The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 05

by Unknown

CHAPTER II. EARLY LEGENDS OF ROME—ÆNEAS AND ROMULUS

It is not easy to determine between either the facts or the writers, which of them deserves the preference: I am inclined to think that history has been much corrupted by means of funeral panegyrics and false inscriptions on statues; each family striving by false representations to appropriate to itself the fame of warlike exploits and public honours. From this cause, certainly, both the actions of individuals and the public records of events have been confused. Nor is there extant any writer, contemporary with those events, on whose authority we can certainly rely.—Livy.

According to the legends immortalised by Virgil[f] if not by Livy,[c] Æneas, escaping from Troy, after its destruction by the Greeks (as narrated in the Homeric poems), fled to Italy, and there became the progenitor of the people afterwards to be known as the Romans. So firmly stamped did this legend become in classical literature that few or no writers share even Livy’s polite scepticism. For many centuries after the Roman Empire itself had passed away, the fabulous stories of the foundation of Rome were repeated by one generation after another of historians, as unequivocal fact.

It was only about a century ago, in an age of scepticism, that an iconoclastic critic arose to lay rude hands upon the time-honoured stories. This critic was the German Niebuhr.[e] He analysed legends not alone of the foundation, but of the supposed early history of Rome, and reached the indubitable conclusion that the familiar stories of early Roman kings and heroes were little better than pure fictions.

The work which Niebuhr began has been carried on by a school of successors, until it must be said that the entire fabric of once-accepted early Roman history has been torn into shreds. And in its place has been substituted—practically nothing. It is true that Niebuhr himself, iconoclast that he was, could not free himself from that hypothesis-forming tendency which is the heritage of all active minds, and put forward many prosaic guesses at the truth as substitutes for the old-time poetical guesses which he had dethroned. But these latter-day hypotheses, though accepted for the moment by many disciples of the master historian, have been treated with far scanter courtesy by the newer generation of critics, many of whom, however, have in turn supplied their own surmises. The net result of all the researches of the past century, and of all the surmises with which these researches have been supplemented, is to leave us practically without any acceptable hypothesis, except perhaps a meagre though consistent outline of institutional and civic development.

And scarcely less vague are the outlines of the story of the early growth of Rome, and of its internal government and external accomplishments during some centuries of its undoubted existence. That it was ruled in the early days by kings, has been accepted on the basis of universal tradition, but it can scarcely be said that any one of these kings is to be regarded to-day as a known historic personage. We are not even sure as to the time when the kings were banished and a republican form of government supplanted the monarchy, though the accepted dates ascribe this transition to the year 509 B.C.—which, curiously enough, was the time of the banishment of the Pisistratidæ from Athens. If this date be accepted, it would seem that the evolution of political ideas in Greece was curiously paralleled by the growth of the same spirit in Rome, and it would follow that the civilisations of the two peoples were more closely contemporaneous than they are usually considered to have been.

But the true fruitage of a nation is found in the permanent works which it transmits to posterity, and judged by this standard Rome surely did not come to its prime until Greece was on the path of its decadence. It may be true that Rome banished her kings and came under republican sway almost as early as Athens; but the Greek city had had a far longer preparation and burst at once into its full bloom of civilisation, as evidenced in the “Age of Pericles,” whereas the Roman civilisation had still to pass through many generations of development before it began to produce those lasting records which mark the difference between tradition and history. Even so, however, the gap in time between the Grecian and the Roman periods was not very great—there were but three centuries between Alexander and Cæsar. And in the time of the later emperors the two civilisations were curiously merged in the East, where the whole aspect of the Roman court became Grecian, and the Greek language even became the official medium of communication throughout the remnants of the Roman Empire.

Of these later phases of the development and decay of the Roman Empire, abundant and secure records are in evidence, as we shall see later on. Meantime, though the stories of the early or mythical period cannot be called history, in the narrower sense of the word, they were too long believed, and have too often been repeated to be suddenly ignored. They are no longer accepted as sober history, and yet the most sober historian dares not altogether discard them. As in the case of the Greek mythology, the happiest compromise seems to be that in which the more interesting tales are retained and repeated with the explicit qualification that they are to be accepted as legends only. This applies not merely to the stories of the foundation of Rome and of the earlier kings, but even, it must freely be admitted, to the hero tales of Horatius, the elder Brutus, Cincinnatus, Coriolanus, and the rest; though doubtless, as one comes down the years, the historical element makes itself more and more felt, and the legendary basis becomes less and less dominant. We have first to do, however, with a series of citations which, let it be said once for all, are purely legendary, and which each individual reader is quite at liberty to interpret as best suits his individual imagination.[a]

THE ÆNEAS LEGEND

When the fatal horse was going to be brought within the walls of Troy, and when Laocoön had been devoured by the two serpents sent by the gods to punish him because he had tried to save his country against the will of fate, then Æneas and his father Anchises, with their wives, and many who followed their fortune, fled from the coming of the evil day. But they remembered to carry their gods with them, who were to receive their worship in a happier land. They were guided in their flight from the city by the god Hermes, and he built for them a ship to carry them over the sea. When they put to sea the star of Venus, the mother of Æneas, stood over their heads, and it shone by day as well as by night, till they came to the shores of the land of the West. But when they landed the star vanished and was seen no more; and by this sign Æneas knew that he was come to that country wherein fate had appointed him to dwell.

The Trojans, when they had brought their gods on shore, began to sacrifice, but the victim, a milk-white sow just ready to farrow, broke from the priest and his ministers and fled away. Æneas followed her; for an oracle had told him that a four-footed beast should guide him to the spot where he was to build his city. So the sow went forward still she came to a certain hill, about two miles and a half from the shore where they had purposed to sacrifice, and there she lay down and farrowed, and her litter was of thirty young ones. But when Æneas saw that the place was sandy and barren, he doubted what he should do. Just at this time he heard a voice which said: “The thirty young of the sow are thirty years; when thirty years are passed, thy children shall remove to a better land; meantime do thou obey the gods, and build thy city in the place where they bid thee to build.” So the Trojans built their city on the spot where the sow had farrowed.

Now the land belonged to a people who were the children of the soil, and their king was called Latinus. He received the strangers kindly, and granted to them seven hundred jugera of land, seven jugera to each man, for that was a man’s portion. But soon the children of the soil and the strangers quarrelled; and the strangers plundered the lands round about them; and King Latinus called upon Turnus, the king of the Rutulians of Ardea, to help him against them. The quarrel became a war: and the strangers took the city of King Latinus, and Latinus was killed; and Æneas took his daughter Lavinia and married her, and became king over the children of the soil; and they and the strangers became one people, and they were called by one name, Latins.

But Turnus called to his aid Mezentius, king of the Etruscans of Cære. There was then another battle on the banks of the river Numicius, and Turnus was killed, and Æneas plunged into the river and was seen no more. However his son Ascanius declared that he was not dead, but that the gods had taken him to be one of themselves; and his people built an altar to him on the banks of the Numicius, and worshipped him by the name of Jupiter Indiges, which means,“the god who was of that very land.”

THE ASCANIUS LEGEND

The war went on between Mezentius and Ascanius, the son of Æneas; and Mezentius pressed hard upon the Latins, till at last Ascanius met him man to man, and slew him in single fight. At that time Ascanius was very young, and there were only the first soft hairs of youth upon his cheeks; so he was called Iulus, or “the soft-haired,” because, when he was only a youth, he had vanquished and slain his enemy, who was a grown man. At length the thirty years came to an end, which were foreshown by the litter of thirty young ones of the white sow. Ascanius then removed with his people to a high mountain, which looks over all the land on every side, and one side of it runs steep down into a lake: there he hewed out a place for his city on the side of the mountain, above the lake; and as the city was long and narrow, owing to the steepness of the hill, he called it Alba Longa, which is, “the white long city,” and he called it white, because of the sign of the white sow.

Ascanius was succeeded by a son of Æneas and Lavinia named Silvius, and the eleven kings of Alba who succeeded him all bore the surname of Silvius.

THE LEGEND OF ROMULUS AND REMUS

Numitor was the eldest son of Procas, the last king of Alba Longa, and he had a younger brother called Amulius. When Procas died, Amulius seized by force on the kingdom, and left to Numitor only his share of his father’s private inheritance. After this he caused Numitor’s only son to be slain, and made his daughter Silvia become one of the virgins who watched the ever-burning fire of the goddess Vesta. But the god Mamers, who is called also Mars, beheld the virgin and loved her, and it was found that she was going to become the mother of children. Then Amulius ordered that the children, when born, should be thrown into the river. It happened that the river at that time had flooded the country; when, therefore, the two children in their basket were thrown into the river, the waters carried them as far as the foot of the Palatine Hill, and there the basket was upset, near the roots of a wild fig tree, and the children thrown out upon the land. At this moment there came a she-wolf down to the water to drink, and when she saw the children, she carried them to her cave hard by, and gave them to suck; and whilst they were there, a woodpecker came backwards and forwards to the cave, and brought them food. At last one Faustulus, the king’s herdsman, saw the wolf suckling the children; and when he went up, the wolf left them and fled; so he took them home to his wife Larentia, and they were bred up along with their own sons on the Palatine Hill; and they were called Romulus and Remus.

When Romulus and Remus grew up, the herdsmen of the Palatine Hill chanced to have a quarrel with the herdsmen of Numitor, who stalled their cattle on the hill Aventinus. Numitor’s herdsmen laid an ambush, and Remus fell into it, and was taken and carried off to Alba. But when the young man was brought before Numitor, he was struck with his noble air and bearing, and asked him who he was. And when Remus told him of his birth, and how he had been saved from death, together with his brother, Numitor marvelled, and thought whether this might not be his own daughter’s child. In the meanwhile, Faustulus and Romulus hastened to Alba to deliver Remus; and by the help of the young men of the Palatine Hill, who had been used to follow him and his brother, Romulus took the city, and Amulius was killed; and Numitor was made king, and owned Romulus and Remus to be born of his own blood.

[ca. 753-716 B.C.]

The two brothers did not wish to live at Alba, but loved rather the hill on the banks of the Tiber where they had been brought up. So they said that they would build a city there; and they inquired of the gods by augury, to know which of them should give his name to the city. They watched the heavens from morning till evening, and from evening till morning; and as the sun was rising, Remus saw six vultures. This was told to Romulus; but as they were telling him, behold there appeared to him twelve vultures. Then it was disputed again, which had seen the truest sign of the gods’ favour; but the most part gave their voices for Romulus. So he began to build his city on the Palatine Hill. This made Remus very angry; and when he saw the ditch and the rampart which were drawn round the space where the city was to be, he scornfully leaped over them, saying, “Shall such defences as these keep your city?” As he did this, Celer, who had the charge of the building, struck Remus with the spade which he held in his hand, and slew him; and they buried him on the hill Remuria, by the banks of the Tiber, on the spot where he had wished to build his city.

Roman Urn

The Sabines with their king dwelt on the hill Saturnius, which is also called Capitolium, and on the hill Quirinalis; and the people of Romulus with their king dwelt on the hill Palatinus. But the kings with their counsellors met in the valley between Saturnius and Palatinus, to consult about their common matters; and the place where they met was called Comitium, which means “the place of meeting.”

Soon after this, Tatius was slain by the people of Laurentum, because some of his kinsmen had wronged them, and he would not do them justice. So Romulus reigned by himself over both nations; and his own people were called the Romans, for Roma was the name of the city on the hill Palatinus; and the Sabines were called Quirites, for the name of their city on the hills Saturnius and Quirinalis was Quirium.

The people were divided into three tribes: the Ramnes, and the Tities, and the Luceres; the Ramnes were called from Romulus, and the Tities from Tatius; and the Luceres were called from Lucumo, an Etruscan chief, who had come to help Romulus in his war with the Sabines, and dwelt on the hill called Cælius. In each tribe there were ten curiæ, each of one hundred men; so all the men of the three tribes were three thousand, and these fought on foot, and were called a legion. There were also three hundred horsemen, and these were called Celerians, because their chief was that Celer who had slain Remus. There was besides a council of two hundred men, which was called a senate, that is, a council of elders.

Romulus was a just king, and gentle to his people; if any were guilty of crimes he did not put them to death, but made them pay a fine of sheep or of oxen. In his wars he was very successful, and enriched his people with the spoils of their enemies. At last, after he had reigned nearly forty years, it chanced that one day he called his people together in the Field of Mars, near the Goats’ Pool: when all on a sudden there arose a dreadful storm, and all was as dark as night; and the rain, and thunder, and lightning were so terrible, that all the people fled from the field, and ran to their several homes. At last the storm was over, and they came back to the Field of Mars, but Romulus was nowhere to be found; for Mars, his father, had carried him up to heaven in his chariot. The people knew not at first what was become of him; but when it was night, as one Proculus Julius was coming from Alba to the city, Romulus appeared to him in more than mortal beauty and grown to more than mortal stature, and said to him; “Go, and tell my people that they weep not for me any more; but bid them to be brave and warlike, and so shall they make my city the greatest in the earth.” Then the people knew that Romulus was become a god; so they built a temple to him, and offered sacrifice to him, and worshipped him evermore by the name of the god Quirinus.[b]

The Rape of the Sabines

The Roman state was become so powerful, that it was a match for any of the neighbouring nations in war, but, from the paucity of women, its greatness could only last for one age of man; for they had no hope of issue at home, nor had they any intermarriages with their neighbours. Therefore, by the advice of the fathers, Romulus sent ambassadors to the neighbouring states to solicit an alliance and the privilege of intermarriage for his new subjects, saying that cities, like everything else, rose from humble beginnings; that those which the gods and their own merit aided, gained great power and high renown; that he knew full well, both that the gods had aided the origin of Rome, and that merit would not be wanting; wherefore that, as men, they should feel no reluctance to mix their blood and race with men. Nowhere did the embassy obtain a favourable hearing: so much did they at the same time despise and dread, for themselves and their posterity, so great a power growing up in the midst of them. They were dismissed by the greater part with the repeated question; whether they had opened any asylum for women also, for that such a plan only could obtain them suitable matches. The Roman youth resented this conduct bitterly, and the matter unquestionably began to point towards violence.

Romulus, in order that he might afford a favourable time and place for this, dissembling his resentment, purposely prepares games in honour of Neptunus Equestris; he calls them Consualia. He then orders the spectacle to be proclaimed amongst their neighbours; and they prepare for the celebration with all the magnificence they were then acquainted with, or were capable of doing, that they might render the matter famous, and an object of expectation. Great numbers assembled, from a desire also of seeing the new city; especially their nearest neighbours, the Cæninenses, Crustumini, and Antemnates. Moreover the whole multitude of the Sabines came, with their wives and children. Having been hospitably invited to the different houses, when they had seen the situation, and fortifications, and the city crowded with houses, they became astonished that the Roman power had increased so rapidly. When the time of the spectacle came on, and while their minds and eyes were intent upon it, according to concert a tumult began, and upon a signal given the Roman youth ran different ways to carry off the virgins by force.

A great number were carried off at haphazard, according as they fell into their hands. Persons from the common people, who had been charged with the task, conveyed to their houses some women of surpassing beauty, destined for the leading senators. They say that one, far distinguished beyond the others for stature and beauty, was carried off by the party of one Talassius, and whilst many inquired to whom they were carrying her, they cried out every now and then, in order that no one might molest her, that she was being taken to Talassius; that from this circumstance this term became a nuptial one.

The festival being disturbed by this alarm, the parents of the young women retired in grief, appealing to the compact of violated hospitality, and invoking the god, to whose festival and games they had come, deceived by the pretence of religion and good faith. Neither had the ravished virgins better hopes of their condition, or less indignation. But Romulus in person went about and declared that what was done was owing to the pride of their fathers, who had refused to grant the privilege of marriage to their neighbours; but notwithstanding, they should be joined in lawful wedlock, participate in all their possessions and civil privileges, and, than which nothing can be dearer to the human heart, in their common children. He begged them only to assuage the fierceness of their anger, and cheerfully surrender their affections to those to whom fortune had consigned their persons. He added that from injuries love and friendship often arise; and that they should find them kinder husbands on this account, because each of them, besides the performance of his conjugal duty, would endeavour to the utmost of his power to make up for the want of their parents and native country. To this the caresses of the husbands were added, excusing what they had done on the plea of passion and love, arguments that work most successfully on women’s hearts.

The minds of the ravished virgins were soon much soothed, but their parents by putting on mourning, and tears, and complaints roused the states. Nor did they confine their resentment to their own homes, but they flocked from all quarters to Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines; and because he bore the greatest character in these parts, embassies were sent to him. The Cæninenses, Crustumini, and Antemnates were people to whom a considerable portion of the outrage extended. To them Tatius and the Sabines seemed to proceed somewhat dilatorily. Nor even do the Crustumini and Antemnates bestir themselves with sufficient activity to suit the impatience and rage of the Cæninenses. Accordingly the state of the Cæninenses by itself makes an irruption into the Roman territory. But Romulus with his army met them ravaging the country in straggling parties, and by a slight engagement convinces them that resentment without strength is of no avail. He defeats and routs their army, pursues it when routed, kills and despoils their king in battle, and having slain their general takes the city at the first assault.

From thence having led back his victorious army, and being a man highly distinguished by his exploits, and one who could place them in the best light, he went to the Capitol, carrying before him, suspended on a frame curiously wrought for that purpose, the spoils of the enemy’s general, whom he had slain; and there, after he had laid them down at the foot of an oak held sacred by the shepherds, together with the offering, he marked out the bounds for a temple of Jupiter, and gave a surname to the god: “Jupiter Feretrius.” He says, “I, King Romulus, upon my victory, present to thee these royal arms, and to thee I dedicate a temple within those regions which I have now marked out in my mind, as a receptacle for the grand spoils which my successors, following my example, shall, upon their killing the kings or generals of the enemy, offer to thee.” This is the origin of that temple, the first consecrated at Rome. It afterwards so pleased the gods both that the declaration of the founder of the temple should not be frustrated, by which he announced that his posterity should offer such spoils, and that the glory of that offering should not be depreciated by the great number of those who shared it. During so many years, and amid so many wars since that time, grand spoils have been only twice gained, so rare has been the successful attainment of that honour.

Whilst the Romans are achieving these exploits, the army of the Antemnates, taking advantage of their absence, makes an incursion into the Roman territories in a hostile manner. A Roman legion being marched out in haste against these also, surprise them whilst straggling through the fields. Accordingly the enemy were routed at the very first shout and charge; their town was taken; and as Romulus was returning, exulting for this double victory, his consort, Hersilia, importuned by the entreaties of the captured women, beseeches him to pardon their fathers, and to admit them to the privilege of citizens; that thus his power might be strengthened by a reconciliation. Her request was readily granted. After this he marched against the Crustumini, who were commencing hostilities; but as their spirits were sunk by the defeat of their neighbours, there was still less resistance there. Colonies were sent to both places, but more were found to give in their names for Crustuminus, because of the fertility of the soil. Migrations in great numbers were also made from thence to Rome, chiefly by the parents and relatives of the ravished women.

The last war broke out on the part of the Sabines, and proved by far the most formidable; for they did nothing through anger or cupidity, nor did they make a show of war, before they actually began it. To prudence stratagem also was added. Sp. Tarpeius commanded the Roman citadel; Tatius bribed his maiden daughter with gold, to admit armed soldiers into the citadel; she had gone by chance outside the walls to fetch water for sacrifice. Those who were admitted crushed her to death by heaping their arms upon her; either that the citadel might seem rather to have been taken by storm, or for the purpose of establishing a precedent, that no faith should, under any circumstances, be kept with a traitor. A story is added, that the Sabines commonly wore on their left arm golden bracelets of great weight, and large rings set with precious stones, and that she bargained with them for what they had on their left hands; hence that their shields were thrown upon her instead of the golden presents. There are some who say that in pursuance of the compact to deliver up what was on their left hands, she expressly demanded their shields, and that appearing to act with treachery, she was killed by the reward of her own choosing.

The Sabines, however, kept possession of the citadel, and on the day after, when the Roman army, drawn up in order of battle, filled up all the ground lying between the Palatine and Capitoline hills, they did not descend from thence into the plain, till the Romans, fired with resentment, and with a desire of retaking the citadel, advanced to attack them. Two chiefs, one on each side, animated the battle—viz., Mettus Curtius on the part of the Sabines, Hostus Hostilius on that of the Romans. The latter, in the front ranks, supported the Roman cause by his courage and bravery, on disadvantageous ground. As soon as Hostus fell, the Roman line immediately gave way and was beaten to the old gate of the Palatium. Romulus, himself too carried away with the general rout, raising his arms to heaven, says, “O Jupiter, commanded by thy birds, I here laid the first foundation of the city on the Palatine Hill. The Sabines are in possession of the citadel, purchased by fraud. From thence they are now advancing hither, sword in hand, having already passed the middle of the valley. But do thou, father of gods and men, keep back the enemy at least from hence, dispel the terror of the Romans, and stop their shameful flight. Here I solemnly vow to build a temple to thee as Jupiter Stator, as a monument to posterity, that this city was saved by thy immediate aid.”

Having offered up this prayer, as if he had felt that his prayers were heard, he cries out, “At this spot, Romans, Jupiter, supremely good and great, commands you to halt, and renew the fight.” The Romans halted as if they had been commanded by a voice from heaven; Romulus himself flies to the foremost ranks. Mettus Curtius, on the part of the Sabines, had rushed down at the head of his army from the citadel, and driven the Romans in disorder over the whole ground now occupied by the Forum. He was already not far from the gate of the Palatium, crying out, “We have defeated these perfidious strangers, these dastardly enemies. They now feel that it is one thing to ravish virgins, another far different to fight with men.” On him, thus vaunting, Romulus makes an attack with a band of the most courageous youths. It happened that Mettus was then fighting on horseback; he was on that account the more easily repulsed: the Romans pursued him when repulsed; and the rest of the Roman army, encouraged by the gallant behaviour of their king, rout the Sabines. Mettus, his horse taking fright at the din of his pursuers, threw himself into a lake; and this circumstance drew the attention of the Sabines to the risk of so important a person. He, however, his own party beckoning and calling to him, acquired new courage from the affection of his many friends, and made his escape. The Romans and Sabines renewed the battle in the valley between the hills; but Roman prowess had the advantage.

At this juncture the Sabine women, from the outrage on whom the war originated, with hair dishevelled and garments rent, the timidity of their sex being overcome by such dreadful scenes, had the courage to throw themselves amid the flying weapons, and making a rush across, to part the incensed armies, and assuage their fury; imploring their fathers on the one side, their husbands on the other, that as fathers-in-law and sons-in-law they would not contaminate each other with impious blood, nor stain their offspring with parricide, the one their grandchildren, the other their children. “If you are dissatisfied with the affinity between you, if with our marriages—turn your resentment against us; we are the cause of war, of wounds and of bloodshed to our husbands and parents. It were better that we perish than live widowed or fatherless without one or other of you.” The circumstance affected both the multitude and the leaders. Silence and a sudden suspension ensued.

Upon this the leaders came forward in order to concert a treaty, and they not only concluded a peace, but formed one state out of two. They associated the regal power, and transferred the entire sovereignty to Rome. The city being thus doubled, that some compliment might be paid to the Sabines, they were called Quirites, from Cures. As a memorial of this battle, they called the place where the horse, after getting out of the deep marsh, first set Curtius in shallow water, the Curtian Lake. This happy peace following suddenly a war so distressing, rendered the Sabine women still dearer to their husbands and parents, and above all to Romulus himself. Accordingly, when he divided the people into thirty curiæ, he called the curiæ by their names. Since, without doubt, the number of the Sabine women was considerably greater than this, it is not recorded whether those who were to give their names to the curiæ were selected on account of their age, or their own or their husbands’ rank, or by lot. At the same time three centuries of knights were enrolled, called Ramnes from Romulus; Tities, from Titus Tatius. The reason of the name and origin of the Luceres is uncertain.[c]

A Critical Study of the Legends

From the bare account of these two famous legends, it is interesting to turn to their critical consideration. The myth of the Trojan colony is said to have been handed down from generation to generation, but it nowhere bears the characteristic features of genuine popular tradition. It is wholly devoid of poetic feeling, it has every appearance of being a made-up thing, the result of a dispassionate study of facts, customs, cults, antiquities, memorials, and names of places, out of which a spurious history has been spun. If real heroic deeds, performed by Æneas in the home-land of Latium, had passed from mouth to mouth, in what different and how much richer colours would the story have been painted. The sow of Lavinium and her thirty piglings would not play such a prominent part as it does. Æneas never became the national hero of the Romans: not all the art of Virgil could accomplish that. None of the numerous Roman festivals, none of the public games, celebrate his memory. Doubtless the tradition of him and his settlement in Latium rests upon no real historical tradition. In considering the Roman tradition of Æneas we must bear in mind the fact that it is not the only one of its kind.

Altar and Sarcophagi

(After Hope)

A host of Italian towns date their origin from the heroes of Greek legends, particularly those of the Homeric period. Thus Tusculum was supposed to have been built by Telegonus, the son of Ulysses and Circe; Præneste by the same Telegonus, or by a grandson of Ulysses and Circe, named Prænestes; Lanuvium by Diomedes; Ardea by the son of Circe so named, or by Danaë, the mother of Perseus; Antium by a son of Ulysses and Circe; Politorium by Polites son of Priamus; the towns of the Veneti by Antenor; the names of Diomedes, Ulysses, Philoctetes constantly appear in the myths of the foundations of the cities.

There is no lack of supposed settlements of fugitive Trojans. Besides the city of Segesta, and the tribe of the Elymi in Sicily, the town of Siris on the river Siris was a supposed Trojan settlement; and Cora owed its foundation to Dardanians. The tradition of the settlement of Æneas in Latium is to be judged by the same criterion as these sagas, which were no doubt generally credited in the various towns concerned. It is, however, no better authenticated or more worthy of belief than the rest, which have no historical foundation, and only arose from the attempt of many Italian cities to trace their origin to the figures of Greek mythology, and especially to connect themselves with the Trojan myth. The analogy therefore forces us to realise that the connection of the story of the settlement in Latium with the Æneas myth has no better authority.

The argument that this story became the state religion of the Romans eight hundred years later rests on a very slight foundation; moreover the religion of the Roman state taught that Mars was the father of the founder of the city. There are countless traditions which (albeit at one time officially recognised) are mere historical fictions.

The test of the historical accuracy of a tradition is the age and the authenticity of the witness for it, not the universality of its recognition at a time in which there was neither the demand for, nor the means of, critical examination. Granted, for example, that Rome had been the city of Tusculum, which owed its origin to Telegonus, and that Rome was the seat of the Mamilii, who traced their descent from the same Telegonus, the Telegonus legend would then no doubt have been invested with the same glory as that of Æneas, and as much honour would have fallen to the Mamilii as was reflected on the Julii from Æneas in Rome.

The Swiss national story of Tell shows how easily romances of this kind grow from popular tales into popular beliefs, and even popular dogma, when they flatter the self-esteem of a people.

Confidently as we may speak of the want of historical foundation for the Roman legend of Æneas, we must recollect the many difficulties in the way of establishing its origin and motive. The Latin legend of Æneas cannot be satisfactorily explained unless light be thrown upon the relation of Æneas to Lavinium.

Lavinium was the Lares and Penates of the whole of Latium. According to Latin religious ideas, every city, every household, every greater community, every street, every crossway, every quarter of the town, had its Lares. In like manner public Lares were appointed for the political family to which all Latium belonged, and we must suppose that at the foundation of the Latin league a spot was appointed for the cult of the Lares of the community. Lavinium bore for Latium the same significance as the temple of Vesta and the temples of the Penates and the Lares bore for Rome. It was the religious centre, the spiritual capital of the Latin confederation.

The Lares and Penates of Rome, as a member, were naturally represented in the Lavinium sanctuary of the confederation. Hence solemn sacrifices were offered annually to the Penates, in the name of the Roman people, by the Roman augurs and flamens, and other sacred rites were performed in their honour. The Roman consuls, prætors, and dictators offered sacrifices to Vesta and the Penates on assuming and resigning office, as did also the Roman emperors when they visited the provinces. The custom may have originated at the time when Rome was a co-ordinate member of the Latin confederation, the members of which alternately appointed the prætor or general of the confederation, who had of course to sacrifice in his official capacity.

The miracles which occurred at the foundation of Lavinium likewise arose from the idea of a city of the Lares and Penates. The first of these prodigies is the sow which indicated the seat of the Penates at the foundation of the city. That a four-footed animal should indicate the seat of a colony is not unprecedented. At Ephesus it was a wild boar; the part is often played by an ox, a fact which led to the frequent appearance of the sacrificial ox in Latin legends. The choice of the sow to indicate the site of the city of the Lares and Penates at the building of Lavinium has its ground in the close association of swine with the Lares.

The second prodigy is the birth of the thirty pigs. It is evident that these thirty pigs symbolise the thirty cities of the confederation of which Lavinium was the religious capital. By ancient writers they are generally held to refer to the thirty years, which, according to tradition, elapsed between the foundation of Lavinium and Alba. But this secondary meaning does not affect the original significance of the symbolical miracle. Timæus (as we see in Lycophron) rightly associates the thirty pigs with the thirty states of Latium; and according to another version, the sow did not give birth to the thirty pigs on the site of the future Lavinium but on the site of the future Alba Longa. A bronze statue of the Lavinian sow and pigs existed in the time of Varro, and no doubt in the time of Timæus also, in a public place at Lavinium. It symbolised the position of Lavinium as the mother of the thirty states of which Latium was composed, and which had their Lares represented as their guardian spirits there. According to Cassius Hemina, a Roman annalist, the prodigy of the thirty pigs was adopted by Rome. “When the shepherds,” he says, “appointed Romulus and Remus as kings, a miracle took place: a sow gave birth to thirty pigs and a sanctuary was erected to the grunting Lares.” These thirty pigs refer apparently to the political division of the thirty curiæ into which the newly built city was divided.

The prodigy of the spread table is an outcome of worship of the Penates, to whom the table was sacred. At every meal it was the custom to leave some food, doubtless as an offering to the Penates. In their honour a salt-cellar and a plate of food were always left standing. Dry bread and cakes were given to the Penates; they were called mensæ panicæ (“tables of bread”). These no Roman would eat unless in great straits; it was in the eyes of the Romans a sign of the greatest need or poverty. Therefore the most ancient and authentic form of the story of Æneas seems to be that in which the eating of “the tables” (mensæ) was prophesied with ominous meaning. In Virgil, the harpy Calæno tells the voyagers that it is decreed that they are not to find a home before they have suffered the extremest misery, and that their utter homelessness is to be the turning-point of their fate.

Explanation of the Æneas Legend

We will return now to the starting-point of our inquiry, the question of why the origin of Lavinium is referred to Æneas. The answer must take us back to the previously mentioned fact that a large number of Italian or Latin states ascribed their origin to heroes of the Greek and particularly of the Trojan collection of stories.

This fact cannot be fully explained; psychologically it is nothing really incomprehensible, and is not without analogy. We can well understand how the Italian cities and races, as they came into nearer communication with the Grecian colonies of lower Italy and thus became acquainted with the heroic legends and the epic cycle of the Greeks, thought it an honour to connect their remote origin with the brilliant, much-lauded names of Greek heroes. The epic poems of the Greeks exercised a far greater influence in ancient Italy than is generally thought. When they were looking for the founder of the Penates city of the land of Latium, no other hero seemed so fit as Æneas. The chief deed which shed such glory on his name was the rescue of the holy images of Troy. The most ancient poets who sang of the fall of Troy relate it, so does Stesichorus, as one may see on the Ilian tablet where Anchises carries in his hands or on his shoulders a little chapel-shaped ædicula. In short nobody seemed better qualified to be the founder of the city of the Penates than the honoured saviour of the Trojan Penates.

Virgil’s Æneid shows clearly that this is the leading reason for the introduction of Æneas into the Latin legend and his position as founder of Lavinium and father of Latin glory. His greatest achievement consists in bringing the gods and sacred treasures to Latium. As the reputed founder of Lavinium, he could also be credited with bringing to honour its Latin name, for Latium as a political community only existed after the establishment of the Latin league and the founding of Lavinium as the sanctuary of the league.

One word in conclusion on the Trojan families. The tradition of the settlement of Æneas gave the vanity of the Roman families the wished-for ground for glorifying their pedigree. Thus the Cæcilii, Clodii, Gerganii, Memmii, Sergii, Cluentii, Junii, and Nautii, all traced their line back to Æneas. Dionysius says that at the foundation of Rome about fifty Trojan families came from Alba Longa to settle there, a number which is evidently exaggerated, as it exceeds the sum total of Roman patrician families in the time of Augustus. But it is evident from the writings of Varro and Hyginus on The Trojan Families, that a great number of Roman families boasted of Trojan descent.

We cannot of course ascertain what led to this belief among these families, but with many it was only a similarity of name. This is seen in the case of the origin of the Nautii. The worship of Minerva was in vogue among them. From the etymology of the name the founder of the family must have been a seaman, and so we come to the well-known story of Nautius, the companion of Æneas, taking away the palladium from Troy, or, according to another tradition, being intrusted with it by Diomedes.

O. Müller supposes that there was a similar ground in the worship of Apollo for the descent of the Julii from Æneas. Augustus, at any rate, refers very explicitly to Apollo as the tutelary god of the Julian family. Julius Cæsar, on the contrary, always speaks of Venus as the foundress of his family. So that the worship of Venus or Aphrodite can be attributed to the Julii with equal reason.

The connection of the Julian family with Æneas could be very simply established by the fiction that the eponymous founder of the family Iulus was one and the same person as Ascanius, the son of Æneas, who consequently had two names. The advantage gained by the Julian race from this fiction was considerable. The descent from Æneas gave a certain appearance of legitimacy to the claims of Julius Cæsar upon the sovereignty. Therefore Cæsar used every opportunity of certifying this origin of his race. Virgil’s Æneid has also the subordinate political aim of investing the monarchy of Augustus with the halo of legitimacy by basing it to a certain extent on the idea of succession.

The Romulus Legend Examined

The deeds and institutions ascribed by the Romans to Romulus are the outcome of their conception of him. In the first two kings of the Roman state legend has personified the two fundamental elements of the Roman state—the warlike spirit of the nation, and its religious character.

Accordingly the first king was made to found the Roman state on the power of arms, imbuing it with the spirit of conquest and the ambition for ascendency in arms, whilst the second, founding it on religion and morality, was made to give it a second birth.

Warlike activity is the chief feature of the influence of Romulus, his last word to his Romans and his political testament was the call to a zealous following of the art of war. A truthful conception incontestably lay at the root of this tradition.

The conditions of every state are in accordance with its origin, nothing can alter its historical basis; and if it be true that a kingdom must be maintained by the means by which it was founded, the opposite conclusion—that the means by which a state is maintained are those upon which its foundation was based—seems no less to be a truth. Hence a state which is maintained by the sword must owe its origin to the sword. In the legends of their origin many nations exhibit a very just knowledge of their national character and their mission in history. The trade and artifice claimed as the foundation of Carthage were a happy emblem of the spirit of this commercial race.

Rome was founded by the sword, a warrior hero made it, and no other founder was worthy of so great a military state. But Romulus, the first king, was not only credited with the foundation and military organisation of the rising state, but with the establishment of its fundamental political institutions. Accordingly he was supposed to have divided the people into tribes and curiæ, and some writers go so far as to credit him with their division into the two classes of patricians and plebeians, as well as the institution of patronage and clientage. Religion and religious law were attributed to Numa for the most part, though the Rome of Romulus could not have been quite destitute of religious worship. Some temples (those of Jupiter Feretrius and of Jupiter Stator) are unanimously reported by tradition to have been founded by Romulus. He is also said to have erected several chapels and altars, instituted festivals and services, founded priesthoods, the sacra of the curiæ, and, in particular, to have instituted the order and manner of the worship of the gods. But the particular form of worship which he is supposed to have introduced is not specified more clearly. There is even some doubt as to whether Romulus or Numa instituted the worship of Vesta, the primal worship of every colony.

On the other hand it is impossible for the institution of the augurs, which was wholly religious, to have originated with Numa. For the foundation—i.e., the existence of the Roman state, no less than that of her fundamental institutions, must have rested upon divine sanction, and been consecrated by divine protection, if the Roman nation’s consciousness of being a chosen people under the protection and guidance of the immortal gods has any historical foundation. The faith of the Romans in their divine origin and the institution of their state by providence necessarily involves the augustum augurium which decided the foundation of Rome and was the groundwork of Roman faith. Hence Romulus must have built the city after consulting the augurs, and in settling all the early institutions he must have been the first and best augur.

The warrior king must moreover have organised the war department of the young state as well as the political constitution; it is really his principal achievement. Directly after the foundation of the city he organised all men capable of bearing arms into a military system. According to Dionysius they numbered three thousand foot-soldiers and three hundred horsemen—a fact which clearly shows that this was the strength of the oldest legion. For it was supposed that the original fighting strength of Rome was a legion, each of the three tribes contributing a thousand foot-soldiers and a hundred horsemen. It is clear that these three thousand foot-soldiers and three hundred horsemen were originally regarded by tradition as the collective contingent of the three tribes, and it follows from the number itself, and from Plutarch’s account, that the original colony of Romulus consisted of three thousand householders—i.e., armed men. But later tradition has misunderstood that fact, and has falsely reported that the legion was doubled to six thousand foot-soldiers and six hundred horsemen on the arrival of the Sabines; hence the original number should have been tripled at the arrival of the third tribe. Plutarch, contrary to his aforementioned report, speaks of several legions at the foundation of Rome, every one consisting of three thousand foot-soldiers and three hundred horsemen.

Dionysius goes further still, and says that the Roman army at the death of Romulus consisted of forty-six thousand foot-soldiers and not much less than one thousand horsemen—a stupid and in every respect an unskilfully calculated number, in which the careless hand of Valerius Antias is clearly perceptible.

In Dionysius’ account, which represents the cavalry as consisting of not much less than “a thousand horsemen,” we have the nine hundred horsemen according to the later tradition, being three hundred for the contingent of every tribe.

Græco-Roman Lamp Hook

On the other hand the more ancient account only speaks of three hundred horsemen in the whole of Romulus’ three centuriæ of knights. They are the three centuriæ, the equites of the Ramnes, Tities, and Luceres. It is evident that these three hundred knights (centuriæ equitum) could not have existed before the recognition of the three tribes. If, therefore, the third tribe was only added after Romulus (about the time of the Albans),[4] there could only have been one centuria equitum (Luceres) from that time. The oldest name for these horsemen, or knights, was celeres. When Livy and Plutarch take the celeres for the bodyguard of the king, and distinguish these three hundred celeres or bodyguards from the three hundred horsemen, it is doubtless an error according to the etymological meaning of the name, as, according to better-informed authorities, the three hundred celeres and the three centuriæ equitum of Romulus are one and the same. The story of the bodyguard of Romulus rests partly upon the misconception of the archaic word “celeres,” and partly on the tradition that Romulus became a despot in the latter years of his reign, and was therefore obliged to have a bodyguard like the Greek tyrants. The leader of the three hundred celeres was called a tribunus celerum.

It is a fiction of later historians to credit Romulus with certain statutes of civil and sacred law, as, for example, those pertaining to the family and to marriage, as well as with the political and military system.

All these so-called Romulean laws are nothing more than ancient laws of custom which were not specified in writing or defined by legal acts. They may have existed in the Papirian collection, although of this we can only be absolutely certain in the case of one Romulean law; whilst the comparatively late origin of this collection itself can be proved to demonstration. The Tabula Marliani cannot be thought worthy of serious consideration at the present day.

The wars conducted by Romulus are purely fictitious, like so many supposititious accounts of the monarchy; they are a garbling of events of the historical period. The campaign against Fidenæ is evidently an imitation of the successful campaign of the year 328, in which a cleverly managed ambuscade was the decisive factor, and Fidenæ was likewise conquered by the Romans entering the gates on the heels of the fleeing foe. The fall and conquest of Fidenæ is an event which so constantly recurs in history that we cannot avoid the suspicion that the annalists purposely multiplied it to swell the empty chronicles of the years of the monarchy. The tale that Veii was called to arms by the fall of Fidenæ is also borrowed from later history, in which Veii appears more than once in league with Fidenæ.

The traditional story of Romulus’ campaign against Veii is moreover quite devoid of colour and character. The hundred years’ truce is mentioned at random. Dionysius makes the condition of it the surrender of the Septem Pagi[5] and Salt plains, another incident borrowed from subsequent history. And yet these two short and uneventful campaigns are supposed to have occupied the long reign of a monarch so warlike, restless, and active, a monarch of whom it was said that he barbarised the Roman nation by his incessant wars. Not only is it clear that there exists no authentic account of these wars, but no mention is made of them in ancient tradition, which only records the entrance of Romulus into the world and his exit from it. The interregnum is occupied for the most part by literary inventions made to fill up the gaps in tradition and to present a complete historical account.

The method of Romulus’ departure from the world is the natural consequence of his earthly existence. He who had come into the world by a miracle could only leave it by a miracle. To accentuate the singularity of both events an eclipse celebrates both his arrival and his departure. Hercules is a parallel instance in Greek mythology. A thundercloud transports him to heaven, where he is reconciled to his enemy Hera, whose daughter Hebe he takes to wife.

Either this or a cognate myth in Greek mythology was in the mind of the Roman poets, because the conception of such an apotheosis was as foreign to the Italian religions as was the idea of sexual intercourse between gods and men, and the conception of men by gods. Both ideas are creations of Greek mythology. It was doubtless Ennius, learned in Greek lore, who first cast into poetic shape the apotheosis of Romulus and introduced the idea of it to Rome.

The deified Romulus was called Quirinus. As Romulus was the eponymous hero of the Palatine Romans, so Quirinus was the chief and most highly venerated, and perhaps the eponymous divinity of the Quiritian Sabines; hence the identification. It is a figure of the amalgamation of the two nations into one, a symbol of their complete unity in constitution and religion. The wife of Quirinus, the deified Romulus, was called Hora or Horta. She was presumably a female divinity united in the religion of the Sabines to Quirinus. The festival of the people’s flight (Poplifugia) or the Caprotinæ nones, which tradition has confused with the death of Romulus, is an ancient feast of purification; for, according to the story, Romulus disappeared during a feast of purification which he had ordained on that day. From other customs it is evident that the festival was chiefly a festival of female fecundity, to which purification from every pollution and sin was held to be conducive, by averting all pernicious influences, by propitiating the fructifying powers, and in short by purification or lustration. The festival of the Caprotinæ nones was very like the Lupercalian festival in purpose and significance. The particular resemblance between them was the part played by the goat, the symbol of animal fecundity. At the Lupercalia a goat was sacrificed, and the luperci (the priests who officiated) ran through the streets, clothed in goatskins, lashing the women with whips made with the skins of the victims. There is a connection with the same festival in the name of the Caprotinæ nones. The Goats’ Pool on the Field of Mars was the place where it was held, the sacrifice was offered under a pine tree (caprificus), the milk of the tree was used, and under the shade of the pine trees the women and maidens were solemnly regaled.

Moreover, the symbolical people’s flight which figures in the festival customs of the Caprotinæ nones is suggestive of a similar rite in the Lupercalia—i.e., the running away (discurrere) of the luperci after the offering of the sacrifice. But the ancients say nothing definite concerning this symbolical flight of the people; they only explained it as due either to the sudden and fearful disappearance of Romulus, or to panic at the threatened attack of some neighbouring cities on Rome when she was exhausted and feeble from the Gallic reverse, or after a defeat at the hands of the Etruscans. A more exact interpretation is impossible. But if we are forced to assign the ceremony to the Caprotinan festival, it can only have been a ceremony of lustration. Probably, when the sin and impurity of the people had been symbolically laid upon a vicarious victim (like a sacrificial animal) the flight of the people symbolised their freedom and deliverance from sin. It had probably the same meaning as the flight of the rex sacrificulus from the Comitium. In the Greek religion we find the same ceremony of symbolical flight and there it is certainly a rite of lustration.

We now arrive at the question of how tradition came to celebrate the disappearance of Romulus at this festival of the Poplifugia or the Caprotinæ nones. What connection had the name or person of Romulus with this feast? Unfortunately the darkness which envelops the earliest religion of the Romans excludes all light on the question. One can only say that the same reason which conduced to the association of Romulus with the Lupercalian festival lay at the root of his connection with the kindred ceremony in the festival of the Caprotina.[d]