Читать книгу The Story of Rome, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Augustus, Told to Boys and Girls онлайн

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When at length the sky cleared Æneas had disappeared, and was seen no more on earth.

‘The gods have taken him away,’ said the Latins. So they built an altar, and henceforth worshipped their king as the god Jupiter.

Ascanius, who had escaped from Troy with his father, now ruled in Lavinium. But he soon found that the city was not large enough for all his people; so, leaving Lavinium, he built a new city, and called it Alba Longa, or the Long White City.

Alba Longa stood in the midst of the Alban hills, not far from the site on which Rome itself was soon to be built.

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After the death of Ascanius nearly three hundred years passed away, and then a king named Proca died, leaving behind him two sons. The name of the elder was Numitor, the name of the younger Amulius.

The crown belonged by right to Numitor, the elder son, but Amulius, who was ambitious, was not willing that his brother should reign. So he said to Numitor, ‘One of us shall wear the crown, and to the other shall belong the gold and treasures left by our father Proca.’