By means of it he welded them into one, and made it the
starting-point of harmony at home and strength abroad. The dignity,
love, and permanence with which he invested the institution of marriage
is proved by the fact that during two hundred and thirty years no man
separated from his wife or woman from her husband; but, just as in
Greece, very exact persons can mention the first instance of parricide
or matricide, so all the Romans know that Spurius Carvilius was the
first who put away his wife, upon a charge of barrenness. Events also
testify to the superior wisdom of Romulus, for, in consequence of that
intermarriage, the two kings and the two races shared the empire,
whereas, from the marriage of Theseus, the Athenians obtained no
alliance or intercourse with any nation, but only hatreds and wars and
deaths of citizens and at last the destruction of Aphidnae, and they
themselves escaped from the fate which Paris brought upon Troy, only by
the mercy of their enemies and their own entreaties and supplications.
The mother of Theseus, not nearly but quite, suffered the fate of
Hekuba, who was abandoned and given up by her son, unless the story of
her captivity is false, as I hope it is, together with much of the
rest.
Also the religious part of their histories makes a great distinction
between them. For Romulus's success was due to the great favour of
Heaven, whereas the oracle given to Aegeus, to refrain from all women in
foreign parts, seems to argue that the birth of Theseus took place
contrary to the will of the gods.
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