Hal., 2, 50.) As the latter hills were the seat of the second tribe, the Titienses; and the Palatine of the Ramnes, the first and genuine Romans, it seems reasonable to conclude that the Calian was the site of the third and subject

their dependant clients. One proof of this, and perhaps the strongest that can be adduced, is drawn from the nature of the Comitia Curiata. This great national council was the most important of all the institutions connected with the curice. At its first origin, and as long as it continued to have a real existence, it was composed exclusively of the Patrician order. (Dion. Hal., 2, 21.) It cannot be thought strange that the Clients, an inferior order of men, personally

dependant on individuals of the Patrician body, should not mean to assert that in no case did such a connot appear in the supreme council of the state. The nexion really exist. No doubt what were called great distinction which demands our attention is this, Houses were first formed by natural consanguinity. that the Plebeians were still more certainly excluded But it is probable that these natural alliances had sugfrom it. Even when the Plebeian state had grown up gested an artificial arrangement, and that families not to such magnitude and importance that it had its pe- akin to one another had been distributed into houses by culiar magistrates, and was become a chief element some legislative power. This will appear certain, if in the constitution of the commonwealth, even then we shall be convinced of the existence of the precise the Comitia Curiata were exclusively Patrician, and numerical divisions which will be explained presently. the Plebeians had no part in them. The fact was, that If it be true that originally each curia contained ten the distribution of the people into tribes and curiæ, gentes, and each gens ten householders, it is obvious and the still farther division into Gentes, or Houses, that this exact division must have been made arbitrarihad respect only to the original stock of the nation; ly. A precisely similar division exisited among the and this original stock kept itself distinct from the ancient Athenians. The Eupatridæ, a body which body of new citizens, which was added by conquest, corresponds to the Patrician order at Rome, were dior sprung up insensibly from other causes. The Cli- vided into four Phylæ, which correspond to the three ents, inasmuch as they were attached to individual Roman tribes; each Phyla into three Phratriæ, which Patricians, were attached to the Gentes; and so may correspond to the Curiæ; and each Phratria into thirbe considered, in this sense, as included in the greater ty Genea or Houses; so that the total number of divisions of curiæ and tribes; although it is manifest Houses was three hundred and sixty. The Athenian that they could not appear as members of the curiæ, Houses were distinguished by names of a patronymic when these were called together as the component form, which were derived from some hero or mythic parts of the sovereign popular assembly. But the ancestor. But, notwithstanding this fictitious kindred, Plebeians grew up as a separate body by the side of and though all the terms which expressed the relation the original Patrician citizens, and were never incor- were derived etymologically from the notion of conporated in their peculiar divisions. They were not nexion by birth, the authorities from which we draw members of the Gentes, or of the curiæ, or of the three our precise knowledge of the institution directly and tribes; consequently they had no share in the Comi-pointedly deny the reality of such a connexion, and tia Curiata; and this assembly, in which resided the supreme power of the state, was, as we have already said, exclusively Patrician. It is needless to insist upon the importance of this distinction to a right view of the constitution, and of its successive changes; and, indeed, to a right notion of the whole internal history, which, for more than two centuries, is made up of the struggles of the Patrician and Plebeian orders. Yet this distinction was overlooked by all the writers on Roman history; and they suffered themselves to be misled by the superficial theory of Dionysius, who represented the government of Rome as thoroughly democratical from the very foundation of the city, and conceived the public assembly to be composed of the whole male population of the state, with the exception of household slaves.

5. Of the Patrician Gentes or Houses. The Patrician citizens of Rome were all comprehended in certain bodies which were called Gentes (Kins or Houses). The word Kin would be the most exact translation of Gens; but as this word is nearly obsolete, except in particular phrases, and as the translators of Niebuhr have rendered Gens by House, the latter term is now generally adopted. (Philol. Museum, No 2, p. 348.) The members of the same Gens were called Gentiles. In each house were contained several distinct families. It is probable that these families were originally single households; but where their numbers increased, they became families in the wider acceptation of the term. From the etymology of the term Gens, it is evident that a connexion by birth and kindred was held to subsist among all the members of the same house. The name of the house seems always to have been derived from some mythic hero; and in the popular belief, the hero from whom the house was named was regarded as a common ancestor. Thus the Julian house was regarded as the progeny of Julus, the son of Eneas (Dion. Hal., 1, 70. -Virg., En., 6, 789); and the Valerian house was derived from Volesus, a Sabine warrior, and companion of Tatius. (Dion. Hal., 2, 46.) Even those whose superior information enabled them to reject these fabulous genealogies, adhered to the notion of an original connexion by birth; and a fictitious and conventional kindred was acknowledged by the members of the same house. In describing this kindred of the Gentiles as fictitious and conventional, we do

ascribe the origin of the Genea to an arbitrary division. (Pollux, 8, 9, 111.-Harpocration, s. v. yevvrat.-Niebuhr, vol. 1, note 795.) The great bond of union among the members of a House was a participation in its common religious rites. It seems that each House had its peculiar solemnities, which were performed at a stated time and place. There can be no doubt that, at a fitting age, the children of the Gens were admitted to these solemnities, and publicly recognised as members of it; just as in Attica, at the feast of Apaturia, Athenian citizens of the pure blood were admitted and registered in their hereditary Phratria.-We have spoken of the Gentes as pertaining only to the Patricians. This is affirmed upon direct testimony. (Liv., 10, 8.-Niebuhr, vol. 1, p. 316, note 821.) But, in making this statement, we must bear in mind that constructions of a similar nature existed among the Plebeians, which had their origin when the subject and municipal towns were independent states. The Gentile connexions of the Plebeians were older than their character as Roman citizens. Thus, the Cæcilii, though Plebeians at Rome, were Patricians of Præneste, and claimed as the ancestor of their house Caculus, the son of Vulcan. The distinction between the Patrician and Plebeian Houses was, in the first place, that every Patrician was a member of a House, while, among the Plebeians, comparatively but few families could claim the honours of hereditary nobility; and, in the second place, that the Patrician Houses were constituent elements of the Roman state. Their existence affected the constitution of the great councils of the nation, the Comitia Curiata and the senate, and their internal laws and usages were part of the common law of the Roman people; while of the Plebeian Houses the state took no cognizance.— The nature of the Roman Gentes may be illustrated in some points by the analogy of the Gælic clans. All who belonged to the Gens or to the Clan bore a common name. But as the clan contained not only the freemen or gentlemen of the clan, the Duinhewasals, who were the companions of the chief and the warriors of the clan, but also their dependants, to whom was left their scanty tillage and the keeping of the cattle, and who, if ever they were called to follow the warlike array of the clan, were imperfectly armed, and placed in the hindmost ranks; so the Roman Gens consisted of the freeborn Patricans and of their Clients. And our theory, that, notwithstanding the conventiona

kindred of the Gentiles, the Gentes were really, in many cases, composed of families which had no national consanguinity, but had been arbitrarily arranged in them, will appear less strange when we remember that not only the Duinhewasals, but the meanest followers of a Highland clan, claim kindred with their chief, although, in many cases, it may be shown, by the strictest historical evidence, that the chief and his blood relations are of an entirely different race from the rest of the clan. The clansmen are Gaels or Celts, while the chief is not unfrequently of Norman descent. (Malden's Roman History, p. 123, seqq.)

ROMULIDE, a patronymic given to the Roman people from Romulus, their first king, and the founder of the city. (Virg., Æn., 8, 638.)

To

the wall of the intended city. This was done by a plough with a brazen ploughshare, drawn by a bull and a heifer, and so directed that the furrow should fall inward. The plough was lifted and carried over the spaces intended to be left for gates; and in this manner a square space was marked out, including the Palatine Hill, and a small portion of the land at its base, termed Roma Quadrata. This took place on the 21st April, on the day of the festival of Pales, the goddess of shepherds. While the wall was beginning to rise above the surface, Remus, whose mind was still rankling with his discomfiture, leaped over it, scornfully saying, "Shall such a wall as that keep your city?" Immediately Romulus, or, as others say, Celer, who had charge of erecting that part of the wall, ROMULUS, according to the old poetic legend, was the struck him dead to the ground with the implement son of Mars and Ilia or Rea Silvia, daughter of Numitor, which he held in his hand, exclaiming, "So perish and was born at the same birth with Remus. Amulius, whosoever shall hereafter overleap these ramparts." who had usurped the throne of Alba, in defiance of the By this event Romulus was left the sole sovereign of right of his elder brother Numitor, ordered the infants the city; yet he felt deep remorse at his brother's to be thrown into the Tiber, and their mother to be fate, buried him honourably, and, when he sat to adburied alive, the doom of a vestal virgin who violated minister justice, placed an empty seat by his side, with her vow of chastity. The river happened at that time a sceptre and crown, as if acknowledging the right of to have overflowed its banks, so that the two infants his brother to the possession of equal power. were not carried into the middle of the stream, but augment as speedily as possible the number of his subdrifted along the margin, till the basket which contain-jects, Romulus set apart, in his new city, a place of ed them became entangled in the roots of a wild vine refuge, to which any man might flee, and be there proat the foot of the Palatine Hill. At this time a she-tected from his pursuers. By this device the populawolf, coming down to the river to drink, suckled the tion increased rapidly in males, but there was a great infants, and carried them to her den among the thickets deficiency in females; for the adjoining states, regardhard by. Here they were found by Faustulus, the king's ing the followers of Romulus as little better than a herdsman, who took them home to his wife Laurentia, horde of brigands, refused to sanction intermarriages. by whom they were carefully nursed, and named Romu- But the schemes of Romulus were not to be so fruslus and Remus. The two youths grew up, employed in trated. In honour of the god Consus, he proclaimed the labours, the sports, and the perils of the pastoral oc- games, to which he invited the neighbouring states. cupation of their foster-father. But, like the two sons Great numbers came, accompanied by their families; of Cymbeline, their royal blood could not be quite con- and, at an appointed signal, the Roman youth, rushing cealed. Their superior mien, courage, and abilities suddenly into the midst of the spectators, snatched up soon acquired for them a decided superiority over the unmarried women in their arms, and carried them their young compeers, and they became leaders of the off by force. This outrage was immediately resented, youthful herdsmen in their contests with robbers or with and Romulus found himself involved in a war with all rivals. Having quarrelled with the herdsmen of Nu- the neighbouring states. Fortunately for Rome, though mitor, whose flocks were accustomed to graze on the those states had sustained a common injury, they did neighbouring hill Aventinus, Remus fell into an am- not unite their forces in the common cause. They buscade, and was dragged before Numitor to be pun- fought singly, and were each in turn defeated; Caished. While Numitor, struck with the noble bearing nina, Crustumerium, and Antemnæ fell successively of the youth, and influenced by the secret stirrings of before the Roman arms. Romulus slew with his own nature within, was hesitating what punishment to in- hands Acron, king of Canina, and bore off his spoils, flict, Romulus, accompanied by Faustulus, hastened to dedicating them, as spolia opima, to Jupiter Feretrius. the rescue of Remus. On their arrival at Alba, the The third part of the lands of the conquered towns was secret of their origin was discovered, and a plan was seized by the victors; and such of the people of these speedily organized for the expulsion of Amulius, and towns as were willing to remove to Rome were rethe restoration of their grandfather Numitor to his ceived as free citizens. In the mean time, the Sathrone. This was soon accomplished; but the twin-bines, to avenge the insult which they had sustained, brothers felt little disposition to remain in a subordinate position at Alba, after the enjoyment of the rude liberty and power to which they had been accustomed among their native hills. They therefore requested from their grandfather permission to build a city on the banks of the Tiber, where their lives had been so miraculously preserved. Scarcely had this permission been granted, when a contest arose between the two brothers respecting the site, the name, and the sover eignty of the city which they were about to found. Romulus wished it to be built on the Palatine Hill, and to be called by his name; Remus preferred the Aventine, and his own name. To terminate their dispute amicably, they agreed to refer it to the decision of the gods by augury. Romulus took his station on the Palatine Hill, Remus on the Aventine. At sunrise Remus saw six vultures, and immediately after Romulus saw twelve. The superiority was adjudged to Romulus, because he had seen the greater number; against which decision Remus remonstrated indignantly, on the ground that he had first received an omen. Romulus then proceeded to mark out the boundaries for

had collected together forces under Titus Tatius, king of the Quirites. The Romans were unable to meet so strong an army in the field, and withdrew within their walls. They had previously placed their flocks in what they thought a place of safety, on the Capitoline Hill, which, strong as it was by nature, they had still farther secured by additional fortifications. Tarpeia, the daughter of the commander of that fortress, having fallen into the hands of the Sabines, agreed to betray the access to the hill for the ornaments they wore upon their arms. At their approach she opened the gate, and, as they entered, they crushed her to death beneath their shields. From her the cliff of the Capitoline Hill was called the Tarpeian Rock. The attempt of the Romans to regain this place of strength brought on a general engagement. The combat was. long and doubtful. At one time the Romans were. almost driven into the city, which the Sabines were on the point of entering along with them, when fresh courage was infused into the fugitives in consequence of Romulus vowing a temple to Jupiter Stator, and by a stream of water which rushed out of the temple of