time of Rom'ulus, and that he was called the founder, from being the first who gave it strength and stability. It seems probable that several villages might have been formed at an early age on the different hills, which were afterwards included in the circuit of Rome; and that the first of them which obtained a decided superiority, the village on the Palatine hill, finally absorbed the rest, and gave its name to "the eternal city."

There seems to be some uncertainty whether Romulus gave his name to the city, or derived his own from it: the latter is asserted by several historians, but those who ascribe to the city a Grecian origin, with some show of probability assert that Romus (another form of Romulus) and Roma are both derived from the Greek pwμn, strength. The city, we are assured, had another name, which the priests were forbidden to divulge; but what that was, it is now impossible to discover. There is, however, some plausibility in the conjecture that it was Pallanteum; from the great care with which the Palladium, or image of Pallas, was preserved, it seems probable that the city was supposed to be under the care of that deity. If this conjecture be correct, the Pelasgic origin of Rome cannot be doubted, for Pallas was a Pelasgic deity.

We have thus traced the history of the Latins down to the period when Rome was founded, or at least when it became a city, and shown how little reliance can be placed on the accounts given of these periods by the early historians. We shall hereafter see that great uncertainty rests on the history of Rome itself during the four first centuries of its existence.

NEW YORK LIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX

FILDEN FOUNDATIONS

1. THE city of Rome, according to Varro, was founded in the fourth year of the sixth Olympiad, B.C. 753 ; but Cato, the censor, places the event four years later, in the second year of the seventh Olympiad. The day of its foundation was the 21st of April, which was sacred to the rural goddess Pa'les, when the rustics were accustomed to solicit the increase of their flocks from the deity, and to purify themselves for involuntary violation of consecrated places. The account preserved by tradition of the ceremonies used on this occasion confirms the opinion of those who contend that Rome had a previous existence as a village, and that what is called its foundation was really an enlargement of its boundaries, by taking in the ground at the foot of the Palatine hill. The first care of Rom'ulus was to mark out the Pomo'rium; a space round the walls of the city, on which it was unlawful to erect buildings. 2. The person who determined the Pomo'rium yoked a bullock and heifer to a plough, having a copper share, and drew a furrow to mark the course of the future wall; he guided the plough so that all the sods might fall inwards, and was followed by others, who took care that none should lie the other

way. 3. When he came to the place where it was designed to erect a gate, the plough was taken up ', and carried to where the wall recommenced. The next ceremony was the consecration of the comit'ium, or place of public assembly. A vault was built under ground, and filled with the firstlings of all the natural productions that sustain human life, and with earth which each foreign settler had brought from his own home. This place was called Mun'dus, and was supposed to become the gate of the lower world; it was opened on three several days in the year, for the spirits of the dead.

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4. The next addition made to the city was the Sabine town, which occupied the Quirinal, and part of the Capitoline hills. The name of this town most probably was Qui'rium, and from it the Roman people received the name Quirites. The two cities were united on terms of equality, and the double-faced Ja'nus stamped on the earliest Roman coins was probably a symbol of the double state. They were at first so disunited, that even the rights of intermarriage did not exist between them, and it was probably from Qui'rium that the Roman youths obtained the wives by force, which were refused to their entreaties. 5. The next addition was the Coelian hill, on which a Tuscan colony settled, under the command of Coe'les Vibenna, who

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1 Hence a gate was called porta, from porta're, to carry. The reason of this part of the ceremony was, that the plough being deemed holy, it was unlawful that any thing unclean should pollute the place which it had touched; but it was obviously necessary that things clean and unclean should pass through the gates of the city. It is remarkable that all the ceremonies here mentioned were imitated from the Tuscans.

2 This, though apparently a mere conjecture, has been so fully proved by Niebuhr, (vol. i. p. 251,) that it may safely be assumed as an historical fact.

3 See Chapter II. of the following history.

All authors are agreed that the Cœlian hill was so named from Coles Viben'na, a Tuscan chief; but there is a great variety in the date assigned to his settlement at Rome. Some make him contemporary with Rom'ulus, others with the elder Tarquin, or Servius Tullius. In this uncertainty all that can be satisfactorily determined is, that at some early period a Tuscan colony settled in Rome.