DR. ARNOLD'S HISTORY OF ROME.

THIS is a volume of a better age; the fruit of time, and study, and meditation. The classical records have been examined with a patient minuteness, for which neither learning nor labour would have sufficed, without the devotion of love, and of long, long years of life. They have been considered by a large sagacity, without which such indefatigable toil would only have produced a dry an- tiquarian treatise. Dr: ARNOLD has not only collected the re- maining bones of the long since past, but he has perceived the form which the skeleton took when clothed with flesh, and the living spirit by which it was animated ; so as to give the reader distinct glimpses of the Etruscan, Magna Grecian, and even the old barbarian world. With philosophical discrimination I:e applies to the classic ages the lessons derived from present practice or modern history ; teaching when the events and parties of antique times essentially resemble what is passing around us, and when the social circumstances of antiquity produced an essential dif- ference. With all these high qualities for an historian, Dr. ARNOLD unites a vigorous genius, which, we fancy, would occa- sionally soar a higher flight, were it not for long and habitual dis- cipline, which always keeps it in subjection to his judgment. To speak in metaphor, Dr. ARNOLD'S genius is a Pegasus broke-in. It is a matter or congratulation to all friends of literature, that such a man has undertaken the History of Rome; for no other empire ever produced such great and direct effects upon the cha- racter of the modern world ; and, let the sciolists of new disco- veries boast as they may of their own pursuits, its history, insti- tutions, characters, and fortunes, is a necessary study to form the philosophical politician or the statesman, especially from the de- struction of Carthage to the death of TIBERIUS, or the extinction of the house of CESAR. And this study, we expect, will be short- ened and guided by the completion of Dr. ARNOLD'S History of Rome.

The first volume begins with the landing of Ilineas, and ends with the capture and destruction of the city by the Gauls ; thus embracing the doubtful sera of Roman history, from the un- disguised fables of poetry, through the mixed period of legen- dary tales and real occurrences, till the first dawn of authentic narrative. Modified by the nature of his subjects and materials, Dr. Attriosn's manner of proceeding is this. He first gives the legendary narrative from the historians, without, as Livv* says of some of those stories, affirming or denying them, but telling the tale as it was told him. This narrative is followed by an histori- cal disquisition on the narrative itself, in which the chronology, persons, and events of the legends are put aside whenever they are clearly contrary to probability; and the legendary tale is digested into a conjectural account of the institutions and history of Rome, from internal or collateral evidence. And these two branches are occasionally followed by a third, descriptive of the then features of the country, of the social state of its inhabitants, or of the condition of Italy and the adjacent countries, as well as of their probable knowledge of and intercourse with each other. Instead of taking up any single points of the book, which must be done imperfectly or else tediously, it will be better, as present- ing the reader with a more exact idea of this history, if we illus- trate each of these features in successio:r.

Dr. ARNOLD'S plan of giving " the legends and stories of the first three centuries of Rome, in a more antiquated style," has been conceived in a spirit of criticism profoundly just, and exe- cuted with unexampled felicity. By throwing into the earlier narratives the mingled character of the chronicler and the popular story-teller, he is enabled to condense more matter into them than could have been done in an ambitious style of composition ; to bring out points which a graver historian must have passed, though strongly indicative of the supersti- tions and feelings of remote antiquity ; and to infuse into the whole an air of heroic simplicity, which must have been lost in .a sarcastic or sceptical narrative. Nor is industrious scholar- ship less evident than skill and genius. Independent of usual authorities, the scattered evidence lurking even in poets and their commentators, as well as in the fragments of authors whose works have utterly perished, is brought together, and, with the rays of light thrown upon it by the sagacity of criticism, steadily regarded: the whole is sifted and weighed, and the various pieces of tesselate worked up into a mosaic of wonderful beauty, the perfection of which can only be thoroughly appreciated by those who have noted the difficulty of imparting to an imitation the cha- racter of originality. Of these legends, that of Lucius Quinctius, who " let his hair grow and tended it carefully, and was so famous for his curled and crisped locks that men called him Cincinnatus, or • " Ea nee adfitmare, Dec refelere, in anlino es•."—Fral. the crisp-haired," is the most characteristic; that of Coriolaaus is marked by some fine touches of human feeling ; that of Virginia approaches, that of Camillus almost touches, the received historical style ; but the most interesting is that of Tarquin, which not only has the air but breathes the spirit of a homely and trusting antiquity, mingled with a rustic grandeur, from the commencement of his tyranny, down through the rape of Lucretia, the stoic judgment of Brutus, and the fortitude of Screvola, till the battle by Lake Regillus with the two super. natural appearances of Castor and Pollux. We will, however, take the legend of Aneas, as the shortest, though not the leara striking. See, for instance, how clinchingly the reason for the punishment of Laocoon's patriotism is marked. To oppose Fate, in the mind of an ancient, was as if a living man were to run counter to some law of' his own existence. It was not so mocha crime, as a foolish and monstrous presumption. We retain the references to the authorities, as indicating to the scholar the pre.. cess of the workman.

THE LEGEND OF JENF.A S.

When the fatal horse was going to he brought within the walls of Troy, (I) and when Laoroon had been devoured by the two serpents sent by the gods to punish him because he tried to save his country against the will of Fate, then tEneas and his father Anchises, with their wives, (2) and many who followed their fortune, fled from the coming of the evil day. But they remembered to carry their gods with them, (3) who were to receive their worship in a happier land. They were guided in their flight from the city (4) 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, (5) the mother of tEneas, stood over their heads; and it shone by (lay 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 &fleas 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 sacri- fice. (6 ) But the victim, a milk.white sow just really to farrow, broke from the priest and his tninisterg, and tied away. .Eneus followed her ; tar an oracle had told him, that a four-footed beast should guide hint to the spot where he was to build a tity. So the sow went forwards till she came to a certain bill, about two miles and a half from the shore where they had purposed to sacrifice; and there she laid down and farrowed, and her litter was of thirty young wow But when ,FE:iteas saw that the place was sandy and barren, (7) he doubted what he should do. Just at this time he heard a voice, which said, " The thirty young of the sow are thirty yeats ; when thirty years are passed, thy children bhall 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, (8) and their king was called Latinos. He received the strangers kindly, and granted to them seven hundred jugera of land, (9) seven jugera to each man, for that 1,c314 a man's portion. But soon the children of the soil and the strangers quer. retied; and the strangers plundered the lands round about them ; .10) and king Latinos called upon Turnus, the king of the Hutulians of Ardea, to help hint against them. The quarrel became a war : and the strangers took the city of king Latinos, and Latinos was killed ; and /Enna 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 Illezentius, king of the Etruscans of Care. (II) There was then another battle on the banks of the river Numicius ; and Turns was killed ; and tEneas plunged into the river, and was seen no more. However, his sun Ascaniva declared that he was not dead, but that the gods had taken him to be one of themselves; (12) and his people built an altar to him 011 the banks of the Nurnici US, and woi shipped him by the name of Jupiter Indigo', which means, " the god who was of that very land." (Rd) (I) Amines, srianc, quoted by Proelits, Chrestomathia, p. 433. See Fries

Clinton, Pesti Hellen. Vol. 1. p. 386.

(2) Is teviong. Fragm. Beld. Pun. I. 15-20. (3) See the Tabula I liensis, taken from Stesichorus. [Annall der I nail toil; Ca,

respond. Archeolog. 1929, p. 2323 (a) Tabilla II iensis, atul Narvins, quoted by Serving. Ep. 1.170. Edit. Lloa. 1826. 5) Yarn) de Rebus diviuis, 11. quoted by Serving, .tEn. S. 38 t. 6 Dien)slus, 1.56. ; Q. Fabius. maul Servium, Virg. /Eli. I. v.3. Abnigincs."—Cate, Origines, 01110 Serviiim, /En. I. v.6. (9) Cato. spud Serviiim. /En. XI. v.316. But it should be observea that th.' 1IS3, of Serv ins give the number 01 jugera wariously. (10) Cato. aped Servium, 2Eil. I. 967. et ,Eu. IV. 620. (II) Cato. aped Servium. E n. I. '267. (tR) Serving, ,En. IV. 620. .2Eu. XII. 794. (13) Livy, 1.2.

The historical disquisitions are mainly derived from NIEBUHR; to whom Dr. ARNOLD acknowledges his obligations in terms of the highest eulogy, and of whose merits he speaks in language more unmeasured than some may assent to, unless the panegyric be limited to his wonderful learning, industry', and conjectural saga- city. But our author has popularized the German. He has em- builied his abstractions; he has given shape, distinctness, and con- sistency to his views, and, what is more, has made them generally intelligible and readable. He may also be said to have illustrated NIRBURR, and brought home to us the Roman party contests. It is impossible to read attentively the vigorous but ill-directed and ill-sustained struggles of the plebeians, against the arts, the po- licy, and the unscrupulous deeds of the patricians, without being reminded of the contest lately raging, but now lulled for a time, of the English people against the privileged classes : as, at a future period of the narrative, the domination of united Rome over her Italian allies, will find a counterpart in our government of Ireland and the Colonies. " Keep what you've got, no matter how you got it," is a universal principle of action.

As a specimen of the disquisition, or history from inference, we will take the passage descriptive of the origin and character of the different orders of Rome ; which will probably be new to many who think themselves well read in her history.

The f e )ple, or citizens of Rome, were divided into the three tribes of the Ramnenses, Titienses, and Luceres; to whatever races we may suppose them to

belong, or at whatever time and under whatever circtunst inees they may have become united. Each of these tribes was divided into ten smaller bodies, orr.lied curia; so that the whole people consisted of thirty curiie: these same division.

,aerwro

w.ro, war represeuted by the trail ty centuriee whieli mole up the legion, just as the three tidies were represented by the three centuries of horsemen; but that the soldiers of each century were exactly a hundred, is apparently as un- ounded a conclusion as it would be if we were to argue in the same way as to f be military force of one of our English hundrede.

I have said that each tribe was divided into ten curiae ; it would be more correct to say that the union of ten make formed the tribe. For the adate grew out of the junction of certain original elements ; and these were neither the eedaea nor even the curite, but the genies or houses which made up the claim. The first element of the whole system was the gene or house, an union of aeon- ral Wilke who were bound together by the joint performance of certain reli- 'lout rites. Actually, where a system of houses hate existed within historical 7nemory, the several families who committed a house were not necessarily re. wed to one another ; they were not really cousins more or less distant, all de. landed from a common ancestor. But there is no reason to doubt that, in the original idea of a house, the bond of union between its several families was tidy sameness of blood : such was likely to be the earliest acknowledged tie, although afterwards, as names are apt to outlive their meanings, an artificial bond may have succeeded to the natural one ; and a house, instead of consisting of families of real relations, was made up sometimes of families of strangers, whom it was proposed to bind together by a fictitious tie, in the hope that law arid custom and religion might together rival the force of nature. Thug, the state being made up of families, and every family consisting from the earliest thou' of members and dependents, the original inhabitants of Rome belonged all to one of two class's: they were either members of a fatnily, and it so, members of a house, of a curia, of a tribe, and so lastly, of the state ; Of they were dependents on a family, and if so, their relation went no further than the immediate aggregate of families, that is, the house ; with the curia, with the tribe, and with the state, they had no connexion.

These members of families were the original citizens of Rome ; these depen- dents on families were the original clients. The idea of clientship is that of a wholly private relation ; the clients were something to their respective patrons, but to the state they were nothing. But wherever states composed in this manner, of a body of houses with their clients, had been long established, there grew up amidst or close beside them, created in most instances by conquest, a population of a very distinct kind. Strangers might come to live in the land, or more commonly the inhabitants of a neigh- bouring district might be conquered and united with their conquerors as a sub. jeer people. Now this population had no connexion with the houses separately, but only with the slate composed of those houses ; this was wholly a political, not a domestic relation ; it united personal and private liberty with political subjection. This inferior population possessed property, regulated their own municipal as well as domestic affairs, and as free men fought in the armies of what was now their common country. But, strictly, they were not its citizens ; they could not intermarry with the houses ; they could not belong to the state, for they belonged to no house, and therefore to no curia and no tribe ; conse- silently, they had no share in the state's government nor in the state's property. What the state conquered in war, became the property of the state, and there- fore they had no claim to it ; with the state demesne, with whatever in short belonged to the state in its aggregate capacity, these, as being its neighbours merely, and not its members, had no concern. Such an inferior population, free personally, hut subject politically, not slaves, yet not citizens, was the original plebs, the commons of Rome. The mass of the Roman cotnmons were conquered Latins. These, besides receiving grants of a pottinn of their former lands, to be held by them as Ro- man citizens, had also the hill Aventinus assigned as a residence to those of them who removed to Rome. The Aventine was without the walls, although so near to them : thus the commons were, even in the nature of their abode, like the Pfalburger of the middle ages—men nut admitted to live within the city, but enjoying its protection against foreign enemies. It will be understood at once, that whatever is said of the people in these early times, refers only to the full citizens ; that is to the members of the houms. The assembly of the people was the assembly of the curia; that is, the great council of the members of the houses ; while the senate, consisting of two hundred senators, chosen in equal numbers from the two higher tribes of the Rainnenses and the Titienses, was their smaller or ordinary council.

The power of the king was as varied and ill.defined as in the feudal monar- chies of the middle ages. Over the commons he was absolute; but over the

real people, that is, over the houses, his power was absolute only in war' and without the city. Within the walls, every citizen was allowed to appeal front the king or his judges to the sentence of his peers; that is, to the great council of the curia. The king had his demesne lands, and in war would receive his portion of the conquered land, as well as of the spoil of moveables.

The third branch of the work is less regular and uniform than the other divisions, and is of course of a very miscellaneous nature; sometimes investigating the physical character of the country, and its probable influences upon the climate—sometimes attempt- ing to outline the landscapes of ancient Italy, or diverging, as we have said, to the social state of many nations in the ancient civilized world. Let us take a picture of the

TERRITORY ANI) SCENERY OF ROME UNDER ITS FIRST KINGS.

If it is hard to carry back our ideas of Rome from its actual state to the period of. its highest splendour, it is yet harder to go back in fancy to a time still more distant, a time earlier than the beginning of its authentic history, before man's art had completely rescued the very soil of the future city from the dominion of nature. Here also it is vain to attempt accuracy in the details, or to be certain that the several features in our desci iption all existed at the some period. It is enough if we can image to I.ur.elves wine likeness of the original state of Rome, before the undertaking of those great woiks which are ase:ibed to the later

kings. • • 11 • lb

And now what was Rome, and what was the country around it, which have both acquired an interest such as can cease only when earth itself shall perish ? The hills of Rome are such as we rarely me in England, low in height, but with steep and rocky sides. In early times, the natural wood still remained in patches amidst the buildings, as at this day it grows here and there on the green sides of the Monte Testaceo. Across the Tiber the ground rises to a greater height than that of the Roman hills, but its summit is a level unbroken line, while the heights, which opposite to Rome itself rise immediately from the river, under the names of Janiculus and Vaticanus, then sweep away to some distance from it, and return in their highest and boldest form at the Mons Marius, just above the Milvian bridge and the Flaminian road. Thus to the west the view is immediately bounded ; but to the north and north-east the eye ranges over the low ground of the Campagna to the nearest line of the Apennines, which closes up, as with a gigantic wall, all the Sabine, Latin, and Volscian lowlands, While over it ate still distinctly to be seen the high summits of the central Apennines, covered with snow, even at this day, for more than six months in the Year. South and south- west lies the Wide plain of the Campagna; its level hint succeeded by the equally level line of the sea, which can only be distinguished from It by the brighter light reflected from its waters. Eastward, after ten miles of plain, the view is bounded by the Alban hills, a cluster of high bold Points rising out of the Campagna, like Arran horn the sea, on the highest of which, at nearly the same height with the summit of Helvellyn, stood the Temple of Jupiter Latiaris, the scene of the common worship of all the people of the Latin name. Immediately under this highest point lies the crater-like basin of the Alban lake ; and on its nearer rim might be seen the trees of the grove of Ferentis, where the Latins held the great civil assemblies of their nation. Further to the north, on the edge of the Alban hills looking towards Rome, was the town and citadel of Tusculum ; and beyond this, a loner summit crowned with the walls and towers of Lahicuin seems to connect the Alban hills with the line of the Apennines just at the spot where the citadel of ceneste, high up on the mountain side, marks the opening into the couotry of the Hernicans, and into the valleys of the streams that feed the Line. Returning nearer to Rome, the lowland country of the Campagna is broken

by long green swelling rid i

ridges, the ground rising and falling, as n the heath country of Surry and Berkshire. The streams are dull and sluggish, but the hill-sides above them constantly break away into little rocky cliffs, where on every ledge the wild fig now strikes out its brandies, and tufts of broom are clustering, but which in old times formed the natural strength of the citadels of the numerous cities of Latium. Except in these narrow dells, the present aspect of the country is all bare and desolate, with no trees nor any human habitation. But anciently, in the time of the early kings of Rouse, it was full of independent cities, and in its population and the careful cultivation of its little garden-like firma, must have resembled the most flourishing parts of Lombardy or the Netherlands. Such was Rome, and such its neighbourhood ; such also, as far as we can discover, was the earliest form of its society, and such the legends which fill up the place of its lost history. Even for the second period, on which we are now going to enter, we have no certain history ; but a *series of stories as beautiful as they are unreal, and a few isolated political institutions, which we cannot confidently connect with their causes or with their authors. As before. then, I must first give time stories in their oldest and most genuine form ; and then offer, in meagre contrast, all that can be collected or conjectured of the real histoty.

We have hitherto spoken of the general character of the work, or attempted to convey a notion of its scope and plan. It should be added, that Dr. ARNOLD is not a mere scholar, or writer, but a man who seems to have looked on the business of passing life with discerning eyes, and who, by applying the facts of ancient to analogous circumstances in modern times, renders his narrative more informing to very many readers than if they were to go over the original authorities, whilst he brings the history more home to their minds. The principles of a liberal political philoso- phy are inculcated with the aceasion, and reflections of general wisdom, of universal application freely interspersed. Here is one— Such was the end of a contest which had lasted for ten years; and all its circumstances, as well as its final issue, show the inherent strength of an aria- tocracy in possession of the governnient, aud under what manifold disadvan- tages a popular party ordinarily contends against it. Nothing less than some extraordinary excitement can ever set on a level two parties so unequal ; wealth, power. knowledge, leisure, organization, the influence of birth, of rank, and of benefit, mime love of quiet, the dread of emotion and of per-onal sacrifices, the instinctive clinging to what is old and familiar, and the indifference to abstract principles so characteristic of common minds in every rail of ; all these causes render the triumph of a dominant aristocracy sure, unless; soaie intoler- able outrage, or sonic lure combination of favourable ciretonstanses, exasperate or encourage the people to extraordinary efforts, and so give them a temporary. superiority. Otherwise, the aristocracy may yield what they will, and retain what they will ; if they me really good and wise, and give freely all that justice and reason require, then the lasting greatness and happiness of a country are best secured: if they du much less than this, yielding isomething to the growing light of truth, but not frankly and fully following it, great good is still done, and great improvements effected ; but in the evil which was retained there are nursed the seeds of destruction, which fall at last upon them and on their country. The irritation of having reasonable demand,' refused, provokes men to require what is unreasonable; suspicion and jealousy are fostered beyond remedy ; and these passions, outliving the causes which excited them, render at last even the noest cmaiplete concessions thankless ; and when experience has done its work with the aristocracy, and they are disposed to deal justly with their old adversaries' they are met in their turn with a spirit of insolence and injustice, and a fresh train of evils is the consequence. So true is it that nations, like individuals, have their time of trial ; and if this he wasted or misused, their future course is inevitably evil ; and the efforts of some few good and wise citizens, like the occasional struggles of conscience in the mind of a single man when he has sinned beyond repentance, are powerless to avert their judg- ment.

Here we must take leave of the first volume of' Dr. AttNoLD's History of Rome. If, however, any " general reader" should pro- cure the book, it may be proper to hint to him, that lie may pos- sibly think part of our praises overcharged. The narratives, indeed, lie will find as amusing as a fairy tale, with the sense of instruc- tion superadded; but he may feel the disquisitions or annotations upon history somewhat dry ; for Dr. ARNOLD'S work is not like a fashionable novel or a flashy précis of history, where he who runs may read without trouble, but a volume requiring some previous acquaintance with its subjects, some comprehension of their bear- ing, and some power of profiting by the lessons deducible from the history of the past.