less indeed and null, was given back to him with a horse, trappings, and arms, 1219 them. This document, which from his and by the republic with a statue of a manner of citing it would seem to have damsel on horseback in the Via Sacra:been still in existence, shows how low the more obscure one, that Tarquinius they had fallen. They were expressly fell upon the hostages as they were conprohibited from employing iron for any ducted into the Etruscan camp; and, other purpose than agriculture. 1216 A peo- with the exception of Valeria who fled ple on whom a command of this kind was back to the city, massacred them all.20 laid, must have been compelled before- Porsenna mean while had returned to hand to deliver up all their arms.' Clusium. He had sent his son Aruns A confession that Rome did homage to with a part of his army against Aricia, Porsenna as its sovereign lord, is involved in those days the principal city of in the story that the senate sent him an Latium.21 The Aricines received sucivory throne and the other badges of cour both from other cities and from royalty:18 for in this very manner are the Cuma: and the Cumans, led by the inEtruscan cities represented to have ac- sulted hero of the Tyrrhenian war, deknowledged L. Tarquinius Priscus as cided the defeat of the Etruscans, whose their prince. general fell. The fugitives met with

17

What Livy says concerning the evacu- hospitable entertainment at Rome, and ating the citadel on the Janiculum, seems their wounds were taken care of. Many connected with the restoration of inde- of them were loth to leave the city again, pendence to the city after it had been dis- and built the Vicus Tuscus. Porsenna, armed. The twenty patrician hostages, not to be outdone in magnanimity, gave boys and damsels, refer, as is clear from back the hostages and the seven pagi." their number, to the curies of the first two The Roman annalists make the Etrustribes; whose precedence extended, as can hero display his liberality at the exwas reasonable, to whatever sacrifices pense of his dependents or allies; for these were to be made. With regard to these pagi had been restored to Veii. hostages there is again a twofold story: this had occurred to them, would they the more celebrated one, that Clelia have been slow in devising some act of effected her escape out of Etruria at the perfidy or other, by which the Veientines head of the maidens, and swam across should have exasperated the noble spirit the Tiber; that she was sent back, was of their protector to punish them; just as restored to liberty by Porsenna, and a like inducement was contrived, to make allowed to deliver the boys out of their him abandon the Tarquins. But even in captivity; and that she was rewarded by

Nor, if

1219 Dionysius, v. 34. and the fragment from the fourth book of Dion Cassius, in Bekker's 1216 Pliny, H. N. xxxiv. 39: In foedere quod Anecd. 1. p. 133. 8. Και τη γε κόρη και οπλά-και expulsis regibus populo Romano dedit Porsenna, photo. These words evidently refer nominatim comprehensum invenimus, ne ferro to the king: in Livy these presents also are nisi in agri culturam uterentur. This, and the bestowed on Clelia by the Romans." equally important passage of Tacitus (note 1213,) were first noticed by Beaufort: and they are perfectly sufficient for his purpose, which was merely negative. The critical examination of this war is the most successful part of that remarkable little work.

20 Pliny, XXXIV. 13. The two stories are clumsily mixed up together by Dionysius, v. 33, and by Plutarch, Publicol. c. 19.

22 No doubt the traditions were still richer

21 For this reason it had the temple of Diana. The opposition which Tarquinius sustained from Turnus Herdonius contains a reference to 17 Arma ademta, obsidesque imperati, would the pretensions and the circumstances of this be the way of telling the story, if the historian city: so does the account in Dionysius (v. 61) were speaking of a town which had submitted of the Aricines exciting Latium to war against in the same manner to the Romans. Dionysius Rome. does not fall far short of this confession in a harangue put into the mouth of M. Valerius: in individual instances of a chivalrous interδίδοντες και αγορον, και οπλα, και τάλλα όσων εδεντο Τυρρηνοι παρασχειν επι τη καταλύσει του πολέμου. v. 65. This is not indeed rapadidovres Ta oλa, and sounds rather as if all was done in compli ance with a military requisition: but that is the very point where the disguise lies.

18 Dionysius, v. 35. See above, p. 180.

course during the war with Porsenna. The following is assuredly an ancient one. A truce had been concluded; and it happened that some games were celebrated at the same time: hereupon the Tuscan generals came into the city, won the crown, and received it. Servius, on En. xi. 134.

canus.

the time of the decemvirs so far were the war reflects the image of that with Veii Romans from having regained their Etrus- in the year 277, which after the disaster can territory, that the Tiber formed their on the Cremera brought Rome to the boundary; with the insignificant excep- brink of destruction. In this again the tion of the Janiculum and the Ager Vati- Veientines make themselves masters of the Janiculum; and in a more intelligible Were the Romans incapable of feeling manner, after a victory in the field. Here that chains which we burst by our own again the city is saved by a Horatius; valour are an ornament? The defeat of the consul who arrives with his army at the Etruscans before Aricia is unquestion- the critical moment by forced marches ably historical. The victory of the Cu- from the land of the Volscians. The mans, which led Aristodemus to the sove- victors, encamping on the Janiculum, send reignty, was related in Greek annals. out foraging parties across the river and Had not those of the Romans through waste the country; until their depredafalse shame concealed their previ- tions are checked by some skirmishes, ous humiliation, they might have told which again take place by the temple of with triumph how their ancestors had Hope and at the Colline gate: yet a severe courageously seized that moment, al- famine arises within the city. At the though deprived of arms and perilling the same time, though all this has only been objects of their dearest affections, to break transplanted into the war of Porsenna to the yoke of the tyrant. At such a time fill up the vacant space, the latter is not the flight of the hostages might do some to be regarded as a mere shadow and good; and the heroine who led them echo of the other, as is the case with one might deserve to be rewarded. of the Auruncian wars. It was that

tribes were raised to the number of one and twenty. I think, however, it was at no great distance from that period.

This insurrection must have placed Etruscan war by which Rome, though it sundry things, belonging to the foreign lifted itself up again and regained its inprince within the city, at the disposal of dependence, lost ten regions; and it must the emancipated Romans; and thus no be placed before the year 259, when the doubt gave rise to the symbolical custom at auctions of selling the goods of king Porsenna. Livy, who found it still in existence, felt that it did not sort well with the story about the friendship that followed the war: only he ought likewise to have rejected the shallow explanation of it.

I hold the returns of the census, incredible as they sound in the times anteterior to the conquest by the Gauls, to be as genuine as the Romans considered That Porsenna was a hero in the them: and till I have justified this confiEtruscan legends, and that they must dence in the proper place,* they will at have placed him in very remote ages be- all events be admitted to represent a view yond the reach of history, seems implied that was taken of the growth or decline in the fabulous account of his monument; of the Roman state. Had an annalist ina building totally inconceivable, except as vented them, he would have framed them the work of magic, and which must have to fit his stories. If then they are utterly vanished like Aladdin's palace.* Possibly irreconcilable with the Annals, they must the Roman tradition may without any have been handed down from a time conground have connected him with that siderably earlier, and so are important. Etruscan war which cast Rome down Now Dionysius gives the returns of the from her heighth. Thus much we may assert, that of this war down to its end not a single incident can pass for historical.

years 246, 256, and 261, by the numbers 130000, 150700, and 110000. In our annals the war with Porsenna falls between the first and second date: between

It is a peculiarity of the Roman annals, 256 and 261 there is neither a pestilence owing to the barren invention of their nor a loss of territory; but on the contrary authors, to repeat the same incidents on the victory over the Latins. Nothing can different occasions, and that too more be more incongruous. If, however, we than once. Thus the story of Porsenna's

See note 405.

* See Vol. 11. note 141, and the following pages.

sent to consult the oracle of Delphi, was still perhaps a purely Tyrrhenian city.

do not let ourselves be dazzled by the dates which the Annals hold up to our view, we may still make an attempt to It is true, if the date of the Etruscan explain this. I will suggest it at least as war against Cuma were historically cera hypothesis, that the former increase was tain, internal reasons would forbid our owing to the extension of the isopolite placing the expedition of Aristodemus to franchise: the decrease of 40700 on the Aricia so late as the end of the 70th other hand may have arisen mainly from Olympiad. For it is incredible that the the separation of tribes enjoying isopolity, oligarchs, whose motive for seeking his but also no doubt from the loss of the destruction was their animosity conceived regions wrested from Rome. It is true, during that war, should have delayed all the landholders in those regions as- doing so till twenty years after it. 1223 The suredly did not cleave to the soil; and feuds in the states of antiquity did not even if they had, their number would creep on thus smoulderingly. But it was have been far from amounting to so many solely from his own calculations that Dithousands. Still that of the Romans was onysius determined this period: for he very much diminished by the loss; and derived the date of the Cuman war from our finding only names in those years Greek writers, that of the Aricine from without any events in Livy warrants the Romans. To my mind chronological conjecture that there were great misfor- statements concerning a war in which tunes to be concealed. The servitude of rivers run backward, are of just as much Latium under Mezentius is nothing but value as those in the fable of the Pelothe recollection of this age thrown back pids, where the sun does the same: and into an earlier one: and perhaps Virgil's if any one believes that the Cuman hisantiquarian learning may actually have tory of this period rests on surer foundadiscovered traditions representing the tions than the Roman, let him compare same Etruscan, whose yoke Latium after- the story of Aristodemus in Dionysius ward cast off again, as the taker of Agyl- with that in Plutarch." la:* which in the time of Cyrus, when it

24

1225

THE PERIOD DOWN TO THE DEATH OF TAR

QUINIUS.

WHEN we reach the borders of mythi- on the pretended histories of the period cal story, which, without a miracle could just marked out, is evident from comnot be immediately followed by regular paring the two historians. Livy under 251 annals, a division of time by epochs is a and 252 narrates a war against Pometia necessary shift, which ought not therefore to subject me to the charge of inconsistency. The opinion we are to form

* En. vIII. 479. ff. See p. 40. 1223 Dionysius, vII. 5.

and the Auruncians, and repeats the same afterward, under the year 259, as a war against the Volscians:26 Dionysius was too careful to commit an oversight of this kind, and relates it only in the latter

24 Perhaps by Timæus; but more probably year. On the other hand Livy, who on by the chronicles of Naples, where the fugitives this point is the more inconsiderate of from Cuma were taken in: and that they brought the two, shows much greater judgment legendary tales along with them is no less cer- with regard to the Sabine wars; mentiontain than it is unlikely that they preserved any authentic documents. When Herodotus (1, 29) makes a mistake of ten Olympiads with regard to the legislation of Solon, what credit is due to a date of this kind? The mention of the Campanians is a mark that the source was recent.

VOL. I.-23

1225 Mulier. Virtut. xxvI. p. 261. According to this version Aristodemus brings aid to the Romans.

26 The three hundred hostages who are put to death in II. 16, are the same who in 11. 22. are given up, in the year 259.

ing nothing about them except two tri- The proud virtue of the matrons was still umphs out of the Fasti; without a sylla- blooming in full purity when these lays ble on the military occurrences of the five were composed. campaigns circumstantially recounted by The battle of the lake Regillus, as deDionysius. scribed by Livy, is not an engagement Nor does the latter go less into detail between two armies: it is a conflict of hein describing the events of the Latin war; roes, like those in the Iliad. All the leadof which nothing but the battle of Regil-ers encounter hand to hand; and by them lus is narrated by Livy; except under the victory is thrown now into one scale, 255, where he says, as briefly as possi- now into the other; while the troops fight ble, that Fidene was besieged, Crustu- without any effect. The dictator Postumeria taken, Præneste came over to the Ro-mius wounds king Tarquinius, who at mans. As to the celebrated battle itself he the first onset advances to meet him.1229 tells us candidly, that while some writers, T. Æbutius, the master of the horse, whom he followed, placed it in the year wounds the Latin dictator; but he himself 255, others put it off till 258, the consul- too is disabled, and forced to quit the ship of Postumius,-the date given by field. Mamilius, only aroused by his Dionysius: from which variation it is hurt, leads the cohort of the Roman emiclear that the oldest triumphal Fasti did grants to the charge, and breaks the front not mention it. Without doubt too it was lines of the enemy: this glory the Roman only the later annalists who spoke of lays could not allow to any but fellow Postumius as the commander; having for- citizens, under whatever banner they gotten that the Africanus, whose renown might be fighting. M. Valerius, surwas sung by the Calabrian bard, was the named Maximus, falls as he is checking first Roman who gained a surname from their progress. Publius and Marcus, the

his conquests; 1 1297 while they did not ob- sons of Publicola, meet their death in resserve how frequently surnames from a cuing the body of their uncle;30 but the place of residence occur in the Fasti of dictator with his cohort avenges them all, the earliest times. As the Claudii took repulses the emigrants, and puts them to that of Regillensis, so did the Postumii. flight. In vain does Mamilius strive to This battle, as thrust into history, stands retrieve the day: he is slain by T. Herwithout the slightest result or connexion. minius, the comrade of Cocles. HermiThe victory is complete: yet, after seve- nius again is pierced through with a jaral years of inaction, a federal treaty sets velin, while stripping the Latin general its seal to the perfect independence and of his arms. At length the Roman knights, equality of the Latins; the very point, fighting on foot before the standards, deto decide which the battle was fought. cided the victory: then they mounted So that here again we have merely a their horses, and routed the yielding foe. heroic lay; another fragment of which During the battle the dictator had vowed has been preserved by Dionysius. Be- a temple to the Dioscuri. Two gigantic fore the melancholy contest between the youths on white horses were seen fighttwo kindred nations broke out, they en- ing in the van: and from its being said, gaged to keep peace for a year, that the immediately after the mention of the vow, numberless ties amongst their citizens that the dictator promised rewards to the might be amicably dissolved. Leave

was also granted to such women of each lius, for not calculating that Tarquinius, even 1229 Dionysius is angry with Macer and Gelnation as had married in the other; to re- supposing him the grandson of Priscus, must turn to their friends, taking their daugh- have been ninety years old. Is it purposely ters along with them. All the Roman that he suppresses their both calling him the women2 left their Latin husbands: all the Latin women, except two, staid at Rome.

1227 Primus certe hic imperator nomine victae ab se gentis est nobilitatus: exemplo deinde hujus, etc. Livy, xxx. 45,

28 Away with the insipid refinement Jur raca, in Dionysius, vi. 1.

son of Priscus? so that according to the tables stitutes Titus Tarquinius for his father, to save his age must have been 120. He himself subthe battle for history.

that it is drawn from an ancient source, is the 30 This is mentioned by Dionysius alone; more certain, since they come forward as actors pov in a later part of his history. See Glareanus and Sylburg on Dionysius, vi. 12.

first two who should scale the wall of the 251, is not more authentic than the poeenemy's camp, I surmise that the poem tical story. Assuredly it had no other related, nobody challenged these prizes, foundation than that his name is not met because the way for the legions had been with further on in the Fasti. The fune opened by the Tyndarids.231 The pur-ral orations of his family have supplied suit was not yet over, when the two dei- us with the information, that the matrons ties appeared at Rome, covered with dust mourned for him ten months, as they did and blood. They washed themselves and for Brutus; and that he was buried at the their arms in the fountain of Juturna be- public cost. According to one story, the side the temple of Vesta, and announced expense was defrayed from the common the events of the day to the people assem-chest of the burghers;" 1233 which agrees bled in the Comitium. On the other side with his name Poplicola. According to of the fountain the promised temple was the other a quadrant a head was contribuilt. The print of a horse's hoof in the buted by the people, that is, by the combasalt on the field of battle remained to monalty: for this was a plebeian mark of attest the presence of the heavenly com- respect. Probably, in conformity with batants.32 the ancient practice, neither of the two

This, it must be owned, is a rich and estates was behind the other, as the fact beautiful epical story; and yet assuredly is represented on the decease of Meneour historians were not acquainted with nius Agrippa.. The paying them such its genuine old form. This battle of a last honour is no ground for supposing giants, in which the gods openly take that either of the two died in want. part, and determine the result, closes the The death of Tarquinius at Cuma is Lay of the Tarquins: and I am convinced certainly historical. But the only reason. I am not mistaken in conjecturing, that for placing it in the year 259 was no in the old poem the whole generation, doubt because the ferment among the who had been warring with one anothor commonalty broke out in that year; and ever since the crime of Sextus, were the tradition ran, that, so long as he lived, swept away in this Mort of Heroes: he the patricians kept within bounds. Arishimself, according to Dionysius, fell here. todemus, whose name is infamous among In our accounts, indeed, king Tarquinius the earlier Greek tyrants for his atrociis only wounded and escapes: but this is ties, became the heir of his illustrious to make the story tally with the historical client: and some years after detained the record of his dying at Cuma. Mamilius property of the republic, in lieu of his is slain: Marcus Valerius Maximus is claims to that of the Tarquins. Of the slain, in spite of the historical traditions sons and grandsons of the Roman exiles, that he was dictator some years after: and some may perhaps have been among the Publius Valerius, who also finds his followers of Appius Herdonius when he death, is assuredly not Publicola's son, seized the Capitol, and may thus have but Publicola himself. Herminius too breathed their last in the home of their falls: so most unquestionably does Lar- fathers.

cius, the second companion of Cocles, Among the events placed in the last and doubtless the same person with the portion of the mythical age, is the recepfirst dictator: only he is kept in the back- tion of the Claudian gens. In the year ground, because a different one is put at 250 Attus Clausus, a powerful Sabine, the head of the army. Thus the names migrated to Rome with the members and of Lucretia are appeased; and the manes of clients of his house. Clausus is in Virthe heroic age depart out of the world, before injustice begins to domineer, and gives birth to insurrection, in the state which they had delivered.

The account in the Annals, which places the death of Publicola in the year

1231 As was the case in the battle of Fabricius against the Lucanians: Valerius Maximus, 1. 8. 6.

32 Cicero, de Nat. Deor. III. 5(11.)

1233 De publico est elatus: Livy, 11. 16.

34 Plutarch, Publicol. c. 23. The Greek language, less rich in political terms than the Latin, has only the single word duos to express the whole people and the commonalty. This has given rise to a number of misapprehen.

sions.

35 The passage on this subject in Dionysius (v1. 96) deserves attention, from the manner in which the estates are distinguished; but it is of too great length to be inserted here.