By such measures as we have thus described Romulus soon produced order out of confusion within his little commonwealth. The enterprise which he had undertaken and the great success which had thus far followed it, attracted great attention, and he soon found that great numbers began to come in from all the surrounding country to join him. Many of these were persons of still worse character than those who had adhered to him at first, and he soon found that to admit them indiscriminately into the city would be to endanger the process of organization which was now so well begun. He accordingly set apart a hill near to his city called the Capitoline hill, as an asylum for them, where they could remain in safety under regulations suitable to their condition, and without interfering with the arrangements which he had made for the rest. This asylum soon became a very attractive place for all the vagabonds, outlaws, thieves and robbers of the country. Romulus welcomed them all, and as fast as they came he busied himself with plans to furnish them with employment and subsistence. He enlisted some of them in his army. Some he employed to cultivate the ground in the territory belonging to the city. Others were engaged as servants for the people within the walls—being taken into the city, in small numbers, from time to time, as fast as they could be safely received. In process of time, however, the walls of the city were extended so as to include the Capitoline hill, and thus at last the whole mass was brought into Rome together.
Chapter XI.
Wives.
B.C. 751
The rape of the Sabines.
Narrative of it.
Every reader who has made even the smallest beginning in the study of ancient history, must be acquainted, in general, with the mode which Romulus adopted to provide the people of his city with wives, by the transaction which is commonly called in history the rape of the Sabines. The deed itself, as it actually occurred, may perhaps have been one of great rudeness, violence, and cruelty. If so, the historians who described it contrived to soften the character of it, and to divest it in a great measure of the repulsive features which might have been supposed to characterize such a transaction, for, according to the narrative which they give us, the whole proceeding was conducted in such a manner as to evince not only great ingenuity and sagacity on the part of Romulus and his government, but also great moderation and humanity. The circumstances, as the historians relate them, were these:
The population of Rome chiefly men.