the foundation of Alba Longa by the son of Aeneas, then it stands to
reason that the whole of the statements made must be likewise a modern
invention built upon the utterly worthless fables of the "legendary
mythical age." For those who now give these statements, however, there
is more of actual truth in such fables than there is in the alleged
historical Regal period of the earliest Romans. It is to be deplored
that the present statement should clash with the authoritative
conclusion of Mommsen and others. Yet, stating but that which to the
"Adepts" is fact, it must be understood at once that all (but the
fanciful chronological date for the foundation of Rome-April, 753
"B.C.") that is given in old traditions in relation to the Paemerium,
and the triple alliance of the Ramnians, Luceres and Tities, of the
so-called Romuleian legend, is indeed far nearer truth than what
external history accepts as facts during the Punic and Macedonian wars
up to, through, and down the Roman Empire to its fall. The founders of
Rome were decidedly a mongrel people, made up of various scraps and
remnants of the many primitive tribes; only a few really Latin
families, the descendants of the distinct sub-race that came along with
the Umbro-Sabellians from the East remaining. And, while the latter
preserved their distinct colour down to the Middle Ages through the
Sabine element, left unmixed in its mountainous regions, the blood of
the true Roman was Hellenic blood from its beginning. The famous Latin
league is no fable, but history. The succession of kings descended from
the Trojan Aeneas is a fact; and the idea that Romulus is to be
regarded as simply the symbolical representative of a people, as Aeolus,
Dorius, and Ion were once, instead of a living man, is as unwarranted as
it is arbitrary. It could only have been entertained by a class of
historiographers bent upon condoning their sin in supporting the dogma
that Shem, Ham and Japhet were the historical once living ancestors of
mankind, by making a burnt-offering of every really historical but
non-Jewish tradition, legend, or record which might presume to a place
on the same level with these three privileged archaic mariners, instead
of humbly groveling at their feet as "absurd myths" and old wives' tales
and superstitions.

It will thus appear that the objectionable statements on pp. 56 and 62
of "Esoteric Buddhism," which are alleged to create an "historical
difficulty," wer