It is said that an omen came to Remus first, six vultures; and when, after the omen had been declared, twice that number presented themselves to Romulus, each was hailed king by his own party, the former claiming sovereign power on the ground of priority of time, the latter on account of the number of birds.  Thereupon, having met and exchanged angry words, from the strife of angry feelings they turned to bloodshed:  there Remus fell from a blow received in the crowd.  A more common account is that Remus, in derision of his brother, leaped over the newly-erected walls, and was thereupon slain by Romulus in a fit of passion, who, mocking him, added words to this effect:”  So perish every one hereafter, who shall leap over my walls.”  Thus Romulus obtained possession of supreme power for himself alone.  The city, when built, was called after the name of its founder.[5] He first proceeded to fortify the Palatine Hill, on which he himself had been brought up.  He offered sacrifices to Hercules, according to the Grecian rite, as they had been instituted by Evander; to the other gods, according to the Alban rite.  There is a tradition that Hercules, having slain Geryon, drove off his oxen, which were of surpassing beauty,[6] to that spot:  and that he lay down in a grassy spot on the banks of the river Tiber, where he had swam across, driving the cattle before him, to refresh them with rest and luxuriant pasture, being also himself fatigued with journeying.  There, when sleep had overpowered him, heavy as he was with food and wine, a shepherd who dwelt in the neighbourhood, by name Cacus, priding himself on his strength, and charmed with the beauty of the cattle, desired to carry them off as booty; but because, if he had driven the herd in front of him to the cave, their tracks must have conducted their owner thither in his search, he dragged the most beautiful of them by their tails backward into a cave.  Hercules, aroused from sleep at dawn, having looked over his herd and observed that some of their number were missing, went straight to the nearest cave, to see whether perchance their tracks led thither.  When he saw that they were all turned away from it and led in no other direction, troubled and not knowing what to make up his mind to do, he commenced to drive off his herd from so dangerous a spot.  Thereupon some of the cows that were driven away, lowed, as they usually do, when they missed those that were left; and the lowings of those that were shut in being heard in answer from the cave, caused Hercules to turn round.  And when Cacus attempted to prevent him by force as he was advancing toward the cave, he was struck with a club and slain, while vainly calling upon the shepherds to assist him.  At that time Evander, who was an exile from the Peloponnesus, governed the country more by his personal ascendancy than by absolute sway.  He was a man held in reverence on account of the wonderful art of writing, an entirely new discovery to men ignorant