but inclining to pine and wither, he immediately made outcry to
all he met, and they, like people hearing of a house on fire, with
one accord would cry for water, and run from all parts with
bucketfuls to the place. But when Gaius Caesar. they say, was
repairing the steps about it, some of the laborers digging too
close, the roots were destroyed, and the tree withered.

The Sabines adopted the Roman months, of which whatever is
remarkable is mentioned in the Life of Numa. Romulus, on the other
hand, adopted their long shields, and changed his own armor and
that of all the Romans, who before wore round targets of the
Argive pattern. Feasts and sacrifices they partook of in common,
not abolishing any which either nation observed before, and
instituting several new ones. This, too, is observable as a
singular thing in Romulus, that he appointed no punishment for
real parricide, but called all murder so, thinking the one an
accursed thing, but the other a thing impossible; and for a long
time, his judgement seemed to have been right; for in almost six
hundred years together, nobody committed the like in Rome; Lucius
Hostius, after the wars of Hannibal, is recorded to have been the
first parricide. Let thus much suffice concerning these matters.

In the fifth year of the reign of Tatius, some of his friends and
kinsmen, meeting ambassadors coming from Laurentum to Rome,
attempted on the road to take away their money by force, and, upon
their resistance, killed them. So great a villany having been
committed, Romulus thought the malefactors ought at once to be
punished, but Tatius shuffled off and deferred the execution of
it; and this one thing was the beginning of an open quarrel
betwixt them; in all other respects they were very careful of