We have thus traced the history of the Latins down to the period when Rome was founded, or at least when it became a city, and shown how little reliance can be placed on the accounts given of these periods by the early historians.  We shall hereafter see that great uncertainty rests on the history of Rome itself during the first four centuries of its existence.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] It is scarcely necessary to remark that the Pelas’gi were the original settlers in these countries.

[2] In all these places we find also the Tyrrhenian Pelas’gi.

* * * * *

CHAPTER III.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ROME.

  Full in the centre of these wondrous works
  The pride of earth!  Rome in her glory see.—­Thomson.

1.  The city of Rome, according to Varro, was founded in the fourth year of the sixth Olympiad, B.C. 753; but Cato, the censor, places the event four years later, in the second year of the seventh Olympiad.  The day of its foundation was the 21st of April, which was sacred to the rural goddess Pa’les, when the rustics were accustomed to solicit the increase of their flocks from the deity, and to purify themselves for involuntary violation of the consecrated places.  The account preserved by tradition of the ceremonies used on this occasion, confirms the opinion of those who contend that Rome had a previous existence as a village, and that what is called its foundation was really an enlargement of its boundaries, by taking in the ground at the foot of the Palatine hill.  The first care of Ro’mulus was to mark out the Pomoe’rium; a space round the walls of the city, on which it was unlawful to erect buildings.

2.  The person who determined the Pomoe’rium yoked a bullock and heifer to a plough, having a copper-share, and drew a furrow to mark the course of the future wall; he guided the plough so that all the sods might fall inwards, and was followed by others, who took care that none should lie the other way. 3.  When he came to the place where it was designed to erect a gate, the plough was taken up,[1] and carried to where the wall recommenced.  The next ceremony was the consecration of the commit’ium, or place of public assembly.  A vault was built under ground, and filled with the firstlings of all the natural productions that sustain human life, and with earth which each foreign settler had brought from his own home.  This place was called Mun’dus, and was supposed to become the gate of the lower world; it was opened on three several days of the year, for the spirits of the dead.