Marsh on that day to sacrifice, for in Latin a goat is called Capra.  And as they go to the sacrifice they call out many of the names of the country, as Marcus, Lucius, Caius, with loud shouts, in imitation of their panic on that occasion, and their calling to each other in fear and confusion.  But some say that this is not an imitation of terror, but of eagerness, and that this is the reason of it:  after the Gauls had captured Rome and been driven out by Camillus, and the city through weakness did not easily recover itself, an army of Latins, under one Livius Postumius, marched upon it.  He halted his army not far from Rome, and sent a herald to say that the Latins were willing to renew their old domestic ties, which had fallen into disuse, and to unite the races by new intermarriage.  If, therefore, the Romans would send out to them all their maidens and unmarried women, they would live with them on terms of peace and friendship, as the Romans had long before done with the Sabines.  The Romans, when they heard this, were afraid of going to war, yet thought that the surrender of their women was no better than captivity.  While they were in perplexity, a female slave named Philotis, or according to some Tutola, advised them to do neither, but by a stratagem to avoid both war and surrender of the women.  This stratagem was that they should dress Philotis and the best looking of the other female slaves like free women, and send them to the enemy; then at night Philotis said she would raise a torch, and the Romans should come under arms and fall upon the sleeping enemy.  This was done, and terms were made with the Latins.  Philotis raised the torch upon a certain fig-tree with leaves which spread all round and behind, in such a manner that the light could not be seen by the enemy, but was clearly seen by the Romans.  When they saw it, they immediately rushed out, calling frequently for each other at the various gates in their eagerness.  As they fell unexpectedly upon the enemy, they routed them, and keep the day as a feast.  Therefore the Nones are called Caprotinae because of the fig-tree, which the Romans call caprificus, and the women are feasted out of doors, under the shade of fig-tree boughs.  And the female slaves assemble and play, and afterwards beat and throw stones at each other, as they did then, when they helped the Romans to fight.  These accounts are admitted by but few historians, and indeed the calling out one another’s names in the daytime, and walking down to the Goats’ Marsh seems more applicable to the former story, unless, indeed, both of these events happened on the same day.

Romulus is said to have been fifty-four years old, and to be in the thirty-eighth year of his reign when he disappeared from the world.

COMPARISON OF THESEUS AND ROMULUS.