rally
known among those of later times. He was succeeded by Agrippa, son
of Tiberinus; after Agrippa, Romulus Silvius, having received
the government from his father, became king. He was killed by a
thunderbolt, and handed on the kingdom to Aventinus, who, owing to his
being buried on that hill, which now forms part of the city of Rome,
gave it its name. After him reigned Proca, who begot Numitor and
Amulius. To Numitor, who was the eldest son, he bequeathed the ancient
kingdom of the Silvian family. Force, however, prevailed more than a
father's wish or the respect due to seniority. Amulius drove out his
brother and seized the kingdom: he added crime to crime, murdered
his brother's male issue, and, under pretence of doing honour to his
brother's daughter, Rea Silvia, having chosen her a Vestal Virgin,[2]
deprived her of all hopes of issue by the obligation of perpetual
virginity.

My opinion, however, is that the origin of so great a city and an
empire next in power to that of the gods was due to the fates. The
Vestal Rea was ravished by force, and having brought forth twins,
declared Mars to be the father of her illegitimate offspring, either
because she really imagined it to be the case, or because it was less
discreditable to have committed such an offence with a god.[3] But
neither gods nor men protected either her or her offspring from the
king's cruelty. The priestess was bound and cast into prison; the king
ordered the children to be thrown into the flowing river. By some
chance which Providence seemed to direct, the Tiber, having over flown
its banks, thereby forming stagnant pools, could not be approached at
the regular course of its channel; notwithstanding it gave the bearers
of the children hope that they could be drowned in its water however
calm. Accordingly, as if they had executed the king's orders, they
exposed the boys in the nearest land-pool, where now stands the ficus
Ruminalis, which they say was called Romularis.[4] At that time the
country in those parts was a desolate wilderness. The story goes, that
when the shallow water, subsiding, had left the floating trough, in
which the children had been exposed, on dry ground, a thirsty she-wolf
from the mountains around directed her course toward the cries of the
infants, and held down her teats to them with such gentleness, that
the keeper of the king's herd found her licking the boys with her
tongue. They say that his name was Faustulus; and that t