Historians are not agreed upon the origin and meaning of the famous name
of Rome, which is so celebrated through all the world. Some relate that
the Pelasgi, after wandering over the greater part of the world, and
conquering most nations, settled there, and gave the city its name from
their own strength in battle.[A] Others tell us that after the capture
of Troy some fugitives obtained ships, were carried by the winds to the
Tyrrhenian or Tuscan coast, and cast anchor in the Tiber. There the
women, who had suffered much from the sea voyage, were advised by one
who was accounted chief among them for wisdom and noble birth, Roma by
name, to burn the ships. At first the men were angry at this, but
afterwards, being compelled to settle round about the Palatine Hill,
they fared better than they expected, as they found the country fertile
and the neighbours hospitable; so they paid great honour to Roma, and
called the city after her name. From this circumstance, they say, arose
the present habit of women kissing their male relatives and connections;
because those women, after they had burned the ships, thus embraced and
caressed the men, trying to pacify their rage.

[Footnote A: The Greek [Greek: rhômê] = strength.]

II. Some say that Roma, who gave the name to the city, was the daughter
of Italus and Leucaria, or of Telephus the son of Hercules, and the wife
of Aeneas, while others say that she was the daughter of Ascanius the
son of Aeneas. Others relate that Romanus, the son of Odysseus and
Circe, founded the city, or that it was Romus, the son of Hemathion, who
was sent from Troy by Diomedes; or Romis the despot of the Latins, who
drove out of his kingdom the Tyrrhenians, who, starting from Thessaly,
had made their way to Lydia, and thence to Italy. And even those who
follow the most reasonable of these legends, and admit that it was
Romulus who founded the city after his own name, do not agree about his