Ab urbe condita

Hercules turned in that direction, and as Cacus tried to prevent him by force from entering the cave, he was killed by a blow from Hercules' club, after vainly appealing for help to his comrades. The king of the country at that time was Evander, a refugee from Peloponnesus, who ruled more by personal ascendancy than by the exercise of power.

He was looked up to with reverence for his knowledge of letters —a new and marvellous thing for uncivilized men-but he was still more revered because of his mother, who was believed to be a divine being and regarded with wonder, by all as an interpreter of Fate, in the days before the arrival of the Sibyl in Italy.

This Evander, alarmed by the crowd of excited shepherds standing round a stranger whom they accused of open murder, ascertained from them the nature of his act and what led to it. As he observed the bearing and stature of the man to be more than human in greatness and august dignity, he asked who he was.

When he heard his name, and learnt his father and his country, he said, “ Hercules, son of Jupiter, hail! My mother, who speaks truth in the name of the gods, has prophesied that thou shalt join the company of the gods, and that here a shrine shall be dedicated to thee, which in ages to come the most powerful nation in all the world shall call their Ara Maxima and honour with thine own special worship.”

Hercules grasped Evander's right hand and said that he took the omen to himself and would fulfil the prophecy by building and consecrating the altar.

Then a heifer of conspicuous beauty was taken from the herd, and the first sacrifice was offered; the Potitii and Pinarii, the two principal families in those parts, were invited by Hercules to assist in the sacrifice and at the feast which followed.

It so happened that the Potitii were present at the appointed time and the entrails were placed before them; the Pinarii arrived after these were consumed and came in for the rest of the banquet.

It became a permanent institution from that time that as long as the family of the Pinarii survived they should not eat of the entrails of the victims. The Potitii, after being instructed by Evander, presided over that rite for many ages, until they handed over this ministerial office to public servants after which the whole race of the Potitii perished.

This, out of all foreign rites, was the only one which Romulus adopted, as though he felt that an immortality won through courage, of which this was the memorial, would one day be his own reward.

After[*](The Political Constitution.) the claims of religion had been duly acknowledged, Romulus called his people to a council. As nothing could unite them into one political body but the observance of common laws and customs, he gave them

a body of laws, which he thought would only be respected by a rude and uncivilised race of men if he inspired them with awe by assuming the outward symbols of power. He surrounded himself with greater state, and in particular he called into his service twelve lictors.

Some think that he fixed upon this number from the number of the birds who foretold his sovereignty; but I am inclined to agree with those who think that as this class of public officers was borrowed from the same people from whom the “ sella curulis ” [*](sella curulis —Lit. “the chariot seat”, and hence the seat of the supreme magistrate when administering justice.) and the “ toga praetexta ” [*](toga praetexta. —Lit. “the bordered toga” (i.e. edged with purple), worn by the higher magistrates and priests, and also by all free-born boys till about their sixteenth year and by girls till their marriage.) were adopted —their neighbours, the Etruscans —so the number itself also was taken from them. Its use amongst the Etruscans is traced to the custom of the twelve sovereign cities of Etruria, when jointly electing a king furnishing him each with one lictor.

Meantime[*](The Asylum.) the City was growing by the extension of its walls in various directions an increase due rather to the anticipation of its future population than to any present overcrowding. His next care was to secure an addition to the population that the size of the City might not be a

source of weakness. It had been the ancient policy of the founders of cities to get together a multitude of people of obscure and low origin and then to spread the fiction that they were the children of the soil. In accordance with this policy, Romulus opened a place of refuge on the spot where, as you go down from the Capitol, you find an enclosed space

between two groves. A promiscuous crowd of freemen and slaves, eager for change, fled thither from the neighbouring states. This was the first accession of strength to the nascent greatness

of the city. When[*](The Senate.) he was satisfied as to its strength, his next step was to provide for that strength being wisely directed. He created a hundred senators; either, because that number was adequate, or because there were only a hundred heads of houses who could be created. In any case they were called the “ Patres ” in virtue of their rank, and their descendants were called “Patricians.”