The first Roman historian of any authority, was Fa’bius Pic’tor, who flourished at the close of the second Punic war; that is, about five centuries and a half after the foundation of the city, and nearly a thousand years after the destruction of Troy.  The materials from which his narrative was compiled, were the legendary ballads, which are in every country the first record of warlike exploits; the calendars and annals kept by the priests, and the documents kept by noble families to establish their genealogy.  Imperfect as these materials must necessarily have been under any circumstances, we must remember that the city of Rome was twice captured; once by Porsenna, and a second time by the Gauls, about a century and a half before Fabius was born.  On the latter occasion the city was burned to the ground, and the capital saved only by the payment of an immense ransom.  By such a calamity it is manifest that the most valuable documents must have been dispersed or destroyed, and the part that escaped thrown into great disorder.  The heroic songs might indeed have been preserved in the memory of the public reciters; but there is little necessity for proving that poetic historians would naturally mingle so much fiction with truth, that few of their assertions could be deemed authentic.  The history of the four first centuries of the Roman state is accordingly full of the greatest inconsistences and improbabilities; so much so, that many respectable writers have rejected the whole as unworthy of credit; but this is as great an excess in scepticism, as the reception of the whole would be of credulity.  But if the founders of the city, the date of its erection, and the circumstances under which its citizens were assembled be altogether doubtful, as will subsequently be shown, assuredly the history of events that occurred four centuries previous must be involved in still greater obscurity.  The legend of AEneas, when he first appears noticed as a progenitor of the Romans, differs materially from that which afterwards prevailed.  Romulus, in the earlier version of the story, is invariably described as the son or grandson of AEneas.  He is the grandson in the poems of Naevius and Ennius, who were both nearly contemporary with Fabius Pictor.  This gave rise to an insuperable chronological difficulty; for Troy was destroyed B.C. 1184, and Rome was not founded until B.C. 753.  To remedy this incongruity, a list of Latin kings intervening between AEne’as and Rom’ulus, was invented; but the forgery was so clumsily executed, that its falsehood is apparent on the slightest inspection.  It may also be remarked, that the actions attributed to AEneas are, in other traditions of the same age and country, ascribed to other adventurers; to Evander, a Pelasgic leader from Arcadia, who is said to have founded a city on the site afterwards occupied by Rome; or to Uly’sses, whose son Tele’gonus is reported to have built Tus’culum.