The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic | Page 7

had come to was Turnus,
who was also a relative of the immortal gods. Turnus and Evander
became fast friends, and it is said that Turnus taught his neighbors the
art of writing, which he had himself learned from Hercules, but this is
one of the transparent fictions of the story. It may be that he taught
them music and the arts of social life, and gave them good laws. What
ever became of good Evander we do not know.
The king of the people among whom Æneas landed was one Latinus,
who became a friend of his noble visitor, giving him his daughter
Lavinia to wife, though he had previously promised her to Turnus.
Æneas named the town in which he lived Lavinium, in honor of his
wife. Turnus was naturally enraged at the loss of his expected bride,
and made war upon both Æneas and Latinus. The Trojan came off
victorious, both the other warriors being killed in the struggle. Thus for
a short time, Æneas was left sole king of all those regions, with no one
to dispute his title to the throne or his right to his wife; but the pleasure

of ruling was not long to be his, for a short time after his accession to
power, he was killed in battle on the banks of the Numicius, as has
already been related. His son Ascanius left the low and unhealthy site
of Lavinium, and founded a city on higher ground, which was called
Alba Longa (the long, white city), and the mountain on the side of
which it was, the Alban mountain. The new capital of Ascanius became
the centre and principal one of thirty cities that arose in the plain, over
all of which it seemed to have authority. Among these were Tusculum,
Præneste, Lavinium, and Ardea, places of which subsequent history has
much to say.
Ascanius was successful in founding a long line of sovereigns, who
reigned in Alba for three hundred years, until there arose one Numitor
who was dispossessed of his throne by a younger brother named
Amulius. One bad act usually leads to another, and this case was no
exception to the rule, for when Amulius had taken his brother's throne,
he still feared that the rightful children might interfere with the
enjoyment of his power. Though he supported Numitor in comfort, he
cruelly killed his son and shut his daughter up in a temple. This
daughter was called Silvia, or, sometimes, Rhea Silvia. Wicked men
are not able generally to enjoy the fruits of their evil doings long, and,
in the course of time, the daughter of the dethroned Numitor became
the mother of a beautiful pair of twin boys, (their father being the god
of war, Mars,) who proved the avengers of their grandfather. Not
immediately, however. The detestable usurper determined to throw the
mother and her babes into the river Tiber, and thus make an end of
them, as well as of all danger to him from them. It happened that the
river was at the time overflowing its banks, and though the poor mother
was drowned, the cradle of the twins was caught on the shallow ground
at the foot of the Palatine Hill, at the very place where the good
Evander had begun his city so long before. There the waifs were found
by one of the king's shepherds, after they had been, strangely enough,
taken care of for a while by a she-wolf, which gave them milk, and a
woodpecker, which supplied them with other food. Faustulus was the
name of this shepherd, and he took them to his wife Laurentia, though
she already had twelve others to care for. The brothers, who were
named Romulus and Remus, grew up on the sides of the Palatine Hill
to be strong and handsome men, and showed themselves born leaders

among the other shepherds, as they attended to their daily duties or
fought the wild animals that troubled the flocks.
The grandfather of the twins fed his herds on the Aventine Hill, nearer
the river Tiber, just across a little valley, and a quarrel arose between
his shepherds and those of Faustulus, in the course of which Remus
was captured and taken before Numitor. The old man thus discovered
the relationship that existed between him and the twins who had so
long been lost. In consequence of the discovery of their origin, and the
right to the throne that was their father's, they arose against their
unworthy uncle, and with the aid of their followers, put him to death
and placed Numitor in supreme authority, where he rightfully belonged.
The twins had become attached to the place in which they had spent
their youth, and preferred to live there rather than to go to Alba with
their