480 B.C., when Gelo King of Syracuse defeated their navy, combined with that of Carthage, on the same day on which the battle of Salamis crippled the power of Persia.

But who this people were, or whence they came, baffles conjecture. It may be assumed as certain, that the Pelasgic settlers came in by sea from the western coasts of Epirus, which are distant from Italy less than fifty miles; and that the Opican, Umbrian, and Sabellian races came in from the north by land. But with respect to the Etruscans all is doubtful. One well-known legend represents them as Lydians, who fled by sea from Asia Minor to avoid the terrible presence of famine. Another indicates that they came down over the Alps, and the origin of their name Rasena is thought to be traced in Rætia. On the former supposition, Etruria was their earliest settlement, and, pushing northward, they conquered the plain of the Po; on the latter, they first took possession of this fertile plain, and then spread southward over the Apennines.

Their language, if it could be interpreted, might help to solve the riddle. But though we have numerous inscriptions in their tombs, though the characters in which these inscriptions are written bear close affinity to the letters of the Greek and Roman alphabets, the tongue of this remarkable people has as yet baffled the deftest efforts of philology.

§ 10. Of the Greek settlements that studded the coast of Lower Italy, and gave to that district the name of Magna Græcia, little need here be said. They were not planted till after the foundation of Rome. Many of them, indeed, attained to great power and splendour; and the native OscoPelasgian population of the south became their subjects or their serfs. Sybaris alone, in the course of two centuries, is said to have become mistress of four nations and twenty-five towns, and to have been able to raise a civic force of 300,000 men. Croton, her rival, was even larger. Greek cities appear as far north as Campania, where Naples still preserves in a corrupt form her Hellenic name, Neapolis. The Greek remains discovered at Canusium (Canosi) in the heart of Apulia, attest the extent of Hellenic dominion. But the Greeks seem to have held aloof from mixture with the native Italians, whom

i See more in Dr. Smith's History of Greece, pp. 120-123.

they considered as barbarians. Rome is not mentioned by any Greek writer before the time of Aristotle (about 340 B.C.).

§ 11. From the foregoing sketch it will appear that Latium was a kind of focus, in which converged all the different races that in past centuries had been thronging into Italy. The Etruscans bordered on Latium to the west; the Sabines, with the Umbrians behind them, to the north; the Æquians and Volscians, Oscan tribes, to the north-east and east; while Pelasgian communities are to be traced upon the coast-lands. We should then expect beforehand to meet with a people formed by a commixture of divers tribes; and this expectation is confirmed both by ancient Tradition and by the investigations of modern scholars into the structure of the Latin Language.

§ 12. TRADITION tells us that the Aborigines of Latium mingled in early times with a people calling themselves Siculians; that these Siculians, being conquered and partly expelled from Italy, took refuge in the island, which was afterwards called Sicily from them, but was at that time peopled by a tribe named Sicanians; that the conquering people were named Sacranians, and had themselves been forced down from the Sabine valleys in the neighbourhood of Reaté by Sabellian invaders; and that from this mixture of Aborigines, Siculians, and Sacranians arose the people known afterwards by the name of Latins.

Where all is uncertain, conjecture is easy. It may be alleged that the Aborigines and Siculians, both of them, or at least the latter, were Pelasgians, and that the Sacranians were Oscan. All such conjectures must remain unproved. But they all bear witness to the compound nature of the Latin nation.

§ 13. An examination of LANGUAGE leads us a little further. (1.) The Latin language contains a very large number of words closely resembling the Greek; and, what is particularly to be observed, the grammatical inflexion of the nouns and verbs, with all that may be called the framework of the language, closely resembles that ancient dialect of the Hellenic called Æolic. But it is not to be supposed that these roots and forms were borrowed from the Greek; for these same roots and forms are found in Sanscrit, the ancient language of India.

In many of its forms, indeed, Latin more nearly resembles Sanscrit than Greek. It must be inferred, then, that these languages all branched off from one primitive stock. And it may be affirmed that the form under which this original language first appeared in Latium was Pelasgian or half-Hellenic.

(2.) Though the framework and a large portion of the vocabulary resembles the Greek, there is also a large portion which is totally foreign to the Greek. This foreign element was certainly not Etruscan; for if so, we should find many words in the Etruscan inscriptions agreeing with words in Latin; whereas, in fact, we find hardly any. But in the Oscan inscriptions we find words much resembling the Greek, which words were no doubt Pelasgian; and it may be inferred that the Oscan races had so largely blended with the Pelasgian, that the original Latin tongue was a mixture of the two.

(3.) It is certain that the nation we call Roman was more than half Sabellian. Traditional history, as we shall see, attributes the conquest of Rome to a Sabine tribe. Some of her kings were Sabine; the name borne by her citizens was Sabine; her religion was Sabine; most of her institutions in war and peace were Sabine; and therefore it may be concluded that the language of the Roman people differed from that of Latium Proper by its Sabine elements, though this difference died out again as the Latin communities were gradually absorbed into the territory of Rome.

§ 14. This, then, is the summary of what we know. Tradition represents Italy as peopled by a number of different races, and Rome as partaking more or less of the peculiarities of each race. Philology confirms this representation, and attempts to establish some definite relations between these races. The result is meagre, because the materials for a judgment are meagre. But it is at least certain, that the Roman people and its language were formed by a composition almost as manifold and heterogeneous as the people and language of England. The original Celtic population of our island gave way before the mixed Saxon, Anglian, and Danish tribes, which poured into it from the north. Anglo-Saxon, not without a dash of Celtic, became the common language of the people. Norman conquerors, Danes by origin and Frenchmen

by habit, gradually adopted the language of the conquered people, infusing into it a large vocabulary of French or rather Latin terms; but still the grammatical structure, the bone and sinew of the language, remained and remains Anglo-Saxon. So in Latium, it may be assumed, that the original inhabitants, a mixture of Pelasgians and Oscans, spoke a tongue which was the parent of the later Latin; that the Sabine conquerors of Rome gradually adopted this Latin language, infusing into it a large vocabulary of their own. Other infusions may have occurred, both before and after; but the organic structure still remained the same, and is identified with the structure of the Greek and its kindred tongues.

§ 15. We will now pass on to the Legends, in which is preserved the early History of Rome, reserving for a later page all attempts to estimate how far these Legends are mere fictions, and how far they may be regarded as actual events. It may be observed that no people is so rich in legendary history as the Romans. Their patriotic pride preserved the stories of their ancestors from generation to generation, till they were, so to say, embalmed by poets who lived in the times of the Punic Wars. These poems, indeed, have, with the exception of a few fragments, perished; but we learn from Cicero how highly they were esteemed in his day, and in the epic poem of Virgil, with the scarcely less poetic prose of Livy's early history, they still live. From these great writers chiefly are derived those famous Legends, which are now to be recounted for the hundredth time.

BOOK I.

ROME UNDER THE KINGS.

CHAPTER I.

ORIGIN OF ROME: ROMULUS AND NUMA.

§ 1. Belief of the Romans that they were sprung from the East. § 2. Legend of Æneas. § 3. Legend of Ascanius. § 4. Legend of Rea Silvia, and birth of the Twins. § 5. Legend of recognition of Twins by Numitor. § 6. Legend of the quarrel of Romulus and Remus. Variations in Legends. § 7. Romulus founds Rome. Uncertainty of dates. § 8. Asylum. Rape of Sabines. § 9. War with Sabines. Legends of Tarpeia, of Janus, of Sabine women. § 10. Peace between Romans and Sabines. ROMULUS AND TITUS TATIUS JOINT KINGS. § 11. Legend of Cæles Vibenna and Etruscan settlers at Rome. Four of Seven Hills now occupied. § 12. Death of Titus Tatius. Reign and Death of Romulus. § 13. Institutions attributed to Romulus: (1) Social; (2) Political; (3) Military. § 14. Interregnum : NUMA POMPILIUS, a Sabine, second king of Rome. § 15. Religious institutions attributed to Numa. § 16. His love of agriculture. § 17. Other institutions.

§ 1. It was the pride of the Romans to believe that they were descended from the ancient nations to the East of the Mediter

ranean Sea. All their early legends point to Greece and Troy. How far the Pelasgian origin of the nation may account for this belief may be conjectured, but cannot be determined. It may, however, be assumed that the Arcadian Evander and his followers, whom the legends represent as the first settlers on the Palatine Hill, were Pelasgians; and it is more than probable that the Trojan Æneas and his followers, who are believed to have coalesced with the Arcadians of the Palatine, were likewise Pelasgians. With this preface we proceed to the Legends themselves.

§ 2. Virgil has told the tale of the flight of Æneas, and every one knows how he escaped from the flames of Troy bear