6. Numitor, at the beginning of the fray, having given out that enemies
had invaded the city, and assaulted the palace, after he had drawn off
the Alban youth to secure the citadel with a garrison and arms, when he
saw the young men, after they had killed the king, advancing to
congratulate him, immediately called an assembly of the people, and
represented to them the unnatural behaviour of his brother towards him,
the extraction of his grand-children, the manner of their birth and
education, and how they came to be discovered; then he informed them of
the king's death, and that he was killed by his orders. When the young
princes, coming up with their band through the middle of the assembly,
saluted their grandfather king, an approving shout, following from all
the people present, ratified to him both that title and the sovereignty.
Thus the government of Alba being committed to Numitor, a desire seized
Romulus and Remus to build a city on the spot where they had been
exposed and brought up. And there was an overflowing population of
Albans and of Latins. The shepherds too had come into that design, and
all these readily inspired hopes, that Alba and Lavinium would be but
petty places in comparison with the city which they intended to build.
But ambition of the sovereignty, the bane of their grandfather,
interrupted these designs, and thence arose a shameful quarrel from a
beginning sufficiently amicable. For as they were twins, and the respect
due to seniority could not determine the point, they agreed to leave to
the tutelary gods of the place to choose, by augury, which should give a
name to the new city, which govern it when built.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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