THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. THE following poem is supposed to have | Porsena nothing seems to be borrowed from ceen produced ninety years after the lay of foreign sources. The villany of Sextus, the Horatius. Some persons mentioned in the lay suicide of his victim, the revolution, the death of Horatius make their appearance again, and of the sons of Brutus, the defence of the bridge, some appellations and epithets used in the lay Mucius burning his hand,* Clœlia swimming of Horatius have been purposely repeated; for, through Tiber, seem to be all strictly Roman. in an age of ballad-poetry, it scarcely ever But when we have done with the Tuscan war, fails to happen, that certain phrases come to and enter upon the war with the Latines, we be appropriated to certain men and things, are again struck by the Greek air of the story. and are regularly applied to those men and The Battle of the Lake Regillus is in all rethings by every minstrel. Thus we find both spects a Homeric battle, except that the comin the Homeric poems and in Hesiod, in 'Hez-batants ride astride on their horses, instead of κληείη, περικλύτες ̓Αμφιγυήεις, διάκτορος Αργειφόντης, irrázunos Onên, 'Exévns ïvex' nüxóμ. 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 Τρωσὶν μὲν προμάχιζεν ̓Αλέξανδρος θεοειδής, 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 Bacchiadæ, driven from their 'Αργείων προκαλίζετο πάντας αρίστους, country by the tyranny of that Cypselus, the ἀντίβιον μαχέσασθαι ἐν αἰνῇ δηϊοτήτι. tale of whose strange escape Herodotus has related with incomparable simplicity and liveli- Livy introduces Sextus in a similar manner: ness. Livy and Dionysius tell us that, when" Ferocem juvenem Tarquinium, ostentantem 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 Herodotus, 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, 1. 34. Dionysius, iii. 46. 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, Tarquinius," says Livy, "retro in agmen suorum infenso cessit hosti." If this be a fortuitous coincidence, it is one of the most extraordinary in literature. 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 Inserio tions, vi. 27, 66. the celestial horsemen bear the tidings of vic tory to Rome. 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 The popular belief at Rome, from an early period, seems to have been that the event of 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.necessary that the classification of the citizens 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. should be revised. On that classification depended 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. How the legend originated, cannot now be ascertained: but we may easily imagine seve- One of their reforms was a remodelling of ral ways in which it might have originated: the equestrian order; and, having effected this nor is it at all necessary to suppose, with Julius reform, they determined to give to their work Frontinus, that two young men were dressed up a sanction derived from religion. In the chiby the Dictator to personate the sons of Leda. valrous societies of modern times, societies It is probable that Livy is correct when he says which have much more than may at first sight that the Roman general, in the hour of peril, appear in common with the equestrian order vowed a temple to Castor. If so, nothing of Rome, it has been usual to invoke the special could be more natural than that the multitude protection of some Saint, and to observe his should ascribe the victory to the favour of the day with peculiar solemnity. Thus the ComTwin Gods. When such was the prevailing panions of the Garter wear the image of St. sentiment, any man who chose to declare that, George depending from their collars, and meet, in the midst of the confusion and slaughter, he on great occasions, in St. George's Chapel. had seen two godlike forms on white horses Thus, when Louis the Fourteenth instituted a scattering the Latines, would find ready cre- new order of chivalry for the rewarding of mi dence. We know, indeed, that, in modern litary merit, he commended it to the favour of times, a very similar story actually found cre- his own glorified ancestor and patron, and dence among a people much more civilized decreed that all the members of the fraternity than the Romans of the fifth century before should meet at the royal palace on the Feast Christ. A chaplain of Cortes, writing about of St. Louis, should attend the king to chapel, thirty years after the conquest of Mexico, in should hear mass, and should subsequently an age of printing-presses, libraries, universi- hold their great annual assembly. There is a ties, scholars, logicians, jurists, and statesmen, considerable resemblance between this rule of had the face to assert that, in one engagement the Order of St. Louis and the rule which Faagainst the Indians, St. James had appeared bius and Decius made respecting the Roman on a gray horse at the head of the Castilian knights. It was ordained that a grand muster adventurers. Many of these adventurers were and inspection of the equestrian body should iving when this lie was printed. One of them, be part of the ceremonial performed, on the nonest Bernal Diaz, wrote an account of the anniversary of the battle of Regillus, in honour expedition. He had the evidence of his own of Castor and Pollux, the two equestrian Gods. senses against the chaplain's legend; but he | All the knights, clad in purple and crowned seems to have distrusted even the evidence of with olive, were to meet at a temple of Mars it his own senses. He says that he was in the the suburbs. Thence they were to ride in state battle, and that he saw a gray horse with a to the Forum, where the temple of the Twins man on his back, but that the man was, to his stood. This pageant was, during several centhinking, Francesco de Morla, and not the ever-turies, considered as one of the most splendid blessed 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 were probably quite as credulous as the Spanish subjects of Charles the Fifth. It is therefore conceivable that the appearance of Castor 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 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.* There can be no doubt that the Censors who instituted this magnificent ceremony acted in concert with the Pontiffs to whom, by the constitution of Rome, the superintendence of the *See Livy, ix. 46. Val. Max., ii. 2. Aurel. Vict De 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 só early 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 their festival. He would find abundant materials in the ballads of his predecessors; and he 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. and, in all probability, differ as widely from the ancient poem from which they were originally derived. It is unnecessary to point out the obvious imitations of the Iliad, which have been pur posely introduced. THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. ▲ 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, To Mars without the wall. 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 Swift, swift, the Great Twin Brethren They came o'er wild Parthenius O'er Cirrha's dome, o'er Adria's foam, From where with flutes and dances In lordly Lacedæmon, The City of two kings, Under the Porcian height, 3. Now on the place of slaughter Are cots and sheepfolds seen, And rows of vines, and fields of wheat The swine crush the big acorns That fall from Corne's oaks: Little they think on those strong limbs That day the trumpets pealed; And peck the eyes of kings; How thick the dead lay scattered Under the Porcian height; How through the gates of Tusculum Raved the wild stream of flight; And how the Lake Regillus Bubbled with crimson foam, What time the Thirty Cities Came forth to war with Rome. 4. But, Roman, when thou standest Upon that holy ground, Look thou with heed on the dark rock That made so strange a dint: 5. Since last the Great Twin Brethren And fourscore and thirteen. That summer a Virginius Was Consul first in place, The second was stout Aulus, Of the Posthumian race. The Herald of the Latines From Gabii came in state: The Herald of the Latines Passed through Rome's Eastern Ga.e: The Herald of the Latines Did in our Forum stand; And there he did his office, A sceptre in his hand. 6. "Hear, Senators and people Of the good town of Rome: The Thirty Cities charge you To bring the Tarquins home: And if ye still be stubborn, To work the Tarquins wrong, The Thirty Cities warn you, Look that your walls be strong." 7. Then spake the Consul Aulus, Or come forth valiantly, and face Forth looked in wrath the eagle; 8. The Herald of the Latines Are met in high debate. "Tis good that one bear sway; The man of seventy fights. For six months and no more, And have a Master of the Knights, And axes twenty-four." 9. So Aulus was Dictator, The man of seventy fights; He made Æbutius Elva His Master of the Knights. Set forth with their array. Was left in charge at home Our camp was pitched at night; Their mighty host was spread; 10. Up rose the golden morning Our bravest saw the foes, For, girt by threescore thousand spears, That boasts the Latian name, From where the Witch's Fortress From the still glassy lake that sleeps Those trees in wnose dim shadow Through the hot summer's day; The wild hog's reedy home, From the green steps whence Anio leaps In floods of snow-white foam. 11. Aricia, Cora, Norba, Velitræ, with the might Of Setia and of Tusculum, Were marshalled on their right: Their leader was Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name; Upon his head a helmet Of red gold shone like flame: High on a gallant charger Of dark-gray hue he rode; Over his gilded armour A vest cf purple flowed, Woven in the land of sunrise By Syria's dark-browed daughters, And by the sails of Carthage brought Far o'er the southern waters. 12. Lavinium and Circeium Had on the left their post, That wrought the deed of shame: Which none beside might see; And that strange sounds were in his ears, Which none might hear but he. A woman fair and stately, But pale as are the dead, Oft through the watches of the night Until the east was gray; 13. But in the centre thickest Were ranged the shields of foes, And from the centre loudest The cry of battle rose. There Tibur marched and Pedum Beneath proud Tarquin's rule, And Ferentinum of the rock, And Gabii of the pool. Now on each side the leaders Strode on with lance and targe; And under that great battle Rose from the darkened field And screeching of the slain. 15. False Sextus rede out foremost: As glares the famished eagle From the Digentian rock, On a choice lanıb that bounds alone Brave champion on brave steed. Shall cross his path to-day! When through the reeds gleams the und eye Of that fell painted snake; So turned, so fled, false Sextus, And hid him in the rear, Behind the dark Lavinian ranks, Bristling with crest and spear |