Cicero's Tusculan Disputations / Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth

by Marcus Tullius Cicero

V. By what divine wisdom, then, could Romulus embrace all the benefits that could belong to maritime cities, and at the same time avoid the dangers to which they are exposed, except, as he did, by building his city on the bank of an inexhaustible river, whose equal current discharges itself into the sea by a vast mouth, so that the city could receive all it wanted from the sea, and discharge its superabundant commodities by the same channel? And in the same river a communication is found by which it not only receives from the sea all the productions necessary to the conveniences and elegances of life, but those also which are brought from the inland districts. So that Romulus seems to me to have divined and anticipated that this city would one day become the centre and abode of a powerful and opulent empire; for there is no other part of Italy in which a city could be situated so as to be able to maintain so wide a dominion with so much ease.

VI. As to the natural fortifications of Rome, who is so negligent and unobservant as not to have them depicted and deeply stamped on his memory? Such is the plan and direction of the walls, which, by the prudence of Romulus and his royal successors, are bounded on all sides by steep and rugged hills; and the only aperture between the Esquiline and Quirinal mountains is enclosed by a formidable rampart, and surrounded by an immense fosse. And as for our fortified citadel, it is so secured by a precipitous barrier and enclosure of rocks, that, even in that horrible attack and invasion of the Gauls, it remained impregnable and inviolable. Moreover, the site which he selected had also an abundance of fountains, and was healthy, though it was in the midst of a pestilential region; for there are hills which at once create a current 401of fresh air, and fling an agreeable shade over the valleys.

VII. These things he effected with wonderful rapidity, and thus established the city, which, from his own name Romulus, he determined to call Rome. And in order to strengthen his new city, he conceived a design, singular enough, and even a little rude, yet worthy of a great man, and of a genius which discerned far away in futurity the means of strengthening his power and his people. The young Sabine females of honorable birth who had come to Rome, attracted by the public games and spectacles which Romulus then, for the first time, established as annual games in the circus, were suddenly carried off at the feast of Consus[³¹³] by his orders, and were given in marriage to the men of the noblest families in Rome. And when, on this account, the Sabines had declared war against Rome, the issue of the battle being doubtful and undecided, Romulus made an alliance with Tatius, King of the Sabines, at the intercession of the matrons themselves who had been carried off. By this compact he admitted the Sabines into the city, gave them a participation in the religious ceremonies, and divided his power with their king.

VIII. But after the death of Tatius, the entire government was again vested in the hands of Romulus, although, besides making Tatius his own partner, he had also elected some of the chiefs of the Sabines into the royal council, who on account of their affectionate regard for the people were called patres, or fathers. He also divided the people into three tribes, called after the name of Tatius, and his own name, and that of Locumo, who had fallen as his ally in the Sabine war; and also into thirty curiæ, designated by the names of those Sabine virgins, who, after being carried off at the festivals, generously offered themselves as the mediators of peace and coalition.

But though these orders were established in the life of Tatius, yet, after his death, Romulus reigned with still greater power by the counsel and authority of the senate.

IX. In this respect he approved and adopted the principle which Lycurgus but little before had applied to the government of Lacedæmon; namely, that the monarchical 402authority and the royal power operate best in the government of states when to this supreme authority is joined the influence of the noblest of the citizens.

Therefore, thus supported, and, as it were, propped up by this council or senate, Romulus conducted many wars with the neighboring nations in a most successful manner; and while he refused to take any portion of the booty to his own palace, he did not cease to enrich the citizens. He also cherished the greatest respect for that institution of hierarchical and ecclesiastical ordinances which we still retain to the great benefit of the Commonwealth; for in the very commencement of his government he founded the city with religious rites, and in the institution of all public establishments he was equally careful in attending to these sacred ceremonials, and associated with himself on these occasions priests that were selected from each of the tribes. He also enacted that the nobles should act as patrons and protectors to the inferior citizens, their natural clients and dependants, in their respective districts, a measure the utility of which I shall afterward notice.—The judicial punishments were mostly fines of sheep and oxen; for the property of the people at that time consisted in their fields and cattle, and this circumstance has given rise to the expressions which still designate real and personal wealth. Thus the people were kept in order rather by mulctations than by bodily inflictions.

X. After Romulus had thus reigned thirty-seven years, and established these two great supports of government, the hierarchy and the senate, having disappeared in a sudden eclipse of the sun, he was thought worthy of being added to the number of the Gods—an honor which no mortal man ever was able to attain to but by a glorious pre-eminence of virtue. And this circumstance was the more to be admired in the case of Romulus because most of the great men that have been deified were so exalted to celestial dignities by the people, in periods very little enlightened, when fiction was easy and ignorance went hand-in-hand with credulity. But with respect to Romulus we know that he lived less than six centuries ago, at a time when science and literature were already advanced, and had got rid of many of the ancient errors that had 403prevailed among less civilized peoples. For if, as we consider proved by the Grecian annals, Rome was founded in the seventh Olympiad, the life of Romulus was contemporary with that period in which Greece already abounded in poets and musicians—an age when fables, except those concerning ancient matters, received little credit.

For, one hundred and eight years after the promulgation of the laws of Lycurgus, the first Olympiad was established, which indeed, through a mistake of names, some authors have supposed constituted, by Lycurgus likewise. And Homer himself, according to the best computation, lived about thirty years before the time of Lycurgus. We must conclude, therefore, that Homer flourished very many years before the date of Romulus. So that, as men had now become learned, and as the times themselves were not destitute of knowledge, there was not much room left for the success of mere fictions. Antiquity indeed has received fables that have at times been sufficiently improbable: but this epoch, which was already so cultivated, disdaining every fiction that was impossible, rejected[³¹⁴] * * * We may therefore, perhaps, attach some credit to this story of Romulus’s immortality, since human life was at that time experienced, cultivated, and instructed. And doubtless there was in him such energy of genius and virtue that it is not altogether impossible to believe the report of Proculus Julius, the husbandman, of that glorification having befallen Romulus which for many ages we have denied to less illustrious men. At all events, Proculus is reported to have stated in the council, at the instigation of the senators, who wished to free themselves from all suspicion of having been accessaries to the death of Romulus, that he had seen him on that hill which is now called the Quirinal, and that he had commanded him to inform the people that they should build him a temple on that same hill, and offer him sacrifices under the name of Quirinus.

XI. You see, therefore, that the genius of this great man did not merely establish the constitution of a new people, and then leave them, as it were, crying in their cradle; but he still continued to superintend their education 404till they had arrived at an adult and wellnigh a mature age.