ROMULUS, mythical founder and first King of Rome. According to the legends, he was the son of the vestal Rhea Sylvia by the god Mars, Sylvia being a daugh ter of Numitor, rightful heir of the King of Alba, but deprived by his broth er. Exposed with his twin brother Remus, the babes were suckled by a she wolf, and afterward brought up by a shepherd. Their parentage was discov ered, and they determined to found a city on the banks of the Tiber, the scene of their exposure. The right to choose the site was acquired by Romulus; and Remus not acquiescing, in his disap pointment, was slain. Inhabitants for the new city were found by establishing a refuge for murderers and fugitive slaves on the Capitoline hills, and by carrying off the Sabine maidens at a feast to which they were invited. This led to war with the Sabines, which ended, through the intervention of the Sabine women, in a union of Romans and Sabines, under their two kings, Romulus and Titus Tatius. The latter was soon slain, and Romulus reigned alone. He was regarded as the author of the fundamental division of the peo ple into tribes, estrix, and gentes, and of the institution of the senate and the comitia eurietta. The date commonly
assigned for the foundation of Rome is 753 B. C.
The tomb in which the body of Romu lus is alleged to have been interred was discovered in January, 1899, in the Ro man Forum, near the arch of Septimus Severus, along the Via Sacra. A large slab of black marble, measuring four square meters, was found, exactly cor responding to the description of the tomb of Romulus alluded to by Varro as "Lapis Niger." This stone differs from ordinary Roman silicium, and comes from Cape Tenarium, in Greece, thus proving that communication existed be tween Rome and Greece in the most remote period. For many centuries, till the fall of the Roman empire, the tomb of Romulus was considered a sacred shrine by the Romans. The discovery is incalculably valuable to historians and archaeologists, proving the fact, often doubted and ridiculed, especially by the German school, that a black stone, sur rounded by a marble inclosure one me ter high, was missing from the E. side of the Rostra Julia.