Ab urbe condita

There used to be a statue of Attus, representing him with his head covered, in the Comitium, on the steps to the left of the senate-house, where the incident occurred. The whet-stone also, it is recorded, was placed there to be a memorial of the marvel for future generations.

At all events, auguries and the college of augurs were held in such honour that nothing was undertaken in peace or war without their sanction; the assembly of the curies, the assembly of the centuries, matters of the highest importance, were suspended or broken up if the omen of the birds was unfavourable.

Even on that occasion Tarquin was deterred from making changes in the names or numbers of the centuries of knights; he merely doubled the number of men in each, so that the three centuries contained eighteen hundred men.

Those who were added to the centuries bore the same designation, only they were called the “Second” knights, and the centuries being thus doubled are now called the “Six Centuries.”

After[*](Second Sabine War.) this division of the forces was augmented there was a second collision with the Sabines, in which the increased strength of the Roman army was aided by an artifice. Men were secretly sent to set fire to a vast quantity of logs lying on the banks of the Anio, and float them down the river on rafts. The wind fanned the flames, and as the logs drove against the piles and stuck there they set the bridge[*](This must have been a bridge thrown across by the Sabines to secure their retreat.) on fire.