We have seen that this fact is the basis of all their traditions, that it is confirmed by the structure of their language, and, we may add, that it is further proved by their political institutions.

In all the Latin cities, as well as Rome, we find the people divided into an aristocracy and democracy, or, as they are more properly called, Patricians and Plebeians.

The experience of all ages warrants the inference, which may be best stated in the words of Dr.
Faber: "In the progress of the human mind there is an invariable tendency not to introduce into an undisturbed community a palpable difference between lords and serfs, instead of a legal equality of rights; but to abolish such difference by enfranchising the serfs.
Hence, from the universal experience of history, we may be sure that whenever this distinction is found to exist, the society must be composed of two races differing from each other in point of origin." The traditions respecting the origin of Rome are innumerable; some historians assert that its founder was a Greek; others, AEneas and his Trojans; and others give the honour to the Tyrrhenians: all, however, agree, that the first inhabitants were a Latin colony from Alba.

Even those who adopted the most current story, which is followed by Dr.
Goldsmith, believed that the city existed before the time of Rom'ulus, and that he was called the founder from being the first who gave it strength and stability.

It seems probable that several villages might have been formed at an early age on the different hills, which were afterwards included in the circuit of Rome; and that the first of them which obtained a decided superiority, the village on the Palatine hill, finally absorbed the rest, and gave its name to "the eternal city".
There seems to be some uncertainty whether Romulus gave his name to the city, or derived his own from it; the latter is asserted by several historians, but those who ascribe to the city a Grecian origin, with some show of probability assert that Romus (another form of Romulus) and Roma are both derived from the Greek [Greek: rome], _strength_.