Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
of the laborers digging too close, the roots were destroyed,
and the tree withered.
The Sabines adopted the Roman months, of which whatever is remarkable is
mentioned in the Life of Numa. Romulus, on the other hand, adopted
their long shields, and changed his own armor and that of all the
Romans, who before wore round targets of the Argive pattern. Feasts and
sacrifices they partook of in common, not abolishing any which either
nation observed before, and instituting several new ones; of which one
was the Matronalia, instituted in honor of the women. for their
extinction of the war; likewise the Carmentalia. This Carmenta some
think a deity presiding over human birth; for which reason she is much
honored by mothers. Others say she was the wife of Evander, the
Arcadian, being a prophetess, and wont to deliver her oracles in verse,
and from carmen, a verse, was called Carmenta; her proper name being
Nicostrata. Others more probably derive Carmenta from carens mente, or
insane, in allusion to her prophetic frenzies. Of the Feast of Palilia
we have spoken before. The Lupercalia, by the time of its celebration,
may seem to be a feast of purification, for it is solemnized on the dies
nefasti, or non-court days, of the month February, which name signifies
purification, and the very day of the feast was anciently called
Februata; but its name is equivalent to the Greek Lycaea; and it seems
thus to be of great antiquity, and brought in by the Arcadians who came
with Evander. Yet this is but dubious, for it may come as well from the
wolf that nursed Romulus; and we see the Luperci, the priests, begin
their course from the place where they say Romulus was exposed. But the
ceremonies performed in it render the origin of the thing more difficult
to be guessed at; for there are goats killed, then, two young noblemen's
sons being brought, some are to stain their foreheads with the bloody
knife, others presently to wipe it off with wool dipped in milk; then
the young boys must laugh after their foreheads are wiped; that done,
having cut the goats' skins into thongs, they run about naked, only with
something about their middle, lashing all they meet; and the young wives
do not avoid their strokes, fancying they will help conception and
child-birth. Another thing peculiar to this feast is for the Luperci to
sacrifice a dog. But as, a certain poet who wrote fabulous explanations
of Roman customs in elegiac verses, says, that Romulus and Remus, after
the conquest of Amulius, ran joyfully to the place where the wolf gave
them suck; and that in imitation of that, this feast was held,
and two young noblemen ran--
Striking at all, as when from Alba town,
With sword in hand, the twins came hurrying down;
and that the bloody knife applied to their foreheads was a sign of the
danger and bloodshed of that day; the cleansing of them in milk, a
remembrance of their food and nourishment. Caius Acilius writes, that,
before the city was built, the cattle of Romulus and Remus one day going
astray, they, praying to the god Faunus, ran out to seek them naked,
wishing not to be troubled with sweat, and that this is why the Luperci
run naked. If the sacrifice be by way of purification, a dog might very
well be sacrificed; for the Greeks, in their lustrations, carry out
young dogs, and frequently use this ceremony of periscylacismus as they
call it. Or if again it is a sacrifice of gratitude to the wolf that
nourished and preserved Romulus, there is good reason in killing a dog,
as being an enemy to wolves. Unless indeed, after all, the creature is
punished for hindering the Luperci in their running.
They say, too, Romulus was the first that consecrated holy fire, and
instituted holy virgins to keep it, called vestals; others ascribe it to
Numa Pompilius; agreeing, however, that Romulus was otherwise eminently
religious, and skilled in divination, and for that reason carried the
lituus, a crooked rod with which soothsayers describe the quarters of
the heavens, when they sit to observe the flights of birds. This of
his, being kept in the Palatium, was lost when the city was taken by the
Gauls; and afterwards, that barbarous people being driven out, was found
in the ruins, under a great heap of ashes, untouched by the fire, all
things about it being consumed and burnt. He instituted also certain
laws, one of which is somewhat severe, which suffers not a wife to leave
her husband, but grants a husband power to turn off his wife, either
upon poisoning her children; or counterfeiting his keys, or for
adultery; but if the husband upon any other occasion put her away, he
ordered one moiety of his estate to be given to the wife, the other to
fall to the goddess Ceres; and whoever cast off his wife, to make an
atonement by sacrifice to the gods of the dead. This, too, is
observable as a singular thing in Romulus, that he appointed no
punishment for real parricide, but called all murder so, thinking the
one an accursed thing, but the other a thing impossible; and, for a long
time, his judgment seemed to have been right; for in almost six hundred
years together, nobody committed the like in Rome; and Lucius Hostius,
after the wars of Hanibal, is recorded to have been the first parricide.
Let thus much suffice concerning these matters.
In the fifth year of the reign of Tatius, some of his friends and
kinsmen, meeting ambassadors coming from Laurentum to Rome, attempted on
the road to take away their money by force, and, upon their resistance,
killed them. So great a villainy having been committed, Romulus thought
the malefactors ought at once to be punished, but Tatius shuffled off
and deferred the execution of it; and this one thing was the beginning
of open quarrel between them; in all other respects they were very
careful of their conduct, and administered affairs together with great
unanimity. The relations of the slain, being debarred of lawful
satisfaction by reason of Tatius, fell upon him as he was sacrificing
with Romulus at Lavinium, and slew him; but escorted Romulus home,
commending and extolling him for a just prince. Romulus took the body
of Tatius, and buried it very splendidly in the Aventine Mount, near the
place called Armilustrium, but altogether neglected revenging his
murder. Some authors write, the city of Laurentum, fearing the
consequence, delivered up the murderers of Tatius; but Romulus dismissed
them, saying, one murder was requited with another. This gave occasion
of talk and jealousy, as if he were well pleased at the removal of his
copartner in the government. Nothing of these things, however, raised
any sort of feud or disturbance among the Sabines; but some out of love
to him, others out of fear of his power, some again reverencing him as a
god, they all continued living peacefully in admiration and awe of him;
many foreign nations, too, showed respect to Romulus; the Ancient Latins
sent, and entered into league and confederacy with him. Fidenae he
took, a neighboring city to Rome, by a party of horse, as some say, whom
he sent before with commands to cut down the hinges of the gates,
himself afterwards unexpectedly coming up. Others say, they having
first made the invasion, plundering and ravaging the country and
suburbs, Romulus lay in ambush for them, and, having killed many of
their men, took the city; but, nevertheless, did not raze or demolish
it, but made it a Roman colony, and sent thither, on the Ides of April,
two thousand five hundred inhabitants.
Soon after a plague broke out, causing sudden death without any previous
sickness; it infected also the corn with unfruitfulness, and cattle with
barrenness; there rained blood, too, in the city; so that, to their
actual sufferings, fear of the wrath of the gods was added. But when
the same mischiefs fell upon Laurentum, then everybody judged it was
divine vengeance that fell upon both cities, for the neglect of
executing justice upon the murder of Tatius and the ambassadors. But
the murderers on both sides being delivered up and punished, the
pestilence visibly abated; and Romulus purified the cities with
lustrations, which, they say, even now are performed at the wood called
Ferentina. But before the plague ceased, the Camertines invaded the
Romans and overran the country, thinking them, by reason of the
distemper, unable to resist; but Romulus at once made head against them,
and gained the victory, with the slaughter of six thousand men; then
took their city, and brought half of those he found there to Rome;
sending from Rome to Camerium double the number he left there. This was
done the first of August. So many citizens had he to spare, in sixteen
years' time from his first founding Rome. Among other spoils, he took a
brazen four-horse chariot from Camerium, which he placed in the temple
of Vulcan, setting on it his own statue,
with a figure of Victory crowning him.
The Roman cause thus daily gathering strength, their weaker neighbors
shrunk away, and were thankful to be left untouched; but the stronger,
out of fear or envy, thought they ought not to give way to Romulus, but
to curb and put a stop to his growing greatness. The first were the
Veientes, a people of Tuscany, who had large possessions, and dwelt in a
spacious city; they took occasion to commence a war, by claiming Fidenae
as belonging to them; a thing not only very unreasonable, but very
ridiculous, that they, who did not assist them in the greatest
extremities, but permitted them to be slain, should challenge their
lands and houses when in the hands of others. But being scornfully
retorted upon by Romulus in his answers, they divided themselves into
two bodies; with one they attacked the garrison of Fidenae, the other
marched against Romulus; that which went against Fidenae got the
victory, and slew two thousand Romans; the other was worsted by Romulus,
with the loss of eight thousand men. A fresh battle was fought near
Fidenae, and here all men acknowledge the day's success to have been
chiefly the work of Romulus himself, who showed the highest skill as
well as courage, and seemed to manifest a strength and swiftness more
than human. But what some write, that, of fourteen thousand that fell
that day, above half were slain by Romulus's own hand, verges too near
to fable, and is, indeed, simply incredible; since even the Messenians
are thought to go too far in saying that Aristomenes three times offered
sacrifice for the death of a hundred enemies, Lacedaemonians, slain by
himself. The army being thus routed, Romulus, suffering those that were
left to make their escape, led his forces against the city; they, having
suffered such great losses, did not venture to oppose, but, humbly suing
to him, made a league and friendship for an hundred years; surrendering
also a large district of land called Septempagium, that is, the seven
parts, as also their salt-works upon the river, and fifty noblemen for
hostages. He made his triumph for this on the Ides of October, leading,
among the rest of his many captives, the general of the Veientes, an
elderly man, but who had not, it seemed, acted with the prudence of age;
whence even now, in sacrifices for victories, they lead an old man
through the market place to the Capitol, appareled in purple, with a
bulla, or child's toy, tied to it, and the crier cries, Sardians to be
sold; for the Tuscans are said to be a colony of the Sardians, and the
Veientes are a city of Tuscany.
This was the last battle Romulus ever fought; afterwards he, as most,
nay all men, very few excepted, do, who are raised by great and
miraculous good-haps of fortune to power and greatness, so, I say, did
he; relying upon his own great actions, and growing of an haughtier