A very great while ago there was a city in Italy which its people called Alba Longa, or the Long White. It stood on the slope of a hill, a mile or more from the river Tiber. Its houses stretched in a straggling line down to the shore of a little lake.
The men of Alba Longa were mostly shepherds and hunters. In times of peace they tended their flocks or ranged the woods for game. In times of war—which happened often enough—every man was ready with club and pike to fight for his home.
The people were rude and barbarous in their manners, as was common in those days. They ate mutton and coarse vegetables. They drank the milk of goats. They clothed themselves in sheepskins. They slept on the floor, and never allowed their fires to go out. They seldom went far from home, and they fancied that the whole world was seen from the top of their hill.
Now, there was a king of Alba Longa whose name was Numitor. He was an elderly man, gentle and kind. He cared little for power; indeed, there was nothing he liked so well as his farm and his garden and his flocks of white-fleeced sheep. Two children were his—a promising boy of twelve and a lovely daughter whose name was Rhea Silvia. He had also a younger brother called Amulius, a low-browed, dark-faced fellow, ready to do any sort of wickedness that came into his mind.
This brother was always stirring up the young men of Alba Longa.
“If I were king, things would be different,” he would say， “You should all live at your ease, and want for nothing.”
At length, one day when Numitor was at his farm, Amulius proclaimed himself king of Alba Longa. He stationed soldiers at