covered who, in fair fighting, were superior to | first Punic war to a triumphant close. It is the best troops that had been drilled on the impossible to recapitulate the names of these system of Parmenio and Antigonus.

eminent citizens without reflecting that they were all, without exception, Plebeians, and would, but for the ever memorable struggle maintained by Caius Lucinius and Lucius Sextius, have been doomed to hide in obscu

The conquerors had a good right to exult in their success, for their glory was all their own. They had not learned from their enemy how to conquer him. It was with their own nanonal arms, and in their own national battle-rity, or to waste in civil broils, the capacity array, that they had overcome weapons and and energy which prevailed against Pyrrhus actics long believed to be invincible. The and Hamilcar. pilum and the broadsword had vanquished the Macedonian spear. The legion had broken the Macedonian phalanx. Even the elephants, when the surprise produced by their first appearance was over, could cause no disorder in the steady yet flexible battalions of Rome.

It is said by Florus, and may easily be believed, that the triumph far surpassed in magnificence any that Rome had previously seen. The only spoils which Papirius Cursor and Fabius Maximus could exhibit were flocks and herds, wagons of rude structure, and heaps of spears and helmets. But now, for the first time, the riches of Asia and the arts of Greece adorned a Roman pageant. Plate, fine stuffs, costly furniture, rare animals, exquisite paintings and sculptures, formed part of the procession. At the banquet would be assembled a crowd of warriors and statesmen, among whom Manius Curius Dentatus would take the highest room. Caius Fabricius Luscinus, then, after two consulships and two triumphs, Cen- | sor of the Commonwealth, would doubtless occupy a place of honour at the board. In situations less conspicuous probably lay some of those who were, a few years later, the terror of Carthage; Caius Duilius, the founder of the maritime greatness of his country; Marcus Atilius Regulus, who owed to defeat a renown far higher than that which he had derived from his victories; and Caius Lutatius Catulus, who, while suffering from a grievous wound, fought the great battle of the Ægates, and brought the

On such a day we may suppose that the patriotic enthusiasm of a Latin poet would vent itself in reiterated shouts of Io triumphe, such as were uttered by Horace on a far lesa exciting occasion, and in boasts resembling those which Virgil, two hundred and fifty years later, put into the mouth of Anchises. The superiority of some foreign nations, and espe cially of the Greeks, in the lazy arts of peace, would be admitted with disdainful candour; but pre-eminence in all the qualities which fit a people to subdue and govern mankind would be claimed for the Romans.

The following lay belongs to the latest age of Latin ballad-poetry. Nævius and Livius Andronicus were probably among the children whose mothers held them up to see the chariot of Curius go by. The minstrel who sang on that day might possibly have lived to read the first hexameters of Ennius, and to see the first comedies of Plautus. His poem, as might be expected, shows a much wider acquaintance with the geography, manners, and production• of remote nations, than would have been fout. in compositions of the age of Camillus. Bu he troubles himself little about dates; and having heard travellers talk with admiration of the Colossus of Rhodes, and of the struc tures and gardens with which the Macedonian kings of Syria had embellished their residence on the banks of the Orontes, he has never thought of inquiring whether these things ex'isted in the age of Romulus.

THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS.

▲ LAY SUNG AT the banquet IN THE CAPITOL, ON THE DAY WHEN MANIUS CURIUS DENTATUS, A SECOND TIME CONSUL, TRIUMPHED OVER KING PYRRHUS AND THE TARENTINES, IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCCLXXIX.