ature which has been handed down as Roman. Moreover, mingled up with the poetic legends of which we speak, there are accounts of laws and institutions which undeniably existed, such as the regulations attributed to Romulus and Numa, and the popular reforms of which the elder Tarquin and Servius Tullius are the reputed authors. There are also great works, in part remaining to the present day, of which these Legends tell, such as the Cloaca Maxima, the Substructions of the Capitol, the Agger of Servius Tullius. Here we have realities which cannot be put aside as children's tales.

§ 8. At present we have only to estimate the relation which the chronicles of Regal Rome bear to actual historical fact.

The reigns of the seven Kings have been thrown into four chapters purposely. Each of these sections presents a legendary character of its own. The accounts of Romulus and Numa differ essentially from those of Tullus and Ancus; and all these differ more widely from the chronicle of the first Tarquin and of Servius; while the story of the last Tarquin brings us into the atmosphere of romance in which we move during the first century and a half of the Republic.

§ 9. The reigns of Romulus and Numa are in the realm of pure mythology. Romulus, like Æneas, is the son of a god; Numa, like Anchises, is the favoured lover of a goddess. Romulus is the man of force, for Roma (pun) signifies strength and vigour. Numa is the man of law, for numus (vouos) signifies law. Under these typical names is embodied, in beautiful legends, the origin of the social, political, and religious institutions of Rome. How long a period is thus symbolised, or how many generations of kings, it is impossible to guess.

But under the mythical story of these reigns we may clearly discern historical truth. We see in them a continual struggle between the original Latin influence and the Sabine. Romulus the Roman founds the city, and is obliged to admit into partnership Titus the Sabine, who occupies both the Quirinal and Saturnian Hills. Then Titus is slain by Latins, and the Roman King regains ascendancy for a time. But he is carried miraculously from the earth, is worshipped under a Sabine name, and a Sabine king succeeds. Here we trace the indisputable symptoms of Sabine conquest. The admission of Sabines into

the City suggests this; their occupation of the stronghold on the Saturnian Hill confirms it; the assumption of a Sabine name by the Roman King, and the appellation of Quirites given to the united citizens, prove it.

It is probable, indeed, that the early institutions of Rome are Sabine rather than Latin. The religious ordinances of Numa are confessedly so. There is reason to think that the same is true also of the social and political regulations attributed to Romulus.

For example, the Relations of Patrons and Clients almost necessarily imply a conquering and a conquered people. The Clients we may presume to be the Aborigines, a Pelasgian tribe, first reduced by Oscans, and afterwards by Sabines. On the conquest by the Sabines, it may be supposed that the chief Oscan families were admitted to equality with the conquerors, either at once or in the course of a short time: while the mass of the Osco-Pelasgian population sank into the condition of Russian serfs or of feudal vassals.

Something not very dissimilar occurred after the conquest of England by William the Norman. The great Saxon families were not doomed to ruin by the Conqueror till a wide-spread rebellion had convinced him that he could not retain his power but by fear and even then the French wars soon promoted an equality between the Norman lords and the Saxon chiefs, while the mass of the nation remained in a state of serfdom. It is, in like manner, very probable that the dominion of the Sabines was relaxed, in consequence of wars with their neighbours the

Above, Chapt. i. § 10, Quirites has been rendered "Men of the Spear," or "Brothers in War," according to the first derivation thus quoted from Ovid. It is objected that this appellation, which is always used of the Romans in their civil capacity, while as conquerors they are always called Populus Romanus, ill accords with this explanation. In answer, it is suggested that the term Quirites lost its original signification of " United Warriors," and retained only a general sense of union. If the notion of union or brotherhood is proper to the word, it should follow (which is really the fact) that the singular Quiris was not properly used at all. Niebuhr supposes that the common phrase, Populus Romanus Quirites, stood for Populus Romanus et Quirites, according to the forms of ancient Latin. But, on the above hypothesis, this cannot be so. Quirites can hardly denote a body distinct from Populus Romanus; and the phrase must be equivalent to Pop. Rom. Quiritium, which is not unfrequent. See the proof in Becker's Rom. Alterthümer, ii. part i. p. 21, sqq.

Latins and Etruscans; and it is very possible that the patriotism of later Roman minstrels may have confounded the Sabines with their own progenitors; just as the Norman-French of England learned to glory in the name of Englishmen.

On the whole, then, it seems not unlikely that the reigns of Romulus and Numa represent a period of Sabine supremacy; during which institutions arose of Sabine origin and character, but so moulded and modified as to suit the genius of the combined people; and that slowly, but surely, the spirit and genius of the Latin people prevailed over the smaller numbers of their Sabine conquerors, just as the spirit and genius of the AngloSaxons gradually overpowered the Norman influence.

§ 10. The reigns of Tullus and Ancus present, in some measure, a repetition of those of Romulus and Numa. The Roman King dies by a strange and sudden death; the Sabine succeeds. But the miraculous has disappeared. The Kings are ordinary mortals, not the sons and spouses of divinities; and there is very little even of heroic legend. But there are a few naked facts, which are no doubt historical. The destruction of Alba by Tullus, the conquest of Politorium and the Latin shore by Ancus, and the rapid growth of an independent Commonalty by the side of the Patrons and their Clients, are evidently beyond the range of legendary tales. There are few signs here of hostility between Latin and Sabine interests. The reigns of Tullus and Ancus seem to denote a period in which the two nations, though still distinct, were going through a rapid process of fusion.

§ 11. With the elder Tarquin and Servius the scene changes suddenly. The differences between Romans and Sabines have disappeared; the fusion of the Ramnian and Titian tribes is complete. But the third Tribe, the Lucerian, which the Legends (erroneously, no doubt) represent as coëval with the other two, and which had been hitherto kept in a subordinate position, now starts into political life. It seems originally to have been of a mixed race, partly Etruscan, partly Latin, though gradually the Latin preponderated, and the Etruscan element at length disappeared. This mixture is indicated by the varying accounts which are given of the birthplace and family of Tarquin and Servius. The former is commonly represented as an Etruscan

emigrant, but one Legend calls him a Latin; the latter is generally regarded as a Latin, but one Legend makes him an Etruscan chief, named Mastarna, the comrade of Cales Vibenna. Yet, so vague and baffling is the language of these Legends, that after all investigations, nothing more can be said than that the bulk of the third Tribe was manifestly Latin, and that whatever there was in Rome of Etruscan decayed and vanished

away.

Yet it is certain that, under these kings, Rome became the centre of a considerable monarchy, extending her sway over Lower Etruria and all Latium. This is proved not only by the concurrent voice of all the Legends, but also most convincingly by the great works which still remain to attest the power and wealth of those who executed them, the Cloaca of Tarquin, the walls of Servius and the great extent of ground enclosed by them, and the plan of the Capitoline Temple. To this subject we shall have to recur at the beginning of our next chapter.

Further, it is certain that under these kings the old oligarchical constitution was in great measure superseded. Anciently, the Kings, according to the Sabine rule, had been the chiefs in war; but in peace their power was almost limited to the duty of presiding in the oligarchical assembly of the Curiæ, and in the Council of the Senate. Their power of life and death was limited by the right of appeal to the Curiate Assembly belonging to every burgess, as is shown in the legend of Horatius. But Tarquin admitted great numbers of new Burgesses to leaven the Oligarchy, and Servius remoulded the whole population, in which the independent commonalty now formed the chief part, into a new political frame. It cannot be doubted that with the decrease in the power of the Oligarchy that of the Kings increased. The reigns of Tarquin the Elder and Servius represent a period in which the old Sabino-Roman Oligarchy gave way before the royal power, supported by the Latin Plebs, just as in England the Commons were called into political existence by the Plantagenet kings to counterbalance the overwhelming power of the Feudal Aristocracy.

§ 12. The reign of the last Tarquin represents the consummation of this work. Royalty is now despotic. The Plebeians having served the purpose of lowering the Oligarchy, are cast

aside, and a Despotic Monarchy overrules both alike. As the reigns of Tullus and Ancus, of the elder Tarquin and Servius, though they present much of real political interest, are almost empty of legendary tales, so the accounts of the last Tarquin are nothing but a series of Heroic Legends, beginning with the death of Servius, and closing with the great battle of Lake Regillus. All that we can collect from these Legends is, that Tarquin the Despot was really a great and powerful monarch, a man of ability and energy, who acknowledged no political rights except those of the King, and who fell in consequence of one of those sudden bursts of passionate indignation, to which all orders of a nation are sometimes roused by contumelious oppression. No sooner was his fall achieved, than the disunion of the Patrician and Plebeian Orders disclosed itself, just as in England the enmity of Churchmen and Puritans, who had combined for a moment against the Stuarts, broke out with double fury after their fall.

§ 13. In the History of Rome under the Patricians, which forms the subject of our next Book, we have still to deal with legendary narrative. But it is of a different kind to that which meets us in the chronicle of Regal Rome. There the legends are mostly national; here they will be personal. There they refer to dynasties and the changes which arose from feuds between conquerors and conquered; here they relate chiefly to foreign wars, and the prowess of patrician heroes.