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Goldsmith's History of Rome Abridged by Himself
Goldsmith's History of Rome Abridged by Himself Author:Oliver Goldsmith Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. From the Building of Rome to the Death of Romulus. Scarce was the city raised above its foundation, when its rude inhabitants began to think... more » of giving some form to their constitution. Romulus, by an act of great generosity, left them at liberty to choose whom they would for their king; and they in gratitude concurred to elect their founder: he was accordingly acknowledged as chief of their religion, sovereign magistrate of Rome, and general of the army. Beside a guard to attend his person, it was agreed that he should I " be preceded wherever he went by twelve men, : armed with axes tied up in a bundle of rods, : ? who were to serve as executioners of the law, ' i and to impress his new subjects with an idea of / his authority. -' The senate, which was to act as counsellors V to the king, was composed of a hundred of the principal citizens of Rome, consisting of men whose age, wisdom, or valour, gave them a natural authority over their fellow subjects ; and the king named the first senator, and appointed him to the government of the city, whenever war required his own absence. The plebeians, who composed the third part of the legislature, assumed to themselves the power of authorizing those laws which were passed by the king or the senate. All things relative to peace or war, to the election of magistrates, aneven to the choosing a king, were confirmed by suffrages in their assemblies. The first care of the new-created king was to attend to the interests of religion: but the precise form of their worship is unknown. The greatest part of the religion of that age consisted in a firm reliance upon the credit of their soothsayers, who pretended from observations on the flight of birds, and the entrails of beasts, to direct the present and to dive int...« less