Read Ebook: Pinnock's improved edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome by Taylor W C William Cooke Annotator Goldsmith Oliver Pinnock William Editor

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INTRODUCTION.

CHAPTER

HISTORY.

Section 1.--The great Volscian war

Section 1.--Tyranny of the Decemviri

Section 1.--The Latin war

Section 1.--Causes and commencement of the war--Invasion of Africa by Regulus

Section 1.--Commencement of the war--Hannibal's invasion of Italy

Section 1.--Murder of Tiberius Gracchus

Section 1.--The Jugurthine and Social wars

Section 1.--Caesar's wars in Gaul--Commencement of the Civil war

Section 1.--Caesar's Egyptian campaign

Section 1.--The beneficent Administration of Augustus

Section 1.--The Reigns of Nerva and Trajan

Section 1.--The Reigns of Commodus, Pertinax, and Didius

Section 1.--The Reign of Constantius

Section 1.--The division of the Roman dominions into the Eastern and Western empires

Chronological Index

HISTORY OF ROME

INTRODUCTION.

GEOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE OF ITALY.

The principal divisions of Northern Italy were Ligu'ria and Cisalpine Gaul.

FOOTNOTES:

These colonies, sent out by the Sabines, are said to have originated from the observance of the Ver sacrum During certain years, every thing was vowed to the gods that was born between the calends of March and May, whether men or animals. At first they were sacrificed; but in later ages this cruel custom was laid aside, and they were sent out as colonists.

THE LATIN LANGUAGE AND PEOPLE--CREDIBILITY OF THE EARLY HISTORY.

The Latin language contains two primary elements, the first intimately connected with the Grecian, and the second with the Oscan tongue; to the former, for the most part, belong all words expressing the arts and relations of civilized life; to the latter, such terms as express the wants of men before society has been organized. We are therefore warranted in conjecturing that the Latin people was a mixed race; that one of its component parts came from some Grecian stock, and introduced the first elements of civilization, and that the other was indigenous, and borrowed refinement from the strangers. The traditions recorded by the historians sufficiently confirm this opinion; they unanimously assert that certain bodies of Pelasgi came into the country before the historic age, and coalesced with the ancient inhabitants. The traditions respecting these immigrations are so varied, that it is impossible to discover any of the circumstances; but there is one so connected with the early history of Rome, that it cannot be passed over without notice. All the Roman historians declare, that after the destruction of Troy, AEneas, with a body of the fugitives, arrived in Latium, and having married the daughter of king Lati'nus, succeeded him on the throne. It would be easy to show that this narrative is so very improbable, as to be wholly unworthy of credit; but how are we to account for the universal credence which it received? To decide this question we must discuss the credibility of the early Roman history, a subject which has of late years attracted more than ordinary attention.

If then we deny the historical truth of a legend which seems to have been universally credited by the Romans, how are we to account for the origin of the tale? Was the tradition of native growth, or was it imported from Greece when the literature of that country was introduced into Latium? These are questions that can only be answered by guess; but perhaps the following theory may in some degree be found satisfactory. We have shown that tradition, from the earliest age, invariably asserted that Pelasgic colonies had formed settlements in central Italy; nothing is more notorious than the custom of the Pelasgic tribes to take the name of their general, or of some town in which they had taken up their temporary residence; now AEne'a and AE'nus were common names of the Pelasgic towns; the city of Thessaloni'ca was erected on the site of the ancient AEne'a; there was an AE'nus in Thrace, another in Thessaly, another among the Locrians, and another in Epi'rus: hence it is not very improbable but that some of the Pelasgic tribes which entered Latium may have been called the AEne'adae; and the name, as in a thousand instances, preserved after the cause was forgotten. This conjecture is confirmed by the fact, that temples traditionally said to have been erected by a people called the AEne'adae, are found in the Macedonian peninsula of Pall'ene, in the islands of De'los, Cythe'ra, Zacy'nthus, Leuca'dia, and Sicily, on the western coasts of Ambra'cia and Epi'rus, and on the southern coast of Sicily.

The account of several Trojans, and especially AEne'as, having survived the destruction of the city, is as old as the earliest narrative of that famous siege; Homer distinctly asserts it when he makes Neptune declare,

--Nor thus can Jove resign The future father of the Dardan line: The first great ancestor obtain'd his grace, And still his love descends on all the race. For Priam now, and Priam's faithless kind, At length are odious, to the all-seeing mind; On great AEneas shall devolve the reign, And sons succeeding sons the lasting line sustain. ILIAD, xx.

The traditions respecting the origin of Rome are innumerable; some historians assert that its founder was a Greek; others, AEneas and his Trojans; and others give the honour to the Tyrrhenians: all, however, agree, that the first inhabitants were a Latin colony from Alba. Even those who adopted the most current story, which is followed by Dr. Goldsmith, believed that the city existed before the time of Rom'ulus, and that he was called the founder from being the first who gave it strength and stability. It seems probable that several villages might have been formed at an early age on the different hills, which were afterwards included in the circuit of Rome; and that the first of them which obtained a decided superiority, the village on the Palatine hill, finally absorbed the rest, and gave its name to "the eternal city".

We have thus traced the history of the Latins down to the period when Rome was founded, or at least when it became a city, and shown how little reliance can be placed on the accounts given of these periods by the early historians. We shall hereafter see that great uncertainty rests on the history of Rome itself during the first four centuries of its existence.

FOOTNOTES:

It is scarcely necessary to remark that the Pelas'gi were the original settlers in these countries.

In all these places we find also the Tyrrhenian Pelas'gi.

THE TOPOGRAPHY OF ROME.

FOOTNOTES:

This, though apparently a mere conjecture, has been so fully proved by Niebuhr, that it may safely be assumed as an historical fact.

All authors are agreed that the Coelian hill was named from Coeles Viben'na, a Tuscan chief; but there is a great variety in the date assigned to his settlement at Rome. Some make him cotemporary with Rom'ulus, others with the elder Tarquin, or Servius Tullius. In this uncertainty all that can be satisfactorily determined is, that at some early period a Tuscan colony settled in Rome.

Others say that they were named so in honour of Lu'ceres, king of Ardea, according to which theory the third would have been a Pelasgo-Tyrrhenian colony.

We shall hereafter have occasion to remark, that the Lu'ceres were subject to the other tribes.

The Pincian and Vatican hills were added at a much later period and these, with Janiculum, made the number ten.

They were named as follow:

The divisions made by Servius were named: the Suburan, which comprised chiefly the Coelian mount; the Colline, which included the Viminal and Quirinal hills; the Esquiline and Palatine, which evidently coincided with the hills of the same name.

Among the public buildings of ancient Rome, when in her zenith, are numbered 420 temples, five regular theatres, two amphitheatres, and seven circusses of vast extent; sixteen public baths, fourteen aqueducts, from which a prodigious number of fountains were constantly supplied; innumerable palaces and public halls, stately columns, splendid porticos, and lofty obelisks.

State criminals were punished by being precipitated from the Tarpeian rock; the soil has been since so much raised by the accumulation of ruins, that a fall from it is no longer dangerous.

In the reign of Numa, the Quirinal hill was deemed the citadel of Rome; an additional confirmation of Niebuhr's theory, that Quirium was a Sabine town, which, being early absorbed in Rome, was mistaken by subsequent, writers for Cu'res.

Basilicks were spacious halls for the administration of justice.

See the following chapter.

THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION.

FOOTNOTES:

When the plebeians endeavoured to procure the repeal of the laws which prohibited the intermarriage of the patricians and plebeians, the principal objection made by the former was, that these rights and obligations of the gentes would be thrown into confusion.

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