Besides, all other birds are, so to say, never out of our eyes; they
let themselves be seen of us continually; but a vulture is a very rare
sight, and you can seldom meet with a man that has seen their young;
their rarity and infrequency has raised a strange opinion in some, that
they come to us from some other world; as soothsayers ascribe a
divine origination to all things not produced either of nature or of
themselves.
When Remus knew the cheat, he was much displeased; and as Romulus was
casting up a ditch, where he designed the foundation of the city wall,
he turned some pieces of the work to ridicule, and obstructed others:
at last, as he was in contempt leaping over it, some say Romulus himself
struck him, others Celer, one of his companions; he fell, however,
and in the scuffle Faustulus also was slain, and Plistinus, who, being
Faustulus's brother, story tells us, helped to bring up Romulus. Celer
upon this fled instantly into Tuscany, and from him the Romans call all
men that are swift of foot Celeres; and because Quintus Metellus, at
his father's funeral, in a few days' time gave the people a show of
gladiators, admiring his expedition in getting it ready, they gave him
the name of Celer.
Romulus, having buried his brother Remus, together with his two
foster-fathers, on the mount Remonia, set to building his city; and sent
for men out of Tuscany, who directed him by sacred usages and written
rules in all the ceremonies to be observed, as in a religious rite.
First, they dug a round trench about that which is now the Comitium,
or Court of Assembly and into it solemnly threw the first-fruits of all
things either good by custom or necessary by nature; lastly, every man
taking a small piece of earth of the country from whence he came, they
all threw them in promiscuously together. This trench they call, as they
do the heavens, Mundus; making which their centre, they described the
city in a circle round it. Then the founder fitted to a plough, a bronze
ploughshare, and, yoking together a bull and a cow, drove himself a
deep line or furrow round the bounds; while the business of those that
followed after was to see that whatever earth was thrown up should
be turned all inwards towards the city, and not to let any clod lie
outside. With this line they described the wall, and called it, by a
contradiction, Pomoerium, that is, "post murum," after or beside the
wall; and where they designed to make a gate, there they took out the
share, carried the plough over, and left a space; for which reason they
consider the whole wall as holy, except where the gates are; for had
they adjudged them also sacred, they could not, without offence to
religion, have given free ingress and egress for the necessaries of
human life, some of which are in themselves unclean.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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