Regillus, 1. 356, note. The Fabian pride refers to the action of the troops of Caeso Fabius when they refused to storm the camp of the enemy, and so, by leaving the victory incomplete, deprived the general of his triumph.

105. The fiercest Quinctius: A son of the great Cincinnatus, banished for his opposition to the Plebs.

106. The haughtiest Claudius: Grandfather of the Claudius of this poem.

111. No crier to the pollings: The Romans were summoned to the elections by word of mouth and by the sound of a trumpet.

115. The holy fillets: The fillets were the insignia of the priesthood and only Patricians might be priests. They were small bands worn on the hair. The purple gown was worn by consuls and equites on public occasions.

state. It was inlaid In curule chairs sat

116. The curule chair was the chair of with ivory and had neither arms nor back. the Fathers at the Eastern Gate in the Battle of the Lake Regillus, stanza 37, waiting for news of the battle. In these chairs the Gauls found the City Fathers sitting when they raided the city in 390 B. C.

The Car is the chariot used in triumphal processions: the laurel crown the wreath worn in such triumphs by the victor.

117.

120.

Press us for your cohorts: Impress.
Usance: Usury.

122. Your dens of torment: The debtors' prisons in Rome were notorious for horrors.

124. Holes: Stocks.

held.

Wooden frames in which the feet were

130. Ascanius, son of Eneas, is said to have founded Alba Longa three hundred years before Romulus laid the walls of Rome. See The Prophecy of Capys.

133. Corinthian mirrors: Corinth, like Capua, was famous for its luxury. It produced fine bronze; mirrors in classic times were made of polished metal.

144. The asterisks throughout this poem are Macaulay's own. See his Introduction for the portion of the story which he has here omitted. He calls his verses the fragments of a lay.

146.

148.

149.

153.

157.

The Roman butchering was done in the open street.
The great sewer: The Cloaca Maxima.

Whittle: Butcher's knife.

Why does he use the past tense?

My civic crown: A crown of oak leaves was granted to any soldier who saved the life of a Roman freeman in battle by killing his opponent.

162. His urn: In which the ashes were kept after his dead body had been burned.

193. O dwellers in the nether gloom: An invocation of the gods of the lower world, especially the Furies.

213. Cypress crown: The cypress is the tree of churchyards, especially in Italy.

217. Crafts: Occupations: as in our phrase "Arts and Crafts." 221, 222. Scan these lines.

228. The Pincian Hill: One of the Seven Hills, then on the outskirts of the town.

242. Tribunes! Hurrah for Tribunes! ballad is to describe this popular rising.

The occasion of the

246. Macaulay says of this family in his Introduction: "In war they were not distinguished by skill or valor. One of them had been entrusted with an army and had failed ignominiously. None of them had been honored with a Triumph. None of them had achieved any martial exploit."

249. Caius of Corioli: Shakespeare's Coriolanus, who took his name from the town he had conquered. See note, line 104.

251. The yoke of Furius: Marcus Furius Camillus drove the Gauls from Rome after they had captured it in 390 B. C. See The Prophecy of Capys, 193-196, note.

257. A Cossus: Surname of a house belonging to the gens Cornelia. See Lake Regillus, stanza 23.

277.

278.

Sea-marks: Light-houses.

The great Thunder Cape: See Geographical Index, p. 316. It was a promontory in Greece, opposite Brindisi, of a volcanic nature.

286. The ridicule and unrestrained abuse heaped upon Appius give a truly popular quality to this Lay, quite different from the dignity of all the others.

THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS.

In order fully to enjoy this Lay it is necessary to bear in mind the occasion on which it is supposed to be sung. Macaulay's picturesque Introduction gives a full account of this occasion, the first and dramatic victory of the Romans over the Greeks, 275 B. C. It will be noticed that Horatius is presented as composed three hundred and sixty years after the founding of the city: The Prophecy of Capys four hundred and seventy-nine years after. As Macaulay tells us, the age during which ballad poetry could be composed is drawing to an end and the period of literary poetry is about to dawn. But this Ballad, supposed to be written last, carries us back to the very foundation of Rome and thus spans the whole period which Macaulay had in mind.

1. Amulius, grand-uncle of Romulus, founder of Rome, was king of the city Alba Longa, which had been founded by Ascanius, son of Æneas, on the hillside above the Alban Lake. Amulius dragged Numitor, his brother, from the throne and by the advice of Camers, the high-priest, buried Numitor's daughter, Rhea Silvia.

alive, and threw the two baby boys who had been born to her and the God Mars into the Tiber. Through the care of the gods, however, the little twins were saved and nursed by a wolf till a shepherd found them and adopted them as his foster-children.

4.

25.

Aventine: Aventinus was a descendant of Eneas.

Notice the change in the metre: it would accompany a change in the music, to a slower and more solemn strain.

56. And on the blade a head: This picture has a barbaric cast. Of Irish Cuchulin we are told: "In one hand he carried nine heads, nine also in the other: the which in token of valor and of skill in arms he held at arms' length and in sight of all the army shook." "Head-hunting" still lingers among the Igorots in the Philippines. The picture Macaulay draws here indicates an earlier epoch than do the pictures of the other Lays.

80. Club and axe and bow: Very different weapons from those used in The Battle of the Lake Regillus.

94. Capys the sightless seer:

Can you remember any other

instances in literature of blind old minstrels?

115. Arabian perfumes and Syrian dyes were loved and much used in the more effeminate days of Rome. Cf. Lady Macbeth: "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand."

121. Rome is not to be a merely commercial city: nor a center of effeminate luxury: nor a health resort. All three were familiar types to the ancients.

132. The spirit of thy sire: This is the text of the following stanzas. The present stanza is Macaulay's interpretation of the Roman spirit.

147. She dies in silence: For the same legend see Byron, Childe Harold, Canto IV, line 185.

149.

150.

Pomona: The Roman goddess of fruits and orchards.
Liber: An Italian rural deity.

151. Pales: A rustic divinity, it is uncertain whether god or goddess. All these are the native Italian gods,-no importations from Greece.

155. The epithet ivory is especially appropriate for the moonlight of the South. The chestnut is a common tree in Italy.

156. Thy father: The military genius of the Romans probably suggested the myth that the founder of the city was the son of Mars.

169. The soft Campanian: The fertile region south of Latium bred an effeminate race to whom contemptuous reference is often made in Latin literature.

175. His marble Nymphs: The distinctive mark of each race as conceived by the fierce and haughty Roman is given in a line or half-line.

176. Scrolls of wordy lore: Ancient books were written upon leaves of papyrus or parchment which were joined end to end and rolled on a long stick. The scroll was then unrolled to be read.

177. The pilum: The long Roman spear. The trench was used in defense, the mound in attack. The Roman legion was made up of different numbers at different times, usually five or six thousand, divided into ten cohorts, each officered by six centurions or captains of a hundred.

181. See Virginia, 116. The Triumphs in which the conqueror was borne in his triumphant car up the Capitoline Hill to the Temple of Jove with his captives in his train, were the culminating moments of the public life of Rome. It was on the occasion of such a triumph that this Lay is supposed to be sung.

185.

189.

The Volscian: The reference is to the wars of Coriolanus.
The Lucum08: See Horatius 1, note.

191. The proud Samnites: Rome fought three wars against the Samnites, who lived southeast of Latium.

193. The Gaul shall come against thee: In this rapid prediction of the victorious advance of Rome, Macaulay dismisses most of her victories in one or two lines: but he puts victory over the Gauls in a four-line stanza by itself, to mark its importance by isolating it. The more special reference is probably to the famous victory over Brennus, in 390 B. C., when the cackling of the geese saved the city.

197. The Greek shall come against thee: Now we come to the especial victory which the Lay is written to commemorate. See Macaulay's Introduction.

200. The huge earth-shaking beast: The elephant, which so terrified the Romans that they were hard put to it to gain the victory.

207. False Tarentum: It was "gay Tarentum" in The Battle of the Lake Regillus.

215. Mark the change of metre. It gives an effect of gloating slowly over the feast.

217. Hurrah! for the good weapons: The Singer strikes his instrument more loudly and his voice rings forth.

225. Hurrah! for the great triumph: Here comes the prophetic vision of the Triumph, sung to an audience which has just witnessed the Triumph itself or perhaps awaits its coming.

230. The Red King: Pyrrhus. His name means Red.

232.

Recall the story in the Introduction.

235, etc. These are the spoils of the East, the richest, as Macaulay reminds us, ever yet seen in a Roman triumph.

249. Manius Curius: His other name was Dentatus. He had defeated Pyrrhus and the Epirotes in a great battle at Beneventum in Samnium.

257. Rosea

Mevania: Rosea was famous for its horses, Mevania for its beautiful white bulls such as may be seen in old Italian pictures of festal processions.

266. The Suppliant's Grove: The Asylum of Romulus. See Regillus 721, note.

269-288. This last stanza in a superb sweep looks out over the whole expanse of the Roman Empire to be, from Greece, Syria, Egypt, and Africa, to far Northern lands and the remoter East. The Lay places us at the starting point of Roman history and concludes with a summary of the glory of Rome at its zenith.

277. The reference is to the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

276. Dark red colonnades:

stone much used in Egypt.

Colonnades made of porphyry, a

280. Byrsa: See Geographical Index, p. 482.

285. Where Atlas: Look up the giant Atlas in a classical dictionary. Here the reference is rather to the African mountain range named after him.

IVRY.

NOTES.

Ivry is a town forty miles west of Paris. Here on May 14, 1590, Henry IV, called Henry of Navarre, at the head of the Huguenots, won a victory over the Catholics led by the Duke of Mayenne, who was a brother of the Duke of Guise. This battle was an episode in the long struggle between the French Huguenots and the Catholics, which lasted from 1560 into the 17th century. It occurred during the eighth civil war, which was known as the War of the Three Henrys-Henry III, King of France, Henry, Duke of Guise, and Henry of Navarre, later Henry IV.

Line 2. King Henry of Navarre, Henry IV of France, son of Jeanne D'Aubray, Queen of Navarre. He succeeded to the throne

of France in 1588, on the assassination of Henry III. In 1593 he turned Catholic, to win the suffrages of the Catholic party in possession of the Capital, with the historical remark that "Paris was well worth a Mass." He remains to this day a favorite hero of the French people.

5. Rochelle, a French seaport, at this time one of the chief maritime cities of France. During the Reformation it was a centre of Calvinism. After the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, it held out for six months and a half against the Catholic army, which was finally obliged to raise the siege.

12. The Army of the League: This was the League of the Catholics against the Protestants, formed in 1575 by the instigation of Catherine de Medici under the leadership of the brilliant and popular Duke of Guise.

14. Appenzel is a Canton in Switzerland, a Catholic centre. Egmont's Flemish spears: The soldiers of the Count of Egmont, a former governor of the Netherlands, who had been beheaded for treason in 1568.