Amulius was dethroned were in some measure calmed,
and tranquillity was restored, the question of the mode in which the
new government should be settled, arose. Numitor considered it best
that he should call an assembly of the people and lay the subject
before them. There was a very large portion of the populace who yet
knew nothing certain in respect to the causes of the extraordinary
events that had occurred. The city was filled with strange rumors, in
all of which truth and falsehood were inextricably mingled, so that
they increased rather than allayed the general curiosity and wonder.

Numitor accordingly convened a general assembly of the inhabitants of
Alba, in a public square. The rude and rustic mountaineers and
peasants whom Romulus had brought to the city came with the rest.
Romulus and Remus themselves did not at first appear. Numitor, when
the audience was assembled, came forward to address them. He gave them
a recital of all the events connected with the usurpation of Amulius.
He told them of the original division which had been made thirty or
forty years before, of the kingdom and the estates of his father,
between Amulius and himself,--of the plans and intrigues by which
Amulius had contrived to possess himself of the kingdom and reduce
him, Numitor, into subjection to his sway,--of his causing Egestus,
Numitor's son, to be slain in the hunting party, and then compelling
his little daughter Rhea to become a vestal virgin in order that she
might never be married. He then went on to describe the birth of
Romulus and Remus, the anger of Amulius when informed of the event,
his cruel treatment of the children and of the mother, and his orders
that the babes should be drowned in the Tiber. He gave an account of
the manner in which the infants had been put into the little wooden
ark, of their floating down the stream, and finally landing on the
bank, and of their being rescued, protected and fed, by the wolf and
the woodpecker. He closed his speech by saying that the young princes
were still alive, and that they were then at hand ready to present
themselves before the assembly.

As he said these words, Romulus and Remus came forward, and the vast
assembly, after gazing for a moment in silent wonder upon their tall
and graceful forms, in which they saw combined athletic strength and
vigor with manly beauty, they burst into long and loud acclamations.
As soon as the applause had in some measure subsided, Romulus