by the loss of his right hand in the fire.(129) The feat of Cocles becomes less marvellous in the version of Polybius, who describes him as losing his life in the defence of the bridge, instead of swimming safely across the Tiber, in the midst of a storm of javelins.(130) But whether Polybius had, at the time when he wrote, access to some more authentic version of this war, or whether he extracted the marvellous portion, and reduced it to the ordinary standard of probability, by an arbitrary rationalizing process, we have no means of deciding. The symbolical sale of the goods of Porsena doubtless took its origin in some historical fact; but how it was connected with the war of Porsena, the historians of the Augustan age could not clearly explain. (131) Another marvellous story associated with this war, is the prodigy of the clay chariot swelling in the fire at Veii; which is manifestly a legend of the Capitoline temple.(132)

According to the received accounts of this war, Porsena undertakes it in order to restore Tarquin to the throne from which the Romans had expelled him;(133) and he abandons it, from the fear of assassination, which had been inspired into him.

(129) Le surnom de Scævola, qui distinguoit une branche de la famille Mucia, aura pu donner lieu d'inventer une circonstance, qui pouvoit faire croire, qu'elle descendoit de cet ancien Mucius. On ignoroit l'origine de ce surnom;' Beaufort Diss. p. 257. Niebuhr appears to suggest seriously that the loss of his right hand prevented Mucius from being consul; vol. i. p. 545.

(130) Polybius says that he threw himself into the river with his arms, and was drowned. He does not name the war in which the exploit was performed; vi. 55. Niebuhr censures the 'stupidity' of Dionysius for representing Cocles as lamed for life by the wound of a javelin in his thigh, and he praises Livy for keeping clear of such wretched absurdities;' Hist. vol. i. n. 1204. But the lameness of Cocles was mentioned by other writers: it was used as a means of accounting for the erection of his statue in the temple of Vulcan, the lame god: and a saying of his on the subject was repeated. See above, p. 14, n. 40.

(131) Niebuhr has another conjectural explanation of this custom, different from that given by the ancient writers; Hist. vol. i. p. 550.

(132) Above, p. 16.

(133) According to Dion. Hal. v. 21, Porsena promised Tarquin either to restore him to his throne, or to recover his property. Livy says that the Tarquins implored Porsena to replace the head of their family on his throne. 'Porsena tum regem esse Romæ, tum Etruscæ gentis regem, amplum Tuscis ratus, Romam infesto exercitu venit;' ii. 9. Similar statements are made by Florus, i. 10; Eutrop. i. 11; Victor de Vir. Ill. c. 11; Plut. Publ. 16. Virgil likewise represents the restoration of Tarquin as the object of Porsena's attack on Rome::

by the hardihood of Mucius, and his threat of the imaginary band of three hundred conspirators. There are however some acts of romantic generosity on both sides: Valerius returns the hostages, who had escaped from their guards-but Porsena, on the other hand, is indignant at the treachery of the Tarquins in trying to intercept them-and he likewise admires the heroism of Cloelia; returns the hostages, and finally gives to the Romans the territory which they had won from the Veientes and had restored to them. Altogether the facility with which Porsena desists from the siege, abandons the cause of the Tarquins, and grants advantageous terms to the Romans, are unexplained in the received account, by grounds which savour of reality, and which resemble such as occur in authentic contemporary history recounted by eye and ear witnesses. (184) Hence also insulated notices respecting this war, which lead to a totally different view of its termination, are the more deserving of attention. Tacitus speaks of Rome as having been surrendered to Porsena, and taken by the Gauls;(135) and it has been sup

Nec non Tarquinium ejectum Porsena jubebat
Accipere, ingentique urbem obsidione premebat:

Eneadæ in ferrum pro libertate ruebant.-Æn. viii. 646-8. Orosius, in the following passage, faithfully reproduces the meaning of the earlier writers: 'Porsena rex Etruscorum, gravissimus regii nominis suffragator, Tarquinium manu ingerens, tribus continuis annis trepidam urbem terruit, conclusit, obsedit; et nisi hostem vel Mucius constanti urendæ manus patientiâ, vel virgo Cloelia admirabili transmeati fluminis audaciâ permovissent, profecto Romani compulsi fuissent perpeti, aut captivitatem, hoste insistente superati, aut servitutem, recepto rege subjecti; ii. 5.

Cicero, Tusc. Quæst. iii. 12, who speaks of the inability of the Veientes and Latins to restore Tarquin, appears, as Niebuhr, vol. i. p. 541, remarks, to consider the war of Porsena as a war of conquest, and not as intended to reinstate the banished king on his throne. It is however possible that Cicero may have made the omission from inadvertence, or he may have confounded Veii and Clusium.

(134) The note of Servius, on Æn. xi. 134, contains a story of friendly intercourse between the Romans and Etruscans during the war of Porsena: Apud majores magna erat cura fidei, adeo ut induciis factis colloqui soliti essent duces populi Romani cum hostium ducibus, summâque severitate vindicatum, si injuriam se passos quererentur: denique obsessâ urbe a Tarquinio, inter Porsennam et Romanos factis induciis, cum ludi circenses in urbe celebrarentur, ingressi hostium duces curuli certamine contenderent, et victores coronarentur.'

(135) Hist. iii. 72. The explanation of the word potuissent in this passage, given by Niebuhr, vol. i. n. 1213, is doubtless correct. Tacitus violates a canon of style, laid down by Aristotle, Rhet. iii. 5, § 7.

posed that a trace of this surrender is to be found in the gift of an ivory throne, and other badges of royalty, which the Roman Senate, according to Dionysius, sent to Porsena, after his departure from Rome, but which this historian conceives as a purely complimentary donation. (136) Pliny moreover speaks of having read the treaty granted by Porsena to the Roman people, after the expulsion of the kings; which contained a prohibition of the use of iron otherwise than in agriculture.(137) If the treaty with Carthage made in the first year of the Republic was extant in the time of Polybius, there is no reason why a treaty with Porsena should not have been preserved to the time of Pliny. Assuming therefore the copy which Pliny read to have been authentic, (138) the prohibition which he reported implies that the Romans had been disarmed by their conqueror, and that their condition was one of political dependence and helplessness.

Nothing can show in a more striking manner the unsatisfactory state of our information respecting the early history of the Republic, than that our knowledge of a treaty, which places the war of Porsena in a light wholly different from that in which it is presented by all the historians, should be derived exclusively from a single casual allusion in the Natural History of Pliny. What authorities respecting the war of Porsena Tacitus could have followed, and whether he meant the 'surrender' of the city to Por

(136) v. 35. See Beaufort, p. 241; Niebuhr, Hist. vol. i. p. 548. Livy, x. 16, represents the Samnites, in 296 B.C., as reminding the Etruscans of their former successes against the Romans: Nihil abesse, si sit animus Etruscis, qui Porsenæ quondam majoribusque eorum fuerit, quin Romanos, omni agro cis Tiberim pulsos, dimicare pro salute suâ, non de intolerando Italiæ regno, cogant.'

(137) In fœdere quod expulsis regibus populo Romano dedit Porsenna, nominatim comprehensum invenimus, ne ferro nisi in agriculturâ uterentur; N. H. xxxiv. 39. Concerning a similar humiliation of the people of Israel by the Philistines, see 1 Samuel, xiii. 19-22, cited by Dr. Arnold. Niebuhr, ib. p. 548, says that the state of Rome at this time would be described by the words Arma adempta, obsidesque imperati,' if the historian were speaking of a town which had submitted in the same manner to the Romans.

6

(138) Beaufort says of this treaty: Pline appuye ce qu'il dit, d'une pièce authentique qu'il a lue et examinée lui-même. On ne peut donner de garant plus sûr, et on ne peut avec raison révoquer en doute un fait appuyé sur une pareille preuve Diss. p. 244. Niebuhr's remark is: 'Pliny saw the treaty, but where, is uncertain; a tablet probably did not exist, but he may have found it in Etruscan books;' Lect. vol. i. p. 118.

sena to be interpreted literally, it is difficult to decide. Beaufort thinks that Tacitus would not have affirmed such a fact without good authority; and conjectures that the ground upon which he relied was the treaty cited by Pliny.(139) It is possible that Rome may have surrendered to Porsena, and that it may have been compelled to submit to the hard condition of disarming its population, and using iron only for agriculture. But if these events happened, their connexion with the series of facts delivered to us as the history of the time is undistinguishable. Porsena is described as instigated to the war against Rome by Tarquin, and as attacking the Romans in order to compel them to replace Tarquin on his throne. If he reduced the Romans to submission, why did he not restore Tarquin? To this question no satisfactory answer can be given; for conjectures as to possible reasons why he might have changed his mind, do not remove the difficulty.(140) Besides, if the Romans had been brought so

(139) Tacite est un auteur trop judicieux et trop exact, pour qu'on puisse croire qu'il ait avancé un fait de cette nature sans de bons garans. Il ne lui avait sans doute donné place dans son histoire, qu'aprés s'être bien convaincu de la vérité. Peut-être étoit-ce quelque pièce originale, qui jusqu'à son temps étoit demeurée ensevelie dans la poussière, où il avoit puisé la connoissance d'un fait, qui avoit été ignoré par tous les historiens qui l'avoient précédé. Ce qui confirme cette conjecture, c'est un traité que Pline cite, où nous trouvons de quoi appuyer ce que dit Tacite. C'est apparemment dans ce traité que Tacite s'étoit instruit de la verité, et qu'outre la condition insérée, qui désarme les Romains, il y avoit d'autres articles, par lesquels on voyoit clairement que ce roi avait pris la ville.' Dissertation, p. 239.

(140) The objection adverted to in the text is stated, and answered by Beaufort: Mais, pourroit-on dire, si Porsenna obligea les Romains de se rendre à lui, et se vit en état de leur donner la loi, d'où vient ne rétablitil pas Tarquin sur le trône? Car tous les historiens conviennent, que ce fut là le seul motif qui lui fit prendre les armes contre les Romains. Il n'est pas fort difficile de répondre à cette objection. Le prétexte, que Porsenna prit pour faire la guerre aux Romains, fut en effet le rétablissement de Tarquin, et c'en était un fort specieux, que de prendre en main la cause d'un roi allié, qui se voyait depouillé de son royaume. Mais on connait assez la coutume des princes de colorer leurs desseins de semblables prétextes, et de les faire servir à l'avancement de leurs propres affaires. Peut-être Porsenna se voyant maître du sort des Romains, aima-t-il mieux en faire ses sujets, et tirer lui même avantage de cette guerre, que de les remettre sous la domination de Tarquin. Peut-etre aussi que voyant la grande aversion qu'ils témoignaient à subir un joug, qu'ils venaient de secouer, il craignit de révolter une nation naturellement féroce, et de la rendre intraitable, s'il paraissait trop ferme là-dessus. Peut-etre enfin,

low by Porsena, as to give up their arms, why did not the Latins, lately their subjects, and shortly afterwards their mortal enemies, crush them in their weakness, and give them their deathblow? Why did not other neighbouring nations, with which they had been at war, why did not the Veientes, or the Sabines, or the Volscians, fall upon them at a moment when they were defenceless and undefended? In the first year of the Republic, the Romans, as we learn from the treaty with Carthage, were the masters of many of the Latin cities, and the latter were their subject allies. Is there anything in the relations of a paramount state and its dependent cities in antiquity, which would lead us to expect forbearance, when such an opportunity presented itself? No trace of any serious blow inflicted upon Rome can be found in the history of the years immediately succeeding the expedition of Porsena. She defeats the Sabines, takes some towns, and in a few years defeats the whole Latin confederacy, at the battle of Regillus. If the entire Roman nation had been disarmed by a foreign enemy in the second or third year of the Republic, it is impossible that the progress of the Roman power, and the success of the Roman arms, could have been, as they are described to us, in the twelve years following; especially as Rome must be conceived as having fallen from a lofty height of power, and as obnoxious to the vindictive feelings which are inspired by the exercise of an imperial rule over subject communities. Unless we are to suppose, not only that the details and circumstances, but that the whole course and tenor of the early history of the Republic, are fictitious, the gradual and unchecked advance of the military power of Rome, and the death of Tarquin in banish

que voyant l'extrême répugnance que les Romains témoignaient de se remettre sous un joug, dont ils connaissaient toute la pésanteur, et qu'ils ne faisaient pas difficulté de se soumettre à sa domination, pourvû qu'il ne rétablit pas celle des Tarquins, il ne crut pas devoir négliger une conquête si avantageuse, et se mit peu en peine de mécontenter ces princes.' Dissertation, p. 245. Niebuhr reflects upon Beaufort for limiting his criticism to merely negative results, vol. i. n. 1216; but this passage, at least, is written in the spirit of conjectural hypothesis which pervades the chief part of Niebuhr's work. See above, vol. i. p. 9, n. 23.