Generally speaking, indeed, it is the peculiar and distinguishing characteristic of Roman myths that they are not, as a rule, pure inventions, not creations of the fancy, not, above all, like most of the tales of Greek mythology, myths based on natural philosophy or on nature-symbolism, but that they are historical myths, that a certain contemplation of actual conditions and real events lies at the bottom of them, either as the genetic motive or the raw material of the narrative. For instance, the figures of Romulus and Tatius are in themselves mythical; they never really existed, but the twofold sway ascribed to them has nevertheless something of historic truth in it; it is the mythical expression of actual historic conditions, the twofold state of the united Latins and Sabines. The same criticism applies to the conflict of Tarquinius Priscus with the augur Attus Navius; in the form in which it has been handed down it can hardly be historical; the story of the whetstone is a manifest fable, but none the less a real occurrence is imaged in it--namely, the historical conflict between the pre-Tarquinian hierarchy and the political ideas of the Tarquinian dynasty. In this way most of the myths and legends of primitive Roman history contain a deposit of historic memories and views, which can be recovered if each myth is traced back to the general fundamental conception which forms its genetic motive. It should hardly be necessary to vindicate this view of primitive Roman history, and of the myth in general, against such objections as have recently been brought forward, as when the objectors profess to find the “frivolity” and the “vain and idle play of fancy” displayed in such myth-invention incompatible with the severity of manners and the practical genius of the old Roman races. These objections would only hit the mark if the myths were arbitrary and conscious inventions--if they were deliberate falsehoods. But this is so little their character that we may rather say that they are the only language in which a race in a certain stage of civilisation could give expression to its thoughts and ideas. For example, at the stage which the Roman people had reached when the myth was invented, they had no vocabulary which could have furnished them with a definite and exhaustive exposition of the conflict between Tarquinian and pre-Tarquinian ideas in the body politic; and they therefore had recourse to the expedient of symbolising that conflict and the course of events connected with it, and presenting them in a single significant scene, a scene which, regarded empirically, is certainly non-historic, but which is nevertheless at bottom historically true.