At the age of twenty they became aware of their royal birth, and having conquered Amulius, restored their grandfather to his throne. But they still loved the home of their youth, and resolved to build a new city on the banks of the Tiber. The brothers, differing in their choice of a site, consulted the auspices. After watching all night, Remus, at dawn, saw six vultures; but Romulus, at sunrise, saw twelve. The majority of the shepherds voted the decision to Romulus, and it was ever after believed that the twelve vultures denoted twelve centuries, during which the dominion of the city should endure. =13.= His shepherd comrades being too few to satisfy his ambition, Romulus offered asylum on the Cap´itoline to homicides and runaway slaves, thus enrolling among his subjects the refuse of the neighboring tribes. To obtain wives for these adventurers, he invited the Latins and Sabines to witness games in honor of Neptune; and when not only men, but women and children were assembled, the runners and wrestlers rushed into the crowd and carried away whom they would. War followed, in which the Latins were thrice defeated. The Sabine king, Titus Tatius, marched with a powerful army upon Rome, obtained possession of the Capitoline fortress through the treachery of the maiden Tarpe´ia, the daughter of its commander, and nearly defeated the forces of Romulus in a long and obstinate battle. The Sabine women, however, now reconciled to their fate, came between their fathers and husbands, beseeching them with tears to be reconciled, since, whoever should be conquered, the grief and loss must be their own. A lasting peace was made, and the two kings agreed to reign jointly over the united nations, Romulus holding his court on the Palatine, and Titus Tatius on the Capitoline and Quirinal hills. After the death of Tatius, Romulus ruled alone. At the end of a prosperous reign of thirty-seven years, he was reviewing his troops one day in the Field of Mars, when the sun became suddenly darkened, a tempest agitated earth and air, and Romulus disappeared. The people mourned him as dead, but they were comforted by his appearing in a glorified form to one of their number, assuring him that the Romans should become lords of the world, and that he himself, under the name of Quiri´nus, would be their guardian. =14.= After a year’s interregnum, Numa, a Sabine of wise and peaceful character, was chosen king. He was revered in after ages as the religious founder of Rome, no less than Romulus as the author of its civil and military institutions. The wisdom and piety of his laws were attributed to the nymph Ege´ria, who met him by a fountain in a grove, and dictated to him the principles of good government. The few records of this king and his predecessor belong rather to mythology than to history.