Hartung, in his work ‘Die Religion der Römer,' but the investigation is too intricate, and the results too uncertain, to be introduced here. The student will do well to compare this extract with the narrative of Virgil, Aen. 8. 193-270, and of Propertius, Eleg. 4. 9. Dionysius of Halicarnassus also has given the fable at full length, A. R. 1. 39, 40, but the account given by Livy 1. 7 includes all that is necessary in the way of illustration. CCE boves illuc Erytheïdas applicat heros Ec Emensus longi claviger orbis iter. Dumque huic hospitium domus est Tegeaea, vagantur Mane erat; excussus somno Tirynthius heros Traxerat aversos Cacus in antra ferox; Grande pater monstri Mulciber huius erat. Ora super postes affixaque brachia pendent, 5 ΙΟ 15 20 Quod simul evulsum est, fragor aethera terruit ipsum; 25 Ictaque subsedit pondere molis humus. 14. Prima movet Cacus collata proelia dextra, Ter quater adversi sedit in ore viri. Ille cadit, mistosque vomit cum sanguine fumos; At felix vates, ut Dis gratissima vixit, Possidet hunc Iani sic Dea mense diem. ROMVLVS ET REMVS. 30 35 40 FAS. III. I. THIS and the three following extracts contain a detailed exposition of the popular traditions with regard to the birth of Romulus and Remus, their exposure, preservation, and subsequent fortunes down to the death of the latter. In order that the particulars of this famous tale may be impressed upon the mind in a regular and connected form, the student should first consult the account given in Livy 1. 3. We shall here present him with a more circumstantial narrative derived from the various legends current among the Romans, collected, arranged, and combined by the skilful hand of Niebuhr. The old Roman legend ran as follows:-Procas, king of Alba, left two sons. Numitor, the elder, being weak and spiritless, suffered Amulius to wrest the government from him, and reduce him to his father's private estates. In the possession of these he lived rich, and, as he desired nothing more, secure: but the usurper dreaded the claims that might be set up by heirs of a different character. He therefore caused Numitor's son to be murdered, and appointed Silvia, his daughter, one of the vestal virgins. Amulius had no children, or at least only one daughter; so that the race of Anchises and Aphrodite seemed on the point of expiring, when the love of God prolonged it, in opposition to the ordinances of man, and gave it a lustre worthy of its origin. Silvia had gone into the sacred grove to draw water from the spring for the service of the temple: the sun quenched its rays: the sight of a wolf made her fly into a cave1; there Mars overpowered the timid virgin, and consoled her with the promise of noble children, as Poseidon did Tyro, the daughter of Salmoneus. But he did not protect her against the tyrant, nor did her protestations of her innocence save her: the condemnation of the unfortunate priestess seemed to be exacted by Vesta herself; for, at the moment of the childbirth, her image in the temple hid its eyes, her altar trembled, and her fire died away2: and Amulius was allowed to command that the mother and her twin babes should be drowned in the river3. In the Anio, Silvia exchanged her earthly existence for deity; and the river was enabled to carry the bole or cradle wherein the children were laid, into the Tiber, which had at that time overflowed its banks, far and wide, even to the foot of the woody hills. At the root of a wild fig-tree, the Ficus Ruminalis, which continued to be preserved and held sacred for many centuries at the foot of the Palatine, the cradle overturned. A she-wolf had come to slake her thirst in the stream; she heard the whimpering of the children, carried them into her den hard by1, made a bed for them, licked and suckled them: when they wanted something more than milk, a woodpecker, the bird sacred to Mars, brought them food: other birds consecrated to auguries hovered over 1 I insist in behalf of my Romans on the right of taking the poetical features wherever they are to be found, when they have dropt out of the common narrative. In the present case they are preserved by Servius on Aen. I. 274; the eclipse by Dionysius 2. 56, and Plutarch, Romul. c. 27. 2 Ovid, Fasti 3. 45. 3 In poetry of this sort we have no right to ask, why she was thrown into the river (whichever of the two it may have been), and not into the Alban lake. 4 It is remarkable how even those who did not renounce the poetry of the narrative, endeavoured to reduce it to a minimum; to the fostering care of the wolf at the moment when she first found the little orphans by the Ficus Ruminalis; as if in this case, as well as that of S. Denis, everything did not depend on the first step. The Lupercal itself bears witness to the genuine form of the fiction: and the conceptions of the two poets accorded the babes, to drive away noxious insects. This marvellous spectacle was beheld by Faustulus the shepherd of the royal flocks: the she-wolf gave way to him, and resigned the children to human nurture. Acca Larentia, the shepherd's wife, became their foster-mother; they grew up along with her twelve sons1, on the Palatine hill, in straw huts which they built themselves: that of Romulus was preserved by continual repairs down to the time of Nero, as a sacred relic. They were the most active of the shepherd lads, brave in fighting against wild beasts and robbers, maintaining their right against every one by their might, and converting might into right. Their spoils they shared with their comrades; the adherents of Romulus were called Quinctilii; those of Remus Fabii: and now the seeds of discord were sown. Their wantonness engaged them in disputes with the shepherds of the wealthy Numitor, who fed their flocks on Mount Aventine; so that here, as in the story of Evander and Cacus, we find the quarrel between the Palatine and the Aventine in the tales of the remotest times. Remus was taken by a stratagem of these neighbours, and dragged to Alba as a robber. A foreboding, the remembrance of his grandsons awakened by hearing the story of the two brothers, restrained Numitor from a hasty sentence: the culprit's foster-father hurried with Romulus to the city, and told the old man and the youths of their mutual relation. The youths undertook to avenge their own wrong and that of their house: with their trusty comrades, whom the danger of Remus had summoned into the city, they slew the king; and the people of Alba became again subject to the rule of Numitor. BELLICE, depositis clipeo paullisper et hasta, Mars, ades, et nitidas casside solve comas. with it. Virgil gives a description of the cave of Mavors. Ovid sings, Fast. 3. 53, 'Lacte quis infantes nescit crevisse ferino, Et picum expositis saepe tulisse cibos.' Nor did the poetical feature escape Trogus; cum saepius ad parvulos reverteretur.' The story of the woodpecker and its wμíoμara could not have been invented of new-born infants. 1 Masurius Sabinus in Gellius N. A. 6. 7. Ipse vides manibus peragi fera bella Minervae; 5 Tum quoque inermis eras, quum te Romana sacerdos Ventum erat ad molli declivem tramite ripam: Pectore, turbatas restituitque comas. Dum sedet, umbrosae salices volucresque canorae Blanda quies victis furtim subrepit ocellis, Mars videt hanc visamque cupit, potiturque cupitam, Silvia fit mater. Vestae simulacra feruntur Virgineas oculis opposuisse manus. 10 15 20 Ara deae certe tremuit, pariente ministra, 25 Et subiit cineres territa flamma suos. Haec ubi cognovit contemptor Amulius aequi Amne iubet mergi geminos. Scelus unda refugit: 30 Lacte quis infantes nescit crevisse ferino, Et picum expositis saepe tulisse cibos? Non ego te, tantae nutrix Larentia gentis, Nec taceam vestras, Faustule pauper, opes. Vester honos veniet, quum Larentalia dicam: 35 |