contents are correctly described to us, we can only say, that not only the received account of the war of Porsena, but the subsequent course of the history, is wholly irreconcilable with its provisions.

The attack of Aruns Porsena upon the Latin town of Aricia, and its defence by the Cumans, are closely connected with the history of Aristodemus Malacus, whose expedition to Aricia is described by Dionysius as affording the means by which he made himself despot of Cuma.(150) The expedition against Aricia is a link connecting Porsena's war against Rome with the adventures of Aristodemus: the Etruscans who escape from their defeat before Aricia, receive a hospitable asylum in the

ib. p. 544 Niebuhr's conception of annals' seems to be fluctuating. See above, vol. i. p. 92-4.

The tomb of Porsena described by Varro, in Plin. N. H. xxxvi. 19, appears to have been a real structure, the dimensions of which are greatly exaggerated in Varro's description. See Müller's Etrusker, vol. ii. p. 224: Abeken, Mittelitalien, p. 244; Dennis, Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, vol. ii. p. 385. Niebuhr, Hist. vol. i. p. 130, 551, Lect. vol. i. p. 115, considers the building as purely imaginary.

Niebuhr seems to treat the war of Porsena as historical in substance, as containing a nucleus of fact; but as fictitious and poetical in its incidents and details. Thus much we may assert (he says), that of this war, down to its end, not a single incident can pass for historical; Hist. vol. i. 551. In his Lectures, he remarks: There may have been a historical Porsena, who became mythical, like the German Siegfried, who has been transferred to a period quite different from the true one; or, on the other hand, there may have been a mythical Porsena, who has been introduced into history; but we must deny the historical character of everything that is related about his war, which has an entirely poetical appearance;' vol. i. p. 116. He nevertheless regards the surrender of Rome to Porsena, the disarming of the people, the delivery of hostages, and the reduction in the number of tribes, as historical facts. In Hist. ib. p. 541, he says that it is a palpable forgery in Dionysius to make Octavius Mamilius and the Latins take part with him [Porsena]:' which assertion implies that Dionysius had before him some authentic narrative of true facts.

(150) See vii. 5-7. Dionysius says that the siege of Aricia took place twenty years after the archonship of Miltiades, in the 64th Olympiad : that is to say, twenty years after 524 B.C., which gives 504 B.C. as his date for this event. According to Fischer's tables, the consulship of Valerius and Lucretius, under,which Dionysius places the war of Porsena, falls in 508 B.C. Dionysius describes the expedition of Aristodemus to Aricia, with great detail, as if he relied on some authentic witness. Plutarch however says that he was sent to assist the Romans against the Etruscans, who were attempting to restore Tarquin to the throne; De Mul. virt. vol. ii. p. 232, ed. Tauchnitz. This statement occurs in a long narrative relating to the history of Aristodemus, and cannot be fairly ascribed to confusion, or error of memory.

Roman territory, on account of the friendly relations then subsisting between the Romans and Porsena. (151) To this event the name of the Vicus Tuscus was referred; which was also derived from the settlement of Cæles Vibenna under the kings :(152) the topographical legend in this, as in other instances, fluctuating between different origins in events of remote history.

The defeat of the Etruscans before Aricia is considered by Niebuhr to be a historical event;(153) and he conjectures that their discomfiture by the Cuman power afforded the Romans, though disarmed, an opportunity of throwing off their Etruscan yoke, and to the hostages, with Cloelia at their head, the means of escape.(154) This hypothesis however is a mere guess; it is inconsistent with the accounts of the war which have been preserved from antiquity, and it cannot be received as historical.

The numerous and wide discrepancies between Dionysius and Livy in this part of the history have been already pointed out, and need not be here enlarged upon. The Sabine war, which Dionysius spreads over four years, and describes with minuteness, is in Livy contracted within very narrow dimensions. Both historians refer the arrival of Attus Clausus, the Sabine progenitor of the Claudian family, to this period. (155) But the accounts of the origin of this distinguished stock varied; some indeed traced it to a Clausus who fought against Æneas,(156) or to a

(151) Dionysius says that the Latin league sent ambassadors to Rome to complain that the Romans had assisted the Etruscans, the enemies of the Aricines, not only by giving a safe passage to their army through the Roman territory, but by furnishing them with supplies for war, and by harbouring the fugitives after their defeat; v. 61.

(152) Above, vol. i. p. 508.

(153) The defeat of the Etruscans before Aricia is unquestionably historical. The victory of the Cumans, which led Aristodemus to the sovereignty, was related in Greek annals;' Hist. ib. p. 550. To those who are not familiar with Niebuhr's historical style, it may be right to remark, that the latter assertion is merely a hypothesis.

(154) Hist. ib.; Lect. vol. i. p. 119.

(156)

(155) Above, § 6.

Ecce, Sabinorum prisco de sanguine, magnum
Agmen agens Clausus, magnique ipse agminis instar.
Claudia nunc a quo diffunditur et tribus et gens
Per Latium, postquam in partem data Roma Sabinis.
En. vii. 706-9.

Silius, viii. 412, has 'Therapnæo a sanguine Clausi,' alluding to the supposed Lacedæmonian origin of the Sabines. Above, vol. i. p. 435.

Clausus who came to Rome at the suggestion of Titus Tatius, the colleague of Romulus ;(157) variations which prove that there was no certain knowledge on the subject. The first ovation is likewise referred to the Sabine war, but the origin of it is not consistently narrated. (158)

The long and detailed account of the creation of the office of dictator, and the appointment to it of T. Larcius, appears to belong to a class of fictions, of which we meet with many examples in the early Roman history, and which we may call institutional legends. The whole narrative of Dionysius is plainly a political drama, invented to explain the very peculiar institution of the Roman dictatorship: the officer being supreme and absolute, though for a limited time, the Senate being judges of the necessity of the appointment, and the appointment being by one of the consuls. The circumstance for which this narrative is chiefly intended to account, is the appointment of so important an officer by a single consul. (159) We learn however from Livy that there was no uniform or well-authenticated report of the origin of the dictatorship in the early historians; and that the causes which led to the creation of the office, the name of the first dictator, and the grounds for his selection, were variously related, and therefore uncertain. (160)

The office of dictator, as it existed in the first three centuries of the Republic, is a peculiarity of the Roman state, and probably contributed greatly to reconcile its military and aggressive character with the maintenance of its free institutions. Rome,

(157) Patricia gens Claudia orta est ex Regillis, oppido Sabinorum. Inde Romam, recens conditam, cum magnâ clientum manu commigravit, auctore Tito Tatio, consorte Romuli; vel, quod magis constat, Attâ Claudio, gentis principe, post reges exactos sexto fere anno, a patribus in patricias cooptata; Suet. Tib. i.

(158) Above, p. 22.

(159) See Becker, ii. 2, p. 155–60. Becker, ib. p. 153, n., considers the senatus-consultum mentioned by Dionysius as entirely his own fabrication. Niebuhr's account of the mode of appointing the dictator is more than usually conjectural, and departs quite arbitrarily from the ancient testimonies, in favour of a hypothesis devised by himself; Hist. vol. i. p. 566-9. See Dr. Smith's article in the Classical Museum, vol. i. p. 379; and Becker, ib. p. 155, n. 345.

(160) See above, p. 27, n. 93.

by her warlike policy, was perpetually exposing herself to serious reverses, to vindictive attacks, and to formidable combinations of injured neighbours: she was frequently staking all her fortunes on the cast of a single die. In order to give her the best chance of success at critical emergencies of this kind,(161) it was desirable that all the national forces should be collected and wielded by a single strong hand: without a dictator, she would probably have succumbed to a powerful foe in some moment of weakness. The danger of such an appointment consisted in the fear lest the dictator should convert his temporary into a perpetual office, should refuse to lay down his authority at the expiration of his appointed term, and should constitute himself a despot. The sense of public duty, and the force of constitutional opinion, and respect for the laws, sufficed in Rome to save the Republic from this danger, until the times when the existence of large standing armies, and the vast acquisitions of territory, had disorganized the ancient system of government.(162) The name dictator is evidently the active substantive from dicto, and alludes to the peremptory power of the office:(163) it was probably

(161) Thus Appian, B.C., i. 3, says that the dictator was appointed ἐπὶ ταῖς φοβερωτάταις χρείαις. Other passages which assign this character to the dictatorship are collected by Becker, ib. p. 154. Polybius, iii. 87, calls the dictator an avтоkpáтwρ oтparηyós; making the military character of the office its prominent feature. Plutarch, Camill. 18, speaking of the conduct of the Romans before the Battle of the Allia, says: kaiTOι TρÓTEρÓV γε καὶ πρὸς ἐλάττονας ἀγῶνας εἵλοντο πολλάκις μονάρχους, οὓς δικτάτωρας καλοῦσιν, οὐκ ἀγνοοῦντες ὅσον ἐστὶν εἰς ἐπισφαλῆ καιρὸν ὄφελος μιᾷ χρωμένους γνώμη πρὸς ἀνυπεύθυνον ἀρχὴν ἐν χερσὶ τὴν δίκην ἔχουσαν εὐτακτεῖν. Volum. nius is described by Livy, x. 21, as pointing out to an assembly of the people, in 296 B.C., the necessity of taking effective measures against a dangerous confederacy of Etruscans, Samnites, Umbrians, and Gauls, and as declaring that if they are not prepared to elect the best general as consul, he will himself instantly name a dictator.

(162) On the advantages of the Roman institution of a dictator, see Machiavel, Disc. i. 34, and on the difference between the dictatorship and the decemvirate, ib. 35.

(163) See Becker, ib. p. 161-2. The Greek word dikтárop, being borrowed from the Latin, and not like naro for consuls, translated, makes BIKTάropos, like the Latin, not dikтáтopos, according to the Greek analogy, in the genitive case. The word dikTaTwрeuw is used by Dio Cass. xliii. 1, and the word dikтaтwpeía, for dictatura, by Dion. Hal. vi. 22. The dictator was sometimes called magister populi, and this title was signed to him in the sacred books, Cic. Rep. i. 40, and other passages

as

an institution not peculiar to Rome, but common to other of the hardy military republics of Latium and Southern Italy.(164) The appointment by the single consul was doubtless owing, not to the accidental cause mentioned by Dionysius, but to the military character of the office, and to the necessity of a sudden and uncontrolled choice for meeting an unforeseen danger. It is by no means improbable that the mode of appointment may have varied in early times: but all the accounts which have descended to us describe the appointment as made by a single consul or consular tribune. That a dictator appointed for formal and ceremonial purposes (165) should have abdicated as soon as his special functions were performed, is not extraordinary; but that so many dictators should have spontaneously laid down absolute power, even at the moment of victory, and often before their term of office was expired, is a remarkable proof of the empire of law over the minds of the Romans, and of their fixed constitutional habits, even in early times.(166) If the Athenians

in Becker, ib. p. 163. Becker considers this to have been the original name of the office. Licinius Macer however conceived the officer to have been named dictator from the beginning; Dion. Hal. v. 74.

(164) A dictator of the Latins was mentioned by Cato, Krause, p. 106. Macer supposed the Romans to have borrowed the name of the office from the Albans. The king elected in war by the magistrates among the Lucanians bore a close resemblance to the Roman dictator, both in the character of the office and the mode of election: Strabo, vi. 2, § 13. (165) Concerning the dictators of this class, see Becker, ib. p. 175. (166) Dr. Arnold, Hist. of Rome, vol. i. p. 143, appears to me to be mistaken in supposing that the dictator was liable, like the consuls, to be arraigned, after the expiration of his office, for any acts of tyranny which he might have committed during its continuance.' The power of the dictator was originally absolute, and not subject to appeal; and such, (notwithstanding the passage of Festus, optima lex, p. 198,) it probably always remained (see Becker, ib. p. 166-70). Considering the shortness of the term of office, this irresponsibility would have been nugatory, if it had not been continuous. The security to the public was derived from the limited duration of the office; not from any subsequent legal remedy against the officer. Dionysius speaks of the dictator as αὐτοκράτορι καὶ ἀνυπευθύνῳ χρώμενος ἐξουσίᾳ, vii. 56. Coriolanus is indeed described by Dionysius as having been made orparnyos aurокpáтwo of the Volscians, viii. 11, which corresponds to the Roman dictator. When Tullus Attius wishes afterwards to accuse Coriolanus before a Volscian assembly, he calls upon him to resign his office and render an account of his generalship: Kéλeve t' ἀποθέμενον αὐτὸν τὴν ἀρχὴν λόγον ὑπέχειν τῆς στρατηγίας; vii. 57. These words imply that the abdication of the office is a condition precedent to rendering an account; but the whole narrative is probably fictitious.