Remus was taken by the stratagem of these shepherds, and dragged to Alba as a robber. A secret foreboding, the remembrance of his grandsons, awakened by the story of the two brothers, kept Numitor from pronouncing a hasty sentence. The culprit's foster-father hastened with Romulus to the city, and told the old man and the youths of their kindred. They resolved to avenge their own wrong and that of their house. With their faithful comrades, whom the dangers of Remus had brought to the city, they slew the king; and the people of Alba again became subject to Numitor. "But love for the home which fate had assigned them drew the youths back to the banks of the Tiber, to found a city there, and the shepherds, their old companions, were their first citizens.... This is the old tale, as it was written by Fabius, and sung in ancient lays down to the time of Dionysius."--_Niebuhr's Hist. of Rome._ In the cliff of the Palatine, below the fig-tree, was shown for many centuries the cavern Lupercal, sacred from the earliest times to the Pelasgic god Pan. "Hinc lucum ingentum, quem Romulus acer Asylum Retulit, et gelidâ monstrat sub rupe Lupercal, Parrhasio dictum Panos de monte Lycæi." _Virgil, Æn._ viii. 342. "La louve, nourrice de Romulus, a peut-être été imaginée en raison des rapports mythologiques qui existaient entre le loup et Pan défenseur des troupeaux. Ce qu'il y a de sûr, c'est que les fêtes lupercales gardèrent le caractère du dieu en l'honneur duquel elles avaient été primitivement instituées et l'empreinte d'une origine pélasgique; ces fêtes au temps de Cicéron avaient encore un caractère pastoral en mémoire de l'Arcadie d'où on les croyait venues. Les Luperques qui représentaient les Satyres, compagnons de Pan, faisaient le tour de l'antique séjour des Pélasges sur le Palatin. Ces hommes nus allaient frappant avec les lanières de peau de bouc, l'animal lascif par excellence, les femmes pour les rendre fécondes; des fêtes analogues se célébraient en Arcadie sous le nom de Lukéia (les fêtes des loups), dont le mot lupercales est une traduction."--_Ampère, Hist. Rome_, i. 143. In the hut of Romulus were preserved several objects venerated as relics of him.