regret of the common people and army for the loss of Romulus was
assuaged when the certainty of his immortality was confirmed.[15]

Meanwhile[16] contention for the throne and ambition engaged the minds
of the fathers; the struggle was not as yet carried on by individuals,
by violence or contending factions, because, among a new people, no
one person was pre-eminently distinguished; the contest was carried on
between the different orders. The descendants of the Sabines wished a
king to be elected from their own body, lest, because there had been
no king from their own party since the death of Tatius, they might
lose their claim to the crown although both were on an equal footing.
The old Romans spurned the idea of a foreign prince. Amid this
diversity of views, however, all were anxious to be under the
government of a king, as they had not yet experienced the delights of
liberty. Fear then seized the senators, lest, as the minds of many
surrounding states were incensed against them, some foreign power
should attack the state, now without a government, and the army, now
without a leader. Therefore, although they were agreed that there
should be some head, yet none could bring himself to give way to
another. Accordingly, the hundred senators divided the government
among themselves, ten decuries being formed, and the individual
members who were to have the chief direction of affairs being chosen
into each decury.[17] Ten governed; one only was attended by the
lictors and with the insignia of authority: their power was limited to
the space of five days, and conferred upon all in rotation, and the
interval between the government of a king lasted a year. From this
fact it was called an interregnum, a term which is employed even now.
Then the people began to murmur, that their slavery was multiplied,
and that they had now a hundred sovereigns instead of one, and they
seemed determined to submit to no authority but that of a king, and