ed by Evander,
discharged the duties of chief priests of this sacred function
for many generations, until their whole race became extinct, in
consequence of this office, the solemn prerogative of their family,
being delegated to public slaves. These were the only religious rites
that Romulus at that time adopted from those of foreign countries,
being even then an advocate of immortality won by merit, to which the
destiny marked out for him was conducting him.

The duties of religion having been thus duly completed, the people
were summoned to a public meeting: and, as they could not be united
and incorporated into one body by any other means save legal
ordinances, Romulus gave them a code of laws: and, judging that these
would only be respected by a nation of rustics, if he dignified
himself with the insignia of royalty, he clothed himself with greater
majesty--above all, by taking twelve lictors to attend him, but also
in regard to his other appointments. Some are of opinion that he was
influenced in his choice of that number by that of the birds which had
foretold that sovereign power should be his when the auguries were
taken. I myself am not indisposed to follow the opinion of those,
who are inclined to believe that it was from the neighbouring
Etruscans--from whom the curule chair and purple-bordered toga were
borrowed--that the apparitors of this class, as well as the number
itself, were introduced: and that the Etruscans employed such a number
because, as their king was elected from twelve states in common, each
state assigned him one lictor.

In the meantime, the city was enlarged by taking in various plots of
ground for the erection of buildings, while they built rather in the
hope of an increased population in the future, than in view of the
actual number of the inhabitants of the city at that time. Next, that
the size of the city might not be without efficiency, in order to
increase the population, following the ancient policy of founders of
cities, who, by bringing together to their side a mean and ignoble
multitude, were in the habit of falsely asserting that an offspring
was born to them from the earth, he opened as a sanctuary the place
which, now inclosed, is known as the "two groves," and which people
come upon when descending from the Capitol. Thither, a crowd of all
classes from the neighbouring peoples, without distinction, whether
freemen or slaves, eager for change, flocked for refuge, and therei