Note 1039 — Chapter XVIII · THE SUCCESSION TO THE KINGDOM IN ANCIENT LATIUM (continued 2)

Livy, i. 48; Dionysius Halicarn. Ant. Rom. iv. 38 sq.; Solinus, i. 25. The reading Virbium clivum (“the slope of Virbius”) occurs only in the more recent manuscripts of Livy: the better-attested reading both of Livy and Solinus is Urbium. But the obscure Virbium would easily and naturally be altered into Urbium, whereas the reverse change is very improbable. See Mr. A. B. Cook, in Classical Review, xvi. (1902) p. 380, note 3. In this passage Mr. Cook was the first to call attention to the analogy between the murder of the slave-born king, Servius Tullius, and the slaughter of the slave-king by his successor at Nemi. As to the oak-woods of the Esquiline see above, p. 185.