nce of
their respective country; (assuring them) that dominion would be on that
side on which victory should be. No objection is made; time and place
are agreed on. Before they engaged, a compact is entered into between
the Romans and Albans on these conditions, that the state whose
champions should come off victorious in that combat, should rule the
other state without further dispute. Different treaties are made on
different terms, but they are all concluded in the same general method.
We have heard that it was then concluded as follows, nor is there a more
ancient record of any treaty. A herald asked king Tullus thus, "Do you
command me, O king, to conclude a treaty with the pater patratus of the
Alban people?" After the king had given command, he said, "I demand
vervain of thee, O king." To which the king replied, "Take some that is
pure." The herald brought a pure blade of grass from the citadel; again
he asked the king thus, "Dost thou, O king, appoint me the royal
delegate of the Roman people, the Quirites? _including_ my vessels and
attendants?" The king answered, "That which may be done without
detriment to me and to the Roman people, the Quirites, I do." The herald
was M. Valerius, who appointed Sp. Fusius pater patratus, touching his
head and hair with the vervain. The pater patratus is appointed "ad
jusjurandum patrandum," that is, to ratify the treaty; and he goes
through it in a great many words, which, being expressed in a long set
form, it is not worth while repeating. After setting forth the
conditions, he says, "Hear, O Jupiter; hear, O pater patratus of the
Alban people, and ye, Alban people, hear. As those (conditions), from
first to last, have been recited openly from those tablets or wax
without wicked fraud, and as they have been most correctly understood
here this day, from those conditions the Roman people will not be the
first to swerve. If they first swerve by public concert, by wicked
fraud, on that day do thou, O Jupiter, so strike the Roman people, as I
shall here this day strike this swine; and do thou strike them so much
the more, as thou art more able and more powerful." When he said this,
he struck the swine with a flint stone. The Albans likewise went through
their own form and oath by their own dictator and priests.

[Footnote 32: _Three brothers born at one birth_. Dionys. iii. 14,
describes them as cousin-germans. Vid. Wachsmuth, p. 147. Niebuhr, i. p.
342.]

25. The treaty being