216 The Kingdom. R 0 
to make use of for food: eVery man of the colony was 
ordered to cast into the same trench a handful of earth, 
brought either from his own or some neigbouring country. 
The trench they called mundus, the world ; and made it the 
centre round which the city was to be built. Then Romulus, 
yoking an ox and a cow to a plough, the coulter whereof 
was brass, marked out, by a deep furrow, the whole com¬ 
pass of the city. These two animals, the symbols of mar¬ 
riage, by which cities are peopled, were afterwards slain 
upon the altar. All the people followed the plough, throw¬ 
ing inwards the clods of earth which the plough-share some¬ 
times turned outwards, (indicating, as some suppose, that 
the proper wealth of a city is the product of the lands with¬ 
out it.) Wherever a gate was to be made, the plough was. 
lifted up, and carried; and hence came the Latin word 
porta, “ a gate,” derived from the verb portare, “ to carry.” 
As mount Palatine stood by itself, the whole was inclosed 
within the line made by the plough, which formed almost 
the figure of a square; whence, by Dionysius Halicarnas- 
sensis, it is called Roma Quaarata. 
As to the exact year of the foundation of Rome, there is 
a great disagreement among historians and chronologers. 
Fabius Pictor, the most ancient of all the Roman writers, 
places it in the end of the seventh Olympiad ; that is, ac¬ 
cording to the computation of Usher, in the year of the w r orld 
3256, of the flood 1600, and 748 before the Christian era. 
Varro places it in the third year of the sixth Olympiad, 
and his opinion is, we think, the best supported. But 
it must be confessed that there can be no certainty about the 
matter; for according to the unvarying probabilities of the 
duration of human life, the Romans accounted their kingdom 
far older than it could have become under seven kings; and 
on the other hand, when they began to reckon years by 
consulships they fell into an equal error, because, sometimes 
the consuls died before their year was expired, sometimes. 
On the other hand, they were allowed to retain it a little 
longer than usual, and sometimes there occurred interregna. 
When Rome had received the utmost perfection which its 
poor and rude founder could give it, it consisted of about a 
thousand houses, or rather huts; and was, properly speaking, 
a beggarly village, whereof the principal inhabitants fol¬ 
lowed the plough, being obliged to cultivate with their own 
hands the ungrateful soil of a barren country which they had 
shared among themselves. Even the walls of Romulus’s 
palace, says Valerius Maximus, were made of rushes, and 
covered with thatch. 
As soon as the building of the city was finished, Romulus 
assembled the people, and desired them to choose what kind 
of government they would obey. At that time monarchy 
was the unanimous voice of the Romans, and Romulus was 
elected king. 
We here arrive at a period when the Roman history begins 
to wear somewhat of an aspect of truth and probability. It 
will be better for the arrangement of this extensive subject, 
to divide this article into four heads or chapters, of which 
the first will embrace the history of the Kingdom of Rome ; 
the second that of the Republic; the third that of the 
Empire, properly so called, extending to the death of 
Theodosius; the fourth that of the Western Empire, or Rome, 
strictly speaking ; the fifth the Eastern Empire, or that of 
Constantinople. 
I. The Kingdom of Rome. 
The first memorable acts of Romulus after he had adopted 
a habit of distinction, and appointed a guard of twelve 
lictors to attend his person, was the division of his people 
into patricians and plebeians. The former embracing the 
families of the first settlers, who had a sort of hereditary 
superiority in rank; the latter forming the common people 
■ of all classes. He established also the relation of patron 
and client, which was no other than this:—The patron took 
upon himself to support and protect a certain number of 
families of the lowest sort; to assist them with his interest 
and property, and to free them from the oppressions of the 
great. It was his business to draw up the contracts of his 
M E. The Kingdom. 
clients; to extricate them out of their difficulties and per¬ 
plexities, and to guard their ignorance against thq artful 
devices of the crafty. On the other hand, the clients were 
obliged to unite in contributing towards the payment of the 
portions of their patrons’ daughters; towards paying their 
ransom, if they or their children were taken in war; and 
to discharge their public debts, when they themselves were 
not able to do so. Both client and patron were also mutu¬ 
ally disabled, either from accusing or bearing witness against 
each other, and if either was convicted of having violated 
these mutual obligations, the guilt was no less than treason; 
and the person injured had power to put the offender to 
death, which was done by sacrificing him to Pluto or the 
manes. And whilst the patronage subsisted thus at Rome 
upon the footing on which Romulus had established it, con¬ 
cord reigned there. “ It was thought honourable to have a 
great number of clients: whilst they enjoyed peace and 
tranquillity under the protection of their patrons, and lived in 
union and good correspondence with oue another. In short, 
mutual interests so united the people with the nobility and 
rich citizens, that for more than six hundred years we find 
neither jealousy nor dissentions between the patrons and 
clients, even in the time of the republic; notwithstanding 
that there were sometimes insurrections among the people 
against those who were most powerful in Rome.” This sort 
of fealty became probably, in the advanced ages of the 
republic, merely nominal, but certainly, if strictly enforced, 
it exhibited no difference, except in words, from the relations 
of master and slave. The drawing of contracts, and the 
vague and undefined duty of extricating their clients from 
perplexities, was slavishly repaid by the portioning, of the 
patrons’ daughters, and the paying of debts. 
The next care of Romulus was to form a senate, con¬ 
sisting of a hundred persons, afterwards increased to 200, 
chosen from among the. superior class of the people, and 
from whom the patrician families were descended. This 
assembly were not only to be judges in matters of small im¬ 
portance, but to debate and resolve upon such public affairs 
as the king proposed, and to determine them by a plurality 
of voices. The people at large were allowed to create magis¬ 
trates, enact laws, and resolve upon any war in whicRthe 
king should propose to engage. Romulus next proceeded to 
settle the religious affairs of his people, and he added many 
of the Trojan deities to those whom the aborigines, or Italian 
natives, already worshipped. He chose priests, instituted 
festivals, and laid the foundation of a regular system of 
religion. He restricted, however, the performance of all 
trades and mechanical occupations to slaves and strangers, 
confining the Romans to military duties and the cultivation 
of the land. He gave fathers an almost unlimited con- 
troul over their family, allowing them to sell their children 
as slaves, and even to put them to death. 
After all that has been attributed to the political sagacity 
and talents of Romulus, it is probable that the great outlines 
of the first constitution had a natural foundation in the 
usages of barbarous nations; and though many of his institu¬ 
tions bear the traces of a discerning and active mind, some 
are sufficiently barbarous and absurd. 
The new state opened her arms to all the culprits, debtors, 
and slaves, who fled either from, the vengeance of their 
country’s laws, or from their masters. These, after being 
appointed a dwelling without the city walls, on Mount 
Saturninus, for some short time under the command of 
Tarpeius, were admitted into the city, and thus increased 
the thin population of the first settlers. 
The next event in the reign of Romulus is the memorable 
but strange story of the rape -of the Sabines. What sort of a 
country that could be in which, while continual wars were 
destroying the males, no females could be procured, we can 
by no means conjecture. It is extremely surprising, also, 
that the Sabines, who were so well affected towards the 
Romans as to come and visit them at their festivals, should 
have been so hostile as to refuse alliances by marriage; for 
surely the policy suggested by the Roman historians, (that the 
neighbouring; nations refused wives to the Romans .lest they 
should 
