Among all the Greek cities built after the return of the Heraclidæ, there was none so insignificant, that Ephorus, and the writers who after him introduced the origins of cities into general history, would have been unable to state specifically and with sufficient certainty the people from which the colony had issued, and the founders who led it and gave laws to it; in far the most cases they also fixed the epoch of the foundation. When Rome was founded, which yet is supposed to be more recent than perhaps the greater part of those Greek cities; from what people the eternal city originally arose; is precisely what we do not know. But it is no less suited to the eternity of Rome for its roots to lose themselves in infinity, than what the poets sang of the rearing and deification of Romulus, befits the majesty of the city. A god, or no one, must have founded it.

Now while I acknowledge this with a love, the sincerity of which none but a bigot, insincere himself, could seek to call in question, while I allow the heart and the imagination their full rights; I at the same time assert the claims of the reason, to take nothing as historical which cannot be historical; and, without refusing to the noble tradition its place at the threshold of the history, to inquire whether it can be in any degree ascertained to what people the original Romans may have belonged, and what changes attended the rise of that state which, when the light of historical truth begins to dawn, is Rome.