[Footnote 5:  According to Varro, Rome was founded B.C. 753; according to Cato, B.C. 751.  Livy here derives Roma from Romulus, but this is rejected by modern etymologists; according to Mommsen the word means “stream-town,” from its position on the Tiber.]

[Footnote 6:  The remarkable beauty of the white or mouse-coloured cattle of central Italy gives a touch of realism to this story.—­D.O.]

[Footnote 7:  The introduction of the art of writing among the Romans was ascribed to Evander.  The Roman alphabet was derived from the Greek, through the Grecian (Chalcidian) colony at Cumae.]

[Footnote 8:  The title patres originally signified the heads of families, and was in early times used of the patrician senate, as selected from these.  When later, plebeians were admitted into the senate, the members of the senate were all called patres, while patricians, as opposed to plebeians, enjoyed certain distinctions and privileges.]

[Footnote 9:  This story of the rape of the Sabines belongs to the class of what are called “etiological” myths—­i. e., stories invented to account for a rite or custom, or to explain local names or characteristics.  The custom prevailed among Greeks and Romans of the bridegroom pretending to carry off the bride from her home by force.  Such a custom still exists among the nomad tribes of Asia Minor.  The rape of the Sabine women was invented to account for this custom.]

[Footnote 10:  The spolia opima (grand spoils)—­a term used to denote the arms taken by one general from another—­were only gained twice afterward during the history of the republic; in B.C. 437, when A. Cornelius Cossus slew Lars Tolumnius of Veii; and in B.C. 222, when the consul M. Claudius Marcellus slew Viridomarus, chief of the Insubrian Gauls.]

[Footnote 11:  The place afterward retained its name, even when filled up and dry.  Livy (Book VII) gives a different reason for the name:  that it was so called from one Marcus Curtius having sprung, armed, and on horseback, several hundred years ago (B.C. 362), into a gulf that suddenly opened in the forum; it being imagined that it would not close until an offering was made of what was most valuable in the state—­i. e., a warrior armed and on horseback.  According to Varro, it was a locus fulguritus (i. e., struck by lightning), which was inclosed by a consul named Curtius.]

[Footnote 12:  Supposed to be derived from “Lucumo,” the name or, according to more accepted commentators, title of an Etruscan chief who came to help Romulus.—­D.O.]

[Footnote 13:  The inhabitants of Fidenae, about five miles from Rome, situated on the Tiber, near Castel Giubileo.—­D.O.]

[Footnote 14:  About twelve and a half miles north of Rome, close to the little river Cremera; it was one of the most important of the twelve confederate Etruscan towns.  Plutarch describes it as the bulwark of Etruria:  not inferior to Rome in military equipment and numbers.]