booty they had carried off from the lands; the Roman army, on the other hand, when they did not find the enemy in the country, being ready and eager for a decisive action, crossed the Tiber.  And when the Veientes heard that they were pitching a camp, and intended to advance to the city, they came out to meet them that they might rather decide the matter in the open field, than be shut up and have to fight from their houses and walls.  In this engagement the Roman king gained the victory, his power being unassisted by any stratagem, by the unaided strength of his veteran army:  and having pursued the routed enemies up to their walls, he refrained from attacking the city, which was strongly fortified and well defended by its natural advantages:  on his return he laid waste their lands, rather from a desire of revenge than of booty.  The Veientes, humbled by that loss no less than by the unsuccessful issue of the battle, sent ambassadors to Rome to sue for peace.  A truce for one hundred years was granted them, after they had been mulcted in a part of their territory.  These were essentially the chief events of the reign of Romulus, in peace and in war, none of which seemed inconsistent with the belief of his divine origin, or of his deification after death, neither the spirit he showed in recovering his grandfather’s kingdom, nor his wisdom in building a city, and afterward strengthening it by the arts of war and peace.  For assuredly it was by the power that Romulus gave it that it became so powerful, that for forty years after it enjoyed unbroken peace.  He was, however, dearer to the people than to the fathers:  above all others he was most beloved by the soldiers:  of these he kept three hundred, whom he called Celeres, armed to serve as a body-guard not only in time of war but also of peace.

Having accomplished these works deserving of immortality, while he was holding an assembly of the people for reviewing his army, in the plain near the Goat’s pool, a storm suddenly came on, accompanied by loud thunder and lightning, and enveloped the king in so dense a mist, that it entirely hid him from the sight of the assembly.  After this Romulus was never seen again upon earth.  The feeling of consternation having at length calmed down, and the weather having become clear and fine again after so stormy a day, the Roman youth seeing the royal seat empty—­though they readily believed the words of the fathers who had stood nearest him, that he had been carried up to heaven by the storm—­yet, struck as it were with the fear of being fatherless, for a considerable time preserved a sorrowful silence.  Then, after a few had set the example, the whole multitude saluted Romulus as a god, the son of a god, the king and parent of the Roman city; they implored his favour with prayers, that with gracious kindness he would always preserve his offspring.  I believe that even then there were some, who in secret were convinced that the king had been torn in pieces by the hands of the fathers—­for