HISTORY OF THE CITY OF ROME. SECTION I. FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE BURNING OF THE CITY BY THE GAULS. THE Palatine Hill is the proper nucleus of ancient Rome; the centre whence she extended her circumference as she gradually became the mistress of Italy, and at last of great part of the known world. There are many traditions, or, as it has become usual to call them, legends, connected with the Palatine Hill before the foundation of Rome, which are useful to be known from the frequent allusions to them which occur in ancient writers in connection with the history of the city. The most important of these traditions refer to Evander, one of the representatives of the Pelasgian immigration into Italy. Evander was a native of Pallantium, an Arcadian town near Tegea, and is supposed either to have seceded from, or to have been expelled, his country about sixty years before the Trojan war, or 1,244 years before the birth of Christ. He settled on a hill near the Tiber, which, from the place of his birth, obtained the name of 1 For the immigration of Evander, see Dionys. Hal. i. 31-33, 40; Virg. En. viii. 333 sqq.; Ovid. Fast. i. B 471 sqq.; Varro, L. L. v. 53 (ed. Müll.); Serv. Æn. viii. 51 sqq., &c. Palatium, or Mons Palatinus. Virgil' traces the name to Pallas, who was a son of Lycaon, and founder of the Arcadian Pallantium; but there were several variations of the story which should be mentioned here. Thus some 2 traced the name of the hill to its having been the burialplace either of Pallas, son of Hercules and Launa, a daughter of Evander; or of Pallantia, another daughter of Evander.3 All these names are connected with the Arcadian immigration; but some etymologies refer to a totally different origin: as from Palanto, a daughter of Hyperboreus, and either mother or wife of King Latinus; from Palatium, a colony of Aborigines in the district of Reate; and still more improbably from balare, or palare, the bleating, or the wandering, of sheep.* According to the tradition received by the principal Latin writers, Evander was the son of Carmenta, an Arcadian nymph, and Mercury. Carmenta was regarded by the Romans as a prophetess, prescient of the fortunes of Rome. She is important in a history of the city as giving name to one of its gates, the Porta Carmentalis; so called from an altar dedicated to her which stood near it.5 This altar was extant in the time of Aulus Gellius and Servius. When Evander immigrated into Italy, Faunus was king of the Aborigines, or primitive inhabitants of Latium. According to the legend most commonly received, there were four kings of this dynasty; namely, Saturnus, the founder of it, Picus, Faunus, and Latinus; but Janus is sometimes mentioned as a still more ancient king, who hospitably entertained Saturn after his flight 1 Æn. viii. 51 sqq. Virgil, however, calls the city Pallanteum; and this name is adopted by the topographers of the middle ages: Delegere locum et posuere in montibus urbem, 2 Polybius, ap. Dionys. Hal. i. 32; Festus, p. 220 (ed. Müll.). 3 Serv. En. viii. 51. 4 Serv. loc. cit. ; Varro, L. L. v. 53; Festus, p. 220; cf. Klausen, Æneas und die Penaten, p. 883 sqq. 5 Virg. Æn. viii. 333 sqq.; Ov. Fast. i 461-586; Liv. i. 7. Gell. xviii. 7; Serv. ad En. viii, 337. to Italy. Both Saturnus and Janus are intimately connected, as will appear in the sequel, with the traditional or legendary history of Rome; and they are represented as established respectively on the hills known in later times as the Capitoline and the Janiculum.1 Saturnus also plays a great part in the mythical history of ancient Italy. According to Virgil, that country derived from him the name of Saturnia Tellus; and Latium was so called because he lay hid there from the pursuit of Jupiter, from whose attacks he had fled. The name of Saturnus has been derived, regardless of prosody, a satu, because he first taught the Italians to live by agriculture. Hence an orderly state of society, civilisation, and peace were substituted for the nomad and semi-savage way of life previously existing; the violence and disorders of which are illustrated, so far as regards the neighbourhood of Rome, by the story of Cacus, the terror of the Aventine, and by other legends. From the blessings flowing from the reign of Saturn, it was regarded as the Golden Age, and the phrase 'Saturnia regna' became a synonym for human happiness. It resembled the idealised state of socialism and equality imagined by Rousseau and other enthusiasts, but unfortunately never yet realised. For though Saturn had introduced agriculture, he had not sanctioned the institution of private property; the fields were tilled for the common good, and were distinguished by no boundary marks; even the houses had no doors to exclude the visits of neighbours: Non domus ulla fores habuit, non fixus in agris, Slavery existed not, and, as a consequence of the absence of property, a court of justice was unknown. Another 1 Virg. Æn. vii. 45 sqq., viii. 319 sq.; Dion. Hal. i. 44; Macr. Sat. i. 7, 9. 2 Æn. viii. 322; cf. Ovid, Fast. i. 237; Macr. Sat. i. 7; Varro, L. L. v. 42, 64. 3 Tibull. Eleg. i. 3, 43. result of the introduction of agriculture was wealth, which is nothing but the accumulation of stores; whence Ops, or plenty, was said to be the wife of Saturn. From all these blessings it is not surprising that Saturnus should have been deified and worshipped by the Latins, and in fact none of their deities better deserved it. The identification of Saturnus with the Greek Cronos, or Time, seems to have arisen from his being the oldest of the Latin divinities; however, his scythe, or pruning hook, might very well typify the operations of Time, as well as his own more peculiar attributes. We will now advert to a few things in the legend of Saturn which connect him with the city of Rome. We have already mentioned that the Capitoline Hill was originally occupied by Saturnus, whence it was called MONS SATURNIUS. This name it appears to have retained till the time of the Tarquins, though it also obtained in the interval the name of MONS TARPEIUS; an appellation, however, which was soon confined to the southernmost portion of it. The memory of Saturn is still preserved at the Capitoline by the ruined portico of his temple, which stands at its foot; one of the few ruins which have partially escaped the stroke of his own scythe. Here, in primæval times, stood an altar to him, probably on the same spot afterwards occupied by the temple. From his attribute as the founder of wealth, the temple of Saturn was made the ÆRARIUM, or public treasury; though the money seems to have been actually deposited in a small adjoining ÆDES, or CELLA OPIS, dedicated to Saturn's consort, Ops.2 Other memorials of Saturn at this spot, but which have now vanished, were a SACELLUM DITIS,3 near his altar, which, during the festival of the Saturnalia, was adorned with waxen masks; and a PORTA STERCORARIA, situated somewhere on the Clivus Capitolinus, or ascent to 1 Varro, L. L. v. 41 sq.; Festus, Voc. Saturnia, p. 322; Justin. xliii. 1. 2 Cic. Phil. i. 7, ii. 14. |