of
responsibility too, in having these young princes under his care. He
took great pains to protect them from all possible harm, and to
instruct them in every thing which it was in those days considered
important for young men to know. It is even said that he sent them to
a town in Latium where there was some sort of seminary of learning,
that their minds might receive a proper intellectual culture. As they
grew up they were both handsome in form and in countenance, and were
characterized by a graceful dignity of air and demeanor, which made
them very attractive in the eyes of all who beheld them. They were
prominent among the young herdsmen and hunters of the forest, for
their courage, their activity, their strength, their various personal
accomplishments, and their high and generous qualities of mind.
Romulus was more silent and thoughtful than his brother, and seemed to
possess in some respects superior mental powers. Both were regarded by
all who knew them with feelings of the highest respect and
consideration.

Romulus and Remus treated their own companions and equals, that is the
young shepherds and herdsmen of the mountains, with great courtesy and
kindness, and were very kindly regarded by them in return. They,
however, evinced a great degree of independence of spirit in respect
to the various bailiffs and chief herdsmen, and other officers of
field and forest police, who exercised authority in the region where
they lived. These men were sometimes haughty and domineering, and the
peasantry in general stood greatly in awe of them. Romulus and Remus,
however, always faced them without fear, never seeming to be alarmed
at their threats, or at any other exhibitions of their anger. In fact,
the boys seemed to be imbued with a native loftiness and fearlessness
of character, as if they had inherited a spirit of confidence and
courage with their royal blood, or had imbibed a portion of the
indomitable temper of their fierce foster mother.

They were generous, however, as well as brave. They took the part of
the weak and the oppressed against the tyrannical and the strong in
the rustic contentions that they witnessed; they interposed to help
the feeble, to relieve those who were in want, and to protect the
defenseless. They hunted wild beasts, they fought against robbers,
they rescued and saved the lost. For amusements, they practiced
running, wrestling, racing, throwing javelins and spears, and other
athletic feats