As soon as the deed was done, Romulus was at once overwhelmed with remorse and horror at the atrocity of the crime which he had been so suddenly led to commit. His anguish was so great for a time that he refused all food, and he could not sleep. He caused the dead body of Remus, and also those of Faustulus and of Plistinus, the brother of Faustulus, to be buried with the most solemn and imposing funeral ceremonies, so as to render all possible honor to their memory; and then, not satisfied with this, he instituted and celebrated certain religions rites, to prevent the ghosts of the deceased from coming back to haunt him. The ghosts, or specters of the dead that came back to haunt and terrify the living were called lemures. Hence the celebration which Romulus ordained was called the Lemuria, and it continued to be annually observed in Rome during the whole period of its subsequent history.
Precisely what the ceremonies were which Romulus performed to appease the spirit of his brother can not now be ascertained, as there was no particular description of them recorded. But the Lemuria, as afterward performed, were frequently described by Roman writers, and they were of a very curious and extraordinary character. The time for the celebration of these rites was in May, the anniversary, as was supposed, of the days in which Romulus originally celebrated them. The Lemurial ceremonies extended through three days, or rather nights, although, for some curious reason or other, they were alternate and not consecutive nights. They were the nights of the ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth of May. The ceremonies were performed in the night, for the reason that it was in the dark hours that ghosts and goblins were accustomed, as was supposed, to roam about the world to haunt and terrify men.
The ceremonies performed on these occasions are thus described. They commenced at midnight. The father of the family would rise at that hour and go out at the door of the house, making certain gesticulations and signals with his hands, which were supposed to have the effect of keeping the specters away. He then washed his hands three times in pure spring water. Then he filled his mouth with a certain kind of black beans for which ghosts were supposed to have some particular fondness. Being thus provided he would walk along, taking the beans out of his mouth as he walked, and throwing them behind him. The specters were supposed to gather up these beans as he threw them down. He must, however, by no means look round to see them. He then, after speaking certain mysterious and cabalistic words, washed his hands again, and then making a frightful noise by striking brass basins together, he shouted out nine times, "Ghosts of this house begone!" This was supposed effectually to drive the specters away-an opinion which was always abundantly confirmed by the fact; for on looking round after this vociferated adjuration, the man always found that the specters were gone!
When by these ceremonies, or ceremonies such as these, Romulus had appeased the spirit of his brother, and those of the guardians of his childhood, his mind became more composed, and he turned his attention once more toward the building of the city. The party of Remus now, of course, since it was deprived of its head, no longer maintained itself, but was gradually broken up and merged in the general mass. Romulus became the sole leader of the enterprise, and immediately turned his attention to the measures to be adopted for a more complete and effectual organization of the community over which he found himself presiding.
In respect to Remus, it ought perhaps to be added, that after his death a story was circulated in Rome that it was a man named Celer, and not Romulus, that killed him. This story has not, however, been generally believed. It has been thought more probable that Romulus himself, or some of his partisans and friends, invented and circulated the story of Celer, in order to screen him in some degree from the reproach of so unnatural a crime as the killing of a brother so near and dear to him as Remus had been;-a brother who had shared his infancy with him, who had slept with him, at the same time, in the arms of his mother, who had floated with him down the Tiber in the same ark, been saved from death by the same miraculous intervention, and through all the years of infancy, childhood, and youth, had been his constant playmate, companion, and friend. The crime was as much more atrocious than any ordinary fratricide, as Remus had been nearer to Romulus than any ordinary brother.
CHAPTER X. ORGANIZATION.
B.C. 754
Discussion in respect to ancient dates.-Difficulties.-Nature of tradition.-Extreme youth of Romulus.-Varro's astrological calculation.-Ingenuity of it.-Olympiads.-The race of Coroebus.-The result of Varro's computation.-Probable character of the first constructions at Rome.-Romulus convenes an assembly of the people.-The speech of Romulus.-His proposals.-The three forms of government.-Romulus himself made king.-Divine intimation in his favor.-Commencement of his reign.-Probable origin of the Roman institutions.-Republican character of the government.-Patricians and plebians.-Patrons and clients.-Duration of the reign of Romulus.-Usages.-Difficulty of immediately organizing such a community.-Importance of the parental and family relation.-The father a magistrate.-The marriage tie.-Religions ceremonies.-Auguries.-The three augurs.-Various kinds of omens.-Station of the augurs.-Thunder and lightning.-Birds.-Nature of the ancient superstition.-Results of the arrangements made by Romulus.-The asylum on the Capitoline hill.
There has been a great deal of philosophical discussion, and much debate, among historians and chronologists, in attempting to fix the precise year in which Romulus commenced the building of Rome. The difficulty arises from the fact that no regular records of public events were made in those ancient days. In modern times such records are very systematically kept,-an express object of them being to preserve and perpetuate a knowledge of the exact truth in respect to the time, and the attendant circumstances, relating to all great transactions. On the other hand, the memory of public events in early periods of the world, was preserved only through tradition; and tradition cares little for the exact and the true. She seeks only for what is entertaining. Her function being simply to give pleasure to successive generations of listeners, by exciting their curiosity and wonder with tales,-which, the more strange and romantic they are, the better they are suited to her purpose-she concerns herself very little with such simple verities as dates and names. The exposure of the twin infants of Rhea, supposing such an event to have actually happened, she remembered well, and repeated the narrative of it-adorning it, doubtless, with many embellishments-from age to age, so that the whole story comes down to modern times in full detail; but as to the time when the event took place, she gave herself no concern. The date would have added nothing to the romance of the story, and thus it was neglected and forgotten.