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After Æneas, whom they deified, Latium had eleven kings, none of
whom was deified. But Aventinus, who was the twelfth after Æneas,
having been laid low in war, and buried in that hill still called by
his name, was added to the number of such gods as they made for
themselves. Some, indeed, were unwilling to write that he was slain
in battle, but said he was nowhere to be found, and that it was not
from his name, but from the alighting of birds, that hill was called
Aventinus. After this no god was made in Latium except Romulus the
founder of Rome. But two kings are found between these two, the
first of whom I shall describe in the Virgilian verse: "Next came
that Procas, glory of the Trojan race."
That greatest of all kingdoms, the Assyrian, had its long duration
brought to a close in his time, the time of Rome's birth drawing
nigh. For the Assyrian empire was transferred to the Medes after
nearly thirteen hundred and five years, if we include the reign of
Belus, who begot Ninus, and, content with a small kingdom,was the
first king there. Now Procas reigned before Amulius. And Amulius
had made his brother Numitor's daughter, Rhea by name, who was also
called Ilia, a vestal virgin, who conceived twin sons by Mars, as
they will have it, in that way honoring or excusing her adultery,
adding as a proof that a she-wolf nursed the infants when exposed.
For they think this kind of beast belongs to Mars so that the
she-wolf is believed to have given her teats to the infants, because
she knew they were the sons of Mars her lord; although there are not
wanting persons who say that when the crying babes lay exposed, they
were first of all picked up by I know not what harlot, and sucked her
breasts first (now harlots were called lupae, she-wolves, from which
their vile abodes are even yet called lupanaria), and that afterwards
they came into the hands of the shepherd Faustulus, and were nursed by
Acca his wife. Yet what wonder is it, if, to rebuke the king who
had cruelly ordered them to be thrown into the water, God was
pleased, after divinely delivering them from the water, to succor, by
means of a wild beast giving milk, these infants by whom so great a
city was to be rounded? Amulius was succeeded in the Latian kingdom
by his brother Numitor, the grandfather of Romulus; and Rome was
rounded in the first year of this Numitor, who from that time reigned
along with his grandson Romulus.
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