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But enough ! For such important testimonies from her witnesses has Fortune to support her. But we must also introduce the testimony of the very events of history, taking as the beginning of our account the beginning of Rome. To begin with, who would not at once declare touching the birth, the preservation, the nurture, the development of Romulus, that Fortune laid the foundations, and that Virtue finished the building? In the first place, then, it appears that the circumstances surrounding the origin and the birth of the very founders and builders of Rome were of a marvellous good fortune. Cf. Life of Romulus, chaps. iii.-iv. (19 c-f); and 268 f, 278 c, supra. For their mother is said to have consorted with a god; and even as they relate that Heracles was conceived during a long night (for the day was retarded in contrariety to nature, and the sun delayed), so regarding the generation and conception of Romulus they record that the sun was eclipsed and carne into exact conjunction with the moon at the time when Mars, a god, consorted with the mortal Silvia. Cf. Life of Romulus, chap. xxvii. (34 e); Life of Camillus, xxxiii. (146 d). And this same thing, they say, happened to Romulus also at the very time of his translation from this life; for they relate that he disappeared during an eclipse of the sun on the Capratine Nones,July 7th; cf. Life of Romulus, chap. xxix. (36 c); Life of Numa, chap. ii. (60 c); Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. iv. 552-553; Varro, De Lingua Latina, vi. 18. on which day, even to the present time, they hold high festival.
