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SCIENCE OF THE ETRUSCANS.

149

history of this people deserves especial notice, namely, that, after all that is told of their extensive maritime power, they have left no traces of their influence beyond the limits of their own country. "Their historical development," as Mommsen observes, "began and ended in Italy." They were already a powerful state, when the foundation of Rome formed a new starting-point for the history of the peninsula and of the world.

CHAPTER XX.

ROME UNDER THE KINGS.

"The Niobe of nations! there she stands,
Childless and crownless, in her voiceless woe;
An empty urn within her wither'd hands,
Whose holy dust was scatter'd long ago;
The Scipio's tomb contains no ashes now;
The very sepulchres lie tenantless

Of their heroic dwellers: dost thou flow,
Old Tiber, through a marble wilderness?

Rise with thy yellow waves, and mantle her distress !

"The Goth, the Christian, Time, War, Flood, and Fire
Have dealt upon the seven-hill'd city's pride;

She saw her glories, star by star, expire,

And up the steep barbarian monarchs ride

Where the car climbed the Capitol; far and wide

Temple and tower went down, nor left a site :-
:-

Chaos of ruins! who shall trace the void,

O'er the dim fragments cast a lunar light,

And say,' Here was,' or 'is,'-where all is doubly night?"-BYRON.

THE CAMPAGNA AND SURROUNDING HILLS-THE TIBER: ITS COURSE AND CHARACTER-THE SITE OF ROME-ITS PRIMEVAL ASPECT DESCRIPTION OF ITS SEVEN HILLS-MYTHICAL CHARACTER OF THE EARLY ROMAN HISTORY-EVANDER-ENEAS-ASCANIUS AND THE ALBAN KINGS-LEGEND OF ROMULUS AND REMUS-ROMANS AND SABINES-INSTITUTIONS AND CONQUESTS ASCRIBED TO ROMULUS-HIS DEATH AND APOTHEOSIS-ROMAN CHRONOLOGY-ERA OF THE FOUNDATION OF ROME-INTERREGNUM-LEGEND OF NUMA POMPILIUS HIS RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS THE ROMAN CALENDAR-THE SUBSEQUENT KINGS OF ROME-DISCUSSION OF THE LEGENDS-LATIN ORIGIN OF ROME-EARLY SETTLEMENTS ON THE SEVEN HILLS-THE CITY OF THE RAMNES ON THE PALATINETWO PRINCIPAL THEORIES OF ITS ORIGIN-FIRST, AS A ROBBER COLONY OF ALBA, EXTENDED BY WAR, CONQUERED AND REMODELLED BY THE SABINES CHARACTER AND INSTITUTIONS OF THIS PEOPLE-THE SETTLEMENT ON THE QUIRINAL, AND UNION WITH THE RAMNIANS-THE SECOND THEORY OF A NATURAL GROWTH FROM LATIN SETTLEMENTS ON THE SEVEN HILLS-ROME VIEWED AS THE EMPORIUM OF LATIUM-EXTENT OF THE PRIMITIVE CITY-THE ORIGINAL SEPTIMONTIUM—AMALGAMATION WITH THE CITY ON THE QUIRINAL-TULLUS HOSTILIUS-LEGEND OF THE HORATII AND CURIATII, AND OF THE CONQUEST OF ALBA-ETRUSCAN AND SABINE WARS-ANCUS MARCIUS-HIS CONQUESTS IN LATIUM AND ALONG THE TIBER-HIS WORKS AT ROME-ORIGIN OF THE PLEBS THE ETRUSCAN DYNASTY-TARQUINIUS PRISCUS HIS INSTITUTIONS, WARS, AND PUBLIC WORKS-SERVIUS TULLIUS-HIS NEW CONSTITUTION-THE WALLS OF ROMEALLIANCE WITH THE LATINS-LEGEND OF HIS DEATH-TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS-HIS FOREIGN ALLIANCES AND WARS-THE SIBYL-TAKING OF GABII-L. JUNIUS BRUTUS-THE LEGEND OF LUCRETIA-EXPULSION OF THE TARQUINS-REVIEW OF REGAL Rome,

TO TRACE the greatness of Rome from her first beginnings, we must go back to a time when the Tiber flowed, not through a "marble wilderness," strewn with the wrecks of imperial magnificence, but through the open waste of the wide Campagna. This

THE CAMPAGNA OF ROME.

151

plain, a scene so memorable in history, extends along the central portion of the western shore of Italy for the length of about ninety miles, between the spur of the Apennines, which terminates at Cape Linaro,* and the Circean Promontory. It has an average breadth of twenty-seven miles between the long stretch of flat coast which presents so striking a contrast to the noble gulfs of Gaeta, Naples, and Salerno further down, and the lower chain of the Apennines, which encircle it on the north and east. A spectator, standing on Mount Janiculus, overlooking the site of Rome, sees this chain across the undulating surface of the Campagna at the distance of about ten or fifteen miles, and behind it the central ridge of the Apennines, capped with snow for half the year. The chief objects of the panorama are as memorable for their historical and poetical associations, as they are conspicuous for their beauty. To the northwest, the plain of the Aro (Arrone) is bounded by the Etruscan hills. On the north, about twenty miles distant, stands out Soracte, whose snow-clad summit invited Horace to enjoy the pleasures of winter. Eastward, across the Tiber, lies the beautiful range of the Sabine Apennines; and conspicuous above the rest the peak of Lucretilis (M. Gennaro), which sheltered the poet's summer retreat. Nearer in the foreground, where the Anio bursts out of the hills, is Tibur (Tivoli), whose beauties he extols above all the most famous sites of Greece. Then follow the hills of Latium, with their sterner associations;-the rocky summit of Præneste (Palestrina) standing out in front of the chain, celebrated in medieval as well as ancient history;—and the isolated volcanic mass of the Alban Mount (Monte Cavo or Albano), the sanctuary of the Latin race, down the side of which the "Long White City" (Alba Longa) extended to the lake of the same name. Its highest summit, crowned of old with the temple of Jupiter Latiaris, was visible even to mariners at sea. From this point there is an uninterrupted view to the southeast over the plain, till it sinks into the sea, which is only distinguished from the land by the brighter light reflected from its waters. Far off amidst this level may be dimly seen the isolated hill of the promontory of Circe, whose white cliffs reflect the rising beams of the sun, her fabled father. Of the aspect of the Campagna near Rome, no better idea can be given than by the description of Dr. Arnold :"The lowland country of the Campagna is broken by long green swelling ridges, the ground rising and falling, as in the heath

* This headland, the site of the Roman fort of Castrum Novum, lies a little above 42° N. lat.

country of Surrey 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 branches, 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 times of the early kings of Rome, it was full of independent cities, and in its population, and the careful cultivation of its little garden-like farms, must have resembled the most flourishing parts of Lombardy or the Netherlands."* The southern extremity of the Campagna forms a dead level, opening on to the Gulf of Gaeta, between the Circean promontory and Tarracina, and watered by the Nymphæus, Ufens, and Amasenus, with other rivers. The "Pomtinus Ager" as it was called, from Pontia (a town which disappeared very early), was once celebrated for its fertility, and contained twenty-three flourishing towns. But, before the middle of the second century B.C., the neglect to regulate the water-courses had converted it into a pestilential marsh, which was only partially drained by Cethegus (B.c. 160) and Julius Cæsar. The canal, which continued the Via Appia through the Pomptine Marshes to the temple of Feronia, at the foot of the hill of Anxur (Terracina), furnished Horace with his well-known picture of the lazy and extortionate boatmen, and the traveller, kept awake by gnats and frogs, singing of his mistress till he falls asleep. The drainage works were resumed about the end of the eighteenth century, but the marshes are still a hotbed of malaria in the summer. Their extent is about twenty-four miles long by eight or ten wide.

The northern part of the Campagna is watered by the Tiber and its confluents, of which the Anio is the chief. The sacred river of the Romans, "Father Tiber," more anciently called Rumon and Albula, has a course somewhat shorter than the Thamest of about 200 miles from its source near Tifernum, in the Apennines, to its

* History of Rome, vol. i. p. 35.

A fancy, similar to that which compares Edinburgh with Athens, has likened the Tiber to the Tay. The resemblance is said to have been first traced by the Romans themselves, who saw a second Campius Martius in the North Inch of Perth; but Sir Walter Scott resents such a disparagement of the northern river:

"Behold the Tiber!' the vain Roman cried,

Viewing the ample Tay from Baiglie's side;
But where's the Scot that would the vaunt repay,

And hail the puny Tiber for the Tay?"

COURSE OF THE TIBER.

153

mouth at Ostia. For the first 110 miles, it flows as a mountain stream, between Etruria and Umbria, to its confluence with the Nar, which divided the latter country from the Sabine territory, a division continued by the Tiber itself for about 70 miles, to its confluence with the Anio, three miles above Rome. It is in this part of its course, between M. Soracte and the Sabine Apennines, that the Tiber flows out of the mountains into the plain of the Campagna. The Anio separated Latium from the Sabine territory, which thus occupied the angle between the two rivers, looking towards Rome. From this point to its mouth, a distance of about 21 miles, the Tiber was the boundary between Etruria and Latium. It falls into the sea by two mouths, forming an island which was sacred to Venus, and is still called the Isola Sacra. At its southern mouth stood the ancient port of Ostia, which was so early blocked up by the deposits of the river, that Augustus made a new port on the northern mouth, the Portus Augusti, now Fiumicino. From Ostia the Tiber was navigable for the largest ships up to Rome, whence the navigation for boats was continued as far as the confluence of the Nar. At Rome the river is about 300 feet wide, and from 12 to 18 deep; its fall for the 18 miles down to its mouth is 33 feet.

The character of the Tiber, as a rapid mountain stream, flowing through no lake to regulate its volume and receive its alluvial deposits, is summed up in one line of Virgil,

"Vorticibus rapidis et multa flavus arena;"

and its turbid water still justifies the frequent epithet of the "yellow Tiber." Its rapid eddies, frequent floods, and large alluvial deposits, have produced great effects on its course through the Campagna and on the site of Rome itself. All the engineering skill of the masters of the world was unable to protect their city from the inundations of its sacred stream, one of which (probably that of B.C. 27) is so graphically described by Horace:

"Vidimus flavum Tiberim, retortis
Litore Etrusco violenter undis,
Ire dejectum monumenta regis
Templaque Vestæ."

It was not indeed till the Etruscan kings executed the great drain, the "Cloaca Maxima," that the valleys between the hills of Rome were made dry land; and it seems that at no distant time the hills nearer to the river were islands. On the other hand, the single island (Insula Tiberina) in the stream opposite to the

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