slaves like free women, and send them to the enemy; then at night
Philotis said she would raise a torch, and the Romans should come under
arms and fall upon the sleeping enemy. This was done, and terms were
made with the Latins. Philotis raised the torch upon a certain fig-tree
with leaves which spread all round and behind, in such a manner that the
light could not be seen by the enemy, but was clearly seen by the
Romans. When they saw it, they immediately rushed out, calling
frequently for each other at the various gates in their eagerness. As
they fell unexpectedly upon the enemy, they routed them, and keep the
day as a feast. Therefore the Nones are called Caprotinae because of the
fig-tree, which the Romans call _caprificus_, and the women are feasted
out of doors, under the shade of fig-tree boughs. And the female slaves
assemble and play, and afterwards beat and throw stones at each other,
as they did then, when they helped the Romans to fight. These accounts
are admitted by but few historians, and indeed the calling out one
another's names in the daytime, and walking down to the Goats' Marsh
seems more applicable to the former story, unless, indeed, both of these
events happened on the same day.

Romulus is said to have been fifty-four years old, and to be in the
thirty-eighth year of his reign when he disappeared from the world.

COMPARISON OF THESEUS AND ROMULUS.

I. The above are all the noteworthy particulars which we have been able
to collect about Theseus and Romulus. It seems, in the first place, that
Theseus of his own free will, and without any compulsion, when he might
have reigned peacefully in Troezen, where he was heir to the kingdom, no
mean one, longed to accomplish heroic deeds: whereas Romulus was an
exile, and in the position of a slave; the fear of death was hanging
over him if unsuccessful, and so, as Plato says, he was made brave by
sheer terror, and through fear of suffering death and torture was forced
into doing great exploits. Moreover, Romulus's greatest achievement was
the slaying of one man, the despot of Alba, whereas Skeiron, Sinis,
Prokrustes, and Korynetes were merely the accompaniments and prelude to
the greater actions of Theseus, and by slaying them he freed Greece from
terrible scourges, before those whom he saved even knew who he was. He
also might have sailed peacefully over the sea to Athens, and had no
trouble with those brigands, whereas Romulus could not be free