In the only, or almost the only version in which it is known to us, the picture drawn by later hands of the most ancient history of Rome, both of the monarchy and the early days of the republic, conveys no hint, or at least only the remotest, of the crises which the city and state must have passed through before taking the form in which it became the basis of a common life and activity to all elements of the community alike. The attitude assumed by this false patriotism is chiefly responsible for the falsification of the earlier history, especially the records connected with the names of the kings.
Again, a third force which we must take into consideration as exercising a dubious influence on the form into which the primitive history of the city was cast, is the singular love of combination which distinguished the Roman priests and antiquaries. The true and original meaning of the ancient traditions, institutions, and antiquated terms in civil and ecclesiastical law, had passed out of mind in the lapse of years, and yet there was a general desire for enlightenment and a right understanding of these things. Whereupon sacerdotal wisdom, which seldom rose above the level of the schoolboy, combined with an absolute freedom, nay, an amazing boldness of arbitrary interpretation, and attempted by this means to render the ancient and extinct legends, institutions, and ideas, clear and comprehensible. From its confined point of view the most superficial likenesses, the most trivial relations, were naturally the most highly favoured in the interpretation of these traditions, ideas, and institutions. Above all, we must lay stress in this connection upon the incredible passion of these exponents for etymology. The remotest assonance of words or phrases sufficed to bring the underlying ideas into connection in their minds and to make them derive the one circumstantially from the other. These combinations and interpretations are handed on to us by antiquaries who either made them out for themselves or borrowed them as authoritative explanations and definitions from the priestly circles, or the writings of pontifices, augurs, etc. In every single case the keenest critical acumen is required to separate these manufactured combinations and deductions from the genuine deposit of older traditions.
Finally we must mention, as the last force which contributed to the distortion of primitive Roman history, the unbounded vaingloriousness of later times. The Romans suffered—the expression is permissible—from the vastness of the proportions of their state and city at a subsequent period. Theoretically they could still persuade themselves and believe that Rome had once been small, but the realisation of the fact in practical detail was beyond them. Thus, in the idea of the city current in later days, it appears as a metropolis from the time of its foundation; the peasant fights become mighty wars skilfully conducted between powerful states and cities, detail and colour being provided by the observation and technical knowledge of a later date. Before attempting to explain the conditions of the Roman monarchy we must therefore always reduce them from the scale on which they are presented to us in this picture to the scale which really befits their original proportions. The gradual rise of the city, its inception and growth step by step from the federal union of villages and settlements, must first be sought for and studied in such instances as have remained free from the influence of sacerdotal handling and vainglory.[d]
FOOTNOTES
[8] [In his desire to claim an origin for Roman legends separate from the Greek, Schwegler exaggerates the position of his opponent. In his lecture on The Influence of the Greeks over the Romans, Schlegel repeatedly admits that the debt of Rome to Greece for legendary material does not imply a total absence of original Roman matter.]
[9] [Myth, or tradition, however, represents the plebeian class as existing from the beginning of the city, though most modern writers have assumed that the plebs rose later as a class of aliens or conquered slaves.]
Costume of an Etruscan Woman of the Upper Class
(Based on Racinet)