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the son of Æneas, and Julus, the son of Ascanius, about the kingdom; but the people inclining to the son of Lavinia, Julus was contented to hold the priesthood, which he and his race enjoyed, leaving the kingdom to Sylvius Posthumus, whose posterity were afterwards called Sylvii.

The reign of the Alban kings, with the continuance of each man's reign, I find thus set down.

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The most of these kings lived in peace, and did little or nothing worthy of remembrance.

Latinus founded many towns in the borders of Latium; who standing much upon the honour of their original, grew thereby to be called Prisci Latini. Of Tiberinus some think that the river Tiber had name, being formerly called Albula; but Virgil gives it that denomination of another called Tibris, before the coming of Æneas into Italy. The mountain Aventinus had name, as many write, from Aventinus king of the Albans, who was buried therein, but Virgil hath it otherwise. Julius, the brother of Aventinus, is named by Eusebius, as fa

ther of another Julius, and grand-father of Julius Proculus; who, leaving Alba, dwelt with Romulus in Rome. Numitor, the elder son of Procas, was deprived of his kingdom by his brother Amulius ; by whom, also, his son Ægesthus was slain, and Ilia his daughter made a nun of Vesta, that thereby the issue of Numitor might be cut off; but she conceived two sons, either by her uncle Amulius, as some think, or by Mars as the poets feign, or perhaps by some man of war. Both the children their uncle commanded to be drowned, and the mother buried quick, according to the law; which so ordained, when the vestal virgins broke their chastity. Whether it was so, that the mother was pardoned at the entreaty of Antho, the daughter of Amulius, or punished as the law requires, (for authors herein do vary,) it is agreed by all, that the two children were preserved, who afterwards revenged the cruelty of their uncle, with the slaughter of him and all his, and restored Numitor, their grandfather, to the kingdom; wherein how long he reigned I find not, neither is it greatly material to know; forasmuch as the estates of Alba and of Latium were presently eclipsed by the swift increase of Rome, upon which the computation of time following, (as far as concerns the things of Italy,) is dependent.

After the death of Numitor, the kingdom of Alba ceased, for Numitor left no male issue. Romulus chose rather to live in Rome, and of the line of Sylvius none else remained. So the Albans were governed by magistrates; of whom only two dictators are mentioned, namely, Caius Cluilius, who, in the days of Tullus Hostilius, king of the Romans, making war upon Rome, died in the camp; and Metius Suffetius, the successor of Cluilius, who surrendered the estate of Alba unto the Romans, having committed the hazard of both seigniories to the success of three men on each side, who decided the quarrel by combat; in which the three brethren Horatii, the champions

of the Romans, prevailed against the Curiatii, cham pions of the Albans. After this combat, when Metius, (following Tullus Hostilius with the Alban forces against the Veientes and Fidenates,) withdrew his companies out of the battle, hoping thereby to leave the Romans to such an overthrow, as might make them weak enough for the Albans to deal with; Tullus, who notwithstanding this falsehood, obtained the victory, did reward Metius with a cruel death, causing him to be tied to two chariots, and so torn in pieces. Then was Alba destroyed, and the citizens carried to Rome, where they were made free denizens, the noble families being made Patricians, among which were the Julii; of whom C. Julius Cæsar being descended, not only gloried in his ancient, royal, and forgotten pedigree, in full assembly of the Romans, then governed by a free estate of the people; but, by his rare industry, valour, and judgment, obtained the sovereignty of the Roman empire, (much by him enlarged,) to himself and his posterity; whereby the name of Æneas, and the honour of the Trojan and Alban race, was so revived, that seldom, if ever, any one family hath attained to a proportionable height of glory.

SECT. V.

Of the beginning of Rome, and of Romulus's birth and death.

OF Rome, which devoured the Alban kingdom, I may here best shew the beginnings, which, (though somewhat uncertain,) depend much upon the birth and education of Romulus, the grandchild of Numitor, the last that reigned in Alba. For how not only the bordering people, but all nations between Eu phrates and the ocean, were broken in pieces by the iron teeth of this fourth beast, it is not to be described in one place, having been the work of many ages; whereof I now do handle only the first, as in

cident unto the discourse preceding. Q. Fabius Pictor, Portius Cato, Calphurnius Piso, Sempronius, and others, seek to derive the Romans from Janus ; but Herodotus, Marsylus, and many others of equal credit, give the Grecians for their ancestors; and, as Strabo reporteth in his fifth book', 'Cæcilius rerum Romanarum scriptor eo argumento colligit, Romam a Græcis esse conditam, quod Romani, Græco ritu, antiquo instituto Herculi rem sacram faciunt; matrem quoque Evandri venerantur Romani:' Cæcilius, (saith he,) a Roman historiographer, doth by this argument gather, that Rome was built by the Greeks, because the Romans, after Greekish fashion, by ancient ordinance, do sacrifice to Hercules; the Romans also worship the mother of Evander.

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Plutarch, in the life of Romulus, remembers many founders of that city; as Romanus, the son of Ulysses and Circe; Romus the son of Emathion, whom Diomedes sent thither from Troy; or, that one Romus, a tyrant of the Latins, who drove the Tuscans out of that country, built it. Solinus bestows the honour of building Rome upon Evander, saying, that it was before times called Valentia. Heraclides gives the denomination to a captive lady, brought thither by the Grecians; others say, that it was anciently called Febris, after the name of Februa, the mother of Mars: witness St. Augustine in his third book de Civitate Dei. But Livy will have it to be the work of Romulus, even from the foundation; of whom and his consorts, Juvenal, to a Roman citizen vaunting of their original, answered in these verses:

Attamen ut longe repetas, longeque revolvas,
'Majorum quisquis primus fuit ille tuorum,
Aut pastor fuit, aut illud quod dicere nolo.

'Yet though thou fetch thy pedigree so far;
6 Thy first progenitor, whoe'er he were,
Some shepherd was, or else—that I'll forbear."

* Meaning either a shepherd or a thief.

1 Strabo, l. v. fol. 159.

Now of Romulus's begetting, of his education and preservation, it is said, that he had Rhea for his mother, and Mars was supposed to be his father; that he was nursed by a wolf, found and taken away by Faustula, a shepherd's wife. The same unnatural nursing had Cyrus; the same incredible fostering had Semiramis; the one by a bitch, the other by birds. But, as Plutarch saith, it is like enough that Amulius came covered with armour to Rhea, the mother of Romulus, when he begat her with child; and therein it seemeth to me, that he might have two purposes; the one, to destroy her, because she was the daughter and heir of his elder brother, from whom he injuriously held the kingdom; the other to satisfy his appetite, because she was fair and goodly. For she being made a nun of the goddess Vesta, it was death in her by the law to break her chastity. I also find in Fauchet's Antiquites de Gaul*, that Merovee, king of the Francs, was begotten by a monster of the sea; but Fauchet says, Let them believe it that list, Il le croira qui voudra.' Also of Alexander, and of Scipio Africanus, there are poetical inventions; but to answer these imaginations in general, it is true, that in those times, when the world was full of this barbarous idolatry, and when there were as many gods as there were kings, or passions of the mind, or as there were of vices and virtues ; then did many women, greatly born, cover such slips as they made, by protesting to be forced by more than human power; so did Oenone confess to Paris that she had been ravished by Apollo: and Anchises boasted that he had known Venus. But Rhea was made with child by some man of war or other, and therefore called Mars the god of battle, according to the sense of the time. Oenone was overcome by a strong wit, and by such a one as had those properties ascribed to Apollo. The mother of Merovee might fancy a sea captain, to be gotten

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