599 
others, including the deservedly honoured Dr. Arnold, 
holding the story as a perfect myth, invented by the imagin- 
ative history-mongers of the Consulate, to gratify the craving 
of the citizens of Rome for something at once sensational 
and satisfying to their vanity and self-love in the rapid rise 
and growth of their city. In the absence of perspicuous 
proof, this solution is the safest ; and we find the traditions 
include several curious points not generally known, com- 
prising the following items: — Numitor, king of Alba, had 
two grandsons, the children of Mars and Ilia, who were 
seized and cast within a wooden box into the Tiber, by order 
of Amulius, who had usurped the throne of his brother 
Numitor. The boys thus abandoned in their wooden re- 
ceptacle, were carried by the overflow of the Tiber to the 
foot* of Mons Palatinus, and stranded at the mouth of a 
cave or grotto, where, under the friendly shade of a fig-tree, 
and suckled by a large she- wolf, which had made a cover of 
the cavern's recesses, the youngsters were discovered by the 
king's herdman, Faustulus. In our Aldborough mosaic the 
compartment may be held as representing a section of the 
cave, whilst the tcolf, the historic infants, and the fig-tree are 
unmistakably portrayed. Ovid repeatedly refers to the 
story, and a few selected extracts are subjoined : — 
" Arbor erat : remanent vestigia : quseque vocator 
Eumina nunc ficus, Komula ficus erat, 
Venit ad exposites (niiruin) lupa fceta gemellos. 
* * * * * # 
Constit et cauda teneris blanditur aliminis 
Et fingit lingua corpora bina sua." 
These lines occur in Ovid's " Fasti,"f or Festivals of the 
Boman Calendar, and are thus translated by John Gower,J 
Master of Arts : — 
"A fig-tree stood, the stump remains this day ; 
Then Rumina, but now called Romula. 
* Erroneously stated by Lenipriere to be on Mount Palatine, 
f Lib. ii., 1. 411. % London, 1640. 
