and because I
consider myself as now speaking _once for all_. Let us now move forward.
I now go on to the other head of the eagle--the head which looks
westward.

Here it will be objected that the Foundation of Rome is usually laid
down in the year 753 B.C.; and therefore that it differs from the
foundation of the Olympiads by as much as 23 or 24 years; and can I have
the conscience to ask my fair friends that they should _put the clock
back_ so far as that? Why, really there is no knowing; perhaps if I were
hard pressed by some chronological enemy, I might ask as great a favour
even as that. But at present it is not requisite; neither do I mean to
play any jugglers' tricks, as perhaps lawfully I might, with the
different computations of Varro, of the Capitoline Marbles, etc. All
that need be said in this place is simply--that Rome is not Romulus. And
let Rome have been founded when she pleases, and let her secret name
have been what it might--though really, in default of a better, Rome
itself is as decent and _'sponsible_ a name as a man would wish--still I
presume that Romulus must have been a little older than Rome, the
builder a little anterior to what he built. Varro and the Capitoline
Tables and Mr. Hook will all agree to that postulate. And whatever some
of them may say as to the youth of Romulus, when he first began to wield
the trowel, at least, I suppose, he was come to years of discretion;
and, if we say twenty-three or twenty-four, which I am as much entitled
to say as they to deny it, then we are all right. 'All right behind,' as
the mail guards say, 'drive on.' And so I feel entitled to lay my hand
upon my heart and assure my fair pupils that Romulus himself and the
Olympiads did absolutely start together; and for anything known to the
contrary, perhaps in the same identical moment or bisection of a moment.
Possibly his first little wolfish howl (for it would be monstrous to
think that he or even Remus condescended to a _vagitus_ or cry such as a
young tailor or rat-catcher might emit) may have symphonized with the
ear-shattering trumpet that proclaimed the inauguration of the first
Olympic contest, or which blew to the four winds the appellation of the
first Olympic victor.

That point, therefore, is settled, and so far, at least, 'all's right
behind.' And it is a great relief to my mind that so much is
accomplished. Two great arrow-headed nails at least are driven 'home' to
the great dome of Chronology