with a Pythian oracle, the sanctuary was free to all; so that the city
soon became full of men, for they say that at first it contained no less
than a thousand hearths. Of this more hereafter. When they were
proceeding to found the city, they at once quarrelled about its site.
Romulus fixed upon what is now called Roma Quadrata, a square piece of
ground, and wished the city to be built in that place; but Remus
preferred a strong position on Mount Aventino, which, in memory of him,
was called the Remonium, and now is called Rignarium.

They agreed to decide their dispute by watching the flight of birds, and
having taken their seats apart, it is said that six vultures appeared to
Remus, and afterwards twice as many to Romulus. Some say that Remus
really saw his vultures, but that Romulus only pretended to have seen
them, and when Remus came to him, then the twelve appeared to Romulus;
for which reason the Romans at the present day draw their auguries
especially from vultures. Herodorus of Pontus says that Hercules
delighted in the sight of a vulture, when about to do any great action.
It is the most harmless of all creatures, for it injures neither crops,
fruit, nor cattle, and lives entirely upon dead corpses. It does not
kill or injure anything that has life, and even abstains from dead birds
from its relationship to them. Now eagles, and owls, and falcons, peck
and kill other birds, in spite of Aeschylus's line,

"Bird-eating bird polluted e'er must be."

Moreover, the other birds are, so to speak, ever before our eyes, and
continually remind us of their presence; but the vulture is seldom seen,
and it is difficult to meet with its young, which has suggested to some
persons the strange idea that vultures come from some other world to pay
us their rare visits, which are like those occurrences which, according