This of course increased the excitement and the difficulty in a tenfold degree. Romulus immediately sent to Lavinium to express his deep regret at what had occurred, and his readiness to do every thing in his power to expiate the offense which his countrymen had committed. He would arrest these murderers, he said, and send them to Lavinium, and he would come himself, with Tatius, to Lavinium, and there make an expiatory offering to the gods, in attestation of the abhorrence which they both felt for so atrocious a crime as waylaying and murdering the embassadors of a friendly city. Tatius was compelled to assent to these measures, though he yielded very reluctantly. He could not openly defend such a deed as the murder of the envoys; and so he consented to accompany Romulus to Lavinium, to make the offering, but he secretly arranged a plan for rescuing the murderers from the Lavinians, after they had been given up. Accordingly, while he and Romulus were at Lavinium offering the sacrifices, news came that the murderers of the envoys, on their way from Rome to Lavinium, had been rescued and allowed to escape. This news so exasperated the people of Lavinium against Tatius, for they considered him as unquestionably the secret author and contriver of the deed, that they rose upon him at the festival, and murdered him with the butcher knives and spits which had been used for slaughtering and roasting the animals. They then formed a grand procession and escorted Romulus out of the city in safety with loud acclamations.
The government of Lavinium, as soon as the excitement of the scene was over, fearing the resentment which they very naturally supposed Romulus would feel at the murder of his colleague, seized the ringleaders of the riot, and sent them bound to Rome, to place them at the disposal of the Roman government. Romulus sent them back unharmed, directing them to say to the Lavinian government, that he considered the death of Tatius, though inflicted in a mode lawless and unjustifiable, as nevertheless, in itself, only a just expiation for the murder of the Lavinian embassadors, which Tatius had instigated or authorized.
The Sabines of Rome were for a time greatly exasperated at these occurrences, but Romulus succeeded in gradually quieting and calming them, and they finally acquiesced in his decision. Romulus thus became once more the sole and undisputed master of Rome.
After this the progress of the city in wealth and prosperity, from year to year, was steady and sure, interrupted, it is true, by occasional and temporary reverses, but with no real retrocession at any time. Causes of disagreement arose from time to time with neighboring states, and, in such cases, Romulus always first sent a summons to the party implicated, whether king or people, citing them to appear and answer for their conduct before the Roman Senate. If they refused to come, he sent an armed force against them, as if he were simply enforcing the jurisdiction of a tribunal of justice. The result usually was that the refractory state was compelled to submit, and its territories were added to those of the kingdom of Rome. Thus the boundaries of the new empire were widening and extending every year.
Romulus paid great attention, in the mean time, to every thing pertaining to the internal organization of the state, so as to bring every part of the national administration into the best possible condition. The municipal police, the tribunals of justice, the social institutions and laws of the industrial classes, the discipline of the troops, the enlargement and increase of the fortifications of the city, and the supply of arms, and stores, and munitions of war,-and every other subject, in fact, connected with the welfare and prosperity of the city,-occupied his thoughts in every interval of peace and tranquillity. In consequence of the exertions which he made, and the measures which he adopted, order and system prevailed more and more in every department, and the community became every year better organized, and more and more consolidated; so that the capacity of the city to receive accessions to the population increased even faster than accessions were made. In a word, the solid foundations were laid of that vast superstructure, which, in subsequent ages, became the wonder of the world.
Notwithstanding, however, all this increasing greatness and prosperity, Romulus was not without rivals and enemies, even among his own people at Rome. The leading senators became, at last, envious and jealous of his power. They said that he himself grew imperious and domineering in spirit, as he grew older, and manifested a pride and haughtiness of demeanor which excited their ill-will. He assumed too much authority, they said, in the management of public affairs, as if he were an absolute and despotic sovereign. He wore a purple robe on public occasions, as a badge of royalty. He organized a body-guard of three hundred young troopers, who rode before him whenever he moved about the city; and in all respects assumed such pomp and parade in his demeanor, and exercised such a degree of arbitrary power in his acts, as made him many enemies. The whole Senate became, at length, greatly disaffected.
At last one day, on occasion of a great review which took place at a little distance from the city, there came up a sudden shower, attended with thunder and lightning, and the violence of the tempest was such as to compel the soldiers to retire precipitately from the ground in search of some place of shelter. Romulus was left with a number of senators who were at that time attending upon him, alone, on the shore of a little lake which was near the place that had been chosen for the parade. After a short time the senators themselves came away from the ground, and returned to the city; but Romulus was not with them. The story which they told was that in the middle of the tempest, Romulus had been suddenly enveloped in a flame which seemed to come down in a bright flash of lightning from the clouds, and immediately afterward had been taken up in the flame to heaven.
[Illustration: THE DEATH OF ROMULUS.]
This strange story was but half believed even at first, by the people, and very soon rumors began to circulate in the city that Romulus had been murdered by the senators who were around him at the time of the shower,-they having seized the occasion afforded by the momentary absence of his guards, and by their solitary position. There were various surmises in respect to the disposal which the assassins had made of the body. The most obvious supposition was that it had been sunk in the lake. There was, however, a horrible report circulated that the senators had disposed of it by cutting it up into small pieces, and conveying it away, each taking a portion, under their robes.
Of course these rumors produced great agitation and excitement throughout the city. The current of public sentiment set strongly against the senators. Still as nothing could be positively ascertained in respect to the transaction, the mystery seemed to grow more dark and dreadful every day, and the public mind was becoming more and more deeply agitated. At length, however, the mystery was suddenly explained by a revelation, which, whatever may be thought of it at the present day, was then entirely satisfactory to the whole community.