cept in so far as they may serve to ascertain the era
of Rome. The account which has the most preten-
sions to accuracy is that given by Dionysius (i. G5,
TO. 71) and by Diodorus {Fr. lib. viii. voL iv. p. 21,
Bipont). The sum of the reigns here given, allowing
five years for that of Aeneas, who died in the seventh
year after the taking of Troy, is 432 years —
tliat is, down to the second year of Numitor, when
Rome was founded by Romulus, in the first year of
the 7th Olympiad. Now this agrees very closely
with Varro's era for the foundation of Rome, viz.,
753 B. c. For Troy having been taken, according
to the era of Eratosthenes, in 1184 u. c, the difter-
ence between 1184 and 7.'J3 leaves 431 years for
the din'ation of the Alban kingdom.
Varro's date for the foundation of Rome is that
generally adopted. Other authorities place it rather
later: Cato. in 751 B.C.; Polybius, in 750; Fabius
Pictor, in 747.
This is not the place to enter into the question
vrhether these dates of the Alban kings were the
invention of a later age, in order to satisfy the re-
quirements of chronology. It will suffice to remark
that the nest most prevalent opinion among those
Romans who adopted the main points of this tradition
assigned only three centuries to the Alban kings
before tjje foundation of Rome. This was the opinion
of Virgil (Aen. i. 272),—
" Hie jam tercentum totos regnabitur annos,"
— of Justin, of Trogus Pompeius (xliii. 1), and of
Livy (i. 29), who assigns a period of 400 years
for the existence of Alba, and places its destruction
a century after the foundation of Rome. At all
events the preponderance of testimony tends very
.strongly to show that Rome was not founded till
several centuries after the Trojan War. Timaeus
.seems to have been the first Greek writer who
adopted the account of the foundation of Rome by
Eonmlus. (Niebuhr, Hist. vol. i. p. 218.)
II. The City of Romulus.
The Roman historians almost unanimously relate
Uial Rome originally consisted of the city founded by
Romulus on the Palatine. (Liv. i. 7 ; Veil. i. 8 ;
Tac. An7i. xii. 24; Dion3's. i. 88; Cell. siii. 14; Ov.
Tr. iii. 1. 29, &c.) The ancient settlement of Evan-
der on the same hill, as well as a city on the Capi-
toline called Saturnia (Varr. L. L. v. § 42, Miill.;
Festus, p. 322, Miill.), and another on iIons Jani-
culus called Aenea or Antipolis (Dionys. i. 73; Plin.
iii. 9), must be supposed to have disappeared at the
time of its foundation, if indeed they had ever existed.
It seems probable enough, as Dionysius says, that
villages were previously scattered about on the
seven hills ; but the existence of a place called Va-
tica or Vaticum, on the right bank of the Tiber, and
of a Quirium on the Quirinal, rests solely on the
conjecture (jf Niebuhr (^Hist. vol. i. p. 223, seq.,
289, seq., Eng. Trans.)
Pomoerium. — Tacitus has given in the following
passage the fullest and most authentic account of the
circuit of the Romulean city: " Sed initium con-
dendi, et quod pomoerium Romulus posuerit, noscere
haud absurdum reor. Igitur a foro Boario, ubi
aereuin tauri simulacrum adspicimus, quia id genus
animalium aratro subditur, sulcus designandi oppidi
coeptus, ut magnam Herculis aram amplecteretur.
Inde certis spatiis interject! lapides, per ima montis
Paktini ad aram Consi, inox ad Curias Veteres,
turn ad sacellnm Larum; forumque Romanuni et
Capitolium non a Romulo sed a Tito Tatio additum
urbi credidere." {Ann. xii. 24.)
According to this description, the point where the
furrow of the pomoerium commenced was marked by
the statue of a bull, whence the name of the Forum
Boariimi was by some writers afterwards d-erived.
The Forum Boarium lay under the westernmost
angle of the Palatine ; and the furrow probably
began a little beyond the spot where the Arcus
Argentarius now stands, close to the church of S.
Giorgio in Velahro. embracing the altar of Hercules,
or Ara IMaxima, which stood in the same forum : —
" Constituitque sibi, quae Maxima dicitur. aram,
Hie ubi pars urbis de bove norncn habet."
(Ov.Fast. i. 581.)
Hence it proceeded along the north side of the
Vallis Murcia (Circus Maximus). as far as the
Ara Consi. According to Becker (^Handbuch, p. 98,
de Muris, §-c. p. 11), this altar must be soitght
towards the lower end of the Circus, near the
southernmost angle of the Palatine ; but he gives no
authority for this ojjinion, which is a mere assump-
tion, or i-ather a petitio principii from the passage
of Tacitus before quoted, whence he thinks that it
must necessarily be referred to the spot indicated.
(Handb. p. 468, and p. 665, note 1438.) But there
is nothing at all in the words of Tacitus to warraiit
this inference ; and there seems to be no good reason
why we should dispute the authority of Tertullian,
from whom we learn that the Ara Consi stood near
the first 7neta of the circus, and therefore somewhere
near the middle of the SW. side of the Palatine
("et nunc araCon.so illi in Circo defossa est ad prinias
metas," de Sped. 5). Hence, after turning, of course,
the southernmost point of the Palatine, where the
Septizonium of Severus afterwards stood, the po-
moerium proceeded through the valley between the
Palatine and Gael I us ( Via de S. Gregorio) to the
Curiae Veteres. The situation of this last place has
been the .■subject of much dispute. Niebuhr (^Hist.
Vol. !. p. 288), though with some hesitation (t6. note
735), and Bunsen (Beschreibung, vol. i. p. 138),
place the Curiae Veteres near the baths of Titus on the
Esquiline, and they are followed by Müller ((
Greek characters),
vol. ii. p. 143). This view appears, however, to be
founded on no authority, except that of the modern
writers Blondus Flavins and Lucius Faunus, who
state that the part of the Esquiline called Carinae,
and even the baths of Titus themselves, were de-
signated in ancient notarial documents as " Curia
Vetus." But, first, it is highly improbable that
Tacitus, in his description, should have taken so long
a stride as from the Ara Consi, in the middle of the
SW. side of the Palatine, to the Esquiline, without
mentioning any intervening place. Again : if the
line of the pomoerium had proceeded so far to the N.,
it must have embraced the Velia as well as the Palatine, as Bunsen assumes (l. c.); and this must have
destroyed that squareness of form which, as we shall
see further on, procured for the city of Romlus the
appellation of " Roma Quadrata." That the furrow
was drawn at right angles following the natural line
of the hill we are assured by more than one authority ((Greek characters), Dionys. i. 88 ; antiquissimum pomoerium, quod a
Romulo institutum est. Palatini montis radicibus
terminabatur, Gell. xiii. 14). But, further, it may
be shown from satisfactory testimony that the Curiae
Veteres were not seated on the Esquiline, but between
the Palatine and Caelian. Thus the Notilia, in de-
