A pure myth, again, and one which takes its rise from nature-symbolism, is the battle of Hercules (_i.e._, of Sancus the sky-god) with Cacus who belches forth fire and smoke. We have an instance of the historic myth in that which refers the disparate elements of Roman national character, in which military and political capacity were so curiously blended with religious superstition, to the disparate personality of the two original founders of Rome, the one a military ruler, regulating the state and military affairs, the other a prince of peace, regulating the religion and the worship of the gods. But the majority of Roman traditions fall neither under the definition of legend nor of purely notional myth. Most of these traditions are what we may call ætiological myths, that is to say, they relate events and transactions which have been devised or worked up to explain genetically some present fact, the existence or the name of a ceremony, a custom, a cult, an institution, a locality, a monument, a sanctuary, and so forth. The ætiological myth is a curious variety of the myth proper. It is a myth in so far as the actual occurrences which it narrates are pure invention, but it differs from the genuine myth in this, that its starting-point and motive is not an idea or mental conception, but some external accident which the narrative is intended to show cause for and explain. Ætiological myths are primitive, and for the most part puerile attempts at historical hypothesis. The early history of Rome is very rich in ætiological myths of this sort; the settlement of Evander, the presence of Hercules in Rome, the story concerning the Potitii and Pinarii, the Nautians taking charge of and rescuing the Palladium, the sow with the litter of thirty, the rape of the Sabines, the fair one of Talassius, the fable of the Tarpeian, the foundation of the temple of Jupiter stator, the legends concerning the origin of the name of Lacus Curtius, the miracle of Attus Navius, and other legends of the same character may serve as examples, and will be explained from this point of view in the course of the present inquiry. Plutarch’s[e] _Roman Questions_ is a rich and instructive collection of such ætiological myths.