Or rather, because this seemeth a meere fable, and incredible tale: there is another storie reported, which carieth more probabilitie with it, and soundeth neerer unto trueth. That when _Romulus_ and _Remus_ were cast foorth and exposed to death; not onely a female woolfe gave them her teats to sucke, but also a certeine Woodpecker flew unto them, and brought them food in her bill, and so fedde them: and therefore haply it is, that ordinarily in these daies wee may see, as _Nigidius_ hath well observed; what places soever at the foot of an hill covered and shadowed with oakes or other trees a Woodpecker haunteth, thither customably you shall have a woolfe to repaire. Or peradventure, seeing their maner is to consecrate unto every god one kinde of birde or other, they reputed this Woodpecker sacred unto _Mars_, because it is a couragious and hardy bird, having a bill so strong, that he is able to overthrow an oke therewith, after he hath jobbed and pecked into it as farre as to the very marrow and heart thereof. 22. _How is it that they imagine_ Janus _to have had two faces, in which maner they use both to paint and also to cast him in mold_. IS it for that he being a Græcian borne, came from _Perrhœbia_, as we finde written in histories; and passing forward into _Italy_, dwelt in that countrey among the Barbarous people, who there lived, whose language and maner of life he changed? Or rather because he taught and perswaded them to live together after a civill and honest sort, in husbandry and tilling the ground; whereas before time their manners were rude, and their fashions savage without law or justice altogether. 23. _What is the cause that they use to sell at_ Rome _all things perteining to the furniture of Funerals, within the temple of the goddesse_ Libitina, _supposing her to be Venus_. THIS may seeme to be one of the sage and philosophicall inventions of king _Numa_, to the end that men should learne not to abhorre such things, nor to flie from them, as if they did pollute and defile them? Or else this reason may be rendred, that it serveth for a good record and memoriall, to put us in minde, that whatsoever had a beginning by generation, shall likewise come to an end by death; as if one and the same goddesse were superintendent and governesse of nativitie and death: for even in the city of _Delphos_ there is a pretie image of _Venus_, surnamed _Epitymbia_; that is to say sepulchrall: before which they use to raise and call foorth the ghosts of such as are departed, for to receive the libaments and sacred liquors powred foorth unto them. 24. _Why have the Romans in every moneth three beginnings as it were, to wit, certeine principall and prefixed or preordeined[140] daies, and regard not the same intervall or space of daies betweene?_