Romulus   

be of a more princely temper than Amulius, in that you give a hearing
and examine before you punish, while he condemns before the cause
is heard. Formerly, then, we (for we are twins) thought ourselves
the sons of Faustulus and Larentia, the king's servants; but since
we have been accused and aspersed with calumnies, and brought in peril
of our lives here before you, we hear great things of ourselves, the
truth of which my present danger is likely to bring to the test. Our
birth is said to have been secret, our fostering and nurture in our
infancy still more strange; by birds and beasts, to whom we were cast
out, we were fed, by the milk of a wolf and the morsels of a woodpecker,
as we lay in a little trough by the side of the river. The trough
is still in being, and is preserved, with brass plates round it, and
an inscription in letters almost effaced, which may prove hereafter
unavailing tokens to our parents when we are dead and gone." Numitor,
upon these words, and computing the dates by the young man's looks,
slighted not the hope that flattered him, but considered how to come
at his daughter privately (for she was still kept under restraint),
to talk with her concerning these matters.
Faustulus, hearing Remus was taken and delivered up, called on Romulus
to assist in his rescue, informing him then plainly of the particulars
of his birth, not but he had before given hints of it, and told as
much as an attentive man might make no small conclusions from; he
himself, full of concern and fear of not coming in time, took the
trough, and ran instantly to Numitor; but giving a suspicion to some
of the king's sentries at his gate, and being gazed upon by them and
perplexed with their questions, he let it be seen that he was hiding
the trough under his cloak. By chance there was one among them who
was at the exposing of the children, and was employed in the office;
he, seeing the trough and knowing it by its make and inscription,
guessed at the business, and, without further delay, telling the king
of it, brought in the man to be examined. Faustulus, hard beset, did
not show himself altogether proof against terror; nor yet was he wholly
forced out of all; confessed indeed the children were alive, but lived,
he said, as shepherds, a great way from Alba; he himself was going
to carry the trough to Ilia, who had often greatly desired to see
and handle it, for a confirmation of her hopes of her children. As
men generally do who are troubled in mind and act either in fear or
passion, it so fell out Amulius now did; for he sent in haste as a
messenger, a man, otherwise honest, and friendly to Numitor, with
commands to learn from Numitor whether any tidings were come to him
of the children being alive. He, coming and seeing how little Remus
wanted of being received into the arms and embraces of Numitor, both
gave him surer confidence in his hope, and advised them, with all
expedition, to proceed to action; himself too joining and assisting
them, and indeed, had they wished it, the time would not have let
them demur. For Romulus was now come very near, and many of the citizens,
out of fear and hatred of Amulius, were running out to join him; besides,
he brought great forces with him, divided into companies each of an
hundred men, every captain carrying a small bundle of grass and shrubs
tied to a pole. The Latins call such bundles manipuli, and from hence
it is that in their armies they still call their captains manipulares.
Remus rousing the citizens within to revolt, and Romulus making attacks
from without, the tyrant, not knowing either what to do, or what expedient
to think of for his security, in this perplexity and confusion was
taken and put to death. This narrative for the most part given by
Fabius and Diocles of Peparethus, who seem to be the earliest historians
of the foundation of Rome, is suspected by some, because of its dramatic
and fictitious appearance; but it would not wholly be disbelieved,
if men would remember what a poet fortune sometimes shows herself,
and consider that the Roman power would hardly have reached so high
a pitch without a divinely ordered origin, attended with great and
extraordinary circumstances.
Amulius now being dead and matters quietly disposed, the two brothers
would neither dwell in Alba without governing there, nor take the