fter they had been given up. Accordingly, while
he and Romulus were at Lavinium offering the sacrifices, news came
that the murderers of the envoys, on their way from Rome to Lavinium,
had been rescued and allowed to escape. This news so exasperated the
people of Lavinium against Tatius, for they considered him as
unquestionably the secret author and contriver of the deed, that they
rose upon him at the festival, and murdered him with the butcher
knives and spits which had been used for slaughtering and roasting the
animals. They then formed a grand procession and escorted Romulus out
of the city in safety with loud acclamations.

The government of Lavinium, as soon as the excitement of the scene was
over, fearing the resentment which they very naturally supposed
Romulus would feel at the murder of his colleague, seized the
ringleaders of the riot, and sent them bound to Rome, to place them at
the disposal of the Roman government. Romulus sent them back unharmed,
directing them to say to the Lavinian government, that he considered
the death of Tatius, though inflicted in a mode lawless and
unjustifiable, as nevertheless, in itself, only a just expiation for
the murder of the Lavinian embassadors, which Tatius had instigated or
authorized.

The Sabines of Rome were for a time greatly exasperated at these
occurrences, but Romulus succeeded in gradually quieting and calming
them, and they finally acquiesced in his decision. Romulus thus became
once more the sole and undisputed master of Rome.

After this the progress of the city in wealth and prosperity, from
year to year, was steady and sure, interrupted, it is true, by
occasional and temporary reverses, but with no real retrocession at
any time. Causes of disagreement arose from time to time with
neighboring states, and, in such cases, Romulus always first sent a
summons to the party implicated, whether king or people, citing them
to appear and answer for their conduct before the Roman Senate. If
they refused to come, he sent an armed force against them, as if he
were simply enforcing the jurisdiction of a tribunal of justice. The
result usually was that the refractory state was compelled to submit,
and its territories were added to those of the kingdom of Rome. Thus
the boundaries of the new empire were widening and extending every
year.

Romulus paid great attention, in the mean time, to every thing
pertaining to the internal organization of the state, so as to br