The warrior king must moreover have organised the war department of the young state as well as the political constitution; it is really his principal achievement. Directly after the foundation of the city he organised all men capable of bearing arms into a military system. According to Dionysius they numbered three thousand foot-soldiers and three hundred horsemen--a fact which clearly shows that this was the strength of the oldest legion. For it was supposed that the original fighting strength of Rome was a legion, each of the three tribes contributing a thousand foot-soldiers and a hundred horsemen. It is clear that these three thousand foot-soldiers and three hundred horsemen were originally regarded by tradition as the collective contingent of the three tribes, and it follows from the number itself, and from Plutarch’s account, that the original colony of Romulus consisted of three thousand householders--_i.e._, armed men. But later tradition has misunderstood that fact, and has falsely reported that the legion was doubled to six thousand foot-soldiers and six hundred horsemen on the arrival of the Sabines; hence the original number should have been tripled at the arrival of the third tribe. Plutarch, contrary to his aforementioned report, speaks of several legions at the foundation of Rome, every one consisting of three thousand foot-soldiers and three hundred horsemen. Dionysius goes further still, and says that the Roman army at the death of Romulus consisted of forty-six thousand foot-soldiers and not much less than one thousand horsemen--a stupid and in every respect an unskilfully calculated number, in which the careless hand of Valerius Antias is clearly perceptible. In Dionysius’ account, which represents the cavalry as consisting of not much less than “a thousand horsemen,” we have the nine hundred horsemen according to the later tradition, being three hundred for the contingent of every tribe. [Illustration: GRÆCO-ROMAN LAMP HOOK]