Many years had passed since the colonists first came to the Seven Hills, and Rome was now the city from which a large extent of country on both sides of the river was ruled. Romulus had inherited the land of his ancestors on the Long White Mountain, and village after village, town after town, had found it wise to come under his rule. The way in which he managed these new possessions was rather curious and very like himself. He let them rule themselves and settle their own affairs so far as their own local customs and people were concerned, and so far as these did not contradict the common law of Rome.

When the children of Mars first came to this part of the world, people called them very often the “cattle-men,” because cattle were not at all common there. Many of the customs both of the Romans and the Sabines came about because they kept cattle and used them. This made it possible for them to cultivate much more land than they [pg 244]could have farmed without the oxen, and it also rather tied them down to one place, for after cultivating land to the point where it would grow a good crop of grain, nobody of course would wish to abandon it. They had a god called Pales who protected the herds and was said to have taught the people in the beginning how to yoke and use cattle, and the long-horned skulls were hung up around the walls of the early temples and served to hang garlands from on a feast day. When the “outfit vault” was filled at the founding of the city, a yoke was one of the things put in.

In a certain way, all the scattered villages and peoples which gradually joined the new colony, although keeping their own land and homes, were rather like oxen. They were not equal to the colonists in wisdom or skill or ability to direct affairs. They could work, and they could fight for their wives and children;—but cattle can work and fight. Without some one to govern and teach them, they would belong to any one who happened to be strong enough to make himself their master.

The use of the yoke was the one great thing in which the Roman farmer differed from these pagans and peasants, and he could teach them that. It was the thing which would make the most difference in their lives, in comfort and [pg 245]plenty and skill. A man must be more intelligent to work with animals and control them than to dig up a plot of ground with his own hands. It struck Romulus, therefore, that the yoke would be a good symbol to use when Rome took possession of such a village. A great deal of the ceremony used in the daily life of the ancient people was a sort of sign language. When something important changed hands, the buyer and the seller shook hands on it in public. When a man was not a slave nor exactly a servant, but a member of the household who did something for which he was paid, he was paid in salt, because he could be invited to eat salt with his master, and this pay was called salarium,—salary. When Rome took formal possession of a place, the men passed under a yoke, as a sign that now they belonged to the men who used oxen, and worked as they did and for them.

Whenever it was possible, some Roman families were sent to such places to live among the people and show them Roman ways. There were always some who were willing to do this, because they could have more land and better houses in that way than in the older town, which was getting rather crowded. In this way, the widely scattered towns and villages and farms ruled by Rome became more or less Roman in a much [pg 246]shorter time than they would if they had been left to themselves.

Life in such a growing country, made up of a great many different sorts and conditions of people, is not by any means simple. The Romans themselves were aware of this before the first settlers were old men. As the sons of these colonists became men, they were proud to call themselves “the sons of the fathers.” The word “father” was used in the old way, which meant that every father of a family in a village was the head of that family. The head of the house was a ruler simply because he was the oldest representative of his race. In the same way the houses built by the first families within the palisade, on the Square Hill, were called palaces, and the hill itself the hill of the palaces, the Palatine. The families of those first colonists were known, after a while, as the “patricians.” After the Sabines came, there were two groups of settlers of the same race, one on the Square Hill and the other on the hill called the Quirinal, the Hill of the Spears. The Palatine settlers sometimes called themselves the Mountain Romans, and the others the Hill Romans. The people who had settled in the place Romulus called the Asylum lived among groves of trees, and they were called the People of the Grove, the Luceres. But all these [pg 247]citizens of Rome itself considered themselves superior to the outsiders, who had sometimes been conquered and sometimes been glad to join Rome for protection. The Romans were beginning to be very proud of the town they had made.

The Tuscans beyond the river, however, did not all feel this pride in belonging to Rome. The town of the Veientines, especially, objected to the idea of Tuscans being “under the yoke” of these strangers. When the Romans took the town of FidenÆ, the Veientines were very indignant, though they did not come to the help of their neighbors, and presently they claimed that FidenÆ was a town of their own and set out to make war against the Romans. Romulus promptly took the field and won the war. Although he was now growing old, and his hair was white as silver, he fought with all his old fire and sagacity, and the Tuscans were glad to make terms. They offered to make peace for a hundred years, but that was not quite enough for Romulus. They had begun the war, and he meant to make them pay for it. When the matter was finally settled, they agreed to give to Rome their salt works on the river and a large tract of land. While the talk was going on, fifty of their chief men were kept prisoners in the camp of Romulus.

There was a great sensation in Rome when the [pg 248]news of the peace was made known. The army paraded through the streets, with the prisoners and the spoils of various kinds, and there was great rejoicing. It was the first celebration of a victory by a “triumph”—called by that name because many of those who took part in the parade were leaping and dancing to the sound of music. Then Romulus proceeded to divide the land he had taken from the Tuscans among the soldiers who had taken part in the war. He sent the Tuscan hostages home to their people.

Without intending to do it, Romulus aroused a great deal of ill feeling by these two things that he did. The patricians formed a sort of senate—a body of elders—for the government of Rome, and it seemed to them that they should have been consulted about the hostages and the division of land. No one knew but the Tuscans might rise up again against Rome, and in that case these men ought to be here to serve as a pledge. Moreover, the land belonged not to Romulus personally but to the city, and the senate ought to have had the dividing of it. It was time to settle whether Rome was to be governed by one man, or by the elders of the people, as in the days of old. It was not fit that men should hold land who were not descended from land-holders.