of accomplishments,[7] and still more revered on account of the supposed divinity of his mother Carmenta, whom those peoples had marvelled at as a prophetess before the arrival of the Sybil in Italy.  This Evander, roused by the assembling of the shepherds as they hastily crowded round the stranger, who was charged with open murder, after he heard an account of the deed and the cause of it, gazing upon the personal appearance and mien of the hero, considerably more dignified and majestic than that of a man, asked who he was.  As soon as he heard the name of the hero, and that of his father and native country, “Hail!” said he, “Hercules, son of Jupiter! my mother, truthful interpreter of the will of the gods, has declared to me that thou art destined to increase the number of the heavenly beings, and that on this spot an altar shall be dedicated to thee, which in after ages a people most mighty on earth shall call Greatest, and honour in accordance with rites instituted by thee.”  Hercules, having given him his right hand, declared that he accepted the prophetic intimation, and would fulfil the predictions of the fates, by building and dedicating an altar.  Thereon then for the first time sacrifice was offered to Hercules with a choice heifer taken from the herd, the Potitii and Pinarii, the most distinguished families who then inhabited those parts, being invited to serve at the feast.  It so happened that the Potitii presented themselves in due time and the entrails were set before them:  but the Pinarii did not arrive until the entrails had been eaten up, to share the remainder of the feast.  From that time it became a settled institution, that, as long as the Pinarian family existed, they should not eat of the entrails of the sacrificial victims.  The Potitii, fully instructed by Evander, discharged the duties of chief priests of this sacred function for many generations, until their whole race became extinct, in consequence of this office, the solemn prerogative of their family, being delegated to public slaves.  These were the only religious rites that Romulus at that time adopted from those of foreign countries, being even then an advocate of immortality won by merit, to which the destiny marked out for him was conducting him.

The duties of religion having been thus duly completed, the people were summoned to a public meeting:  and, as they could not be united and incorporated into one body by any other means save legal ordinances, Romulus gave them a code of laws:  and, judging that these would only be respected by a nation of rustics, if he dignified himself with the insignia of royalty, he clothed himself with greater majesty—­above all, by taking twelve lictors to attend him, but also in regard to his other appointments.  Some are of opinion that he was influenced in his choice of that number by that of the birds which had foretold that sovereign power should be his when the auguries were taken.  I myself am not indisposed to follow the opinion of those, who are inclined to believe that it was from the neighbouring Etruscans—­from whom the curule chair and purple-bordered toga were borrowed—­that the apparitors of this class, as well as the number itself, were introduced:  and that the Etruscans employed such a number because, as their king was elected from twelve states in common, each state assigned him one lictor.