“A pig of lead, inscribed with the name of L. Aruconius Verecundus, and the letters Metal. Lvtvd., probably the mine of Lutudæ. Found near Matlock Bank, in Derbyshire.”
“A pig of lead, inscribed CL. TR. LVT. BR. EX. ARG.; found with three other pigs and some broken Roman pottery, at Broomer’s Hill, in the parish of Pulborough, Sussex, January 31, 1824, close to the Roman Road, Stone Street, from London to Chichester.”
“A pig of lead, inscribed with the name of Britannicus, the son of the Emperor Claudius; found on the Mendip Hills, Somersetshire.”
So much for these pigs. What is it which they might say, if we were to bring them into court? Something of this sort: At this time, in the streets of the stannary towns in Cornwall, there are to be seen blocks—pigs of tin, stamped in a manner similar to the lettering of these pigs of lead in the British Museum. This stamping is effected for the purpose of securing the dues of the Duchy of Cornwall, and the symbols and the letters indicate the political fact that the Prince of Wales, as Duke of Cornwall, lays a hand upon every pound of tin that is smelted in the county; and thus, too, the stamping of the produce of the lead-mines of Britain gives evidence of the fact that the Romans were not merely resident in Britain at the time, but were masters also of the island, and the lords of its mineral products. Then the lettering itself finds its interpretation in the Roman imperial history, and this history comes into our hands, partly as it has been narrated by the Roman historians above mentioned; partly in the form of sculptures, statues, busts, and bas-reliefs; and partly, and very copiously, in the unquestionable form of the coins of the same emperors, which alone would suffice for putting us in possession of the series of events, greater and smaller, through a course of many centuries. But what the reader should here keep in view is this: that as our present thesis is—the safe and sure transmission of ancient books, by the means of often-repeated copyings, through the lapse of ages, an evidence to this effect—and it is the most conclusive that can be imagined or desired, is afforded us when, in passing through collections, such as those treasured in the British Museum, the Books in question are found to furnish a coherent, and a continuous, and an exact interpretation of these palpable and ponderous antiquities. Yet, it is manifest that, unless the books were in the main genuine, they could not have supplied any interpretations, such as are those which we find in them.
Go on now to the historical sculptures—the statues, and the busts of the imperial times. These, for the most part, are susceptible of authentication by means of the coins of the same emperors, which may be seen—by “order”—in another department of the Museum; the likenesses are indisputable, and the historic reality of the two samples of Roman art is thus far made good. But beyond this we may safely go. From the Roman writers—specially Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dion Cassius—we acquire what we need not doubt to be a true idea of the individual character, the temperament, the education, the public and private behaviour, and the style of the series of imperial persons, from Julius Cæsar, onward, to the times of each of these writers. What then is the verdict of our physiognomical instincts, when we compare the busts or statues, for instance, of Augustus and of Tiberius, of Nero and of Trajan? We could no more take these, one for the other, than we could misname the portraits of Philip of Spain, or the Duke of Alva, put by the side of George Washington, or John Howard; or misjudge those of Oliver Cromwell, and John Milton; or of Admiral Blake, and Alexander Pope. We need not wait until a science of physiognomy has been concocted before we may risk a guess in writing the names under portraits of Lord Chatham, Dr. Johnson, and Oliver Goldsmith. Mistakes, in single instances, may be made, but not in the long run; and when, on the one hand, we take the entire series of royal portraits, eastern and western, from the first of the Ptolemies to Charlemagne, and, on the other hand, the books of the series of contemporary historians, we shall receive, from this large collation of independent evidences, an irresistible conviction of the general authenticity of the latter; and therefore we must cease to entertain doubts on this question of the secure transmission of ancient books to modern times.
It would be of little avail here to cite a few single instances of the agreement of Roman coins with written history, for such instances are countless. The reader who would wish to inform himself, in whole, or in part, on this extensive subject, should take in hand a Medallic History of Imperial Rome, which, as compared with the medallic treasures of the British Museum, will give him aid in following the train of public events through five or six centuries, exhibited and verified by the double line of testimonies—the metallic and the literary. Or he may be content to take, as a sufficient sample of this species of proof, the facts he will find brought together in a small volume, “Akerman on the Coins of the Romans relating to Britain.”
There is another field upon which a gleaning, and more than a gleaning, may easily be made by help of the Roman poets as our guides. These writers—and we need name only Ovid, Horace, Virgil, and Propertius—are undoubtedly believed to have lived and flourished as the contemporaries of Julius Cæsar, Augustus, Tiberius. Their writings, as we have them now in our hands, are accepted as genuine; for the criticism which demonstrates the general integrity of the text (exceptions allowed for) is too erudite and careful to be called in question. Consequently, these writings have safely traversed a period of fifteen hundred years, ending with the date of the earliest printed editions: but this transit has been made by no other means than that of the copyists; and therefore, if, as we shall see, a super-abundance of various and independent evidences removes the possibility of our doubting the fact, then this mode of transmission, precarious as it may seem, is found to be trustworthy, and our main point is established—namely, That ancient books have indeed come down to modern times—whole and entire. Let us look, for a moment, to this corroborative evidence—such as we find it offered to the eye, in passing through the saloons of the British Museum.
The Roman poets were not, perhaps, themselves very firm believers in the Grecian mythology—considered religiously or historically: nevertheless, they took it up—such as it had come into their hands—and it was a splendid inheritance—a boundless treasury of bright conceptions of superhuman power, beauty, grace; a scheme of elegant sensuousness, with a touch of sublimity. Its fables, far more available for poetic purposes than any system of serious truths could have been, opened before the Roman poets a broad meadow land, in roaming through which the imitative, more than originative turn of the Roman mind, might gather fruits and flowers, ripe and gay, and which asked only to be taken and enjoyed. So it is, therefore, that in every imaginable mode of lengthened poetic narrative, and of transient allusion, and of direct and of allusive reference, the gods and the goddesses, and the demi-gods, and the heroes of Greece come up upon the stage of the Roman poetry. These repetitions—these borrowings or plagiarisms, and these flashing glances, are countless:—sometimes they are formal; sometimes they are informal:—they are broad daylight views in some places, and in places innumerable they are as sparks only—visible for an instant.
Now with what objects is it that these mythologic passages are in harmony?—with what is it that they correspond? Our answer is—With tens of thousands of relics of ancient art which, through channels altogether independent of those through which the books have reached us, have come, at this time, to fill, and to over-fill the cabinets and museums of Europe—and thus, also, our British Museum.
But then this mass of ponderable and visible evidences is inter-related in a very peculiar manner, which should be borne in mind. We have just now referred to the correspondence which connects the historic sculptures—the statues and the busts of Roman personages, male and female, and the likenesses of the same men and women which are so copiously supplied in collections of the Roman imperial mintage. But now we pass on to the Græco-Roman saloons—the first, the second, and the third, as well as the basement-room. These are filled with mythologic sculptures—recovered from the soil of Italy and Greece:—they show us, in inimitable marbles, those same divinities, the principal and the subordinate, which the mind of Greece had imagined, and which the Roman artists adopted: these beautiful creations we at once recognise as the celestial personæ with whom we have made acquaintance in the pages of the Roman poets: the conception of superhuman grace and power is the very same; and the attendant symbols are the same. And now furnish yourself with the requisite order for inspecting the collection of antique gems—precious (often) as to their material—precious, incalculably more so, by means of that exquisite taste and that inimitable executive skill which have made them what they are.