II.  Rome had been founded, and Romulus had reigned, for thirty-seven years, when upon the fifth day of the month of July, which day is now called nonae caprotinae, he was performing a public sacrifice outside the gates, at a place called the Goat’s Marsh, in the presence of the Senate and most of the people.  Suddenly a great commotion began in the air, thick clouds covered the earth, with violent gusts and showers.  The people fled in terror, and Romulus disappeared.  His body could never be found, but suspicion fell upon the patricians, and a report was current among the populace that they had long been jealous of his power as king, and had determined to get it into their own hands.  Indeed, he had dealt with them very harshly and tyrannically.  Fearing this suspicion, they gave out that he was not dead, but had been caught up into heaven; and Proclus, a man of mark, swore that he saw Romulus ascend into heaven in his armour as he was, and that he heard a voice ordering that he should be called Quirinus.  Another disturbance took place in Rome about the election of the next king, because the new citizens were not yet thoroughly amalgamated with the old ones, the people were unquiet, and the patricians suspicious of one another.  Nevertheless they all determined that they would have a king, but they disagreed not merely about who, but of what race he should be.

Romulus’s original colonists thought it a monstrous thing that the Sabines, because they had been admitted to a share of the city and the country, should propose to rule over it; while the Sabines not unreasonably urged that because, after the death of Tatius, they had acquiesced in Romulus reigning alone, now in their turn they ought to furnish a king of their own nation.  They had not, they said, been adopted by a more powerful race than themselves, but had, by their combination with the Romans, greatly raised the power and renown of their city.

The two races were at issue on these points.  The patricians, fearing that confusion might arise if the state were left without a head, made one of their own number every day assume the insignia of royalty, perform the usual sacrifices to the gods, and transact business for six hours by day, and six by night.  This equal division of their periods of rule was not only just for those in office, but prevented any jealousy of them being felt by the populace, each day and night, because they saw one who had been a king become a private person.  This form of government the Romans call an interregnum.

III.  But, although they appeared to manage things so smoothly, suspicions and threatenings of disturbance arose, for men said that they meditated altering the form of government to an oligarchy, in order to keep all political power in their own hands, and would not therefore elect a king.  Hereupon the two factions agreed that one should select a king from the ranks of the other.  This, they thought, would both put