and then placed his grandson as military tribune under the year 338 ?

1198

The fallacious assumption of a historical semblance spreads yet further. The poem made Marcus Valerius Maximus fall at the lake Regillus: and the whole tale of that battle being scrupulously retained as historical, a Manius was invented, and that too in late times, to whom whatever was recorded of Marcus, the only one known in the days of Cicero and Livy' -in the Annals for the years after the battle might be transferred; even his surname of Maximus. The forger, supposing himself bound to reconcile the several stories, which one and all were to be received without a question, may have been perfectly honest, and have satisfied his conscience about the man whom he had made. How often have Manius and Marcus been confounded 99! But honest as he may have been, this itself is a fresh reason for rejoicing at our freedom from his prejudices, and for not allowing ourselves to be clogged by his perversity and narrowmindedness.

How long did the Valerii continue to hold the consulship for their tribe? when did the privilege come to an end? these are questions on which the Fasti can give us no information. The untenable character of the early Roman history does not spring from the nature of the constitution, so that certainty should begin with the consular government, because there is a register of the consuls for every year: its contents even on this side of the revolution are poetry and fiction: the Fasti, which are supposed to substantiate it, were framed with a view of filling up the given space of time. That the war with Porsenna should be placed by one set in the second, by others in the third year of the commonwealth, is far from an

1198 That is to say, in the manuscripts.

99 The abbreviation for Manius in the square character is the Etruscan M turned over to the right.

immaterial difference, with regard to the greatest event of the period: but it is of much higher importance to observe that this war probably belongs to a considerably later time, and that in the whole account of it there is nothing able to stand the test of the slightest criticism, as historical truth.

THE WAR WITH PORSENNA.

THE narrative, which since the loss of the ancient Annals has chanced to acquire the character of a traditional history, relates that, after the battle by the forest of Arsia, the Tarquins, to obtain more powerful succour, repaired to the court of Lar Porsenna 1200, king of Clusium; and that he, when his intercession had been rejected, led his army against Rome in their behalf. But this cannot possibly have gained universal currency. Cicero, though he was very well acquainted with the celebrated legend of Porsenna and Scævola1, says, neither the Veientines nor the Latins were able to replace Tarquinius on the Roman throne2. So that he either held the Veientine war in which Brutus falls, to be the same with Porsenna's: or he discriminated between the latter, as a war of conquest, and the attempts of the neighbouring states to place the government of Rome in the hands of the man who had thrown himself on their protection, and who was to pay them dear for it. And such no doubt was the older and genuine representation.

In this narrative then the Etruscans under Porsenna march singly against Rome: and so the story runs in Livy it is a palpable forgery in Dionysius to make Octavius Mamilius and the Latins take part with him: the son-in-law of Tarquinius forsooth could not possibly

1200 The name is spelt both Porsena and Porsenna: it is a decided blunder however in Martial to shorten the penultimate.

1 Pro Sest. 21. (48). Paradox. I. 2.

2 Tusc. Quæst. III. 12. (27). Tarquinius cum restitui in regnum nec Veientium nec Latinorum armis potuisset.

remain inactive. In the poetical account the Etruscan army appears at once and with an overwhelming force before the Janiculum; and the Romans in the fort upon it are overpowered and fly to the river. As the enemy was pursuing them, he was met by Horatius Cocles, to whom the duty of guarding the bridge had been entrusted, and by his comrades Sp. Larcius and T. Herminius. Three men saved Rome, as three had won for her the dominion over Alba; and in this case no doubt there

was one from each tribe 1203 While they kept off the assailing host, the crowd behind them by their order tore down the bridge: immovably they bore up against the thousands of the enemy. M. Horatius bad his companions also go back, and withstood the shock of the foe alone, like Ajax, until the crash of the falling timbers and the shout of the workmen announced that the work was accomplisht. Then he prayed to father Tiberinus, that he would receive him and his arms into his sacred stream, and would save him; and he plunged into the waters, and swam across to the city, amid all the arrows of the enemy. As a mark of gratitude every inhabitant, when the famine was raging, brought him all the provisions he could stint himself of: afterward the republic raised a statue to him, and gave him as much land as he could plough round in a day.

1203 The Horatii were one of the minor houses: ek twv vewtépwv. Dionysius v. 23. The tradition too was uncertain whether they or the Curiatii fought for Alba: Livy 1. 24: above p. 342. Hence it was deemed an act of presumption toward his collegue of the higher tribe, for the consul Horatius to dedicate the Capitol.

4 One cannot but be annoyed at the stupidity which thought Horatius had purchased his glory too cheaply if he came off without a wound, and so made a javelin pierce him through the thigh and lame him for life. Dionysius 1. 24. Livy keeps clear of such wretched absurdities. It is another thing, when Polybius, whether after different accounts, or to get rid of every thing fabulous on so very momentous an occasion, writes that Cocles perished in the river. vi. 53.

once on a

The statue stood in the Comitium 1205: time it was struck by lightning, and by the advice of perfidious aruspexes was removed to another spot where the sun never shone upon it. Their fraud however was detected: the statue was placed on the Vulcanal above the Comitium, and the Etruscans were put to death: this brought good fortune to the republic. In those days the boys sang in the streets:

Who ill aredeth shall his own areding rue:

and the saying continued from that time forth in the mouth of the people®.

That the meaning of the expression circumarare in the grant to Cocles should be, that he was to have as much land as was inclosed within a furrow which at sunset again reached the point it had started from at sunrise as Sultan Mohammed endows the hero of the Turkish ballads with as much of the plain of Macedonia as he can ride round in a day-would be inconceivable, if we had any right to look here for historical tradition. For such a line would comprehend pretty nearly a square league and more than two hundred years after, when Italy had been subdued, but fifty jugers were bestowed on the conqueror of Pyrrhus; which he himself reproved as an act of extravagant prodigality*. The republic had neither means nor will to make such large grants: but the poet might overlook both these objections. The narrow limits within which the old Roman manners and

1205 What Livy calls the Comitium, Dionysius calls ev TO KρATÍσTY τῆς ἀγορᾶς τόπῳ: which should be carefully noticed with a view to other topographical statements.

6 Gellius IV. 5. Malum consilium consultori pessimum est.

* Pliny xvi. 4. Valerius Maximus iv. 3. 5. Columella 1. 3. Curius Dentatus, prospero ductu parta victoria, ob eximiam virtutem deferente populo præmii nomine quinquaginta soli jugera, supra consularem triumphalemque fortunam putavit esse: repudiatoque publico munere, plebeia mensura (septenum jugerum) contentus est.