at Alba had not
obtained the justice due to them, and had therefore declared war. After
this he admitted the ambassadors into the senate, and the reply made to
their complaint was, that they themselves had not satisfied the demands
of the Romans. Livy then continues: _bellum in trigesimum diem
dixerant_. But the real formula is, _post trigesimum diem_, and we may
ask, Why did Livy or the annalist whom he followed make this alteration?
For an obvious reason: a person may ride from Rome to Alba in a couple
of hours, so that the detention of the Alban ambassadors at Rome for
thirty days, without their hearing what was going on in the mean time at
Alba, was a matter of impossibility. Livy saw this, and therefore
altered the formula. But the ancient poet was not concerned about such
things, and without hesitation increased the distance in his
imagination, and represented Rome and Alba as great states.

The whole description of the circumstances under which the fate of Alba
was decided is just as manifestly poetical, but we shall dwell upon it
for a while in order to show how a semblance of history may arise.
Between Rome and Alba there was a ditch, _Fossa Cluilia_ or _Cloelia_,
and there must have been a tradition that the Albans had been encamped
there; Livy and Dionysius mention that Cluilius, a general of the
Albans, had given the ditch its name, having perished there. It was
necessary to mention the latter circumstance, in order to explain the
fact that afterward their general was a different person, Mettius
Fuffetius, and yet to be able to connect the name of that ditch with the
Albans. The two states committed the decision of their dispute to
champions, and Dionysius says that tradition did not agree as to whether
the name of the Roman champions was Horatii or Curiatii, although he
himself, as well as Livy, assumes that it was Horatii, probably because
it was thus stated by the majority of the annalists. Who would suspect
any uncertainty here if it were not for this passage of Dionysius? The
contest of the three brothers on each side is a symbolical indication
that each of the two states was then divided into three tribes. Attempts
have indeed been made to deny that the three men were brothers of the
same birth, and thus to remove the improbability; but the legend went
even further, representing the three brothers on each side as the sons
of two sisters, and as born on the same day. This contains the
suggestion of a pe