Art and Science
The Roman National Festival--
The Roman Stage
The growth of art, and of poetic art especially, in antiquity was
intimately associated with the development of national festivals.
The thanksgiving-festival of the Roman community, which had been
already organized in the previous period essentially under Greek
influence and in the first instance as an extraordinary festival,
--the -ludi maximi- or -Romani-,(1) --acquired during the present
epoch a longer duration and greater variety in the amusements.
Originally limited to one day, the festival was prolonged by an
additional day after the happy termination of each of the three
great revolutions of 245, 260, and 387, and thus at the close of
this period it had already a duration of four days.(2)
A still more important circumstance was, that, probably on the
institution of the curule aedileship (387) which was from the first
entrusted with the preparation and oversight of the festival,(3) it
lost its extraordinary character and its reference to a special vow
made by the general, and took its place in the series of the ordinary
annually recurring festivals as the first of all. Nevertheless the
government adhered to the practice of allowing the spectacle proper
--namely the chariot-race, which was the principal performance--to
take place not more than once at the close of the festival. On the
other days the multitude were probably left mainly to furnish
amusement for themselves, although musicians, dancers, rope-walkers,
jugglers, jesters and such like would not fail to make their
appearance on the occasion, whether hired or not But about the year
390 an important change occurred, which must have stood in connection
with the fixing and prolongation of the festival, that took place
perhaps about the same time. A scaffolding of boards was erected at
the expense of the state in the Circus for the first three days, and
suitable representations were provided on it for the entertainment of
the multitude. That matters might not be carried too far however in
this way, a fixed sum of 200,000 -asses- (2055 pounds) once for all
appropriated from the exchequer for the expenses of the festival; and
the sum was not increased up to the period of the Punic wars. The
aediles, who had to expend this sum, were obliged to defray any
additional amount out of their own pockets; and it is not probable
that they at this time contributed often or considerably from their
own resources. That the new stage was generally under Greek influence,
is proved by its very name (-scaena-, --skene--). It was no doubt at
first designed merely for musicians and buffoons of all sorts, amongst
whom the dancers to the flute, particularly those then so celebrated
from Etruria, were probably the most distinguished; but a public stage
had at any rate now arisen in Rome and it soon became open also to
the Roman poets.
Ballad Singers, -Satura- --
Censure of Art
There was no want of such poets in Latium. Latin "strolling minstrels"
or "ballad-singers" (-grassatores-, -spatiatores-) went from town to
town and from house to house, and recited their chants (-saturae-(4)),
gesticulating and dancing to the accompaniment of the flute.
The measure was of course the only one that then existed, the
so-called Saturnian.(5) No distinct plot lay at the basis of the
chants, and as little do they appear to have been in the form of
dialogue. We must conceive of them as resembling those monotonous
--sometimes improvised, sometimes recited--ballads and -tarantelle-,
such as one may still hear in the Roman hostelries. Songs of this sort
accordingly early came upon the public stage, and certainly formed the
first nucleus of the Roman theatre. But not only were these beginnings
of the drama in Rome, as everywhere, modest and humble; they were, in
a remarkable manner, accounted from the very outset disreputable.
The Twelve Tables denounced evil and worthless song-singing, imposing
severe penalties not only upon incantations but even on lampoons
composed against a fellow-citizen or recited before his door, and
forbidding the employment of wailing-women at funerals. But far more
severely, than by such legal restrictions, the incipient exercise of
art was affected by the moral anathema, which was denounced against
these frivolous and paid trades by the narrowminded earnestness of
the Roman character. "The trade of a poet," says Cato, "in former
times was not respected; if any one occupied himself with it or was a
hanger-on at banquets, he was called an idler." But now any one who
practised dancing, music, or ballad-singing for money was visited
with a double stigma, in consequence of the more and more confirmed
disapproval of gaining a livelihood by services rendered for
remuneration. While accordingly the taking part in the masked
farces with stereotyped characters, that formed the usual native
amusement,(6) was looked upon as an innocent youthful frolic, the
appearing on a public stage for money and without a mask was
considered as directly infamous, and the singer and poet were in
this respect placed quite on a level with the rope-dancer and the
harlequin. Persons of this stamp were regularly pronounced by the
censors(7) incapable of serving in the burgess-army and of voting
in the burgess-assembly. Moreover, not only was the direction of the
stage regarded as pertaining to the province of the city police--a
fact significant enough even in itself--but the police was probably,
even at this period, invested with arbitrary powers of an
extraordinary character against professional stage-artists. Not only
did the police magistrates sit in judgment on the performance after
its conclusion--on which occasion wine flowed as copiously for those
who had acquitted themselves well, as stripes fell to the lot of the
bungler--but all the urban magistrates were legally entitled to
inflict bodily chastisement and imprisonment on any actor at any
time and at any place. The necessary effect of this was that dancing,
music, and poetry, at least so far as they appeared on the public
stage, fell into the hands of the lowest classes of the Roman
burgesses, and especially into those of foreigners; and while at
this period poetry still played altogether too insignificant a part
to engage the attention of foreign artists, the statement on the other
hand, that in Rome all the music, sacred and profane, was essentially
Etruscan, and consequently the ancient Latin art of the flute,
which was evidently at one time held in high esteem,(8) had been
supplanted by foreign music, may be regarded as already applicable
to this period.
There is no mention of any poetical literature. Neither the masked
plays nor the recitations of the stage can have had in the proper
sense fixed texts; on the contrary, they were ordinarily improvised
by the performers themselves as circumstances required. Of works
composed at this period posterity could point to nothing but a sort
of Roman "Works and Days"--counsels of a farmer to his son,(9) and
the already-mentioned Pythagorean poems of Appius Claudius(10) the
first commencement of Roman poetry after the Hellenic type. Nothing
of the poems of this epoch has survived but one or two epitaphs
in Saturnian measure.(11)
Roman Historical Composition
Along with the rudiments of the Roman drama, the rudiments of Roman
historical composition belong to this period; both as regards the
contemporary recording of remarkable events, and as regards the
conventional settlement of the early history of the Roman community.
Registers of Magistrates
The writing of contemporary history was associated with the register
of the magistrates. The register reaching farthest back, which was
accessible to the later Roman inquirers and is still indirectly
accessible to us, seems to have been derived from the archives of the
temple of the Capitoline Jupiter; for it records the names of the
annual presidents of the community onward from the consul Marcus
Horatius, who consecrated that temple on the 13th Sept. in his year of
office, and it also notices the vow which was made on occasion of a
severe pestilence under the consuls Publius Servilius and Lucius
Aebutius (according to the reckoning now current, 291), that
thenceforward a nail should be driven every hundredth year into the
wall of the Capitoline temple. Subsequently it was the state officials
who were learned in measuring and in writing, or in other words, the
pontifices, that kept an official record of the names of the annual
chief magistrates, and thus combined an annual, with the earlier
monthly, calendar. Both these calendars were afterwards comprehended
under the name of Fasti--which strictly belonged only to the list of
court-days. This arrangement was probably adopted not long after the
abolition of the monarchy; for in fact an official record of the
annual magistrates was of urgent practical necessity for the purpose
of authenticating the order of succession of official documents. But,
if there was an official register of the consuls so old, it probably
perished in the Gallic conflagration (364); and the list of the
pontifical college was subsequently completed from the Capitoline
register which was not affected by that catastrophe, so far as this
latter reached back. That the list of presidents which we now have
--although in collateral matters, and especially in genealogical
statements, it has been supplemented at pleasure from the family
pedigrees of the nobility--is in substance based from the beginning
on contemporary and credible records, admits of no doubt. But it
reproduces the calendar years only imperfectly and approximately: for
the consuls did not enter on office with the new year, or even on a
definite day fixed once for all; on the contrary from various causes
the day of entering on office was fluctuating, and the -interregna-
that frequently occurred between two consulates were entirely omitted
in the reckoning by official years. Accordingly, if the calendar years
were to be reckoned by this list of consuls, it was necessary to note
the days of entering on and of demitting office in the case of each
pair, along with such -interregna- as occurred; and this too may have
been early done. But besides this, the list of the annual magistrates
was adjusted to the list of calendar years in such a way that a pair
of magistrates were by accommodation assigned to each calendar year,
and, where the list did not suffice, intercalary years were inserted,
which are denoted in the later (Varronian) table by the figures 379,
383, 421, 430, 445, 453. From 291 u. c. (463 B. C.) the Roman list
demonstrably coincides, not indeed in detail but yet on the whole,
with the Roman calendar, and is thus chronologically certain, so far
as the defectiveness of the calendar itself allows. The 47 years
preceding that date cannot be checked, but must likewise be at least
in the main correct.(12) Whatever lies beyond 245 remains,
chronologically, in oblivion.
Capitoline Era
No era was formed for ordinary use; but in ritual matters they
reckoned from the year of the consecration of the temple of the
Capitoline Jupiter, from which the list of magistrates also started.
Annals
The idea naturally suggested itself that, along with the names of
the magistrates, the most important events occurring under their
magistracy might be noted; and from such notices appended to the
catalogue of magistrates the Roman annals arose, just as the
chronicles of the middle ages arose out of the memoranda marginally
appended to the table of Easter. But it was not until a late period
that the pontifices formed the scheme of a formal chronicle (-liber
annalis-), which should steadily year by year record the names of all
the magistrates and the remarkable events. Before the eclipse of the
sun noticed under the 5th of June 351, by which is probably meant that
of the 20th June 354, no solar eclipse was found recorded from
observation in the later chronicle of the city: its statements as to
the numbers of the census only begin to sound credible after the
beginning of the fifth century,(13) the cases of fines brought before
the people, and the prodigies expiated on behalf of the community,
appear to have been regularly introduced into the annals only after
the second half of the fifth century began. To all appearance the
institution of an organized book of annals, and--what was certainly
associated with it--the revision (which we have just explained) of the
earlier list of magistrates so as to make it a year-calendar by the
insertion, where chronologically necessary, of intercalary years, took
place in the first half of the fifth century. But even after it became
a practically recognized duty of the -pontifex maximus- to record year
after year campaigns and colonizations, pestilences and famines,
eclipses and portents, the deaths of priests and other men of note,
the new decrees of the people, and the results of the census, and
to deposit these records in his official residence for permanent
preservation and for any one's inspection, these records were still
far removed from the character of real historical writings. How scanty
the contemporary record still was at the close of this period and how
ample room is left for the caprice of subsequent annalists, is shown
with incisive clearness by a comparison of the accounts as to the
campaign of 456 in the annals and in the epitaph of the consul
Scipio.(14) The later historians were evidently unable to construct a
readable and in some measure connected narrative out of these notices
from the book of annals; and we should have difficulty, even if the
book of annals still lay before us with its original contents, in
writing from it in duly connected sequence the history of the times.
Such chronicles, however, did not exist merely in Rome; every Latin
city possessed its annals as well as its pontifices, as is clear from
isolated notices relative to Ardea for instance, Ameria, and Interamna
on the Nar; and from the collective mass of these city-chronicles
some result might perhaps have been attained similar to what has
been accomplished for the earlier middle ages by the comparison of
different monastic chronicles. Unfortunately the Romans in later times
preferred to supply the defect by Hellenic or Hellenizing falsehoods.
Family Pedigrees
Besides these official arrangements, meagrely planned and uncertainly
handled, for commemorating past times and past events, there can
scarcely have existed at this epoch any other records immediately
serviceable for Roman history. Of private chronicles we find no trace.
The leading houses, however, were careful to draw up genealogical
tables, so important in a legal point of view, and to have the family
pedigree painted for a perpetual memorial on the walls of the
entrance-hall. These lists, which at least named the magistracies held
by the family, not only furnished a basis for family tradition, but
doubtless at an early period had biographical notices attached to
them. The memorial orations, which in Rome could not be omitted at the
funeral of any person of quality, and were ordinarily pronounced by
the nearest relative of the deceased, consisted essentially not merely
in an enumeration of the virtues and excellencies of the dead, but
also in a recital of the deeds and virtues of his ancestors; and so
they were doubtless, even in the earliest times, transmitted
traditionally from one generation to another. Many a valuable
notice may by this means have been preserved; but many a daring
perversion and falsification also may have been in this way
introduced into tradition.
Roman Early History of Rome
But as the first steps towards writing real history belonged to
this period, to it belonged also the first attempts to record, and
conventionally distort, the primitive history of Rome. The sources
whence it was formed were of course the same as they are everywhere.
Isolated names like those of the kings Numa, Ancus, Tullus, to whom
the clan-names were probably only assigned subsequently, and isolated
facts, such as the conquest of the Latins by king Tarquinius and the
expulsion of the Tarquinian royal house, may have continued to live in
true general tradition orally transmitted. Further materials were
furnished by the traditions of the patrician clans, such as the
various tales that relate to the Fabii. Other tales gave a symbolic
and historic shape to primitive national institutions, especially
setting forth with great vividness the origin of rules of law. The
sacredness of the walls was thus illustrated in the tale of the death
of Remus, the abolition of blood-revenge in the tale of the end of
king Tatius(15), the necessity of the arrangement as to the -pons
sublicius- in the legend of Horatius Cocles,(15) the origin of the
-provocatio- in the beautiful tale of the Horatii and Curiatii, the
origin of manumission and of the burgess-rights of freedmen in the
tale of the Tarquinian conspiracy and the slave Vindicius. To the same
class belongs the history of the foundation of the city itself, which
was designed to connect the origin of Rome with Latium and with Alba,
the general metropolis of the Latins. Historical glosses were annexed
to the surnames of distinguished Romans; that of Publius Valerius the
"servant of the people" (-Poplicola-), for instance, gathered around
it a whole group of such anecdotes. Above all, the sacred fig-tree and
other spots and notable objects in the city were associated with a
great multitude of sextons' tales of the same nature as those out of
which, upwards of a thousand years afterwards, there grew up on the
same ground the Mirabilia Urbis. Some attempts to link together these
different tales--the adjustment of the series of the seven kings, the
setting down of the duration of the monarchy at 240 years in all,
which was undoubtedly based on a calculation of the length of
generations,(16) and even the commencement of an official record of
these assumed facts--probably took place already in this epoch. The
outlines of the narrative, and in particular its quasi-chronology,
make their appearance in the later tradition so unalterably fixed,
that for that very reason the fixing of them must be placed not in,
but previous to, the literary epoch of Rome. If a bronze casting of
the twins Romulus and Remus sucking the teats of the she-wolf was
already placed beside the sacred fig-tree in 458, the Romans who
subdued Latium and Samnium must have heard the history of the origin
of their ancestral city in a form not greatly differing from what
we read in Livy. Even the Aborigines--i. e. "those from the very
beginning"--that simple rudimental form of historical speculation as
to the Latin race--are met with about 465 in the Sicilian author
Callias. It is of the very nature of a chronicle that it should attach
prehistoric speculation to history and endeavour to go back, if not
to the origin of heaven and earth, at least to the origin of the
community; and there is express testimony that the table of the
pontifices specified the year of the foundation of Rome. Accordingly
it may be assumed that, when the pontifical college in the first half
of the fifth century proceeded to substitute for the former scanty
records--ordinarily, doubtless, confined to the names of the
magistrates--the scheme of a formal yearly chronicle, it also added
what was wanting at the beginning, the history of the kings of Rome
and of their fall, and, by placing the institution of the republic on
the day of the consecration of the Capitoline temple, the 13th of
Sept. 245, furnished a semblance of connection between the dateless
and the annalistic narrative. That in this earliest record of the
origin of Rome the hand of Hellenism was at work, can scarcely
be doubted. The speculations as to the primitive and subsequent
population, as to the priority of pastoral life over agriculture, and
the transformation of the man Romulus into the god Quirinus,(17) have
quite a Greek aspect, and even the obscuring of the genuinely national
forms of the pious Numa and the wise Egeria by the admixture of alien
elements of Pythagorean primitive wisdom appears by no means to be
one of the most recent ingredients in the Roman prehistoric annals.
The pedigrees of the noble clans were completed in a manner analogous
to these -origines- of the community, and were, in the favourite style
of heraldry, universally traced back to illustrious ancestors. The
Aemilii, for instance, Calpurnii, Pinarii, and Pomponii professed to
be descended from the four sons of Numa, Mamercus, Calpus, Pinus, and
Pompo; and the Aemilii, yet further, from Mamercus, the son of
Pythagoras, who was named the "winning speaker" (--aimulos--)
But, notwithstanding the Hellenic reminiscences that are everywhere
apparent, these prehistoric annals of the community and of the leading
houses may be designated at least relatively as national, partly
because they originated in Rome, partly because they tended primarily
to form links of connection not between Rome and Greece, but between
Rome and Latium.
Hellenic Early History of Rome
It was Hellenic story and fiction that undertook the task of
connecting Rome and Greece. Hellenic legend exhibits throughout an
endeavour to keep pace with the gradual extension of geographical
knowledge, and to form a dramatized geography by the aid of its
numerous stories of voyagers and emigrants. In this, however, it
seldom follows a simple course. An account like that of the earliest
Greek historical work which mentions Rome, the "Sicilian History" of
Antiochus of Syracuse (which ended in 330)--that a man named Sikelos
had migrated from Rome to Italia, that is, to the Bruttian peninsula
--such an account, simply giving a historical form to the family
affinity between the Romans, Siculi, and Bruttians, and free from all
Hellenizing colouring, is a rare phenomenon. Greek legend as a whole
is pervaded--and the more so, the later its rise--by a tendency to
represent the whole barbarian world as having either issued from the
Greeks or having been subdued by them; and it early in this sense spun
its threads also around the west. For Italy the legends of Herakles
and of the Argonauts were of less importance--although Hecataeus
(after 257) is already acquainted with the Pillars of Herakles, and
carries the Argo from the Black Sea into the Atlantic Ocean, from the
latter into the Nile, and thus back to the Mediterranean--than were
the homeward voyages connected with the fall of Ilion. With the first
dawn of information as to Italy Diomedes begins to wander in the
Adriatic, and Odysseus in the Tyrrhene Sea;(18) as indeed the
latter localization at least was naturally suggested by the Homeric
conception of the legend. Down to the times of Alexander the countries
on the Tyrrhene Sea belonged in Hellenic fable to the domain of the
legend of Odysseus; Ephorus, who ended his history with the year 414,
and the so-called Scylax (about 418) still substantially follow it.
Of Trojan voyages the whole earlier poetry has no knowledge;
in Homer Aeneas after the fall of Ilion rules over the Trojans
that remained at home.
Stesichorus
It was the great remodeller of myths, Stesichorus (122-201) who first
in his "Destruction of Ilion" brought Aeneas to the land of the west,
that he might poetically enrich the world of fable in the country of
his birth and of his adoption, Sicily and Lower Italy, by the contrast
of the Trojan heroes with the Hellenic. With him originated the
poetical outlines of this fable as thenceforward fixed, especially the
group of the hero and his wife, his little son and his aged father
bearing the household gods, departing from burning Troy, and the
important identification of the Trojans with the Sicilian and Italian
autochthones, which is especially apparent in the case of the Trojan
trumpeter Misenus who gave his name to the promontory of Misenum.(19)
The old poet was guided in this view by the feeling that the
barbarians of Italy were less widely removed from the Hellenes than
other barbarians were, and that the relation between the Hellenes and
Italians might, when measured poetically, be conceived as similar to
that between the Homeric Achaeans and the Trojans. This new Trojan
fable soon came to be mixed up with the earlier legend of Odysseus,
while it spread at the same time more widely over Italy. According to
Hellanicus (who wrote about 350) Odysseus and Aeneas came through the
country of the Thracians and Molottians (Epirus) to Italy, where the
Trojan women whom they had brought with them burnt the ships, and
Aeneas founded the city of Rome and named it after one of these Trojan
women. To a similar effect, only with less absurdity, Aristotle
(370-432) related that an Achaean squadron cast upon the Latin coast
had been set on fire by Trojan female slaves, and that the Latins
had originated from the descendants of the Achaeans who were thus
compelled to remain there and of their Trojan wives. With these tales
were next mingled elements from the indigenous legend, the knowledge
of which had been diffused as far as Sicily by the active intercourse
between Sicily and Italy, at least towards the end of this epoch.
In the version of the origin of Rome, which the Sicilian Callias
put on record about 465, the fables of Odysseus, Aeneas, and Romulus
were intermingled.(20)
Timaeus
But the person who really completed the conception subsequently
current of this Trojan migration was Timaeus of Tauromenium in Sicily,
who concluded his historical work with 492. It is he who represents
Aeneas as first founding Lavinium with its shrine of the Trojan
Penates, and as thereafter founding Rome; he must also have interwoven
the Tyrian princess Elisa or Dido with the legend of Aeneas, for with
him Dido is the foundress of Carthage, and Rome and Carthage are said
by him to have been built in the same year. These alterations were
manifestly suggested by certain accounts that had reached Sicily
respecting Latin manners and customs, in conjunction with the critical
struggle which at the very time and place where Timaeus wrote was
preparing between the Romans and the Carthaginians. In the main,
however, the story cannot have been derived from Latium, but can only
have been the good-for-nothing invention of the old "gossip-monger"
himself. Timaeus had heard of the primitive temple of the household
gods in Lavinium; but the statement, that these were regarded by the
Lavinates as the Penates brought by the followers of Aeneas from
Ilion, is as certainly an addition of his own, as the ingenious
parallel between the Roman October horse and the Trojan horse, and the
exact inventory taken of the sacred objects of Lavinium--there were,
our worthy author affirms, heralds' staves of iron and copper, and an
earthen vase of Trojan manufacture! It is true that these same Penates
might not at all be seen by any one for centuries afterwards; but
Timaeus was one of the historians who upon no matter are so fully
informed as upon things unknowable. It is not without reason that
Polybius, who knew the man, advises that he should in no case be
trusted, and least of all where, as in this instance, he appeals to
documentary proofs. In fact the Sicilian rhetorician, who professed to
point out the grave of Thucydides in Italy, and who found no higher
praise for Alexander than that he had finished the conquest of Asia
sooner than Isocrates finished his "Panegyric," was exactly the man to
knead the naive fictions of the earlier time into that confused medley
on which the play of accident has conferred so singular a celebrity.
How far the Hellenic play of fable regarding Italian matters, as it
in the first instance arose in Sicily, gained admission during this
period even in Italy itself, cannot be ascertained with precision.
Those links of connection with the Odyssean cycle, which we
subsequently meet with in the legends of the foundation of Tusculum,
Praeneste, Antium, Ardea, and Cortona, must probably have been already
concocted at this period; and even the belief in the descent of the
Romans from Trojan men or Trojan women must have been established at
the close of this epoch in Rome, for the first demonstrable contact
between Rome and the Greek east is the intercession of the senate on
behalf of the "kindre" Ilians in 472. That the fable of Aeneas was
nevertheless of comparatively recent origin in Italy, is shown by
the extremely scanty measure of its localization as compared with
the legend of Odysseus; and at any rate the final redaction of these
tales, as well as their reconciliation with the legend of the origin
of Rome, belongs only to the following age.
While in this way historical composition, or what was so called among
the Hellenes, busied itself in its own fashion with the prehistoric
times of Italy, it left the contemporary history of Italy almost
untouched--a circumstance as significant of the sunken condition of
Hellenic history, as it is to be for our sakes regretted. Theopompus
of Chios (who ended his work with 418) barely noticed in passing the
capture of Rome by the Celts; and Aristotle,(21) Clitarchus,(22)
Theophrastus,(23) Heraclides of Pontus (about 450), incidentally
mention particular events relating to Rome. It is only with Hieronymus
of Cardia, who as the historian of Pyrrhus narrated also his Italian
wars, that Greek historiography becomes at the same time an authority
for the history of Rome.
Jurisprudence
Among the sciences, that of jurisprudence acquired an invaluable basis
through the committing to writing of the laws of the city in the years
303, 304. This code, known under the name of the Twelve Tables, is
perhaps the oldest Roman document that deserves the name of a book.
The nucleus of the so-called -leges regiae- was probably not much more
recent. These were certain precepts chiefly of a ritual nature, which
rested upon traditional usage, and were probably promulgated to the
general public under the form of royal enactments by the college of
pontifices, which was entitled not to legislate but to point out the
law. Moreover it may be presumed that from the commencement of this
period the more important decrees of the senate at any rate--if not
those of the people--were regularly recorded in writing; for already
in the earliest conflicts between the orders disputes took place as
to their preservation.(24)
Opinions--
Table of Formulae for Actions
While the mass of written legal documents thus increased, the
foundations of jurisprudence in the proper sense were also firmly
laid. It was necessary that both the magistrates who were annually
changed and the jurymen taken from the people should be enabled to
resort to men of skill, who were acquainted with the course of law and
knew how to suggest a decision accordant with precedents or, in the
absence of these, resting on reasonable grounds. The pontifices who
were wont to be consulted by the people regarding court-days and on
all questions of difficulty and of legal observance relating to the
worship of the gods, delivered also, when asked, counsels and opinions
on other points of law, and thus developed in the bosom of their
college that tradition which formed the basis of Roman private law,
more especially the formulae of action proper for each particular
case. A table of formulae which embraced all these actions, along with
a calendar which specified the court-days, was published to the people
about 450 by Appius Claudius or by his clerk, Gnaeus Flavius. This
attempt, however, to give formal shape to a science, that as yet
hardly recognized itself, stood for a long time completely isolated.
That the knowledge of law and the setting it forth were even now a
means of recommendation to the people and of attaining offices of
state, may be readily conceived, although the story, that the first
plebeian pontifex Publius Sempronius Sophus (consul 450), and the
first plebeian pontifex maximus Tiberius Coruncanius (consul 474),
were indebted for these priestly honours to their knowledge of law,
is probably rather a conjecture of posterity than a statement
of tradition.
Language
That the real genesis of the Latin and doubtless also of the other
Italian languages was anterior to this period, and that even at its
commencement the Latin language was substantially an accomplished
fact, is evident from the fragments of the Twelve Tables, which,
however, have been largely modernized by their semi-oral tradition.
They contain doubtless a number of antiquated words and harsh
combinations, particularly in consequence of omitting the indefinite
subject; but their meaning by no means presents, like that of the
Arval chant, any real difficulty, and they exhibit far more agreement
with the language of Cato than with that of the ancient litanies.
If the Romans at the beginning of the seventh century had difficulty
in understanding documents of the fifth, the difficulty doubtless
proceeded merely from the fact that there existed at that time in Rome
no real, least of all any documentary, research.
Technical Style
On the other hand it must have been at this period, when the
indication and redaction of law began, that the Roman technical style
first established itself--a style which at least in its developed
shape is nowise inferior to the modern legal phraseology of England in
stereotyped formulae and turns of expression, endless enumeration of
particulars, and long-winded periods; and which commends itself to the
initiated by its clearness and precision, while the layman who does
not understand it listens, according to his character and humour, with
reverence, impatience, or chagrin.
Philology
Moreover at this epoch began the treatment of the native languages
after a rational method. About its commencement the Sabellian as well
as the Latin idiom threatened, as we saw,(25) to become barbarous,
and the abrasion of endings and the corruption of the vowels and more
delicate consonants spread on all hands, just as was the case with the
Romanic languages in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian
era. But a reaction set in: the sounds which had coalesced in Oscan,
-d and -r, and the sounds which had coalesced in Latin, -g and -k,
were again separated, and each was provided with its proper sign;
-o and -u, for which from the first the Oscan alphabet had lacked
separate signs, and which had been in Latin originally separate but
threatened to coalesce, again became distinct, and in Oscan even the
-i was resolved into two signs different in sound and in writing;
lastly, the writing again came to follow more closely the
pronunciation--the -s for instance among the Romans being in many
cases replaced by -r. Chronological indications point to the fifth
century as the period of this reaction; the Latin -g for instance was
not yet in existence about 300 but was so probably about 500; the
first of the Papirian clan, who called himself Papirius instead of
Papisius, was the consul of 418; the introduction of that -r instead
of -s is attributed to Appius Claudius, censor in 442. Beyond doubt
the re-introduction of a more delicate and precise pronunciation was
connected with the increasing influence of Greek civilization, which
is observable at this very period in all departments of Italian life;
and, as the silver coins of Capua and Nola are far more perfect than
the contemporary asses of Ardea and Rome, writing and language appear
also to have been more speedily and fully reduced to rule in the
Campanian land than in Latium. How little, notwithstanding the labour
bestowed on it, the Roman language and mode of writing had become
settled at the close of this epoch, is shown by the inscriptions
preserved from the end of the fifth century, in which the greatest
arbitrariness prevails, particularly as to the insertion or omission
of -m, -d and -s in final sounds and of -n in the body of a word,
and as to the distinguishing of the vowels -o -u and -e -i.(26) It is
probable that the contemporary Sabellians were in these points further
advanced, while the Umbrians were but slightly affected by the
regenerating influence of the Hellenes.
Instruction
In consequence of this progress of jurisprudence and grammar,
elementary school-instruction also, which in itself had doubtless
already emerged earlier, must have undergone a certain improvement.
As Homer was the oldest Greek, and the Twelve Tables was the oldest
Roman, book, each became in its own land the essential basis of
instruction; and the learning by heart the juristico-political
catechism was a chief part of Roman juvenile training. Alongside of
the Latin "writing-masters" (-litteratores-) there were of course,
from the time when an acquaintance with Greek was indispensable for
every statesman and merchant, also Greek "language-masters"
(-grammatici-)(27)--partly tutor-slaves, partly private teachers,
who at their own dwelling or that of their pupil gave instructions
in the reading and speaking of Greek. As a matter of course, the rod
played its part in instruction as well as in military discipline and
in police.(28) The instruction of this epoch cannot however have
passed beyond the elementary stage: there was no material shade
of difference, in a social respect, between the educated and
the non-educated Roman.
Exact Sciences--
Regulation of the Calendar
That the Romans at no time distinguished themselves in the
mathematical and mechanical sciences is well known, and is attested,
in reference to the present epoch, by almost the only fact which can
be adduced under this head with certainty--the regulation of the
calendar attempted by the decemvirs. They wished to substitute for the
previous calendar based on the old and very imperfect -trieteris-(29)
the contemporary Attic calendar of the -octaeteris-, which retained
the lunar month of 29 1/2 days but assumed the solar year at 365 1/4
days instead of 368 3/4, and therefore, without making any alteration
in the length of the common year of 354 days, intercalated, not as
formerly 59 days every 4 years, but 90 days every 8 years. With the
same view the improvers of the Roman calendar intended--while
otherwise retaining the current calendar--in the two inter-calary
years of the four years' cycle to shorten not the intercalary months,
but the two Februaries by 7 days each, and consequently to fix that
month in the intercalary years at 22 and 21 days respectively instead
of 29 and 28. But want of mathematical precision and theological
scruples, especially in reference to the annual festival of Terminus
which fell within those very days in February, disarranged the
intended reform, so that the Februaries of the intercalary years came
to be of 24 and 23 days, and thus the new Roman solar year in reality
ran to 366 1/4 days. Some remedy for the practical evils resulting
from this was found in the practice by which, setting aside the
reckoning by the months or ten months of the calendar (30) as now no
longer applicable from the inequality in the length of the months,
wherever more accurate specifications were required, they accustomed
themselves to reckon by terms of ten months of a solar year of 365
days or by the so-called ten-month year of 304 days. Over and above
this, there came early into use in Italy, especially for agricultural
purposes, the farmers' calendar based on the Egyptian solar year of
365 1/4 days by Eudoxus (who flourished 386).
Structural and Plastic Art
A higher idea of what the Italians were able to do in these
departments is furnished by their works of structural and plastic art,
which are closely associated with the mechanical sciences. Here too we
do not find phenomena of real originality; but if the impress of
borrowing, which the plastic art of Italy bears throughout, diminishes
its artistic interest, there gathers around it a historical interest
all the more lively, because on the one hand it preserves the most
remarkable evidences of an international intercourse of which other
traces have disappeared, and on the other hand, amidst the well-nigh
total loss of the history of the non-Roman Italians, art is almost
the sole surviving index of the living activity which the different
peoples of the peninsula displayed. No novelty is to be reported in
this period; but what we have already shown(31) may be illustrated
in this period with greater precision and on a broader basis, namely,
that the stimulus derived from Greece powerfully affected the
Etruscans and Italians on different sides, and called forth among
the former a richer and more luxurious, among the latter--where it
had any influence at all--a more intelligent and more genuine, art.
Architecture--
Etruscan
We have already shown how wholly the architecture of all the Italian
lands was, even in its earliest period, pervaded by Hellenic elements.
Its city walls, its aqueducts, its tombs with pyramidal roofs, and its
Tuscanic temple, are not at all, or not materially, different from the
oldest Hellenic structures. No trace has been preserved of any advance
in architecture among the Etruscans during this period; we find among
them neither any really new reception, nor any original creation,
unless we ought to reckon as such the magnificent tombs, e. g. the
so-called tomb of Porsena at Chiusi described by Varro, which vividly
recalls the strange and meaningless grandeur of the Egyptian pyramids.
Latin--
The Arch
In Latium too, during the first century and a half of the republic,
it is probable that they moved solely in the previous track, and it
has already been stated that the exercise of art rather sank than rose
with the introduction of the republic.(32) There can scarcely be named
any Latin building of architectural importance belonging to this
period, except the temple of Ceres built in the Circus at Rome in 261,
which was regarded in the period of the empire as a model of the
Tuscanic style. But towards the close of this epoch a new spirit
appeared in Italian and particularly in Roman architecture;(33) the
building of the magnificent arches began. It is true that we are not
entitled to pronounce the arch and the vault Italian inventions.
It is well ascertained that at the epoch of the genesis of Hellenic
architecture the Hellenes were not yet acquainted with the arch, and
therefore had to content themselves with a flat ceiling and a sloping
roof for their temples; but the arch may very well have been a later
invention of the Hellenes originating in more scientific mechanics;
as indeed the Greek tradition refers it to the natural philosopher
Democritus (294-397). With this priority of Hellenic over Roman
arch-building the hypothesis, which has been often and perhaps justly
propounded, is quite compatible, that the vaulted roof of the Roman
great -cloaca-, and that which was afterwards thrown over the old
Capitoline well-house which originally had a pyramidal roof,(34) are
the oldest extant structures in which the principle of the arch is
applied; for it is more than probable that these arched buildings
belong not to the regal but to the republican period,(35) and that
in the regal period the Italians were acquainted only with flat or
overlapped roofs.(34) But whatever may be thought as to the invention
of the arch itself, the application of a principle on a great scale is
everywhere, and particularly in architecture, at least as important as
its first exposition; and this application belongs indisputably to the
Romans. With the fifth century began the building of gates, bridges,
and aqueducts based mainly on the arch, which is thenceforth
inseparably associated with the Roman name. Akin to this was the
development of the form of the round temple with the dome-shaped roof,
which was foreign to the Greeks, but was held in much favour with the
Romans and was especially applied by them in the case of the cults
peculiar to them, particularly the non-Greek worship of Vesta.(37)
Something the same may be affirmed as true of various subordinate,
but not on that account unimportant, achievements in this field.
They do not lay claim to originality or artistic accomplishment;
but the firmly-jointed stone slabs of the Roman streets, their
indestructible highways, the broad hard ringing tiles, the everlasting
mortar of their buildings, proclaim the indestructible solidity and
the energetic vigour of the Roman character.
Plastic and Delineative Art
Like architectural art, and, if possible, still more completely, the
plastic and delineative arts were not so much matured by Grecian
stimulus as developed from Greek seeds on Italian soil. We have
already observed(38) that these, although only younger sisters of
architecture, began to develop themselves at least in Etruria, even
during the Roman regal period; but their principal development in
Etruria, and still more in Latium, belongs to the present epoch, as is
very evident from the fact that in those districts which the Celts
and Samnites wrested from the Etruscans in the course of the fourth
century there is scarcely a trace of the practice of Etruscan art.
The plastic art of the Tuscans applied itself first and chiefly to
works in terra-cotta, in copper, and in gold-materials which were
furnished to the artists by the rich strata of clay, the copper mines,
and the commercial intercourse of Etruria. The vigour with which
moulding in clay was prosecuted is attested by the immense number of
bas-reliefs and statuary works in terra-cotta, with which the walls,
gables, and roofs of the Etruscan temples were once decorated, as
their still extant ruins show, and by the trade which can be shown to
have existed in such articles from Etruria to Latium. Casting in
copper occupied no inferior place. Etruscan artists ventured to make
colossal statues of bronze fifty feet in height, and Volsinii, the
Etruscan Delphi, was said to have possessed about the year 489 two
thousand bronze statues. Sculpture in stone, again, began in Etruria,
as probably everywhere, at a far later date, and was prevented from
development not only by internal causes, but also by the want of
suitable material; the marble quarries of Luna (Carrara) were not yet
opened. Any one who has seen the rich and elegant gold decorations
of the south-Etruscan tombs, will have no difficulty in believing the
statement that Tyrrhene gold cups were valued even in Attica.
Gem-engraving also, although more recent, was in various forms
practised in Etruria. Equally dependent on the Greeks, but otherwise
quite on a level with the workers in the plastic arts, were the
Etruscan designers and painters, who manifested extraordinary activity
both in outline-drawing on metal and in monochromatic fresco-painting.
Campanian and Sabellian
On comparing with this the domain of the Italians proper, it appears
at first, contrasted with the Etruscan riches, almost poor in art.
But on a closer view we cannot fail to perceive that both the
Sabellian and the Latin nations must have had far more capacity
and aptitude for art than the Etruscans. It is true that in the proper
Sabellian territory, in Sabina, in the Abruzzi, in Samnium, there are
hardly found any works of art at all, and even coins are wanting.
But those Sabellian stocks, which reached the coasts of the Tyrrhene
or Ionic seas, not only appropriated Hellenic art externally, like
the Etruscans, but more or less completely acclimatized it. Even in
Velitrae, where probably alone in the former land of the Volsci their
language and peculiar character were afterwards maintained, painted
terra-cottas have been found, displaying vigorous and characteristic
treatment. In Lower Italy Lucania was to a less degree influenced
by Hellenic art; but in Campania and in the land of the Bruttii,
Sabellians and Hellenes became completely intermingled not only in
language and nationality, but also and especially in art, and the
Campanian and Bruttian coins in particular stand so entirely in point
of artistic treatment on a level with the contemporary coins of
Greece, that the inscription alone serves to distinguish the one
from the other.
Latin
It is a fact less known, but not less certain, that Latium also, while
inferior to Etruria in the copiousness and massiveness of its art,
was not inferior in artistic taste and practical skill. Evidently the
establishment of the Romans in Campania which took place about the
beginning of the fifth century, the conversion of the town of Cales
into a Latin community, and that of the Falernian territory near Capua
into a Roman tribe,(39) opened up in the first instance Campanian art
to the Romans. It is true that among these the art of gem-engraving so
diligently prosecuted in luxurious Etruria is entirely wanting, and we
find no indication that the Latin workshops were, like those of the
Etruscan goldsmiths and clay-workers, occupied in supplying a foreign
demand. It is true that the Latin temples were not like the Etruscan
overloaded with bronze and clay decorations, that the Latin tombs were
not like the Etruscan filled with gold ornaments, and their walls
shone not, like those of the Tuscan tombs, with paintings of various
colours. Nevertheless, on the whole the balance does not incline in
favour of the Etruscan nation. The device of the effigy of Janus,
which, like the deity itself, may be attributed to the Latins,(40)
is not unskilful, and is of a more original character than that of
any Etruscan work of art. The beautiful group of the she-wolf with the
twins attaches itself doubtless to similar Greek designs, but was--as
thus worked out--certainly produced, if not in Rome, at any rate by
Romans; and it deserves to be noted that it first appears on the
silver moneys coined by the Romans in and for Campania. In the
above-mentioned Cales there appears to have been devised soon after
its foundation a peculiar kind of figured earthenware, which was
marked with the name of the masters and the place of manufacture,
and was sold over a wide district as far even as Etruria. The little
altars of terra-cotta with figures that have recently been brought
to light on the Esquiline correspond in style of representation as in
that of ornament exactly to the similar votive gifts of the Campanian
temples. This however does not exclude Greek masters from having also
worked for Rome. The sculptor Damophilus, who with Gorgasus prepared
the painted terra-cotta figures for the very ancient temple of Ceres,
appears to have been no other than Demophilus of Himera, the teacher
of Zeuxis (about 300). The most instructive illustrations are
furnished by those branches of art in which we are able to form a
comparative judgment, partly from ancient testimonies, partly from
our own observation. Of Latin works in stone scarcely anything else
survives than the stone sarcophagus of the Roman consul Lucius Scipio,
wrought at the close of this period in the Doric style; but its noble
simplicity puts to shame all similar Etruscan works. Many beautiful
bronzes of an antique chaste style of art, particularly helmets,
candelabra, and the like articles, have been taken from Etruscan
tombs; but which of these works is equal to the bronze she-wolf
erected from the proceeds of fines in 458 at the Ruminal fig-tree in
the Roman Forum, and still forming the finest ornament of the Capitol?
And that the Latin metal-founders as little shrank from great
enterprises as the Etruscans, is shown by the colossal bronze figure
of Jupiter on the Capitol erected by Spurius Carvilius (consul in 461)
from the melted equipments of the Samnites, the chisellings of which
sufficed to cast the statue of the victor that stood at the feet of
the Colossus; this statue of Jupiter was visible even from the Alban
Mount. Amongst the cast copper coins by far the finest belong to
southern Latium; the Roman and Umbrian are tolerable, the Etruscan
almost destitute of any image and often really barbarous.
The fresco-paintings, which Gaius Fabius executed in the temple of
Health on the Capitol, dedicated in 452, obtained in design and
colouring the praise even of connoisseurs trained in Greek art in
the Augustan age; and the art-enthusiasts of the empire commended
the frescoes of Caere, but with still greater emphasis those of Rome,
Lanuvium, and Ardea, as masterpieces of painting. Engraving on metal,
which in Latium decorated not the hand-mirror, as in Etruria, but the
toilet-casket with its elegant outlines, was practised to a far less
extent in Latium and almost exclusively in Praeneste. There are
excellent works of art among the copper mirrors of Etruria as among
the caskets of Praeneste; but it was a work of the latter kind, and
in fact a work which most probably originated in the workshop of a
Praenestine master at this epoch,(41) regarding which it could with
truth be affirmed that scarcely another product of the graving of
antiquity bears the stamp of an art so finished in its beauty and
characteristic expression, and yet so perfectly pure and chaste,
as the Ficoroni -cista-.
Character of Etruscan Art
The general character of Etruscan works of art is, on the one hand, a
sort of barbaric extravagance in material as well as in style; on the
other hand, an utter absence of original development. Where the Greek
master lightly sketches, the Etruscan disciple lavishes a scholar's
diligence; instead of the light material and moderate proportions of
the Greek works, there appears in the Etruscan an ostentatious stress
laid upon the size and costliness, or even the mere singularity, of
the work. Etruscan art cannot imitate without exaggerating; the chaste
in its hands becomes harsh, the graceful effeminate, the terrible
hideous, and the voluptuous obscene; and these features become more
prominent, the more the original stimulus falls into the background
and Etruscan art finds itself left to its own resources. Still more
surprising is the adherence to traditional forms and a traditional
style. Whether it was that a more friendly contact with Etruria at the
outset allowed the Hellenes to scatter there the seeds of art, and
that a later epoch of hostility impeded the admission into Etruria
of the more recent developments of Greek art, or whether, as is more
probable, the intellectual torpor that rapidly came over the nation
was the main cause of the phenomenon, art in Etruria remained
substantially stationary at the primitive stage which it had occupied
on its first entrance. This, as is well known, forms the reason why
Etruscan art, the stunted daughter, was so long regarded as the
mother, of Hellenic art. Still more even than the rigid adherence to
the style traditionally transmitted in the older branches of art,
the sadly inferior handling of those branches that came into vogue
afterwards, particularly of sculpture in stone and of copper-casting
as applied to coins, shows how quickly the spirit of Etruscan art
evaporated. Equally instructive are the painted vases, which are found
in so enormous numbers in the later Etruscan tombs. Had these come
into current use among the Etruscans as early as the metal plates
decorated with contouring or the painted terra-cottas, beyond doubt
they would have learned to manufacture them at home in considerable
quantity, and of a quality at least relatively good; but at the period
at which this luxury arose, the power of independent reproduction
wholly failed--as the isolated vases provided with Etruscan
inscriptions show--and they contented themselves with buying
instead of making them.
North Etruscan and South Etruscan Art
But even within Etruria there appears a further remarkable distinction
in artistic development between the southern and northern districts.
It is South Etruria, particularly in the districts of Caere,
Tarquinii, and Volci, that has preserved the great treasures of art
which the nation boasted, especially in frescoes, temple decorations,
gold ornaments, and painted vases. Northern Etruria is far inferior;
no painted tomb, for example, has been found to the north of Chiusi.
The most southern Etruscan cities, Veii, Caere, and Tarquinii, were
accounted in Roman tradition the primitive and chief seats of Etruscan
art; the most northerly town, Volaterrae, with the largest territory
of all the Etruscan communities, stood most of all aloof from art
While a Greek semi-culture prevailed in South Etruria, Northern
Etruria was much more marked by an absence of all culture. The causes
of this remarkable contrast may be sought partly in differences of
nationality--South Etruria being largely peopled in all probability by
non-Etruscan elements(42)--partly in the varying intensity of Hellenic
influence, which must have made itself very decidedly felt at Caere in
particular. The fact itself admits of no doubt. The more injurious on
that account must have been the early subjugation of the southern half
of Etruria by the Romans, and the Romanizing--which there began very
early--of Etruscan art. What Northern Etruria, confined to its own
efforts, was able to produce in the way of art, is shown by the copper
coins which essentially belong to it.
Character of Latin Art
Let us now turn from Etruria to glance at Latium. The latter, it is
true, created no new art; it was reserved for a far later epoch of
culture to develop on the basis of the arch a new architecture
different from the Hellenic, and then to unfold in harmony with that
architecture a new style of sculpture and painting. Latin art is
nowhere original and often insignificant; but the fresh sensibility
and the discriminating tact, which appropriate what is good in others,
constitute a high artistic merit. Latin art seldom became barbarous,
and in its best products it comes quite up to the level of Greek
technical execution. We do not mean to deny that the art of Latium,
at least in its earlier stages, had a certain dependence on the
undoubtedly earlier Etruscan;(43) Varro may be quite right in
supposing that, previous to the execution by Greek artists of the clay
figures in the temple of Ceres,(44) only "Tuscanic" figures adorned
the Roman temples; but that, at all events, it was mainly the direct
influence of the Greeks that led Latin art into its proper channel,
is self-evident, and is very obviously shown by these very statues as
well as by the Latin and Roman coins. Even the application of graving
on metal in Etruria solely to the toilet mirror, and in Latium solely
to the toilet casket, indicates the diversity of the art-impulses that
affected the two lands. It does not appear, however, to have been
exactly at Rome that Latin art put forth its freshest vigour; the
Roman -asses- and Roman -denarii- are far surpassed in fineness and
taste of workmanship by the Latin copper, and the rare Latin silver,
coins, and the masterpieces of painting and design belong chiefly to
Praeneste, Lanuvium, and Ardea. This accords completely with the
realistic and sober spirit of the Roman republic which we have already
described--a spirit which can hardly have asserted itself with equal
intensity in other parts of Latium. But in the course of the fifth
century, and especially in the second half of it, there was a mighty
activity in Roman art. This was the epoch, in which the construction
of the Roman arches and Roman roads began; in which works of art like
the she-wolf of the Capitol originated; and in which a distinguished
man of an old Roman patrician clan took up his pencil to embellish a
newly constructed temple and thence received the honorary surname of
the "Painter." This was not accident. Every great age lays grasp on
all the powers of man; and, rigid as were Roman manners, strict as was
Roman police, the impulse received by the Roman burgesses as masters
of the peninsula or, to speak more correctly, by Italy united for the
first time as one state, became as evident in the stimulus given to
Latin and especially to Roman art, as the moral and political decay of
the Etruscan nation was evident in the decline of art in Etruria.
As the mighty national vigour of Latium subdued the weaker nations,
it impressed its imperishable stamp also on bronze and on marble.
Notes for Book II Chapter IX
1. I. XV. Earliest Hellenic Influences
2. The account given by Dionysius (vi. 95; comp. Niebuhr, ii. 40) and
by Plutarch (Camill. 42), deriving his statement from another passage
in Dionysius regarding the Latin festival, must be understood to apply
rather to the Roman games, as, apart from other grounds, is strikingly
evident from comparing the latter passage with Liv. vi. 42 (Ritschl,
Parerg. i. p. 313). Dionysius has--and, according to his wont when in
error, persistently--misunderstood the expression -ludi maximi-.
There was, moreover, a tradition which referred the origin of the
national festival not, as in the common version, to the conquest of
the Latins by the first Tarquinius, but to the victory over the Latins
at the lake Regillus (Cicero, de Div. i. 26, 55; Dionys. vii. 71).
That the important statements preserved in the latter passage from
Fabius really relate to the ordinary thanksgiving-festival, and not to
any special votive solemnity, is evident from the express allusion to
the annual recurrence of the celebration, and from the exact agreement
of the sum of the expenses with the statement in the Pseudo-Asconius
(p. 142 Or.).
3. II. III. Curule Aedileship
4. I. II. Art
5. I. XV. Metre
6. I. XV. Masks
7. II. VIII. Police f.
8. I. XV. Melody
9. A fragment has been preserved:
-Hiberno pulvere, verno luto, grandia farra
Camille metes-
We do not know by what right this was afterwards regarded as the
oldest Roman poem (Macrob. Sat. v. 20; Festus, Ep. v. Flaminius,
p. 93, M.; Serv. on Virg. Georg, i. 101; Plin. xvii. 2. 14).
10. II. VIII. Appius Claudius
11. II. VIII. Rome and the Romans of This Epoch
12. The first places in the list alone excite suspicion, and may have
been subsequently added, with a view to round off the number of years
between the flight of the king and the burning of the city to 120.
13. I. VI. Time and the Occasion of the Reform, II. VII. System of
Government
14. II. VIII Rome and the Romans of This Epoch. According to the
annals Scipio commands in Etruria and his colleague in Samnium, and
Lucania is during this year in league with Rome; according to the
epitaph Scipio conquers two towns in Samnium and all Lucania.
15. I. XI. Jurisdiction, second note.
16. They appear to have reckoned three generations to a hundred years
and to have rounded off the figures 233 1/3 to 240, just as the epoch
between the king's flight and the burning of the city was rounded off
to 120 years (II. IX. Registers of Magistrates, note). The reason why
these precise numbers suggested themselves, is apparent from the
similar adjustment (above explained, I. XIV. The Duodecimal System)
of the measures of surface.
17. I. XII. Spirits
18. I. X. Relations of the Western Italians to the Greeks
19. The "Trojan colonies" in Sicily, mentioned by Thucydides, the
pseudo-Scylax, and others, as well as the designation of Capua as a
Trojan foundation in Hecataeus, must also be traced to Stesichorus
and his identification of the natives of Italy and Sicily with
the Trojans.
20. According to his account Rome, a woman who had fled from Ilion
to Rome, or rather her daughter of the same name, married Latinos,
king of the Aborigines, and bore to him three sons, Romos, Romylos,
and Telegonos. The last, who undoubtedly emerges here as founder
of Tusculum and Praeneste, belongs, as is well known, to the legend
of Odysseus.
21. II. IV. Fruitlessness of the Celtic Victory
22. II. VII. Relations between the East and West
23. II. VII. The Roman Fleet
24. II. II. Political Value of the Tribunates, II. II.
The Valerio-Horatian Laws
25. I. XIV. Corruption of Language and Writing
26. In the two epitaphs, of Lucius Scipio consul in 456, and of the
consul of the same name in 495, -m and -d are ordinarily wanting in
the termination of cases, yet -Luciom- and -Gnaivod- respectively
occur once; there occur alongside of one another in the nominative
-Cornelio- and -filios-; -cosol-, -cesor-, alongside of -consol-,
-censor-; -aidiles-, -dedet-, -ploirume- (= -plurimi-) -hec- (nom.
sing.) alongside of -aidilis-, -cepit-, -quei-, -hic-. Rhotacism is
already carried out completely; we find -duonoro-(= -bonorum-),
-ploirume-, not as in the chant of the Salii -foedesum-, -plusima-.
Our surviving inscriptions do not in general precede the age of
rhotacism; of the older -s only isolated traces occur, such as
afterwards -honos-, -labos- alongside of -honor-, -labor-; and the
similar feminine -praenomina-, -Maio- (= -maios- -maior-) and -Mino-
in recently found epitaphs at Praeneste.
27. -Litterator- and -grammaticus- are related nearly as elementary
teacher and teacher of languages with us; the latter designation
belonged by earlier usage only to the teacher of Greek, not to a
teacher of the mother-tongue. -Litteratus- is more recent, and
denotes not a schoolmaster but a man of culture.
28. It is at any rate a true Roman picture, which Plautus (Bacch. 431)
produces as a specimen of the good old mode of training children:--
... -ubi revenisses domum,
Cincticulo praecinctus in sella apud magistrum adsideres;
Si, librum cum legeres, unam peccavisses syllabam,
Fieret corium tam maculosum, quam est nutricis pallium-.
29. I. XIV. The Oldest Italo-Greek Calendar
30. I. XIV. The Oldest Italo-Greek Calendar
31. I. XV. Plastic Art in Italy
32. II. VIII. Building
33. II. VIII. Building
34. I. XV. Earliest Hellenic Influences
35. I. VII. Servian Wall
36. I. XV. Earliest Hellenic Influences
37. The round temple certainly was not, as has been supposed, an
imitation of the oldest form of the house; on the contrary, house
architecture uniformly starts from the square form. The later Roman
theology associated this round form with the idea of the terrestrial
sphere or of the universe surrounding like a sphere the central sun
(Fest. v. -rutundam-, p. 282; Plutarch, Num. 11; Ovid, Fast. vi. 267,
seq.). In reality it may be traceable simply to the fact, that the
circular shape has constantly been recognized as the most convenient
and the safest form of a space destined for enclosure and custody.
That was the rationale of the round --thesauroi-- of the Greeks as
well as of the round structure of the Roman store-chamber or temple of
the Penates. It was natural, also, that the fireplace--that is, the
altar of Vesta--and the fire-chamber--that is, the temple of Vesta
--should be constructed of a round form, just as was done with the
cistern and the well-enclosure (-puteal-). The round style of building
in itself was Graeco-Italian as was the square form, and the former
was appropriated to the store-place, the latter to the dwelling-house;
but the architectural and religious development of the simple -tholos-
into the round temple with pillars and columns was Latin.
38. I. XV. Plastic Art in Italy
39. II. V. Complete Submission of the Campanian and Volscian Provinces
40. I. XII. Nature of the Roman Gods
41. Novius Plautius (II. VIII. Capital in Rome) cast perhaps only the
feet and the group on the lid; the casket itself may have proceeded
from an earlier artist, but hardly from any other than a Praenestine,
for the use of these caskets was substantially confined to Praeneste.
42. I. IX. Settlements of the Etruscans in Italy
43. I. XV. Earliest Hellenic Influences
44. I. VI. Time and Occasion of the Reform
TABLE OF CALENDAR EQUIVALENTS
A.U.C.* B.C. B.C. A.U.C.
------------------------------------------------------
000 753 753 000
025 728 750 003
050 703 725 028
075 678 700 053
100 653 675 078
125 628 650 103
150 603 625 128
175 578 600 153
200 553 575 178
225 528 550 203
250 503 525 228
275 478 500 253
300 453 475 278
325 428 450 303
350 303 425 328
375 378 400 353
400 353 375 378
425 328 350 403
450 303 325 428
475 278 300 453
500 253 275 478
525 228 250 503
550 203 225 528
575 178 200 553
600 153 175 578
625 128 150 603
650 103 125 628
675 078 100 653
700 053 075 678
725 028 050 703
750 003 025 728
753 000 000 753
*A. U. C. - Ab Urbe Condita (from the founding of the City of Rome)