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 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Received. 
 
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 Accessions ^0. X^'^/.^ 
 
I 
 
 LIBRARY OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 ROME. 
 
 /V^v^C c/£^L^^ "^^ 
 
 :j 
 
 PVBLISEED UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCIETY FOR 
 THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
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 MDCCCXXX., 
 

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 NOTICE. 
 
 The profound researches of Niebuhr, in his History of Rome, have traced 
 out the course which has been mainly followed in the early part of this history. 
 But it has not been purposed to represent all the views and opinions of Niebuhr. 
 His authorities have been consulted, his arguments weighed, and in every case an 
 independent judgment has been exercised. It is right to mention, that, where 
 the passages cited by Niebuhr have been accessible, the references have been 
 made immediately to the original authors; and the number of references thus 
 borrowed is very great. Where his citations have not been verified, the reader 
 has been referred to his own work. The references are made to the translation 
 of the Second Edition of Vol. I. by Messrs. Hare and Thirlwall, Cambridge, 
 1828. 
 
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HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 $ I, Introduction. ^2. JEneas — Lavinium— 
 Alba. §3. Numitor—Atnulius— Silvia— Ro- 
 mulus and Remus. § 4. Foundation of Rome- 
 Asylum — Patricians — Senate — Patrons and 
 Clients— Rape of the Sabine maidens— Spolia 
 Opima—Tatius—Tarpeia— Union of Romans and 
 Sabines — III Tribes —Disappearance of Ro- 
 mulus—His Institutions— Comitia Curiata— 
 Paternal power— Marriage — Legion — Celeres— 
 Augurs, i 5. Interregnum, i 6 Numa Pom- 
 pilius — Termini — Pontiffs— Flamines— Vestal 
 Virgins— Salii—Ancile— Jupiter Elicius—Egeria. 
 § 7. TuUus Hostilius— War with Alba— Ho- 
 ratii and Curiatii — Destruction of Alba. § 8. 
 Ancus Martins — Fetial Law — Conquered 
 Latins settled on the Aventine — Janiculum — 
 Ostia. § 9. TarquiniusPriscus — Wars with the 
 Latins, Sabines, Tuscans— Senate augmented— 
 Equestrian Centuries— Attus Navius— Sewers- 
 Circus. § 10. Servius TuUius— Pomcerium— 
 Walls— Territorial Tribes— Census — Centuries 
 — Comitia Centuriata — Compitalia — Latin 
 League — Conspiracy of Tarquinius — TuUia. 
 § 11. Tarquinius Superbus — Latin League— 
 Gabii — the Capitol — Sibylline Books — L. Junius 
 Brutus— War of Ardea—Lucretia— Banishment 
 of the Tarquinii. ^ 12. First Consuls — Ba- 
 nishment of the Consul, Tarquinius CoUatinus 
 —P. Valerius Consul— Conspiracy— Punishment 
 of Sons of Brutus— War with Veil— Death of 
 Brutus— Popular Acts of Valerius— Dedication 
 of the Capitol. § 13. War of Porsena— Ho- 
 ratius Codes— Mucins Scsevola— Cloelia. § 14. 
 Sabine Wars— Attus Clausus. ^ 15. Latin War 
 —Battle of the Regillus— Death of Tarquinius 
 Superbus. J 16. Variations in the Traditions. 
 
 § 1. Thk history which is commonly re- 
 lated as the history of the early ages of 
 Rome, is not to be received as a true 
 narrative of facts. It is made up chiefly 
 of popular stories, poetic in their nature 
 and spirit. "With these are intermingled 
 some scanty but precious memorials of 
 the primitive constitution and laws; 
 superstitious and ceremonial traditions, 
 preserved by the Pontiffs and Augurs ; 
 family legends, invented or exaggerated 
 to gratify the pride of ancestry in noble 
 houses; tales, fabricated or borrowed 
 by the earlier annahstsj to fill the gaps 
 in the poetic story ; interpretations, by 
 which later writers thought to extract 
 truth from the marvels of the old fables ; 
 and the ornaments of a rich imagi- 
 nation, which poets and historians 
 of a better genius threw around the 
 venerable antiquities of their country: 
 and, finally, the whole is laid out ac- 
 cording to the limits of an arbitrary 
 chronology. Yet this history must not 
 
 be rejected in silence. No doubt, much 
 that is true is involved in it, though 
 we cannot now distinguish certainly the 
 true from the false. If we were to begin 
 our researches only at the time when 
 the history becomes comparatively cer- 
 tain, we must pass over nearly two- 
 thirds of the period assigned to the 
 duration of the Roman State before the 
 commencement of its second monarchy ; 
 and we should find ourselves engaged 
 with a people whose character would be 
 strange to us, and surrounded with in- 
 stitutions, the spirit of which we could 
 not understand, because we should know 
 nothing of their origin. If we begin at 
 the beginning, though we set out in 
 ignorance, we shall gradually advance 
 through doubts and conjectures to pro- 
 bable opinions and certain linowledge. 
 If we cannot ourselves attain to a well- 
 informed belief respecting the birth and 
 growth of Rome, it is good at least 
 to know what the Romans themselves 
 believed. Their popular legends will 
 give us an insight into the mind of the 
 ages in which they were conceived and 
 fashioned ; and faith in them must have 
 tended greatly to form the character of 
 the ages which followed. The national 
 traditions, therefore, shall be related: 
 those records of the ancient laws and 
 constitution, which seem to contain 
 any historical truth, shall be carefully 
 noticed; and the old stories shall be 
 presented with their genuine poetic 
 features, and separated, sa far as they 
 can be discerned, from the more recent 
 accompaniments enumerated above. 
 
 ^ 2. It was believed that, before the 
 final ruin of Troy, ^Eneas quitted the 
 city in the darkness of night, * with his 
 son liilus, and his aged father An- 
 chises ; and under the guidance of the 
 gods, in a single vessel, with a little 
 band of followers, sought a new home 
 and better fates in the unknown regions 
 of the West. After many wanderings 
 he reached the shores of Latium, on the 
 
 * Nsevius in Niebuhr, p. 162. For Trojan War, 
 see Hist. Greece, ch. ii. 
 
 B 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 west of Italy ; and two fountains gushed 
 from the sandy beach to refiesh the 
 weary mariners."* Latinus, the king of 
 the countiy, assigned lands to the hun- 
 dred Trojans who had survived their 
 perils ;•!• and in memory of their country 
 they gave the name of Troy to the little 
 fort and the rude dwellings which they 
 raised on the spot where they first 
 landed.^ The strangers plundered the 
 fields : Latinus, and Turnus, chief of the 
 Rutuli of Ardea, resisted them, and 
 were defeated : Laurentum, the citadel 
 of Latinus, was forced ; Latinus slain ; 
 and his kingdom, and his daughter 
 Lavinia, became the prizes of the con- 
 Queror.^ ^neas, now the sovereign of 
 tne Latms, left his little settlement on 
 the barren shore ; and, according to a 
 divine admonition, was guided by a 
 pregnant sow to the destined site of his 
 new city. There Lavinium was built. 
 The little Troy had stood three years : a 
 litter of thirty young, farrowed by the 
 ominous sow, prefigured the number of 
 years during which Lavinium should 
 remain the head of the united people of 
 Trojans and Latins ; and then the 
 empire was to be transferred to Alba, 
 which should be supreme three hundred 
 years, before it gave birth to Rome, the 
 city to which no end was predeter- 
 mined. || Nor did the founding of La- 
 vinium want forebodings of the power 
 which was to grow from it. A fire was 
 kindled spontaneously in a neighbouring 
 thicket : a wolf fed the flame : an eagle 
 fanned it ; and they drove away a fox, 
 who sought to quench it. Ancient 
 brazen figures of these animals were 
 long preserved in the market place of 
 Lavinium.^ The city was scarcely 
 built, when ^Eneas was called to renew 
 the war with Turnus, who had fled for 
 help to Mezentius, King of Caere, a city 
 of Etruria. A battle was fought on the 
 banks of the river Numicius : Turnus 
 was slain : but the Latins were defeated ; 
 and iEneas was never seen more. In 
 after ages he was worshipped among 
 the native guardian gods of the coun- 
 try, under the title of Jupiter Indiges.** 
 A shrine was raised to him on the banks 
 of the Numicius, where the Latins 
 
 * Dion. i. 65. 
 
 t Cato in Servius on ^n. xi. 316, and Nieb., 
 p. 163. 
 
 J Cato, Dion. i. <j3. Liv. i. ]. Servius on 
 JEn. 1.5 J vii. \bS. 
 
 J Cato in Servius on iEn. i. 2G7j iv. G20 j 
 Ix. 745. 
 
 11 Virg, iEn. i. 261— 279. % Dion. i. 59. 
 
 •• Liv. i. 2. 
 
 offered a yearly sacrifice ; and the so- 
 lemnity was long preserved by the 
 Consuls and Pontiffs of Rome.* liilus 
 repulsed Mezentius from Lavinium, and 
 reigned in peace and prosperity over a 
 growing people. When the thirty years 
 were ended, he founded a new city on a 
 loftier and more inland site. It was 
 named Alba Longa, and was stretched 
 out beneath the ridge of a mountain, 
 along the precipitous edge of a lake, 
 which itself stands high above the sur- 
 rounding plains. But the Penates, or 
 peculiar gods, of the Trojans refused to 
 quit their old abodes ; and when they 
 had been conveyed to Alba, and the 
 doors of the temple ck)sed upon them, 
 they were found the next morning re- 
 stored to their place in the temple at 
 Laviniura.f In consequence of this 
 portent a chosen colony returned to 
 guard their sacred rites ; and many ages 
 afterwards the inhabitants of Lavinium 
 told the inquiring stranger, that certain 
 holy relics of the Trojans were pre- 
 served in the shrines of their temples. % 
 Alba was strong by situation, and be- 
 came so powerful, and so confessedly 
 the chief city of the Latin name, that 
 the thirty towns, of which the confe- 
 deracy of the Old Latins was composed, 
 were believed to have been her co- 
 lonies. § liilus was succeeded by 
 Silvius, the son of JEneas and Lavinia, 
 the genuine heir of the old Latinus. || 
 From him were descended a race of 
 kings, who bore his name, and of whom 
 the last were the brothers N umitor and 
 Amulius. 
 
 § 3. Amulius, the younger brother, 
 put down the elder, N umitor, from the 
 kingdom, but suffered him to live in 
 possession of his father's private wealth. 
 Fearful.however, lest the heirs of Numitor 
 might not bear his usurpation as tamely, 
 he caused his son to be murdered ; and 
 he endeavoured to make sure that no 
 avenger should be born from his 
 daughter Silvia, by devoting her to vir- 
 ginity as a priestess of the goddess 
 Vesta. It fell out, after a time, that 
 Silvia went into a grove sacred to Mars, 
 the god of war, to fetch pure water 
 from a spring for holy rites. A wolf 
 met her, and she fled into a cave foi' 
 safety:^ there, under the cover of a 
 storm and preternatural darkness, ** 
 
 * Schol. Veron. on JEn. h 260, (Niebuhr.) 
 t Dion. i. 67. j Timseus in Dion. i. 6/*. 
 
 § Dion. iii. 31, see ch. iii. || Dion. i. 70. 
 
 f Serv. on 2En. i. 274. 
 ** Dion. i.77i "• ^*^- ^i"*^* I^oi"* 
 
HISTORY OF HOME. 
 
 \vhile the sun laboured with a total 
 eclipse, Mars himself forced her; and 
 sought to comfort her with the assurance 
 that she was wedded to a god, and the 
 promise that she should be the mother 
 of sons mio-hty in war. When her time 
 was fulfilled, Silvia bore twin sons. 
 Amulius doomed the guilty Vestal to 
 be cast into the Anio ; the babes to 
 be exposed upon the Tiber, where its 
 banks were least frequented by men, and 
 so left to perish. His vengeance and 
 his counsel failed. Silvia became the 
 wife of the river-god.* The Tiber had 
 overflowed its banks even to the foot of 
 the Palatine, one of the adjacent hills on 
 the left bank of the river. The ser- 
 vants of the king, who were ordered to 
 expose the children, placed them in a 
 wooden trough on the shallow waters, 
 far from the rapid stream. As the 
 waters sank, the trough was left, and it 
 was overturned on the root of a wild 
 fig-tree, which under the name of the 
 Ruminal Fig-tree was held sacred many 
 ages after. A she-wolf, who had come 
 down from the hills to slake her thirst, 
 was guided to the spot by the wailing 
 of the infants, and suffered them to draw 
 the milk from her swollen teats, and 
 licked off the mud with which they were 
 besmeared. Then she bore them to her 
 den in a shady thicket at the foot of the 
 Palatine, hard by a spring that gushed 
 from the rock ; and there, when they 
 grew older, a woodpecker, a bird sacred 
 to Mars, brought them morsels of food.f 
 At last the frequent return of the she- 
 wolf to her cave was noticed by the 
 shepherds, % and they followed her, and 
 discovered her marvellous brood. Faus- 
 tulus, the king's shepherd, took the 
 children to his own home, and gave 
 them to be nourished by his wife Acca 
 Larentia. They were named Romulus 
 aiid Remus, and nurtured in brotherhood 
 with the twelve sons of their foster 
 parents. § They grew up among the 
 folds; but they were not like to the 
 children of herdmen. Their beauty, 
 stature, strength, and courage, were 
 such as became their origin, at once 
 kingly and divine. || Their boldness in 
 
 * Horat. Od. I. ii. 17—20, and Schol. Vet. 
 Serv. on ^n. i. 274. 
 
 t Ov. Fast. iii. 54. Plut. Rom. 
 
 t Justin, in Nieb. p. 185. 
 
 § Masurius Sabiniis in Anl. Gell. vi. 7. 
 
 y This, and most of the other circumstances of 
 this story, are taken from the narrative of Q. 
 Fabius Pictor, the oldest of the Roman historians, 
 the substance of which is preserved by Dionysius, 
 and which was founded on the national sonss. — 
 See Dion. i. 79. 
 
 the chase, and m attacks upon the 
 robbers, by whom those wild regions 
 were infested, made them the acknow- 
 ledged leaders of the little band of com- 
 rades, among whom they dwelt in huts 
 of reed on the Palatine hill. A quarrel 
 arose between them and the herdmen of 
 Numitor, who folded their cattle on the 
 neighbouring hill, the Aventine; and 
 outrages were done on both sides. At 
 a time when Romulus had gone to offer 
 sacrifices at Csenina, a town beyond 
 the Anio, Remus was seized, and led 
 away to Numitor. His age and aspect 
 made Numitor think of his grandsons ; 
 his suspicions were confirmed by the 
 tale of the marvellous nurture of the 
 twin brothers ; and when Romulus 
 came up with a troop of followers to 
 rescue Remus, they were owned and 
 embraced by their mothers father. 
 Stirred up by so strange a chance, and 
 the fresh feeling of ancient wrongs, they 
 suddenly turned their force against the 
 tyrant. Alba was surprised; Amuhus 
 slain, and the kingdom restored to 
 Numitor. 
 
 § 4. Then the princes went forth to 
 build a city in their old abodes. The 
 shepherds made them chiefs with equal 
 sovereignty :* but a strife arose between 
 them where their city should be built, 
 who should be its founder, and after 
 whose name it should be called. It was 
 agreed that they should abide by au- 
 guries, or signs taken from the flight of 
 birds, which would make known the 
 judgment of the gods. Romulus chose 
 his temple, or holy place for taking the 
 auguries, on the top of the Palatine hill ; 
 and the lituus, or crooked staff, with 
 which he marked out the quarters of 
 the heavens, was long preserved a's the 
 most sacred ensign of the augurs in the 
 chapel of the SaUan Priests upon the 
 Palatine, and even after the city was 
 burned by the Gauls was found unhurt 
 amid the ashes. f Remus placed him- 
 self on the Aventine. They sat, with 
 their heads covered, and their faces 
 towards the east. It was evening : the 
 sun went down ; and all night their 
 companions waited in doubt and fear.J 
 At day-break Remus saw six vultures : 
 a solitary bird, but in the most auspi- 
 
 • Cassius Hemina, called by Pliny '* Vestus- 
 tissimus auctor annalium," (in Frotscher's 
 Veterum Historicorum Fragmenta, appended to 
 an edition of Sallusl, Lipsise, 18l'5, p. 450). At the 
 end of the fragment is a mention of the portent of 
 the sow with her thirty young, which he must have 
 referred to this time. 
 
 t Cic.de Div. i. 17. 
 
 % Ennius in Cic. de Div. i. 48. 
 
 B 2 
 
HISTORY OF HOME. 
 
 / 
 
 cious quarter, appeared to Komulus; 
 and when the sun was now rising, 
 twelve vultures flew by him. and con- 
 firmed the auj;ury in his favour. 
 Remus murmured ; but Romulus was 
 judjred to have prevailed : and he pro- 
 ceeded to trace the boundaries of the 
 new city, round the foot of his chosen 
 hill, the Palatine. He yoked a bull and 
 a heifer to a plough with a brazen 
 ploughshare, and drew a deep furrow ; 
 and men followed after, who turned 
 every clod to the inward side. He thus 
 inclosed a square space. Where the 
 wall was to be built, the furrow was 
 drawn: where the gates were to be 
 U^ raised, the plaugli was lifted up and 
 car ried over : for the track of the 
 
 {)lough was holy ; but if the gates had 
 ieenholy,it would not have been lawful 
 for things needful but unclean to pass 
 through them, * The day of the Foun- 
 dation of Rome was a yearly festival, as 
 long as the old religion of Rome en- 
 dured. It was the eleventh day before 
 the calends of May, or the 21st of 
 April. It was a day well fitted for the 
 foundation of a city of shepherds ; for it 
 was the festival of Pales, the goddess of 
 shepherds, to whom they prayed for the 
 safety and increase of their flocks, and 
 for pardon of whatever trespass they or 
 their cattle might have done against the 
 many deities of the woods and foun- 
 tains.t When the wall was now 
 building, Remus, in scorn, leaped over 
 it ; and Romulus smote him in wrath, 
 and slew him ; and said, " So die 
 whosoever hereafter shall overleap 
 my walls:" and it remained a custom 
 in the Roman camps, that whosoever 
 left them, save by the appointed gates, 
 was put to death. % For this murder 
 Romulus gave himself up to remorse, 
 and a pestilence came upon the city, 
 until a festival was ordained to appease 
 the shade of Remus ; $ and afterward, 
 when the king administered justice, an 
 empty throne was set by his side with 
 a sceptre and crown, that his brother 
 might seem to reign with him. |I The 
 city had a district attached to it; but 
 how far on each side the territory of 
 Romulus extended, tradition has left 
 untold. A religious ceremony preserved 
 y^a memorial of its limits. Romulus 
 made his twelve foster brothers, the sons 
 
 * Dion. 1,88. Plut. Rom. See also Tacit, Ann. 
 xll, 24. 
 
 t Ov, Fast. iv. 721, &c. 
 X Zon. Ann. vii. 3. Pomponius J. C. 
 § Ov. Fast. V. 451, &c. the Lemuria. 
 V Serv. on /En. i. 276. 
 
 of Acca Larentia, a sacred college^ of 
 PrLeil*!, under the title of Fratre.s 
 Arvales, Brothers of the Corn-fields. 
 Their duty was to otter sacrifice for the 
 fruitfulness of the lands : their ensign 
 was a chaplet of ears of corn.* Their 
 priesthood was handed down to pos- 
 terity: and in the reign of Tiberius, the 
 Fratres Arvales celebrated the festival of 
 the Ambarvalia, or Going the Round of 
 the Fields, at Festi, between the fifth and 
 sixth milestones on the side of Alba, as 
 if that had been the boundary of the 
 Roman land.t That the city might 
 not want inhabitants, Romulus wel- 
 comed all strangers who were willing to 
 cast in their lot with his new people ; and 
 even declared a grove on the slope of 
 the opposite hill (the Capitoline), an 
 Asylum, or sanctuary and place of re- 
 fuge for men forced to flee for bloodshed, 
 and even for runaway slaves. Of the 
 people thus gathered together those who 
 could show a noble or free ancestry 
 were called Patricians, and to them 
 alone belonged a share in the govern- 
 ment of the State. Of the Patricians 
 a hundred chief men made a council, 
 called the Senate, and they themselves 
 were called Senators and Fathers. There 
 were ten of these of higher rank than 
 the rest : % and to one, the chief of all, 
 was entrusted the care of the city, when- 
 ever the king should be absent in war. 
 Denter Romulius is the name given by 
 tradition to the first who bore this office.^J 
 The rest of the people were subject to 
 the king and the Patricians ; and each 
 man with his household was attached 
 to the head of some Patrician family, 
 whom he was bound to serve, and from 
 whom he looked for help in all his need. 
 The correlative names of the protector 
 and dependent were Patron and Client. 
 The city was filled with men, but they 
 were mostly strangers and outlaws, and 
 made a mixed people, not bound by 
 kindred, to any people near them . They 
 wanted women, and Romulus sent am- 
 bassadors to the neighbouring tribes to 
 make treaties, without which it was 
 not lawful for one people to marry with 
 another. The tribes to whom he sent 
 scornfully refused such fellowship, and 
 he set his mind to force from them that 
 
 • Masurius Sabinus, in Au). Gell. vi, 7. Pliny 
 xvii. 2. Part of their ancient sacred song has been 
 discovered, and is given by Lanzi, Saggio di 
 Lingua Etrusca, cap. viii., sez. 1. 
 
 t Strabo, v. '6, 2. 
 
 t Decern Primi. See Niebuhr, p. 292, and 
 Dion. ii. 12. 
 
 S Tacit. Ann. vi. 11. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 sufferance of equal ' rights which he 
 could not gain by entreaty. In the 
 fourth month * from the foundation'of 
 the city, he proclaimed games in honour 
 of the god Consus, and he called his 
 neighbours together to the festival. 
 Many, not only of the Latins, but of the 
 Sabines, the natives of the more rugged 
 inland country beyond the river Anio, 
 came vs^ith their wives and children. In 
 the midst of the religious ceremonies, 
 when all eyes were fixed upon the holy 
 show, the Roman youth, at a signal from 
 their king, rushed upon their guests, 
 and bore away by force the marriageable 
 maidens. Thirty t Sabine virgins vyere 
 thus carried off, and became the wives 
 of their ravishers. Their parents fled, 
 and prepared to avenge the wrong. 
 Three of the Latin towns on the Anio, 
 Caenina, Antemnse, and Crustumium, 
 one after the other, made war upon 
 the Romans, and were overpowered by 
 them. Romulus slew with his own 
 hand Acron, the king of Caenina, and 
 spoiled him of his armour. He entered 
 the city, followed by his rejoicing sol- 
 diers ; and this procession, rude as it 
 was, was the first pattern of the splendid 
 triumphs with which the Romans in 
 after ages solemnized their conquests. 
 The king himself bore aloft the spoils of 
 the slain, and hung them upon an oak 
 held sacred by his fellow shepherds. 
 Thus under the name of Spolia Opima, 
 or Ricli.„%oils, he dedicated them to 
 .Jupiter Feretrius, the Bearer of Spoils; 
 
 y and marked out a tejii£le_^toJhe_god : 
 and he ordained, thatTif in timeT^corae 
 a leader of the Romans should slay and 
 despoil a leader of their enemies, he 
 should dedicate his spoils in this temple, 
 to this god, under this title. So waS-the 
 
 \y ! firslJ£iiy}la_jaQnsecrated_ at Rome, and 
 twice only after the offering of its 
 founder were such spoils laid up in it. 
 To each of the conquered towns were 
 sent three hundred Roman colonists, to 
 whom was assigned the third part of the 
 lands : those of the people who were 
 willing to remove to Rome were ad- 
 mitted as free citizens of the Roman 
 State.ll: 
 
 In the mean time the Sabines had 
 gathered themselves together, under the 
 command of Titus Tatius, king of the 
 Quirites, the people of the Sabine town 
 of Cures, and advanced into the Roman 
 
 * Plut. Kom. from Fabius. See Niebubr, note 
 580, p. 192. 
 t Plut. Rom. See Niebuhr, p. 192. 
 t Dion. ii. 35, 36. 
 
 lands with so strong an army, that the 
 Romans were forced to shut themselves 
 within their walls. Beyond the boun- 
 daries of the city itself, the top of the 
 Saturnian hill, which was afterwards 
 called the Capitoline, strong as 'it na- 
 turally was by the steepness of its rocky 
 sides, was still further defended by a 
 ditch and mound on the accessible part, 
 so as to be made a place of safety for 
 the flocks and goods of the country peo- 
 ple. * To this 'stronghold many had 
 betaken themselves, when the Sabines 
 overran the fields. Tarpeia, the daughter 
 of the commander of the fortress, went 
 without the wall to draw water. She 
 was seized by Tatius and his Sabines. 
 Dazzled by their ornaments of gold, 
 she covenanted for the bracelets which 
 they wore on their left arms to open 
 to them a gate by night. She fulfilled 
 her treason ; but when she claimed her 
 reward, Tatius first, and then the other 
 Sabines, hurled on her their shields, 
 and she was crushed beneath the load. 
 She was buried where she fell, and for 
 many ages yearly libations were poured 
 upon her tomb.-f' The precipitous side 
 of the hill, down which traitors in after 
 times were thrown headlong, bore the 
 ominous name of the Tarpeian rock. 
 On the following day the Romans at- 
 tempted to recover the strong hold. 
 The Sabines came down to meet them 
 into the swampy valley between the 
 Capitoline and Palatine hills, which was 
 afterwards the Roman Forum, or public 
 place. Romulus was aided by a Tuscan 
 Lucurao, or chieftain, with his fol- 
 lowers. Hostus Hostilius also among 
 the Romans, and Mettus Curtius among 
 the Sabines, were heroes upon whose 
 exploits the old legend delighted to 
 dwell. The battle was long and doubt- 
 ful. At one time Romulus himself was 
 struck down by a stone thrown from 
 the height of the Capitoline hill. At 
 another- time, when the Romans were 
 driven along before their enemies, in the 
 middle of the plain, he vowed a temple 
 to Jupiter Stator, the Stayer of Flight ; 
 and fresh courage was forthwith kindled 
 in their breasts. More than one day 
 passed in such fruitless struggles. At 
 last, when both armies were resting 
 from their warfare, the thirty t Sabine 
 women, for whose sake the war was 
 waged, no longer Sabine maidens but 
 
 * Dion. ii. 37. 
 
 t Dion. ii. 40, from L. Piso. 
 
 X Serv. on JEn. viii. 638. 
 
JO 
 
 . HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Roman wive§, with Hersilia, the wife of 
 Romulus,* at their head, went out to 
 their own people, to entreat for peace be- 
 tween their fathers and their husbands.f 
 Their prayer was heard ; and not only 
 peace was made, but the two nations 
 were joined together into one people. 
 The Sabines founded a new town on the 
 Capitoline and Quirinal hills, on the 
 north-west and north of the Palatine. 
 Romulus and Tatius became the joint 
 and equal kings of the double state ; 
 and their people, Romans as well as 
 Sabines, took the common name of 
 Quirites. The senate was doubled by 
 the addition of a hundred Sabines ; but 
 these were not, in the beginning, inter- 
 mixed with the senators of Romulus : 
 each king first took counsel with his 
 own senate, and then the two met toge- 
 ther in one body.J Their place of meet- 
 ing was a temple of Vulcan, a little above 
 the Forum, in the valley between the 
 Palatine and Capitoline hills. Their 
 citizens were distributed into three 
 tribes, § to which were given the names 
 Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres. The 
 Ramnes were supposed to have their 
 name from Romulus, the Titienses from 
 Tatius, the Luceres from the Lucumo,|| 
 the Tuscan ally of Romulus, who was 
 slain in the battle ; for Lucumo, though 
 plainly a title, yet, being a word of a 
 foreign language, was often taken by 
 the Romans for a proper name. Each 
 tribe was divided into ten Curiae, and to 
 these thirty Curiae names were given in 
 honour of the thirty Sabine women who 
 had brought about the peace.^I For 
 them also it was demanded, and for 
 their sake the privilege was extended to 
 all matrons, that they should be exempt 
 for ever from all household service and 
 labour, except spinning and weaving.** 
 These employments were long the glory 
 of industrious Roman wives. In me- 
 mory of the forcible manner in which 
 the Sabine maidens were carried off, 
 it remained one of the ceremonies of 
 maniage, that the bride was lifted 
 
 * Liv. 1. 11. In a fragment of the Annals of 
 Cnffiiia Gellius is given a part of the speech of 
 Hersilia to Tatius, containing an address to Neria 
 the w ife of Mars, taken perhaps from an old poem : 
 *• Neria, wife of Mars, I beseech thee to grant 
 pence, that we may enjoy a happy marriage each 
 with her own husband ; since by the counsel of 
 thy husband it came to pass that they carried us 
 off maidens, to raise up children for ttiemselves 
 and for their country." — Aul. Geli. xiii. 22. 
 • t Cic. R. P. ii. 7. Dion. ii. 45, 
 
 t Zon.vii. 4. § Liv. x. 6. 
 
 I Cic. R, P. ii, 8, Propert. iv. i. 29. 
 
 % Liv. i, 13. Cic. R. P. il. 8. 
 
 •» Piut. Rom. Zou. Til. 4. 
 
 over the threshold of her husband. 
 The temples also, and religious rites of '"^ 
 the two nations, were made common, y^ 
 The Sabines worshipped the gods of K 
 Latium, Picus, and Faunus, and the 
 deity of the Tiber : the Romans vene- 
 rated the heavenly bodies and the ele- 
 mental powers, which were the objects 
 of Sabine adoration,* the sun and 
 moon, light, Vulcan the god of fire. 
 Ops or mother earth, and Saturn, to 
 whom the Capitoline hill had been con- 
 secrated of old.t The Consualia conti- 
 nued to be celebrated ; and, in after 
 ages, games in the Circus recalled the 
 memory of the show from which the 
 Sabine virgins had been carried off :$ 
 and on the first day of March, the first 
 day of the ancient year, the festival of 
 the Matronalia, held by the women in 
 honour of Mars, preserved the tradition 
 of the peace which the prayers of the 
 matrons had wrought between the con- 
 tending armies.§ 
 
 The only war which Romulus and 
 Tatius are related to have undertaken 
 together was against the Latin town of 
 Cameria, which was taken, and made a 
 Roman colony, and the people admitted 
 into the Roman state, as those of 
 Caenina, Antemna and Crustumerium, 
 had been before. But the double king- 
 dom did not last long. Kinsmen of 
 Tatius had done outrage to some envoys 
 from Laurentum, and Tatius refused 
 satisfaction for the crime. Soon after, 
 when he was offering sacrifice with 
 Romulus to the Penates at Laviniurn, 
 he was attacked and slain. He was re- 
 hgiously buried on the Aventine hill : || 
 but Romulus neglected to pursue the 
 murderers ; and a plague of sudden 
 death, and barrenness, and blight came 
 upon the people, and cattle, and lands 
 of Rome and Laurentum; nor did it 
 cease till the murderers on both sides 
 were delivered up. 
 
 The single rule of Romulus made him 
 yet more beloved by his two- fold people,"!! 
 He is said to have carried war against 
 Fidenae, a Tuscan settlement on the 
 south of the Tiber, and beyond the 
 Anio, and to have placed there a Roman 
 colony. This war led to another with 
 Veii, a near and powerful city of Etru- 
 ria, in which he was again victorious. 
 
 • August, de Civ. Dei. iv. 23. Varro, L.L, v. 10, 
 
 t Dion, ii, I, 
 
 t Cic R. P. ii, 7. August, de Civ. Dei. ii. 17. 
 
 § Ov. Fast, iii. 170, &c,, and 231. 
 
 II Varr. iv. 82. 
 
 f Cic. R. P. ii. 8, y. 
 
mSTORY OF ROME. 
 
 11 
 
 The Veientes were stripped of a part of 
 their territory, and a truce for a hun- 
 dred years was granted to them. Ro- 
 mulus had now seen his city grow up 
 from weakness to strength, and the 
 time of his kingdom upon earth was 
 fulfilled. He had assembled his people 
 in warlike array on a plain called the 
 Goat's Marsh, when suddenly the sun 
 was eclipsed, and the sky was darkened 
 with clouds and storm. The crowd 
 were scattered, and fled ; and, when they 
 returned, Romulus had disappeared. 
 They mourned for him with pious sor- 
 row"*5 and called upon him " as their 
 father, the offspring of the gods, the 
 guardian of his country, who had led 
 them forth into light :" * and it was be- 
 lieved that he was borne away to heaven 
 in the chariot of his divine parent. This 
 belief became a religious faith, when 
 their lost king appeared in more than 
 mortal majesty to Proculus Julius, 
 and bade him tell the Romans that they 
 should become the lords of the world, 
 and that he himself would be their guar- 
 dian god Quirinus. Under this title he 
 was worshipped. The festival of the 
 Quirinalia was held in his honour in 
 February ; but the nones of Quintilis, the 
 seventh of July, was marked by tradition 
 as the day of his disappearance. 
 
 To Romulus the popular belief of the 
 Romans ascribed the origin of their 
 principal institutions, social, civil, and 
 military. The establishment of the 
 senate, and the division of the people 
 into tribes and curiae, have already been 
 mentioned. The senate was the perpetual 
 council of the state ; but there was also 
 a national assembly, in which the people 
 was called together in curi«, and the 
 votes of the greater number of curiae 
 determined a matter. Romulus was the 
 author of the relation and obligations of 
 patron and client. Parental authority 
 he sanctioned in its highest degree, so 
 that he made the father the absolute 
 master of the liberty and life of his son. 
 Only a thrice repeated sale could deliver 
 the son from this subjection. He not 
 only gave dignity to ^marriage as a civil 
 state, but consecrated it as a religious 
 instiUjtion. Those who were once united 
 by the solemn rite of confarreation, or 
 breaking of bread together, no civil 
 power could put asunder : the wife 
 became a sharer in the fortunes, and 
 privileges, and rehgious ceremonies of 
 her husband, and was to him in the 
 
 * EnniusinCic. R. P. i.41. 
 
 place of a daughter. But if he should 
 attempt to sell her as a child, he was 
 devoted to the infernal gods. He could 
 sit in judgment upon her only for grie- 
 vous offences — for adultery, for poison- 
 ing, for drinking wine, for counterfeiting 
 his keys; and the presence and consent 
 of his kinsmen was necessary for her 
 condemnation: but then to her, as to 
 his children, he was a judge without 
 appeal. Agriculture and war were the 
 only employments which Romulus al- 
 lowed to his free citizens. His l^gim). 
 which at first included the whole popu- 
 lation fit to bear arms, consisted of 
 three thousand foot soldiers and three 
 hundred horsemen.* Those whose rank 
 and wealth gave them the right and 
 power to fight on horseback about the 
 person of the king, were called Ceieres ; 
 and from them grew the body called in 
 aftertimes Equites, horsemen or knights. 
 They seem to have been taken a hun- 
 dred from each tribe, and their centu- 
 ries bore the same names as the tribes.f 
 But the institutions for which Romulus 
 was most revered in later times, were 
 those of augury or the auspices (bird- 
 spying). He had founded the city by 
 auspices, and by auspices he willed that^ 
 it should be guided for ever. The 
 augurs were appointed to observe the 
 flight of birds, and other signs of the / 
 divine will. Nothing in peace or war 
 was undertaken without their sanction. 
 The senate could not be holden except 
 in a place consecrated by auspices. The 
 assembly of the people could not meet, 
 nor any Jaw be passed, nor any magis- 
 trate elected, unless the auspices were 
 favourable. Thus the Romans believed 
 that, whatsoever they did, they did under 
 the especial guidance and favour of the 
 gods. Faith in auspices endured for 
 many ages, and the forms and cere- 
 monies remained long after their spirit 
 was passed away. 
 
 § 5. Rome was now without a king ; 
 and till a king should be chosen, the 
 senate took upon itself the government 
 oi the state. According to the most 
 probable tradition, it seems that the 
 senate was divided into decuriae, or 
 bodies of ten, in each of which was a 
 senator of higher rank than the rest : 
 that each decuria in turn held the 
 supreme power for five days ; but that 
 its chief alone bore the ensigns of 
 empire. This magistrate was called an 
 
 * Dion. ii. 16. I'lut. Rom. 
 t Compare Pion. ii. 13 and 16, and Liry i. 13« 
 and X. 6. 
 
12 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Interrex, or Between-Kinp. A contest 
 rejfardinsr the choice of a king arose 
 between the primitive Romans and the 
 Sabine tribe, who had joined themselves 
 to them, and who had remained without 
 a king of their own nation since the 
 death of Tatius. At length it was 
 agreed that one tribe should choose a 
 king out of the other; and the Romans 
 chose a Sabine, Numa Pompilius.* 
 
 ^S 6. Numa was a citizen of Cures, of 
 noble birth, to whom Tatius had given 
 his daughter in marriage ;•!• known for 
 his piety and the holiness of his life: 
 and when he was proposed by the In- 
 terrex, in the name of the senate, to the 
 people assembled in their curiae, all 
 acknowledged the wisdom of the choice. 
 Ambassadors were sent to fetch him to 
 Rome ; and when he was come, he first 
 went up with an augur to the citadel, 
 and solemnly consulted the auspices, 
 whether the gods would suffer him to be 
 king of Rome ; and then procured the 
 confirmation of his election, by himself 
 presenting to the assembled curiae a law 
 which invested him with all kingly 
 powers, and especially with military 
 command.^ 
 
 The first care of Numa was to appor- 
 tion to the new people, who had become 
 free men of the Roman state, the public 
 territory which had been gained by con- 
 quest. § He caused the extent of all the 
 lands of all the citizens to be strictly 
 determined ; and assured the inviolabi- 
 lity of property by consecrating the . 
 stones which marked them out to Ter- 
 minus, the god of boundaries.il Who- 
 soever should dare to remove these holy 
 landmarks, was pronounced guilty of 
 sacrilege, and devoted to the vengeance 
 of the god. For many ages the Roman 
 husbandmen offered to these divine 
 emblems a bloodless offering of the 
 fruits of the field ; and it was only in later 
 times that lambs or swine were sacri- 
 ficed upon them.^ The solemn festi- 
 val of the Terminalia was celebrated on 
 the twenty-third day of February, which 
 was anciently accounted the last day 
 of the year :** and thus the old land- 
 marks were ascertained, before the tiller 
 of the ground be^an his toils for the 
 coming season. With the boundaries of 
 private property the boundaries of the 
 state were also fixed ;-|-f' nor did they 
 
 • Dion. ii. 67 & 68. Plut. Num. 
 
 t Plut. Num. 
 
 t Cic. R. P. ii. 13 
 
 § Cic.R. P. ii.H 
 
 I DJon.ii. 74. 
 
 ** See page 67. 
 
 Dion. ii. 62. 
 
 f Ov.Fast. ii.655. 
 tt Dion. ii. 74. 
 
 advance or recede during the just and 
 peaceful reign of Numa. The same 
 spirit, which breathes in this reverence 
 for property, was also manifested in the 
 dedication of a temple to Fait h :* and the 
 Romans, with pious and reverential 
 gratitude, ascribed to the institutions 
 and example of Numa that national 
 character of probity and truth, which 
 was their most honourable distinction. 
 He sought to bring the manners of his 
 warlike and violent people under the 
 government of law : and for this pur- 
 pose, unlike most of the lawgivers of 
 old times, he did not try to fashion their 
 daily and household life by the laws of 
 the state ; but gained the mastery over 
 their minds by accustoming them to the 
 discharge of religious duties, and the 
 acknowledgment of religious sanctions. 
 Romulus had given his people their 
 civil constitution : Numa regulated their 
 religious worship. He prescribed with 
 exact minuteness all its forms and cere- 
 monies. The rites which he ordained were 
 such that they might be performed with 
 little cost, but the right observance of 
 them required a careful attention and 
 laborious diligence.'!- They were rites 
 for a people possessing little wealth, 
 whose minds were to be turned aside 
 from violence and plunder, and sub- 
 jected to the' authority of the ministers 
 of religion. He discriminated the orders 
 of the priesthood, and their offices. 
 To the four Pontiffs, and their chief, 
 the Great Pontiff' (Pontifex Maximus), 
 he gave the supreme authority in 
 matters of religion. % It was'| their 
 duty to take care for the right per- 
 formance of all sacred ceremonies, whe- 
 ther public or private ; to preserve the 
 purity of the national worship, and to 
 instruct the people in all its rites and 
 necessary observances. He appointed 
 the Flamens, or priests, of the three 
 great gods of the nation, Jupiter, Mars, 
 and Qiiirinus. He provided for the 
 more solemn worship of the goddess 
 Vesta, and consecrated to her service 
 four virgin priestesses,^ whose especial 
 duty it was to keep up the everlasting 
 fire in her temple. To this service they 
 were devoted for thirty years ; and the 
 popular superstition reported, that even 
 those who after this period availed them- 
 selves of their licence, and quitted the 
 
 • Dion.ii. 75. 
 
 t Cic. R. P. ii. 14. Legg. ii. 8, 10. 
 t Liv. i. 20. X. 6. Cic. R. P. ii. 14. See Nieb. 
 p. 268, note 722. 
 § Dion.ii, t)7. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 13 
 
 tertiple of the g-oddess to unite them- 
 selves in marria8:e, made an ill-fated 
 choice, and suffered under evident 
 tokens of divine displeasure. The 
 Vestal who broke her vow of chastity 
 was carried through the city on a covered 
 bier, as if in funeral procession,* and was 
 walled up alive in a cell beneath a 
 mound of earth, a little within the Colhne 
 g:ate, which was the gate at the foot of 
 the Quirinal Hill. Such a crime was 
 deemed a prodigy of most evil import to 
 the state ; and the day of punishment 
 was a day of universal and great mourn- 
 ing. Singular privileges and honours 
 were accorded to the Vestals. They were 
 freed from the power of their fathers : 
 their testimony was believed without an 
 oath ; and if they met a criminal, as he 
 was led to execution, he was immediately 
 reprieved. To Numa is ascribed also 
 the institution of the Salii, or Dancing 
 Priests of Mars Gradivus. These were 
 twelve youths of the noblest birth and 
 the most beautiful form; and on the 
 first day of March they went through 
 the city accoutred in the ancient military 
 garb, celebrating their god with armed 
 dances and with traditionary songs. 
 It is said, that during a pestilence a 
 shield of a strange form fell from heaven 
 into the hands of Numa. This, under 
 the name of Aneile, was committed to 
 the care of the Salii ; and others like to 
 it were made, and borne by them in their 
 sacred processions. After this recep- 
 tion of the prodigy the plague ceased. 
 (jr^Kuma added two to the Augurs 
 appointed by Romulus ;t or, according to 
 some accounts, first instituted the Col- 
 lege of Augurs ;% and instructed them 
 especially in the observation of the 
 Greater Auspices,§ which were drawn 
 from lightning and other signs in the 
 heavens. He is said even to have 
 known arts by which such omens might 
 be drawn from the unwilling gods ; and 
 to have dedicated an altar to Jupiter 
 Elicius on Mount Aventine, where he 
 practised this bold divination. By such 
 institutions and such employments 
 Numa turned away the minds of his 
 people from war ; and the old story 
 told, how the gate of Janus, which 
 stood midway between the Palatine and 
 Quirinal towns, and which, according 
 to ancient custom, was open in time of 
 war and shut in peace, remained closed 
 throughout the whole of his long reign. 
 
 * Dion. ii. 67. 
 X Liv. iy. 4. 
 
 t Cic.R. P. ii. 14. 
 § Cic. K. P. iO, 
 
 Even the neighbouring states, which 
 had dreaded the restless violence of Ro- 
 mulus, now deemed it impious to trouble 
 a city which was entirely given up to 
 the worship of the gods. It was not ' 
 without divine inspiration and assist- 
 ance, that Numa gave his people his 
 religious laws. He was beloved by the 
 Camena, or nymph, Egeria;.and in a 
 hallowed grove, where perpetual springs 
 flowed from natural grottos,* he met 
 her in the silence and loneliness of night. 
 There, by her, and by her'sacred sisters, 
 he was taught the lessons of piety and 
 wisdom, and instructed in the worship 
 of the gods. Once, to confirm the faith 
 of his citizens, the goddess deigned to 
 give a visible token of her presence with 
 their inspired lawgiver. While he was 
 entertaining guests, their plain food in 
 earthenware was changed into a rich 
 feast in golden vessel s.t Revered and 
 beloved by gods and men, Numa fell 
 asleep in the fulness of age. It was 
 the old tradition, that he was born on 
 the day on which Rome was founded. J 
 If he were the last survivor of all who 
 had seen the origin of the city, then, 
 according to the belief of Etruscan su- 
 perstition, the first Age, or Saeculum, of 
 the city ended with his life.;^ 
 
 § 7. An Interregnum followed the 
 death of Numa, Upon the proposal of 
 the Interrex, the people in the meeting 
 of the Curiae (Comitia Curiata) elected 
 as their king Tullus Hostilius, the 
 grandson of Hostus Hostilius who had 
 fought with Romulus against the 
 Sabines : and he, as Numa had done 
 before, when the auspices had sanc- 
 tioned his election, himself submitted 
 to the Curiae the law which endowed 
 him with the usual powers of the kingly 
 office.ll The temper of this king was 
 very different from that of his prede- 
 cessor; and he rather sought to rival 
 the military glory of Romulus. It 
 chanced that Roman peasants had 
 plundered the Alban lands, Albans the 
 Roman. Both people sent ambassa- 
 dors at the same time to demand re- 
 dress. Tullus wished, not that redress 
 should be granted, but that the guilt of 
 a refusal should rest with the Albans, 
 in order that he might begin a war 
 without breaking the law of nations, 
 which was a part of the religion of the 
 early Italian tribes. He therefore 
 
 * Juv. Sat. iii. t Pl"t- Num. 
 
 t Plut. Num., Dion. Cass. Fragm. 
 § See Niebuiir,p. 204— 209, and below, note p. 5S. 
 Cic. E, P, ii. 17. 
 
14 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 chargfetl his messengers to do their 
 office without delay. They made their 
 demnnil ; and when they had received 
 no satisfaction within the stated period 
 of tliirty days,* they declared war. The 
 Alban ambassadors were less intent 
 upon their business, and wasted their 
 time in partakinsjof the banquets of the 
 kinp, before they made known the pur- 
 pose of their cominj^. At last, when 
 they delivered their messapje, they were 
 answered, that the Romans had already 
 soucht redress in vam, and that the 
 Albans must look only for the war 
 which they had brought upon them- 
 selves. 
 
 The Albans drew near to the Roman 
 territory with a great army under their 
 king, Cluilius, and pitched their camp 
 five miles from the city. The memory 
 of the very spot was preserved for ages ; 
 and a trench, of which traces could still 
 be seen, bore the name of the Cluiiian 
 Ditch. Here Cluilius died ; and the 
 All)ans elected Mettius Fufetius, their 
 dictator, or commander, in his place. 
 Mettius proposed, that the blood of the 
 two nations should be spared, and that 
 their strife should be determined by the 
 combat of certain chosen champions. 
 TuUus asrreed to the proposal. It so 
 fell out that in each army there were 
 three brothers born at a birth ; and 
 moreover their mothers were sisters. 
 Tradition remembered their names as 
 the Horatii and Curiatii ; but the stories 
 were not all agreed to which people 
 each belonged. The Horaiii however 
 were commonly believed to be Romans, 
 the Curiatii Albans. These youths 
 were matched to fight on behalf of the 
 two nations ; and it was ai^reed by 
 treaty, that the people whose cham- 
 pions should overcome should rule over 
 the other. They met between the two 
 camps, on the very line that bounded 
 the Roman and Alban territories,-!- and 
 the two armies looked on. They saw 
 two Romans fall, one after the other ; 
 and the three Albans, wounded indeed, 
 but eager for victory, make up to the 
 last Horatius. Unhurt as he was, he 
 dared not to cope with three at once ; 
 and they beheld him turn his back and 
 flee. His pursuers, vvounded and weary, 
 followed at unequal distances. Sud- 
 denly he faced about, and slew the 
 strongest, as he came up ; then the 
 next; and then the hindmost and 
 
 • Liv. i. 32. 
 
 t Dion. iii. 18, see above p. 8. 
 
 weakest. The combatants wore buried 
 where they had fallen ; and tlie mounds, 
 which marked their graves, remained 
 to a very late age : those of the two 
 Roman brothers side by side nearer to 
 Alba; those of the three Albans at a 
 little distance one from the other in a 
 line towards Rome. Before the two 
 armies parted, TuUus, according to the 
 terms of the treaty, commanded Mettius 
 to hold the youth of his people under 
 arms, that he might use their aid against 
 the Veientes. The Romans returned 
 in triumph. Horatius went first, bear- 
 ing on high his threefold spoils. His 
 sister met him at the Capene gate, the 
 gate of the city towards Alba. She had 
 been espoused to one of the Curiatii ; 
 and when she saw the bloody mantle of 
 her betrothed, which she had woven 
 with her own hands, she flung loose her 
 hair, and burst out into waihng. Her 
 brother in wrath pierced her with his 
 sword, with the savage words, " So die 
 whatsoever Roman woman shall weep 
 for an enemy." For this murder he was 
 tried by the Two Judges, and doomed, in 
 the awful words of the old law, to be 
 scourged with covered head, and hanged 
 on an unhappy tree.* He appealed to 
 the people. His father bore witness, 
 that his daughter was rightly slain : 
 were it otherwise, he would have 
 punished his guilty son by his own 
 power: the people 1 bought more of his 
 victory than of his crime ; and gave him 
 his lite. He underwent however the 
 semblance of punishment. With his 
 head covered, he was led by his father 
 beneath a gibbet, which was repaired 
 from age to age, and remained as a me- 
 morial to after times under the name of 
 the Sisters Gibbet. Expiatory sacrifices 
 were performed, which were handed 
 down as hereditary rites to the Ho- 
 ratian family. A tomb was raised to 
 Horatia where she fell. 
 
 The Albans were indignant at being 
 made 'subject to the Romans, and sought 
 to free themselves from their power. 
 The people of Fidenae, where a Roman 
 colony had been settled, were wishing to 
 revolt from Rome, and return to the pro- 
 tection of their Tuscan neighbours, the 
 Veientes. Mettius Fufetius encouraged 
 this spirit, and promised the Fidenates, 
 if they should meet the Roman army in 
 the field, that he would pass over to 
 
 • An unhappy tree (arlpor infelix) was a tree 
 which bore no fruit for the use of man. Super- 
 stition forbade malting a fruitful tree au instru- 
 ment of capital punishment. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 15 
 
 them during the battle with the wliole 
 Alban force. Fidenae revolted : TuUus 
 summoned the Albans, and crossed the 
 Anio: theVeientes crossed the Tiber. 
 The two armies met : the Veientes were 
 posted on the ri2:ht of their line on the 
 bank of the Tiber ; the Fidenates on 
 the left, towards the hills. Tullus stood 
 over against the Veientes ; Mettius over 
 against the Fidenates. The traitor had 
 not boldness even to fulfil his treachery. 
 Instead of passing: over to the enemy, 
 he only withdrew his forces from the 
 Roman line to higher ground upon 
 the hills, and stood watching the issue 
 of the battle. The Romans wondered, 
 and were dismayed ; and Tullus, in his 
 extremity, vowed temples to Pallor and 
 Pavor, paleness and fear. The Fide- 
 nates, at first, had taken courage from 
 the movement of the Albans ; but when 
 they saw them keeping aloof upon the 
 hills, instead of coming over to them or 
 turning against the Romans, they began 
 to doubt of their purpose, and to waver 
 in their own attack. The Romans re- 
 covered their spirit, and drove back 
 their enemies ; and then, as the Fidenates 
 fled along the Alban line, the twofold 
 traitor, Mettius, for the sake of cloaking 
 his treachery, fell upon them and put 
 them utterly to the rout. Tullus turned 
 against the Veientes, and pressed upon 
 them till their fliirht was stopped by the 
 river. Many were slain upon the bank; 
 many drowned in trying to pass it. On 
 that day Tullus pretended not to have 
 seen the traitorous- purpose of Mettius. 
 On the next day he called his whole 
 army to an assembly. The Albans were 
 summoned first, and came unarmed : 
 the Romans, as they had been ordered, 
 ranged themselves round them armed. 
 Then the king stood forth, and declared 
 the treachery of the Alban dictator, and 
 he gave commandment to his soldiers to 
 seize him and to bind him to two 
 chariots of four horses, that, as his 
 mind had been divided between the Fi- 
 denates and the Romans, so his body 
 might be rent in twain. The horses 
 were driven opposite ways, and the 
 traitor was thus torn in sunder. The 
 rest of the Albans were let go unhurt. 
 Vengeance, however, awaited their city. 
 It was ordained that Alba should be laid 
 waste, and the whole Alban people be 
 removed to Rome. The victorious army 
 took possession of the town. The citi- 
 zens, with their wives and children, went 
 forth to become dwellers in a strange 
 land. The walls were thrown down, 
 and every building belonging to man, 
 
 and only the temples of the gods were 
 left standing amid the ruins. 
 
 According to tradition, the citizens of 
 Alba did not merely become free citi- 
 zens of Rome, as those of other con- 
 quered towns had become before them ; 
 but certain of their noblest families were 
 placed in the rank of the patricians. 
 Among these are recorded the Tullii, the 
 Servilii, the Quinctii, the Geganii, the 
 Cloelii, names afterwards most eminent 
 in the Roman history. It is related also 
 that from the new people ten troops 
 were added to the knights, or those 
 whose duty and honour it was to serve 
 in the wars on horseback. The Ceelian 
 hill, on the south-east of the Palatine, 
 is said to have been assigned for the 
 dwelling of the Alban settlers.* Tullus 
 then turned himself to a war against the 
 Sabines. He complained that Sabines 
 had offered violence to Roman traders 
 at the Temple of Feronia, a holy place 
 at the foot of Mount Soracte, whither 
 much people resorted, for the sake of a 
 yearly festival, or to see the inspired 
 votaries of the goddess walk barefoot 
 over burning coalst. Redress was re- 
 fused. The armies met at a place called 
 the Wicked "Wood, and their struggle 
 for the mastery was long and fierce. 
 Tullus vowed a yearly festival to the 
 Sabine deities, Saturn and Ops; and to 
 this vow were referred the Saturnalia 
 and Opalia, which were celebrated by 
 the Romans at the close of the year. 
 He made a vow likewise to double the 
 college of the Sahi. The Romans thus 
 encouraged became the conquerors. 
 Tullus also made a truce with the 
 Latins, who had begun to resist the en- 
 croachments of Rome after the destruc- 
 tion of Alba. It is said that he even 
 made alliance with them ; and that, 
 when he followed up his quarrel with 
 the Veientes by besieging their city, 
 troops from the Latin town of Tuscu- 
 lum, and from Anagnia, the chief 
 town of the neighbouring people the 
 Heinici, encamped upon the Esquihne 
 hill, to cover Rome on its most exposed 
 side.$ 
 
 Of works of peace little is told of 
 Tullus Hostilius, except that he en- 
 closed the Comitium§ and built a Curia, 
 places of meeting for the people and for 
 the senate. The Senate-House bore 
 his name nearly six hundred years. 
 Towards the end of his reign the wrath 
 
 * Liv. i. 33. t Dion. iii. 32. % Dion. iii. 34 
 t Strabo, v. 2, 9- 
 
 t Niebuhr, p. 302, from a fragment of Varro. 
 § Cic. R. P. U. 17. 
 
16 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 of the deserted pods of Alba was be- 
 tokened by a shower of stones which 
 fell upon the Alban Mount ; and a su- 
 pernatural voice was heard to issue from 
 the consecrated summit of the hill. A 
 plague fell upon the Roman people. 
 The king himself sickened. Before this 
 time he had been careless of the services 
 of religion. Now he gave himself up to 
 superstitious weakness and fear. The 
 gods vouchsafed neither relief nor an- 
 swer to prayer. He sought to use the 
 divination of Numa by tlie rites of Ju- 
 piter Elicius ; and drew down lightning 
 upon himself, and was consumed with 
 all his house. 
 
 § 8. Upon the death of TuUus Hos- 
 tilius, the supreme power, according to 
 custom, returned to the senate. An 
 Interrex held an assembly, in which 
 Ancus Marcius, a son of the daughter 
 of Numa Pompilius, was chosen king. 
 Then Ancus Marcius, after the manner 
 of the former kings, took the auspices, 
 and brought before the assembled 
 Curiae a law which bestowed upon him 
 the kingly power.* He laboured to re- 
 store the religious institutions of Numa, 
 which had fallen into disuse; and he 
 caused the pontiffs to write on tables 
 all the ordinances regarding religious 
 rites, and to set them up in public, that 
 the people might learn them. He is re- 
 ported also by tradition to have regu- 
 lated the ceremonies of the Fetial Law, 
 or law of heralds, a law between nations 
 concerning the making of peace and 
 war. Undoubtedly such a law existed 
 generally among the Italian tribes in the 
 earliest ages of which we know anything. 
 Cicero t has followed a story which 
 ascribed the adoption of it at Rome to 
 Tullus Hostilius, and certainly its mi- 
 nisters are named, and some of its 
 ancient ceremonies are described, in the 
 history of the treaty which he made with 
 the Albans, when the sovereignty of the 
 one nation over the other was to be de- 
 termined by the combat of the Horatii 
 and Curiatii. More general consent, 
 however, attributes this institution to 
 Ancus Marcius ; and he is said more- 
 over to have borrowed it from the 
 Opican nation of the ^qui or A^qui- 
 culi.J Some of the forms of this law 
 are embodied by Livy in his history ; 
 and tliey are worthy of notice as monu- 
 ments of the manners and ways of 
 thinking in early times and among a 
 rude people. The guardianship and 
 ministry of these rites was entrusted to 
 
 • Cic.R. P. ii. 18. + R. p. ii. J 7. 
 
 t See OuUiueofGen. Hi8t.,ch.ix. § 1. 
 
 the college of Fetiales (Heralds). They 
 were twenty* in number, and bore a 
 sacred character. Of this body, four, 
 it is said, were sent as ambassadors, 
 when redress was to be sought for inju- 
 ries ;'l' two, when a treaty was to be 
 made. ;J: Their chief spokesman was 
 called Pater Patratus. This messenger, 
 when he crossed the boundaries of the 
 people to whom he was sent, called the 
 gods and the boundaries themselves to 
 witness, that he was sent lawfully, and 
 prayed, that, if his demand were unjust, 
 he might never return to his country. 
 This declaration he repeated to the first 
 person whom he met, at the gates of the 
 city, and in the public place to the ma- 
 gistrates. If redress were not granted 
 within thirty, or three an(l thirty days, 
 he called to witness Jupiter and Juno 
 and Quirinus, and all the gods of heaven 
 and earth, and under the earth, that the 
 jjeople to whom he was sent withheld what 
 was just ; and so he returned to Rome. 
 Then the king consulted the senate or 
 patricians (Patres) ; and if they advised 
 war, it might now righteously be de- 
 clared. Then the Herald returned to the 
 borders of the enemy, and declared war, 
 at the same time casting into their 
 hands a spear§, or a ruder weapon of 
 early times, a shaft of cornel wood with 
 the end hardened in the fire. When a 
 treaty was to bejmade, one Herald asked 
 from the king the vervain, which was 
 the token of peace. || This was taken 
 from the citadel with the earth about 
 its roots. With this he touched the hair 
 and head of his fellow, who was thus 
 made the Pater Patratus, and em- 
 powered to swear on behalf of the 
 people. They were met by a like mes- 
 senger from the nation with which the 
 treaty was to be made. Each bore in 
 his hand a sceptre, which was the sym- 
 bol of the presence'of Jupiter.^ After 
 going through a solemn form of words, 
 probably in rude verse, and reciting the 
 terms of the treaty, he thus prayed: 
 " And if the Roman people by public 
 counsel shall first have failed with evil 
 fraud in the keeping of these terms, do 
 thou, O Jupiter, on that day so smite 
 the Roman people, as 1 shall here this 
 dav smite this swine :"' and when he had 
 
 • Varro in Nieb. p. 259. 
 
 i lb. and Liv. i.32. t Liv. ix.5. 
 
 \ In later times, when Rome was engaged in 
 wars with distant nations, the form of this cere- 
 mony was still retained ; but the Fetial cast his 
 spear into a piece of land near the temple of 
 Bellona (not far from the Circus) ; and this Held 
 was adorned with the tictitious title of the Ager 
 Hostilis (the enemy's laud). See Ov- Fast. vi.^o5. 
 
 1 Varro, frag. Ij berv. ad 2En. xii. 206. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 17 
 
 thus spoken, he killed the swine by a 
 blow with a flint stone. 
 
 The traditions respecting Ancus 
 Marcius fiave very much less of a 
 poetical character than those of the 
 preceding and following kings. The 
 facts which they relate are mostly 
 historical ; and some of them of very 
 great importance. In the early part of 
 iiis reign, the Latins were encouraged by 
 his peaceful temper to make aggressions 
 on the Romans. These Ancus resented 
 with unexpected vigour; and became 
 engaged in a war, by which, after a long 
 and hard struggle, he established the 
 superiority of the Romans. The town 
 Politorium was taken and retaken, but 
 remained at last with the Romans. He 
 took also Tellena and Medullia, and 
 other towns. He removed several thou- 
 sand Latins to Rome, made them citi- 
 zens, and settled them upon the Aven- 
 tine Hill, on the south of the Palatine, 
 and in the valley between them ; and 
 this new quarter of the city he defended 
 by a trench, called the Ditch of the 
 Quirites. On the opposite bank of the 
 Tiber, he occupied and fortified the Jani- 
 culum, a rising ground ; and joined it to 
 the city by a wooden bridge, which 
 lasted long under the name of the Pons 
 Sublicius, or Bridge of Piles. His con- 
 quests over the Latins brought him into 
 contact with the Volsci,* and public rela- 
 tions were then first formed between 
 them and the Roman people.t He was 
 engaged in war with the Sabines also, 
 and with theVeientes. From this latter 
 people he gained an accession of terri- 
 tory on the sea-shore, valuable appa- 
 rently for the timber it produced, and 
 called the Maesian Wood. This he 
 made the property of the state.^ He 
 founded the colony of Ostia on the south 
 side of the Tiber at its mouth, and made 
 it the port of Rome : and added to its 
 trade by forming salt-works in its neigh- 
 bourhood. The old prison of Rome was 
 his work, made out of a quarry on the 
 Capitoline Hill. The lands which he 
 had taken in war he divided to the citi- 
 zens.^ He died in peace. His memory 
 was popular; and he was mentioned 
 with kindliness in the old traditions as 
 " the good Ancus." II 
 
 ^ 9. In the reign of Ancus, a noble 
 and wealthy Tuscan had settled in Rome. 
 Lucumo (so the old stories named him) 
 was the son of a Greek merchant, who 
 
 * Outline, Ch. ix. § 1. t Dion. iii. 41. 
 
 t Cic. K. P. ii. 18. § Cic. ib. 
 
 I Lucret. vi. 1038, from Ennius. 
 
 had made himself a home at Tarquinii, 
 a city on the coast of Etruria, and mar- 
 ried a Tuscan woman. He had inherited 
 wealth from his father: he had married 
 into a family of the highest rank ; but 
 the true-born Tuscans jealously shut 
 out the son of the stranger from all 
 power in the state. He was himself 
 ambitious ; and the pride of his wife 
 Tanaquil could ill brook that her hus- 
 band should stand in lower place than 
 her kindred. Foregoing her country 
 for his sake, she persuaded him to 
 leave Tarquinii, and betake himself to 
 Rome, where, as in a new state, a new 
 citizen might attain to power and ho- 
 nour. He set out therefore with his 
 household and a large train of fol- 
 lowers. He rode in a chariot with his 
 wife, and when they had reached the Ja- 
 niculum, and were now in sight of Rome, 
 an eagle, hovering over them, stooped 
 and bore away his cap, and after car- 
 rying it to a great height, placed it again 
 upon his head. Tanaquil, who was 
 skilled in the Tuscan science of augury, 
 joyfully embraced her husband, and 
 bade him from this omen hope for the 
 highest fortune. He was received as a 
 citizen of Rome, and took a new name, 
 after the Roman fashion, Lucius Tar- 
 quinius. The rights of citizenship were 
 extended also to his followers.* Tar 
 quinius himself, by his genius and 
 superior education, and by the liberal 
 and dexterous use of his wealth, com- 
 mended himself to king Ancus, and was 
 greatly trusted by him ; till at last, in 
 course of time, he seemed almost his 
 partner in the government of the king- 
 dom. At the same time, by his courtesy 
 and kindness, and his readiness to use 
 his wealth and power for the service of 
 all who needed his help, he secured the 
 gratitude of many, and gained the good 
 will and good report of all ; nor were 
 exploits in war wanting to his fame.-(' 
 Thus upon the death of Ancus he was 
 chosen king by the voice of the whole 
 people; and then, according to custom, 
 proposed and carried through the law 
 which endowed him with kingly power. J 
 The Latin States thought themselves 
 no longer bound by the treaty which 
 they had made with Ancus Marcius, and 
 l)egan to harass the Roman lands. 
 Tarquinius led an army against them, 
 took and destroyed Apiolse, a wealthy 
 town, and carried off a great booty. In 
 the course of his wars with the Latin 
 
 * DioQ. ill. 48. j Dion. iii. 39, 40. 
 
 t Cic. R. P. ii. 20. 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 nation, he became master of the ancient 
 city of Cameria and of Crustumerium, 
 both, according to tradition, towns 
 which had lieen taken by Romulus, and 
 in which Roman settlers had been 
 placed, but which were now a^ain 
 Latin. He once more took Medullia, 
 wliich had been reduced by Ancus ; and 
 Araeriola, Ficulnea, Corniculum, and 
 Nomentum. Passing beyond the 
 bounds of Latium, he carried war against 
 the fierce nation oT'the yEqui, and over- 
 came them. * But of all his wars the 
 most famous is the war with the Sabines. 
 The Sabines made common cause with 
 the Latins, and while the Roman force 
 was engaged elsewhere, they suddenly 
 crossed the Anio, ravaged the fields up 
 to the walls of Rome, and were hardly 
 driven back after a doubtful battle. In 
 another year they again passed the 
 Anio, throwing a bridge of boats over 
 the river a little above the point where 
 it falls into the Tiber, and pitched their 
 camp upon the nearer bank. Tar- 
 quinius led his army against them ; the 
 Sabines met him in the open field, and 
 at the first shock forced the infantry in 
 the centre of the Roman line to give 
 ground, but the cavalry, closing upon 
 them from the wings, not only checked 
 them, but drove them back. Their 
 alarm was heightened by their suddenly 
 seeing their bridge blazing behind them. 
 Tarquinius, from the higher part of the 
 river, had sent boats and rafts filled 
 with pitch and lighted faggots floating 
 down the stream. The Sabmes were thus 
 thrown into confusion, and fled; the 
 Roman horse pressed hard upon them: 
 a few escaped to the mountains ; the 
 greater part were driven into the river, 
 and perished in attempting to pass it. 
 Their arms floating down the current 
 of the Tiber made known the victory at 
 Rome. Even the remnant who escaped 
 the perilous ford were cut off by a force 
 which Tarquinius had before sent across 
 the Anio further up. The prisoners 
 and the recovered plunder he sent away 
 to Rome ; the spoUs of the enemy he 
 had vowed to Vulcan, and so gathered 
 them into a great heap, and burned 
 them. He then crossed the river with his 
 whole army, and entered the enemy's 
 territory'. The routed Sabines, as they 
 had no time for better measures, 
 met him with such troops as they could 
 bring together, were again defeated, and 
 so forced to sue for peace. They sur- 
 
 * Cic. R. p. U. 20 ; Strabo T. 3. 4. 
 
 rendered to the Romans the town and 
 territory of Collatia, on the South of the 
 Anio, which, it seems, they had wrested 
 from the Latins. Tarquinius placed 
 there a strong garrison, and gave tlie 
 whole as an apanage to Egerius Tarqui- 
 nius, his brother's son, who, with his 
 family, took thence the surname of 
 Collatinus. In this wai- the king's son, 
 a youth of fourteen, slew a foe with his 
 own hand, and received as an honourable 
 reward a robe bordered with purple, and 
 a hollow ball of gold to be worn about 
 the neck : and these remained, in after 
 times, the dress and ornament of noble 
 youths, till they took the manly gown. 
 Also in this war Tarquinius vowed the 
 building of the capitol, a temple of the 
 threefold divinity of Jupiter, Juno, and 
 Minerva. 
 
 It was told likewise, though the tra- 
 dition was not commonly received by 
 Roman writers, how Tarquinius warred 
 against the Tuscans; first against the 
 people of Glusium, Arretium, Volaterra, 
 Ruseilse, and Vetulonia ; then with the 
 Veientes, with whom, like Romulus, he 
 contested the possession of Fidenae ; 
 and lastly with all their twelve cities : 
 how he overcame them all ; and received 
 as tokens of their submission, the gift 
 of a golden crown, an ivory throne and 
 sceptre, a purple tunic and robe figured 
 with gold, and twelve axes bound up in 
 bundles of rods to be borne before him, 
 such as the Tuscans used, when their 
 twelve cities chose a common chief in 
 war ; and how by the permission of the 
 senate and people he took to himself 
 these badges of kingly power, which 
 passed to the kings that came after him, 
 and, saving the crown, to the consuls 
 under the republic : but these last wore 
 the embroidered robe only in the so- 
 lemnity of a triumph.* 
 
 Such were the exploits of Tarquinius 
 in war. Rut his deeds of peace, the 
 changes' which he made in the consti- 
 tution of the state, and his public works, 
 are still more worthy of notice. As 
 soon as he was made king, he added a 
 hundred senators to the ancient senate. 
 These new senators were called Fathers 
 of the Lesser Houses (Patres Minorum 
 Grentium); and the old senators. 
 Fathers of the Greater Houses (Majo- 
 rum Gentium). t He wished to add 
 to the centuries of knights established 
 by Romulus three new centuries, and 
 to call them after his own name, and by 
 
 * Dion. iii. cc. 57, 59, Gl. 
 t Liv. i. 3a. Cic )i. J». ii. 20. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 19 
 
 other new titles. In this purpose he 
 was withstood by the augur Attus 
 Navius, who affirmed that what had 
 been ordained with augury could not be 
 changed without augury. Marvellous 
 legends were handed down by the an- 
 cient writers of the skill of Attus Navius 
 in his art. When he was a boy, he fed 
 his father's swine ; and having lost one 
 of his herd, he vowed to the gods, if he 
 should find it again, the largest cluster 
 in the vineyard. He found the swine, 
 and in order to fulfil his vow, he placed 
 himself in the middle of the vineyard 
 with his face to the south, and with a 
 lituus, or crooked staff, divided the 
 vineyard into four parts : the birds gave 
 signs against three of the parts ; and in 
 the fourth part, which remained, he 
 found^the object of his pious search, a 
 cluster of wonderful size.* The fame of 
 his skill spread abroad ; his neighbours 
 consulted him, and at last he became an 
 augur of great name at Rome. When 
 he opposed himself to the purpose of 
 Tarquinius, the king, in mockery of his 
 art, asked him in the presence of the 
 assembled people, whether what he was 
 then thinking of could be done. The 
 augur observed the birds, and answered 
 that it could. Then the king said, " I 
 was thinking whether you could cut 
 this whetstone in sunder with a razor," 
 Forthwith the augur took the whetstone, 
 and cut it in sunder with the razor. The 
 whetstone and razor were buried where 
 the marvel took place, in the Comitium, 
 or place of meeting of the Curiae, on the 
 left of the Senate-House; and a sacred 
 covering put over them ; and afterwards 
 a statue of Navius with the head veiled 
 was placed by the same spot. The king 
 was forced to yield to the augur, at least 
 in part ; and he did nothing more than 
 add to each of the former centuries a 
 second or latter century under the same 
 name. He added two to the four Vestal 
 Virgins ; and it is said that under his 
 reign a vestal first suffered the punish- 
 ment assigned to the loss of chastity .t 
 His pubhc works bore lasting witness 
 of. his power and wealth. He built the 
 vast sewers, vaulted with a threefold 
 circle of blocks of hewn-stone,J by 
 which the lower parts of the city, and 
 the swamps between the hills, were 
 drained into the Tiber ; a work which 
 still remains with not a stone displaced, 
 amidst all the magnificence of the later 
 ages of Rome, as much a wonder now 
 
 Cic. de Div. i. 17. i See p. 13. 
 
 i Niebulir, p. 337. 
 
 as in the days of Augustus.* The quay 
 by which the Tiber is banked, and 
 through which the sewer opens into it, 
 must plainly have been raised at the 
 same tirae.t On the ground thus made 
 soUd he laid out the Circus Maximus, 
 or Great Ring, for the display of what 
 were called the Great or Roman Games, 
 (Ludi Magni Romani, or Circenses,) in 
 honour of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, 
 which from his time continued to be 
 celebrated every year in September.^ 
 The ranges of seats were portioned into 
 thirty parts, and each part given to a 
 Curia ;§ so that the senators and 
 knights II all beheld the games and 
 spectacles from their own places. The 
 booty of Apiolae is said to have fur- 
 nished the wealth for this building. The 
 games exhibited were chariot-races and 
 boxing : those who took part in them 
 were hirelings from Etruria : the proud 
 Romans were only spectators. The Fo- 
 rum also with its rows of shops was the 
 work of Tarquinius : and he began to 
 surround the city with a wall of massy 
 hewn stones. He made preparations to 
 fulfil his vow in building the Capitoline 
 Temple. This vow, however, was at last 
 accomplished by his son: and indeed, 
 the traditions vary in assigning all these 
 gigantic works, sometimes to the father, 
 sometimes to the son. It may be ob- 
 served here, that the father is dis- 
 tinguished from the son by the sur- 
 name of Prisons, or the Elder. 
 
 Tarquin was treacherously slain in 
 his old age by the contrivance of the 
 sons of Ancus Marcius. Two country 
 fellows, set on by them, feigned a quarrel, 
 and came before the king, as if to have 
 their strife righted ; and while he was 
 listening to the complaint of one, the 
 other smote him with an axe, and both 
 fled away. 
 
 § 10. The Marcii however did not 
 reap the fruit which they hoped from 
 their crime. The kingdom passed not 
 to them, but to a stranger, Servius 
 TuUius. It is said, that his mother was 
 a slave from Tarquinii; his father, a 
 client of the king : the boy was brought 
 up in the palace with the other house- 
 hold slaves, and waited at the royal 
 board. Here his readiness in serving 
 and quickness of mind in answering 
 caught the notice of the king, and he 
 was trained in more liberal nurture, and 
 advanced to trust and honour.1[ But 
 
 * Dion. i. 67. Liv. i, 66. f Niebuhr, ii 
 
 t Liv. i. 35. Cic. R. P. ii. 20, and Mai's uote. 
 
 I Diou. iii. 68. || Livy i. 35. 
 
 f Cic.B. P.ii.iJl. 
 
 C 2 
 
20 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 there was handed down also a le.2:end 
 more wondrous. His mother Ocrisia, 
 a captive and a slave, was oHerina: 
 cakes to the Lar, or household i^od, and 
 saw in the fire on the earth the appa- 
 rition of the deity. Tanaquil inter- 
 preted the portent ; and by her com- 
 mand Ocrisia arrayed herself as a bride, 
 shut herself in the chamber, and be- 
 came pregnant by the god.* She died 
 before her time; but the infant was 
 taken from her womb.t and bred up 
 by Tanaquil. Another prodigy marked 
 the boy to be born to great things. He 
 was sleeping at mid-day in the porch of 
 the palace, and his head was seen to be 
 surrounded with flames, which played 
 about him without harming him, till he 
 awoke, and then the fire vanished. 
 Such were the marvels of his birth and 
 early hfe ; and the visible favour of the 
 gods did not desert him at a later age. 
 The Goddess of Fortune loved him, and 
 visited him secretly :| and after his death 
 his image was placed in her temple; 
 and remained unhurt, when the temple 
 itself was burned.§ This old image, 
 made of wood and gilt, was an object of 
 reverence even in the time of the empe- 
 rors. || Servius had been trusted by 
 Tarquin, and placed in high rank, and 
 had made himself eminent by his courage 
 in battle. The king's sons were but 
 young children. So when Tarquin had 
 received his death blow, Tanaquil took 
 speedy counsel with Servius; then 
 opened a window, and told the people 
 below, who were crowding round the 
 palace, " that the king was not slain ; 
 that his wound would be healed in a few 
 days, and that in the mean time he com- 
 manded Servius to discharge the duties 
 of his kingly office." The people heard 
 these tidings gladly ; and Servius forth- 
 with began to act as king. The mur- 
 derers were seized and punished ; and 
 the March fled. When the death of 
 Tarquinius could be hidden no longer, 
 Servius Tullius was already in pos- 
 session of the kingly power. Without 
 suffering the senate to name an In- 
 terrex, he offered himself to the people 
 assembled in their Curiae, and was en- 
 dowed by them with ail the powers of 
 the former kings. 
 
 Servius was engaged in a war, first 
 with the Veii, then with Caere and Tar- 
 quinii, and the other Etruscan states ; 
 in which he defeated the Etruscans,"i[ 
 
 * Dion. iv. 1. Ov. Fast. vi. 627, &c.i 
 f Val. Max. 1. x. t Ov. Fast. vi. 5/7, &c. 
 i lb. V. 625. g Dion. iv. 40. 
 
 5 Cic,R.P.ii.21. 
 
 and forced the Veientcs to give up a 
 portion of their territory.* 
 
 But the great deeds of Servius were 
 deeds of peace. His triumphs were re- 
 gistered in the Fasti ;t whether truly or 
 falsely mattered not: but the memoi7 
 of his righteous works was long a living 
 principle in the hearts of the grateful 
 commonalty (Plebs), to whom he gave 
 a' being in the state, and for whose 
 welfare he laboured even to the co.st of 
 his own Hfe. The full explanation of 
 the constitution which he established 
 must be reserved for another place ; but 
 here we may survey the broad outline of 
 his institutions, and collect the traditions 
 that lived in the mouths of the people. 
 First, however, it should be told how he 
 extended and carried forward the Po- 
 moerium, or hallowed boundary of the 
 city.t so as to include within its compass 
 not only the Quirinal but the Viminal, 
 the next hill towards the East. He 
 finished the work which Tarquinius had 
 begun, by building the walls of the city 
 of hewn stone ; and where the hills in 
 his new quarter sloped gently to the 
 plain, he fenced them by a gigantic 
 mound, and a moat from which the 
 earth of the mound was dug. He en- 
 couraged the increasing population of 
 the city to build on the Esquiline hill, 
 between the Viminal and the Caelian, 
 and himself placed his dwelling there. 
 The valley which lay between the Esqui- 
 Une and the Viminal, and which was 
 commanded by those heights, he as- 
 signed for the residence of the Patri- 
 cians, and there was formed the Vicus 
 Patricius, or Patrician Street.^ 
 
 His distrust of the Patricians was the 
 result of the jealousy with which they 
 regarded his beneficent acts in favour of 
 the commonalty, and the; importance 
 which he gave to (hat estate. From his 
 private wealth he discharged the debts 
 by which many of the lower order were 
 weighed ' down : || and whereas the 
 creditor had the power of seizing his 
 insolvent debtor and reducing him to 
 slavery, it is repoi-ted that Tullius took 
 away this right over the persons of free 
 
 * Dion. iv. 27. 
 
 t Fasti were registers of diflferert Idnds. There 
 were Fasti Calendarcs, or Calendars, in which the 
 remarkable days of the year were noted ; Fasti of 
 the Magistrates j which contained the records of 
 their succession from year to year; and Fasti 
 Triumphales, which were a list of the Triumphs, 
 
 ♦ See p. 8. The Pomocrium was properly a 
 consecrated space on each side of llie wall. The 
 space without might not be tilled ; the space 
 within might not be built upon. Liv. i.44. 
 
 § Festus. 
 
 I Cic.B.P.il.21. Dlon.iv.9. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 21 
 
 men, and restricted the creditor to a 
 seizure of the snoods.* If Servius 
 Tullius really achieved this step in the 
 progress of liberty, it was lost in the 
 revolution which followed his death, and 
 was not recovered till after many years. 
 But it is probable that the traditions of 
 the commonalty ascribed to him indis- 
 criminately the conception of all the 
 rights for which they afterwards con- 
 tended. With greater semblance of 
 truth he is said to have apportioned to 
 Ihem the lands which he gained in his 
 Etruscan war. He appointed judges to 
 decide all private suits of the commons, 
 and reserved for his own hearing only 
 public causes.f He divided the whole 
 Roman territory into districts or tribes.$ 
 Four of these were contained in the city : 
 the number of the country tribes was 
 less certainly known, but the oldest 
 authority makes it twenty-six :§ so that 
 there were thirty in all. Over each 
 tribe a mas^istrate was appointed, and in 
 each district a hill was chosen as a 
 place of refuge and stronghold for the 
 peasantry and their cattle in time of war. 
 These hill forts, which were called Pagi, 
 were placed under the protection of 
 the tutelary gods, to whom altars were 
 there raised, and in whose honour a 
 yearly festival was celebrated, which was 
 called the Paganalia. This division 
 into tribes, the union of all the members 
 of the same tribe, and the giving them 
 a head and representative in the person 
 of their proper magistrate, after a time 
 produced consequences, which affected 
 the whole course of Roman affairs, but 
 which must have been far beyond the 
 foresight of Tullius. The institution 
 which he called into immediate action, 
 and the sensible change which he made 
 in the constitution of the state, were of 
 a different character. He caused a 
 census, or register, to be made of the 
 property of each of the citizens ; and 
 then, after first distinguishing the 
 knights, in which body were included all 
 the Patricians and the noblest and 
 wealthiest of the commonalty, he divided 
 the great bulk of the rest of the people 
 mto five classes according to their 
 wealth. These classes were again di- 
 vided into centuries ; and in this di- 
 vision lay thepecuhar force of the whole 
 arrangement. A century was not made 
 of a fixed number of men. In the first 
 place, in each class an equal number of 
 centuries was composed of those within 
 
 * Dion. iv. 9. t Dion. iv. 25. t Dion. iv. 1.5. 
 
 the age of military service, and of those 
 beyond it, and of course the centuries 
 of the older men must have contained 
 by much the smaller number. Again, 
 the centuries of the richest class were 
 more in number than those of any 
 other, and, consequently, must have 
 been formed of fewer persons. A few 
 centuries, not included in any class, were " 
 added below all, in which the poorest of 
 the people were distributed, and these 
 were probably the most crowded. When 
 the people were called together ac- 
 cording to these classes and centuries, 
 (an assembly which was named the 
 Coraitia Centuriata), the votes of each 
 century, from the highest downwards, 
 were taken within itself, and the votes 
 of the greater number of centuries 
 decided a matter. It followed that in 
 this assembly greater importance was 
 given to greater wealth, and among men 
 of the same degree of wealth to the 
 greater age. In the Comitia Cuiiata* 
 any difference in the numbers of each 
 curia was accidental, not designed, and 
 consequently the vote of each person 
 who had a right to be present was consi- 
 dered of the same value. It may be 
 easily conceived, however, that after the 
 quick and great growth of the State, the 
 ancient divisions of the Curiae might 
 comprise only a small portion of the 
 whole people, and that, in consequence, 
 the institution of the Comitia Centuriata, 
 instead of being an encroachment on 
 popular liberty, might extend powers 
 and rights to many who had not before 
 possessed them. The Comitia Centu- 
 riata were a military institution. Levies 
 were to be made according to the classes 
 and centuries, and to each class were 
 prescribed the arms and the armour with 
 which they were to equip themselves. 
 The people appeared in the Comitia 
 under arms, and in the regular array of 
 an army,t and for this cause they 
 were always holden without the walls, 
 for within the walls the Romans 
 were citizens, not soldiers. The usual 
 place of meeting was the Campus 
 Martins, or Field of Mars, a wide plain 
 between the QuirinalHill and the Tiber. 
 During the time of meeting a guard was 
 posted on the hill of the Janiculum, to 
 give notice of the approach of an enemy, 
 and the lowering the standard on the 
 Janiculum was a signal of danger, which 
 always broke up the Comitia. These and 
 similar observances remained as solemn 
 ceremonies, long after their truth and 
 
 i^iv^u. iv. if. J uiQii. IV. -^t}. t Dion. iv. 1.5. 
 
 Fabius in Dion. See Nieb. p. 359, note 90d. * See p. 11. f See Liv. xxxix. 15. Dion. iv. 84. 
 
22 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 reality had passed away. The mads- 
 trate who held the ('omitia took the 
 auspices when he passed the Pomoerium, 
 as ir poinjr to the command of an army,* 
 and on the frround itself he observed 
 the auspices from a tabernaculum, or 
 military tent. However, to return to 
 the first institution of the Comitia, 
 Servius Tullius, when the Census was 
 completed, ordered his whole people to 
 appear in the Field of Mars in arms, 
 and arrayed in their proper order ; and 
 ^.^hp^f pprjfiptlihpm by the sacriliee of a 
 swine, a sliaap^ and a bijlL a solemn 
 rite, m which these victims were led 
 thrice round the whole army, and then 
 slain, f This rite was repeated (lustrum 
 conditum), whenever the census was 
 renewed, except when the state was 
 supposed to lie under evident tokens of 
 divine displeasure.J At this first census 
 it was reported by the old annalists, on 
 the authority of the records, that there 
 were re2;istered 84,700 armed men.§ 
 
 The fatherly care of Servius was be- 
 lieved to have extended even to the 
 lowest of his subjects ; and he is said to 
 have provided for the enrolment of freed 
 men, or liberated slaves, both in the 
 centuries and the tribes, and to have 
 ap])eased the Patricians, who were in- 
 dij^nant at this debasement of the fran- 
 chises of the state, by sanctionino; the 
 attachment of the freedmen and their 
 descendants as clients to the houses of 
 their former masters. || Even the slaves 
 remembered him as a benefactor ; at the 
 cross ways and streets (compita) he 
 caused shrines or chapels to be raised to 
 the public lares, or tutelary spirits, 
 and he ordained a yearly festival in their 
 honour, which was called the Com- 
 pitalia, and celebrated by the slaves 
 alone. The Compitalia were usually 
 held at the very beginning of the year,^ 
 soon after the Saturnalia which were 
 observed at the end of the year. At the 
 SatumaUa the slaves enjoyed the licence 
 of freemen in their master's houses ; in 
 the Compitalia they were treated as free 
 men by the state: and this acknow- 
 ledgment of their common condition as 
 men, brief as it was, lightened the bur- 
 then of their servitude.'** 
 
 Servius Tullius not only strengthened 
 his people by his internal regulations, 
 but placed them in a commanding station 
 in the midst of the neighbouring tribes. 
 
 * Clc. de Nat. Deor. il. 4. 
 
 t Suovetaurilia, Dion. iv. 22. 
 
 X Liv. iii. 22. § Liv. i. 44. Dion. iv. 22. 
 
 1 Dion. iv. 22, 23. f Clc. in Vlson. 
 
 •• Dion. iv. 14. 
 
 Rome was now at peace with the inde- 
 pendent Latin towns who held their 
 meetings at the fountain of Ferentina, 
 at the foot of the Alban Mount;* but 
 was not allied with them in any league. 
 Servius brought about such a league, 
 and the acknowledgment of the supe- 
 riority of Home. Amongst the ancient 
 nations leagues of this kind were always 
 accompanied with common religious rites 
 as their outward pledge. A temple of 
 Diana, or the Moon, common to the 
 Romans and Latins, was built upon the 
 Aventine Hill,t Vvhich was not included 
 within the Pomoerium ;t and this was 
 the place of their solemn religious meet- 
 ings. A brazen pillar, on which were 
 engraven the terms of the treaty and the 
 names of the states which were mem- 
 bers of the league, was set up in tlie 
 temple, and was standing in the age of 
 Augustus.^S It appears that the Sabines 
 also shared in the rites of this temple. 
 A Sabine husbandman had a cow of 
 unusual size and beauty. Soothsayers 
 foretold that empire should belong to 
 that people, one of whose citizens should 
 sacrifice this cow to the Aventine 
 Diana.|| The Sabine drove his cow to 
 Rome ; but when he brought it before 
 the altar, the crafty Roman priest re- 
 buked him for coming to sacrifice with 
 unwashen hands. The Sabine, careful 
 to perform the rite with all religious so- 
 lemnity, went dowh to the Tiber, and 
 while he was away, the Roman sacri- 
 ficed the cow. The gigantic horns were 
 fixed up for many ages as a memorial 
 in the vestibule of the temple . 
 
 Servius had given his two daughters 
 in marriage to the two sons of Tar- 
 quinius. Each was coupled with an 
 unlike mate. Lucius Tarquinius, the 
 elder, who was of a proud and violent 
 temper, had a meek and gentle wife: 
 Aruns, the younger, who was quiet and 
 unambitious, was wedded to an aspiring 
 and restless woman. The fiercer hus- 
 band and wife were soon weary of the 
 milder wife and husband. Their like- 
 ness of temper brought them together ; 
 and the wife of Aruns stirred up the hus- 
 band of her sister to deeds more wicked 
 than had yet entered into his heart. 
 The house of each was made empty by 
 sudden death : the husband and the wife, 
 the brother and the sister, were borne 
 forth to burial: and the living were 
 joined in unhallowed wedlock. Tana- 
 
 * Liv. i. 50. 
 t Dion. iv. 26, App. B. C. i, 26. 
 t Aul. Cell. xiii. 14, from Valer. Messala. 
 i Dion. ib. II Val Max. vii. 3. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 2i3 
 
 quil lived lon^ enough to mourn for her 
 
 younger son.* 
 
 The guilty pair hurried onward in 
 their course of crime. Tarquinius eagerly 
 desired the kingdom ; and Tullia suffered 
 him not to wait for the death of her 
 father. It is said that his attempt was 
 hastened by the belief that Servius had 
 in his mind a plan for laying down the 
 kingly power, and intrusting the state 
 to two popular magistrates.t The Patri- 
 cians were very jealous and angry at the 
 acts of Servius in behalf of the com- 
 monalty, and above all, at his dividing 
 the conquered lands among them. Tar- 
 quinius courted their favour, and made 
 himself a faction among the most vio- 
 lent ; and when he judged that his time 
 was come, he entered the forum with a 
 band of armed friends, seated himself in 
 the royal chair in the Senate house, and 
 ordered the senators to be summoned to 
 the presence of king Tarquinius. Many 
 obeyed, being partners in his plot ; many 
 through wonder and fear. Servius Tul- 
 lius heard the rumour, and came in 
 haste with few in his company. Tar- 
 quinius was haranguing when Servius 
 entered. Servius bade him come down 
 from the throne. Tarquinius sprang 
 forward, seized the old man, bore him 
 forth, and flung him down the steps of 
 the Senate house. Discomfited and 
 bleeding, the King was hastening home- 
 ward, when men sent by Tarquinius 
 overtook him and slew him. Tullia rode 
 in her chariot to the Senate house, called 
 her husband out, and was the first to 
 salute him King. He bade her be g6ne 
 from such a tumult: and as she was 
 going back, her charioteer stopped, and 
 pointed out to her the dead body of her 
 father lying across the road. She bade 
 him drive on : the blood of her father 
 was sprinkled on her chariot and on her 
 garment ; and from that day that street 
 was called the Wicked Street. The body 
 lay unburied ; for Tarquinius said scof- 
 fingly, that Romulus also had died with- 
 out burial. Once thereafter, when TuUia 
 dared to enter the temple of Fortune, 
 where the image of her father was placed, 
 the image covered its eyes, and a voice 
 was heard, commanding its face to be 
 shrouded from the hateful sight; and 
 ever after the face of the statue was 
 veiled.$ Another tradition said, that it 
 was so veiled lest the people should be 
 roused by the sight of the beloved fea- 
 tures to rise against his murderers. § 
 
 * Fabius, in Dion. iv. 30. f Liv. i. 48 and 60, 
 t Ovid Fast. vi. 611, &c. § lb. v. 581. 
 
 The memory of Servius Tullius was long 
 cherished by the commonalty, while they 
 suffered under oppressors who sought 
 to undo all that he had done for them. 
 It was remembered that he was born on 
 the nones of some month: the month 
 was forgotten: but his birth-day was 
 celebrated on all the nones by the country 
 people who then came in to the market ; 
 till the Senate, in fear, forbade the mar- 
 kets to be holden on the nones.* 
 
 $11. Tarquinius seized the kingdom 
 as a recovered inheritance, without any 
 of the forms of election. As the patri- 
 cians had joined in conspiracy against 
 Servius Tullius through discontent at the 
 favour which he had shewn to the com- 
 monalty, the first act of the government 
 of Tarquinius was to repeal the privileges 
 of that rising portion of the people. He 
 forbade the meetings of the tribes and 
 the common sacrifices of the Pagi. He 
 removed the judges whom Servius had 
 established, and himself took cognizance 
 of all suits and causes. He abolished 
 the laws which did away the custom of 
 pledging or seizing the person for debt, 
 and even destroyed the boards on which 
 these and the other popular enactments 
 of Servius were graven, t He let the 
 institution of the centuries fall into dis- 
 use, except so far as it was the way of 
 embodying the army.J The lower order 
 suffered first ; but the Patricians soon 
 found that they had set up a tyrant over 
 themselves as well as over the commons. 
 He put to death those whom he believed 
 to have been attached to Servius and to 
 regret his death. He surrounded him- 
 self with a body-guard ; and, thus armed, 
 he scrupled not, under colour of justice, 
 by means of false accusations, to fine, to 
 banish, or to put to death, those whom 
 he distrusted, or whose wealth he wished 
 to make his own. Their confiscated 
 property swelled his treasures, or pur- 
 chased for him new retainers. The 
 Senate, thus thinned and weakened and 
 cowed, he seldom called together; but 
 took upon himself to make war and 
 peace, and treaties and leagues, without 
 consulting the Senate or the people. He 
 sought to strengthen his government at 
 home by extending his influence abroad ; 
 and grievous as his rule was to his own 
 citizens, he certainly raised the state to a 
 high pitch of power among the surround- 
 
 * Macrob, Saturn, i. 13. The nones were the 
 5th or 7th day of the month. A full explanation 
 of the Roman calendar will be given hereafter. 
 
 t Dion. iv. 43. 
 
 t With Dion, ibid, compare Livy,i. 53. 
 
24 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ing nations. He gave his daughter in 
 raarria^e to Octavius Mamiliiis of Tus- 
 culum, the noblest and most powerful of 
 tlie Latin chiefs ; and by war*, or by 
 intris;ues,t he forced or persuaded all 
 Latiuni to allow the supremacy of Rome 
 in their federal league. Turnus Herdo- 
 nius of Aricia withstood his ambitious 
 policy. Tarquinius had required a meet- 
 ing of the Latin chiefs at the grove of 
 Ferentina. They came at day-break : 
 he himself came not till a little before 
 sunset Herdonius had inveighed against 
 this haughty bearing; and when Tar- 
 quinius made his excuse, that he had 
 been detained in determining a dispute 
 between a father and his son, and bring- 
 ing them to an agreement, Herdonius 
 suffered not this defence to pass without 
 remark. " No question," he said, " could 
 be shorter, or needed fewer words, than 
 one between a father and his son ; un- 
 less the son were ready to do his father's 
 bidding, it should be bad luck for him." 
 Tarquinius made up his mind to put this 
 dangerous man out of his way. He 
 bribed slaves to convey a store of arms 
 into his lodging by night, and the next 
 morning charged Herdonius with a plot 
 for murdering the assembled chiefs. The 
 arms were found: Herdonius was 
 doomed unheard, and drowned in the 
 fountain of Ferentina. No further op- 
 position was offered to the proposals of 
 Tarcjuinius. Rome was acknowledged 
 as the head of the Latin league. Tar- 
 quinius raised a temple to Jupiter Latiaris 
 on the brow of the Alban Hill ; and 
 thenceforward, at the solemn meeting of 
 the cantons of Latium,;[: the Roman King 
 sacrificed the bull, the common victim, 
 and distributed the flesh to the peoples 
 of the league. Forty-seven cities re- 
 ceived their portions.^S The union of 
 Latiura with Rome was effected so tho- 
 roughly, that in the enrolment of the 
 army their forces were not kept sepa- 
 rate, but a division of men from one 
 nation was combined with a division 
 from the other. The Hernici afterwards 
 became members of this confederacy. 
 
 One Latin city, Gabii, either refused 
 to enter into the league, or afterwards 
 revolted from it. After a hard struggle 
 the Gabines were forced to yield. The 
 terms of the treaty made with them 
 were written on the skin of the bull 
 slain at the making of it, which was 
 stretched for this purpose on a wooden 
 shield. This ancient monument was 
 
 • Cic. R. p. ii. 24. 
 t Ferise Latinse. 
 
 t Livy and Dionys. 
 J Dion. iv. 49. 
 
 preserved to later ages in the temple of 
 Sancus, or Dins Fidius.* 
 
 Strengthened by the Latin alliance, 
 Tarquinius attacked the Volsci, and 
 took from them the rich town of Suessa 
 Pometia. Immediately he was called 
 away to meet an assault of the Sabines, 
 who had come down in two bands into 
 the Roman territory. One he defeated 
 at Eretum, and then marched against 
 the others, who were posted at Fidenae. 
 They learnt the overthrow of their com- 
 rades by seeing the Romans carrying 
 the heads of their leaders fixed on 
 spears; were struck A^'ilh terror, and 
 yielded themselves to the conqueror.t 
 
 The Roman share of the booty of 
 Suessa Pometia amounted to forty thou- 
 sand pounds, or four hundred talents of 
 silver, the tithe of which, forty talents, 
 was reserved for the king.$ With this 
 wealth he resolved to fulfil the vow 
 made by his father in his Sabine war, 
 and to build a temple to Jupiter, Juno, 
 and Minerva.^ The ground chosen for 
 it was one || of the two summits of the 
 hill, called in old times the Saturnian 
 Hill, afterwards the Tarpeian ; but 
 henceforward, from this temple, which 
 was called the Capitol, the hill took the 
 name of the Capitoline Hill. An older 
 temple of the same name, and dedicated 
 to the same deities, had been built by 
 Numa on the Quirinal.<[[ The site 
 selected by Tarquinius was occupied by 
 many altars and shrines, consecrated 
 by Tatius** and the Sabines. The first 
 care of Tarquinius was to cause the 
 augurs to consult the auguries whether 
 the deities, to whom these were sacred, 
 would jyield their place to Jupiter, and 
 Juno, and Minerva. The auguries al- 
 lowed the removal of all, except the 
 shrines of Terminus and Youth :•!-{• and 
 this announcement was received as a 
 most happy omen, that the boundaries 
 of the Roman land should never go 
 back, and that the state should be for 
 ever young.. To make a flat space large 
 enough for the building, the rugged 
 peaks of the hill were levelled, a wall 
 raised from some depth below the top, 
 
 * Dion. iv. 58. i Dion. iv. 52. 
 
 t Livy i. 53 & 55, (MSS. have quudragintu, not 
 quadringenta), from Fabius. " The tithe," Dion, 
 iv. 50. 
 
 § See p. 18. 
 
 II On one summit was the Capitol, on the other 
 the Arx or Citadel. There is a doubt concerning; 
 tlieir respective sites. Niebuhr places the Capitol 
 on the lower gummit, nearer the Tiber, (vol. i. 
 p. 440), Nardini the Arx. — (Cramer's Italy, vol. i. 
 pp. 424—5.) 
 
 Ii Varr. v. 8. Val. Max. iv. 4, 11. 
 
 •» Liv. i. 55. it Dion. iii. 69. Li v. v. 5-1. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME 
 
 
 f/r."^.'M 
 
 > 
 
 and the hollow thus made filled up. In 
 the digging for the foundations a strange 
 portent showed itself; a fresh human 
 head was found beneath the earth ; and 
 Etruscan soothsayers expounded, that 
 this place should be the head of a great 
 empire. The temple was raised upon a 
 platform, and was in length a little more 
 than two hundred feet, in breadth a 
 little less. The temple, which was built 
 upon the same foundations after the first 
 temple was burned (a. u. c. G70), and 
 which differed from the ancient structure 
 only by the greater costliness of the 
 materials,* was adorned with three rows 
 of pillars on the southern front, with a 
 double row on each side. The three 
 shrines were placed side by side, beneath 
 the same roof; that of Jupiter in the 
 midst, those of Juno and Minerva on 
 each hand. The hallowed spots of 
 Terminus and Youth were marked out ; 
 one before the chapel of Minerva, the 
 other in her very sanctuary. The spoil 
 of Suessa scarcely sufficed for the foun- 
 dations of this majestic edifice. The 
 completion and the dedication of it were 
 not destined to Tarquinius. Here were 
 laid up many of the sacred treasures of 
 Rome ; but the most awful and mysteri- 
 ous were the Sibylline books. A strange 
 woman presented herself before Tar- 
 quinius, bearing nine books, for which 
 she demanded a certain great price. 
 The king refused to give it. The woman 
 departed, and burned three, and de- 
 manded the same price for the six re- 
 maining books. The king again refused. 
 The woman departed, and burned three ; 
 and demanded the same prica for the 
 three remaining books. The king con- 
 sulted augurs, and bought the books, 
 and the woman was seen no more. Tar- 
 quinius gave the care of them to two 
 men of the highest rank, assisted by two 
 public slaves, or interpreters.-}' Their 
 contents were kept secret. One of their 
 guardians, who betrayed his trust, was 
 punished as a murderer of his father, 
 sewn into a leather sack, and cast into 
 the sea : J nor were they ever consulted 
 but by a decree of the senate, in seasons 
 of danger and distress. 
 
 Etruscan workmen were the chief 
 ])uilders of the Capitol ; but the king- 
 forced the commons also to labour as 
 his bondmen, dealing out to them, like 
 bondmen, a scanty dole of corn.§ The 
 people were less aggrieved by this task- 
 work, while they were building the great 
 
 ^h 
 
 %% 
 
 Ui. 
 
 * Dion. iv. 61. 
 t Diou. iv. 62. 
 
 t Zonaras. 
 § Dion. iv. 44. 
 
 temple of their gods; but ihey %orked ^ 
 with unwilling hands in completing the, 
 Circus and the large sewers of the city. 
 A portion of them he sent off to two 
 colonies, which he founded on the borders 
 of [the Volscian lands, to guard the ter- 
 ritory that he had gained in war. One 
 was the inland town of Signia; the 
 other on the Promontory of Circeii. He 
 made a peace with the ^Equi, a nation 
 akin to the Volsci ; and renewed the 
 league of the former kings with the 
 Etruscans. 
 
 Tarquinius was thus in the height of 
 power, when he was troubled by a 
 strange portent. A snake crawled out 
 from an altar in the palace ; the fire was 
 extinguished, and the reptile seized the 
 entrails of the victim.* The king in fear 
 sent ^his sons, Titus and Aruns, across 
 the sea to Delphi, with costly gifts, the 
 fruit of his spoils.t to consult the Pythian 
 orack. The priestess answered, that 
 the king would fall when a dog should 
 speak with man's voice.$ The young 
 princes had taken in their company their 
 cousin, Lucius Junius Brutus. The 
 sister of Tarquinius had been given in 
 marriage to Marcus Junius, and had 
 borne him sons. The elder brother had 
 been put to death, and Tarquinius had 
 seized his wealth. The younger son, 
 Lucius, to avoid the cruelty of his uncle, 
 feigned himself an idiot. He was kept 
 as a fool in the palace, and surnamed 
 Brutus, which means dull or stupid. He 
 had now offered to the Pythian god a 
 staff of cornel wood. The princes 
 laughed at his gift, but the staff was 
 hollow, and filled with gold. Titus and 
 Aruns, after performing the commands 
 of their father, asked the god which of 
 them should reign after him. The 
 priestess replied, w^hichsoever should 
 first kiss his mother. The princes agreed 
 to keep the matter secret from their 
 brother Sextus, who remained at Rome, 
 and to cast lots between themselves. 
 Brutus, in coming down the hill, fell, as 
 if by chance, and kissed the earth. 
 Other prodigies, moreover, filled the 
 king with doubt and fear. Eagles had 
 built their nest on a palm-tree in his 
 garden. While the eagles were away 
 seeking food, vultures came in a flock 
 and destroyed the nest and unfledged 
 eaglets, and beat oflp the eagles on their 
 return. 
 
 Soon after, king Tarquinius was 
 away from Rome, warring against Ardea 
 
 * Ov. Fast. ii. 711. f Cic. K. P. ii, 24. 
 
 t Zon.vii. 11. 
 
 ^^ 
 
2« 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 of the Ruiiili, a i-)eople on the coast of 
 Latium. He had blockaded the town, 
 and his army were encamped idly be- 
 neath the walls. It chanced one eveninj^ 
 that the younsr princes were feasting? 
 toffether with tneir kinsmen, Brutus,* 
 and Tarquinius Collatinus, the son of 
 Eg:erius, the nephew to whom the 
 first Tarquinius had given the lord- 
 ship of Coilatia. They talked of their 
 wives, each praising his own, but Col- 
 latinus commending his Lucretia above 
 all. Suddenly they resolved to see what 
 they were doing at that hour ; mounted 
 their horses, and rode off to Rome. 
 There they found the wives of the king's 
 sons entertaining other noble ladies with 
 a costly banquet. They rode on to Coi- 
 latia, though it was now late in the 
 nisfht, and there they found Lucretia 
 spinning by lamp-light in the midst of 
 her maids. They lodged at Coilatia 
 that night, and returned in the morning 
 to the camp. The beauty and womanly 
 virtue of Lucretia had fired Sextus Tar- 
 quinius with forbidden love. After a 
 few days he returned to Coilatia, and 
 was hospitably received by Lucretia as 
 the kinsman of her husband. In the 
 dead of the night he entered her cham- 
 ber with a drawn sword, and by force 
 and threats so worked on her that she 
 yielded herself to his will. In the morn- 
 ing he departed, and Lucretia sent for 
 her husband and her father. Collatinus 
 came from the camp in company with 
 Lucius Junius Brutus ; Lucretius from 
 the city with Publius Valerius. They 
 found Lucretia sitting on her bed, weep- 
 ing, and her tears gushed afresh at their 
 coming. She told what had befallen, 
 required of them the pledge of their 
 right hands, that they would avenge 
 her shame upon the ravisher, and then 
 stabbed herself with a knife which 
 she had hidden beneath the pillow. 
 The husband and the father cried out ; 
 but Brutus drew the knife from the 
 wound, and, holding it up, swore by the 
 blood of Lucretia that he would pursue 
 to the uttermost Tarquinius and all his 
 house, and thenceforward suffer no man 
 to be king in Rome. Then he passed 
 the knife to Collatinus, and then to Lu- 
 cretins and Valerius ; and at his bidding 
 they all took the same oath. Brutus 
 thus threw off his assumed stupidity, 
 and became at once the leader of their 
 enterprise. They carried out the corpse 
 of Lucretia into the market-place. The 
 
 * Diou. Cass. Frag. 
 
 strangeness of the sight drew the crowd 
 together. The atrocity of the crime, the 
 innocence of the victim, the grief of her 
 father, and the vehement exhortations of 
 Brutus roused their passions. The youth 
 of the place armed themselves. Part 
 remained to guard Coilatia ; part has- 
 tened, with their leaders, to Rome. The 
 entrance of this armed band threw the 
 people into alarm and tumult : the sight 
 of tne noble Romans at their head made 
 them deem not lightly of the cause of 
 their coming. The tale was told and 
 spread abroad. The people gathered 
 together, and were summoned to the 
 forum by Brutus, who held the office of 
 tribune of the Celeres, or captain of the 
 knights. There he spoke, not only of 
 the violence of Sextus Tarquinius, the 
 death of Lucretia, the bereavement of 
 her husband and her father, but of the 
 crimes by which Tarquinius had gained 
 the kingdom, and the tyranny with which 
 he had held it : and he aroused the peo- 
 ple so effectually, that by a solemn de- 
 cree they took away the power of the 
 king, and banished for ever Lucius Tar- 
 quinius and his wife and children. In 
 the midst of the tumult TuUia fled from 
 her house, men and women cursing her, 
 wherever she went, and calling down on 
 her head the avenging furies of her sis- 
 ter, her husband, her father. 
 
 Brutus armed a body of the younger 
 men, left the command of the city to 
 Lucretius, and set out himself for the 
 camp at Ardea. In the meantime tidings 
 from the city had been brought to the 
 camp, and Tarquinius had set out to 
 quell the rising. Brutus turned aside 
 from the road, so as to avoid meeting 
 him ; and when he reached the army, 
 the report of the outrage on Lucretia 
 roused the same temper as in the people 
 of the city. The commanders left in 
 charge by Tarquinius, Titus Herminius 
 and Marcus Horatius,* took part with 
 Brutus. The whole army confirmed the 
 resolutions of their fellow-countrymen 
 at home, made a truce for fifteen years 
 with the Ardeans, and marched to Rome. 
 At Rome the gates had been shut against 
 Tarquinius and his sons : now he found 
 that the army had deserted him ; and he 
 fled to Caere in Etruria. Thus ended 
 the reign of the second Tarquinius, who, 
 by the general character of his govern- 
 ment, but more especially by his scorn- 
 ful denial of burial to the body of 
 Servius Tullius f , earned from posterity 
 
 * Dion. iv. 85. 
 
 t Liv. 1.49. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 27 
 
 the surname of Superbus, or the 
 Proud. 
 
 § 12. This expulsion of the tyrant was 
 a common deliverance to all orders in 
 the state ; and all returned to the exer- 
 cise of their ancient rights. It chanced 
 that Spurius Lucretius had been left by 
 Tarquinius as prefect or governor of the 
 city,* when he went to the war against 
 Ardea. He was now named Interrex ;t 
 and summoned the people to their great 
 assembly, the Comitia Centuriata, to 
 elect magistrates for the commonwealth. 
 It is said that Servius Tullius, in the 
 commentaries which contained his plans 
 for the better ordering of the state, had 
 devised a mode of government bv two 
 chief magistrates, who should be chosen 
 year by year. This form of government 
 the senate and people now agreed to set 
 up ; and the power of the consuls (though 
 this name was not in use till a later 
 time) was substituted for that of the 
 king. The deliverers, Lucius Junius 
 Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collati- 
 nus, were the first elected to this office. 
 They kept all the power of the kings,$ 
 and all the ensigns of royal dignity, ex- 
 cept the diadem: but the Fasces, the 
 bundles of rods, and the axes bound 
 up in the middle of them, were borne 
 by the twelve lictors, not before both, 
 but before each, alternately, in his 
 month; and this honour was yielded 
 •first to Brutus. The first act of the 
 consuls was to confirm, by a decree 
 of the people assembled in their centu- 
 ries, the sentence of perpetual banish- 
 ment pronounced against Tarquinius 
 and his family by the people in the city. 
 They then purified the city ; and them- 
 selves first took an oath, and made all 
 the citizens swear, that they would sutler 
 tlo man to be king in Rome. In order, 
 however, that the religious rites which 
 the kings were accustomed to perform 
 might be duly observed, a priest was 
 appointed, with the title of king, to per- 
 form them. The sacrificial king§ en- 
 joyed singular honours ; but his office 
 was wholly religious, and even in reli- 
 gious matters he was not supreme, but 
 subject to the chief pontiff. The con- 
 suls then filled up the vacant places in 
 the senate, and raised it to its ancient 
 number of three hundred, by enrolling 
 in it the chief men among the knights, 
 a measure which much strengthened the 
 
 * Liv. i. 59. Tac. Ann. vi. 11. 
 
 t Dion. i. 84. 
 i Liv, ii. 1. Cic. U. P. ii.S2. 
 § Rex Sacriticulus'. 
 
 ties between the higher and the lower 
 orders. They re-established"the laws of 
 Servius Tullius, which had been abo- 
 lished by Tarquinius, especially those 
 concerning contracts and loans; and 
 restored the meetings and common sa- 
 crifices of the tribes.* 
 
 The jealousy of the people was not 
 satisfied with the banishment of Tar- 
 quinius and his sons. They disliked and 
 dreaded his very name ; and they feared 
 lest, at some time, his kindred, who 
 remained in the city, should set up again 
 the kingly power, or bring back the king 
 himself. Even the consul, Tarquinius 
 Collatinus, could not escape the com- 
 mon hatred of his name and race. Bru- 
 tus moved the people to deprive him of 
 the consulship,-}- and, supported by a 
 decree of the senate, brought forward a 
 sentence of banishment against the 
 whole Tarquinian house. Collatinus was 
 persuaded by the entreaties of his father- 
 m-law, Sp. Lucretius, to yield without 
 resistance, and withdrew, with all his 
 property, to Lavinium, and there died 
 m old age.| The Comitia Centuriata 
 elected Publius Valerius consul in his 
 place. 
 
 It speedily appeared that Tarquinius 
 was not without friends in Rome. Many 
 of the noble youth especially, who had 
 before enjoyed licence, where others suf- 
 fered oppression, and by whom the 
 restoration of the lower orders to equal 
 laws and equal rights was felt as an en- 
 croachment on their own privileges, 
 regretted the change of government, and 
 began to look towards the banished king. 
 Tarquinius had hoped to regain his 
 kingdom by the aid of the Latins : but 
 when they showed themselves un- 
 willing to take up arms in his cause, 
 he sought to make friends among the 
 Etruscans. § Etruscan ambassadors 
 were sent to Rome to demand the resti- 
 tution of his private property. This 
 demand caused great division of opi- 
 nion. To keep back the hereditary 
 wealth of Tarquinius seemed unjust ; to 
 restore it was to furnish an enemy with 
 the means of supporting a war, the ap- 
 proach of which was clearly foreseen. 
 The senate referred the matter to the 
 decision of the people assembled in the 
 Curiae ;|| and there the plea of justice, 
 not without difficulty, at lengtii pre- 
 vailed. The ambassadors remained in 
 the city, in order, as they held, out, to 
 
 * Dion. V. 2. t Cic. de Off. iii. 10. 
 
 X Dion. V. 12. § Dion, v, 3. 
 
 U Dion. V. G. 
 
€8 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 get together what belonged to Tarqui- 
 nius, and to sell the lands and other pro- 
 perty which could not be removed. They 
 had, however, another and a hidden 
 purpose. They had felt their way among 
 the nobles, to whom the new common- 
 wealth was irksome ; they conveyed to 
 them messages from their friends and 
 kinsmen, who had accompanied tbe king 
 in his flight ; and at last, by offers in 
 the name of Tarquinius himself, won 
 many to join in a plot for receiving the 
 banished prince by night into the city. 
 In . this plot were engaged the noble 
 brothers Aquillii; the Vitellii, whose 
 sister was the wife of Brutus ; and the 
 sons of Brutus himself, the two Junii, 
 Titus and Tiberius. These all had met 
 for the last time at the house of the 
 Vitellii, the day before the ambassadors 
 were to leave Rome, and gave them 
 tokens of their faith to carry to Tar- 
 quinius. A slave overheard their talk, 
 discovered the conspiracy, and opened 
 the matter to Valerius. The consuls 
 came forthwith, and seized the conspira- 
 tors and the Etruscan envoys. The 
 ambassadors, from reverence to the law 
 of nations, were sent away unharmed : 
 the traitors were thrown into prison. 
 On the morrow came trial, condemna- 
 tion, and punishment. The people were 
 assembled, the consuls seated, in the 
 Comitium.* Brutus himself doomed his 
 own sons to death, and beheld them tied to 
 the stake.beatenwithrods, and their heads 
 struck off. The other conspirators were 
 tried and condemned by the people, t and 
 suffered in like manner. The informer, 
 the slave Vindicius, was made a free 
 man and a citizen, and rewarded with a 
 sum of money. It was handed down 
 that he was the first slave made free by 
 the form of touching the head with a 
 rod called vindicta, and that this name 
 was taken from him ; and it remained a 
 custom, that whosoever was made free 
 in this way was accounted a citizen. 
 The envoys from the king had been let 
 go, but the plotting of treason was held 
 to have made void the covenant for the 
 giving up of the goods. All the royal 
 wealth was given over to the commons, 
 who seized and plundered each man 
 what he could ; the land was taken by 
 the state, and divided to those that 
 needed it : % only the plain between the 
 city and the river was reserved for public 
 
 • Dion. V. 8, 10. 
 
 t Cf. Dion. V. 9—13, and Piut. Publ. Zon. 
 vii. 12. 
 t Dion. V. 13. 
 
 uses. It was consecrated to Mars.'and 
 called thenceforward the Campus Mar- 
 tins, or Field of Mars. • The corn that 
 was then standing upon it, ripe for the 
 harvest, being thus forbidden to the use 
 of man, was cut down, and thrown into 
 the Tiber, and lodging upon the shal- 
 lows, caused an accumulation of mud, 
 and so laid the foundation of an island, 
 on which in after times the temple of 
 i^sculapius was built. 
 
 Tarquinius had withdrawn himself to 
 Tarquinii, the city of his forefathers, 
 and when the plot of his envoys was 
 discovered, he tried to persuade the 
 Etruscans to restore him to his king- 
 dom by force of arms. The people of 
 Tarquinii and Veii took up his cause 
 openly ; and with their armies, and 
 such other forces as he could bring to- 
 gether, he entered the Roman lands. 
 The Consuls crossed the Tiber to meet 
 him, and the armies encountered near 
 the Arsian grove, consecrated to the 
 hero Horatus. t Brutus was riding 
 forward in front of the Roman horse- 
 men, and was descried by Aruns Tar- 
 quinius, who was at the head of the 
 Etruscan cavalry. Aruns no sooner 
 saw the Consul attended by the ensigns 
 of the kingly power, than, burning with 
 rage and hatred, he spurred his horse, 
 and dashed suddenly upon him. Brutus 
 encountered him, and in the shock each 
 pierced the other through with his 
 spear, and both fell to the ground 
 wounded to death. The cavalry on 
 both sides hasted to avenge their leaders, 
 and presently the foot soldiers came up. 
 The battle was long and doubtful ; on 
 the right wing of the Romans Valerius 
 overcame the Veientes ; but on the 
 right wing of the Etruscans, Titus and 
 Sexlus Tarquiniust at the head of the 
 Tarquinian troops, routed the Romans, 
 and chased them to their trenches. 
 Night ended the battle, and each army 
 returned to its camp, worn out with toil, 
 and cast down by the loss of its leader 
 and the number of its slain. Suddenly 
 in the silence of night a voice was heard 
 from the holy forest, which proclaimed 
 that the Romans were victorious ; that 
 of the Etruscans had fallen in the fight 
 more by one. The Etruscans were 
 seized with fear and fled, and at the 
 morning light the Romans came upon 
 their camp, and found it empty. They 
 returned with the spoil to Rome, and 
 
 * See p. 21. + Dion. v. 14. 
 
 X Dion. V. 16. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 2d 
 
 Valerias entered the city in triumph, 
 the first triumph of the Republic. On 
 the morrow he caused the body of 
 Brutus to be borne forth into the Forum, 
 and in the presence of all the people 
 recounted his worthy deeds, a custom 
 which thenceforward remained amone: 
 the Romans at the burial of great and 
 noble men. * The matrons mourned a 
 year for Brutus, as the avenger of 
 violated chastity; and his statue of 
 bronza was placed in the Capitol, in the 
 midst of the kings, with a naked sword 
 in his hand, t 
 
 Valerius fell into ill favour, because 
 he did not forthwith require the people 
 to give him a colleague in the place of 
 Brutus. The citizens became still more 
 jealous of his purposes, from his building 
 for himself on the Velia, (a rising ground 
 below the Palatine Hill where Tullus 
 Hostilius had dwelt,) $ a house which 
 looked down like a citadel on the Forum 
 and Coraitiura. When at length he 
 perceived that he was suspected of 
 aiming at kingly power, he called the 
 people together, and lov;ered the fasces 
 when he appeared before them, acknow- 
 ledging that in their assembly re- 
 sided the supreme power and majesty 
 of the commonwealth. Indignantly dis- 
 owning the purposes imputed to him, 
 he threw down his house on the Velia, 
 and the people, willing to make atone- 
 ment for their unjust doubts, gave him § 
 for building a parcel of ground at the 
 bottom of the hill. He then brought 
 forward a law, by which the head of 
 any person who should seek kingly 
 power II was pronounced accursed, and 
 devoted with all his substance to 
 the gods. This was, in fact, a sentence 
 of outlawry. The consul might put the 
 accursed traitor to dealh without trial: 
 a private man might kill him, and fear 
 no punishment.^ This acknowledg- 
 ment and jealous care of the supreme 
 power of the assembled people, gained 
 for Valerius the surname of Poplicola 
 or Publicola, the Man of the People.** 
 But his greatest act was the law which 
 gave to all Roman citizens the right of 
 appeal to the assembly of the people 
 from the sentence of any magistrate. 
 This was the first law enacted by tl\e 
 Comitia Centuriatar-H' and as soon as 
 
 * See Dion. v. 17. Polyb. vi. 53. 
 
 t Diou. Cass, xliii. Ab. Plut. Brut. (Nieb., 
 p. 436.) 
 
 t Cic. R. P. ii.31. § Plut.Publ. 
 
 U Liv.ii. 8. % Dion. v. 19. Plut. Publ. 
 
 «* A'/i/^onxarocro;, Zonar. vii. 12, probably 
 from Dio. Cass. See Nieb. ed. 1, vol. i. c. 26. 
 
 tt Cic. R. P. ii. 31. 
 
 it was passed, Valerius took away the 
 axes from the rods which were borne 
 before the Consul. * This right of ap- 
 peal existed only in the city itself, and 
 within a mile of it.f Beyond that dis- 
 tance the military power of the consuls 
 remained unlimited, as that of the kings 
 of old, and the axes were borne and 
 used. 
 
 In the glory of these popular laws 
 Valerius had no partner. As soon as 
 they were passed, he held the Comitia 
 for the election of a colleague. Spurius 
 Lucretius, the aged father of Lucretia, 
 was chosen, and died within a few days. 
 Marcus Horatius Pulvillus was created 
 consul in his stead. The temple of 
 Jupiter on the Capitol, which had been 
 built by Tarquinius, was not yet dedi- 
 cated. The consuls cast lots which 
 should dedicate it, and the lot fell to Ho- 
 ratius. Valerius went forth to the war 
 with the Veientes : but the kinsmen and 
 friends of Valerius envied Horatius 
 this great honour; and when he was 
 now holding the gatepost of the temple, 
 and uttering the prayer of dedication, a 
 voice cried out, "Consul, thy son is 
 slain." A word of mourning would have 
 been of evil omen, and would have 
 broken off the rite of dedication. Ho- 
 ratius answered, " Carry out the/Iead," 
 held the post, ended his prayer, dedicated 
 the temple, and then learned that the 
 tidings were untrue. The Capitoline 
 Temple had not been founded without 
 portents of its greatness, and prodigies 
 accompanied its completion. Tarquinius 
 had employed Etruscan artists at Veil 
 to mould a chariot of clay which should 
 be set up on the top of the temple. 
 The chariot was moulded and baked, 
 but swelled in the baking, so that it 
 could not be taken out till the furnace 
 was pulled down. The Etruscan sooth- 
 sayers declared that this chariot be- 
 tokened power to the people who should 
 possess it. When therefore the Ro- 
 mans demanded it, the Veientes re- 
 plied, that it belonged to Tarquinius, 
 and refused to deliver it. A few days 
 after there was a chariot race at Veii, 
 and when the charioteer who had won 
 the crown, an Etruscan named Ratu- 
 mena, was driving from the ring, his 
 horses started ofi', bore him at full speed 
 to Rome, and dashed him lifeless to the 
 ground at the gate which was called 
 thenceforward the Porta Ratumena. 
 The Veientes, afraid at this prodigy. 
 
 * Cic. ib. 
 
 t Liv. iii. 20. 
 
80 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 gave up the chariot, and it was placed 
 upon the Capitol. * 
 
 In the second consulship of Valerius, 
 in the second year after the flight of the 
 kings, the people were numbered, which 
 had not been done since the days of 
 Servius Tullius, and the number of men 
 fit to |3ear arms was found to be a hun- 
 dred and thirty thousand, -i- 
 
 § 13. The Tarquinii had now fled for re- 
 fuge to Lars Porsena, the king of Clusium, 
 the most powerful of the Etruscan 
 chiefs, and stirred him up to a war 
 against Rome. The Senate and Pa- 
 tricians not only dreaded the force of 
 their enemies, but they were fearful also 
 lest the hardships of the war should 
 make the commonalty willing to yield to 
 the Etruscans, and receive the banished 
 princes. They sought, therefore, to bind 
 them to their own cause by many po- 
 pular measures, especially by freeing 
 them from customs and tribute, as if 
 the poor paid enough to the state 
 in risking their lives for its defence, 
 and in rearing children.^ They also 
 provided against scarceness of food, by 
 laying in stores of corn ; and made both 
 corn and salt to be sold at low prices. 
 The Etruscan army quickly overran the 
 country on the right of the Tiber. The 
 country people drove their flocks into 
 the mountains. Some sought refuge in 
 the strong holds ; but the greater part 
 withdrew into the city. The enemy 
 came on, and took the Janiculum by a 
 sudden assault. The discomfited Ro- 
 mans were fleeing into the city over the 
 wooden bridge; the Etrviscans were 
 hard behind them, running down the 
 slope of the hill. Horatius Codes, or 
 the one-eyed, who was posted at the 
 bridge, tried in vain to stop the run- 
 aways, and make them keep the pass. 
 Then he engaged single-handed with 
 the two foremost of the pursuers,^ 
 and called out to his countrymen to 
 break down the bridge with all speed, 
 and that he hiniself would bear up 
 against the enemy as well as he could. 
 Only two stood by him ; but those were 
 two gallant and noble men, Spurius 
 Larcius and Titus Herminius. These 
 three men held the bridge for a little 
 while against all the force of the enemy. 
 Then, when the bridge was well nigh 
 broken down, and their friends behind 
 were calling them back, Horatius bade 
 his two companions withdraw in safety, 
 
 * riut. Publ. and Festus. (Nieb. p. 439.) 
 
 t Dion. V. 20. Plut. Publ. 
 
 t Liv. ii. 9. Dion. v. 22. § Polyb. vi. 55, 
 
 but he himself stood firm, bestriding the 
 narrow passage. The Etruscans, as- 
 tounded at his boldness, stood aloof, 
 and hurled upon him a shower of darts. 
 He was grievously wounded, but still 
 held his post ; and they were making 
 ready to rush upon him, and bear him 
 down by numbers, when the crash of 
 timbers and the shout of the Romans 
 made known that his work was done. 
 Then he called on Father Tiber to re- 
 ceive him in his holy stream, plunged 
 with all his arms into the river, and pe- 
 rished in the waters.* A brazen statue 
 of him was placed in the Comitium. 
 Even in a late age the welfare of the 
 commonwealth was beUeved to be con- 
 nected with the image of its champion. 
 The statue was struck by lightning; and 
 by the advice of faithless and envious 
 soothsayers it was removed to a spot 
 where the sun never shone upon it. The 
 treason was discovered ; the statue was 
 fixed in a more honourable site, above 
 its former place, and the lying aruspices 
 were put to death.-f- 
 
 Horatius saved the city; but the 
 Etruscans pitched their camp upon the 
 Janiculum, and crossing the river in 
 boats, overran all the country with par- 
 ties of plunderers and foragers, and cut 
 oft* all supplies, so that the Romans 
 were soon hard pressed by famine. In 
 this strait a noble youth, Caius Mucius, 
 undertook to rid his country of her 
 enemy. He made known his purpose 
 to the consuls and to the Senate; passed 
 the Tiber, and entered the camp of Por- 
 sena disguised or unobserved. A chief 
 officer of the king, in apparel, which to 
 the Roman seemed royal, was seated on 
 the tribunal, or public seat of the general, 
 directing the distribution of pay to the 
 soldiers. Mucius guessed that he was 
 the king, and stabbed him. Forthwith 
 he was seized by the guards, and brought 
 before Porsena. When he perceived 
 that he had mistaken his aim, he boldly 
 avowed his purpose ; and while he ofi'ered 
 himself to the death that awaited him, 
 he forewarned the king, vvho had so 
 hardly escaped, of an early return of a 
 like danger. Porsena, at once enraged 
 and alarmed, threatened him with death 
 by fire, unless he made known the plot 
 against his life. Mucius straightvvay 
 stretched forth his right hand, and held 
 it in the flame of an altar that was burn- 
 ing before the king. His fearlessness 
 and endurance awed even Porsena : he 
 
 * Ibid. t Aul. GeU. iv. 5. ,; 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 31 
 
 bade his guards take him from the altar, 
 and let him go unharmed. Mucius, in 
 return, told him that he was one of three 
 hundred youths, all of patrician race,* 
 who had sworn to kill Porsena: that 
 his own lot had fallen out first ; but that, 
 as he had failed, the king must abide 
 the attempts of all the others in their 
 turn. So he came back to Rome safe, 
 but maimed ; and was called ever after 
 Scaevola, or the Lefthanded. The Senate 
 gave him as his reward, as much land 
 as he could plough round in one day ;t 
 and certain fields beyond the Tiber, 
 called the Mucian Meadows, were be- 
 lieved in after ages to be the gift thus 
 earned. It chanced that the season of 
 the great games fell during the war ; 
 a truce was granted for the due ob- 
 servance of this solemnity ; and some of 
 the Etruscan nobles came into the city, 
 contended for the prizes, and bore them 
 ofF.$ 
 
 Porsena, who dreaded the murderous 
 war which the Roman youths had sworn 
 against him, and whose army was be- 
 coming weary of the siege, began to wish 
 for peace ; and the Etruscan conqueror 
 offered terms to the Romans. The de- 
 mand that the Tarquinian family should 
 be restored, was refused at once ; and 
 Porsena, whether that he was unwilling 
 to make the war, as he would have made 
 it by standing out in his demand, a war 
 not to be ended but by the taking and 
 utter overthrow of the city, or whether 
 an outrage of theTarquinii had estranged 
 him, thenceforward gave up the cause 
 of the royal exiles. He required that 
 seven districts which had been taken 
 from the Veientes ^ should be restored 
 to them; and that hostages should be 
 given from the most illustrious houses 
 for the observance of the treaty. To 
 these terms the Romans submitted ; and 
 twenty children of the first houses, ten 
 youths and ten maidens, || were sent as 
 pledges to the Etruscan camp ; amongst 
 them was Valeria, the daughter of the 
 consul. So the Etruscans broke up their 
 camp from the Janiculum, and departed 
 from the Roman lands. Not long after, 
 when they were still encamped near the 
 bank of the Tiber, Cloelia, one of the 
 hostages, swam the river on horseback,*! 
 at the head of the maidens her compa- 
 nions, amidst the darts of their pursuers, 
 and all escaped safe to Rome. The 
 Romans, jealous of their good faith. 
 
 * Dion. V. 29. 
 
 X Serv. on /En. xi. 134. 
 
 y Dion. V. '62. PliU. Pub], 
 
 t Dion. V. 35. 
 § Dion. V. 31. 
 ^ Plut, Publ. 
 
 sent back these pledges of the peace : 
 the Etruscan king, in admiration of their 
 courage, generously released them, and 
 presented Cloelia with a war horse in 
 splendid trappings.* He gave her also 
 the freedom of half of the youths who 
 remained as hostages ; and allowed her 
 to choose out whom she would. The 
 maiden modestly and pitifully chose the 
 youngest. The Romans, as a -memorial 
 of the renewal of the peace, raised an 
 equestrian statue of her in the Sacred 
 Way; and they sent as an offering to 
 Porsena, an ivory throne and sceptre, a 
 golden crown, and a triumphal robe ; 
 the offerings by which the Etruscan 
 cities had once acknowledged the sove- 
 reignty of Tarquinius.-i' 
 
 When Porsena quitted Rome, his son 
 Aruns led a part of his array forward 
 into Latium, and attacked Aricia, the 
 chief town of the Latins. The Aricines 
 at first were forced to withdraw within 
 their walls; but being aided by the other 
 Latin tribes, and by an army from 
 Cumae in Campania, under the com- 
 mand of the tyrant Aristodemus, they 
 defeated the Etruscans, and slew Aruns 
 and many of his men. The rest of the 
 army fled to Rome, and were hospitably 
 received, and their wounds healed. Many 
 chose to remain in the city ; and a place 
 was marked out tor them to dwell in, 
 a hollow between the Palatine and 
 Capitoline hills, leading from the Foruni 
 to the Great Circus,! which bore thence- 
 forth the name of the Tuscan Street. 
 Porsena, in requital for this kindness, 
 gave up the hostages who were still in 
 his keeping, and restored the conquered 
 lands beyond the Tiber. 
 
 § 14. Tarquinius had withdrawn to 
 Tusculum, and taken refuge with his; 
 son-in-law Mamilius Octavius. From 
 this quarter Rome now looked for g, 
 storm, but it burst not forth for some 
 few years. In the mean time the Ro- 
 mans and Sabines harassed each other 
 with v^ars of plunder and ravage. The 
 consul, Marcus Valerius, won a great 
 victory, and earned for himself a triumph 
 and the surname of Maximus, or 
 Greatest, and other honours which long 
 remained a token of the singular respect 
 paid in the early years of the republic 
 to the Valerian House. § Publius Va- 
 lerius Publicola had already held the 
 consulship thrice; and he was now 
 made consul a fourth time. The Sabines 
 were still threatening war; but they 
 
 * Dion. V. 34. Plut. Publ. f See p. 18, 
 
 $ Dion. V. 36. § Dion. v. 3V. 
 
32 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 were divided among themselves ; and a 
 great chief, Attus Clausus, who had 
 counselled peace in vain, came over to 
 the Romans with alar^e band of clients. 
 They were all made citizens ; lands were 
 assigned to them ; and he himself was 
 received among the patricians ; and 
 \mder the Roman name of Appius 
 Claudius became one of the first men 
 of the state, and was the ancestor of the 
 great Claudian family. Valerius de- 
 feated the Sabines once more ; and him- 
 self died in the following year, full of 
 honours. He was buried at the cost of 
 the people: a place was granted for 
 the burying of his body within the walls, 
 an honour given to no other citizen ;* 
 and the matrons mourned a year for 
 him, as they had mourned for Brutus. 
 
 ^15. Dangers gathered about the 
 city more and more thickly. Plots were 
 discovered within the walls :t the sub- 
 ject colony of Fidenae revolted, and 
 stood a hard siege : the Latin states be- 
 came more and more jealous and dis- 
 contented. At last they broke the 
 bonds that bound them to Rome, and 
 leagued themselves against her, under 
 the guidance of Octavius Mamilius, 
 chief of Tusculum. Still, however, the 
 evil day was delayed by a year of 
 truce, duriiMpwhich both parties made 
 ready for me 'struggle, and with calm 
 and deliberate enmity solemnly loosed 
 those ties by which kindred and friend- 
 ship had knit them together. Many 
 Roman women had been given in mar- 
 riage to Latin husbands : many Latin to 
 Romans. It was ordained that each 
 might freely return to her own people 
 with her unmarried daughters. The 
 Roman women, from the Latin cities, 
 came home to their fathers: all the 
 Latin wives in Rome abode with their 
 husbands, save tvvo.$ The town of 
 Prceneste also fell away from the Latins, 
 and took part with Rome. Then, at 
 last, the two nations took the field, 
 and their armies met near the lake 
 Regillus, in the territory of Tusculum. 
 The Latins were headed by Tarquinius 
 and Octavius Mamilius : the Romans 
 were commanded, not by consuls, their 
 ordinary magistrates, but by Aulus 
 Postumius, tlie dictator, a magistrate 
 created with extraordinary powers for 
 extraordinary occasions, and by Titus 
 ^butius, his lieutenant, who bore the 
 title of Master of the Knights. The 
 battle was fierce and bloody ; and not a 
 
 • Dion. V. 48. t Dion. 
 
 t Diou. Ti. 1. 
 
 chief man on either side came out of it 
 unwounded, save only the Roman dic- 
 tator. The banished king, Tarquinius, 
 began the fight ; for while Postumius on 
 the right of his line was encouraging and 
 arraying the Roman horse, Tarquinius 
 rode at him at full speed. Postumius 
 bafiled his onset, and wounded him in 
 the side. Then the Latins charged 
 from the centre of their line, rescued the 
 king, but after a short struggle were 
 driven back by the Romans. On the 
 left wing Titus ^butius was opposed to 
 Octavius Mamilius. Each bore down 
 every other adversary in his way ; and 
 when they came in sight of each other, 
 they set spurs to their horses, and M\m- 
 tius with his spear wounded Mamilius 
 in the breast, and bore him from the 
 saddle, but was himself pierced through 
 the arm with a wound so grievous that 
 he could no longer grasp his weapon, 
 and was forced to quit the field. Ma- 
 milius, undismayed by his wound, roused 
 his men to fresh efforts; and Sextus 
 Tarquinius came up from the left wing 
 of the Latins, at the head of a cohort 
 of the Roman exiles. By this desperate 
 band the Romans were driven back in 
 turn, and were now giving way, when 
 Marcus Valerius Maximus, seeing Sex- 
 tus at the head of his troop, spurred 
 his horse, and dashed upon him. Sex- 
 tus retreated within his line ; and while 
 Valerius was carried by his headlong 
 charge into the thickest of the enemy, 
 he pierced him by a side thrust: the 
 horse rushed onward, and Valerius fell 
 to the earth. Then sprung forward Pub- 
 lius and Marcus Valerius, the sons of 
 Publicola, to rescue the body of their 
 father's brother ; and gallantly they 
 fought ; for the body was borne away ; 
 but the noble youths themselves tell 
 covered with wounds in tlie midst of a 
 thick slaughter of the exiles. Still the 
 Romans .were beaten back, and Postu- 
 mius was forced to bring up his chosen 
 cohort, the body of reserve, which he 
 kept as a guard about himself. Bidding 
 them slay all that fled, if they turned 
 not back to the battle, he led them 
 against the terrible band of the exiles. 
 These were now wearied and worn ; the 
 dictator's guards were fresh, and weie 
 forcing them to give ground. Octavius 
 Mamilius perceived this, and brought 
 up some troops from the rear to charge 
 the dictator in flank. Titus Herminius 
 at the head of a squadron of horse had 
 rallied the Roman fugitives, and with 
 this double force anticipated the move- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 3B 
 
 ment of Tvlamilius, and charged him as 
 he advanced with his reserve. Hermi- 
 nius himself marked out Mamiliusby 
 his arms and mantle, encountered him, 
 and with one shock transfixed him 
 with his spear, and bore him to the 
 ground. He leaped from his horse to 
 .spoil his enemy, and, while he was 
 bending over him, was pierced by a 
 javelin in the side, and was carried into 
 the camp, and there died. Then the 
 dictator flew to the horsemen, and 
 called on them to dismount and support 
 tlie cohorts on foot. They leaped from 
 their horses, and rushed to the front of 
 the battle, holding up their little targets 
 to cover their wearied countrymen ; and 
 the foot soldiers were inspired with fresh 
 courage, when they saw the knights, the 
 noblest of the youth, fighting like them- 
 selves, and more than sharing their 
 dangers. At last the Latins and the 
 exiles wavered, and broke their line, 
 and fled. The Romans pursued, and 
 the knights mounted their horses again. 
 Sextus Tarquinius with a little band 
 on tlie extreme left still held out, and 
 even drove back the Romans on that 
 quarter ; but when Postumius wheeled 
 upon him with the victorious cavalry, 
 in utter despair he rushed into the 
 midst of them ; and there, surrounded 
 by horse and foot, fighting to the last, 
 assailed from every side with darts like 
 a wild beast, and slaying all who dared 
 to meet him hand to hand, he fell over- 
 powered with manv wounds: and his 
 father fled from the field. The Ro- 
 mans chased the Latins to their camp, 
 took it by assault, and scattered them 
 over the face of the country, and cut 
 them down without mercy, so that not 
 a fourth part of them escaped. 
 
 In this battle the old story told how 
 two youthful horsemen of more than 
 mortal size and beauty were seen by 
 Postumius and those about him head- 
 ing the charges of the Roman cavalry, 
 and bearing down the Latins before 
 them: and in the evening two youths 
 beautiful and tall appeared in the Ro- 
 man Forum, covered with dust and 
 blood, their horses drenched with sweat, 
 and themselves with the looks of men 
 fresh from battle. They leaped from 
 their horses, and washed themselves in 
 the fountain which springs up near the 
 Temple of Vesta, told the news of 
 the battle to the crowd that gathered 
 round them, then rode from the Forum, 
 and were seen no more. On the next 
 day, when a messenger came from the 
 
 dictator, and the Senate heard of his vic- 
 tory, and how he had vowed a temple 
 to Castor and Pollux, they recognised 
 the presence of the deities. The temple 
 was built in the Forum, on the spot 
 where they appeared ; and yearly, on 
 the Ides of Quintihs (15th July), the 
 day of the victory of the Regillus, was 
 celebrated' the festival of the Dioscuri 
 (Castor and Pollux); and after solemn 
 sacrifices, all the knights on horseback 
 passed in procession by their temple, in 
 military mantles, crowned with olive, 
 and bearing all the badges of honour 
 which they had won in war. On the 
 field of battle, by the Regillus, a hoof- 
 mark on the rock remained to witness 
 to later ages the truth of the divine ap- 
 parition.* 
 
 By this victory the power of the 
 Latins, and the hopes of the banished 
 house, were broken at once. Postu- 
 mius and ^butius returned in triumph 
 to Rome. Tarquinius Superbus, who 
 had now outlived all his family, aged 
 and outcast and friendless, fled to Cu- 
 mae, to the tyrant Aristoderaus, and 
 there died.t 
 
 § 16. Such w^ere the traditions of the 
 Romans concerning the period from the 
 foundation of their city to the death of 
 the last of their kings. They are re- 
 lated, as they appeared when they had 
 been moulded into a continuous narra- 
 tive ; but, so far as the oneness of the 
 story would allow% their oldest and most 
 poetic features have been preserved. 
 The guidance of Livy, the national and 
 popular historian of Rome,;]; has been 
 mostly followed. The manifestly recent 
 ornaments of his stories have been 
 omitted : where the traditions have been 
 preserved by a trust-worthy authority in 
 a form which seems more ancient, the 
 older tale has been substituted ; and on 
 similar authority such circumstances 
 have been added, as had an aspect of 
 antiquity, and were not inconsistent with 
 his narrative. S uch circumstances have 
 been frequently supplied by the broken 
 summary of early Roman history in 
 Cicero's Dialogues on a Republic, § 
 especially those which illustrate the an- 
 cient constitution. The notices which 
 connect the events of old time with the 
 national superstitions are taken mostly 
 from Dionysius, || who seems to have 
 
 * Cic. Nat. Deor. iii. 5. 
 
 t Liv. ii. 19—21. Dion. vi. 1—21. 
 
 X See Chap, ii. § 2.1. 
 
 § Chap. ii. e 3. 7. 
 
 Chap, ii § 2. 2. 
 
 D 
 
34 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 attended more than Livy to the peculiar 
 traditions of the priests and atigurs. 
 
 It will be worth while, however, to 
 notice some of the more remarkable 
 variations in the story ; and those points 
 shall be selected, where the conflictinj; 
 traditions seem to have equal claims to 
 antiquity, where the celebrity of the 
 authorities demands res^ard, or where 
 the colouring of the tale indicates the 
 spirit of the age in which it was re- 
 ceived. 
 
 Naevius,* following the fables of an- 
 cient Greek poetsj-f* represented -(Eneas 
 as escaping from Troy before its capture. 
 Virgil, mtent on exalting the character 
 of his hero, has adopted the story which 
 made him defend his country to the last. 
 The older and more romantic and popu- 
 lar poet sees in him an outcast chief 
 with a few personal followers: Virgil 
 describes him as a prince emigrating 
 with no small portion of the conquered 
 people. The old account, which is pre- 
 served from Cato, of the slaughter of 
 Latinus, and the seizure of his daughter 
 and his kingdom, smacks of the temper 
 of a violent and bloody people, to whom 
 war was too familiar to jar their domes- 
 tic feelings. In a more civilized and 
 milder age Dionysius and Livy related, 
 that when the armies of ^neas and 
 Latinus met, the chiefs advanced before 
 their troops, and after friendly parley 
 made a peace, and subsequently con- 
 firmed it by the marriage. Virgil's 
 poem could not spare the battle ; but it 
 is the rival lover, and not the father of 
 the maiden, who is slain. 
 
 Of the earlier Grecian accounts of 
 Rome, some represented ^neas himself 
 as its founder ;% and even among Ro- 
 man writers Sallust seems inclined to go 
 back to this remote origin : § the greater 
 number described the founder, Romus 
 or Romulus, as the son or grandson of 
 ^neas. || Siach traditions were pre- 
 served also in the sacred bdoks of the 
 Romans themselves ;f and such was 
 
 * FL B.C. 240. See Chap. ii. § 7. 3. 
 
 t Dion. i. 48. See Nieb. pp. 152, 162. 
 
 t Hellanicns and Damastes in Dion. 1. 72. 
 ■^ 5 Salhist died about a.u.c. 718. He wrote the 
 history of the Jugurthine war and of the conspi- 
 racy of Catiline. These works are preserved. He 
 wrote also a history of the events of the Roman 
 world in general, from the consulship of M. JEmU 
 lius LepidusandQ. LutatiusCatulus, A. U.C.67o, 
 the year of Sylla's death. Of this work only fsag- 
 ments remain. He speaks of the origin of Rome in 
 a digressioa near the beginning of the Catiiinarian 
 war. 
 
 11 Dion, i, 72,73. Plut. Rom. Niebuhr, pp. 175 
 —183. 
 
 \ Dion. i. 7S. 
 
 the story adopted by the poet Ennius. • 
 In a fragment of his great poem, pre- 
 served by Cicero, the vestal Ilia is an 
 orphan. Her father appears to her in a 
 dream ; and she relates the portentous 
 vision to her sister, the daughter of Eu- 
 rydice.t In this version of the tale 
 Amulius must have been a stranger to 
 the Trojan race. 
 
 We have a remarkable example of the 
 way in which the old traditions were con- 
 founded, in the story which is repeated 
 by Plutarch from one Promathion, who 
 wrote a History of Italy. According to 
 this legend, the twin founders of Rome 
 were born in the house of Tarchetius, 
 King of Alba ; and the circumstances 
 of their birth are much the same as those 
 reported in the story of the supernatural 
 parentage of Servius Tullius.^ 
 
 It seems that the earlier traditions 
 told of only thirty Sabine virgins borne 
 off by the lawless followers of Romulus. 
 Later annalists augmented the number, 
 as they fancied that the magnitude of 
 the city required. The mediation of the 
 women in the older stories is a peaceful 
 embassy ; but the more recent picture 
 drawn by Livy is so surpassingly beauti- 
 ful, that the imagination is unwilling to 
 renounce it. In the heat of the battle, 
 the Sabine women, with garments rent 
 and hair dishevelled, rush between the 
 contending hosts, fearless of the darts 
 that fly around them, and beseech at 
 once their fathers and their husbands to 
 cease from their parricidal strife. Pro- 
 bably Livy took this scene from the 
 poem of Ennius. 
 
 In the old legend, Rome glories in 
 her founder. His reign becomes brighter 
 and brighter to its close, and he is borne 
 away from men only to become the 
 guardian god of his adoring people. 
 The seemingly more historical narrative, 
 which relates that he became a cruel 
 and suspicious tyrant, and that the sena- 
 tors, under cover of the darkness of a 
 storm, tore him to pieces, and carried 
 away his mangled remains beneath their 
 robes,$ is the offspring of an age, when 
 men had become less imaginative with- 
 out becoming more judicious ; when the 
 Asiatic kings had begun to be known 
 and despised and hated ; and when civil 
 
 • See Chap. ii. § 7.3. 
 
 t Cic. De l>iv. i. 20. The verse of Ennius pre- 
 served by Nonius, v. nepus. 
 
 Ilia, dia nepos, quas erumnas tetulisti, 
 is apparently a portion of the prophecy of Anchises. 
 Ilia is the name which Greek writers commonly 
 substitute for the Latin Silvia. 
 
 t Page 20. 
 
 § Liv. i. 16. Dion. ii. 56. Plut. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 35 
 
 dissensions had been so envenomed, that 
 the populace could believe the nobles 
 guilty of any crivne. By these marks it is 
 conjectured that this version of the story 
 is at least as late as the times of the 
 Gracchi, (a.u.c. 632.)* 
 
 To the later Romans Quirinus was 
 the deified Romulus; but Varro and 
 Dionysius have preserved the native 
 Sabine legend, by which it appears that 
 he was an ancient god of the Sabine 
 nation. A virgin of Reate came to the 
 temple of the god to bear her part in a 
 sacred chorus ; and, urged by a sudden 
 impulse, she left her companions, and 
 entered the inmost shrine, and there 
 became pregnant by the god. Her son, 
 Modius Fabidius, became renowned in 
 war, and gathered a band of his com- 
 rades, and founded Cures, as Romulus, 
 the son of Mars, according to the Ro- 
 man tradition, founded Rome.f 
 
 There was a belief, which Polybius, J 
 Cicero, Dionysius, and Livy, took the 
 pains to refute by chronological argu- 
 ments, that the wisdom of Numa Pom- 
 pilius was derived from the teaching of 
 Pythagoras, ij The fame of Pythagoras 
 probably reached Rome during his life- 
 time ; for his age seems to fall in with 
 the end of the monarchy, when, as ap- 
 pears by the treaty with Carthage, i| 
 Rome held the sovereignty over many 
 towns on the coast, and maintained an 
 extensive commercial intercourse with 
 the neighbouring countries. He lived 
 long in the memory of the people ; for 
 m the Samnile war, when the Romans 
 were commanded by the Pythian oracle^ 
 to raise a statue to the wisest of the 
 
 * See Nieb. pp. 198, 199. 
 
 t Dion. ii. 48. t See Chap. ii. § 3. 7. 
 
 § Pythagoras was a Grecian philosopher, a na- 
 tive of Samos, bom before the middle of the sixth 
 century before the Christian tera. He visited 
 Egypt; and derived a portion of his philosophy 
 from Egypt or the East. He was skilled in arith- 
 metic, mathematics, and astronomy. He disco- 
 vered the proof of the proposition, that the square 
 on the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is 
 equal to the sum of the squares on the other sides. 
 He knew that the sun was the centre round which 
 the earth and other bodies of our system revolved. 
 He taught the doctrine of the immortality and 
 transmigration of souls ; and his moral laws were 
 singularly strict and pure. He came into Italy, 
 according to Livy, in the reign of Servius TuUius 
 (i. 18), according to Cicero, in that of Tarquinius 
 Superbus (Tusc. Quaest. i. IG). He became a 
 popular and powerful teacher in the cities of 
 Magna Grsecia, and endeavoured to introduce an 
 aristocracy of intellect and education. Cicero 
 seems to have thought that the influence of his 
 doctrines reached even to Rome (Tusc. Qusest. 
 iv, 1). 
 
 a Polyb. iii. 22. See " Outline of General His- 
 tory," ch. 9, § 7- 
 
 ^ Hist, of Greece, ch. i, end. 
 
 Greeks, they raised a statue to Pytha- 
 goras.* The Saranite wars began in 
 the year of the city 413. The popular 
 belief, which connected Pythagoras with 
 Numa, was probably of this date. 
 
 Cicero t ascribes to Tullus Hostilius 
 the assumption of the badges of royal 
 dignity, the crown and ivory chair and 
 purple robe, the fasces and axes ; which 
 Dionysius attributes to the f.rst Tar- 
 quinius, and Plutarch to Romulus. 
 
 The Roman annalists gave to the 
 father of the elder Tarquinius the name 
 Demaratus, and made him a citizen of 
 Corinth. Polybius mentions these cir- 
 cumstances as part of the common tra- 
 dition.J Thus, apparently from a com- 
 parison of the received Grecian chrono- 
 logy with the chronology laid down for 
 the Roman kings, the specious story 
 was invented, that Demaratus was one 
 of the ruling family of the Bacchiadse, 
 who were dispossessed of their oligarchy 
 and driven into exile by the demagogue 
 and tyrant Cypselus.§ But a very dif- 
 ferent story is connected with Dema- 
 ratus, and one seemingly of older date. 
 He is represented as the civilizer of the 
 Etruscans. He is said to have intro- 
 duced among them the knowledge of 
 alphabetical writing, l| and to have been 
 attended by the artists Eueheir and Eu- 
 grammus, who are evidently personifi- 
 cations of skill in moulding vases of clay 
 and designing upon them.^ To the 
 same story belongs the account, that he 
 became the ruler of Tarquinii.** This 
 legend probably took its origin among 
 the Greek settlers in Italy, who were 
 unwilling to acknowledge any civiliza- 
 tion or skill in the arts among the bar- 
 barians of the west, which was not de- 
 rived from their own nation. 
 
 In the order and circumstances of the 
 wars of the first Tarquinius, Livy and 
 Dionysius are irreconcilably at vari- 
 ance ; and his wars with the Etruscans, 
 and their acknowledgment of his su- 
 premacy, which Dionysius relates, are 
 recorded by no Latin writer, except 
 Florus and the compiler of the triuni- 
 phal Fasti.tt But there is another le- 
 gend respecting him, which strikes at 
 
 * Plin. N. H. xxxiv. 6. 
 
 t R. P. ii. 17. See Mai's note. t Pol. vi. 2. 
 
 j Dion. iii. 46, Corn. Nepos in Plin. N. H. 
 XXXV. 3. 
 
 II Tac. Ann. xi. 14. f Piin. N. H.xxxv. 12. 
 
 ** Strabo, viii. 6, 20. 
 
 i+ Niebiihr, pp. 3U7 and 325. Floras, the com- 
 piler of a short history of Rome, lived under the 
 emperors Trajan and Hadrian, about AD. 117. 
 He was therefore much later than Dionysius, and 
 probably copied from him. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the very root of tlie received tradition. 
 It ^ves him for a wife, not the Etrus- 
 can Tanaquil, but Caia Caecilia ; whose 
 name connects her with the plebeian 
 family of the Caecilii. The Caecilii were 
 of Latin origin; and claimed as their 
 ancestor tiie mythic founder of Pi-aeneste, 
 Caeculus, who was reported, by tradi- 
 tion, to have been found in the extin- 
 guished ashes of a fire among the 
 sheepfolds, and believed to be the son of 
 Vulcan* The antiquity of this story 
 of Caecilia is attested by the circum- 
 stances connected with it. Caia Caeci- 
 lia was possessed of masnc powers, and 
 wore a magic girdle. Her statue was 
 preserved in the temple of the old Ita- 
 lian god, Sancus ; and filings from the 
 girdle of the statue were taken as amu- 
 lets by persons in great danger. She 
 was revered by the Roman matrons as 
 the patroness of good housewifery and 
 industry at the loom.t 
 
 The brief narrative of Cicero does not 
 include the circumstance, which is men- 
 tioned by Livy and others, that the 
 elder Tarquinius made Servius TuUius 
 his son-in-law : and it is probable that 
 il made no part of the old story: for 
 thus the sons of Tarquinius would have 
 been represented a^ marrying their sis- 
 ter's daughters, a mixture held unlaw- 
 ful among the Romans ;% and the men- 
 tion of such incest would hardly have 
 failed, when the crimes of the tyrant 
 were recounted. Valerius Antias § as- 
 signed to Servius a wife Gegania ; and 
 related the prodigy of the flame that 
 played about his head, as having hap- 
 pened to him in his later life, when he 
 nad fallen asleep after sorrowing for 
 this Gegania.|| Gegania appears to 
 have been mentioned in some accounts 
 as the wife of Tarquinius Priscus him- 
 self.^ The great mound of Servius 
 TuUius (p. 20) is described by Pliny as 
 the work of Tarquinius Superbus.** 
 
 Under the reign of Tarquinius Super- 
 bus, the historians detail the artifice by 
 which he gained possession of Gabii. 
 His son Sextus, to give colour to the 
 plot, is scourged by order of his father ; 
 flies to Gabii as a deserter ; is received 
 by the citizens; is made their leader; 
 consults his father, how he shall deliver 
 the city into his hands ; is answered by 
 
 * Virg. 2Ea. vi5. 678—681, and Servius. 
 
 f See authorities in Niebuhr, pp. 310, 324. 
 
 t cf. Tacit. Ann. xii. G. 
 
 § See Chap. ii. §3, 5. 
 
 1 Plut. de Fort. Roman, c. 10. (NJeb.) ] 
 
 ^ See Dion. iv. 7. ed. Reiske. 
 
 *• Hist. Nat. iii. 9. See also Dion. iv. 54. 
 
 the significant action of his father in 
 cutting off the heads of the tallest pop 
 pies in his garden; puts to death the 
 chief men of the place ; and opens the 
 gates to the Romans. This story must 
 evidently have been patched up from 
 the stones of Zopyrus and Thrasybulus 
 in Herodotus.* 
 
 In narrating the rape of Lucretia, the 
 later Romans were not content that her 
 chastity should yield to simple menaces, 
 or even to force. They ascribe to Sex- 
 tus Tarquinius a refinement and subtilty 
 in his threats ; that he would slay her, 
 and murder a slave, and lay the body 
 naked by her side, and make her hus- 
 band and her kinsmen believe that he 
 had killed her in ignominious adultery : 
 and thus Lucretia, who had withstood 
 the fear of death, yielded to the fear of 
 dishonour. Cicero says nothing of this ; 
 he may, indeed, have omitted it for the 
 sake of brevity ; but the story seems 
 to be not at all after the spirit of 
 rude and simple times. It is exceed- 
 ingly valuable, however, as marking dis- 
 tinctly the morality of the ages in which 
 it was invented, and during which it 
 remained the popular tradition. The 
 desire of praise and the fear of shame, 
 in subordination to the laws of a mo- 
 rality founded on independent princi- 
 ples, may be useful as a stimulus, or as 
 a safeguard. But the Romans, when 
 they began to philosophize, very com- 
 monly set them up as the first motives 
 of action. This false feeling became a 
 portion of the national character; and 
 even the best among the Romans made 
 the object of their ruling passion that 
 praise of men, the love of which for its 
 own sake, we know from a better phi- 
 losophy, and from revealed religion, to 
 be fatal to true moral goodness. Thus 
 Lucretia was extolled for preferring the 
 means to the end, the name to the re- 
 ality of virtue; and Christian writers 
 have been blind enough to repeat the 
 eulogium; 
 
 The narrative of Livy, in accordance 
 with the borrowed and fabricated story 
 of the betrayal of Gabii, describes Sex- 
 tus Tarquinius as retiring thither, after 
 the banishment of his house, as to his 
 own lordship ; and there perishing by 
 the hands of avengers of his former 
 crimes. In the history of Dionysius, 
 he survives his brothers, and is the 
 moving spirit of the Tarquinii in all 
 their attempts to regain the kingdom, 
 
 * iii. 154, &c. V. 92, 6. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 37 
 
 and falls in the last and deadly struggle 
 at the lake Regillus. 
 
 As we proceed to the history of the 
 Republic, we find the' discrepancies be- 
 tween the accounts of different writers 
 become more numerous in proportion 
 as their materials become more ample. 
 Those statements which are utterly at 
 variance with the received story, and 
 which, nevertheless, involve historical 
 truth, will be examined in another place. 
 Here we need mark only the more pro- 
 minent points of disagreement in the 
 popular traditions. 
 
 Livy, like Cicero*, assigns no reason 
 for depriving Tarquinius Collatinus of 
 the consulship, except a jealousy of his 
 name ; and places his banishment be- 
 fore the conspiracy in which the sons 
 of Brutus were engaged : so that Vale- 
 rius is already consul, when he seizes 
 the conspirators. The very strangeness 
 of this story is a proof of its genuine- 
 ness. Dionysius, (who is followed by 
 Plutarch,) evidently in order to supply a 
 reason for the seemingly unworthy treat- 
 ment of Collatinus, describes him as 
 still consul when the conspiracy is de- 
 tected. He says, that the Aquillii were 
 his sister's sons ; and that, notwith- 
 standing the example of severity in 
 Brutus in condemning his own sons, 
 Collatinus interposed to protect his 
 nephews from the punishment due to 
 their treason ; that he thus incuiTed 
 the just displeasure of the people, and 
 excited their suspicions, and was com- 
 pelled by Brutus, who was bent upon 
 the punishment of the traitors, to abdi- 
 cate the consulship, and go into exile ; 
 and that then Valerius was chosen 
 consul in his place. That this is not 
 the genuine tradition is further proved 
 by the circumstance, that in all the 
 stories it is Valerius who arrests the 
 conspirators ; and the explanation of 
 this circumstance, which is given by 
 Dionysius and Plutarch in accordance 
 with their scheme, is unsatisfactory. 
 
 The Campus Martius is spoken of as 
 public land in the reign of Servius 
 Tullius : it is described as the property 
 of Tarquinius, when his estates are 
 seized by the Republic. A little inge- 
 nuity, such as Dionysius has shown,t 
 might reconcile these inconsistencies. 
 But a conflicting tradition attests that 
 the Campus Tiberinus, or Plain of the 
 Tiber, (by which name none other than 
 the Campus^ Martius was understood,) 
 
 li. P. ii. 31. 
 
 t Dion. V. 13. 
 
 was a gift to the Roman people from 
 the Vestal Caia Taratia, or Suffetia; 
 and an Horatian law * is cited, by which 
 various honours were decreed to her in 
 return, especially a statue to be erected 
 where she chose.t 
 
 Many of the acts of the first consuls 
 are ascribed solely to Valerius. This 
 results, probably, from the partiality of 
 the historian Valerius Antias. Thus 
 Cicero ascribes to him the popular 
 measure of suffering the fasces to be 
 borne only before each consul alter- 
 nately. $ 
 
 The dedication of the Capitol is re- 
 ferred by Livy to the first year of the 
 republic, when P. Valerius and P. 
 Horatius were colleagues in the consul- 
 ship. By Dionysius and the Fasti it is 
 assigned to the third year; and they 
 make Valerius and Horatius colleagues 
 in that year, where Livy names Valerius 
 and P. Lucretius.^ Tacitus also agrees 
 in placing the dedication of the Capitol 
 in the second consulship of Horatius. || 
 
 The war of Porsena is placed by Livy 
 in the second year of the republic; by 
 Dionysius in the third. In a battle be-- 
 fore the capture of the Janiculum, ac- 
 cording to Zonaras, the consul Valerius 
 was so severely wounded as to be borne 
 from the field in a litter. This circum- 
 stance was evidently added to keep up 
 the character of Valerius, and probably 
 came originally from Valerius Antias. 
 
 The story of Horatius Codes is re- 
 lated as it is told by Polybius. Ac- 
 cording to the later historians, wounded 
 and accoutred as he is, he swims across 
 the Tiber, and lives to be honoured by 
 his grateful country with the gift of as 
 much land as he can plough round in- 
 one day; and in the siege and famine 
 all the citizens stint themselves of food- 
 to supply his want, and each man and'' 
 woman gives him one day's provisions.^ 
 This contribution of food is a circum- 
 stance borrowed from the story of Man- 
 hus, who was thus rewarded by the 
 garrison of the Capitol for his bravery 
 in repelling the Gauls.** In a similar 
 manner Dionysius repeats the story of 
 the gift of lands, when he assigns the 
 same reward to Mucins. The fancy of 
 the fabricators of the Roman annals was 
 
 * The Romans distinguished laws by the gt;)i tile 
 name of the magistrate by whom they were pro- 
 posed. An Horatian law (Lex Horatiu) is a law 
 proposed by Horatius. 
 
 t Flin. xxxiv. 6. Aul. Gell. vi. 7. Pint. Public, 
 where the name Tarquinia is evidently a corrup, 
 tion. 
 
 t R. P. ii. 31. 5 Liv. ii. 15. || Hist. iii. :2. 
 % Dion. V, 25. ** Liv. v, 47, 
 
38 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 wonderfully barren. These are by no 
 means the only examples in which we 
 meet with an absolute repetition of cir- 
 cumstances. It is observable, that 
 Dionysius, in detailing: the exploit of 
 Mucins, omits the burning of his hand; 
 evidently as savourinsc too much of the 
 marvellous: yet, doubtless, this was the 
 veiy soul of the old tradition, the one 
 drcumstance which kept it alive in the 
 minds of the people. 
 
 There were two traditions regarding 
 the hostages given to Porsena. Cloelia 
 is the heroine of the more celebrated 
 story. According to the other, Tar- 
 quinius placed an ambush, and fell upon 
 the hostaijes as they were led to the 
 Etruscan camp, and massacred all ex- 
 cept Valeria, who escaped back to the 
 city.* Dionysius and Plutarch have 
 clumsily mixed the two. 
 
 The events between the war of Por- 
 sena and the battle of the Regillus, 
 which Livy condenses into a very brief 
 compass, Dionysius expands to an ex- 
 iraordinary and wearisome length; and 
 in all the domestic conspiracies, the wars 
 of the Sabines, the revolt of Fidense, 
 the league of the Latins, Sextus Tar- 
 quinius, the deadly enemy of the repub- 
 lic, is the indefatigable agent. One of 
 the stories of Dionysius it may be worth 
 while to mention. The emissaries of the 
 banished king had fomented a con- 
 spiracy within the city, among the slaves 
 and the more needy and discontented of 
 the populace. The strong places were 
 to have been seized on a certain night ; 
 but two young men of the house of the 
 Tarquinii, Publius and Marcus Tar- 
 quinius, who dwelt at Laurentum, and 
 who were chief agents in the plot, were 
 haunted with horrible dreams and 
 visions, till they were driven to make 
 known the meditated treason to the 
 consul Sulpicius. The conspiracy was 
 crushed, and the informers were ex- 
 cepted from the banishment of their 
 house, and rewarded with the rights of 
 citizens.;- Of this very year Livy notes, 
 that nothing worthy of memory was 
 done in it. J 
 
 Livy knows nothing of a consulship 
 which Dionysius bestows upon the 
 heroes Larcius and Herminius, the 
 companions of Codes, in the fourth year 
 of the republic. He places the battle of 
 the Regillus in the tenth year from the 
 expulsion of the kmgs, in the consulship 
 
 • Pliny, H. N. xxxiv. 13. (6). 
 t Dion. V. 54, &c. t Lit. ii. 19. 
 
 of .(Ebutius, who becomes master of the 
 
 kniirlils. Dionysius (following other au- 
 thors, whom Livy also had consulted)* 
 dates it three years later, in the four- 
 teenth year from the flight of Tarquinius, 
 according to his own chronology, when 
 A. Postumius, who was named Dictator^ 
 had been consul. 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 Of the Credibility of the History ofikd 
 early Ages of Rome. 
 
 § 1. Proposition. §2. Of the extant Historians— 
 i. Of Livy— ii. Dionysius of HaliciirnassuB— 
 iii. Plutarch. $ 3. Of the earlier Historians, 
 whose Works are lost— i. Of Fabius Pictor — 
 ii. L. Cincius Aliraentus — iii. M. Porcius Cato^ 
 iv. L. Calpurnius Piso — v. Valerius Antias— 
 vi. Licinius Macer — vii. Cicero's Uialo^ues con- 
 cerning n Republic, and Polybius. § 4. Of the 
 Pontifical Annals— that they were lost in the de- 
 struction of Rome by the Gauls — of their nature. 
 5 5. That private Records were also destroyed. 
 5 6. Of the public Documents which escaped 
 destruction — i. Treaties — ii. Laws— iii. Lists of 
 Magistrates— iv. Registers of theCc^nsus — v. Re- 
 ligious Books. § 7. That the narratives of the 
 early Roman History were derived mainly from 
 popular tradition, and that they had been handed 
 down in a poetical shape— i. Examples in other 
 nations of traditionary heroic Poems, and of 
 their becoming the materials of History — 
 ii. Testimonies to the existence of such Poema 
 among the Romans~iii. Fnrther remarks on the 
 more ancient Roman poetry — iv. Of the plebeian 
 character of the Historical Poems. § 8. Of the 
 Chronology of the early ages of Rome — i. That 
 the duration assigned to the reigns of the Kjngs 
 is improbable — ii. Of the origin of this Chrono- 
 logy — iii. Of the dates assigned to the foundation 
 of the City. § 9. Recapitulation and Conclusion. 
 
 § 1 . It has been stated in the introduc- 
 tion to the preceding chapter, that the 
 history which is commonly related as the 
 history of the early ages of Rome is not 
 to be received as a true narrative of 
 facts. We now proceed to examine the 
 reasons of that assertion. 
 
 § 2. The two chief authors from whom 
 we have received a continuous detail of 
 early Roman history, are Titus Livius 
 and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. The 
 other histories which have been tran.s- 
 mitted tons are merely compilations and 
 abridgments, the credit of which must 
 stand or fall with the credit of the two 
 great historians. Plutarch has presented 
 a portion of the history in his lives of 
 Romulus and Numa and Valerius Pub- 
 licola; and he is a writer so popular, 
 that his narrative has greatly contri- 
 buted to form the common belief. 
 
 Now these writers all lived many cen- 
 turies after the events which they nar- 
 rate. 
 
 i. Livy was born in the year b. c. 
 58,f in the year of the city 695. The 
 
 • H. 21. 
 
 t Crevivr's Preface. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 39 
 
 date of the composilion of his history 
 is fixed by internal evidence. The first 
 book must have been written within five 
 years after the battle of Actium ~ (b. c. 
 31-26). The question therefore arises, 
 upon what authority does he rest his 
 history of times so remote as the first 
 a2:es of Rome ? He does not profess to 
 ground it upon contemporary memorials 
 of any kind. He himself describes the 
 portion of Roman history from the foun- 
 dation of the city to its capture by the 
 Gauls,t as even more obscure than it 
 would have been rendered by its mere 
 antiquity, because in those early times 
 writing was used but seldom and to a 
 small extent, and such records as were 
 contained in the commentaries of the 
 pontiffs, and in other public or private 
 monuments, for the most part perished 
 in the conflagration of the city.$ The 
 truth of this statement will presently be 
 made still more manifest. But Livy 
 made very little use even of such in- 
 scriptions and pubhc documents as were 
 within his reach. He appeals, indeed, 
 to the treaty of Spurius Cassius with 
 the Latins, engraven on a column of 
 brass.§ But in the notable instance of 
 the inscription on the Spolia Opima of 
 Cornelius Cossus, preserved in the tem- 
 ple of Jupiter Feretrius, which was at 
 variance with the received fasti (or regis- 
 ter of magistrates) and the common 
 accounts of historians, he does not appear 
 to have had the curiosity to examine the 
 monument himself, but is content with 
 repeating the report of Augustus Caesar.]! 
 This is one of the few passages in which 
 he descends to a critical comparison of 
 evidence and authorities; and it will 
 serve as a proof how little expert he was 
 in that art of an historian, and how little 
 he valued its results ; for though in this 
 digression he professes to believe in the 
 superior authority of the inscription, in 
 the main course of his narrative he fol- 
 lows the beaten track of the writers 
 who had gone before him. He makes 
 no mention of other monuments which 
 we know to have existed; the brazen 
 column in the temple of the Aventine 
 Diana, on which was engraven the 
 treaty of Servius Tullius with the Latins, 
 with the names of the tribes who were 
 members of the league ;^ the treaty of 
 Tarquinius Superbus with Gabii, written 
 on a bull's hide, -and preserved in the 
 
 * Crev. Pref. ; Liv. i. 19. 
 
 f Outline of Gen. Hist. ch. xii. § 4 
 
 t Liv. vi. 1. § II. 33. 
 
 11 IV. 20. % Dion. iv. 26. 
 
 temple of Dius Fidius ;* a treaty with 
 the Sabines of the time of the kings ;t 
 the treaty with Carthage in the first year 
 of the republicll; (and here his negligence 
 is without excuse ; for even though the 
 document itself might have perished 
 before his time, he would have found the 
 translation of it in Polybius, if he had 
 consulted him before he began to nar- 
 rate the Punic wars) ; and finally, the 
 treaty with Porsena, which was known 
 to Pliny.§ He does not, therefore, 
 found his narrative upon contemporary 
 records ; but avowedly draws his mate- 
 rials from the works of earlier annalists, 
 Fabius Pictor, Calpurnius Piso, Vale- 
 rius Antias, Licinius Macer, ^lius 
 Tubero,|| and reposes upon their autho- 
 rity. As long as his guides agree in the 
 main points of their" story, he follows 
 them without fear or doubt. When they 
 openly contradict each other, especially 
 on questions of names or dates, then he 
 sometimes honestly confesses the diffi- 
 culty, and acknowledges in general terms 
 the uncertainty of the history of the first 
 centuries of the city.^ But very many- 
 discrepancies less flagrant, and even 
 some as important as those which he has; 
 specified, he passes over without notice ; 
 and yet we know with certainty that 
 they existed, because they appear in the 
 narrative of Dionysius, who drew from 
 the same authorities as Livy. A few 
 of these have been already mentioned.** 
 But though the course of his narration is 
 sometimes checked by the conflict of 
 external testimony, he is never induced 
 to pause or doubt by any internal diffi- 
 culty, any inconsistency or contradiction 
 or perplexity in the received story. No- 
 thing less than a miracle is too strange 
 for his acquiescence.tt It is evident 
 that he has bestowed no labour upon 
 examining the probability of the events 
 which he relates, or investigating their 
 connexion as causes and effects. Yet 
 this unquestioning assent has not always 
 resulted from a real belief. In his pre- 
 face he acknowledges that the traditions 
 of the times before the foundation of the 
 city are better suited to poetic fables than 
 to true history ; but he thinks that their 
 
 * Dion. iv. 59. See p. 24. 
 
 t Hor. Epist. ii. 1,25. 
 
 t Polyb. iii. 22. For an account of Polybius, 
 see below, § 3, vii. 
 
 § H. N. xxxiv. 14. 
 
 II For passages in which they are cited by name, 
 see index to Livy. 
 
 % Seei. 24 J i. 46 ; ii. 18 j ii.21i ii. 40} ii. 54 
 iii.23, &c. 
 
 ** Chap. i. § 16. 
 
 tt See v. 21, 22. 
 
10 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 marvellous character is only what may 
 be reasonably expected in le<rends of so 
 great antiquity ; and he declines the task 
 of either contirmin<r or refuting:: them. 
 In reiwrtins: the prodip:ies of the siej^e 
 of Veii, while he admits that he does not 
 claim for them the belief of his readers, 
 he lets us see with how low a test of 
 truth he was satisfied himself: " In 
 matters so ancient I shall hold it enough 
 if what is truthlike be received as true."* 
 And in commemorating the self-devotion 
 of M. Curtius, an exploit which is placed 
 even thirty years later than the capture 
 of the city by the Gauls, he plainly pro- 
 fesses the principle upon which his his- 
 tory is written : " I would not spare re- 
 search, if there were any way by which 
 an inquirer might arrive at truth : now 
 we must abide by common report, where 
 the lapse of time will not allow us certain 
 evidence."'!- It follows, therefore, that 
 the concurrence of Livy adds no weight 
 to the testimonies which he repeats ; but 
 that, in order to judge of the credit 
 which is due to his history, we must exa- 
 mine into the character of the authors 
 upon whom he relies, and into their 
 means of knowing or discovering the 
 truth. 
 
 Before, however, we close this discus- 
 sion of the credit of Livy, we must in- 
 quire whether there are any qualities in 
 his manner of writing which impair his 
 credibility, and detract from the autho- 
 rity of accounts which, have been trans- 
 mitted through him. Now there are 
 sufficient proofs that he wrote hastily 
 and even carelessly. He sometimes 
 mentions incidentally, in a subsequent 
 part of his history, circumstances which 
 he has omitted in their proper place. 
 Thus it is only by his remarks on the 
 proposal for communicating the digni- 
 ties of pontiff and augur to the plebeians 
 (1. X. c. 6), that we learn from him that 
 Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres were 
 names of the ancient tribes. He some- 
 times repeats,! sometimes contradicts§ 
 himself. It is an instance and proof both 
 of his carelessness and his want of fami- 
 liarity with the antiquities of his coun- 
 try, that, though he expressly informs 
 us that till a very short time before the 
 capture of the city the Roman way of 
 fighting was in close phalanx with long 
 spears, yet in no description of a battle 
 does he allude to such tactics, and com- 
 
 • V. 21. t vii. 6. 
 
 t XXXV. 21 and 30. 
 §^Coini:Hrc ■■•:- x. 22, a.iU x.- xiv. 44. 
 
 monly uses of the older times the terms 
 which relate to the more modem struc- 
 ture of the army.* We cannot, there- 
 fore, feel assured that he always repre- 
 sented accurately the statements of the 
 older annalists from whom he takes his 
 materials. He may not always have 
 understood them. He certainly might 
 be at a loss to understand contemporary 
 documents, even if he had been more 
 studious in referring to them ; for more 
 than a hundred years before, Polybius, 
 in speaking of the treaty with Carthage 
 made under the first consuls, observed, 
 " that he had interpreted it as accurately 
 as he could ; but that so great was the 
 difference between the recent and more 
 ancient dialect of Rome, that the most 
 intelligent men had difficulty in dis- 
 tinctly determining the meaning of some 
 parts of it :"t and Livy has given little 
 evidence of such learning. It is pos- 
 sible, therefore, that he did not always 
 understand the meaning of old terms 
 and forms of speech repeated by the 
 annalists, especially those which related 
 to an obsolete state of the laws and iro- 
 vernment and popular rights. There is 
 a strong appearance of his having made 
 a mistake of this kind in 1. iv. c. 34. 
 Such an imputation will be less startling 
 when we consider that in several in- 
 stances he has manifestly misunderstood 
 the Greek historian Polybius, and has 
 even falsified his narrative in order to 
 accommodate it to his own misconcep- 
 tion. $ 
 
 Any errors, however, which might 
 arise from these causes would be single 
 and detached ; could bear but a very 
 small ratio to the bulk of the history, 
 and would not affect its general spirit. 
 But the very tone and manner of Livy's 
 work, however great may be his power 
 of description, however lucid his style 
 of narration, however much he may 
 dazzle the imagination or interest the 
 feelings of. his readers, is a warning 
 against implicit belief. He excelled in 
 narralion and in the eloquent expression 
 of excited feelings ; and he obviously 
 delighted in the exercise of his genius. 
 In reporting the traditions of the early 
 ages of Rome, he seems less desirous to 
 ascertain the truth than to array the 
 popular story in the most attractive 
 garb. He is not so much an histo- 
 rian as a poet ; and, if we may guess 
 
 • Compare viii. 8, and 5. 43, with i. 52, and other 
 passages, 
 t Polyb. ii. 22. 
 t See- examples in Crevier's preface. ; 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 41 
 
 from the colouring of his 'style,' in 
 some passages he has borrowed the 
 inspiration of the poet Ennius rather 
 than adhered to the meagre statements 
 of the annalists.* As the history ad- 
 vances, and the truth of facts is better 
 ascertained, he is of course compelled to 
 record them with greater fidelity ; but 
 still his whole work is a triumphal cele- 
 bration of the heroic spirit and military 
 glory of Rome. Here then is a disturb- 
 ing force which has borne him away 
 from the strict line of historical truth. 
 To this desire of exalting the glory of 
 his country (and no doubt to a similar 
 impulse actuating those from whom he 
 copied), we must ascribe the singular 
 phenomena which appear on the face of 
 the history : that in perpetual wars with 
 the surrounding states, the Romans were 
 never defeated in the open field ;t that, 
 when they were distressed, it was always 
 by pestilence or famine or sedition, and 
 that at such seasons their enemies ab- 
 stained from attacking them ; that they 
 gained victory after victory without sub- 
 duing their opponents ; that taken cities 
 reappear in the power of their original 
 possessors ;$ that consuls and dictators 
 triumph in succession over nations that 
 are still able to supply subjects for new 
 triumphs to new consuls and dictators ; 
 that slaughters, which must have ex- 
 hausted any state of ancient Italy, dimi- 
 nish not the number of their perpetually 
 renovated adversaries. As an instance of 
 this exaggeration and falsification of the 
 history, it will be sufficient to mark here, 
 what will be noticed at greater length 
 hereafter, Livy's account of the rescue 
 of the city from the Gauls, and of the 
 subsequent victories of the Romans over 
 that terrible enemy. Here Polybius 
 has preserved the outline of the more 
 credible history. May not the misrepre- 
 sentation be as gross, where the truth is 
 not equally ascertained ? To this passion 
 for extolling the military reputation of 
 Rome we owe the comparative neglect 
 of the less popular and less ostentatious 
 subjects of domestic history. Every 
 war and triumph, of which any memo- 
 rial, true or false, existed, is scrupulously 
 registered ; but the original constitution 
 of the state, the divisions of its citizens, 
 .their several rights, the contests be- 
 tween the orders, the constitution of the 
 general or partial assemblies of the 
 
 * Compare the ruin of Alba i. 29, with the 
 fragments of Ennius. 
 t Seeix. 19. 
 t See Perizon. Observ. Histor. c. iv. p. 164. 
 
 people, the powers of the magistrates, 
 the laws, the jurisprudence, their pro- 
 gressive melioration, these are subjectg 
 on which our information is vague and 
 scanty, and ill-connected. It is evident 
 that to the mind of Livy they possessed 
 comparatively but little interest ; and 
 that on these matters, to say the least, 
 he did not exert himself to correct the 
 errors or supply the defects of the 
 writers who preceded him. He was 
 satisfied, if from a popular commotion 
 he could extract the materials of an 
 eloquent speech. It is a sufficient proof 
 that on this most important portion of 
 Roman history he was really ignorant, 
 that with all his power of language he 
 does not convey clear and vivid ideas to 
 the minds of his readers. Who has 
 risen from the perusal of the early books 
 of Livy with a distinct notion of a Client, 
 or of an Agrarian Law ? 
 
 ii. Dionysius of Halicarnassus finished 
 his history very nearly at the same 
 time as Livy. He himself has fixed 
 the date of its publication to the 
 745th year of the city. Like Livy, he 
 has made but very little use of contem- 
 porary monuments. We have seen, in 
 deed, that he has mentioned some 
 which are not noticed by Livy, the 
 league of the Latins with Servius Tul- 
 lius, and the treaty of Tarquinius Su- 
 perbus with Gabii. But he has not 
 recorded the substance of these docu- 
 ments ; nor has it even occurred to him 
 that the very existence of a treaty with 
 Gabii is utterly inconsistent with the 
 story which he himself has told of the 
 betrayal of the town to the Romans by 
 Sextus Tarquinius.* Like Livy, he 
 relies upon the authority of the earlier 
 annalists, f He seems, indeed, to 
 have studied them more carefull)-, 
 and to have extended his researches 
 more widely. Thus he has profited by 
 the valuable authority of Cato, whom 
 Livy has not cited. Nor can Dionysius 
 be charged with the haste and careless- 
 ness which are apparent in Livy. Yet 
 there are causes which render his autho- 
 rity far less valid even than Livy's, and 
 indeed absolutely worthless, where his 
 assertions are not supported by the ex- 
 press citation of testimony, or strong 
 internal probability. 
 
 Dionysius wrote with an avowed pur- 
 pose, different from the purpose of re- 
 porting the truth according to his know- 
 ledge. Dionysius was a Greek. The 
 
 p. 36. 
 
 + i. 
 
42 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Greeks [had lone looked upon thera- 
 selvi's as the first race of mankind in all 
 intellectual excellence, in polity and war, 
 in philosophy and arts; and they stiuma- 
 tized all other nations with the distinc- 
 tive and contemptuous appellation of 
 barbarians. To them the Romans were 
 barbarians ; and it was a sore humilia- 
 tion to them to have become the subjects 
 of barbarians, and to have seen empire 
 and supremacy in all the active pursuits 
 of life pass to a })eople utterly alien to 
 Greece. It was an additional mortitica- 
 tion to them, that this people was a 
 people of yesterday ; a people whose 
 origin at the best was obscure, and, ac- 
 cording to the legends of the Asylum, 
 even infamous.* Many Greek writers 
 had indulged their wounded pride by 
 reviling the Romans : Dionysius chose a 
 more artful method of soothing and 
 flattering his countrymen. He under- 
 took to show that the original popula- 
 tion of the city was of Grecian descent ; 
 that Rome was in fact a Grecian city ; 
 that its religion, its government, its laws, 
 its manners, were Grecian, however 
 much the lapse of ages might have 
 estranged it from its parent stock. For 
 this purpose he collected accounts of the 
 early population of Italy, and of immi- 
 grations from the adjacent regions of 
 Greece ; and he found enough in tradi- 
 tion to give a specious colour to his 
 fiction. Upon the assumption of this fic- 
 tion he has constructed his whole history; 
 and the speeches especially which he 
 has put into the mouths of his characters, 
 are fashioned in accordance to it, with 
 even a ludicrous grossness of invention. 
 In accordance with the same system, he 
 has sought to remove all appearance of 
 uncertainty and obscurity from the early 
 history of Rome, and to sink every cir- 
 cumstance which seemed inconsistent 
 with its dignity. Where the popular 
 traditions, imbued, as popular traditions 
 always are, with a poetic spirit, recounted 
 marvellous and supernatural tales, Di- 
 onysius, not aware that such fables stand 
 in no uniformly assignable relation to 
 the truth, but are the lawless offspring 
 of the popular imagination, has invari- 
 ably supposed that he could present 
 historical facts, by simply omitting the 
 prodigies, or interpreting them by conjec- 
 ture into something possible. Wherever 
 he saw, or fancied that he saw, any in- 
 consistency in the received story, he has 
 always botched it with a detail of cir- 
 
 • See Juven. s. viiJ. in tin. 
 
 cumstances evidently of his own inven 
 tion ;* and he does not scruple to depart, 
 on his own notions of probability, from 
 the testimony of preceding writers. •!• Yet, 
 except in the very earliest times, he 
 never honestly acknowledges, like Livy, 
 any disagreement in his authorities, or 
 uncertainty in the history. In cases 
 where we know from Livy, that the 
 earlier annalists differed among them- 
 selves, or even public records were at 
 variance, on questions of names or dates, 
 Dionysius continues his narrative boldly 
 and smoothly, without intimating, in the 
 slightest degree, the unsoundness of his 
 historical foundation,]; And in cases 
 far more numerous, we know from the 
 discrepancy of the two historians the want 
 of agreement in the authors whom they 
 both must have consulted: yet, in Dio- 
 nysius, all is told as certain ; and there 
 is not even a complaint in general terms, 
 such as Livy makes not unfrequently, 
 of any lack of information on matters of 
 so great antiquity. Such a complaint 
 would indeed come with an ill grace 
 from Dionysius ; for he has indulged in 
 a minute detail of circumstances, which 
 by itself is a powerful argument against 
 his veracity. The events which, in Livy, 
 occupy a little more than three books, 
 by Dionysius are expanded into eleven ; 
 and this bulk is filled up with speeches, 
 which have as little pretence to dramatic 
 probability as they have to historical 
 truth ; with anecdotes which, from their 
 very nature, could never be publicly 
 known; and with a multitude of cir- 
 cumstances which no writer but Diony- 
 sius could have thought it worth while 
 to repeat, which are evidently invented, 
 and yet are utterly unimaginative in 
 their character. Livy ministered to the 
 triumphant pride of his countrymen ; 
 and Dionysius had probably sufficient 
 ill judgment to suppose, that he was 
 flattering the Romans as well as sooth- 
 ing the Greeks. But in Livy we have 
 the national traditions; and it we do not 
 find the truth, we find what the Romans 
 themselves gladly believed to be true. 
 From Dionysius we gather nothing of 
 the national spirit of Rome. His work 
 is a dull and fraudulent fabriciition, from 
 which nothing valuable is to be extracted 
 
 • e. g. Mucius's Etruscan nurse. 
 
 f e. g. In the genealogy of the Tarquins. 
 
 i As in the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii, 
 the first dictator, the battle of the Regillus, the 
 taking of Antium, the death of Coriolanus. See 
 Bcdujort, P. I. ch.xii., P. II. ch. vii., Sur I'lncer- 
 titude de I'Hiatoire liomaiue. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 4* 
 
 but hy a cautious and suspicious re- 
 search. 
 
 iii. Plutarch lived more than a century 
 later than Livy and Dionysius. There 
 is no appearance of his having sought 
 for any new sources of information ; and 
 it is not probable that he always recurred 
 1o the original authorities. The two 
 more recent historians must have thrown 
 the earlier annalists in some measure 
 into obscurity ; and Plutarch seems in- 
 deed in several passages to have fol- 
 lowed Dionysius. That he should have 
 frequently consulted the old writers is 
 the Jess likely, because, as he himself 
 confesses, and as he has shown in the 
 course of his work, he was imperfectly 
 ncquainted with the Latin language. 
 We know moreover from his Grecian 
 lives, that he was inaccurate, and com- 
 piled his narratives indiscriminately from 
 authorities good and bad. We cannot 
 therefore account him a safer guide in 
 other cases, although we may have less 
 evidence to detect his errors. He had 
 the same erroneous notion with Diony- 
 sius of the mode of converting legendary 
 fables into history. He had not the 
 national partiality of Livy, nor the dis- 
 honest purpose of Dionysius ; but his 
 method of writing Hves exposed him to 
 the temptation to exaggerate the exploits 
 of his hero for the time. Of this ten- 
 dency we have examples in the life of 
 Publicola.* 
 
 § 3. We must proceed therefore to 
 examine, as well as we are able, the 
 credibility of the earlier historians, from 
 whom Livy and Dionysius derived their 
 information. As their works have pe- 
 rished, and are known to us only by a 
 few scattered fragments " and citations, 
 it is impossible to review each singly. 
 But after a few remarks on the more 
 eminent of them, we shall enter upon 
 the argument which equally affects all. 
 
 i. The oldest Roman historian,t upon 
 whose authority Livy and Dionysius 
 most confidently rely, was Quintus 
 Fabius Pictor. Fabius Pictor was con- 
 temporary with the second Punic war,$ 
 and it was probably after its termina- 
 tion, that is, five centuries and a half 
 after the foundation of the city, that he 
 wrote the history of Rome from its 
 origin to his own time. He was hira- 
 
 , * In the preceding remarks iise has been made of 
 an able article in the Encyclopaedia Mctropolitana, 
 History, ch. xvi. " On the (kedibility of the 
 Early Roman History." 
 
 t Liv. i.44; ii.40. Dion. i. 6 j vii. 71. 
 
 i Liv. xxii. 7. See also c. 57, and Appian. 
 
 self a senator,* and must therefore be 
 supposed to have been well acquainted 
 with all that could readily be known of 
 the history of his country ; and he pos- 
 sessed every facihiy of access to treaties 
 and other ancient monuments ; but of 
 these there is no proof of liis having 
 availed himself In his narrative of the 
 birth and education of Romulus, though 
 he referred to the poetic legends of his 
 country, t which of course must have 
 been familiar to him, yet, in the me- 
 thod in which he reduced them to an 
 historical guise, he followed an obscure 
 Greek writer. Diodes of Peparethus, by 
 whom the chief circumstances of that 
 form of the story which finally prevailed 
 had first been published to the Greeks. $ 
 He showed his judgment by running 
 over the events of the early history in a 
 summary manner, and attempting an 
 accurate detail only of what fell under 
 his immediate knowledge.^ Yet, even 
 in the latter part of his history, he is 
 charged by Polybius with taking an in- 
 correct view of the relation of events, 
 and with suffering his perception of the 
 truth to be perverted by his national 
 partiality.il We may reasonably con- 
 clude, that the same partiality would 
 affect his narrative, where the evidence 
 of facts was less certain. 
 
 In his account of the birth of Romulus 
 and the foundation of Rome, we are 
 expressly informed"^ that Fabius Pictor 
 was followed by Cincius, Cato, and 
 Calpurnius Piso ; and his whole history 
 indeed seems to have been the text- 
 book of all subsequent historians. 
 
 ii. Lucius Cincius Alimentus also 
 lived during the second Punic war. He 
 was a senator,** and had held the office 
 of praetor ;tt and was lieutenant to the 
 consul T. Quinctius,$$ a.u.c. 545. He 
 was taken prisoner by Hannibal, and 
 admitted to personal intercourse with 
 that great man.^§ Dionysius gives the 
 same general account of his history, 
 as of that of Fabius Pictor. |||| It is 
 probable, however, that it was of greater 
 value: for we are told by Livy, that 
 Cincius carefully examined and recorded 
 ancient monuments ;^^ and even from 
 the few fragments which we possess of 
 his annals, we can extract information 
 
 * Polyb. iii. 9. t Dion. i. 79. 
 
 t Plut. Rom. § Dion. i. 6. 
 
 II Polyb. i. 14, iii. 8, 9. % Dion. 1. 79. 
 
 •» Dion, i. 74. ft Liv. xxvi. 23. 
 
 t* Liv. xxvii. 29. 
 
 §§ Liv. xxi, 38. Hannibal. See Outline Ot 
 General History, ch. xiv. § 5. 
 UU Dion. 1.6. %^ Liv. vU. 3. 
 
44 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 nn the early relations of Rome with the 
 Latins, and on some other points, which 
 have been disguised in every other re- 
 port It is therefore to be much re- 
 gretted, that Livy has never once cited 
 him as an authority for any event in the 
 history of the first ages of Rome. 
 
 iii. Marcus Porcius Cato was consul 
 in the year of Rome 558, and subse- 
 quently censor.* Cicero bears abun- 
 dant testimony to his hiijh intellectual 
 and moral character; and Livy has 
 
 1)assed a splendid judgment upon him.t 
 [n his old age he composed an historical 
 work, in seven books. The first con- 
 tained the actions of the Roman kings : 
 the second and third the origin of all 
 the Italian cities; whence the whole 
 work was entitled " Origines." In the 
 fourth he passed immediately to the 
 first Punic war.$ We have express 
 testimony to the industry and learning 
 which he displayed in this work. It 
 would have been especially valuable to 
 us, if it had been preserved, as recording 
 the traditions and antiquities of the other 
 Italian cities, which are now irrecover- 
 ably lost through the predominance of 
 Rome, and the selfish vanity of the Ro- 
 man writers. Even from the citations 
 of Dionysius we collect much informa- 
 tion. Livy has not referred to the au- 
 thority of Cato in his extant books; at 
 least he has not cited him by name. 
 
 iv. Lucius Calpurnius Piso, like Cato, 
 was consul and censor ; consul in the 
 year of Rome 620. From what is 
 known of his annals he does not appear 
 to have been a writer of discretion or 
 judgment. He seems to have been the 
 first of the Roman historians who cor- 
 rupted the popular traditions, by strip- 
 ping them of their marvellous incidents, 
 by substituting his own interpretations 
 and inventions, and by falsifying the re- 
 ceived stories, in order to accommodate 
 them to the received chronology.^ 
 
 V. Valerius Antias lived in the time 
 of Sylla (about a.u.c. 672). Livy cites 
 him frequently ; but always to note his 
 exaggeration and falsehood in reporting 
 numbers. II 
 
 • The censors were magistrates appointed to 
 take the census, that is, to register the people. 
 Their powers were gradually enlarged, and their 
 office iu the age of Cato was the most hououruble 
 in the state. 
 
 t Liv. xxxix. 40. 
 f t Corn. Nep. Life of Cato. 
 
 § See his account of the Curtian Lake, Varro de 
 L. L. iv. 42; the story of Tarpeia, Uion. ii. 3S, 
 &c. •, and his making Tarquinius Superbus the 
 grandson of Priscus, Dion. iv. 7. See also Nie- 
 buhr, p. 193. 
 
 e.^.iit.d. 
 
 vi. Licinius Macer was a writer of the 
 same age. The criticism of Cicero* 
 gives no high opinion of his judgment. 
 Livy on one occasion suspects him of 
 falsifying the history in order to gratify 
 the vanity of the Licinian family .t We 
 shall soon have occasion to observe that 
 family vanity was a fruitful source of 
 corruptions in Roman history. Lici,- 
 nius however is worthy of notice, be- 
 cause he seems to have been more dili- 
 gent than other writers in examining 
 original documents. He had inspected 
 a treaty with Ardea, made in the year of 
 Rome 310; and he had consulted cer- 
 tain ancient records written on linen 
 (libii lintei), and preserved in the temple 
 of Moneta, which contained the names 
 of the magistrates for several successive 
 years.J From the narrow limits within 
 which these archives are cited by Livy 
 on the authority of Licinius, it appears 
 probable, that either they were nut of 
 great extent, or but a small portion of 
 them had been preserved. 
 
 vii. It should be mentioned that Cicero 
 himself, in his Dialogues concerning a 
 Republic (a work which was supposed 
 to be lost, but of which very large frag- 
 ments have been recently recovered), 
 presents a summary of the early history 
 of Rome. This, it appears from his ex- 
 pressions, was taken chiefly from the 
 authority of Polybius. Polybius was a 
 native of Megalopolis in Peloponnesus, 
 and distinguished himself in the service 
 of the Achaean League (Outline of Gen. 
 Hist. chap. xiii. ^3). He was made 
 a prisoner by the Romans ; and at 
 Rome was honoured with the friend- 
 ship of the younger Scipio and other 
 distinguished men. He wrote a history, 
 comprising the events of the western 
 world from the beginning to the end of 
 the Punic wars (a.u.c. 489 — 607), in 
 forty books. Of these only the first five 
 are preserved entire ; but there are 
 fragments of the rest. It appears that 
 in the sixth book he digressed to give 
 an account of the early history and of 
 the institutions of Rome. From this 
 part of the work Cicero has taken hia 
 summary. We know that Polybius, as 
 a writer of recent history, was accurate 
 and judicious; and therefore we may 
 reasonably attach considerable value to 
 the remains of his antiquarian re- 
 searches; especially when they are 
 stamped with the approbation of so 
 
 • De Legg. i. 2. f Liv. vii. 9. 
 
 t See Llf. iv. 7, 20, 23. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 4S 
 
 irreat a man, and so learned and accom- 
 plished a writer, as Cicero. 
 
 Such are the chief writers, upon 
 whose authority the histories of Livy 
 and Dionysius are founded ; and it is 
 worthy of remark, that the most valua- 
 ble seem to have been the least used. 
 "With regard to all however the ques- 
 tion may justly be raised,— what mate- 
 rials did they possess for the history of 
 the early ages of Rome, from the foun- 
 dation of the city to its capture by the 
 Gauls ? 
 
 ^S 4. This question forces itself upon 
 us,' when we find that the earliest Ro- 
 ^i man historians lived five hundred and 
 ' fifty years after the date assigned to the 
 foundation of the city, and a hundred 
 and ninety years after its recovery from 
 the Gauls. Before the work of Fabius 
 Pictor, we are expressly informed by 
 Cicero *, that there were no historical 
 records but the Annals of the Pontiffs. 
 The writers who have maintained the 
 credibility of the early Roman history 
 have conceived that these Annals fur- 
 nished the materials of it. It is therefore 
 necessary to examine what they were, 
 and how far they were preserved. An- 
 tonius in Cicero •(- relates, " that, for 
 the sake of preserving the public memory 
 of events, from the commencement of the 
 Roman State till the time of the chief 
 pontiff, P. Mucins, $ the chief pontiff 
 (Pontifex Maxim us) used to commit 
 to writing all the events of each year, 
 and transcribed them on a whited board, 
 and set up the tablet in his house, that 
 the people might have the opportunity 
 of reading them ; and these are even to 
 this day called the Great Annals (An- 
 nales Maximi)." We are not told what 
 security there was for their perpetual 
 preservation ; but we may suppose that 
 they remained laid up in the house of 
 the pontiff. Whether the Annals com- 
 posed by one pontiff were handed over 
 to his successor, so that the whole col- 
 lection might remain in the custody of 
 one person, is much more doubtful. A 
 series of such Annals " from the com- 
 mencement of the Roman State," if 
 they had been preserved, would have 
 furnished materials for history, meagre 
 perhaps, but certainly trustworthy. But 
 •with this passage of Cicero we must 
 compare the avowal of Livy, to which 
 reference has been made already ;§ " that 
 
 • De Legg. i. 2. f De Orat. ii. 12. 
 
 i Mucius was the colleague of Culpurnius PIso, 
 in the consulship A.u.c, 620. 
 § Liv. vi 1. 
 
 the events of the history of Rome from 
 its foundation to its capture are obscure, 
 not only on account of their great anti- 
 quity, but because writing, the only sure 
 method of preserving the memory of 
 events, was in those times rare, and 
 used but to a small extent ; and even if 
 any records were contained in the Com- 
 mentaries of the Pontiffs and other 
 public and private monuments, the 
 greater part of them perished in the 
 conflagration of the city." No doubt 
 can reasonably be entertained that by 
 the Commentaries of the Pontiffs Livy 
 meant the tables which Cicero calls the 
 Great Annals. These must at least be 
 included in his general description. 
 When we remember that the Gauls 
 were in possession of the city, plunder- 
 ing, burning, and destroying, for seven 
 months,* we must assent to the conclu- 
 sion, that it was exceedingly unlikely 
 that any records should be preserved, 
 except those which were de})osited in 
 the Capitol. Now there is no likeli- 
 hood that the Annals were^ deposited 
 in the Capitol ; for the chief pontiff did 
 not reside there.-i' 
 
 We have however what amounts to 
 an absolute proof, that the genuine an- 
 nals for the period anterior to the cap- 
 ture of the city were destroyed; and 
 that, if annals of that time were shown 
 in later ages, they had been constructed 
 subsequently in order to supply the loss. 
 We know from a passage of Cato,$ that 
 the record of eclipses formed a promi- 
 nent part of the register of the chief 
 pontiff. Cicero, in his " Dialogues on 
 a Republic,"§ mentions that Ennius 
 had recorded, that the sun was 
 eclipsed on the nones of June, in the 
 35 0th year of the city, and then he 
 proceeds thus :— " And from this day, 
 which we see marked in Ennius and in 
 the Great Annals, the precsding eclipses 
 of the sun have been calculated back- 
 wards until that which took place on the 
 nones of Qmnctilis (July), in the reign 
 of Romulus, in which Romulus was said 
 to have been carried up to heaven." 
 The original records therefore no 
 longer existed; otherwise there would 
 have been no need of calculation. We 
 see that annals were extant which pro- 
 fessed to represent the events of the 
 350th year of the city, or the 15th year 
 before its capture. These might have 
 been saved from the general wreck, or 
 
 Plut, Cam. t Nleb. p. 213. 
 
 t A; Gell. ii. 25. i i. 16, 
 
HISTORY OF ROME, 
 
 miirht easily have been restored from 
 memory. But if there were any which 
 related to an earlier time, in these, as 
 the records of the eclijjses were replaced 
 by calculation (whether scientific or em- 
 piric, and how accurate, we know not), 
 so the records of events must have been 
 replaced by recollection, which would 
 become more and more uncertain as it 
 went further and further back, till at 
 last it must have ended in mere tradi- 
 tion or invention ; and it is obvious that 
 the forcing? a history so constructed into 
 the form of annals must have given birth 
 to a chronology altogether arbitrary, 
 and have caused greater falsification 
 (more deceitful, because it was concealed 
 under a show of exactness) than if the 
 traditions had been left to themselves in 
 the mouths of the people. Livy was of 
 opinion, that in early times the Annals, 
 or Commentaries of the Pontiffs, as a 
 portion of the sacred writings, were re- 
 served for the knowledge of the Patri- 
 cians only, and that the Plebeians were 
 not admitted to the sight of them.* If 
 this opinion be true (and it is not impro- 
 bable), there was certainly less chance 
 that the genuine contents of the annals 
 could be restored by memory ; but on 
 the other hand we may be sure that 
 their contents were less valuable for the 
 purpose of a national history, and that 
 we have less reason to regret their loss. 
 It is evident that their original intent 
 must have been to record prodigies 
 and other events to which superstition 
 attached importance; else why should 
 they have been composed by the pon- 
 tiffs ? Political incidents would be com- 
 memorated only so far as they were con- 
 nected with superstitious observances. 
 AH historical record beyond this must 
 have been of later growth, accidental 
 and imperfect. Even in later times, 
 we know, from the passage of Cato 
 already cited, that the Annals were 
 filled with frivolous memorials of this 
 kind, which the grave historian disdained 
 to repeat : — " I am not inclined to write 
 what we find in the table of the Pontifex 
 Maximus, how often the market was 
 high, or how often the sun and moon 
 were eclipsed." The story of the statue 
 of Horatius Coclest is quoted by Aulus 
 Gellius from the Pontifical Annals ; and 
 it is probable that the hsts of prodigies 
 and expiations with which Livy some- 
 times closes a year$ were taken from 
 
 the same source. Like the superstitious" 
 records of other nations, thev began^ 
 no doubt, with fabulous genealogies ; 
 nor is it incredible that " the sacred 
 tablets,"* from which various writers. 
 derived various accounts of the descent 
 of Romulus from ^neas, were the 
 fabricated tables of the pontiffs. 
 
 § 5. When the public monuments- 
 perished, it is not to be supposed that 
 private records escaped destruction ; 
 and we have seen that Livy includes 
 both in the general wreck. A certain 
 Clodius, a chronologer quoted by Plu- 
 tarch in the beginning of his life of Numa» 
 boldly affirms, not only that the ancient 
 genealogical records of the great Roman 
 families were lost when the city was de- 
 stroyed by the Gauls, but that those 
 which were extant in his time were very 
 generally fabricated in order to gratify 
 the vanity of men who desired to be 
 thought to be descended from illustrious 
 ancestors, with whom they had no con- 
 nexion. Family records therefore at 
 the least could give no help to the his- 
 torian of the early ages. In fact they 
 were a great source of the corruptions 
 of Roman history. But observations 
 upon this head must be deferred till we 
 resume the course of the nan-ative ; for 
 the portion of Roman history, to which 
 the family memorials have chiefly con- 
 tributed, and which they have grievously 
 corrupted, is the history of the lirst cen- 
 turies of the republic. Under the kings, 
 the name of not one private person, with 
 the exception of the Horatii and of Atlus 
 Navius, is mentioned, between the ac- 
 cession of Numa and the events which 
 led to the expulsion of Tarquinius. 
 
 § 6. What pubhc documents then 
 escaped from the conflagration of the 
 city, which could serve as materials and 
 authorities for history ? and how far 
 were they used for that purpose ? Livy 
 will ir\ part supply the answer. He 
 states,t that the first care of the Senate 
 and (Consuls, after the recovery of the 
 city, was to cause search to be made 
 for such treaties and laws as could be 
 found : the laws were those of the Twelve 
 Tables,J and some of the kings. Of the 
 documents thus recovered, some were 
 made known to the people at large ; but 
 those which related to religious mat- 
 ters were suppressed by the pontiffs^ 
 that they might maintain their domi- 
 nion over the minds of the multitude. 
 
 • Speech of Canuleius, iv. 3. 
 i Sap. p. 80. $ e. g.xsi. 62. 
 
 ♦ Dion. i. 73. f vi. 1. 
 
 t See Outline of General Hist. ch. xii. § 2. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME.' 
 
 47- 
 
 To the treaties and laws may be added 
 some records of the succession of ma- 
 gistrates, the re2:isters of the census, 
 and divers religious books : not the 
 SibyUine books and other prophetical 
 books, for these could be of no value 
 for history; but those in which reliofious 
 forms and ceremonies were prescribed. 
 Of these monuments the treaties and 
 laws would be very valuable for the ex- 
 ternal and internal history. There is a 
 passage in Suetonius* from which some 
 critics have endeavoured to show that a 
 large number of such memorials was 
 preserved. The Capitol itself had been 
 burned in the civil wars of Vitellius and 
 Vespasian (a.d. 70), and Vespasian set to 
 work to rebuild it. There had perished 
 in the conflagration about three thou- 
 sand brazen tablets, in which, according to 
 Suetonius, were contained Resolutions of 
 the Senate, and Resolutions or Opinions 
 of the Commons (Plebiscita), concerning 
 alliance and treaty, as well as privilege 
 (enactment in favour of an individual), 
 to whomsoever granted, almost from the 
 first origin of the city. These the em- 
 peror undertook to restore, and sought 
 for copies wherever he could find them.t 
 Even if this passage were taken exactly 
 as it is written, how very small must 
 have been the portion of such instru- 
 ments anterior to the capture of the 
 city, in comparison with the number 
 which must have been accumulated 
 afterwards during the period of the 
 growth of the republic, and under the 
 emperors, from Augustus to Vespasian. 
 But it is obvious that Suetonius has 
 ■written vaguely. So far is it from being 
 possible that there should be plebiscita. 
 Resolutions of the Commons, concern- 
 ing alliance and treaty, graven in brass, 
 and fixed in the Capitol almost from 
 the origin of the city, that there could 
 scarcely be any such documents earlier 
 than the year 414, the Dictatorship of 
 Publilius, nearly fifty years later than 
 the departure of the Gauls.$ If, as is 
 not improbable, Suetonius used this 
 expression inaccurately, and meant in 
 general ordinances of the people, what 
 
 * Vesp. viii. 
 
 t Suet. Vesp. viii. iErearumque tabularum tria 
 millia, quae simul conflagraverant, restituenda 
 suscepit, uudique investigatis exemplaribus : in- 
 strumentum impei-ii puicherrimum ac vetustissi- 
 raum, quo continebantur, paene ab exordio Urbis, 
 Senatus consulta, Plebiscita, de societate et foedere, 
 ac privilegio, cuicumque concessis. 
 
 t A law iutroduceu by the Dictator, Q. Publi- 
 lius, completed the enactments by which the Ple- 
 biscita were made binding on tlie whole State. 
 Nieb. ed, 1, vol. ii. ch. 27. 
 
 is our warrant that he was more accurate 
 in the rest of his description ? Besides^ 
 the Capitol had been burned before in the 
 civil wars of the republic (a.u.c. 670)» 
 and rebuilt by Sylla. What early monu- 
 ments existed in it at that time ? how 
 many had been preserved? what dili- 
 gence had been used in restoring tho 
 lost ? with what success ? 
 
 i. Some treaties however were pre- 
 served ; more, doubtless, than we now 
 find mentioned by extant writers ; and 
 these might have supplied most precious 
 materials for history, if the first his- 
 torians had been aware of their value ; 
 if they had had curiosity to search for 
 them, and judgment to iise them. But 
 here was the deficiency, which left the 
 monuments that the destroyer had 
 spared, whether treaties, or laws, or 
 memorial inscriptions, to perish in un- 
 profitable neglect. The notion of a 
 critical history never belonged to the 
 early age of any literature. As un- 
 educated persons believe all that they 
 read, or rather as children believe all 
 that they are told, the first historians of 
 a country always receive and repeat the 
 vulgar traditions. Succeeding writers 
 fall into the track of those who have 
 gone before them ; and a history thus 
 founded on tradition remains legendary 
 in its character, and not critical. It is 
 in a later and higher state of intellectual 
 cultivation, when the knowledge of pure 
 truth, and not the gratification of imagi- 
 nation, or of curiosity, or of national 
 vanity, becomes the object of history, 
 that genuine documents are worthily- 
 prized by the historian, and sought and 
 used. The history of Fabius Pictor was 
 history in its childhood; and unfor- 
 tunately for the Roman literature, the 
 national piide prevented the full and 
 manly development of the historical 
 spirit, whenever the attention was di- 
 rected to any but comparatively recent 
 times. We do not find, therefore, that 
 a true historical use was made of the 
 monuments which continued to exist. 
 It has been already observed, that the 
 treaties of Servius Tuliius with the 
 Latins, and of Tarquinius with Gabii^ 
 are mentioned without the slightest no- 
 tice or their contents ; and the treaty o-f 
 Spurius Cassius with the Latins, and 
 the treaty with Ardea, are cited by Livj* 
 only to determine the consuls of their 
 respective years, not to throw light on 
 
 • Liv.y.3i,iv.7; 
 
48 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the political relations of the republic* 
 It is not to the professed historians of 
 the period that we owe the knowledge of 
 the treaty with Carthage, concluded in 
 the first year of the republic, or of the 
 treaty with Porsena. These, as will be 
 shown hereafter, are in fact irrecon- 
 cilable with the received history. But 
 the stronjjest proof of the little curiosity 
 with which such monuments were re- 
 garded, is to be found in the testimony 
 of Polybius.-j' After reciting at length 
 three treaties made by the Romans with 
 the Carthaginians, the first, that which 
 has been already mentioned, the last con- 
 cluded so late as in the war with Pyrrhus 
 (about A.u.c. 472),$ he adds, " that they 
 were preserved on brazen tablets in the 
 temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, in the 
 repository of the -^diles ; but that it 
 was not wonderful that the historian 
 Philinus was unacquainted with them, 
 for that even in his own time the oldest 
 both of the Romans and of the Car- 
 thaginians, and men who appeared to 
 take most interest in public affairs, were 
 ignorant of their existence." At this 
 time Fabius, Cincius, and Cato, had 
 already written their histories. If then 
 treaties with Carthage, the great rival 
 with which Rome had been so recently 
 engaged in a struggle for empire and for 
 existence, were thus neglected and for- 
 gotten, what attention would be given to 
 ancient covenants or leagues Avith the 
 petty towns of Latium or Etruria? 
 
 ii. The laws of the Twelve Tables 
 were preserved, and some laws enacted 
 by the kings.§ After the expulsion of 
 theTarquins, Papirius, a patrician, made 
 a collection of the laws of the kings, 
 and this code seems to have survived, 
 and to have been extant in some shape 
 in the time of the jurist Pomponius.|| 
 Cicero speaks of laws ascribed to Numa, 
 which were extant in his own time i^ 
 and the substance of some of these has 
 been transmitted even to us ;** but they 
 relate chiefly to religious matters. The 
 important law, which even in a trial for 
 murder sanctioned the right of appeal to 
 the people, has been preserved by Livy in 
 the story of Horatius.ff Commentaries 
 of Servius Tullius, J+ which contained the 
 
 * Dionysius professes to report the terms of the 
 former treaty: how truly he has stated them is 
 questionable. 
 
 t iii. 26. t Outline of Gen. Hist. ch. xii. \ 8. 
 
 § Liv. vi. 1. II Digest i. ii. 2. cf. Dion. iii. 36. 
 
 % Cic. R. P. ii. 14., V. 2. 
 
 »• See Plut. Num., and Mai, not. 3, on Cic. E.P. 
 ii.l4. 
 
 ft i.26. , . jjLiy.i.eO. 
 
 description of the classes and centuries, 
 must have remained, at least in sub- 
 stance, to succeeding generations.* 
 The benevolent laws, which the traditions 
 of the commons ascribed to Servius, if 
 ever they were enacted, were not pre- 
 served, and did not appear in the Pa- 
 pirian Code. Their not appearing was 
 manifestly the foundation of the story, 
 that the very boards on which they were 
 written were destroyed by Tarquinius.f 
 Such were some of the laws of the 
 kings, which were recovered after the 
 burning of the city. To these laws must, 
 no doubt, be added the enactments which 
 were the foundation of popular liberty 
 under the Republic ; the laws of Valerius 
 Publicola;]: the law under religious 
 sanction (Lex Sacrata) for the election 
 of Tribunes of the Commons,^ if this 
 compact between the Patrician and 
 Plebeian orders might not be better 
 described as a treaty ; and the laws by 
 which the liberty of the people was 
 restored after the tyranny of the De- 
 cemvirs. || Of all these laws, the Re- 
 publican laws, which have been last 
 specified, throw most light on the pro- 
 gress of the constitution and the internal 
 history of Rome. Yet even with regard 
 to these we are compelled to regret the 
 want of critical accuracy in the way in 
 which they have been treated by the 
 ancient historians. The language in 
 which they are reported is frequently 
 vague and ambiguous, and in no case 
 have the terms of the laws been made 
 by the historians a ground of argument 
 for ascertaining the previous condition 
 and relations of the different orders of 
 the state. The same remarks may be 
 applied with yet greater force to the 
 national code, the laws of the Twelve 
 Tables. It is not at all to the historians 
 that we owe the little knowledge that 
 we possess of them. From sources per- 
 fectly distinct have been gathered some 
 fragments of information respecting 
 those enactments which related to the 
 rights of individuals and the conduct of 
 private suits: that portion, if such a 
 portion there were, which comprised the 
 constitution of the state, has been entirely 
 lost to us. Its character can only be 
 guessed from accidental instances of 
 variation in the use of terms, and from 
 the different complexion of political con- 
 
 • Nieb. p.211. 
 
 + Dion. iv. 43. See p. 23. Nieb. p. 371, note 935. 
 t Cic. R. P.ii, 3i; Liv. ii.8, 
 § Liv. ii. 33. See Outline of Gen. Hist. ch. 
 xi. §1. J Liv. iii. 55. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 49 
 
 tests in the times which preceded and 
 followed the Decemviiate.* If then 
 it be granted that in the laws might have 
 been found most soUd materials for 
 history, (and this admission must be 
 understood in a limited sense, for the 
 laws could never supply the detail of the 
 events which led to their enactment,) 
 still it will remain not doubtful, that the 
 early history of Rome, such as we have 
 received it, was in no wise built upon 
 this foundation. 
 
 iii. The Pontifical Annals recorded of 
 course the names of the Consuls, and 
 probably of the other magistrates, of 
 each year.t If therefore any annals 
 were preserved, the names of the ma- 
 gistrates would be preserved, and in 
 restoring the lost tables the Pontiffs 
 would seek, in the very first instance, 
 for all memoriids of the succession of 
 magistrates which were then within their 
 reach ; and no doubt documents and 
 evidence might be found at the time, 
 which two hundred years later would 
 have been sought in vain. We need 
 not therefore refuse all belief to these 
 Pontifical Fasti, though uncertainty pre- 
 vails in many parts of them, especially 
 in the earlier years.:|: An ancient record 
 of the succession of the magistrates, 
 which possibly was anterior to the cap- 
 ture of the city, remained to later ages : 
 the Linen Books, consulted by Licinius 
 Macer. ^S It appears probable how- 
 ever, as has been already remarked, that 
 but a small fragment of these books 
 was preserved, extending over a space 
 of only ten or twelve years : and more- 
 over, we know that in one instance, 
 whether from the imperfection of the 
 books themselves, or the carelessness of 
 those who referred to them, they were 
 adduced as testimonies to contradictory 
 statements.|( 
 
 iv. Accounts of the numbers of the 
 people at different times are given by 
 the historians, which they profess to 
 take from records of the Census. There 
 is no direct proof that these returns 
 for the period before the capture by the 
 Gauls are spurious ; and it is very pos- 
 sible that the genuine records may have 
 been deposited in the Capitol, and so 
 preserved. It is no argument against 
 this supposition, that these returns are 
 inconsistent with the received history ;•[[ 
 
 * See Nieb. 1st edit. vol. ii. ch. v. 
 t Serv.aa>^n,i.373. 
 
 i For proof of the discrepancies of the Fasti, 
 see p.38, and Livy, ii. IS, 21.54. , 
 § See p. 44. y Liv. iv. 23. 
 
 f See Nieb. p. iSb, 6, and Liv. iii. 3 aad 24. 
 
 for surely if they had been forged by any 
 annalist he would have made the num- 
 bers suit his story : but the argument is 
 valid, that the common story was not at 
 all formed upon the evidence of the re- 
 cords of the Census.* Dionysius quotes 
 what he calls Censorial Memorials, f 
 which were private documents, pre- 
 served in the families of those whose 
 ancestors had been Censors ; and they 
 were probably the private notes, from 
 which their public reports were made. 
 Those which Dionysius cites belong to 
 the Census two years before the taking 
 of Rome ; even if there were any more 
 ancient, and if they could be relied upon 
 as genuine, (and we have seen that 
 family documents of this date are very 
 open to suspicion,) still they could go 
 back only to the year of the city 312, or 
 313, when Censors were first appointed, 
 for they were manifestly preserved 
 merely as evidence that some ancestor 
 of the family had borne that office. 
 They would scarcely be so old; for 
 according to Livy the office at first was 
 not held to be very honourable.,]: Before 
 the creation of Censors, the census was 
 held by the consuls; and the memory 
 of a consulship in a family would be 
 preserved by other monuments. These 
 memorials would scarcely have been 
 worthy of so much notice, if a stress 
 had not been laid upon them by the 
 critics who have upheld the credibility 
 of thejearly Roman History ;^S for even 
 for the half century to which they mi^ht 
 relate they could furnish the historian 
 with but clry and scanty information. 
 
 V. The religious books were documents 
 much more ample and more important ; 
 and they were much better known to 
 the early historians. We have already 
 treated of their contents in part ; for 
 in them the constitutional laws were 
 anciently preserved ;|| and indeed for 
 many years after the decemvirate the 
 pontiffs were the sole guardians and ex- 
 pounders of the iaw.H The religious 
 books were the depositories also oi the 
 principles of international law, and of 
 the forms antl ceremonies for making 
 peace and declaring war. From them, 
 without doubt, were taken the formula- 
 ries of the Fetials, which Livy has pre- 
 served in his first book.** Such forms 
 however could not of themselves sup 
 ply a narrative of facts ; and they were 
 
 * Nieb. p. 45."). f Dion, i. 74. * Liv. iv. S. 
 § Hooke, Horn. Hist, aupondix to B. iii. 
 H Cic.ll. P. ii. 31. 
 % Poniponivib in Digest. I. ii. 2, 
 ■ •* Cc. 24, 32, 3S. Sn^ above, p. IG. 
 
50 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 not treated critically by the early histo- 
 rians, so as to be applied to elucidate 
 the received stories. Thus far there- 
 fore the ceremonial books of the pon- 
 tiffs and augurs stand in the same rela- 
 tion to the history with the monuments 
 of the early jurisprudence. Sometimes 
 however it appears as if the form or 
 ceremony were embodied in the narra- 
 tive of some event * Where this was 
 the case, the legend in course of time 
 became a part of the vulgar history. 
 But this authority is not sufficient to 
 place even such detached parts of the 
 story above suspicion, unless it could be 
 shown that the pontifical records were 
 contemporaneous. If this were not the 
 case, we merely go back some links in 
 the chain of tradition. Moreover, there 
 is sometimes reason to suspect that the 
 circumstances of a story have been in- 
 vented in order to supply an explanation 
 of the origin of some old observance. 
 Of this kind of fiction there is an exam- 
 ple in the story of the slave Vindicius.f 
 The inviolability of the Pomoeriura was 
 connected with the death of Remus,t 
 and the exemption of Roman matrons 
 from household drudgery was referred 
 to an express stipulation in favour of the 
 ravished Sabines.§ It is obvious also, 
 that the account of a ceremony is usually 
 connected with the first event in the his- 
 tory which supplies an occasion for it ; 
 though the religious observance may 
 have been in some cases more ancient, 
 in some more recent. Thus the form of 
 consulting the auspices in the election 
 of a magistrate is described among the 
 circumstances of the appointment of 
 Numa to the kingly office. || 
 
 An argument for the existence of suffi- 
 cient documents for the early Roman 
 history has been founded on the number 
 of religious books of different kinds, 
 ceremonial and prophetical, which seem 
 to have survived the capture of the city. 
 It has been sneeringly asked, how the 
 fire came to distinguish so accurately as 
 to spare the religious monuments and 
 destroy the civil records ? H The an- 
 swer is, the religious writings were 
 far more numerous than those which 
 were merely civil. The ancient Romans 
 were an exceedingly superstitious peo- 
 ple, and were held in subjection morally 
 and intellectually by their priests. It is 
 true that the priesthood did not make a 
 
 • As iH Liv. i. 24 and 38, 
 + Above, p, 28. Liv. ii. 6. 
 t Po. 8 and 20. i P. 10. || Liv. i. 18, 
 
 % Hooke, voI.il.8vo. Appendix to B. iii. 
 
 distinct tribe or caste, as in Egypt ; but 
 the priests and augurs were taken from 
 one hereditary order in the state, from 
 the Patricians ; and religion was made 
 the instrument of political power. In 
 early Rome therefore, as in all other 
 nations in which similar institutions 
 have prevailed, learning was confined to 
 the priestly order, and the subjects of 
 their learning were the traditions and 
 observances of their superstition. It is 
 no wonder then, if in the scanty litera- 
 ture of the first ages the religious writ- 
 ings much exceeded in number those of 
 any other kind. 
 
 The consideration of this peculiar cha 
 racter of the early Roman writings, the 
 pontifical and augural books, will lower 
 our estimate of their value as historical 
 evidence, and make us less regret their 
 imperfect preservation. It is manifest 
 that historical truth would not be their 
 purpose. We cannot, therefore, receive 
 with entire faith those portions of the 
 history which appear to have been drawn 
 from them. Still it is satisfactory in 
 some measure, that we are able to point 
 them out as an important part of the 
 materials of the first historians. It is 
 probable that from them were taken the 
 accounts of the various institutions of 
 the state, and that to them we owe what- 
 ever fragments of knowledge we possess 
 of the constitution and laws of Rome in 
 its earliest times. 
 
 § 7. But if the authentic monuments 
 of the early ages of Rome were not suf- 
 ficient to supply the first historians with 
 the continuous and copious narrative 
 which has been transmitted to us, from 
 what source was it derived ? The an- 
 swer has been already more than once 
 suggested : — from popular tradition. In 
 this there is nothing strange. Popular 
 tradition is the basis of the early native 
 history of every country. For example, 
 the early Grecian history rested upon 
 nothing but popular tradition, till Thucy- 
 dides undertook to write the history of 
 his own times. The investigation of 
 truth was essential to his peculiar sub- 
 ject. With the same habit of mind he 
 regarded the antiquities of his country ; 
 and thus he produced the Introduction 
 to his work, which is the earliest speci- 
 men of historical criticism.* What is 
 peculiar in the case of the Roman his- 
 tory is, that by the conflagration of the 
 city those monuments were destroyed, 
 which might in after ages have served 
 
 • Heeren's Polit. Hist, of Ancient Greece, ch. 14. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 51 
 
 to verify or to correct the popular tra- 
 ditions; and, moreover, by the Gallic 
 conquest the nation was thrown back 
 into a second childiiood ; the formation 
 of its literature was probably delayed, 
 and the traditions left for a longer time 
 in the mouths of the people, to assume 
 whatever form fancy or passion might 
 give to them. The traditions which re- 
 late to the first age of the republic were 
 without doubt many of them family 
 legends ; and these will be considered 
 hereafter. But the traditions which re- 
 late to the time of the kings are evi- 
 dently national ; for the names of fami- 
 lies and private individuals scarcely oc- 
 cur in them. These then were handed 
 down as a national inheritance by the 
 memory of successive generations; and 
 there is reason to believe, that, like the 
 traditions of other nations, they were 
 preserved in a poetical shape. 
 
 i. In the earlier and ruder ages of a 
 nation, poetry is not the laborious art 
 of a few solitary minds addressed to 
 educated and critical readers, but a 
 spontaneous outpouring of the national 
 spirit, to which all who listen, listen 
 with a sympathy so thorough and in- 
 tense, that they are often unconscious of 
 the superior inspiration of the poet. 
 Poets spring up uncounted ; their works 
 are impressed upon the national mind, 
 and transmitted from the lips of fathers 
 to their children, and they themselves are 
 unremembered. The obvious subjects 
 of their poems are the achievements and 
 misfortunes of their nation and its he- 
 roes. We have traces of such poems 
 even among the tribes who were dis- 
 lodged by the Israelites from the land 
 of Canaan.* The Israelites themselves 
 had national poems, of which the sub- 
 jects were "the wars of the Lord," the 
 victories and dehverances wrought for 
 them by the power of God ;t and such 
 are the triumphal songs of Miriam and 
 Deborah. The ancient Persians had 
 songs in which the deeds of their heroes 
 were celebrated, and which formed part 
 of the instruction of their youth. J Among 
 the Greeks herotic poetry sprang up in 
 luxuriant abundance. The oldest extant 
 monuments of Grecian genius are the 
 Homeric poems ; and it matters little to 
 the illustration of our present argument, 
 whether, with some daring speculators,^ 
 
 • Numb. xxi. 27— 30. 
 
 i lb. xxi. 14, 15. t Strabo, xv. 3. 18. 
 
 § This theory is propounded by Wolf in his 
 Prolegomena to Homer, a critical work of genius, 
 which throws light on the early poetry of every 
 
 we consider them as a tissue of heroic 
 lays, originally unconnected, and artfully 
 compacted into one body in a later age ; 
 or whether with sounder reason we sup- 
 pose them to have been conceived by 
 the creative mind nearly in the form in 
 which they now exist. In either case 
 they were the product of a comparatively 
 rude age ; they were national and popu- 
 lar poems in the widest sense of the 
 words ;* they were chaunted, not writ- 
 ten ; heard, not read ; and for a long 
 course of years were preserved by oral 
 tradition. But in the Homeric poems 
 themselves we find mention of lays yet 
 older. Achilles in his tent, Demo'docus 
 in the banquet hall of Alcinous, sang 
 " the Fames of Heroes :"t and the song 
 of Demodocus is taken from a lay, " of 
 which the renown then reached the 
 heaven." These lays were treasures of 
 examples, to which heroes looked for in- 
 struction ;$ and the singers themselves 
 were revered as persons blessed with 
 the inspiration of the gods.§ Thus De- 
 modocus and Phemius are welcomed 
 and honoured in the palaces of princes. 
 In his own age Homer cannot have 
 been the only poet ; and in later times 
 heroic poems were brought forth in 
 rich profusion; though all the rest have 
 now perished, and left little memorial 
 but their names, while superior genius 
 has made the Homeric poems im- 
 mortal. There must indeed have been 
 many poets, whose very names are now 
 unknown ; but these Cyclian , poets, as 
 they were termed, were the sources 
 whence all the later writers of Greece 
 drew their heroic tales, and were the 
 only authorities for the early history. 
 When the race of singers had begun to 
 pass away, a class of men arose (the 
 Rhapsodists), whose profession it was 
 to recite to their crowded audiences 
 the songs of others ; and thus the an- 
 cient poems were kept ahve in the 
 mouths and in the hearts of the people. 
 The Celtic nations had their Bards, who 
 celebrated the exploits of their war- 
 riors. The Roman writers bear witness 
 to their high repute among the ancient 
 
 nation. The intuitive discernment which enabled 
 Niebuhr to perceive the poetical character of the 
 early Roman traditions must have been imparted 
 by the spirit of Wolf's criticism. See Niebuhr, 
 first edition, c. xvi.; second edition, pp. 216 — 221. 
 
 * Prof. Heeren considers the common possession 
 of the poems of Homer as one of the chief bonds 
 of national union among the early Greeks. Pvli^ 
 tical Hist, of Ancient Greece, c. vii. 
 
 f xXs« ay\m. l\. ix. 189. Od. viii. 73. 
 
 t U. ix. 520. 
 
 § Od. viii. 479j>xii. 347. 
 
 E2 
 
6t 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Gauls.* The names of the Welsh bards, 
 Talyessin and Aneurin, are still cherished 
 by their countrymen ; and though their 
 poems live no longer in oral tradition, 
 they are preserved from perishing utterly 
 by the safer custody of written lan- 
 j^afi^e.-i- Little more than a century 
 has elapsed since, in another extremity 
 of our island, the songs of Ossian 
 might be heard in his own Celtic 
 tongue, though now we must be con- 
 tent to trace them, doubtfully and sus- 
 piciously, through their undeserved dis- 
 guise. Among the German tribes, ac- 
 cording to the testimony of Tacitus,:|: 
 songs were the only kind of record or 
 annals, and in these they celebrated 
 their gods and the founders of their 
 nation ; and in song was preserved the 
 memory of the achievements of their 
 recent champion Arminius.§ In the 
 lay of the Niebelungen the heroes are 
 the warriors of the army of Attila ; and 
 it begins with a reference to " ancient 
 tales, in which many marvels are told 
 of praise-worthy knights of great bold- 
 ness, of merriments and weddings, of 
 weeping and of mourning, and of bold 
 warriors lighting." Of the same na- 
 ture were the barbarous and very an- 
 cient songs, in which the praises of 
 kings and warriors were sung, which 
 Charlemagne learned himself, and 
 caused to be committed to writing. || 
 Among the nations of Scandinavia, the 
 Scalds, or poets, were held in the high- 
 est honour. They celebrated the exploits 
 of heroes ; they were the companions 
 of heroes, and heroes themselves ; and 
 their delight is in battles and slaughter. 
 The spirit of their warlike odes may be 
 learned from the famous death- song 
 of Regner Lodbrog.^ Such songs 
 abounded in old time ; and even now 
 a great number of them exists, though 
 they are accessible to none but to 
 those skilled in the ancient Scandina- 
 vian language. From these songs Saxo 
 Grammaticus, at the end of the twelfth 
 century, composed the history of Den- 
 
 • Ammian. Marc. 1. xv. 9. Lucan. 1. i. 447. 
 See also ^lian. V. H. xii. 23. 
 
 t Tlie authenticity of the poems ascribed to 
 Talyessin and Aneurin and Llywarch Hen has 
 been ably vindicated by Mr. Sharou Turner, in a 
 dissertation on the subject. 
 
 i Mot. Germ. c. -2 § Ann. ii. 83. 
 
 i Eginhard, c xxix. 
 
 f This death-song, with four other Scandinavian 
 poems, is literally translated in an Appendix to 
 the second volume of Northern Antiouities, trans- 
 lated from" L'Introduction a I'Histoire de Danne- 
 marc, &c., par M. Mallet." Or see Turner's Hist. 
 of Anglo Saxons, vol. i. pp. 491—498. 
 
 mark, just as" Fabius Piclor, accord- 
 ing to our hypothesis, drew the mate- 
 rials of his annals from the old songs of 
 Rome ; and the resemblance is height- 
 ened by Saxo's work abounding in 
 eietical fables and patriotic fictions, 
 e has adhered closely to his poetical 
 authorities, and has frequently trans- 
 lated the ancient songs into Latin verse. 
 A more modern and more critical his- 
 torian, Torfaeus, has cleared away a 
 part of the fabulous antiquities of Saxo ; 
 but his history is founded on ancient 
 Icelandic Chronicles ; and these chroni- 
 cles, as he himself argues, were com- 
 posed from the yet more ancient songs 
 of the Scalds, and therefore differed 
 from Saxo's only by ascending still 
 more nearly to the fountain head.* The 
 Norwegian Chronicle of Snorro Stur- 
 leson is derived from similar poetical 
 sources. 
 
 Among the nations of the South of 
 Europe, Spain affords a splendid ex- 
 ample of a national heroic poem, the 
 Poem of the Cid ; rude indeed in ver- 
 sification, but embodying the very spirit 
 of Spanish chivalry, and presenting a 
 living picture of the events and feelings 
 and manners of the age of its hero.f 
 The poems of Homer have never been 
 equalled ; but no poem has so nearly re- 
 sembled them as the Poem of the Cid, 
 in the intense nationality of its spirit, 
 and in the influence which it has exer- 
 cised on the historical recollections, the 
 sentiments, and the literature of a great 
 people. Like the poems of Homer, it 
 stands out as an historial monument 
 amidst the uncertainty of antiquity. 
 The events of Spanish" history for the 
 three centuries which preceded the age 
 of the Cid,*4: and two centuries which 
 followed it, are comparatively obscure ; 
 while the exploits of the Cid Rodrigo 
 were as familiar to his countrymen as 
 household tales. Such a poem oould 
 not exist without giving birth to a family 
 of poems of a kindred spirit ; and more 
 than a hundred romantic lays have been 
 collected, of which the Cid is the hero. 
 The popular taste of the Spaniards de- 
 lighted in these historical ballads ; and 
 in similar songs were commemorated 
 the adventures of their warriors in the 
 later periods of their struggle with the 
 
 • Torfaei Series Regum Danieorum, 1. i. c. vi. 
 pp. 63—56. 
 
 t See Southey's Translation of the Chronicle 
 of the Cid ; and specimens of poetical transla- 
 tions from the Poem of the Cid in the Appendix : 
 also Sismondi, Litt. du Midi, ch. xxiii. 
 
 X The 11th century. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 53 
 
 Moors.* Their ballads have beyond 
 doubt furnished materials to their his- 
 tory ; for the Chronicle of Spain, which 
 was written by the King Alphonso the 
 Wise, frequently cites the Joglares, or 
 popular poets.t The Hungarians, the 
 Bohemians, the Servians, the modern 
 Greeks, have their national songs. In 
 a dialect of our own language, Scotland 
 is rich in ballads connected with the 
 traditional history of its great families ; 
 and the deeds of Wallace and Bruce 
 were known to the meanest of their 
 countrymen from the poems of Bhnd 
 Harry and Barbour, before any Scottish 
 historian appeared. A notion of the 
 popular poetry, in which it is probable 
 that the early Roman history was 
 handed down, may be conveyed to the 
 common reader by reminding him of the 
 old tale of Chevy Chase. The fabulous 
 portion of British history, such as it ap- 
 pears in our old chroniclers, Fabyan 
 and Hohnshed, the stories of the Trojan 
 Brute and his descendants, of Lear and 
 his daughters, of Cymbeline, of Ferrex 
 and Porrex, and of King Arthur and 
 his Round Table, was borrowed by them 
 from Geoffrey of Monmouth. Geoffrey 
 professed to have taken these stories 
 from an old book in the ancient British 
 language. He has been suspected of 
 invention ; but the genuine traditionary 
 character of the most remarkable of 
 these histories, especially of those which 
 relate to Brute and to Arthur, has been 
 ascertained. Many of the stories are 
 essentially poetical ; and it is probable 
 that they were originally conceived in a 
 metrical shape. Immediately after their 
 reappearance they were versified in Nor- 
 man French. The metrical Brut of 
 Maistre Wace exists at this day. Many 
 of them were subsequently reproduced 
 in a poetical form, in the collection 
 entitled the " Mirror for Magistrates." 
 They may serve as examples how na- 
 tional legends may spring up, and gain 
 credence, and be repeated by grave 
 writers, which have not even a shadow 
 of historical truth. 
 
 ii. It is manifest from these examples 
 that there is nothing strange or impro- 
 bable in the supposition, that the his- 
 tory of the first ages of a nation may be 
 derived from its traditionary poems. 
 Rather the case would be strange, and 
 we should be led to seek for some pecu- 
 liar causes, if we found a people without 
 
 * Sismondi, Litt. du Midi. ch. xxiv. 
 t Southey, Preface to the Chrouicle of the Cid. 
 
 such poems, and whose early history, if 
 they had any, was drawn from other 
 sources. Still this induction would be 
 unsatisfactory, if there were no vestiges 
 of such poems among the Romans. 
 But fortunately for our critical know- 
 ledge of the nature of their history, 
 though these poems are lost to us, and 
 were even forgotten by the Romans 
 themselves in the more polished age of 
 their literature, we have sufficient evi- 
 dence of their existence. Cicero states,* 
 that Cato, to whose authority he attaches 
 the greatest weight, had related in his 
 *' Origines,"t that it was the custom of 
 their ancestors at banquets, that those 
 who lay at table should sing in turn to 
 the flute the praises and the virtues of 
 illustrious men. In another passage $ 
 he marks more distinctly the great anti- 
 quity of the custom, and laments the 
 loss of the poems. A similar account 
 is given by Valerius Maximus,^^ proba- 
 bly on the same authority. In this de- 
 scription of Cato it is especially worthy 
 of remark, that the songs were sung by 
 each of the guests in turn, and therefore 
 it must be supposed that they were 
 known to every citizen, and were truly 
 national and popular. Varro's repre- 
 sentation of the custom was different, 
 and probably should be referred to a 
 somewhat later time, when the songs 
 were less esteemed. He said that there 
 were present at their feasts modest boys 
 (not dissolute hirelings, like the singers 
 of later days) to sing old songs wliich 
 contained the praises of their ancestors, 
 either to the flute or unaccompanied by 
 music. II Accordmg to both accounts 
 the subjects of the songs are the same ; 
 so that it was not without cause, that 
 the Camenae, the Latin goddesses of 
 song, were said to sing the praises of 
 the ancients.^ The custom was re- 
 membered even in the days of Horace, 
 and the courtly poet proposes to revive 
 it in honour of Augustus.** But we 
 have a reference to these songs of an 
 earlier date, and affording distinct evi- 
 dence of the mode in which history was 
 indebted to them. Dionysius, in the 
 account of the education of Romulus 
 and Remus, which he borrows from 
 Fabius Pictor, represents the old writer 
 as describing their mien and stature to 
 be such as became the offspring of kings 
 and gods, " as is even now sung by the 
 
 * Tusc. Qu£ESt. i. 2 J iv. 2. t See p. 44. 
 
 t Brut. 19. § Val. Max. ii. I. 
 
 I! In Nonius, ii. 70, ' assa voce.' 
 
 IT Festus. •• Od. IV. xv. 29, &c. 
 
64 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME, 
 
 Romans in the hymns of their coun- 
 try."* In these songs and ballads 
 therefore the memory of the heroes of 
 old time was kept alive, and from these 
 tlie traditions were transferred to the 
 annals of the first historians. 
 
 There were poems of a somewhat 
 different kind, which may have been 
 preserved, and have furnished some 
 materials to history. These were the 
 neniep, or funeral songs, which were 
 sung to the flute in funeral processions, 
 and recited the praises of the dead.t 
 Thoug:h these neniae fell into contempt 
 when they were suns: by hired mourners, 
 it cannot be doubted but that in old 
 times they were highly esteemed, as one 
 of the chief honours due to the memory 
 of illustrious men.$ 
 
 iii. To some readers the existence of 
 any Roman poetry, anterior to the period 
 when the Romans began to imitate the 
 literature of Greece, may have been 
 scarcely known, and may appear to re- 
 quire more illustration than is afforded 
 by these testimonies. The sacred hymns, 
 such as the songs of the Salian priests 
 and the Fratres Arvales, must be first 
 mentioned, as the most ancient exam- 
 ples of Roman 'poetry ; so ancient, as 
 to be almost unintelligible in the days 
 of Augustus.^ There were prophetical 
 verses, II of which a specimen may be 
 seen in the prophecies of Maricus re- 
 cited by Livy.^ Horace alludes to a 
 ballad, which had been sung by the old 
 Curii and Camilli, but which in his age 
 was thought fit only for children.** The 
 laws of the Twelve Tables show clearly 
 that there were poets in the age of the 
 Decemvirs; for they contained an en- 
 actment against injurious or libellous 
 p6ems.'|-|' But the most distinct testi- 
 mony to the existence of an earlier race 
 of poets, and of their heroic or historic 
 lays, is in the lines in which they are 
 disparaged by Ennius, who had himself 
 
 * Dion. i. 79. + Cic. Legg. ii. 24; Festus. 
 
 t This account of the old national songs of the 
 Romans is taken from Perizonius, Animadvers. 
 Histor . 0. vi. , and from Niebuhr , vol. i . pp . 2 1 6—221 . 
 The passage cited from Dionysius, Niebuhr sup- 
 poses to contain the words of Dionysius himself, 
 and consequently that songs on Romulus were 
 extant in his time (note 628) : it rather appears 
 a part of the narrative which he has borrowed 
 from Fabius Pictor. 
 
 § Horat. Ep. ii. 1. 16. Quinct. i. 6. 
 
 y " AnnosA volumina valum." Hor. Ep. ii. 
 1.26. 
 
 ^ Liv. XXV. 12. See Cic. de Div. i. 50. 
 
 •* Ep.i. 63. 
 Roscia, die sodes, melior lex, an puerorumeet 
 Nsenia, quie tegnum recte facieniibus offert, 
 Et mariuns Curiis et decaatutaCamillis ? 
 
 ft Cic. Tusc.Q.iT.2. 
 
 undertaken to recount in verse all the 
 wars of Rome from the foundation of 
 the city : " others have written of this 
 matter in verses which of yore Fauns 
 (prophetic deities) and prophets used to 
 chaunt, when no one had climbed the 
 rocks of the Muses, nor was studious 
 of language."* In these lines Ennius 
 seems to allude, not merely to the rude- 
 ness of the language, but to the form of 
 the versification. The old Romans had 
 their native jroetical measures, which 
 in their principle and elements were 
 entirely different from the Greek metres, 
 which they afterwards adopted .-j' The 
 inscriptions, which are read at this day 
 on the coffins of the Scipios in their 
 family monument, appear to be in this 
 native verse ; and may not improbably 
 be supposed to be portions of the 
 nenise chaunted at their funerals.J The 
 tablets which were fixed in temples as 
 memorials of triumphs were inscribed 
 with verses of the same kind ; and lines 
 have been cited from some of them, and 
 preserved to us, in that species of metre 
 which was called Saturnian.§ In this 
 then and the kindred metres the heroic 
 lays of the old poets were fashioned. 
 The last of the old race of poets, and the 
 one whose works were preserved for 
 the longest time, was Naevius, who 
 wrote in Saturnian verse the history of 
 the first Punic war, in which he himself 
 had served. Cicero conceives that 
 Naevius is included in the contemptuous 
 mention which Ennius makes of the 
 poets who preceded him ; and his pro- 
 test against this injustice of the more 
 successful rival, and his honourable 
 
 ♦ Ennius in Cic. Brut. 18, 19. 
 
 Scripsere alii rem 
 
 Versibus, quos dim Fauni Vatesque canebant, 
 Quum neque Musarum scopulos quisquam super- 
 Nee dicti studiosus erat. [arat, 
 
 t The Greek metres depended upon the arrange- 
 ment of syllables pronounced in a longer or 
 shorter time. The ancient Latin verses appear to 
 have depended upon the arrangement of syllables 
 pronounced with a greater or less stress of the 
 voice ; and so far to have resembled the measures 
 of the modern European languages. Notwith- 
 standing the opinion of Terentianus Maurus, who 
 ascribes a Greek origin to the Saturnian verse, 
 it can be only by accident that this very ancient 
 and commonly used Latin measure (see Festus) 
 resembled a Greek metre employed occasionally by 
 Archilochus (see however Bentley on Phalaris, 
 § xi). Latterly, (for example, by Ntevius,) aa 
 effort may have been made to restrict the Satur- 
 nian verse to the Greek laws of quantity. It is 
 evident, from the fragments of the early Latin 
 dramatists, that it was long before the ears of the 
 Romans became delicate in their perception of 
 quantity. The subject waits for the illustration 
 which NieTjuhr promises, note 636. 
 
 i Nieb. vol. i. pp. 218, 9. 
 
 § Atilius Fortunatianus in Columna'a notes to 
 Ennius. See also Livy, xl.l^, 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 judgment of Nseviiis, make us regret 
 yet more deeply the loss of a work, which 
 would have been the most finished spe- 
 cimen of the genuine poetry of Rome.* 
 Ennius wrought a great change in the 
 character of Roman poetry ; and the 
 celebrity of his annals no doubt occa- 
 sioned the neglect and the loss of the 
 earlier songs. In his great poem he 
 undertook to write the history of Rome 
 in a continuous narrative from the wan- 
 derings of ^neas down to the wars of 
 his own time: just as Ferdoosee under- 
 took to embody in the Shah Namah the 
 traditions and fragments of the records 
 of ancient Persia. How well he was 
 judged to have succeeded is attested by 
 the honours which he received in his 
 life and death. He was deemed worthy 
 of the friendship of the greatest men of 
 Rome ; of the Scipios, Africanus, Asia- 
 ticus, and Nasica, of Porcius Cato, and 
 of Fulvius Nobilior: though by birth 
 an Apulian Greek, he was enrolled as 
 a' Roman citizen ; and after his death 
 his imaoe was placed by Africanus in 
 the tomb of the Scipios. By Cicero he 
 is never mentioned but in the most ho- 
 nourable terms ; and till the time of 
 Virgil he was esteemed the greatest 
 of the Roman poets. But he claimed 
 to be not merely the greatest, but the 
 first poet of Rome ; and his claim was 
 admitted by succeeding generation s.t 
 The foundation of this claim was, that 
 he was the chief author by whose ex- 
 ample the Romans were induced to 
 forego their native metrical forms and to 
 adopt those of Grecian poetry. Livius 
 Andronicus had exhibited the first play 
 at Rome in imitation of the Greek 
 drama, and (it may be assumed) in the 
 Greek dramatic metres, A. U. G. 513, 
 the year before Ennius was born ; but 
 Ennius was the first who naturalized in 
 Latin poetry the Greek epic measure, the 
 Hexameter verse.$ Succeeding poets 
 followed his example: the Latin metres 
 were disused ; and the Greek substituted 
 in their place. It was exactly such are- 
 volution as Juan Boscan and Garcilaso 
 de la Vega effected in Spanish poetry, 
 when they substituted the forms of Ita- 
 lian versification for the old national 
 measures, in which the poem of the Cid 
 and the old romances and ballads were 
 composed. Ennius then, the first and 
 greatest poet of this new and growing 
 school, speedily supplanted in popular 
 
 * Cic.Bnit. J9. fLucr. i. 118. 
 
 t Isidor. Orig. i. 38. 
 
 estimation the obsolete lays of.tUeola^' 
 singers. Besides, his annals w^re a 
 monument more flattering to the na- 
 tional pride, because they presented in 
 one body the traditions which the songs 
 recorded only in disjointing fragments. 
 This poem was written in the age of 
 the first historians, within the same 
 generation which produced the annals 
 of Fabius Pictor and the Origines of 
 Cato. Thcv ancient lays, having as- 
 sumed these new forms in poetiy and 
 prose, were forgotten, and died utterly 
 away. 
 
 The length of these old ballads or 
 heroic lays it is scarcely possible to con- 
 jecture. The Aiban war of Tullus Hos- 
 tilius, the combat of the Horatii, and 
 the destruction of Alba, may have 
 formed a continuous narrative. The 
 story of the last Tarquinius also may 
 have constituted an epic whole, which 
 would include his cruelties, the as- 
 sumed idiotcy of Brutus, the death of 
 Lucretia, and the expulsion of the ty- 
 rants, and must have ended with the 
 great poetical battle of Regillus. The 
 war of Porsena is evidently a separate 
 legend, which the chronologers have 
 thrust into the middle of the other. 
 But the old poems have been too much 
 decomposed, and too intimately blended 
 with other matter, to allow us to trace 
 the connexion of their parts. The poe- 
 tical continuity which appears in the 
 narrative of Livy, was probably pro- 
 duced by his having the narrative of 
 Ennius present to his mind. 
 
 iv. Not only is the character of these 
 legends popular; but there are visible 
 traces in them of the peculiar feelings 
 of the plebeians. The good kings all 
 make assignments of the conquered 
 lands to the people. After Romulus, 
 the founder of the city, a divine origin 
 is ascribed only to Servius, the founder 
 of the rights of the plebeians. The 
 patricians are held up to hatred as tak- 
 ing part in his murder. The chief part 
 among the liberators of their country is 
 assigned to the plebeian, Junius Brutus ; 
 and a plebeian name is given to the hero 
 Scaevola.* It is worthy of remark that, 
 in the very last age of the genuine Ro- 
 man poetry, Ennius, the foreigner and 
 innovator, was patronized by the great, 
 while the native and popular poet Naevius 
 incurred the persecution of the noble 
 Metelli. 
 
 $ 8. There is one part of the early 
 
 * Nieb. vol.i. p. 221. 
 
56 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Roman history, as it if? commonly nar- 
 rated, to which no aUusion has been 
 made hithei-to, and which has been pur- 
 posely reserved to the conclusion of this 
 discussion; its chronology. This can- 
 not be received as true. We have seen 
 that there were no sufficient monuments 
 on which it could be founded ; and in 
 itself it is improbable, and indeed im- 
 possible. 
 
 i. According to Livy and Dionysius, 
 the following periods were assigned to 
 the reigns of the kings : — 
 
 To Romulus 37 years. 
 
 Interregnum ... 1 
 
 ' Numa Pompilius . . 43 
 
 \ Tullus Hostilius . . 32 
 
 Ancus Marcius ... 24 
 
 Tarquinius the Elder . 38 
 
 f Servius Tullius ... 44 
 
 Tarquinius Superbus 25 
 
 244 
 And thus the whole period of the mo- 
 narchy was 244 years. It was observed 
 by Sir Isaac Newton in his Chrono- 
 logy, that this computation, by which on 
 an average thirty-four years and a little 
 more (according to the lowest account, 
 which I shall mention presently, exactly 
 thirty-four years) are assigned to the 
 reign of each of seven elected kings, of 
 whom four met with violent deaths, and 
 one was expelled before the end of his 
 natural life, is contrary to all analogy 
 and probability. Even in an hereditary 
 monarchy, with all the chances of mino- 
 rities, it is difficult to find a series of 
 seven kings who fill an equal time. In 
 our own history, the reigns of seven kings, 
 beginning with Henry III., and ending 
 with Henry V., fill only 206 years ;* and 
 this period contains seven generations, 
 and includes two of the longest reigns in 
 our annals; and of the seven kings, 
 five died naturally. Niebuhr observes,t 
 " Whoever wishes to form a notion of 
 what will be the probable mean duration 
 of a magistracy resembling the Roman 
 monarchy, may acquire it from the cata- 
 logues ot the Venetian doges, during that 
 period when the election did not of set 
 purpose fall on old men, but on persons 
 fit to govern and to command the armies 
 of the state. During five centuries, be- 
 tween 805 and 1311, there were forty 
 doges, so that twelve years and a half 
 fall to the share of each." The impro- 
 bability of the times allotted to the kings 
 becomes yet more manifest, when we 
 
 • From A.D. 1216 to 1422. i Note, 851. 
 
 examine them particularly. The grand- 
 father of Tullus Hostilius marries his 
 Sabine wife eighty years before his 
 grandson's accession to the kingdom. 
 He is slain in the battle with Tatius ;* 
 and therefore his son, although a citizen 
 of a new state, must have been at least 
 forty years of age before the child of the 
 'third generation was born to him. The 
 sons of Ancus Marcius, although they 
 were lads old enough to be sent to hunt, 
 when Tarquinius wished them out of the 
 way at the time of the election of a new 
 king,-|- yet deferred their vengeance upon 
 the usurper of their hereditary right for 
 thirty-eight years, that is, till they them- 
 selves were at least fifty-four years old. 
 The whole history of the Tarquins and 
 of Servius Tullius is full of the grossest 
 inconsistencies in chronology.^ Tar- 
 quinius the Elder came to Rome before 
 the ninth year of Ancus Marcius ; for he 
 commanded the cavalry in the • Latin 
 war, which the annals referred to that 
 year. He must therefore have been 
 nearly eighty years old when he was 
 murdered ; an age at which the sons of 
 Ancus, who had already waited so long, 
 might well have waited for his natural 
 death. His wife, Tanaquil, must have 
 been about seventy-five. Yet he leaves^ 
 sons, of whom the eldest is not arrived 
 at manhood; and the only resource of 
 Tanaquil to maintain the dignity of her 
 family is to secure the kingdom to Ser- 
 vius Tullius, If we adhere to the chro- 
 nology rather than to the history, we 
 must allow Tarquinius Superbus to be 
 at least seven-and-twenty at the time of 
 his father's death, when surely he would 
 have been old enough to claim the king- 
 dom if he thought that he had any right 
 to it. Instead of asserting his pretensions, 
 he waits patiently through the long 
 reign of Servius. When he commences 
 his criminal intrigue with Tullia. he 
 must be about sixty-seven ; and Tana- 
 quil must have lived a hundred and 
 fifteen years, when, as Fabius related, 
 she mourned for her younger son.^ 
 When Tarquin with the vigour of youth 
 hurled the aged Servius down the steps 
 of the senate-house, he himself was. 
 seventy-one. He was ninety-six, when 
 he was warring against Ardea, and was 
 expelled from Rome. Yet after this ex- 
 pulsion he takes an active part in the 
 Vv^ars, and fights at th^ Regillus, when 
 by Livy's chronology he must have been 
 
 • Liv. i. 12. Dion. iii. 1. 
 J See Dion. iv. 6, 7. 
 
 t Liv. i. 35. 
 i Dion. iv. 30. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 57 
 
 a hundred and six years old ; and dies 
 at Cumse at the age of one hundred and 
 ten years. Dionysius has pointed out 
 all these absurdities ; but with his cha- 
 vacte-ristic weakness of judgment he has 
 chosen to consider the chronology as 
 more certain than the facts of the his- 
 tory, and with his characteristic dis- 
 honesty he has falsified the old story, 
 and, in opposition to the authority of all 
 the early annalists, he has followed the 
 solitary example of Pisothe censor,* in 
 representing the younger Tarquinius as 
 the grandson, and not the son, of the 
 elder. In the battle of the Regillus he has 
 substituted for the exiled kin 2: his son 
 Titus Tarquinius. But the old story is 
 too circumstantial to be thus botched. 
 Tarquinius Collatinus is the son of 
 Egerius, who was the nephew of the first 
 Tarquinius. In order to keep him con- 
 temporary with the sons of Superbus, 
 Dionysius (without even the authority 
 of Piso) has transformed him into the 
 grandson of Egerius. f But the mother 
 of Brutus is the daughter of the first 
 Tarquinius ;:| and here Dionysius has 
 forgotten to interpolate his fictitious ge- 
 neration. It is of a piece with the rest 
 of this chronology, that Brutus at the 
 beginning of the reign of Tarquinius 
 Superbus is a child, and after five and 
 twenty years has sons old enough to 
 enter into a treasonable plot. 
 
 ii. Whence then came this incon- 
 gruous chronology ? Not from the po- 
 pular traditions, for traditions never 
 furnish dates ; and least of all traditions 
 in a poetical form. It must have come 
 from the books of the pontiffs, § and have 
 been a figment of their ingenuity. Nor 
 is it impossible to guess the grounds on 
 which it was founded. 
 
 In order to understand the following 
 discussion, it is necessary to bear in 
 mind, that the early Romans reckoned 
 their years from the expulsion of the 
 kings, and that the yearly festival by 
 which that event was commemorated 
 (the Regifugium) was held on the 24th 
 of February ; || and that the feast of 
 Palilia, which was esteemed the anni- 
 versary of the foundation of the city, 
 was celebrated on the 21st of April. 
 
 The battle of the AUia, in which the 
 Romans were defeated by the Gauls, 
 
 • See chap. ii. § 3, 4. f Dion. iv. 64. 
 
 J Dion. iv. 68. 
 
 § There is reason to believe that Polybius de- 
 rived his chronology immediatelv from the Tables 
 of the Pontiffs. See Nieb. note tiOC. 
 
 II Ov. Fast. ii. 685, 
 
 was fought the day after the Ides of 
 Quinctihs, or in the middle of July. 
 The city was taken a few days after- 
 wards, and remained in the possession of 
 the enemy till the following Februar}^ 
 Now it was known from certain memo- 
 rials of the censors,* that a census had 
 been held in the second year before the 
 capture of the city, in the consulship of 
 Lucius Valerius Potitus and Titus Man- 
 lius Capitohnus, which was described as 
 the hundred and nineteenth year after 
 the expulsion of the kings. It followed 
 therefore, that the capture of the city 
 happened in the hundred and twenty- 
 first year of the republic ; and there is no 
 reason for affirming that this date may 
 not be historically true. Now it appears 
 from Cicero's Dialogues on a Republic, 
 that according to the statement of Poly- 
 bius only thirty-nine years were as- 
 signed to the reign of Numa, to whom 
 the later historians give forty-three, and 
 twenty-three instead of twenty-four to 
 Ancus Marcius.f By the older account 
 therefore the time of the kings is made 
 to be two hundred and thirty-nine years ; 
 and the capture of the city is placed in 
 the three hundred and sixtieth year 
 from its foundation, and the three hun- 
 dred and sixtieth year closes soon after 
 the departure of the Gauls. Now it 
 seems as if the pontiffs, in the want of 
 a true chronology, chose to place this 
 period before the destruction and second 
 birth of the city, as being a year of years, 
 a great cycle in which the state had seen 
 the spring and summer and winter of 
 its fortunes, and from the end of which 
 a new period was to commence. That 
 the old Romans, although they knew 
 with tolerable exactness the true length 
 of the year, yet considered three hun- 
 dred and sixty days as the proper and 
 entire year, and the additional days to be 
 something adventitious and supernu- 
 merary, seems to be indicated by the 
 fact, that the intercalations, which their 
 lunar months rendered necessary, were 
 always made after the 23rd day of 
 February, which was their last month, 
 as March was their first ; and thus the 
 last five days of February were reserved 
 as a separate portion of time to the end 
 of the year. J Moreover, when the ex- 
 pulsion of the kings was made the 
 aera from which the years were reckoned,, 
 the opinion that the proper year con- 
 sisted of three hundred and sixty days. 
 
 * Dion. i. 74. See above p. 49. 
 t Cic. R. P. ij. 14, 18. t Macrob. Sat, i. 13. 
 
sr 
 
 HISTORY OP ROME. 
 
 and consequently that the 23rd of Fe- 
 bruary was the last day of it, will ac- 
 oount for the festival of the Repfusium 
 being placed on the 24th day of that 
 month, in the face of a tradition which 
 placed the historical event in the month 
 of May, and stated that Brutus ottered 
 a' sacrifice of thanks^ivino; to the god- 
 dess Carna on the Ca?lian Mount on the 
 Calends, that is, the first day, of June.* 
 That the intention of the pontiff's was 
 to make such a Great Year, or year of 
 years, ai)pears manifestly from the ad- 
 dition winch was made to their original 
 computation. Five years were added 
 to the time of the monarchy, which was 
 thus extended, as we have before seen, 
 to two hundred and forty-four years, 
 and the whole period of the first life of 
 the city was made to consist of three 
 hundred and sixty-five years. 
 
 This statement of the pontifical chro- 
 nology has been given from the earliest 
 authorities which we now possess. It 
 would be a very slight variation from it 
 to suppose that a hundred and twenty 
 years were computed for the republic, 
 and two hundred and forty years for the 
 time of the kings; and this account 
 seems to have been given by some 
 writers. •♦• The whole period would thus 
 be divided into shorter periods of one 
 hundred and twenty years each, of which 
 two would be given to the kings and 
 one to the republic. Now there is 
 reason to suspect, that a period of one 
 hundred and twenty years was a cycle 
 connected with the regulation of the old 
 Roman Calendar. Thus much, at least, 
 is certain. The Lustrum, or period of 
 five years, was the cycle in which the 
 Religious Year of ten months, by which 
 the Romans reckoned in some cases, 
 was brought round so as to set 'out 
 afresh from the same point with the 
 Civil Year of twelve months : six years 
 of ten months, or three hundred and 
 four days each, being equivalent, within 
 one day, to five years of twelve months 
 or three hundred and sixty-five days 
 each.;]; Twenty-four years made the 
 cycle, in which the lunar years were 
 brought to agree with the true solar 
 years. § If, therefore, there were any 
 greater cycle, in which the three species 
 of years were brought to end together, 
 it must have consisted of five times 
 twenty-four, that is, of one hundred and 
 
 * Macrob. Saturn, i. 12. 
 I Euseb. Chron. in Nieb. p. 205. 
 ^ t Nieb. V. i. pp. 2,i6,7. 
 
 § L.v i. 1^. itfacrob.Sat.i. 13. 
 
 twenty yuars. Tiie pontiffs, in their 
 double character of astronomers and 
 historians, may very prolmbly have 
 chosen to divide the early history of 
 their country into three such periods. 
 It is possible that this period was the 
 ancient and proper Roman Saeculum or 
 Age ; and a tradition of this computation 
 may have been the ground upon which 
 Valerius Antias reported, that the first 
 Saecular Games were celebrated by Va- 
 lerius Publicola in the first year of the 
 repubhc. The Saeculum of one hundred 
 and ten years was an invention of much 
 later times.* 
 
 • This statement will not be satisfactory %vith- 
 out a more detailed explanation : and as it is op- 
 posed to a part of Niebuhr's work, on which he 
 has bestowed even more than his usual pains, 
 respect for him requires that the grounds of 
 the assertion should be made clear. According 
 to Etruscan superstition, a term of existence 
 was predestined to every nation, comprehending 
 a certain number of periods of human life. The 
 period of the longest duration of human life was 
 called a Sieculum. Thus the fJTst saecuhim of a 
 city ended with the life of the lastsurvivorof those 
 who were born on the day of its foundation ; the 
 second saeculum with the life of the last survivor 
 of those who had witnessed the termination of the 
 first, and so on in succession. The Etruscans re- 
 ported, that the termination of every successive 
 Sieculum of their nation had been announced by 
 divine portents. The Romans assumed a lixedpor- 
 tion of time as a constant sieculum, of which they 
 celebrated the termination by the S&ecular Games, 
 and sacrifices on an altar, called tlieTerentine Altar, 
 in the Campus Martius. If the games were not cele- 
 brated after the regular interval, it was through an 
 accidental omission or error of computation, not 
 from design. The intervals of the Saecular Games 
 recorded by historians, and the express testimony 
 of Varro and Livy (Varro, de 1. 1 v. 2; Varro de 
 Seen. Grig.; and Liv. frag. 1. cxxxvi. in Censorin. 
 c. 17,) lead to the conclusion, that after the re- 
 building of the city a century was considered as a 
 sseculum, and the proper period of the game?; 
 and that according to the old pontifical chrono- 
 logy, which allowed biit three hundred and sixty 
 years before the taking of the city, it was the 
 meaning of the ministers of religion who directed 
 them, to celebrate them in the four hundredth, 
 five hundredth, and six hundredth year of the 
 city ; as Claudius afterwards, according to another 
 chronology, celebrated them in the eight hundredth, 
 and Philip in the thousandth year from the foun- 
 dation. The same notion is implied in the pon- 
 tifical legends, which assign the first two sacrifices 
 on the Terentine altar to the times of TuUns Hos- 
 tilius, in the Alban war, and of Servius TuUius. 
 (See Censorin. c. 17; Zosim. 1. ii.; and Onuphrius 
 Panvinius DeLudisStecularibus.) It maybe sus- 
 pected that the period of one hundred and ten years 
 was invented on occasion of the games which were 
 celebrated by Augustus, a. u.c. 737, or at least 
 but a little before. There is no mention of this 
 period before that time, nor on any authority 
 earlier than the forged Sibylline verses (Zosim. 
 1. ii. Horat. Carm. Ssec). The years in the Fasti, 
 to which the Quindecemviri, or keepers of the 
 Sibylline Books, assigned the celebration of the 
 Saccular Games (Censorin. c. 17, Nieb. p. 204), 
 were so marked, not historically, but by a back 
 reckoning; for beyond ail question, the genuine 
 Commentaries of the keepers of the Sibylline 
 Books must have been burned when the Sibylline 
 Books themselves were burned, in the conflagra- 
 tion of the Capitol in the civil wars, A. u. c. 670. 
 Niebuhr has observed, that if from the year 2QS, 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Of the number of years allotted to 
 each king it is difficult to offer a satis- 
 factory explanation. Niebuhr has 
 pointed out, as a mark of fabrication, 
 how nearly the middle of the reign of 
 Ancus Marcius, the middle king, coin- 
 cides with the middle of the kingly period. 
 
 iii. We will now proceed to examine 
 the dates assigned for the foundation of 
 the city. The reader must remember, 
 that the first Olympiad is supposed to 
 begin from the Midsummer of 776, b.c, 
 and that the Olympiads were reckoned 
 from Midsummer to Midsummer.* 
 
 according to Varro, in which the xv viri placed 
 the first Ssecular Games, two sseculaof onehundred 
 and ten years be reckoned backward, they bring 
 lis to the year 78 ; but that according to the chro- 
 nology of Polybius, Fabius, and the pontiffs, the 
 year 78 was the first year of the reign of Tullus 
 Hostilius ; and thus an explanation is furnished 
 of the tradition, that Numa Pompilius was born 
 on the day of the foundation of Kome ; it means, 
 that according to the Etruscan belief the first 
 speculum of the city ended at the time of his death. 
 (Nieb. pp. 204—208.) It must be confessed that the 
 story of Numa's birth on the birth-day of Home 
 seems unmeaning, unless Niebuhr's interpretation 
 be attached to it j but to the coincidence of dates, 
 and the consequences derived from it, Niebuhr him- 
 self has furnished the refutation, that the dates 
 are according to different chronologies. The 
 seventy-eighth year of Varro was five years before 
 the death of Numa, according to the reckoning of 
 Fabius ; nor is Niebuhr's explanation of this dis- 
 crepancy satisfactory. Scaliger has endeavoured 
 to show that the sseculum of one hundred and ten 
 years was a period or cycle connected with the 
 regulation of the calendar. (Scaliger, De Emendat. 
 Temp. 1. ii. pp. 180—183. Nieb. vol. i. pp. 234— 
 244.) Now it must be premised, with regard both 
 to his theory and the theory proposed in the text, 
 that the hypothesis that the sseculum was an 
 astronomical cycle, designed for the correction of 
 the calendar, is not sanctioned by any ancient 
 author, and must stand upon its own internal 
 probability. Scaliger however in making twenty- 
 two years to be the cycle of lunar and solar years, 
 from which he deduces that the sseculum, or 
 greater cycle, must have been five times twenty- 
 two or one hundred and ten years, has rejected 
 the detailed explanation of Macrobius, and the 
 express authority of Livy, who make the cycle 
 twenty-four years, without any warrant from 
 ancient writers, and solely on the strength of his 
 own ingenuity; and, moreover, according to 
 Scaliger's own arguments and calculations, the 
 cycle is completed not in twenty-two, but in 
 forty-four years, and therefore the greater cycle 
 ought to be, not one hundred and ten, but two 
 hundred and twenty years. The arguments of 
 Niebuhr, which involve the assumption that the 
 Etruscans and ancient Romans knew the length 
 of the year to a greater degree of exactness than 
 three hundred and sixty-five days six hours, are 
 worth very little. It would be easy to oppose to 
 them calculations by which it would appear that 
 a cycle of one hundred and twenty years would 
 afford opportunity for intercalations still more 
 accurate. It appears that the Quindecemviri 
 in the time of Augustus, when the Emperor had 
 resolved to celebrate the Ssecular Games, found 
 the first historically recorded games assigned to 
 the year of the city 406, or 407, or 408, according 
 to different chronologies, and thence determined 
 such a period as would justify the emperor in 
 celebrating them in A. u. c. 737- Perhaps they 
 struck a mean between the civil sseculum of a 
 hundred years, and the old astronomical cycle of 
 a hundred and twenty years. 
 * Outline of General Hist. ch. v. § 4* 
 
 The capture of Rome by the Gauls 
 was known in Greece, and mentioned 
 within a few years by Greek writers.* 
 This is not surprising; for the migration 
 of the Gauls threatened destruction even 
 to the Greek cities in Italy. It was re- 
 ported that the capture took place, while 
 the elder Dionysius was besieging Rhe- 
 gium.'i' The date of the event, there- 
 fore, was fixed according to the Greek 
 chronology ; and it was referred by most 
 writers to the first year of the 98th 
 Olympiad :$ that is, the battle of the 
 Allia and the taking of the city hap- 
 pened in the very beginning of that 
 Olympic year, in July, b.c. 388 ; and 
 the city was evacuated by the Gauls 
 before the end of that Olympic year, but 
 in February, b.c. 387. According to 
 the computation, by which three hun- 
 dred and sixty years of the city were 
 held to be completed at the Palilia in 
 01. 98.. 1, or April, b.c. 387, the city 
 must have been founded in 01. 8.. 1, 
 (or B.C. 747), and this was the calcula- 
 tion of Fabius Pictor.§ By the compu- 
 tation which reckoned three hundred 
 and sixty- five years from the Palilia of 
 01. 98.. 1, the foundation of the city 
 must have been placed in 01. 6 ..4, (or 
 B.C. 752), and this method was followed 
 by the author of the " Capitoline Fasti." || 
 Cato, according to Dionysius, placed the 
 foundation of Rome in 01. 7 .. 1 ; and 
 this date is commonly considered by 
 modern chronologers as equivalent to 
 B.C. 751. But Cato did not himself 
 determine his date by Olympiads ; but 
 merely placed the foundation of Rome 
 
 • Plut. Camill. 
 
 t Hist, of Greece, ch. vii. Sect. iii. 
 
 t Dion. i. 74. Niebuhr observes, that the ma- 
 jority decided for Ol. 98 . , 1, the archonship of 
 Pyrgion; Polybius and Diodorus for Ol. 98. .2, (vol. 
 i. p. 227). The latter part of this assertion seems 
 erroneous. The expression of Polybius is, — " The 
 year had begun (and Polybius reckons the year 
 from the first of January) in which the Lacedae- 
 monians ratified the peace of Antalcidas," (which 
 is ascertained by Clinton in the Fasti Hellenici to 
 be B.C. 387, in the middle of which Ol. 98 . . 2 
 began), " and in which the Gauls, after having 
 taken by force Rome itself, were holding possession 
 of it." Diodorus (1. xiv. c. 107 to end) relates, 
 that Dionysius began the siege of Rhegium before 
 the 98th Olympiad, that the siege lasted eleven 
 months, and that during the siege Rome was 
 taken and occupied by the Gauls. 
 
 § Dion. i. 74 in MS., and Solinus. 
 
 II The Capitoline Fasti are a chronological re- 
 cord of the magistrates, triumphs, &c., of every 
 year of the city, engraven on marble, of which 
 fragments have been dug up at Rome. These 
 have been recomposed, and are still preserved. 
 Onuphrius Panvinius, in the preface to his Fasti, 
 endeavours to shew, that they are the very Fasti 
 which were engraven by the learned grammarian, 
 Verrius Flaccus, in the age of Augustus, and 
 which are mentioned by Suetonius, De Illust. • 
 Gramm, § 17. ■ 
 
60 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 four hundred and thirty-two years after 
 the taking of Troy,* which, according to 
 the Greek chronologers, happened four 
 hundred and seven or four hundred and 
 eight years before the first Olympiad.f 
 Now it is plain that Dionysius, who 
 himself pronounced that Rome was 
 founded ni Ol. 7 .. 1, and who evidently 
 designed that his calculation should 
 agree with Cato's,?i; denotes the years of 
 the city, and even the consular years, 
 by the Olympiad which began in them, 
 not by the Olympiad in which they be- 
 gan. Unless this interpretation of his 
 language be admitted, ne must be ac- 
 cused of a gross blunder in his calcula- 
 tions, where he states that Rome was 
 taken in the first year of the 98th Olym- 
 piad, that this was the hundred and 
 twenty-first year of the republic, and 
 that a hundred and twenty years were 
 fully ended, and yet concludes that the 
 first consuls entered on their office in 
 the first year of the 6Sth Olympiad, al- 
 though the capture of Rome followed 
 the season of the Olympic games, and 
 the Regifugium preceded it. If we 
 allow this interpretation, he will appear 
 to mean, that the first consuls entered 
 on their office towards the close of 01. 
 67 ..4 (or in B.C. 508); and this will 
 agree exactly with the calculation of 
 Polybius, who places the expulsion of 
 the kings twenty-eight years before the 
 passage of Xerxes into Greece ; that is, 
 before the Spring of B.C. 480. § More- 
 over, it is m this sense only that he 
 could say that Rome was founded in the 
 beginnijig of the first year of the 7th 
 Olympiad. II The date therefore of Cato 
 and of Dionysius is 01. 6 .. 4. Polybius 
 placed the foundation of the cit)^ in 
 Ol. 7 ..2 ; that is, b.c. 750. He arrived 
 at this conclusion, notwithstanding the 
 years which he assigned to the several 
 kings, by making an allowance for the 
 inten-egnums.^ As he is three years 
 earlier than Fabius, he must have allowed 
 a year for each interregnum after the 
 deaths of Numa, of TuUus, and of Ancus 
 Marcius, just as all the annalists jjlaced 
 a year l3etween Romulus and Numa. 
 In this he showed his usual accuracy ; 
 for Servius TuUius and Tarquinius Su- 
 
 * Dion. i. 74. 
 
 + Clinton's Fasti HeUenici, Introduct. p. iii. 
 
 5 Dion. i. 71, 7A. ii. 2. § Pol. iii. 22. 
 
 I 'irovs iviffruTOi T^urev rrn s/aoo'/tojy 'OXv/x- 
 «ta,}cs. Dion, i. 71. So Solinus;— " Collatis 
 iiostris et Griecorum temporibus, invenimus inci- 
 jriente Olympiade septinia Romam conditam." 
 See Seal. l)e Emend. Temp. 1. v. p. ;i87- 
 
 q Cif. R. P, ii. 30. I 
 
 perbus took possession of the kingdom 
 without any interregnum. The learned 
 antiquary Terentius Varro, whose chro- 
 nology was generally followed by the 
 later Romans, and has been adopted by 
 most modern wfiters, by some peculiar 
 calculation placed the taking of the city 
 in 01. 97 ..3 (or B.C. 390); reckoned 
 this the three luindred and sixty-fourth 
 year of the city; and so assigned the 
 foundation to 01. G..3 (or b.c. 753).* 
 
 There is another calculation of the 
 date of the foundation of the city, which 
 is apparently different, but which, pro- 
 bably, rests really upon the same grounds 
 as the preceding. L. Cincius supposed 
 Rome to have been founded about the 
 fourth year of the 12th Olympiad.! 
 Niebuhr has pointed out with great in- 
 genuity, that, according to the older 
 statement of the lengths of the reigns, 
 the sum of the reiiins before the elder 
 Tarquinius is one hundred and thirty- 
 two years ; that according to Junius 
 Gracchanus, a most learned Roman 
 antiquary, it was by Tarquinius that the 
 year of twelve months was substituted 
 for the year of ten months ;',}: conse- 
 quently, if Cincius, who carefully inves- 
 tigated the antiquities of his country,^ 
 supposed the one hundred and thirty- 
 two years before Tarquinius to be reli- 
 gious years of the old measure, he would 
 consider them equivalent to one hundred 
 and ten common solar years, and would 
 be led to subtract twenty-two years from 
 the common reckoning ; and in fact, if 
 twenty-two years be subtracted from 
 tlie date of Polybius, who places the 
 foundation in 01. 7. .2, the resulting 
 epoch is exactly 01. 12. .4. The indefi- 
 niteness in the expression of Cincius, 
 •' about the fourth year of the twelfth 
 Olympiad," may have been occasioned 
 by the consideration of the interregnums, 
 to which Polybius allowed three years. 
 
 § 9, \Ve have thus gone back step by 
 step, examining the authorities of the 
 early Roman history, and we find it to 
 be mainly delivered from two distinct 
 sources, which correspond to the two 
 orders of the people. In nations where 
 an hereditary or exclusive priesthood 
 has maintained itself, the early history 
 is commonly nothing but an arbitrary 
 
 • in this history the years of Home will be 
 reckoned from the Palilia, or 21st April, in b.c. 
 752, a little before the end of Ol. 6 . . 4. The date^v 
 therefore, will be those of the Capitoline Fasti, 
 and will, in general, be one year higher than by 
 the vulgar Catonian Chronology, one year lower 
 than by the Chronology of Varro. 
 
 t Dion. i. 74. -j- Censorin. c. 20. 
 
 § Seech.U. §3.. 2. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 61 
 
 chronological outline, in which are com- 
 prehended memorials of institutions and 
 events connected with religious observ- 
 ances. Where the mind of a people 
 has not been cramped by such a domi- 
 nant order, the natiye early history has 
 commonly developed itself in the form 
 of popular traditions, and often of popu- 
 lar poems. The twofold state of Rome 
 possessed both kinds of history. The 
 religious books were the property of the 
 Patricians ; the traditionary poems were 
 probably cherished by the Plebeians or 
 Commons. That the two streams of 
 history were at first thus separate and 
 independent, will appear still more pro- 
 bable, when in the course of the history 
 the distinction between the Patricians 
 and Plebeians shall have been more 
 clearly developed. As by the progress 
 of civil institutions the two orders were 
 blended into one people, so in the annals 
 of the first historians the two kinds of 
 materials were compounded into one 
 narrative. This narrative has been 
 transmitted to us through successive 
 writers, without any essential change; 
 and now that we have ascertained the 
 sources from which it is derived, we 
 cannot be accused of unreasonable in- 
 credulity, if we proceed to examine it 
 in detail, and refuse our belief to it, 
 except where it is confirmed by other 
 evidence, or strongly supported by its 
 internal consistency and credibility. 
 
 Chapter III. 
 On the Early Population of Italy. 
 
 \\. The Iberians. §2. The Ligurians — Collision 
 - of the Iberians, Ligurians, and Gauls. § 3. The 
 Veneti— Thelllyrians. § 4. The Umbri. § 5. The 
 Pelasgians— Pelasgians in Greece — Hellenes — 
 Tyrseni in Greece — Pelasgians in Italy — Tyr- 
 seni in Italy — Qinotrians — Siculi. § 6. The 
 Etruscans, § 7. The Sabines, and Sabellian na- 
 tions. ^ 8. The Ausonian nations — Volsci and 
 JEqui. § 0. Tribes in Apulia. § 10. The Latins 
 —Alba. 
 
 The first step towards a critical exami- 
 nation of the Roman History will be to 
 collect, and to present briefly, whatever 
 information can now be gathered respect- 
 ing the early population of Italy, the suc- 
 cessive changes among the nations which 
 anciently possessed the country, and their 
 state at the time of the origin of Rome.* 
 In taking .this survey, it will be neces- 
 sary, at some points, to include in our 
 view the adjacent regions of southern 
 Europe. Even where these digressions 
 
 * A summary of this information is given in chap. 
 ix. of the "Outline of General History." In this 
 more detailed account, as well as in the summary, 
 .!we have been mainly guided by the introductory 
 chapter of Niebuhr. 
 
 appear to lead us out 'of sight of the in- 
 fant city, they cannot be considered as 
 irrelevant to our main purpose : since 
 the history of Rome ultimately compre- 
 hends the history, not only of Europe, 
 but of the whole ancient world. 
 
 § 1. The Iberians are commonly ac- 
 counted one of the most ancient nations 
 of the west. They inhabited Spain ; and 
 they were supposed to have been named 
 from the river Iber or Iberus (the Ebro). 
 But if we may trust to a writer who de- 
 rived his information from the oldest 
 Greek and Punic geographers,* the first 
 country which they were reported to 
 have occupied was on the south-west 
 coast of Spain, between the rivers Ana 
 and Tartessus, (Guadiana and Guadal- 
 quivir). Here dwelt the Herbi (whose 
 name seems only another form of Iberi) ; 
 and when that tribe was destroyed or 
 dislodged, the name Iberus still remained 
 to the river, which divided their territory 
 from the Tartessians.-f* This position of 
 the Iberi;ms leads to the conclusion, that 
 they originally immigrated from Africa, as 
 the Saracens or Moors in a later age ; and 
 it can easily be discovered from the no- 
 tices of Avienus, that the course of the 
 migrations of the ancient tribes along the 
 coast of Spain was from south to north. 
 Scymnus Chius expressly mentions the 
 tradition of an Ethiopian settlement in 
 these regions, in the island Erytheia.:!: 
 
 * Rufus Festus Avienus lived in the latter part 
 of the fourth century of the Christian iera. He 
 translated into Latin hexameter verse the geogra- 
 phical poem of Dionysius Periegetes ; and after- 
 wards composed a poem in Latin iambic verse, en- 
 titled "OraMaritima," which comprised a descrip- 
 tion of all the coasts of the Mediterranean to the 
 very recesses of the Euxine. It was introduced by 
 a description of the Atlantic ocean, and of the 
 western coast of Spain. In this worlc his design 
 was to give the names and to describe the inhabi- 
 tants of all the regions which he enumerated, not 
 as they exis>ted in his own time, l)ut as they ap- 
 peared in the writings of the most ancient geogra- 
 phers. He premises the names of the Greek au- 
 thors from whom he drew his materials, Hecateeus, 
 Hellanicus, Scylax, Phileas, Damastes, &c. ; and 
 besides these, it is evident, by his very accurate 
 description of the rise and course of the Rhone, 
 that he derived information from the writings of 
 some native of Massilia (Marseilles). He appears 
 likewise to have had some knowledge of the Funic 
 language and literature, if not from the fountain- 
 head, from the learned Mauritanian prince Juba. 
 In particular, he quotes more than once the voyage 
 of the Carthaginian Himilco along the northern 
 shoresof the Atlantic ocean ; a voyage which is sup- 
 posed to have been performed in very early times, 
 probably in "the fifth or sixth century before the 
 Christian Eera. (See Pliu. N. H. II. G7'.) Only a 
 mutilated fragment of the first book of the " Ora 
 Maritima" remains j but it is a very curious and 
 valuable monument of antiquity. It is printed in 
 the fourth volume of Hudson's Geographi Minores, 
 
 t Avien. Or. Mar. vv. 24-4—254. See also Scylax. 
 Iberes, p.l. 
 
 t Seym. Ch. v. 150. These would be the Tartes- 
 sians, tile Turdetaiii of tile iiomaiis, and of Strabo: 
 
62 
 
 HISTORY OP ROME. 
 
 We know from a very old authority, that 
 the Rhone, which river was in fact the 
 boundary of the Iberians and Lij^urians, 
 was esteemed by those who dwelt upon 
 its hanks the limit between Libya and 
 Europe :* and this opinion is scarcely to 
 be explained, unless we suppose a belief 
 to have prevailed of the Libyan origin 
 of the Iberians.t 
 
 Whatever was the origin of the Ibe- 
 rians, they not only possessed Spain, 
 but were spread even beyond the Pyre- 
 nees, over Aquitaine,:}: and to the Rlione.$ 
 yEschylus placed the Rhone itself in 
 Iberia.ll On the one side they were 
 supposed to have crossed the sea to the 
 British Islands.*! On the other side, they 
 extended themselves to the Balearic 
 Islands, to Corsica, to Sardinia, and to 
 Sicily.** The Iberian tribe in Sicily were 
 called Sicani ; a name which is perhaps 
 a form of the national appellation His- 
 pani, by which the Romans learned to 
 designate the people of Spain, whom the 
 Greeks termed Iberes. The Sicani ac- 
 counted themselves indigenous in Sicily : 
 but Thucydides states that the truth was 
 found to be, that they were Iberians, and 
 that they had been dislodged from the 
 river Sicanus in Iberia by Ligurians.t't- 
 Avienus places the Sicani and the river 
 Sicanus in a situation which corresponds 
 with the place of the river Sucro (now 
 the Xucar),:{:$ but he cites no authority ; 
 and it is difficult to conceive that Ligu- 
 rians should have penetrated so far 
 southward along the Spanish coast, es- 
 pecially as aggressors upon the Iberians. 
 The Sicani imparted their name to the 
 island in which they settled ; and it was 
 called Sicania.^^ But they did not main- 
 tain themselves in undisturbed posses- 
 sion. The Elymi settled among them; 
 a people whom the CEnotri dislodged 
 from the Southern part of Italy ;|||| and 
 at a later time the Siceli passed over 
 from Italy, and drove back the Sicani 
 to the southern and western extremities 
 of the island.^f^ Whether any Iberian 
 
 who seem to have been the people who impelled 
 the proper Iberians northward. 
 
 * Av. Or. Mar. v. 685—8. 
 
 t The traditions of the passage of Hercules with 
 an army through Libya into Iberia, which were 
 told in Carthaginian books, (Sail. Bell. Jug.) as 
 ■well as in the legends of the Greel<8, (Diod. Sic. 
 L. IV.) relate probably to migrations from Africa 
 into Europe. The latter part of the Carthaginian 
 story reverts the migration, which is not an un- 
 common change in such traditions. 
 
 t Strabo, iv. 1. i Scylax, p. 2. 
 
 II Plin. xxxvii. 2. probably in Prom. Solut. 
 ^ Tac. Agric. c. 11. *• Nieb. pp. 142—144. 
 tt Thuc. vi. 2. it Av. Or. Mar. v. 479. 
 
 §§ Odyss. xxiv. 306. Herod, vii. 1/0. 
 
 III Hellanicus in Dion. i. 22. 
 
 «irf Thuc. vL 2. Diod. Sic. v. 6. 
 
 tribe settled on the mainland of Italy is 
 doubtful. Virgil speaks of Sicani as an 
 ancient tribe dwelling near the Tiber :'•' 
 it is possible, however, that he may 
 have confounded the Sicani with the Si- 
 culi or Siceli. Pliny enumerates Sicani 
 among the ancient tribes of Latium de- 
 pendent upon Alba (Populi Albenses).t 
 
 § 2. The Ligurians (theLigyes of the 
 Greeks, the Ligures of the Romans) 
 were a very ancient people, and long 
 preserved their national existence. The 
 Ligurians, whom the Romans attacked 
 for the first time in the interval between 
 the first and second Punic wars,'.|; and 
 who maintained for many years a gene- 
 rous struggle for their independence, 
 possessed only the ridge of the Mari- 
 time Alps and of the Apennine, with 
 the declivities on both sides, to the re- 
 gion where the Apennine diverges from 
 the coast, and turns towards the interior 
 of Italy. In the division of Augustus 
 the boundaries of the Ligurian coast 
 were the rivers Varus (Var) on the 
 West, and Macra (Magra) on the East 
 But in early times the Ligurians were 
 far more widely spread. Traces of them 
 were to be found on the shores of the 
 Atlantic ocean, and of the Adriatic sea ; 
 and they extended themselves from the 
 Alps southward, on the one side beyond 
 the Pyrenees, on the other to the Tiber. 
 In collecting the evidence of the wide 
 diffusion of this great and ancient peo- 
 ple, it will." be convenient to begin on 
 the western side of the Alps, and point 
 out the countries which they occupied 
 beyond the hmits of Italy. 
 
 On the western declivity of the Mari- 
 time Alps, Strabo, even in the age of 
 Augustus, reckoned the Albienses and 
 the Albioeci among the Ligurians.^ To 
 these, on the authority of the Trium- 
 phal Fasti may be added the neighbour- 
 ing tribe of the Vocontii.|| Pliny held 
 the Sallyi, Deceates, and Oxybii, tribes 
 upon the coast, to be Ligurians. IT Strabo 
 is more cautious ; and informs us that 
 later writers called the Salyes (Sallyi), 
 who extended along the coast a little 
 further than Massalia (Marseilles), 
 Celto-Ligyes (that is, Gallo- Ligurians), 
 from the intermixture of the Gaulish 
 population ; but that the earlier Greeks 
 called them Ligyes, and the country 
 which the Massaliots occupied, Ligys- 
 tic, or Ligurian ; and assigned to them 
 
 * .^n. vii. 795. viii. 328. xi. 317. 
 
 t Plin. N.H. III. 5. 
 
 t Liv. Epit. L. XX., A. U. C. 516. 
 
 § iv. 6. 4. i Cluver. Ital. Antiq. 1. i. p. 106, 
 
 ^ N. H. iii. 6. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 63 
 
 all the plain as far as the Rhone.* This 
 agrees with the account of Scylax, who 
 makes the Rhone the hmit of the pure 
 Ligurians.t Avienus fixes the same 
 limit :X and the same must have been 
 supposed by ^schylus.§ Herodotus 
 also speaks of the Lisjyes who dwell 
 above Massalie :|| and here we may ob- 
 serve that from this Grecian colony the 
 Greeks might derive a correct know- 
 ledge of the neighbouring people. Be- 
 yond the Rhone, as far as Emporium, a 
 Massalian settlement on the coast a little 
 beyond the Pyrenees, dwelt, according 
 to Scylax, mingled tribes of Ligurians 
 and I berians. Among these it is worthy 
 of note that Avienus places the Eli- 
 syces,^; whom .Herodotus enumerates 
 along with the Iberians and Ligurians, 
 among the tribes from which the Car- 
 thaginians levied their army to attack 
 Sicily in the time of Gelon,** and whom 
 Hecataeus expressly called a Ligurian 
 people.-H' The chief city of this warlike 
 tribe was Naro, apparently the Narbo 
 of the Romans (Narb.onne). Scymnus 
 Chius;f;$ also places Ligurians between 
 the Pyrenees and the borders of the 
 Iberians. But none are expressly men- 
 tioned south of Emporium, except those 
 who expelled the Sicani. But it was not 
 only along the coast that the Ligurians 
 in ancient times inhabited the regions be- 
 yond the Rhone. It appears that at a 
 still earlier period they possessed the in- 
 land country, and had come down upon 
 the coast from Mount Setyus, the high- 
 est ridge of the Cemmenic range (the 
 Cevennes).§§ And in times yet more 
 early, if we may trust to the report 
 which has been transmitted to us 
 from the Carthaginian navigator Hi- 
 milco, they dwelt upon the shores of 
 the Atlantic ocean, and were driven 
 thence into the mountains, whence they 
 descended to the coasts of the Medi- 
 terranean sea, by the overpowering 
 pressure of the Celts or Gauls. |||| It is 
 
 * iv. 6. 3. 
 
 t Scylax, p. 2. The geographical work, which 
 bears the title of the Periiuus of Scylax, is a de- 
 scription of the coasts of the Mediterranean sea. 
 It seems to be compiled from the works of diffe- 
 rent writers, but is all anterior to the age of Alex- 
 ander, B. C. 33G. t Av. Or. Mar. v. 610. 
 
 § Prom. Sol. in Strabo, iv. 1. 7. 
 
 II Her. V. 9. ^ Or. Mar. v. 585, 
 
 •* vii.165. B. C. 480. ft Steph. Byz. 
 
 Jt " Scymnus, late as he lived, is the representa- 
 tive of Timseus and other ancient writers." — Nieb 
 p. 31. 
 
 §§ Av. Or. Mar. v. 623. 
 
 Hi Av. Or. Mar. vv. 129— 145. 
 
 Si quis dehinc 
 
 Ab insulis Oestrymnicis lembum audeat 
 
 Urgere in undas, axe qua Lycaonis 
 
 Kigescit aethra, cespitem Ligurum subit, 
 
 Cassum iucolarum.; namque Celtariuu maaa 
 
 evident that this tradition places them 
 upon the banks of the river Ligyr* or 
 Liger (the Loire). Hence we are fur 
 nished with an explanation of the ac- 
 count, which derived the name of the 
 people from a river Ligyr, and which 
 has perplexed the critics, who sought in 
 vain for such a river in Italy ;'t' and the 
 very notice of such a derivation serves 
 in some measure to coniirm the tradi- 
 tion of Himilco. 
 
 We have traced the Ligurians to their 
 utmost extent on the western side of the 
 Alps. We must now return to the 
 eastern or Italian side. Here they ap- 
 pear to have occupied the plains about 
 the Po, especially on its northern bank, 
 to the very shores of the Adriatic sea. 
 If the evidence of their possession of the 
 lower grounds is scanty or uncertain, it 
 must be remembered, that in the very 
 early times, of which we are seeking the 
 monuments, much of this alluvial coun- 
 try must have been an uninhabitable 
 fen ; that it was afterwards occupied by 
 the Etruscans ; and that they, after a 
 period of flourishing empire, were in 
 their turn dispossessed by the (jauls. The 
 strongest evidence of the early diffusion 
 of the Ligurians over the whole basin of 
 the Po is, that in later ages they main- 
 tained themselves in the surrounding 
 mountains on every side. On the south, 
 the main body of the nation, who hekl the 
 ridge of the Apennines, retained their na- 
 tional name ; but we can trace their scat- 
 tered tribes under other names round the 
 circle of the Alps on the North : and if we 
 are able to do this, we may reasonably 
 conclude, that they were spread likewise 
 over the plains below, till they were dis- 
 lodged by the Etruscans, the Veneti, and 
 the Gauls. 
 
 If then we begin from the Maritime 
 and Cottian Alps, we find that the Ca- 
 turiges on the very ridge are named by 
 Pliny as a Ligurian tribe, and their con- 
 nexion with the Vagienni in the proper 
 
 Crebrisque dudum prEeliis vacuata sunt : 
 Liguresque pulsi, ut ssepe fors aliquos agit, 
 Venere in ista, quae per horrentes tenent 
 Plerumque dumos. Creber his scrupus locis, 
 Rigidseque rupes atque montium niinse 
 Coulo inseruntur. p]t fugax gens hsec quidem 
 Diu inter arcta cautium duxit diem, 
 Secreta al) undis ; nam sail metuens erat 
 Priscum ob periclura : post, quics et otium, 
 Securitate roborante audaciam, 
 Persuasit altis develii cubilibus, 
 Atque in marinos jam locos descendere. 
 The Oestryninic Islands appear to be at the 
 northern point of Galicia, v. 90, &e. It must be 
 observed that there is a great gap in the " Ora 
 Maritima." after the beginning of v. 88. 
 ♦ Ligyr, so spelt by Strabo, IV. 1. i. 
 t Steph. Byz. from the geographer ArtemidOTM, 
 who flourished about 110 J3.C. 
 
64 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Liguria, is distinctly noticed.* Below 
 these were the Taurini, who possessed 
 the modern Piedmont, and wiio were 
 a3knowled«red by common consent to be 
 a Ligurian race.t It is wortiiy of note 
 that these Taurini were by Poly bins 
 called Taurisci.;!: The name Tuurisci 
 was more commonly applied to an an- 
 cient tribe at the opposite extremity of 
 the Alpine chain, on the southern slope 
 of the Carnian Alps, upon the borders 
 of Noricum. ^ These Taurisci are 
 not unfrequently confounded with the 
 •Gallic tribes : but they were separated 
 from the Gauls on the Po by the inter- 
 vention of the Venetian territory ; and 
 it ai)pears more probable that they were 
 in fact Ligmian. This is indicated, not 
 only by the affinity of the names Tau- 
 risci and Taurini,' but by the singular 
 circumstance, that the Taurisci, who 
 were carried down the valley of the Da- 
 nube into Thrace in the stream of the 
 Gallic migration, were also called Ligy- 
 risci.il To the Tauric or Tauriscan race, 
 that is, to the Ligurians, belonged, in the 
 opinion of Cato, the Salassi and the 
 Lepontii:^ the Salassi on the north 
 of the Taurini, at the foot of the Graian 
 and Pennine Alps (the Mountains St. 
 Bernard); the Lepontii on the north- 
 east of the Salassi, running back deep 
 into the mountains, and including in 
 their territory the sources of the Rhone 
 and the Rhine.** In the plains below 
 the Taurini and Salassi, the Laevi, a 
 Ligurian tribe, dwelt about the river 
 Ticinus ;'i"}' and the La^vi, with the Ma- 
 rici, who were also JJgurians, founded 
 the city Ticinum (Pavia).;i:.|; The Libui, 
 Libici, or Lebecii (for they are mentioned 
 by these various names) inhabited the 
 same regions, and were a kindred people, 
 •deriving their origin from the Salluvii or 
 Salyes, Ligurians beyond the Alps. 
 Vercellse was their chief town.§§ The 
 La'vi and Libui were in later tmies ac- 
 counted Gauls ; \\ || of course from the in- 
 termixture and predominance of the 
 Gallic population. Novaria, near Ver- 
 cellae, was hkewise, according to Cato, 
 a Ligurian town. Its founders were the 
 Vertacoraatori, a Liirurian tribe, inhabi- 
 tants of a portion of the district occupied 
 by the Vocontii. It appears that Cato 
 
 • Plin. N. II. iil.20 (24). 
 
 t Strabo, iv. C, 6. Plin. iii. 17 (21). 
 
 ♦Pol. ii. la. Steph. Byz. 
 
 § Strabo, iv. 6, 'J. Plin. iii. 19 and 20, (23and24). 
 
 U Slrabo, V. J, 6. viii.S, 2. 
 
 % Plin. iii. 20 (24). ** Caes. B. G. iv. 7. 
 
 it l-iv. V. 35. tt Piin. iii. 17 {-^i). §§ Pliu. ib. 
 
 ii J Liv. x^. aH' Polyb, ii. 17. 
 
 had recognized the Liirurian character 
 of the Vocontii, which in the time of 
 Pliny was obliterated. A part of the 
 Libui were settled, before the Gallic im- 
 migration, considerably to the west of 
 the Ticinus, in the region about the lake 
 Benacus (L. of Garda), where stood in 
 historical times the cities Brixia and 
 Verona.* The mountainous country 
 northward from the lake remained in 
 the possession of the Euganei. Of this 
 ancient and once powerful people Cato 
 was still al)le to enumerate thirty-four 
 towns ;t and they were reported by tra- 
 dition to have inhabited all the country 
 between the Alps and the Adriatic sea, 
 till they were driven into the mountains 
 by the Veneti.t Their chief tribe was 
 the Stoni or Stoeni ;^S and the Stoeni are 
 expressly named Ligurians in a frag- 
 ment of the Triumphal Fasti,]] and by 
 the geographer Stephanus.^ If the 
 Euganei were Ligurians, then the tradi- 
 tion, that Verona was a settlement of 
 the Rasti and Euganei,** is consistent 
 with the account which places it in the 
 territory of the Ligurian Libui. On the 
 east the Euganei bordered on the Tau- 
 risci of Noricum; on the west their 
 tribes, the Triumpilini and the Carauni, 
 extended as far as the lake Sebinus 
 (L.d'Iseo) and the river OUius (Oglio).tt 
 We have therefore found vestiges of a 
 Ligurian population along the whole 
 range of the Alps, except in the intei-val 
 between the Lepontii and the Camuni, 
 that is, between the lake Verbanus 
 (Lago Maggiore) and the lake Sebinus. 
 But the mountains and mountain passes 
 in this very interval were the seats of 
 the Rseti, a powerful Alpine people, who 
 were either the remnant of the fugitive 
 Etruscans, dislodged by the Gauls from 
 the plains about the Po, or (as will be 
 shewn hereafter to be more probable), 
 the parent stock from which the Etrus- 
 cans were sprung, and from whose an- 
 cient fastnesses they descended as con- 
 querors into the plains of Italy. In this 
 region, therefore, it was most likely that 
 all remains of the Ligurians should be 
 swept away.;!: j; It remains to be observed 
 only that Strabo enumerates the Le- 
 
 • Liv. V. 3.3. t Plin. iii. 20 (24). j Liv. i. 1. 
 
 i Plin. iii. 20 (24). ^ U Cluv.It. Ant. p. 106. 
 
 % Steph. Byz. 2<rovvos, vokts Kiyvouv. 
 
 ••Plin. iii. 19(23). 
 
 it Plin. iii. 19 and 20. Cramer's Italy, vol. i.p. TA. 
 
 XX About the lake of Como dwelt the Orobii, an 
 ancient tribe, whose origin Cato could not ascer- 
 taiu (Plin. III. 1"). They were therefore not 
 Etruscans. Their name may remind us of the river 
 Orobis, in a region which we have seen to be Li- 
 gurian, a little east of Narbo. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 65 
 
 pontii on the one side, and the Stoni 
 and Trident ini, Euganean tribes, upon 
 the other side, with other small Alpine 
 nations, as having in former times held 
 possession of Italy.* 
 
 If we examine how far the Ligurians 
 extended towards the south, we shall 
 find that in the time of Polybius their 
 southern boundary was the river Arno ; 
 that along the coast they reached to the 
 city of Pisa, and along the ridge of the 
 Apennines to Arretium.f Pisa was 
 then the most western city of Etruria. 
 It is true that on the coast, between the 
 Macra and the Arno, the Ligurians had 
 at this time encroached upon the Etrus- 
 cans in consequence of the decline of 
 the Etruscan power.J But it is pro- 
 bable that they only recovered what they 
 had possessed in a former age.§ In the 
 mountains it is not unlikely that the 
 Ligurians may have maintained them- 
 selves from the earliest times. Their 
 extension thus far southward along the 
 Apennines is worthy of notice, since it 
 must have brought them into contact 
 with the Umbrians (upon whom Diony- 
 sius expressly affirms that they bor- 
 dered) II ; and have placed them in the 
 upper part of the valley of the Tiber. 
 There is nothing unreasonable in the 
 conjecture that the tribes of the more 
 southern branches of the Apennines 
 may have been at least of kindred race. 
 Ancient tradition placed Ligurians even 
 on the site of Rome itself. From this 
 spot they are said to have expelled the 
 Siculi, and to have been themselves in 
 turn expelled by the Sacrani.^ In 
 another version of the story, the Sacrani 
 are described as a tribe which came 
 originally from Reate, and expelled 
 both Ligures and Siculi from Septi- 
 montium ; ** an old name of the hilly 
 district on which the most ancient part 
 of Rome was built. If Another story 
 even identified the Siculi and Ligurians. 
 According to the Syracusan historian 
 Philistus, tX the Siceli (the Siculi of 
 Latin writers), who passed from Italy 
 
 * Strabo, iv. 6, 6. •)■ Polyb. ii. 16. 
 
 X Liv. xli. 13. § Strabo, v. 2, 5. 
 
 II Dion. i. 10. 
 
 *i Serv. on 7En. xi. 317. See also iEn. vii. 796. 
 
 ** Festus, V. Sacrani. 
 
 tt Nieb. pp. 334, 335, note 867, ed. 2, p. 382, 
 note 930, ed. 3. The translators of Niebuhr have 
 published (Cambridge, 1831) a second edition of 
 their translation of vol. i., which is in fact a trans- 
 lation of the third edition of the original. To 
 this references will be made in this chapter, as 
 ed. 3, as well as to the preceding edition; and in 
 the subsequent chapters to this only. 
 
 it The friend of the elder Dionysius. Outline 
 of Gen. Hist. c. xi., § i. 
 
 into Sicily, were Ligurians dislodged 
 from their own country by the Umbri- 
 ans and Pelasgians. * This account, it 
 must be acknowledged, agrees with the 
 detail, which Dionysius has pieced toge- 
 ther from various writers, of the wars of 
 the Siceli with the Umbrians, Pelas- 
 gians, and Aborigines ; and if we re- 
 ceive it as historical, we must of course 
 suppose that the Ligurians had extended 
 themselves throughout the whole length 
 of Italy. But, as Niebuhr has shown, 
 there is some reason to believe that the 
 Siceli were a Pelasgian tribe, t If this 
 hypothesis be well founded, we have no 
 testimony that the Ligurians penetrated 
 further south than to the left bank of 
 the Tiber. It is not difficult to guess 
 how the story of Philistus may have 
 arisen. Probably it was supposed that 
 the Sicani had passed into Sicily out of 
 Italy, as the Siceli did afterwards ; it 
 was known that the Sicani had been dis- 
 lodged by Ligurians; and therefore it 
 seemed reasonable to suppose that the 
 people which followed them in the suc- 
 cession of migrations was Ligurian. 
 That Ligurians passed into Corsica is 
 in itself more probable, and is attested 
 by more satisfactory evidence.^ 
 
 All that can be known of the early 
 history of the Ligurians may be gathered 
 from what has been already stated. If 
 the Euganei were in truth Ligurians, 
 they were cut off from the main body 
 of their nation by the irruption of the 
 Tuscans or Etruscans, who occupied 
 the central regions of Northern Italy ; 
 whether these, according to the hypo- 
 thesis adopted by Niebuhr, descended 
 from the Raetian Alps;§ or whether, 
 according to the more common opinion, 
 they spread themselves in the opposite 
 direction from the shores of the Medi- 
 terranean sea. The pressure of the 
 Etruscans on the east drove the Ligu- 
 rians within the western banks of the 
 Ticinus and of the Macra. This was 
 probably the relative position of the two 
 nations at the time of the foundation of 
 Rome. Beyond the Alps, at a still 
 earlier time, the Ligurians had come 
 into collision with the Iberians. It 
 seems as if at first they had encroached 
 upon the Iberians, and subsequently had 
 been forced to recede before them. If 
 
 * Dion. i. 22. 
 
 t See Outline of Gen. Hist., ch. ix., § 1., and 
 below, pp. 81, 82, &c. 
 
 t Sallnst. Frag. Hist. 
 
 § Outline of Gen. Hist. ch. ix. § 2. Below, p. 85. 
 This hypothesis was suggested by Freret ; Mem. de 
 r^kCad. des Inscript. T. xviii. 
 
66 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 we could a list \o the account of Avi- 
 enus, (hey would appear to have been 
 driven upon the Iberians of the coast 
 by the pressure of the Gauls, who 
 descended upon them from the coun- 
 tries which are now the northern and 
 inland provinces of France. This great 
 nation, the Gauls or Celts, probably 
 roiejated westward along the middle of 
 Europe, between the Baltic Sea and the 
 German Ocean, on the one hand, and 
 the mountains of Bohemia and Switzer- 
 land on the other.* In France they 
 spread themselves from north to south. 
 They crossed the Pyrenees, and are 
 commonly supposed to have partially 
 dispossessed the Iberians, and thus to 
 have formed the mingled nation of the 
 Celtiberi, of which the numerous tribes 
 occupied the middle of Spain. There is 
 reason, however, to conjecture that the 
 Celtic race may have penetrated into 
 the northern and north-western parts of 
 the peninsula, while the Iberians were 
 spread chiefly along the southern and 
 eastern coasts; and that subsequently 
 the Iberians may have gained ground 
 upon the Celts. We should thus be 
 enabled to account for the position of 
 the Celtici, an insulated tribe in the 
 mountains in the south of Lusitania; 
 and of other Celtici at the extreme point 
 of Gallicia (Cape FinisteiTe). When a 
 country changes its population, the 
 older inhabitants are to be sought in its 
 mountainous districts and most remote 
 extremities. We may therefore sup- 
 pose the Iberians to have dispossessed 
 the Celts, or to have become mingled 
 with them, till they spread themselves 
 beyond the Pyrenees and over the plain 
 of Aquitaine. t It is even possible that 
 a resistance or an impulse from this 
 quarter may have determined the great 
 movement of the Gauls towards the 
 east, in which they first attacked the 
 Ligurian Salyes above Marseilles,! and 
 then crossed the Alps, and burst into 
 the plains of Italy. The circumstances 
 of this irruption will be detailed here- 
 after. Here it is sufficient to remark 
 that this great revolution completed the 
 expulsion of the Ligurians from the 
 plains on the north of the Po, and drove 
 them into the mountains in which we 
 have already traced their scattered 
 tribes. 
 
 The early state of the Ligurians has 
 been thus carefully investigated, be- 
 
 » Outline of Gen. Hist., Ch. x. $ 3, and note, 
 t Strabo, i?. 1, 1. Aboye, p. 62. t Ur, r. 34, 
 
 cause it is not unlikely that they were 
 a more important element in the ancient 
 population of Italy than is commonly 
 supposed. The opinion or tradition 
 that the Aborigines, the indigenous 
 race from which the Latins and the 
 Romans were partly sprung, were a 
 branch of the Ligurians, is by no means 
 deserving of the fabulous character 
 which Dionysius contemptuously fastens 
 upon it.* 
 
 The origin and affinities of this great 
 nation are quite uncertain. If the tes- 
 timonies adduced above do not warrant 
 the belief that the Euganei and Taurisci 
 were of Ligurian race, it would be dif- 
 ficult to show that the Ligurians might 
 not have spread themselves into Italy 
 from its western frontier, as the Gauls 
 did. The statements of Cato respect- 
 ing their towns Vercellae and Novaria f 
 seem to imply this hypothesis. The 
 pressure of the Gauls might impel them 
 in this direction. On the other hand, 
 if we believe the Ligurians to have bor- 
 dered anciently on the Adriatic, another 
 clue presents itself, and we may conjec- 
 ture an affinity between them and the 
 Liburnians. Niebuhr has hazarded this 
 conjecture, chiefly from the similarity 
 of the names. % 
 
 § 3. It is probable that the chrono- 
 logical order of the national migrations 
 is disturbed in speaking of the Veneti, 
 or Venetians, before we treat of the 
 Umbrians, the Pelasgians, and the 
 Etruscans. But their geographical posi- 
 tion makes this the most convenient 
 place to mention them. The Veneti 
 possessed the country round the inner- 
 most recesses of the Adriatic, from the 
 peninsula of Istria to the river Athesis 
 
 * Dion. i. 10. + p. 64. 
 
 t Vol. i. p. 140, ed. 2. p. 165, ed. 3. The Libur- 
 nians possessed the mountainous region along the 
 north-eastern shores of the Adriatic sea, with the ad- 
 jacent islands; and were a distinct nation from the 
 Iliyrians, who inhabited the coasts to the south of 
 them (Scylax, p. 7). In early times the Liburnians 
 were more extensively diffused. They inhabited all 
 the islands along the eastern side of the Adriatic ; 
 and even in Corcyra the natives, whom the Corin- 
 thian settlers expelled, were Liburnians (Strabo, vi. 
 2, 4). They spread themselves to the Italian side of 
 the gulf; and the Umbrians in ancient times had 
 expelled Siculi and Libumifrom the coasts which 
 were afterwards occupied by the Sabellian Picentes 
 and the Gallic Senones. The town Truentum long 
 retained its Liburnian population (Plin, N. H. iii. 
 13 and 14). If we look to the north, we shall find 
 traces of the Liburnians in Istria : and there is even 
 a testimony, which supposes them to have penetrated 
 into the recesses of the Alps, and comprehends the 
 Alpine nations in their extended tribes (Serv. on 
 Mn. i. 243). It is possible, therefore, that in very 
 early times the Liburnians were in contact with the 
 Ligurians. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 67 
 
 (Adige), or even to the Po ; and their 
 territory was inclosed on the west and 
 north by the Athesis and the Alps. We 
 are assured by the authority of Poly- 
 bius, that they were not of the same 
 race as the Gauls, with whom several 
 writers have confounded them. In com- 
 parison with the Galhc settlers in Italy, 
 they were a very ancient people : they 
 resembled them in manners and dress, 
 but they differed in language.* By 
 Herodotus they are called Illyrians;t 
 and the same descent is signified by a 
 tradition, probably a native one, which 
 mentions as the chief under whom they 
 occupied their territory, an lllyrian 
 prince ^netus.J 
 
 This account carries with it a strong 
 appearance of truth. The Illyrians were 
 a barbarous nation, who seem to have 
 advanced from the neighbourhood of the 
 Danube,^ and spread themselves along 
 the eastern coasts of the Adriatic sea. 
 In the more northern parts, not only the 
 lapodes, or lapydes between the Libur- 
 nians and Istrians, were originally an 
 lllyrian tribe, though afterwards mixed 
 with Gauls; II and the Istrians them- 
 selves are counted as belonging to the 
 lllyrian coast ;1 but even beyond the 
 extremity of the Adriatic, among the 
 Alpine nations, the Breuni and Genauni 
 are specified as Illyrians, and as such 
 are expressly distinguished from the 
 Vindelici and Norici.** Southward the 
 Illyrians extended themselves as far as 
 the Acroceraunian promontory.-fi' Along 
 this whole tract they appear to have 
 pressed hard upon the Liburnians ; some- 
 times to have dispossessed tbem; some- 
 times to have blended themselves with 
 them ; and finally to have confounded 
 both nations under their own name.$$ 
 
 It appears then that the Veneti were 
 an lllyrian tribe, which penetrated to the 
 western side of the extreme gulf of the 
 
 * Pol. ii. 17. + Her. i. 196, v. 9. 
 
 t Serv. on ^n. i. 243. § Strabo, v. 1, 8. 
 il Strabo, iv. 6, 10 ; vii. 5, 2. 
 
 •[[ Strabo, vii. 5, 3. ** Strabo, iv. 6, 8. 
 
 it Scylax, p. 11, 
 
 tt Pliii. iii. 21. For example, the Enchelees, be- 
 tween the zestuary of Rhizon and the Greek settle- 
 ment ofEpidamnus (Scyl. p. 9; Strabo, vii. 7, 8), 
 appear to have been a Liburnian tribe, whom the 
 Illyrians overpowered; and then the two nations, 
 moving in one common incursion, penetrated even 
 into Greece, and plundered the temple of Delphi. 
 Compare Plin. iii. 21 (25); Apollodorus, iii. 5. 4; 
 Herodot, ix. 43, v. 61 ; Eurip. Bacch, vv. 1331—1336. 
 The time of this event, if it were posterior to the ex- 
 pulsion of the Cadmeans from Thebes, must have 
 been not long after the Trojan war. On the en- 
 croachments of the Illyrians upon Greece there are 
 remarks in Mtiller's Dorians, Introduction, § 5, 
 (Translation, p, 6).j 
 
 Adriatic, and expelled the Euganei from 
 their ancient seats.* Here they held 
 their ground, while the other districts 
 on the north of the Po were under the 
 dominion of the Etruscanst, and even 
 when they were overrun by the Gauls. 
 With these latter invaders 1hey were 
 engaged in wars ;$ and probably it was 
 their continued hostility which made the 
 Veneti pass, as they did, without resist- 
 ance, under the protection and domi- 
 nion of Rome. The Greeks called this 
 nation Heneti ; and there was a tradition 
 respecting them, which mi^st have had 
 its origin with the Greek Cyclic poets, 
 not unlike the tale by which ^neas and 
 his Trojans were transported to the 
 shores of Latium. It was fabled that 
 Antenor escaped from the ruin of Troy 
 with the Heneti, a Paphlagonian tribe, 
 who are enumerated among the allies of 
 the Trojans ;§ that he reached the re- 
 cesses of the Adriatic sea, and there 
 settled his followers, and founded the 
 city of Patavium.ll Even Cato believed 
 this story ; but it probably arose merely 
 from the identity of names. Our vague 
 notices of the "national affinities of the 
 Illyrians would rather lead us to derive 
 them from Pannonia and the upper 
 part of the course of theDanube.H The 
 name Veneti may be connected with the 
 town Vendum in I stria. 
 
 § 4. The Umbrians were accounted 
 by Roman writers the most ancient peo- 
 ple of Italy ;** a very great and ancient 
 nation.'h' In the historical age they 
 dwelt only on the left side of the Tiber, 
 which divided Umbria from Etruria. 
 They extended southward a little below 
 the confluence of the Nar with the Ti- 
 ber ; and northward, till they reached 
 the coast of the Adriatic, and even as 
 far as Ravenna. The GaUic tribe of the 
 Senones had occupied a portion of their 
 coast; but as the Gauls were wasted by 
 the continual hostility of Rome, the 
 Umbrians recovered their lost ground. 
 As long as Cisalpine Gaul was distin- 
 guished from Italy in the political divi- 
 sion of the country, the ^sis and the 
 Rubicon, which, at different times, were 
 considered as the boundaries of Italy, 
 were also the boundaries of the district 
 of Umbria. But when all the peninsula 
 
 * Liv. i. 1. Serv. on Mn. i.243. The mention in 
 
 Servius of the name of the Euganean king, Velesns, 
 
 seems a mark of an indigenous tradition. 
 
 t Liv. V. 33. t Polyb. ii. 18. § Ii. B. 852. 
 
 IlLiv.i. 1. Virg. ^n. i. 242. Plin. iii. 19 (23). 
 
 If Strabo, vii. 6, ** Flor. i. 17.' Plin. iii. U iiS). 
 
 tt Dion, i. 19. 
 
 F2 
 
■^^ 
 
 68 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 south of the Alps was included in the 
 common name of Italy, these arbitrary 
 limits were less regarded ; and Strabo 
 declares expressly, that the country as 
 far as Ravenna was inhabited by IJm- 
 brians.* The antiquity of the nation 
 is attested by more than p:eneral asser- 
 tions. Ameria, one of their southern 
 cities, was said by Cato to have been 
 founded 964 years before the war of 
 Perseus ;t that is, 1135 b.c, or 383 
 years before the foundation of Rome. 
 In these early times their dominion was 
 far more widely extended than in the 
 later aofes. They possessed both banks 
 of the Tiber, and inhabited the region 
 which was afterwards Etruria. Thence 
 they were dislodged by the Pelasgians ; 
 and if any still maintained their ground, 
 they must have been finally expelled by 
 the Etruscans.;!; The Etrurian river, 
 Umbro (now Ombrone), seems to have 
 retained its name from the old inhabit- 
 ants. The tract of land about its mouth 
 was even called Umbria.^ Cortona is 
 particularly named as a city wrested by 
 the Pelasgians from the Umbrians ; || 
 and as Clusium was anciently named 
 Gamers,^ it is not unreasonable to sup- 
 pose that it was the oridnal seat of the 
 Caraertes, a powerful Umbrian tribe.** 
 Southward also the Umbrians ex- 
 tended further in ancient than in more 
 recent times. The hilly region on the 
 east of the Tiber, between the Nar and 
 the Anio, is said to have been possessed 
 by the Umbrians, till they were driven 
 out by the people whom Varro called 
 Abo'rigines.•}-^ On the east of the Apen- 
 nines, along the coast of the Adriatic, 
 in the territory which was afterwards 
 called Picenum and possessed by a 
 Sabine tribe, the Umbrians are re-" 
 ported to have spread as conquerors, 
 and to have expelled Liburnians and 
 Siculi.$$ Ancona was still an Um- 
 brian town in the time of Scylax.^^ 
 It is not unlikely that this movement 
 eastward and northward along the coast, 
 was caused by the pressure of the 
 Etruscans on the west, by which the 
 Umbrians were confined within the left 
 bank of the Tiber. That the progress 
 of the Umbrians in this direction coin- 
 cided with the period of the growth of 
 
 * Strabo, v. 2, 10, 
 
 + Plin. N. H. ill. 14. See Outline of Gen. Hist. 
 ch. XV. § 3. 
 
 t Plin. H. N. iii. 5 (8). cf. Herod, i. 94. 
 
 § Plin. ib. U Dion. i. 20. ^ Liv. x. 25. 
 
 ** Liv. ix. 36. See Cramer's Ancient Italy, vol. 
 i- P- 275. ft Dion. i. 14, 16. 
 
 « Plin. iii. 13, 14. §5 p. 6. 
 
 the Etruscan power seems likely from 
 the fact that the Pelasgian inhabitants 
 of Ravenna received them willingly, as 
 protectors against the violence of the 
 Etruscans; and it was thus that Ra- 
 venna became an Umbrian town.* It 
 may be conjectured that the Umbrians 
 once possessed a portion of the inland 
 country on the northern as well as on 
 the southern side of the Apennines ; 
 and in both regions had been compelled 
 to retreat before the Etruscans. At 
 least it is evident from the account of 
 Strabo, that they maintained an obsti- 
 nate contest with the Etruscans for the 
 dominion of the country between the 
 Apennines and the lower part of the Po.t 
 The extent of their ancient territory is 
 indicated by the statement, which Pliny 
 repeats as well ascertained, that the 
 Etruscans took in war no fewer than 
 three hundred of their towns. $ Even 
 so late as the period of the Gallic inva- 
 sion, the Umbrians held a territory west 
 of the Utens, which w^as wrested from 
 them by the Boii.§ That they ever 
 dwelt on the northern bank of the Po, 
 we have no express testimony ; and 
 when Herodotus descril}es the rivers 
 Carpis and Alpis, which flow north- 
 ward into the Ister, as rising from the 
 country above the Ombrici or Um- 
 brians, || it is probable that he uses the 
 name not with a distinct application to 
 one particular nation, but as a general 
 term for all the people of the north of 
 Italy. His knowledge of the northern 
 parts of the peninsula appears to have 
 been imperfect and vague. It is possi- 
 ble however that the Symbri, whom 
 Strabo mentions as a small community 
 above the Veneti,*!! may have been a 
 tribe detached from the Umbrians, or 
 left behind in the course of national mi- 
 gration. We have seen that the territory 
 of the Umbrians was gradually diminish- 
 ed l)y the conquests of the Etruscans 
 and of the Sabines. In the latter period 
 of their history we find them in the 
 condition of dependent allies of the 
 Etruscans.** On the northern side of the 
 Apennines they suffered from the en- 
 croachments of the Gauls, and probably 
 submitted to their dominion ;-M- and the 
 valley of the Tiber was the obvious road 
 of the Gauls, as long as they made in- 
 cursions into the more southern parts 
 
 * Strabo, v. 1, 7. -j- Strabo, v. 1, 10. 
 
 t Plin. N.H. iii. 14 (19"). § Liv. v. 35. 
 H iv.49. f Strabo. V. 1,9. 
 
 *• Livy, L. L. ix. and x. Micali, p. i. c, 6. pp. 67, 68. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 69 
 
 of Italy. The Umbrians were divided 
 into several independent tribes,* but 
 occasional confederations were formed 
 amongst them ; and the tables found at 
 Iguvium (Eugubbio or Gubbio) are 
 evidence of a community of religious 
 rites.t 
 
 § 5. We must now direct our atten- 
 tion to the Pelasgian tribes. An exact 
 investigation of the origin and diffusion 
 of the Pelasgian race would belong 
 rather to an elaborate history of Greece, 
 than to a brief view of the early popu- 
 lation of Italy. The statements respect- 
 ing the extension of the Pelasgians over 
 the continent and islands of Greece will 
 therefore be assumed, as results ascer- 
 tained by the researches of learned men, 
 and those points only will be marked, 
 which bear directly on our present sub- 
 ject.J 
 
 The headlands of southern Greece, 
 and some other parts of the coast, were 
 occupied in the earliest times by the 
 Leleges and other tribes, which spread 
 themselves from the opposite shores of 
 Asia Minor over the islands of the 
 yEgsean sea. But, with these exceptions, 
 the whole continent, from the borders of 
 Thrace and Macedonia to the extreme 
 point of Peloponnesus, was peopled with 
 the great Pelasgian nation. It has been 
 conjectured reasonably, that the primi- 
 tive Thracians, to whom the Greeks 
 themselves referred the origin of their 
 civilization, and tribes of whom were 
 settled in Phocis and in Attica, must 
 have been of the same race.^ Pelas- 
 gians inhabited the islands in the north 
 of the ^gsean sea, Lemnos, Imbros, 
 and Samothrace. They dwelt on the 
 Asiatic side of the Hellespont, on the 
 southern shores of the Propontis, and 
 especially in the peninsula of Cyzicus. 
 Eastward we cannot trace them beyond 
 the river Rhyndacus. But towards the 
 south they possessed, in ancient times, 
 all the coast of Asia, as far as the pro- 
 montory of Mycale, with Lesbos and 
 Chios, and the smaller adjacent islands. || 
 It must be observed that this tract com- 
 
 * Liv. ix. S6, 41; xxviii. 45; xxxi. 2. 
 
 t Cramer's Italy, vol. i. pp. 264—266. 
 
 t For an account of the Pelasgians, see Marsh's 
 Horae Pelasgicse, ch. i. ; Cramer's Ancient Greece, 
 sect. i. ; Niebuhr, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. pp. 21 — 51, 
 ed. 2, pp. 25— 62, ed. 3; Wachsmuth, Hel. Alt. i. 
 Th.i. Abth. § 9; and Gesch. Rom. p. 91; Curtius, 
 De Antiquis Italiae Incolis, §§ 6, 7. 
 
 § There was a village, Larissa, on the left coast of 
 the Pontus, near the promontory Avhich terminates 
 Mount Haemus. Strabo, ix. 5. See below, note. 
 
 U Menecrates ofElsea, in Strabo, xiii. 3, 3. 
 
 prebends all the maritime parts of 
 Meionia or Lydia.* 
 
 After this statement, with our know- 
 ledge of the original seats of the human 
 race, the obvious conclusion is, that the 
 Pelasgians spread themselves from Asia 
 into Europe, across the Hellespont, and 
 round the northern shores of the ^gaean 
 sea. To the southern Greeks their 
 mother-country would appear to be 
 Thessaly, a region in which the exten- 
 sive plain of the Peneus gave room for 
 more populous tribes than could be 
 formed in the mountainous districts. 
 This view of the origin of the Pelasgi 
 and of their primitive country is pre- 
 sented by many Grecian traditions. A 
 different theory however was enter- 
 tained by some Greek writers, especially 
 by those of the later ages. They chose 
 to consider Arcadia as the fountain head 
 of all the Pelasgian tribes. The origin 
 of this notion lay in the fact, that in the 
 inland and mountainous territory of 
 Arcadia the primitive Pelasgian popula- 
 tion remained with little mixture or dis- 
 turbance, t while almost all the other 
 regions of Greece had been subject to 
 frequent migrations and changes of in- 
 habitants, so that the Pelasgian character 
 of the nation was almost obliterated. 
 The Greek antiquaries supposed that 
 the surviving Pelasgian people must 
 have been the parent stock of all the 
 Pelasgians of the earlier ages. It was 
 such a mistake as was made by Roman 
 writers, when they supposed the hosts 
 of Cimbri, who tln-eatened to overrun 
 Gaul, and Spain, and Italy, to have 
 issued from the Cim^jiric peninsula (Jut- 
 land), to which the nation was restricted 
 after the advance of the Germans : such 
 a mistake as would be made by any 
 person who should fancy Wales to be 
 the primitive seat of all the Celtic tribes 
 of Britain and Gaul. The traditions of 
 the Arcadians themselves probably con- 
 
 * Besides this general testimony we have par- 
 ticular evidence of the presence of Pelasgians iu 
 these regions. Antandros was called Pelasgic in the 
 time of Herodotus (Her. vii. 42). Larissa was a 
 common name of the towns or citadels of the Pelas- 
 gians: thus we find the Larissa of Argos, two 
 Larissas in Thessaly, and several others. Now in 
 Asia there was a Larissa near Troy, another near 
 Cuma, another in the territory of Kphesus, another 
 near Tralles, on the border of the plain of the 
 Caystrus (Strabo, ix.5), Tralles itself was a Pelasgic 
 town (Nieb. p. 33, ed. 3). Lesbos was so confessedly 
 Pelasgian, that it bore the name Pelasgia (Strabo, 
 V. 2,4; Plin. N.H. v, 31). Diodorus relates a 
 legend of the peopling of the island by a Pelasgian 
 colony from Lycia (v. 81). This might be the Ho- 
 meric Lycia, about Zeleia in the Troad. 
 
 t Herod, i. 146 ; ii. l?) ; viii. 73. Thuc. i. 2. 
 
70 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 firmed the false impression, as they seem 
 to have referred to their own tribe 
 events which concerned the other divi- 
 sions of the Pelasgian race. 
 
 The event which operated most power- 
 fully in modifying: the Pelassrian popu- 
 lation of Greece, and in imprinting: upon 
 if a new character, was the intermixture 
 of another race, the Hellenic, how near 
 to the Pelaspfian in its origin it is impos- 
 sible now to know, but certainly different 
 from it at the time when their union took 
 place. In some parts the Hellenes dis- 
 lodged the old inhabitants; but in 
 general they appear to have established 
 themselves in the midst of them as a 
 conquering nation. It seems evident 
 that the Hellenes much excelled the 
 Pelasgians in the spirit of enterprise 
 and in military accomplishments. Hence 
 Hellenic chiefs with a small band of 
 followers were enabled to assert their 
 superiority over the more numerous 
 Pelasgian population. The conquered 
 people learned to pride themselves in 
 assuming the name and adopting the 
 customs of their conquerors, and soon 
 incorporated their language with their 
 own.* It was thus that Pelasgians 
 were transformed into Hellenes ; t 
 though certainly the facility and the com- 
 pleteness with which the change was 
 effected are arguments that the two 
 nations were not altogether strange and 
 dissimilar to each other. It must be 
 observed that the superiority of the 
 Hellenes was only military and imperial. 
 In civilization and in intellectual attain- 
 ments the Grecian race which made the 
 most early and thej^iost rapid progress, 
 and reached to the highest degree of 
 excellence, was one in which the Pelas- 
 gian blood was least adulterated by 
 foreign mixture, the lonians of Attica 
 and of the settlements in Asia. % The 
 
 * Thuc. i. 3, and Nieb.p. 25, ed. 2. p. 29. ed. 3. 
 Cnrtius, De Antiquis Italiae Incolis, § 7, has followed 
 in the steps of Niebuhr, and explained very clearly 
 and fully, how the Hellenic name was diffused over 
 Greece, and how the Pelasgians were moulded into 
 Hellenes. Among the Grecian races, he has accurately 
 diftcriminated the Dorians as pure Hellenes by origin 
 and descent ; the ^^olians, Achaeans, and lonians, as 
 oriffinally Pelasgian, but made Hellenes by the pre- 
 dominance of Hellenic settlers and Hellenic chiefs ; 
 the Arcadians as pure Pelasgians, rendered Hellenic 
 only by gradual assimilation to their neighbours. 
 But it mast be remembered that, even in the Dorian 
 States, the Perlceci, though they were comprehended 
 in the Dorian name, were not Dorians, but generally 
 of Pelasgian extraction. 
 
 ■)• This change is noted by historians in several 
 instances. See Herod, i. 57. Thuc. ii. 63. 
 
 t Polyblus bears testimony to a singular sensibility 
 and refinement of taste even in the mountaineers of 
 Arcadia Qv. 20 and 21). Wachsmuth has coUected 
 the tradiUous of the early civilization of the Pelas- 
 gians. 
 
 Dorians, the race the most strictly 
 Hellenic, long disdained to apply them- 
 selves to literature or to the fine arts. 
 To the Pelasgian element in the popu- 
 lation of Greece we probably owe all 
 that distinguishes the Greeks in the 
 history of the human mind. However 
 paradoxical the assertion may appear to 
 a classical reader, there is reason to 
 suspect that the primitive Hellenes had 
 an affinity to the barbarous races which 
 inhabited the continent on the north of 
 Greece, and that they themselves, had 
 they continued pure and unmixed, would 
 have been in fact Barbarians. * 
 
 To some portions of the Pelasgian 
 race, in the countries about the JEgse&n 
 Sea, was given the name of Tyrseni. 
 This name was applied especially to a 
 migratoiy Pelasgian tribe.t which en- 
 tered Attica at a time when the indi- 
 genous population had begun to assume 
 a distinct Hellenic character, $ ap- 
 parently after the final settlement of the 
 Boeotians in Boeotia, but before the 
 Dorian invasion of Peloponnesus. § The 
 same name was commonly given to the 
 Pelasgians of the islands Lemnos, and 
 Imbros, and Scyros ; || and these Tyr- 
 seni were supposed to be descended 
 from the Tyrseni of Attica. The Pelas- 
 gian tribe, which formed the greatest 
 part of the population of the peninsula 
 of Athos, is affirmed by Thucydides to 
 have been the remains of the Tyrseni, 
 who had dwelt formerly in Lemnos and 
 Athens ; IE and two towns in Mace- 
 donia are referred to a Tyrsenian ori- 
 gin.** The authority of Herodotus 
 procured acceptance for the tradition, 
 that the Pelasgians of Lemnos and the 
 adjacent islands were the relics of the 
 tribe which had settled in Attica, and 
 which had been subsequently expelled 
 by the Athenians. The story ran thus. 
 These Pelasgians came into Attica, and 
 were permitted by the Athenians to dwell 
 with them. They were evidently con- 
 sidered as an inferior and dependent 
 race ; for they were employed to build a 
 
 * Hellenes was the name hy which all the Greeks 
 in the historical age distinguished tliemselyes with 
 the highest possible degree of national pride ; and 
 the name Barbarians (jSa^jSa^fl/) was the opposite 
 term, and was used to denote all nations which were 
 not Hellenic. 
 
 t Thuc. iv. 109. Callim. Frag. 233. 
 t Herod, ii. 51. 
 J OfStrabcix. 2,3. Herod, iv. 145— 148. Thuc. 
 i. 12. 
 
 II Apoll. Rhod. iv. 1760. Polysen. vii. 49. Aris- 
 toxenus in Porph. vit. Pythag. Aristoxenus is said 
 to have been a disciple of Aristotle, 
 f Thuc. iv. 109. 
 •» ^aae and Elimea, Steph. Byz, 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 n 
 
 part of the wall of the citadel, and re- 
 ceived as their reward a portion of land 
 under Mount Hymettus. Afterwards 
 jealousies and quarrels arose between 
 the ruling and subject nations, and the 
 Pelasgians were driven out ; and these 
 fugitives seized Lemnos and other places. 
 From Lemnos they expelled the old in- 
 habitants, the Minyae, who were said to 
 be descended from the Argonauts ; and 
 the Minyae took refuge in Laconia, soon 
 after the Dorian conquest.* Of the 
 former part of this story a lasting 
 monument remained, the Pelasgic wall 
 on the northern side of the Acropolis.t 
 Among the places which the Pelas- 
 gians seized, Herodotus evidently in- 
 cludes Imbros, J Samothrace, § and 
 Placie and Scylace, towns on the Asiatic 
 coast of the Hellespont or Propontis.|| 
 That such a tribe was expelled from 
 Attica, cannot be questioned : that they 
 may have taken refuge with a kindred 
 people, is not improbable ; but that these 
 fugitives, who in Attica were content 
 with an allotment under Mount Hy- 
 mettus, should have been able to spread 
 themselves over several islands, and dis- 
 possess the old inhabitants, and should 
 have planted settlements on both conti- 
 nents, is a statement so inconsistent, 
 that it is fairly open to very great doubt. 
 This doubt must be much augmented, 
 when we call to mind the testimony to 
 the existence of Pelasgian tribes in the 
 same regions, which no tradition con- 
 nected with the Tyrseni of Attica, 
 and which must have been far more 
 ancient.^ The historian Anticleides 
 affirmed that the Pelasgians were the 
 first inhabitants of Lemnos and Imbros, 
 and of the adjacent parts ; ** and thus 
 virtually rejected the story of the settle- 
 ment from Attica, and the expulsion of 
 the Minyse. The mythic tradition of the 
 peopMng of ^amothrace by the Arcadian 
 companions of Dardanus connects the 
 Pelasgians of Samothrace with the more 
 ancient Pelasgian nations ;tt and the 
 Pelasgians of Scyros appear to have 
 been I)olopes.$$ But, moreover, we 
 find mention, not merely of Pelasgians, 
 tut of Tyrseni, who are not referred to 
 
 * Herod, vi. 137, &c. iv. 145, &c. 
 •f Thuc. ii. 17, and Arnold's note. j v. 26. 
 
 § ii. 51. II i. 57. Mela, i. 19. 
 
 ^ On one side on the coast of Asia (Menecratesin 
 
 Strabo, cited above) ; on the other side on the banks 
 
 of the Strymon (^sch. Suppl. v. 252). See also the 
 
 account of the dispersion of the Pelasgians in Dion. 
 
 i. 18, which apparently comes from Hellanicus. 
 
 ** Strabo, v. 2, 4. ft l^ion. i. 61. 
 
 it Nieb. p. 26, note 66, ed. 2. p. 31 , n, 73, ed, 3, 
 
 the Attic Tyrseni, and are introduced 
 into the traditions of an earlier age. 
 Thus Hellanicus ascribed the foundation 
 of the town Metaon in Lesbos to Metas 
 a Tyrsenian.* Menodotus, an ancient 
 historian of Samos, spoke of an enter- 
 prise of Tyrsenian pirates, who attempted 
 to carry off the statue of the Saraian 
 Juno at the instigation of the Argives 
 in the generation after Eurystheus.t 
 Possis the Magnesian recorded a sea- 
 fight which took place between the 
 Tyrseni and the Argonauts. $ The 
 Tyrseni of the Homeric Hymn to Bac- 
 chus, pirates who think to sell the kid- 
 napped stranger in Cyprus or Egypt, 
 are evidently a people of the JEgdesm 
 Sea, and must be referred to the mythic 
 age. Sophocles did not scruple to apply 
 the compound name of Tyrseni Pelasgi 
 to the ancient Pelasgians of Pelopon- 
 nesus.^ From these arguments and tes- 
 timonies we may conclude that the 
 names Tyrseni and Pelasgi were equiva- 
 lent, at least in the eastern seas of 
 Greece. Hence we obtain an explana- 
 tion of the tradition, which has been 
 reported by Herodotus, of the emigra- 
 tion of a people called Tyrseni from the 
 shores of Asia. Tyrsenus and Lydus 
 were said to be the sons of Atys, the 
 king of the people, who were then called 
 Meiones. In consequence of a pro- 
 tracted famine, half of the nation em- 
 barked and left their country, under the 
 conduct of Tyrsenus, and received the 
 appellation of Tyrseni; half remained 
 behind, under the command of Lydus, 
 and changed their name to Lydians. || 
 It seems that we have here a record of 
 the migration of the old Pelasgian popu- 
 lation of Meionia ; and probably of their 
 expulsion by a foreign race, which esta- 
 blished itself in the country. The Tyr- 
 senian emigrants were likely to spread 
 themselves over the adjacent regions; 
 and Anticleides not obscurely connected 
 
 * Steph. Byz. v. Metaon. f Athen. xv. 3. 
 
 t Athen. vii. 12. These Tyrseni would be the 
 Pelasgians of Cyzicus. See Apoll. Rhod. i. 936, &c., 
 and Conon. Hist. xli. in Phot. Bibliotheca. Conon 
 is singular among the ancient writei"s in distinguish- 
 ing the Tyrseni of the Grecian seas from the Pelas- 
 gians. These references respecting the Tyrseni are 
 borrowed from Cramer's Aacient Italy, vol. i. Sect. 
 iv. pp. 155, 157. 
 
 § In the Inachus in Dion. i. 25. 
 
 crxT^os 'Qxixvou, {Aiyot, ■^^iff('>tvuv 
 
 'Amyous Tt yvais"H^K; ts -prayoiS) 
 
 Kui Tu^a'tivoTtn UtkeKryo?;. 
 
 The collocation of the words is remarkable, as it 
 
 seems to distinguish the Pelasgian Tyrseni froia other 
 
 Tyrseni wbo were not Pelasgian. 
 
 U Her. j. 7, i, 94, vii. Ii. 
 
f% 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the Pelasgiann of the islands Lemnos 
 and Imbros with this people from the 
 ueiijhbourinfl: continent. 'J'he mode in 
 which the tradition was misinterpreted 
 by Herodotus himself, and by other 
 •writers, who believed that these Meionian 
 Tyrsenians sailed to Italy, and became 
 the founders of the Etruscan nation, will 
 be considered hereafter. * 
 
 The Pelasgians w ere not only widely 
 diffused over the islands and continent 
 of Greece, but spread themselves like- 
 wise into Italy. Of their migrations into 
 the latter country various accounts are 
 preserved, some of a mythological cha- 
 racter, others bearing a greater sem- 
 blance of history. Both kinds of tradi- 
 tions furnish sufficient evidence of the 
 main fact of the extension of this great 
 nation over the coasts and plains of the 
 middle and south of Italy. The histori- 
 cal accounts seem to supply more par- 
 ticular information, which is valuable 
 where it is confirmed by concurrent tes- 
 timony, or by circumstantial evidence : 
 the mythic genealogies are perhaps less 
 likely to mislead the speculative investi- 
 gator of national antiquities. 
 
 Of the accounts which are apparently 
 more historical, there is one which is 
 attested by the authority of Hellanicus 
 of Lesbos.t According to the summary 
 
 • Dionysias refutes the opinion of the Lydian origin 
 of the Etruscans by the negative authority of Xan- 
 thus the Lydian, who wrote a history of his own 
 country. Xanthus wrote after the reign of Xerxes ; 
 but on the authority of Ephorus (in Athen. L. xi. 
 p. 515), he may be considered as earlier than Hero- 
 dotus. (See Museum Crit. vol. ii. p. 109, &e,) 
 Xanthus nowhere named Tyrsenus as a Lydian 
 chief, and knew nothing of an emigration of Meiones 
 to Italy. On the contrary, he says, that Atys had 
 two sons, Lydus and Torybus, (Steph. Byz. calls him 
 Torrhebus, and the people Torrhebi) ; and that these 
 divided their father's kingdom, but both remained in 
 Asia, and became the heads of two neighbouring tribes, 
 the Lydi and the Torybi, whose dialects differed only 
 as those of the Dorians and lonians among the Greeks. 
 (Dion. i. 28). It may be conceived that this authority 
 is suflScient to destroy altogether the legend of Tyr- 
 j-enus and the Tyrsenian emigration for any histori- 
 cal purpose whatsoever. But it mnsl be observed 
 that the Greek legend is not constant in representing 
 Tyrsenus as the son of Atys. By some writers he 
 was called the son of Hercules and Omphale, (Dion. 
 i. 28. Pausan. ii. 21, 3. Strabo confounds the two 
 accounts, where he calls Atys a descendant of Her- 
 cules and Omphale. v. 2, 2. A different genealogy 
 is assigned bv the older writers to Atys. Dion. i. HJ. 
 Herodot. i. 7;. It is likely that this was the genuine 
 form of the Greek legend of the emigration ofTyr- 
 senus ; and that it was pieced by Herodotus with the 
 Lvdian tradition of the sons of Atys in consequence 
 of the resemblance of the stories. In this form the 
 Greek legend is not touched by the statement of 
 Xanthus. But even if the name Torrhebus be the 
 same with Tyrrhenus or Tyrsenus, and the stories 
 have the same foundation, it is easily conceivable 
 that a part of the people may have emigrated and a 
 part remained in the country. 
 
 + The historian Hellanicus was a few years older 
 than Herodotus, and wrote in the interval between 
 
 which is presented by Dionysius,* he 
 stated, that " the Pelasgians were dis- 
 lodged (apparently from Thessaly) by 
 the Hellenes ; that they left their ships 
 at the river Spines (the Spinetic mouth 
 of the Po) in the Ionian gulf (the Adri- 
 atic sea), and took the city Croton in 
 the inland country ; and thence spread 
 themselves and peopled the region called 
 Tyrrhenia." Dionysius has given in 
 the i^receding chapters a more particular 
 account of the same migration ; t but 
 he has not distinctly informed his rea- 
 ders, whether this detail rests upon the 
 same authority, or is drawn from other 
 sources. It is probable, however, that 
 here also he has derived his knowledge 
 from Hellanicus. According to this 
 version of the story, the Pelasgians were 
 driven from Thessaly by the Curetes 
 and Leleges, who in later times were 
 called ^tolians and Locrians, and by 
 other tribes which settled about Parnas- 
 sus. When they were thus expelled 
 from their ancient seats, they dispersed 
 themselves in diverse directions over 
 Greece; but the greater part of them 
 sought refuge with the kindred people 
 which dwelt about Dodona in Thes- 
 protia. Here they remained for some 
 time ; but when they found that the 
 country was unable to supply so great 
 a multitude with food, they took ship- 
 ping, and crossed over into Italy. 
 Being driven by a south wind, and not 
 knowing whither to shape their course, 
 they arrived at the Spinetic mouth of 
 the Po. There they left their ships, 
 and a part of their body to guard them ; 
 and those, who thus remained, founded 
 a city which bore the name of Spina. 
 The Pelasgians of Spina flourished 
 above all the people on that coast, and 
 were for a long time masters of the sea ; 
 and were distinguished by the splendid 
 offerings which they sent to the temple 
 of Delphi. Those who turned towards 
 the inland country, entered the territory 
 of the Umbri, and seized several of their 
 smaller towns, and the great and wealthy 
 city of Croton or Cortona. From this 
 stronghold they carried war against the 
 surrounding tribes, and (according to 
 the account of Dionysius) especially 
 against the Siceli, till at last they drove 
 
 the Persian and Peloponnesian wars. His works 
 are lost; but it appears that tliey were voluminous, 
 and comprehended a large proportion of the tradi- 
 tions of early Greece, Like the writings of other 
 early historians, they were not remarkable for accu- 
 racy or discrimination. See Museum Griticuui, vol. 
 ii., p. 00, &c. 
 
 • Dion. i„ 28. f i. 17-20. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 73 
 
 them from the country. Thus they 
 either took from the Siceli, or them- 
 selves founded, Alsium, Agylla, Falerii, 
 Fescennium, Saturnia, Pisa, and many 
 other cities, both in the interior of the 
 country and alonof the coast, between 
 the Tiber and the Arno. 
 
 In proceeding to examine this story 
 v;e may observe, that the tradition which 
 represented the Pelasgians of Italy as 
 Thessalians, or as coming originally 
 from Thessaly, was commonly received, 
 and was adopted without scruple by 
 other writers. * The historians, and 
 especially the later writers, who used 
 this language, had in their minds the 
 notion which has been mentioned before, 
 that Thessaly was the mother-country 
 of the Pelasgian race. That this theory 
 is not consistent with an extensive sur- 
 vey of facts has been already intimated : 
 and it is manifest that the Pelasgians 
 who migrated to Italy must have been 
 the people of the opposite coast of Epi- 
 rus and Thesprotia. Even the legend 
 of Hellanicus makes this their resting- 
 place in their migration ; and the at- 
 tempt to trace still further back the 
 beginning of the national movement is 
 unsatisfactory and futile. Nevertheless 
 it is possible that the primitive Greek tra- 
 ditions called the Italian Pelasgians Thes- 
 salians ; and yet that they would have 
 conveyed a true notion of their origin, if 
 they had met with correct interpreters in 
 the early historians. Thessaly was not yet 
 so named in the age of its earliest Pelas- 
 gian inhabitants. It was subsequently 
 occupied by the ^olian tribes, in which 
 there was a mixture of Hellenic blood, 
 and by the Hellenes of Phthiotis : and 
 the people properly called Thessali were 
 a tribe which migrated from Thespro- 
 tia at a time after the Trojan war, took 
 possession of the ^olian territory, and 
 thus imparted to it their own name.f 
 The Thessalians therefore were Thes- 
 protians; and in this sense the term 
 may be properly applied to the Pelas- 
 gians of Italy. The motive which is 
 assigned for their migration westward, 
 
 * Thus Strabo spealis of Ravenna as founded by 
 Thessalians (v. i. 7) ; and of A^ylla, as founded by 
 Pelasgians who came from Thessaly (v. 2, 3). 
 Diodorus (xlv. 113.) says, that some described the 
 Tyrrheni between the Alps and the Apennines, as 
 Pelasgians M'ho fled from Thessaly to escape the 
 deluge in the time of Deucalion. 
 
 t Herod, vii. 176. Diod. iv. 67. Strabo, ix. 5, 23. 
 It is possible that the cause of this backward migra- 
 tion of the Thesprotian Pelasgians to the ancient 
 seats of the Pelasgian race, was the irruption and 
 encroachments of the lUyrians. MilUer conceive's 
 the Thessalians themselves to be lUyriaas (Dorians, 
 Introd. § 4.) 
 
 the pressure of the Lelegic or Hellenic 
 race,* is likely enough to have been the 
 true cause. Indeed this circumstance 
 of the tradition throws more light on 
 the relation of the Hellenes and the 
 Pelasgi than any other single statement. 
 
 When we descend to the particular 
 circumstances of the account, of course 
 we cannot believe the report of the his- 
 torian, who fixes upon one point as the 
 landing-place of a nation, which was 
 diffused over the greater part of Italy, 
 in a migration which took place in an 
 age anterior to all history, when the 
 population of all the countries on both 
 sides of the Adriatic sea was still in 
 a state of progression and internal fluc- 
 tuation. The Pelasgians must have 
 passed from the eastern to the western 
 shores of the gulf, not by a single move- 
 ment, but by a gradual extension, at 
 many times and by many courses. Hel- 
 lanicus may have been induced to name 
 Spina, either because it was the most 
 powerful of the Pelasgian settlements on 
 the eastern coast of Italy, or because it 
 retained a distinct Pelasgic character 
 even in his own age : or he may have 
 chosen to begin a geographical account 
 of the Pelasgians of Italy from the most 
 northern point which they appeared to 
 have reached. Dionysius, who follows 
 his authority, has attempted to trace the 
 course of the Pelasgians across the 
 Apennines from north to south, and 
 has accommodated to this theory the 
 Italian traditions with which he has 
 pieced the accounts of the Greek his- 
 torians. Without entangling ourselves 
 with this hypothesis, we shall proceed 
 to collect the testimony which confirms 
 the general position of the diffusion of 
 a Pelasgian population in the middle 
 regions of Italy. 
 
 Strabo attests that Spina (although 
 in his own time it was but a small vil- 
 lage, and, in consequence of the changes 
 wrought by the Po on this alluvial coast, 
 situated among marshes at the distance 
 of ten miles from the seat) w as formerly 
 a city of considerable celebrity, and suf- 
 ficiently near to the sea to exercise a 
 maritime dominion. He calls it a Gre- 
 cian city ; :|; and, for evidence of its 
 origin, appeals to the treasury of the 
 Spinetes, which was still to be seen at 
 Delphi.^ A similar testimony is borne 
 by Phny, with the addition of the cir- 
 cumstance that the city was reported to 
 
 See p. 72, col. 2. 
 
 f About 90 stadii, 
 § Stiabo, V. 1, 7. ix. 3. 
 
14 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME, 
 
 have been founded by Diomede.* Upon 
 these statements we may remark, that 
 the lanpuaffe of Strabo is not so accu- 
 rate as to warrant us in supposing that, 
 by tlie epithet Grecian or Hellenic, he 
 excluded the hypothesis of the Pelasgian 
 oriirin of the city ; and that it is a com- 
 mon feature of the Grecian traditions to 
 represent cities which were connected 
 with the early population of Greece, but 
 which were more ancient than the period 
 of the prevalence of the Hellenic cha- 
 racter in the nation, and which were not 
 recognised in the political relation of 
 colonies by any city of the mother-coun- 
 try, to have been founded by the wan- 
 dering heroes of the Trojan war. Of 
 course the Pelasgian settlements fell 
 under this predicament. Traditions re- 
 specting Diomede prevailed in a singular 
 degree along the whole of the Italian 
 coast of the Adriatic sea.t It is proba- 
 ble that Spina fell under the power of 
 the Etruscans or Umbrians,$ and was 
 finally impoverished by the conquest of 
 the Gauls.^ A little to the south of 
 Spina stood Ravenna, which was said to 
 have been founded by Thessalians, that 
 is, by Pelasgians ; and which subse- 
 quently, to escape the violence of the 
 Etruscans, submitted to the dominion of 
 the Umbrians.ll And yet further to the 
 south Pelasgians are said to have pos- 
 sessed likewise the region of Picenum.f^ 
 I have not noticed the opinion reported 
 by Diodorus, which placed Pelasgians 
 in the plains about the Po, and mani- 
 festly identified them with the Etruscans 
 of that country ;** because it is not coun- 
 tenanced by any other authority, and 
 seems to be only an extension of the 
 mistake which confounded the Pelas- 
 gians and the Etruscans of the Southern 
 Etruria under the common name of 
 Tyrrheni. 
 
 In the inland country the Pelasgians 
 formed settlements at Cotyle or Cutiliae, 
 at Reate, and at other places in the 
 valley of the river Velinus,'M' in the region 
 to the east of the Tiber, which was then 
 occupied by the Umbri or Aborigines, 
 but which was afterwards the territory 
 of the Sabines. It appears, however, 
 that they penetrated but very partially 
 into the mountainous districts. These 
 were held by the older races of Italy, 
 while the Pelasgians possessed the more 
 
 • N. H. iii. 16 (20). f Strabo, v. 1, 9, vi. 3, 9. 
 
 t Dion. i. 18. § Plin. iii. 17 (21). || Strabo, v. 1, 7. 
 
 II Sil. It. viii. 445. Nieb. p. 40, ed. 2, p. 48, ed. 3. 
 
 ••Diod.xiv. 113. 
 
 tt Kon. i. 19 and 20, Zenodotus in Dion. ii. 49. 
 
 level country and the regions nearer to 
 the coast. The quarter in which the 
 Pelasgians were most widely spread and 
 most firmly established, was the country 
 which afterwards became Etruria, on 
 the right or western side of the Tiber, 
 and ];eneath the southern slope of the 
 Apennines. It is this country which 
 Hellanicus called Tyrrhenia.* From 
 this region, we are expressly assured by 
 Phny, that the Pelasgians anciently ex- 
 pelled the Umbrians ; and it is on this 
 coast, next to the Ligurian territory, that 
 the settlements of the Pelasgians are 
 placed by Scymnus Chius.t Cortona 
 was one of the most inland cities of this 
 country. We have already seen the ac- 
 count which Dionysius has given of its 
 occupation by the Pelasgians. In another 
 place he informs us, that, when the other 
 Pelasgian towns were destroyed or their 
 inhabitants expelled, Cortona long pre- 
 served its ancient population and its 
 national character. % It seems that in 
 the age of Herodotus it retained its pri- 
 mitive Pelasgic language.^ To the poets 
 Cortona was known as the city of Cory- 
 thus;|| and from this city an Italian 
 legend deduced the migration of Darda- 
 nus to the Pelasgian island Samothrace,1[ 
 whom the fables of the Greek poets 
 brought from Arcadia.** Clusium ap- 
 pears to have been Pelasgian : at least 
 its foundation is ascribed to Telema- 
 chus ;f f' and the name of Faesulae has a 
 Grecian sound.$$ The belief of Justin, 
 
 • See p. 72. + Seym. v. 216, &c. t Dion. i. 26. 
 
 § Dionysius (i.29) understood, without any doubt, 
 that Herodotus was speaking of the people of Croton 
 or Cortona in i. 57, where our present MSS. have 
 Creston ; and there seems to be suflBcient reason for 
 abiding by his authority. See Niebuhr, note 77. 
 p. 29, ed. 2 ; note 89, p, 34, ed. 3. In addition to the 
 arguments there urged, it has been observed that 
 Herodotus, where he speaks of the Crestonean Thra- 
 cians, calls them KpyiffruvccToi (v. 3, 5 ; vii. 124), not 
 K^tj(rTci)vifirai, which is the reading of our MSS. in 
 i. 57, where Dionysius read K^eruvtci'rai, An un- 
 seasonable and confused recollection of Thuc. iv. 109, 
 has caused the error of the transcribers. Herodotus 
 nowhere calls the Pelasgians of the jEgaean sea 
 Tyrseni. If this reading and interpretation be ad- 
 mitted, the statement of Herodotus is, that the Pelas- 
 gian inhabitants of the city of Croton in the inland 
 country above the Etruscans, who formerly inhabited 
 the district which in his own age was called Thessa- 
 liotis, and the Pelasgian settlers at Placie and Scy- 
 lace OR the Hellespont, who were descended from the 
 tribe which sojourned in Attica, spoke one and the 
 same language, which in both cases was different 
 from the language of all the people by whom they 
 were surrounded. Hence he concludes that this was 
 the original Pelasgic language, which they severally 
 brought with them into those regions ; and, as their 
 language was not Greek, consequently that the Pe- 
 lasgic language was not Greek. 
 
 i Sil. It. v. 123. 
 f Virg. JEa. vii. 205—209, and Servlus. 
 
 ** Dion. 1, 61. tt Serv. on Ma. x. 167. 
 
 }t Hesiod. Frag. LX. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 75 
 
 or rather of Pompelus Trosjus, whose 
 work he abrid£:ed, that Perusia was 
 founded by Achgeans,* may fairly be 
 interpreted as an argument of its Pelas- 
 o-ian origin. At Perusia, as at Fa- 
 lerii, the goddess Juno was peculiarly 
 honoured, as the tutelary deity of the 
 city;t and we are warranted in the 
 opinion that this worship had been 
 handed down from the primitive age of 
 Pelasgian superstition. Falerii or Fale- 
 rium, the inhabitants of which were 
 called Falisci, retained vestiges of its 
 origin to a very late time, especially in 
 the fashion of military arms, and in reli- 
 gious rites. The shrine of the Pelas- 
 gian Juno was furnished like the more 
 celebrated building at Argos, in which 
 the goddess was worshipped under the 
 Grecian name of Hera. The solemnities 
 of her religious service were the same, 
 and they were performed by similar mi- 
 nisters. Such traces of the ancient po- 
 pulation of Falerii remained even in the 
 age of Dionysius,$ and they gave rise to 
 the belief that the city was a colony 
 from Argos, founded by Halesus, a 
 fugitive son of Agamemnon.^ Similar 
 vestiges were visible at Fescennium, 
 and they afforded ground for a similar 
 legend. II Alsium on the sea-coast, ac- 
 cording to another version of the story, 
 derived its name from the same Hale- 
 sus.H But of all the towns on the Etru- 
 rian coast, Agylla or Caere is the one 
 of which the Pelasgian origin is most 
 strongly attested, and it is one of which 
 we possess some truly historical know- 
 ledge. Agylla was the name which it 
 received from its Pelasgian founders : it 
 was called Caere by its Etruscan con- 
 querors.** Its people were not only 
 known to the Greeks, but were held in 
 high repute for courage and uprightness, 
 especially on account of their abstinence 
 from piracy, which was the common 
 pest of the Tyrrhene sea. Like the Pe- 
 laso^ians of Spina, they had a treasury 
 at Delphi. It has been thought strange 
 that the Italian Pelasgians should main- 
 tain a religious connexion with Delphi, 
 which may be esteemed more peculiarly 
 a Hellenic temple, rather than with 
 Dodona, the ancient and venerable seat 
 of Pelasgian superstition. The fact may 
 be received as a proof that they_were 
 
 * Justin, XX. 1. 
 t App. B.C. V. 49. t Dion. i. 21. 
 
 § Cato, in Plin. iii. 5 (8). Ovid. Am. iii. El. 13. 
 Fast. iv. 73. 
 
 II Dion. iv. 73. Solin. c. 8. f Sil. It. viii. 476. 
 •• Plin. iii. 5 (8). Strabo, v, 2, 3. Dion. iii. 58. 
 
 less alien from the great mass of the 
 Greek nation than their early separation 
 might lead us to believe. Whatever 
 might be the cause of their religious pre- 
 dilection, whether the greater celebrity 
 of the Pythian temple, or the vain desire 
 of being accounted Greeks, we have a 
 proof on the other hand in the forged 
 Dodonean oracle, * (which is utterly 
 worthless, when cited, as it is by Diony- 
 sius, as a genuine monument of anti- 
 quity), that the Dodonean priests, even 
 in a late age, remembered the affinity of 
 the Italian Pelasgians with their own 
 tribe, and were unwilling to renounce 
 the advantages which might have been 
 expected to accrue from it. The Agyl- 
 leans retained their Pelasgian name, and 
 continued to consult the Delphian oracle, 
 at the time when in concert with the Car- 
 thaginians they attacked the Phocaean 
 settlers in Corsica, who had fled from 
 the dominion of Cyrus (about b.c. 540, 
 A.u.c. 213).t How long or in what de- 
 gree they had at that time become sub- 
 ject to the Etruscans, or whether the 
 conquest of Agylla by the Etruscans had 
 yet taken place, cannot now be ascer- 
 tained ; but in any case it is evident 
 that a great proportion of the primitive 
 population must have remained un- 
 changed, and have been important 
 enough to influence the public acts of 
 the State.t The ancient town of Pyrgi § 
 was the port of Agylla. Its very name 
 is Greek ; and it contained a Pelasgian 
 temple of Juno Lucina (whom the 
 Greeks identified with Eileithyia), wl;iich 
 was formerly celebrated for its wealth, 
 but was plundered by Dionysius of Sy- 
 racuse soon after the capture of Rome 
 by the Gauls. || At some distance to the 
 north-west along the coast was Gravis- 
 cae, which seems to have been the port 
 of Tarquinii ; and beyond Graviscae was 
 a spot which was marked by tradition 
 as the royal dwelling of the Pelasgian 
 king Malseotes, who reigned over the 
 Pelasgians in this region, and in whose 
 tribe were comprehended the Pelasgians 
 of Agylla.H The tradition reported also 
 that these Pelasgians under the conduct 
 of their chief migrated into Greece, 
 and that this was the tribe which ap- 
 peared in Attica. Tarquinii itself was 
 
 ♦ Dion, i. 19. f Herod, i. 1G6, 167- 
 
 J " That Agylla as then had not yet become Ca3re, 
 is clear from her consulting the Delphic oracle ; the 
 Etruscans would have been content with their own 
 aruspicy." — Nieb. note 389, ed. 3. 
 
 § " Pyrgi veteres," JEn. x. 184. 
 II Strabo, V. 2, 8. Diod. Sic. xv. H. 
 ' H' Strabo, v. 2, 8. 
 
76 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 of Pelas£rian oricin. Its foundation is 
 ascribed by Justin to the Thessalians ; 
 that is, manifestly, to the Pelaspans, 
 who founded Spina.* In confirmation 
 of the Pelasgian origin which Dionysius 
 ascribes to Pisa or Pisae, we find it 
 reported on the authority of Cato that 
 its first possessors were the Teutones, 
 a nation of Grecian language. Another 
 version of the tradition called them 
 Teutae, and the city itself Teuta.t Pliny 
 (following Cato) called them Teulani, 
 and assumed expressly that they were a 
 Grecian tribe.$ The appellation is, per- 
 haps, connected with the names Teu- 
 tamus and Teutamides, which appear 
 in Pelasgian genealogies.^ This was, 
 probably, the Italian tradition. The 
 Grecian story, which was commonly 
 adopted by the poets, derived the name 
 of the city from Pisa in Peloponnesus ; 
 and its founders were represented, some- 
 times as emigrants of the age of Pelops, 
 sometimes as the wandering followers 
 of Nestor after the Trojan war.|| 
 
 The country on the right of the Tiber, 
 in which the Pelasgians settled, was 
 called by the Greeks Tyrsenia, or Tyr- 
 rhenia ; its inhabitants Tyrseni, or Tyr- 
 rheni.^ We have already seen that a 
 portion of the Pelasgian race in Greece 
 bore the name of Tyrseni : and from the 
 mode in which the premises have been 
 stated the conclusion seems obvious, 
 that this was a generic appellation, 
 which the Pelasgians who migrated into 
 Italy brought with them. This is the 
 conclusion at which we shall arrive at 
 last ; but there are difficulties in the way, 
 which it is necessary to discuss. 
 
 In the time of the earliest Grecian 
 historians, the same region in which the 
 Pelasgians settled was occupied by ano- 
 ther people (at least the dominant part 
 of the population was another people), 
 of an entirely different race ; the people 
 whom the Romans called Tusci and 
 Etrusci, and from whom the country 
 derived the name of Etruria : and yet 
 the Greeks applied the names Tyrseni 
 and Tyrsenia to this people and to the 
 country which they possessed. Thus two 
 diflerent races in distant regions bore 
 the common name of Tyrseni ; the 
 Etruscans in Italy, and the Pelasgian 
 
 • Just. XX. 1, 
 
 t Serv. on JEn. x. 179. t Plin. iii. 5 (8). 
 
 § II. B. 843. Hellanicus in Dion. i. 28. 
 
 y Plin. iii. 5, 8. Rmil. Itin. i. 565 (in Cramer, 
 
 vol. i. p. 174). Virg. ^n. x. 179. Strabo, v. 2, 5, 
 
 &c. 
 
 f These are only an earlier and later form of the 
 same word. 
 
 tribes on the nortli of the yEga>an sea. 
 The problem thus presented gave occa- 
 sion to various solutions. 
 
 Some writers supposed that the 
 Etruscans were in fact Pelasgians. This 
 is the interpretation which Dionysius 
 put upon the statement of Hellanicus,* 
 although the words which he quotes do 
 not necessarily convey this notion. It 
 is clear, however, that Hellanicus con- 
 ceived that the Pelasgians did not bear 
 the name of Tyrseni till after their settle- 
 ment in Italy. The supposition of an 
 identity of race between the Etruscans 
 and Pelasgians Dionysius refutes by the 
 testimony of Herodotus (as he under- 
 stood it)'i' to their difference in lan- 
 gua<je : and he adds his own testimony, 
 that both the language and the manners 
 of the Etruscans were peculiar, and 
 bore no resemblance to those of any 
 other people, t His evidence is of 
 weight; for in his time the Etruscan 
 was still a living tongue. In this matter 
 even we ourselves are able to form a 
 judgment ; for very many Etruscan in- 
 scriptions are extant ; and if their lan- 
 guage were Pelasgian, we ought to be 
 able to trace some similitude to some 
 elements of the Greek ; but no such 
 resemblance can be discovered. ^S In 
 like manner, from ancient writeis and 
 from surviving works of art we have 
 become acquainted vi'ith many points of 
 the Etruscan superstition and mytho- 
 logy, which are wholly peculiar, and 
 bear no analogy to the belief of the early 
 Greeks. 
 
 A theory exactly the reverse of the 
 preceding was conceived by other wri- 
 ters, especially by Myrsilus of Lesbos, 
 and Philochorus who wrote of the anti- 
 quities of Attica. They supposed that 
 the Tyrseni (by which name probably 
 they understood the Etruscans) were an 
 indigenous Italian people, who were 
 visited. with the anger of the gods, be- 
 cause, after vowing the tenth of their 
 increase, they neglected to consecrate 
 the tithe of their children. Thus they 
 were driven by a plague of barrenness 
 and by intestine dissensions to migrate 
 both into Greece and into barbarous 
 regions. Of this race the Tyrseni who 
 visited Attica were believed to be a 
 tribe, and the Tyrseni of the iKgaean 
 their descendants. It was said that 
 
 • Dion. i. 28. -j- See note, p, 74. t Dion. i. 130. 
 
 § Nieb. pp. 32 and 90, ed. 2, pp. 38 and 109, ed. 3. 
 Nieliuhr considers all the efforts of Lanzi to discover 
 ^uch a resemblance, and to interpret the Etruscan 
 iiiscriptions, as unsuccessful. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 n 
 
 from their migratory habits they acquired 
 in the course of their wanderin2:s the 
 name of Pelargi or Storks, whicti was 
 afterwards corrupted into Pelasgi. This 
 etymology is absurd; but it seems to 
 have been suggested by the opinion, 
 that these Tyrseni were of a race alto- 
 gether different from the genuine Pelas- 
 gians, and consequently that the iden- 
 tity of name must have been merely for- 
 tuitous. The name of the true Pelas- 
 gians was always derived from a mythic 
 ancestor Pelasgus. * It is hardly worth 
 while to argue further against such an 
 hypothesis, since the earlier writers never 
 doubted of the Tyrsenian Pelasgians 
 being of the old Pelasgian stock : but 
 even in the account of Myrsilus himself, 
 the mention of the Cabiri among the 
 gods to whom the Tyrseni vowed a 
 tenth of their increase, is a mark that 
 the traditions from which he composed 
 his history spoke of Pelasgians. t 
 
 There was another hypothesis, more 
 ingenious and more plausible, which 
 was adopted by Dionysius himself. He 
 admitted the settlement of the Pelas- 
 gians in Italy, and conceived that they 
 established themselves in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the Tyrseni or Etrus- 
 cans, an indigenous and very ancient 
 people ; that they were finally over- 
 powered and dislodged by these Tyrseni, 
 and so passed into Attica and other 
 parts of Greece ; and that in their mi- 
 grations their proper national appella- 
 tion was merged in the name of their 
 more fortunate rivals ; and, as they 
 were known to have issued from the 
 country called Tyrsenia, they were them- 
 selves called Tyrseni. % In this account 
 it must be observed that Dionysius 
 agrees with Pliny $ and other authors 
 in representing the Tyrsenian or Etrus- 
 can nation as posterior to the Pelasgian 
 in the territory which was occupied by 
 both. When the Pelasgians first take 
 possession of the country, the people 
 with whom they are described as con- 
 tending are the Urabrians, the Abori- 
 gines, and the Siculi, The Etruscans 
 came upon them in the season of their 
 decline from some adjacent region. 
 But there is a very great improbability 
 in the supposition that the fugitive 
 nation would be called by the name of 
 their conquerors ; or that the emigrants 
 
 * Dion. i. 23, 28. Strabo, v. 2, 4, in fine. Serv. 
 on ^n. viii. 600. Nieb. pp. 33, 34, aad note 93, ed. 
 2, p. 40, n. 107. ed. 3. 
 
 t Dion. i. 23. Herod, ii, 51. 
 
 % Dion. i. ii5, 26, 29. § N, H. iii. 5, (8). 
 
 would receive a name from the appella- 
 tion of the country which they had left, 
 when that country could not begin to 
 hear the appellation, till after they were 
 in a great measure dislodged from it. 
 It is as if that portion of the ancient 
 population of Britain, which is said to 
 have taken refuge in Armorica, had, 
 instead of imparting the name of Brit- 
 tany to the province, been themselves 
 confounded under the title of Saxons or 
 Angles. 
 
 The hypothesis of Dionysius involves 
 the assumption, that the Tyrseni of 
 Attica, and of the northern coasts of the 
 yEgsean sea, had emigrated originally 
 from Italy. This was the tradition re- 
 ported likewise by Strabo, where he 
 points out Regisvilla near Graviscae as 
 the seat of the Pelasgian chief Malaeotes, 
 who with his people departed thence to 
 Athens. * The date of the migration is 
 fixed about the time of the Trojan war, 
 or soon after, t This hypothesis, there- 
 fore, is opposed by all the arguments 
 which have been stated above, which 
 tend to prove that the Tyrsenian Pelas- 
 gians of Lemnos and of the adjacent 
 regions were not descended exclusively 
 from the Tyrsenian Pelasgians of At- 
 tica ; and still more by the mythic tra- 
 ditions, which speak of Tyrseni in times 
 anterior to the appearance of the Pelasgi 
 at Athens. % 
 
 But moreover the authority for deriv- 
 ing the Pelasgians or Tyrseni of Attica 
 from the Pelasgians or Tyrseni of Italy 
 (upon the assumption of which de- 
 rivation the hypotheses of Dionysius 
 and Myrsilus respecting the double 
 application of the name Tyrseni both 
 entirely depend) is counterbalanced by 
 the account of their proximate origin, 
 which has been preserved by Strabo 
 from the historian Ephorus. § Accord- 
 ing to this account they came last from 
 Boeotia. After the war of the Argives, 
 celebrated by the poets as the expedition 
 of the Epigoni, tribes of Thracians and 
 Pelasgians had overrun the country, and 
 had expelled the remnant of the Cad- 
 means. 11 They were expelled in their 
 
 * Strabo, v. 2, 8. See p. 75. 
 
 t Dion. i._26. See p. 70. % See p. 71. 
 
 § Strabo, ix. 2, 3, and 4. Ephorus was esteemed 
 by Polybius a most excellent authority on the early 
 Grecian history. Strabo, x. 3, 3. Modern critical 
 historians believe him to have disguised and cor- 
 rupted the old traditions. See Miiller's Dorians, 
 B. 1. c. 7- § 5, and elsewhere. 
 
 y These seem to be the same Thracians^wbo ex- 
 pelled the Minyae from Orchomenus, and drove them 
 to seek shelter in Attica, where they settled about 
 Munychia. Diodonis from Hellanicus, in Ulpian on 
 Demosth. Orat. against Ctesiphon, p. 533. 
 
7S 
 
 HISTORY OP ROME. 
 
 tnrn by the Bopotian??, an JEolian tribe, 
 who had l)een dislodjjed from Ame in 
 Thessaly by the Thessalian conque- 
 rors : * and the Pelasgians took refuge 
 in Attica. But there are circumstances 
 in the story, which strongly mark the 
 affinity between these Pelasgians and 
 the Pelasgians of Dodona and Thes- 
 protis:t and we may reasonably con- 
 jecture that this tribe had in fact issued 
 from Thesprotis, in the same way as 
 the Thessalians, but at a little earlier 
 time. This conjecture tallies with the 
 account of Pausanias, who makes Acar- 
 nania the first stage in their migration.^ 
 It is likewise strongly confirmed by a 
 tradition preserved by a scholiast on 
 Homer, § which, by a variation before 
 noticed as common, inverts the migra- 
 tion, and represents the Pelasgians of 
 Dodona as settling there after being ex- 
 pelled from Boeotia by the ^olians of 
 Ame. It is probably a part of the same 
 inverted story which is reported by the 
 same scholiast immediately afterwards || 
 on the authority of Alexander of Pleu- 
 ron ; 1[ that the Helli or Selli, the minis- 
 ters of Jupiter at Dodona, were a tribe 
 descended from the Tyrseni. The just 
 interpretation of this inverted migration 
 and descent appears to be, that the 
 Pelasgians who passed from Boeotia 
 into Attica, had come originally from the 
 neighbourhood of Dodona, and had 
 brought from thence the generic name 
 of Tyrseni ; the same name which was 
 carried into Italy by the Pelasgians who 
 passed from the same regions across the 
 Adriatic sea. 
 
 The hypothesis of Dionysius is exactly 
 the reverse of the tradition, which has 
 been related above in its best known 
 form, as it is told by Herodotus ; but 
 which appears with such variations as 
 to show that it was reported by many 
 different authors, and in so mythologi- 
 cal a shape, as to afford sufficient proof 
 of its great antiquity : ** the tradition by 
 which the Tyrseni of Italy were derived 
 from the coasts of Asia Minor. The 
 writers who have repeated this legend 
 have agreed in considering it as an 
 account of the origin of the Etruscans ; 
 
 • Thac. i. 12, Pausan. x. 8, 4. See p. 73. 
 
 Ola TO ffvyyivii, 
 
 X Pansao. i. 28, 3. Pan.sania.s, when lie said that 
 they were originally Siceli, probably conceived like 
 Dionysius that they migrated from Italy. 
 
 i Pseud. Did. on II. ?t. 233. II Ou v. S35. 
 
 % A poet: Pausan, 11.83. •• See pp. Jl, 72, 
 and note. 
 
 but upon a more accurate review it ap- 
 pears to be a record of the origin of the 
 Pelasgic. Tyrsenians. Meionia is 
 pointed out as their primitive seat;* 
 and an affinity of race is marked between 
 the Tyrseni of the iEgaean and the 
 Tyrseni of Italy. The legend, after the 
 common fashion of legends which relate 
 to the peopling of countries, connects the 
 two extreme regions of the series occu- 
 pied by this race by a fancied migration 
 from one country immediately to the 
 other. 
 
 If then we are to believe that the 
 name Tyrseni in Italy belonged origi- 
 nally and properly to the Pelasgian 
 Kopulation, the question still remains, 
 ow the Greek writers invariably called 
 the Etruscans Tyrseni and Etruria Tyr- 
 senia. The true solution of the problem 
 is, that the country retained its early 
 appellation, and the Etruscans who 
 conquered it succeeded to the name of 
 its former inhabitants. This explana- 
 tion of the difficulty was given by Clu- 
 verius ; and has been repeated and 
 enforced with great learning and acute- 
 ness by Niebuhr. t Niebuhr observes, 
 that the Etruscans had no more title 
 to the name of Tyrsenians, " than the 
 English to that of Britons, or the Spa- 
 nish Creoles to that of Mexicans or 
 Peruvians : the strange name was ac- 
 quired in all the three cases in precisely 
 the same manner." Just in the same way 
 the Visigoths acquired the name of Spa- 
 niards ; and the distinctive appellation 
 of our Norman conquerors was merged 
 in that of English. Cluverius instances 
 the names of Bohemia and Bohemian, 
 which have remained to the soil and 
 population of the district occupied by the 
 Gallic Boii, though they were expelled 
 by the German Marcomanni, % and these 
 by the Sclavonian Czechs. Many other 
 examples of the same kind might be 
 collected. The confusion was the more 
 likely to arise in the case of the Etrus- 
 cans, because, although a part of the 
 Pelasgian population may have been 
 driven out, there is reason to believe that 
 a large proportion remained in the 
 country, and submitted to the dominion 
 of the conquerors. § This is proved by 
 the vestiges of Pelasgian customs and 
 religious rites which were visible at 
 Cortona, at Caere, at Falerii, and other 
 
 * See p. 69. 
 
 t Cluv. Ital. Ant. L. ii, c. i. p. 429. Kieb, pp. 
 2, &c., and 89, ed. 2. pp. 38 and 108, ed, 3, 
 X Tac. Germ, cc.28,42. 
 i Dion. i. 30, in toe. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 1^ 
 
 place!?.* We shall return to this sub- 
 ject when we treat of the Etruscans. 
 
 Niebuhr has remarked with great 
 acuteness, that the distinct perception of 
 the proper application of the name Tyr- 
 seni enables the inquirer to survey in 
 a new light the history of the western 
 coasts of Italy south of the Tiber.t The 
 early traditions spoke of not a few Tyr- 
 senian settlements in these parts ; and 
 the later writers supposed them to be 
 Etruscan. But when they are referred 
 to a very early age, it becomes manifest 
 that we must understand them to be 
 Pelasgian ; for our historical evidence 
 places the dominion of the Etruscans in 
 these regions at a comparatively late 
 period, and shows it to have been neither 
 wide nor lasting. It was in this sense 
 that Latium was Tyrsenian; and He- 
 siod in his heroic genealogies told how 
 Agrius and Latinus, sons of Ulysses 
 and Circe, ruled over the renowned Tyr- 
 senians.$ In this sense we are to un- 
 , derstand the supposition of many writers 
 that Rome was a Tyrrhenian city.§ 
 One legend said expressly, that Romus, 
 king of the Latins, expelled from Rome 
 the Tyrrheni, who came from Thessaly 
 and Lydia.ll Appian called the Rutuli, 
 thepeopleof Turnus, Tyrrheni.^ When 
 Cato affirmed that the Volscian nation 
 was formerly subject to the power of the 
 Etruscans,** it is probable that the true 
 interpretation of the statement is merely 
 that Pelasgian Tyrsenians occupied the 
 country west of the Liris, which was 
 afterwards possessed by the Volsci. This 
 is the foundation of the legend of the 
 conquests of Mezentius. But it [is 
 chiefly in Campania that we find traces 
 of the Tyrseni; and here they have 
 been most decidedly mistaken for Etrus- 
 cans. The examination of the true 
 date of the Etruscan dominion in Cam- 
 pania belongs to the next section. 
 Here we may observe, that accord- 
 ing to Strabo Herculaneum and Pom- 
 peii were once held by Tyrrheni and 
 Pelasgi.'ii* The geographer by the two 
 names meant to denote two nations; 
 but it is probable that his authorities 
 spoke only of one. Marcina, near Saler- 
 num, was founded by Tyrrheni -,%% and 
 Pliny has ^ not scrupled to assign to 
 
 * See pp. 74, 75. 
 
 t Pp. 36, 59, ed. 2. pp. 43, 73, ed. 3. 
 t Theog. 1011—1015. § Dion. i. 29. 
 
 II Plut. Rom. 
 
 IF In Phot. Bib. See also Nieb. p. 36, ed. 2 ; p. 
 43, ed. 3. *» In Serv. on ^n. xi. 567. 
 
 tfv. 4,8. it Strabo, T. 4, 13. 
 
 the Tuscans the whole region from Sur- 
 rentum to the Silarus ;* but that these 
 Tyrrheni or Tuscans were really Pelas- 
 gians is indicated by the temple of the 
 Argive Juno on this coast; a temple 
 so ancient, that its foundation was as- 
 cribed to Jason.t It is only of Pelas- 
 gian Tyrrhenians that we can under- 
 stand the statement of chronologers 
 quoted by Velleius, that Capua and 
 Nola were built by the Tuscans about 
 forty-eight years before Rome.$ 
 
 But there are traces of the Pelasgians 
 on these coasts, which are not rendered 
 doubtful by any equivocal name. How 
 greatly the Pelasgians contributed to 
 the early population of Latium, and to 
 the formation of the Latin language, is 
 a question which must be reserved for a 
 separate section (§ 10). But the reader 
 will bear in mind the interpretation 
 which has been already suggested of the 
 Greek legends which refer the origin of 
 cities to founders of the heroic ages. He 
 will find the foundation of Ardea, and 
 the origin of the family of Turnus, re- 
 ferred to the Argive Danae.§ Another 
 legend described Romus, Antias, and 
 Ardeas, as three sons of Ulysses and^ 
 Circe, who founded three cities, and cal- 
 led them after their names.|I Cato 
 related, that the Volscian plains were 
 formerly peopled with the Aborigines ;! 
 but we know that Cato applied the name 
 of Aborigines to a people whom he be- 
 lieved to be Greeks, who had migrated 
 from Achaia many generations before 
 the Trojan war.** These dwellers in the 
 plain therefore were manifestly Pelas- 
 gians, who, in a later age, were dispos- 
 sessed by the Opici, the native tribes 
 who had maintained themselves in the 
 mountains : and this tradition is the more 
 genuine form of the legend of the domi- 
 nion of the Etruscans over the Volsci 
 before noticed. Dionysius affirms ex- 
 pressly, that the Pelasgians expelled the 
 Aurunci from a large portion of the Cam- 
 panian plains, and took possession of the 
 country ; and, in proof of his position, he 
 adduces the existence of an ancient town, 
 Larissa, of which in his age nothing 
 remained but the name.-H* Conon in 
 his book on Italy wrote, that the Sar- 
 rastians, the people of Nuceria on the 
 Sarnus and of other neighbouring 
 
 • N. H. iii. 5 (9). 
 + Plin. ib, Strabo, vi. 1,1. 
 
 t Veil. i. 7- See Nieb. p. 59, ed. 2 ; pp. 73, 74, 
 ed. 3. ^ § Mn. vii. 371 and 410. 
 
 II Dion. i. 72'. Compare Hesiod cited above. 
 % InPriscianv. ** Dion i. 11, 
 
 ft I>lon. ii 21, Oa the name Larissa, see note, p, 69, 
 
80 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 towns, were originally Pelasgians from 
 Peloponnesus.* Peloponnesus is here 
 mentioned as the primitive country of 
 the Pelasgians, as Arcadia atid Thes- 
 saly in other legends. But there is an 
 historical memorial, which confirms the 
 more reasonable hypothesis which has 
 been before suggested, that the Italian 
 Pelasgians passed into Italy from the 
 coasts of Epirus. Servius informs us, 
 on the authority of two Greek historians, 
 that there was a royal family in Epirus, 
 the Campylids, who were believed to be 
 descended from an ancient king. Cam- 
 pus; that the Chaonians or Epirots 
 were themselves called Carapi, and their 
 country Campania.t 
 
 Of the extension of the Pelasgian 
 race over the southern parts of Italy, 
 we have evidence of a different nature, 
 and derived from different sources, than 
 the partially historical accounts which 
 are given of their settlement in the mid- 
 dle regions of the same country. The 
 CEnotrians were the greatest nation in 
 the south in old times, before the esta- 
 blishment of the Greek colonies (before 
 B.C. 700). The historian Antiochus of 
 Syracuse^ seems to have considered the 
 names CEnotria and Italy as equivalent, 
 and to have applied them strictly to the 
 small extreme peninsula intercepted be- 
 tween the Napetine and Scylletic bays.§ 
 But he allowed that the Chones, who 
 dwelt along the western side of the gulf 
 of Tarentum as far as Siris and Meta- 
 pontum, were an CEnotrian race ; and 
 he acknowledged likewise the existence 
 of the same race along the Tyrrhene sea; 
 and thus extended the name of CEnotria 
 to all the country south of a line drawn 
 from Metapontum to the mouth of the 
 river Laus.|| But the name reached still 
 further. The territory in which Elea 
 was founded by the Phocaeans was cal- 
 led CEnotria by Herodotus ;■[[ and the 
 islands which lay ofF it bore the name of 
 CEnotrian. CEnotrians held the high 
 inland country above Metapontum.** 
 So the name may be extended to all the 
 country south of the Silarus ; that is, 
 to the coasts from Tarentum to Posei- 
 donia. Antiochus himself gave this 
 extent to the equivalent name of Italy .-fi' 
 Sophocles in his Triptolemus, where 
 
 * Serv. on ^n. vii. 738. ■\ Serv.on ^n. iii. 334, 5. 
 
 t Contemporary with Herodotus. He wrote a 
 Sicilian htstory in nine books, beginning from Coca- 
 lus, king of the Sicani, and ending with Olymp. 
 89,1, or B.C. 424. (Diod. Sic. xii. 71.) 
 
 § Dion. i. 35. Strabo, vi. 1, 4. See Outline of 
 Gen. Hist. c. ix. § 1. |i Strabo, ib. 
 
 f i. 167. •• Strabo, vi. 1, 15. 
 
 tf Dion, i. 73< Italas aud Italia appeai: to have 
 
 he enumerated the regions on the coasts 
 of Italy, named none on the western 
 side but CEnotria, Tyrrhenia, and Li- 
 guria.* 
 
 Now the CEnotrians were said by the 
 mythic genealogers to have taken their 
 name from an Arcadian chief, CEnotrus, 
 the son of Lycaon, and grandson of 
 Pelasgus. When the Lycaonids divided 
 among them the kingdom of their father, 
 CEnotrus, .dissatisfied with hishttle por- 
 tion, sailed across the Ionian Gulf with 
 his brother Peucetius and many fol- 
 lowers. Peucetius settled with a part of 
 their people in lapygia ; and the reuce- 
 tians in that region were named after 
 him. CEnotrus proceeded to the further 
 peninsula of southern Italy, and there 
 established the CEnotrians. This migra- 
 tion is said to have taken place seven- 
 teen generations before the Trojan war, 
 and to have been the earUest colony, 
 whether of Greeks or Barbarians, of 
 which any memory was preserved.-!* 
 
 Such a legend cannot be considered 
 historical ; but it may be received as a 
 national genealogy, marking the affinity 
 of the CEnotrians with the great Pelas- 
 gian race. This testimony is confirmed 
 by other evidence. When the Greek 
 colonies were established round the 
 whole coast of southern Italy, the native 
 inhabitants in their neighbourhood were 
 reduced to a state of villanage, and 
 stood in a relation which resembled that 
 of the Helots in Lacedaemon, the Pe- 
 nestae in Thessaly, or the Gymnesii in 
 Argos. These serfs must have been 
 CEnotrians ; and we find that they were 
 commonly called Pelasgi.;|; This proof 
 is decisive ; but the position is still fur- 
 ther confirmed by the occurrence of the 
 same geographical names in CEnotria 
 and in the Pelasgic regions on the east- 
 ern coasts of the Ionian Gulf. The 
 name of the CEnotrian tribe, the Chones, 
 appears to be the same as that of the 
 Chaones in Epirus ;§ and a town Pan- 
 dosia, and a river Acheron, were to be 
 found in Italy, as well as in Thesprotia ; 
 an identity of name which gave occasion 
 to an ambiguous oracle fatal to Alex- 
 ander the Molossian.il Moreover, we 
 find in CEnotria numerous traditions of 
 foundations by heroes of the Trojan war ; 
 
 been indigenous names; CEnotrus and CEnotria ap- 
 pellations used by the Greeks. * Dion, i. 12. 
 
 f Dion. i. 11 and 12. Pherecydes in Dion. Paus. 
 Arcad.c. 3. 
 
 t Steph. Byz. v. Xr«j.. Eustath; on Dion. Perieg. 
 V. 533. See Cicero De Fin. ii. 4, and Eruesti':; note. 
 
 § See Nieb. p. 47, ed. 2; p. 57, ed. 3. 
 
 II Liy. viii. 24, Strabo, vi. 1, 5. 
 
HISTORY OP ROME. 
 
 Bl 
 
 legends of which the character has been 
 already explained. Thus the foundation 
 of a city Chone above the promontory 
 of Crimisa, from which the Choneswere 
 said to have taken their name, was as- 
 cribed to Philoctetes ;* and the Chonian 
 Siris was reported to have been built by 
 Trojan fugitives, who brought thither in 
 safety the Palladium, the image of the 
 Ilian Athena.t 
 
 The very little that we know of the 
 history of the (Enotrians is preserved 
 to us chiefly from Antiochus the Syra- 
 cusan. Tradition reported, that, when 
 they first settled in Italy, they found still 
 earlier inhabitants.^ who might be sup- 
 posed to be of the same race with the 
 Ausonians who fled from the Iapyges,§ 
 and the Aurunci whom the Tyrsenian 
 Pelasgians expelled from Campania. || 
 But Hellanicus called them Elymi, and 
 reported that they passed into Sicily.^ 
 The genealogers spoke of Elymus as a 
 Tyrsenian hero ;** and Thucydides has 
 preserved a legend of the Trojan extrac- 
 tion of the Sicilian Elymi ;tl' traces which 
 lead to a conjecture that the Elymi were 
 Pelasgians as well as the QEnotri. Two 
 tribes of the (Enotrians are distin- 
 guished: the ItaH or Italietes in the 
 south and west; the Chones towards 
 the north and east, on the borders of 
 lapygia. " They were a pastoral peo- 
 ple, till a good and wise man, Italus, 
 arose among them, and became their 
 king, and made them apply themselves 
 to the tillage of the soil. He gave them 
 other laws, and established the custom 
 of pubhc meals or messes, which some 
 of his descendants observe even at this 
 day." Such was the national tradition 
 preserved by Antiochus. $t He told 
 likewise, how, when Italus grew old, 
 Morges reigned in his stead, and ex- 
 tended his empire to the furthest limits 
 which have been assigned to (Enotria.§§ 
 Pandosia was the seat of the old GEno- 
 trian kings. 1||| Beyond these traditions 
 we know nothing of the (Enotrians, till 
 at a later time they began to fall under 
 the dominion of the Greek colonists. 
 
 Chone, which has been mentioned 
 above, became subject to Crotona : and 
 when the lonians of Colophon fled from 
 the growing empire of the Lydians 
 (about the end of the first century of 
 
 * Strabo, vi. 1, 3, t Strabo, vi. 1, 14. 
 
 J Dion.^ 12. § Dion. i. 22. 
 
 II Dion. i.-2l. % Dion. i. 22. 
 
 ** StepR. Byz. v. 'A/av^. tt Thuc. vi. 2. 
 
 Jt Aristot. Pol.vii. 9. Dion. i.35. 
 
 ^ § Dion. i. 73. y H Strabo, vi. 1, 5. 
 
 Rome), they took possession of Siris, 
 the name of which they changed to Po- 
 lieium, and massacred the Chonian in- 
 habitants.* So also at a later time the 
 Achaean settlers at Metapontum were 
 engaged in war with the (Enotrians of 
 the inland country .t These (Enotrians 
 must have been among the last who re- 
 tained their independence. A great 
 part of the population, as has been be- 
 fore observed, was reduced into a state 
 of villanage by the Greek cities : some 
 more fortunate portions were admitted 
 to the rights of citizenship. Thus gra- 
 dually the (Enotrian Pelasgians were 
 confounded with the predominant Hel- 
 lenic settlers. The Greeks, however, 
 were not the only enemies with whom 
 the (Enotrians had to contend. In the 
 more northern inland country they 
 were attacked by the growing power of 
 the Samnites and Lucanians.;}; When 
 the Lucanians had made themselves 
 masters of all the South of Italy, and 
 destroyed for ever the dominion of the 
 Greek cities, the slaves who revolted 
 under the conduct of discontented Lu- 
 canian leaders, and established their in- 
 dependence under the name of Brut- 
 tians,§ were probably in a great mea- 
 sure the remains of the (Enotrian 
 serfs. II 
 
 A question remains respecting the 
 origin of the Siceli or Siculi. The Ro- 
 man traditions represent this people as 
 settled in Latium and in the South of 
 Etruria.lT They dwelt with the Liburni 
 on the coast of' the Adriatic, in the re- 
 gion which afterwards became Pice- 
 num.** When the Locrians settled on 
 the Zephyrian promontory, the natives, 
 whom they defrauded of their lands, 
 were Siceli.-H- The same people dwelt 
 anciently in all the territory of Rhe- 
 gium.JJ Even in the Peloponnesian war 
 Siceli were still to be found in the south 
 of Italy. §§ But the nation survived 
 longest in the island into which they 
 passed, and to which they imparted 
 their name.|||| Philistus, the Syracusan 
 historian, stated expressly, that this 
 
 * Strabo, vi. 1, 14. + Strabo, vi. 1, 15 
 
 t Strabo, vi. 1, 2. § See below, in § 7- 
 
 II Nieb. pp. 5i, 78, ed. 2. C2, 97, ed. 3. 
 
 % Dion. i. 16, 20, 21. Plin. iii. v. (9). Serv. on 
 .;En. xi. 317. Varro De L.L. iv. 10. (v. 20, ed. 
 Speng.) A Roma orti Siculi, ut annales nostri veteres 
 dicunt. 
 
 ** See p. 68. 
 
 If Polyb. xii. 5. By another account they are said 
 to have settled in„Tyrsenia. Eustath. on Dion, 
 Perieg. v. 3G4. 
 
 Xt Antioch. in Strabo, vi. 1, 6. 
 
 H Thuc. vi.2. |||| p. 62. 
 
$3 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 tribe, which came over from Italy, was 
 a tribe of Ligurians under the command 
 of SiceUis. the son of Italus, and that 
 from him they were named Siceli * Hel- 
 lanicus pronounced them to be Ausoni- 
 ans who fled from the lapyeres, and 
 who took their name from a king Sice- 
 lus ; an account not necessarily incon- 
 sistent with the preceding.'!* Niebuhr 
 has maintained the theory that they 
 were Pelasgians. We will proceed 
 therefore to examine the grounds of his 
 judgment. 
 
 The most definite traditions con- 
 cerning the Siceli are preserved from 
 Antiochus the Syracusan. These it 
 is necessary to state as nearly as pos- 
 sible in the words in which they are re- 
 ported to us ; althousrh they mvolve a 
 repetition of some circumstances which 
 have been already mentioned in speak- 
 ing of the (Enotrians. He related, that 
 the (Enotrians anciently held that terri- 
 tory which in his own age was called 
 Italy ;% that is, the district cut off by a 
 line drawn from Metapontum to the river 
 Laus :§ that after a time a chief Italus 
 raised himself to power among them, 
 and united a larger part of the nation 
 than had yet been subject to one govern- 
 ment ; that from him his people were 
 named I tali, and the peninsula cut off 
 by the Scylletic and Napetine bays 
 Italia :|| that, when Italus grew old, Mor- 
 ges succeeded him in his kingdom, from 
 whom the people were called Morgetes ; 
 and that Italia then embraced all the 
 coasts from Tarentum to Poseidonia : 
 that in the time of Morges a man came 
 from Rome, a fugitive whose name was 
 Sicelus: that this Sicelus was enter- 
 tained by Morges ; but that he made 
 use of practices to obtain a separate 
 dominion, and so divided the nation: 
 that thus the people, who were origin- 
 ally QEnotrians, became Siceli and Mor- 
 getes and Italietes:!^ that the Siceli 
 were forced by armies of CEnotrians and 
 Opici to quit the continent, and pass 
 over into the island :** that the point 
 from which they made their passage 
 was the territory of Rhegium, which 
 was held by the Siceli and Morgetes: 
 that both these tribes were cast out by 
 the GEnotrians: and that both Siceli 
 and Morgetes continued to exist among 
 the barbarous tribes of Sicily.tt 
 
 • P. 65. t Dion. i. 22. 
 
 t Dion. i. 12. i Strabo, vi. 1, 4, 
 
 II Dion. i. 35. Strabo, ib. 
 
 ^ Dion. i. 12 and 73, •• Dion. i. 22. 
 
 ft Strabo, vi. 1, 6 j 2, 4. 
 
 This account is not very clear ; and 
 it does not by itself make out completely 
 Niebuhr's position. It might seem to 
 point to a conclusion not inconsistent 
 with the tradition of Philistus : that the 
 Siceli were a tribe which had migrated 
 from a distant region, and established 
 itself in CEnotria, and partially blended 
 itself with the (Enotrians, but not in 
 such a manner as to escape the enmity 
 of the great body of the nation. Other 
 legends appear to connect the nations 
 rather more closely. Thucydides relates 
 that Italy was so named from Italus, 
 who was a king of the Siceli at a time 
 when that people still dwelt on the con- 
 tinent.* Servius has reported the in- 
 verted tradition, that Italus, king of the 
 Siculi, migrated from Sicily to the re- 
 gions about the Tiber, and called the 
 country Italy from his own name.t A 
 genealogy, in which there seems a simi- 
 lar inversion, connects the Siceli with 
 the Chonian (Enotrians. Morges is 
 called the king of Sicelia, and Siris his 
 daughter.^ Even Philistus connected 
 the Siceli and Itali by calling Sicelus 
 the son of Italus. Yet, perhaps, these 
 traditions and genealogies express no- 
 thing more than the obvious fact, that 
 the Siceh passed into the island from 
 the country of the Itali. Thucydides 
 mentions only the Opici as the people 
 from whom they fled ; and thus avoids 
 the confusion of Antiochus, who repre- 
 sents CEnotrians and Opici as acting to- 
 gether against a people partly (Eno- 
 trian. If the Siculi were Pelasgians on 
 the Tiber, the Opici were certainly the 
 nation by which they were dislodged. 
 
 There is, however, a tradition which 
 expressly connects the Siceli with the 
 Pela.sgians. Pausanias says, that the 
 Pelasgians, who settled in Attica, and 
 built the wall of the Acropolis, were 
 originstlly Siceli, and that they migrated 
 first into Acarnania.§ Probably Pau- 
 sanias, like other writers, supposed 
 these Pelasgi to have been driven from 
 Italy. But that the Attic Pelasgi really 
 bore the name of Siceli is made more 
 Ukely by the circumstance, that there 
 was in the neighbourhood of Athens a 
 hill called Siceiia.|| The name of Siceli 
 is not inconsistent with the arguments 
 by which we have before endeavoured 
 to shew that the Pelasgians of Attica 
 came originally from Thesprotis :1[ for 
 
 • Thuc. vi. 2. f Serv. on Mn. i. 2. 
 
 t Etym. M. v. 2?^'?. 
 
 S Paus. i. 28, 3. 
 
 I Paus. viii. 11, 12. U See p. 78. 
 
HISTORY OP ROME. 
 
 83 
 
 Niebuhr has adduced evidence to prove 
 that the Siceli were anciently a people 
 of Epirus ;* and if this were the case, it 
 is easy to conceive how the race and 
 name might pass on the one side into 
 Attica, on the other into Italy ; in fact, 
 Siceli would appear to be equivalent to 
 Tyrseni. On this hypothesis, it is not 
 at all strange that Siculi should be found 
 in company with Liburni on the oppo- 
 site coast of the Adriatic sea. 
 
 Such are the arguments for the affi- 
 nity of the Siculi to the Pelasgians. 
 The reader must decide whether they 
 outweigh the positive authority of Phi- 
 listus. The most probable conclusion 
 seems to be, that the Siculi were a Pe- 
 lasgian tribe settled near the Tiber; 
 that by the pressure of the Opici, or 
 native Italian tribes, they were forced 
 to retreat southward among the kindred 
 nation of the QEnotrians ; that they 
 were partially mixed with them for a 
 time; but that at length, being strait- 
 ened for room, they were compelled to 
 pass onward into the neighbouring 
 island. This event is placed by Thucy- 
 dides about 300 years before the first 
 settlement of the Greeks in Sicily (about 
 B.C. 1030). 
 
 The Pelasgian tribes in Apuha will 
 be mentioned hereafter. 
 
 § 6. In the attempt to investigate the 
 early history of the Ligurians, Venetians, 
 Umbrians, and Italian Pelasgians, men- 
 tion has been made so frequently of the 
 Etruscans, that the examination of their 
 origin and history is obviously the next 
 step in our researches. The Etruscans 
 were the most powerful people in Italy 
 before the rise of the Roman dominion. 
 They appear to have reached the height 
 of their power at the close of the kingly 
 period of Rome ; and they were the most 
 formidable enemies of the infant re- 
 public. Their religious institutions and 
 ceremonies, and especially their modes 
 of divination, were adopted by the Ro- 
 mans, and influenced in the greatest 
 
 * Vol. i. p. 56, ed. 3, and in the Rhenish Museum, 
 I. p. 236. Echetus, the king of Epirus, is said to 
 have reigned at Bucheta in Sicelia, and to have been 
 king of the Siceli (Odyss. 2. 83, 84, and the Scho- 
 lias^t, on the authority of Mnaseas, scholar of Arist- 
 archus, and Marsyas). By Siceli in the Odyssey a 
 people of Epirus seems to be meant. The proposal 
 of sending a person to be sold as a slave among the 
 Siceli seems much the same as the threat of sending 
 him to Epirus (compare Od. Tf. 383 with 2. 84 and 
 114). That the people of Ithaca should speak thus 
 familiarly of exportation to the island of Sicily is 
 inconsistent with the fables of the Cyclops, &c. If the 
 Sicelian old woman, who waited on Laertes, came 
 from Epirus, there is a peculiar propriety in the ex- 
 clamation, Od. ii- ^75, &c. . 
 
 degree their manners and habits, their 
 private and public life. The civilization 
 and learning of the Romans, before they 
 became acquainted with (Greece, was 
 Etruscan. All these circumstances make 
 the Etruscans peculiarly important to 
 the student of Roman history. Even 
 at this day, the ruins of their cities, 
 their massy style of architecture, the 
 plentiful remains of their works of art, 
 the inscriptions in their well-known cha- 
 racters but unknown tongue, conspire 
 to make them an object of singular 
 curiosity and attention. The Etruscan 
 empire was indeed the greatest in ancient 
 Italy. It stretched from sea to sea, and 
 from the Alps to the Tiber ;* though it did 
 not comprehend all the nations included 
 within these boundaries. The district 
 on the south of the Apennines, divided 
 from Liguria by the Macra, and enclosed 
 by the Apennines and the Tiber, is the 
 region best known as Etruria. It was 
 here thai the Etruscans waged their 
 wars with the Romans: here they re- 
 tained possession of the soil, atter they had 
 become subject to Rome : here the mo- 
 numents of Etruscan art have been dis- 
 covered : and a portion of the country 
 has retained the name of its old inha- 
 bitants even to our own days. But 
 evidence is not wanting of the wider ex- 
 tent of the Etruscan empire. On the 
 northern side of the Apennines they 
 possessed all the regions about the Po 
 to the very foot of the Alps,t except the 
 district of the Veneti on the east, and on 
 the west the country beyond the Tici- 
 nus in which the Ligurians maintained 
 their ground. $ They held therefore the 
 fertile plains m the centre of Northern 
 Italy. In this region their chief city 
 was Felsina, which, as a Roman colony, 
 received the name of Bononia (Boj 
 logna).§ Mantua was a town of the 
 Etruscans ; but the tradition which 
 Virgil has preserved of the division of 
 its population is an argument that they 
 became possessed of it by conquest. 
 The Etruscans were the chief of the 
 three tribes which occupied its territory.|| 
 In Mantua the remains of an Etruscan 
 population survived the conquests both 
 of the Gauls and Romans.H Melpum 
 on the north of the Po, a wealthy town 
 destroyed by the Gauls on the same day 
 
 • Liv. V, 33. 
 
 t Liv. v. 33. Polyb. ii, 1?, Diod. Sic. xiv. 113. 
 Plut. CamiU. 
 
 t Above, p. 64. § Plin. iii. 15. (20). 
 
 II JEn. X. 200, &c., and Serv. Nieb. p. 254, note 
 710,ed. 2.P.291. n.757,ed.3. 
 
 % Plin. iii. 19(23). cf. Strabo, v. 1, 10. 
 
 G2 
 
HISTORY OP ROME. 
 
 on which Camillus took Veii (a.u.c. 
 359),* was without doubt an Etruscan 
 city. Another Etruscan settlement was 
 Atria, a rich trading city near the mouth 
 of the Po, which jxave its name to the 
 Adriatic sea.t In this region the 
 Etruscans displayed their skill in the 
 most useful works. They made artificial 
 mouths, or cleared the natural outlets, 
 so that the waters of the river might 
 gain an easier passage to the sea ; and 
 they cut channels by which they flooded 
 the swamps, and gradually raised their 
 level by the alluvial deposits.:|; Scylax 
 names the Etruscans as possessing a 
 small portion of this coast between the 
 Umbrians and the Gauls. 
 
 Not only did the Etruscan empire ex- 
 tend to the foot of the Alps, but, according 
 to Livy, the Alpine nations were of Etrus- 
 can origin, especially the Raeti ; though 
 their manners were savage, and they re- 
 tained no mark of their affinity but a 
 similarity in their language, and that too 
 was hardened and roughened as becomes 
 the tongue of the mountaineer.^ Pliny 
 and Trogus conceived the Raeti to be the 
 remains of the Etruscans on the Po, 
 who took refuge in the mountains from 
 the invading Gauls.|| The situation of 
 the Raeti has been described before.lT 
 
 Before we inquire into the origin of 
 the people who held this wide dominion, 
 we must observe that the names Tusci 
 and Etrusci, by which they were called 
 by the Italians, were as foreign to the 
 nation as the name Tyrseni, which was 
 applied to them by the Greeks. They 
 gave themselves the name of Rasena, 
 which they believed to have been borne 
 by one of their ancient heroes.** Nie- 
 buhr justly remarks, that this statement 
 should be understood only of the ruling 
 people : their vassals might retain their 
 old appellation/|"^ 
 
 The origin of the Rasenae is a point on 
 which we are altogether destitute of cre- 
 dible information. The Roman writers, 
 and especially the poets, commonly 
 adopted the opinion that they were a 
 Lydian colony ; and in the age of Tibe- 
 rius the Etruscans themselves at least 
 
 • Corn. Nep. in Plin. iii. 17, (21). 
 
 + Liv. V. 33. Plin. iii. 16, Ci-'O). 
 
 t Plin. ib. Nieb. p. 108, ed. 2. p. 129, ed. 3. 
 
 § Liv. V. 33. 
 
 I Plin. iii. 20, (24). Justin xx. 5. f p. 64. 
 
 *» Dion. i.30. 
 
 ++Nieb. p. 110. note 344, ed. 3. Niebnhr considers 
 
 that the name Tusci is only a variation of Tyrseni. 
 
 Piobably it is so; but then so likewise are htrusci, 
 
 and Etruri (the form from which the name of the 
 
 country was roads). The radical letters are the 
 
 same in all. 
 
 affected to believe this tradition.* But 
 it has been already shown, that the 
 legends upon which this opinion was 
 founded, related, not to the Etruscans 
 (Rasenae), but to the Pelasgian Tyrseni; 
 and that with regard even to them they 
 merely denoted an affinity of race be- 
 tween the Tyrseni of Italy, and the Tyr- 
 seni of the i^gaean.t Nevertheless, this 
 opinion seems to have modified all ac- 
 counts of the establishment of the Etrus- 
 cans. The Lydian colony was neces- 
 sarily supposed to have arrived by sea ; 
 and consequently their first settlements 
 were believed to be on the coast, be- 
 tween the mouths of the Tiber and the 
 Arno. From this coast it was believed 
 that they forced their way into the in- 
 land country, till they crossed the Apen- 
 nines, and occupied the region on their 
 northern side and the plains about the 
 Po. Thus the twelve cities of the 
 Southern Etruria were supposed to be 
 the mother cities of the nation ; and the 
 twelve towns, which were said to have 
 been built beyond the Apennines, were 
 considered as their colonies.^ Strabo 
 implies a belief that the military move- 
 ments of the nation were in this direc- 
 tion. $ Tarcon, the mythic founder, not 
 only of Tarquinii, but of all the twelve 
 Southern cities, || was reported to have 
 crossed the Apennines, and to have 
 built likewise the twelve Northern 
 cities.1[ 
 
 But if the foreign story of the Lydian 
 colony be set aside, there is no native 
 tradition which can be substituted in its 
 place. Yet the Etruscans cannot be 
 considered as an indigenous people of 
 middle Italy. It has been already shewn, 
 that, when the Pelasgians settled in the 
 country, they found it occupied by the 
 Umbrians, and the people whom Varro 
 called Aborigines.** The Ligurians 
 probably possessed a portion of the 
 
 •Tac. Ann. iv. 55. See other authorities in Cra- 
 mer's Italy, vol. i. 148. That Timaeus reported nearly 
 the same story as Herodotus we know from Tertul- 
 liau De Spectao. 5. Cramer remarks that the 
 silence of Livy must be considered as unfavourable 
 to the Lydian hypothesis. 
 
 + pp. 71, 78. t LiT. V. 33. § v. ], 10. 
 J Strabo, y. 2, 2. Cato in Serv. on .^n. x. 179. 
 
 % See Nieb. pp. 94, 95, ed. 2, p. 114, ed. 3. By 
 Lycophron, Cato, and Strabo, Tarcon is described as 
 the brother, son, or companion of Tyrrhenus, and so 
 incorporated with the Lydian fable. But we hea» 
 nothing of him in the earlier forms of that story: 
 and it seems not uilikely that the legend of the 
 early wise Tarcon, who was born grey-headed 
 (Strabo I.e.), was a genuine Etruscan tradition, which 
 has been violently mixed up with the foreign tale. 
 Possibly Tarcon has been confounded with Tages. 
 See p. 90, and compare Strabo with Cic. de Div. II, 
 23. •• P. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 85 
 
 coast. The Siculi, even if it be uncertain 
 whether they were Ligurians or Pelas- 
 gians, were certainly not Etruscans. In 
 these regions not a vacant space is left 
 for the germ of this great nation. It 
 appears therefore that they were in- 
 vaders; but whence did they come? 
 The most probable conjecture seems to 
 be, that the direction of their conquests 
 has been reverted in the common ac- 
 counts; and that they issued from the 
 Raetian Alps, occupied first the plain 
 of the Po, and then, after a contest with 
 the Umbrians, passed the Apennines, 
 and established themselves in the coun- 
 try to the south of them, as the con- 
 querors of the Pelasgians. This con- 
 jecture is confirmed by the improbabi- 
 lity of the account which is given of their 
 settlement in the Raetian Alps. Fugi- 
 tives, who had not been able to resist the 
 Gauls either in the field or in fortified 
 towns, could" never have dislodged the 
 mountaineers from their strong holds. 
 A conquered people will take refuge in 
 mountainous districts from the over- 
 whelming irruption of their conquerors ; 
 but it will be in the mountains of their 
 own land. The natural movement of 
 the population expelled by the Gauls 
 would have been to fall back upon 
 the main body of their nation in their 
 oldest seats south of the Apennines 
 (which, with the swamps between them 
 and the Po, actually formed an available 
 line of defence), not to insulate them- 
 selves in the northern mountains. But 
 if Raetia was the mother-country, whence ' 
 the Etruscans descended into the plains 
 of Italy, it may easily be believed, that 
 a part of the nation staid behind, and 
 to them the dwellers about the Po may 
 have returned, when they sought shelter 
 from the terrible Gauls.* It may be 
 esteemed a confirmation of this hypo- 
 thesis of the origin of the Etruscans, 
 that they believed the north to be the 
 seat of their gods.t 
 
 The little that we can gather of Etrus- 
 can history seems to indicate the gradual 
 extension of the nation towards the south. 
 We have evidence that the Raeti spread 
 themselves below the foot of the Alps; 
 for ^hey are said to have been joint 
 founders of Verona. % The Etruscans 
 contended with the Umbrians for the 
 country between the Po and the Apen- 
 nines ; but surely this contest could 
 never have been maintained, if they had 
 
 • Nieb. pp. 91, 92, ed. 2. pp. Ill, 112, ed. 3. 
 t Festus, V. sinistrae aves, | p. 64, 
 
 possessed a country divided from Um- 
 bria only by the Tiber. An invasion in 
 their rear would have recalled them 
 from foreign conquest. It is in the 
 south of Efruria that we find the most 
 distinct traces of the previous occupa- 
 tion of the Pelasgians ; whence we may 
 conclude, that here the Etruscan domi- 
 nion was established latest. That it was 
 still recent at Agyllaor Caere, in the be- 
 ginning of the third century of the city, 
 has been shown above.* The close 
 connexion between Etruria and Rome 
 under its last three kings was formed 
 about the same period. It was but a 
 little earUer that they estabhshed them- 
 selves beyond the Tiber by taking pos- 
 sion of Fidenae, which was originally an 
 Alban town.t The efforts of the Etrus- 
 cans were more manifestly directed to- 
 wards the same quarter in the wars of 
 Porsena against Rome and Aricia;$ of 
 the former of which at least the result 
 was very different from that which Ro- 
 man vanity has suffered to appear in 
 the vulgar legend. 
 
 The course of our investigation has 
 brought us to the consideration of the 
 Etruscan dominion in Campania. If 
 this were so ancient, as it was commonly 
 believed to be by the Roman writers 
 and the later Greeks, the reasoning ad- 
 vanced above would fall to the ground. 
 But it has been already shewn, that the 
 accounts of these writers are drawn 
 from a mistaken interpretation of tra- 
 ditions, which related to the occupation 
 ' of this coast by the Pelasgian Tyrseni. § 
 So much apparent evidence is cleared 
 away by this explanation, that it would 
 not be a very hazardous speculation to 
 maintain that the Etruscans never esta- 
 blished any dominion in Campania; 
 and this hypothesis would be confirmed 
 by the fact, that no genuine Etruscan 
 monuments, neither inscriptions nor 
 works of art, have been discovered in 
 the country.il We have, however, the 
 express authority of Livy,1[ that Vultur- 
 num, which was taken by the Samnites, 
 in A. u. c. 332, (h. c. 421) and thence- 
 forward called Capua, was a city of the 
 Etruscans. ** The Etruscans had been 
 
 • p. 75. + Dion, ii. 5.3, Plin. iii, 9. Liv. i. 15 & 2?. 
 tpp. 30, 31. §p. 79. 
 
 !| Nieb. p. 61, ed. 2. p. 76 ed. 3. U Liv. iv, 37. 
 *• Capna lore that name after it fell into the pos- 
 session of the Samnites. There seems an indication 
 in Dion, i. 73, and in Ktyu,. JM. v. Koc-ttv^, that it 
 was known among the Greeks as a Pelasgo-Tyrse- 
 nian city, under the same name. This is likely, if 
 the etymology of the name Campani, adduced above 
 (p. 80) is well founded; for the names Capua and 
 
8» 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 so harassed in war by the Samnites, 
 that they had been forced to admit them 
 as fellow- possessors of their city and ter- 
 ritory ; and the new settlers, after a day 
 of relitrious feasting:, rose by nisjht and 
 massacred the old inhabitants. This 
 testimony is explicit ; yet it is possible 
 that even here Livy, or the authority 
 upon which he relied (perhaps Timaeus), 
 confounded Tyrsenians and Etruscans. 
 If, however, we assume that the Etrus- 
 cans were really masters of Vulturnum, 
 and proceed to inquire into the time of 
 their establishment in this country, we 
 shall find that it must be comparatively 
 recent. We read in Dionysius$ the 
 legend of the war which the Greek 
 city Cuma sustained in the sixty-fourth 
 Olympiad (b.c. 524) against a vast host 
 of the Etruscans, who dwelt about the 
 Adriatic Sra, and who at a later time 
 were expelled by the Gauls, and with 
 them of Umbrians and Daunians, and 
 many of the other barbarous tribes. 
 This legend must have been taken from 
 Cumean chronicles ; and it is expressly 
 aflSrmed, that Cuma was then the mis- 
 tress of the most fertile portion of the 
 Campanian plains. It follows there- 
 fore that the dominion of the Etruscans 
 in Campania was later than this date ; 
 and this mi2:ht be considered as their 
 first attempt to establish it. But if this 
 legend be closely examined, it will be 
 found to afford but unsteady ground for 
 historical belief. If the Etruscans made 
 war upon Cuma, we should expect the 
 attack to have proceeded from the cities 
 in the Tyrrhene Sea ; and that a people 
 so powerful by sea, as the Etruscans 
 were at the time assigned, would have 
 assailed a maritime city with a naval 
 force, as thvy actually did in b. c. 474. 
 Instead of this, the tumultuary host 
 comes against Cuma by land ; and the 
 Etruscans are represented as descending 
 from the coasts of the Adriatic, and 
 bringing with them Umbrians and Dau- 
 nians ; so that their huge column, con- 
 tinually increasing as it advanced, must 
 have moved along the eastern side of 
 the A[)ennines, and crossed them where 
 the ridsje divides the Aufidus and the 
 other waters of Daunia from the rivers 
 of Campania. Such a movement may 
 
 and Campani are manifestly connected. If then 
 the city were anciently called Capua, but during an 
 intervenin(f period bore the name of Vultnrnum, and 
 then recovered the name of Capua, there would be 
 strong reason to believe that, while it was called 
 Yaltaraom, it was in the hands of foreigners. 
 • Dion, yii, 3, 
 
 have been caused by the pressure of the 
 Etruscans upon the Umbrians; and 
 the Etruscans themselves may at last 
 have penetrated into Campania. But it 
 is far more Ukely, if we consider the 
 character of the legend (which the enor- 
 mous multitude of the barbarians, * and 
 the portent of the rivers flowing back- 
 ward to their sources, show to be popu- 
 lar and poetical), that the Etruscans 
 were introduced into a tradition of an 
 irruption of the barbarians from a re- 
 collection of the really historical wars 
 which the Cumeans sustained against 
 them at a somewhat later time. It 
 would make the story of the popular 
 favourite Aristodemus more symme- 
 trical, that the Etruscans should be the 
 enemy whom he discomfited in both his 
 great achievements. The barbarian host 
 may have consisted of Umbrians, set in 
 motion as we have conjectured above ; t 
 or, as Niebuhr conjectures, of Opicans 
 dislodged from the mountains by the 
 advance of the Sabellian tribes.^ Within 
 a few years, however, the Cumeans 
 really came into collision with the Etrus- 
 cans. When the army of Porsena, after 
 quitting Rome, advanced to attack 
 Aricia, the Aricines besought assistance 
 from Cuma. Aristodemus, who had 
 distinguished himself in the former war, 
 was sent with ships and men to their 
 aid, and mainly contributed to the defeat 
 of the Etruscans. § By the popularity 
 which he acquired from this success, he 
 was enabled to overthrow the aristocra- 
 •tical government of Cuma, and to set 
 up himself as tyrant. The Roman chro- 
 nology placed this event in the year of 
 the city 247 (or b. c. 506). About thirty 
 years later (b. c. 474) the Etruscans 
 attacked Cuma: the Cumeans called in 
 the aid of Hiero, the tyrant of Syracuse : 
 and their combined forces effected the 
 deliverance of the city by destroying the 
 Etruscan fleet. || About this time the 
 Etruscans must have established them- 
 selves in Campania, if they ever esta- 
 blished themselves at all in that country. 
 Cato stated expressly, that Capua was 
 founded by the Tuscans only 260 years 
 Ijefore it was taken in the second Pjunic 
 war; and that Nola was founded by 
 them shortly afterwards. ^ According 
 
 • 518,000 men, who were routed by 5100 Cumeans. 
 
 t Compare Plin. iii. 5 (9). (Campaniam_) tenuere 
 0»ci, Graeci, Uuibri, Tusci, Campani. 
 
 t See Nieb. p. 75, ed. 3 ; and below, 5 5 7 and 8. 
 
 § Dion. vii. 5, 6. SJee above p. 31, where Aristo- 
 demus is called " the tyrant" by mistake. 
 
 U Diod. Sicxi. 51. Find. Pyth. i. Ul, and Schol, 
 ifVell.Pjit.i.7. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 sr 
 
 to this account, the ori2:in of Capua 
 would be placed in b. c. 471. That the 
 settlement of the Etruscans in Cam- 
 pania was not earlier than this date is 
 indicated by Strabo and Pliny, who dis- 
 tinctly make the period of their dominion 
 posterior to that of the Cumeans. * 
 The statement of Polybius, that th^ 
 Etruscans possessed the Phlegraean 
 plains about Capua and Nola at the 
 same time at which they held the plains 
 about the Po,t is perfectly consistent 
 with this hypothesis. Their power in 
 these regions was of short duration. Of 
 course it could last no longer than their 
 maritime superiority ; and this they were 
 forced to concede to the Syracusans. In 
 01. 85..3 (or B. c. 438), Diodorus places 
 the formation of the Campanian nation,$ 
 
 ^ by which we are probably to under- 
 stand the admission of the Samnites to 
 the joint possession of the city and terri- 
 tory of Capua. We have already seen, 
 that, according to Livy, the Samnites 
 made themselves its sole masters, b. c. 
 421. 
 
 Mention has been made of the mari- 
 time power of the Etruscans. They 
 were for some time masters of the lower 
 or Tyrrhene Sea, and were dreaded and 
 hated for their piracies.^ When, ac- 
 cording to Herodotus, II the Tyrseni and 
 Carthaginians, each with a fleet o^ sixty 
 ships, attacked the Phocsean settlers in 
 Corsica, and compelled them to abandon 
 their settlement (b. c. 540), and landed 
 their prisoners in the territory of Agylla, 
 and there stoned them ; since the Agyl- 
 leans probably were still Pelasgian Tyr- 
 senians, ^ a question may be raised, 
 whether we are to understand that the 
 Etruscans (Rasenae) were engaged in 
 this vindication of the exclusive so- 
 vereignty of the western seas. At all 
 events we must bear in mind, that it is 
 likely that even in later times the Etrus- 
 can fleets were built and manned, not 
 by the ruling race, whose Alpine origin, 
 exclusive nobility, and limited numbers, 
 mark them as little fitted for maritime 
 affairs, but by the subject Tyrsenian 
 population. The Etruscans, however, 
 certainly had commercial treaties, and 
 treaties of alliance with the Cartha- 
 ginians,** (of the nature of which we 
 may form a notion from the stipulations 
 
 ,» of the ancient treaties between Carthage 
 
 and Rome,)* which are a sufficient 
 proof of their maritime importance. 
 Anaxilaus of Rhegium established a 
 naval station at Scyllaeum, to blockade 
 the Straits of Messana against the 
 Etruscan corsairs (about b. c. 490). t 
 The Etruscans were humbled by the 
 naval defeat which they suffered from 
 Hiero and the Syracusans before Cuma, 
 b. c. 474. Indeed their maritime 
 power seems to have been then effec- 
 tually broken, or perhaps they began to 
 feel that the maintenance of a fleet was 
 little suited to the oligarchic character 
 of their government. Their pirates 
 continued to infest the sea; but in 
 B. c. 453, when the Syracusans sent a 
 fleet against them, they bribed the Syra- 
 cusan admiral to depart; and when a 
 second fleet ravaged their coasts, laid 
 waste their settlements in Corsica, and 
 subdued the island of yEthaUa or Ilva, 
 they were unable to offer any resist- 
 ance. $ In like manner, in b. c. 384, 
 four years after the taking of Rome 
 by the Gauls, when Dionysius sailed 
 against Corsica with the professed de- 
 sign of chastising piracy, and plundered 
 on the way the rich and ancient temple 
 of Juno Lucina at Pyrgi, the only re- 
 sistance that he encountered was by 
 land. § 
 
 Beyond these imperfect marks of the 
 relations of the Etruscans with the Car- 
 thaginians, and Italian and Sicilian 
 Greeks, we know little of their history, 
 except so much as is interwoven with 
 the History of Rome. We shall there- 
 fore proceed to examine their internal 
 constitution. 
 
 The Etruscans never formed one state, 
 nor were ever united under one govern- 
 ment. Their cities were connected only 
 by a confederation. The territory of 
 Southern Etruria is said to have been 
 divided among twelve independent cities. 
 A question may be raised, whether this 
 division was instituted by the Rasenae, 
 or remained from the age of the Pelas- 
 gian Tyrseni. At least a similar division 
 prevailed among the most Pelasgian of 
 the Grecian races, the lonians whether 
 in the Peloponnesus or in Asia, the 
 iEohans in Asia, and the Achseans who 
 succeeded the lonians in the ^Egialus ; || 
 and the Attic Trittyes seem to be a 
 similar distribution. It may be doubted 
 
 * Strabo, v. 4, 3. Plin. iii. 5 (9) cited above, 
 ■i- Pol. ii. 17. t Diod. Sic. xii. 31. 
 
 § Stralo, V. 2. 2 and 3. | Herod, i. 166. 7- 
 
 f See above, p. 75. •• Aristot. Pol. iii. 9 (5). 
 
 * Polyb. iii. 22—25. 
 f Strabo. vi. 1, 5. t DioJ. Sic. xi. 
 
 § Died. Sic. XV. 14. Strabo, v. 2. 8. 
 I Herod, i. U5 149. Cf. vii. 94. 
 
88 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 likewise, whether this division really ex- 
 isted in the historical times, or was not 
 rather a tradition of the heroic age of 
 the Etruscans. It is doubtful, because, 
 when the Etruscans were waging; wars 
 with Rome before the capture of the city 
 by the Gauls, there seem to have been 
 more than twelve independent states 
 within the limits of Etruria; and be- 
 cause, often as the number of the cities 
 is mentioned, they are nowhere named 
 all together. If we attempt to assign 
 them by conjecture according to such 
 evidence as we possess, we may name 
 Veii, Tarquinii.Vulsinii, Volci, Rusellae, 
 Vetulonii, Clusium, Perusia, Volaterrae, 
 Arretium, Pisae, Faesulse. Veii was the 
 earliest enemy of Rome in Etruria ; * 
 and the magnitude and power of the city 
 are sufficiently attested by the length 
 and obstinacy of the wars which ended 
 in its destruction. Tarquinii was dis- 
 tinguished by tradition as taking its name 
 from the mythic Tarcon, the founder of 
 the twelve cities. t This belief invested 
 it with the dignity of the mother city of 
 Etruria, to which it has evidently no 
 claim, when the story of the Lydian 
 settlement is rejected. Vetulonium, 
 Arretium, Clusium, Volaterrae, and 
 Rusellae, are enumerated by Dionysius 
 as beginning the great war of the Etrus- 
 cans with Tarquinius Priscus ; % and 
 Vetulonium is never mentioned again 
 in history. Clusium was undoubtedly 
 one of the twelve great cities ; for it was 
 the city of Porsena. The Vulsinians 
 were accounted the most ancient of 
 the Etruscans ;^S and Vulsinii carried on 
 war with Rome, as an independent 
 city, A. u. c. 363. || It is mentioned to- 
 gether with Perusia and Arretium as 
 a very powerful city, and one of the 
 chief states of Etruria in a. u. c. 459 ; 1[ 
 and the Triumphal Fasti record a 
 triumph over the Vulsmienses and Vul- 
 cientes, a. u. c 473. ** The Vulcientes 
 are the people of Volci. The memo- 
 rials of this ancient city are rare. The 
 Byzantine geographer names it on the 
 authority of Polybius.-f-f But we know 
 from Pliny, that the city of Cossa, whe- 
 ther as a colony or by conquest, belonged 
 to its people : %% and the importance of 
 Cossa is indicated at this day by the 
 
 * See pp. 10, 15. j Strabo, See above, p. . 
 
 t Dion, iii, 57. See p. 18. 5 Zonaras. 
 
 I Liv. V. 31. ^ Liv. x. 3?. 
 
 •• Cluv. Ital. Antiq. L. II. c. 3, p. 515. 
 
 t+ Steph. Byz. v. "O/x/av. See Cramer, vol. i. 
 
 p. 223. 
 
 $t Cossa Volcientium, N. H. lii. 8. 
 
 remains of its gigantic walls. These 
 walls attest likewise the hisjh antiquity 
 of the city ; for they are constructed of 
 huge unhewn masses of stone, hke the 
 Cyclopian walls of Argos and Tiryns. 
 The people of Volci survived, though 
 their city decayed ; and are enumerated 
 by Pliny as the Volcentini Etrusci. * 
 Perusia is mentioned by Livy, with 
 Arretium and Cortona, as one of the 
 chief states of Etruria, a. u. c. 444. t 
 The celebrity of Pisae, its importance as 
 a frontier town and bulwark against the 
 Ligurians, and the tradition that it was 
 one of the settlements of Tarcon, en- 
 title it to a place among the twelve 
 cities.J The size of the ruins of Fae- 
 sulae seems to make out its claim to 
 the same rank. § The distance of this 
 city from Rome, and the circumstance 
 that those books of Livy, which con- 
 tained the account of the final subju- 
 gation of Etruria, are lost to us, suffi- 
 ciently explain the fact, that its name 
 does not occur in history as an inde- 
 pendent state. 
 
 When the surviving cities of Etruria 
 had become dependent allies of Rome, 
 in the second Punic war (a.u.c. 548), 
 Caere, Populonia, Tarquinii, Volaterrae, 
 Arretium, Perusia, Clusium, and Ru- 
 sellae, are enumerated as separate states, 
 which contributed to the outfit of 
 Scipio's fleet. II Thus, besides the twelve 
 cities, which we have assigned by con- 
 jecture as the twelve heads of the na- 
 tion, we have already found mention of 
 three independent states, Cortona, Caere, 
 and Populonia ; and to these two more 
 may be added, Capena and Falerii. 
 It is possible, and not improbable, that 
 the number of twelve cities was main- 
 tained in the confederacy ; and that 
 when one of the old members decayed, 
 or was lost by foreign conquest, a new 
 member was admitted to supply its 
 place :1[ 'and thus these five cities may 
 have been accounted at some time in 
 the number of the twelve. But that 
 they were not among the original twelve 
 is likely from certain circumstances 
 which we know of their history. Thus 
 Cortona is expressly named in a.u.c. 444, 
 B. c. 309, as one of the three chief states 
 of Etruria; but about 120 years before 
 its inhabitants were distinguished from 
 the Etruscans as a remnant of the old 
 
 • Plin.iii. 8. f Liv. ix. 37.^ 
 
 i Strabo, v. 2, 5. Serv. on Mn. x. 17 
 
 § Nieb. II Liv. xxviii. 45. 
 
 ^ Nieb. p. 97, ed. 2 ; p. 116, ed. 3. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Pelasgians. * Caere also fell late under 
 the dominion of the Etruscans : t and its 
 political insignificance, the constant 
 peace which it preserved with Rome,$ 
 and the relation of mutual citizenship 
 which existed between the Caerites and 
 the Romans, seem to indicate that it 
 was not one of the ruling cities of 
 Etruria. Its situation, and the circum- 
 stance that it was at last led into war 
 with Rome by espousing the cause of 
 Tarquinii,^ sug:2:est the conjecture that it 
 was a colony from the latter city. The 
 Falisci, the people of Falerii, not only 
 allied themselves with the Veientes and 
 Tarquinienses, and other states of 
 Etruria, against Rome ; but considered 
 themselves entitled to claim the pro- 
 tection of the common council of the 
 nation. || But we must remember the 
 statement reported by the Strabo, as if 
 upon credible authority, that they were 
 of a different race from the Etruscans. 
 This assertion probably referred to the 
 preservation and predominance of the 
 old Pelasgian population.^ The Ca- 
 penates were an Etruscan people who 
 waged war with Rome. They took up 
 arms to assist Veii, and submitted as 
 soon as Veii had fallen : ** and there is 
 reason to believe that they were a co- 
 lony from Veii. fl' In like manner Po- 
 pulonia was a colony of Volaterrse. %% 
 If Populonia was ever reckoned in 
 the number of the twelve cities, it was 
 perhaps received in the place of Vetu- 
 lonium, from the site of which it was not 
 far distant.^^S A people called the Sal- 
 pinates joined the Volsinienses in the war 
 with Rome, a. u. c. 363. {||| It is most 
 likely that they were an Etruscan com- 
 munity ; but they may have been Um- 
 brians. 
 
 Tv^'elve great cities were said to be 
 established likewise in the Northern 
 Etruria ; ^^ but of the greater number 
 of them the very names are lost to us. 
 
 * See p. 74. f See p. 75. 
 
 t Notwithstanding the proximity of the cities, no 
 war is recorded between Caere and Rome, after the 
 apocryphal Etruscan conquests of Servius TuUus 
 (Dion. iv. 27.) till the Caerites joined the Tar- 
 quinienses in an incursion on the Roman lands, 
 A. u. c. 403; and even then their submission and 
 apology was accepted (Liv. vii. 19 — 20.) 
 
 § •' Misericordiaconsanguinitatis," Liv. vii. 19. 
 
 II Liv. iv.23. 
 
 1[ See above, p. 75. ** Liv. v. 8, 24. 
 
 tt Ca'o in Serv. on Ma. vii. 697. See Nieb. 
 
 note 330, p. 97, ed. 2. n. 371, p. 118. ed.3. 
 
 tt Serv. on Ain. x. 172. 
 
 H Nieb. III! Liv. V. 31. 
 
 ff Liv. v. 33. Serv. on /Kn. x. 201, intimates a 
 
 doubt whether the division into twelve cities were 
 
 applicable to the Northern Etruria. 
 
 89 
 
 Felsina, Hatria, Mantua, and Melpum, 
 were probably among them ; and 
 perhaps Verona. The number twelve 
 was so recognised as the basis of the 
 political divisions of the Etruscans, that 
 Strabo, when he spoke of their domi- 
 nion in Campania, related that they 
 founded twelve cities there also : * but 
 for this assertion there is no other evi- 
 dence ; and we have already seen how 
 much historical probability is against 
 it. 
 
 Friendly relations subsisted among 
 the cities of Etruria, such as were na- 
 tural among people of the same race. 
 We find no mention of any intestine 
 war ; t but the bonds of their national 
 confederacy were not closely drawn. 
 V/hether the northern and southern 
 Etruria formed two separate states, or 
 were even united in one body, we have 
 no information. The alliances among 
 the southern cities, of which we read in 
 the Roman annals, were such as were 
 produced by the exigencies of the time, 
 and seldom comprehended more than 
 two or three states. A great council of 
 the chiefs of the nation met at the 
 Temple of Voltumna ; and the Romans 
 were often alarmed with rumours, that 
 the twelve cities had decreed to make 
 war against them with the whole force 
 of their league : but such an union was 
 never actually formed. $ At length 
 after Veii and Capena had fallen, and 
 the Romans had established themselves 
 in Etruria in the strong holds of Sutrium 
 and Nepete, we find a vague mention of 
 a tumultuary incursion or foray of " the 
 whole Etruscan name :" § and, somewhat 
 later, we meet with the more precise 
 statement, that all the states of Etruria, 
 except the Arretines, took up arms 
 against* Rome. II But it is clear, that 
 the national confederacy never made a 
 combined and sustained effort against 
 their watchful and unwearied enemy. 
 This disunion seems to have resulted 
 both from internal causes, and from 
 the pressure of the Gauls upon the 
 northern frontier. A tradition however 
 prevailed, in itself highly probable, that 
 in old times the twelve cities were united 
 in a solemn and permanent league ; 
 and that when they undertook a war in 
 common, a military chief of the whole 
 nation was elected, to whom eacli of the 
 
 * Strabo, v. 4. 3. 
 
 t Nieb. p. 103, ed. 2, p. 124, ed. 3. 
 
 J See Livy, iv. 23, 24. 25, 61. v. 17, vi. 2, 3. 
 
 § Liv.viii. 17.A.U.C. 399. 
 
 y Liv. ix, 32, A. V. c. 443. 
 
90 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 twelve cities pave a lictor, or public 
 officer, to bear before him the rods 
 and axe which were the symbols of 
 military command. Hence the Romans 
 borrowed the twelve lictors, who at- 
 tended on the kings and consuls* It 
 was this military sovereignty, which was 
 reported to have been conferred on Tar- 
 quinius by the gift of the embroidered 
 robe and ivory tlirone, and sceptre and 
 diadem.t In this, as in many similar 
 cases, a religious institution survived, 
 after the corresponding military and 
 civil office had been suppressed or dis- 
 used. So late as in the great Veientine 
 war (a little before a.u.g. 352, B.C. 401) 
 we find that, at a solemn meeting of the 
 nation, a high priest was elected by the 
 twelve states.^ 
 
 It is distinctly asserted by Dionysius, 
 that the common chief of the nation was 
 always one of the twelve kings of the 
 separate cities. § Livy, though he enti- 
 tles the common chief king, has avoided 
 this statement; probably from finding 
 that the Etruscan cities were not gene- 
 rally under kingly government, when 
 they came to be mentioned in the Roman 
 annals. But the tradition that the seve- 
 ral states were originally governed by 
 kings, is not only most probable in itself, 
 but is verified in specific instances. Por- 
 sena is king of Clusium ; Tolumnius is 
 king of Veil, a.u.c. 317 (b. c. 436) ; || 
 Horace addresses Maecenas, the de- 
 scendant of the Cilnii of Arretium, as 
 the offspring of Etruscan kings. The 
 title of an Etruscan king seems to have 
 been Lars ; and it is probable that the 
 office was elective, like that of the kings 
 of Rome. In the later ages of the 
 Etruscan nation it is evident that the 
 government of the states was* in the 
 hands of the nobles. It appears by the 
 mention of Lars Tolumnius, that the 
 kingly estate lasted longest at Veil ; and 
 so jealous was the ambition of the Etrus- 
 can oligarchy, that the other cities re- 
 fused aid to the Veientes in their final 
 struggle with Rome, because, after a 
 period of turbulence, they had recurred 
 to their ancient form of government 
 (A.U.C. 352, B.C. 401).1[ The abolition 
 of monarchy in the several states tended, 
 beyond doubt, to relax the bonds of 
 
 union in the whole confederacy. The 
 nobles, who would not submit to a 
 single leader in their own city, would be 
 still less likely to invest any one of their 
 number with kingly authority over the 
 whole nation. 
 
 The Etruscan cities passed, as Rome 
 and the states of Greece, from the 
 monarchy of their heroic age (which 
 was probably as limited as the monarchy 
 of the Homeric chiefs) under the domi- 
 nion of an oligarchy or exclusive aristo- 
 cracy. The meetings at the Temple of 
 Voltumna were meetings, not of repre- 
 sentatives chosen from the body of the 
 people, but only of the chiefs of the 
 ruling houses.* The appellation of the 
 Etruscan nobles was Lucumo.t They 
 were also the priestly order of thie 
 nation. According to their tradition, to 
 their ancestors were intrusted the reve- 
 lations of Tages, a wise dwarf who rose 
 from the earth in the fields of Tarquinii, 
 to instruct the favoured nation, the 
 chosen land of the gods, J in the myste- 
 ries of religious worship, and all the 
 arts of divination.^ 
 
 The Etruscan states never accom- 
 plished the next step in the natural 
 course of political changes, by which an 
 hereditary and exclusive aristocracy is 
 compelled to concede its privileges, and 
 the people admitted to a share in the 
 common government. In the last age 
 of the independence of the nation we 
 find that a struggle had begun at Arre- 
 tium between the ruling house of the 
 Cilnii and the commonalty, which Livy 
 dignifies with the name of Plebs.W The 
 only allusion which is found to a po- 
 pular assembly in any state of Etruria 
 relates to Tarquinii. The weight of this 
 allusion rests entirely upon the exactness 
 of the information and the accuracy of 
 the language of Dionysius ;^ but Tar- 
 quinii, on account of its commerce, was 
 the most likely place for an independent 
 commonalty to gain wealth and power. 
 
 The bulk of the population of Etruria 
 stood to the nobles in a relation which 
 resembled that of serfs or villans to their 
 lords in the feudal kingdoms of modern 
 Europe. Dionysius calls these depend- 
 ents PenestaB ;** the name which was 
 properly applied to the serfs of the 
 
 • IAt. i. 8. t See p. 18, Dion. iii. 61. 
 
 t Liv. V. 1. 
 § " Twelve Ethelings governed over the land of 
 the Saxons; and when war arose, the Saxons chose 
 one of the twelve to be king while the war lasted ; 
 when it was over, the twelve became alike." — Tur- 
 ner's Anglo-Saxons, Appead. to B. ii. 
 
 I Liv. iv, 17. % Liv. V. 1. 
 
 • " Principes Etrariae," Liv. vi. 2, x. 16. 
 
 + See Dion. ii. 37- Liv. i. 34, v. 33. See p. 10. 
 
 t Nieb, p. 95, n. 322. ed. 2. p, 115, n. 363, ed. 3. 
 
 5 Censorin. c. 4, Ov. Metam. xv. 553-559. Cic. 
 Div. ii. 23. 
 
 II Liv, x. 3. 5, A.u.c. 452, b.c.301. 
 
 i\ See Dion. v. 3. and Nieb. note 334, p. 99, ed. 2. 
 p, U9, n. 374, ed. 3. •* Dion. ix. 5. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Thessalians, whose condition was more 
 degraded than that of any class of men 
 in Greece, who were not absolutely 
 slaves, except the Laconian Helots.* 
 The relation of this subject population 
 to their lords seems to have been the 
 same m principle as that of the Clients 
 to their Patrons at Rome. But this 
 latter relation was moditied by the 
 growth of an intermediate class, the 
 Plebeians, an unprivileged but inde- 
 pendent commonalty, whose struggle 
 for an equality of legal rights made it 
 necessary for the Patricians to cultivate 
 the good will of their Clients ; but we do 
 not find that any such favourable cause 
 operated in Etruria. It is probable, 
 however, that the necessities of war 
 tended to raise the importance and to 
 better the condition of the subject popu- 
 lation. A story has been handed down 
 to us, unfortunately not as it would pro- 
 bably have been reported by a discern- 
 ing historian, but in the guise best 
 suited to the taste of professed story 
 tellers. It is said that the citizens of 
 Vulsinii, intent only upon luxury and 
 pleasure, admitted their liberated slaves 
 into the senate, and suffered the civil 
 government and the military command 
 to fall entirely into their hands. Frightful 
 excesses followed the unnatural elevation 
 of the abject class. The Vulsinians 
 repented, when they had no longer the 
 power to undo their work ; and were 
 forced to call in the assistance of the 
 Romans to disarm and put down their 
 servile tyrarits.t This story, as it stands, 
 is absolutely incredible: but we learn 
 from more trustworthy authorities, that 
 the Vulsinians were so far from being 
 dissolved in sloth and pleasure, that 
 shortly before the period in question, 
 they had maintained an obstinate resist- 
 ance to the Romans (in the war which 
 was terminated by the triumph already 
 mentioned, a.u.c. 473): and the admis- 
 sion of their slaves to civil and military 
 power is related without the circum- 
 stances of exaggeration which appear 
 in the accounts before cited. The ex- 
 pedition of the Romans to their aid 
 appears to have taken place soon after 
 the conclusion of the peace, in the con- 
 sulship of Q. Fabius Gurges, a.u.c. 477 
 or 488$. We may conjecture, therefore, 
 that the Vulsinians were induced by the 
 exigencies of war to admit a portion, 
 
 * Dion. ii. 9. See Miiller's Dorians, b. lii., c. i, § 6, 
 
 t Val. Max. ix. 1. Orosius iv, 5, 
 
 t Flor.l. 21, Zonaras Yiii. 
 
 
 not of their hoA^eh^ slaVeSf «<i©qj X y 
 their villans or sc«;|?ri. tlie farmers and 
 tillers of the soil, the remains of tl^^ 
 ancient population, to the privtl^^s ' 6 
 the ruling class ; and that when the 
 pressure of necessity was less urgent, 
 their selfish and jealous oligarchy re- 
 gretted the concession, and were willing 
 to recover the power of oppression even 
 at the risk of their national independ- 
 ence.* 
 
 The great works of the Etrurian cities 
 could scarcely be built without the com- 
 mand of labour, at the disposal not only 
 of individuals, but of the State, which 
 was held to be composed of the aggre- 
 gate of the nobles. This degradation of 
 a part of the population into a state of 
 servitude and subjection to a ruling 
 class, has generally been the result of 
 foreign conquest. This was the cause 
 of the subjection both of the Helots and 
 Periceci in Lacedsemon, of the Gym- 
 nesii in Argolis, the Penestae in 'Thes- 
 saly, the Pelasgi in Southern Italy .•{• It 
 is probable that the Thetes in Attica 
 were the remains of the older indigenous 
 Pelasgian population reduced by the 
 Ionian conquerors or settlers. We may 
 conclude, without risk of error, that a 
 similar cause operated in Etruria ; and 
 that the Etruscan Penestae or clients or 
 
 * Nieb. pp. 101, 102, ed. 2. pp. 121-123, ed, 3. 
 An event exactly similar appears to have happened 
 at Argos, and to have been disguised by a similar 
 misrepresentation. When six thousand of the Argive 
 citizens had been cut off by the Spartans under 
 Cleomenes, a portion of the subject population ob- 
 tained the rights of citizenship. Herodotus calls 
 these new citizens slaves, and says that they as- 
 sumed by force the direction of the state; but that 
 when a new generation of the citizens grew up, they 
 vindicated their former exclusive privileges, and ex- 
 pelled the slaves : that the slaves took possession of 
 Tiryns, and, after a period, first of amity, then of 
 war, were finally overpowered by the Argives (Herod, 
 vi. 83). This account is inconsistent vvith another 
 passage, in which he describes the diminished body of 
 the Argive citizens as still retaining the sovereignty 
 of their city, though too weak to take apart in the 
 Persian war (vii. 148, 149). Aristotle relates, that 
 the Argives were compelled to receive into their state 
 some of the Periceci (inhabitants of the neighbouring 
 districts, remains of the old Achaean population: 
 Polit. V. 2.). Plutarch gives the same account ; and 
 distinctly asserts that Herodotus was mistaken in 
 speaking of slaves (^oouXoi), for that the new citi- 
 zens were free Periceci (Plut. de Virt. Mul. vol. vii., 
 p. 11, ed. Reiske). Miiller adheres to theaccountof 
 Herodotus, and believes that the city fell for a time 
 into the power of the Gymnesii, the serfs or Helots of 
 Argos, the servile peasantry of the country ; but that 
 afterwards the Argives expelled these, and, in order 
 to restore the numbers of their free population, trans- 
 planted to Argos the inhabitants of the neighbouring 
 dependent towns (see Pausan. viii. 27. 1), to whom 
 alone he allows the name of Periceci. (Dorians, B. 
 i. ch. 8, § 7; B. iii. ch, 4, § 2). Even according to 
 this interpretation there is a near resemblauce be- 
 tween the changes at Argos and at Vulsiniit 
 t See p. 80. 
 
92 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 serfs were Ihe descendants of the Pelas- 
 jrian Tyrscnians overpowered by the 
 Rasenap of the North.* 
 
 If the builders of the walls of Volaterrse 
 and other Etrurian cities were the sub- 
 jiipato;! Pelasjrians, there is a sinjjular 
 coincidence between the fortune of the 
 Italian branch of that great nation, and 
 the tribe which purchased by task-work 
 a settlement in Attica.*!* But it may be 
 that these massy structun^s (at least the 
 more ancient, such as the walls of 
 Cossa) were the work of the Pelasoians 
 in their earlier days, when they existed 
 as a great and independent nation. 
 Ruins of Luildings on the same gigantic 
 scale are found in other countries which 
 were inhabited by the Pelasgians, in 
 Laliuni, in QLnotria, in Greece. It can 
 scarcely be doubted that they were the 
 architects of the Larissa of Argos and 
 of the citadels of Mycenae and Tiryns.;|; 
 In this style of building they would be 
 the teachers as well as the labourers of 
 their Etruscan lords. 
 
 Bui the finer works of what is called 
 Etruscan art furnish a more decisive 
 proof of the presence of a Pelasgian 
 population in Etruria, and of the mode 
 in which they contrii.uted to the civili- 
 zation and intellectual reiinement of 
 their more warlike masters. If we may 
 conjecture that the Pelasgians in Greece 
 communicated the arts of civilization to 
 the Hellenes.^ there is still greater rea- 
 son to conclude that the Tyrsenians in 
 Italy were the instructors of the Ra- 
 senae. In the works of sculpture, and 
 the figured and painted vases, which are 
 found in Etruria, the subjects are very 
 frequently taken from the heroic legends 
 of Greece, from the tales cf 'Jhebes and 
 Troy ; tales which could become thus 
 popular only where an element in some 
 measure Grecian existed in the popula- 
 tion. It is true that the study and imi- 
 tation of Grecian art may have been in- 
 troduced among the Etruscans in the 
 period of their inglorious ease, between 
 the time of their submission to the Ro- 
 mans and their spoliation by Sylla and 
 his military colonies ; and there are 
 many works which seem to be of this 
 date, and which cannot be considered as 
 
 • See Wullei's Dorians, h.iii. cc. 2,3,4. 
 
 f It has been suggested, that the superstition 
 •which pronounced it better that no building s^honld 
 be raised adjacent to the Pelasgic wall at Athens 
 (see T hucyd. ii. 17, ^i'/^atryixov a^yev a/et£/vflv}, was 
 the same which in Italian cities hallowed the' Po- 
 moerium. 
 
 J See Sir VV. Gell'sMorea. § See p. 70. 
 
 original. But there is reason to con- 
 jecture, that some of the most striking 
 of the monuments of Etrurian art are of 
 an older period ; and their resemblance 
 to Grecian works is such as indicates 
 rather a common origin than express 
 imitation.* At the same time we must 
 bear in mind, that there are Etrurian 
 works of manifest antiquity, of which 
 both the subjects and the style seem to 
 be exclusively Etruscan.-!- The sub- 
 jects are taken from Etruscan mytho- 
 logy; and the figures and faces have 
 rather the character of portraits than of 
 ideal forms. If then it be too much to 
 "suppose that the execution of such 
 works was first suggested to the Etrus- 
 cans by their Pelasgian subjects, it may 
 si ill he conjectured that the refinement 
 of the art is due to the more delicate 
 taste and the ancient cultivation of the 
 conquered people. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the origin 
 of the fine arts in Etruria, it is scarcely 
 questionable that the Etruscans re- 
 ceived frorn the Pelasgians the most 
 precious gift of civilization, alphabe- 
 tical writing. The Etruscan language 
 is still utterly unknown, but the charac- 
 ters in which it is written are read with 
 little difticulty, and differ but little from 
 those of the oldest inscriptions which 
 have been discovered in Greece.J They 
 are written from right to left, as the 
 oldest Greeks wrote. Doubled con- 
 sonants are marked by a single letter, as 
 in the most ancient Greek inscriptions; 
 but the omission of the short vowels is 
 a mark that the Etruscan alphabet had 
 departed less from its eastern prototype 
 than the Grecian. It is singular that it 
 wants the vowel o. Many speculators 
 in Etruscan antiquities from the simi- 
 larity of the alphabet to the ancient 
 Greek characters have inferred a cor- 
 responding similarity in the language, 
 not perceiving that there was no neces- 
 sary connexion between the two subjects. 
 To the Oscan nations likewise the Pe- 
 lasgians communicated an alphabet ; to 
 the Latins they gave not only an alpha- 
 bet, but a most important element in 
 their language. That the Etruscan 
 language was different Trom the Pelas- 
 gian is indicated by this circumstance. 
 The most ancient Greeks denoted the 
 
 * e..9. the Pol vpheiuus with /tio eyes hurling btoces 
 at the >hii) of Ulysses: in Micali. 
 
 + See p. 76. 
 
 t The characters are known by means of the 
 names which are frequently attache'd to the figures 
 in the works of art. 
 
HISTORY OF Rome:. 
 
 93 
 
 leadins: mimbers above four (five, ten, 
 a hundred, a thousand) by the initial 
 letters of their names, and on this base 
 erected a rude kind of arithmetical no- 
 tation. The Etruscans did not adopt 
 these symbols, but used peculiar nume- 
 rals. What we call the Roman numerals 
 are in fact Etruscan, and occur fre- 
 quently on their monuments.* 
 
 The Etruscans do not appear ever to 
 have formed a literature. The intellect 
 of the nation was kept down by the cir- 
 cumstance that all learninj^ was in the 
 hands of priests, who were not only an 
 exclusive religious order, but a privileged 
 caste of political rulers, and who made 
 their superiority in knowdedge, or rather 
 the ignorance of tlie people, an instru- 
 ment for upholding their religious and 
 political supremacy. Their chief objects 
 of study were the ceremonies of worship, 
 and the interpretation of portents, espe- 
 cially those which were given by light- 
 ning.'t* Religious ceremonies were artfully 
 attached to every civil action, and in all 
 cases the will of the gods was to be con- 
 sulted. Thus the Ritual Books con- 
 tained directions for the dividing of 
 lands, the founding and building of cities, 
 the consecrating of holy places, the po- 
 litical distribution of a people, and for 
 making war and peace.t The history 
 of the nation was accommodated to an 
 outline, educed by superstition from as- 
 tronomy, by which ten ssecula, or ages, 
 were assigned for the duration of the 
 Etruscan state.§ All this religious learn- 
 ing, as well as the mysteries of augury 
 and aruspicy the Romans sought from 
 the Etruscans ; and Roman youths of 
 the highest rank were sent to receive 
 their education from the priestly nobles 
 of Etruria. 11 The Romans in the first 
 ages of the republic studied the learn- 
 ing and superstitions of Etruria, which 
 they afterwards renounced with con- 
 tempt for the literature and irreligious 
 philosophy of Greece. From the Etrus- 
 cans the Romans derived likewise their 
 most solemn religious games and spec- 
 tacles, H and then- earliest scenic repre- 
 sentations.** These at first consisted 
 only of a species of dancing ; and it is 
 remarkable, that they were introduced at 
 Rome as a mode of rehgious expiation. 
 
 • Nieb. p. 112, ed. 2. p. 134, ed. 3. 
 ■\ Diod. Sic. V. 40. t Festus, v. Rituales Libri. 
 
 § See p. .58, note. 
 B Cic. De Div. i, 41, De Legg. ii. 9. Li v. ix, 36. Va). 
 Max. i. 1. 2. 
 
 ^1 Ludi Circenses. Liv. i, 35. See p. 19. 
 ** Liv. vii. 2. 
 
 to procure the removal of a pestilence. 
 The peculiar instrument of Etruscan 
 music was the flute. The trumpet also 
 the Greeks considered as an invention 
 of the Tyrrhenians or Etruscans. 
 
 There were some peculiarities in the 
 religious doctrines of the Etruscans, be- 
 sides their divination and ceremonial 
 worship, which are worthy of notice. 
 They believed that the universe was the 
 growth of six thousand years, and that 
 six thousand years would elapse before 
 its final destruction *. Eight days 
 made the Etruscan week ; and they con- 
 ceived that the duration of the world was 
 divided into eisfht periods, the beginning 
 and end of which were marked by won- 
 derful signs in earth or heaven. To 
 each of these great days a different race 
 of men was assigned. At each change 
 the dispensations of the gods to men 
 changed also. One race was blessed 
 with their especial favour, and enabled 
 to divine by manifest portents and un- 
 erring rules : from another race the 
 knowledsre of the future would be with- 
 held f . The Etruscans, doubtless, con- 
 ceived themselves to be the most favoured 
 people of the favovu-ed day. As ten 
 saecula were appointed for the life of 
 their nation, so we may conclude that ten 
 ssecula were given to each of the eight 
 great days. The Etruscan soothsayers 
 announced the approaching end of one 
 of these periods in the consulship of 
 Sylla (a.u.c. 666. b.c. 87.) This of 
 course was the period of their own 
 nation ; and hence v/e are enabled to 
 conjecture the degree of antiquity which 
 they assigned to themselves. In one 
 point their theology bore a resemblance 
 to that of the Scandinavian nations, for 
 they believed that the gods themselves 
 would perish in the final destruction of 
 the universe;^. One object of their re- 
 ligious faith is presented in a striking 
 manner in their works of art. They 
 believed that each man was attended by 
 a i:ood and an evil genius ; and that 
 after his death one of these took pos- 
 session of his soul, and conducted him 
 on horseback to the abode of the dead.»^S 
 
 The Etruscans, inhabiting a rich 
 country, with a subject population en- 
 gaged in commerce, lived in ease and 
 plenty, which must have formed a strong 
 contrast with the original habits of their 
 
 * Suidas, V. Tvppnviei. f Plut. Syll. c. 7. 
 
 t Varro iu Arnob. and PI. Lutat. on Statius ; cited 
 by Micali, ii. p. 46. 
 § Serv. on Mn. vi. 743. Micali's Plates, 26 &52. 
 
94 
 
 HISTORY OP ROME. 
 
 nation, when it first issued from the 
 Raitian Alps. Their taste for magni- 
 ficence and luxury seems to have grown, 
 while they lived in ignominious indo- 
 lence under the dominion of Rome. 
 Their plentiful feasts provoked the un- 
 friendly observation of the spare-feeding 
 Greeks.* From the representations in 
 their works of art we can discover that 
 their women graced their banquets with 
 their presence, and took a part in so- 
 ciety, and enjoyed a freedom and a re- 
 spect, more analogous to the considera- 
 tion in which the ladies of the land were 
 held among the Homeric heroes or the 
 aristrocratic Dorians, than to the unin- 
 tellectual condition to which the house- 
 hold drudges in the democratic states 
 of Greece were degraded. The liberty 
 thus enjoyed by the female sex, which 
 at Athens was allowed to none but pro- 
 fessed courtesans, was doubtless the 
 foundation of the scandalous and grossly 
 exaggerated statements of Etruscan li- 
 centiousness, which Athenaeus has copied 
 from Theopompus.t It is probable, 
 that in old times the character of the 
 wife of the Etruscan Lucumo was as 
 pure and honourable as that of the Ro- 
 man matron. Corruption of private 
 morals may have attended national de- 
 generacy ; but the picture drawn by 
 Theopompus was never equalled in Ro- 
 man manners, except in the courts of 
 the mcst abandoned of the Emperors.J 
 
 (Appendix to § 5 &c ^ 6.) The theory 
 which has been presented of the origin, 
 early history, and mutual relations of 
 the Pelasgians and Etruscans, is almost 
 entirely that of Niebuhr. The historian 
 Miiller, in his work on the Etruscans, 
 has laid down an hypothesis altogether 
 different, and has adhered much more 
 closely to the vulgar opinions of anti- 
 quity. That the reader may be fully 
 aware how little certainty can be attained 
 in these researches, and what different 
 views of the same subject may be taken 
 by men of profound learning, we shall 
 subjoin a summary of Miiller's theory. 
 He conceives that the Pelasgians, who 
 were compelled to migrate from Attica, 
 and to betake themselves to a piratical 
 life, settled for a time on the coast of 
 Lydia, near the city of Tyrrha (the city 
 of Gyges, Etym. M. v. tC^xwos, where 
 read Avliaxr^s for At/x/«x?;). Hence they 
 
 • Diod. Sic. V. 40. t Athen. xii. p. 517. 
 
 i Nieb. p. 117, ed. 2. p. 139, ed. 3. 
 
 acquired the name of Tyrrheni, which 
 they afterwards communicated to other 
 tribes of their race. The original natives 
 of the inland country were called Tor- 
 ihebi from the same city (see Note, 
 p. 72, col. ].). The Ionian migration 
 dislodged the Pelasgians, while the in- 
 digenous Torrhebi remained in the 
 country. The outcasts formed sundry 
 little settlements on the coasts of the 
 yEgaean ; among the rest, one on the 
 l)eninsula of Athos. To these Tyrseni 
 t)f Athos he believes Herodotus to 
 allude in the litigated passage, i. 57 
 (see Note, p. 74, col. 2) : but that, in 
 consequence of the corruption which 
 their dialect had suffered from their 
 residence in Lydia, he appealed for an 
 example of the pure Pelasgic language 
 to a city Creston, which Miiller con- 
 ceives to have existed in the country 
 called Crestonice, traversed by the march 
 of Xerxes, south of the Crestonaen 
 Thracians (Herod, vii. 124.). Thus he 
 lejects altogether the reading and inter- 
 l)retation of Dionysius ; and believes that 
 when Hellanicus spoke of the occupa- 
 tion of Croton or Cortona by the Pelas- 
 gians, he confounded them with the 
 indigenous Etruscans, who made Cor- 
 tona their strong hold. To return to 
 the Tyrsenians : he supposes the main 
 body of them to have turned their course 
 southward, and to have maintained 
 themselves for a time on the coasts of 
 Laconia. (The stories which speak of 
 the Tyrrhenians on this coast Niebuhr 
 conceives to have arisen from a con- 
 fusion of the earlier tradition, which 
 represented the Minyae, expelled by the 
 Tyrsenians from Lemnos, as taking 
 refuge in Laconia.) They then turned 
 westward, and established themselves on 
 the southern coasts of Etruria, in the 
 neighbourhood of Caere and Tarquinii. 
 Here they found the Tuscans already 
 settled ;' and having gained an indepen- 
 dent footing, and for a time even a 
 supremacy, among them, communicated 
 to them many arts of peace and war. 
 The Tuscan hero, Tarchun, is nothing 
 more than Tyrrhenus contracted and 
 aspirated according to the fashion of the 
 Tuscan. Through these Pelasgians the 
 Tuscans derived the Lydian and Phry- 
 gian flute, and the trumpet, which were 
 both under the especial patronage of the 
 Etruscan goddess, Menerfa, as well as 
 of the Grecian Athene, with whom she 
 was identified. The Tyrrhenians and 
 Tuscans received alphabetical writing by 
 
HISTORY OF HOME* 
 
 means of their commercial intercourse 
 with Greece ; as is signitied in the story 
 of Demaratus (seep. 35, col. 2). Besides 
 these Tyrrhenian Pelasgians, . several 
 nations had been settled in Italy lon^ 
 before their arrival, which, thous'h they 
 were not known among one another by 
 the name of Pelasgians, were yet so 
 closely allied to the Pelasgians of Greece 
 in language and character, that the 
 Greeks, when they became acquainted 
 with them, described them by the same 
 name. The question then arose, from 
 which of the earlier seats of the Pelas- 
 gians they had come ; and they were 
 generally traced to Thessaly. This 
 hypothesis was even extended to the 
 Tyrrhenians, though the tradition of 
 their Lydian origin was not lost. More- 
 over, Hellanicus applied to the Tyrrhe- 
 nians a native legend of the Italian 
 Etruscans, which described their hero, 
 Nanas or, Nanus, as issuing from the 
 fastness of Cortona, and subduing the 
 whole of Etruria. (Compare Hellanicus 
 in Dion. i. 28, with Lycophron, v. 1244, 
 &c.) 
 
 In Campania, the name Tyrrheni and 
 Tyrrhenian may everywhere be applied 
 to the Etruscans. Cato allows too short 
 a time for the growth of Vulturnum. 
 They probably sent their first colonies 
 to this coast by sea ; and these were 
 afterwards reinforced by new detach- 
 ments from the parent state, which 
 came by land, and though vastly exag- 
 gerated in the Cuman legend, placed 
 that city in great danger. 
 
 § 7. The Sabines inhabited a narrow 
 tract of mountainous country, which 
 abutted on the Tiber between the rivers 
 Nar and Anio, and stretched more than 
 a hundred miles in a north-east direc- 
 tion, till it was bounded by the main 
 ridge of the Apennines, at the distance 
 of about thirty-two miles from the Adri- 
 atic Sea.* They were a very ancient 
 race ; and Strabo accounted them indi- 
 genous. According to Zenodotus the 
 Troezenian, t they were originally a 
 branch of the Umbrian nation, and 
 dwelt about the district of Reate ; but 
 being driven thence by the Pelasgians, 
 they came into the land which they in- 
 habited in after times, and were there 
 called Sabines. This account not only 
 appears probable from the neighbour- 
 hood of the Sabines and Urabrians, 
 but is confirmed by the mention of 
 
 * Strato, V. 3, 1 ; Dion. ii. 49, f In Dion. ib. 
 
 words common to the Sabine and Um- 
 brian languages.* Cato said nothing of 
 their descent, but reported that they 
 took their name from an indigenous 
 deity, Sabus, the son of Sancus ; t that 
 the first seat of their tribe was a village 
 named Testrina, near the city Amiter- 
 num, among the highest Apennines ; 
 that thence they directed their attacks 
 against the territory of Reate, which 
 was then shared by the Aborigines (Pe- 
 lasgians ),% and took their chief city Co- 
 tynae or (Ilutiliae; and so gradually ex- 
 tended themselves, and founded Cures 
 and other towns. § The account of 
 Varro is very similar : that the Sabines 
 from Amiternum attacked the Abori- 
 gines, and took their mother city Lista ; 
 that the Aborigines took refuge with 
 the people of Reate ; and after carrying 
 on a war in vain for the recovery of 
 their ancient country, dedicated it to 
 the gods, and pronounced all who 
 should reap its fruit accursed. || The 
 legend of Varro, by which the mythic 
 founder of Cures was derived from the 
 Aborigines of Reate, has been told be- 
 fore. ^ In comparing these accounts 
 of Cato and Varro it is necessary to 
 bear in mind, that Cato applied the 
 name Aborigines to the Pelasgian race, 
 while Varro seems to apply it to a native 
 Italian race, mountaineers of the Apen- 
 nines, whom we may safely consider as 
 Opicans.** 
 
 If it be allowable to form a theory 
 from these obscure indications, we may 
 conjecture that the Sabines were Um- 
 brians, who anciently bordered upon the 
 Opicans ; that they were separated from 
 the main body of their nation, and 
 driven into the mountains by the con- 
 quests of the Pelasgians ; that, after a 
 time, they became assailants in their 
 turn, and descended from their fast- 
 nesses, and attacked both the Pelasgians 
 and Opicans, and the communitieswhich 
 had been formed by the union of these 
 two races. 
 
 In fact, from the union of these two 
 races sprung the Latins ; 'l-f' and accord- 
 ingly, as soon as the Sabines are men- 
 tioned in history, we find them pressing 
 upon the Latins, and extending them- 
 selves down the left bank of the Tiber 
 towards the sea. At the time of the 
 foundation of Rome, and even in the 
 
 * e. g, dims. Serv. on JEn. iii. 235. 
 
 + SeeSil. Ital. viii. 422. t ^ee p. 74. 
 
 § Dion. ii. 49. |1 Dion. i. 14. 
 
 ^ See p. 35; and Dion. ii. 48. 
 
 ** See next section, § 8. jf See § 10. 
 
96 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 rei?n of the elder Tarquin, we read of 
 Latin cities north of the Anio, Caenina, 
 Fi<len«, Crustumerium, N omentum, 
 Ficulea, Corniculum.* But in the 
 time of Tarquin we find also a Sabine 
 settlement south of the Anio, at Colla- 
 tia ; t and in the first years of the re- 
 public another at Re^lUura ; % and we 
 know likewise, that at a very early pe- 
 riod the Sabines established themselves 
 on two of the hills, which were after- 
 wards included in the circuit of Rome. 
 The popular legend makes this settle- 
 ment tiie consequence of the war of 
 Tatius with Romulus. ^S Wars with 
 the Sabines form a great part of the 
 early history of Rome;|| that is, they 
 were a main field for the heroic ballads 
 and le2:ends of the early Romans. It is 
 manifestly the imagination of the poets 
 which bedecked the army of Tatius with 
 golden bracelets ; ^ and which drew 
 such pictures of the wealth of the whole 
 nation, that Fabius affirmed that the 
 Romans first knew what wealth was 
 when they became masters of this peo- 
 ple :** for, according to all historical 
 tradition, the Sabines were famed for 
 hardihood and spare living. The Roman 
 wars of the Sabines cease after the year 
 cf the city 306. The energies of the na- 
 tion had found another vent. ft 
 
 The Sabines were remarkable for 
 being the parent stock of many colonies, 
 which established themselves as inde- 
 pendent nations. It was a custom of 
 the old Italian tribes, as a mode either 
 of thanksgiving or of deprecation, to 
 devote to some god all the increase of a 
 year. Such a season was called a 
 *' Sacred Spring." All the young of their 
 flocks and herds were sacrificed or re- 
 deemed ; all the children then born to 
 them, when they were grown up to man- 
 hood, were sent forth from their home, 
 never to return, but to seek for them- 
 selves a new country ; and it was com- 
 monly believed that the god to whom 
 they were consecrated, guided them to 
 their destined seat.'j:$ Such, according 
 to tradition, was the origin of many of 
 the Sabine colonies. 
 
 It is probable that the earliest settle- 
 ments of the Sabines were the four 
 cantons of the Vestini, the Marrucini, 
 the Peligni, and the Marsi, of which the 
 
 • Dion, ii. 53, iii. 50 ; Liv. i. 38. f Liv. ib. 
 
 t Liv. ii. 16; seeNieb. p. 551, note 1239, ed. 3. 
 i See p. 10. B See pp. 15, 18. &c. 
 
 i[ See p. 9. •* Strabo. v. 3, 1. 
 
 ++ Nieb. p. 82,ed.2; p.lOl.ed. 3. 
 tt Dion. i. l(j : Liv. xxii. 9, xxxiii. 44; Festus, vv. 
 Ver sacrum and Matnertini. 
 
 tiiree former were on the eastern side 
 of the Apennines, the Marsi on their 
 very ridge, and on their western slope, 
 about tJie lake Fucinus. The Sabine 
 origin of the Peligni is distinctly asserted 
 by Ovid, himself a Pelignian.* There 
 is proof of a similar affinity of the 
 Marsi,t and of the connexion of the 
 Marsi with the Marrucini.:|: That the 
 Vestini were of kindred race is indi- 
 cated by their being commonly named 
 together with the other three tribes, 
 and by their being leagued with them 
 in a defensive federation.^ Strabo names 
 the Vestini, Marsi, Peligni, and Mar- 
 rucini, in conjunction with the Fren- 
 tani, a kindred tribe, a branch of the 
 Samnites, lying more to the west on the 
 coast of tlie Adriatic Sea.jl Niebuhr 
 has shown with great ingenuity and 
 probability, that four was the number 
 which regulated the division of the 
 nations of Sabine origin.lT Accordingly 
 we find the four cantons of the Vestini, 
 Marsi, Peligni, and Marrucini united in 
 one league a.u.c. 430.** But it seems 
 as if the Vestini had separated them- 
 selves from the confederacy, and the 
 Frentani had been admitted to supply 
 their place ; for in a.u.c. 449, the Mar- 
 rucini, Marsi, Peligni, and Frentani, 
 sent ambassadors to Rome, and made 
 peace in common ;•}-}• but the Vestini 
 maintained their hostility for two years 
 more, and made a treaty singly in 
 A.u.c. 45 1.$$ In enumerating the forces 
 of the allies of Rome in the second 
 Punic war, Polybius states in one sum, 
 those of the Marsi, Marrucini, Frentani, 
 and Vestini. 
 
 To the north of the above mentioned 
 district, on the coast of the Adriatic 
 Sea, lay Picenura, a narrow strip of 
 country about ninety miles in length, 
 between the rivers Matrinus and ^sis. 
 The Picenteswere a Sabine colony, sent 
 out in -consequence of a vow of a sacred 
 spring, and said to have been guided to 
 this land by a woodpecker (picas), a 
 bird sacred to Mars.§§ In this region 
 they had to contend with the Umbrians, 
 who had wrested it from Liburni and 
 Siculi.llll 
 
 • Fast. iii. 95. 
 
 + Nieb. pp. 79, 80, ed. 2. pp. 98. 99, ed. 3. 
 i Catp in Nieb. ib. 
 § Liv. viii. 29. Ennlusin Nieb. 
 II Strabo, v. 4, 2. 
 
 ^ Nieb. vol. ii. pp. 84, 85. translation of Messrs. 
 Hare and Thirlwall. 
 ♦* Liv. viii. 29. f f Liv. ix. 45. 
 
 tt Liv. X. 3. 
 
 i § Strabo, V. 4, 1. Plin. N. H. iii. 13, (IS). 
 y| See p. 68. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 97 
 
 The Herniei, who inhabited the 
 mountainous district between the upper 
 part of the course of the Liris, and its 
 branch stream the Trerus, are said to 
 have been a Sabine or Marsian colony; 
 and their name is derived from a Sabine 
 and Marsic word, hernce, rocks * By 
 Hyginus they were said to be Pelas- 
 gians.t It is probable that their ter- 
 ritory was occupied in an early age 
 by Pelascrians, and that the Marsians 
 wrested it from them. The Herniei 
 were anciently leagued on equal terms 
 with the Romans and Latins, a con- 
 federacy of which the manifest object 
 was mutual defence against the Volsci 
 and ^qui.'j: The league was formed 
 by the consul Spurius Cassius, a.u.c. 
 268 (B.C. 485).^ The Roman Annals, 
 however, affirmed that a similar relation 
 subsisted under the last king ; and that 
 the Herniei took a part in the Latin 
 holidays, the solemn festival of Jupiter 
 Latiaris, which was held upon the Al- 
 ban Mount. II Of the forty- seven cities 
 which partook of these sacred rites, if 
 Rome be esteemed one, and the tliirty 
 Latin towns be reckoned, sixteen will 
 remain for the Herniei, which allotment 
 agrees with the quadripartite division of 
 tiie Sabine nations which has been men- 
 tioned above.^ The chief city of the 
 Herniei was Anagnia ; and the tradition 
 that Oppius of Tusculum, and Cispius of 
 Anagnia, encamped upon the two sum- 
 mits of the Esquiline, which thencefor- 
 ward bove their names, to cover Rome, 
 while Tullus Hostilius was besieging 
 Veil, may be considered as intimating a 
 l)elief, that the threefold league of the 
 Romans, Latins and Herniei existed 
 even in that early age.** 
 
 But the greatest people who derived 
 their origin from the Sabines, were the 
 Samnites. The main body of the na- 
 tion dwelt on the south-east of the 
 Marsi, and held the high country of the 
 Apennines from the sources of the river 
 Sagrus to the point where the chain of 
 mountains divides itself into the two 
 ranges which run out into the two pen- 
 insulas of Southern Italy. The tradi- 
 tion of their origin was, that the Sabines, 
 being engaged for a long time in war 
 with the Umbrians, vowed the produce 
 
 * Serv. and Schol. Veron.on ^n. vii. 684. 
 f Macron, v. 18. 
 
 X SeeNieb. vol. ii. p. 31. \ Liv. ii. 41. 
 
 I See I). 24, andDlpn. iv. 49. 
 \ Nieb. vol.ii. p. 83. 
 
 *'* Varioiii Ftstiis, v. Sf-pthiontium. See above, 
 p. 15, and Nieb. vol. ii. p. 83, 
 
 of a year, according to the custom which 
 has been already noticed. They were 
 victorious ; and, as they thought, ful- 
 filled their vow by sacrificing the in- 
 crease of their flocks, and consecrating 
 th^ fruits of the earth. But a plague of 
 barrenness followed, and they were told 
 that they were bound to devote their 
 ' children also. So they consecrated them 
 to Mars ; and when they were grown up 
 to manhood, sent them forth as a colony. 
 A bull was the guide divinely appointed 
 for them ; and he lay not down to rest, 
 till he had led them into the land of the 
 Opici. This people dwelt in villages; 
 and the Sabine youth cast them out, 
 and settled themselves in their place, and 
 sacrificed the bull to Mars.* This 
 legend is commemorated on the coins 
 of Samnium, which bear the figure of 
 a recumbent bull.f 
 
 The historical part of the tradition, 
 which names the Opici as the people 
 overpowered and dislodged by the Sam- 
 nites, is worthy of attention. In ac- 
 cordance with this statement we find an 
 account, that the country about Bene- 
 ventum$ was one of the earliest seats 
 of the Ausonians (who will be shown to 
 be the same race as the Opicans), and 
 that the whole country between the 
 Apennines and the lower sea was an- 
 ciently called Ausonia.^ 
 
 The first settlement of the Samnites 
 is said to have been a strong hold, called 
 Samnium, placed in the mountains be- 
 tween the sources of the Sagrus and 
 the Vulturnus.il 
 
 The Samnites, from their descent, 
 were also named Sabelli.*?! The epi- 
 thet Sabeliian is coupled with Marsian 
 by Horace and Juvenal.** Niebuhr 
 has adopted the term Sabeliian as a 
 convenient general appellation for all 
 the nations sprung from the Sabines. 
 
 The chief body of the Samnite nation 
 dwelt in the mountainous district, which 
 has been described above: but one of 
 their tribes, the Frentani, possessed the 
 more level country on both sides of the 
 river Sagrus, and along the coast of the 
 Adriatic sea. -M- It was with a re- 
 
 * Strabo, v. 4, 2. " Ab Sabinis orti SamnitCa." 
 Varro, L. L. vi. (vii). 3. 
 
 t MIcali, P. I. c. 15. 
 
 i A chief town of the Samnites : Liv. ix. 27. 1 
 
 § See below, § 8. 
 
 j) Festus and Paulas, v. Samnites. See Cramer's 
 Italy.vol. ii. p. 227. 
 
 «5 Strabo, 1. c, Plin. iii. 12 (17), Liv. viii. 1, x. 19. 
 
 ** Epod. xvii. 28, 29. Sat. iii. 169. 
 
 i-t Strabo, v. 4. 2. . 
 
 II 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ftrenee to this tribe that Scylax stated, 
 that the Samnites extended from sea to 
 sea,* The Frentani were divided from 
 the Daunian Apulians on the south by 
 the river Tifernus. On tlie northern 
 side their nei2:hbours on the coast wejre 
 the IMarrucini; in the inland country 
 the Pelififni. With these and the kin- 
 dred SabeUian tribes we have seen that 
 they were closely connected. 
 
 Besides the Frentani, we find distinct 
 mention of three other tribes of the Sam- 
 nites : the Caraceni.t the most northern, 
 and therefore evidently the most ancient, 
 portion of the nation, dwelling about 
 the sources of the Sagrus and the old 
 hill fortress of Samnium ; and then, in 
 succession towards the south, the Sam- 
 nites Pentri.t and the Samnites Cau- 
 dini.^ Still further to the south, about 
 Beneventum,!! dwelt theHirpini, a peo- 
 ple, the offspring of the Samnites, who 
 are sometimes considered as a Saranite 
 tribe, sometimes as an independent na- 
 tion. They were a colony, sent out in 
 fulfilment of a vow of a sacred spring ; 
 and they are said to have taken their 
 name from a wolf (in the Sabine and 
 Saranite language, hiifus), which was 
 the guide assigned to them by the 
 god.^ It is possible that the Frentani, 
 the Caraceni, the Pentri, and the Cau- 
 dini, were the four constituent tribes of 
 the Samnite nation, according to the 
 principle noticed by Niebuhr ; and that, 
 when the Frentani connected themselves 
 with the Marsian confederacy, the Hir- 
 pini supplied their place. That the qua- 
 dripartite division entered into the con- 
 stitution of the Samnites appears from 
 the facts, that four hundred men were 
 the complement of a Samnite cohort, 
 four thousand of their legion, and four 
 legions of their army.** 
 
 We have already mentioned the con- 
 quests of the Samnites in Campania. 
 We may be sure that they had become 
 masters of a large portion of the coun- 
 try, before they forced the Etruscans to 
 share with them the city and territory 
 of Vulturnum. Their admission was 
 soon followed by the massacre of the 
 old inhabitants.'M- For this atrocious 
 
 enterprise the Samnites prepared them- 
 selves by rites of peculiar solemnity, in 
 which sacrifices were performed within 
 a secret tabernacle, and their soldiers 
 were introduced one by one, and com- 
 pelled, under fear of instant death, to 
 swear upon the altar, and to bind them- 
 selves under a curse, that they would 
 follow their commanders whithersoever 
 they led, and slay any who fled in bat- 
 tle.* The people which was formed by 
 the mixture of the Sabellian conquerors 
 with the native Oscan population and 
 the remains of the Pelasgians (and, 
 perhaps, of the Etruscan settlers), was 
 known by the name of the Campa- 
 nians. The first rise of this people is 
 assigned by Diodorus to 01. 85. 3.t 
 This was probably the time of the be- 
 ginning of the Saranite conquests in 
 this quarter. Three years after the 
 Etruscan Vulturnum had been thus 
 seized, and become the capital of the 
 Campanians, under the name of Capua, 
 they attacked the Grecian city of Cu- 
 mae.J They defeated the Cu means in 
 a bloody battle, took the city by siege, 
 and plundered it; enslaved the inha- 
 bitants, and seized their women. § This 
 conquest made them the undisputed 
 masters of the country : but they were 
 soon estranged from their parent stock ; 
 and within eighty years we find the 
 Campanians seeking protection from 
 Rome against the aggressions of the 
 Samnites, II and thus giving occasion 
 for the series of wars in which the Sam- 
 nites and the Romans contended for the 
 empire of Italy. 
 
 The Samnites, who made conquests 
 in the more southern parts of Campa- 
 nia, retained their national name, and are 
 distinguished by Scylax from the Cam- 
 panians. These were the Samnites on 
 the Tyrrhene sea, as the Frentani were 
 the Sampites on the Adriatic.^ Strabo 
 likevk^ise speaks of some towns as Cara- 
 panian, and some as Samnite ; and he 
 specifies Marcina on the bay of Psestum 
 as a city founded by the Tyrrheni or 
 Pelasgians, but occupied by the Sam- 
 nites. 
 
 But the most powerful of all the tribes 
 
 * See Nieb. p. 74, note 255, ed. 2; p. 93, n. 293. 
 ed3. 
 
 i Zonaras, viii. 7, and Ptolem. in Cramei's Italy, 
 vol. ii. p. 226. 
 
 t Uv. ix. 31. § LW. xxiii.41. | Plin. iii. II (16). 
 
 % StrabD,v. 4. 12. For the word hirpus see also 
 ScTv. on *-n. xi. 7S6. 
 
 *• Nieb. vol. ii. pp. 83. 
 
 if According toLiv. if. 37, in a.TT.c. 332 (b.c. 421), 
 
 * Liv. X. 38. 
 
 t i. e. A u.c, 315, B.C. 438; Died. Sic. xli. 31. 
 
 i According to Liv. iv. 44, in a.u.c. 335 (b.c. 418). 
 The Chronology of Diodorus places this event in 01. 
 89. 4, i. e. A u.c. 332. Diod. Sic. xii. 76. 
 
 i Diod. and Strabo, v. 4. 4. 
 
 I A.u.c. 412, Liv. vii. 29, &c. 
 
 % See above. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 sa 
 
 which issued from Samniiim directed 
 their course still farther towards the 
 south, and crossed the Silarus. These 
 were the Lucanians. They first spread 
 themselves over the inland country, 
 which was inhabited by the Chonians 
 and CEnotrians, and probably some 
 remains of the Opicans or Ausonians. 
 Thence they descended upon the Grecian 
 cities on the coasts of the Tyrrhene 
 sea; carried their arms over all the 
 south of Italy; and finally established 
 themselves in the district, which is in- 
 tercepted on the west between the ri- 
 vers Silarus and Laus, on the east 
 between the Bradanus and the Crathis, 
 that is between Metapontum and Thu- 
 rii.* It is probable that the Samnites 
 spread themselves beyond the Silarus, 
 nearly at the same time at which they 
 descended into Campania. The earliest 
 mention of the Lucanians in history is 
 at a time when the Spartan exile Clean- 
 dridas, father of Gylippus, led the forces 
 of Thurii ao;ainst them.t Now we know 
 that Cleandridas was in the service of 
 Thurii at the time when the colony of 
 Heracleia was given up to the Taren- 
 tines, 01. 86. 4, (b.c. 433, a.u.c.320).$ 
 Forty years afterwards, in 01. 96. 4. 
 (B.C. 393), the Italiot Greeks found it 
 necessary to make a defensive league 
 against the Lucanians: and so great 
 was their dread of this barbarous enemy, 
 that death was denounced against the 
 generals of any city, which should fail 
 to give help when called upon.^S In 01. 
 97. 3. (B.C. 390), the Lucanians over- 
 ran the territory of Thurii ; and after- 
 wards defeated the Thurians in a murde- 
 rous battle near their own city Laus, 
 against which the Greeks had rashly ad- 
 vanced. || Their force in this battle was 
 34,000 fighting men. After this victory 
 they extended their conquests towards 
 the south ; so that the younger Diony- 
 sius even proposed to draw a wall across 
 the isthmus between the Scylletic and 
 Hipponiat bays, in order that by sacri- 
 ficing the Greek cities without this line, 
 he. might secure his own dominion over 
 those within.1I But within a short time 
 the Lucanians pushed beyond this limit, 
 and Scylax assigns to them the whole 
 south-western peninsula of Italy, all the 
 coast from the Silarus round to Thurii. 
 
 . * Strabo, vi. 1.— 1. and 4. 
 
 ■i Polysenus, ii. 10. 2 and 4. 
 
 rt Strabo. vi. 1. 14. Diod. Sic. xli. 36. 
 
 i Diod.Sic. xiv. 91 and 101. 
 
 I Diod. Sic. xiv. 101. Strabo, vi. 1. 1. See Nieb 
 note 255, ed, 2. note 303, ed. 3. 
 
 H Strabo, vi. 1, 10. 
 
 It appears that Petelia was at one'time 
 their chief city.* 
 
 But their empire was speedily abridged. 
 In 01. 106. L (B.C. 356), the Bruttians 
 appeared as a people.-}- According to 
 the Lucanian tradition, they were shep- 
 herds, slaves of the Lucanians, who as- 
 serted their liberty. From the mixture 
 of Greek and Oscan in their language,t 
 it is evident that a population in some 
 measure Greek, domestic slaves from 
 the ruined Greek cities, and perhaps 
 their Pelasgian serfs,§ was mingled with 
 Oscan and Sabellian freebooters. Their 
 very name was a name of reproach, and 
 branded them as runaway slaves. How- 
 ever, the Bruttians took their place 
 among nations, and wrested from the 
 Lucanians the country south of the Laus 
 and the Crathis. || The Lucanians com- 
 pensated this loss by encroaching on the 
 territory of Tarentum, moving eastward 
 along the coast of the Tarentine gulf, till 
 their empire was extended from Thurii 
 to Metapontum. 
 
 Of the political institutions of the Lu- 
 canians we know only that their govern- 
 ment was popular ; but that, like other 
 barbarous tribes, they chose a common 
 leader in their wars, whom Greek wri- 
 ters called a King.^ Their children were 
 taken from home at an early age, to be 
 trained by the state to the endurance of 
 toils and hardships.** 
 
 The Sabellians spread even beyond 
 the limits of Italy : for the Mamertini, 
 who passed into Sicily, and after serv- 
 ing as mercenary soldiers, seized the 
 city of Messana (about B.C. 285), were 
 a Samnite colony, sent out by avow of 
 a sacred spring, and named from the 
 god Mamers or Mars, to whom they 
 were dedicated.-fi' 
 
 From the review which we have taken 
 of the Sabellian nations, it is clear, that, 
 if they had remained united as one peo- 
 ple, they would have been the masters 
 of Italy, and might have gained that 
 sovereignty of the world which was at- 
 tained by the Romans. We shall see 
 hereafter, that Rome, in the height of 
 her power, and when they had been for 
 many years her subject allies, was com- 
 pelled by the Social or Italian war$$ to 
 admit them to all the rights of Romans. 
 But the love of independence, which 
 made every little tribe a separate state, 
 
 • * strabo, vi. 1. 3. ■)■ Diod. Sic. xvi. 15. 
 
 t Festiis, V. Bilingues Brutates. 
 § Seep. 81. II Strabo, vi. 1. 4. 
 
 •^ Strabo, vi. 1. 3. •* Justin, xxjii, 1. 
 tt Festus, V. Mamertini. 
 $t See Outline of Gen. Hist. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 and caused every colony to fall loose 
 from its mother country, rendered theiu 
 incapable of sustained conquest and ex- 
 tended cmnire. 
 
 We sliall however form an exasf^e- 
 rated notion of the growth of the Sabine 
 stock, if we conceive that all who are 
 called Sabellians were descendants of 
 the genume Sabines. All the ancient 
 writers, whose authority is of any 
 weight, distinguish the Sabines and the 
 Sabellian tribes from the Opicans or 
 Oscans. Yet it appears that the dialect 
 of the Samnites was Uscan * The Os- 
 can was the lansrua2:e of Campania,*}* 
 and the Oscan, which formed part of the 
 language of the Bruttians,J can have 
 come to them only from the Sabellian 
 Lucanians. The probable solution of 
 this difficulty is that the Opicans or Os- 
 cans, whom the Samnites found both in 
 Samnium and in Campania, were not 
 expelled by them, but were mixed with 
 their conquerors in so great a proportion, 
 as to make their common language more 
 akin to the Oscan than to the original Sa- 
 bine. Varro, even where he distinguishes 
 the languages, testifies that such a mix- 
 ture had taken place.§ Thus the French 
 imparted their language to the Nor- 
 mans. We must remember also that it 
 is uncertain whether the Sabine and 
 Oscan were originally kindred tongues, 
 or alien each from the other.|| 
 
 This account of the Sabellian nations 
 has led us beyond our proposed object, 
 a review of the population of Italy be- 
 fore the foundation of Rome, and during 
 its kingly government, into a period 
 which is strictly historical. But the sur- 
 vey of migrations and conquests, of 
 which the stages are marked and the 
 progress measured, will help to clear 
 our conceptions of those earlier move- 
 ments, which are imperfectly discerned 
 in an obscure antiquity. 
 
 § 8. We pass now to the survey of 
 the Ausonian nations ; and under this 
 name we include the race more com- 
 monly called Opican or Oscan. We 
 learn from Festus, that the national ap- 
 pellative Oscus was a recent and soft- 
 ened form of the ancient name Opscus, 
 
 * Men skilled in the Oscan tongue are sent as spies 
 into the Samnite camp. Liv. x. iQ. 
 
 ^ Meddix was the name of a magistrate among 
 the Oscans : Festus. Medixtuticus was the title of 
 the chief magistrate of the Campanians. Liv. xxiii. 
 35. xxvi. 6 
 
 % Festus, V. Bilingues Brutates. 
 
 § Quae (Sabina) usque radices in Oscam lingaam 
 egit. De L. L. vi. 3. 
 
 J See Nieb. p. 54, ed. 2, pp. 65, 67, ed. 3. 
 
 and that Opscus and Oscus were the 
 same as Opicus. By Aristotle, who fol- 
 lowed the Syracusan historian Antio- 
 chus, we are' told, that the Opici, who 
 dwelt beyond the (Enotri towards Tyr- 
 rhenia, were called by the additional 
 name of Ausones* In order therefore 
 to avoid the confusion which has been 
 caused by the extension of the term Os- 
 can to the language of the mixed Sabel- 
 lian nations, the name Ausonian has 
 been used in the summary of this chap- 
 ter as the a;eneric appellation of certain 
 tribes in the middle and south of Italy, 
 distiniruished as indigenous from the 
 Pelasgian races, the Tyrrhenians and 
 ffinotrians, but differing: nevertheless 
 from the Umbrians and Sabines. Nie- 
 buhr, it is true, conceives that Aristotle 
 meant to speak of the Opici as a race, the 
 Ausones as a particular branch of them. 
 Such a statement would have been cor- 
 rect ill the time of Aristotle, and per- 
 haps in that of Antiochus; but the 
 ■words of the };hilosopher do not neces- 
 sarily convey this notion. It is rather 
 probable that Ausones was a proper na- 
 tional name ; Opici only a descriptive 
 term in the native language of the people, 
 equivalent to indigenous. Aborigines, or 
 Autochihones.-l' It is manifest however 
 that the name Ausones is of a Greek, 
 not of an Italian, form ; and we are ex- 
 pressly informed that the Ausones were 
 the same people as the Aurunci.'| We 
 may conclude therefore that the indige- 
 nous Italian name of the nation was 
 Aurunci.§ 
 
 • Polit. vii. 9, (ed.Ooettling.) That Antiochus was 
 his authority is evident from a comparison with 
 Strabo, V. 4. 3. vi. 3. 4. and Dion. i. 35. Strabo(v. 
 4. 3.) cites Antiochus by name, bur repeats hi.s state- 
 ment somewhat less distinctly. He makes him say, 
 that the Opici inhabited Campania, and that they 
 were also called Ausones. From these testimonies 
 it appears that Polybins was in error, when he spoke 
 of the Opioi and Ausones as two nations dwelling 
 about the Bay of Naples (Strabo, ili.) Strabo him- 
 self erred in like miinner, when he distinguished the 
 Ausones and Osci as successive holders of the country 
 between the promontory of Circeii and the b.rders 
 of Campania (v. 3. 6.) The erroneous distinction 
 was carried still farther by some M'riter. who de- 
 scribed the Opici, Ausones, and Osci, as haviiig in- 
 habited Campania one after the other. (Strabo, v. 
 4. 3.) See Niebuhr, p. .^3, cd.2; p. 64, ed. 3. 
 
 t It is derived by Scaliger from Ops, the Italian 
 name of the goddess Earth. 
 
 X Serv. on Mn. vii. 7^7. Dion. Cass. frag. Fes- 
 tus calls the fabulous Anson the founder of Aurunca. 
 Kieb. notei87. ed. 2. note '.il4, ed. 3. 
 
 J It must not be concealed that there is a difficulty 
 in the way of this conclusion. Livy (viii. 15, 16) 
 speaks of the Aurunci and Ausionesasdistiuctn^tions. 
 He relates that in a. v. c. 418 the Sidicini attacked 
 the Aurunci, who had before submitted to the Ro- 
 mans: that, before the Romans could give assistance 
 to their allies, the Aurunci, through fear, had deserted 
 their town, and fled with their wives and children'. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 IQl 
 
 , The re2:ion assigned to the Opici or 
 Ausones by Antiochiis and Aristotle is 
 the country beyond CEnotria towards 
 Tyrrhenia. As our knowledge of the 
 south of Italy in the early ages has been 
 derived from the commercial intercourse 
 of the Greeks, we find comparatively 
 little mention of the inhabitants of the 
 inland country : but there is no reason 
 to doubt, that the Opici were the ancient 
 possessors of the Southern Apennines. 
 In this mountainous region we have 
 already seen that they were overpowered 
 and partially dislodged by the Sabellian 
 Samnites : and, in conformity with this 
 tradition, we are told that the region 
 of Italy, which included the cities Be- 
 ne ventum and Cales, was called Au- 
 sonia, and that this name was gradu- 
 ally extended so as to comprehend all 
 Italy beneath the Apennines* Thus 
 even Strabo describes a portion of the 
 range of hills which enclose Campania 
 as the Oscan Mountains.f But Cam- 
 pania itself was the best known seat of 
 the Opican or Ausonian tribes. Strabo, 
 
 and fortified Snessa, which thenceforward was called 
 Aurnnca ; and that their ancient, city was destroyed 
 by the Sidicini. In the following year he tells us 
 tjiat the Romans were engaged in war for tlie first 
 time with the Ausones; that this people dwelt in the 
 city of Cales, and had joined their arms with their 
 neighbours the Sidicini ; that the allied forces were 
 defeated in the field, and Cales taken. Cales, which 
 Livy here describes as the chief city of the Ausones, 
 Jay south-east of Teanum, the capital of the Sidicini. 
 But in a subsequent passage, in his account of the final 
 extermination of the Ausones, a. u. c. 440 (ix. 25), 
 he assigns to them the towns of Minturnae, on the Liris, 
 and Vescia, which lay to the west of Teanum near 
 the yea, in a country which the Roman arms must 
 have traversed repeatedly before 419. Now Suessa 
 Auruuca was between the two districts thus given to 
 -the Ausones; and its position alone would make it 
 not unlikely that it belonged to a tribe of the same 
 nation. Moreover, Livy never mentions the Aurunci 
 again, after their removal to Suessa Aurunca. But 
 the war of extermination with the Ausones, in which 
 their city Ausonawas taken, A. u. c. 440, is followed 
 immediately by the leading of a Roman colony to 
 Suessa Aurnnca (a.u.c. 44I,Liv. ix. 28), which, as far 
 as appears from Livy, was a town of peaceable allies 
 of the Roman people. If then we bear in mind that 
 the Sidicines were themselves Oscans, and so of the 
 same race with the Aurunci or Ausones, the probable 
 solution of Livy's narrative will appear to be, that 
 in A.'u. C.418 the Sidicines formed a confederacy 
 with "the kindred tribes in their neighbourhood against 
 the Romans; that the withdrawing of the Aurunci 
 to Snessa was a nieasure (whether voluntary or com- 
 pulsory) taken for the sake of better defence, not 
 against the Sidicines, whose city Teanum was but 
 six miles distant, but against the Romans; and that 
 thet-e Aurunci were a part of the very same nation 
 with the Ausones of Cales, who were attacked in the 
 following year. Livy has been misled by drawing 
 diflferent parts of his story from different authorities ; 
 where he speaks of the Aurunci, from Roman An- 
 nals ; >yhere he calls them Ausones, from a Greek 
 writer, perhaps Dionysius. The city Ausona is pro- 
 bably Aurunca. See Niebuhr, p. 56, ed. 2 ; p. 68, 
 ed. 3. 
 
 • Seep. 97, and Festus, r. Ausoniam. 
 
 t Strabo, v, 4. 3, 
 
 where he defines the country as the 
 plain which lies above the coast between 
 Sinuessa, at the extremity of the Massic 
 hills, and the promontory of Minerva or 
 of Sirenusas, cites the authority of An- 
 tiochus to show that the Opici or Au- 
 sones were the ancient inhabitants of 
 this resiion.* But before the settle- 
 ment of the Picentini, a portion of the 
 Sabellian inhabitants of Picenum, whom 
 the Romans forcibly removed to the 
 coasts of the lower seas,t the name of 
 Campania extended to the river Sila- 
 rus ;$ and the language of Aristotle 
 leaves no doubt, that Antiochus assigned 
 this coast also to the Opici or Ausones. 
 Here, as at other points along the Cam- 
 panian coast, the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians 
 settled amongst them ;§ and both na- 
 tions were subsequently overpow^ered by 
 the Samnites. II In like manner Strabo 
 distinctly names the Oscans, the Pelas- 
 gians, and the Samnites, as the succes- 
 sive possessors of Herculaneum and 
 Pompeii on the bay of Naples.^ Dio- 
 nysius likewise, where he mentions that 
 the Pelasgians took possession of no 
 inconsiderable portion of the Campa- 
 nian plains, states that they partially 
 dislodged a barbarous people, the Au- 
 runci.** It would be an unprofitable 
 labour to try to collect the many testi- 
 monies, which prove that the early in- 
 habitants of Campania were of this 
 ancient race. These which have already 
 been adduced are enough to show the 
 fact; and, with those which are sub- 
 joined in the note, they may serve also 
 as examples of the way in which the 
 same nation was designated by the difl- 
 ferent names of Opicans or Oscans, Aii- 
 runcans or Ausonians.tt Not only were 
 the ancient inhabitants of the country 
 of this race, but in spite of the succes- 
 
 * Strabo, v. 4. 3. 
 
 f About A. u. c. 463, according to CluveriuSi, 
 p. 1188. 
 
 t Strabo, v. 4. 13. 
 
 § See p. 79. H See p. 93. 
 
 IT Strabo, v. 4. 8. 
 
 ** Dion. i. 21. See above, p. 79. 
 
 +i Pliny mentions the Oscans as the earliest pos- 
 sessors of Campania (N. H. lii. 5 (9), quoted in note 
 p. 86). See also Festus, v. Mcesius. The Italian 
 Ciima is distinguished as Cuma in Opicia, or among 
 the Opici (Thucyd. vi. 4. Dion, vii.3. Scymnus 
 Chins, &c.) A similar description is given of Mise- 
 num and Parthenope (Dion. i. 53. Strabo, xiv. 2). 
 Atella, from which the Atellan farces took their name, 
 was mentioned by Greek writers as a city of the 
 Opici; by the Romans, as an Oscan town (Steph. 
 Bjz. " ArtkXet. Li v. vii. 2). Nola was called by 
 Hecataeusan Ausonian city (Steph. Byz. N<wXa). The 
 Capuans are called Opicii (Serv. on JEn. vii. 729). 
 Virgil enumerates the chief Auruncan and Oscaa 
 tribes in order from north to so'ith, in iEn.vii.72i 
 730. 
 
VM 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 i*ve settlements and conquests of the 
 Pelasgians, Greeks, Etruscans, and Sam- 
 nites, the Oscans continued to make the 
 main bulk of the population of Cam- 
 pania,* till their name bocame extinct 
 under the dominion of the Romans.f 
 ) The Sidicini of Teanum, on the east 
 of the Massic hills, were an Oscan 
 tribe ;$ and, like the other Oscans in 
 this region, were assailed by the Sam- 
 nites (a. u. c. 413, b. c. 340 ) But this 
 attack is especially remarkable, because 
 it furnished the first occasion for the 
 collision of the Roman and Samnite 
 arms.'f The Sidicini, as genuine Os- 
 cans, are distinguished from the Cam- 
 panians of Capua, who were a mixed 
 people of Oscans and Sabellians. We 
 have already seen,|| that the tribes, to 
 which the name of Ausones or Aurunci 
 ■was pecuharly appropriated, occupied 
 the country around Teanum from Cales 
 to the Liris. But we find that they ex- 
 tended also over the plains on the western 
 side of the river. Strabo describes the 
 region adjacent to the Poraetine plain, 
 between the Circeian promontory atid 
 the Liris, as inhabited, first by the Au- 
 sones, then by the Osci : the Ausones 
 he mentions likewise as possessors of 
 Campania; the Osci as holding a part 
 of that country.^ It has been shown 
 above, that one and the same nation is 
 signified by these two names, which 
 "Were applied to it in different languages 
 and in different ages. In like manner 
 Pliny enumerates the Volsci, the Osci, 
 and the Ausones, as having at different 
 times possessed the country between Cir- 
 ceii and the Liris.** So by Dion Cassius 
 Ausonia was defined as the land of the 
 Aurunci between the Campanians and 
 the Volsci.-rf' So far, however, was this 
 region from being the proper country of 
 the Ausonian tribes, that they do not 
 appear to have spread themselves into 
 it, till towards the close of the kingly 
 age of Rome. Before that time it seems 
 to have been occupied by a people of 
 Pelasgian race,§§ akin to the Latins who 
 dwelt farther to the north. [| || The pres- 
 
 * See end of § 7. 
 
 + Strabo, v. 3. 6. 9. t lb. v. 3, 9. 
 
 § Liv. vii. 29. ]| Note, pp. 100, 101. 
 
 1[ Strabo, v. 3. 6. •« Plin. N. H. iii. 5 (9). 
 
 ft In Schol. on Lycophron, v. 44. 
 
 §§ See p. 79, cols. 1 and 2 ; and Nieb. p. 44, ed. 3. 
 
 Ijll The very name of the town of Amyclae affords 
 evidence of it« Pelasgian origin. The strange story, 
 that Amyclw was destroyed by serpents (Pliny from 
 Varro, iii. 5(9); vii. 29 (43), &c.), seems to have 
 arisen from the capture and overthrow of the city by 
 the Opici : for the Greek etymologers chose to con- 
 •eive that the Oplci were so called as being 0(^1x01, 
 
 sure of the Sal)ellians on the northern 
 and eastern borders of Campania drove 
 the Ausonians westward along the coast 
 beyond the Liris. 
 
 The Volsci, who hold so important a 
 place in the history of the first age of 
 the Roman republic, must be reckoned 
 as an Ausonian nation. Though their 
 history is much obscured in the Roman 
 annals', it is plain that they were not the 
 original possessors of the territory which 
 they held, but had gradually encroached 
 upon the Latins from the south-east. 
 Since, in their other border, they were 
 contiguous to tribes confessedly of Auso- 
 nian race, it follows either that they were 
 a part of a more ancient population 
 dislodged and pushed forward by the 
 Ausonians ; or that they were themselves 
 Ausonian, and appeared upon the bor- 
 ders of Latium as a conquering people. 
 For the former alternative, which would 
 almost certainly imply that they were 
 Pelas£:ians, and of the same blood with 
 the Old Latins, there is no evidence 
 whatever. The latter hypothesis is sup- 
 ported by many probable arguments. 
 Scylax places no people but the Olsi (a 
 name which is manifestly a primitive 
 form of Volsci) between the Latins and 
 Campanians; and he assigns to them 
 all the coast for a day's sail beyond 
 Circeii. But on this coast, as we have 
 seen above, we find not only Volsci, but 
 Aurunci or Ausones ; who must all be 
 comprehended by the geographer under 
 this one name.* If we take the narra- 
 tive of Livy merely as it stands, where 
 he relates that ambassadors of the Au- 
 runci threatened the senate with war, 
 unless the Romans departed from a dis- 
 trict of the Volscian territory which they 
 had lately seized, and that a battle was 
 fought with these Aurunci near Aricia, 
 which lay beyond the border of the 
 Volscian territory towards Rome.f we 
 shall be compelled to admit a close affi- 
 nity between the Aurunci and the Vol- 
 scians, whom they succoured so strenu- 
 ously. But if we read attentively the 
 accounts of the war with the Aurunci, 
 which is placed in a.u.c. 25 1 and 252, 
 and of the war with the Volsci in a.u.c. 
 259,$ we cannot avoid the conviction, 
 that they are only the same story twice 
 told. The three hundred hostages from 
 
 or serpent-like, the oflFspring of the earth (Serv. on 
 ^n. vii. 729). The serpent was not unfrequently the 
 mythic symbol of an indigenous population. 
 • Nieb. p. 57, ed. 2. p. 69, ed. 3. 
 f Liv. ii. 26. a.u.c. 259. Dionysius believes that 
 these Aurunei came out of Campania, vi. 32. 
 t Liv. ii. 16, 17, 22, 25, 26* ' ^ 
 
HISTORY OF ROME/ 
 
 wm 
 
 Pomefia and Cora, who are mentioned 
 in both cases, as well as other circum- 
 stances, identify the events.* The differ- 
 ence of the dates presents no difficulty, 
 when we remember the confused and 
 uncertain state of the early years of the 
 Fasti.t It appears that Livy found the 
 same people described in different annals 
 by different names, as Aurunci and 
 Volsci, and conceived them to be differ- 
 ent nations. Other narratives, in like 
 manner, exhibit marks of the close con- 
 nexion between the Volscians and the 
 more southern Auruncans. In the year 
 of the city 410 we are told that L. Furius 
 was created Dictator in consequence of 
 a predatory incursion of the Aurunci, 
 and that he brought the war to an end 
 by a single battle ; that then he gave 
 up the army to the consuls, Fabius and 
 Sulpicius, who led it against the Vol« 
 scians, and took their city Sora, on the 
 upper part of the Liris.$ But from a 
 subsequent passage § we find that the 
 •war with the Aurunci had lasted two 
 years ; that it had been pushed into the 
 more southern settlements of the nation ; 
 and that they had submitted to the con- 
 sul T. Manlius, in a u.c. 411. The wars, 
 therefore, with the Aurunci and Volsci 
 seem to have been one and the same, or 
 at least parts of the same operations. 
 Again, in a.u.c. 440, the revolt and the 
 reduction of Sora is the beginning of the 
 war of extermination with the Ausones.|| 
 We may conclude that the Volsci were 
 a part of the same people with the Au- 
 runci ; that those tribes of the nation, 
 which pressed upon the Latins, obtained 
 the peculiar name of Volscians ; while 
 those who remained upon the borders of 
 Campania retained their more ancient 
 appellation. 
 
 The Volscian language is coupled with 
 the Oscan, at the same time that it is 
 distinguished from it, by the comic poet 
 Titinius.^ That it was a dialect of the 
 Oscan, and that the Volscians them- 
 selves were of Oscan race, seems 
 strongly attested by an inscription on a 
 plate found at the Volscian town Velitrae, 
 where the chief magistrate of Velitrae is 
 called Medix, the title used by the 
 O scans.** 
 
 * Nieb. V. i. p. 57, n. 188, ed. 2. 'p. 68, n. 215. ed. 
 3. V. ii. pp. 90, 91. 
 
 f See chap. ii. pp. 46 & 49. 
 
 t Liv. vii. 28. § Liv.vlii. 15. 
 
 t Liv. ix. 25. 
 
 *![ Osceet Volscefabulantur.nam Latine nesciunt : 
 in Festus, v. Oscum. 
 
 •• Lanzi, t. iii. p. 616. Cramer's Ancient Italy, 
 ▼. ii. p. 82. See, however, Is'ieb. pp.57, 58, ed, 2. 
 pp. 70, 71, ed. 3. 
 
 Velitrse was the point nearest to Rome 
 to which the Volscians extended their 
 dominion. But Dionysius deceived him- 
 self, when he stated that Ancus Marcius 
 waged war with the Volscians of Velitrae. 
 The war of Ancus against Velitrse, which 
 was commemorated in the annals, must 
 have been a part of his great war with 
 the Latins, for assuredly in his reign 
 Velitrse was still a Latin town.* 
 
 Though the history of the Volscian 
 conquests is sorely mutilated and dis- 
 guised in the Roman Annals, we can 
 trace some indications of their progress.^ 
 Of the cities on the coast, we have, with 
 regard to the Amyclae, only the obscure 
 intimation of its capture by the Opici 
 which has been noticed above.J But 
 the cities next in order, Terracina, Cir 
 ceii, and Antium, are enumerated as 
 Latin towns, and subject allies of Rome, 
 in the treaty with Carthage concluded 
 in the first year of the Repubhc (a.u.c. 
 245).^ It appears that they were so 
 mentioned likewise in a somewhat later 
 treaty, the date of which Polybius does 
 not give. II If any proof were wanting 
 to confirm the assertion, that Terracina, 
 when the Romans made stipulations an 
 its behalf, was Latin, not Volscian, it 
 might be found in its name: for the 
 Volscians, when they became masters 
 of it, called it Anxur.^ There is no 
 reason to doubt the account in the 
 Annals, that the last king was engaged 
 in war with the Volsci.** The statement 
 that he settled military colonies at Circeii 
 and Signia has an aspect of historical 
 truth :'|-t" though with regard to Signia it 
 may be doubted whether it were really 
 settled before a.u.c. 259, when according 
 to the Annals the colony was restored.$$ 
 It is clear that these posts must have been 
 fortified against the Volscians, and have 
 been not far from their frontier; and 
 they serve to mark the extent of their 
 
 * Dion. i. 41. Because Velitrse became a Volscian 
 town, Dionybius supposed that it was a Volscian town 
 when it was first named in the Annals. See Nieb. 
 V. ii. p. 93. The blunder is probably his own, and 
 not an old mistake. In our narrative, therefore, of 
 the reign of Ancus, the name of the Volsci ought not 
 to have been introduced. (Chap. i. § 8. p. 17.) 
 
 i See Nieb. v. ii. pp. 87—93. 
 
 % Note, p. 102. 
 
 S Polyb. iii. 22. See Chap. ii. S C, p. 48. 
 
 II Pol. iii. 24. 
 
 <[[ Ennius in Festus. Liv, ir. 59. Plin. iii. 5 (9). 
 
 •• See chap. i.pp. 24,25. 
 
 ■ft Liv. i. 56. Dion. iv. 63. 
 
 X% Liv. ii.21. The name gaverise to the story that it 
 was notoriginally a city, but a camp in which an army 
 had wintered urder their standards (Dion.) This 
 supposed a standing army; andsuchan army seemed 
 more suited to the reign of the tyrant, than to the 
 first years of the republic. 
 
104 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 territory at the time. The Rtory of the 
 conquest of Suesfsa Pometia is liable to 
 p enter doubt. The cxacrfferation of the 
 vnlue of the spoil, and the evident marks 
 of fabrication in the numbers,* expose 
 llie whole story to suspicion. But even 
 if Tarquinius warred against Pometia 
 and took it, it is more likely that it was 
 then a Latin town,t than that it had 
 already fallen into the power of the 
 Volscians. The dissolution of the union 
 between Rome and Latium, which quick- 
 ly followed the expulsion of Tarquinius, 
 and the consequent diminution of the 
 power of both states, enabled the Vol- 
 scians to become affpessors, and to push 
 their conquests among the Latin towns. 
 In the war which has been already men- 
 tioned, which Livy has related under 
 the years 251 and 'J52, and as:ain under 
 259, the Aurunci or Volsci attacked 
 Pometia and Cora, % and probably then 
 became masters of them for the first 
 time. They were recovered by the Ro- 
 mans ; and Pometia was destroyed, and 
 never appears again in history. Cora 
 was probably one of the Latin cities 
 enumerated in the league of Sp. Cassiiis, 
 A.u.c. 261.$ This attack of the Volsci 
 induced the Romans to reinforce (or to 
 found) the colony of Signia. Velitrse 
 was probably lost at the same time ; and 
 was not recovered till the following year, 
 A.u.c. 260.11 It appears among the 
 Latin towns in the league of Cassius. 
 Military colonies were established at 
 VelitraB and at Norba,^ to check the 
 aggressions of the Volsci. Their career 
 of conquest was indeed checked for a 
 little while ; no doubt, in consequence of 
 the alliance between Rome and Latium 
 formed by Sp. Cassius. But it was re- 
 newed with a vigour, which Rome and 
 Latium had no power to resist, in the 
 great war which appeared in the Annals 
 as the war of Coriolanus. The exami- 
 nation of this portion of Roman history 
 
 • See Nieb. p. 451. cd. 2. p. 504, ed. 3. 
 
 t There can be no doubt of its Latinorigin. Virgil 
 accounted it a colony of Alba (JEn. vi. 776); and 
 it took part with other I-atin towns, under the supre- 
 macy of Egorius of TuBculum, Dictator of the Latins, 
 in dedicating a grove at Aricia, (Cato, Origg. ii. in 
 Priscian, iv. 4.) SeeNicbuhr, v. ii.p. 23. 
 
 t Cora is coupled with Pometia by Virgil and Cato 
 in the passages cited above. It is nientioned by 
 Dionysins as one of the chief of the Latin townx, 
 whose repre.«-entatives met at the fountain of Feren- 
 tina in the timeof Tullus Hostilins, and resolved to 
 oppose the encroachments of Rome after the destruc- 
 tion of Alba. (Dion. iii. 34. See chap. i. p. 15.) 
 $ Dion. V, 61, amended by Nieb. v. ii, n. 21. 
 I Lir. ii. 30. 
 
 1[ A.U.C. S60 and 262. Lir. ii. 31, 34. As they 
 were independent Latin towns, these colonies must 
 be considered only as garrisons placed tiiere with 
 the consent of the Latins. 
 
 must be reserved for its own j^lace. 
 Here it is sufficient to observe, that 
 Circeii was the first place which fell be- 
 fore the invaders;* and that they pushed 
 their conquests as far as Antium on the 
 coast, and Velitrae in the inland country. 
 
 The Volsci possessed also a territory 
 along the Liris, which was partially 
 separated from their more western set- 
 tlements by the hilly country of the 
 Hernici.•^ The fastnesses of the Hernici 
 presented an impregnable bulwark to 
 the Volscians; and their alliance con- 
 tributed greatly to the safety of Rome. 
 The more expo.sed portion ot their terri- 
 tory suffered from the incursions of the 
 Volscians and ^quans.;|; 
 
 In their eastern territory, either the 
 Volscians overpowered more early oc- 
 cupants of the same race with them- 
 selves, or else the same people appears 
 in a different relation and under different 
 names. Thus Fregellae on the Liris is 
 described as having anciently belonged 
 to the Opici, but afterwards to the 
 Volsci.^- By Livy it is mentioned as 
 having been first occupied by the Sidi- 
 cini.il and then by the Volsci. 
 
 The ^qui appear in history as the 
 constant allies of the Volsci, after the 
 latter nation had advanced to the neigh- 
 bourhood of Rome. This relation sug- 
 gests the conjecture that they were of 
 kindred race. They were separated from 
 the western Volsci by the country of 
 the Hernici; but they bordered on the 
 eastern Volsci. Their territory was on 
 the west of the lake Fucinus, between 
 the sources of the Liris, the Anio, and 
 the Nar. They were placed between 
 the Marsi and the Sabines on one side, 
 and the Hernici and the Latins on the 
 other. It is probable that they spread 
 themselves up the Liris from the south, 
 dislodging the old Sabellian tribes, and 
 thus divided the Hernici from their pa- 
 rent people the Marsi. From their more 
 advanced situation, it may be conjec- 
 tured that they assumed the character 
 of an independent people at an earlier 
 period than the Volsci. They appear at 
 an earlier date in Roman history, if we 
 may believe the tradition that Ancus 
 Marcius received from them the Fetial 
 Law.*! Like the Volsci they encroached 
 
 • Liv.ii. 39, Dinn. viii.14. f See p. 9?. 
 
 t Liv. iii. 6. iv. 51. 
 
 § Sfeph. Byz. ^piyiXXa. 
 
 B If wemay trnst the correction of Sigonins in viii. 22. 
 
 H See chap. i. § 8. p. 16. This tradition is supposed 
 
 by some writers to relate to the Falisci, or people of 
 
 Falerii, who were also called Jiqui (iiin. vii. 695, 
 
 and Servius; Sil. Ital. viii. 491; atrabo, r. 2. 9.) 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 105 
 
 upon Latium ; and BolfE and Viffllia 
 were Alban townships, which passed un- 
 der the dominion of the ^qui. In the 
 height of their power their yearly cus- 
 tom was to advance and pitch their camp 
 on Mount Alojidus, and thence io de- 
 scend upon the cultivated lands of Tus- 
 culum and the other Latin towns which 
 lay below. Their wars were little more 
 than forays for the sake of booty. They 
 are described by Virgil as possessing 
 the hardihood and the predafory ha- 
 bits common to savage mountaineers.* 
 The ^Equi are called also ^quiculi and 
 ^quani. 
 
 As the Volsci and ^qui were the 
 most recent of the Ausonian nations, 
 more is known of them historically than 
 of the earlier branches of the same race. 
 For this reason they have occupied the 
 greatest share of our attention. Our 
 lack of knowledge compels us to make 
 but brief mention of the more ancient 
 tribes, which constituted a part of the 
 population of Latium. For the Vcl- 
 scians and vEquans, in their wars with 
 the Latins, were attacking a people, of 
 which one element was sprung originally 
 from the same stock as themselves. As 
 the progress of the Sabellian Samnites 
 southward along the Apennines, forced 
 the Opican mountaineers into Campa- 
 nia and the adjacent region, and thus 
 caused a back current of migration, 
 which fmally brought the Volsci into the 
 plains of Latium ; so, in former times, 
 the Sabines, in their earliest seats, dis- 
 lodged an ancient people, who retreated 
 down the Tiber, and mixed and united 
 themselves with the Pelassians of the 
 coast. It has been already observed, 
 that this ancient people, whom Varro 
 called Aborigines, may safely be reck- 
 oned as Opicans. t This is the earliest 
 historical notice which we possess of the 
 indigenous element of the mixed peo- 
 ple of the Latins : but it is very possible 
 that the Opicans pressed as conquerors 
 upon the Pelasgians, before they them- 
 selves were forced to retreat from the 
 Sabines. The more exact investigation 
 of the origin of the Latins has been 
 reserved for a separate section (§10.) 
 Here we shall observe further only, that 
 Aristotle described Latium as a district 
 ofOpica.J 
 
 There are vestiges at least of an opi- 
 
 but who cannot reasonably be supposed to have any 
 Gonnexion with the JE(pn on lake Fucinus, from 
 ■whom they were separated by the whole Sabine ter- 
 ritory. 
 
 • iEn. vii. 746— 749. 
 i P. 95. t In Dion. i. 72. 
 
 nion, that the Ausonians were the native 
 inhabitants of all the south of Italy, 
 before the Pelasgians established them- 
 selves in the country. Dionysius, in 
 narrating the migration of CEnolrus, 
 says that the western sea, which was 
 afterwards called the Tyrrhenian, was 
 then called the Ausonian, from the x\u- 
 sones, who dwelt near it. * Hellanicus 
 described the Siceli as Ausonians who 
 fled from the Iapyges;t and henca we 
 may conjecture that he was the aulhor 
 of the tradition, that when the sons of 
 Lycaon, lapyx, Daunus, and Peucetius, 
 settled in Italy on the coasts of the 
 Adriatic, they drove out the Ausones. $ 
 Not the Tyrrhene sea, but the sea be- 
 tween Sicily and the lapygian promon- 
 tory, was called Ausonian by Poly bins 
 and Pliny ; § and the reason is expressly 
 assigned, because the Ausones ilrst oc- 
 cupied its shores. Strabo confirms the 
 use of the name, but denies that the 
 Ausonians ever dwelt on that sea. || Yet 
 he describes Temesa on the Tyrrhene 
 sea, but a little north of the Napetine 
 bay, as founded by the Ausones. IT It 
 is w^orthy of notice also that Cato named 
 the Aurunci as the first possessors of 
 Rhegium.** 
 
 With respect to the affinities of this 
 ancient race, we have scarcely ground 
 even for conjecture. We know from 
 Dionysius, that some writers supposed 
 the Aborigines, by whom in this case 
 must be understood Opicans, to be a 
 branch of the Ligures.i-t The position 
 of the Opican tribes along the Apen- 
 nines, gives some probability to this hy- 
 pothesis.:i::|: When Philistus affirmed the 
 Siceli to be Ligurians, it is not unlikely, 
 that he agreed with Hellanicus in consi- 
 dering them as Ausonians, but supposed 
 the Ausonians to be a Ligurian na- 
 tion. §iJ 
 
 In inquiring into the extent of the 
 Ausonian race, we must be careful not 
 to be misled by the recent application of 
 their name. The Alexandrian poets, 
 who affected the use of an obsolete lan- 
 guage, and ancient appellations, and not 
 rarely used both improperly, employed 
 the name Ausonia in a vague manner 
 for almost all parts of Italy ; and later 
 
 * Dion. i. 11. I Dion, i, 22. 
 
 t Antonin. Lib. Met. ch..31, from Nicander. 
 
 § Plin.N.H. iii.5, (10). 10, (15). 
 
 B Strabo, V. 3. 6. ^ vi. 1. 5. 
 
 •* Cato, Origg. iii. No doubt Cato followed some 
 Greek authority whieh spoke of Ausones, and trans- 
 lated the name into the Latin form. 
 
 It Dion. i. 10. jj See p. 65. 
 
 H See p. 82. 
 
106 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME, 
 
 writers adopted it as a poetical term for 
 the whole country. ♦ 
 
 ^ 9. We have now examined the early 
 population of every part of Italy, ex- 
 cept the repfion which comprehends the 
 eastern peninsula, intercepted between 
 the Gulf of Tarentum and the Adriatic 
 sea, and the country beyond, along the 
 coast of the Adriatic, included between 
 the sea and the mountains, as far as the 
 promontory of Gar^anus. This region 
 the Greeks called lapygia. The name 
 Apulia has been used in the same sense 
 in the summary of this chapter. This 
 usage, it must be confessed, is not cor- 
 rect ; since Apulia denoted properly only 
 the more northern district, and does not 
 seem to have comprised the lapygian 
 peninsula. 
 
 The ancient inhabitants of the proper 
 Apulia, extending from Mount Gargan us 
 to the eastern branch of the Apennines, 
 were the Daunians and Peucetians. -j" 
 The Italian name of the Peucetians was 
 the PoedicLili. These tribes seem to 
 have been of Pelasgian origin. In the 
 old genealogies, Peucetius appeared as 
 a Lycaonid, the grandson of Pelasgus, 
 and the brother of CEnotrus ; and was 
 said to be the chief of the Peucetians, as 
 CEnotrus of the CEnotrians. % Slrabo 
 alludes to the same story, when hfe says 
 that their country appears to have re- 
 ceived Arcadian settlers. $ In the story 
 of Nicander above mentioned, lapyx, 
 Daunus, and Peucetius, are three sons 
 of Lycaon. But there are many heroic 
 legends which represent Diomede as the 
 leader of the Daunians ; || and these, 
 whatever may be thought of their origin, 
 are at least indications of some commu- 
 nity of race between the people of these 
 countries and of the opposite coasts of 
 Greece. ^ 
 
 There were also traditions that the 
 Poediculi and Daunians were descended 
 from the Illyrians.** It is not impro- 
 bable that some small tribes of that na- 
 tion may have crossed the Adriatic, and 
 settled themselves upon the Italian coast. 
 Niebuhr conjectures that by Illyrians 
 are meant Liburnians, such as the^ old 
 settlers in Picenum. tt 
 
 • See Nieb. p. 23, and note 56, ed. 3. 
 
 t Strabo, vii. 3. 1. and 8. 
 
 X Dion. i. 11. and Pherecydes in c. 13. See 
 above, p. 80. 
 
 § Strabo, vi. 3. 8. 
 
 II Strabo, vi. 3, 9. Plin. iii. 11, (16). Virg.^n. 
 xi. 243, &c. 
 
 % See Nieb. pp. 127. 149, edd. 2, 3. 
 
 *• Plin. iii. 11, (16), Febtll^, v. Daunia. 
 
 tt.Nieb. p. 126. ed. 2. pp. 143, 149, ed.3. 
 
 The inhabitants of the peninsula are 
 called by the Greeks Messapians, or 
 Messapian lapygians. There was a tra- 
 dition, repeated under various forms, 
 that they were originally Cretans ; and 
 their settlement was connected with an 
 expedition of Minos to Sicania or Si- 
 cily. * The foundation of Hyria or 
 Uria, a city midway between Tarentum 
 and Brundusium, which was considered 
 as the cajital of the Messapians, was 
 ascribed to this Cretan colony. The 
 origin of this singular tradition appears 
 to have been, that the Messapians were 
 really connected with a people of the 
 same name in Locris, upon the shore of 
 the bay of Crissa ; t and that the Cris- 
 ssean Messapians, as subjects of the 
 temple of the Pythian Apollo, were de- 
 rived by the mythologers from Crete. $ ! 
 
 We can collect that in very early 
 times, the country about the lapygian 
 Promontory was held by the Leuter- 
 nians, who were said to be the remains 
 of an ancient race that inhabited Cam- 
 pania. § In later ages the peninsula was 
 possessed by two tribes which are known 
 to us by their Italian names, the Sallen- 
 tines and the Calabrians. The S alien- 
 tines dwelt upon the interior coast on the 
 gulf of Tarentum ; the Calabrians on 
 the Adriatic sea. || The Sallentines are 
 conjectured to have been the same peo- 
 ple as the Leuternians : the Calabrians 
 were probably the same as the Messa- 
 pians. •[[ The chief town of the Cala- 
 brians was Brundusium ; and they are 
 enumerated by Scylax among the people 
 of lapygia under the name of Brente- 
 sines or Brundusians. AVe are told by 
 Justin, that the earlier inhabitants of 
 Tarentum, who were expelled by the La- 
 cedaemonian settlers, retreated to Brun- 
 dusium ;** and by Strabo, that the La- 
 cedaemonian companions of Phalanthus 
 wrested from Brundusium a large por- 
 tion of its territory.'H' AVe know also, 
 that there were continued wars between 
 the Tarentines and the Messapians, 
 which were remarkable for their de- 
 structive vicissitudes.$$ At one period 
 
 * Herod, vii. 170. Strabo, vi. 3. 2, and 6. See 
 Nieb. pp. 124. 146, edd. 2, 3. 
 
 i Tliuc. iii. 101. 
 
 X See an article on the Messapians in the First 
 Number of the Philological Museum, Cambridge, 
 1831 ; and refer to Serv. on iEn. iii. 332. 
 
 § Compare Strabo, vi. 3. 5, with Scylax emended 
 by Kiebuhr, pp. 123, 145, edd. 2, 3.; andLycoplwJC. 
 
 11 'strabo, vi. 3.1. 
 
 i[ A triumph is recorded in the Fasti ovef the 
 Messapians and Sallentines, .\..u.c. 483. 
 •* Justin, iii. 4. ft Strabo, vi. 3. 6. 
 
 tt See Nieb. pp. 125, 14?, edd. 2,3. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 lOjr 
 
 (B. c. 475), the injured Messapians in- 
 flicted upon the alUed armies of the Ta- 
 rentines and Rhegians the most deadly 
 defeat that was ever suffered by any 
 Grecian state.* This ancient enmity 
 was the cause of their friendship to the 
 Athenians in the Sicilian expedition. •^ 
 
 Scylax names Opici among the inha- 
 bitants of lapygia. The conjecture of 
 Niebnhr seems almost certain, that the 
 Apulians, properly so called, were an 
 Opican tribe, who overpowered the 
 Daunians and Peucetians. The Apu- 
 lians extended along the coast on the 
 northern side of the promontory Gar- 
 ganus, as far as the river Tifernus, by 
 which they were divided from the Fren- 
 tani.$ If the Frentani ever dwelt on 
 the banks of the river Frento, as their 
 name seems to indicate, the Apulians 
 had forced them to recede. 
 
 § 1 0. The Latins— Alba. 
 
 It has been thought necessary to take 
 a careful survey of the early population 
 of Italy, not only that we might gain 
 some knowledge of the nations in the 
 midst of which the Roman State grew 
 up, but that we might be able, in some 
 measure, to discern the elements of 
 which it was itself composed. Some 
 parts of our researches, which may have 
 seemed irrelevant, inasmuch as they led 
 to no positive conclusion respecting the 
 origin and growth of the Roman people, 
 have in reality been useful by shutting 
 out the unfounded speculations and arbi- 
 trary hypotheses by which many writers 
 have confused the subject. If, however, 
 the reader is weary of feehng his way 
 through an obscure maze, which seems 
 to be no part of our proposed journey, 
 he will be rejoiced that we have at length 
 arrived at that step in our investigations, 
 which is, in fact, the beginning of the 
 History of Rome ; an inquiry into the 
 origin and early condition of the Latins, 
 the first allies and the first subjects of 
 Rome, the authors of her language, and 
 the chief element in her population. 
 
 "We have already shown generally, in 
 the fifth section of this chapter, that all 
 the western coast of Italy, from Pisse 
 southward, was at some time inhabited 
 by nations of Pelasgian race. We have 
 adduced in particular some testimonies, 
 by which it appears that not only Etruria 
 and Campania, but the intervening 
 
 • Her. vii. 170. t 'i'^uc. vii. 33. 
 
 t Pliu.iii.n,Cl6.) 
 
 country between the Tiber and the Liris, 
 was held by Tyrsenians or Tyrsenian 
 Pelasgians. Of these testimonies, the 
 most ancient and the most remarkable 
 is the legend of Hesiod in his heroic 
 genealogies, that Agrius and Latinus, 
 sons of Ulysses and Circe, ruled over 
 all the renowned Tyrsenians. Other 
 mytholog:ers, probably Italiot Greeks of 
 a much later age, symbolized the affinity 
 of the Latins with the ancient races of 
 Greece, by representing Latinus as the 
 son of Hercules.* There was another 
 tradition more commonly received, which 
 pointed to the Pelasgian origin of the 
 early population, not merely of Latium, 
 but more particularly of Rome itself. 
 Evander is said to have led a colony 
 from Arcadia, (the chronologers fixed the 
 date of his migration about sixty years 
 before the Trojan war,) and to have 
 founded a town Palantium on the hill 
 which the Romans afterwards called the 
 Palatine.t He was received with hospi- 
 tality and friendship by Faunus, the 
 king of the Aborigines, and was believed 
 to have introduced into Latium the use 
 of letters and the other arts of civiliza- 
 tion.]: This legend was commonly be- 
 lieved among the Romans ; and Virgil, 
 by working it into his epic poem, has 
 made it familiar to all who have any 
 knowledge of antiquity. The earliest 
 mention which we find of it is in a re- 
 ference to Polybius :§ but the whole 
 aspect of the tradition, and the circum- 
 stance that an altar was raised to Evan- 
 der, and religious honours paid to him, 
 show that the belief was handed down 
 from early times. It is difficult to trace 
 the origin of all parts of the tradition. 
 No one can beheve that it is historically 
 true. The prophetic Carmenta, the mo- 
 ther of Evander, appears to have been 
 an object of Sabine worship. At least 
 her altar was at the foot of the Sabine 
 hill, the Capitol; and the adoption of 
 the festival of the Carmentalia by the 
 Romans was referred to the union of 
 the Quirites and Romans under Tatius 
 and Romulus. II The mention of Pallan- 
 tium in Msenalia as the birth-place of 
 the founder of Palatium, was suggested, 
 beyond doubt, merely by the hkeness of 
 names. Nevertheless, the distinctive 
 
 * Dion. i. 43. Justin, xliii. 1. 
 ^ Dion. i. 31, &o. Virg. jEn.viii.51, &C. 
 X Liv. ). 7. Tac. Ann. xi. 14. 
 § Dion. i. 32. See ch. ii. § 3, p. 44. 
 II Dion. i. 32. Liv. v. 4?. Plut. Rom. Plutarck 
 makes Caimenta the wife of Evauder. 
 
1W 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 feature of Ihe tradition, that Evander 
 was an Arcadian, and led an Arcadian 
 colony to the banks of the Tiber, must 
 have arisen from a perception, that in the 
 mytholoL'y and religious ceremonies of 
 the earliest inhabitants of Rome, in their 
 language and letters, there was much 
 which dearly testified their affinity to 
 the early population of Greece.* 
 
 In fact, we have in our own hands 
 far more valid proofs of the affinity of the 
 Latins with the Pelasgians, or primitive 
 Greeks, than could be furnished by any 
 traditions: incomparably stronger, there- 
 fore, than any arguments which can be 
 drawn from legends so scanty and vague 
 and unhisf orical as those which we have 
 recounted. It would, indeed, have been 
 superfluous to adduce these legends as 
 testimonies of the national affinity : but 
 a reasonable curiosity is gratified by in- 
 quiring what memory was preserved of 
 a relation which undoubtedly existed. 
 The traces of such a relation are to be 
 sought, as has been intimated, in the 
 mythology and in the language of La- 
 tium. ? 
 
 When we speak of a resemblance be- 
 tween the Latin and the Grecian mytho- 
 logy, we do not mean the resemblance 
 which existed at a later period, when, in 
 consequence of the intercourse between 
 Rome and Greece, the Romans had con- 
 founded almost all the peculiarities of 
 their national religion ; when the prin- 
 cipal deities of Latium were so entirely 
 identified with the gods of Greece, that 
 all the fables of the Greek poets were 
 attached to the Latin names, and fictions, 
 which had been invented of Artemis or 
 Hephaestus were repeated, without scru- 
 ple, of Diana and Vulcan; when the 
 objects of Grecian worship, to vyhich no 
 corresponding divinity existed in Italy, 
 were adopted by the authority of the 
 senate or the caprice of poets ; and the 
 indigenous deities, to whom no parallel 
 could be found in Greece, were gradually 
 forgotten and disowned. Our argument 
 is, that in the early and unadulterated 
 mythology of Latium, though our know- 
 ledge of it is miserably imperfect, and 
 though much of it was of native Italian 
 grovi'th, we are able to distinguish strong 
 
 • This is plainly indicated in Dion. i. 32, 33. 
 Amon]B; the religious rifes, which Dionysiiisconceives 
 to be proofs of rhe reality of the Arcadian Colony, 
 he specifies particnlarly the Lnpercalia, or games of 
 Pan, and the worship of Ceres (Demeter), of which 
 the ministers and the ceremonies were to his day the 
 same as in Greece. We know that the worship of 
 Deraeter was Pelasgian. Herod, ii. I71. 
 
 features of resemblance to the religion 
 of Greece. Indeed the subsequent iden- 
 tification could not have taken place so 
 completely, unless such a resemblance 
 had originally existed. And this re- 
 semblance is most distinctly visible, 
 when we compare the objects of Italian 
 worship with the old Pelasgian gods, 
 which were, for the most part, personifi- 
 cations of the elements and powers of 
 nature. The likeness fails, when we 
 look to those deities which were imported 
 into Greece by foreign settlers, or were 
 peculiar to its more recent races. Thus 
 the supreme deities of the sky and air, 
 Zeus and Here, the Zeus and Dione of 
 the Pelasgic temple of Dodona, appear in 
 Italy as Jupiter and Juno. Poseidon, 
 the god of the sea, is reproduced as 
 Neptunus. Demeter, or Mother Earth, 
 a great object of Pelasgic adoration, is 
 represented by Ops or Ceres. Vesta 
 has suffered scarcely a change of name 
 from her Pelasgian form as Hestia. 
 The exact prosecution of this inquiry 
 would be enouirh to constitute a sepa- 
 rate work, and would require no little 
 learning and labour and discretion. It 
 is sufficient for our present purpose to 
 have indicated the nature of the argij- 
 ment. 
 
 But the monuments, which place our 
 position beyond a doubt, are to be found 
 in the Latin language. A very great 
 number of its radical words are mani- 
 festly radical words in Greek.* In 
 some few instances the radical word 
 survives in the Latin, while in the Greek 
 only its derivatives appear. It can even 
 be shown, satisfactorily, that the Latin 
 language resembles most nearly the most 
 ancient dialects of the Greek: and, in 
 fact, the comparison of the Latin is ab- 
 solutely necessary for the knowledge of 
 the primitive state of the Greek lan- 
 guage. Not only are words the same in 
 both, but the inflexions of the two laiv- 
 guages have a general resemblance in 
 their way of expressing the relations of 
 notions, and present a partial similarity 
 in their forms. At the same time, both 
 in the words and in the inflexions, the 
 presence of another element altogether 
 distinct from the Greek, of which we 
 shall presently speak more exactly, is 
 equally visible. The use of the same 
 
 • It may be necessary to assure the unlearned 
 reader, that it is perfectly easy to distinguish such 
 words as are ancient elements of the language from 
 those which were borrowed from the Greek at a later 
 period. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 109 
 
 alphabet is, by itself, no proof of a same- 
 ness of race: for a nation may adopt 
 the alphabet of a people of a different 
 lang^uaire, and altogether alien. But 
 when similarity in the written character 
 goes along with similarity in the spoken 
 language, it may fairly be considered as 
 a confirmation of the hypothesis of a 
 national affinity. The Latin alphabet, 
 in thee form of its characters, accords 
 with the earliest Greek inscriptions. It 
 wants letters which appear only in the 
 more recent Greek writing, and retains 
 letters which were disused in Greek: 
 and in both particulars it agrees with 
 the historical accounts which v/ere pre- 
 served by the Greeks of the gradual 
 formation of their alphabet. Thus, both 
 in their spoken and written language, 
 we have incontestable proofs of the affi- 
 nity of the Latins with the primitive 
 people of Greece ; and this primitive 
 people we have safely assumed to be the 
 Pelasgians. 
 
 '■ To these arguments maybe added the 
 testimony of the early architecture of 
 Latium. The ruins of the walls of 
 Norba and of Cora, and of other 'towns, 
 present that rude and gigantic fashion of 
 building which has been called Cyclo- 
 pian, and which we find in the remains 
 of Argos, Mycenae, and Tiryns, and in 
 many other parts of Greece, and likewise 
 in the cities of Etruria. It cannot rea- 
 sonably be questioned that the Cyelo- 
 pian architects were the Pelasgians.* 
 
 If there were any inhabitants of La- 
 tium more ancient than the Pelasgian 
 race, they were probably Ligurians : r 
 but it is doubtful whether we have any 
 distinct tradition respecting them. This 
 question is involved in the disputed 
 point which has been discussed above, 
 the origin and affinity of the Siculi. | 
 That the SicuU in early times dwelt in La- 
 tium and about t he Tiber, and indeed upon 
 the site of Rome itself, was attested both 
 by Latin and by CEnotrian traditions. § 
 If Philistus was right in believing them 
 to be Ligurians, we must assent to the 
 other part of his account, that they were 
 expelled by the Pelasgians. || On the 
 other hand, the arguments of Niebuhr, 
 which have been already stated, lead to 
 the conclusion that the Siculi were them- 
 selves the Pelasgians of Latium. How- 
 
 • See p. 92. ■)■ See p. 65. 
 
 t See pp. 81-83. 
 
 § Dion. i. 9 ii. 1. Varro, de L, L. iv. 10. An- 
 tiochiis, in Dion. i. 73. A ])art of the town of Tibur 
 bore the name of Sicelion C^itulium) in the time of 
 Dionysiu.s: Dion. i. 16. 
 
 " By Umbiians and Pelasgians ;" ia Dion. i. 22. 
 
 ever this may be, it is certain that in 
 the course of time the Pelasgians them- 
 selves were overpowered and partially 
 dislodged by an indi^renous race, high- 
 landers of the Apennines, who descended 
 upon them from the mountains which 
 form the basins of the rivers Nar and 
 Velinus. It has been already briefly 
 stated that these conquerors were a tribe 
 of Opicans, and that their encroach- 
 ments upon the Pelasgians of the coast 
 were caused, at least in part, by the 
 pressure of the Sabines.* 
 
 The investigation of the early history 
 of Latium, and of the formation of the 
 Latin people, has been confused and 
 obscured by the uncertain use of the 
 term Abori»;ines. This is the name 
 which the Romans gave generally and 
 vaguely to their earliest ancestors. It 
 is a descriptive appellation, and signi- 
 fies those who were inhabitants of a 
 country from the beginning, and so is 
 equivalent to the Greek terra Auto- 
 chthones, t But it soon came to be used 
 as a proper national name. The Cas- 
 sandra of Lycophron predicts that ^neas 
 will build thirty castles in the land of 
 the Boreigoni. The authors whom Ly- 
 cophron followed must have used the 
 term for the natives of Latium as dis- 
 tini:;uished from the fancied Trojan set- 
 tlers. Sallust applies it in like manner ; 
 and he chooses to describe his Abori- 
 gines as savages, without laws or go- 
 vernment or any civil society. Other 
 writers, who were guided in their re- 
 searches into antiquity by really histo- 
 rical traditions, and who endeavoured to 
 trace the national affinities of the mixed 
 people of Latium, unfortunately differed 
 in their apphcation of the general de- 
 scriptive term Aborigines. There were 
 two distinct races, who might, in a certain 
 measure, be considered as the ancestors 
 of the Latins ; and the name Aborigines 
 was given to both. When Cato and 
 Sempronius, and many other writers, 
 (according to the statement of Diony- 
 siusj,) affirmed the Aborigines to be 
 Greeks who dwelt formerly in Achaia, 
 and migrated many generations before 
 the Trojan war, it is manifest that by 
 this term they designated the settlers on 
 the coasts, a people of Pelasgic origin, 
 " the renowned Tyrsenians " of Ilesiod: 
 and Dionysius was not mistaken in as- 
 suming a close affinity between these 
 Aborigines and the QLnotrians. It was 
 
 See pp. 97, 105. f Nieb. p. 79. ed. 3. 
 
 X Dion. i. 11. 
 
ito 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 In this sense that Cato related that the 
 Aborigines were the ancient inhabitants 
 of the Volscian plains. Onlheotherhand, 
 ■when Terentius Varro enumerated in 
 his Antiquities the ancient towns of the 
 Aboriirines, situated in the valley of the 
 Apennines and along their declivities, of 
 which the nearest were a day's journey 
 distant from Rome ; — Palatium, from 
 which it is likely that the settlement on 
 the Palatine Hill took its name; Sima, 
 where there was a very ancient temple 
 of the Italian god of war, Mars, or Ma- 
 yors, or Mamers ; Orvinium, of the size 
 and importance of which traces still re- 
 mained in the foundations of its walls, 
 its ancient sepulchres and lofty barrows ; 
 Tiora, where the responses of an ancient 
 oracle of Mars were delivered by a wood- 
 pecker, a bird sacred to the deity of war, 
 and held in reverence among the Ita- 
 lian nations ; and, besides several other 
 towns, Lista, the chief city of the 
 Aborigines, which was wrested from 
 them by the Sabines, and which, when 
 their efforts to recover it had proved in- 
 effectual, they dedicated to the gods, 
 pronouncing a curse on all who should 
 reap the fruit of their lands ; — it is ma- 
 nifest that he applied the name to an 
 indigenous Italian people, the natives of 
 the mountains. ♦ The name must have 
 been so applied by those who supposed 
 the Aborigines to be Ligurians or Um- 
 brians. t Dionysius has caused an al- 
 most inextricable confusion in his his- 
 tory of the early nations of Italy, by 
 conceiving that the same people was 
 designed by all the writers who spoke of 
 the Aborigines. If we were to inquire 
 to which race the appellation would be 
 more properly given, it would be diffi- 
 cult to determine the question. If the 
 name be used only with reference to 
 Latium, the Pelasgians were the older 
 inhabitants : but the mountaineers were 
 the indigenous population of Italy ; and 
 if they were called Opici, as being the 
 children of the soil, they might well 
 claim the similar title of Aborigines. In 
 order, therefore, to avoid confusion, we 
 shall abstain from the use of this am- 
 biguous name, and distinguish each 
 people by a more peculiar appellation. % 
 From the heroic legend of Hesiod, 
 that Latinus, the son of Ulysses and 
 
 • Dion.i. 1& 14. + Dion. i. 10 & 13. 
 
 t Niebuhr, in the second edition of his first vo- 
 lume, used the term Aborigines in the sense of Varro ; 
 in the third edition he has followed the example of 
 Cato, and denounced the other use of the word as.«n 
 error. 
 
 Circe, ruled over the renowned Tme- 
 nians, we may reasonably conjecture 
 that the name of Latins belonged pro- 
 perly to the Tyrsenian or Pelasgian ele- 
 ment of the nation, though it was after- 
 wards applied to the mixed people. The 
 tribe, who came down as conquerors 
 from the mountains, seem to have been 
 called Sacrani : a name which denoted, 
 or was supposed to denote, that they 
 had gone forth from their home in pur- 
 suance of a vow of a Sacred Spring. * 
 It appears probable likewise, that they 
 were by some writers called Casci: 
 whether this was merely an Oscan word, 
 signifying ancient, and so synonymous 
 with Aborigines ; or whether, as Nie- 
 buhr supposes, it was a national name, 
 which afterwards came to be used as a 
 common adjective, just as Opicus in La- 
 tin, and Gothic in Entrlish. are used to 
 express antiquity and barbarism, t 
 
 We before appealed to the evidence 
 afforded by the Latin language, that 
 one stock of the nation was a Pelasgian 
 race. From the same source we derive 
 an incontrovertit)le proof, that this ele- 
 ment was blended with another altoge- 
 ther different. A large proportion of 
 the words of the Latin language have 
 no affinity with the Greek ; and many 
 are quite dissimilar in the combinations 
 of letters which they present. The in- 
 flexions, especially of the verbs, have 
 to a great extent a peculiar character. 
 Even when the themes are purely Greek, 
 they are subjected to the inflexions of 
 another language. It is manifest, there- 
 fore, that the Latin language is com- 
 posed of two elements ; but of its native 
 Italian roots we have comparatively 
 little knowledge derived from extrinsic 
 sources. The writings of grammarians 
 point to the Oscan, if not as the parent 
 stock, at least as a cognate tongue : 
 and the inscriptions which have been 
 discovered in Campania, and other parts 
 in which the Oscan was spoken, and 
 which are reasonably believed to be 
 Oscan, confirm this opinion. Of these in- 
 scriptions, according to Niebuhr, " some 
 may "be made out word for word, others 
 
 * See p. 65; and compare Festus, y. Sarrani, 
 with Varro in Dion.i. 14; and Serv. on j55n. vii. 796, 
 with Dion.i. 16. So little certainty can be attained 
 in these in vestigations, that a question might be raised 
 whether the Sacrani were not the Sabines of the 
 Quirinal. But the hypothesis adopted in the text, 
 which Niebuhr also has followed, seems more pro- 
 bable. 
 
 f Ennius in Varro de L. L. vi. and Cic. Tusc. Q. 
 i. 12: " Casci populi geuuere Latini." Also Sau- 
 feius in Serv. on Mn. i. 6. Nieb. p. 63, ed. 2 ; p. 7S^ 
 ed. 3. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Ill 
 
 in part at least, with complete certainty, 
 and without any violence. We discover 
 therein that other element which is 
 mixed up with the Greek part of the 
 Latin lan^uacje ; and the forms are such 
 as in Latin have lost some of their syl- 
 lables and their terminations, after the 
 custom of languaj^es when they inter- 
 mix and jrrow old : grammatical forms 
 too and inflexions are common, which, 
 in Latin, appear but rarely, and as ex- 
 ceptions."* This affinity between the 
 Oscan and the element of the Latin lan- 
 guage which is not Greek, places beyond 
 a doubt the conclusion which may be 
 drawn from historical tradition, and from 
 our knowledge of the geographical dis- 
 tribution of the Italian tribes : that the 
 Cascans or Sacrani, or by whatever 
 name we call the highlanders who over- 
 powered the Tyrsenians of the coast, 
 belonged to the stock of the Oscans or 
 Opicans. 
 
 But the discerning mind of Niebuhr 
 has observed that more precise infor- 
 mation may be drawn from the lang:uage, 
 and that it is, in fact, a monument of 
 the habits and mutual relation of the two 
 races. ' It cannot be mere chance, that 
 the words for a house, afield, a plough, 
 ploughing, iDine, oil, milk, kine, swine, 
 sheep, apples, and others relating to 
 agriculture and gentler ways of life, 
 should agree in Latin and Greek ; while 
 the Latin words for all objects apper- 
 taining to war or the chase are utterly 
 alien from the Greek.'t It is manifest 
 that the Pelasgian Latins were an agri- 
 cultural, or, at least, a pastoral people, 
 more wealthy, and more civilized ; while 
 the Cascans were barbarian conquerors. 
 It is probable that a portion of the 
 Pelasgian population was dislodged and 
 migrated southward along the coast. 
 If we admit the identity of the Siculi 
 with the Latin Pelasgians, we have 
 a distinct tradition of their migration, 
 with the express assertion that they 
 were expelled by the Opici. It is cer- 
 tain, however, that a large portion 
 remained in the country ; especially in 
 its southern districts. Those commu- 
 nities which were reduced to subjec- 
 
 • Nieb. vol. i. p. 67, ed. 3. In another passage 
 p. 81) he observes : " The Oscan words that appear 
 in Latin are contracted and curtailed, as ihe Zend 
 words are in Persian ; and such must always be the 
 ease, when a difficult and harsh language, abounding 
 in polysyllables, is adopted by a nation whose tongue 
 has a different character." 
 
 t Nieb. V. i. p. 82, ed. 3. This subject is pursued 
 further by Miiller, Etrusk. v. i. p. 16. It is obser- 
 vable that the names of the species, of corn are not 
 GKeek, 
 
 tion probably still continued to be the 
 tillers of the soil, while the conquerors 
 lived among them as a military and ruling 
 class; so that their mutual relation 
 would resemble that of the Achaean 
 Perioeci and their Dorian masters in the 
 states of Peloponnesus. 
 
 The intermixture of the two races was 
 symbolized in the old legend by the hos- 
 pitable reception of the Arcadian Evander 
 by Faunus, king of the Aborigines, and 
 by the union of the Trojan followers of 
 ./Eneas with the native subjects of La- 
 tinus ; and a!j;ain, in another shape, by 
 Latinus giving his daughter Lavinia in 
 marriage to ^Eneas ; and Evander, who 
 now becomes the representative of the 
 indigenous race, his daughter Launa 
 (which is only another form of Lavinia) 
 to the Grecian Hercules. t 
 
 The common tradition of the Romans 
 represented the ancient Latin State as 
 a federation of thirty towns, of which 
 Alba was the head. This account seems 
 to be true of the constitution of Latium 
 at the time of the origin of Rome ; al- 
 though it did not comprehend the whole 
 truth. But the tradition added, that the 
 thirty towns were all colonies of Alba.* 
 This statement is manifestly inconsistent 
 with other traditions. In the poetical 
 legend.t Ardea, Laurentum, and La- 
 vinium, are represented as older than 
 Alba. Tibur is mentioned as a Siculian 
 town: and the same account seems to 
 be given of Antemnae, Tellena, and Fi- 
 culnea.$ Tibur and Tellena appear in 
 the li.st of the thirty Latin towns, with 
 which war was waged in the first years 
 of the Republic :§ but, if they were of 
 Siculian origin, they were of higher an- 
 tiquity than any tradition assigns to 
 Alba. The error by which the chief city 
 of a nation is assumed to be the parent 
 of the inferior towns is in the customary 
 style of traditional history. 
 
 In the poetical representation of Vir- 
 gil we find the Latins, or Tyrrhenians, 
 divided into two bodies, the kingdoms 
 of Latinus and Turnus, of which the 
 capitals were Laurentum and Ardea.(| 
 That this is not a mere fiction, but that 
 the learned poet was guided by some 
 historical authority, we have a strong 
 testimony in the statement of Strabo, 
 that there was a temple of Venus near 
 
 • Lir. 1. 3 and 52. Dion. i. 45, iii. 31 and 34. So 
 in Lycophron the thirty castles built by iiineas in 
 the land of the Boreigoni. 
 
 t See p. 6. X Dion. i. 16, 
 
 § Dion. V. 61. Nieb. v. ii.n. 21. 
 
 I Nieb. v.ii.p. 21. 
 
112 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Ardea, where the Latins held a general 
 meetinjr ; and that at Laviniuni also tliere 
 was a temple of Venus common to tlie 
 Latins.* Such common temples and 
 puhlic festal meetinifs, botli in Italy and 
 Greece, were usually connected with 
 political federal ions.t The legend seems 
 to mark the Ardean temple, and conse- 
 quently the Rutulian confederacy, as 
 the older. If the two leasrues existed 
 together, the Rutulian probably included 
 the more southern Tyrrhenians, in the 
 district which was afterwards conquered 
 by the Volseians;| the Lavinian, the 
 towns which were more projierly ac- 
 counted Latin, and perhaps even those 
 beyond the Anio. To the latter con- 
 federacy alone we now direct our atten- 
 tion. 
 
 It can scarcely be doubted that the 
 very name Lavinium signified the com- 
 mon place of meeting of the Latins. § 
 But the Latins of whose confederacy 
 Lavinium was the head must have been 
 the old Pelasgian Latins. This is indi- 
 cated satisfactorily by the religious tra- 
 dition, thiit the temples of Lavinium 
 vvere the seats of the Penates, the pecu- 
 liar gods of the Trojans, which they 
 refused to relinquish for the new set- 
 tlement at Alba:|| for the Penates vvere 
 ascertained by the most judicious anti- 
 quaries to be the same as the Pelasgian 
 gods the Cabiri, wiiose worship, was 
 preserved in the Pelasgian island of 
 Samothrace.^ The introduction of the 
 Trojan story has disfigured the historical 
 traditions of Latiutn ; but thus much is 
 certain, that Lavinium was believed to 
 be older than Alba; and this belief tallies 
 with the conclusion that Lavinium was 
 the chief town of a league of the old Pe- 
 lasgian Latins. Of the members of this 
 leaixue we can speak only by very un- 
 certain conjecture. They were probably 
 thirty in number, like the towns of the 
 later Latin leagues ; but amongst them 
 
 • Strabo, V. 3. 
 
 i See above; Temple of ttie Avenfine Diana, p. 
 92; and Heeren's Sketch of the Political History 
 of Greei-e, c. vii. 
 
 X See above, p. 79. 
 
 § ' I am not offering an hypothesis, but the plain 
 result of uMprejudiced observation, when I remark, 
 that Lavinium, as its name implies, was the seat of 
 roiigress for the Latins, who were also called Lavines ; 
 j<i«t as Panionium was that for the lonians in Asia.' 
 Nieb. ▼. i. p. 198. So also in p. 83 : • Lafinus in a 
 different dialect was called Lavinus, whence ignorant 
 expounders have given him a brother, the founder <of 
 Lavinium.' Serv. on ^In. i. 2. 
 
 y See p. 6, and Timaeus in Dion. i. 67. 
 
 *[[ See Dion. i. 68, 69; Atticus ia Schol. Veron. on 
 Mn. ii. 717, cited by Niebubr; Scrv. on /En, iji. 
 12 ; and Herod, ii. 51. 
 
 must have been the towns of which we 
 read in the wars of the Roman kings, 
 but which, whether they were conquered 
 by Rome, or wiiether from otiier causes 
 they ceased to exist, do not appear in the 
 list of the Latin States which were par- 
 ties to the treaty of Spurius Cassius, 
 A.u.c. 2iil ; such as Caenina, Crustu- 
 merium, Antemnae, Cameria, Polifo- 
 rium, Fieana or Ficulea, MeduUia, 
 Ameriola, and Apiolae.* 
 
 If .Lavinium was the chief city of the 
 Pelasgian people of Latium, and Alba» 
 which according to universal tradition 
 was aflerwaids the head of the Latins, 
 was more rectnt than Lavinium, the 
 conclusion seems probable, that Alba 
 was a settlement of the Cascan or Sa- 
 cranian conquerors. This conjecture is 
 strengthened by our finding a town of 
 the same name in the inland mountain- 
 ous country on the borders of tiie Fucine 
 Lake.t But even when Alba became 
 the imperial city of the united nations, 
 Lavinium maintained its reliijious sanc- 
 tity. The Penates, accordmg to tiie 
 marvellous legend, were still worshipped 
 in its .slirines; meetings of the Latins 
 were still held in the temple of Venus ; 
 and it was probably in such a national 
 assembly that the Latins rose up against 
 the stranyer Tatius and slew him for 
 daring to insult their national honour.J 
 But Lavinium appears to liave received 
 a colony of the ruling nation ; and the 
 six hundred guardians of the sacred rites, 
 who acco'.dmg to the legend were sent 
 back from Alba, when the Penates re- 
 fused to leave their old a\)odes, were 
 probably three liundred Cascan colonists 
 associated with equal rights with the 
 same number of the older people. § 
 
 All memory of the real origin of Alba 
 has been erfaced by the substitution of 
 the story of its foundation by lulus and 
 the Trojans of Lavinium. We only 
 conjecti'u-e that it was a city of the Gas- 
 cans. Tile; later writers, who adopted 
 without question all the Trojan legend, 
 fixed the time of the foundation of Alba 
 in accordance with the date assisfned by 
 the Greek chronologers for the taking of 
 Troy. But the genuine Italian tradition 
 made Alba only three hundred years 
 older than Rome.|| It is said that a race 
 of kings reigned there who bore the 
 
 * See Nieb. v. ii. p. 20. 
 
 t See Nieb. v. ii, p. 19, n. 23. Perhaps the name 
 was signiricant of the elevated site of the town, and 
 involved the same root as Alp. 
 
 i See p. 10,. and Dion. ii. 51, 52; Liv. i. 14. 
 
 J See Nieb. v. i. pp. 197, 198; v. ii. p. 19. 
 Ii See p. 6, and Nieb. v, i. pp. 202, 3. Justin, xUii. 1. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME 
 
 113 
 
 common name of Silvii, and were the 
 descendants of Silvius, the son of ^neas 
 and Lavinia. The way in which the 
 story distinguishes this stock from the 
 genuine Trojan descendants of luhis 
 seems to indicate that the Silvii were 
 commemorated in national traditions 
 which the foreign legend could not en- 
 tirely displace. Of the history of Alba 
 nothing was recorded save the poetic 
 tale of the foundation of Rome. The 
 power of the city was marked by its 
 public works. It was made inaccessible 
 by cutting the rocks along which it stood 
 sheer down to the edge of the lake ; and 
 the lake was prevented from overflowing 
 by a tunnel which let out the water to 
 fertilize the plains beneath. !ln the 
 Roman Annals this outlet is represented 
 as a Roman work, executed during the 
 siege of Veii, in the middle of the fourth 
 century of the city, to fulfil the predic- 
 tion of an Etruscan soothsayer.* But 
 such a labour had manifestly a practical 
 purpose, and was executed by those who 
 had an interest in the lands which it 
 saved from floods and enriched by re- 
 gular irrigation. Hence we conclude 
 that the tunnel was the work of the La- 
 tins ; and it is likely enough that it was 
 made while Alba 'was still standing.f 
 A similar work preserved the name of 
 an Alban prince to succeeding ages, 
 and, like the former, continues at this 
 day, after the lapse of two thousand live 
 hundred years, to fulfil its beneficial 
 purpose. The Valley of Grottaferrata, 
 beneath the Tusculan hills, which seems 
 to have been anciently called the Alban 
 Valley, is the bed of a marsh or lake 
 "which has been drained by two channels. 
 One of these is merely a canal which runs 
 into the Anio ; but the other is a tunnel 
 hewn through the rock for the length of 
 half a mile, and carrying the waters into 
 the thirsty fields of the Campagna. The 
 channel in which the water proceeds was 
 directed (probably by the Romans) into 
 the city, and runs through the valley of 
 the Circus into the Tiber. It is now 
 
 • Liv. V. 15, 16, 19. Cic. de Div. i. 44. 
 
 f Niebuhr, in the first edition ofhis history, referred 
 the tunnel to an early age, vol. ii. ch. x. ; but in the 
 more recent form of his work he assents to the date 
 assigned by the Roman Annals. He conceives that 
 at that time earthquakes had stopped the subter- 
 ranean outlets which before served as a natural 
 emissarius, and rendered an artificial drain neces- 
 sary. The emissarius, or tunnel, is six thousand 
 feet long, six feet high, and three feet and a half 
 broad; and it is broken through a hard volcanic 
 stone. See Nieb. v. ii. pp. 477, 504, 505. The hew- 
 ing of tunnels through rock probably preceded and 
 gave the hint for the construction of great sewers, 
 such as are ascribed to Tarquin. 
 
 called La Marrana ; but the part of it 
 before the point where it is turned off to 
 Rome, was the Fossa Cluilia, or Cluilian 
 Ditch, along which the Albans were said 
 to have encamped when they marched 
 against the city in the reign of Tullus 
 Hostilius, and which was reported to 
 have taken its name from the Alban 
 king Cluilius who died there.* But it 
 is probable that Cluilius was the name 
 of the prince under whom the work was 
 constructed, and that he has been 
 wrongfully introduced into the tradition 
 of a war in which Met tins Fufetius alone 
 ought to have appeared.-}' 
 
 On the summit of the Alban Mount 
 stood the temple of Jupiter Latiaris,$ 
 the great sanctuary of the Alban people, 
 and the common place of meetmg for 
 the Latin towns, which were leagued 
 under their supremacy. The story that 
 this temple was first founded, and the 
 common festival of Latium (the Latiar, 
 or Ferise Latinae) first instituted, by Tar- 
 quinius Superbus, when the Latin con- 
 federacy acknowledged the sovereignty 
 of Rome,§ is beyond doubt an inven- 
 tion of Roman pride. The temple of 
 Jupiter Latiaris, which from its lofty 
 site looked down upon the city, as the 
 city looked down upon the plains below, 
 was the Capitol of Alba in its days 
 of independence and imperial power. 
 Hither the victorious chiefs of Alba led 
 up their' triumphs ; triumphs which in 
 after ages were imitated by Roman ge- 
 nerals, leaders of the combined armies 
 of Rome and Latium, to whom the Ro- 
 man Senate denied the like honor in 
 their native 'city.lj Here the confede- 
 rate Latins held their solemn assembly. 
 The rustic cantons brought their offer- 
 ings of lambs or cheeses or milk or 
 cakes ; and the imperial city sacrificed 
 a bull on behalf of the whole league, 
 and distributed to all the allied states 
 their portions of the sacred flesh. The 
 temples of Alba were left standing, when 
 all its profane buildings went to the 
 ground : and the Roman King, at the 
 head of a new confederacy of the Latins 
 and Hernicans, distributed to forty- 
 
 * See p. 14. 
 
 t This account and conjecture are borrowed from 
 Niebuhr, v. i. p. 201 ; and p.342,n. 870. 
 
 t Cic. pro Mil. 31. Dion. iv. 49. 
 
 § See p. 24. 
 
 I See Liv.xxvi.21. " Pridie quam urbem iniret, 
 in mon te Albano triumphavit." C. Papirius Maso is 
 said to have been the first Roman general who 
 triumphed on the Alban Mount. Plin.i xv. 38. (29.) 
 By this we are probably to understand that he was 
 the first who thus triumphed in despite of the senate 
 after the subjection of Lati'im, A.U.C. 522. 
 
114 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 seven cities the victim which the Alban 
 Dictators had divided among the depu- 
 tics of sixty towns, the thirty states of 
 tlie old Pelaspian Latins, and thirty com- 
 munities which derived their origin from 
 Alba. 
 
 Our knowledge of this latter body we 
 derive from Pliny.* After enumerating 
 more than twenty Latin towns, of which 
 in his age there were no remains, he 
 subjoins a list of the Albensian commu- 
 nities (populi Albenses), at the head of 
 wliich he places the Albans themselves, 
 and then thirty others whose names are 
 arranged in alphabetical order. All 
 these, he says, had been accustomed to 
 receive their portion of the sacred flesh 
 on the Alban mount with the Latins, 
 and, like the Latin towns, had become 
 extinct. It can scarcely be doubled 
 ihaX these were the thirty colonies which 
 were said to have sprung from Alba, 
 and not the thirty Latin cities, as Livy 
 and Dionysius and other writers have 
 falsely repeated the tradition ;t and 
 they must be regarded, like Alba, as 
 settlements of the Cascan or Sacranian 
 conquerors. It is worthy of remark 
 that of these Albensian communities, 
 six, and only six, appear in the list of 
 the thirty Latin States included in the 
 league of Spurius Cassius,$ a.u.c.261. 
 
 Our history of the internal changes 
 of the Latin Federation must be pieced 
 by conjecture : but some points are so 
 distinctly marked, and the whole pre- 
 sents itself in so consistent a shape, that 
 our conjectures assume a strong cha- 
 racter of probability. We will not an- 
 ticipate our remarks on the history of 
 the Roman Kings by speculating on the 
 true causes of the destruction of Alba ; 
 but we may say, that it appears tiiat 
 after the downfall of the sovereign city 
 the remains of the Pelasgian Latins reco- 
 vered their independence,and constituted 
 a new league which comprehended only 
 thirty cities. These are the Latins, who 
 were called, and who called themselves, 
 the Ancient Latins (Prisci Latini) : ^ 
 apparently, from a feeling of national 
 
 • PHn. N. H. iii. 5 (9). See Nieb. vol. i. p. 199, 
 and note 570. 
 
 ■f See above p. 111. 
 
 X Dion. V. 61, with the emendations of Niebuhr, 
 Tol. ii. note 21. 
 
 § Niebuhr ronceived the notion that Prisci was 
 properly a national name of the Opican conquerors 
 of the Pelasgian Latias : in his own words, " Friscus 
 was certainly the nameof a people, just like Cascus 
 (See above p. 110); and after the very same manner 
 did it grow to mean, primitive, and old-fashioned : 
 the Prisci Latini were the Prisci et Latini" (accord- 
 ing to the old Roman idiom by which juxta-position 
 ■was equivalent to conjunction), tjee vol. i. p. 371 
 
 pride, to distinguish themselves from the 
 more recent Latins of Alba, who had 
 mixed themselves with them and usurped 
 their national name. They waged wars 
 with Ancus Marcius, and with the elder 
 Tarquinius, in which they lost several 
 of their towns, and [a large portion of 
 their population became subject to 
 Rome.* They made a league with the 
 Romans, under Servius TuUius, when 
 the Temple of Diana on the Aventine 
 was built, as the common place of meet" 
 ing for the two nations.-!* Under Hie 
 strong dominion of the second Tarquin, 
 they were forced to submit to the supre- 
 macy of Rome, as they before submitted 
 to the supremacy of Alba. Upon the 
 expulsion of the king, this connexion 
 was dissolved. The Latins took the 
 part of the Tarquins, and the struggle 
 began, which in the poetical legend ends 
 with the grand battle at the lake Re- 
 gillus. At length in the seventeenth 
 year of the Repubhc, in the Consulship 
 of Spurius Cassius, the league between 
 the two nations was renewed upon terms 
 of equal alliance. 
 
 We have stated the conjecture that 
 this Latin State was composed chiefly of 
 
 and note 914, and also p. 78. It is surprising that a 
 writer of his discernment sliould take up such au 
 opinion in the face of the manifest etymolog:y which 
 connects priscus with «r^/v, prior, primus, princepSf 
 prislinus, prcB, ^^0, &c. Moreover, the word in its 
 later use has not exactly the meaning which 
 Niebuhr assigns to it, but has sometliing com- 
 parative in its signification, and means earlier. 
 Thus, not to use the disputed ex^imples in which 
 the epithet was applied to Tarquinius and Cato, 
 Virgil calls the people of Cures prisci Quirites, JEn. 
 vii.710. The Prisci Latini then were the Ancient Lar 
 tins ; but the question remains, from whom they were 
 thus distinguished: evidently not from the Latia 
 colonies, as seems to be the vulgar opinion. The 
 term is so constantly used by all writers, that it is 
 certain that they must have found it commonly em- 
 ployed in the Annals, and these again must have 
 taken it from old records, and from the lan- 
 guage of tradition. If it had been merely a dis- 
 tinctive appellation, introduced for the sake of ex« 
 actness J>y some writer of a later age, after the 
 Latin colonies were founded, it could never have 
 become an universal adjunct to the Latin name. 
 In the formulary of the Fetial for declaring war, 
 which Livy has introduced under the reign of 
 Ancus, war is declared against the Prisci Latini ; 
 and this expression is repeated in solemn cere-- 
 monial language no less than six times. (Liv. i. 32.) 
 This formula may not be so old as Ancus; 
 but Livy must have taken it fron the pontifical 
 books of an age long before Latin colonies were- 
 thonghtof. (Nieb. p. 3/1.) Tosupposethat he inserted 
 the phrase himself is to suppose him guilty of as great 
 an absurdity as if an English historian were to give 
 the form oi a declaration of war by the SaxoHS 
 against " the Ancient Britons." But if the customary 
 epithet was derived from the language of early ages, 
 and was really a part of a national name used by the 
 Latins themselves, or at least applied to them by the 
 contemporary Romans, the explanation given in the 
 text seems tHe only probabicaccount of the matter, 
 •pp. 17, 1». tp.22. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 115 
 
 the remains of the Pelasgian Latins, 
 who recovered their independence after 
 the fall of Alba. But it must not be 
 supposed that they emerged pure and 
 unmixed. The genuine Tyrsenian race 
 had suffered a large alloy ; and the Al- 
 ban townships still existed among them, 
 though the relation of the two nations 
 was changed. The confederacy of the 
 Ancient Latins is always considered as 
 including thirty cities ; but these thirty 
 cities were not always the same. In the 
 federal states of antiquity, which con- 
 sisted of a definite number of parts, the 
 number was in general religiously pre- 
 served ; and new members were ad- 
 mitted to supply the place of those which 
 perished by internal decay, or were de- 
 tached by 'external violence.* Thus it 
 is probable that some at least among 
 the Latin towns taken by Ancus Mar- 
 cius and the elder Tarquinius, such as 
 Medullia, Politorium, Apiolae,f were 
 of the number of the thirty ; and if they 
 remained in the power of the Romans, 
 their place was filled up by others. 
 Corniculum, Nomentum, and Tellena, 
 which are claimed as Roman conquests, 
 re-appear in the rank of independent 
 Latin towns, after the commencement 
 of the Republic, as members of the 
 league of Spurius Cassius. But in the 
 same ]ist,$ we find six of the Alban 
 communities enumerated by Pliny ; and 
 these may be supposed to have come 
 into the room of cities which had been 
 lost in war. The number of thirty towns 
 was maintained, but it was not ex- 
 ceeded. When Tarquinius is said to 
 have distributed the flesh of the bull to 
 forty-seven cities, we must understand 
 Rome, the thirty cities of the Latins, 
 and sixteen towns of the Hernicans.^ 
 
 The Latin towns had their senates ; 
 each, probably, of a hundred men. Their 
 chief magistrate was entitled Dictator. 
 We read of this magistracy at Alba|| and 
 atTusculura ;^ and in very late times it 
 was still preserved at Lanuvium.** De- 
 puties from the senates of all the cities 
 attended the general meetings of the 
 
 • Seethe observations on the twelve P'truscan ci 
 ties, pp. 88, 89. Thus Herodotus and Polybius eWe 
 hsts of the twelve cities of the Achaeans ; and in the 
 latter, Leontuiin and Cerynea appear in the place of 
 Mgx and Rhypes, which stand in the former. Nieb 
 v.u.pp. 20, 21. Compare the lists of the Amphic- 
 tyonic nations, given by ^schines (De Fal. Leg-) 
 and by Harpocration from Theopompus. 
 
 t pp. 17, 18. 
 
 t Dion. V. 61, inNieb.vol.ii. note21. 
 
 $ Nieb. vol. ii.p. 85. 
 
 11 Liv. i. 23 ; Licinius Macer in Dion. v. 74. 
 
 IT Cato.Frag. 
 •• Milo was Dictator of Lanuvium. Cic, pro Mil. 
 
 confederacy : Niebuhr conjectures, the 
 ten first from each senate.* This coun- 
 cil of the chiefs or leading men was 
 accompanied by a popular assembly, f 
 which served as a representation of the 
 whole league, and stood in the same re- 
 lation to the council of the confederacy 
 as the people of each town to its own 
 senate. It seems that, occasionally at 
 least, the Dictator of one of the cities was 
 appointed Dictator of the whole nation. $ 
 In the instance mentioned by Cato, the 
 object of the appointment was the dedi- 
 cation of a grove to Diana ; and it is 
 probable that such a dictator was elected 
 to perform the religious ceremonies of 
 the Latin Festival, to sacrifice the bull, 
 and distribute the portions of the sacred 
 flesh. The nation elected likewise a 
 general to command their common army. 
 The great yearly festival of the nation, 
 the Latiar, continued after the destruc- 
 tion of Alba to be held at the Temple 
 of Jupiter Latiaris on the summit of the 
 Alban Mount ; but the meetings for po- 
 litical business assembled at the grove 
 and fountain of Ferentina at the bottom 
 of the hill, and on the opposite side of 
 the Alban Lake.§ 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Cojnmentary on the Traditional History 
 related in the First Chapter, to the 
 reign of the first Tarquinius. 
 
 § 1. On the site of Rome, and the features of the 
 adjacent country. § 2. The legend of iEneas. 
 § 3. Romulus. § 4. Rome a Pelasgian or Siculiaa 
 town. § 6. On the Palatine Hill. § 6. The Qui- 
 riiial and Capitoline Hills the seat of a Sabine 
 town — Rape of the Sabines — Tatius— Roman 
 Tribes— Ranines—Titienses. § 7- The third tribe, 
 Luceres. § 8. Numa. § 9. TuUus Hostilius. De- 
 struction of Alba. §10. Ancus Marcius — Wars 
 with the Latins. 5 11. On the primitive consti- 
 tution of Rome — Tribes; Curiaa ; Gentes; Se- 
 nate; Patrons; Clients; Patricians; Plebeians. 
 
 ^ 1. The physical configuration of the 
 country about Rome maybe easily com- 
 prehended: and even the picturesque 
 features of the scenes of the early Ro- 
 man traditions are so strongly marked, 
 that those who have never visited them 
 may conceive a lively idea of them. 
 Rome stands upon the left bank of the 
 Tiber, about seventeen miles from the- 
 sea. The Tiber, which is the common 
 channel of the streams which rise on the 
 western side of the Apennines in the 
 middle portion of Italy, approaches 
 
 * Like the Decern Primi at Rome. See p. 8. 
 
 I Latinurum concilium, distinct from the principes ^ 
 Liv. i.51. 
 
 t See Cato in Priscian, iv. 4. 
 
 § For an acute and profound investigation of the 
 cons-titutionof the Latin State, see Nieb. v, ii, pp. 
 16, 36. 
 
 12 
 
116 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Rome in a course of which the general 
 direction is from north to south. A 
 little above Rome it is joined by the 
 Anio (Teverone), flowing towards the 
 west; and thence the current of the 
 united rivers runs jn a south-west direc- 
 tion to the sea. In this part of Italy, 
 on the western side of the main ridge of 
 the Apennines, are several parallel 
 ridges, which decrease in height as they 
 approach the coast. The Anio rises be- 
 tween two of these lower ridges, and 
 flows at first from the south-east to the 
 north-west. The outer ridge of its valley 
 is the mountain country of the Hernici. 
 The Anio turns the extremity of this 
 ridge ; and the direction of its current is 
 there determined by a line of hills on its 
 opposite bank, which jut out from the 
 Apennines towards the south-west and 
 ivest. These hills are the Mount Lucre- 
 tilis ; and the abutment of them at the 
 angle between the Anio and the Tiber is 
 the celebrated Sacred Mount, where the 
 bloodless victories of the Plebeians were 
 gained. Lying out at a little distance 
 from the Sacred Mount, yet apparently 
 a continuation of the same chain of rising 
 ground, the last steps before it subsides 
 into the level which stretches towards 
 the sea, is a small cluster of hills, south 
 of the Anio, and close upon the eastern 
 bank of the Tiber. Upon these hills 
 Rome was built. Four of these, the 
 Capitoline, Palatine, Csehus, and Aven- 
 tine, are insulated heights, divided from 
 one another by little valleys, in which 
 the springs made swamps and pools, and 
 which were frequently flooded by the 
 river. The other three, the Quirinal, 
 Viminal, andEsquiline, are promontories 
 which jut out towards the Tiber from one 
 Jong range, and are separated from each 
 other only by narrow glens running up 
 into it. This common range, which in 
 many points ends very abruptly on the 
 side of the river, sinks by a gentle slope 
 into the plain which stretches to the 
 foot of the lower Apennines. The 
 sides of the hills were steep, and even 
 precipitous. Two of the smallest hills, 
 the Capitoline and the Palatine, present- 
 ed the boldest outlines. They stood close 
 to the edge of the river. Their rocky 
 sides and elevated summits made them 
 places of strength ; and the former espe- 
 cially was so precipitous, ^that it was a 
 natural fortress, and became the citadel 
 of Rome. 
 
 Parallel to the Anio, in a valley on 
 the western side of the Hernican ridge, 
 the river Trerus (Sacco) flows in the 
 
 opposite direction from the norlh-west 
 to the south-east, till it falls into the 
 Liris (Garigliano). Another parallel 
 ridge of hills, the outer barrier of the 
 valley of the Trerus, is the last and 
 lowest terrace of the Apennines. It 
 runs, like the other ridges and the prin- 
 cipal chain, in a south-east direction, 
 till at last it turns towards the south, 
 and sweeps round and abuts upon the 
 sea at Terracina. 
 
 When this range is viewed from the 
 hills of Rome, it seems like a gigantic 
 mound enclosing the plain from which 
 it rises abruptly. It is not unlike the 
 line of the Grampians as they are seen 
 from Stirling Castle. Between this 
 mountain range and the sea is spread 
 out the low country of Latium, or the 
 Campagna of Rome : a low country, in- 
 deed, compared with the lofty terrace 
 which looks down upon it ; but rising in 
 long grassy swells and flat ridges, which 
 terminate not unfrequently in rocky and 
 precipitous declivities, like the three Ro- 
 man hills described above. Upon these 
 natural fastnesses were built the citadels 
 of the many little towns of Latium. The 
 face of the Campagna is intersected also 
 by many small and sluggish streams, 
 winding along in deep channels under 
 steep and broken banks, beautifully 
 fringed with copsewood and broom. But 
 in the midst of the lowlands, in the north- 
 ern quarter of Latium, there stands out 
 at a little distance from the mountain 
 range a sort of island cluster of hills ; a 
 mass of high ground, beautifully varied 
 within itself with deep valleys and point- 
 ed summits, and steep ridges overhang- 
 ing its sequestered tarns. These are the 
 hills of Alba. Upon the highest peak 
 of the group, looking down upon all 
 the expanse of Latium, stood the temple 
 of Jupiter Latiaris. Immediately below, 
 and scarcely finding space to stand on 
 from the steepness of the mountain side, 
 the long town of Alba in old time stretch- 
 ed itself as on a terrace, with the waters 
 of the Alban lake beneath it. The basin 
 of the lake is the crater of an extinct vol- 
 cano. Farther to the north, the Romans 
 could descry from their walls a ridge 
 running under the highest summit of the 
 Alban Mount, and seeming like a raised 
 way between it and the more distant 
 points of the Alban hills. This ridge 
 was the edge of a green mountain plain ; 
 and this high plain was Algidus, where 
 the i^qui, in the height of their power, 
 used to pitch their camp in the summer 
 months, and whence they commanded a 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 117 
 
 view of all the Roman lowlands to which 
 their descents were to be directed for 
 plunder and ravage. Beneath the ridge 
 of Algidus, on the top of the lower and 
 nearer line of the Alban hills, stood the 
 citadel of Tusculura, the stronghold of 
 the most faithful allies of the banished 
 Tarquin, and subsequently of the youth- 
 ful republic. Farther to the north-east, 
 on the last low insulated point of the 
 ridge, the Romans might behold the 
 towers of Labicum. Beneath Tusculum 
 and Labicum lay the lake Regillus, 
 which poetical tradition made the scene 
 of the last and deadly struggle with the 
 exiled tyrant. Still farther to the north 
 and east is the mountain range which 
 directs the course of the Anio, with the 
 towns of Tibur and Praeneste crowning 
 its nearest projecting eminences ; while, 
 far beyond, the eye glances to the lofty 
 summits of the main ridge of the 
 Apennines, which, during more than six 
 months of the year, are white with snow. 
 On the opposite side towards the sea, 
 the level of the Campagna is broken by 
 no perceptible elevation ; and the low 
 straight line of the distant coast melts 
 into the scarcely more level surface of 
 the Mediterranean, which can be distin- 
 guished from the land only by the brighter 
 light reflected from its waters. If we 
 look from the Capitol to the Tuscan 
 side of the Tiber, the view is immediate- 
 ly bounded by the level line of the long 
 hill of the Janiculus. Where this slope 
 skirts the Tiber to the northward, it 
 took the name of Vaticanus : then re- 
 ceding from the river, it winds round 
 towards it again with a greater elevation 
 and a bolder outline, till, under the name 
 of the Mons Marius, it once more looks 
 down upon the stream, where it is 
 crossed by the Milvian Bridge on the 
 Flaminian Way. 
 
 Such is the site of Rome, and such is 
 the country which surrounds it, — the 
 narrow field of its early struggles and 
 conquests. The great features of nature 
 must have existed in the earliest ages as 
 we see them now : and the imagination 
 can easily put aside all that the hand of 
 art has added or altered. We can set 
 before our eyes a cluster of seven unfre- 
 quented hills rising from their swampy 
 valleys, covered with thickets, and mark- 
 ed by no habitation but the huts of soli- 
 tary herdmen and the folds of cattle. 
 We can behold the little town clustering 
 about the steepest of them ; the fort of 
 unhewn stone on the top of the broken 
 rock; the wall and trench around the 
 
 foot of it, where the approach of the 
 plunderer was easiest. But it is vain to 
 wish that we could recall as vividly the 
 real deeds and fortunes of the new peo- 
 ple. When we examine the traditions 
 which have come down to us, we find 
 that the true sk)ry has vanished for ever. 
 We can scatter the phantoms which pre- 
 sent themselves in its place; but we 
 cannot set before us in living truth the 
 events of the first age of Rome. 
 
 § 2. In beginning our examination, 
 we must notice first the legend of ^neas, 
 and the belief which made Rome to rise 
 from the ashes of Troy. This legend is 
 of the same class with other stories, 
 which carried the heroes of the Trojan 
 war to the shores of Italy, and has no 
 stronger claims to our faith. Thus An- 
 tenor was said to have been the founder 
 of Patavium, and the settler of the Ve- 
 neti.* Philoctetes was carried to (Eno- 
 tria ; Diomedes to Daunia ; Idomeneus 
 to Iapygia;-|" and many like fables were 
 told in their own places. The power 
 and celebrity of Rome attracted peculiar 
 attention to the story of its remote ori- 
 gin, and made the tradition widely 
 known ; but it did not make the evi- 
 dence for it stronger than for local 
 legends of less renown. We are tempted 
 at first to acquiesce in the tale, as if it 
 were transmitted to us by the universal 
 consent of ancient writers, because the 
 popular historians and poets of Rome, 
 whom we read in our childhood, finally 
 adopted it: but if we look deeper into 
 antiquity, we find contradictory tradi- 
 tions respecting the origin of Rome in 
 sufficient abundance to warrant the most 
 impartial scepticism.^ The office of the 
 critical historian in such a case is to 
 ascertain, as well as he can, the time 
 and place of the origin of the vulgar 
 belief; and to point out the accidental 
 circumstances which suggested it or gave 
 a colour to it. 
 
 There can be little doubt that the 
 legend was the offspring of Greek inven- 
 tion. It was connected with the heroic 
 tales of Greece ; and it is little likely 
 that the Romans should have engrafted 
 a story upon them which the Greeks 
 themselves had never thought of, and 
 that the Greeks should then have taken 
 up the foreign fable. The story could 
 scarcely have been home-born, unless it 
 had been true. Moreover, the Greek 
 authorities for the legend are earlier than 
 
 • Ch. iii. § 3. p. 67. t pp. 80, 106, &e 
 
 I See Nieb. vol. i. pp. 205-217. 
 
118 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 the earliest known traces of its existence 
 among the Romans. Towards the close 
 of the fifih century of Rome, Callias, 
 the historian of Ajrathocles, related that 
 Rome was built by Romus and Romulus, 
 the sons of a Trojan woman Roma, who 
 came to Italy with the other Trojans, 
 and married Latinus, king of the Abori- 
 gines. In this version of the story ^Eneas 
 is not named.* At a time a little earlier, 
 Apollodorus of Gela spoke of Romus, 
 the son of ^Eneas and Lavinia.t An- 
 other version of the story is reported by 
 Dionysius : that ^Eneas, after reaching 
 the country of the Molossi, crossed over 
 into Italy in company with Ulysses, and 
 became the founder of Rome ; and that 
 he gave it its name from a Trojan wo- 
 man Roma, who, through weariness of 
 their wanderings, persuaded the other 
 women to set fire to the ships. This 
 account he gives upon the authority of 
 the chronologer, who drew up the list of 
 the Argive Pi^iestesses of Juno, with 
 a summary of the events which hap- 
 pened in the time of each ; and also 
 of Daraastes of Sigeiura.$. But the 
 Chronology of the Priestesses must, 
 from its very nature, have been a 
 very ancient work; and by other au- 
 thority it is expressly ascribed to the 
 historian Hellanicus : § and Damastes 
 of Sigeium is said by Suidas to have 
 been a disciple of Hellanicus, and con- 
 temporary with Herodotus. II We have 
 thus traced back the Trojan legend 
 among Grecian writers, to a date as 
 early as the end of the third century of 
 Rome. But the form in which we have 
 last given it, in which the names of 
 -^neas and Ulysses both appear, is ma- 
 nifestly an attempt to unite two discord- 
 ant legends, each of which must have 
 existed in its simple shape at a still 
 earlier period. 
 
 _ • Dion. i. 72. 
 
 t Fest. V. Romam, in Nieb. vol. i. p. 181. The 
 testimony of Cepbalon the Gergithian, cited by Diony- 
 sias (i. 49 and 73), is not advanced here; because it 
 is positively aflBrmed by Athenseus (vi. p. 393, D.) 
 that the Troica of Cephalon were the forgery of an 
 Alexandrian Mriter, Hegesianax. The mention of the 
 two names Remains and Romus in this story is sus- 
 
 Eicious; inasmnch as it betokens too familiar a know- 
 (dge of the national Roman traditions. The genuine 
 evidence of Cephalon would have been curious, as he 
 was probably of Teucrian origin CHerod. v. 122 : vii. 
 43 ; and Strabo, xiii. 1). 
 t Dion. i. 72. 
 
 § Repeatedly by Steph. Byz. See Mas. Crit. 
 Tol. u. pp. 102, 104. For date and character of Hel- 
 lanicus, see above, note, p. 72. 
 
 I Damastes, from the few citations which remain 
 to us, appears to have been a dilijrent copier of Hel- 
 lanicus ; so that the consent of the latter might al- 
 most be assumed from the assertion of the former. 
 
 The earliest intimation which we find 
 of a national belief in the Trojan legend, 
 is the statement preserved by Dionysius, 
 from the Sicilian historian Timaeus, who 
 wrote towards the end of the fifth cen- 
 tury of Rome. Timseus stated that he 
 heard from the inhabitants of Laviniura, 
 that Trojan figures of clay were pre- 
 served in their shrines.* At a little 
 later period, in the beginning of the 
 sixth century, the national belief was 
 avowed in the most solemn manner. 
 The Roman Senate interposed with the 
 -^tolians on behalf of the Acarnanians, 
 on the plea that the ancestors of the 
 Acarnanians were the only Greeks who 
 had taken no part in the war against 
 their ancestors the Trojans.t Nearly at 
 the same time the senate demanded from 
 Seleucus, king of Syria, that the Ilians, 
 as kinsmen of the Romans, should be 
 exempted from tribute.J The affinity 
 was repeatedly acknowledged by public 
 acts in later times : and the first Roman 
 generals who crossed the Hellespont 
 offered sacrifices on the Pergamus, the 
 site of the citadel of Troy.§ These facts 
 show that the legend was adopted by 
 Rome, before the literature of Greece 
 was commonly known to the Romans ; 
 but they are not at all sufficient to prove 
 that the belief was home-born, especially 
 when we can trace the story among 
 Greek writers to a much earlier date. 
 
 With regard to the origin and growth 
 of the legend, we may observe in the 
 first place, that the prophecy of Neptune 
 in the Iliad, that^Eneas and his children's 
 children should reign over the Trojans,|| 
 may be considered as historical evidence, 
 that, after the overthrow of Troy and of 
 the house of Priam, ^neas and his fa- 
 mily became the chiefs of the broken 
 people. It was believed that they quit- 
 ted the ruined city in the plain, and re- 
 treated to the hilly region of Ida, which 
 was the peculiar apanage of the Dardan 
 prince. Such a tradition was preserved 
 in the town of Scepsis ;^ and the inha- 
 bitants of that town affirmed that it was 
 the royal seat of the descendants of 
 yEneas. The Greek settlements in these 
 
 * Dion. i. 67. 
 
 f Justin, xxviii. 1. See Nieb. vol. i. p. 185. 
 
 t Suet. Claud, c. 25. Nieb. vol. i. p. 186. 
 
 § Liv. XXX VI i. 37. 
 
 il II. XX. 307. 
 
 f Strabo, xiii. 1. vol. iii, p. 122, ed. Tauch. That 
 the Gergilhians in Mount Ida were a remnant of the 
 ancient Teucrians we know from the testimony of 
 Herodotus cited above. MUller (Hist, Dor. B. ii. 
 ch. 2. § 4.) has cited Xen. Hellen. iii. 1. 10 and 15. 
 as a proof that Dardan princes reigned at Gergis and 
 at Scepsis even after the Peloponnesian war. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 119 
 
 i?egions appear to have begun very soon 
 after the Trojan war; and the native 
 tribes dwindled away before their gra- 
 dual encroachments. When the relics 
 of the ancient race became few and scat- 
 tered, it was not unnatural that they 
 should disguise their fallen state by tales 
 of the emi2;ration of their people and 
 princes. The Greek colonists, on the 
 other hand, would present the history of 
 the acquisition of their dominion in its 
 most poetical shape. They would not 
 describe it as a gradual process ; but 
 would suppose it to be effected at once 
 by the conquest of Agamemnon, and at- 
 tended with the expulsion and dispersion 
 of the old inhabitants. It was thus pro- 
 bably that the first tales were invented, 
 which related the settlement of the Tro- 
 jan chief in a foreign land. From the 
 similarity of name, ^neia, on the gulf 
 of Therme, was supposed to have been 
 founded by him ; but the licence of fic- 
 tion soon carried him farther. The west 
 was the unknown region of the Greeks, 
 and from the days of the Odyssey was 
 the scene of the' wanderings of heroes 
 and their marvellous adventures. To- 
 wards this quarter the curiosity and en- 
 terprise of the nation had been directed 
 in the period which lies between its 
 poetical and historical age, the period of 
 the foundation of the Sicilian and Italian 
 colonies. To the west, therefore, the 
 course of ^Eneas was supposed to have 
 been turned: and Stesichorus, who 
 lived in the latter part of the second 
 century of Rome, told in song, how 
 JEneas saved his father and the gods of 
 his country, and sailed with his followers 
 to Hesperia, or the west, without any 
 more exact indication of his final resting 
 place.* 
 
 There were other legends of Trojan 
 settlements in the west, which were not 
 connected with ^neas or with Rome. 
 When thelonians of Colophon fled from 
 the arms of the Lydian Kings, and set- 
 tled at Polieura on the banks of the 
 Siris,'!' the old inhabitants, whom they 
 massacred and dislodged, were reported 
 to be descendants of the Trojans, and 
 to be still in possession of the Palladium, 
 or the sacred image of Pallas the guar- 
 dian goddess of Troy.$ Thucydides ex- 
 presses the opinion that the Elymi in 
 Sicily were partly of the Trojan stock. § 
 
 * Nieb, vol. i. pp. 179, 180. 
 
 •}• If in the time of Gyges(Herod. i, 14},'as early 
 as B.C. 678, A.u.c. 75. 
 t Strabo, vi, 1. 14. 
 § Thue. vi. 2. see p. 81. ji 
 
 Now to some these stories may seem 
 not incredible ; and it may be thought 
 that a migration to the Siritis was as 
 possible to the Trojans as to the Colo- 
 phonians. If the story were true, the 
 actual presence of Trojans in any part 
 of Italy would be a great step in explain- 
 ing a similar legend told of another place 
 in the same country. But even if it be 
 false, it gives us a clue to the origin of 
 the Roman tale. Among the deities of 
 Greece, the worship of which belonged 
 to the older races more peculiarly than 
 to the Hellenic tribes, was the goddess 
 Pallas or Athene. She was worshipped 
 in the Larissa of Argos, and from time 
 immemorial she was the divine inhabi- 
 tant of the citadel of the Cranaan Pe- 
 lasgians of Athens. In the Ihad she 
 appears as the tutelary deity of the Per- 
 gamus of Troy ; and legends were cur- 
 rent at a very early time, of a peculiar 
 sanctity and a protecting power which 
 resided in the statue of the goddess. 
 Such a notion is manifestly implied in 
 the story of the substitution of a false 
 for the true palladium, and the conse- 
 quent disappointment of the Greek plun- 
 derers, who sought to carry off the di- 
 vine image, which is cited by Dionysiu? 
 from Arctinus of Miletus ; one of the 
 Cyclic poets, pronounced by Niebuhr 
 to be contemporary with the founda- 
 tion of Rome.* Now the Greeks in 
 Italy found a goddess, an object of 
 Italian worship, whom, without hesi- 
 tation, they identified with Pallas. It 
 is probable that the Italian tribes of 
 Pelasgian origin really preserved tho 
 worship of the same deity as their kin- 
 dred tribes in Greece. A similar god- 
 dess, under the name of Minerva, was 
 worshipped by the Etruscans in con- 
 junction with Jupiter and Juno : and at 
 Rome the triple temple of the capitol was 
 dedicated by Tarquinius to these three di- 
 vinities.t In Italy, as well as Greece, the 
 notion prevailed of a peculiar mystery 
 and sanctity attached to the statue of 
 the goddess. At Rome a palladium 
 was preserved in the temple of Vesta, 
 which was to be seen only by the Vestal 
 Virgins.J Now when once the belief had 
 gone abroad among the Greeks that the 
 relics of the fugitive Trojans were to be 
 found in Italy, a credulous superstition 
 
 Dion. 
 
 ^. „„. Nieb. vol. i. p. 178. The theft of 
 
 the palladium was narrated also by the Cyclic poet 
 Lesches, who flourished about the end of the first cen- 
 tury of Rome. 
 
 + See p. 24. 
 
 $ Dion, i, 0'3; Ov. Fast. vi. 619,&c.j 
 
12a 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 or a poetical imagination might easily 
 persuade itself, that any one of these 
 noly statues was the secreted palladium 
 of Troy. Such a story was told of the 
 image of the goddess at Siris, at Lu- 
 ceria, at Lavinium, at Rome :* and the 
 origin of the fable was probably the same 
 in every case.t Of course the recogni- 
 tion of the sacred image would carry 
 with it the belief that the people who 
 possessed it were of Trojan race. 
 
 But, with regard to Rome, there were 
 circumstances which, if the notion of 
 a Trojan origin once suggested itself, 
 would tend, in an especial manner, to 
 give it form and consistency. The first 
 Greeks who became acquainted with 
 Rome, manifestly must have been the 
 Cumeans in Campania. Not only was 
 Cumap the Greek city nearest to Rome : 
 but we have positive historical evidence 
 of the intercourse between the two states, 
 in the fact that the banished Tarqui- 
 nius took refuge at Cumae with the ty- 
 rant Aristodemus, and there died. In 
 the reign of the last Tarquinius, Rome 
 was the capital of a large and powerful 
 state, and her dominion extended to 
 Circeii and Terracina, almost to the bor- 
 ders of Campania: Cumae, on the other 
 hand, was in the height of her pros- 
 perity, with her Grecian character unim- 
 paired by the admixture of Oscan blood. 
 This then was the first point of contact 
 between the Romans and a people of 
 Grecian race. It can scarcely be doubt- 
 ed that the Sibylline oracles, which were 
 manifestly Greek,$ were brought to 
 Tarquinius from Cumae: for the Cu- 
 mean Sibyl was famous in old time. 
 No doubt, their ultimate origin, as that 
 of Cumae itself, is to be sought in Asia : 
 but we must not infer that they were 
 brought immediately from Asia to Rome, 
 merely because, in after ages, when the 
 oracles had been destroyed by the con- 
 flagration of the capitol in the civil war 
 of Sylla, at a time when the Greek cha- 
 racter of Cumae was utterly lost, a mis- 
 
 • Stralx), VI. 1, U. There was a legend both at 
 Athens and at Argog that their palladium was the 
 Trojan palladium. Pausan. i. 28. ii. 23. 
 
 t Niebuhr observes, " that there is a very great 
 probability, that, so long as the palladium was be- 
 lieved to be preserved at Siris, that is, until the 
 taking of the town by the lonians about the year 75. 
 nothing was either said or sung among the Greeks 
 touching a more distant migration of those who had 
 escaped from the flames of llion. But irreplace- 
 able sacred treasure*, such as the palladium, if they 
 are lost, are generally given out to have returned to 
 light somewhere else ; and then it often happens that 
 •everal are set up as the true one."— Vol. I. d 184 
 
 X SeeNieb.vol.i. p.497. *^ 
 
 sion was sent to Erythrae to collect the 
 verses of the Erythrean Sibyl. Now 
 the Cumeans were probably familiar 
 with all the legends which related to 
 Troy : for Cumae derived its name and 
 apart of its population from (.'uma in 
 ^olis.* But the i^olian Cuma was 
 not only situated near the Troad ; but it 
 comprehended among its subject town* 
 Gergithians, who were connected with 
 the Teucrian Gergithians of Ida.f If 
 therefore the Cumeans of Italy bore in 
 mind any tradition of the emigration of 
 i^neas, and, it may be, some national 
 prophecy of the renewed greatness of 
 his family and people, with which the 
 remnant of the Trojans sought to con- 
 sole themselves in their decay ; and if, 
 on the other hand, the mysterious reve- 
 rence with which the palladium of Rome 
 was regarded, reminded them of the 
 Trojan worship and the Trojan legend ; 
 they might easily take up the notion, 
 and communicate it to the other Greeks, 
 that this hitherto unknown city on the 
 Tiber was the off'spring of the ancient 
 Ilium; and that its founder was the 
 Trojan chief who had survived the 
 downfall of his country. The Romans, 
 in the most flourishing period of their 
 monarchy, when they were fast out- 
 growing the memory of their primitive 
 insignificance, might readily take up the 
 tale which assigned them an heroic 
 origin, and combine it, as we find that 
 they did, with their national traditions. 
 Possibly the fable had been introduced 
 by the Greek soothsayers into the Sibyl- 
 line verses, and thus acquired a reli- 
 gious sanction.^ 
 
 This hypothesis of the origin of the 
 story receives some confirmation from a 
 consideration of dates. In the time of 
 the last Tarquinius, the voyage of^neas 
 to the west was already a popular poet- 
 ical tale, as we know in the example of 
 Stesichorus: and Siris and its palla- 
 dium had been some time destroyed, so 
 that their pretensions could not be op- 
 posed by any incredulous Greek to those 
 of the Roman image. Moreover, the 
 earliest Grecian writer, whom we find 
 to have ascribed the foundation of Rome 
 to iEneas, was Hellanicus, who lived in 
 the second generation after Tarquin. 
 
 It has been observed above, that the 
 story of Hellanicus, that is, of the chro- 
 
 • Strabo, v. i. 
 
 i Strabo, xiii. 1. 
 
 t On the connexion of Cumae and the Sibylline 
 oracles with the story of ^neas, seeMiiller's Do- 
 rians, b. ii. ch. 2. t 4. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 121 
 
 nologer of the Arrive priestesses, in 
 which iEneas is described as arriving; in 
 Latium in company with Ulysses, is a 
 combination of two separate legends, one 
 of which ascribed to Rome a Trojan 
 origin, the other made it a Greek city. 
 It is worth while to suspend our re- 
 marks on the fable of ^neas, in order 
 to take brief notice of the latter story. 
 This and other tales, in which Ulysses 
 himself, and his sons Telemachus and 
 Telegonus, are made the founders of 
 cities in Latium, are merely variations 
 of the heroic genealogy of Hesiod, which 
 has been already repeatedly mentioned, 
 that Latinus, the ruler of the renowned 
 Tyrsenians, was the son of Ulysses and 
 Circe. The story was kept alive by the 
 name of the promontory Circeii, which 
 was made the residence of the goddess 
 Circe. This fable in its first shape is 
 much older than the Trojan legend, and 
 relates not to the city of Rome, but to the 
 country of 'Latium; though afterwards 
 it was forced into connexion with Rome.* 
 The incident in the chronicle of the Ar- 
 give priestesses, of the women burning 
 the ships, appears in a narrative cited 
 by Dionysius from Aristotle.f The 
 philosopher related that certain Achaeans 
 sailing home from Troy were driven into 
 the Tyrrhene Sea, to that part of Opica 
 which is called Latium ; that there they 
 landed and wintered ; and that they were 
 compelled to settle in the country by the 
 captive Trojan women who set fire to 
 the ships by night. This story was evi- 
 dently meant to account for the affinity 
 between the Latins and Greeks ; but 
 whether Rome was specially mentioned 
 in it does not appear from Dionysius. 
 
 To return to the legend of ^neas : 
 the oldest form of the story, as we have 
 seen, makes the hero himself the founder 
 of Rome ; and, no doubt, this was the 
 shape in which the fable was first con- 
 ceived by the Greeks. But the native 
 Roman traditions spoke of twin brothers, 
 Romulus and Remus, as the founders of 
 their city. The ingenuity therefore of 
 the collectors of such tales combined the 
 two accounts, by making the brothers, 
 Romulus and Remus, the sons or the 
 grandsons of -^neas.J When the fea- 
 
 * See Xenagoras in Dion. i. :72, cited above, 
 p.' 79. col. 2, note | ; and Plut. Roraul. 
 
 I Dion. i. 72. 
 
 $ See above, p. 74; Dion. i. 72, 73: Plut. Rom. 
 The Greeks not perceiving that Romulus with its 
 Latin termination bore the relation to the name 
 Roma, which the names of the founders in such sto- 
 ries usually bore to the names of the cities, turned 
 Remus into Romus. 
 
 tures of the native tradition were more 
 distinctly known, and it was found that 
 the brothers were described as the sons 
 of a Latin princess and of the god Mars, 
 the foreign story was accommodated to 
 it, and their mother was made the 
 daughter of ^neas.* This was the 
 form of the tale adopted by the poets 
 Naevius and Ennius. But when histo- 
 rians came to compare the received 
 chronologies of Greece and Rome, it 
 was found that the Trojan war preceded 
 the foundation of the city by several 
 centuries.t Nevertheless, the legend^ 
 which was now a portion of the popular 
 faith, was not rejected on account of 
 this discrepancy, but it was modified 
 so as to make it historically possible. 
 .^Eneas and his immediate offspring 
 were represented as the founders, not 
 of Rome, but of Lavinium and Alba^ 
 the cities from which the native histories 
 described Rome as springing: and the 
 ill-fated mother of Romulus and Remus 
 was made a remote descendant of the 
 Trojan prince. This was the shape into 
 which the popular story at last settled, 
 and thus we have related it in the first 
 chapter of this history. 
 
 There was one circumstance, which 
 assuredly, in the eyes of the Greek chro- 
 niclers, appeared a confirmation of the 
 story of the settlement of ^neas in La- 
 tium, and which, when the legend began 
 to assume its final shape, caused him to 
 be considered as the founder of Lavi- 
 nium. The common temple of the La- 
 tins at Lavinium was, as we have seen, 
 a temple of Venus,$ the goddess whom 
 the Greeks identified with their Aphro-' 
 dite. But Aphrodite was the mother of 
 ^neas ; and the foundation of the tem- 
 ple was no doubt ascribed to his filial 
 piety.§ Dionysius, in his detail of the 
 voyage of ^neas, describes him as build- 
 ing a temple to Aphrodite at every place 
 at which he touches ;|| so that it becomes 
 evident that, in fact, the course of the 
 wandering hero was laid down by ob- 
 serving the temples of the goddess on 
 the coasts and islands, and making him 
 touch at every one. Now the temples 
 of Aphrodite were commonly found in 
 maritime situations; because this god- 
 dess was the Ashtoreth of the Phoeni- 
 cians, and her worship was diffused by 
 
 • " Others say that JEmilia, the daughter of 
 iEneas and Lavinia, had him (Romulus) by Mars." 
 Plut. Rom. 
 
 + Troy taken b.c.1183; Rome founded, B.C. 752. 
 
 t Stral)o, cited p. 112. 
 
 § See Solin. c. 2. | Dion. i. 50—53. 
 
\u 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ttiem at fhe time when their sailors and 
 merchants frequented the Grecian seas. 
 This origin is expressly ascribed by He- 
 rodotus to the temple of Aphrodite in 
 Cythera,* which, according to Diony- 
 sius, was a monument of the piety of 
 iEneas. There can be no doubt that 
 the temple of the goddess on Mount 
 Eryx in Sicily, in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of the Phoenician cities, was 
 originally a Phoenician work ; and little 
 doubt that this temple and worship was 
 the cause that iEneas was made to touch 
 Ht Sicily befoie he reached Latium. 
 
 Among the circumstances which faci- 
 litated the combination of the native and 
 the foreign legend of the foundation of 
 Rome, we may notice the readiness with 
 which the nHihe of the Latin princess, 
 Silvia, passed into the Greek form Ilia, 
 •which was supposed to bear a reference 
 to her Trojan origin. 
 
 The fable of ^Eneas has occupied a 
 large share of our attention. If we had 
 been seeking only for historical truth, it 
 might have I een passed over in silence : 
 but it is not out of the province of an 
 historian to examine the origin of the 
 popular belief of a nation with regard to 
 its own affinity and descent, however 
 false that belief may be. The history 
 of Lavinium and Alba, so far as it can 
 be conjectured when it is detached from 
 the Trojan legend, has been discussed 
 in the preceding chapter. We proceed 
 now with our commentary upon the 
 Roman traditions. 
 
 § 3. The whole story of Romulus, 
 from the violation of his vestal mother 
 by Mars, till the end of his life, when he 
 is borne away in clouds and darkness 
 by his divine parent, is essentially poet- 
 ical. In this, as in other cases, the 
 poetical and imaginative form of the 
 tradition, in which we have related it, is 
 also the most ancient and genuine : and 
 the variations, by which it is reduced 
 into something physically possible, are 
 the falsifications of later writers, who 
 could not understand that, in popular 
 legends, the marvellous circumstances 
 are not the only parts which are not 
 historically true, and that, by the sub- 
 stitution of common-place incidents, 
 they were spoiling a good poem without 
 making a good history. 
 . Romulus, the founder of Rome, is 
 merely the Roman people personified as 
 an individual. It was the fashion of 
 ancient tradition to represent races and 
 
 • Herod, i. 105. 
 
 nations as sprung from an ancestor, or 
 composed of the followers of a leader, 
 whose name they, continued to bear ; 
 while in reality the name of the ficti- 
 tious chief was derived from the name 
 of the people : and the transactions of 
 the nation were not unfrcquently de- 
 scribed as the exploits of the single hero. 
 Thus, in Greece, the Cohans and Do- 
 rians were described as the descendants 
 of ^olus and Dorus ; the Achseans and 
 lonians of Achaeus and Ion : and to re- 
 present the affinity between these tribes, 
 in consequence of which they were com- 
 prehended under the common national 
 name of Hellenes, their ancestors were 
 made the offspring of a great common 
 ancestor Hellen ; ^olus and Dorus his 
 sons, Achaeus and Ion his grandsons. 
 The settlement of the lonians, as a con- 
 quering people in Attica and on the 
 northern coast of Peloponnesus, was 
 told as the arrival of Ion as an auxiliary 
 in war to the native kings. The Cad- 
 means, the Phoenician people in Boeotia, 
 were personified in their founder Cad- 
 mus ; and to Cadmus was ascribed the 
 settlement of Phoenician colonies in 
 several Grecian islands.* Herodotus 
 informs us, that, when the Cadmeans 
 were expelled from Thebes by the Ar- 
 gives, they migrated among the Enche- 
 lees : the poetical fable ascribes this 
 migration to Cadmus and his wife Har- 
 monia.t To add one more example, we 
 are told in the language of the old tra- 
 ditions, that Lacedsemon was the son of 
 Jupiter and the nymph Taygete, and 
 that Sparte was his wife.J As na- 
 tions were traced to mythic ancestors, 
 so cities were ascribed to mythic foun- 
 ders : and stories of this sort sprung up, 
 and were received with a sort of con- 
 ventional faith, and sometimes sanc- 
 tioned by religious observances, even in 
 the case of colonies of which the origin 
 and foundation were distinctly known. 
 Thus tlie foundation of Byzantium was 
 ascribed to a hero Byzas;§ the Doric 
 colony, Ambracia, was connected with a 
 kingAmbrax, the grandson of Hercules. II 
 Naxos in Sicily was known historically 
 to have been settled by the Athenian 
 Thucles : but it was believed to have 
 been settled under the guidance of 
 Apollo, whose name was inscribed upon 
 
 • Herod, il. 44, iv. 147. 
 
 t Herod, v. 61. Eurip. Bacch. 1332. Apollod. 
 ili. 5. 4. 
 t Paus. iii. 1, 20. 
 § Hlul;er's Dorians, i. 6. J 9. 
 1 Dion. i. 50. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 its coins; and the fable ^vas narrated 
 that Naxos, the son of Apollo, was its 
 founder.* Stories of the same nature 
 were not unknown in Italy. The Itali 
 were the people of Italus ;+ the Latini 
 of Latinus : Auson was the leader of the 
 Ausones, and founder of Suessa Au- 
 runca:$ Tarquinii was the city of the 
 grey-headed babe, Tarcon.^ So, like- 
 wise, it was assumed, that Rome was 
 built by a founder of similar name. The 
 true nature of the legend would have 
 been clearly seen, if the founder had 
 been called simply Romus. It was dis- 
 guised by the Latin termination in the 
 name Romulus.|| The Greeks perceiv- 
 ing the character of the fable, but not 
 finding the name which they thought 
 wanted, changed Remus into Romus, as 
 has been observed before. The true 
 signification of such names is most dis- 
 tinctly visible in one of the legends col- 
 lected by Plutarch, which spoke of Rome 
 as founded by Roma, the daughter of 
 Italus and Leucaria.^ Leucaria is the 
 mythic representative of the Luceres ; 
 one of the three ancient tribes of Rome, 
 and one of the stocks from which the na- 
 tion sprung. 
 
 § 4. When we enquire into the real 
 origin of the city, we meet with a tradi- 
 tion which carries it back to the age of 
 the Pelasgians.** The Pelasgian origin 
 of Rome is implied in the legend of the 
 settlement of the Arcadian Evander on 
 the Palatine Mount.tt The religion and 
 the language of Rome sanction this be- 
 lief. The same opinion was probably 
 held at least by the earliest of the many 
 writers, who, according to Dionysius, 
 supposed it to be a Tyrrhenian city4$ 
 If any by this expression meant that it 
 was Etruscan, we oppose to their autho- 
 rity the evidence and reasoning by which 
 we have attempted to show, that the 
 Etruscan dominion was not extended so 
 far south as the lower part of the Tiber, 
 till about the close of the second cen- 
 tury of Rome.^^ We have, however, 
 express testimony that Rome was a Si- 
 cuhan town. Varro informed us, that 
 the old annals reported that the Siculi 
 were sprung from Rome:|||| and the 
 legend of Antiochus has been preserved, 
 which derived the appellation of the 
 
 • Schol. on ApoU. Rhod. iv. 1492. 
 
 f See pp. 81—82. 
 
 t See note t P- 100, col. 2. ^ See p. 84. 
 
 g See Nieb. note 219, vol. p. 69. 
 
 -f Plut. Romul. •* Ibid, in init. 
 
 tt See p. 107. Jt Dion. i. 29. , 
 
 § § See pp. 76, 85. 
 
 I a DeLing.Lat.iv. 10, (r. 20.) 
 
 OF THjK 
 
 ^'lES^I^Y 
 
 Siga^ fro! 
 
 Siceli in CEnot 
 
 mythic chief SicSij^;^ 4^6''^^^^^ 
 Rome, and was entertained by Morges, 
 King of Qinotria.* It is scarcely neces- 
 sary to observe that Sicelus is a perso- 
 nification of the nation, and that we 
 have here a record of its original seat 
 and of its migration. The conside- 
 rations which tend to show that the Si- 
 celi or Siculi were a Pelasgian tribe 
 have been discussed in the preceding 
 chapter.t 
 
 The Siceli fled from the Opicans ;$ 
 the Pelasgians of Latium were over- 
 powered by the Cascans, whom we have 
 conjectured to be an Opican or Oscan 
 tribe :$ whether the Pelasgian or Sicu- 
 lian Rome fell into the hands of the 
 conquerors we cannot be certain, but it 
 is very probable. It is thus we must 
 interpret the legend preserved by Plu- 
 tarch, that Romus, king of the Latins, 
 expelled the Tyn henians^. || Such a con- 
 quest would give rise to the tradition, 
 that Rome was founded as a colony from 
 Alba.^ Palatiura, the settlement on the 
 Palatine hill, probably took its name 
 from Palatium, a town of the Oscan 
 Aborigines on the declivity of the Apen- 
 nines. «f[ 
 
 § 5. All traditions agree that the ori- 
 ginal site of Rome was on the Palatine, 
 whether they ascribe its foundation to 
 Evander or to Romulus. The steepness 
 of the sides of the hill would be its na- 
 tm-al defence ; and on one quarter it was 
 still further strengthened by a swamp 
 which lay between the hill and the river, 
 which was afterwards drained and called 
 the Velabrum. In the course of time, 
 dwellings sprung up round the foot of 
 the hill ; but the Palatine must still have 
 remained the citadel of the growing 
 town.** These suburbs were inclosed 
 by a line, probably a rude fortification, 
 which the learning of Tacitus enabled 
 him to trace, and which he calls the 
 pomoerium of Romulus. 1i' It ran under 
 three sides of the hill : the fourth was 
 occupied by the swamp before men- 
 tioned, where it was neither needful nor 
 possible to carry a wall. The ancient 
 city comprised within this outline, or, 
 possibly, only the citadel on the sum- 
 mit of the hill, was called by Roman 
 
 * Dion. i. 73. ~ ~~~ 
 
 t Ch.iii. §5. pp. 81,82, 109. 
 t Thuc. vi. 2. § See pp. 105, 110, 111. 
 
 II Plut. Rom. See p. 79, coL 1. 
 ^ Dion. i. 14. Seep. 110. 
 ** As at Athens that which was the ?r«X;j became 
 the ax^o-roXis. Thuc. ii. 15. 
 tt Tac. Aon. xii. 24. 
 
124 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 antiquaries the Square Rome.* There 
 is reason to suppose that some at least 
 of the adjacent hills were the seat 
 of similar settlements. The legend 
 of the twin brothers, Romulus and 
 Remus, appears to have arisen from 
 the proximity to Rome of a kindred 
 town called Remoria, either on the 
 Arentine, or on an eminence some- 
 what more distant toward the sea.t The 
 first enlargement of Rome seems to have 
 been effected by the addition of the Cae- 
 lian hill, which, as we shall presently 
 show, was probably occupied by a dif- 
 ferent tribe from the people of the Pala- 
 tine. Dionysius speaks of Romulus as 
 holding both the Palatine and the Caelian 
 Mount.J The next addition to the city 
 was the Esquiline Hill. The festival of 
 Septimontium preserved the memory of 
 a time, when Rome included only Pala- 
 tium, with its adjacent regions, Velia, 
 Cermalus, and Fagutal ; the Caelian 
 hill ; and Oppius and Cispius, the two 
 summits of the Esquiline.^ The Capi- 
 toline, Quirinal, and Viminal Hills were 
 not yet comprehended in the pomoerium : 
 the Aventine was always excluded from 
 this hallowed boundary, even when it 
 was substantially a part of the city.|| 
 Thus we see that the notion that Rome 
 was built on seven hills was fitted ori- 
 ginally to circumstances different from 
 those to which it was afterwards applied. 
 § 6. The Quirinal and the Capitoline 
 Hills seem to have been the seat of a Sa- 
 bine settlement, distinct from the Rome 
 on the Palatine, and in early times even 
 hostile to it. The most poetical incident 
 in the legend of Romulus, the rape of 
 the Sabine virgins, involves an historical 
 meaning. It appears to refer to a time 
 when the Romans did not possess the 
 right of intermarriage with some neigh- 
 bouring Sabine state, and sought to ex- 
 tort it by force of arms.^ By the right 
 of intermarriage (connubium) is meant 
 the mutual recognition, that the children 
 of parents, citizens of the two states, 
 vrere entitled to the full rank of citizens 
 in the state of their father. This right 
 among the ancient states both of Greece 
 and Italy was established only by express 
 treaty. A citizen might live with a fo- 
 reign woman as his wife; but, unless 
 
 • Roma Quadrata. Ennius in Festus, T. 
 Quadrata Roma; Plut. Rom. I)io Cass. Frag. 
 Dion. i. 88. 
 
 t Dion. i. 85. See Nieb. vol. i. note 618. 
 
 J Dion. ii. 50. 
 
 i Festus, V. Septimontium. See Nieb. vol. i. 
 p. 382. 
 
 B See p. 22, col. 2. % Nieb. vol. i. p. 286. 
 
 the intermarriage were sanctioned by 
 public compact, his children lost their 
 paternal rank. Niebuhr has observed, 
 that even the poetic legend did not re- 
 gard Rome as a genuine and lawful 
 colony from Alba ; otherwise it would, 
 from the very beginning, have enjoyed 
 the right of mterraarriage with the mo- 
 ther city and the other Latin towns; 
 and there would have been no consist- 
 ency in the story of the want of wo- 
 men.* 
 
 In the narrative of the war with Ta- 
 tius, Livy calls him only king of the Sa- 
 bines : but when he mentions that at the 
 close of the war the Sabine appellation, 
 Quirites, was extended to the people of 
 Romulus, he derives it from Cures.t 
 Dionysius has followed the annalists, 
 who expressly specified Cures as the 
 seat of the kingdom of Tatius. Strabo 
 adopted the same tradition. H: Now^ 
 when we consider the exceedingly nar- 
 row limits within which all the other 
 incidents of the early Roman traditions 
 are confined, and even the historical 
 events of the first years of the republic, 
 after the kingly dominion of the city was 
 reduced, it seems very unlikely that Rome 
 in its infancy could have come into col- 
 lision with Cures, which was distant 
 from it more than twenty miles. More- 
 over, nothing is told of the war before 
 the seizure of the Capitoline Hill. This 
 is the point from which all the attacks 
 of the Sabines proceed. Again, after 
 the termination of the war, we hear no- 
 thing of the return of Tatius to Cures. 
 He apparently deserts his old dominion, 
 and establishes himself and his Sabines 
 on the Capitoline and Quirinal Hills.$ 
 The senates of the people of Romulus 
 and Tatius met in conference in the val- 
 ley between the Palatine and Capitoline 
 Hills ; and as the Palatine was the pro- 
 per seat of the one, so the Capitoline 
 must hav.e been of the other. || Cures 
 vanishes from our sight: and though 
 the union of the Romans with the Sa- 
 bine people, with whom they had warred, 
 endured unbroken, there is no trace of 
 their possessing a wider territory than 
 the district immediately adjacent to the 
 hills of Rome. 
 
 These considerations are sufficient to 
 expose the inconsistency of the vulgar 
 legend : but the testimony to the incor- 
 poration of a portion of the Sabines with 
 
 • Vol. i. note 628. t Liv. i. 10, 13. 
 
 t Strabo. v. 3. vol. i. pp. 3C9, 373. ed. Tauchn. 
 § Dion. ii. 46, 50. | See p. 10, col. I. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 125 
 
 ihe Roman people is far too strong to be 
 set aside. The most probable supposi- 
 tion is, as it has been before stated, that 
 the Sabines, who in the early period of 
 their national existence extended them- 
 selves down the left bank of the Tiber,* 
 had advanced even to the neighbour- 
 hood of Rome, and had established a 
 settlement on the Quirinal and Capito- 
 hne Hills. Of this town the Capitoline 
 must have been the citadel. It was like- 
 wise the seat of its religious worship : 
 for the pontifical books recorded that, 
 before the building of the Capitol, its 
 site was occupied by shrines and fanes 
 consecrated by Tatius.t Tatius we can 
 scarcely regard as a more certainly his- 
 itorical personage than Romulus, though 
 the story of his death at Lavinium has 
 an historical aspect. He is only the per- 
 sonification of the tribe of the Titienses, 
 or Titles, who are said to have taken 
 their name from him. But his people 
 had a real existence. The name of their 
 town has been lost : their own name was 
 undoubtedly Quirites. This people lived 
 in close neighbourhood with the Romans 
 on the Palatine ; but they were of differ- 
 ent and even hostile races, and no inter- 
 course subsisted between them. Between 
 two petty states, so situated in immediate 
 neighbourhood, it is not at all impro- 
 bable that women may have been a cause 
 of contest. We can gather from the tra- 
 dition that wars took place between them, 
 which ended at last in a compact, by 
 which not only the right of intermarriage 
 and a community of all other rights was 
 granted, but the two nations were com- 
 bined in one. We can even trace the 
 stages of their union. It appears at first 
 to have been a federal union. Each 
 people had its own king and its own 
 senate; and they only met to confer 
 upon matters of common interest. Af- 
 terwards one king was acknowledged as 
 the common chief of the united people : 
 the two senates became one body, and 
 consulted for the welfare of the whole 
 state: the national names of Romans 
 and Quirites were extended indifferently 
 to both divisions of the citizens; and 
 they were no longer distinguished as na- 
 tions, but only as tribes of the same 
 people, under the denomination of Ram- 
 nes and Titienses.J 
 
 We shall return presently to the dis- 
 cussion of the tribes, and other political 
 divisions of early Rome, and of the pri- 
 
 • See pp. 95, 96. t Liv. i. 55. See p. 24. 
 
 t See p. 10. 
 
 mitive idea of its constitution. Here we 
 would observe, that the story of the 
 murder of Tatius at Lavinium is pro- 
 bably capable of the following interpre- 
 tation. The Palatine Rome, which we 
 conjecture to have been originally a Pe- 
 lasgian city, and to have been reduced 
 by the Cascans or Sacranians, was pro- 
 bably a member of the Latin league, 
 which sacrificed in the common temple 
 of Lavinium. The Quirites, who were 
 Sabines, could not be members of this 
 league, or partners in these religious 
 rites ; and would doubtless be excluded, 
 if they sought to appear at Lavinium, 
 notwithstanding their confederacy with 
 Rome. It is not impossible that the ad- 
 vantage of being admitted as members 
 of the Latin league may have induced 
 the Quirites to renounce their separate 
 existence, and to become one people 
 with the Romans of the Palatine : and 
 this may be represented by the legend, 
 that, after the death of Tatius, Romulus 
 reigned alone over both nations. 
 
 § 7. But we are told that the people of 
 Rome were divided into three tribes ; 
 and besides the Ramnes and Titienses, a 
 third tribe appears, who are called Lu- 
 ceres. That they were looked upon as 
 an important element in the state, is 
 manifest from the legend above men- 
 tioned, that Roma was the daughter of 
 Italus and Leucaria. As the distinction 
 of the two former tribes arose from the 
 difference of their national origin, so we 
 may conclude that the Luceres were a 
 people of a third race, and united either 
 by confederacy or subjection with the 
 other two. The origin of the Titienses 
 is distinctly marked : they w^ere Sabines, 
 That of the first tribe, the Ramnes, the 
 genuine Romans of the Palatine, is not 
 so clear ; but it seems probable that 
 they belonged to the Opican stock of the 
 Latins. From these circumstances we 
 might reasonably conjecture that the 
 third tribe, the Luceres, were the re- 
 mains of a people of the Pelasgian race. 
 They are always enumerated in the third 
 place, as the Ramnes are in the first ; 
 which accords well with the idea that 
 they were a conquered and subject class. 
 But there is evidence which points more 
 directly to this conclusion. Though the 
 origin of the Luceres was accounted un- 
 certain by the Roman historians, so that 
 Livy does not venture to assign a cause 
 for their name,* yet it was generally sup- 
 posed to be derived from the Etruscan 
 
 * Liv. i. 13. 
 
126 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Lueumo, who had fought with Romuhis 
 against Talius.* Now Lueumo was 
 only a title mistaken for a proper name, 
 80 that nothins: could be derived from it, 
 even if the incidents of the legend were 
 received as historical facts. Moi^over, 
 the Etruscans, in the infancy of Rome, 
 had not yet penetrated so far to the south. 
 But the story becomes clear if we admit 
 that we have here the customary con- 
 fusion between the Etruscans and Tyr- 
 rhenians, and that the allies of the Ram- 
 nes of the Palatine were a Tyrrhenian or 
 Pelasgian people, a portion of the old 
 inhabitants of Latium. Dionysius adds 
 a circumstance to the legend, which con- 
 firms this hypothesis. He says that Lu- 
 eumo brought his Tyrrhenians from the 
 city Solonium.f No such city is known 
 to have existed : but the level tract on 
 the sea-coast south of the Tiber, lying 
 between Rome on the one hand, and 
 Laurentum and Lavinium on the other, 
 was called the Solonian Plain. This 
 region Dionysius probably found men- 
 tioned in some annals : this would assu- 
 redly be the seat of Pelasgian Latins ; 
 and in this very direction we are ex- 
 pressly told that the early dominion of 
 Rome extended most widely.^ The Tyr- 
 rhenian or Pelasgian origin of the Lu- 
 ceres may be deduced yet more clearly 
 from the legend which described their 
 leader as Lucerus, king of Ardea.§ 
 
 If we inquire for [the town or chief 
 settlement of the Luceres, we shall find 
 reason to conjecture that it was upon 
 the Caelian Hill. We have seen that, 
 according to one tradition, Romulus 
 was supposed to possess the Palatine 
 and the Caelian, while Tatius and his 
 Quirites held the Quirinal and the Ca- 
 pitoline.ll As the latter hills were the 
 seat of the second tribe, the Titienses ; 
 and the Palatine of the Ramnes, the first 
 and genuine Romans ; it seems reason- 
 able to conclude that the Caelian was 
 the site of the third and subject tribe, 
 the Luceres. Moreover, there is a tra- 
 dition, though a confused one, that the 
 Cselian took its name from a Tyrrhene 
 or Tuscan chief, Cselius or Cseles, an 
 
 • See Cicero and Propertius cited p. 10, and 
 Yarro de L. L. iv.- 9. 
 
 i Dion. ii. 87. 
 
 * Festiis, V. Pectuscum Palati, cited Ijy Nieb. 
 vol. i. note 739. The latter part of the gloss, in 
 which it is said, that " certain hills opposite to the 
 Palatine were occupied by otlier neighbouring 
 states," seems clearly to refer to the independent 
 existence of the Quirinal town. 
 
 J Festus, V. Luceremes, Compare pp. 79, lU, 
 
 1 Dion, ii, 50. 
 
 auxiliary of Romulus; in short, the 
 Lueumo from whom the Luceres were 
 supposed to deduce their appellation.* 
 In the accounts which were handed 
 down of the progressive enlargement of 
 the fortified circuit of the city, and of 
 the order in which the several hills were 
 successively included within the walls, 
 the Caelian is placed next to the Pa- 
 latine, the Capitoline, and the Quirinal; 
 whether the fortification of it is as- 
 cribed to Tullus Hostilius.t or men- 
 tioned, together with the settlement on 
 the Aventine, as the work of Ancus 
 Marcius.J 
 
 § 8. The popular tradition, by repre- 
 senting the primitive Romans of the Pa- 
 latine, and the Sabine tribe which had 
 joined itself to them, as contesting the 
 choice of a king after the death of Ro- 
 mulus, and at last coming to an agree- 
 ment on condition that the one tribe 
 should choose a king out of the other, 
 bears testimony to the reality of a time, 
 when the connexion between the two 
 parts of the state was, as we have de- 
 scribed it, rather a league between two in- 
 dependent towns, than the intimate union 
 of members of the same community. 
 But in Numa there is almost as little 
 which is personal and individual as there 
 is in Romulus. As Romulus was the per- 
 sonification and representative of the 
 Ramnes ; so, in the original conception 
 of the tradition, was Tatius of the Titi- 
 enses. But the habit of mind of the 
 Roman Annalists led them to exhibit the 
 development of the different parts of the 
 state in chronological succession. 
 
 Hence in the popular story, Tatius 
 speedily disappears ; the poetical unity 
 of the reign of Romulus is suffered to 
 remain unbroken ; and the establish- 
 ment of the Titienses in all the rights 
 and privileges of Roman citizens is re- 
 served for the reign of Numa. He is 
 said to have placed them on an equal 
 footing with the citizens of the elder 
 tribe, not by depriving the founders of 
 the city of any of their rights, but by 
 devising new honours for the later set- 
 tlers.§ By the division of the public 
 land which is ascribed to him must be 
 understood the formal demarcation of 
 the district of the second tribe, and 
 the acknowledgment of their claim as 
 
 * Dion, ii.36. Varro de L. L. iv. 8, 9. Bestoa, 
 V. Ccelius Mons. See also Tac. Ann. iv. 65, and ih^ 
 remarks in the next chapter on Ceeles Vibenna, 
 
 t Dion. iii. 1, Liv. 1. 33. 
 
 t Cic. R. P. ii. 18. Strabo, v. 3. 
 
 § DioQ. ii, 62. i See p. 12, 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 127 
 
 joint proprietors of the common landed 
 property of the state. The Capitoline 
 hill, one tradition said, had been added 
 to the city hy Tatius:* but Numa is 
 reported to have been the first who in- 
 cluded the Quirinal, or the town of the 
 Quiriles, within the common walljf and 
 upon the Quirinal his own dwelling wa* 
 fixed. No doubt, the oldest legends 
 described him as a citizen of the Qui- 
 rinal town, not of Cures. From this 
 summary it seems manifest that the 
 reign of Numa must, in its political as- 
 pect, be considered only as a represen- 
 tation of the completion of the union 
 between the Titienses and the Ramnes. 
 
 But this portion of the annals has 
 also another signification. As to Ro- 
 mulus were ascribed all those civil and 
 military institutions of the Romans, 
 which were handed down by immemo- 
 rial traditions ; those customs of the 
 nation to which no definite origin could 
 be assigned ; so to Numa were attri- 
 buted all the ordinances and establish- 
 ments of the national religion. As the 
 idea of the ancient polity was embodied 
 under the name of Romulus ; so was 
 the idea of the ancient religion under 
 the name of Numa. When we find the 
 origin of any law or of any office re- 
 ferred to either, we must not suppose 
 that we gain any chronological informa- 
 tion beyond the bare fact, that its real 
 origin was earlier than any existing na- 
 tional record. 
 
 There is little in the legend of Numa 
 which is of a popular and poetical cha- 
 racter, except the tradition of the perfect 
 peace of his long reign, and the story 
 of Egeria. All the records of his reli- 
 gious institutions must have been drawn 
 from the books of the Pontiffs. 
 
 § 9. As the reigns of Romulus and 
 Numa Pompilius represent the esta- 
 blishment of two of the tribes or consti- 
 tuent elements of the Roman people, so 
 the reign of TuUus Hostilius seems to 
 comprehend the development of the 
 third tribe. To him, as to Romulus and 
 Numa, is ascribed a division of lands, 
 by which portions were assigned to the 
 needy citizens, who as yet possessed no 
 property in the soil. As Numa was re- 
 ported to have divided to the poorer 
 citizens the land gained in the wars of 
 Romulus, and he himself in his peaceful 
 reign had made no addition to the na- 
 tional domain, the annalists might be 
 
 • Tac. Ann. xii. 24. 
 
 t Dion. ii. 62. 
 
 puzzled to say whence the distribution 
 of Hostilius could be made. But their 
 ingenuity found an explanation of this 
 difficulty. It was stated that an exten- 
 sive tract of land had been reserved for 
 the kings ; and that Hostilius assigned 
 this to those who needed it, professing 
 that his private patrimony sufficed for 
 the expenses of his kingly dignity.* At 
 the same time he was said to have en- 
 closed the Cselian Mount with a wall, 
 and to have joined it to the part of the 
 city already fortified ; there to have 
 given building room to tha citizens who 
 were yet unsettled ; and there to have 
 fixed his own dwelling.f Now Diony- 
 sius and the other historians, who under- 
 stood the annals to describe the first 
 kings of Roma as assigning lands to 
 beggarly and homeless citizens,$ had 
 before their eyes the agrarian laws of 
 the Gracchi, or even of later times ; 
 and they did not consider that in the 
 primitive condition of a highly aristo- 
 cratical state, especially in a city not 
 addicted to arts or trade, no such citi- 
 zens could exist. All the citizens must 
 necessarily have been landholders : all 
 that part of the population which had 
 no property in the soil must have been 
 destitute of civic rights, and dependent 
 upon the free proprietors. Such, we 
 shall presently show, was the state of 
 early Rome. Its original citizens were 
 all included in the order afterwards called 
 Patrician, These were assuredly all, by 
 some tenure, holders of land. They 
 were the patrons of the iinferior order; 
 and their clients had not themselves any 
 property in the soil, but merely tilled the 
 lands of their patrons. When, there- 
 fore, we read in these early ages of as- 
 signments of public lands to the citizens, 
 we must not suppose that lands were 
 given to those who before had none, but 
 simply that the tenure by which some 
 class of the citizens held their lands in 
 relation to the state, which was conceived 
 to be the source of all property, under- 
 went a change. Thus we have inter- 
 preted the distribution ascribed to Nu- 
 ma, and which is enumerated amongst 
 his measures for reconciling the first 
 and second tribe, to be a recognition of 
 the same rights of property in the second 
 tribe which already existed in the first, 
 in relation both to their individual patri- 
 
 « Dion. iii. 1. 
 t lb., and Liv. i. 30. 
 t 'AviffTiiv Kcc). ^Tup(^cy uXufAivoV' Dion, ii, Q2, 
 
Its 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 monies, and to the common landed pro- 
 perty of the state. By the same rule we 
 interpret the distribution of Hostilius to 
 \)e a similar recognition of the rights of 
 property in the third tribe, which had 
 hitherto stood in an inferior rank, and 
 iield its property by some less favour- 
 able tenure. The supposition of the 
 peculiar domain of the kings being suffi- 
 ciently extensive to suffice for a large 
 distribution, in the sense in which the 
 story was told by the annalists, is as 
 improbable as the rest of their concep- 
 tion ; but it may suggest the conjecture, 
 that the Luceres had hitherto held their 
 lands, not in absolute property, and not 
 as common proprietors of the public do- 
 main, but as vassals or tenants of the 
 state, which would be represented in the 
 person of the king. That the distribu- 
 tion of Hostilius aiFected the third tribe, 
 is rendered probable by its being con- 
 nected with the assignment of ground 
 lor building on the Caelian Mount, and 
 the enclosure of that part of the city 
 within one line of fortification with the 
 older town ; if there is any weight in 
 the arguments adduced above to show 
 that the town on the Caelian was the 
 settlement of the Luceres. From the 
 circumstance that Hostilius himself dwelt 
 there, and that he derived his origin from 
 the Latin town Medullia,* it may be 
 ■conjectured that he himself was consi- 
 dered to belong to the Luceres, as Ro- 
 mulus to the Ramnes, and Numa to the 
 Titienses. 
 
 The personal existence of Romulus we 
 have utterly rejected : that of Numa is 
 more than questionable: but it would 
 probably be carrying our scepticism too 
 far to deny the individuality of Tullus 
 Hostilius. Yet there is little in the story 
 of his reign which can be received as 
 historical truth. The traditions of his 
 distribution of land, and of his enlarge- 
 ment of the pomcerium by the addition 
 of the Caelian Mount, were taken, no 
 doubt, from the pontifical records, or 
 some other of the old religious books. 
 We have endeavoured to put in a clearer 
 light the facts which seem to be implied 
 in these memorials. But the main story 
 of his reign, the conquest of Alba, is 
 manifestly of a poetical character, and 
 must have been one of the noblest of the 
 old heroic lays. The meeting of the ar- 
 mies on the very borders of their respec- 
 tive teiritories ; the marvellous incident 
 
 • Dion. iil. 1. 
 
 that in each army there should be three 
 brothers born at a birth ; the combat of 
 these champions on behalf of the rival 
 cities ; the mode in which anxiety is 
 wrought up by the alternations of suc- 
 cess in the contest; the tie of affection 
 by which Horatia is bound to the fallen 
 Curiatius ; the death of the sister by the 
 hand of the brother ; his condemnation 
 by the righteous judges ; his pardon by 
 the grateful people; the treachery of 
 Mettus Fufetius, so vividly described, 
 which made even the boldest of the Ro- 
 man kings vow temples to Paleness and 
 Fear ; his strange and symbolical punish- 
 ment; the judicial and solemn destruc- 
 tion of the faithless city ; the sparing of 
 the ancestral temples ; the wrath of the 
 deserted gods, denounced by a warning 
 voice from the lofty summit of the Al- 
 ban hill, the shrine of the Latin Jupiter; 
 the infliction of divine vengeance and 
 supernatural fears on him who had been 
 victorious over every human enemy; 
 and, last of all, the infatuation by which 
 the impious con(jueror drew down fire 
 from heaven on his devoted head : surely 
 all these incidents betoken the imagina- 
 tion of the poet, not the exactness of the 
 sober chronicler. Of the truth which 
 is concealed beneath this magnificent 
 legend nothing can be affirmed to be 
 certain but the fact of the destruction 
 of Alba. Some of the circumstances of 
 the story are evidently marvellous ; of 
 the rest we cannot separate the true from 
 the false. That it was by Rome that 
 Alba was destroyed, Niebuhr has ob- 
 served, is improbable, because in that 
 case the territory of the conquered 
 people, and the site of the ruined city, 
 would have become the property of the 
 conquerors. But the Alban Mount was 
 no part of the domain of Rome: it 
 belonged to the confederate Latins, who 
 held their national meetings, as long as 
 the nation remained independent, at the 
 grove 'and fountain of Ferentina at the 
 foot of the hill. It would seem more 
 likely that Alba was destroyed by a 
 revolt of the subject Latin towns; in 
 which it is possible that Rome bore a 
 part.* 
 
 We have treated of the distribution 
 of land and the enclosure of the Caelian 
 Mount, as Dionysius has related them, 
 as matters entirely distinct from the 
 story of the Alban War. In comment- 
 ing on the characters of the two histo- 
 
 Nieb 
 
 vol. i. p. 344. See above, p. 114. 
 
HISTORY OP ROME. 
 
 129 
 
 rians of early Rome, we observed that 
 Dionysius was better acquainted with 
 the religious books ; that Livy was 
 more inclined to follow the poetical 
 stories. Tiius in the present case we 
 find from Livy that the poetical legend 
 connected the enlargement of Rome with 
 the ruin of Alba. It is related that the 
 citizens of Alba were removed to Rome ; 
 and that land for building was assigned 
 to them on the Ca3lian Mount, and 
 that the Caelian was thus added to the 
 city.* But another circumstance of the 
 narrative strongly confirms the hypo- 
 thesis of the developementofthe Roman 
 state, which has been already laid down. 
 It is said that certain of the chief Alban 
 houses were added to the patricians.f 
 According to Livy's account, they were 
 chosen into the F aires, or Fathers. By 
 this terra Livy himself in this place un- 
 derstood the senators ; but we may 
 take it in the sense in which it was 
 used by the early Romans, and by the 
 Annalists, from whom Livy drew his ma- 
 terials, and by Livy himself elsewhere, 
 and consider it as designating simply 
 the patrician order.$ It was the patri- 
 cian order which was augmented, not 
 the senate ; for the old law books recog- 
 nized no increase of the number of the 
 senate, from the time when it was made 
 two hundred by the union of the Ro- 
 mans and Sabines, till it was raised to 
 three hundred by Tarquinius Priscus. 
 This same augmentation is told in ano- 
 ther form immediately afterwards. It 
 is said that ten troops {turmce) were 
 chosen from the Albans and added to 
 the knights.§ The true interpretation 
 of this statement seems to be that a new 
 tribe was added to the patrician body, 
 which, like each of the two earlier tribes, 
 was divided into ten curiae, so as to com- 
 plete the number of thirty curiae. The 
 ten troops of knights would be com- 
 posed of the men of mihtary age, who 
 were at the head of the houses of the 
 tencuriae.il The tribe thus added to 
 the Patriciate was the Luceres. The 
 Alban patricians of the poetic legend 
 are identified with the Luceres by the 
 mention of the Caelian Mount as their 
 place of settlement. Probably, some 
 historical truth is involved in the legend. 
 If the dominant tribe of the Ramnes 
 were, as we have conjectured, and as 
 the tradition of the colony of Romulus 
 most strongly attests, of the same Opi- 
 
 * Liv. i. 30, 33. + Dion. iii. 29. " 
 
 % See below, p. 155. § Liv. i. 30. 
 
 B See below, p. 147. 
 
 can stock as the Albans; and if the 
 Luceres were akin to the Pelasgian La- 
 tins ; then the recovery of independence 
 by the Pelasgian Latins, in consequence 
 of the destruction of Alba, may have 
 given new importance to the Luceres, 
 and have enabled them to claim a share 
 in the privileges of the ruling order. 
 Or it is possible that, when Alba was 
 destroyed by the Latins, some portion 
 of its citizens sought refuge at Rome, 
 and were enrolled among the subject 
 Luceres ; and the increased importance 
 thus given to the tribe may have caused 
 its elevation to the Patriciate. 
 
 Thus the reigns of the first three 
 kings comprehend the period of the 
 formation of the Roman people, so far 
 as it was distinct from the plebeian 
 estate, which does not seem to have 
 been recognized as an element in the 
 Commonwealth, till the reign of Ancus 
 Marcius. 
 
 § 10. It has been observed in the 
 narrative,* that the popular traditions 
 respecting Ancus Marcius are of an 
 historical character, and may be re- 
 garded as substantially true. By the 
 statements that he was the son of Nu- 
 ma's daughter, we are informed that he 
 was of the Sabine stock of the nation. 
 ■ It is worth notice, that the first four 
 kings are represented as alternately of 
 Latin and Sabine race. The record that 
 Ancus restored the religious institu- 
 tions of Numa, and promulgated to the 
 people the ceremonial ritual, may be 
 received as strengthening the conclusion, 
 which we cannot fail to draw from the 
 legend of Numa, that the early Romans 
 believed their national religion to be 
 mainly derived from the Sabines. 
 
 The most important of the events 
 ascribed by the Annalists to the reign 
 of Ancus Marcius is his war with the 
 Latins. There is less discrepancy than 
 usual between the military details which 
 are related by the historians t; but it 
 would be a waste of time to repeat 
 them, or to inquire minutely into the po- 
 sition of little towns, the sites of which 
 were forgotten by the Romans -them- 
 selves. It is enough for us to know 
 the result, on which all the traditions 
 agree; that three or four such little 
 towns were taken by Ancus ; that their 
 territory was added to the dominion of 
 Rome, and their inhabitants received 
 into the number of Roman citizens. 
 
 • See chap. i. \ 8. 
 
 t The mention in Dionysius of Fidense in place 
 of Ficana may be a mistake of the copiers. 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 We must not, however, receive literally 
 the statements, that the whole multitude 
 of the conquei-ed Latins was removed to 
 Rome, and a population of many thou- 
 sands thus added to the city.* Such 
 removals of a conquered people were 
 effected by the armies of the vast em- 
 pires of the East; but are incredible 
 in a narrative of the petty wars of 
 Rome and Latium. Though the con- 
 quered territory would be considered 
 as becoming the property of the Roman 
 State ; yet it is probable that the 
 greater part was left in the possession 
 of the former owners. We shall see 
 reason for believing that it was restored 
 to them in absolute property, subject 
 only to the paymentof a tribute. Those, 
 therefore, who retained their lands 
 would, probably, continue to reside near 
 them. If, however, any chose to re- 
 move their families to Rome, either for 
 the sake of dwelling in safety within a 
 fortified town, (for we may readily believe 
 the story that their own towns were dis- 
 mantletl,t ) or for the advantage of a 
 closer connexion with the state of which 
 they were made citizens, the Aventine 
 Hill, and a portion of the valley which 
 divided the Aventine from the Palatine 
 and the Cselian, was assigned for their 
 residence. The narrowness of these 
 limits shows the absurdity of the notion, 
 that the inhabitants of several towns, 
 and of their subject territories, were col- 
 lected within them. The ditch of the Qui- 
 rites, by which the exposed quarter of 
 the city was defended, Niebuhr believes 
 to be the Marrana described above .$ 
 
 Though a large body of new citizens 
 was thus added to the state, it is not 
 said that any were admitted into the 
 senate, or any addition made to the 
 Patrician order, as was done, accord- 
 ing to the story of the Annals, after the 
 conquest of Alba. In fact, it seems 
 that, with the new citizens of Ancus, a 
 new order in the state, the Plebs or com- 
 monalty first assumed a distinct exist- 
 ence. The discussion of the relation of 
 the Plebeian and Patrician orders is 
 reserved for the next Section ; but here 
 it may be briefly stated, that by the 
 name plebeians or commons, is signi- 
 fied an order of citizens, who were per- 
 sonally independent, but who were not 
 a part of the sf>verning body. Such an 
 order is insensibly formed in all exclusive 
 aristocratical states ; and no doubt had 
 begun to exist at Rome. But it was al- 
 
 • LlT. 5. 33. t Dion. iii. 38. 
 
 t See p. 113} and Nieb. vol. i. pp. 347, 384. 
 
 together insignificant till the accession 
 of the conquered Latins gave it num- 
 bers and wealth, and military strenn;th, 
 and even nobility of birth: for those 
 who were nobles in their own states, 
 were only commoners at Rome. The 
 fact, that the subject Latins mainly con- 
 stituted the plebeian order may be 
 gathered, not only from the negative 
 evidence which has been already men- 
 tioned, and from the growing import- 
 ance of the plebeians after this period, 
 but more directly from the tradition that 
 the Aventine Hill was assigned as their 
 property and their dwelling place. For 
 the Aventine was always the pecuhar 
 quarter of the plebeians. Though lying 
 close to the oldest parts of the city, 
 thickly inhabited, and strongly forti- 
 fied, it was never included within the 
 boundary called Pomoerium, till the 
 reign of the Emperor Claudius.* The 
 reason of this distinction was, that the 
 Pomoerium was consecrated by the 
 Etruscan ceremonies of inauguration,'!* 
 which were the exclusive inheritance and 
 privilege of the patricians ; and it was 
 the limit beyond which auspices could 
 not be taken within the city. Hence, 
 manifestly, it must have been the limit 
 of the patrician city ; and, as it was 
 gradually extended, it comprehended 
 the three towns, which were the seats 
 of the three patrician tribes. The po- 
 moerium of Romulus, which is traced 
 by Tacitus, included only the Palatine.^ 
 When we are told that Numa aug- 
 mented the compass of the city by the 
 Quirinal Hil!,^ we must understand 
 that Numa, who, in his political aspect, 
 is considered as the author of all the 
 rights and franchises of the Second 
 Tribe, carried the hallowed circle of the 
 pomoerium round the city of the Qui- 
 rites, thus completing their union with 
 the Ramnes of the'Palatine.|| When 
 TuUus Hostilius is said to have added 
 the Caelian Mount to the city, we must 
 not conceive that it was previously un- 
 inhabited or unfortified. We have 
 seen that it was reckoned part of the 
 dominion of Romulus ; and the ancient 
 festival of Septimontiura, which has 
 been mentioned above,*! shows that it 
 was annexed to the Palatine before the 
 hills, which were the seats of the Qui- 
 rites. But TuUus first included it 
 within the pomoerium, because he first 
 raised the Luceres, who dwelt upon it. 
 
 Aul. Cell. xiii. 14. 
 See above, § 5. p. 123. 
 See above, § 8, 
 
 t Liv. i. 44. 
 § Dion. ii. 62. 
 ^ § 5. 124. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 131 
 
 1o the dignity of the Patriciate. These 
 extensions of the ceremonial limit must 
 not be confounded with the extension 
 of the actual fortifications of the city, 
 which were not finally completed till 
 the reign of Servius Tullius * After 
 the time of the primitive Square Rome, 
 the pomoeriura was not necessarily the 
 same as the wall. The Aventine, 
 whether it were within the wall of Ser- 
 vius or not, was certainly not within the 
 pomoerium, and the reason was, that 
 the settlers upon it were Plebeians.t At 
 a later period, when the Patricians had 
 encroached upon it, the exclusive pos- 
 session of it was vindicated to the ple- 
 beians by the Icilian law,$ which was 
 considered of such vital importance, as 
 to be guarded by religious solemnities, 
 like the other fundamental laws or 
 treaties between the two estates of the 
 nation ; and we shall see, that in the 
 commotions which attended the insti- 
 tution of the Trib}.mate, and the disso- 
 lution of IheDecemvirate, the plebeians 
 made the Aventine their stronghold 
 within the city. 
 
 As we have explained the assignments 
 of the public lands, which are ascribed 
 to Numa and to Tullus Hostilius, to be 
 merely the recognition by the state of 
 the same rights of property in the second 
 and third tribes which already existed 
 in the first ; so, by the division of land 
 which is ascribed to Ancus,§ we must 
 probably understand merely the act, by 
 which the territory, which by conquest 
 had become the property of the state, 
 was restored to the former proprietors 
 
 * This confusion has been made by both the 
 historians, and by all tlie writers who have spolien 
 of the increase of the city. Niebuhr himself has 
 not escaped it; and it appears in the earlier 
 Sections of this chapter (^ 5, 7, 8, 9,) at the end 
 of the Fourth Number. It is a disadvantage at- 
 tendant upon writing and publishing a work piece- 
 meal, that when an error in the earlier part has 
 been detected by subsec^uent research or reflection, 
 it cannot be corrected silently, but the reader 
 must be troubled with the mistake and the expla- 
 nation. Livy's definition of the pomoerium, which 
 is given in a note, p. 20, is true only where the 
 pomoerium coincides with the real wall. 
 
 i According to the tradition of the Augurs 
 CMessala in Aul. Cell. xiii. 14.) the Aventine was 
 excluded from the pomoerium, because it was the 
 spot on which Remus had observed the auspices 
 respecting the foundation of the city, and had 
 failed (see p. 7). The relation of cause and effect 
 was probably the reverse. Because the Aventine, 
 as the plebeian quarter, was not included in the 
 pomoerium, it was named in the legend as the 
 place of the unsuccessful observation of Remus. 
 Kiebuhr has observed, that the legend of the 
 twin brothers was typical of the twofold nature of 
 the Roman state, compounded of the Patricians 
 and Plebeians (vol. i. p. 288.) : 
 
 t A Lex Sacrata : A.u.c. 299. B.C. 454. Liv. lii. 
 31, 32. Dion. x. 31, 32. 
 
 § Cic. P. R. ii, 18. " 
 
 in their new character of plebeian citi- 
 zens, subject to the conditions which the 
 state imposed. The conditions of the 
 tenure of plebeian land, as we shall see 
 hereafter, were a fixed tribute, and an 
 obligation to military service; and it is 
 probable that both of these took their 
 origin from this time. To this con- 
 nexion of the plebeians with Ancus, and 
 to the tradition of his distribution of 
 lands, we may ascribe the kindly feeling 
 with which his memory was preserved.* 
 
 We may now perceive the great im- 
 portance of the Latin war of Ancus, 
 the first event in Roman history to 
 which we can ascribe a truly historical 
 character; and we see, also, how the 
 force of the Latin confederacy was 
 broken by the revolt of the subject 
 towns from Alba, and the destruction of 
 that sovran city. Though the acquisi- 
 tion of territory was probably made in 
 the neighbourhood of Rome, the mili- 
 tary operations of Ancus were pushed 
 to a greater distance. He is said to 
 have attacked the ancient city of Veli- 
 tiae, which lay beyond the Alban hills, 
 and to have compelled the inhabitants to 
 sue for peace. Velitrse, in after days, 
 was taken by the Volsci, and became one 
 of their chief cities. Dionysius has been 
 misled by this circumstance, and has 
 supposed that the town was already in 
 the hands of the Volsci ; and thus has 
 described Ancus as engaged in war 
 with that nation. But the Volscians 
 did not penetrate thus far, till about 
 fifteen years after the expulsion of the 
 kings ; and do not appear to have be- 
 gun their encroachments upon the La- 
 tins before the reign of the last Tarqui- 
 nius.t Velitrae, in the time of Ancus, 
 was still a Latin town ; and the war 
 with Velitrse was a part of the great 
 war with the Latins. 
 
 No result is ascribed to the war of 
 Ancus with the Sabines. That with the 
 Veientes is evidently connected with the 
 operations by which he extended the 
 dominion of Rome to the sea, and by 
 securing the possession of the mouth of 
 the Tiber, laid the foundation of the 
 commerce and of the maritime power 
 which Rome enjoyed in the latter years 
 
 * Niebuhr, to whom we are indebted for this 
 remark, has observed likewise, that Virgil must 
 have adopted the feeling of some patrician legend, 
 when he described Ancus as unduly courting pub- 
 lic favour : — 
 
 .Tactantior Ancus, 
 Nunc quoque jam nimium gaudens popularibuf 
 auris. 2Eu. vi. 815. 
 
 t See p. 103. 
 
 K2 
 
13S 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 of the kinuly period. The mouth of 
 the Tiber is now choked with shoals, 
 and it was so in some measure in the 
 time of Augustus : but, if we may trust 
 to Dionysius, it was still accessible to 
 vessels of the burthen of 3000 am- 
 phor«B, and they could be brought even 
 up to Rome by towing.* Those of 
 greater burthen were, of course, forced 
 to unload at the entrance of the river. 
 To what extent art was employed to 
 make the channel thus navigable, we 
 are not informed: but it is manifest, 
 that a river like the Tiber, flowing 
 from a mountainous country, but re- 
 tarded by traversing a level plain, must 
 always have had a tendency to block up 
 its mouth, and must have required the 
 art of man to keep a deep channel clear, 
 even if it were not deepened by artificial 
 means.f At all events, the command 
 of the river was of great importance to 
 the growing city upon its banks ; and 
 Ancus extended his dominion to its 
 mouth, and built the town of Ostia on 
 a projecting elbow land, which then lay 
 between the sea and the river, and, like 
 a natural pier, served as a shelter for 
 ships which had once entered the chan- 
 nel. $ Ostia was the oldest of the 
 Roman colonies ; for even if Crustume- 
 rium and other conquered towns had 
 received Roman colonists, as the legend 
 of Romulus affirmed, they had revolted 
 and expelled the unwelcome settlers. 
 Ostia, and other subsequent settlements, 
 which were designated as the Maritime 
 Colonies, enjoyed diiierent rights from 
 those colonies which were planted as 
 military garrisons in conquered towns. § 
 By the war with the Veientes, Ancus ob- 
 tained the dominion of the country 
 about the mouth of the river on its op- 
 posite bank, and thus became master 
 of both sides down to the sea. As the 
 district thus acquired, the Msesian Wood, 
 
 • Dion. iii. 44. Compare the account in Strabo 
 V. 3, which, in some respects, agrees with Diony- 
 sius, but states expressly, that the harbour was 
 blocked by shoals. See also Plut. Cses. 
 
 t The lines of Ennius seem to apply a tradition 
 that Ancus cleared the channel : — 
 
 Ostia munita est: idem loca navibus pulcris 
 
 Miinda facit. — Festus, in v. Quceso. 
 
 t Dion. iii. 44, Flor. i. 4. The Tiber was divided 
 at its mouth into branches, of which the left, on 
 which Ostia stood, must have been the principal 
 when that town was founded. This was gradu- 
 ally choked up. and the river found its way to the 
 sea by the right branch, upon which the new har- 
 bour, the Portus Augusti. was formed. See Proco- 
 pius, De Reb. Goth. 1. i j and compare O v. Fasti, iv. 
 329, with Rutilius, De Reditu, i. 181. Ostia is now 
 more than three miles from the mouth of the river. 
 
 $ Liv. xxvii. 38. xxxvi. 3. They appear to have 
 ^oyed the Cserite franchise. Niebuhr, vol. i. c. 
 17 note; in the Jirst edition of the original. 
 
 was productive of timber, it may have 
 been valuable for ship building.* To 
 secure the communication of Rome 
 with this territory, he threw a wooden 
 bridge across the river, the most ancient 
 structure of the kind on record ; and 
 he guarded the approach to the bridge 
 on the Etruscan side by the erection of 
 a fort on the laniculus. It is obser- 
 vable, that the end of the bridge towards 
 Rome was flanked by the new settle- 
 ment on the Aventine. This series of 
 measures indicates a permanent increase 
 in the power of the state. 
 
 § 11. In the interpretation which has 
 been given of the traditionary history of 
 the first three kings of Rome, as repre- 
 senting the origin and establishment of 
 the three tribes, we have adopted a view 
 of the primary division of the people, 
 which differs widely from the common 
 notion of it, and to which the reader 
 cannot be expected to assent, until it 
 has been more fully developed. Again, 
 in ascribing the beginning of the mag- 
 nitude and importance of the plebs or 
 Commonalty to the conquests of Ancus 
 Marcius over the Latins, we have as- 
 sumed a position in direct contradiction 
 to the express assertion, or implied hy- 
 pothesis of the writers on Roman his- 
 tory, who seem all to have supposed, 
 that the plebeian order was as old as 
 the foundation of the city. We cannot, 
 therefore, proceed in the history of 
 Rome, until we have explained our con- 
 ception of its primitive constitution. 
 The point at which we have paused 
 appears to present the fittest opportu- 
 nity for such an investigation ; because, 
 after this period, no new element was 
 added to the state, but changes began 
 in the mutual relation of those which 
 already existed.'!- 
 
 * Cic. R. P.ii. 18, Victor: " Silvas ad usum nu- 
 vium publicavit." 
 
 t In every essential point we agree with the 
 theoryof the Roman polity which has been pro- 
 pounded by Niebuhr. If his views were generally 
 adopted by men of learning and professed scho- 
 lars, it would be sufficient for our purpose to take 
 the truth of them for granted, and to state merely 
 the results of his investigations. Our work would 
 have been of a more popular character ; and here, 
 as well as in the preceding portions of it, the 
 reader would have been spared much discussion 
 and citation of authorities. But Niebuhr's pro- 
 positions have not yet commanded such a general 
 assent as to warrant this assumption. Assent, 
 however, is withheld, not because his arguments 
 are insufficient, but because comparatively lew 
 scholars have thoroughly followed his profound 
 and laborious researches. Under these circum- 
 stances, it appears to be our duty to present the 
 substance of his disquisitions in a more methodi- 
 cal order, and in a briefer shape ; and thus to 
 effect one step in bringing down the views of this 
 great historian to the level of the comprehension 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 133 
 
 In the First Chapter, in which we 
 narrated the traditionary history of the 
 early ages of Rome, are some brief 
 records of the forms of the constitution. 
 In this part of our work, we were careful 
 to present the genuine traditions, and 
 refrained from introducing any com- 
 ment upon them or any interpretation 
 of them. In making our choice between 
 discordant versions of the same story, 
 we endeavoured to preserve the tales 
 which bore the character of oral and 
 popular tradition, without reference to 
 their truth or falsehood ; but, in the 
 accounts of the constitution and of the 
 political divisions of the people, which 
 were not mere legendary tales, but must 
 have come originally from the legal and 
 religious books, we took care, though 
 we added nothing, to select those forms 
 of the tradition, which appeared sub- 
 stantially true, and to reject the erro- 
 neous statements of the later annahsts 
 and historians. These brief memorials, 
 therefore, which we will now recapitu- 
 late, are true, although they are very 
 imperfect; and they will supply the 
 ground- work for our more detailed ex- 
 planation. 
 
 It has been recorded, that, among the 
 original population of the city, those 
 who could show a noble or free ancestry 
 constituted the Patrician Order;* and 
 to them alone belonged a share in the 
 government of the state. The rest of 
 the people were subject to the king and 
 to the body of Patricians : and each 
 man, with his household, was attached, 
 under the appellation of Client, to the 
 head of some Patrician family, whom 
 he was bound to serve, and from whom 
 he looked for protection and help.t It 
 was stated that after the Sabine war, 
 and the union of the people of Romulus 
 and Tatius, the citizens were distributed 
 into three tribes, to which were given 
 the names Ramnes, Titienses, and Lu- 
 ceres; and the three tribes were sub- 
 divided into thirty curige, ten in each 
 tribe.$ In the national assembly the 
 people were called together in their 
 curiae : the votes of the householders in 
 each curia were taken in the separate 
 curia; the vote of the majority was 
 given as the vote of the curia ; and the 
 
 of ordinary readers. A popular history of Rome, 
 which shall proceed iipon the assumption of the 
 truth of Niebuhr's discoveries, is probably a work 
 for another generation. 
 
 * Fatricii, equivalent to ingenui. Liv. x, 8.; 
 Cincius in Festus, v. Patricios. 
 
 t Chap. i. p. 8. 
 
 t Chap. i. p. 10. Dion. ii. J. Plut. Rom. 
 
 votes of the greater number of the thirty 
 curiae determined the business before 
 the assembly. This assembly was called 
 the Comitia Curiata.* Besides this 
 popular assembly, there was a select 
 and perpetual council, called the Senate. 
 At its first institution it was composed 
 of a hundred chief men of the Paf rician 
 Order. Ten of these were of higher 
 rank than the rest ; and to one, the chief 
 of all, was entrusted the care of the city, 
 whenever the king should be absent in 
 war.t After the completion of the union 
 with the people of Tatius, the senate 
 was doubled, by the addition of a hun- 
 dred Sabines ;$ and the first Tarquinius 
 added a third hundred to the ancient 
 number. These senators admitted by 
 Tarquinius were called Fathers of the 
 Less Houses or Kins (P aires Minorum 
 Gentium) ; and the old senators. Fathers 
 of the Greater Houses or Kins (Patres 
 Majorum Gentium). § 
 
 Such is a correct, although imperfect, 
 outline of the forms of the primitive 
 constitution. With respect to the au- 
 thorities from which it is deduced, we 
 must premise that Dionysius has endea- 
 voured to give a full and formal account 
 of the establishment of the constitution, 
 and of its changes ; and thus has pre- 
 served the most valuable records, al 
 though they are obscured and distorted 
 by his deficient knowledge and false 
 opinions. But the statements which he 
 has made incidentally in the course of 
 his work upon the faith of the ancient 
 annahsts, even where he has misunder- 
 stood them himself, are frequently such 
 as to enable us to correct the erroneous 
 notions which are conveyed in his more 
 precise descriptions. Livy has not at- 
 tempted to describe the ancient consti- 
 tution of the state ; and, consequently, 
 our information is to be gathered from 
 his incidental allusions. From this 
 cause, although less is to be collected 
 from him than from Dionysius, he does 
 not mislead the student by explicitly as- 
 serting a false theory of the old order of 
 things. The notices which we find in 
 Cicero's Dialogue on a Republic, and 
 which rest mainly on the authority of 
 Polybius,|| ; are very valuable, and may 
 be considered as lying nearer to the 
 original sources of knowledge than the 
 statements of Dionysius and Livy. 
 
 * Chap. i. p. 11. See also p. 21. 
 
 ■i- Chap. i. p. 8. J Chap. i. p. 10. 
 
 § Chap. 1. p. 18. 
 
 II See chap. ii. § 3, vii. p. 44. 
 
134 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 The leading feature in the outline 
 which we have sketched above, is the 
 position that the original population of 
 Rome was composed only of the Patri- 
 cian Order and of their clients. Upon 
 this statement all our authorities are 
 agreed, either by express assertion or 
 implicit consent.* This then we may 
 assume to be true ; subject only to a 
 correction with regard to the very earliest 
 age, which shall be mentioned hereafter. 
 ]}ut this statement is generally accom- 
 panied by another, arising from a false 
 conception, which has obscured and 
 embarrassed the whole course of the 
 early history. The clients are supposed 
 to have been the same as the Plebeians. 
 They are conceived to have been called 
 Plebeians as a body, in opposition to the 
 Patrician body, but clients individually 
 in relation to their particular patrons. 
 Such, at least, is the explicit statement 
 of Dionysius, and of Plutarch, who has 
 followed his authority; and this view of 
 the matter has been adopted without 
 question by modern writers. This, how 
 ever, is an error, as has been already 
 intimated, and shall soon be clearly de- 
 monstrated. The Plebs or Commonalty 
 was of more recent origin ; and the 
 Plebeians, in their civil rights, held a 
 middle place between the ruling Patri- 
 cians and the dependent clients. 
 
 Reserving for the present the discus- 
 sion of the relation of the clients to 
 their patrons, and the distinction be- 
 tween the civil conditions of the clients 
 and the Plebeians, we will proceed to 
 consider the artificial divisions of the 
 people. In the account which is given 
 of the establishment of the three tribes, 
 the circumstances which carry with 
 them the most meaning are, that this 
 distribution is placed after the war with 
 the Sabines, and that the names of the 
 first two tribes are expressly derived 
 from Romulus and Tatius.-I* Dionysius 
 is the only author who has described 
 the division of the tribes as preceding 
 the Sabine war, and pertaining to the 
 original people of Romulus ; and, as if 
 conscious that this view of the story 
 was not reconcilable with the ordinary 
 interpretation of the names, he has not 
 mentioned the names at all. He has 
 been seduced into this perversion of the 
 common legend by his wish to present, 
 at the beginning of his history, a syste- 
 matic scheme of the primitive constitu- 
 
 * See Dion. ii. 8, 9. Plut. Rom. 
 
 + CiG. R. P. ii. 8. Uv. 1. 13. Plut. Rom. 
 
 tion. Probably he had before him some 
 constitutional and legal treatise; and, 
 adopting Uterally and formally the vul- 
 gar tradition, by which all the immemo- 
 rial institutions of the state were attri- 
 buted to its founder Romulus, he has 
 described him as arranging the polity of 
 his infant people in all its details imme- 
 diately after the building of the city, and 
 thus goes through all the internal his- 
 tory of his reign before he proceeds to 
 the external events. We must not suffer 
 our conceptions to be embarrassed by 
 this arbitrary method ; but may safely 
 take the common story as the ground- 
 work of our fabric. If then we bear 
 in mind the origin and true nature of 
 the name of Romulus,* we may see 
 clearly that Ramnes was only an older 
 form of the name Romans ; and that the 
 Ramnes were the citizens of the y)rimi- 
 tive Rome on the Palatine ; and instead 
 of simply believing that the Titienses 
 were named from Tatius, we draw the 
 conclusion, that, as the hero and founder 
 Romulus was a personification of Rome 
 and the Romans, so Tatius was an ima- 
 ginary hero, wliose existence was in- 
 vented as a type of the tribe Titienses. 
 When therefore we find that Tatius and 
 the people of Tatius are described as 
 dwelling on the Quirinal and]Capitoline 
 Hills,t we conclude that the Titienses 
 were the citizens of the Sabine town, 
 which was first allied with Rome and 
 then united with it ; and that the dis- 
 tinction of the tribes arose out of the 
 difference of race between the two com- 
 ponent parts of the combined people.;}.* 
 When this point is established with re- 
 gard to the first two tribes, it follows that 
 the third tribe, the tribe of the Luceres, 
 must have had a similar origin ; and we 
 have accordingly endeavoured to assign 
 it^S The history of the origin and esta- 
 blishment of the three tribes is compre- 
 hended, according to our interpretation 
 of the traditionary story, in the history 
 of the first three kings. That the Lu- 
 ceres were not at first upon an equal 
 footina; with the other two tribes has 
 been intimated already, || and will be 
 shown more clearly hereafter. In fact, 
 it will appear in the course of the his- 
 tory, that, even after they were gradually 
 raised to a participation in the power 
 and privileges of the two elder tribes, 
 
 * Seep. 122. 
 
 + Dion. ii. 50. Liv. i. 55. See p. 124. 
 
 i See p. 123. 
 
 § See above, § 7. pp. 125, 126. 
 
 11 See §§ 7 and 9. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 135 
 
 their inferiority continued to be marked, 
 not only by forms, but by certain sub- 
 stantial distinctions. At the head of 
 each of the three tribes was a magis- 
 . trate, called a Tribune.* It is probably 
 to the office of tribune of the Titienses 
 that the legend refers which has been 
 preserved by Plutarch.t that after the 
 death of Tatius, Romulus appointed 
 yearly a magistrate over the Sabines. 
 These tribunes, of course, fulfilled both 
 civil and military duties ; but they seem 
 likewise to have been charged with the 
 care of certain sacred rites, which gave 
 them a sacred character, and caused 
 them to be reckoned as a college of 
 pries ts.$ 
 
 The three Flamens, of Mars, Quirinus, 
 and Jupiter, were priests of the highest 
 dignity among the Romans ;§ and there 
 seems to be sufficient ground to conjec- 
 ture that these three deities were the 
 guardian gods of the three national 
 tribes. Mars, Mavors, or Mamers, was 
 a deity much worshipped among the 
 indigenous Italian races ;|| and the 
 legend that he was the father of Romu- 
 lus points him out as the god of the 
 Opican Ramnes. Quirinus was pecu- 
 liarly a Sabine god;*! and his temple 
 yv&s in the Sabine region of the city, on 
 the Quirinal bill.** He may, there- 
 fore, be considered as the national god 
 of the Quirites or Titienses. That Ju- 
 piter was a Pelasgian deity, identical 
 with the Zeus of the Greeks, is manifest 
 upon the evidence both of mythology 
 
 * Dion. ii. 7. Plut. Rom. and Pomponius, cited 
 by Nieb. vol. i. p. 32o. note 838. 
 
 + Romu!. Xylander and Stephen substituted 
 AXfixvai; for the old reading '2ot.p>'iV6i;. 
 
 t Pion. ii. 64. Nieb. vol. i. note 840. 
 
 § See p. 12. 
 
 11 See Dion. i. 14. Strabo, V. 4, 2. ; and pp. 97.99. 
 
 % Dion. ii. 48. Dionysius, on the authority of 
 Varro, describes Quirinus as an ancient Sabine 
 deity, worshipped in an age anterior to the foun- 
 dation of Rome; and recounts the legend which 
 is noticed, chap. i. § 16. p. 35. It is difficult to 
 conceive how the Romans should have confounded, 
 as they did, this Sabine god with their deided hero 
 Romulus. Cicero, Dionysius himself, and Plu- 
 tarch, in their account of the apparition of Romu- 
 lus to Julius Proculus, all describe him as revealing 
 himself as the god Quirinus. The Roman poets 
 adopted the same fable. Livy alone seems to have 
 felt a difficulty in identifying Romulus with Quiri- 
 nus ; for, though he describes the apparition, he is 
 silent on this point. The fact seems to be, that 
 the story that Romulus, the founder of Rome, was 
 the son of Mars by a vestal virgin, was originally 
 one and the same with the story that the founder 
 of Cures was the son of Quirinus, and his mother 
 a virgin, engaged in the service of his temple. 
 For Quirinus was a deity of similar attributes to 
 Mars ; so that Varro doubted whether they were 
 to be distinguished, except in name. Ry Cures in 
 this legend Ave are probably to understand the 
 Quirinal town. 
 
 ** Cic. R.P.li. 10: Plut. Rom. 
 
 and etymology ;* and if we are right in 
 referring the Luceres to a Pelasgian 
 origin, we may consider the worship of 
 Jupiter as belonging in a peculiar man- 
 ner to them.f 
 
 The curise, likewise, were each under 
 the protection of some god or hero, from 
 whom, probably, they were named ;$ 
 and had their peculiar religious rites, 
 which were the bond of union among 
 their members. A common banquet, 
 at stated seasons, was a part of these 
 ceremonies. For these solemnities each 
 curia had its common hall, also called 
 Cu?ia, in which was placed its sacred 
 hearth or altar.§ As in a house, the 
 hearth, which was consecrated to the 
 household gods, was the centre of 
 union to the members of the family ; 
 so these corporations were considered 
 as larger families, and the symbol of 
 their union was the hearth in their com- 
 mon hall. The common hearth of all 
 the curiae, that is, of the whole people, 
 was the altar in the Temple of Vesta, on 
 which the holy fire was perpetually 
 burning. II We cannot enter into the 
 spirit of the early ages of Rome, unless 
 we understand how intimately all its 
 civil institutions were connected with 
 religious observances. At the head of 
 each curia was a magistrate, called a 
 Curion (Curio); and these officers, be- 
 sides their other functions, performed 
 the sacred rites of the curia.^ They 
 thus formed a college of priests, at the 
 head of which was a chief curion {curio 
 maximus), Dionysius states that pro- 
 vision was made for the due performance 
 of all the ceremonies of the public wor- 
 ship by the election of two priests from 
 
 * See p. 108. 
 
 t It is worth notice, that in one form of the 
 tradition, the institution of the Flamens of Mars 
 .ind Jupiter is ascribed to Romulus (Plut. Num.) 
 This agrees with the hypothesis, that the people 
 of the Palatine and the CBelian, the Ramnes and 
 the Luceres, were the original population of Rome. 
 The institution of the Flaraeu of Quirinus is as- 
 cribed to Numa. This would appear to follow of 
 course, if Quirinus were the deilied Romulus ; but 
 it may be part of an older legend, and have re- 
 ference to the Quirite or Sabine origin of the 
 worship of Quirinus. 
 
 t Varro dissented from tLe tradition, which said 
 that the names of the Curiae were derived from 
 the thirty Sabine women (see above, p. 10); and 
 recorded that they were taken from their leaders 
 (acr' uvl^uv '/lyi/advav, Dion. ii. 47). By these 
 leaders we must understand Heroes Eponymi. 
 
 § Dion. ii. 23. 
 
 II Dion. ii. 65, 66. In the ancient common- 
 wealths of Greece a sacred fire was kept perpetu- 
 ally burning on the hearth of the Prytaneiam or 
 hall of the magistrates. When a colony was sent 
 out, the tire in its Prytaneium was kindled from 
 the fire in the Prytaneium of the mother city. 
 
 % Dion. ii. /, and 64. 
 
136 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 each curia, who held their dic^ity for 
 life. They were required to be beyond 
 the Rc:e of military service, and were 
 exempt from all civil offices * 
 
 The most important of all institutions 
 connected with the curiae, was the great 
 national council, the Comitia Curiata ; 
 and the right understanding of the whole 
 course of the early Roman history de- 
 pends upon a right notion of the consti- 
 tution of this assembly. At its first 
 origin, and as long as it continued to 
 have a real existence,-!* it was composed 
 exclusively of the Patrician order. It 
 cannot be thought strange that the 
 clients, an inferior order of men, per- 
 sonally dependent on individuals of the 
 Patrician body, should not appear in the 
 supreme council of the state. The great 
 distinction which demands our attention 
 is this, that the Plebeians were still 
 more certainly excluded from it. Even 
 when the Plebeian estate had grown up 
 to such magnitude and importance, that 
 it had its peculiar magisi rates, and was 
 become a chief element in the constitu- 
 tion of the commonwealth, even then 
 the Comitia Curiata were exclusively 
 Patrician, and the Plebeians had no 
 part in them. The fact was, that the 
 distribution of the people into tribes and 
 curiae, and the still further division into 
 Gentes, or houses, which will be ex- 
 plained presently, had respect only to 
 the original stock of the nation ; and 
 this original stock kept itself distinct 
 from the body of new citizens which 
 was added by conquest, or sprung up 
 insensibly from other causes. The 
 clients, inasmuch as they were attached 
 to individual Patricians, were attached 
 to the Gentes ; and so may be consi- 
 dered, in this sense, as included in the 
 greater divisions of curiae and tribes; 
 although it is manifest that they could 
 not appear as members of the curiae, 
 when these were called together as the 
 component parts of the sovereign popu- 
 lar assembly. But the Plebeians grew 
 up as a separate body by the side of the 
 original Patrician citizens, and were 
 never incorporated in their peculiar divi- 
 sions. They were not members of the 
 gentes, or of the curia?, or of the three 
 tribes ; consequently, they had no share 
 in the Comitia Curiata ; and this assem- 
 
 • Dion. U. 21. 
 
 f The Comitia Curiata became ultimately a 
 mere form, preserved only for certain religious 
 and ceremonial purposes ; and the thirty Curiae 
 were then represented by thirty lictors. Cic. de 
 Leg. Agr. cc. 11, 12. 
 
 bly, in which resided the supreme power 
 of the state, was, as we have stated, 
 exclusively Patrician. It is needless to 
 insist upon the importance of this dis- 
 tinction to a right view of the constitu- 
 tion and of its successive changes ; and, 
 indeed, to a right notion of the whole 
 internal history, which for more than 
 two centuries is made up of the strug- 
 gles of the Patrician and Plebeian orders. 
 Yet this distinction was overlooked by 
 all the writers on Roman history ; and 
 they suffered themselves to be misled 
 by the superficial theory of Dionysius, 
 who represented the government of 
 Rome as thoroughly democratical from 
 the very foundation of the city, and 
 conceived the public assembly to be 
 composed of the whole male population 
 of the state, with the exception of 
 household slaves. The intuitive genius 
 of Vico* perceived that in no nation 
 
 • Giambattista Vico was born at Naples in 1670. 
 He studied chiefly jurisprudence ; and, in 1725, 
 he published Frincipj di una Scienxa Nuova d'intorno 
 alia Natura delle Naxioni (Principles of a New 
 Science respecting the Nature of Nations). Vico 
 appears to have been endowed with a singular 
 originality of genius, and a power of intuitive dis- 
 cernment ; but to have become partially insane, 
 in consequence of fracturing his scull by a fall 
 over a staircase, in the seventhyear of his age. The 
 object of his work is to show that the phenomena 
 of society are the result of principles ordained by 
 Divine Providence; and, consequently, that they 
 follow one another according to a certain method, 
 and that an analogy subsists in the histories of all 
 nations. His worlc contains many sound general 
 principles, and profound observations upon parti- 
 cular points of history, intermingled inseparably 
 with the most fanciful speculations on the progress 
 of society.and the wildest allegorical interpretations 
 of ancient traditions. He commences his work with 
 an allegorical frontispiece, which he ex plains at great 
 length, and which would deter most sane readers 
 from proceeding further. His most just remarks, 
 and his most extravagant fancies, are delivered as 
 self-evident truths; nor does he appear to have 
 had the slightest perception of the necessity of 
 establishing facts by historical evidence. He 
 seems to arrive at them by reasoning rt priori from 
 principles which he had deduced in his own mind 
 from the general study of history; but he gives no 
 account to the reader of the process by which his 
 principles were obtained. Moreover, his style is 
 singularly difficult and obscure. Nevertheless, in 
 this uncouth guise, Vico anticipated the hypo- 
 thesis of Wolf respecting the origin and nature of 
 the Homeric poems, and many of the discoveries 
 of Niebuhr respecting the primitive constitution 
 of Rome and its progressive changes. He agrees 
 with Niebuhr in his conception of the rigid and 
 exclusive aristocracy of the Patricians, and of its 
 essential connexion with the auspices and other 
 religious observances. He differs from him chiefly 
 in supposing that the Plebs sprung out of the 
 Clients, as their subjection to their patrons was 
 gradually mitigated. Vico's work was little known, 
 and would have been utterly forgotten, if the in- 
 valuable truths which it contains had not been 
 re-discovered by men of sounder intellect. It 
 cannot be questioned that Niebuhr's views of the 
 Roman history were formed in entire independence 
 of Vico, and by a process quite diflferent from 
 his arbitrary fabrication of theories. But, after 
 the publication of the first edition of the History 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 137 
 
 whatever (except in colonies sent out in 
 the later ages of the parent state) was 
 democracy the original form of govern- 
 ment ; and he clearly pointed out the 
 peculiar strictness of the aristocracy of 
 ancient Rome, and the exclusive nature 
 of the Gentes, and Curiae, and Curiata 
 Comitia. Though Vico announced the 
 truth, he did not demonstrate it ; and it 
 was reserved for Niebuhr to establish it 
 by the accumulation of historical evi- 
 dence. \ 
 
 It is manifest that the truth of such a 
 proposition is best established by the 
 internal evidence of the history. When 
 we have taken a point of view, in which 
 the whole course of the history, which 
 before was confused and unintelligible, 
 becomes clear ; and events, which before 
 seemed inconsequent or inconsistent, 
 follow one another in a natural order, — 
 it is evident that our mode of viewing 
 them must be right. This species of 
 evidence must be left to develope itself 
 as we proceed in the history. The. ar- 
 gument which may be drawn for the 
 exclusive character of the Comitia Cu- 
 riata from the hereditary and exclusive 
 character of the Gentes, and the proba- 
 bility that the Curiae were originally 
 composed of a precise and immutable 
 number of Gentes, will be made clear 
 when we discuss the Gentes and the 
 Senate. At present we will confine our- 
 selves to a more minute species of proof, 
 which may be deduced from the expres- 
 sions of ancient writers. The later his- 
 torians, whose views of the primitive 
 constitution were vague or erroneous, 
 in many instances copied phrases and 
 terms from the better informed old An- 
 nalists, without being auare of their full 
 import ; and, by putting these together, 
 we may establish a presumption of our 
 original position, that the Comitia Cu- 
 riata were exclusively an assembly of 
 the Patrician order. 
 
 Dionysius states, that when the kings 
 thought proper to call together the Pa- 
 tricians, they were summoned by mes- 
 sengers singly by their personal and 
 paternal appellations ; but that the com- 
 mons were convened by the blowing of 
 
 of Rome, Niebuhr's attention was called to Vice's 
 speculations ; and it is to be regretted that he did 
 not acknowledge their coincidence with his own 
 researches with the same frankness with which he 
 held up to the admiration of his readers the origi- 
 nality of the Animadversions of Perizonius, who 
 had anticipated him in his perception of the 
 poetical character of the early history. (See 
 above, chap. ii. p. 54; and Nieb. vol. i. pp. 251, 
 252.) There is an account of Vico in the Philolo- 
 gical Museum, vol. ii. pp. 626 — 644. 
 
 cows' horns.* Now, upon this passage 
 we may observe, first, that it bears testi- 
 mony to the existence of a legal Patri- 
 cian assembly, summoned according to 
 an established form. But the historians 
 nowhere mention such an assembly by 
 any particular name, or describe the 
 mode of voting in it, unless we assume 
 it to be the Comitia Curiata. Yet surely 
 such an assembly, if it existed, was an 
 important element in the constitution of 
 the state, and must have had its proper 
 designation ; and we can scarcely ima- 
 gine that all traces of its existence 
 should have vanished from the annals. 
 Fortunately a passage of an old writer 
 is preserved, in which we are told, that 
 the Comitia Curiata were convoked by a 
 lictor, each curia by its own lictor ; the 
 Comitia Centuriata by a hornblower.t 
 These testimonies, put side by side, de- 
 monstrate that the assembly to which 
 the Patricians were convoked was really 
 the Comitia Curiata. 
 
 Again, when the first Tarquinius 
 marked out the site of the great circus 
 for the Roman garaes/J; Dionysius states 
 that he divided the places according to 
 the thirty Curiae, and assigned one part 
 to each Curia.§ Livy, in relating the 
 same fact, states that he assigned places 
 to the fathers and the knights. || Now, 
 as there were no Plebeian knights before 
 the time of Servius Tullius, it follows 
 that the terms, 'the fathers and the 
 knights,' comprehend the Patricians; 
 and, consequently, that assigning places 
 to the Curiae was the same as assigning 
 them to the Patricians. 
 
 Our proposition is confirmed still 
 more strongly, by a comparison of the 
 accounts which are given by different 
 writers of the election of the kings. 
 Cicero states, with a precision which 
 leaves no doubt that he followed an 
 authority which detailed distinctly the 
 ancient legal forms, that Numa, Tullus 
 Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, the first Tar- 
 quinius, and Servius Tullius, were each 
 elected by the people in the Comitia 
 Curiata, and then each presented to the 
 same assembly a law which endowed 
 him with the imperium, or supreme mi- 
 litary command.*! The very singularity 
 
 * Dion. ii. S. 
 
 + Lselius Felix, from Labeo, in Aul. Gell. xv. 27. 
 
 t See p. 19. § Dion. iii. 68. 
 
 II Liv. i.a5. 
 
 i[ Cic. R. P. ii. 13, 17, 18, 20. 21. See above, 
 chap. i. § § 6, 7. 8, 9, 10. The Imperium implied 
 more than military command over the citizens, 
 when they were more than a mile from the city. 
 There were " judicia qucB imperio continentur." See 
 Nieb. vol. i. p. 523, note 1180. 
 
ISS 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 of the proceeding, that the same as- 
 sembly should, in fact, confirm its own 
 choice, is a proof that Cicero has cor- 
 rectly transmitted the account of the old 
 law books. Livy and Dionysiiis were 
 aware that the popular choice was sub- 
 sequently ratified ; but they took it for 
 granted that the election and the ratifi- 
 cation were the act of different bodies. 
 Thus Livy ascribes the election to the 
 people ; the ratification to the Pati'es, or 
 fathers, a terra by which he himself 
 probably understood the Senate*, but 
 which, in the Annalists from whom he 
 copied, would signify the whole Patrician 
 body * Dionysius, in like manner, as- 
 cribes the right of election distinctly to 
 the people assembled in the Coraitia 
 Curiata: the right of ratification he as- 
 signs generally to the Senate ;t but, in 
 the case of Numa, he expressly gives it 
 to the Patricians.^ When we come to 
 interpret these less exact statements by 
 the precise language of Cicero, we per- 
 ceive that the Cnriate law concerning 
 supreme power (lex curiata de imperio) 
 was the same as the ratification of the 
 Patres, or Patricians ; and that the Pa- 
 tricians and the assembled Curiae were 
 the same body. 
 
 Under the republic, this right of rati- 
 fication appears in a less startling form. 
 The election of the consuls and other 
 national magistrates was entrusted to 
 the Comitia Centuriata ; but it was 
 necessary that they should receive the 
 imperium, which endowed them with 
 the full powers of their office, by a law 
 of the Comitia Curiata: and thus the 
 Curiae possessed in fact the power of 
 confirming or invalidating the previous 
 election of the Centuries.§ But we find 
 in a notable instance that it was the 
 consent of the Patricians which was 
 thus required. When the consulship 
 was opened to the Plebeians, and L. 
 Sextius was elected, the Patricians for 
 some time refused their confirmation. j| 
 It follows that the Patricians constituted 
 the Comitia Curiata. We perceive, 
 moreover, that we were right in inter- 
 
 ?reting the Patres, whose ratification 
 iivy conceived to be necessary to the 
 election of the kings,1[ to be the whole 
 Patrician body. . 
 
 • Llv.i. 17,22,32, 41. 
 
 + See Dion, iv, 12. j Dion. ii. 60. 
 
 § Cic. de Leg. Agr. c. 1 1 . See Beaufort, Repub- 
 lique Romaine, vol. i.pp. 19I-10(;. 
 
 H Liv. vi. 42. Comitia consilium habita, quibus 
 L. Sextius primus de plebe consul factus... 
 I'atricii se auctores futures negabant. 
 
 % Liv. i. 17. See below, p. 135. 
 
 It is observable that the Censors, like 
 the other greater magistrates, were 
 elected by the Centuries; but as their 
 office had no relation to military com- 
 mand, but specially to the arrangement 
 of the Classes and Centuries, the law 
 which invested them with their peculiar 
 powers was also passed by tlie Cen- 
 turies.* This example of an assembly 
 confirming its own election may assure 
 us that Cicero was not mistaken in de- 
 scribing the election of the kings. 
 
 But the confirmation of the Patres, 
 or the Patrician Estate, was necessary 
 not only to give authority to the magis- 
 trates elected by the Comitia Centuriata, 
 but also to give validity to laws passed 
 by that assembly. It was not until the 
 Publilian legislation, a.u.c. 416, that 
 this confirmation became a mere form.t 
 It appears from Livy, that the confir- 
 mation of elections and the ratification 
 of laws were exercises of the same 
 power, and pertained to the same body ;$ 
 and as we have shown that in the con- 
 firmation of elections this body was the 
 Comitia Curiata, it follows that the 
 consent of the same assembly was ne- 
 cessary for the ratification of laws. 
 
 After this exposition of the mutual 
 relation of the Comitia of the Curiae and 
 the Comitia of the Centuries, we shall 
 understand the full force of an argu- 
 ment, which may be drawn from the 
 expressions of Dionysius himself, al- 
 though it is in direct opposition to his 
 more formal statements. It respects 
 the election of Tribunes, and is very 
 similar to that which has been alleged 
 above from a comparison of Cicero and 
 Livy respecting the election of consuls. 
 When the Tribunes of the Commons 
 were first elected, he adds, that the 
 Patricians were persuaded to ratify the 
 magistracy by a subsequent vote.$ Now 
 the magistracy itself must have been 
 defined^ and the assent of the Patricians 
 to its institution have been obtained, 
 when the compact or treaty was made 
 between the two orders, in pursuance 
 of which the election was held. The 
 subsequent vote therefore regarded not 
 the office but the men, and was a ratifi- 
 cation of their election. The Tribunes 
 of the Commons were at first elected, 
 like the Patrician magistrates, by the 
 Coraitia Centuriata; and although in 
 
 • Cic. de tiCg. Agr. c. 11. f Liv. viii. 12. 
 
 t Compare viii. 12 with i. 17- 
 
 § Dion. vi. 90. Wi»v^u<r»4 rhv ci^/C^v "^nfov 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 139 
 
 this case no imperium was to be con- 
 ferred, the Curiae claimed and exerted 
 their usual privilege of confirming' the 
 proceedings of the Centuries.* That 
 this is the true interpretation of the 
 matter appears from a subsequent pas- 
 sage. Some time after, by the Publilian 
 law of A.u.c. 283, the election of the 
 Tribunes of the Commons was trans- 
 ferredj to the peculiar assembly of the 
 Commons, the resolutions of which in 
 matters'concerning their own body were 
 independent of any ratification : and 
 then Dionysius represents the consuls 
 as taunting the Tribunes with a want 
 of dignity, because the Curiae pass no 
 subsequent vote concerning them.t In 
 both places he uses the same phrase, 
 which is remarkably precise. What in 
 one passage is the subsequent vote of the 
 Patricians, in the other is the subsequent 
 vote of the Curias : and the conclusion is 
 manifest, that the Comitia Curiata was 
 an assembly of the Patricians. 
 
 The usual place of meeting for the 
 Comitia Curiata was an open space 
 called the Comitium, close to the Vul- 
 canal, or Temple of Vulcan, in the 
 valley between the Palatine and Capito- 
 line Hills.J It was conliguous to the 
 forum, or market-place, and was some- 
 times comprehended under the same 
 name. It is useful to bear in mind the 
 distinction between the places of meet- 
 ing of the several Comitia, as this dis- 
 tinction will frequently enable us to 
 distinguish the assemblies themselves, 
 when they are confounded by the his- 
 torians. The Comitia Centuriata, which 
 were a military assembly, could be held 
 only without the city; and the cus- 
 tomary place was the Campus Martius.§ 
 The Comitia Tributa, the pecuhar as- 
 sembly of the plebeians, with which 
 there is less danger of confounding the 
 Patrician assembly in the Curiae, was 
 usually held in the forum. || 
 
 The meetings of the Curiae were held 
 with religious solemnity. The augurs 
 attended to observe the auspices ; and 
 they had the power of dissolving the 
 assembly, by declaring the omens un- 
 
 * It is true that Dionysius describes the election 
 of Tribunes of the Commons, as taking place 
 originally in the Comitia Curiata (vi. 89; x. 41) ; 
 but this, as will appear more clearly in the proper 
 place, is only an error arising from a misconcep- 
 tion of the right of confirmation. 
 
 t Dion. X. 4. ou7t eel <poa,T^ce,i t'/iv "^n^ov vttI^ 
 
 t See p. 10. Varr. de LL. v. p. 154, ed, Spengel. 
 
 § See p. 21. 
 
 II See Nieb. vol. i. note 990. 
 
 favourable. Niebuhr is of opinion that 
 the chief pontiff presided in these Comi- 
 tia. Whether he presided in all cases 
 is uncertain ; but it is certain that they 
 were held by his authority, when any 
 matter relating to the religious obser- 
 vances, either of the state or of par- 
 ticular houses, was brought before 
 them.* It appears that in later times 
 the order in which the Curiae voted was 
 determined by lot.-f- But it is probable 
 that in earlier days a fixed order was 
 observed ; at least that the Curiae of 
 the Ramnes voted first ; then those of 
 the Titles ; and lastly those of the Lu- 
 ceres. 
 
 The Patrician citizens of Rome were 
 all comprehended in certain bodies which 
 were called Gentes (Kins or Houses).^ 
 The members of the same Ge/z.9 were 
 called Gentiles. In each house were 
 contained several distinct families. It 
 is probable that these families were 
 originally single households ; but where 
 their numbers increased, they became 
 families in the wider acceptation of the 
 term. From the etymology of the term 
 Gens, it is evident that a connexion by 
 birth and kindred was held to subsist 
 among all the members of the house. 
 The name of the house seems always to 
 have been derived from some mythic 
 hero ; and in the popular belief the hero 
 from whom the house was named was 
 regarded as a common ancestor. Thus 
 the Julian House was regarded as the 
 progeny of lulus, the son of ^neas ;§ 
 and the Valerian House was derived 
 from Volesus, a Sabine warrior and 
 companion of Tatius.|| Even those 
 whose superior information enabled 
 them to reject these fabulous genea- 
 logies, adhered to the notion of an 
 original connexion by birth ; and a fic- 
 titious and conventional kindred was ac- 
 knowledged by the members of the same 
 house. In describing this kindred of 
 the Gentiles as fictitious and conven- 
 tional, we do not mean to assert that in 
 no case did such a connexion really 
 exist. No doubt, what were called 
 Houses were first formed by natural 
 
 * See Nieb. vol. ii. p. 222, notes 501, 502 ; and 
 p. 357. Dion. ix. 41, and Aul. Cell. v. 19. 
 
 ■i- Liv. ix. 38. 
 
 t The word liin would be the most exact trans- 
 lation of Gens. But as this word is nearly obsolete, 
 except in particular phrases, and the translators 
 of Niebuhr have rendered Gens by House, the latter 
 term has been adopted. See a note in the Philolo- 
 gical Museum, No. ii. p. 348. 
 
 § Dion. i. 70; Virg. J2n. vi. 789. 
 
 II Dion. ii. 46: iv. 67. See the Remarks, p. 122 
 and Nieb. vol. i. p. 308, and note 802. 
 
140 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 conianjfuinity.* Rut it is probable tlmt 
 these natural alliances had suggested an 
 arliticial arrangement, and that families 
 not akin to one another had been dis- 
 tributed into houses by some legislative 
 power. This will appear certain, if we 
 shall be convinced of the existence of 
 the precise numerical divisions which 
 will be explained presently. If it be 
 true that originally each Curia con- 
 tained ten Gentes, and each Gens ten 
 householders, it is obvious tiiat this 
 exact division must have been made 
 arbitrarily. 
 
 A precisely similar division existed 
 among the ancient Athenians. The 
 Eupatridae, a body which corresponds 
 to the Patrician order at Rome, were 
 divided into four Phylae, which corre- 
 spond to the three Roman tribes ; each 
 Phyle into three Phratriae, which cor- 
 respond to the Curiae ; and each Phra- 
 tria into thirty Genea or Houses, so that 
 the total number of Houses was three 
 hundred and sixty. The Athenian 
 Houses were distinguished by names of 
 a patronymic form, which were derived 
 from some hero or mythic ancestor. 
 But notwithstanding this fictitious kin- 
 dred, and though all the terms which 
 expressed the relation were derived ety- 
 mologically from the notion of connexion 
 by birth, the authorities from which we 
 draw our precise knowledge of the in- 
 stitution directly and pointedly deny the 
 reality of such a connexion, and ascribe 
 the origin of the Genea to an arbitrary 
 division.'!' 
 
 We have not such positive testimony 
 to the want of natural kindred among 
 the families which composed the Roman 
 Gentes ; but we have decisive negative 
 evidence in the fact, that Cicero, in the 
 detinition of the members of a Gens^ 
 which he borrowed from the Pontiff 
 Scaevola, says nothing of a common 
 
 • See DJcsearchus in Steph. Byz. v. Hur^a.; 
 The passage is cited and illustrated in the Preface 
 of the translators of Muller's Dorians, pp. viii.-xiv, 
 
 + Pollnx,viii.9. Ill j Harpocration, v. ytvviirKi ; 
 and other authorities cited by Niebuhr, vol. i. note 
 793. These authorities may be referred ultimately 
 to the treatise on the Athenian Constitution in 
 Aristotle's lost work, the PoWtes. In considering 
 the divisions described above as pertaining only 
 to the Eupatridte, we are not borne out by express 
 authority ; but an attentive consideration of the 
 subject will show that such was the case. The 
 notion that the four Ionic tribes were castes 
 deriving their names from their employments, is 
 founded on nothing but l)ad etymologies ; and the 
 notion thattheEupatridse.Geomori.andDemiurgi, 
 (nobles, landholders, and artisans,) were the three 
 Phratriae in each tribe, is futile. The Eupatridae, 
 Geomori, and Thetes, corresponded to the Patri- 
 cians. Plebeians, and Clients at Borne. 
 
 origin. He'determines, that they must 
 bear a common name; be descended 
 from free men ; that none of their an- 
 cestors must have been in slavery ; and 
 that they must not have incurred any 
 legal degradation.* This definition, 
 however, cannot be considered as a 
 complete description of the condition of 
 Gentiles. It is observable that circum- 
 stances are enumerated, which would 
 exclude a person from Gentile privi- 
 leges ; but no positive bond of union is 
 mentioned, except the bearing of a com- 
 mon name. This was the outward sym- 
 bol of union.')' But the common name 
 was borne, not only by the Patrician 
 members of the House, but by the Clients 
 attached to it :% and in later times freed 
 men, or emancipated slaves, bore the 
 Gentile name of their m-asters, to whom 
 they continued to be bound by ties 
 somewhat resembling those of the 
 clientship of earlier ages. 
 
 The great bond of union among the 
 members of a House was a participation 
 in its common religious rites. It seems 
 that each House had its peculiar so- 
 lemnities, which were performed at a 
 stated time and place. The most me- 
 morable example of these observances 
 is the exploit of C. Fabius Dorso, who, 
 when the Capitol was besieged by the 
 Gauls, descended from the citadel, ar- 
 rayed in a religious guise, passed be- 
 tween the posts of the enemy to the 
 Quirinal Hill, there performed a solemn 
 sacrifice of the Fabian House, and re- 
 turned unmolested.^ There can be no 
 doubt that at a fitting age the children of 
 the Gens were admitted to these solem- 
 nities, and publicly recognized as mem- 
 bers of it ; just as in Attica, at the feast 
 of Apaturia, Athenian citizens of the 
 
 * Topica, C (29.) 
 
 t The Romans anciently bore two names, of 
 which the second was the name of the House, and 
 was properly called the nomen ; the first was a 
 personal name, and was called pri^wowen or fore- 
 name, as Publius Valerius, Marcus Valerius. The 
 termination of the nomen was always ius. After a 
 time it became usual to add a third name, cognomen, 
 which probably at first was a personal distinction, 
 but became hereditary as a family name. Thus in 
 the name Publius Cornelius Scipio, Cornelius is 
 the name of the Gens, Scipio of the family, Publius 
 of the individual. A fourth name, agnomen, was 
 sometimes added, which was always a personal 
 distinction ; as in Publius Cornelius Scipio iEmi- 
 lianus. The agnomen JEmilianus shows that he 
 was by birth of the i^milian Gens, and had passed 
 into the Cornelian by adoption. 
 
 t As M. Claudius, the client of Appius Clau- 
 dins the decemvir. Liv. iii. 44. 
 
 4 Liv. v. 46. The Gentile rites of the Horatii are 
 mentioned, Liv. i. 26; those of the Nautii, Dion 
 vi. 69. Dionysius speaks of the Gentile priest- 
 hoods, ii. 21. 8ee Beaufort de la K^publique Ro- 
 maine, vol. i.p. 207. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 141 
 
 pure blood were admitted and registered 
 in their hereditary Phratriae. 
 
 We have spoken of the Gentes as per- 
 taining only to the Patricians. This is 
 affirmed upon direct testimony.* But in 
 making this statement, we must bear in 
 mind, that connexions of a similar na- 
 ture subsisted among thePlebeians,which 
 had their origin when the subject and 
 municipal towns were independent states. 
 The Gentile connexions of the Plebeians 
 were older than their character as Ro- 
 man citizens. Thus the Csecilii, though 
 Plebeians at Rome, were Patricians of 
 Praeneste, and claimed as the ancestor 
 of their House, Caeculus, the son of 
 Vulcan .t The distinction between the 
 Patrician and Plebeian Houses was, in 
 the first place, that every Patrician was 
 a member of a House, while, among the 
 Plebeians, comparatively but few families 
 could claim the honours of hereditary 
 nobihty, and, in the second place, that 
 the Patrician Houses were constituent 
 elements of the Roman State. Their 
 existence affected the constitution of the 
 great councils of the nation, the Comitia 
 Curiata, and the Senate, and their in- 
 ternal laws and usages were part of the 
 common law of the Roman people, while 
 of the Plebeian Houses the state took no 
 cognizance. 
 
 From the kindred, real or fictitious, 
 which was assumed to subsist among 
 the members of a House, it will be rea- 
 dily understood, that, after the Houses 
 were once formed, they were closed 
 against the admission of any new mem- 
 ber. Their privileges were strictly here- 
 ditary. Foreigners or indigent citizens 
 might attach themselves as Clients to 
 the Houses, but the Patricians, who con- 
 stituted the House, held their rank only 
 by birth and descent. It was indeed 
 possible for a member of a House, if he 
 was childless, to adopt an heir, who 
 then became a member of the House, 
 and assumed its name. But the very 
 process by which this was effected is a 
 proof hovy jealously the Houses were 
 closed against the admission of strangers. 
 It follows from the definition of Cicero, 
 that the free and unblemished descent 
 of the persons to be adopted must have 
 been first proved ; and then the adop- 
 tion could take place only in the pre- 
 sence of the Comitia Curiata, and by 
 their permission ; $ so that, in fact, in 
 
 * Liv.x. 8. vos solos gentem habere. See Nieb. 
 vol. i. p. 316, note 821. 
 + Seep.SG. 
 X See Aul. Gell. v, 19. 
 
 the earlier ages, the consent of the whole 
 state was required. The utmost purity 
 of blood was preserved in the Houses, 
 on the mother's side no less than on the 
 father's ; and the Patrician, who wished 
 his children to inherit his privileges, 
 could marry none but the daughter of 
 a Patrician family, or a woman of cor- 
 responding rank in a foreign state, with 
 which the Connubium, or right of equal 
 intermarriage, was established by na- 
 tional treaty. This right of intermar- 
 riage did not subsist between the Pa- 
 tricians and the Plebeians till the year 
 of the city 311. Before that time the 
 children of a Patrician by,a Plebeian 
 woman would have been Plebeians. 
 Moreover, it was necessary for the mar- 
 riages of the Patrician order to be con- 
 tracted in the most solemn of all the 
 modes in which marriage was contracted 
 among the Romans; by the right of 
 Confarreation. This was a religious 
 ceremony performed in the presence of 
 the Gens* by the Flamen Dialis or the 
 Pontifex Maxiraus, and was an adoption 
 of the wife into the family of her hus- 
 band, •(• and a marriage thus contracted 
 could not be dissolved except under the 
 same religious sanction. ;|: 
 
 Our information, with respect to the 
 reciprocal obligations and duties of the 
 members of the Houses, is very scanty 
 and imperfect. It appears that when a 
 wife violated, her duty to her husband, 
 the members of the House sat in judg- 
 ment upon her together with her hus- 
 band ; § and it is probable that the 
 same Gentile tribunal moderated the 
 excess of the power of a father over his 
 son. II The members of the Houses 
 were bound to assist each other with 
 their substance in case of need. Thus, 
 in ancient times, they would ransom 
 their fellows who were prisoners of war. ^ 
 
 * It was probably because the Gens originally 
 consisted of ten householders that the presence of 
 ten witnesses was always required at a marriage 
 by confarreation. 
 
 t See p. 11, and Dion if. 25. Serv. on Virg. 
 Georg. i. 31. 
 
 t Festus V. Diffarreatio. 
 
 k Dion ii. 25. Tavra, o\ ol ffuyyivu; ^«t« tou 
 
 II Dionysius (ii. 150 states, that according to the 
 immemorial laws ascribed to Romulus, if aRoman 
 citizen had a deformed or monstrous child born 
 to him, he was allowed to expose it, if he first 
 showed it to the five men dwelling nearest to him, 
 and obtained their consent. If a Gens originally 
 consisted of ten householders, as will be shown 
 presently, this seems as if a member of the Gens 
 Avere obliged to obtain the consent of the Gens, 
 that is, of the majority of the other nine members 
 of it, before he could expose his oflfspring. 
 
 »S Nieb, vol. i., p. 312, note 814. 
 
143 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 They contributed to bear the expenses 
 of public offices and other burthens im- 
 posed by the state. * They assisted in 
 the payment of lartre judicial tines, f and 
 we may fairly conclude by analogy, that 
 they were sureties one for the other. % 
 It appears likewise, that if any member 
 of a House died intestate, and without 
 natural heirs, his Gentiles succeeded to 
 his property. § 
 
 The nature of the Roman Gentes may 
 be illustrated in some points by the 
 analogy of the Gaelic Clans. All who 
 belonged to the Gens, or to the Clan, 
 bore a common name. But as the Clan 
 contained not only the freemen or gen- 
 tlemen of the Clan, the Duinhewasals, 
 who were the companions of the chief 
 and the warriors of the clan, but also 
 their dependents, to whom was left their 
 scanty tillage and the keeping of the 
 cattle, and who, if ever they were called 
 to follow the warlike array of the Clan, 
 were imperfectly armed, and placed in 
 the hindmost ranks; so the Roman 
 Gens consisted of the free-born Patri- 
 cians and of theirClients. And our theory, 
 that notwithstanding the conventional 
 kindred of the Gentiles, the Gentes were 
 really, in many cases, composed of fa- 
 milies which had no natural consan- 
 guinity, but had been arbitrarily ar- 
 ranged in them, will appear less strange 
 when we remember, that not only the 
 Duinhewasals, but the meanest fol- 
 lowers of a Highland Clan, claim kindred 
 with their chief, although, in many 
 cases, it may be shown by the strictest 
 historical evidence that the chief and 
 his blood relations are of an entirely 
 different race from the rest of the Clan. 
 The clansmen are Gaels or Celts, while 
 the chief is not unfrequently of Norman 
 descent. 
 
 We have before intimated the opi- 
 nion, that a precise number of Gentes 
 was contained in each Curia. This view 
 is strongly supported by the analogy of 
 the ancient Athenian constitution. But 
 there are statements of the historians 
 which throw some light upon the point. 
 Dionysius, after describing the Tribes 
 and Curia3, proceeds to state, that the 
 Curiae were divided into Decuries, |,or 
 bodies of ten, at the head of each of 
 which was an officer, who was called 
 Decurion. || Now these bodies of ten 
 
 • Dion. ii. 10. 
 t Nieb. vol. i„ note 813. 
 t See Nieb. vol. ii., p. 289. 
 § Nieb. vol. i., p. 311. See Cic, de Orat.ii. 133j 
 de Invent, ii. 50, 
 B Dion.ii.7. 
 
 must be considered as containing, not 
 merely ten persons, but ten household- 
 ers or heads of families. It was not 
 in the spirit of the legislation of anti- 
 quity to descend to individuals as the 
 elements of the state. The household 
 was always considered as the ultimate 
 constituent part.* Now, if these Decu- 
 ries were collections of families, as the 
 Gentes were certainly collections of fa- 
 milies, the conjecture is not improbable, 
 that these Decuries were the same as 
 the Gentes. Dionysius has not as- 
 signed any fixed number of Decuries to 
 each Curia ; but as the tribe was di- 
 vided into ten Curiae, and.the ultimate 
 division was a Decury, a body of ten 
 families, it seems likely that the decimal 
 division prevailed throughout, and that 
 there were ten Decuries in a Curia. This 
 would make the tribe to consist of a 
 thousand householders. This reckon- 
 ing accords with a tradition which has 
 been preserved by Plutarch, and which 
 must be interpreted of the earliest times, 
 when the Roman people consisted of 
 the single tribe of the Romans. He 
 says, that at the first building of Rome 
 the number of houses did not exceed a 
 thousand, t It accords likewise with 
 the statement of Dionysius, who, as we 
 have before observed, believed the three 
 Tribes and the thirty Curiae to have ex- 
 isted from the very beginning of the 
 city. He says, that the first settlers at 
 Rome with Romulus were not more 
 than three thousand foot soldiers, and 
 fewer than three hundred horsemen. :|: 
 Of both these accounts we may observe, 
 that the vagueness of expression has 
 been introduced by the later writers, 
 who repeated them, and who thus sought 
 to give an appearance of truth to what 
 they thought the too precise statements 
 of the old books, not perceiving that 
 what the old books presented as a 
 statement of facts was not an historical 
 record of events, but an account of the 
 idea or theory of the primitive constitu- 
 tion. We may remark likewise on the 
 statement of Dionysius, that, in the 
 
 * Aristot. Pol. i. 2. There is a strong proba- 
 bility, that anciently in Rome a man did not enjoy 
 the full privileges of a citizen during the lifetime 
 of his father, unless he married, and so became the 
 head of a separate household. At least there was 
 a law, so ancient as to be ascribed to Numa, that 
 if a father permitted his son to marry a wife by the 
 sacred rite of confarreation, the fatlier should no 
 longer have the right of selling his son (Dion, ii. 
 27. seep. 11). A son, who was liable to be sold, 
 and who could hold no property in his own right, 
 was scarcely a citizen. 
 
 t Plat. Rom. 
 
 * Dion. ii. 16. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 143 
 
 earlier as:es of the ancient republics, 
 every citizen was a soldier, so that the 
 number of men bearina: arms, and the 
 number of householders, is one and the 
 same.* Varro states precisely that 
 each of the three tribes furnished a 
 thousand soldiers, f From these pas- 
 sages, which assign a thousand citizens 
 to a tribe, we may fairly collect that 
 there were a hundred householders, or 
 ten Decuries, in each Curia. But in 
 another passage it is implied still more 
 clearly. Dionysius, commending the 
 military organization established by 
 Romulus, says, that it was not neces- 
 sary when an army was to be led out, 
 then for the first time to appoint com- 
 manders of a thousand, according to 
 the Tribes (Tribunes), or Commanders of 
 a Hundred {Centurions) according to the 
 Curice ; but the King gave his orders to 
 the commanders of a thousand ; they to 
 the leaders of the Curiae, and they to the 
 decurions or commanders of ten. ;|; The 
 same fact, that the Curio in his military 
 capacity was called a Centurion, and 
 was the commander of a hundred men, 
 is attested likewise by another authority,^ 
 If, therefore, the decuries were really 
 Gentes, it follows that there were ten 
 Gentes in each Curia. 
 
 If we consider the Gentes as a sub- 
 division of the Curiae and Tribes, and 
 bear in mind their strictly hereditary 
 nature, we shall understand the state- 
 ment of an old writer, || that in the Co- 
 mitia Curiata the sutirages were given 
 a.ccording to genealogical descent ; and 
 we shall perceive the justness of the 
 distinction drawn by Dionysius, when 
 he describes the ancient tribes as gene- 
 alogical, in opposition to the local Ple- 
 beian tribes established by Servius 
 Tullius.m 
 
 The Senate, according to every au- 
 
 * See p. 11. The accounts which the historians 
 give of the Celcres, Horsemen or Knights, will be 
 examined presently, see p. 146. 
 
 t De Lin. Lat. iv. p. 23, (v. 16. ed. Spengel). 
 See also Dion. Cass. Frag. i. 
 
 t Dion. ii. 14. ouTi lxaTovrd^;^cis Kocra Xo- 
 X''"^^ whom he afterwards calls A.i5;^ay9<. In ii. 7. 
 Dionysius expressly uses the Greek military term 
 lochvs, as equivalent to Curia, and lochagus, or 
 leader of a lochus, as equivalent to Curio, the com- 
 mander of a curia. This is with reference to the 
 military array of the curia, for as a civil division 
 he always calls the Curia Phratra. 
 
 § Lydus de Magistr, i. 9. cited by Nieb. vol. i., 
 note 839. 
 
 g Lseliiis Felix in A. Gellius xv. 27, cited by 
 Nieb. vol. i. note 842. Cum ex generibus homi- 
 num suffragium feratur, curiata comitia esse : 
 cum ex censu et setate, centuriata ; cum ex re- 
 gionibus et locis, tributa. 
 
 1[ Dion. iv. 14. 
 
 thority, was originally composed of a 
 hundred chief men of the^ Patrician 
 order, who had passed the age of mili- 
 tary service*. Livy and other writers 
 describe them as nominated by the King. 
 Dionysius alone speaks of a popular 
 election ; but as he was prepossessed 
 with the erroneous notion, that the 
 three Tribes and the thirty Curiae ex- 
 isted from the very beginning of the city, 
 he had the difficult problem before him, 
 to account for the election of a hundred 
 Senators out of these elements, the 
 numbers of which stand in no obvious 
 relation to the number of the Senate. 
 He has acquitted himself of his task 
 very ingeniously. He supposes the 
 first senator, or chief of the Senate, to 
 have been nominated by Romulus ; then 
 each Tribe to have elected three, who, 
 with the chief, made the body of the 
 Ten First, to whom precedence was as- 
 signed ; and then each Curia to have 
 elected three, who made up the hun- 
 dred. This scheme falls to the ground 
 with the false hypothesis on which it 
 rests. There were a hundred senators, 
 before the addition of the second tribe : 
 and Dionysius himself agrees with other 
 writers in representing the number of 
 the Senate as doubled after the union of 
 the people of Tatius with the people of 
 Romulus t. Livy alone says nothing of 
 this augmentation of the Senate after 
 the Sabine war. It follows, therefore, 
 that _"each Tribe was represented by a 
 hundred senators. The third Tribe, the 
 Luceres, who stood on a lower footing 
 than the other two, had as yet no part 
 in the Senate. Their representatives 
 were admitted for the first time by the 
 elder Tarquinius. These were the hun- 
 dred Senators, the Fathers of the Less 
 Houses, by whose elevation he began 
 his reign, and thus filled up the number 
 of three hundred, which long remained 
 the established complement of the Ro- 
 man Senate. 
 
 If each Tribe was represented by a 
 hundred Senators, the conjecture is ob- 
 vious, that each Curia was represented 
 by ten. This is in strict agreement with 
 the representation of Livy, when he 
 describes the interregnum after the 
 death of llomulus ; that the hundred 
 Senators (a hundred according to his 
 view) were divided into ten decuries J. 
 
 • Festus, V. Senatores : Non vocantur Sena- 
 tores, ante quam in Senioribus sunt censi. See 
 Nieb. vol. i. note 832; yol, ii. p. 113. 
 
 t Dion. ii. 47. t Liv. i. 17. 
 
144 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Dionysius, who acknowledges two hun- 
 dred senators at this time, likewise re- 
 presents them as divided into decads.* 
 Of course, each decury of the senate 
 corresponds to a Curia. But this inves- 
 tijj^ation may be carried yet further. If 
 we were right in supposing that each 
 Curia was divided into ten decuries, 
 then, since the Curia was represented 
 by ten senators, each senator repre- 
 sented a decury, and was, in fact, the 
 decurion who stood at the head of the 
 decury. This theory of the constitution 
 of the senate is established almost with 
 perfect certainty by the analogy of the 
 little senates of the colonies and pro- 
 vincial towns. These were formed 
 upon the modeKof Rome; and in them 
 each senator was expressly called a 
 Decunon, upon the principle that the 
 Senate consisted of a tenth part of the 
 citizens. t If then it be true that the 
 decuries were the same as the Gentes, 
 and the decurion the head of the Gens, 
 it follows that the Senate was composed 
 of the representatives of the Gentes ; at 
 first only of the Gentes of the Raranes ; 
 then of the Gentes of the Raranes and 
 Titienses ; and lastly of the three hun- 
 dred Gentes of all the three Tribes. That 
 the senators were thus immediately 
 connected with the Gentes is made more 
 clear by the distinction set up between 
 the senators of the two elder Tribes, and 
 the senators of the third Tribe, as the 
 fathers of the major Gentes, and the 
 fathers of the minor Gentes. 
 
 The ancient division of the Athenian 
 Eupatridae into Phylae, Phratriae, and 
 Genea, has been adduced in illustration 
 of the division of the Roman patricians 
 into Tribes, Curiae and Gentes. The 
 constitution of the Roman Senate may 
 be illustrated in like manner by the 
 constitution of the ancient Athenian 
 Boule or Senate : but almost every re- 
 cord of this has been obliterated ; and 
 before we can make use of the analogy, 
 we must restore the lineaments which 
 time has effaced. After the democra- 
 tical revolution in the Athenian com- 
 monwealth, which was effected by 
 Cleisthenes, when the four genealogical 
 Tribes were abolished, and the ten local 
 Tribes established, the Senate consisted 
 of five hundred members, fifty from 
 each tribe. The senators of each tribe 
 held precedence and superior authority 
 
 • Dion. ii. 57. 
 
 + Cic. proii, Sext. c. 4. Epist. vi. 18. Pompon. 
 Dig. 1. ult. tit. penult, leg. 239. 
 
 in turn, under the name of Prytanes, for 
 periods of thirty-five days ; so as to 
 complete the lunar year of 354 days, 
 with the exception of the odd four days. 
 Each body of Prytanes was divided into 
 five divisions of ten each, called Proe- 
 dri, who held precedence for a period of 
 seven days: and the several Proedri 
 had the custody of the public treasury 
 and kept the public seal, with the title 
 of Epistates, each for a single day ; so 
 that in each Procdria three were ex- 
 cluded from this high distinction. Now, 
 the authorities which give us the ac- 
 count of this arrangement are very pre- 
 cise : but there is a want of congruity 
 in the times and numbers, which makes 
 the whole system appear clumsy, and 
 which forces upon the mind the sus- 
 picion, or rather the conviction, that 
 this arrangement was not first made, 
 when the Senate of five hundred was 
 constituted, but was an ancient form 
 preserved under circumstances to which 
 it could not be exactly fitted. When 
 we consider that the four ancient Phy- 
 lae were divided into twelve Phratriae, 
 and the Phratriae into 360 Genea, 
 thirty in each ; and when we remem- 
 ber, on the other hand, that the Athe- 
 nians, before Solon introduced the lu- 
 nar year, reckoned a year of 360 days,* 
 and that at all times they continued to 
 divide their months into three portions 
 of ten days each ; the conclusion seems 
 inevitable, that the ancient Senate con- 
 sisted of 360 members, one for each 
 Genos; that the twelve Phralriae cor- 
 responded to the twelve months, and 
 that the representatives of each Phra- 
 tria were Prytanes for a month ; that 
 the thirty Prytanes were divided into 
 three bodies of Proiidri, ten in each, who 
 held their office for the third part of a 
 month ; ,and that each senator was 
 Epistates in turn for a single dayf. If 
 this view be true, each Genos was re- 
 presented in the Senate; and so we 
 conceive each Gens to have been repre- 
 sented in the Roman Senate. 
 
 The testimony of Livy is express, 
 that in each body of ten Senators was 
 one of higher rank than the rest ; and 
 if the ten Senators were the decurions of 
 
 • Compare Diog. L.iert. i. 59, and Herod, i. 32. 
 
 i Plutarch states that Solon established a se- 
 nate of four hundred, a hundred from each Tribe. 
 Even if this assertion be exactly true (and Plu- 
 tarch is the only authority for it), it proves no- 
 thing with regard to the constitution of the Se- 
 nate in the flourishing days of the aristocracy, 
 before Solon introduced his reformation into the 
 commouwealtli. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 145 
 
 their several decurles, then their chief 
 must have represented the Curia, and 
 probably in the earhest aire of the consti- 
 tution was the Curio. The Ten Chiefs 
 of the Senators of the first tribe held the 
 supreme power in an interregnum ; and 
 each of them bore the ensij^ns of royalty 
 for five days, and during that time was 
 called the Interrex*. But these Ten 
 Chiefs {Decern Primi) not only held this 
 supremacy when the commonwealth 
 was without a King, but at all times 
 enjoyed a marked pre-eminence. Even 
 in a later age, when the constitution of 
 the Senate had gradually undergone a 
 considerable change, there were always 
 ten senators who bore this honourable 
 title. At the great crisis of the Roman 
 history, the secession of the plebeians, 
 the ambassadors of the patrician order 
 were the Ten Chiefs of the Senatet. We 
 find traces of the same distinction among 
 the Latins:*;; and it was expressly imi- 
 tated in the Senates of the colonies and 
 the municipal towns ^S. 
 
 At the head of the Senate was a Chief 
 Senator, who not only presided in coun- 
 cil, but was the lieutenant or deputy of 
 the King, and whenever the King was 
 absent in war, administered justice in 
 the city, and provided for all sudden 
 emerirencies||. That the office at first 
 pertained to the tribe of the Ramnes is 
 evident, not only from what has been 
 said of the Ten Chiefs, but from the very 
 name which tradition has handed down 
 as the name of the Senator who held 
 this dignity under Romulus, Denter 
 Romulius<C. Afterwards however, as 
 it is evident that the Interrex must have 
 been the President of the Senate, we 
 may perceive by the account of the in- 
 terregal power that this office was held 
 
 * See Livy, i. 17. Dionysiiis (ii. 5?) has con- 
 founded the body of the ten chiefs with the several 
 decuries of which they were tlie chiefs ; and thus 
 has represented every single senator as holding 
 the office of interrex in turn. This view is erro- 
 neous. The utmost extent to which the inferior 
 senators of the decury participated in the inter- 
 regal power is that which is defined in chap. i. 
 ^5; and perhaps even there the misconception 
 of Dinnysius has been suffered to modify too far 
 the precise statement of Livy. It should have 
 been observed also, that the interreges were taken 
 only from the original Senate of one hundred. 
 This is Livy's notion, and it is confirmed by the 
 expression of Dionysius, iii. 1 (ix, tZv "r^ifffiv' 
 Ti^uv). See Nieb. vol. ii. p. iii. note 237. 
 
 t Dion. vi. 84. See in Nieb. vol. ii. the sec- 
 tion "On the office of warden of the city," and 
 especially pp. 114, 117. 
 
 t Liv. viii.3. 
 
 i See Nieb. vol. i, pp. 299-300, and note 784. 
 Cic. pro Sext. Rose. c. 9. 
 
 II Dion. ii. 12. Tac. Annal. vi. 11. 
 
 % Tacitus. See Nieb. vol. ii, p. Ill, 
 
 in turn by each of the Ten Chiefs. The 
 tradition that TuUus Hostilins bestowed 
 this dignify on Numa Marcius, the 
 husband of the daughter of Numa Pom- 
 pilius and the father of Ancus Marcius, 
 is evidence of a still further change, by 
 which the Senators of the second tribe 
 were admitted to a place among the 
 Ten Chiefs, and even to the dignity of 
 First Senator*. No further change can 
 be traced under the kings. Spurius 
 Lucretius held the office at the time of 
 the expulsion of Tarquiniust. In the 
 early years of the republic it appears 
 that the Ten Chiefs were ten Senators of 
 the Major Gentes who had held the 
 office of Consul ; and one of these was 
 nominated by the Consuls when they 
 quitted the cityj, and became the Guar- 
 dian or Warden of the city, {Gustos 
 Urbis.) In the twenty-third year of 
 the republic the wardenship was made 
 an elective office. It would lead us too 
 far beyond our present purpose to ex- 
 plain how the Praetorship of the city 
 sprunij out of this magistracy ; and 
 how the dijrnity of Chief of the Senate 
 {Princeps Senatus) became a totally dis- 
 tinct honour, assigned in a manner 
 suited to the actual state of the con- 
 stitution. The office of Prefect of the 
 City {Prcpfectus Urbis,) which was esta- 
 blished under the emperors for the ad- 
 ministration of the police of the capital, 
 and which Tacitus compares with the 
 ancient office of Warden of the City, as 
 it existed under the kings and the early 
 consuls, bears an apparent resemblance 
 to it ; but it was altogether a new func- 
 tion, and not connected with the old 
 magistracy by any gradual series of 
 constitutional changes^^S. 
 
 The Senate was convoked by the 
 King; and it seems, that they could de- 
 liberate only upon such matters as the 
 King brought before them. In all the 
 ordinary measures of the executive 
 government, their authority was su- 
 preme, and their resolution final. But 
 the enactment and the repeal of laws, 
 the election of civil magistrates and of 
 military commanders, and the power of 
 declaring war and making peace, was 
 reserved to the people assembled in the 
 Comitia Curiata||. But, even on these 
 
 • Tac. and Nieb. as before. 
 + Tac. and Liv. i. 59. 
 X "Dein consules mandabant." Tacit. 
 § See the section in Niebiihr's second VoluOi e 
 cited above. 
 11 Diou. ii. U. iv. 20. vi 66. 
 
146 
 
 ttlSTORY OF ROME. 
 
 subjects, the Senate possessed a very high 
 authority; for tlie popular assembly could 
 not entertain any question, till it was 
 formally laid before them by a previous 
 resolution of the Senate.* Even in the 
 election of a King, or of any other ma- 
 gistrate, the power of the assembly of 
 the Curiae was restricted to approving 
 or rejecting the ])erson nominated by 
 the Senate.'!' As the people assembled 
 in the Curiae was merely the Patrician 
 order, and the senate was composed of 
 the most eminent Patricians, we may 
 readily conceive that the assembly 
 rarely dissented from the Senate ; espe- 
 cially, when, in consequence of the 
 growth of the Plebeian Estate, the Pa- 
 tricians ceased to constitute the Com- 
 monwealth, and a jealousy of the Ple- 
 beians became the dominant feeling of 
 their order.J All the heads of the 
 Gentes voted in the Senate : the house- 
 holders, members of the Gentes, voted 
 in the Curiae. Niebuhr conceived that 
 the votes taken in the Curiae were not 
 the votes of individuals, but the votes 
 of the Gentes : § but this seems very 
 improbable, if the Gentes were also ex- 
 pressly represented in the Senate. The 
 vote of a Gens could be given in no way 
 but through the head or decurion of the 
 Gens ; and it is scarcely conceivable 
 that the same person should vote as a 
 representative in the Senate, and as a 
 delegate in the Curiae. Besides, such a 
 mode of taking the votes would not 
 have escaped mention. It is of more 
 importance to notice the mistake of Di- 
 onysius, who, in his formal account of 
 the constitution, inverts the order of 
 proceeding of the two bodies, and states 
 that the resolutions of the Curiae were 
 not valid till they were confirmed by 
 the Senate.ll He has confounded dis- 
 tinct assemblies, and has been misled 
 by the allusions which he found in the 
 annals, to the order of transacting pub- 
 lic business after the introduction of 
 the Comitia Centuriata, and the Comitia 
 Tributa. The elections of the Centuries 
 were not ^alid, as we have seen above, 
 till the magistrate elected received the 
 Jmperium from the Curiae ; and the re- 
 solution for granting the Impei'ium must 
 have been introduced to the Curiae by a 
 previous vote of the Senate. The Comi- 
 
 • Dion. vii. 38. ix. 41. Nieb. vol, ii. note ^93. 
 
 t See Nieb. vol. i. p. 835 ; and Dion. ii. 58. iii. 
 36. iv. 8. See also Nieb. vol. ii. pp. 177-179. 
 
 X See Diodonis, xiv. 113, and Nieb. vol. ii., note 
 392 
 
 4' Nieb. vol. i. p. 327. 
 
 I Dion.Mi. 14. 
 
 tia Tributa, the peculiar assembly of the 
 Plebeian tribes, at its first origin could 
 take no part in matters pertaining to 
 tile whole nation: and when at length 
 it was permitted to discuss them, its 
 resolutions had no effect at all, unless 
 they were adopted by the Senate and the 
 sovereign assembly. In this manner, 
 the resolutions of these bodies needed 
 the confirmation of the Senate; but, in 
 the original assembly of the Curiae, the 
 vote of the Senate was certainly the 
 initiative step.* 
 
 In the examination of the primitive 
 forms of the Roman constitution, some 
 embarrassment has been caused by the 
 mention of the three hundred Celeres, 
 The historians speak of these as a body 
 guard, who were around the person of 
 the King, and always ready to execute 
 his commands.'!' Yet, in after times, 
 when the Equites or Knights were an 
 honourable and privileged class in the 
 state, inferior only to the Senatorian 
 rank, the Roman antiquaries agreed in 
 tracing their origin to the Celeres of 
 Romulus.$ It is remarkable, however, 
 that Livy, before he mentions the insti- 
 tution of the Celeres, relates, as a dis- 
 tinct event, the enrolment of three Cen- 
 turies of horsemen or Knights ; and it 
 is still more worthy of observation, that 
 he places the enrolment of these three 
 Centuries immediately after the termina- 
 tion of the Sabine war of Romulus, 
 and describes them as the Centuries of 
 the Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres :§ 
 while it is only incidentally, at a later 
 period, that we learn from him the fact, 
 which other writers state expressly, that 
 these were the names of the three an- 
 cient tribes of the nation. j| It is diffi- 
 cult to judge, whether Livy really in- 
 tended to distinguish between the Cele- 
 res and the Equites or Knights ; or 
 v^hether from carelessness he copied 
 two different accounts of the same insti- 
 tution from different annalists. How- 
 ever this may be, we know that the 
 tribune of the Celeres was a magistrate, 
 who had the power of convoking the 
 people to the Comitia Curiata. In this 
 capacity Brutus summoned the asseni- 
 bly which deprived Tarquinius of his 
 kingdom.^: The office of Magister Equi- 
 tum, or Master of the Knights, under 
 the Dictators in the time of the Repub- 
 
 • See Nieb. vol. ii. pp. 220, 221. 
 
 t Liv. i. 15 ; Dion. ii. 13 ; Piut. Num. 
 
 t Plin. N. H. xxxiii. 2. ; Festus, v. Celeres. 
 
 § Liv. i. 13. ffl Liv. X.6. 
 
 % Liv. i. 59; Dion. iv. 71- 
 
HISTORY OF ROME* 
 
 UT 
 
 lie, was? considered as bearing an ana- 
 logy to that of the Tribune of the Celeres 
 under the kings.* Dionysius, who alone 
 speaks of the Tribunes of the Celeres as 
 more than one, enumerates them among 
 the Colleges of Priests, as charged with 
 the performance of certain sacred rites. 
 This power and priestly character, as 
 Niebuhr observes, are inconsistent with 
 the office of captain of a mere body guard. 
 Niebuhr conjectured that anciently 
 Celeres was the general name of the 
 whole Patrician order, as distinguished 
 from the rest of the nation ; and that 
 the Tribunes of the Celeres were the Tri- 
 bunes of the three Patrician Tribes, of 
 whom a marked pre-eminence was as- 
 signed to the Tribune of the First Tribe ;t 
 and he conceived that the Tribes might 
 be called Centuries, as in the account 
 followed by Livy, inasmuch as each 
 contained a hundred Houses or Gentes.$ 
 In making this conjecture, he must 
 have supposed that the tradition of the 
 three hundred guards arose from a mis- 
 apprehension of the terra Centuries, as 
 Centuries of individuals ; and that the 
 term Celeres was not originally syno- 
 nymous with Equites, horsemen or 
 Knights, but came to be so considered 
 at a later time, when, by the constitu- 
 tion of Servius Tullius, the infantry 
 was drawn from the Plebeian order ; 
 and ail the Patricians were ranged 
 among the Equites, who were required 
 to serve on horseback. 
 
 Perhaps we may be guided to a more 
 probable conjecture, by attending more 
 exactly to the account of Dionysius. 
 He states that the Celerii § were " three 
 hundred men in the vigour of \\ie,from 
 the most illustrious houses, whom the 
 Curiae nominated in the same manner in 
 which they nominated the Senators, 
 each Curia ten young men." We have 
 seen that the Senators were the heads 
 and representatives of the Gentes, as- 
 sembled to form the great Council of 
 the nation. The people of antiquity 
 looked for wisdom in a2;e ; and it is 
 manifest, that the original Senators were 
 men who had passed the time of mili- 
 tary service. The very etymology of their 
 name has reference to their age.K Now 
 it is likely that, in the same manner, 
 each Gens had its head and leader in 
 
 * Nieb. vol. i. p. 515 ; and Pomponius in a note 
 of the Translators. 
 
 t Vol. i. p. 325. t lb. p. 313. 
 
 § So Dionysius writes tlie name, ii. 13. 
 
 II Dion. ii. 12. Varro, de LL. v. p. 156. ed. 
 Spengel. Cic. R. P. ii. 28. Festus, v. Senatores. See 
 above, p. 143. 
 
 war; and thejje leaders might be em- 
 bodied in one company, and constitute 
 either a military council or a select 
 band for services of special trust. In 
 this case, they would be distinguished 
 by a peculiar name ; and they would 
 naturally be divided into three Centu- 
 ries, each bearing the name of the tribe 
 froni which it was taken. As military 
 service on horseback was always a mari<: 
 of superior rank in the ancient Com- 
 monwealths, the leaders might be 
 mounted, while their Gentiles fought on 
 foot, and thus be employed in war as a 
 body of cavalry. In after times, when 
 the Plebeians were numerous enough 
 to furnish the infantry of the army, all 
 the Patricians would claim a right to 
 serve in the more honourable manner ; 
 and thus the peculiar distinction of the 
 select band composed of the leaders of 
 the Houses would become obsolete. If 
 this hypothesis of the constitution of 
 the Celeres be true, the Tribunes of the 
 Celeres may have been the same as the 
 Tribunes of the Tribes ; and even if these 
 dignities were distinct, we can easily 
 understand that they were officers of 
 high trust and power. 
 
 The relation which subsisted between 
 the individual Patricians, as Patrons, 
 and their dependents or Clients, has al- 
 ready been described in general terms.* 
 It was the duty of the Patron to expound 
 the laws to his Clients, to watch over 
 their interests, and to protect them from 
 all injustice, especially in their dealings 
 and money matters. The Client could 
 neither sue nor be sued in his own 
 name ; but in all cases his Patron ap- 
 peared for him. Frequently also the 
 j)atrons granted lands to their Clients ;-f- 
 but it cannot be doubted that in this case 
 a portion of the produce was reserved 
 to the patron. Nor were these grants 
 perpetual. Assuredly the land might 
 be resumed at pleasure : otherwise the 
 client would have become independent 
 of his patron. On the other hand, the 
 Clietit was bound to uphold the honour 
 of his Patron ; in common with his 
 kinsmen and the members of his House, 
 to assist him in bearing the charges of 
 office in the Commonwealth and all 
 other public burthens ; to contribute 
 towards portioning his daughters ; to 
 ransom him or his children if they be- 
 
 * Tlie account of the relative duties of the 
 Patrons and Clients is talcen from Dion. ii. 9—11, 
 txcei)t where a spietial reference is given. See 
 also Aul. Geil. v. 13. | 
 
 + Festus in Nieb. vol. i. note 830. See also p. 
 319} and vol. ii. p. 147» 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 came prisoners of war ; and to pay all 
 public fines and damages in private 
 suits to which he might become liable. 
 Thus the fine imposed on Camilliis was 
 defrayed by his Gentiles and Clients* 
 The Client was capable of acquiring pro- 
 perty and of transmitting it ; but, if he 
 died without heirs, his Patron inherited. t 
 The Client could not accuse his Patron, 
 nor bear witness against him, nor in 
 any way appear against him in any 
 judicial proceeding. We are told, on 
 the other hand, that the Patron could 
 not accuse nor bear witness against his 
 Client. Of course, if the offence of the 
 Client were committed against any other 
 person, since his Patron was his legal 
 defender, he could not be called to tes- 
 tify against him. But if the Client were 
 guilty of an offence against his Patron 
 himself, his Patron did not accuse him, 
 because the state did not interfere in 
 this relation. The Patron himself was 
 his judge ; and it appears that, an- 
 ciently, he held the power of life and 
 death over his Clients.^ From this 
 statement of the mutual relation, it is 
 manifest that the wealth of the Patri- 
 cians depended very much upon the 
 number and wealth of their Clients ; 
 and that the Clients, by the powerful 
 protection of their Patrons, were shielded 
 from wrong from any other quarter. 
 But the question remains, what protec- 
 tion they enjoyed against the abuse of 
 the arbitrary power of their Patrons, since 
 the civil tribunals did not interpose for 
 their defence. Their protection was the 
 religious responsibility under which the 
 Patrons exercised their power. It is 
 said, that, if either party wronged the 
 other, he was devoted, as a traitor, to 
 the Infernal Jupiter.^ This solemn 
 curse was a sentence of outlawry ; and 
 the person thus accursed might be slain 
 with impunity. Probably it was the 
 Pontiff who had power thus to devote 
 the offender. It is likely that this was 
 the sanction which armed the Patron 
 with the power of life and death over his 
 Client. But it is difficult to believe that 
 the curse was ever actually pronounced 
 upon an unrighteous Patron. How- 
 ever, if we may believe the tradition 
 of the unbroken good will of the 
 Patrons and Clients, this religious 
 check sufficed for its purpose. Much, 
 indeed, may be ascribed to the interest of 
 the Patrons, which was clearly involved 
 
 • Liv. V. 32., and Dion. Excerpt, xiii. 5. 
 
 t Nieb. vol. i. p. 320. j Nieb. vol. i. p. 320. 
 
 \ Compare Virg. ^n. vi. 60y. 
 
 in the well-being of their Clients; 
 and still more to the political changes, 
 which, in course of time, made the Client 
 valuable to the Patricians, both by their 
 physical strength and by their votes, as 
 a counterbalance to the Plebeians.* 
 
 The Clientship was hereditary. "We 
 may affirm this fearlessly, not only upon 
 sufficient authority ; but from the ana- 
 logy of similar institutions in all parts 
 of the world. The notion that succes- 
 sive generations of Clients remained 
 attached to the same Patrician family 
 only from affection and by free choice, 
 and that the connexion was originally 
 formed by the free choice of the Client, 
 arose from looking only at a single 
 species of Clientship of more recent 
 origin ; that by which a foreigner, set- 
 tling at Rome, chose a patron to whom 
 he attached himself, just as an alien 
 at Athens chose a Prostates among the 
 citizens, who was his legal representa- 
 tive. Even the connexion thus formed 
 was hereditary .t Whole towns and 
 communities, which became subject to 
 Rome, either attached themselves or 
 were attached by the authority of the 
 state to individual Patrons; and this 
 honourable connexion subsisted un- 
 broken through successive generations.:}; 
 Household slaves, when they were 
 emancipated, undoubtedly became Cli- 
 ents. This attachment of freedmen to 
 their former masters was the species 
 of the connexion which endured longest. 
 In fact, it lasted, in a mitigated form, as 
 long as the Roman state itself.^ It is 
 obvious that, in the way last mentioned, 
 Plebeian citizens might have their 
 Clients ; and, when the Plebeian estate 
 was raised to a level with the Patricians, 
 foreigners might attach themselves to 
 powerful Plebeians; but the original 
 Clientship, under the solemn religious 
 sanction which has been described 
 above, sitbsisted only in dependence upon 
 members of the patrician houses. 
 
 We can give no historical account of 
 the origin of this primitive Clientship, 
 but its nature may be illustrated by the 
 analogy of similar institutions in other 
 nations. In several states of Greece 
 we find a class of bondmen or serfs, who 
 must be carefully distinguished from 
 domestic slaves. The great general 
 distinction is, that the bondmen neither 
 
 • See the remarks on the Etruscan Serfs, pp. 
 90, 91. 
 
 t See Nieb. vol. i. pp. 318, 319. 
 
 t See Beaufort, De la Republique Romaine, 
 vol. i. p. 164. 
 
 § See above, p. HO. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 149 
 
 were purchased for money, nor could 
 they be sold separately from the land 
 to which they were attached by here- 
 ditary servitude. In other respects 
 their condition differed in different 
 countries, and was usually worst where 
 the system of society was most aristo- 
 cratical. The bondmen of Sparta were 
 the Helots. They were attached to 
 the estates of the Spartans; and as 
 the Spartan citizens had no occupation 
 but war, and never employed themselves 
 in agriculture, the Helots cultivated 
 their lands, and paid them a fixed 
 measure of the produce. Though no 
 right of property in the persons of the 
 Helots existed in individual Spartans, 
 they were considered as the property of 
 the state, and used without mercy as 
 political exigencies were thought to re- 
 quire. The Doric settlers in Crete held 
 in bondage a similar caste, which was 
 called the Mnoia. The agricultural 
 servitude of the Mnoiftse to their war- 
 like lords is attested by the song of 
 Hybrias.* The Argives in like manner 
 had their Gymnesii. Dionysius himself 
 compares the condition of the Clients to 
 that of the Thessalian Serfs, the Pe- 
 nestae, although he states, at the same 
 time, that these unhappy bondmen, who 
 were more degraded than any similar 
 class in Greece, except the Helots, were 
 subject to blows and other indignities 
 like purchased slaves, t He compares 
 them likewise to the more fortunate 
 Attic Thetes. His distinct testimony 
 to the ancient bondage of the Thetes is 
 exceedingly valuable in illustration of 
 Athenian history. We collect from Plu- 
 tarch that the Thetes cultivated the 
 lands of the wealthy Eupatridse, and 
 paid them a sixth part of the produce, 
 and that in default of payment their 
 persons were liable to seizure, t So- 
 lon first admitted them to a participation 
 in the privileges of citizens ; and as his 
 fourth class in the division of the Athe- 
 nian people bore the name of Thetes, it 
 may be fairly surmised that it was 
 mainly composed of them. Now, in all 
 these mstances, we have reason to con- 
 
 * See the original and a spirited translation in 
 the Edinburgh Review, No. CXII., p. 371- Miiller 
 thinks that the Mnoitsa were properly public bond- 
 men who cultivated the public lands, and that the 
 bondmen attached to the property of individuals 
 had a distinct name. Dor. iii. 4. § 1. 
 
 t Dion. ii. 9. The Penestse could not be put to 
 death without trial ; and they were attached, like 
 the clients, to particular families. MilU. Dor. iii. 
 4^6. 
 
 t Plut. Sol. See also Hesych, v. ''E'KrrifAO^oij 
 and Etym. Gud. v. 'E/Xwtsj. 
 
 elude that the servitude of the bondmen 
 was the effect of conquest. All accounts 
 agree that this was the origin of the 
 bondage of the Helots, though they vary 
 in the circumstances of the tradition. 
 Upon examination it appears that the 
 first Helots were the lowest class of the 
 ancient population of the country, when 
 the Dorian conquerors took possession 
 of it; -and that, as these new masters 
 extended and estabhshed their dominion, 
 they degraded others of the old inhabit- 
 ants to the same condition. A similar 
 account is to be given of the bondmen 
 of the ruling Dorian people in Argos, 
 and other states of the Peloponnesus. 
 The Mnoia in Crete consisted of the 
 earlier population of the island reduced 
 by the Doric settlers. The Penestae 
 in Thessaly were the remains of ^the old 
 ^ohan inhabitants, who did not migrate 
 into Boeotia, when their country was 
 overrun by the Thessali from Thespro- 
 tis.* There is no historical tradition of 
 the origin of the servitude of the Attic 
 Thetes : but if this were a fit occasion 
 to enter into the arguments which tend 
 to show that the Ionian Eupatridae were 
 a ruling military caste, it might appear 
 probable that the tillers of their land 
 were the old Pelasgian population re- 
 duced by conquest. Again, when the 
 Greeks settled colonies in barbarous 
 countries, they frequently reduced the 
 natives to a similar state of bondage. 
 Thus the Greeks of Heracleia, on the 
 Pontus, had their bondmen, the native 
 Mariandyni, whom they were bound by 
 treaty never to sell out of the country. 
 The Greek colonies in southern Italy 
 had CEnotrian or Pelasgian serfs,t and 
 the Syracusans had their Cyllyrii, who 
 were undoubtedly Sicels, In Italy, as 
 we have shown in chap. iii. § 6., the rul- 
 ing Etruscan people had their Penestae 
 or Serfs, who were a portion of the sub- 
 jugated Tyrsenians. With these analo- 
 gous cases to guide our conjectures, we 
 can form a general notion of the origin 
 of the Roman Ciientship, though we have 
 no historical knowledge of it. The re- 
 lation was of a milder character than in 
 any of the examples we have enume- 
 rated, except perhaps the condition of 
 the Attic Thetes ; and it was honour- 
 ably distinguished by the religious pro- 
 tection extended to the vieaker party. 
 It was probably fortunate for the Client 
 that no distinction was made between 
 the legal condition of the hereditary de- 
 
 * Archemachus in Athen, vi„ p. 264. f See p. 80. 
 
Uf 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME, 
 
 pendent and of the foreigner who volun- 
 tarily souc^ht protection. The considera- 
 tion due to the latter was extended to 
 the former, and thus the general charac- 
 ter of the Clientship was mitigated. It 
 is not unimportant to observe that both 
 the terms which express the relation of 
 the supcjrior and inferior party are of 
 Pelasgian origin.* 
 
 The Clients were the only shopkeepers 
 and chapmen of ancient Rome, and ex- 
 ercised all mechanical arts and trades. 
 Plutarch has preserved a tradition, that 
 Numa divided the artisans into guilds 
 or companies, according to their trades, 
 which had their halls and meetings. 
 If this division really existed, it affect- 
 ed the Clients who were settled in the 
 town, and were less immediately sub- 
 ject to their Patrons than the tillers 
 of the soil. The account receives some 
 confirmation from the fact, that in the 
 general distribution of the people into 
 Centuries under Servius Tullius, certain 
 Centuries were formed of such mechanics 
 as would be serviceable in military opera- 
 tions. 
 
 From the investigations which have 
 been pursued thus far, the constitution 
 of the body of Patrician citizens is in 
 general sufficiently manifest. It re- 
 mains for us, first, to point out some in- 
 equalities which subsistedwithin the body 
 itself; and then more particularly to 
 illustrate the relative position in which 
 the Patricians stood, as originally consti- 
 tuting the state, and continuing to be 
 the ruling body in the state, when, 
 besides their (clients, the independent 
 order of Plebeian citizens grew up be- 
 neath them ; and especially to elucidate 
 their claim to the possession of the Pub- 
 lic Lands. 
 
 From the account which we have 
 given of the formation of the three Pa- 
 trician Tribes, it is evident that the 
 Ramnes were regarded as the original 
 stock of the nation ; and for some time 
 after the union of the Titienses, a cer- 
 tain precedence and some pecuhar ho- 
 nours were allowed to the elder tribe.-l- 
 They possessed a substantial pre-emi- 
 nence in power, so long as the Ten Chiefs 
 of the Senate were the Ten Chiefs of their 
 tribe, the heads of their Curise.$ The 
 period of the equalization of the Titien- 
 ses and Ramnes is described in the Ro- 
 
 • Patromis from pater, father ; Cliem, that Is, 
 cluens, participle from cluere, to hear. 
 
 t Dion. ii. 47, 57, 62. See Nieb. vol. i., pp. 293, 
 300, and uote 1143. 
 
 I See above, p. 145. 
 
 man Annals as the reltrn of Numa.* 
 From this time these two Tribes stand on 
 an equal footing, and hold a marked 
 superiority over the third Tribe. 
 
 The Luceres, the Tribe of the Caelian, 
 appear at first as dependents on the 
 Ramnes of the Palatine. As a subject 
 Tribe, not admitted to participate in the 
 government, they would stand to the 
 other two tribes in a relation somewhat 
 like that in which the Plebeian Estate 
 stood afterwards to the whole Patrician 
 body. It was this position of the Lu- 
 ceres which was intended, when it was 
 stated that, with regard to the very ear- 
 liest age, some correction was necessary 
 to the general assertion, that the origi- 
 nal population of Rome consisted only 
 of Patricians and their Clients. They 
 were not Clients ; and it seems that ori- 
 ginally they could not be accounted Pa- 
 tricians. They appear to have been re- 
 ceived into the Patriciate by Tullus 
 Hostilius, or, if we doubt his individual 
 existence, at least in the period desig- 
 nated as his reign. We have already 
 explained that this is the change de- 
 scribed as the admission of the Alban 
 Houses to the Patriciate,-}* and still more 
 precisely as the addition often troops to 
 the Knights. These ten troops corre- 
 spond to the Ten Curiae of the elevated 
 tribe.$ They were not, however, raised 
 to an equality with the two older tribes. 
 Notwithstanding the mention of the Se- 
 nate in the tradition of the Alban Houses, 
 it is manifest that the Luceres were not 
 immediately admitted into that supreme 
 council. The Senate continued to con- 
 sist only of the two hundred represen- 
 tatives of the Ramnes and Titienses, till 
 a hundred new members were added 
 to it by the elder Tarquinius. These 
 were the representatives of the Luceres, 
 and their inferiority is marked by their 
 distinctive appellation as Fathers of the 
 Minor Gentes ; nor was their inferiority 
 merely nominal. We have the express 
 statement of Cicero, that the Senators 
 of the Less Houses were called to vote 
 after those of the Greater Houses. § This 
 testimony of Cicero is confirmed by the 
 expressions of Dionysius.H But from 
 the latter writer we can deduce the ex- 
 istence of a still more important distinc- 
 tion, that the senators of the Less 
 Houses had only the right of voting in 
 silence, but not the right of speaking in 
 
 • See above, 5 8. p. 126. 
 
 t Dion. iii. 29. t See above, § 9, pp. 127, 129. 
 
 5 Cic. R. P. ii. 20. J Dion. vi. 69. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ui 
 
 the Senate, unless they had held the of-- 
 fiee of Consul.* 
 
 Niebuhr has shown also that the in- 
 feriority of the third Tribe appeared in 
 the distribution of relii^ious dignities.t 
 In these we frequently iind, so far as we 
 can judge from the numbers, that the 
 two elder Tribes were represented, but 
 the third excluded. It is true, that of 
 the three Flamens, the priests of the 
 three national deities, one pertained to 
 each tribe ; but the Pontiffs, who were 
 charged with the superintendence of all 
 parts of the national rehgion, were only 
 four in number besides the Chief Pontiff, 
 that is, two for the Ramnes and two for 
 the Titienses.$ The Vestal Virgins were 
 originally four ; but Tarquinius, who ad- 
 mitted the Luceres to the Senate, added 
 two to the number of the Vestals. § It 
 was a tradition of the Augurs, that each 
 tribe ought to have its own Augur,|| and 
 accordingly we find the appointment of 
 three augurs ascribed to Romulus.^ 
 But in this account there appears to be 
 an error; for though Numa was said 
 to have added two to the number,** who, 
 of course, were the augurs of the Titi- 
 enses, yet, at a later time, we find only 
 four Augurs as four Pontilfs.tt The Fe- 
 tiales, the guardians of international law, 
 were twenty in number,$J one for each 
 Curia of the two elder Tribes ; and of this 
 
 * Dion. vii. 47. Niebuhr has thrown very great 
 light on the history of the lirst ages of the Republic, 
 by pointing out and explaining a misapprehension 
 which runs through the narratives both of Livy 
 and Dionysius. The two historians speak repeat- 
 edly of the Older and Younger Fathers as distinct, 
 and sometimes opposite, political parties in the 
 Senate and the Republic. These statements may 
 pass with a superficial reader, but they are em- 
 barrassing to an attentive inquirer. Now the 
 terms Major and Minor were frequently used to de- 
 note degrees of age ; and Niebuhr supposes, that 
 when Dionysius and Livy, or their immediate pre- 
 decessors, met in the old Annals with the terms 
 Patrura Majores,iind Minores, signifying the Fathers 
 of the Major and the Minor Gentes, they misun- 
 derstood them as relating to age, and translated 
 them accordingly into their own language. This 
 interpretation we must apply to the terms seniores 
 and juniores in Livy, and T^ifffiuTipot and vim 
 in Dionysius. This conjecture, which, when it is 
 examined, carries with it the strongest internal 
 evidence of its truth, was suggestedby the passage 
 of Cicero cited above (R. P. ii. 20.) See Niebuhr, 
 vol. ii., pp. 112-114, and vol. i. note 1143. Niebuhr, 
 at an earlier period in his researches, had observed 
 the difficulty, but had given an erroneous solution 
 of it. See vol. i., note 832, and compare the inter- 
 pretation of Liv. ii. 54, there given with that in 
 vol.ii., note 471. 
 
 i Nieb.,vol. i.pp. 297,298, 
 
 t Liv. X. 6. See Nieb., vol. 5., note 7/5. 
 
 § Dion. iii. 67. Festus. v. Sex Vestce Sacerdotes. 
 
 II Liv. X. 6. 
 
 f Cic. R. P. ii. 9. 
 
 ** ib. ii. 14. 
 
 tt Liv. X. 6. See Nieb. 
 
 jj Varro in Nieb., vol. i., note 777. 
 
 body four were sent as ambassadors 
 when redress was sought for injuries; 
 two, when a treaty was to be made.* 
 In like manner there were two keepers 
 of the Sibylline Books.t It is probable 
 that the same principle determined the 
 number of the Two Judges or Inquisi- 
 tors of Crime.?^ 
 
 But though these inequalities sub- 
 sisted within the Patrician body, yet in 
 relation to the Plebeians the whole body 
 was a privileged class, whose internal 
 distinctions vanished in comparison with 
 the interval by which they were elevated 
 above the inferior order. The Patricians 
 were the rulers ; the Plebeians were their 
 subjects. The Senate, the Council of 
 the nation, was composed of the repre- 
 sentatives of the Patrician Gentes. The 
 assembly of the Curiae, in which resided 
 the supreme authority of the state, com- 
 prehended only the Patrician House- 
 holders. The constitutional laws, by 
 which the authority of the Kings was 
 limited, related only to Patrician citizens. 
 There were no Magistrates beside the 
 Kings, except the heads of the Patrician 
 Tribes and CurijB and Decuries, and the 
 Two Patrician Judges. The national re- 
 ligion was the exclusive inheritance of 
 the Patricians ; and religious obser- 
 vances were intimately blended with 
 every part of the national polity. From 
 the Patricians alone could Pontiffs and 
 Priests be taken : and the ceremonies of 
 Augury and Aruspicy, which were ac- 
 counted necessary for the commence- 
 ment of all pubhc business, could be 
 performed only by Patricians, and only 
 for Patrician Magistrates. The national 
 archives were in the keeping of the 
 Patrician Pontiffs ; and they were the 
 authoritative expounders of the national 
 law. 
 
 Under these circumstances we cannot 
 be surprised to find that the Patrician 
 Order was held to constitute the State. 
 When in the records of the early ages 
 we read of the sovereign assembly of 
 the Roman People, we must place before 
 our eyes, not a mixed multitude of all 
 ranks, among whom the low and needy 
 would exceed in number, for in the early 
 ages no such promiscuous assembly had 
 any legal existence ; but the Patrician 
 
 * See p. 16. 
 
 I Dion, ii.62. Seep. 25. 
 
 t These magistrates are lirst mentioned in the 
 legend of Horatius, chap. i. p. 14. Liv. LStt. A 
 more particular account of their office will be given 
 when we come to mention the law, by which it was 
 preserved under the republic the same as it had 
 existed under the Kings. 
 
133 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 Householders convoked in their Curisp. 
 It is of the utmost importance to a right 
 understanding of the early history to 
 bear in mind that the term Populus or 
 People was originally applied to the 
 Patrician Order only. Even for a long 
 time after the Commonalty was formed 
 into a distinct estate, with i)eculiar 
 magistrates and legal meetings, the 
 terra Populus was not applied to the 
 whole nation composed of the two 
 Orders, but remained the exclusive ap- 
 pellation of the Patrician Estate. Popu- 
 lus and Plebs were opposed to each 
 other ; and to describe the whole nation, 
 it was necessary to combine the two 
 names : and this language continued to 
 be used in legal and religious forms, 
 even in the age of Cicero.* The notion 
 of supreme power in the State was con- 
 nected with the term Populus : and when 
 the Patrician Order had decreased in 
 numbers and relative importance, and 
 the sovereis;nty, which anciently per- 
 tained to the exclusive assembly of the 
 Curia?, was transferred to the mixed 
 assembly of the Centuries, the name 
 Populus was applied to the whole body 
 of the citizens in the Comitia Centuriata. 
 Populus was used in this sense legally 
 and technically, and continued to be 
 opposed to Plebs, which was the ap- 
 pellation of the people assembled in the 
 Comitia Tributa.t Finally, the assembly 
 of the Tribes came to be called the 
 Populus ; but this was always a careless 
 and improper use of the word, and never 
 sanctioned by legal forms. But till the 
 period when the constitutional changes 
 took place, which gave rise to these 
 changes in the use of the word, we may 
 be assured that the term Populus was 
 used in the law books, and other records 
 whence the annalists drew their mate- 
 rials, to denote the Patrician Estate, and 
 its meetings, the Comitia Curiata, and 
 that it was so used by the earlier an- 
 
 • Vestiges of this use are to be found In Livy. 
 Thus Appius Claudius denies the right of a Tribune 
 of the Commons to arrest a Patrician : non enim 
 populi, 86(1 plebis, eum magistratum esse (ii, 56.) 
 Again, in iv. 51, a. plelte consensu populi consulibas 
 negotium mandatur. The oracle of Marcius, which 
 was promulgated during the second Punic war, 
 speal<8of the Prsetor who shall administer sove- 
 reign law to the People and the Commonalty : qui 
 jus pupulo plebciqne dabit summum (Liv. xxv. 12 ) 
 Cicero, in the beginning of his speech for Murena, 
 mentions his prayer, ut ea res. . . .populo plebique 
 llomnncc bene atque feliciter eveniret. The de- 
 spatch of Lepidus (Cic. Kpist. x. 35j is addressed 
 senatui populo pkhique Romanie. These passages, 
 except the last, are cited by Niebiihr ; and the 
 subject is more fully illustrated by him, vol. i. pp. 
 417-420. 
 
 + bee Aul. Cell. x. 20. 
 
 nalists themselves. The more recent 
 historians, when they found their autho- 
 rities speaking of the Populus, as they 
 did not attach a correct meaning to the 
 word, frequently substituted what they 
 supposed to be equivalent terms; but 
 when the source of their error is once 
 pointed out, it is not difficult to interpret 
 their statements according to their true 
 meaning.* 
 
 The Populus had its common fund, 
 which was called Publicum, and which 
 was originally the treasury of the state. 
 In the Populus, as constituting the state, 
 resided likewise the property of the A;s;er 
 Publicus, or Public Land. So much of 
 the early Roman history is involved in 
 the contests between the Patricians and 
 Plebeians respecting the possession of 
 the Public Lands, that it is necessary to 
 set in a clear light the distinction be- 
 tween the private property of the ori- 
 ginal citizens and the public domain, 
 and to explain the mode in which this 
 domain was formed and augmented. 
 
 • Livy's conceptions are vague, and his expres- 
 sions inaccurate. Dionysius had more distinct 
 notions, but they were false. His idea of a 
 popular assembly is drawn from the extreme de- 
 mocracy of Athens, or from the legal mob of the 
 Koman Forum in the last degenerate days of the 
 Republic. He was prepossessed with the opinion 
 that the Comitia necessarily included the whole 
 free male population. With this erroneous hy- 
 pothesis, he was perpetually embarrassed by 
 the way in which the old Annals spoke of the 
 Patrician Populus. But he was not content, like 
 Livy, to be vague and inconsistent. His affectation 
 of exactness and circumstantial detail has evi- 
 dently led him in many places to falsify and garble 
 his authorities. A notable example of this dis- 
 honesty occurs in his narrative of the first seces- 
 sion of the Plebeians. After the deliberation of 
 the Senate about sending ambassadors to the 
 seceders, he found mention of an Assembly of the 
 People, in which the resolution was voted. This 
 could be only the Patrician Populus ; for, besides 
 that they were the body whose consent was neces- 
 sary, the main body of the Plebeians was on the 
 Mons Sacer. But Dionysitis, to get up such a 
 democratical assembly as he thought requisite, 
 describes the Consuls as sending messengers to 
 require the presence of the scattered inhabitants 
 of the country and of the colonies ; and with these, 
 and the aged fathers and the young children of the 
 seceders, who were too feeble to accompany them, 
 he manages to crowd tlie Forum (vi. 67). With 
 such a gross fabrication before our eyes, we need 
 not suffer ourselves to be misled by adhering to 
 the letter of his statements, but may boldly endea- 
 vour to educe from his disguises the genuine re- 
 cords of the annals. Dion Cassius, as it appears 
 both from the extracts which have been preserved 
 from the earlier books of his Roman history, and 
 from the abridgment of Zonaras, used the Greek 
 term lyjfio; exclusively for the Populus, the Patri- 
 cian assembly of the Curiae, as long as they were 
 the Sovereign assembly. Afterwards he applies it 
 with equal strictness to the meeting of the Cen- 
 turies. The Plebeians or Commonalty, and their 
 assembly in the Forum, he calls vXri^e; or ofctXos. 
 There is strong evidence that Dion Cassius com- 
 piled the early part of his history from the original 
 annals, and that he imitated their exact phraseo. 
 logy. See Nieb. vol. ii. not? 367. . i^ 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 153 
 
 It is said that, in the beginnin<r, the 
 territory of the state was divided into 
 portions, which corresponded to the 
 division of the people into Tribes and 
 Curiae. The first threat division was into 
 three regions, which belonged to the 
 llamnes, the Titienses, and the Lu- 
 ceres* We have explained above, how 
 the determination of the two latter re- 
 gions, and the recognition that property 
 in them was held by the same tenure as 
 in the region of the first tribe, was er- 
 roneously represented as a distribution 
 of the public lands by the kings Nuraa 
 Porapihus and TuUus Hostilius. These 
 regions were again divided, and a sepa- 
 rate lot assigned to each Curia rf and 
 in these lots each of the original citizens 
 had his portion, with the full rights of 
 private property. The lot of each 
 citizen consisted of two jugcra.% A 
 hundred of these portions constituted a 
 century of land, which must be regarded 
 as the lot of a Curia.^ Two jugera was 
 the portion which the settlers received 
 in the ancient Roman colonies, which 
 were the miniature images of the Roman 
 People. II These small allotments were 
 a testimony of the poverty of the early 
 ages, and the primitive insignificance 
 of the Roman People. A portion of the 
 territory of the state, and probably a 
 separate portion in each region, was set 
 apart for the maintenance of the kings 
 and the service of the gods : for the ex- 
 penses of the public worship were de- 
 frayed from the produce of the royal 
 domains.^ Besides the lands thus ap- 
 propriated, there remained a certain 
 portion which was common land, the 
 public property of the state, or of the 
 whole body of citizens.** The small 
 private estates of the citizens could 
 suffice only for tillage, and the growth 
 of herbs and fruit. The common lands 
 were originally left for pasture. This is 
 manifest from the record that they con- 
 tinued to be called pastures (pascua) in 
 public documents even in later times, 
 when they had increased very greatly in 
 extent, and were applied to other pur- 
 poses.tt 
 
 * Varro de LL. iv. 9. (v. p. 61, ed. Speng.) 
 
 ■\ Dion. ii. 7. 
 
 X Two jugera were equivalent to IJ English 
 acres. Such a lot was called Heredium. 
 
 i Nieb. vol. ii. p. 47, and pp. 155, 156. See 
 Varro. B. R.i.lO; Plin. N. H. xviii. 2. Colum. v. i. 
 
 y Nieb. vol. ii. p. 4?. See Liv. viii. 21. 
 
 il ])ion. ii. 7, iii. 1 j and Cic. 11. P. v. 2. 
 
 ** Dion. ii. ?• 
 
 tt Piiny, xviii. 3, in Nieb. vol. ii. p. 157. It ap- 
 pears from Aristot. Pol. v. 4, that the nobles of 
 Megara held common pasture lauds in a bimilar 
 
 At the time when the cilizens of 
 Rome thus held their pasture lands in 
 common, to eke out by the produce of 
 their flocks and herds the scanty fruits 
 of their little fields and gardens, the in- 
 fant city was merely a rustic township 
 or cluster of villages. But as it outgrew 
 this condition, the public land assumed 
 a new extent and character. It was to 
 conquest that it owed its increase.* The 
 httle states in the neighbourhood of 
 Rome had their public land in like man- 
 ner ; and when the states were con- 
 quered, their public land was added to 
 the domain of the conquerors. Indeed, 
 the whole territory of a conquered peo- 
 ple became the property of the con- 
 querors ; but in the early ages it was 
 the policy of the Romans to receive the 
 inhabitants of the conquered district as 
 citizens of Rome. Their lands were then 
 restored them by a formal act ; so that 
 thenceforward the right of property 
 depended upon the assignment of the 
 Roman state : and they were restored, 
 subject to a tribute and to the obligation 
 of military service. But even in these 
 cases it appears that a portion of the 
 territory was reserved for the Roman 
 People. Sometimes a Colony was esta- 
 blished in the conquered city ; and then a 
 portion of the territory (usually a third 
 part) was assijrned to the colonists, and 
 formally divided amongst them, as the 
 original territory of Rome had been 
 divided to the citizens according to their 
 Tribes and Curiae. It seems that, in this 
 case, the rest of the conquered district 
 was suffered to remain in the possession 
 of the old proprietors, but no longer as 
 their property. They held it only by a 
 precarious tenure, always subject to the 
 superior claim of the conquering people, 
 and under the condition of paying a 
 portion of the yearly produce as a quit 
 rent to the Roman state. At a later 
 period, when Rome had ceased to in- 
 corporate as citizens the people of a 
 conquered district, the ancient pos- 
 sessors were frequently suffered to retain 
 their lands upon this precarious tenure, 
 where no colony was founded. In these 
 ways the state acquired the right of pro- 
 perty over extensive tracts of country ; 
 and it took a considerable portion into 
 its own possession. 
 
 manner ; and that when the populace under the 
 demagogue Theagenes rose against the Aristocracy, 
 they seized these public lands, and slaughtered 
 tiie cattle which were the property of the nobles. 
 
 • Liv. iy. 48; and Pomponius in Nieb. vol. ii, 
 note 316. 
 
\H 
 
 HISTORY OP ROME. 
 
 Of this public land the best portions 
 were assijxned to colonists, as we have 
 descrihetl above, or sold for the benefit 
 of the public treasury.* Some districts 
 remained open, as in old times, for com- 
 mon pasture lands. Hut when culti- 
 vated lands had been wasted in war, and 
 the State was desirous of restoring them 
 to tilla^e» individuals were frequently 
 allowed, and even invited, to take pos- 
 session of them, and to cultivate them 
 for their own benefit. No doubt, some 
 formalities accompanied this concession, 
 at least in old times ; and some regula- 
 tions must have been enforced, to pre- 
 vent a mere scramble for the land ; but 
 we are not informed what they were. 
 The distinction, however, which must 
 be carefully remembered, is this : that 
 it was only the possession and the use, 
 which was thus conceded by the State, 
 and not the right of property. Although 
 possessions thus occupied in the Public 
 Land were secured against the fraudulent 
 or violent intrusion of individuals; al- 
 though they were transmitted by inhe- 
 ritance, and enjoyed by successive gene- 
 rations, through a long series of years ; 
 although they were bequeathed by testa- 
 ment ; although they could even be 
 bought and sold, the right of property 
 remained in the State, and was not im- 
 paired by any length of use on the part 
 of the occupant. The possession thus 
 secured, and inherited, and purchased, 
 was only a tenure at will under the State. 
 Even in these very points, in which it 
 appears to resemble private property, it 
 was most evidently distinguished from 
 it. The land was not marked out by 
 the same technical limitation; it was 
 not bequeathed or conveyed with the 
 same legal formalities ; and it was pro- 
 tected from invasion, not by the com- 
 mon law of the State, but (that is, in 
 later times) by the interdicts of the 
 Praetor, a species of equitable jurisdic- 
 tion which interfered for the protection 
 of claims to which the law was not ap- 
 plicable. The right of property 'which 
 remained in the State could be enforced 
 at any time, and without any compensa- 
 tion to the actual occupant. Whether a 
 conquered district had been suffered to 
 remain in the possession of the old pro- 
 prietors as tenants of the State, or whe- 
 ther it had been given up to the occupa- 
 tion of individual Roman citizens in the 
 manner described, in either case the 
 State retained in perpetuity the unim- 
 
 • Liv. iv. 48. Appian, De Bell. Civil, i. 7. 
 
 paired and paramount right of pro- 
 perty. 
 
 It was mentioned above, that when a 
 conquered territory was suffered to re- 
 main in the possession of the fotmef 
 proprietors, it was under the condition 
 that a portion of the produce should be 
 paid annually as a quit-rent. After the 
 passing of the Licinian laws, the same 
 payment was required from Roman citi- 
 zens, who held possessions in the pubhc 
 domain. This payment was a tenth 
 upon corn lands, and a fifth upon vine- 
 yards and other plantations. An agist- 
 ment also was paid for cattle grazing 
 on public pastures.* The payment of 
 this tithe was enforced by the Licinian 
 laws ; and it had not been paid during 
 a long period which preceded that me- 
 morable legislation. In fact, there is 
 no record that it had been paid since 
 the establishment of the Republic. But 
 there is strong reason to suspect that 
 this exemption was the result of usur- 
 pation, and that, in earlier times, under 
 the Kings, the payment of the tithe had 
 been the condition of holding posses- 
 sions in the Pubhc Land. It can scarcely 
 be conceived that the State should, at the 
 beginning, have renounced all benefit 
 from its property : and the great works 
 executed under the later Kings, the Tar- 
 quins and Servius Tullius, must have 
 required a revenue, for which there ap- 
 pears no other adequate source.t After 
 the expulsion of the Kings, the Public 
 Lands were in the hands of those who 
 were the uncontrolled masters of the 
 State, and who could relieve themselves 
 from any obnoxious burden. 
 
 The Ager Publicus, or Public Land, 
 was, as its name imports, the property 
 of the Populus. Of course, so long as 
 the Patricians alone constituted the 
 People or State, the Patricians alone 
 were the owners of the Public Domain. 
 But the point to be carefully noted by 
 the student of Roman history is this : 
 that after the gradual rise of the Ple- 
 beian order of citizens, even when the 
 Plebeians were the more numerous por- 
 tion of the Citizens, and supplied the 
 strength of the Roman armies, when 
 their State was regularly organized, and 
 was recognized as an element in the 
 constitution of the Commonwealth, the 
 Patrician Populus still maintained its 
 exclusive claim to the property and use 
 of the Public Lands. The Patricians 
 
 * Appian, De Bell. Civ. i.7. 
 t Nicb. vol. ii. p. 160. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 155 
 
 alone participated in the common use 
 of them; and Patricians alone were 
 permitted to occupy portions of them 
 for their private benefit.* Even though 
 the conquered territories were gained by 
 the blood of the Plebeian legionaries, 
 the Plebeian citizens not only could 
 claim no right to a share in the fruit of 
 their victories, but were not allowed to 
 enjoy it as a matter of grace or favour. 
 The alienation of a part of the public 
 domain, and the assignment of it in 
 portions in full property to individual 
 Plebeian citizens, is, as we shall see, one 
 of the righteous acts ascribed to Servius 
 TuUius. But for many years after his 
 death, the exclusive claim of the Patri- 
 cians was jealously vindicated ; and 
 when the remonstrances of the Plebeians 
 at length began to extort from them 
 some concessions, they merely sought 
 to elude their just demands, and appease 
 them for a season, by scanty and partial 
 distributions in poor and exposed dis- 
 tricts. The Plebeians were not admitted 
 to a participation in the use of the do- 
 main, nor v\'as any limit set to the occu- 
 pation of individual Patricians, till the 
 legislation of Licinius, A. U. C. 389, 
 B.C. 364. 
 
 In judging, however, of the conduct 
 of the Patricians, in resisting the pre- 
 tensions of the Plebeians, it must be 
 remembered that the lots which the Pa- 
 tricians held as private property in the 
 original Age?' Romanus were exceedingly 
 small ; and the facility of occupying 
 land in the public domain had left them 
 little or no inducement to add to their 
 private estates by purchase. Conse- 
 quently, the private property in land, 
 with the exception of the small district 
 immediately about the city, was almost 
 entirely in ithe hands of the Plebeians.-)* 
 Hence any general distribution of the 
 Public Land would have been unjust, 
 which did not respect possession to a 
 certain extent, or which was not restricted 
 to the land acquired by the State after a 
 certain period. 
 
 Though the Plebeians were excluded 
 from the public domain, the Clients 
 shared in the possession of it with their 
 Patrons. Of course, the Clients did not 
 enjoy it in their own right ; but as the 
 Patricians held by concession from the 
 
 * The following passages will afford ample proof, 
 if it be needed, that the occupation of the Public 
 Land was conlined to the Patricians, and that they 
 occupied it at their plc-asure. Liv. ii. -11, vi. 5, 14, 
 37. Dion. viii.7l», X.37. 
 
 i See Liv. iv. 48. 
 
 State, so the Clients held by concession 
 from their Patrons ; and as the posses- 
 sions of the Patricians could be re- 
 sumed at the pleasure of the State, so 
 the possessions of the Clients could be 
 resumed at the pleasure of their Patrons. 
 The granting of land by the Patrons to 
 their Clients has been noticed above. 
 As the lots which the Patricians held as 
 private property v/ere too small to be so 
 disposed of, it was only from possessions 
 in the public domain that such grants! 
 could be made. As long as the Patri- 
 cian possessions paid the tithe to the 
 Commonwealth, we may be sure that 
 they required a portion of the produce 
 from their Clients ; and from what we 
 know of similar tenures, it is probable 
 that this portion was always a large 
 one, even when they themselves had 
 ceased to pay anything. It cannot be 
 doubted that in old limes the number 
 of slaves was not great. Until Rome 
 attained to commerce and wealth, there 
 could be few slaves but Italian prisoners 
 of war. It was necessary, therefore, for 
 the cultivation of the land, to assign it 
 to Clients. As long as the Clients served 
 to strengthen the Patricians against the 
 Plebeians, every Patrician would seek to 
 surround himself with numerous Client 
 tenants. But when the contests of the 
 orders ceased, the desire of gain led the 
 possessors of the Public Lands to take 
 them into their own hands, and to culti- 
 vate them by means of slaves ; so that 
 it became necessary to enact by law, 
 that a number of free labourers should 
 be maintained upon the land, propor- 
 tionate to its extent.* 
 
 According to an ancient gloss.t the 
 citizens of the higher order were en- 
 titled Patres or Fathers, because they 
 bestowed portions of land on the poorer 
 citizens, in the same manner as on their 
 own children. Whatever may be thought 
 of this explanation, it is necessary, to 
 the right understanding of the Roman 
 history, to bear in mind, that anciently 
 the term Patres was applied to all the 
 members of the Patrician body, and not 
 merely to the Senate. In later times, it 
 was the peculiar title of the Senators; 
 and hence it has happened that Diony- 
 
 * Appian, De Bell. Civil. \. 7. An accurate ac- 
 count of the public land, and of all that appertains 
 to it, is contivined in Niebuhr, vol. ii. pp. 124—164, 
 in the sections bearing the titles, ' Of the Public 
 Land and its Occupation,' and * the Assignments 
 of Land before the time of Sp. Cassius.' The 
 preceding statements are borrowed and abridged 
 from it. 
 
 t Festus, V. Fatrei. ; 
 
MB 
 
 HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 sius very frequently, and Livy occa- 
 sionally, interpreting the languaj^e of 
 the Annalists by the usage of their own 
 age, have misunderstood them, and 
 have spoken of the Senate, where their 
 authorities spoke of the whole Patrician 
 order. Livy, however, in his first decad, 
 after he had passed the first book, had 
 become accustomed to the ancient use 
 of the word, and uses it himself in its 
 ancient sense.* 
 
 After having thus examined the con- 
 dition of the Patricians and the Clients, 
 it remains for us to investigate the 
 origin of the intermediate order, the 
 Plebs or Commonalty. The Plebeians 
 were free citizens, not members of the 
 Patrician Gentes,f and, consequently, 
 not forming a part of the Populus ; yet 
 not hereditary Clients, nor compelled by 
 personal necessity to attach themselves 
 to a Patron. They were subjects of the 
 State, that is, of the whole body of the 
 Patrician people; but they were not 
 subject individually to individual Pa- 
 trons. They were politically subject, 
 but personally independent. Such an 
 intermediate order must arise, almost 
 inevitably, wherever political power is 
 confined to an aristocracy of birth. We 
 have seen that the Patrician Houses, 
 after their first formation, were strictly 
 hereditary. It was possible for the State 
 by a public act to incorporate with itself 
 an entire Tribe or House. Thus the third 
 Tribe was associated with the two elder 
 Tribes ; which, as we have explained, is 
 the fact represented in the traditions as 
 the admission of the Alban Houses to 
 the Patriciate. In the beginning of the 
 Republic the whole Sabine House of the 
 Claudii transferred itself to Rome, and 
 was enrolled among the Roman Houses. 
 But we have no account of any process 
 by which an individual could gain a 
 place in the exclusive ruling order. If, 
 therefore, there were any way in which 
 free citizens could spring up, who should 
 not be under the bond of Clientship, a 
 commonalty, such as we have described, 
 would begm to be formed. In one way 
 they might take their origin from the 
 Clients. If a Patrician family became 
 extinct, as several would become in the 
 course of no very long time, we are not 
 informed that any provision was made 
 for the transfer of the Clients to any 
 
 • He frequently opposes the Patres to the Plebs. 
 Thus, to give one example out of many, in vi. 37, 
 • ut pars ex plebe, pars exFatribus fiat.' See Nieb. 
 vol. i. p. 322, and vol. ii. pp. 178, 2iJ3. 
 
 i Plebes uicitur in qua gentes civiura patricire 
 Don insuDt. A, Geil. x. 20. 
 
 other Patron. But even supposina:, 
 which is not at all improbable, that the 
 allegiance of the Clients was trans- 
 ferred to the House in its corporate 
 capacity, or to individual members of 
 the House ; at all events, if the 
 House itself became extinct, the Clients 
 would be left without a Patron, and 
 would emerge as independent citizens. 
 Again, we have seen within what nar- 
 row limits the right of marriage was 
 confined among the Patricians. But 
 it is not necessary to conclude that no 
 marriages were contracted by the Pa- 
 tricians except those which conveyed 
 to their children the privileges of their 
 order. There might be marriages of 
 disparagement, the offspring of which 
 would be Plebeian : and it is the ob- 
 servation of Savigny and Niebuhr, that, 
 when in the early history we meet with 
 Plebeian families of rank and influence 
 bearing the same name as Patrician 
 Houses, we may conclude that they have 
 sprung from such unequal marriages*. 
 In like manner, the children of Patri- 
 cian fathers, not born in marriage, 
 would probably escape the degradation 
 of Clientship, and become free citizens. 
 It is possible that individual land- 
 holders of bordering tribes may have 
 withdrawn themselves, like the entire 
 Claudian House, from .their own State, 
 and have sought the protection of the 
 Roman people ; and that they may not 
 have felt any necessity of placing them- 
 selves in dependence upon an indi- 
 vidual Patron. In this manner a com- 
 monalty might gradually arise and 
 grow ; and it is plain that the more its 
 numbers increased, the more likely it 
 was to receive fresh accessions. But 
 it grew in numbers and in importance 
 chiefly by the admission of the inhabit- 
 ants of conquered districts to the rights 
 of citizens. If the claims of conquest 
 had been strictly enforced according to 
 the Ital'ian laws of war, the whole of 
 every conquered territory would have 
 become the property of the Roman 
 State ; and it might have been held in 
 common, or the possession of it might 
 have been conceded to individual mem- 
 bers of the Populus. Even if any of the 
 original owners had been suffered ito 
 remain in occupation, they would, in the 
 one case, have become tenants and vas- 
 sals of the State; in the other, they 
 would have been reduced to the con- 
 dition of prsedial Clients or Serfs. But 
 
 * Nieb. vol. i. p. 317. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 157 
 
 the policy of Rome in its earlier ages 
 was, as we have explained above, of a 
 more liberal and a wiser character. 
 A portion of the conquered lands was 
 reserved as the property of the Roman 
 people, apparently a third part : but the 
 remainder was usually restored to the 
 original owners, and formally assigned 
 to them in full property by the Sove- 
 reign authority of the State. It was 
 subject indeed to a tribute; but this 
 tribute did not affect the integrity of 
 the right of property, and is not to be 
 confounded with a quit rent. The land- 
 owners became citizens of Rome, ex- 
 cluded, of course, from the privileges 
 of the ruling order, but subject only to 
 the State. It appears that they were 
 under the peculiar jurisdiction of the 
 Kings ; * and it is possible that the 
 King, as the head of the state, may 
 have been considered as their common 
 Patron.t 
 
 There are traces of this large and 
 prudent policy in the traditions of the 
 conquests of Romulus over Caenina, 
 Antemnse, Crustumeriura, and Carae- 
 ria.;|: But, as we have already shown, 
 the Commonalty received its first great 
 increase from the conquest of Ancus 
 Marcius over the Latins. From that 
 period it becomes an important element 
 in the Commonwealth. In the follow- 
 ing reign it seems that the noblest mem- 
 bers of it were admitted to some share in 
 the privileges of the Patriciate: and in 
 the reign of Servius Tullius the Ple- 
 beian body received an independent 
 organization, and became a constituent 
 part of the great national assembly, 
 and the basis of the military force of 
 the Roman State. 
 
 The origin and nature of the Plebeian 
 estate at Rome may be illustrated by a 
 comparison with the political system of 
 several Grecian states. We have shown 
 above, in speculating on the origin of the 
 Clientship, that where a ruling tribe had 
 established itself by conquest or for- 
 cible settlement, a class of the old in- 
 habitants was frequently found reduced 
 to a state of bondage. But when the old 
 inhabitants of a country were too nu- 
 merous and too powerful to be thus de- 
 graded, they were left in possession of 
 personal liberty and of property, but 
 were excluded from participation in the 
 political sovereignty which became the 
 privilege of the conquerors. Thus in 
 Lacedsemon the sovereignty was vested 
 
 * See Nieb. vol. i. p. 338. 
 I Nieb. vol. i. p. 403. J pp. 9, 10, 
 
 entirely in the Spartans, who were 
 the descendants of the Dorian conque- 
 rors. The Helots were their bond- 
 men. But the great bulk of the 
 ancient Achaean population remained, 
 under the denomination of Perioeci 
 (Dwellers round about), inhabiting 
 the country towns, personally free, 
 holding property in land protected by 
 the law, and trusted with arms and 
 even with subordinate military com- 
 mand, but excluded from all share in 
 the government. The aristocracy of 
 Sparta was rigidly maintained: and the 
 exclusion of the Lacedaemonian Pe- 
 rioeci was entire and perpetual.* In 
 like manner the other Dorian states in 
 the Peloponnesus had their Perioeci ; 
 but in most of them they were gradu- 
 ally admitted to a share in the privileges 
 of their Dorian rulers. It was the ne- 
 cessity of restoring the number of the 
 citizens of Argos by the admission of 
 the Perioeci from the country towns, 
 which changed the constitution of that 
 State from an aristocracy to a demo- 
 cracy.f A similar distinction existed 
 between the Dorian settlers in Crete 
 and the old inhabitants of the island.'^ 
 The point in which the Roman Ple- 
 beians seem to have been placed more 
 nearly on a common footing with the 
 Patricians than the Perioeci in the 
 Grecian States with their several ruling 
 tribes, is this : that they were suffered 
 to be inhabitants of the same city, while 
 the Perioeci, as their name imports, 
 were excluded from the chief city, and 
 confined to the country towns. The 
 Perioeci had no point of union, where 
 the strength of their body could be 
 brought to bear on the ruling class. 
 The Plebeians possessed this advan- 
 tage ; and when once, in consequence 
 of this, they obtained a place in the 
 public assembly, their gradual attain- 
 ment of a political equality became 
 almost certain. 
 
 We have already observed, that, while 
 the Patricians held possessions by suf- 
 ferance in the Pul)lic Domain, the 
 private property in land (with the ex- 
 ception of the small district which 
 comprised the regions of the three Pa- 
 trician tribes) belonged almost exclu- 
 sively to the Plebeians. To them alone 
 
 * See Isocr. Panathen, p. 365 ed. Bek. Miill. 
 Uor. B. iii. ch. 2. 
 
 t See note, p, 91. The confusion between the 
 Perioeci and Gymnesii there mentioned is a pu- 
 rallel to the confusion between the P1,>k • 
 Clients at Rome. <-Oeians and 
 
 X Aristot. Pol. ii. 7- 
 
kiSTORY OF ROME. 
 
 158 
 
 had any portion of the conquered ter- 
 ritories been sold or assic:ned by public 
 Hutliority.* On the other hand, pro- 
 perty in land distinguished the Ple- 
 l)eians from the Clients. The Clients 
 received precarious grants from the 
 possessions of their Patrons in the 
 Public Domain, but it is not probable 
 that, in the earlier asjes, they were capa- 
 ble of acquiring property in land in 
 tluir own persons. But the more im- 
 portant form of the distinction was this : 
 that the Clients exercised all trades and 
 mechanical arts, which were strictly 
 forbidden to the free and independent 
 citizen.t Agriculture was the only 
 lawful employment of the Plebeian 
 citizen; and therefore the Plebeian who 
 did not hold property in land, though 
 he might not be compelled to attach 
 himself to a Patron, in all his political 
 rights was reduced to a level with the 
 Clients, as we shall see hereafter. 
 
 It is astonishing, that the false con- 
 ception of Dionysius and Plutarch, that 
 the Plebeians were the same body as 
 the Clients, should have been taken up 
 so lightly as it has been by writers on 
 Roman history ; and that they should 
 not have perceived the absurdities and 
 inconsistencies in which it is involved. 
 On the one hand, we find the Client 
 enjoying his civil rights only through 
 the intervention of his Patron, and so 
 entirely subject to him, that the laws of 
 the State do not interfere with this rela- 
 tion; the Patron is bound, under the 
 most solemn religious sanction, to deal 
 righteously by his CUent ; and the tra- 
 dition is strong of the mutual good 
 will which existed between the protec- 
 tors and their dependents. On the 
 other hand, we find the Roman history, 
 after the very earliest age, made up, for 
 a considerable period, of struggles be- 
 tween the Patricians and the Plebeians, 
 and these contests pushed to every ex- 
 tremity short of civil war. On two oc- 
 casions, the Plebeians actually seceded 
 from the city, and threatened to- become 
 
 • Liv. Iv. 4S. ~~ " ~ 
 
 t Dion, ix, 35, speaks of the resident aliens, 
 who exercised the mechanical arts, " for no Ro- 
 man was allowed to maintain himself by trade or 
 liaudycraft." If this prohibition be understood 
 of the whole native population, the assertion is 
 manifestly absurd. It relates to the members of 
 the Plebeian local tribes. Niebuhr has observed 
 that this account is at variance with the earlier 
 statement of Dionysius, that Romulus assigned as 
 the business of the citizens who were not Patri- 
 cian, " agriculture and pasturage and the exercise 
 of the money-making arts." (^Dion. ii. D.) But 
 this statement is in his formal account of the 
 original polity of Rome, in which he confounds 
 the Plebeians with the Clients. (Nieb. vol. i. P. 
 578.) 
 
 the founders of a new State. The con- 
 flict is not sudden and transitory ; but 
 is maintained from generation to gene- 
 ration with unmitigated jealousy. If 
 we descend into particulars, we find the 
 Patron especially charged with the care 
 of the ])ecuniary interests of his Client, 
 and his money engagements ; and the 
 Client capable of suing and being sued 
 only in the person of his Patron.* On 
 the other hand, the contests between the 
 Patricians and the Plebeians begin with 
 the grievances of the Plebeian debtors, 
 and the cruelty of the Patrician creditors, 
 to whom their persons are pledged in 
 default of payment, nnd who thus re- 
 duce them into slavery. If the Ple- 
 beians had been Clients, they would 
 not have stood in need of their inviolable 
 Tribunes, to protect them from the ar- 
 bitary exercise of the Patrician power : 
 the protector of each would have been 
 his own Patron. 
 
 Livy, by making his history almost 
 entirely narration without disquisition, 
 has avoided the formal mis-statement of 
 Dionysius ; and, in several passages, 
 an incidental mention of the Plebeians 
 and the Clients occurs, in which they are 
 manifestly distinguished. Thus, in one 
 place, he has described the Plebeians as 
 withdrawing from the Consular Comi- 
 tia, and leaving the Consuls to be created 
 by the Patricians and their Clients.t In 
 another passage he distinctly asserts 
 that the Clients were not included in 
 the Comitia Tributa, in which the Ple- 
 beians were convened according to their 
 local tribes.'^; Dionysius himself, not- 
 withstanding his own false hypothesis, 
 has, in the course of his history, re- 
 peated accounts from the Annalists, in 
 which the plebeians and the Clients are 
 expressly opposed to each other. Thus, 
 in the secession of the Commonalty, 
 and on other occasions when they re- 
 fused to be enrolled in the legions, he 
 speaks of the Patricians arming their 
 Clients in their place. § These passages 
 prove the reality of the distinction for 
 which we are contending ; and they 
 show, moreover, that the Plebeian Es- 
 tate did not grow out of the clientry 
 in the manner supposed by Vico, so 
 
 * Dion. ii. 10. l9rifiiXi7(r6ai .... us x^rifAUTuv 
 Ti XBci Tuv wi^) xiVifji,a.Ta. ffvfi^oXa.!cov Xoyov Vixctf 
 Ti iiT\p Tav "PTiXaruv .... Tol; lyxaXova-iv v-fft' 
 
 \ Liv. ii. G4. 
 
 t Liv. ii. 56. See also ii. 35; iii. 14. 
 
 § Dion. vj. 47,63; vii. 19; x. 15, 27, 43. See 
 also vii. 18 ; ix. 41; x. 40, 41. These, and the 
 passages from Livy, are cited by Nieb. vol, i. pp. 
 579-581. 
 
HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 that the Plebeians did not become a re- 
 cognized element in the Commonwealth 
 until the ancient bonds of Clientship 
 were obsolete ; for we see that the two 
 bodies are represented as existing in 
 full strength at the same time. 
 
 The internal organization of the 
 Commonalty does not fall within this 
 period of our history; but is reserved 
 until we arrive at the legislation of Ser- 
 vius TuUius. 
 
 After this account of the different 
 orders of the nation, and of the inter- 
 nal constitution of the Patrician Estate, 
 in which the supreme legislative power 
 was vested, and the heads of which, 
 assembled in the Senate, were the coun- 
 sellors of the people, it remains only to 
 say a few words respectmg the Kings, 
 in whose hands the executive power 
 was placed. 
 
 The Kingly office at Rome was elec- 
 tive. When the throne was vacant, 
 the Senate deliberated by whom it was 
 to be filled; and the person approved 
 by them was nominated by the Interrex 
 to the Patrician people assembled in 
 their Curiae, who possessed the right of 
 accepting or rejecting him. Even when 
 the proposed King was accepted by the 
 people, it appears by the distinct state- 
 ments of Cicero, that it was necessary 
 for the new Sovereign himself to pro- 
 pose to the Curiae, the law which in- 
 vested him with the powers of his 
 office * It is possible, that Cicero was 
 misled by the law books from which he 
 borrowed these statements ; and that 
 the authors of them conceived that this 
 twofold process was necessary to the 
 Curiae, merely because, in after times, 
 the Consuls who were elected in the 
 Comitia Centuriata were obliged to re- 
 ceive the Impenum from the Comitia 
 Curiata. This revision of the election 
 (Reprehensio Comitiorum) may have 
 arisen from Patrician jealousy of the 
 more popular assembly, and have been 
 unknown v/hen the choice depended 
 only on the aristocracy ; but it is ha- 
 zardous to oppose this conjecture to 
 statements so distinct and positive.f To 
 the King thus elected, belonged the right 
 of convoking the Senate and the People, 
 and of proposing to them laws and ques- 
 tions of war and peace. War could be 
 declared only by the authority of the 
 Senate, and the vote of the People ; but 
 in war, the King became the absolute 
 commander of the army. Within the 
 
 * See above p. 137. 
 
 t Compare the formalities of the election of 
 Censors, mentioned in p. 138. 
 
 city he was the expounder and admi- 
 nistrator of the law.* The offences 
 of members of the Patrician order 
 were investigated by means of the Two 
 Judges or Inquisitors of Crime, whose 
 appointment is recorded in the guise of 
 an historical fact in the legend of Ho- 
 ratius. From their sentence, the Patri- 
 cian criminal had a right of appeal to 
 the people, that is to the Patrician 
 Populus assembled in the Curiae. This 
 right is commemorated in the same 
 legend ;t and it could be exercised even 
 from the sentence of the King himself.^ 
 That this right of appeal befonged only 
 to the Patricians, is evident from the 
 fact, that the right of appeal was first 
 extended to all Roman citizens by the 
 law of Valerius after the expulsion of 
 the Kings. The King was the sole judge 
 in civil causes :§ nor does it appear that, 
 in this case, any appeal lay from his 
 decision. Over the Plebeian citizens, 
 his power must have been supreme, 
 both as a civil and a criminal judge. || 
 It must be remembered also, that even 
 the Patrician right of appeal extended no 
 farther than a mile from the city, as in 
 after times. Beyond this limit, the mi- 
 litary Imperium comprehended unli- 
 mited power in every case.^ In reli- 
 gious matters, the king did not possess 
 the supreme authority. This appears 
 to have been vested in the Pontiffs. 
 And, as the King was not an augur, the 
 national faith in omens made the augurs 
 independent of him. Nevertheless, the 
 king enjoyed a high religious dignity ; 
 and there were national sacrifices, 
 which could be offered only by him, and 
 for the due performance of which, the 
 regal title was attached to a priestly 
 office under the Republic.** It was re- 
 corded that, in old times, the Kings 
 discharged the functions which after- 
 wards i)ertained to the Flamen of Ju- 
 piter.t'i' The ensigns of royalty have 
 been described above ; and we have men- 
 tioned the discrepancy of the traditions 
 as to the King by whom they were first 
 assumed.;|;$ A large domain was as- 
 signed for the maintenance of the Kings, 
 which was cultivated by the royal 
 Clients, that no private cares might 
 withdraw their attention from the busi- 
 ness of the Commonwealth.^^ 
 
 • Cic. R. p. V. 2. t Liv. i. 26. 
 
 t Cic. R. p. ii. 31, on the authority of the Ponti- 
 Ccal and Augural books. 
 
 § Cic. K. P. V. 2. J Compare Dion. iv. 25. 
 
 % Liv. iii. 20 ; Nieb. vol. i. p. 5l'3, and note IISO. 
 
 ** See p. 27, on the Rex. Sacriticusi. 
 
 •ft Liv. i. 20. tt See pp. 18 and 35. 
 
 §§ Cic. R. P. V. 2. Dion. iii. 1. See above, p. 153, 
 
160 
 
 We have thus examined thorou<rhly 
 the records wliicli lemain of thei)rimi- 
 tive constitution of Rome, and of the 
 distinction of orders (ipoii which it was 
 foundetl. We have endeavoured to ex- 
 hibit briefly, but clearly, the theory of 
 the constitution which has been pro- 
 
 f)ounded by Niebuhr ; and we have il- 
 usl rated it by such arj^uments as did 
 not involve disquisitions too minute or 
 too excursive for a work of this nature. 
 It may appear strange to our readers, 
 that, while we attach so little credit to 
 the traditionary stories of the early his- 
 tory, we venture to trace, with some- 
 thin<]j like assurance, the lineaments of 
 the constitution of Rome in its earliest 
 aoje. Butit must be remembered, that the 
 forms of society and political institutions 
 have a much more durable existence 
 than persons or events. They endure 
 throuij;h many generations ; and their 
 changes are generally gradual and slow. 
 They may be recognized under altered 
 features ; and even when they seem to 
 pass away, they often leave some image 
 of themselves behind, or impress some 
 vestige of their shape upon the institu- 
 tions by which they are succeeded. 
 Thus, not only was the continued exist- 
 ence of the Roman Senate, with no 
 tradition of its origin, except the legends 
 which told of the origin of the city itself, 
 a visible argument that it had really 
 existed from the very earliest times ; 
 but the shadowy Comitia, which, for the 
 sake of certain religious solemnities, 
 were represented by the attendance of 
 thirty hctors, were a memorial of the 
 age when the assembly of the Thirty 
 Curiae held the sovereign power of 
 the state. If tradition had been more 
 treacherous than it really was, and 
 if all memory of the kingly govern- 
 ment of Rome had utterly perished, 
 yet tiie title and honours of the Sacrifi- 
 cial King to an historical inquirer, 
 guided by the analogy of the King 
 Archon at Athens, and the institutions 
 of Gyrene and Priene,* would have 
 been a sufficient argument, that Rome 
 also had anciently been governed by 
 kings. Moreover, in the early ages, 
 religious observances were interwoven 
 with all civil institutions ; and the 
 establishment of the College of Pon- 
 tiffs was a provision for the preserva- 
 tion and transmission both of cere- 
 monial and constitutional law. No in- 
 terest was affected by the truth or false - 
 
 ; • Herod, iv. 161. Strabo.viii. 7.2. 
 
 liliSTORY ()-F RaME. 
 
 hocxl of the legends of kings and heroes ; 
 and they were suffered to assume what- ' 
 ever shape the imagination of the people 
 gave them. But the religious and poli- 
 tical institutes of the nation were matters 
 of deep importance and the objects of 
 superstitious reverence ; and it was the 
 special office of the Pontiffs to preserve 
 them from oblivion, and guard them 
 from corruption. It may be supposed, 
 that in the struggles of the Orders there 
 was a temptation to these depositaries 
 of the national laws to magnify the an- 
 cient supremacy of the Patrician aris- 
 tocracy. To a certain extent this may 
 be granted ; but as the contest on the 
 part of the Patricians, after the first fev^r 
 years of the Republic, was generally 
 defensive, and as they were for the most 
 part engaged, not in encroaching upon 
 Plebeian rights, but in resisting Plebeian ^ 
 claims, the policy of the Pontiffs would 
 be, not to falsify the ancient laws and 
 customs of the nation, but to endea- 
 vour to maintain them in their primitive 
 rigour. It is probable, that the tradi- 
 tions of the Pontiffs were committed to 
 writing at a comparatively early period ; 
 and though the most ancient religious 
 books might have perished, the su-bstance 
 of them was preserved in subsequent 
 collections.* The earlier Annalists 
 must have possessed ample materials 
 for a history of the constitution ; but, 
 vmfortunately, they conceived that the 
 province of history was confined to 
 mere narration. The investigation of 
 constitutional law was left to legal an- 
 tiquaries ; and their works have not 
 descended to us. Even the later histo- 
 rians must have had access to copious 
 sources of knowledge on this most in- 
 teresting subject ; but Livy loved nar- 
 rative; and Dionysius,who was more in- 
 clined to disquisition, was intellectually 
 and morally unfit for the task. Never- 
 theless, much information has been 
 preserved, directly or incidentally, by 
 these two historians, which they have 
 drawn from the Annalists, and which 
 they derived from the pontifical books 
 or other trustworthy sources. To these 
 scattered fragments of ancient records 
 we attach a credit, which we refuse 
 to traditionary tales ; and we give the 
 more belief, the more clearly any expres- 
 sion, which is pregnant with meaning, 
 appears not to have proceeded from the 
 historians themselves, but to have been 
 copied from more anicent authorily. 
 
 : • See chap. ii. J 6. pp. 49, 50 ,• and § 9. pp.60, 61. 
 
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