stopped up all the outlets in the rear. A fog rising from the lake now spread itself over the army of the consul, but the high lands were in the sunshine, and all the different corps in ambush looked toward the hill of Torre for the order of attack. Hannibal gave the signal, and moved down from his post on the height. At the same moment all his troops on the eminences behind and in the flank of Flaminius rushed forwards as it were with one accord into the plain. The Romans, who were forming their array in the mist, suddenly heard the shouts of the enemy amongst them, on every side, and before they could fall into their ranks, or draw their swords, or see by whom they were attacked, felt at once that they were surrounded and lost. There are two little rivulets which run from the Gualandra into the lake. The traveller crosses the first of these at about a mile after he comes into the plain, and this divides the Tuscan from the Papal territories. The second, about a quarter of a mile further on, is called " the bloody rivulet; and the peasants point out an open spot to the left between the" Sanguinetto" and the hills, which, they say, was the principal scene of slaughter. The other part of the plain is covered with thick-set olive trees in corn grounds, and is nowhere quite level except near the edge of the lake. It is, indeed, most probable that the battle was fought near this end of the valley, for the six thousand Romans, who, at the beginning of the action, broke through the enemy, escaped to the summit of an eminence which must have been in this quarter, otherwise they would have had to traverse the whole plain, and to pierce through the main army of Hannibal. The Romans fought desperately for three hours; but the death of Flaminius was the signal for a general dispersion. The Carthaginian horse then burst in upon the fugitives, and the lake, the marsh about Borghetto, but chiefly the plain of the Sanguinetto and the passes of the Gualandra, were strewed with dead. Near some old walls on a bleak ridge to the left above the rivulet, many human bones have been repeatedly found, and this has confirmed the pretensions and the name of the "stream of blood." In the north some Every district of Italy has its hero. painter is the usual genius of the place, and the foreign Julio Romano more than divides Mantua with her native Virgil.1 To the south we hear of Roman names. Near Thrasimene tradition is still faithful to the fame of an enemy, and Hannibal the Carthaginian is the only ancient name remembered on the banks of the Perugian lake. Flaminius is unknown; but the postillions on that road have been taught to show the very Of all who fought spot where Il Console Romano was slain. and fell in the battle of Thrasimene, the historian himself has, besides the generals and Maharbal, preserved indeed only a single name. You overtake the Carthaginian again on the same road to Rome. The antiquary, that is, the hostler of the posthouse at Spoleto, tells you that his town repulsed the victorious enemy, and shows you the gate still called Porta di Annibale. It is hardly worth while to remark that a French travel writer, well known by the name of the President Dupaty, saw Thrasimene in the lake of Bolsena, which lay conveniently on his way from Sienna to Rome. No. XXIV. - - STATUE OF POMPEY. "And thou, dread statue! still existent in The austerest form of naked majesty." Stanza Ixxxvii. The projected division of the Spada Pompey has already been recorded by the historian of the Decline and Fall of the 1 About the middle of the twelfth century the coins of Mantua bore on one side the image and figure of Virgil. Zecca d' Italia, pl. xvii. i. 6. Voyage dans le Milanais, &c. par A. 2. Millin, tom. ii. pag. 294. Paris, 1817. 2 Storia delle Arti, &c. lib. ix. cap. 1. pag. 321, 322. tom. ii. 3 Cicer. Epist. ad Atticum, xi. 6 4 Published by Causeus, in his Museum Ramanum. 5 Storia delle Arti, &c. 1. ix. c. i. 6 Sueton. in vit. August. cap. 31. and in vit. C. J. Cæsar. cap. 88. Ap pian says it was burnt down. 7 Antiq. Rom. lib. i. 8 Liv. Hist. lib. x. cap. lxix. Roman Empire. Mr. Gibbon found it in the memorials of Flaminius Vacca; and it may be added to his mention of 't, that Pope Julius III. gave the contending owners five hundred crowns for the statue, and presented it to Cardinal Capo di Ferro, who had prevented the judgment of Solomon from being executed upon the image. In a more civilised age this statue was exposed to an actual operation; for the French who acted the Brutus of Voltaire in the Coliseum, resolved that their Cæsar should fall at the base of that Pompey, which was supposed to have been sprinkled with the blood of the original dictator. The nine-foot hero was therefore removed to the arena of the amphitheatre, and, to facilitate its transport, suffered the temporary amputation of its right arm. The republican tragedians had to plead that the arm was a restoration but their accusers do not believe that the integrity of the statue would have protected it. The love of finding every coincidence has discovered the true Cæsarian ichor in a stain near the right knee; but colder criticism has rejected not only the blood, but the portrait, and assigned the globe of power rather to the first of the emperors than to the last of the republican masters of Rome. Winkelmann 2 is loth to allow an heroic statue of a Roman citizen, but the Grimani Agrippa, a contemporary almost, is heroic; and naked Roman figures were only very rare, not absolutely forbidden. The face accords much better with the "hominem integrum et castum et gravem 3," than with any of the busts of Augustus, and is too stern for him who was beautiful, says Suetonius, at all periods of his life. The pretended likeness to Alexander the Great cannot be discerned, but the traits resemble the medal of Pompey.4 The objectionable globe may not have been an ill applied flattery to him who found Asia Minor the boundary, and left it the centre of the Roman empire. It seems that Winkelmann has made a mistake in thinking that no proof of the identity of this statue with that which received the bloody sacrifice can be derived from the spot where it was discovered. 5 Flaminius Vacca says sotto una cantina, and this cantina is known to have been in the Vicolo de' Leutari, near the Cancellaria; a position corresponding exactly to that of the Janus before the basilica of Pompey's theatre, to which Augustus transferred the statue after the curia was either burnt or taken down. Part of the Pompeian shade, the portico, existed in the beginning of the XVth century, and the atrium was still called Satrum. So says Blondus. At all events, so imposing is the stern majesty of the statue, and so memorable is the story, that the play of the imagination leaves no room for the exercise of the judgment, and the fiction, if a fiction it is, operates on the spectator with an effect not less powerful than truth. No. XXV. THE BRONZE Wolf. "And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome!" Stanza lxxxviii. Ancient Rome, like modern Sienna, abounded most probably with images of the foster-mother of her founder; but there were two she-wolves of whom history makes particular mention. One of these, of brass in ancient work, was seen by Dionysius at the temple of Romulus, under the Palatine, and is universally believed to be that mentioned by the Latin historian, as having been made from the money collected by a fine on usurers, and as standing under the Ruminal figtree. 8 The other was that which Cicero 9 has celebrated both in prose and verse, and which the historian Dion also records as having suffered the same accident as is alluded to by the orator. 10 The question agitated by the antiquaries is, 9" Tum statua Natte, tum simulacra Deorum, Romulusque et Remus cum altrice bellua vi fulminis icts conciderunt." D.Divinat. ii. 20. "Tactus est ille etiam qui hanc urbem condidit Romulus, quem inauratum in Capttolio parvum atque lactantem, uberibus lupinis inhianter fuisse meministis. In Catilin. iii. 8. "Hic silvestris erat Romani nominis altrix De Consulatu, lib. ii. (lib. i. de Divinat, cap. ii.) 10 Dion. Hist. lib. xxxvii. p. 37. edit. Rob. Steph. 1548. whether the wolf now in the Conservator's Palace is that of Livy and Dionysius, or that of Cicero, or whether it is neither one nor the other. The earlier writers differ as much as the moderns: Lucius Faunus says, that it is the one alluded to by both, which is impossible, and also by Virgil, which may be. Fulvius Ursinus 2 calls it the wolf of Dionysius, and Marlianus 3 talks of it as the one mentioned by Cicero. To him Rycquius tremblingly assents. 4 Nardini is inclined to suppose it may be one of the many wolves preserved in ancient Rome; but of the two rather bends to the Ciceronian statue. Montfaucon 6 mentions it as a point without doubt. Of the latter writers the decisive Winkelmann 7 proclaims it as having been found at the church of Saint Theodore, where, or near where, was the temple of Romulus, and consequently makes it the wolf of Dionysius. His authority is Lucius Faunus, who, however, only says that it was placed, not found, at the Ficus Ruminalis, by the Comitium, by which he does not seem to allude to the church of Saint Theodore. Rycquius was the first to make the mistake, and Winkelmann followed Rycquius. Flaminius Vacca tells quite a different story, and says he had heard the wolf with the twins was found near the arch of Septimus Severus. The commentator on Winkelmann is of the same opinion with that learned person, and is incensed at Nardini for not having remarked that Cicero, in speaking of the wolf struck with lightning in the Capitol, makes use of the past tense. But, with the Abate's leave, Nardini does not positively assert the statue to be that mentioned by Cicero, and, if he had, the assumption would not perhaps have been so exceedingly indiscreet. The Abate himself is obliged to own that there are marks very like the scathing of lightning in the hinder legs of the present wolf; and to get rid of this adds, that the wolf seen by Dionysius might have been also struck by lightning or otherwise injured. Let us examine the subject by a reference to the words of Cicero. The orator in two places seems to particularise the Romulus and the Remus, especially the first, which his audience remembered to have been in the Capitol, as being struck with lightning. In his verses he records that the twins and wolf both fell, and that the latter left behind the marks of her feet. Cicero does not say that the wolf was consumed: and Dion only mentions that it fell down, without alluding, as the Abate has made him, to the force of the blow, or the firmness with which it had been fixed. The whole strength, therefore, of the Abate's argument hangs upon the past tense; which, however, may be somewhat diminished by remarking that the phrase only shows that the statue was not then standing in its former position. Winkelmann has observed that the present twins are modern; and it is equally clear that there are marks of gilding on the wolf, which might therefore be supposed to make a part of the ancient group. It is known that the sacred images of the Capitol were not destroyed when injured by time or accident, but were put into certain under-ground depositories, called favissæ.o It may be thought possible that the wolf had been so deposited, and had been replaced in some conspicuous situation when the Capitol was rebuilt by Vespasian. Rycquius, without mentioning his authority, tells that it was transferred from the Comitium to the Lateran, and thence brought to the Capitol. If it was found near the arch of Severus, it may have 1 Luc. Fauni de Antiq. Urb. Rom. lib. ii. cap. vii. ap. Sallengre, tom. i. p. 217. In his seventeenth chapter he repeats, that the statues were there, but not that they were found there. 2 Ap. Nardini, Roma Vetus, l. v. c. iv. 3 Marliani Urb. Rom. Topograph. lib. ii. cap. ix. He mentions another wolf and twins in the Vatican, lib. v. cap. xxi.” 4 Just. Rycquil. de Capit. Roman. Comm. cap. xxiv. pag. 250. edit. Lugd. Bat. 1696. 5 Nardini, Roma Vetus, lib. v. cap. iv. 6" Lupa hodieque in capitolinis prostat ædibus, cum vestigio fulminis quo ictam narrat Cicero." Diarium Italic. tom. i. p. 174. 7 Storia delle Arti, &c. lib. iii. cap. iii. s. ii. note 10. Winklemann has made a strange blunder in the note, by saying the Ciceronian wolf was not in the Capitol, and that Dion was wrong in saying so. 8 Flam. Vacca, Memorie, num. iii. pag. i. ap. Montfaucon, Diar. Ital. tom.i. 9 Luc. Faun. ibid. 10 See note to stanza LXXX. in "Historical Illustrations." 11" Romuli nutrix Lupa honoribus est affecta divinis, et ferrem, si animal been one of the images which Orosius 10 says was thrown down in the Forum by lightning when Alaric took the city. That it is of very high antiquity the workmanship is a decisive proof; and that circumstance induced Winkelman to believe it the wolf of Dionysius. The Capitoline wolf, however, may have been of the same early date as that at the temple of Romulus. Lactantius 11 asserts that in his time the Romans worshipped a wolf; and it is known that the Lupercalia held out to a very late period 12 after every other observance of the ancient superstition had totally expired. This may account for the preservation of the ancient image longer than the other early symbols of Paganism. It may be permitted, however, to remark, that the wolf was a Roman symbol, but that the worship of that symbol is an inference drawn by the zeal of Lactantius. The early Christian writers are not to be trusted in the charges which they make against the Pagans. Eusebius accused the Romans to their faces of worshipping Simon Magus, and raising a statue to him in the island of the Tyber. The Romans had probably never heard of such a person before, who came, however, to play a considerable, though scandalous part in the church history, and has left several tokens of his aerial combat with St. Peter at Rome; notwithstanding that an inscription found in this very island of the Tyber showed the Simon Magus of Eusebius to be a certain indigenal god called Semo Sangus or Fidius. 13 Even when the worship of the founder of Rome had been abandoned, it was thought expedient to humour the habits of the good matrons of the city, by sending them with their sick infants to the church of Saint Theodore, as they had before carried them to the temple of Romulus. 14 The prac tice is continued to this day; and the site of the above church seems to be thereby identified with that of the temple; so that if the wolf had been really found there, as Winkelmann says, there would be no doubt of the present statue being that seen by Dionysius. But Faunus, in saying that it was at the Ficus Ruminalis by the Comitium, is only talking of its ancient position as recorded by Pliny; and even if he had been remarking where it was found, would not have alluded to the church of St. Theodore, but to a very different place, near which it was then thought the Ficus Ruminalis had been, and also the Comitium; that is, the three columns by the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice, at the corner of the Palatine looking on the Forum. It is, in fact, a mere conjecture where the image was ac tually dug up; and, perhaps, on the whole, the marks of the gilding, and of the lightning, are a better argument in favour of its being the Ciceronian wolf than any that can be adduced for the contrary opinion. At any rate, it is reasonably selected in the text of the poem as one of the most interesting relics of the ancient city 15, and is certainly the figure, if not the very animal, to which Virgil alludes in his beautiful verses : "Geminos huic ubera circum Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem Impavidos: illam tereti cervice reflexam Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua." 16 ipsum fuisset, cujus figuram gerit." Lactant. de Falsa Religione, lib. I. cap. II. pag. 101. edit. varior. 1660; that is to say, he would rather adere a wolf than a prostitute. His commentator has observed that the opinion of Livy concerning Laurentia being figured in this wolf was not universal. Strabo thought so. Rycquius is wrong in saying that Lactantius mentions the wolf was in the Capitol. 12 To A. D. 496. "Quis credere possit," says Baronius [Ann. Eccies. tom. viii. p. 602. in an. 496], “viguisse adhuc Romæ ad Gelasii tempora, que fuere ante exordia urbis allata in Italiam Lupercalis? Gelasius wrote a letter which occupies four folio pages to Andromachus the senator, and others, to show that the rites should be given up. 13 Eccles. Hist. lib. ii. cap. xiii. p. 40. Justin Martyr had told the story before; but Baronius himself was obliged to detect this fable. See Nardini, Roma Vet. lib. vii. cap. xii. 14 Rione xii. Ripa, accurata e succincta Descrizione, &c. di Roma Moderna, dell' Ab. Ridolf. Venuti, 1766. 15 Donatus, lib. xi. cap. 18. gives a medal representing on one side the wolf in the same position as that in the Capitol; and in the reverse the wolf with the head not reverted. It is of the time of Antoninus Pius. 16 Æn. viii. 631. See Dr. Middleton, in his Letter from Rome, who inclines to the Ciceronian wolf, but without examining the subject. "For the Roman's mind Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould." - Stanza xc. It is possible to be a very great man and to be still very inferior to Julius Cæsar, the most complete character, so Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans themselves. The first general-the only triumphant politician - inferior to none in eloquence-comparable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, orators, and philosophers that ever appeared in the world an author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his travelling carriage-at one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings- fighting and making love at the same moment, and willing to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight of the Fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Cæsar appear to his contemporaries and to those of the subsequent ages who were the most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius. But we must not be so much dazzled with his surpassing glory, or with his magnanimous, his amiable qualities, as to forget the decision of his impartial countrymen : HE WAS JUSTLY SLAIN.1 No. XXVII. - - EGERIA. "Egeria! sweet creation of some heart Which found no mortal resting-place so fair The respectable authority of Flaminius Vacca would ineline us to believe in the claims of the Egerian grotto.2 He assures us that he saw an inscription in the pavement, stating that the fountain was that of Egeria, dedicated to the nymphs. The inscription is not there at this day; but Montfaucon quotes two lines of Ovid3 from a stone in the Villa Giustiniani, which he seems to think had been brought from the same grotto. This grotto and vailey were formerly frequented in summer, and particularly the first Sunday in May, by the modern Romans, who attached a salubrious quality to the fountain which trickles from an orifice at the bottom of the vault, and, overflowing the little pools, creeps down the matted grass into the brook below. The brook is the Ovidian Almo, whose name and qualities are lost in the modern Aquataccio. The valley itself is called Valle di Caffarelli, from the dukes of that name who made over their fountain to the Pallavicini, with sixty rubbia of adjoining land. There can be little doubt that this long dell is the Egerian valley of Juvenal, and the pausing place of Umbritius, notwithstanding the generality of his commentators have supposed the descent of the satirist and his friend to have been into the Arician grove, where the nymph met Hippolitus, and where she was more peculiarly worshipped. The step from the Porta Capena to the Alban hill, fifteen miles distant, would be too considerable, unless we were to believe in the wild conjecture of Vossius, who makes that gate travel from its present station, where he pretends it was during the reign of the Kings, as far as the Arician grove, and 1 "Jure casus existimetur," says Suetonius, after a fair estimate of his character, and making use of a phrase which was a formula in Livy's time. "Melium jure cæsum pronuntiavit, etiam si regni crimine insons fuerit:" [lib. iv. cap. 48.] and which was continued in the legal Judgments pronounced in justifiable homicides, such as killing housebreakers. See Sueton. in Vit. C. J. Cæsar, with the commentary of Pitiscus, p. 184. 2 Memorie, &c. ap. Nardini, pag. 13. He does not give the inscription. 3"In villa Justiniana extat ingens lapis quadratus solidus, in quo sculpta hæc duo Ovidii carmina sunt: 'Egeria est quæ præbet aquas dea grata Camœnis Illa Numa conjunx consiliumque.' Qui lapis videtur eodem Egerise fonte, aut ejus vicinia isthuc compartatus." Diarium Italic. p. 153. then makes it recede to its old site with the shrinking city. 4 The tufo, or pumice, which the poet prefers to marble, is the substance composing the bank in which the grotto is sunk. The modern topographers find in the grotto the statue of the nymph, and nine niches for the Muses; and a late traveller 6 has discovered that the cave is restored to that simplicity which the poet regretted had been exchanged for injudicious ornament. But the headless statue is palpably rather a male than a nymph, and has none of the attributes ascribed to it at present visible. The nine Muses could hardly have stood in six niches; and Juvenal certainly does not allude to any individual cave. Nothing can be collected from the satirist but that somewhere near the Porta Capena was a spot in which it was supposed Numa held nightly consultations with his nymph, and where there was a grove and a sacred fountain, and fanes once consecrated to the Muses; and that from this spot there was a descent into the valley of Egeria, where were several artificial caves. It is clear that the statues of the Muses made no part of the decoration which the satirist thought misplaced in these caves; for he expressly assigns other fanes (delubra) to these divinities above the valley, and moreover tells us that they had been ejected to make room for the Jews. In fact, the little temple, now called that of Bacchus, was formerly thought to belong to the Muses, and Nardini places them in a poplar grove, which was in his time above the valley. It is probable, from the inscription and position, that the cave now shown may be one of the "artificial caverns," of which, indeed, there is another a little way higher up the valley, under a tuft of alder bushes: but a single grotto of Egeria is a mere modern invention, grafted upon the application of the epithet Egerian to these nymphea in general, and which might send us to look for the haunts of Numa upon the banks of the Thames. Our English Juvenal was not seduced into mistranslation by his acquaintance with Pope: he carefully preserves the correct plural — "Thence slowly winding down the vale, we view The valley abounds with springs, and over these springs, which the Muses might haunt from their neighbouring groves, Egeria presided: hence she was said to supply them with water; and she was the nymph of the grottos through which the fountains were taught to flow. The whole of the monuments in the vicinity of the Egerian valley have received names at will, which have been changed at will. Venuti 10 owns he can see no traces of the temples of Jove, Saturn, Juno, Venus, and Diana, which Nardini found, or hoped to find. The mutatorium of Caracalla's circus, the temple of Honour and Virtue, the temple of Bacchus, and, above all, the temple of the god Rediculus, are the antiquaries' despair. The circus of Caracalla depends on a medal of that emperor cited by Fulvius Ursinus, of which the reverse shows a circus, supposed, however, by some to represent the Circus Maximus. It gives a very good idea of that place of exercise. The soil has been but little raised, if we may judge from the small cellular structure at the end of the Spina, which was probably the chapel of the god Consus. This cell is half beneath the soil, as it must have been in the circus itself; for Dionysius 11 could not be persuaded to believe that this divinity was the Roman Neptune, because his altar was under ground. 4 De Magnit. Vet. Rom. ap. Græv. Ant. Rom. tom. iv. p. 1507. 5 Echinard, Descrizione di Roma e dell' Agro Romano, corretto dall' Abate Venuti, in Roma, 1750. They believe in the grotto and nymph. "Simulacro di questo fonte, essendoví sculpite le acque a pie di esso." 6 Classical Tour, chap. vi. p. 217. vol. ii. 7 Sat. III. 8 Lib. iii. cap. iii. "Undique e solo aquæ scaturiunt." Nardini, lib. iii. cap. ill. 10 Echinard, &c. Cic. cit. p. 297, 298. 11 Antiq. Rom. lib. ii. cap. xXXİ. "Great Nemesis! Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long." Stanza cxxxii. We read in Suetonius, that Augustus, from a warning received in a dream, counterfeited, once a year, the beggar sitting before the gate of his palace with his hand hollowed and stretched out for charity. A statue formerly in the villa Borghese, and which should be now at Paris, represents the Emperor in that posture of supplication. The object of this self-degradation was the appeasement of Nemesis, the perpetual attendant on good fortune, of whose power the Roman conquerors were also reminded by certain symbols attached to their cars of triumph. The symbols were the whip and the crotalo, which were discovered in the Nemesis of the Vatican. The attitude of beggary made the above statue pass for that of Belisarius: and until the criticism of Winkelmann 2 had rectified the mistake, one fiction was called in to support another. It was the same fear of the sudden termination of prosperity that made Amasis king of Egypt warn his friend Polycrates of Samos, that the gods loved those whose lives were chequered with good and evil fortunes. Nemesis was supposed to lie in wait particularly for the prudent; that is, for those whose caution rendered them accessible only to mere accidents: and her first altar was raised on the banks of the Phrygian sepus by Adrastus, probably the prince of that name who killed the son of Croesus by mistake. Hence the goddess was called Adrastea.3 The Roman Nemesis was sacred and august: there was a temple to her in the Palatine under the name of Rhamnusia : so great, indeed, was the propensity of the ancients to trust to the revolution of events, and to believe in the divinity of Fortune, that in the same Palatine there was a temple to the Fortune of the day. This is the last superstition which retains its hold over the human heart; and, from concentrating in one object the credulity so natural to man, has always appeared strongest in those unembarrassed by other articles of belief. The antiquaries have supposed this goddess to be synonymous with Fortune and with Fate: but it was in her vindictive quality that she was worshipped under the name of Nemesis. No. XXIX. GLADIATORS. "He, their sire, Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday."— Stanza cxli. Gladiators were of two kinds, compelled and voluntary: and were supplied from several conditions; - from slaves sold for that purpose; from culprits; from barbarian captives either taken in war, and, after being led in triumph, set apart for the games, or those seized and condemned as rebels; also from free citizens, some fighting for hire (auctorati), others from a depraved ambition; at last even knights and senators were exhibited, - a disgrace of which the first tyrant was naturally the first inventor. 5 In the end, dwarfs, and even women, fought; an enormity prohibited by Severus. Of these the most to be pitied undoubtedly were the barbarian captives; and to this species a Christian writer justly applies the epithet " innocent," to distinguish them from the professional gladiators. Aurelian and Claudius supplied great numbers of these unfortunate victims; the one after 1 Sueton. in Vit. Augusti, cap. 91. 2 Storia delle Arti, &c. lib. xii. cap. iii. tom. ii. p. 422 3 Dict. de Bayle, article Adrastea. 4 Fortunæ hujusce diei. Cicero mentions her, de Legib. lib ii. DEAB NEMESI SIVE FORTUNAB PISTORIVS RVGIANVS . C. LEGAT. LBG. XIII. O CORD. See Questiones Romane, &c. ap. Græv. Antiq. Roman. tom. v. p. 942. See also Muratori, Nov. Thesaur. Inscrip. Vet. tom. i. p. 88, 89., where there are three Latin and one Greek inscription to Nemesis, and others to Fate. his triumph, and the other on a pretext of a rebellion. No war, says Lipsius, was ever so destructive to the human race as these sports. In spite of the laws of Constantine and Constans, gladiatorial shows survived the old established religion more than seventy years; but they owed their final extinction to the courage of a Christian. In the year 404, on the kalends of January, they were exhibiting the show in the Flavian amphitheatre before the usual immense concourse of people. Almachius, or Telemachus, an easter monk, who had travelled to Rome intent on his holy purpose, rushed into the midst of the area, and endeavoured to sepa rate the combatants. The prætor Alypius, a person incredibly attached to these games 9, gave instant orders to the gladiators to slay him; and Telemachus gained the crown of martyrdom, and the title of saint, which surely has never either before or since been awarded for a more noble exploit. Honorius immediately abolished the shows, which were never afterwards revived. The story is told by Theodoret -1 and Cassiodorus11, and seems worthy of credit, notwithstanding its place in the Roman martyrology. 12 Besides the torrents of blood which flowed at the funerals, in the amphitheatres. the circus, the forums, and other public places, gladiators were introduced at feasts, and tore each other to pieces amidst the supper tables, to the great delight and applause of the guests. Yet Lipsius permits himself to suppose the loss of courage, and the evident degeneracy of mankind, to be nearly connected with the abolition of these bloody spectacles. No. XXX. "Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd."--Stanza cxlii. When one gladiator wounded another, he shouted, "he bas it," "hoc habet," or "habet." The wounded combatant dropped his weapon, and, advancing to the edge of the arena, supplicated the spectators. If he had fought well, the people saved him; if otherwise, or as they happened to be inclined, they turned down their thumbs, and he was slain. They were occasionally so savage, that they were impatient if a combat lasted longer than ordinary without wounds or death.! The emperor's presence generally saved the vanquished; and it is recorded as an instance of Caracalla's ferocity, that he sent those who supplicated him for life, in a spectacle, at Nicomedia, to ask the people; in other words, handed them over to be slain. A similar ceremony is observed at the Spanish bull-fights. The magistrate presides; and after the horsemen and piccadores have fought the bull, the matadore steps forward and bows to him for permission to kill the animal. If the bull has done his duty by killing two or three horses, or a man, which last is rare, the people interfere with shouts, the ladies wave their handkerchiefs, and the animal is saved. The wounds and death of the horses are accompanied with the loudest acclamations, and many gestures of delight, especially from the female portion of the audience, including those of the gentlest blood. Every thing depends on habit. The author of Childe Harold, the writer of this note, and one or two other Englishmen, who have certainly in other days borne the sight of a pitched battle, were, during the summer of 1809, in the governor's box at the great amphitheatre of Santa Maria, opposite to Cadiz. The death of one or two horses completely satisfied their curiosity. A gentleman present, observing them shudder and look pale, noticed that unusual reception of so delightful a sport to some young 5 Julius Cæsar, who rose by the fall of the aristocracy, brought Furtus Leptinus and A. Čalenus upon the arena. 6 Tertullian," certe quidem et innocentes gladiatores in ludum veniunt, et voluptatis publicæ hostia fiant." Just. Lips. Saturn. Sermon. lib. 3. cap. iii. 7 Vopiscus, in vit. Aurel. and in vit. Claud. ibid. 8 Just. Lips. ibid. lib. i. cap. xíi. 9 Augustinus (lib. vi. confess. cap. viii.) "Alypium suum gladiatoril spectaculi inhiatu incredibillter abreptum," scribit. ib. lib. i. cap. xii. 10 Hist. Eccles. cap. xxvi. lib. v. 11 Cassiod. Tripartita, 1. x. c. xi. Saturn. ib. ib. 12 Baronius, ad ann. et in notis ad Martyrol, Rom. I. Jan. See - Marangon delle memorie sacre e profane dell' Anfiteatro Flavio, p. 25. edil 1746. The whole declivity of the Alban hill is of unrivalled beauty, and from the convent on the highest point, which has succeeded to the temple of the Latian Jupiter, the prospect embraces all the objects alluded to in the cited stanza; the Mediterranean, the whole scene of the latter half of the Eneid, and the coast from beyond the mouth of the Tiber to the headland of Circæum and the Cape of Terracina. The site of Cicero's villa may be supposed either at the Grotta Ferrata, or at the Tusculum of Prince Lucien Buonaparte. The former was thought some years ago the actual site, as may be seen from Myddleton's Life of Cicero. At present it has lost something of its credit, except for the Domenichinos. Nine monks of the Greek order live there, and the adjoining villa is a cardinal's summer-house. The other villa, called Rufinella, is on the summit of the hill above Frascati, and many rich remains of Tusculum have been found there, besides seventy-two statues of different merit and preservation, and seven busts. From the same eminence are seen the Sabine hills, embosomed in which lies the long valley of Rustica. There are several circumstances which tend to establish the identity of this valley with the "Ustica" of Horace; and it seems possible that the mosaic pavement which the peasants uncover by throwing up the earth of a vineyard may belong to his villa. Rustica is pronounced short, not according to our stress upon-"Ustica cubantis." -It is more rational to think that we are wrong, than that the inhabitants of this secluded valley have changed their tone in this word. The addition of the consonant prefixed is nothing; yet it is necessary to be aware that Rustica may be a modern name which the peasants may have caught from the antiquaries. The villa, or the mosaic, is in a vineyard on a knoll covered with chestnut trees. A stream runs down the valley; and although it is not true, as said in the guide books, that this stream is called Licenza, yet there is a village on a rock at the head of the valley which is so denominated, and which may have taken its name from the Digentia. Licenza contains 700 inhabitants. On a peak a little way beyond is Civitella, containing 300. On the banks of the Anio, a little before you turn up into Valle Rustica, to the left, about an hour from the villa, is a town called Vicovaro, another favourable coincidence with the Varia of the poet. At the end of the valley, towards the Anio, there is a bare hill, crowned with a little town called Bardela. At the foot of this hill the rivulet of Licenza flows, and is almost absorbed in a wide sandy bed before it reaches the Anio. Nothing can be more fortunate for the lines of the poet, whether in a metaphorical or direct seuse : "Me quotiens reficit gelidus Digentia rivus, The stream is clear high up the valley, but before it reaches the hill of Bardela looks green and yellow like a sulphur rivulet. 1 See Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto, p. 43. 2 See Classical Tour, &c. chap. vii. p. 250. vol. ii. Rocca Giovane, a ruined village in the hills, half an hour's walk from the vineyard where the pavement is shown, does seem to be the site of the fane of Vacuna, and an inscription found there tells that this temple of the Sabine Victory was repaired by Vespasian. With these helps, and a position corresponding exactly to everything which the poet has told us of his retreat, we may feel tolerably secure of our site. The hill which should be Lucretilis is called Campanile, and by following up the rivulet to the pretended Bandusia, you come to the roots of the higher mountain Gennaro. Singularly enough, the only spot of ploughed land in the whole valley is on the knoll where this Bandusia rises. 66 tu frigus amabile Fessis vomere tauris Præbes, et pecori vago." The peasants show another spring near the mosaic pavement which they call “ Oradina," and which flows down the hills into a tank, or mill-dam, and thence trickles over into the Digentia. But we must not hope "To trace the Muses upwards to their spring," by exploring the windings of the romantic valley in search of the Bandusian fountain. It seems strange that any one should have thought Bandusia a fountain of the Digentia. Horace has not let drop a word of it; and this immortal spring has in fact been discovered in possession of the holders of many good things in Italy, the monks. It was attached to the church of St. Gervais and Protais near Venusia, where it was most likely to be found. We shall not be so lucky as a late traveller in finding the occasional pine still pendent on the poetic villa. There is not a pine in the whole valley, but there are two cypresses, which he evidently took, or mistook, for the tree in the ode. The truth is, that the pine is now, as it was in the days of Virgil, a garden tree, and it was not at all likely to be found in the craggy acclivities of the valley of Rustica. Horace probably had one of them in the orchard close above his farm, immediately overshadowing his villa, not on the rocky heights at some distance from his abode. The tourist may have easily supposed himself to have seen this pine figured in the above cypresses; for the orange and lemon trees which throw such a bloom over his description of the royal gardens at Naples, unless they have been since displaced, were assuredly only acacias and other common garden shrubs.3 The extreme disappointment experienced by choosing the Classical Tourist as a guide in Italy must be allowed to find vent in a few observations, which, it is asserted without fear of contradiction, will be confirmed by every one who has selected the same conductor through the same country. This author is in fact one of the most inaccurate, unsatisfactory writers that have in our times attained a temporary reputation, and is very seldom to be trusted even when he speaks of objects which he must be presumed to have seen. His errors, from the simple exaggeration to the downright mis-statement, are so frequent as to induce a suspicion that he had either never visited the spots described, or had trusted to the fidelity of former writers. Indeed, the Classical Tour has every characteristic of a mere compilation of former notices, strung together upon a very slender thread of personal observation, and swelled out by those decorations which are so easily supplied by a systematic adoption of all the common-places of praise, applied to everything, and therefore signifying nothing. The style which one person thinks cloggy and cumbrous, and unsuitable, may be to the taste of others, and such may 3"Under our windows, and bordering on the beach, is the royal garden, laid out in parterres, and walks shaded by rows of orange trees. Classical Tour, &c. chap. xi. vol. ii. oct. 365. |