This hero was born on the very day that Romulus laid the foundation of the
Roman city: he married Tatia, the daughter of the Sabine king, whom however
he had the misfortune to lose; owing to which, he retired into the country
that he might devote his time more uninterruptedly to study.
When, upon the death of Romulus, he was chosen by the senators to be their
sovereign, it was with great difficulty that he could be persuaded to
undertake the onerous task, which, however, he filled to the satisfaction
of his subjects, dismissing the body guards who usually attended upon the
Roman Emperor, thus showing he had no distrust of his subjects.
His great object was to quell the spirit of war and conquest which he found
in the people, and to inculcate the love of peace, with a reverence for the
deity, whose worship by images he forbade, and established a priesthood for
it, the effect of which was to prevent any graven images or statues from
appearing in their sanctuaries for upwards of one hundred and thirty years.
This wise monarch, aware that superstition is one of the greatest engines
in governing a people, encouraged a report that he regularly visited the
nymph Egeria, who indeed, according to Ovid, became his wife. {263}
In her name he introduced all his laws and regulations into the state, and
solemly declared in the presence of his people, that they were sanctified
by the approval of that being, an approval, which gave them additional
favour in the eyes of this superstitious people.
At his death, which took place after a reign of forty-three years, not only
the Romans, but the neighbouring nations were anxious to pay their
testimony of reverence to a monarch, whom they could not help respecting no
less for his abilities, than for his moderation in the application of them.
He forbade the Romans to burn his body, after their usual custom, but
ordered them to bury it near Mount Jerusalem, with some of the books which
he had written, which being accidentally found four hundred years after his
death, were burned by order of the senate.
They are stated merely to have contained the reasons why he had made the
innovations into the ceremonies of their religion.
"Egeria! sweet creation of some heart,
Which found no mortal resting place so fair
As thine ideal breast; whate'er thou art
Or wert,--a young Aurora of the air,
The nympholepsy of some fond despair;
Or it might be, a beauty of the earth,
Who found a more than common votary there
Too much adoring; whatso'er thy birth,
Thou wert a beautiful thought, and softly bodied forth
Here did'st thou dwell, in this enchanted cover,
Egeria! thy all heavenly bosom beating
For the far footsteps of thy mortal lover;
The purple midnight veiled that mystic meeting
With her most starry canopy, and seating
Thyself by thine adorer, what befel?
This cave was surely shaped out for the greeting
Of an enamoured goddess, and the cell
Haunted by holy love--the earliest oracle!
And did'st thou not, thy breast to his replying,
Blend a celestial with a human heart;
And love, which dies as it was born, in sighing,
Share with immortal transports? could thine art
Make them indeed immortal, and impart
The purity of heaven to earthly joys,
Expel the venom and not blunt the dart--
The dull satiety which all destroys--
And root from out the soul the deadly weed which cloys?"