The warriors wore nothing on their heads, and many surmises arose as to who they could be; but nobody suspected the truth,--that the heroes, without helmets or hats, were Castor, who never was unaccompanied by his friend Pollux, and Pollux, who never went anywhere without his Castor. The same noble youths were the first to announce in Rome the news of the victory, acting as "their own reporters" of their own exploits. Having delivered their message, they disappeared as mysteriously as they came; for the legend loses sight of them in a horse-trough near the temple of Vesta. Hither they repaired to water their steeds, and to refresh themselves at an adjacent well; and those who feel the insatiable thirst of curiosity, are referred to the bottom of this well for the truth, if a deeper inquiry into the legend is desired. For many ages a superstitious reverence was shown for the margin of the Lake Regillus, where a mark, said to be the impression of a celestial horse's hoof, remained, to make a lasting impression on the softness of credulity. We have hitherto been swimming, as well as we can, in the sea of conjecture, catching eagerly at the lightest cork or bladder, in the shape of fact, to keep us afloat in the stream of events flowing from legendary sources. The continuation of the journey will be chiefly on the _terra firma_ of fact; and, instead of being, now and then, so thoroughly at sea as to find ourselves wandering into the wildest latitudes, with no other pilot than tradition, we shall henceforth, in our progress, have good and substantial grounds to go upon. Hitherto we have had credulity pulling at the oars, the idle and uncertain breezes of rumour filling our sails, and our rudder in the hands of various authorities distinguished for nothing but their disagreement with each other, and who would, in fact, be without distinction of any kind if they were without a difference. We are now about to pursue our journey by a more certain road, to carry on our history, as it were, by the rail; and, though the line may be a peculiar one of our own, the train of facts will be regular, coming, we trust into no violent collision with others pursuing the same path, and arriving, in due time, at the appointed terminus. FOOTNOTES: [13] Niebuhr spells the word with a double n, in the penultimate syllable; but Macaulay, who quotes four verses from different writers in favour of his orthography, writes the word Porsena, with the penultimate short. [14] "Camerium knows how deeply The sword of Aulus bites, And all our city calls him The man of seventy fights." MACAULAY's _Lay of the Battle of the Lake Regillus_. CHAPTER THE SIXTH. FROM THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS TO THE CLOSE OF THE WAR WITH THE VOLSCIANS. [Illustration]