Unless we

supposition is in the highest degree improbable. assume the entire history of Rome at this period to be a fiction, it is impossible to bring L. Camillus into relation with the capture of the city by the Gauls, or to suppose that if the fame of any Roman reached Greece, as the saviour of his country on this occasion, it could be any other than the great Camillus. (186)

The contemporary accounts of the capture of Rome by the Gauls, confirmed by authentic traditions, place this event upon a solid historical basis; but it is difficult to judge how far the circumstantial narrative is deserving of belief. Dr. Arnold reduces the credible portion to the mere skeleton of the history. It is (he says) impossible to rely on any of the details of the narrative which has been handed down to us; the Romans were, no doubt, defeated at the Allia; Rome was taken and burnt, and the Capitol ransomed; but beyond this we know, properly speaking, nothing. We know that falsehood has been busy, to an almost unprecedented extent, with the common story;

or his informants should have confounded two events (compare above, vol. i. p. 60) separated by so wide an interval. Dr. Arnold, vol. ii. p. 58, who adopts the hypothesis of Niebuhr, assumes that the third Gallic expedition, in which the Romans are victorious, mentioned by Polyb. ii. 18, is identical with that in which L. Camillus is described by Livy as commanding, and remarks that Aristotle's statement [interpreted of L. Camillus] agrees completely with Polybius.' But Aristotle, as we see from the words of Plutarch, clearly understood the preservation of Rome to refer to its preservation when the city was taken, not at some subsequent period. It cannot therefore be said with truth that Aristotle and Polybius agree in representing L. Camillus as the saviour of Rome. Polybius never even mentions him. It is by no means certain, as Dr. Arnold assumes, that the third expedition described by Polybius, agrees with the battle of L. Camillus, described by Livy. See below, ch. xiii. § 13, where a different view is adopted.

(186) Greatly as the actions of Camillus have been magnified by fiction, the belief of posterity that he was the first man of his age, and one whom Rome herself saw few to equal, cannot possibly have been grounded on a delusion;' Niebuhr, Hist. vol. ii. p. 504. Camillus is re-appointed dictator in the year after the capture of the city. Placuit (says Livy) eisdem auspiciis defendi rempublicam, quibus recuperata esset, dictatoremque dici M. Furium Camillum;' vi. 2. This expression agrees closely with that of Aristotle : τὸν δὲ σώσαντα Λεύκιον εἶναι φησίν. Dr. Arnold likewise, who adopts Niebuhr's hypothesis as to the person intended by Aristotle, remarks that there is no reason to doubt that Camillus, by his genius in this memorable year, did truly save his country from destruction;' vol. ii. p. 12. See p. 86.

exaggeration, carelessness, and honest ignorance have joined more excusably in corrupting it. The history of great events can only be preserved by cotemporary historians; and such were in this case utterly wanting.'(187) If indeed, Camillus, like Cæsar, had written memoirs of his own campaigns; or if, like Scipio Africanus the younger, he had been accompanied by a Polybius, who could have described the exploits which he witnessed, we should not have been left in this uncertainty. That the Gauls took and burnt Rome, but that the Capitol held out against them, are facts which we may consider as sure; but the share, if any, which Camillus bore in the liberation of his country, the fact next in importance to these, remains an enigma. It seems probable that while many of the great outlines of the history have been effaced by oblivion, some of the minute details such as the alarm given by the geese, the removal of the Vestal virgins in the wagon of Albinius, and the sacrifice of Fabius (188)—may have been faithfully preserved by tradition, or by the pontifical scribes.

Several sacred legends and origins are connected with this passage of history. One explanation of the Doliola referred it to this period-the temple of Aius Locutius commemorated the divine voice which gave warning of the approach of the Gauls: the altars of Jupiter Pistor and Jupiter Soter were memorials of the privations endured by the garrison on the Capitol: the Busta Gallica was the burial place of the Gauls: the lituus of Romulus was found unhurt in the ashes of the Casa Romuli after the conflagration.(189) There was an annual ceremony,

(187) Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 531. Compare p. 548. Dr. Arnold's remark upon the absence of contemporary historians must be confined to native writers. The memory of the event, though not its history, was preserved by contemporary Greek writers.

(188) Niebuhr considers this tradition not improbable; Lect. vol. i.

p. 269.

(189) Plut. Cam. 32; Rom. 22; Dion. Hal. xiv. 5; Cic. de Div. i. 17; Val. Max. i. 8, § 11. Dionysius and Plutarch say that the lituus had been preserved in the καλιὰ "Αρεως, which seems to be the same as the Casa Romuli: Cicero and Valerius Maximus name the Curia Saliorum. Both these buildings were on the Palatine. See Becker, vol. i. p. 401, 418, 421. Niebuhr justly remarks: For the sake of the miracle, they

commemorating the good service of the geese, and the culpable neglect of the dogs; and the origin of the saying, 'Væ victis!' was traced to the Gaulish king, notwithstanding the manifest absurdity of supposing him to speak Latin.

With respect to the date of the burning of Rome by the Gauls, there is a tolerably close agreement between the various authorities. Polybius places it in the same year as the peace of Antalcidas, 387 B.C.(190) Dionysius declares that nearly all writers concurred in assigning it to Olymp. 98.1, the archonship of Pyrgion, which is 388 B.C., the previous year. (191) Pliny and Eutropius state that it fell in the three hundred and sixty-fourth, Livy in the three hundred and sixty-fifth year of the city, which are equivalent to 390 and 389 B.C.(192)

There was, according to Dionysius, a series of censorial records extant in his time, containing the names of the chief magistrates; from which it appeared that there was an interval of one hundred and twenty years between the expulsion of the kings and the burning of the city. (193) But the discrepancies and uncertainties in the statement of the names of the magistrates for certain years during this period forbid the supposition that a complete and authentic list had been preserved.

§ 84 Some physical occurrences are referred to this period, which require notice, because they bear an appearance of contemporary registration. The winter of the year 400 B.C. was, according to Livy, cold and snowy: so that the roads were

were ready to allow that the hut had been burnt down, though at other times that which was shown standing was maintained to be the genuine one;' Hist. vol. ii. p. 580. Julius Obsequens, c. 78 (19) states that in a conflagration of the year 148 B.C., the regia, the house of the King of the Sacrifices, was burnt-but that the chapel containing the sacred objects and one laurel, out of two, remained unhurt in the midst of the flames. The story of the olive-tree on the Acropolis of Athens is somewhat different; for it was burnt by the Persians, but shot_up immediately afterwards; Herod. viii. 55; Paus. i. 27, § 2; Dion. Hal. xiv. 4. The one is a case of miraculous preservation, the other of miraculous growth. (190) Polyb. i. 6.

(191) i. 74. Niebuhr thinks that this date was taken from Timæus ; vol. ii. p. 557.

(192) Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 6; Eutrop. ii. 1; Livy, v. 54. (193) Ubi sup. Compare, ch. v. § 13.

made impassable, and the navigation of the Tiber was stopped. (194) The severity of this winter is however described with fuller details, and in much stronger terms, by Dionysius. Where the snow was least thick (he says), it was not less than seven feet deep: some men, and many sheep, cattle, and horses perished, either from the intense cold, or from want of food. The fruittrees were destroyed, or rendered barren by the frost. Many houses were buried in the snow; and some were overthrown, owing to the effects of the thaw. No similar account of so severe a winter at Rome, or in the countries of the same climate, was known to Dionysius either before or since this year. (195) Snow now falls occasionally at Rome: but it scarcely ever lies on the ground. The Tiber is said to have been frozen in the winter of 1709. The most recent scientific researches however show that, if the climate of Italy was colder in antiquity than in modern times, the difference is not considerable; (196) and on the whole it is more probable that the details given by Dionysius were written down after the time from exaggerated rumours, than that they should have been recorded from accurate personal observation. The following summer was marked with a pestilence, both on men and animals. The Sibylline books were consulted, by command of the Senate, and the religious ceremony of lectisternium is said to have been first resorted to on this occasion. It is stated, on the authority of Calpurnius Piso, that a general

(194) Insignis annus hieme gelidâ ac nivosâ fuit, adeo ut viæ clausæ, Tiberis innavigabilis fuerit; v. 13.

(195) xii. 8. τοῦτο τὸ πάθος οὔτε πρότερόν ποτε γενόμενον ἐν ἱστορίας γραφῇ περὶ ταῦτα τὰ χωρία παρειλήφαμεν, οὔθ ̓ ὕστερον ἕως τοῦ καθ ̓ ἡμᾶς χρόνου.

(196) See Rothman's Observations on the Climate of Italy and other Countries in Ancient Times (Lond. 1848), p. 10. Compare Niebuhr, Hist. vol. ii. p. 506; Arnold, vol. i. p. 510. Niebuhr alludes to another severe winter in 270 B.C., the year before the consulship of Gallus and C. Fabius, mentioned by Zonaras, viii. 6, when the Tiber was frozen to a great depth, the trees were destroyed by the cold, and the animals died for want of grass. Augustine, Civ. Dei, iii. 17, also mentions a winter of extraordinary severity, when the snow lay to a great depth for forty days in the forum, and the Tiber was frozen. He does not however fix its time, and the circumstances are probably exaggerated. The prodigy of the wolves

hospitality and benevolence-similar to the institution of the Saturnalia-accompanied this sacred solemnity. (197) The description of the lectisternium and its attendant rites is peculiar, and may be authentic; it is however open to the suspicion which attaches to most of the accounts of origins in the Roman religion.

which entered Rome in 277 B.C., and left a mangled corpse in the forum, cited in Orosius, iv. 4, has nothing to do with the severe winter, to which Niebuhr refers it; Hist. vol. iii. p. 560.

(197) See Livy, v. 13, and Dion. Hal. xii. 9 and 10. The fragment of Piso is omitted by Krause. The third lectisternium was in 364 B.C.; Livy, vii. 2. He does not mention the second.