n, who won the Stadium race at
Olympia on the thirteenth Olympiad, wandered into Italy, and there
meeting Numa, assisted him in the establishment of his constitution; and
that from this cause, the Roman constitution in many points resembles
the Laconian. The Olympic games were instituted in the third year of
Numa's reign. Another story is that Numa was a Sabine by birth, and the
Sabines consider themselves to be of Lacedaemonian origin. It is hard to
reconcile the dates, especially those which refer to Olympiads, the
table of which is said to have been made out by Hippias of Elis, on no
trustworthy basis. However, what things I have heard about Numa that are
worthy of mention I shall proceed to relate, beginning from a
starting-point of my own.

[Footnote A: That is, by some one who was not a Greek.]

II. Rome had been founded, and Romulus had reigned, for thirty-seven
years, when upon the fifth day of the month of July, which day is now
called _nonae caprotinae_, he was performing a public sacrifice outside
the gates, at a place called the Goat's Marsh, in the presence of the
Senate and most of the people. Suddenly a great commotion began in the
air, thick clouds covered the earth, with violent gusts and showers. The
people fled in terror, and Romulus disappeared. His body could never be
found, but suspicion fell upon the patricians, and a report was current
among the populace that they had long been jealous of his power as king,
and had determined to get it into their own hands. Indeed, he had dealt
with them very harshly and tyrannically. Fearing this suspicion, they
gave out that he was not dead, but had been caught up into heaven; and
Proclus, a man of mark, swore that he saw Romulus ascend into heaven in
his armour as he was, and that he heard a voice ordering that he should
be called Quirinus. Another disturbance took place in Rome about the
election of the next king, because the new citizens were not yet
thoroughly amalgamated with the old ones, the people were unquiet, and
the patricians suspicious of one another. Nevertheless they all
determined that they would have a king, but they disagreed not merely
about who, but of what race he should be.

Romulus's original colonists thought it a monstrous thing that the
Sabines, because they had been admitted to a share of the city and the
country, should propose to rule over it; while the Sabines not
unreasonably urged that because, after the death of Tatius, they h