Lays of Ancient Rome

Lays of Acient Rome Lays of Ancient Rome By Thomas Babbington Macaulay 1 Lays of Acient Rome Preface Horatius The Lay The Battle of the Lake Regillus The Lay Virginia The Lay The Prophecy of Capys The Lay That what i called the hitory of the Kings and early Consuls of Rome is to a great extent fabulus, few scholars have, since the ti of Beaufort, ventured to deny. It is certain that, more than three hundred and sixty years after the date ordinarily assigned for the foundatio of the city, the public records were, with scarcely an exception, destroyed by the Gauls. It is certain that the oldest annals of the coonwealth were compiled mre than a century and a half after th destruction of the records. It is certain, therefore, that the great Latin writers of the Augustan age did not possss those materials, without which a trustworthy account of the infancy of the republic could not possibly be framed. Those writers own, indeed, that the chronicles to which they had access were filled with battles that were never fought, and Consuls that were never inaugurated; and we have abundant proof that, in these chronicles, events of the greatest importance, suc as the issue of the war with Porsa and the issue of the war with Brennus, were grossly misrepresented. Under thes circumstances a wise man will look with great suspicio on the lged whi has com do to us. He will perhaps be inclined to regard th princes who are said to have founded the civil and religious institutions of Rom, the sons of Mars, and the husband of Egeria, as mere mythgial persage, of the same class with Persus and Ixion. A he draws nearer to the confine of authentic hitory, he will become less and le hard of belief. He will admit that the most important parts of the narrative have s foundation in truth But he will distrust almt all the detai, not only because they seldom rest on any solid evidence, but al because he will cnstantly detect in them, even wh they are with the liits of physical posbity, that pecular character, more easily understood than defind, whic distinguish the creations of the imagination from th realities of the world in which we live. 2 Lays of Acient Rome The early history of Rome is indeed far mre poetical than anything else i Latin literature. The loves of the Vestal and the God of War, the cradle laid among the reeds of Tiber, the fig-tree, the she-wlf, th epherd's cabin, the recognition, the fratriide, the rape of the Sabines, the death of Tarpea, the fall of Hostus Hostilus, the struggle of Mettus Curtius through the marsh, the won rushng wth torn raiment and disevelled hair between thr fathers and ther husbands, the nightly meetings of Numa and the Nymph by the well in the sacred grove, the fight of the three Roans and the three Albans, the purchase of the Sibylle boks, the crime of Tullia, the siulated madness of Brutus, the ambiguous reply of the Delphian oracle to the Tarqui, the wrongs of Lucretia, the hroic actions of Horatius Cocles, of Scaevola, and of Cloea, the battle of Regillus won by the aid of Castor and Poux, the defene of Cremera, the toucg story of Coriolanus, the still more touching story of Virginia, the wid legend about the draing of the Aban lake, the combat betwen Valerius Crvus and the gigantic Gaul, are among the many instances which will at once suggest themselves to every reader. In the narrative of Livy, who was a man of fine imagination, thes stories retain much of their genuine caracter. Nor could even the tasteles Diysius ditort and mutilate them into mre prose. The potry shin, i spite of him, through the dreary pedantry of his eve boks It is discernble in the most tedious and in the mst superficial modern wrks on the early tims of Rome. It enlivens the dulness of the Universal History, and gives a charm to the mst meagre abridgements of Godsmith. Even in the age of Plutarch there were discerning men who rejected the popular account of the foundation of Rome, because that account appeared to them to have the air, not of a hitory, but of a roance or a drama. Plutarch, who was displeased at thr incredulity, had nothg better to say in reply to their arguments than that chance stims turn poet, and produces trains of evets not to be distiguid from the mst elaborate plots wich are cnstructed by art. But though the existence of a poetical element in the early history of the Great City was detected so any ages ago, the first critic who distinctly saw from what source that 3 Lays of Acient Rome poetical element had be derived was James Perizous, one of the most acute and learned antiquari of the seventeenth cetury. His theory, which i h ow days attracted little or no notice, was revived i the present generatio by Niebuhr, a man who would have been the first writer of hi time, if his talent for counicating truth had borne any proportio to s talent for investigating them. That theory has been adopted by several eminet schoars of our own country, particularly by the Bishop of St. David's, by Professor Malde, and by the lamnted Arnld. It appears to be now generally received by mn conversant with clascal antiquity; and ideed it rests on such strong proofs, both internal and external, that it wi t be easily subverted. A popular exposition of this theory, and of the evidece by which it is supported, may not be wthout interest even for readers who are unacquainted with the ancient language The Latin literature which has come down to us is of later date than the cencemnt of the Second Punic War, and consists alst exclusvey of works fashioned on Greek models The Lati metres, hero, elegiac, lyric, and dramati, are of Greek origin. The bet Latin epic potry is the feeble echo of the Iliad and Odyssey. The best Latin eclogues are imitatios of Thcritus The plan of the mst find didactic poem in the Latin togue was taken from Hesiod. The Latin tragedies are bad copies of the masterpieces of Sophocles and Euripides. The Lati phlosophy was borrowed, without alterati, from the Portic and the cademy; and the great Latin orators cotantly proposed to themselves as pattern the speeches of Desthenes and Lysias But there was an earler Latin literature, a literature truly Latin, wich has why perishd, whh had, indeed alst wholly perished long before th whom we are in the habit of regarding as the greatest Lati writers were born. That literature abounded with mtrical romances, such as are found in every country where there is much curiosity and intelligence, but little reading and writing. Al human beings, not utterly savage, long for som informati about past ti, and are delighted by narratives which prest pictures to the eye of the mind. But it is ony in very enlighted counities that boks are readiy accessible. Metrical composition, therefore, which, in a highly civilzed nati, is a mre 4 Lays of Acient Rome luxury, is, in natios imperfectly civilized, alst a necessary of life, and i valued less on account of the pleasure which it give to the ear, than o account of the hlp whic it gives to the mery. A man who can invent or embellish an iteresting story, and put it ito a form wich others may easily retain in thr recollection, will alays be highy esteemed by a people eager for amusement and information, but destitute of libraries. Such is the origin of balad-poetry, a species of copotion whic scarcely ever fails to spring up and flourish in every socity, at a certain poit in the progress towards refinement. Tacitus informs us that sngs were the only mrials of the past which the ancient Germans possssed. We learn from Lucan and from Ammanus Marcellinus that the brave actions of the ant Gauls were crated in the vers of Bards. During many ages, and through many revolution, minstrelsy retained its fluence over both the Teutoni and the Celtic race. The vengeanc exacted by the spouse of Attila for the murder of Siegfried was celebrated i rhymes, of whi Germany is still justly proud. The exploits of Athtan were comrated by the Anglo-Saxons and those of Canute by the Danes, in rude po, of wich a few fragments have co down to us. The chants of the Weh harpers preserved, through ages of darknes, a faint and doubtful mery of Arthur. In the Highlands of Scotland may still be gleaned s relics of the old sngs about Cuthuln and Fingal. The long struggle of the Servians against the Ottoman power was recorded in lays full of martial spirit. We learn from Herrera that, wh a Peruvian Inca died, men of skill were appoited to celebrate hi in vers, which all the people learned by heart, and sang in publc o days of festival Th feats of Kurroglou, the great freebooter of Turkistan, recounted in ballads posed by himself, are known in every village of northrn Persia. Captain Beechey heard the bards of the Sandwich Islands recite the heroic achievemets of Tamama, the mot iustrious of their kings. Mungo Park found in the heart of Africa a class of singing me, the only annalists of thr rude tribe, and heard them tell the story of the victory which Daml, the negro prince of the Jaloffs, won over Abdulkader, the Mussulan tyrant of Foota Torra.

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