source; and it is in search of some memorial of the virtuous republicans of the family that we visit the church of St. Lorenzo at Florence. The tawdry, glaring, unfinished chapel in that church, designed for the mausoleum of the Dukes of Tuscany, set round with crowns and coffins, gives birth to no emotions but those of contempt for the lavish vanity of a race of despots, whilst the pavement slab, simply inscribed to the Father of his Country, reconciles us to the name of Medici. It was very natural for Corinna 2 to suppose that the statue raised to the Duke of Urbino in the capella de' depositi was intended for his great namesake; but the magnificent Lorenzo is only the sharer of a coflin half hidden in a niche of the sacristy. The decay of Tuscany dates from the sovereignty of the Medici. Of the sepulchral peace which succeeded to the establishment of the reigning families in Italy, our own Sidney has given us a glowing, but a faithful picture. "Notwithstanding all the seditions of Florence, and other cities of Tuscany, the horrid factions of Guelphs and Ghibelins, Neri and Bianchi, nobles and commons, they continued populous, strong, and exceeding rich; but in the space of less than a hundred and fifty years, the peaceable reign of the Medices is thought to have destroyed nine parts in ten of the people of that province. Amongst other things, it is remarkable, that when Philip II. of Spain gave Sienna to the Duke of Florence, his ambassador then at Rome sent him word that he had given away more than 650,000 subjects; and it is not believed there are now 20,000 souls inhabiting that city and territory. Pisa, Pistola, Arezzo, Cortona, and other towns, that were then good and populous, are in the like proportion diminished, and Florence more than any. When that city had been long troubled with seditions, tumults, and wars, for the most part unprosperous, they still retained such strength, that when Charles VIII. of France, being admitted as a friend with his whole army, which soon after conquered the kingdom of Naples, thought to master them, the people, taking arms, struck such a terror into him, that he was glad to depart upon such conditions as they thought fit to impose. Machiavel reports, that in that time Florence alone, with the Val d'Arno, a small territory belonging to that city, could, in a few hours, by the sound of a bell, bring together 135,000 well-armed men; whereas now that city, with all the others in that province, are brought to such despicable weakness, emptiness, poverty, and baseness, that they can neither resist the oppressions of their own prince, nor defend him or themselves if they were assaulted by a foreign enemy. The people are dispersed or destroyed, and the best families sent to seek habitations in Venice, Genoa, Rome, Naples, and Lucca. This is not the effect of war or pestilence: they enjoy a perfect peace, and suffer no other plague than the government they are under." From the usurper Cosmo down to the imbecile Gaston, we look in vain for any of those unmixed qualities which should raise a patriot to the command of his fellow-citizens. The Grand Dukes, and particularly the third Cosmo, had operated so entire a change in the Tuscan character, that the candid Florentines, in excuse for some imperfections in the philanthropic system of Leopold, are obliged to confess that the sovereign was the only liberal man in his dominions. Yet that excellent prince himself had no other notion of a national assembly, than of a body to represent the wants and wishes, not the will, of the people. down the very mountains, was not felt by one of the conte ants." Such is the description of Livy. It may be di attes whether modern tactics would admit of such an abstractius. The site of the battle of Thrasimene is not to be mistääm The traveller from the village under Cortona to Cau d Piano, the next stage on the way to Rome, has for the Bra two or three miles, around him, but more particularly to the right, that flat land which Hannibal laid waste in order to induce the Consul Flaminius to move from Arezzo. Oct left, and in front of him, is a ridge of hills bending dow towards the lake of Thrasimene, called by Livy "montes Cortonenses," and now named the Gualandra. These bills he approaches at Ossaja, a village which the itineraries pretend to have been so denominated from the bones found there but there have been no bones found there, and the battle was fought on the other side of the hill. From OssaJA the road begins to rise a little, but does not pass into the roota of the mountains until the sixty-seventh milestone fro Florence. The ascent thence is not steep but perpetual im continues for twenty minutes. The lake is soon seen belora on the right, with Borghetto, a round tower, close upon the water; and the undulating hills partially covered with mond, amongst which the road winds, sink by degrees into the marshes near to this tower. Lower than the road, dowz the right amidst these woody hillocks, Hannibal placed h horse 5, in the jaws of, or rather above the pass, which wai between the lake and the present road, and most probably close to Borghetto, just under the lowest of the tumal “ On a summit to the left, above the road, is an old circula ruin, which the peasants call the tower of Hannibal the Carthaginian." Arrived at the highest point of the road, the traveller has a partial view of the fatal plain, which opens fully upon him as he descends the Gualandra. He soon fir ás himself in a vale enclosed to the left, and in frost, and behind him by the Gualandra hills, bending round in a aegment larger than a semicircle, and running down at each emai to the lake, which obliques to the right and forms the chord of this mountain arc. The position cannot be guese, z from the plains of Cortona, nor appears to be so completely enclosed unless to one who is fairly within the hills. It them, indeed, appears "a place made as it were on purpose for a snare," locus insidiis natus. "Borghetto is then found to stand in a narrow marshy pass close to the hill and ta the lake, whilst there is no other outlet at the opposta turn of the mountains than through the little town of Passignano, which is pushed into the water by the foot ef a high rocky acclivity." There is a woody eminence branching down from the mountains into the upper end of the placa nearer to the side of Passignano, and on this stands a wide village called Torre. Polybius seems to allude to this ennence as the one on which Hannibal encamped, and drew ad his heavy-armed Africans and Spaniards in a conspicuous pos sition. From this spot he despatched his Balearic and H4armed troops round through the Gualandra heights to the right, so as to arrive unseen and form an ambush amongs the broken acclivities which the road now passes, and to be ready to act upon the left flank and above the enemy, whilst the horse shut up the pass behind. Flaminius came to the lake near Borghetto at sunset; and, without sending spies before him, marched through the pass the next morning before the day had quite broken, so that he perc› TĚ nothing of the horse and light troops above and about ba and saw only the heavy-armed Carthaginians in front as the hill of Torre. The consul began to draw out his army a the flat, and in the meantime the horse in ambush ooca;re the pass behind him, at Borghetto. Thus the Bomaras art completely enclosed, having the lake on the right, the ra army on the hill of Torre in front, the Gualandra hills EZ 4 with the light-armed on their left flank, and being preventwi from receding by the cavalry, who, the farther they advaared, 6 T. Liv. lib. xxii. cap. iv. 7 Hist. lib. iii. cap. 83. The account in Polybius is not so manly p cileable with present appearances as that in Livy, be talks of his to f right and left of the pass and valley; but when Flammous entered to the lake at the right of both. stopped up all the outlets in the rear. A fog rising from the lake now spread itself over the army of the consul, but the high lands were in the sunshine, and all the different corps in ambush looked toward the hill of Torre for the order of attack. Hannibal gave the signal, and moved down from his post on the height. At the same moment all his troops on the eminences behind and in the flank of Flaminius rushed forwards as it were with one accord into the plain. The Romans, who were forming their array in the mist, suddenly heard the shouts of the enemy amongst them, on every side, and before they could fall into their ranks, or draw their swords, or see by whom they were attacked, felt at once that they were surrounded and lost. There are two little rivulets which run from the Gualandra into the lake. The traveller crosses the first of these at about a mile after he comes into the plain, and this divides the Tuscan from the Papal territories. The second, about a quarter of a mile further on, is called "the bloody rivulet; " and the peasants point out an open spot to the left between the "Sanguinetto" and the hills, which, they say, was the principal scene of slaughter. The other part of the plain is covered with thick-set olive trees in corn grounds, and is nowhere quite level except near the edge of the lake. It is, indeed, most probable that the battle was fought near this end of the valley, for the six thousand Romans, who, at the beginning of the action, broke through the enemy, escaped to the summit of an eminence which must have been in this quarter, otherwise they would have had to traverse the whole plain, and to pierce through the main army of Hannibal. The Romans fought desperately for three hours; but the death of Flaminius was the signal for a general dispersion. The Carthaginian horse then burst in upon the fugitives, and the lake, the marsh about Borghetto, but chiefly the plain of the Sanguinetto and the passes of the Gualandra, were strewed with dead. Near some old walls on a bleak ridge to the left above the rivulet, many human bones have been repeatedly found, and this has confirmed the pretensions and the name of the "stream of blood." Every district of Italy has its hero. In the north some painter is the usual genius of the place, and the foreign Julio Romano more than divides Mantua with her native Virgil.! To the south we hear of Roman names. Near Thrasimene tradition is still faithful to the fame of an enemy, and Hannibal the Carthaginian is the only ancient name remembered on the banks of the P'erugian lake. Flaminius is unknown; but the postillions on that road have been taught to show the very spot where I Console Romano was slain. Of all who fought and fell in the battle of Thrasimene, the historian himself has, besides the generals and Maharbal, preserved indeed only a single name. You overtake the Carthaginian again on the same road to Rome. The antiquary, that is, the hostler of the posthouse at Spoleto, tells you that his town repulsed the victorious enemy, and shows you the gate still called Porta di Annibale. It is hardly worth while to remark that a French travel writer, well known by the name of the Presi dent Dupaty, saw Thrasimene in the lake of Bolsena, which lay conveniently on his way from Sienna to Rome. "And thou, dread statue! still ezistent in Stanza lxxxvii. The projected division of the Spada Pompey has already been recorded by the historian of the Decline and Fall of the 1 Abeat the middle of the twelfth century the coins of Mantua bore on on use the image and figure of Virgd. Zecca d'Italia, pl. xvii. i. 6. Vage dans le Milanais, &. par A. Z. Millin, tom. ii. pag. 294. Paris, 2 Storia delle Arti, &c. lib. ix. cap. 1. pag. 321, 322. tom. ii. 3 Liver. Epist at Atticum, xi. . • Pulished by Caurus, in his Museum Romanum. 3 Stori delle Arti, & Lix, c. I. A. Such in. in vit. Angust. cap. 31. and in vit. C. J. Cæsar. cap. 88. Ap jan say it was burnt down. 7 Ant. Rom. Ub 1. 5 Liv. Ilist. lib. x. cap. lxix. Roman Empire. Mr. Gibbon found it in the memorials of Flaminius Vacca; and it may be added to his mention of it, that Pope Julius III. gave the contending owners five hundred crowns for the statue, and presented it to Cardinal Capo di Ferro, who had prevented the judgment of Solomon from being executed upon the image. In a more civilised age this statue was exposed to an actual operation; for the French who acted the Brutus of Voltaire in the Coliseum, resolved that their Cæsar should fall at the base of that Pompey, which was supposed to have been sprinkled with the blood of the original dictator. The nine-foot hero was therefore removed to the arena of the amphitheatre, and, to facilitate its transport, suffered the temporary amputation of its right arm. The republican tragedians had to plead that the arm was a restoration: but their accusers do not believe that the integrity of the statue would have protected it. The love of finding every coincidence has discovered the true Cæsarian ichor in a stain near the right knee; but colder criticism has rejected not only the blood, but the portrait, and assigned the globe of power rather to the first of the emperors than to the last of the republican masters of Rome. Winkelmann is loth to allow an heroic statue of a Roman citizen, but the Grimani Agrippa, a contemporary almost, is heroic; and naked Roman figures were only very rare, not absolutely forbidden. The face accords much better with the " hominem integrum et castum et gravem 3," than with any of the busts of Augustus, and is too stern for him who was beautiful, says Suetonius, at all periods of his life. The pretended likeness to Alexander the Great cannot be discerned, but the traits resemble the medal of Pompey. The objectionable globe may not have been an ill applied flattery to him who found Asia Minor the boundary, and left it the centre of the Roman empire. It seems that Winkelmann has made a mistake in thinking that no proof of the identity of this statue with that which received the bloody sacrifice can be derived from the spot where it was discovered. Flaminius Vacca says sotto una cantina, and this cantina is known to have been in the Vicolo de' Leutari, near the Cancellaria; a position corresponding exactly to that of the Janus before the basilica of Pompey's theatre, to which Augustus transferred the statue after the curia was either burnt or taken down. Part of the Pompeian shade, the portico, existed in the be ginning of the XVth century, and the atrium was still called Satrum. So says Blondus. At all events, so imposing is the stern majesty of the statue, and so memorable is the story, that the play of the imagination leaves no room for the exercise of the judgment, and the fiction, if a fiction it is, operates on the spectator with an effect not less powerful than truth. No. XXV. THE BRONZE WOLF. "And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome!" Stanza Ixxxviii. Ancient Rome, like modern Sienna, abounded most probably with images of the foster-mother of her founder; but there were two she-wolves of whom history makes particular mention. One of these, of brass in ancient work, was seen by Dionysius 7 at the temple of Romulus, under the Palatine, and is universally believed to be that mentioned by the Latin historian, as having been made from the money collected by a fine on usurers, and as standing under the Ruminal figtree. The other was that which Cicero has celebrated both in prose and verse, and which the historian Dion also records as having suffered the same accident as is alluded to by the orator. 10 The question agitated by the antiquaries is, 1 whether the wolf now in the Conservator's Palace is that of Livy and Dionysius, or that of Cicero, or whether it is neither one nor the other. The earlier writers differ as much as the moderns: Lucius Faunus says, that it is the one alluded to by both, which is impossible, and also by Virgil, which may be. Fulvius Ursinus 2 calls it the wolf of Dionysius, and Marlianus 3 talks of it as the one mentioned by Cicero. To him Rycquius tremblingly assents. 4 Nardini is inclined to suppose it may be one of the many wolves preserved in ancient Rome; but of the two rather bends to the Ciceronian statue. Montfaucon 6 mentions it as a point without doubt. Of the latter writers the decisive Winkelmann 7 proclaims it as having been found at the church of Saint Theodore, where, or near where, was the temple of Romulus, and consequently makes it the wolf of Dionysius. His authority is Lucius Faunus, who, however, only says that it was placed, not found, at the Ficus Ruminalis, by the Comitium, by which he does not seem to allude to the church of Saint Theodore. Rycquius was the first to make the mistake, and Winkelmann followed Rycquius. Flaminius Vacca tells quite a different story, and says he had heard the wolf with the twins was found 8 near the arch of Septimus Severus. The commentator on Winkelmann is of the same opinion with that learned person, and is incensed at Nardini for not having remarked that Cicero, in speaking of the wolf struck with lightning in the Capitol, makes use of the past tense. But, with the Abate's leave, Nardini does not positively assert the statue to be that mentioned by Cicero, and, if he had, the assumption would not perhaps have been so exceedingly indiscreet. The Abate himself is obliged to own that there are marks very like the scathing of lightning in the hinder legs of the present wolf; and to get rid of this adds, that the wolf seen by Dionysius might have been also struck by lightning or otherwise injured. Let us examine the subject by a reference to the words of Cicero. The orator in two places seems to particularise the Romulus and the Remus, especially the first, which his audience remembered to have been in the Capitol, as being struck with lightning. In his verses he records that the twins and wolf both fell, and that the latter left behind the marks of her feet. Cicero does not say that the wolf was consumed: and Dion only mentions 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 a 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-ground depositories, called favissæ.9 It may be thought possible that the wolf had been so deposited, and had been replaced in some conspicuous situation when the Capitol was rebuilt by Vespasian. Rycquius, without mentioning his authority, tells that it was transferred from the Comitium to the Lateran, and thence brought to the Capitol. If it was found near the arch of Severus, it may have 1 Luc. Fauni de Antiq. Urb. Rom. lib. ii. cap. vii, ap. Sallengre, tom. i. p. 217. In his seventeenth chapter he repeats, that the statues were there, but not that they were found there. 2 Ap. Nardini, Roma Vetus, 1. v. c. iv. 3 Marliani Urb. Rom. Topograph. lib. ii. cap. ix. He mentions another wolf and twins in the Vatican, lib. v. cap. xxi.” 4 Just. Rycquii. de Capit. Roman. Comm. cap. xxiv. pag. 250. edit. Lugd. Bat. 1696. 5 Nardini, Roma Vetus, lib. v. cap. 1v. 6" Lupa hodieque in capitolinis prostat ædibus, cum vestigio fulminis quo ictam narrat Cicero." Diarium Italic. tom. i. p. 174. 7 Storia delle Arti, &c. lib. iii. cap. iii. s. ii. note 10. Winklemann has made a strange blunder in the note, by saying the Ciceronian wolf was not in the Capitol, and that Dion was wrong in saying so. 8 Flam. Vacca, Memorie, num. iii. pag. i. ap. Montfaucon, Diar. Ital. tom. i. 9 Luc. Faun. ibid. 10 See note to stanza LXXX. in "Historical Illustrations." 11 "Romuli nutrix Lupa honoribus est affecta divinis, et ferrem, si animal been one of the images which Orosius 10 says was throwa down in the Forum by lightning when Alaric took the city. That it is of very high antiquity the workmanship is a decisive proof; and that circumstance induced Winkelman ↳ believe it the wolf of Dionysius. The Capitoline wolf, Lowever, may have been of the same early date as that at the temple of Romulus. Lactantius asserts that in his time the Romans worshipped a wolf; and it is known that the Lupercalia held out to a very late period 12 after every her observance of the ancient superstition had totally expired i 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 walf a Roman symbol, but that the worship of that syrudia ma inference drawn by the zeal of Lactantius. The early Chratian writers are not to be trusted in the charges hic ty make against the Pagans. Eusebius accused the Roge their faces of worshipping Simon Magus, and raising a stab to him in the island of the Tyber. The Romans lud pro bably never heard of such a person before, who came, & 16 ever, to play a considerable, though scandalous part in the church history, and has left several tokens of his Kris combat with St. Peter at Rome; notwithstanding that m inscription found in this very island of the Tyber skomst the Simon Magus of Eusebius to be a certain indigna gra called Semo Sangus or Fidius. 13 Even when the worship of the founder of Rome bad see abandoned, it was thought expedient to humour the burs of the good matrons of the city, by sending there with th sick infants to the church of Saint Theodore, as they had before carried them to the temple of Romulus, 1 The 100 tice is continued to this day; and the site of the above chund seems to be thereby identified with that of the tempo that if the wolf had been really found there, as Whakaim says, there would be no doubt of the present statue le g that seen by Dionysius. But Faunus, in saying that it wa at the Ficus Ruminalis by the Comitium, is only talking a ancient position as recorded by Pliny; and even if ** and been remarking where it was found, would not have ad to the church of St. Theodore, but to a very different po near which it was then thought the Ficus Ruminals been, and also the Comitium; that is, the three cure de the church of Santa Maria Líberatrice, at the corner of the Palatine looking on the Forum. d It is, in fact, a mere conjecture where the image was c tually dug up; and, perhaps, on the whole, the marks of the gilding, and of the lightning, are a better argument is favo of its being the Ciceronian wolf than any that can te akas for the contrary opinion. At any rate, it is reasonab? #lected in the text of the poem as one of the most intereste relics of the ancient city 13, and is certainly the figure. I we the very animal, to which Virgil alludes in his bea verses: "Geminos huic ubera circum Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere matrem Impavidos: illam tereti cervice redes am Mulcere alternos, et corpora fingere lingua** ipsum fuisset, cujus figuram gerit." Lactant, de Fala Ret g 12 To A. D. 496. "Quis credere possit," says Baronius tom. viii. p. 602. in an. 196], “viguisse adhuc Roro ad tielasa quae fuere ante exordia urbis allata in Italiam Laperrain (* wrote a letter which occupes four folio pages to Andromachea Che menus e, and others, to show that the rites should be given up. 13 Eccles. Hist. lib. il. cap. xiii, p. 40. Justin Martyr had 1-të the before; but Baronius himself was obliged to delect this fate. Sew Nig Roma Vet. lib. vii. cap. xii. 14 Rione xii. Ripa, accurata e mocincta Descrizione, dr. di Bana Ken derna, dell' Ab. Ridolf. Venuti, 1766. 15 Donatus, lib, xả, cap, 18, gires a medal repritrea khôÔNG T wolf in the same position as that in the Capitol; and a show we L wolf with the head not reverted. It is of the time of Antunars 16 Æn. vill. 631. See Dr. Middleton, in his Letter from R. clines to the Ciceronian wolf, but without examining the nig No. XXVI. JULIUS CÆSAR. "For the Roman's mind Was modell'd in a less terrestrial mould.” — Stanza xc. It is possible to be a very great man and to be still very inferior to Julius Cæsar, the most complete character, so Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile capacity, 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 at one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings-fighting 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 contemporaries and to those of the subsequent ages who were the most inclined to deplore and execrate his fatal genius. But we must not be so much dazzled with his surpassing glory, or with his magnanimous, his amiable'qualities, as to forget the decision of his impartial countrymen: "Eperia! sweet creation of some heart The respectable authority of Flaminius Vacca would incline us to believe in the claims of the Egerian grotto. 2 He assures us that he saw an inscription in the pavement, stating that the fountain was that of Egeria, dedicated to the nymphs. The inscription is not there at this day; but Montfaucon quotes two lines of Ovid3 from a stone in the Villa Giustiniani, which he seems to think 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 grass Into the brook below. The brook is the Ovidian 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. There can be little doubt that this long dell is the Egerian valley of Juvenal, and the pausing place of Umbritius, notwithstanding the generality of his commentators have supposed the descent of the satirist and his friend to have been into the 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 I" Jure cesus existimetur," says Suetonius, after a fair estimate of his character, and making use of a phrase which was a formula in Livy's time. Melium jure cum 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. Camar, with the commentary of Pitiscus, p. 181. 2 Memorie, &c. ap. Nardini, pag. 13. He does not give the inscription. 3" In villa Justiniana extat ingens lapis quadratus solidus, in quo sculpta bac doo Ovidii carmina sunt ⚫eeria est que præbet aquas den grata Camœnis Illa Nume conjunx consiliumque,' Qui laps videtur exdem Egeria fonte, aut ejus vicinia isthue compartatus." fasium Italic. p. 153. The modern topographers find in the grotto the statue of the nymph, and nine niches for the Muses; and a late traveller 6 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 individual cave. 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 (delabra) 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 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 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, 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 Fgerian valley have received names at will, which have been changed at will. Venuti 10 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 Rediculus, 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 could not be persuaded to believe that this divinity was the Roman Neptune, because his altar was under ground. 4 De Magnit. Vet. Rom. ap. Græv. Ant. Rom. tom. iv. p. 1507. 5 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 sculpite le acque a pie di esso.” 6 Classical Tour, chap. vi. p. 217. vol. ii. 7 Sat. 111. 8 Lib. iii. cap. ill 9" Urdique e solo aquæ scaturiunt." Nardini, lib. iti. cap. ifl. 10 Echinard, &c. Cic. cit. p. 297, 298. 11 Antiq. Rom. lib. ii. cap. xxxi. "Great Nemesis! Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long." Stanza cxxxii. We read in Suetonius, that Augustus, from a warning received in a dream, counterfeited, 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 appeasement of Nemesis, the perpetual attendant on good fortune, of whose power the Roman conquerors were also reminded by certain symbols attached to their cars of triumph. The symbols were the whip and the crotalo, which were discovered in the Nemesis of the Vatican. The attitude of beggary made the above statue pass for that of Belisarius: and until the criticism of Winkelmann 2 had rectified the mistake, one fiction was called in to support another. It was the same fear of the sudden termination of prosperity that made Amasis king of Egypt warn his friend Polycrates of Samos, that the gods loved those whose lives were chequered with good and evil fortunes. Nemesis was supposed to lie in wait particularly for the prudent; that is, for those whose caution rendered them accessible only to mere accidents and her first altar was raised on the banks of the Phrygian sepus by Adrastus, probably the prince of that name who killed the son of Croesus by mistake. Hence the goddess was called Adrastea.3 The Roman Nemesis was sacred and august: there was a temple to her in the Palatine under the name of Rhamnusia : 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. 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: but it was in her vindictive quality that she was worshipped under the name of Nemesis. "He, their sire, Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday.” — Stanza cxli. Gladiators were of two kinds, compelled and voluntary: and were supplied from several conditions; - from slaves sold for that purpose; from culprits; from barbarian captives either taken in war, and, after being led in triumph, set apart for the games, or those seized and condemned as rebels; also from free citizens, some fighting for hire (auctorati), others from a depraved ambition; at last even knights and senators were exhibited, - a disgrace of which the first tyrant was naturally the first inventor. 5 In the end, dwarfs, and even women, fought; an enormity prohibited by Severus. Of these the most to be pitied undoubtedly were the barbarian captives, and to this species a Christian writer justly applies the epithet " innocent," to distinguish them from the professional gladiators. Aurelian and Claudius supplied great numbers of these unfortunate victims; the one after 1 Sueton. in Vit. Augusti, cap. 91. 2 Storia delle Arti, &c. lib. xii. cap. iii. tom. ii. p. 422. 3 Dict. de Bayle, article Adrastea. 4 Fortunæ hujusce diei. Cicero mentions her, de Legib. lib. ii DEAK NEMESI SIVE FORTUNAR PISTORIVS V. C. LEGAT. See Questiones Romanæ, &c. ap. Grev. Antiq. Roman. tom. v. p. 942. See also Muratori, Nov. Thesaur. Inscrip. Vet. tom. i. p. 88, 89., where there are three Latin and one Greek inscription to Nemesis, and others to Fate. his triumph, and the other on a pretext of a rebellion.? Ne war, say Lipsius, was ever so destructive to the huma race as these sports. In spite of the laws of Constantine and Constans, gladiatorial shows survived the old established religion more than seventy years; but they owed their hoe extinction to the courage of a Christian. In the year sud, on the kalends of January, they were exhibiting the show? in the Flavian amphitheatre before the usual immense ca course of people. Almachius, or Telemachus, an rasbera monk, who had travelled to Rome intent on his holy purpose, rushed into the midst of the area, and endeavoured to sepa rate the combatants. The prætor Alypius, a person incredibly attached to these games, gave instant orders to the gladiators to slay him; and Telemachus gained the crow f martyrdom, and the title of saint, which surely has never either before or since been awarded for a more noble explos Honorius immediately abolished the shows, which were never afterwards revived. The story is told by Theodoret and Cassiodorus11, and seems worthy of credit, notwithstandirs its place in the Roman martyrology, 12 Besides the torrents of blood which flowed at the funerals, in the amphitheatres, the circus, the forums, and other public places, gladiators were introduced at feasts, and tore each other to places amidst the supper tables, to the great delight and appla of the guests. Yet Lipsius permits himself to suppose the loss of courage, and the evident degeneracy of mukia, S be nearly connected with the abolition of these bloody sc tacles. No. XXX. "Here, where the Roman million's blame or praise Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd.”—Stanzs exs When one gladiator wounded another, he shouted, it," "hoc habet," or "habet." The wounded combi dropped his weapon, and, advancing to the edge of the a supplicated the spectators. If he had fought well, the per a saved him; if otherwise, or as they happened to be frien they turned down their thumbs, and he was slain. They were occasionally so savage, that they were impatient it a combat lasted longer than ordinary without wounds or death. The emperor's presence generally saved the vanquest.od and it is recorded as an instance of Caracalla's ferocity, that he sent those who supplicated him for life, in a sperta, ie, a Nicomedia, to ask the people; in other words, handed them over to be slain. A similar ceremony is observed at Spanish bull-fights. The magistrate presides; and after ez horsemen and piccadores have fought the bull, the mataCPT steps forward and bows to him for permission to animal. If the bull has done his duty by killing two or thre horses, or a man, which last is rare, the people interfere and shouts, the ladies wave their handkerchiefs, and the anod is saved. The wounds and death of the horses are acc. panied with the loudest acclamations, and many gestures of delight, especially from the female portion of the audi ve including those of the gentlest blood. Every thing depemala on habit. The author of Childe Harold, the writer of this note, and one or two other Englishmen, who have cerum in other days borne the sight of a pitched battle, were, darING the summer of 1809, in the governor's box at the great abs theatre of Santa Maria, opposite to Cadiz. The death of ca, cơ two horses completely satisfied their curiosity. A gr present, observing them shudder and look pale, mode unusual reception of so delightful a sport to same 5 Julius Caesar, who rose by the fall of the aristocracy, to t Pu Leptinus and A. Calenus upon the arvan. 6 Tertullian," certe quidem et innocentes gluliatores in letum et voluptatis publicae hostia fiant." Just. Lips. Satum. Se cap. iii. 7 Vopiscus, in vit. Aurel. and in vit. Claud. ibid. 8 Just. Lips. ibid. lib. i. cap. xii. 9 Augustinus (lib. vi. confess. cap. viii.)" typhum san dum spectaculi inhiatu increditaliter abreptum," critet. the UD. L cap 10 Hist. Eccles. cap. xxvi. lib. v. 11 Cassiod. Tripartita, 1. x. c. xi. Saturn. ib. 15. 12 Baronius, ad ann. et in notis al Martyrol, Rom. 1. Jan. Se rangon delle memorte sacre e profane dell' Anfiteatro FlaT AL 1746. |