was already near, and no small number of the citizens, through hatred and fear of Amulius, were going out to join him.  He himself brought no small force, arrayed in companies of a hundred each.  Each of these was led by a man who carried a bundle of sticks and straw upon a pole.  The Latins called these manipla; and from this these companies are even at the present day called maniples in the Roman army.  Now as Remus raised a revolt within, while Romulus assailed the palace without, the despot was captured and put to death without having been able to do anything, or take any measures for his own safety.

The greater part of the above story is told by Fabius Pictor and Diokles of Peparethos, who seem to have been the first historians of the foundation of Rome.  The story is doubted by many on account of its theatrical and artificial form, yet we ought not to disbelieve it when we consider what wondrous works are wrought by chance, and when, too, we reflect on the Roman Empire, which, had it not had a divine origin, never could have arrived at its present extent.

IX.  After the death of Amulius, and the reorganisation of the kingdom, the twins, who would not live in Alba as subjects, and did not wish to reign there during the life of their grandfather, gave up the sovereign power to him, and, having made a suitable provision for their mother, determined to dwell by themselves, and to found a city in the parts in which they themselves had been reared; at least, this is the most probable of the various reasons which are given.  It may also have been necessary, as many slaves and fugitives had gathered round them, either that they should disperse these men and so lose their entire power, or else go and dwell alone amongst them.  It is clear, from the rape of the Sabine women, that the citizens of Alba would not admit these outcasts into their own body, since that deed was caused, not by wanton insolence, but by necessity, as they could not obtain wives by fair means; for after carrying the women off they treated them with the greatest respect.  Afterwards, when the city was once founded, they made it a sanctuary for people in distress to take refuge in, saying that it belonged to the god Asylus; and they received in it all sorts of persons, not giving up slaves to their masters, debtors to their creditors, or murderers to their judges, but saying that, in accordance with a Pythian oracle, the sanctuary was free to all; so that the city soon became full of men, for they say that at first it contained no less than a thousand hearths.  Of this more hereafter.  When they were proceeding to found the city, they at once quarrelled about its site.  Romulus fixed upon what is now called Roma Quadrata, a square piece of ground, and wished the city to be built in that place; but Remus preferred a strong position on Mount Aventino, which, in memory of him, was called the Remonium, and now is called Rignarium.