of fresh air, and fling an agreeable shade over the valleys.
VII. These things he effected with wonderful rapidity, and thus established the city, which, from his own name Romulus, he determined to call Rome. And in order to strengthen his new city, he conceived a design, singular enough, and even a little rude, yet worthy of a great man, and of a genius which discerned far away in futurity the means of strengthening his power and his people. The young Sabine females of honorable birth who had come to Rome, attracted by the public games and spectacles which Romulus then, for the first time, established as annual games in the circus, were suddenly carried off at the feast of Consus[1] by his orders, and were given in marriage to the men of the noblest families in Rome. And when, on this account, the Sabines had declared war against Rome, the issue of the battle being doubtful and undecided, Romulus made an alliance with Tatius, King of the Sabines, at the intercession of the matrons themselves who had been carried off. By this compact he admitted the Sabines into the city, gave them a participation in the religious ceremonies, and divided his power with their king.
VIII. But after the death of Tatius, the entire government was again vested in the hands of Romulus, although, besides making Tatius his own partner, he had also elected some of the chiefs of the Sabines into the royal council, who on account of their affectionate regard for the people were called patres, or fathers. He also divided the people into three tribes, called after the name of Tatius, and his own name, and that of Locumo, who had fallen as his ally in the Sabine war; and also into thirty curias, designated by the names of those Sabine virgins, who, after being carried off at the festivals, generously offered themselves as the mediators of peace and coalition.
But though these orders were established in the life of Tatius, yet, after his death, Romulus reigned with still greater power by the counsel and authority of the senate.
IX. In this respect he approved and adopted the principle which Lycurgus but little before had applied to the government of Lacedæmon; namely, that the monarchical
- ↑ A name of Neptune.
