m whom he learned this are no
longer extant. There is, however, a fragment in which it is stated that
Rome was a sister city of Antium and Ardea; here too we must apply the
statement from the chronicle of Cumae, that Evander, who, as an Arcadian,
was likewise a Pelasgian, had his _palatium_ on the Palatine. To us he
appears of less importance than in the legend, for in the latter he is
one of the benefactors of nations, and introduced among the Pelasgians
in Italy the use of the alphabet and other arts, just as Damaratus did
among the Tyrrhenians in Etruria. In this sense, therefore, Rome was
certainly a Latin town, and had not a mixed but a purely
Tyrrheno-Pelasgian population. The subsequent vicissitudes of this
settlement may be gathered from the allegories.

Romulus now found the number of his fellow-settlers too small; the
number of three thousand foot and three hundred horse, which Livy gives
from the commentaries of the pontiffs, is worth nothing; for it is only
an outline of the later military arrangement transferred to the earliest
times. According to the ancient tradition, Romulus's band was too small,
and he opened an asylum on the Capitoline hill. This asylum, the old
description states, contained only a very small space, a proof how
little these things were understood historically. All manner of people,
thieves, murderers, and vagabonds of every kind, flocked thither. This
is the simple view taken of the origin of the clients. In the bitterness
with which the estates subsequently looked upon one another, it was made
a matter of reproach to the Patricians that their earliest ancestors had
been vagabonds; though it was a common opinion that the Patricians were
descended from the free companions of Romulus, and that those who took
refuge in the asylum placed themselves as clients under the protection
of the real free citizens. But now they wanted women, and attempts were
made to obtain the _connubium_ with neighboring towns, especially
perhaps with Antemnae, which was only four miles distant from Rome, with
the Sabines and others. This being refused Romulus had recourse to a
stratagem, proclaiming that he had discovered the altar of Consus, the
god of counsels, an allegory of his cunning in general. In the midst of
the solemnities, the Sabine maidens, thirty in number, were carried off,
from whom the _curiae_ received their names: this is the genuine ancient
legend, and it proves how small ancient Rome was conc