Romulus

This led some to say and suspect that he was glad to be rid of his colleague, but it caused no disturbance in the government, nor did it lead the Sabines into faction, nay, some through the good-will they had for him, others through their fear of his power, and others because they regarded him as a benevolent god, all continued to hold him in reverence to the end.

Romulus was held in reverence also by many foreign peoples, and the earlier Latins sent ambassadors and established friendship and alliance with him. Fidenae, a neighbouring city to Rome, he took,[*](Cf. Livy, i.14. 4-11.) as some say, by sending his horsemen of a sudden with orders to cut away the pivots of the gates, and then appearing himself unexpectedly;

but others say that the men of Fidenae first made an incursion, driving off booty and devastating the territory and outskirts of the city, and that Romulus set an ambush for them, killed many of them, and took their city. He did not, however, destroy or raze it to the ground, but made it a colony of Rome, and sent thither twenty-five hundred colonists, on the Ides of April.