Perhaps, however, it is not intended by the ancient historians, in referring all these complicated arrangements of the Roman civil polity to the enactments of Romulus, to convey the idea that he introduced them at once in all their completeness, at the outset of his reign. Romulus continued king of Rome for nearly forty years, and instead of making formal and positive enactments, he may have gradually introduced the arrangements ascribed to him, as _usages_ which he fostered and encouraged,--confirming and sanctioning them from time to time, when occasion required, by edicts and laws. However this may have been, it is certain that Romulus, in the course of his reign, laid the foundation of the future greatness and glory of Rome, by the energy with which he acted in introducing order, system, and discipline into the community which he found gathered around him. He seems to have had the sagacity to perceive from the outset that the great evil and danger which he had to fear was the prevalence of the spirit of disorder and misrule among his followers. In fact, nothing but tumult and confusion was to have been expected from such a lawless horde as his, and even after the city was built, the presumption must have been very strong in the mind of any considerate and prudent man, against the possibility of ever regulating and controlling such a mass of heterogeneous and discordant materials, by any human means. Romulus saw, however, that in effecting this purpose lay the only hope of the success of his enterprise, and he devoted himself with great assiduity and care, and at the same time with great energy and success, to the work of organizing it. The great leading objects of his life, from the time that he commenced the government of the new city, were to arrange and regulate social institutions, to establish laws, to introduce discipline, to teach and accustom men to submit to authority, and to bring in the requirements of law, and the authority of the various recognized relations of social life, to control and restrain the wayward impulses of the natural heart.