Lactantius. The early Christian writers are not to be trusted in the charges which they make against the Pagans. Eusebius accused the Romans to their faces of worshipping Simon Magus, and raising a statue to him in the island of the Tyber. The Romans had probably never heard of such a person before, who came, however, to play a considerable though scandalous part in the church history, and has left several tokens of his aerial combat with St. Peter at Rome; notwithstanding that an inscription found in this very island of the Tyber showed the Simon Magus of Eusebius to be a certain indigenal god called Semo Sangus or Fidius. (5) that it fell down, without alluding, as the Abate has made him, to the force of the blow, or the firmness with which it had been fixed. The whole strength, therefore, of the Abate's argument hangs upon the past tense; which, however, may be somewhat diminished by remarking that the phrase only shows that the statue was not then standing in its former position. Winkelmann has observed, that the present twins are modern; and it is equally clear that there are marks of gilding on the wolf, which might therefore be supposed to make part of the ancient group. It is known that the sacred images of the Capitol were not destroyed when injured by time or accident, but were put into certain under- Even when the worship of the founder of Rome ground depositaries, called favissæ. (1) It may had been abandoned, it was thought expedient to be thought possible that the wolf had been so de- humour the habits of the good matrons of the city, posited, and had been replaced in some conspi- by sending them with their sick infants to the cuous situation when the Capitol was rebuilt by church of Saint Theodore, as they had before carVespasian. Rycquius, without mentioning his au- ried them to the temple of Romulus. (6) The practhority, tells that it was transferred from the Co-tice is continued to this day; and the site of the mitium to the Lateran, and thence brought to the above church seems to be thereby identified with Capitol. If it was found near the arch of Severus, that of the temple; so that if the wolf had been it may have been one of the images which Oro-really found there, as Winkelmann says, there sius (2) says was thrown down in the Forum by would be no doubt of the present statue being that lightning when Alaric took the city. That it is of seen by Dionysius. (7) But Faunus, in saying that very high antiquity the workmanship is a decisive it was at the Ficus Ruminalis, by the Comitium, is proof; and that circumstance induced Winkelmann only talking of its ancient position as recorded by to believe it the wolf of Dionysius. The Capitoline Pliny; and even if he had been remarking where wolf, however, may have been of the same early it was found, would not have alluded to the church date as that at the temple of Romulus. Lactan- of Saint Theodore, but to a very different place, tius (3) asserts that in his time the Romans wor- near which it was then thought the Ficus Ruminalis shipped a wolf; and it is known that the Luper- had been, and also the Comitium; that is, the three calia held out to a very late period (4) after every columns by the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice, other observance of the ancient superstition had at the corner of the Palatine looking on the Forum. totally expired. This may account for the preservation of the ancient image longer than the other early symbols of Paganism. It may be permitted, however, to remark, that the wolf was a Roman symbol, but that the worship of that symbol is an inference drawn by the zeal of (1) Luc. Faun. ibid. (2) See note to stanza LXXX, in Historical Illustrations. (5) "Romuli nutrix Lupa honoribus est affecta divinis, et ferrem, si animal ipsum fuisset, cujus figuram gerit." Lactant. de Falsa Religione, lib. i. cap. xx. pag. 101. edit. varior. 1660; that is to say, he would rather adore a wolf than a prostitute. His commentator has observed that the opinion of Livy concerning Laurentia being figured in this wolf was not universal. Strabo thought so. Rycquius is wrong in saying that Lactantius mentions the wolf was in the Capitol. (4) To A. D. 496. "Quis credere possit," save Baronius (Ann. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 602. in an. 496.), "viguisse adhuc Romæ ad Gelasii tempora, quæ fuere ante exordia urbis allata in Italiam Lupercalia?" Gelasius wrote a letter which occupies four folio pages to Andromachus the senator, and others, to show that the rites should be given up. (5) Eusebius has these words: xxt avopeάve rap iuis θεὸς τετίμεται, ἐν τῷ Τίβερι ποταμῷ μεταξὺ τῶν δύο γεφυρών, ἔχων ἐπιγραφὴν Ῥωμαϊκὴν ταύτην Σίμωνι δέω Σάγκτῳ. Eccles. Hist. lib. ii. cap. xiii. p. 40. Justin Martyr had told the story It is, in fact, a mere conjecture where the image was actually dug up ; (8) and perhaps, on the whole, the marks of the gilding, and of the lightning, are a better argument in favour of its being the Ciceronian wolf than any that can be adduced for the contrary opinion. At any rate, it is reasonably select before, but Baronius himself was obliged to detect this fable. See Nardini, Roma Vet. lib. vii. cap. xii. ་ (6) "In esse gli antichi pontefici per toglier la memoria de' giuochi Lupercali instuiti in onore di Romolo, introdussero l'uso di portarvi bambini oppressi da infirmità occulte, acciò si liberino per l' intercessione di questo santo, come di continuo si sperimenta." Rione xii. Ripa, accurata e succinta Descrizione, etc. di Roma Moderna, dell' Ab. Ridolf. Venuti, 1766. (7) Nardini, lib. v. cap. 11. convicts Pomponius Lætus crassi erroris, in putting the Ruminal fig-tree at the church of Saint Theodore: but as Livy says the wolf was at the Ficus Ruminalis, and Dionysius at the temple of Romulus, he is obliged (cap. iv.) to own that the two were close together, as well as the Lupercal cave, shaded, as it were, by the fig-tree. (8) "Ad comitium ficus olim Ruminalis germinabat, sub qua lupa rumam, hoc est, mammam, docente Varrone, suxerant olim Romulus et Remus; non procul a templo hodie D. Mariæ Liberatricis appellato, ubi forsan inventa nobilis illa ænea statua lupa geminos puerulos lactantis, quam hodie in Capitolino videmus." Olai Borrichií Antiqua Urbis Romanæ Facies, cap. x. ed in the text of the poem as one of the most inter-surpassing glory, or with his magnanimous, his esting relics of the ancient city, (1) and is certainly amiable qualities, as to forget the decision of his the figure, if not the very animal, to which Virgil impartial countrymen : alludes in his beautiful verses : "Geminos buic ubera circum Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem XXVI. JULIUS CÆSAR. "For the Roman's mind Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould." HE WAS JUSTLY SLAIN. (4) XXVII. "Egeria! sweet creation of some heart Stanza cxv. lines 1, 2, and 3. had been brought from the same grotto. This grotto and valley were formerly frequented in summer, and particularly the first Sunday in May, by the modern Romans, who attached a salubrious quality to the fountain which trickles from an orifice at the bottom of the vault, and, overflowing the little pools, creeps down the matted The respectable authority of Flaminius Vaccal would incline us to believe in the claims of the Egerian grotto. (5) He assures us that he saw an It is possible to be a very great man and to be still inscription in the pavement, stating that the founvery inferior to Julius Cæsar, the most complete tain was that of Egeria, dedicated to the nymphs. character, so Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. The inscription is not there at this day; but MontNature seems incapable of such extraordinary faucon quotes two lines (6) of Ovid, from a stone combinations as composed his versatile capa- in the Villa Giustiniani, which he seems to think city, which was the wonder even of the Romans themselves. The first general-the only triumphant politician-inferior to none in eloquence-comparable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, orators, and philosophers that ever appeared in the world-an author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his travelling carriage-grass into the brook below. The brook is the Oviat one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings-fighting (3) and making love at the same moment, and willing to abandon both his empire and his mistress for a sight of the Fountains of the Nile. Such did Julius Cæsar appear to his There can be little doubt that this long dell is contemporaries, and to those of the subsequent ages the Egerian valley of Juvenal, and the pausingwho were the most inclined to deplore and exe-place of Umbritius, notwithstanding the generality crate his fatal genius. of his commentators have supposed the descent of dian Almo, whose name and qualities are lost in the modern Aquataccio. The valley itself is called Valle di Caffarelli, from the dukes of that name, who made over their fountain to the Pallavicini, with sixty rubbia of adjoining land. But we must not be so much dazzled with his the satirist and his friend to have been into the See also cap. xii. Borrichius wrote after Nardini, in 1687. Ap. (1) Donatus, lib. xi. cap. 18. gives a medal representing on one side the wolf in the same position as that in the Capitol; and on the reverse the wolf with the head not reverted. It is of the time of Antoninus Pius. (2) Æn. viii. 631. See Dr. Middleton, in his Letter from Rome, who inclines to the Ciceronian wolf, but without examining the subject. (3) In his tenth book, Lucan shows him sprinkled with the blood of Pharsalia, in the arms of Cleopatra: "Sanguine Thessalicæ cladis perfusus adulter Admisit Venerem curis, et miscuit armis." Insiluit Cæsar semper feliciter usus Præcipiti cursu bellorum et tempore rapto." (4) "Jure casus existimetur," says Suetonius, after a fair estimation of his character, and making use of a phrase which was a formula in Livy's time. "Melium jure cæsum pronuntiavit, etiam si regni crimine insons fuerit:" (lib. iv. cap. 48.) and which was continued in the legal judgments pronounced in justifiable homicides, such as killing housebreakers. See Sueton. in Vit. C. J. Cæsaris, with the commentary of Pitiscus, p. 184. (5) Poco lontano dal detto luogo si scende ad un casaletto, del quale ne sono Padroni li Caffarelli, che con questo nome è chiamato il luogo; vi è una fontana sotto una gran volta antica, che al presente si gode, e li Romani vi vanno l'estate a ricrearsi; After feasting with his mistress, he sits up all night to converse nel pavimento di essa fonte si legge in un epitaftio essere quella with the Egyptian sages, and tells Achoreus: la fonte di Egeria, dedicata alle ninfe, e questa, dice l' epitaffio, Egeria est quæ præbet aquas dea grata Camœnis Tha Numa conjux consiliumque fuit.' Qui lapis videmur ex eodem Egeriæ fonte, aut ejus vicinia isthue comportatus." Diarium Italic. p. 153. Arician grove, where the nymph met Hippolitus, and where she was more peculiarly worshipped. The step from the Porta Capena to the Alban hill, fifteen miles distant, would be too considerable, unless we were to believe in the wild conjecture of Vossius, who makes that gate travel from its present station, where he pretends it was during the reign of the Kings, as far as the Arician grove, and then makes it recede to its old site with the shrinking city. (1) The tufo, or pumice, which the poet prefers to marble, is the substance composing the bank in which the grotto is sunk. The modern topographers (2) find in the grotto the statue of the nymph, and nine niches for the Muses; and a late traveller (3) has discovered that the cave is restored to that simplicity which the poet regretted had been exchanged for injudicious ornament. But the headless statue is palpably rather a male than a nymph, and has none of the attributes ascribed to it at present visible. The nine Muses could hardly have stood in six niches; and Juvenal certainly does not allude to any indi|vidual cave. (4) Nothing can be collected from the satirist but that, somewhere near the Porta Capena, was a spot in which it was supposed Numa held nightly consultations with his nymph, and where there was a grove and a sacred fountain and fanes once consecrated to the Muses; and that from this spot there was a descent into the valley of Egeria, where were several artificial caves. It is clear that the statues of the Muses made no part of the decoration which the satirist thought misplaced in these caves; for he expressly assigns other fanes (delubra) to these divinities above the valley, and moreover tells us that they had been ejected to make room for the Jews. In fact, the little temple, now called that of Bacchus, was formerly thought to belong to the Muses, and Nardini (5) places them in a poplar grove, which was in his time above the valley. It is probable, from the inscription and position, that the cave now shown may be one of the "artificial caverns," of which, indeed, there is another a little way higher up the valley, under a tuft of alder bushes: but a single grotto of Egeria is a mere (1) De Magnit. Vet. Rom. ap. Græv. Ant. Rom. t. iv. p. 1807. (2) Echinard, Descrizione di Roma e dell' Agro Romano, corretto dall' Abate Venuti, in Roma, 1750. They believe in the grotto and nymph. "Simulacro di questo fonte, essendovi scolpite le acque a pie di esso." (3) Classical Tour, chap. vi. p. 217, vol. ii. (4)** Substitit at veteres arcus, madidamque Capenam, modern invention, grafted upon the application of the epithet Egerian to these nymphea in general, and which might send us to look for the haunts of Numa upon the banks of the Thames. Our English Juvenal was not seduced into mistranslation by his acquaintance with Pope: he carefully preserves the correct plural "Thence slowly winding down the vale, we view The Egerian grots: oh, how unlike the true!" The valley abounds with springs, (6) and over these springs, which the Muses might haunt from their neighbouring groves, Egeria presided: hence she was said to supply them with water; and she was the nymph of the grottos through which the fountains were taught to flow. The whole of the monuments in the vicinity of the Egerian valley have received names at will, which have been changed at will. Venuti (7) owns he can see no traces of the temples of Jove, Saturn, Juno, Venus, and Diana, which Nardini found, or hoped to find. The mutatorium of Caracalla's circus, the temple of Honour and Virtue, the temple of Bacchus, and, above all, the temple of the god Ridiculus, are the antiquaries' despair. The circus of Caracalla depends on a medal of that emperor cited by Fulvius Ursinus, of which the reverse shows a circus, supposed, however, by some to represent the Circus Maximus. It gives a very good idea of that place of exercise. The soil has been but little raised, if we may judge from the small cellular structure at the end of the Spina, which was probably the chapel of the god Consus. This cell is half beneath the soil, as it must have been in the circus itself; for Dionysius (8) could not be persuaded to believe that this divinity was the Roman Neptune, because his altar was under ground (6) "Undique e solo aquæ scaturiunt." Nardini, lib. iii. cap. iii. (7) Echinard, etc. Cic. cit. p. 297, 298. (8) Antiq. Rom. lib. ii. cap. xxxi. (9) Sueton. in Vit. Augusti, cap. 91. Casaubon, in the note, refers to Plutarch's Lives of Camillus and Æmilius Paulus, and also to his apophthegms, for the character of this deity. The hollowed hand was reckoned the last degree of degradation; and when the dead body of the præfect Rufinus was borne about in triumph by the people, the indignity was increased by putting his hand in that position. XXIX. "He, their sire, Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday." Stanza cxli. lines 6 and 7. once a year, the beggar sitting before the gate of his palace, with his hand hollowed and stretched out for charity. A statue formerly in the Villa Borghese, and which should be now at Paris, represents the Emperor in that posture of supplication. The object of this self-degradation was the appeaseGladiators were of two kinds, compelled and voment of Nemesis, the perpetual attendant on good luntary; and were supplied from several conditions: fortune, of whose power the Roman conquerors from slaves sold for that purpose; from culprits; were also reminded by certain symbols attached to from barbarian captives either taken in war, and, their cars of triumph. The symbols were the whip after being led in triumph, set apart for the games, and the crotalo, which were discovered in the Ne-or those seized and condemned as rebels; also from mesis of the Vatican. The attitude of beggary made free citizens, some fighting for hire (auctorati), the above statue pass for that of Belisarius: and others from a depraved ambition at last even until the criticism of Winkelmann (1) had rectified knights and senators were exhibited,—a disgrace the mistake, one fiction was called in to support of which the first tyrant was naturally the first another. It was the same fear of the sudden ter-inventor. (6). In the end, dwarfs, and even womination of prosperity that made Amasis king of men, fought; an enormity prohibited by Severus. Egypt warn his friend, Polycrates of Samos, that Of these the most to be pitied undoubtedly were the gods loved those whose lives were chequered the barbarian captives; and to this species a Chriswith good and evil fortunes. Nemesis was supposed tian writer (7) justly applies the epithet "innocent," to lie in wait particularly for the prudent; that is, to distinguish them from the professional gladiafor those whose caution rendered them accessible tors. Aurelian and Claudius supplied great numbers only to mere accidents and her first altar was of these unfortunate victims; the one after his raised on the banks of the Phrygian Esopus by triumph, and the other on the pretext of a rebelAdrastus, probably the prince of that name who lion. (8) No war, says Lipsius, (9) was ever so killed the son of Croesus by mistake. Hence the destructive to the human race at these sports. In goddess was called Adrastea. (2) spite of the laws of Constantine and Constans, glaThe Roman Nemesis was sacred and august:diatorial shows survived the old established religion there was a temple to her in the Palatine, under the name of Rhamnusia (3) so great, indeed, was the propensity of the ancients to trust to the revolution of events, and to believe in the divinity of Fortune, that in the same Palatine there was a temple to the Fortune of the day. (4) This is the last superstition which retains its hold over the human heart; and, from concentrating in one object the credulity so natural to man, has always appeared strongest in those unembarrassed by other articles of belief. The antiquaries have supposed this goddess to be synonymous with Fortune and with Fate: (5) but it was in her vindictive quality that she was worshipped under the name of Nemesis. : (1) Storia delle Arti, etc. lib. xii. cap. iii. tom. ii. p. 492. Visconti calls the statue, however, a Cybele. It is given in the Museo Pio-Clement. tom. i. par. 40. The Abate Fea (Spiegasione dei Rami. Soria, etc. tom. iii. p. 513) calls it a Chrisippus. (2) Dict. de Bayle, article Adrastea. (3) It is enumerated by the regionary Victor. more than seventy years; but they owed their final extinction to the courage of a Christian. In the year 404, on the kalends of January, they were exhibiting the shows in the Flavian amphitheatre, before the usual immense concourse of people. Almachius, or Telemachus, an Eastern monk, who had travelled to Rome intent on his holy purpose, rushed into the midst of the area, and endeavoured to separate the combatants. The prætor Alypius, a person incredibly attached to these games, (10) gave instant orders to the gladiators to slay him; and Telemachus gained the crown of martyrdom, and the title of saint, which surely has never either before or since been awarded for a more noble exploit. Honorius immediately abolished the shows, which were never afterwards revived. The story is told See Questiones Romanæ, etc. ap. Græv. Antiq. Roman. tom. v. p. 942. See also Muratori, Nov. Thesaur. Inscript. Vet. tom. i. p. 88, 89; where there are three Latin and one Greek inscriptions to Nemesis, and others to Fate. (6) Julius Cæsar, who rose by the fall of the aristocracy, brought Furius Leptinus and A. Calenus upon the arena. (7) Tertullian," certe quidem et innocentes gladiatores in lu(4) Fortunæ hujusce diei. Cicero mentions her, de Legib. dum veniunt, et voluptatis publicæ hostiæ fiant." Just. Lips. lib. ii. Saturn. Sermon. lib. ii. cap. iii. (8) Vopiscus, in Vit. Aurel. and in Vit. Claud. ibid. (9) "Credo imò scio nullum bellum tantam cladem vastitiemque generi humano intulisse, quam hos ad voluptatem ludos." Just. Lips. ibid. lib. i. cap. xii. (10) Augustinus (lib. vi. Confess. cap. viii.) "Alypium suum gladiatorii spectaculi inhiatu incredibiliter abreptum," scribit. Ib. lib. i. cap. xii. by Theodoret (1) and Cassiodorus (2) and seems completely satisfied their curiosity. A gentleman XXX. Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise An Englishman, who can be much pleased with seeing two men beat themselves to pieces, cannot bear to look at a horse galloping round an arena with his bowels trailing on the ground, and turns from the spectacle and the spectators with horror and disgust. XXXI. THE ALBAN HILL. The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves Stanza clxxiv. lines 2, 3, and 4. When one gladiator wounded another, he shouted "he has it," "hoc habet," or "habet." The wounded combatant dropped his weapon, and, advancing to the edge of the arena, supplicated the spectators. If he had fought well, the people saved him; if otherwise, or as they happened to be inclined, they turned down their thumbs, and he was slain. They were occasionally so savage, that they were impatient if a combat lasted longer than ordinary without wounds or death. The emperor's presence generally saved the vanquished; and it is recorded as an instance of Caracalla's ferocity, that he sent those who supplicated him for life, in a spectacle, at Nicomedia, to ask the people; in other words, handed them over to be slain. A similar ceremony is observed at the Spanish bull-fights. The magistrate presides; and after the horsemen and piccadores have fought the bull, the matadore steps forward and bows to him for permission to kill the animal. If the bull has done his duty by killing two or three horses, or a man, which last is rare, the people interfere with shouts, the ladies wave their handkerchiefs, and the animal is saved. The wounds and death of the horses are accompanied with the loudest acclamations, and many gestures of delight, especially from the female portion of the audience, including those of the gentlest blood. Every thing depends on habit. The author From the same eminence are seen the Sabine of Childe Harold, the writer of this note, and one hills, embosomed in which lies the long valley of or two other Englishmen, who have certainly in Rustica. There are several circumstances which other days borne the sight of a pitched battle, tend to establish the identity of this valley with the were, during the summer of 1809, in the governor's" Ustica" of Horace; and it seems possible that box at the great amphitheatre of Santa Maria, op- the mosaic pavement which the peasants uncover posite to Cadiz. The death of one or two horses by throwing up the earth of a vineyard may belong The whole declivity of the Alban hill is of unrivalled beauty, and from the convent on the highest point, which has succeeded to the temple of the Latian Jupiter, the prospect embraces all the objects alluded to in the cited stanza; the Mediterranean; the whole scene of the latter half of the Æneid, and the coast from beyond the mouth of the Tiber to the headland of Circæum and the Cape of Terracina. The site of Cicero's villa may be supposed either at the Grotta Ferrata, or at the Tusculum of Prince Lucien Buonaparte. The former was thought some years ago the actual site, as may be seen from Middleton's Life of Cicero. At present it has lost something of its credit, except for the Domenichinos. Nine monks of the Greek order live there, and the adjoining villa is a cardinal's summer-house. The other villa, called Rufinella, is on the summit of the hill above Frascati, and many rich remains of Tusculum have been found there, besides seventy-two statues of different merit and preservation, and seven busts. mus. Oppidum ecce unum alterumve captum, direptum est; tumultus circa nos, non in nobis, et tamen concidimus et turbamur. Ubi robur, ubi tot per annos meditata sapientiæ studia? ubi ille animus qui possit dicere, si fractus illabatur orbis?" etc. Ibid. lib. ii. cap. xxv. The prototype of Mr. Windham's panegyric on bull-baiting. |