When each would rule they both at once appealed
Their claims, with anxious hearts, to augury.
Then Remus took the auspices alone
And waited for the lucky bird; while on
The lofty Aventine2 fair Romulus
[p. 341] His quest did keep to wait the soaring tribe:
Their contest would decide the city's name
As Rome or Remora. The multitude
Expectant looked to learn who would be king.
As, when the consul is about to give
The sign to start the race, the people sit
With eyes intent on barrier doors from whose
[107]
48. "As for that augural art of Romulus
of which I spoke, it was pastoral and not city-bred,
nor was it 'invented to gull the ignorant,' but
received by trustworthy men, who handed it on to
their descendants. And so we read in Ennius1 the
following story of Romulus, who was an augur, and
of his brother Remus, who also was an augur:
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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