to Numa, and were utterly unintelligible in the age of Augustus. In the Second Punic War a great feast was held in honor of Juno, and a song was sung in her praise. This song was extant when Livy wrote; and, though exceedingly rugged and uncouth, seemed to him not wholly destitute of merit. A song, as we learn from Horace, was part of the established ritual at the great Secular Jubilee. It is therefore likely that the Censors and Pontiffs, when they had resolved to add a grand procession of knights to the other solemnities annually per- 190 formed on the Ides of Quintilis, would call in the aid of a poet. Such a poet would naturally take for his subject the battle of Regillus, the appearance of the Twin Gods, and the institution of their festival. He would find abundant materials in the ballads of his predecessors; and he would make free use of the scanty stock of Greek learning which he had himself acquired. He would probably introduce some wise and holy Pontiff enjoining the magnificent ceremonial, which, after a long interval, had at length been adopted. If the poem succeeded, many persons would commit it to memory. Parts of it would 200 be sung to the pipe at banquets. It would be peculiarly interesting to the great Posthumian House, which numbered among its many images that of the Dictator Aulus, the hero of Regillus. The orator who, in the following generation, pronounced the funeral panegyic over the remains of Lucius Posthumius Megellus, thrice Consul, would borrow largely trom the lay; and thus some passages, much disfigured, would probably find their way into the chronicles which were afterwards in the hands of Dionysius and Livy.

Antiquaries differ widely as to the situation of the field of 210 battle. The opinion of those who suppose that the armies met near Cornufelle, between Frascati and the Monte Porzio, is at least plausible, and has been followed in the poem.

As to the details of the battle, it has not been thought desirable to adhere minutely to the accounts which have come down to us. Those accounts, indeed, differ widely from each other, and, in all probability, differ as widely from the ancient poem from which they were originally derived.

It is unnecessary to point out the obvious imitations of the Iliad, which have been purposely introduced.

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The Battle of the Lake Regillus.

A LAY SUNG AT THE FEAST OF CASTOR AND POLLUX, ON THE IDES OF QUINTILIS, IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCCLI.

I.

Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note!

Ho, lictors, clear the way!

The Knights will ride, in all their pride,

Along the streets to-day.

To-day the doors and windows

Are hung with garlands all,
From Castor in the Forum,
To Mars without the wall.
Each Knight is robed in purple,
With olive each is crowned;
A gallant war-horse under each
Paws haughtily the ground.
While flows the Yellow River,
While stands the Sacred Hill,

The proud Ides of Quintilis

Shall have such honor still.
Gay are the Martian Kalends:

222. Ho, lictors, clear the way!-The lictors were attendants of the patrician magistrates, armed with rods and axes.

227. From Castor in the Forum.-Castor and Mars are here used to denote the temples built in honor of these deities, just as we speak of St. Peter's at Rome.

233. While flows the Yellow River.-The Tiber, from its yellow sands; hence called also the golden.

an

234. While stands the Sacred Hill.-The Sacred Hill was eminence beyond the river Anio. It was associated chiefly with the secession of the Plebs. See note to Horatius," line 3.

235. The proud Ides of Quintilis.-The fifteenth day of July, which by the Romans, whose year began with March, was styled Quintilis, 'or the fifth month. The Ides divided each month into two equal or nearly equal portions.

237. Gay are the Martian Kalends.-The first day of each month was known as the Kalends. On the first of March the sacred fire was solemnly rekindled on the hearth of the Temple of Vesta.

December's Nones are gay:

But the proud Ides, when the squadron rides,

Shall be Rome's whitest day.

II.

Unto the Great Twin Brethren
We keep this solemn feast.
Swift, swift, the Great Twin Brethren
Came spurring from the east.
They came o'er wild Parthenius
Tossing in waves of pine,

O'er Cirrha's dome, o'er Adria's foam,
O'er purple Apennine,

From where with flutes and dances

Their ancient mansion rings,

In lordly Lacedæmon,

The City of two kings,
To where, by Lake Regillus,
Under the Porcian height.

All in the lands of Tusculum,
Was fought the glorious fight.

III.

Now on the place of slaughter

Are cots and sheepfolds seen,

238. December's Nones are gay.-The fifth day of December. The nones fell on the fifth or the seventh of each month, and were so called, possibly, as denoting a period of nine days before the Ides.

240. Shall be Rome's whitest day.-Days of good omen were marked with chalk; those of ill omen with charcoal.

241. Unto the Great Twin Brethren.-These are the twin deities, Castor and Pollux. Of the many stories told of their origin, the most familiar is that which speaks of them as the brothers of Helen, and as sprung with her from a single egg. The name of the former was associated with skill in the management of horses, that of the latter with boxing. They are sometimes represented as coming to life alternately, according to the relation of day and night.

245. They came o'er wild Parthenius.-These lines describe the course of the mysterious riders from their Eastern birthplace. The Parthenian range is the eastern barrier of the Arkadian or central highlands of the Peloponnese.

251. In fordly Lacedæmon.-The city of the Lacedæmonians was more commonly called Sparta. It consisted of four hamlets on the banks of the Eurotas, which drained the valley of Taygetos.

252. The City of two kings.-Nominally at the head of the Spartan state, were the two kings who belonged respectively to the houses of Eurysthenes and Prokles, the twin sons of Aristodemos, a descendant of the great hero Herakles.

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250

And rows of vines, and fields of wheat,
And apple-orchards green;

The swine crush the big acorns

That fall from Corne's oaks.
Upon the turf by the Fair Fount
The reaper's pottage smokes.
The fisher baits his angle;

The hunter twangs his bow;

Little they think on those strong limbs

That molder deep below.

Little they think how sternly

That day the trumpets pealed;
How in the slippery swamp of blood
Warrior and war-horse reeled ;
How wolves came with fierce gallop,
And crows on eager wings,
To tear the flesh of captains,
And peck the eyes of kings;
How thick the dead lay scattered
Under the Porcian height;

How through the gates of Tusculum
Raved the wild stream of flight;
And how the Lake Regillus

Bubbled with crimson foam,

What time the Thirty Cities

Came forth to war with Rome.

IV.

But, Roman, when thou standest

Upon that holy ground,

Look thou with heed on the dark rock
That girds the dark lake round,
So shalt thou see a hoof-mark
Stamped deep into the flint :
It was no hoof of mortal steed

That made so strange a dint :

281. And how the Lake Regillus.-Of this lake, which is said to have been in the neighborhood of Tusculum, not a trace is now to be found. 283. What time the Thirty Cities.-The Thirty Cities of the Latin Confederacy are supposed to have taken up the cause of the expelled Tarquins.

302. Was Consul first in place.-See note to "Horatius," line 5.

305. The Herald of the Latines.-The Romans themselves belonged to the Latin race; but the destruction of Alba Longa, the religious center of the Latin league, marks the severance between them and their kinsfolk, whose supremacy was by that event destroyed for ever.

316 To bring the Tarquins home.-According to the story followed by Livy. the family of the Tarquins, which supplied two kings to Rome, was Greek.

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