34.

"I have

it is of little import what censure is passed upon a siffler si l'on prêtendoit convaincre Boccace de coxcomb who owes his present existence to the n'avoir pas êté honnête homme, puis qu'il a fait le above burlesque character given to him by the poet Decameron.' So said one of the best men, and whose amber has preserved many other grubs and perhaps the best critic, that ever lived-the very worms; but to classify Boccaccio with such a per- martyr to impartiality.* But as this information, son, and to excommunicate his very ashes, must of that in the beginning of the last century one would itself make us doubt of the qualification of the have been hooted at for pretending that Boccaccio classical tourist for writing upon Italian, or, indeed, was not a good man, may seem to come from one of upon any other literature; for ignorance on one those enemies who are to be suspected, even when point may incapacitate an author merely for that they make us a present of truth, a more acceptable particular topic, but subjection to a professional contrast with the proscription of the body, soul, and prejudice must render him an unsafe director on all muse of Boccaccio may be found in a few words occasions. Any perversion and injustice may be from the virtuous, the patriotic cotemporary, who made what is vulgarly called "a case of con- thought case of con- thought one of the tales of this impure writer science," and this poor excuse is all that can be worthy a Latin version from his own pen. offered for the priest of Certaldo, or the author of remarked elsewhere," says Petrarch, writing to the Classical Tour. It would have answered the Boccaccio, "that the book itself has been worried by purpose to confine the censure to the novels of Boc- certain dogs, but stoutly defended by your staff and caccio, and gratitude to that source which supplied voice. Nor was I astonished, for I have had proof the muse of Dryden with her last and most harmo- of the vigor of your mind, and I know you have nious numbers might perhaps have restricted that fallen on that unaccommodating incapable race of censure to the objectionable qualities of the hun-mortals who, whatever they either like not, or know dred tales. At any rate the repentance of Boccaccio not, or cannot do, are sure to reprehend in others ; might have arrested his exhumation, and it should and on those occasions only put on a show of learning have been recollected and told, that in his old age and eloquence, but otherwise are entirely dumb." + he wrote a letter to his friend to discourage the It is satisfactory to find that all the priesthood do reading of the Decameron, for the sake of modesty, not resemble those of Certaldo, and that one of them and for the sake of the author, who would not have who did not possess the bones of Boccaccio would an apologist always at hand to state in his excuse not lose the opportunity of raising a cenotaph to that he wrote it when young, and at the command his memory. Bevius, canon of Padua, at the beof his superiors.* It is neither the licentiousness ginning of the sixteenth century, erected at Arqua, of the writer, nor the evil propensities of the reader, opposite to the tomb of the Laureate, a tablet, in which have given to the Decameron alone, of all the which he associated Boccaccio to the equal honors works of Boccaccio, a perpetual popularity. The of Dante and of Petrach. establishment of a new and delightful dialect conferred an immortality on the works in which it was first fixed. The sonnets of Petrarch were, for the same reason, fated to survive his self-admired Africa, the "favorite of kings." The invariable traits of nature and feeling with which the novels, as well as the verses, abound, have doubtless been the chief source of the foreign celebrity of both authors; but Boccaccio, as a man, is no more to be estimated by that work, than Petrarch is to be regarded in no The tawdry, glaring, unfinished chapel in that other light than as the lover of Laura. Even, however, had the father of the Tuscan prose been known of Tuscany, set round with crowns and coffins, gives church, designed for the mausoleum of the Dukes only as the author of the Decameron, a considerate birth to no emotions but those of contempt for the writer would have been cautious to pronounce a lavish vanity of a race of despots, whilst the pavesentence irreconcilable with the unerring voice of many ages and nations. An irrevocable value has ment slab, simply inscribed to the Father of his never been stamped upon any work solely recom- was very natural for Corinna § to suppose that the Country, reconciles us to the name of Medici. It mended by impurity. statue raised to the Duke of Urbino in the capella The true source of the outcry against Boccaccio, de' depositi was intended for his great namesake; which began at a very early period, was the choice but the magnificent Lorenzo is only the sharer of a of his scandalous personages in the cloisters as well as the courts; but the princes only laughed at the coffin half hidden in a niche of the sacristy. The gallant adventures so unjustly charged upon queen Medici. Of the sepulchral peace which succeeded decay of Tuscany dates from the sovereignty of the Theodelinda, whilst the priesthood cried shame upon the debauchees drawn from the convent and to the establishment of the reigning families in the hermitage; and most probably for the opposite Italy, our own Sidney has given us a glowing but a faithful picture. "Notwithstanding all the sedireason, namely, that the picture was faithful to the tions of Florence, and other cities of Tuscany, the life. Two of the novels are allowed to be facts use horrid factions of Guelphs and Ghibelins, Neri and fully turned into tales, to deride the canonization of rogues and laymen. Ser Ciappelletto and Marcelli- Bianchi, nobles and commons, they continued popunus are cited with applause even by the decent Mu-lous, strong, and exceeding rich; but in the space of less than a hundred and fifty years, the peaceable ratori. The great Arnaud, as he is quoted in Bayle, states, that a new edition of the novels was reign of the Medices is thought to have destroyed nine parts in ten of the people of that province. proposed, of which the expurgation consisted in omitting the words "monk" and and "nun," and Among other things it is remarkable, that when Philip the Second of Spain gave Sienna to the tacking the immoralities to other names. The literary history of Italy particularizes no such edition: Duke of Florence, his ambassador then at Rome erary history of Italy particularizes no such edition; sent him word, that he had given away more than but it was not long before the whole of Europe had

What is her pyramid of precious stones?

Stanza lx. line 1. Our veneration for the Medici begins with Cosmo and expires with his grandson; that stream is pure only at the source; and it is in search of some memorial of the virtuous republicans of the family that we visit the church of St. Lorenzo at Florence.

but one opinion of the Decameron: and the absolu- * Eclaircissement, &c., &c., p. 638, edit. Busle, 1741, in the Supplement tion of the author seems to have been a point set- to Bayle's Dictionary. tled at least a hundred years ago. "On se feroit

"Animadverti alicubi librum ipsum canum dentibus lacessitum, tuo tamen baculo egregiè tuâque voce defensam. Nec miratus sum: nam et vires in"Non enim ubique est, qui in excusationem meam consurgens dicat, juve-genii tui novi, et scio expurtus esses hominum genus incolens et ignavum, nis scripsit, et majoris coactus imperio." The letter was addressed to Magh- qui quicquid ipsi vel nolunt vel nesciunt, vel non possunt, in aliis reprehendunt; inard of Cavalcanti, marshal of the kingdom of Sicily. See Tiraboschi, ad hoc unum docti et arguti, sed elingues ad reliqua." Storia, &c., tom. v. par. ii. lib. iii. pag. 525, ed. Ven. 1795.

catio, Opp. tom. i. p. 540, edit. Basil.

+ Dissertazioni sopra le Antichità Italiane, Diss. lviii. p. 253, tom. iii. edit. Milan, 1751.

Cosmus Medices, Decreto Publico, Pater Patriæ. § Corinne, liv. xviii. cap. iii. vol. iii. page 248.

Epist. Joan. Boc

650,000 subjects; and it is not believed there are round tower close upon the water; and the undunow 20,000 souls inhabiting that city and territory. lating hills partially covered with wood, among Pisa, Pistoia, Arezzo, Cortona, and other towns which the road winds, sink by degrees into the that were then good and populous, are in the like marshes near to this tower. Lower than the road, proportion diminished, and Florence more than any. down to the right amidst these woody hillocks, When that city had been long troubled with sedi- Hannibal placed his horse,* in the jaws of or rather tions, tumults, and wars, for the most part unpros- above the pass, which was between the lake and perous, they still retained such strength, that when the present road, and most probably close to BorCharles VIII. of France, being admitted as a friend ghetto, just under the lowest of the "tumuli.”+ with his whole army, which soon after conquered On a summit to the left, above the road, is an old the kingdom of Naples, thought to master them, circular ruin which the peasants call "the Tower the people, taking arms, struck such a terror into of Hannibal the Carthaginian." Arrived at the him, that he was glad to depart upon such condi- highest point of the road, the traveller has a partial tions as they thought fit to impose. Machiavel re- view of the fatal plain, which opens fully upon him ports, that in that time Florence alone, with the as he descends the Gualandra. He soon finds himVal d'Arno, a small territory belonging to that self in a vale enclosed to the left and in front and city, could, in a few hours, by the sound of a bell, behind him by the Gualandra hills, bending round bring together, 135,000 well-armed men; whereas in a segment larger than a semicircle, and running now that city, with all the others in that province, down at each end to the lake, which obliques to the are brought to such despicable weakness, emptiness, right and form the chord of this mountain arc. poverty, and baseness, that they can neither resist The position cannot be guessed at from the plains of the oppressions of their own prince, nor defend him Cortona, nor appears to be so completely enclosed or themselves if they were assaulted by a foreign unless to one who is fairly within the hills. It then, enemy. The people are dispersed or destroyed, and indeed, appears "a place made as it were on purthe best families sent to seek habitations in Venice, pose for a snare," locus insidiis natus. " locus insidiis natus. "Borghetto Genoa, Rome, Naples, and Lucca. This is not the is then found to stand in a narrow, marshy pass effect of war or pestilence; they enjoy a perfect close to the hill and to the lake, whilst there is no peace, and suffer no other plague than the govern- other outlet at the opposite turn of the mountains ment they are under."* From the usurper Cosmo than through the little town of Passignano, which down to the imbecile Gaston, we look in vain for is pushed into the water by the foot of a high rocky any of those unmixed qualities which should raise acclivity." There is a woody eminence branching a patriot to the command of his fellow-citizens. down from the mountains into the upper end of the The Grand Dukes, and particularly the third Cos- plain nearer to the side of Passignano, and on this mo, had operated so entire a change in the Tuscan stands a white village called Torre. Polybius seems character, that the candid Florentines, in excuse for to allude to this eminence as the one on which Hansome imperfections in the philanthropic system of nibal encamped and drew out his heavy-armed AfLeopold, are obliged to confess that the sovereign fricans and Spaniards in a conspicuous position. § was the only liberal man in his dominions. Yet From this spot he despatched his Balearic and lightthat excellent prince himself had no other notion of armed troops round through the Gualandra heights a national assembly, than of a body to represent to the right, so as to arrive unseen and form an the wants and wishes, not the will, of the people.

35.

ambush among the broken acclivities which the road now passes, and to be ready to act upon the left flank and above the enemy, whilst the horse An earthquake reel'd unheededly away. shut up the pass behind. Flaminius came to the Stanza lxiii. line 5. lake near Borghetto at sunset; and, without send"And such was their mutual animosity, so intent ing any spies before him, marched through the pass were they upon the battle, that the earthquake, which the next morning before the day had quite broken, overthrew in great part many of the cities of Italy, so that he perceived nothing of the horse and light which turned the course of rapid streams, poured troops above and about him, and saw only the back the sea upon the rivers, and tore down the very heavy-armed Carthaginians in front on the hill of mountains, was not felt by one of the combatants." Torre. The consul began to draw out his army Such is the description of Livy. It may be doubted whether modern tactics would admit of such an ab

straction.

in the flat, and in the mean time the horse in ambush occupied the pass behind him at Borghetto. Thus the Romans were completely enclosed, havThe site of the battle of Thrasimene is not to be ing the lake on the right, the main army on the hill mistaken. The traveller from the village under of Torre in front, the Gualandra hills filled with Cortona to Casa di Piano, the next stage on the the light-armed on their left flank, and being preway to Rome, has for the first two or three miles, vented from receding by the cavalry, who, the farther around him, but more particularly to the right, that they advanced, stopped up all the outlets in the flat land which Hannibal laid waste in order to in- rear. A fog rising from the lake now spread itself duce the Consul Flaminius to move from Arezzo. over the army of the consul, but the high lands On his left, and in front of him, is a ridge of hills were in the sunshine, and all the different corps in bending down towards the lake of Thrasimene, ambush looked towards the hill of Torre for the called by Livy "montes Cortonenses,' " and now order of attack. Hannibal gave the signal, and named the Gualandra. These hills he approaches moved down from his post on the height. At the at Ossaja, a village which the itineraries pretend to same moment all his troops on the eminences behave been so denominated from the bones found hind and in the flank of Flaminius, rushed forwards there; but there have been no bones found there, as it were with one accord into the plain. The Roand the battle was fought on the other side of mans, who were forming their array in the mist, the hill. From Ossaja the road begins to rise a suddenly heard the shouts of the enemy among little, but does not pass into the roots of the mountains until the sixty-seventh milestone from Flo

rence.

* "Equites ad ipsas fauces saltus tumulis apte tegentibus locat." T. Livii

The ascent thence is not steep but perpetual, lib. xxii. cap. iv. and continues for twenty minutes. The lake is soon seen below on the right, with Borghetto, a

* On Goverument, chap. ii. sect. xxvi. pag. 208, edit. 1751. Sidney is, together with Locke and Hoadley, one of Mr. Hume's "despicable" writers. "Tantusque fuit ardor animorum, eado intentus pugnæ animus, ut eum. terræ motum qui multarum urbium Italiæ magnas partes prostravit, avertitque cursu rapido amnes mare fluminibus invexit, montes lapsu ingenti proruit, nemo pugnantium senserit."... Tit. Liv. lib. xxii. cap. xii.

"Ubi maxime montes Cortonenses Thrasimenus subit." Ibid. ‡ "Inde colies assurgunt." Ibid.

§ Τὸν μὲν κατὰ πρόσωπον τῆς πορείας λόφον αὐτὸς κατε λάβετο, καὶ τοὺς Λίβυας, καὶ τοὺς Ἴβηρας, ἔχων ἐπ' αὐτοῦ KαTEST OATORÉ Čɛvoɛ. Hist. lib. iii. cap. 83. The account in Polybius is not so easily reconcilable with present appearances as that in Livy; he talks of hills to the right and left of the pass and valley; but when Flaminius entered he had the lake at the right of both.

"A tergo et super caput decepere ilisi liæ." T. Liv. &c.

38.

them, on every side, and before they could fall into either from above or below, it is worth al. the cas their ranks, or draw their swords, or see by whom cades and torrents of Switzerland put together: they were attacked, felt at once that they were sur- the Staubach, Reichenbach, Pisse Vache, fall of Arrounded and lost. penaz, &c., are rills in comparative appearance. Of There are two little rivulets which run from the the fall of Schaffhausen I cannot speak, not yet Gualandra into the lake. The traveller crosses the having seen it. first of these at about a mile after he comes into the plain, and this divides the Tuscan from the papal An iris sits amidst the infernal surge. territories. The second, about a quarter of a mile Stanza lxxii. line 3. further on, is called "the bloody rivulet," and the peasants point out an open spot to the left between Of the time, place, and qualities of this kind of the "Sanguinetto" and the hills, which, they iris, the reader may have seen a short account in a say, was the principal scene of slaughter. The note to Manfred. The fall looks so much like "the other part of the plain is covered with thick set hell of waters," that Addison thought the descent olive-trees in corn grounds, and is nowhere quite alluded to by the gulf in which Alecto plunged into level except near the edge of the lake. It is, in- the infernal regions. It is singular enough that deed, most probable, that the battle was fought near two of the finest cascades in Europe should be arthis end of the valley, for the six thousand Ro-tificial-this of the Velino, and the one at Tivoli. mans, who, at the beginning of the action, broke The traveller is strongly recommended to trace the through the enemy, escaped to the summit of an Velino, at least as high as the little lake called Pie' eminence which must have been in this quarter, di Lup. The Reatine territory was the Italian otherwise they would have had to traverse the whole Tempe, and the ancient naturalist, among other plain and to pierce through the main army of Han- beautiful varieties, remarked the daily rainbows of the lake Velinus. † A scholar of great name has

nibal.

39.

The thundering lauwine.

The Romans fought desperately for three hours, devoted a treatise to this district alone. I 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.

Stanza lxxiii. line 5. In the greater part of Switzerland the avalanches are known by the name of lauwine.

40.

I abhorred

Every district of Italy has its hero. In the north some painter is the usual genius of the place, and Too much, to conquer for the poet's sake, the foreign Julio Romano more than divides Man- The drill'd dull lesson, forced down word by word. tua with her native Virgil.* To the south we hear Stanza lxxv. lines 6, 7, and 8. of Roman names. Near Thrasimene, tradition is These stanzas may probably remind the reader still faithful to the fame of an enemy, and Hanni- of Ensign Northerton's remarks: "D-n Homo, bal the Carthaginian is the only ancient name re- &c., but the reasons for our dislike are not exactly membered on the banks of the Perugian lake. the same. I wish to express that we become tired Flaminius is unknown; but the postillions on that of the task before we can comprehend the beauty; road have been taught to show the very spot where that we learn by rote before we can get by heart; Il Console Romano was slain. Of all who fought that the freshness is worn away, and the future and fell in the battle of Thrasimene, the historian pleasure and advantage deadened and destroyed, by himself has, besides the generals and Maharbal, pre- the didactic anticipation, at an age when we can served indeed only a single_name. You overtake neither feel nor understand the power of composithe Carthaginian again on the same road to Rome. tions which it requires an acquaintance with life, as The antiquary, that is, the hostler, of the posthouse well as Latin and Greek, to relish, or to reason at Spoleto, tells you that his town repulsed the vic- upon. For the same reason we never can be aware torious enemy, and shows you the gate still called of the fulness of some of the finest passages of Porta di Annibale. It was hardly worth while to Shakspeare, ("To be, or not to be," for instance,) remark that a French travel writer, well known by from the habit of having them hammered into us at the name of the President Deputy, saw Thrasimene eight years old, as an exercise not of mind but in the lake of Bolsena, which lay conveniently on of memory: so that when we are old enough to enhis way from Sienna to Rome.

36.

But thou, Clitumnus.

Stanza lxvi. line 1.

joy them, the taste is gone, and the appetite palled. In some parts of the Continent young persons are taught from more common authors, and do not read the best classics till their maturity. I certainly do not speak on this point from any pique or aversion No book of travels has omitted to expatiate on slow, though an idle boy; and I believe no one could, towards the place of my education. I was not a the temple of the Clitumnus, between Foligno and Spoleto, and no site, or scenery even in Italy, is or can be more attached to Harrow than I have almore worthy a description. For an account of the ways been, and with reason;-a part of the time dilapidation of this temple, the reader is referred to Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of

passed there was the happiest of my life; and my preceptor (the Rev. Dr. Joseph Drury) was the best and worthiest friend I ever possessed, whose warnings I have remembered but too well, though too latewhen I have erred, and whose counsels I have but followed when I have done well or wisely. If ever this imperfect record of my feeling towards him should reach his eyes, let it remind him of one who never thinks of him but with gratitude and veneration-of one who would more gladly boast of hav

ng been his pupil, if, by more closely following his
njunctions, he could reflect any honor upon his in-

structor.

41.

The Scipios' tomb contains no ashes now. Stanza Ixxix. line 5. For a comment on this and the two following stanzas, the reader may consult Historical Illustrations of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold.

42.

The trebly hundred triumphs.

Stanza lxxxii. line 2.

Orosius gives three hundred and twenty for the number of triumphs. He is followed by Panvinius; and Panvinius by Mr. Gibbon and the modern writ

of Rome. Winklemann * is loath to allow an heroic statue of a Roman citizen, but the Grimani Agrippa, a cotemporary 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," † 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. The objectionable globe may not have been an ill-applied flattery to him who found Asia Minor the boundary, and left it in 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. § 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 Certainly were it not for these two traits in the Pompey's theatre, to which Augustus transferred life of Sylla, alluded to in this stanza, we should re- the statue after the curia was either burnt or taken gard him as a monster unredeemed by any admira- down. | Part of the Pompeian shade, ¶ the portible quality. The atonement of his voluntary resig- co, existed in the beginning of the XVth century, nation of empire may perhaps be accepted by us, as and the atrium was still called Satrum. So says it seems to have satisfied the Romans, who, if they Blondus.** At all events, so imposing is the stern had not respected must have destroyed him. There majesty of the statue, and so memorable is the could be no mean, no division of opinion; they story, that the play of imagination leaves no room must have all thought, like Eucrates, that what for the exercise of the judgment, and the fiction, it had appeared ambition was a love of glory, and a fiction it is, operates on the spectator with an efthat what had been mistaken for pride was a real fect not less powerful than truth. grandeur of soul.*

ers.

43.

Oh thou, whose chariot roll'd on Fortune's wheel, &c.
Stanza lxxxiii. line 1.

44.

And laid him with the earth's preceding clay. Stanza Ixxxvi. line 4. On the third of September, Cromwell gained the victory of Dunbar; a year afterwards he obtained "his crowning mercy" of Worcester; and a few years after, on the same day, which he had ever esteemed the most fortunate for him, died.

45.

And thou, dread statue! still existent in
The austerest form of naked majesty.

Stanza lxxxvii. lines 1 and 2.

46.

And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome! Stanza lxxxviii. line 1. Ancient Rome, like modern Sienna, abounded most probably with images of the foster-mother of her founders, 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 fig-treet The other was that

which Cicero $$ 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. The question agitated by the anti

* Storia delle Arti, &c., lib. ix. cap. 1, pag. 321, 322, tom. ii.
† Cicer. Epist. ad. Atticum, xi. 6.

Published by Causens in his Museum Romanum.

The projected division of the Spada Pompey has already been recorded by the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Mr. Gibbon found it in the memorials of Flaminius Vacca, + and it may be added to his mention of it 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 civilized 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.ubribus lupe posuerunt." Liv. Ilist. lib. x. cap.

arm.

The nine-foot hero was therefore removed to the arena of the ampitheatre, and to facilitate its trans- SS "Tum statua Natte, tum simulacra Deorum, Romulusque et Remis port suffered the temporary amputation of its right cum altrice bellua vi fulminus ictis conciderunt." De Divinat. ii. 20. "TacThe republican tragedians had to plead that tus est ille etiam qui hanc urbem condidit Romulus, quem inauratum in Capi the arm was a restoration: but their accusers do not tolio parvum atque lactantem, uberibus lupinis inhiantem fuisse meministis." believe that the integrity of the statue would have In Catilin. iii. 8. 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

De Consulatu, lib. ii. (lib. i. de Divinat. cap. ii.)

!!!! Ἐν γὰρ τῷ καπητολίῳ ἀνδρ' άντες τὲ πολλοὶ ὑπὸ κεραυ νὼν συνεχωνεύθησαν, καὶ ἄγαλματα ἄλλα τε, καὶ Διὸς ἐπὶ κίονος ιδρυμένου, εἰκών τέ τις λυκαίνης συνιτε τῷ Ρίμῳ καὶ rov To Popóλg idovμévη ETεσn. Dion. Hist. lib. xxxvii. pag. 37. edit. Rób. Steph. 1548. He goes on to mention that the letters of the columns on which the laws were written were liquefied and become duvda, All that the Romans did was to erect a large statue to Jupiter, looking

*

quaries is, whether the wolf now in the conservators' and wolf both fell, and the latter left behind the palace is that of Livy and Dionysius, or that of Cice- marks of her feet. Cicero does not say that the ro, or whether it is neither one nor the other. The wolf was consumed; and Dion only mentions that earlier writers differ as much as the moderns: Lucius it fell down, without alluding, as the Abate has Faunus says, that it is the one alluded to by both, made him, to the force of the blow, or the firmness which is impossible, and also by Virgil, which may with which it had been fixed. The whole strength, be. Fulvius Ursinus + calls it the wolf of Dionys- therefore, of the Abate's argument hangs upon the ius, and Marlianus talks of it as the one men- past tense; which, however, may be somewhat ditioned by Cicero. To him Rycquius tremblingly minished by remarking that the phrase only shows assents. Nardini is inclined to suppose it may be that the statue was not then standing in its former one of the many wolves preserved in Ancient Rome; position. Winkelmann has observed, that the but of the two rather bends to the Ciceronian present twins are modern; and it is equally clear statue. Montfaucon ¶ mentions it as as a point that there are marks of gilding on the wolf which without doubt. Of the latter writers the decisive might therefore be supposed to make part of the Winkelmann ** proclaims it as having been found ancient group. It is known that the sacred images at the church of Saint Theodore, where, or near of the Capitol were not destroyed when injured by where, was the temple at Romulus, and consequent-time or accident, but were put into certain underly makes it the wolf of Dionysius. His authority ground depositories called favissa.* It may be is Lucius Faunus, who, however, only says that it thought possible that the wolf had been so depositwas placed, not found, at the Ficus Ruminalis, by ed, and had been replaced in some conspicuous sitthe Comitium, by which he does not seem to allude uation when the Capitol was rebuilt by Vespasian. to the church of Saint Theodore. Rycquius was Rycquius, without mentioning his authority, tells the first to make the mistake, and Winkelmann that it was transferred from the Comitium to the followed Rycquius. Lateran, and thence brought to the Capitol. If it Flaminius Vacca tells quite a different story, and was found near the arch of Severus, it may have says he had heard the wolf with the twins was been one of the images which Orosius + says was found near the arch of Septimius Severus. The thrown down in the Forum by lightning when Alacommentator on Winkelmann is of the same opin-ric took the city. That it is of very high antiquiion with that learned person, and is incensed at ty the workmanship is a decisive proof; and that Nardini for not having remarked that Cicero, in circumstance induced Winkelmann to believe it the speaking of the wolf struck with lightning in the wolf of Dionysius. The Capitolene wolf, however, Capitol, makes use of the past tense. But, with may have been of the same early date as that at the the Abate's leave, Nardini does not positively assert temple of Romulus. Lactantius asserts that in the statue to be that mentioned by Cicero, and, if his time the Romans worshipped a wolf; and it is he had, the assumption would not perhaps have known that the Lupercalia held out to a very late been so exceedingly indiscreet. The Abate himself period§ after every other observance of the ancient is obliged to own that there are marks very like the superstition had totally expired. This may account scathing of lightning in the hinder legs of the pres- for the preservation of the ancient image longer ent wolf; and, to get rid of this, adds, that the than the other early symbols of Paganism. wolf seen by Dionysius might have been also struck by lightning, or otherwise injured.

It may be permitted, however, to remark, that the wolf was a Roman symbol, but that the worLet us examine the subject by a reference to the ship of that symbol is an inference drawn by the words of Cicero. The orator in two places seems zeal of Lactantius. The early Christian writers are to particularize the Romulus and the Remus, espe- not to be trusted in the charges which they make cially the first, which his audience remembered against the Pagans. Eusebius accused the Roto have been in the Capitol, as being struck with mans to their faces of worshipping Simon Magus, lightning. In his verses he records that the twins and raising a statue to him in the island of the Ty

towards the east: no mention is afterwards made of the wolf. This happened in A. U. C. 689. The Abate Fea, in noticing this passage of Dion (Storia delle Arti, &c., tom. i. pag. 202, note x.) says, Non ostante, aggiunge Dione, che fosse ben fermata (the wolf) by which it is clear the Abate translated the Xylandro-Leunclavian version, which puts quambis stabilita for the original idvμvn, a word that does not mean ben fermeta, but only raised, as may be distinctly seen from another passage of the same Dion: '116θη μὲν οὖν ὁ ̓Αγρίππας καὶ τὸν Αύγουστον ἐνταῦθα ἱδρύσαι. Hist. lib. lvi. Dion says that Agrippa "wished to raise a statue of Augustus in the Pantheon."

ber. 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.

Even when the worship of the founder of Rome *. “In eadem porticu ænea lupa, cujus uberibus Romulus ac Remus lactan- had been abandoned, it was thought expedient to tes inhiant, conspicitur: de hac Cicero et Virgilius semper intellexere. Livius humor the habits of the good matrons of the city hoc signum ab Ædilibus ex pecuniis quibus muletati essen fœneratores, positum by sending them with their sick infants to the innuit. Antea in Comitiis ad Ficum Ruminalern, quo loco pueri fuerant ex- church of Saint Theodore, as they had before carpositi locaturn pro certo est." Luc. Fauni de Antiq. Urb. Roin. lib. ii. cap. vii. ap. Sallengre, tom. i. p. 217. In his XVIIth chapter he repeats that the statues were there, but not that they were found there.

† Ap. Nardini Roma Vetus, lib. v. cap. iv.

Marliani Urb. Rom. Topograph. lib. ii. cap. ix. He mentions another

df and twins in the Vatican, lib. v. cap. xxi.

* Luc. Faun. Ibid.

† See note to stanza lxxx. in Historical Illustrations.

"Romuli nutrix Lupa honoribus est affecta divinis, et ferrem si animal ipsum fuisset, cujus figuram gerit." Lactant. de Falsa Religione, lib. 1, cap.

"Non desunt qui hanc ipsam esse putent, quam adpinximus, quæ exx. pag. 101, edit. varior, 1660: that is to say, he would rather adore a wolf comito in Basilicam, Lateranum, cum nonnullis aliis antiquitatum reliquiis, than a prostitute. His commentator has observed that the opinion of Livy atque hinc in Capitolium postea relata sit, quunvis Marli anus antiquam Cap- concerning Laurentia being figured in this wolf was not universal. Strabo rtolinam esse maluit à Tullio descriptam, cui ut in re nimis dubia, trepidè ad- thought so. Rycquius is wrong in saying that Lactantius mentions the wolf sentimur." Just. Rycquii de Capit. Roman. Comm. cap. xxiv. pag. 250, was in the Capitol. edit. Lugd. Bat. 1696.

| Nardini Roma Vetus, iib. v. cap. iv.

§ To A. D. 496. "Quis credere possit," says Baronius [Ann. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 602, in. an. 4951, "viguisse adhuc Romæ ad Gelassii tempora,

¶ "Lupa hodieque in capitolinis prostrat ædibus, cum vestigio fulminis quo que fuere ante exordia urbis allata in Italiam Lupercalia?" Gelasius wrote ictam narrat Cicero." Diarium Italic. tom. i. p. 174.

** Storia delle Arti, &c., lib. iii. cap. iii. § ii. note 10. Winkelmann has nade a strange blunder in the note, by saying the Ciceronian wolf was not in the Capitol, and that Dion was wrong in saying so.

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a letter which occupies four folio pages to Andromachus the senator, and others, to show that the rites should be given up.

| Eusebius has these words: καὶ ἀνδριάντι παρ' ὑμῖν ὡς θεὸς τετίμηται, ἐν τῷ Τίβερι ποταμῷ μεταξὺ τῶν δύο γεφυρών, ἔχων ἐπιγραφὴν Ῥωμαϊ κὴν ταύτην, Σίμωνι δέω Σίκτω, Eccles. Hist. lib. ii. cap. xiii. p. 40. Justin Martyr has told the story ʊefore but Baronius himself was chiged to detect this fable. See Nardini Rom

Η Intesi dire, che l'Ercolo di bronzo, che oggi si trova nella sala di Campidoglio, fu trovato nel foro Romano appresso l'arco di Settimio: e vofu trovata anche la lupa di bronzo che allata Romolo e Remo e sta nella Loggia de conservatori." Flam. Vacca, Memorie, num. iii. pag. à ap. Montfaucon, Vet. lib. vii. cap. xii. Diar. Ital. tom, i.

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