founder of the ceremonial laws of Rome. Instructed by the nymph Egeria, who had wedded him in her human form, and introduced him to the society of her sisters in the sacred grove, he regulated the entire worship of the Gods:-the Pontifices, who watched studiously and considerately over the preservation of religious institutions both amongst individuals and in the state,-the Flamens, who worshipped the Supreme Gods in the temple,-the chaste virgins of Vesta,-the Salii, who solemnized the festivals of the Gods with martial dances. He wrote out for the use of the people directions how they should offer acceptable adoration and prayer to the Gods. To him were revealed those forms of incantation by which the supreme Jove was adjured to communicate his will by lightnings and the flight of birds; phoenomena which others were compelled to await at the pleasure of the deity, who frequently withheld them from such as were destined to destruction. He was taught this incantation by Faunus and Silvanus, rural deities, whom at the suggestion of Egeria, he enticed and bound in fetters. Jupiter tolerated the boldness of this holy man: upon the supplications of Numa he released the people from the horrible obligation of human sacrifices. The daring Tullus, who had insolently attempted to imitate him, was struck dead by a flash of lightning in the midst of these incantations, in the Temple of Jupiter Elicius. Under Numa Rome enjoyed a profound peace. The Temple of Janus, built by him, remained constantly shut; and he never waged a war during a reign of forty years. His demise was like that of the beloved of the gods in the golden age-full of years he fell asleep in death. CHAPTER XVI. ORIGIN AND NATURE OF EARLY THE keepers of the Sibylline books have recorded, that the first sæcular festival after the banishment of the King, was celebrated in the year 298, and thenceforward perpetually, after an interval of one hundred and ten years, as the duration of one Sæculum". This statement is at variance with notices in the annals which assign the sæcular solemnities to very different years. These annalists would have had no weight, if they had really contradicted the authentic books; but we need not admit that the latter noticed any thing else than the conclusion of the Sæculum, and the epoch at which the commencement of a new one was to be celebrated by the people, according to the injunctions of the ceremonial law, in gratitude for the continuation of their existence to a new æra; and without any regard to the 5 Censorinus, c. 17. feast having been postponed by circumstances, which frequently occurs in votive festivals to the Gods. If, according to the same rule, we go back to the first historically-marked sæcular section, then the termination of the first, or rather the commencement of the second Sæculum, falls in the year of the city 78. I say, the commencement of the second, because it is manifestly much more probable, (as, amongst the Azteks", who looked forward to the renovation of their Sæculum with anxious solicitude,) that the commencement of a new period should be celebrated with joyous rites, rather than the close of the expiring æra, which, like every thing of death and termination, must awaken more of a melancholy feeling. But this year, according to an ancient and valuable chronology, is the year of Numa's death, and the first of the reign of Tullus Hostilius. I allude to the Chronicle of Eusebius, translated by St. Jerome 7; for, instead of a reign of forty-three years, which is assigned to Numa by the calculations both of Cato and Varro, Eusebius has only allotted him forty years, and thirty-eight to Romulus, which is one year more than the received chronologies admit. Hence, therefore, as Eusebius includes in these the year of Interregnum, the beginning of Tullus's reign certainly occurs in Ol. 26. 3, or 79 of Cato's reckoning. The importance of Eusebius' Chronicle must be evident to every one who has consulted it. It con See Chapter XIX. on the Sæcular Cycle. 7 Thes. Tempor. Scaligeri, Ol. XVI. 3. p. 118. Ed. 2d. tains some admirable and unique extracts from the chronologist Africanus, who had free access to writers whose statements differ exceedingly from those which were exclusively prevalent in later ages. They well deserved to occupy the attention of that great man, who has laboured at their restoration, with the energies of a lively genius, and boundless eruditionR. He also could have detected, in the clearest manner, what, under the appearance of a fabrication, was in reality only a different statement, if, even to him, the subject had not been inexhaustible. He certainly has not perceived-and. I make this remark, lest his silence should be taken as authority-that Africanus, in compiling his Roman Chronology, has had in view that earliest of annalists, Fabius Pictor. Fabius adopted the first year of the eighth Olympiad, as the computed year of the foundation of 8 Scaliger stands on an eminence of vigorous, philological, and general learning, which none after him has attained; and so profoundly was he versed in science of every kind, that he was able to seize upon every thing which came before him, convert it to his purpose, and decide upon it with a peculiar felicity of judgment. What is the book-learned Salmasius, in comparison with him? And why does not France set up Scaliger against Leibnitz? Excepting Italy and Greece, there is no spot more sacred to the philologer, than the hall of the University of Leyden, where the portraits of learned men, from Scaliger, in a royal mantle of purple, to Ruhnkenius, are hung up, around that of the great William of Orange, Father of the University; the erection of which Leyden implored, as the noblest recompence for sufferings and endurance more than human. Nordwyk also, general of the republican city, was himself a great philologist. |