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Round turned he, as not deigning
Those craven ranks to see;
Naught spake he to Lars Porsena,
To Sextus naught spake he;!
But he saw on Palatinus

The white porch of his home; And he spake to the noble river That rolls by the towers of Rome. 59.

"Oh, Tiber! father Tiber!

To whom the Romans pray, A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, Take thou in charge this day!" So he spake, and speaking sheathed The good sword by his side, And, with his harness on his back, Flunged headlong in the tide.

60.

No sound of joy or sorrow

Was heard from either bank;

But friends and foes in dumb surprise,
With parted lips and straining eyes,
Stood gazing where he sank;
And when above the surges

They saw his crest appear,

All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry, And even the ranks of Tuscany

Could scarce forbear to cheer.

VOL. IV.-69

61.

But fiercely ran the current,
Swollen high by months of rain:
And fast his blood was flowing;
And he was sore in pain,
And heavy with his armour,

And spent with changing blows: And oft they thought him sinking, But still again he rose.

62.

Never, I ween, did swimmer,
In such an evil case,

Struggle through such a raging flood
Safe to the landing place:

But his limbs were borne up bravely
By the brave heart within,
And our good father Tiber
Bare bravely up his chin.

63.

"Curse on him!" quoth false Sextus "Will not the villain drown?

But for this stay, ere close of day

We should have sacked the town!" "Heaven help him!" quoth Lars Porcena "And bring him safe to shore; For such a gallant feat of arms Was never seen before."

64.

And now he feels the bottom;
Now on dry earth he stands,
Now round him throng the Fathers
To press his gory hands;
And now with shouts and clapping,
And noise of weeping loud,
He enters through the River-gate,
Borne by the joyous crowd.

65.

They gave him of the corn-land,
That was of public right,

As much as two strong oxen
Could plough from morn till night,
And they made a molten image,
And set it up on high,

And there it stands unto this day
To witness if I lie.

66.

It stands in the Comitium,
Plain for all folk to see;
Horatius in his harness,
Halting, upon one knee;
And underneath is written,
In letters all of gold,
How valiantly he kept the bridge
In the brave days of old.

"Our ladye bare upp her chinne."

Ballad of Childe Waters.

"Never heavier man and horse Stemmed a midnight torrent's force;

Yet through good heart and our lady's grace,

At length he gained the landing-place.

Lay of the Last Minstrel, 1. 2Z2

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THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS.

Porsena nothing seems to be borrowed from foreign sources. The villany of Sextus, the suicide of his victim, the revolution, the death of the sons of Brutus, the defence of the bridge, Mucius burning his hand,* Clœlia swimming through Tiber, seem to be all strictly Roman. But when we have done with the Tuscan war, and enter upon the war with the Latines, we are again struck by the Greek air of the story. The Battle of the Lake Regillus is in all respects a Homeric battle, except that the com

THE following poem is supposed to have teen produced ninety years after the lay of Horatius. Some persons mentioned in the lay of Horatius make their appearance again, and some appellations and epithets used in the lay of Horatius have been purposely repeated; for, in an age of ballad-poetry, it scarcely ever fails to happen, that certain phrases come to be appropriated to certain men and things, and are regularly applied to those men and things by every minstrel. Thus we find both in the Homeric poems and in Hesiod, in 'Hga-batants ride astride on their horses, instead of κλησία, περικλυτος Αμφιγυήεις, διάκτορος Αργειφόντης, ἱπτάπυλος Θήβη, Ἑλένης ἕνεκ' ηυκόμοιο. Thus, too, in our own national songs, Douglas is almost always the doughty Douglas: England is merry England: all the gold is red; and all the ladies are gay.

driving chariots. The mass of fighting men is hardly mentioned. The leaders single each other out, and engage hand to hand. The great object of the warriors on both sides is, as in the Iliad, to obtain possession of the spoils and bodies of the slain; and several circumstances are related which forcibly remind us of the great slaughter round the corpses of Sarpedon and Patroclus.

But there is one circumstance which de serves especial notice. Both the war of Troy and the war of Regillus were caused by the licentious passions of young princes, who were therefore peculiarly bound not to be sparing of their own persons in the day of battle. Now the conduct of Sextus at Regillus, as described by Livy, so exactly resembles that of Paris, as described at the beginning of the third book of the Iliad, that it is difficult to believe the resemblance accidental. Paris appears before the Trojan ranks, defying the bravest Greek to

The principal distinction between the lay of Horatius and the lay of the Lake Regillus is, that the former is meant to be purely Roman, while the latter, though national in its general spirit, has a slight tincture of Greek learning and of Greek superstition. The story of the Tarquins, as it has come down to us, appears to have been compiled from the works of several popular poets; and one, at least, of those poets appears to have visited the Greek colonies in Italy, if not Greece itself, and to have had some acquaintance with the works of Homer and Herodotus. Many of the most striking adventures of the house of Tarquin, till Lucretia makes her appearance, have a Greek character. The Tarquins themselves are re-encounter him: presented as Corinthian nobles of the great house of the Bacchiada, driven from their country by the tyranny of that Cypselus, the tale of whose strange escape Herodotus has related with incomparable simplicity and liveliness. Livy and Dionysius tell us that, when Tarquin the Proud was asked what was the best mode of governing a conquered city, he replied only by beating down with his staff all the tallest poppies in his garden. This is exactly what Herodotus, in the passage to which reference has already been made, relates of the counsel given to Periander, the son of Cypselus.

The stratagem by which the town of Gabii is brought under the power of the Tarquins is, again, obviously copied from Herodotus. The embassy of the young Tarquins to the oracle at Delphi is just such a story as would be told by a poet whose head was full of the Greek mythology; and the ambiguous answer returned by Apollo is in the exact style of the prophecies which, according to He

rodotus, lured Cræsus to destruction. Then the character of the narrative changes. From the first mention of Lucretia to the retreat of

Herodotus, v. 92. Livy, i. 34. Dionysius, iii. 46.
Livy, i. 54. Dionysius, iv. 56.
Her dotus, iii 154. Livy, i. 53.

Τρωσὶν μὲν προμάχιζεν ̓Αλέξανδρος θεοειδής,

'Αργείων προκαλίζετο πάντας αρίστους, ἀντίβιον μαχέσασθαι ἐν αἰνῇ δηϊοτῆτι. Livy introduces Sextus in a similar manne.: "Ferocem juvenem Tarquinium, ostentantem se in primâ exsulum acie." Menelaus rushes to meet Paris. A Roman noble, eager for vengeance, spurs his horse towards Sextus. Both the guilty princes are instantly terrorstricken:

Τὸν δ ̓ ὡς οὖν ἐνόησεν ̓Αλέξανδρος θεοειδής, ἐν προμάχοισι φανέντα, κατεπλήγη φίλον ήτορ, ἂψ δ' ἑτάρων εἰς ἔθνος ἐχάζετο κῆρ ἀλεείνων. «Tarquinius," says Livy, 66 retro in agmen suorum infenso cessit hosti." If this be a fortuitous coincidence, it is one of the most extraordinary in iiterature.

In the following poem, therefore, images and incidents have been borrowed, not merely without scruple, but on principle, from the in comparable battle-pieces of Homer.

M. de Pouilly attempted, a hundred and twenty years ago, to prove that the story of Mucius was of Greek origin; but he was signally confuted by the Abbé Sallier. See the Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscrio tions, vi. 27, 66.

The popular belief at Rome, from an early the celestial horsemen bear the tidings of vic period, seems to have been that the event of tory to Rome. the great day of Regillus was decided by supernatural agency. Castor and Pollux, it was said, had fought, armed and mounted, at the head of the legions of the commonwealth, and had afterwards carried the news of the victory with incredible speed to the city. The well in the Forum at which they had alighted was pointed out. Near the well rose their ancient temple. A great festival was kept to their honour on the Ides of Quintilis, supposed to be the anniversary of the battle; and on that day sumptuous sacrifices were offered to them at the public charge. One spot on the margin of Lake Regillus was regarded during many ages with superstitious awe. A mark, resembling in shape a horse's hoof, was discernible in the volcanic rock; and this mark was believed to have been made by one of the celestial chargers.

Many years after the temple of the Twin Gods had been built in the Forum, an import ant addition was made to the ceremonial by which the state annually testified its gratitude for their protection. Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius were elected Censors at a momentous crisis. It had become absolutely necessary that the classification of the citizens should be revised. On that classification de pended the distribution of political power. Party spirit ran high; and the republic seemed to be in danger of falling under the dominion either of a narrow oligarchy or of an ignorant and headstrong rabble. Under such circumstances, the most illustrious patrician and the most illustrious plebeian of the age were intrusted with the office of arbitrating between the angry factions; and they performed their arduous task to the satisfaction of all honest and reasonable men.

One of their reforms was a remodelling of the equestrian order; and, having effected this reform, they determined to give to their work a sanction derived from religion. In the chi valrous societies of modern times, societies which have much more than may at first sight appear in common with the equestrian order of Rome, it has been usual to invoke the special protection of some Saint, and to observe his day with peculiar solemnity. Thus the Com panions of the Garter wear the image of St. George depending from their collars, and meet, on great occasions, in St. George's Chapel. Thus, when Louis the Fourteenth instituted a new order of chivalry for the rewarding of mi litary merit, he commended it to the favour of his own glorified ancestor and patron, and decreed that all the members of the fraternity should meet at the royal palace on the Feast of St. Louis, should attend the king to chapel, should hear mass, and should subsequently hold their great annual assembly. There is a considerable resemblance between this rule of the Order of St. Louis and the rule which Fa bius and Decius made respecting the Roman knights. It was ordained that a grand muster and inspection of the equestrian body should be part of the ceremonial performed, on the anniversary of the battle of Regillus, in honour of Castor and Pollux, the two equestrian Gods. All the knights, clad in purple and crowned with olive, were to meet at a temple of Mars it the suburbs. Thence they were to ride in state to the Forum, where the temple of the Twins stood. This pageant was, during several cen turies, considered as one of the most splendid sights of Rome. In the time of Dionysius the cavalcade sometimes consisted of five thou sand horsemen, all persons of fair repute and easy fortune."

How the legend originated, cannot now be ascertained: but we may easily imagine several ways in which it might have originated: nor is it at all necessary to suppose, with Julius Frontinus, that two young men were dressed up by the Dictator to personate the sons of Leda. It is probable that Livy is correct when he says that the Roman general, in the hour of peril, vowed a temple to Castor. If so, nothing could be more natural than that the multitude should ascribe the victory to the favour of the Twin Gods. When such was the prevailing sentiment, any man who chose to declare that, in the midst of the confusion and slaughter, he had seen two godlike forms on white horses scattering the Latines, would find ready credence. We know, indeed, that, in modern times, a very similar story actually found credence among a people much more civilized than the Romans of the fifth century before Christ. A chaplain of Cortes, writing about thirty years after the conquest of Mexico, in an age of printing-presses, libraries, universities, scholars, logicians, jurists, and statesmen, had the face to assert that, in one engagement against the Indians, St. James had appeared on a gray horse at the head of the Castilian dventurers. Many of these adventurers were iving when this lie was printed. One of them, nonest Bernal Diaz, wrote an account of the expedition. He had the evidence of his own senses against the chaplain's legend; but he seems to have distrusted even the evidence of his own senses. He says that he was in the battle, and that he saw a gray horse with a man on his back, but that the man was, to his thinking, Francesco de Morla, and not the everblessed apostle St. James. Nevertheless," he adds, "it may be that the person on the gray horse was the glorious apostle St. James, and that I, sinner that I am, was unworthy to see nim." The Romans of the age of Cincinnatus There can be no doubt that the Censors who were probably quite as credulous as the Spa-instituted this magnificent ceremony acted in nish subjects of Charles the Fifth. It is there- concert with the Pontiffs to whom, by the con fore conceivable that the appearance of Castor stitution of Rome, the superintendence of the and Pollux may have become an article of fait before the generation which had fought at Regillus had passed away. Nor could any thing be more natural than that the poets of the next age should embellish this story, and make

64

*See Livy, ix. 46. Val. Max., ii. 2. Aurel. Vict De Dionysius, vi. 13. Plin. Hist Viris Illustribus, 32. in Niebuhr's posthumous volume, Die Censur des Q Nat. xv. 5. See also the singularly ingenious chapter Fabius und P. Decius.

public worship belonged; and it is probable | holy Pontiff enjoining the magnificent ceremo hat those high religious functionaries were, nial which, after a long interval, had at length as usual, fortunate enough to find in their been adopted. If the poem succeeded, many books or traditions some warrant for the inno-persons would commit it to memory. Parts of vation. it would 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 fol lowing generation, pronounced the funeral panegyric over the remains of Lucius Posthumius Megellus, thrice Consul, would borrow largely from 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.

The following poem is supposed to have been made for this great occasion. Songs, we know, were chanted at the religious festivals of Rome from an early period, indeed from so carly a period that some of the sacred verses were popularly ascribed to Numa, and were utterly unintelligible in the age of Augustus. In the Second Punic War a great feast was held in honour 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 performed on As to the details of the battle, it has not been the Ides of Quintilis, would call in the aid of a thought desirable to adhere minutely to the acpoet. Such a poet would naturally take for counts which have come down to us. Those his subject the battle of Regillus, the appear-accounts, indeed, differ widely from each other, ance of the Twin Gods, and the institution of and, in all probability, differ as widely from the their festival. He would find abundant mate- ancient poem from which they were originally rials in the ballads of his predecessors; and he derived. would make free use of the scanty stock of Greek learning which he had himself acquired. He would probably introduce some wise and

Antiquaries differ widely as to the situation of the field of 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.

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

THE

BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS.

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

1.

Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note!

Ho, lictors, clear the way!

OF THE CITY CCCCLI.

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 crown'd;
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 honour still. Gay are the Martian Kalends:

December's Nones are gay.

[rides,

But the proud Ides, when the squadron
Shall be Rome's whitest day.

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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.

3.

Now on the place of slaughter

Are cots and sheepfolds seen,

And rows of vines, and fields of whea'
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.

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