Let us imagine any people feeling, in a particular stage of civilisation, the need of contemplating its original character, of forming a mental image of primitive conditions concerning which it has no historical knowledge, of basing its political and religious traditions upon their first causes--how can it satisfy this need except by myth-invention? As long as it is not intellectually mature enough to advance the statements which, on the basis of its present consciousness, it makes concerning its origin as historical hypotheses, it must of necessity express these statements in symbolical form, that is, in the language of myth. In the foregoing pages we have shown the various motives and modes of origin of the Roman legends and traditions. The legends which originated in these ways were then spun out and linked together by rational reflection; and thus there gradually came into being the whole body of legendary lore which the Roman historians found ready to their hand and set down in writing. The legend of Silvius Postumus, the ancestor of the Alban Silvii, may serve as an example of this spinning-out process. This Silvius, the story goes, was so-called because he was born in the forest--evidently an etymological myth. Therefore, the deduction proceeds, at the time of his birth his mother Lavinia must have been sojourning in the forest; therefore, she must have fled thither, presumably after the death of her husband Æneas; therefore, probably in fear of her stepson Ascanius. It is obvious that all these statements are not founded upon tradition but are mere sophistries. Similarly, the legend of the reputed origin of Rome from a mixed rabble, and the tale that for this reason the ambassadors whom Romulus sent with offers of connubium (the right to intermarry) to the neighbouring peoples were repulsed with scornful words, is certainly based on nothing but deductions and conclusions drawn from the (purely mythical) story of the rape of the Sabines. Again, the despotic power which Romulus is said to have exercised in the latter years of his reign, and the bodyguard with which he surrounded himself, seem to be mere inferences drawn from the legend (likewise mythical in origin) of the tearing of his body piecemeal, to serve as an explanation for that enigmatical proceeding. It is self-evident that it would be impossible to clear up every single point of the traditional history; but the mode of origin of the whole will have been made sufficiently plain by the foregoing observations.[c] _The Historical Value of the Myths_ Although as we proceed with critical examination we find abundant confirmation of a general kind for the assumption that the names of the Roman kings correspond severally to a like number of originally independent communities, it is nevertheless necessary to note at this stage more precisely a hypothesis which is of the greatest moment and consequence in the consideration and investigation of the early history of the city.