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 Pomœ'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.

4. 2 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 3 by force, which were refused to their entreaties. 5. The next addition was the Cœlian hill, on which a Tuscan colony settled, under the command of Co'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.

4 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.

seems to have been the leader of a body of wandering mercenaries, ready to sell their services to any monarch that would purchase them. From these three colonies the three tribes of Ram'nes, Ti'ties, and Lu'ceres were formed. 6. The Ram'nes, or Ramnenses, derived their name from Rom'ulus; the Tities, or Titien'ses, from Titus Ta'tius, the king of the Sabines; and the Lu'ceres, from ' Lucumo, the Tuscan title of a general, or leader. From this it appears that the three tribes were really three distinct nations, differing in their origin, and dwelling apart.

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7. The city was enlarged by 3 Tullus Hostilius, after the destruction of Alba, and the Viminal hill included within the walls; Ancus Martius added mount Aventine, and the * Esquiline and Capitoline being enclosed in the next reign, completed the number of the seven hills on which the ancient city stood.

8. The hill called Jani'culum, on the north bank of the Tiber, was fortified as an outwork by Ancus Martius, and joined to the city by the bridge; he also dug a trench round the newly erected buildings, for their greater security, and called it the ditch of the Quirites. 9. The public works erected by the kings were of stupendous magnitude, but the private buildings were wretched, the streets narrow, and the houses mean. It was not until after the burning of the city by the Gauls that the city was laid out on a better plan; after the Punic wars wealth flowed in abundantly, and private persons began to erect magnificent mansions. From the period of the conquest of Asia until the reign of Augustus, the city daily augmented its splen

1 Others say that they were named so in honour of Lu'cerus, king of Ardea, according to which theory the third would have been a Pelasgo-Tyrrhenian colony.

2 We shall hereafter have occasion to remark, that the Lu'ceres were subject to the other tribes.

See History, Chapter IV.

The Pincian and Vatican hills were added at a much later period, and these, with Janiculum, made the number ten.