their conduct, and administered affairs together with great
unanimity. The relations of the slain, being debarred of lawful
satisfaction by reason of Tatius, fell upon him as he was
sacrificing with Romulus at Lavinium, and slew him; but escorted
Romulus home, commending and extolling him for just a prince.
Romulus took the body of Tatius, and buried it very splendidly in
the Aventine Mount.

The Roman cause daily gathering strength, their weaker neighbors
shrunk away, and were thankful to be left untouched; but the
stronger, out of fear or envy, thought they ought not to give away
to Romulus, but to curb and put a stop to his growing greatness.
The first were the Veientes, a people of Tuscany, who had large
possessions, and dwelt in a spacious city; they took occasion to
commence a war, by claiming Fidenae as belonging to them. But
being scornfully retorted upon by Romulus in his answers, they
divided themselves into two bodies; with one they attacked the
garrison of Fidenae, the other marched against Romulus; that which
went against Fidenae got the victory, and slew two thousand
Romans; the other was worsted by Romulus, with the loss of eight
thousand men. A fresh battle was fought near Fidenae, and here all
men acknowledge the day's success to have been chiefly the work of
Romulus himself, who showed the highest skill as well as courage,
and seemed to manifest a strength and swiftness more than human.
But what some write, that, of fourteen thousand that fell that
day, above half were slain by Romulus's own hand, verges too near
to fable, and is, indeed, simply incredible: since even the
Messenians are thought to go too far in saying that Aristomenes
three times offered sacrifices for the death of a hundred enemies,
Lacedaemonians, slain by himself. The army being thus routed,