Though Romulus thus seemed to have conquered, in the strife with Remus, the difficulty was not yet fully settled. Remus was very little disposed to acquiesce in his brother's assumed superiority over him. He was sullen, morose, and ill at ease, and was inclined to take little part in the proceedings which were going on. Finally an occasion occurred which produced a crisis, and brought the rivalry and enmity of the brothers suddenly and forever to an end. Remus was one day standing by a part of the wall which his brother's workmen were building, and expressing, in various ways, and with great freedom, his opinions of his brother's plans; and finally he began to speak contemptuously of the wall which the workmen were building. Romulus all the time was standing by. At length, in order to enforce what he said about the insufficiency of the work, Remus leaped over a portion of it, saying, "This is the way the enemy will leap over your wall." Hereupon Romulus seized a mattock from the hands of one of the laborers, and struck his brother down to the ground with it, saying, "And this is the way that we will kill them if they do." Remus was killed by the blow.
Remorse of Romulus.
As soon as the deed was done, Romulus was at once overwhelmed with remorse and horror at the atrocity of the crime which he had been so suddenly led to commit. His anguish was so great for a time that he refused all food, and he could not sleep. He caused the dead body of Remus, and also those of Faustulus and of Plistinus, the brother of Faustulus, to be buried with the most solemn and imposing funeral ceremonies, so as to render all possible honor to their memory; and then, not satisfied with this, he instituted and celebrated certain religions rites, to prevent the ghosts of the deceased from coming back to haunt him. The ghosts, or specters of the dead that came back to haunt and terrify the living were called lemures. Hence the celebration which Romulus ordained was called the Lemuria, and it continued to be annually observed in Rome during the whole period of its subsequent history.
The institution of the Lemuria.
Precisely what the ceremonies were which Romulus performed to appease the spirit of his brother can not now be ascertained, as there was no particular description of them recorded. But the Lemuria, as afterward performed, were frequently described by Roman writers, and they were of a very curious and extraordinary character. The time for the celebration of these rites was in May, the anniversary, as was supposed, of the days in which Romulus originally celebrated them. The Lemurial ceremonies extended through three days, or rather nights, although, for some curious reason or other, they were alternate and not consecutive nights. They were the nights of the ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth of May. The ceremonies were performed in the night, for the reason that it was in the dark hours that ghosts and goblins were accustomed, as was supposed, to roam about the world to haunt and terrify men.
Description of the ceremonies.
The black beans.
The ceremonies performed on these occasions are thus described. They commenced at midnight. The father of the family would rise at that hour and go out at the door of the house, making certain gesticulations and signals with his hands, which were supposed to have the effect of keeping the specters away. He then washed his hands three times in pure spring water. Then he filled his mouth with a certain kind of black beans for which ghosts were supposed to have some particular fondness. Being thus provided he would walk along, taking the beans out of his mouth as he walked, and throwing them behind him. The specters were supposed to gather up these beans as he threw them down. He must, however, by no means look round to see them. He then, after speaking certain mysterious and cabalistic words, washed his hands again, and then making a frightful noise by striking brass basins together, he shouted out nine times, "Ghosts of this house begone!" This was supposed effectually to drive the specters away—an opinion which was always abundantly confirmed by the fact; for on looking round after this vociferated adjuration, the man always found that the specters were gone!
State of Rome after the death of Remus.
When by these ceremonies, or ceremonies such as these, Romulus had appeased the spirit of his brother, and those of the guardians of his childhood, his mind became more composed, and he turned his attention once more toward the building of the city. The party of Remus now, of course, since it was deprived of its head, no longer maintained itself, but was gradually broken up and merged in the general mass. Romulus became the sole leader of the enterprise, and immediately turned his attention to the measures to be adopted for a more complete and effectual organization of the community over which he found himself presiding.
The story of Celer.
Probable explanation of it.