Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/188

 182 TOE CITY. BOOK HI. ihe right to cross over it. To leap over this little furrow was an iinpious act; it is a Roman tradition that the founder's brother committed this act of sac- rilege, and paid for it with his life.' But, in order that men might enter and leave the <5ity, the furrow was interrupted in certain places.* To accomplish this, Romulus raised the plough and carried it over; these intervals were called portce ; these were the gates of the city. Upon the sacred furrow, or a little inside of it, tho walls afterwards arose ; they also were sacred.' No one could touch them, even to repair them, without per- mission from the pontiffs. On both sides of this wall • a space, a few paces wide, was given up to religion, and was called iha pomoerium j* on this space no plough could be used, no building constructed. Such, according to a multitude of ancient witnesses, was the ceremony of the foundation of Rome. If it is asked how this information was preserved down to the writers who have transmitted it to us, the answer is, that the ceremony was recalled to the memory of the people every year by an anniversary festival, Avhich they called the birthday of Rome. This festival was celebrated through all antiquity, from year to year, and the Roman people still celebrate it to-day, at the same date as formerly — the 21st of April. So faithful are men to old usages through incessant changes. We cannot reasonably suppose that such rites were observed for the first time by Romulus. It is certain, ■on the contrary, that many cities, before Rome, had ' See Plutarch, Rom. Quest., 27. 3 Cicero, De Nat. Dear., III. 40. Digest, 8, 8. Gains, II. 8.
 * Cato, in Servius, V. 755.
 * Varro, V. 143. Livy, I. 44. Aulas Gellius, XIII. 14.