being ready and eager for a decisive action, crossed the
Tiber. And when the Veientes heard that they were pitching a camp, and
intended to advance to the city, they came out to meet them that they
might rather decide the matter in the open field, than be shut up and
have to fight from their houses and walls. In this engagement the
Roman king gained the victory, his power being unassisted by any
stratagem, by the unaided strength of his veteran army: and having
pursued the routed enemies up to their walls, he refrained from
attacking the city, which was strongly fortified and well defended
by its natural advantages: on his return he laid waste their lands,
rather from a desire of revenge than of booty. The Veientes, humbled
by that loss no less than by the unsuccessful issue of the battle,
sent ambassadors to Rome to sue for peace. A truce for one hundred
years was granted them, after they had been mulcted in a part of their
territory. These were essentially the chief events of the reign of
Romulus, in peace and in war, none of which seemed inconsistent with
the belief of his divine origin, or of his deification after death,
neither the spirit he showed in recovering his grandfather's kingdom,
nor his wisdom in building a city, and afterward strengthening it by
the arts of war and peace. For assuredly it was by the power that
Romulus gave it that it became so powerful, that for forty years after
it enjoyed unbroken peace. He was, however, dearer to the people than
to the fathers: above all others he was most beloved by the soldiers:
of these he kept three hundred, whom he called Celeres, armed to serve
as a body-guard not only in time of war but also of peace.

Having accomplished these works deserving of immortality, while he was
holding an assembly of the people for reviewing his army, in the plain
near the Goat's pool, a storm suddenly came on, accompanied by loud
thunder and lightning, and enveloped the king in so dense a mist, that
it entirely hid him from the sight of the assembly. After this Romulus
was never seen again upon earth. The feeling of consternation having
at length calmed down, and the weather having become clear and fine
again after so stormy a day, the Roman youth seeing the royal seat
empty--though they readily believed the words of the fathers who
had stood nearest him, that he had been carried up to heaven by the
storm--yet, struck as it were with the fear of being fatherless, for a
considerable