Every year, on the 21st of April,
the Romans celebrated the anniversary of these ceremonies: a
procession marched about the primitive enclosure and a priest fixed a
nail in a temple in commemoration of it. It was calculated that the
founding had occurred in the year 754[108] B.C.
On the other hills facing the Palatine other small cities rose. A band
of Sabine mountaineers established themselves on the Capitoline, a
group of Etruscan adventurers[109] on Mount Coelius; perhaps there
were still other peoples. All these small settlements ended with
uniting with Rome on the Palatine. A new wall was built to include the
seven hills. The Capitol was then for Rome what the Acropolis was for
Athens: here rose the temples of the three protecting deities of the
city--Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and the citadel that contained the
treasure and the archives of the people. In laying the foundations, it
was said there was found a human head recently cleft from the body;
this head was a presage that Rome should become the head of the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[108] Rather 753 B.C.--ED.
[109] There were three tribes in old Rome, the Ramnes on the Palatine,
the Tities or Sabines on the Capitoline, and the Luceres; but whether
the last were Etruscans or Ramnians or neither is uncertain.
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