It seems that notwithstanding the personal graces and accomplishments of Romulus and Remus, and their popularity among their fellow foresters, that they and their followers made a somewhat rude and wild appearance in the city, and Numitor was very willing, when the state of things had become somewhat settled, that his rustic auxiliaries should find some occasion for withdrawing from the capital and returning again to their own native fastnesses. Romulus and Remus, however, having now learned that they were ent.i.tled to the regal name, naturally felt desirous of possessing a little regal power, and thus desired to remain in the city; while still they had too much consideration for their grandfather to wish to deprive him of the government. After some deliberation a plan was devised which promised to gratify the wishes of all.
The plan was this, namely, that Numitor should set apart a place in his kingdom of Latium where Romulus and Remus might build a city for themselves,--taking with them to the spot the whole horde of their retainers. The place which he designated for this purpose was the spot on the banks of the Tiber where the two children had been landed when floating down the stream. It was a wild and romantic region, and the enterprise of building a city upon it was one exactly suited to engage the attention and occupy the powers of such restless spirits as those who had collected under the young princes" standard. Many of these men, it is true, were shepherds and herdsmen, well disposed in mind, though rude and rough in manners. But then there were many others of a very turbulent and unmanageable character, outlaws, fugitives, and adventurers of every description, who had fled to the woods to escape punishment for former crimes, or seek opportunities for the commission of new deeds of rapine and robbery; and who had seized upon the occasion furnished by the insurrection against Amulius to come forth into the world again. Criminals always flock into armies when armies are raised; for war presents to the wicked and depraved all the charms, with but half the danger, of a life of crime. War is in fact ordinarily only a legal organization of crime.
Romulus and Remus entered into their grandfather"s plan with great readiness. Numitor promised to aid them in their enterprise by every means in his power. He was to furnish tools and implements, for excavations and building, and artisans so far as artisans were required, and was also to provide such temporary supplies of provisions and stores as might be required at the outset of the undertaking. He gave permission also to any of his subjects to join Romulus and Remus in their undertaking, and they, in order to increase their numbers as much as possible, sent messengers around to the neighboring country inviting all who were disposed, to come and take part in the building of the new city. This invitation was accepted by great numbers of people, from every rank and station in life.
Of course, however, the greater portion of those who came to join the enterprise, were of a very low grade in respect to moral character.
Men of industry, integrity, and moral worth, who possessed kind hearts and warm domestic affections, were generally well and prosperously settled each in his own hamlet or town, and were little inclined to break away from the ties which bound them to friends and society, in order to plunge in such a scene of turmoil and confusion as the building of a new city, under such circ.u.mstances, must necessarily be.
It was of course generally the discontented, the idle, and the bad, that would hope for benefit from such a change as this enterprise proposed to them. Every restless and desperate spirit, every depraved victim of vice, every fugitive and outlaw would be ready to embark in such a scheme, which was to create certainly a new phase in their relations to society, and thus afford them an opportunity to make a fresh beginning. The enterprise at the same time seemed to offer them, through a new organization and new laws, some prospect of release from responsibility for former crimes. In a word, in preparing to lay the foundations of their city, Romulus and Remus found themselves at the head of a very wild and lawless company.
There were seven distinct hills on the ground which was subsequently included within the limits of Rome. Between and among these hills the river meandered by sweeping and graceful curves, and at one point, near the center of what is now the city, the stream pa.s.sed very near the foot of one of the elevations called the Palatine Hill. Here was the spot where the wooden ark in which Romulus and Remus had been set adrift, had been thrown up upon the sh.o.r.e. The sides of the hill were steep, and between it and the river there was in one part a deep mora.s.s. Romulus thought, on surveying the ground with Remus his brother, that this was the best spot for building the city. They could set apart a sufficient s.p.a.ce of level ground around the foot of the hill for the houses--inclosing the whole with a wall--while the top of the hill itself might be fortified to form the citadel. The wall and the steep acclivity of the ground would form a protection on three sides of the inclosure, while the mora.s.s alone would be a sufficient defense on the part toward the river. Then Romulus was specially desirous to select this spot as the site, as it was here that he and his brother had been saved from destruction in so wonderful a manner.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SITUATION OF ROME.]
Remus, however, did not concur in these views. A little farther down the stream there was another elevation called the Aventine Hill, which seemed to him more suitable for the site of a town. The sides were less precipitous, and thus were more convenient for building ground.
Then the land in the immediate vicinity was better adapted to the purposes which they had in view. In a word, the Aventine Hill was, as Remus thought, for every substantial reason, much the best locality; and as for the fact of their having been washed ash.o.r.e at the foot of the other hill, it was in his opinion an insignificant circ.u.mstance, wholly unworthy of being taken seriously into the account in laying the foundation of a city.
The positions in which Remus and Romulus stood in respect to each other, and the feelings which were naturally awakened in their hearts by the circ.u.mstances in which they found themselves placed, were such as did not tend to allay any rising asperity which accident might occasion, but rather to irritate and inflame it. In the first place, they were both ardent, impulsive, and imperious. Each was conscious of his strength, and eager to exercise it. Each wished to command, and was wholly unwilling to obey. While they were in adversity, they clung together for mutual help and protection; but now, when they had come into the enjoyment of prosperity and power, the bands of affection which had bound them together were very much weakened, and were finally sundered. Then there was nothing whatever to mark any superiority of one over the other. If they had been of different ages, the younger could have yielded to the elder, in some degree, without wounding his pride. If one had been more prominent than the other in effecting the revolution by which Amulius was dethroned, or if there had been a native difference of temperament or character to mark a distinction, or if either had been designated by Numitor, or selected by popular choice, for the command,--all might have been well. But there seemed in fact to be between them no grounds of distinction whatever. They were twins, so that neither could claim any advantage of birthright. They were equal in size, strength, activity, and courage. They had been equally bold and efficient in effecting the revolution; and now they seemed equally powerful in respect to the influence which they wielded over the minds of their followers. We have been so long accustomed to consider Romulus the more distinguished personage, through the a.s.sociations connected with his name, that have arisen from his subsequent career, that it is difficult for us to place him and his brother on that footing of perfect equality which they occupied in the estimation of all who knew them in this part of their history. This equality had caused no difference between them thus far, but now, since the advent of power and prosperity prevented their continuing longer on a level, there necessarily came up for decision the terrible question,--terrible when two such spirits as theirs have it to decide,--which was to yield the palm.
The brothers, therefore, having each expressed his preference in respect to the best place for the city, were equally unwilling to recede from the ground which they had taken. Remus thought that there was no reason why he should yield to Romulus, and Romulus was equally unwilling to give way to Remus. Neither could yield, in fact, without in some sense admitting the superiority of the other. The respective partisans of the two leaders began to take sides, and the dissension threatened to become a serious quarrel. Finally, being not yet quite ready for an open rupture, they concluded to refer the question to Numitor, and to abide by his decision. They expected that he would come and view the ground, and so decide where it was best that the city should be built, and thus terminate the controversy.
But Numitor was too sagacious to hazard the responsibility of deciding between two such equally matched and powerful opponents. He endeavored to soothe and quiet the excited feelings of his grandsons, and finally recommended to them to appeal to _augury_ to decide the question.
Augury was a mode of ascertaining the divine will in respect to questions of expediency or duty, by means of certain prognostications and signs. These omens were of various kinds, but perhaps the most common were the appearances observed in watching the flight of birds through the air.
It was agreed between Remus and Romulus, in accordance with the advice of Numitor, that the question at issue between them should be decided in this way. They were to take their stations on the two hills respectively--the Palatine and the Aventine, and watch for vultures.
The homes of the vultures of Italy were among the summits of the Appenines, and their function in the complicated economy of animal life, was to watch from the lofty peaks of the mountains, or from the still more aerial and commanding positions which they found in soaring at vast elevations in the air, for the bodies of the dead,--whether of men after a battle, or of sheep, or cattle, or wild beasts of the forests, killed by accident or dying of age,--and when found to remove and devour them; and thus to hasten the return of the lifeless elements to other forms of animal and vegetable life. What the earth, and the rite of burial, effects for man in advanced and cultivated stages of society, the vultures of the Appenines were commissioned to perform for all the animal communities of Italy, in Numitor"s time.
To enable the vulture to accomplish the work a.s.signed him, he is endowed with an inconceivable strength of wing, to sustain his flight over the vast distances which he has to traverse, and up to the vast elevations to which he must sometimes soar; and also with some mysterious and extraordinary sense, whether of sight or smell, to enable him readily to find, at any hour, the spot where his presence is required, however remote or however hidden it may be. Guided by this instinct, he flies from time to time with a company of his fellows, from mountain to mountain, or wheels slowly in vast circles over the plains--surveying the whole surface of the ground, and a.s.suredly finding his work;--finding it too equally easily, whether it lie exposed in the open field, or is hidden, no matter how secretly, in forest, thicket, grove or glen.
It was, to certain appearances, indicated in the flight of these birds--such as the number that were seen at a time, the quarter of the heavens in which they appeared, the direction in which they flew, as from left to right or from right to left--that the people of Numitor"s day were accustomed to look for omens and auguries. So Romulus and Remus took their stations on the hills which they had severally chosen, each surrounded by a company of his own adherents and friends, and began to watch the skies. It was agreed that the decision of the question between the two hills should be determined by the omens which should appear to the respective observers stationed upon them.
But it happened, unfortunately, that the rules for the interpretation of auguries and omens, were far too indefinite and vague to answer the purpose for which they were now appealed to. The most unequivocal distinctness and directness in giving its responses is a very essential requisite in any tribunal that is called upon as an umpire, to settle disputes; while the ancient auguries and oracles were always susceptible of a great variety of interpretations. When Remus and Romulus commenced their watch no vultures were to be seen from either hill. They waited till evening, still none appeared. They continued to watch through the night. In the morning a messenger came over from the Palatine hill to Remus on the Aventine, informing him that vultures had appeared to Romulus. Remus did not believe it. At last, however, the birds really came into view; a flock of six were seen by Remus, and afterward one of twelve by Romulus. The observations were then suspended, and the parties came together to confer in respect to the result; but the dispute instead of being settled, was found to be in a worse condition than ever. The point now to be determined was whether six vultures seen first, or twelve seen afterward, were the better omen, that is whether numbers, or simple priority of appearance, should decide the question. In contending in respect to this nice point the brothers became more angry with each other than ever. Their respective partisans took sides in the contest, which resulted finally in an open and violent collision. Romulus and Remus themselves seem to have commenced the affray by attacking one another. Faustulus, their foster-father, who, from having had the care of them from their earliest infancy, felt for them an almost parental affection, rushed between them to prevent them from shedding each other"s blood. He was struck down and killed on the spot, by some unknown hand. A brother of Faustulus too, named Plistinus, who had lived near to him, and had known the boys from their infancy, and had often a.s.sisted in taking care of them, was killed in the endeavor to aid his brother to appease the tumult.
At length the disturbance was quelled. The result of the conflict was, however, to show that Romulus and his party were the strongest.
Romulus accordingly went on to build the walls of the city at the spot which he had first chosen. The lines were marked out, and the excavations were commenced with great ceremony.
In laying out the work, the first thing to be done was to draw the lines of what was called the _pomrium_. The pomrium was a sort of symbolical wall, and was formed simply by turning a furrow with a plow all around the city, at a considerable distance from the real walls, for the purpose, not of establishing lines of defense, but of marking out what were to be the limits of the corporation, so to speak, for legal and ceremonial purposes. Of course, the pomrium included a much greater s.p.a.ce than the real walls, and the people were allowed to build houses anywhere within this outer inclosure, or even without it, though not very near to it. Those who built thus were, of course, not protected in case of an attack, and of course they would, in such case, be compelled to abandon their houses, and retreat for safety within the proper walls.
So Romulus proceeded to mark out the pomrium of the city, employing in the work the ceremonies customary on such occasions. The plow used was made of copper, and for a team to draw it a bullock and a heifer were yoked together. Men appointed for the purpose followed the plow, and carefully turned over the clods _toward_ the wall of the city. This seems to have been considered an essential part of the ceremony. At the places where roads were to pa.s.s in toward the gates of the city, the plow was lifted out of the ground and carried over the requisite s.p.a.ce, so as to leave the turf at those points unbroken.
This was a necessary precaution; for there was a certain consecrating influence that was exerted by this ceremonial plowing which hallowed the ground wherever it pa.s.sed in a manner that would very seriously interfere with its usefulness as a public road.
The form of the s.p.a.ce inclosed by the pomrium, as Romulus plowed it, was nearly square, and it included not merely the Palatine hill itself, but a considerable portion of level land around it.
Though Romulus thus seemed to have conquered, in the strife with Remus, the difficulty was not yet fully settled. Remus was very little disposed to acquiesce in his brother"s a.s.sumed superiority over him.
He was sullen, morose, and ill at ease, and was inclined to take little part in the proceedings which were going on. Finally an occasion occurred which produced a crisis, and brought the rivalry and enmity of the brothers suddenly and forever to an end. Remus was one day standing by a part of the wall which his brother"s workmen were building, and expressing, in various ways, and with great freedom, his opinions of his brother"s plans; and finally he began to speak contemptuously of the wall which the workmen were building. Romulus all the time was standing by. At length, in order to enforce what he said about the insufficiency of the work, Remus leaped over a portion of it, saying, "This is the way the enemy will leap over your wall."
Hereupon Romulus seized a mattock from the hands of one of the laborers, and struck his brother down to the ground with it, saying, "And this is the way that we will kill them if they do." Remus was killed by the blow.
As soon as the deed was done, Romulus was at once overwhelmed with remorse and horror at the atrocity of the crime which he had been so suddenly led to commit. His anguish was so great for a time that he refused all food, and he could not sleep. He caused the dead body of Remus, and also those of Faustulus and of Plistinus, the brother of Faustulus, to be buried with the most solemn and imposing funeral ceremonies, so as to render all possible honor to their memory; and then, not satisfied with this, he inst.i.tuted and celebrated certain religions rites, to prevent the ghosts of the deceased from coming back to haunt him. The ghosts, or specters of the dead that came back to haunt and terrify the living were called _lemures_. Hence the celebration which Romulus ordained was called the Lemuria, and it continued to be annually observed in Rome during the whole period of its subsequent history.
Precisely what the ceremonies were which Romulus performed to appease the spirit of his brother can not now be ascertained, as there was no particular description of them recorded. But the Lemuria, as afterward performed, were frequently described by Roman writers, and they were of a very curious and extraordinary character. The time for the celebration of these rites was in May, the anniversary, as was supposed, of the days in which Romulus originally celebrated them.
The Lemurial ceremonies extended through three days, or rather nights, although, for some curious reason or other, they were alternate and not consecutive nights. They were the nights of the ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth of May. The ceremonies were performed in the night, for the reason that it was in the dark hours that ghosts and goblins were accustomed, as was supposed, to roam about the world to haunt and terrify men.
The ceremonies performed on these occasions are thus described. They commenced at midnight. The father of the family would rise at that hour and go out at the door of the house, making certain gesticulations and signals with his hands, which were supposed to have the effect of keeping the specters away. He then washed his hands three times in pure spring water. Then he filled his mouth with a certain kind of black beans for which ghosts were supposed to have some particular fondness. Being thus provided he would walk along, taking the beans out of his mouth as he walked, and throwing them behind him. The specters were supposed to gather up these beans as he threw them down. He must, however, by no means look round to see them.
He then, after speaking certain mysterious and cabalistic words, washed his hands again, and then making a frightful noise by striking bra.s.s basins together, he shouted out nine times, "Ghosts of this house begone!" This was supposed effectually to drive the specters away--an opinion which was always abundantly confirmed by the fact; for on looking round after this vociferated adjuration, the man always found that the specters were gone!
When by these ceremonies, or ceremonies such as these, Romulus had appeased the spirit of his brother, and those of the guardians of his childhood, his mind became more composed, and he turned his attention once more toward the building of the city. The party of Remus now, of course, since it was deprived of its head, no longer maintained itself, but was gradually broken up and merged in the general ma.s.s.
Romulus became the sole leader of the enterprise, and immediately turned his attention to the measures to be adopted for a more complete and effectual organization of the community over which he found himself presiding.
In respect to Remus, it ought perhaps to be added, that after his death a story was circulated in Rome that it was a man named Celer, and not Romulus, that killed him. This story has not, however, been generally believed. It has been thought more probable that Romulus himself, or some of his partisans and friends, invented and circulated the story of Celer, in order to screen him in some degree from the reproach of so unnatural a crime as the killing of a brother so near and dear to him as Remus had been;--a brother who had shared his infancy with him, who had slept with him, at the same time, in the arms of his mother, who had floated with him down the Tiber in the same ark, been saved from death by the same miraculous intervention, and through all the years of infancy, childhood, and youth, had been his constant playmate, companion, and friend. The crime was as much more atrocious than any ordinary fratricide, as Remus had been nearer to Romulus than any ordinary brother.
CHAPTER X.
ORGANIZATION.
B.C. 754
Discussion in respect to ancient dates.--Difficulties.--Nature of tradition.--Extreme youth of Romulus.--Varro"s astrological calculation.--Ingenuity of it.--Olympiads.--The race of Coroebus.--The result of Varro"s computation.--Probable character of the first constructions at Rome.--Romulus convenes an a.s.sembly of the people.--The speech of Romulus.--His proposals.--The three forms of government.--Romulus himself made king.--Divine intimation in his favor.--Commencement of his reign.--Probable origin of the Roman inst.i.tutions.--Republican character of the government.--Patricians and plebians.--Patrons and clients.--Duration of the reign of Romulus.--Usages.--Difficulty of immediately organizing such a community.--Importance of the parental and family relation.--The father a magistrate.--The marriage tie.--Religions ceremonies.--Auguries.--The three augurs.--Various kinds of omens.--Station of the augurs.--Thunder and lightning.--Birds.--Nature of the ancient superst.i.tion.--Results of the arrangements made by Romulus.--The asylum on the Capitoline hill.
There has been a great deal of philosophical discussion, and much debate, among historians and chronologists, in attempting to fix the precise year in which Romulus commenced the building of Rome. The difficulty arises from the fact that no regular records of public events were made in those ancient days. In modern times such records are very systematically kept,--an express object of them being to preserve and perpetuate a knowledge of the exact truth in respect to the time, and the attendant circ.u.mstances, relating to all great transactions. On the other hand, the memory of public events in early periods of the world, was preserved only through tradition; and tradition cares little for the exact and the true. She seeks only for what is entertaining. Her function being simply to give pleasure to successive generations of listeners, by exciting their curiosity and wonder with tales,--which, the more strange and romantic they are, the better they are suited to her purpose--she concerns herself very little with such simple verities as dates and names. The exposure of the twin infants of Rhea, supposing such an event to have actually happened, she remembered well, and repeated the narrative of it--adorning it, doubtless, with many embellishments--from age to age, so that the whole story comes down to modern times in full detail; but as to the time when the event took place, she gave herself no concern.
The date would have added nothing to the romance of the story, and thus it was neglected and forgotten.
In subsequent times, however, when regular historical annals began to be recorded, chronologists attempted to reason backward, from events whose periods were known, through various data which they ingeniously obtained from the preceding and less formal narratives, until they obtained the dates of earlier events by a species of calculation. In this way the time for the building of Rome was determined to be about the year 754 before Christ. As to Romulus himself, the tradition is that he was but eighteen or twenty years old when he commenced the building of it. If this is true, his extreme youth goes far to palliate some of the wrongs which he perpetrated--wrongs which would have been far more inexcusable if committed with the deliberate purpose of middle life, than if prompted by the unthinking impulses and pa.s.sions of eighteen.
A certain Roman philosopher, named Varro, who lived some centuries after the building of the city, conceived of a very ingenious plan for discovering the year in which Romulus was born. It was this. By means of the science of astrology, as practiced in those days, certain learned magicians used to predict what the life and fortunes of any man would be, from the aspects and phases of the planets and other heavenly bodies at the time of his birth. The idea of Varro was to reverse this process in the case of Romulus; that is, to deduce from the known facts of his history what must have been the relative situations of the planets and stars when he came into the world! He accordingly applied to a noted astrologer to work out the problem for him. Given, a history of the incidents and events occurring to the man in his progress through life; required, the exact condition of the skies when the child was born. In other words, the astrologer was to determine what must have been the relative positions of the sun, moon, and stars, at the birth of Romulus, in order to produce a being whose life should exhibit such transactions and events as those which appeared in Romulus"s subsequent history. When the astrologer had thus ascertained the condition of the skies at the time in question, the _astronomers_, as Varro concluded, could easily calculate the month and the year when the combination must have occurred.
Now, it was the custom in those days to reckon by Olympiads, which were periods of four years, the series commencing with a great victory at a foot-race in Greece, won by a man named Coroebus, from which event originated the Olympian games, which were afterward celebrated every four years, and which in subsequent ages became so renowned. The time when Coroebus ran his race, and thus furnished an era for all the subsequent chronologists and historians of his country, is generally regarded as about the year 776 before Christ; and the result of the calculations of Varro"s astrologer, and of the astronomers who perfected it, was, that to lead such a life as Romulus led, a man must have been born at a time corresponding with the first year of the second Olympiad; that is, taking off from 776, four years, for the first Olympiad, the first year of the second Olympiad would be 772; this would make the time of his birth 772 before Christ; and then deducting eighteen years more, for the age of Romulus when he began to build his wall, we have 754 before Christ as the era of the foundation of Rome. This method of determining a point in chronology seems so absurd, according to the ideas of the present day, that we can hardly resist the conclusion, that Varro, in making his investigation, was really guided by other and more satisfactory modes of determining the point, and that the horoscope was not what he actually relied upon.
However this may be, the era which he fixed upon has been very generally received, though many others have been proposed by the different learned men who have successively investigated the question.
According to the accounts given by the early writers, the constructions which Romulus and his companions made were of a very rude and simple character; such as might have been expected from a company of boys: for boys we ought perhaps to consider them all, since it is not to be presumed that the troop, in respect to age and experience, would be much in advance of the leaders. The wall which they built about the city was probably only a substantial stone fence, and their houses were huts and hovels. Even the palace, for there was a building erected for Romulus himself which was called the palace, was made, it is said, of _rushes_. Perhaps the meaning is that it was thatched with rushes,--or possibly the expression refers to a mode of building sometimes adopted in the earlier stages of civilization, in which straw, or rushes, or some similar material is mixed with mud or clay to help bind the ma.s.s together, the whole being afterward dried in the sun. Walls thus made have been found to possess much more strength and durability than would be supposed possible for such a material to attain.
However this may be, the hamlet of huts which Romulus and his wild coadjutors built and walled in, must have appeared, at the time, to all observers, a very rude and imperfect attempt at building a city; in fact it must have seemed to them, if it is true that Romulus was at that time only eighteen years old, more like a frolic of thoughtless boys than a serious enterprise of men. Romulus, however, whatever others may have thought of his work, was wholly in earnest. He felt that he was a prince, and proud of his birth, and fully conscious of his intellectual and personal power, he determined that he would have a kingdom.
It seems, however, that thus far he had not been considered as possessing any thing like regal authority over his company of followers, but had been regarded only as a sort of chieftain exercising an undefined and temporary power; for as soon as the huts were built and the inclosures made, he is said to have convened an a.s.sembly of the people, for consultation in respect to the plan of government that they should form. Romulus introduced the business of this meeting by a speech appropriate to the occasion, which speech is reported by an ancient historian somewhat as follows. Whether Romulus actually spoke the words thus attributed to him, or whether the report contains only what the reporter himself imagined him to say, there is now no means of knowing.
"We have now," said Romulus, according to this record, "completed the building of our city, so far as at present we are able to do it; and it must be confessed that if we were required to depend for protection against a serious attack from an enemy, on the height of our walls, or on their strength and solidity, our prospects would not be very encouraging. But our walls we must remember are not what we rely upon.
No walls can be so high, that an enemy can not scale them. The dependence must be after all on the men within the city, and not on the ramparts and entrenchments which surround it, whatever those ramparts and entrenchments may be. We must therefore rely upon ourselves, for our safety--upon our valor, our discipline, our union and harmony. It is courage and energy in the people, not strength in outward defenses, on which the safety and prosperity of a State must depend.
"The great work before us therefore is yet to be done. We have to organize a government under which order and discipline may come in, to control and direct our energies, and prepare us to meet whatever future exigencies may arise, whether of peace or war. What form shall be given to this government is the question that you have now to consider. I have learned by inquiry that there are various modes of government adopted among men, and between these we have now to decide.
Shall our commonwealth be governed by one man? Or shall we select a certain number of the wisest and bravest of the citizens, and commit the administration of public affairs to them? Or, in the third place, shall we commit the management of the government to the control of the people at large? Each of these three forms has its advantages, and each is attended with its own peculiar dangers. You are to choose between them. Only when the decision is once made, let us all unite in maintaining the government which shall be established, whatever its form may be."
The result of the deliberation which followed, after the delivery of this address, was that the government of the state should be, like the government of Alba, under which the followers of Romulus had been born, a monarchy; and that Romulus himself should be king. He was a prince by birth, an inheritor of regal rank and power, by regular succession, from a line of kings. He had shown himself, too, by his deeds, to be worthy of power. He was courageous, energetic, sagacious, and universally esteemed. It was decided accordingly that he should be king, and he was proclaimed such by all the a.s.sembled mult.i.tude, with long and loud acclamations.
Notwithstanding the apparent unanimity and earnestness of the people, however, in calling Romulus to the throne, he evinced, as the story goes, the proper degree of that reluctance and hesitation which a suitable regard to appearances seems in all ages to require of public men when urged to accept of power. He was thankful to the people for the marks of their confidence, but he could not consent to a.s.sume the responsibilities and prerogatives of power until the choice made by his countrymen had been confirmed by the divinities of the land. So he resolved on inst.i.tuting certain solemn religious ceremonies, during the progress of which he hoped to receive some manifestation of the divine will. These ceremonies consisted princ.i.p.ally of sacrifices which he caused to be offered on the plain near the city. While Romulus was engaged in these services, the expected token of the divine approval appeared in a supernatural light which shone upon his hand. At least it was _said_ that such a light was seen, and the appearing of it was considered as clearly confirming the right of Romulus to the throne. He no longer made any objection to a.s.suming the government of the new city as its acknowledged king.
The first object to which he gave his attention was the organization of the people, and the framing of the general const.i.tution of society.
The community over which he was called to preside had consisted thus far of very heterogeneous and discordant materials. Vast numbers of the people were of the humblest and most degraded condition, consisting of ignorant peasants, some stupid, others turbulent and ungovernable; and of refugees from justice, such as thieves, robbers, and outlaws of every degree. But then, on the other hand, there were many persons of standing and respectability. The sons of families of wealth and influence in Alba had, in many cases, joined the expedition, and at last, when the building of the city had advanced so far as to make it appear that the enterprise might succeed, more men of age and character came to join it, so that Romulus found himself, when he formally a.s.sumed the kingly power, at the head of a community which contained the elements of a very respectable commonwealth. These elements were, however, thus far all mingled together in complete confusion, and the work that was first to be done was to adopt some plan for cla.s.sifying and arranging them.