Read Ebook: Niebuhr's lectures on Roman history Vol. 1 (of 3) by Niebuhr Barthold Georg Isler M Meyer Other Chepmell Havilland Le Mesurier Translator Demmler F Translator

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Atticus' annals seem to have been only tables; but a very valuable work. Quotations, however, from them we read nowhere; so that we may infer, that in all likelihood there were many such books of which we know nothing.

Many authors are yet to be mentioned; Antipater, Fannius, Polybius, Posidonius, Rutilius, Lucullus, Scaurus, and others, part of whom have written in Greek.

Between the time of Jugurtha and the consulate of Lepidus, the historical work of Sisenna formed the connecting link. With this Sallust no doubt was satisfied; otherwise he would have treated also of that period.

It prepossesses us in favour of Dionysius, who shows himself in his rhetorical writings to have been a man of fine judgment, that, as he tells us, he had devoted twenty-two years to that work; that he had learned the Latin language, and made researches into the annals. His history, which now reaches down only a little beyond the time of the decemvirs, extended, as already observed, to the beginning of the first Punic war; at which period Timaeus also left off, and Polybius began. He was befriended by many distinguished Romans, and wrote with a true veneration for the greatness of the Roman people. The name of Archaeology appears new in him. When we see that his history does not give in eleven books more than Livy's does in three; that he takes up a whole book with what happened before the building of the city, and treats of the earliest times so much at length; this prolixity excites our mistrust not only of the credibility, but also of the judgment of the author. As far as regards this point, it is not to be denied that Dionysius has chosen a plan of which we cannot approve. Not to mention that he looks upon the time of the kings as historical, he made a mistake when he undertook to treat history pragmatically from the very earliest times. Yet the more carefully we examine the work, the more worthy of respect Dionysius appears to us, and the more we find his book to be a treasury of the most sterling information. As such it has been first acknowledged by genuine criticism only; before that, it was cried down as a tissue of absurdities. Setting his imperfections aside, we cannot indeed assign too high a rank to Dionysius, as a treasure of ancient history providentially preserved to us. He has borrowed, if not directly, at least indirectly, from the old law books and annalists; and without him we should not know any thing of the most important changes, to which, however, too often he only lends personifications. The careful use which he made of his sources renders him invaluable. Even the matter of his speeches he took from the old annalists; many circumstances at least, which were contained in them, and which he could not receive into the context of his history, he has introduced in his harangues, so that the latter, in which elsewhere the arbitrary fancy of the historian seems to prevail, often retain the traces of tradition. Thus, when there is a rising of the people, these words occur in the speech of a patrician, "If there is no more help for it, why should we not, rather than humble ourselves before these plebeians, grant Isopolity to the Latins?" Now this Isopolity, as we must take it for granted, is in the subsequent peace imparted to the Latins, which is, however, not mentioned in Dionysius. This is one of the passages in which he introduced a notice found in the annalists, on the occasion of the conclusion of the peace, as subject matter into a speech. Only we must discriminate between his mistakes, and the substance of the valuable information which he gives. If he had succeeded in comprehending the language of Fabius, all would have been correct; but he understood the Greek language as it was current in his own time, and thence all his mistakes arose. He has lost the clue in the history of the development of the Roman constitution: he is not aware of the difference between ????? and ??????, but he gives all, though it appears to him a riddle, and tries to find a solution. That he is a rhetorician and not a statesman, we indeed see only too clearly. In his criticism he is faulty, but, for all that, not bad: he was a very clear-headed man. With very little exception his language is correct and well suited to its purpose. What we may object to in him, are the harangues, in which the distinctness of individual character is entirely lost; an ill-timed imitation of those of Thucydides. I have worked through this author from my early youth, as no one perhaps has done since he has written, and I may say that I entertain infinite respect and veneration for him; and I am convinced that except in the speeches and pragmatical reflections, he has not by any means invented or intentionally omitted anything. He worked out his sources, it is true, without selection, and cared only for the abundance of the materials which were offered to him. Nothing is more unjust than the opinion formerly entertained, that all that Dionysius had more than Livy was merely the invention of his brain.

It is evident that when Livy commenced his work, he was far from being well versed in Roman history; he had read some of the old books, and he may have been, compared with others, well acquainted with ancient history: but he was entirely deficient in general and comprehensive historical knowledge. He wrote it, as he himself states in the preface, from the pleasure which he took in history, and for consolation in a cheerless and most gloomy period; the rising generation were to be refreshed with the remembrance of the glorious times of old; after having once resolved upon this work, he had set about it in the first exultation of enthusiasm. In writing the history of the kings, he apparently followed Ennius. We perceive that clearly it is consistent, and of a piece. As he went on, he gradually got hold of more authors, but always a very limited number. As in Dionysius every thing is connected, so in Livy all is isolated. He had not at all made it his task to write a learned and scrupulously sifted history. With foreign histories he is altogether unacquainted. He could not have written that the Carthaginians first came to Sicily in 324, if he had known that fifty years before they had already undertaken their first great expedition thither. That of Alexander of Epirus would, according to him, have lasted eighteen years. He also mistakes Heraclitus, Philip's ambassador to Hannibal, for the philosopher of the same name.

Particularly worthy of notice is the amiable disposition of Livy. The whole of his work breathes a kindliness and serenity which does one's heart good in reading it. Perhaps we should observe this yet more clearly, if we had the later books. Few writers have had such an influence as Livy. He forms an epoch in Roman literature: with him every attempt ceases to write Roman annals. When Quintilian compares him with Herodotus, this is only correct with regard to the amenity of style which is common to both. Otherwise Livy is particularly deficient in those qualities which Herodotus possesses, than whom none was ever richer in remembrances and ancient lore; than whom there never was a more gifted investigator; and who was indeed a master both in observing and in research. Livy's great talent, on the contrary, is that of arranging details, and of narration. Of the old Roman constitution he had no notion whatever. Even of the constitution which still existed during his youth, he seems to have had no very accurate knowledge; but whatever in the old institutions bore the same name as in his time, he always confounds with what was more recent. On the other hand, he gives accounts which are inappropriate as applying to his own era, but quite correct with reference to the olden time. He had a wonderful reputation in his day: it is a known fact that a man came from Cadiz to Rome merely to see him, and then immediately went back again. This fame lasted. He was the historian ???' ??????, and Roman history was learned from him alone. Whatever in after times was written by Latins, was scarcely more than extracts from him. Wherever in the later Roman authors any thing is quoted from history, it is taken from Livy: Silius Italicus, the most wretched of all poets, has done nothing but paraphrase him. And therefore he was read in the rhetorical and grammatical schools, particularly, as it seems, his first and third decades. These grammatical schools existed in Rome until beyond the seventh century, in Ravenna even down to the eleventh. It is, however, remarkable that all the manuscripts of the first decade may be traced back to a single one, which was written in the fourth century by a certain Nicomachus for Symmachus and his family, but is most wretchedly done.

We have no manuscript in which all the books which have been preserved are contained. Where the first, third, and fourth decade are together, the fourth is never entire; and all the manuscripts are very recent, dating from the fourteenth century. One sees that he was little read during the middle ages, as they made shift with the most trivial extracts. Of the first books we have manuscripts of the tenth century. At the restoration of learning, the first and third decades existed in pretty many manuscripts; the fourth in few only, and those mutilated. Yet the fourth decade was indeed known and read before that time, as may be seen from a novel of Francesco Sacchetti. But the thirty-third book was entirely wanting; and the fortieth, from the third paragraph of chapter 37. The latter gap was filled up from a Mentz manuscript in the edition printed in that town, A.D. 1518; but the one in the thirty-third book, from the sixth paragraph of the seventeenth chapter only. The last five books were published from a manuscript of the monastery of Lorsch, of the seventh or eighth century , now at Vienna, in the Basle edition of the year 1531. The first sixteen chapters of the thirty-third book have been published at Rome in 1616, from a Bamberg manuscript, and again collated by Goeller , who has found some important various readings. Yet these have always remained defective.

As far as regards commentaries, it is really astonishing how little has been done in the way of criticism for Livy; and yet he is one of the first who has been subjected to any elaborate criticism. Already was this done by the ingenious Laurentius Valla, whose learning was of the true philological cast, and who even before the invention of printing, wrote short scholia, and likewise an historical disquisition concerning Tarquin the Proud, whether he was a son, or a grandson of Tarquinius Priscus? Then follows M. Antonius Sabellicus, a Venetian, of whom some annotations still exist, which, considering his great ability, are very trifling. Glareanus was a very ingenious and acute man. His attention was especially directed to the historical part, and in his remarks he frankly pronounces much of it to be untenable. The emendation of the text was then taken in hand by many persons whose names are not known. Gelenius has certainly aided in the Basil edition, without his name being mentioned. When Glareanus had finished, Sigonius of Modena wrote his scholia on Livy. His work is very good and praiseworthy,--his criticisms chiefly historical. He most unaccountably bore a strong grudge against Glareanus, and the latter replied in an edition in which he had Sigonius' notes reprinted. Sigonius has contributed much towards the criticism of the text; but he has also interpolated a great deal that is untenable, part of which still stands in the text. Then follow almost a hundred years, during which nothing was done for Livy, until John Frederick Gronovius, sprung from an Holstein family at Hamburgh, appeared; who, when philology was in a dying state, might have given it a new impulse, had the age been susceptible of it. His Livy is a masterpiece. He is one of the earliest who conscientiously searched into manuscripts. His careful grammatical and historical commentary gains for him the palm among all who have occupied themselves with Livy; only, when he speaks of the constitution and laws of the State, he has sometimes made mistakes, and unjustly censured Brissonius. After him came Clockius, whose conjectures are most unlucky; and then Tanaquil Faber of Saussure, who, though he was very intelligent, has done very little for Livy; nor is his criticism much to be relied on. Duker's and Drakenborch's edition holds the first rank among all the editions which we have of ancient authors. Duker's notes are excellent,--a striking contrast to his Thucydides,--he shows likewise a very correct judgment concerning the subject-matter. Drakenborch is far from possessing the same penetration and ability, but for all that he has very good common sense; his application, which is scrupulously conscientious, is admirable, and he scrutinizes every thing most accurately. The treasure of philological remarks which he has hoarded up is really astonishing, and his indices are very much to the point. Drakenborch is a model in this also, that he had already completed the whole of his work before he began to publish it. The subject-matter is quite evenly disposed all through the work.

After this, little was done for the criticism of Livy. The emendations of Professor Walch of Berlin are beautiful, and it is a pity that he has not realized his intention of editing the whole of Livy. Yet a very great deal remains to be done, especially in the first decade. The nations of Roman language have gained for themselves little or no distinction with regard to Livy.

It is not quite decided that Fabius Rusticus has not written the earliest history. He was perhaps the only man in his time who could have done it.

The manner in which from henceforth Roman history was written was to epitomize it, of which we have several examples.

There is extant an old table of contents of all the books of Livy, of which two only, the hundred and thirty-sixth and the hundred and thirty-seventh, are wanting,--a sort of index for those who wished to search for any thing in the great work, and perhaps nothing more than a collection of the heads which were written in the margin. This epitome bears quite inappropriately the name of Florus. The author is unknown, and it is certainly only the work of some copyist. But to us it is invaluable, as many things have been preserved in it alone.

Well known and much read was the Roman history of Florus in four books, which, written in the reign of Trajan, is a very wretched piece of work. Yet at the side of many glaring mistakes, there is something which may be turned to use. Florus may have written from what he read in Livy; yet there is in one single passage a deviation from him, so that he must have read others also.

Eutropius has evidently every where followed the track of Livy; but he is so bad a writer, that one cannot believe that he has read Livy. I therefore conjecture that there must have existed an abstract besides, forming a sort of medium between the work itself and our epitome; which Orosius no doubt also read, who likewise implicitly follows Livy, but assigns dates which clash with him, a practice quite in keeping with his ignorance in changing the dates by consuls into those by years. Such an abstract was like that of Trogus from Justin. Orosius' object was simply this, to console his contemporaries in the state in which they were by means of perversions and sophisms in describing the wretchedness of the olden time. Yet there are many points in which his statements have great value, only one must not allow oneself to be misled by him.

The influence which Livy had exercised upon the Romans, in putting an end to every thing like originality in writing history, did not extend to the Greeks. They directed their attention more and more to Roman history, and found in it a theme for rhetorical and elegant composition. One of those who at that time more or less engaged in this task, was Plutarch, who composed his historical works in the reign of Trajan. He had a definite moral purpose, his was a fine soul: yet neither was he a practical man, nor had he a turn for speculative thought, but he was made for quiet and cheerful contemplation, like Montaigne. He had an unaffected aversion to all that was vulgar; and he wrote in this spirit for himself and his friends, the parallels of distinguished Romans and Greeks. He is just to every body. He loves the Greeks and respects the Romans, and this makes his Lives most delightful reading. But his qualities as an historian are of a very secondary order. He is no critic, and does not discriminate between conflicting opinions; but he follows at one time one authority, and at another time another. In Pyrrhus and Camillus, one sees that he has used Dionysius; in Marius and Sylla, Posidonius; and wherever we are able to make this out, his history gains a much more important character for authenticity. The task of ascertaining this point is as yet far from being accomplished. Plutarch, as he himself tells us, understood little of Latin, and was particularly ignorant of the grammar, owing to which mistakes are found in him here and there, though indeed but seldom.

About eighty years after Appian, wrote Dio Cassius, surnamed Cocceianus, who was born in the reign of Antoninus Pius at Nice in Nicomedia, of a family which was of very high standing in the Roman State. Very likely Dio Chrysostom was his grandfather on the mother's side. He came as a young man to Rome, at a time when the provincials of the east were already admitted to the highest offices, which was much earlier the case with those of the west. Whilst the latter soon assimilated themselves in language and address to the Romans, the former amalgamated much later, and from sheer necessity. In the eastern provinces they still let the beard grow, as we see from the likeness of the statuary Apollodorus in the Trajan column, the most ancient likeness of an artist. From the time of Adrian the Greeks met in Rome with a different reception from that which they had before; this emperor favoured them, as did also the Antonines. Marcus Antoninus even married one of his daughters to Pompeian a Greek.

Dio came early to Rome, where he lived forty years engaged in business, and then retired to Capua. He wrote, when about forty years old, the history of Commodus, which he dedicated to Severus, who received it with favour, and encouraged him to write the whole Roman history. He became consul under Septimius Severus, and a second time under Alexander Severus. He reached an age of nearly eighty years, and had, according to Fabricius' computation, already reached that of seventy when he was for the second time invested with the consulship. He spent twelve years in collecting materials, and during ten he worked. If this account be correct, the last books must be a continuation of his work. Being a statesman, he paid attention to many things in history which his predecessors had not cared for. He had a true vocation for writing history, and declared that in his dreams the gods had commanded him to do so. He was a perfect master of the Latin language, thoroughly acquainted with all the Roman affairs, and he felt an interest in political concerns. He is every where at home, in the laws, in the constitution, and in matters connected with warfare. Livy had no idea of either the economy of a state, or of a battle; the commonest rules for the array of an army escape him. Surely he can never have looked on, when the soldiers were drilling at Rome.

Dio has been edited by Stephens at Basle, and by H. S. Reimarus. A collation of the Venetian manuscript would be infinitely important. The annotations of Fabricius and Reimarus are of extraordinary value in an historical point of view. What is defective in Fabricius, as well as in his son-in-law Reimarus, is grammatical knowledge. Yet this deficiency has not prevented Reimarus from directing the whole of his attention to the index, which is excellent. If he had made the index before the edition was completed, he would have arranged quite differently the strictly philological part of his work. Philological indices are a most useful aid in study, and infinitely heighten the value of an edition. The task of compiling them leads to a great number of questions and inquiries, which otherwise would never have been thought of.

What the worthy Rollin has compiled from Livy and from Freinsheim's supplements, is not to be reckoned a Roman history. With very little talent, he shows such a respectable, virtuous, and upright disposition, that men were perfectly justified in putting it into the hands of youth; yet it is a dry book, which now-a-days scarcely any one would read through. His learning is very defective; he is destitute of all critical judgment, and without any insight into the state of affairs. People at that time, as a very witty writer remarks, treated ancient history as if it had never really happened.

Somewhat later, Hooke wrote a work, with which indeed I am but slightly acquainted, and which, generally speaking, is not known in Germany. He took notice of Beaufort's views, without, however, entering into any deeper questions; and he treated the history of those times only which he held to be historical.

As to maps, that of d'Anville is unquestionably to be recommended. D'Anville was a genius: he possessed the acuteness to discriminate among conflicting statements those which were worthy of belief; he was like a great artist, who, with very simple instruments, does more than another with the most perfect ones. His works on the interior of Africa are extraordinary, considering the few notices which he had. Not to be excelled are his maps of Gaul, Spain, and Britain; unsurpassed is his map of Italy, although much might be improved in it. He is less perfect with regard to Greece. For Epirus and Macedon, he was of course unable to make use of the more correct information of modern times, the interior of these countries not being then explored by travellers; the Peloponnesus he worked out mostly from the Portulan maps. Barbi? du Bocage, his pupil, was likewise highly to be esteemed; but with such a predecessor, he was in a disadvantageous position. He continued several of d'Anville's works with little success. He found, for instance, that Patras in d'Anville's map was placed 30 minutes too far north, and he accordingly changed the position; yet, although he was in the right, he twenty years afterwards restored it to d'Anville's original position. D'Anville has in Italy one single mathematical error with regard to the south-eastern part of Naples, where the country of the Sallentines lies about 20 minutes too little to the east. For d'Anville had as yet no other maps at hand but the Venetian ones, in which the outlines are generally excellent, but the longitudes for the most part incorrect. The comparison of d'Anville's maps with those of his predecessors, as those of Delisle and others, makes him still more admirable. His map of Egypt is an extraordinary performance, if we consider that he had only the rude outlines of the Arabian and Turkish maps to work from. An apparent defect in his map of Italy is this, that it represents a distinct period, about that of Augustus, and in consequence there is a discrepancy in the settlement of the confines which might make one inclined to censure him; and yet one ought to be very careful not to do so. Samnium, for instance, according to Livy, still included a very large tract which d'Anville draws into Apulia, because he follows the description of Italy by Pliny.

IMPORTANCE OF ROMAN HISTORY.

MANNER IN WHICH THE EARLY HISTORY OF ROME ORIGINATED.

The ancient Romans, before they adopted the Greek poetic system, made use of the Saturnian verse. Horace says of it,

Horridus ille Defluxit numerus Saturnius

and several old grammarians have given accounts of it. Atilius Fortunatianus and others among them, who knew nothing about its structure, stuck to a couple of verses which had been preserved; particularly to the following, in which, according to the views which then prevailed, a hypercatalectical Senarius makes its appearance:

Malum dabunt Metelli Naevio Po?tae.

Du?mviri p?rduelli?nem j?dicent, &c.

in which the old metre is still to be recognised.

If we look at the tenth book of Livy, we find in it a disproportionate prolixity in the account of the campaigns of Fabius Maximus Rullianus. Now this is exactly an instance of a story taken from family records. In fact not a few statements may even be pointed out, which have no other source than family vanity. People even ventured to interpolate fictitious consulships and triumphs into the family annals, as Livy himself tells us.

Again, other falsifications have arisen from national pride. The forgeries of patriotism manifest themselves among the Romans whenever they suffered great disasters; and this is particularly the case with the momentous ones of the earlier time, with the war of Porsena, the Gallic calamity, and the disgrace at Caudium, in which the whole account is a lying one. Others have sprung from that spirit of caste, which in earlier times led to continual struggles. Both parties thus brought false accusations against each other, which afterwards found their way into history; or, on the other hand, palliation was also attempted in order to disguise political or moral crimes. The blame of the worst events is laid to the people's charge; yet it is innocent, and the guilt belongs wholly to its antagonists. Not the people, but the Curies condemned Manlius to death; these also pronounced the disgraceful decision between the Ardeates and the people of Aricia; nay, we may be sure that it was the Curies which compelled Camillus to go into exile.

Such falsifications accumulate, become involved in each other, and give rise to this strange confusion. The rich materials, widely scattered indeed, because the parties did not allow of their being brought together, we may gather in order to find out by critical research the organization and the nature of the Roman nation; and on the whole to carry on their history to that point at which contemporary accounts from the Greeks begin, to the war with Pyrrhus, and the first Punic war. Much will indeed remain undecided in these inquiries; but we may exactly discriminate where this must needs be the case, and where it is otherwise.

THE EARLIEST HISTORY.

The Roman history goes back to Latium, and through Latium to Troy. Since Dio Chrysostom has started the question, whether Troy ever existed at all, a vast deal has been written on the subject; and also upon this other point, whether AEneas came to Italy. The treatise of Theodore Ryckius about it is particularly well known. He deems the arrival of AEneas to be historical, in opposition to Bochart, who is one of the last highly gifted French philologists, and at all events is superior to him in discernment. Bochart's hypothesis concerning the influence of the Phoenicians, is doubtless carried too far. No one, however, will now any more put the question thus; but one must ask, has the legend that the Trojans came to this coast any historical foundation? and, moreover, has the legend arisen among the Greeks, and passed over to Italy; or is it a native Italian tradition which cannot, at least by us, be traced back to Greek sources? If the latter be the case, some truth must surely be at the bottom of it, and the less one takes these ancient accounts in their literal meaning, the more are they found to partake of possibility.

There is no question but that in the earliest times there were in Greece two peoples who were very nearly akin, but still distinct from each other; so much so that they did not understand each other's language, as Herodotus positively asserts. One of these languages as opposed to the other was considered as barbarous; and yet, when looked upon from a different point of view, they may be said to be both of them closely related. There are still several living languages which stand in a similar degree of affinity,--the Polish and the Bohemian, the Italian and the Spanish, and, although we may not find the relationship to be so close, the Polish and Lithuanian. The two last languages are as wide as heaven and earth asunder; yet for all that they have a characteristic similarity. The grammar of both has the same development, the same peculiarities; the numerals are nearly the same; a great many words are common to both. These languages are therefore branches of the same stock, and yet the Poles do not understand the Lithuanians. Now this is the manner in which we solve the question so often mooted concerning the difference or identity of the Greeks and the Pelasgians. When Herodotus says that they were different, we must after all believe him; yet, on the other hand, he places the Hellenes and Pelasgians again side by side. The two nations cannot therefore be of different race.

In the earliest times, when the Greek history is yet veiled to us in impenetrable mystery, the greater part of Italy, perhaps the whole eastern shore of the Adriatic sea, Epirus, Macedon, the southern coast of Thrace, the Macedonian peninsulas, the islands of the AEgean, and also the coasts of Asia Minor to the Bosporus were inhabited by Pelasgians. The Trojans also are to be looked upon as Pelasgians. That they were no barbarians is the opinion of all the Greeks, as we also see already from Homer; their abode is quite in the Pelasgian country; their names are Greek. They are in close conjunction at one time with the Arcadians, another essentially Pelasgian people, then with the Epirots, then also with the Thessalians; and AEneas, according to one tradition, goes to Arcadia and dies there, according to another into Epirus, where Helenus settles. Thus, in like manner, we find in Pindar, in the poem on Cyrene, Aristaeus, a Pelasgian hero from Arcadia, together with the Antenorides. The connexion of the Pelasgians with the Trojans extends very far. Samothrace in particular is the metropolis of Ilium; Dardanus comes from Arcadia, but passes through Samothrace, and from thence, married to Chryse, goes to Troas. The Samothracians, according to one of the grammarians, are a Roman people, acknowledged to be of kindred race with the Romans; that is to say, with the Troio-Tyrrhenian Pelasgians. This connexion has no other source but the common relationship between the Tyrrhenians, Trojans, and Samothracians. According to some accounts, Dardanus comes from Tyrrhenia to Troas; according to others, the Trojans come to Tyrrhenia. In the temple, and in the mysteries of Samothrace, there was a gathering point of many men from all quarters; and it was for a great part of the world at that time as the Caaba of Mecca, the grave of the prophet at Medina, or as the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem. Samothrace and Dodona were for the Pelasgian races, what perhaps to the Hellenic world Delphi and Delos were. The distance of a considerable portion of those who are linked together by a common origin ought not to have much stress laid upon it in a case like this, as it is such as not to hinder the Mahometan from making the pilgrimage to the sacred spot.

In the south of Italy, the earliest inhabitants were also called OEnotrians and Peucetians; in the north, without doubt they were likewise called Liburnians; and on the coasts of Latium, Tyrrhenians.

These Opicans were in their turn pushed forward by the Sabines , who called themselves aborigines, and traced their source from the highest Alps of Abruzzo near Majella and Gran Sasso d'Italia. Cato in a somewhat extraordinary manner makes them come from Little Amiternum. Whether the Sabellians and Opicans were about as distinct from each other as the Gauls and Ligurians; or in a less degree, like the Celts and Cymri; or whether they belonged to the same stock, and were only politically separated; are questions which we cannot solve. The ancients knew not, nor did they care much about it. When we want to see at any rate where no historical light is to be had, the mind's eye is dimmed like that of the body when it is violently strained in the dark. Varro indeed distinguishes the Sabine from the Oscan language; but as he was very little of a judge of the earlier languages, in the sense in which we should apply the term to W. von Humboldt, we have also very little reason to rely upon any of his statements concerning the relationship of languages. From a general analogy, I conceive that the tide of emigration must have set in in several streams, and that thus the Sabines also may have been carried down from the higher north by its first rush. Yet this is mere conjecture.

The Umbrians may have belonged to the same stock as the Opicans. I would not lay too great a stress on the resemblance of names; the races which are nearest akin to each other have very often the most dissimilar names, and those which are the most remote quite similar ones. Thus the Getae and the Goths were for a long time mistaken for the same people. Fifty years ago, it was the general belief in Ireland and Scotland that the Fir-Bolgs were the old Belgians; yet this is false, and they are a Danish colony, as a very well-informed Englishman wrote to me. If I had no other reasons but the names, I should hesitate to pronounce for the identity of the Opicans and Umbrians. But Philistus called the people which overcame the Siculians in Latium, Ombricans, and the affinity of the languages may also be clearly made out from what remains of them.

These changes of the population, in which the earlier inhabitants are dislodged by another tribe, and the latter by some other one in its turn, make the history of the old Italian nations so indescribably obscure and difficult for us. At a time which we cannot fix with chronological certainty, in what was afterwards called Latium, which, however, perhaps bore this name from the earliest times, there existed a population of Siculians. The memory of it was preserved at Tibur, where according to Cato part of the town was called Siculio. There are also elsewhere very many allusions in ancient authors, which place it beyond doubt that this people once existed there. Under the same name we find it in Southern Italy, and in the island which is to this day still called after them. According to one tradition, Sicelus came from Latium to the OEnotrians; according to another, the Siculians under different names were driven from their old abodes by the Opicans or Ombricans, and removed to that island. This migration is merely indicative of the combinations of those who tried to explain the contemporary existence of the same people in Latium and in Sicily. Possible it is, but it is also possible that it took quite a different direction. It is certain that in Homer's time there were Siculians in Southern Italy; to prove which fact there exists a passage from Mnaseas, a pupil of Aristarchus, a learned grammarian and historian, whom the scholiast of the Odyssey quotes. He also says, that Echetus in Epirus was prince of the Siculians, so that he likewise acknowledged this name in those parts. From his explanation, we see that the poet of the Odyssey, when speaking of Siculians, does not mean the inhabitants of Sicily, a country concerning which he was in the dark; but those of Southern Italy, or the Pelasgians of Epirus.

Hesiod says of Latinus, ???? ??????????? ????????????? ???????. All that we know of the Latins is this, that they had a number of towns from Tibur to the river Tiber. How far they extended in the earliest time to the Liris is lost in obscurity. Cato says, that the plain of the Volscians formerly belonged to the aborigines; certainly all the towns along the coast were at an early period Tyrrhenian, as Antium, Circeii, and many others. At that time, therefore, the name of Latium spread far, and so late as immediately after the Roman kings, even to Campania; it having been first limited in consequence of the great popular migrations soon after the expulsion of the kings. Hesiod of course refers to the earlier time. In the treaty of Rome with Carthage, the coast beyond Terracina, probably as far as Cumae, was called Latium, and the inhabitants Latins.

We must bear well in mind that the Pelasgians and Aborigines are one and the same people. If we look over the legends of nations, we repeatedly find the same stories told in different ways which are entirely opposed to each other. The story of a Jew who takes ruthless revenge upon a Christian, as we know it from Shakspeare, in a Roman novel shortly before his time, is found just reversed, so that the Christian wants to cut off the flesh from the Jew. The migrations of the Goths, according to some, proceed from Scandinavia to the south; according to others, from the south to Scandinavia. Wittikind says that the Saxons had come out of Britain into Germany; the usual account makes them out to have been invited thither from Germany. The Pelasgians near the Hymettus near Athens are represented to have come from Tyrrhenia to Athens, and from thence to Lemnos; in another tradition, the Tyrrhenians go from the Meonian coast to Italy. Thus Cyrene, according to one legend, is colonized from Thera; in another, Thera rises out of a clod of earth from Libya. In the earlier account, the Symplegades were in the Eastern Sea, and the Argo sails through them on her voyage out; in the later, they are in the Western Sea, and impede the progress of the Argo on her voyage home. This exchange of polarity is manifested also with regard to the aborigines. In spite of etymology, Dionysius so calls the people which, issuing from the interior of the country, conquered the ancient inhabitants. Varro did the same, and yet worse than Pliny. He had read an immense deal; but learned he ought not to be called on account of his confusedness. Varro knows about the close alliance of two of the Latin nations, but he makes a jumble of every thing; the aborigines are for him the conquering, and the Siculians the conquered people. Then, following Hellanicus, he brings over the aborigines from Thessaly; yet they then migrate from the Upper Anio to the Upper Abruzzo, whither they are driven by the Sabines. This tradition has a local and plausible character; for there were many small towns to be found there: large cities, on the contrary, such as the Etruscans possessed, are always a proof of immigration, as the immigrating people rather settles in a few considerable places. Trent and several other cities are large Lombard colonies. Dionysius may be excused, as he relies on Varro's authority; the latter alone is answerable for the mistake. Here also the designation of the people, the conquering and the conquered one, is confounded.

From henceforth the trace of the tradition is lost to us, being effaced by the account of the Trojan immigration. This legend has no authenticity whatever, and is merely a later figment to express the relationship between the Trojans and the Latins as Pelasgians. The story of a Trojan colony is found on so many points of Italy, that it is by mere chance that this legend has been more definitely fixed upon Latium; and it was fostered by the wide circulation of the Greek poems, which spread much farther than we generally think.

The original tradition is that AEneas had first lived for three years in a small town called Troy; then, that taking a higher flight, he had founded Lavinium, and thirty years afterwards Alba; and that the three hundredth year after Alba, was that of the building of Rome. This regular progression of the numbers betokens a field which is not that of history. Three thousand years also were certainly fixed as the duration of Rome. There are two different numerical systems in these legends:--the Etruscan with a saeculum of a hundred and ten years, and the Greek, or the Tyrrhenian, in which the saeculum consisted of thirty years. This number thirty had at all times considerable weight on account of the period of the revolution of Saturn, which according to the then existing opinion, as Servius records, was completed within thirty years. Thirty common years constituted among the Greeks a Saturnian, and a hundred Saturnians a grand year. With this the scale of numbers from the foundation of Lavinium to the building of Rome is connected. The earliest Alban history is a nonentity, as the sagacious Dodwell has already shown, who indeed on other occasions only too often spoils by his subtleties what he has well begun. The chronology of the Alban-kings in Dionysius, for instance, is mere absurdity and forgery, the names of them being patched together in every possible way. This forgery, as we see from Servius, was committed in a later age by a freedman of Sylla, L. Cornelius Alexander of Miletus, who readily found acceptance at a period when people were glad to have histories of those times of which nothing could be known.

The characters therefore in the Trojan legend are thus to be analysed. Turnus is no other than Turinus, the ???????? of Dionysius; Lavinia, the beautiful maiden, is the name of the Latin people; perhaps they are so distinguished as the inhabitants of the coasts are more especially called Tyrrhenians, those of the interior country, Latins. As the Latins after the battle at the Regillus, are found together with thirty towns in the league with Rome, we cannot doubt but that the number of those towns, of which the dominion belonged in the earliest times to Alba, was also thirty. Only there were not always the same towns in this league; many afterwards perished, others were received in their stead.

Here the same instinct of substituting the fallen off members of political organizations is at work, which is to be perceived every where so long as institutions quietly go on in accordance with the old traditionary forms, and not with the actual wants of the times. Thus also in the twelve Achaean towns, in the seven Frisian maritime provinces, when one is ruined, the number is made up by splitting another. Where once a fixed number exists, although a unit may fall off, it is not given up, but it is always renewed. We may add, that the state of the Latins lost in the west, and gained in the east; we therefore take Alba as having thirty boroughs, and the thirty Latin towns as a state which at first was in league with Alba, and was afterwards subjected to its sovereignty.

Romulus now drew the boundaries of his city; but Remus leaped in mockery over the ditch, for which Celer slew him, an intimation that no one should step with impunity over the bulwarks of Rome. Romulus, however, fell into grief on the death of Remus, instituted festivals for him, and caused an empty throne to be raised at the side of his own. Thus we have a double rule, which ends with the overthrow of Remuria.

The next question is, what were these two cities,--Roma and Remuria? They were evidently Pelasgian towns. There is an old tradition, that Sicelus had come from Roma on the south to the Pelasgians; that is to say, the Tyrrhenian Pelasgians are driven to the Morgetians in Lucania and in the island, who were allied to them in blood. Among the Greeks, according to Dionysius, the belief was general that Rome was a Pelasgian, i. e. a Tyrrhenian city; but the writers from whom he had this information are lost to us. There is a fragment, however, in which it is stated that Rome was a sister-town of Antium and Ardea. We have also to quote here the notice from the Chronicle of Cumae, that Evander had had his palatium on the Palatine. As an Arcadian he is likewise a Pelasgian. To us he appears less important than he is in the legend: he is one of the benefactors of the people, and to the Pelasgians in Italy he brought the use of letters and the arts, as Damaratus did to the Tyrrhenians in Etruria. In this meaning, therefore, Rome is indeed a Latin town; and that not a mixed, but a purely Tyrrheno-Pelasgian one. The after fortunes of this settlement are indicated in the allegories.

After the death of Romulus, there was for a long time a feud between the Romans and the people of Tatius; the Sabines wishing for a king from among themselves, since no new election had been made to fill the room of Tatius, whilst the Romans would have one of their own race. Then, it is said, it was at last agreed that one people was to elect the king from the other people.

And here we must speak of the relation of the two nations to each other, as it in reality existed.

All the nations of antiquity lived in fixed forms, and their political communities were always organized, down to the lowest ranks. When cities rise into nations, we always find at first a division into tribes. Herodotus mentions such tribes when Cyrene was colonized, and in later times this was also the case at the founding of Thurii; yet when a city any where existed as such, its claim to this character consisted in this, that its citizens were at a certain time divided into communities , which had a common chapel and the worship of a common hero. In the higher stages of these organizations, the clans were also in certain numerical proportions united into Curies . These clans are not families, but free associations, sometimes close, sometimes open; and in certain cases the general assembly of the state might assign them new members; as in Venice the great council was a close body, and it was so likewise in many of the oligarchical states of antiquity.

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