the religion of the Greeks and the Romans. The latter, he informs us, “did
not admit into their creed those impious stories told by the Greeks of the
castration of their gods, or of destroying their own children, of their
wars, wounds, bonds, and slavery, and such like things as are not only
altogether unworthy of the divine nature, but disgrace even the human.
They had no wailing and lamentations for the sufferings of their gods, nor
like the Greeks, any Bacchic orgies, or vigils of men and women together
in the temples. And if at any time they admitted such foreign pollutions,
as they did with regard to the rites of Cybele and the Idæan goddess, the
ceremonies were performed under the grave inspection of Roman magistrates;
nor even now does any Roman disguise himself to act the mummeries
performed by the priests of Cybele(46)”. Dionysius, who refers every thing
to Greece, thinks that the early Roman was just the Greek religion
purified by Romulus, to whom, in fact, his country was more indebted than
to Numa for its sacred institutions. In reality, however, this superior
purity of rites and worship was not occasioned by any such lustration of
the Greek fables, but from their being founded on Italian, and not on
Grecian superstitions.
But although the Etruscan mythology may have been more pure, and its rites
more useful, than those of Greece, its fables were not so ingenious and
alluring. Ora, the goddess of health and youth, was less elegant than
Hebe; and even the genius of Virgil, who has chosen the Italian _Myths_
for the machinery of the Æneid, could hardly bestow grace or dignity on
the prodigy of the swarm of bees that hung in clusters from the Laurentian
Laurel—on the story of the robber Cacus vomiting flames, the ships
metamorphosed into nymphs, the sow which farrowed thirty white pigs, and
thereby announced that the town of Alba would be built in thirty years,
the puerile fiction of the infancy of Camilla, or the hideous harpy which
hovered round the head of Turnus, and portended his death. Accordingly,
when the Romans were allured by the arts of Greece, the rude and simple
traditions of Italian mythology yielded to the enticing and voluptuous
fictions of a more polished people(47). The tolerant spirit of Polytheism
did not restrict the number of gods, and the ministers of superstition
seemed always ready to reconcile the most discordant systems. Hence the
poet interwove the national traditions with the Greek fables, and
concentrated in one the attributes of different divinities. Thus, the
Greek Kronos was identified with Saturn; the rustic deities, Sylvanus and
Faunus, peculiar to Latium, being confounded with Pan, the Satyrs, and
Silenus, were associated with the train of Bacchus; Portumnus was
converted into Palemon—a deity whom the Greeks had received from Phœnicia;
Bona Dea was transformed to Hecate, and Libitina to Proserpine; and the
Camesnæ, or Camenæ, of the family of Janus, who prophesied in Saturnian
verse on the summit of Mount Janiculum, were metamorphosed into Muses(48).
Hercules, Jupiter, and Venus, gods of power and pleasure, occupied, with
their splendid temples, the place of the peaceful and pastoral deities of
Numa. Still, however, the national religion was in some measure retained,
and Apollo and Bacchus, in particular, continued to be decorated with the
characteristic emblems of Etruria.
The Etruscans do not seem to have believed, like the Greeks, that they
were possessed of those interpretations of passing events or revelations
of futurity which were obtained by immediate inspiration, whether
delivered from the hill of Dodona, or the Delphian shrine. Their
divination was supposed to be the result of experience and observation;
and though not destitute of divine direction or concurrence, depended
chiefly on human contrivance. Among them peculiar families, like the tribe
of Levi, the Peruvian Incas, and the descendants of Thor and Odin, were
depositaries of the secrets and ceremonies of religion. Their prognostics
were taken from the flight of birds(49), the entrails of animals, and
observations on thunder. In the early ages of Rome, a band of Patrician
youths was sent to Etruria, to be initiated in the mysteries of its
religious rites(50). The constant practice of consulting the gods on all
enterprizes, public or private,—the belief, that prodigies manifested the
will of heaven, and that the deities could be appeased, and their
vengeance averted by expiations or sacrifices, were common to the Tuscan
and Roman creeds. In short, the fervent spirit of Etrurian superstition
passed undiminished to the Romans, who owed to its influence much of their
valour, temperance, and patriotism. To this, Cicero in a great degree
ascribes their political supremacy. The Romans, says he, were not superior
in numbers to the Spaniards, in strength or courage to the Gauls, in
address to the Carthaginians, in tactics to the Macedonians; but we
surpass all nations in that prime wisdom by which we have learned that all
things are governed and directed by the immortal gods.
To the same singular people from whom they derived their customs and
superstitions, the Romans were much indebted for their majestic language.
As their writers in a great measure owe their immortality to the lofty
tones and commanding accents of the Latin tongue, it would be improper
entirely to neglect its origin in entering on the literary history of
Rome.
The supporters of the various systems with regard to the first peopling of
Etruria, of course discover the elements of the Etruscan language in that
of the different nations by whom they believe it to have been colonized.
Lord Monboddo, for example, deduces both the Latin and Etruscan from the
old Pelasgic; which language, he asserts, was first brought into Italy by
a colony of Arcadians, seventeen generations before the Trojan war. He
considers the Latin as the most ancient dialect of the Greek; and he
remarks, that as it came off from the original stock earlier than the
Doric, or Æolic, or any other Greek dialect now known, it has more of the
roughness of the primitive Hebrew, from which he believes the Pelasgic to
be derived(51). Lanzi also thinks that both the Latin and Etruscan flowed
from the Greek, and that the resemblance between the Etruscan and Latin
was not occasioned by the derivation of the latter from the former, but
was the necessary consequence of both having sprung from a common source.
It certainly is not easy to discover the primary elements of the Latin or
any other language; but its immediate origin may easily be traced. The
inscriptions on the most ancient monuments which have been discovered,
from the Alps to Calabria, shew that, from the time of the Etruscan
supremacy, there was an universal language in Italy, varied, indeed, by
dialects, but announcing a common origin in the inflections of words and
the forms of characters. The language of the Etruscans had been so widely
spread by their conquests, that it might almost be regarded as the general
tongue of Italy, and the Latian, Oscan, and Sabine idioms, were in a great
measure the same with the Etruscan. From these the early Latin language
was chiefly formed; and what little Greek existed in its original
composition came through these languages from the Pelasgic colonies, which
in the remotest periods had intermixed with the Etruscans, and with the
inhabitants of ancient Latium. “It is a great mistake,” says Horne Tooke,
“into which the Latin etymologists have fallen, to suppose that all the
Latin must be found in the Greek, for the fact is otherwise. The bulk and
foundation of the Latin language is Greek; but great part of the Latin is
the language of our northern ancestors grafted on the Greek; and to our
northern languages the etymologist must go for that part of the Latin
which the Greek will not furnish(52).” This author is correct, in
affirming that all the Latin cannot be found in the Greek; but he is far
in error if he mean to maintain that any part of the Latin came directly
from the language of the Celts, or that their uncouth jargon was grafted
on the Greek. The northern tongues, however, whether Celtic or Sclavonic,
may have contributed to form those dialects of Italy which composed the
original elements of the imperial language, and were exhibited in great
variety of combinations for five centuries with little admixture of the
Greek. The eminent grammarian is still farther mistaken in declaring that
the foundation of the Latin language is Greek. That much of the Augustan
Latin is derived from the Greek, is true. Gataker, who strenuously
contends for the Greek origin of the whole Latin language, has, as a
specimen, attempted to shew, that every word in the first five lines of
Virgil’s Eclogues is drawn from the Greek(53); and though part of his
etymologies are fanciful, yet in a very considerable portion of them he
has been completely successful. But the case is totally different with the
ancient remnants of the Latin language previous to the capture of
Tarentum. In the song of the _Fratres Arvales_, the oldest specimen of the
language extant, there seem to be only two words which have any analogy to
the Greek—_sal_ from ἅλς and _sta_ from ἱστημι. That there was little
Greek incorporated with the Latin during the first ages of the Republic,
is evident from the circumstance, that the Latin inscriptions of a former
period were unintelligible to the historian Polybius, and the most learned
Romans of his age. Now, as he himself was a Greek, and as the most learned
Romans, by his time, had become good Greek scholars, any Grecisms in the
ancient inscriptions would have been perfectly intelligible. It is
evident, therefore, that the difficulty arose from the words of the old
Italian dialects occurring instead of the new Greek terms, suddenly
introduced after the capture of Tarentum, and to which the Romans having
by that time become habituated, could not understand the language of a
preceding generation. Besides, when Rome was originally filled with Latian
bands—when the Etruscans and Oscans were immediately beyond the walls of
Rome,—when, as early as the time of Romulus, the Sabines were admitted
within them,—when all the women then in Rome were Sabines, (from which it
may be presumed that much of the conversation was carried on in the Sabine
dialect,) and, above all, when the Romans, for many centuries, had little
intercourse with any other people than the Italian nations, it is not to
be supposed that they would borrow their colloquial language from the
Celts, on the other side of the Alps, or the Greeks, from whom they were
separated by the Adriatic Gulf, and who, as yet, had established only
remote, insignificant, and scattered colonies, in Italy. Varro, too, has
shewn the affinity between the Sabine and the Latin languages(54). That
the Oscan resembled the old Latin, is proved from its being constantly
employed in the most popular dramatic representations at Rome, and from
the circumstance that almost every word of its few relics which remain, is
the root of some equivalent Latin term. Thus Akeru produced acerra—Anter,
inter—Phaisnam, fanum—Tesaur, Thesaurus—Famel, famulus—Multa,
mulcta—Solum, (totus,) solus—Facul, Facultas—Cael, cœlum—Embratur,
imperator.(55) The copious admixture of Greek only took place after the
taking of Tarentum, when the poets of Magna Græcia settled at Rome, and
were imitated by native writers,
“—— Cum lingua Catonis _et Enni_
Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum
Nomina protulerit.”
So far, then, from the Latin language being composed of Celtic grafted on
the Greek, it appears to me to have been formed from the Greek, grafted on
those various dialects of the Etruscan tongue, which prevailed in Italy at
the period of the building of Rome.
It would have been singular, when the Romans derived so much from their
Etruscan neighbours, if they had not also acquired a portion of those arts
which were the chief boast of Etruria. Among the Etruscans, the arts
certainly had not the imposing character they assumed in Egypt, or the
elegance they exhibited in Greece(56); but in their vases, tombs, and
altars, which have recently been brought to light, we possess abundant
proofs of their taste and ingenuity. In these—domestic occupations,
marriages, spectacles, masquerades, contests in the Circus, equestrian
exercises, the chase, triumphs, mysteries, funeral rites, Lares, Lamiæ,
Lemures, and deities of every description,—in short, all ancient Etruria
passes in review before the eye, which, in many instances, must admire the
boldness of the attitudes, the elegance of the draperies, and justness of
the proportions. The art of modelling, or sculpture, appears to have been
that in which the Etruscans chiefly excelled. The statues of the first
kings erected at Rome, in the reign of the elder Tarquin, were of their
workmanship, as well as that of Horatius Cocles, and the equestrian statue
of Clelia. The Jupiter of the Capitol was also Tuscan; and the
four-wheeled chariot placed in his temple, received its last polish from
Etruscan hands, under the first Roman consuls.
In the course of the 5th century of Rome, not fewer than 2000 Etruscan
statues, which were probably little figures in bronze, were carried to
that city from Volsinium, (now Bolsena,) which the Romans were accused of
having besieged, in order to plunder it of these treasures. Architecture
was unknown in Rome until the Tarquins came from Etruria: hence the works
of the kings, some of which still remain, were built in the Etruscan
style, with large and regular, but uncemented blocks(57). The most ancient
and stupendous architectural monuments of Rome, were executed by Etruscan
artists. Theirs were the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, the Circus, and
Cloaca Maxima, which showed such a wonderful anticipation of the future
magnitude of Rome(58), and which Livy pronounces equal to anything which
had been produced by modern magnificence. Painting, too, was introduced at
Rome from the Etruscans, about the middle of the fifth century, by one of
the Fabian family, who had long resided in Etruria, and who himself
painted in _fresco_, after his return, the interior of the Temple of
Salus, and transmitted the sirname of _Pictor_ to his descendants.
The excellence to which the Etruscans had attained in sculpture and
architecture, forms a presumption of their proficiency in those sciences
which are essential to eminence in the arts. As not a vestige of their
writings remains, it is impossible to judge of the merits of their
literary compositions. I suspect, however, that, like the ancient
Egyptians, they had made much less progress in literature than in arts or
science. What books they had, were extant, and well known, at Rome; yet
Cicero and other Latin writers, who have the Greek authors perpetually in
their mouths, scarcely ever allude to any works of the Etruscans, except
treatises on augury or divination; and the only titles of the books,
recorded by Roman writers, are the Libri Fatales, Libri Haruspicinæ, Sacra
Acherontia, Fulgurales et Rituales Libri. It is said, indeed, that the
Etruscans cultivated a certain species of poetry, sung or declaimed during
the pomp of sacrifices, or celebration of marriages(59). Such verses were
first employed in Fescennia, a city of Etruria, whence the ancient nuptial
hymns of the Romans were called Fescennine. It is evident, however, that
these Etruscan songs, or hymns, were of the very rudest description, and
probably never were reduced into writing. They were a kind of
_impromptus_, composed of scurrilous jests, originally recited by the
Italian peasants at those feasts of Ceres, which celebrated the conclusion
of their harvests; and they resembled the verses described in the
well-known lines of Horace—
“Agricolæ prisci, fortes, parvoque beati,
Condita post frumenta, levantes tempore festo
Corpus, et ipsum animum spe finis dura ferentem,
Cum sociis operum pueris, et conjuge fidâ,
Tellurem porco, Sylvanum lacte piabant,
Floribus et vino Genium, memorem brevis ævi;
Fescennina per hunc inventa licentia morem
Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit(60).”
It appears, also, that some of the ancient rustic oracles and prophecies
of the Etruscans, were delivered in a rugged sort of verse called
Saturnian—a measure which was adopted from them by the earliest Latin
poets—
“Scripsere alii rem
Versibus quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant(61).”
Censorinus informs us, on the authority of Varro, that this ancient people
was not without its chroniclers and historians—_In Tuscis Historiis quæ
octavo eorum sæculo scripta sunt_(62). But this eighth century of the
Etruscans, according to the chronology followed by Lanzi, would be as late
as the sixth century of Rome(63); and, besides, it is evident from the
context of Censorinus, that these pretended _histories_ were, in fact,
mere registers of the foundations of cities, and the births and deaths of
individuals. Varro also mentions Etruscan tragedies composed by
Volumnius(64). No date to his productions, however, is specified, and
Lanzi is of opinion, that he did not write in Etruria till after the
dramatic art had made considerable progress at Rome; and it certainly may
at least be doubted, if, previous to that period, the Etruscan stage had
ever reached higher than extemporary recitations, or pantomimic
entertainments of music and dancing.
But whatever the literature of the Etruscans may have been, it certainly
had no influence on the progress of learning among the Romans. Neither the
intercourse of the two nations, nor the capture of Veii, though followed
by the final subjugation of the Etruscans, was attended with any literary
improvement on the part of their unpolished neighbours. In fact, few
nations have been more completely illiterate than the Romans were, during
five centuries, from the commencement of their history; and of all the
nations which have figured in the annals of mankind, none certainly
attained the same height of power and grandeur, and civil wisdom, with
equal ignorance of literature or the fine arts. For the pretended
acquaintance of the elder Brutus with the Pythagorean philosophy, it would
be difficult, I suspect, to find any better authority than the romance of
Clelia; and the learned academy, which some writers(65) have found in
Numa’s College of Pontiffs, must be classed, I fear, with Vockerodt’s
literary societies, which existed before the flood(66).
It is not difficult to account for this ignorance of the Romans during the
first ages of their history. Rome was not, as has been asserted by
Dionysius, a regular colony sent out from a well-regulated state, but was
formed from a mixture of all kinds of people unacquainted with social
life. It consisted of Romulus’ own troop, and a confluence of banditti
inured to lawless acts, and subsisting by rapine, who were called from
their fastnesses by the proclamation of a bold, cunning, and hardy
adventurer(67). This desperate band would not be much softened or
humanized by their union with the tribe of Sabines, who, in the time of
Romulus, became incorporated with the state, if we may judge of Sabine
civilization from the story of Tarpeia. Numa did much for the domestic
melioration of his people: He subdivided them into classes, impressed
their minds with reverence for religion, and encouraged agriculture; but
there was no germ of literature which he could foster. For more than three
centuries after his death, the persevering hostilities of neighbouring
states, and the furious irruptions of the Gauls, scarcely allowed a moment
of repose or tranquillity. The safety of Rome depended on its military
preparations, and every citizen necessarily became a soldier. Learning and
arts may flourish amid the wars and commotions of a mighty empire, because
every individual is not essentially or actively involved in the struggle;
but in a petty state, surrounded by foes, all are in some shape or other
personally engaged in the conflict, and the result, perhaps, is viewed
with intenser interest. The enemies of Rome were repeatedly at her gates,
and once within her walls; and while the city thus resounded with martial
alarms, literary leisure could neither be enjoyed nor accounted among the
ingredients—
“Vitam quæ faciunt beatiorem.”
The exercise of arms, which commenced in order to preserve the new-founded
city from destruction, was continued for the sake of conquest and
dominion; so that the whole pride of the Romans was still placed in valour
and military success. At the first formation of their theatre, they were
propitiated by the address, _Belli duellatores optimi_(68). Whatever time
could be snatched from warlike occupations, was devoted to agriculture.
Each individual had two acres allotted to him, which he was obliged to
till for the maintenance of his family. While thus labouring for
subsistence, he had little leisure to cultivate literature or the arts,
and could find no inclination for such pursuits. Indeed, he was not
allowed the choice of his occupations. The law of Romulus which consigned
as ignominious all sedentary employments to foreigners or slaves, leaving
only in choice to citizens and freemen the arts of agriculture and arms,
long continued in undiminished respect and observance. Romulus, says
Dionysius, ordered the same persons to exercise the employments both of
husbandmen and soldiers. He taught them the duty of soldiers in time of
war, and accustomed them in time of peace to cultivate the land(69).
During this period the Romans had nothing which can properly be termed, or
which would now be considered as poetry—the shape in which literature
usually first expands amongst a rude people. The verses which have come
down to us under the character of Sibylline oracles, are not genuine.
There probably at one time existed a few rude lines uttered by pretended
prophetesses, and which were doubtless a political instrument, usefully
employed in a state subject to popular commotions. The book delivered to
Tarquin, and which was supposed to contain those ancient oracles, perished
amid the conflagration in the Capitol, during the civil wars of Marius and
Sylla. Even those collected in Greece, and the municipal states of Italy,
in order to supply their place, and which were deposited in the temple of
Apollo, on Mount Palatine, were burned by Stilicho in the reign of the
Emperor Honorius. There is still extant, however, the hymn sung by the
_Fratres Arvales_, a college of priests instituted by Romulus, for the
purpose of walking in procession through the fields in the commencement of
spring, and imploring from the gods a blessing on agriculture. Of a
similar description were the rude Saturnian verses prescribed by Numa, and
which were chaunted by the Salian priests, who carried through the streets
those sacred shields, so long accounted the Palladium of Rome.
About the end of the fourth century from the building of the city, when it
was for the first time afflicted with a plague, the Senate having
exhausted without effect their own superstitious ceremonies, and run over
the whole round of supplications, decreed that _histrions_ or players
should be summoned from Etruria, in order to appease the wrath of the gods
by scenic representations. These chiefly exhibited rude dances and
gesticulations, performed to the sound of the flute(70). There was no
dialogue or song, but the pantomime did not consist merely of unmeaning
gestures: It had a certain scope, and represented a connected plot or
story(71); but what kind of action or story was represented, is utterly
unknown. This whimsical sort of expiation seems to have attracted the
fancy of the Roman youths, who imitated the Etruscan actors; but they
improved on the entertainment, by rallying each other in extemporary and
jocular lines. The Fescennine verses, originally employed in Etruria at
the harvest-homes of the peasants, were about the same period applied by
the Romans to marriage ceremonies and public diversions.
There were also songs of triumph in a rude measure, which were sung by the
soldiers at the ovations of their leaders. As early as the time of
Romulus, when that chief returned triumphant to Rome after his victory
over the Ceninenses and Antemnates, his soldiers followed him in military
array, singing hymns in honour of their gods, and extemporary verses in
praise of their commander(72). Of this description, too, were the Pæans,
with which the victorious troops accompanied the chariot of Cincinnatus,
after he subdued the Equi(73), and with which they celebrated a spirited
enterprize of Cossus, a tribune of the soldiers(74). Sometimes these
laudatory songs were seasoned with coarse jokes and camp jests, like those
introduced at the triumph of C. Claudius, and of M. Livius(75).