CONCERNING REMUS AND ROMULUS1
FROM THE COLLECTION OF MAX. TREU (1880）
WHEN Troy was captured on the 8th day of the month of December,
Æneas fled to Mount Ida, passing through the Achæans,
who gave way to him as he was carrying off his household gods and his
family. Others say that it was not that pious sight that saved him, but that
Æneas had often urged the barbarians to give Helen back to the
Achæans. There, having collected a band of Phrygians,
2 he departed to Laurentum, and having
married Lavinia, the daughter of Latinus, king of the Aborigines, he built a
city and named it Lavinium after his wife. Three years later Latinus died,
and Æneas succeeded to the kingdom, by virtue of his marriage
relationship, and gave the name of Latins to the Aborigines. Three years
later still, Mezentius, the king of the Rutuli, engaged in war with him
because Lavinia had been previously betrothed to himself, and
Æneas was slain.
[
2]
Ascanius then became king in his stead. Despising Lavinium as a paltry town,
Ascanius founded another under the Alban mount and named it Alba, which,
after it had held sway 300 years, the Romans destroyed, so that not even a
foundation was left. Silvius, the third in descent, succeeded Ascanius. Then
another Æneas was the fourth, Latinus was the fifth, Capys the
sixth, Capetus the seventh, Tiberinus the eighth, Agrippa the ninth, Romulus
the tenth, Aventinus the eleventh, Procas the twelfth, and Numitor and
Amulius the thirteenth.
[
3]
The father of these left the kingdom to Numitor as the elder of the two. His
brother Amulius dispossessed him and became king. Amulius, fearing
vengeance, slew Egestus, Numitor's son, while hunting, and being
apprehensive lest the sister of Egestus should bear children he made her a
vestal. She became pregnant, as she said, by Mars, while drawing water from
a fountain sacred to him, and gave birth to Remus and Romulus. Amulius
accordingly incarcerated her and gave the boys to be thrown into the Tiber,
which was at that time called the Thubris. The bearers took the boys to the
river. They were shepherds, and they placed the basket on the margin of the
water where the river was marshy. After they had gone away the water receded
and the babes were left on dry land, and a she-wolf stepped into the basket
and suckled them. Laurentia, the wife of the shepherd Faustulus . . . They
were reared to manhood in the practice of robbery, and Remus was captured
while raiding the estates of Numitor, and was brought before Amulius.
[
4]
The latter sent him to his brother Numitor, as the one who had suffered the
robbery, to be condemned and punished. But Numitor, when he beheld the young
man and reckoned up the time when he was exposed and the other
circumstances, began to suspect the truth, and examined him closely as to
his bringing up. Romulus became alarmed, and learning from Faustulus the
facts concerning himself and his brother, and how his mother had been
incarcerated, collected a band of shepherds and with them attacked Amulius,
and, having killed him, proclaimed Numitor king of the Albans. Then they
built a city on the bank of the river by the side of which they had been
exposed and nourished, and where they had practised robbery after they had
grown up; and they named it Rome. It was previously called the Tetragon,
because its perimeter was sixteen stades, having four stades on each side.
THE CIVIL WARS
