rise to the expressions
which still designate real and personal wealth. Thus the people were
kept in order rather by mulctations than by bodily inflictions.

X. After Romulus had thus reigned thirty-seven years, and established
these two great supports of government, the hierarchy and the senate,
having disappeared in a sudden eclipse of the sun, he was thought
worthy of being added to the number of the Gods--an honor which no
mortal man ever was able to attain to but by a glorious pre-eminence of
virtue. And this circumstance was the more to be admired in the case of
Romulus because most of the great men that have been deified were so
exalted to celestial dignities by the people, in periods very little
enlightened, when fiction was easy and ignorance went hand-in-hand with
credulity. But with respect to Romulus we know that he lived less than
six centuries ago, at a time when science and literature were already
advanced, and had got rid of many of the ancient errors that had
prevailed among less civilized peoples. For if, as we consider proved
by the Grecian annals, Rome was founded in the seventh Olympiad, the
life of Romulus was contemporary with that period in which Greece
already abounded in poets and musicians--an age when fables, except
those concerning ancient matters, received little credit.

For, one hundred and eight years after the promulgation of the laws of
Lycurgus, the first Olympiad was established, which indeed, through a
mistake of names, some authors have supposed constituted, by Lycurgus
likewise. And Homer himself, according to the best computation, lived
about thirty years before the time of Lycurgus. We must conclude,
therefore, that Homer flourished very many years before the date of
Romulus. So that, as men had now become learned, and as the times
themselves were not destitute of knowledge, there was not much room
left for the success of mere fictions. Antiquity indeed has received
fables that have at times been sufficiently improbable: but this epoch,
which was already so cultivated, disdaining every fiction that was
impossible, rejected[314] * * * We may therefore, perhaps, attach some
credit to this story of Romulus's immortality, since human life was at
that time experienced, cultivated, and instructed. And doubtless there
was in him such energy of genius and virtue that it is not altogether
impossible to believe the report of Proculus Julius, the husbandman, of
that glorification having b