The Romans were a people of robbers both in political and in a literary sense. Nay, the Roman writers themselves tell us that the divine founder of the city, Romulus, was a captain of _robbers_; that _Mars_, the god of _war_, was his father; and that a _wolf_ (_rapacity_), descending from the mountains to drink, ran at the cry of the child and fed him under a fig-tree, caressing and licking him as if he had been her own son, the infant hanging on to her as if she had been his mother. This Romulus began his great exploits by _killing his own brother_. When the new city seemed to want women, to insure its duration, he proclaimed a magnificent feast throughout all the neighboring villages, at which feast were presented, among other things, the terrible shows of _gladiators_. While the strangers were most intent upon the spectacle, a number of Roman youths rushed in among the Sabines, _seized_ the youngest and fairest of their wives and daughters, and carried them off by _violence_. In vain the parents and husbands protested against this _breach of hospitality_. This same Romulus ended his heroic career by being _assassinated_ by his friends, or, as others say, _torn in pieces_ in the senate-house. Certain it is that the Romans _murdered_ him, and then declared him the guardian spirit of the city; thus worshiping as a god, by name Quirinus, him whom they could not bear as a king. Such falsehoods as the one the senate invented, when they said that Romulus, whom they had murdered, had been taken up into heaven, the Roman writers tell us were constantly taught to the Romans by Numa Pompilius, and by other Sabine and Etrurian priests; and such instruction laid the foundation of their myths. The history of Romulus is, in fact, in miniature, the history of Rome.