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 chap, xliv] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 473 texts still speak the rudeness of the Pelasgic idiom of the Latins. 10 I shall not repeat the well-known story of the Decemvirs, 11 The twelve who sullied by their actions the honour of inscribing on brass, the Decem- or wood, or ivory, the twelve tables of the Roman laws. 12 They were dictated by the rigid and jealous spirit of an aristo- cracy, which had yielded with reluctance to the just demands of the people. But the substance of the Twelve Tables was adapted to the state of the city ; and the Romans had emerged from barbarism, since they were capable of studying and em- bracing the institutions of their more enlightened neighbours. A wise Ephesian was driven by envy from his native country ; before he could reach the shores of Latium, he had observed the various forms of human nature and civil society; he imparted his knowledge to the legislators of Rome; and a statue was erected in the forum to the perpetual memory of Hermodorus. 13 The names and the divisions of the copper-money, the sole coin of the infant state, were of Dorian origin ; 14 the harvests 10 In the year 1444, seven or eight tables of brass were dug up between Cortona and Gubbio. A part of these, for the rest is Etruscan, represents the primitive state of the Pela6gio letters and language, whioh are ascribed by Herodotus to that district of Italy (1. i. c. 56, 57, 58) ; though this difficult passage may be explained of a Crestona in Thrace (Notes de Larcher, torn. i. p. 256-261). The savage dialect of the Eugubine tables has exercised, and may still elude, the divination of criticism ; but the root is undoubtedly Latin, of the same age and character as the Saliare Carmen, which, in the time of Horace, none could understand. The Roman idiom, by an infusion of Doric and iEolic Greek, was gradually ripened into the style of the xii tables, of the Duillian column, of Ennius, of Terence, and of Cicero (Gruter Inscript. torn. i. p. cxlii. Scipion Maffei, Istoria Diplomatica, p. 241-258. Biblio- theque Italique, torn. iii. p. 30-41, 174-205, torn. xiv. p. 1-52). [The language of the Eugubine Tables is neither Etruscan nor Pelasgic, nor both, but Umbrian. The text of the tables is conveniently accessible in Breal, Les tables Eugubines, 1875.] II Compare Livy (1. iii. c. 31-59) with Dionysius Halicarnassensis (1. x. p. 644 [c. 55], xi. p. 691 [c. 1]). How concise and animated is the Roman — how prolix and lifeless is the Greek ! Yet he has admirably judged the masters, and defined the rules, of historical composition. 13 From the historians, Heineccius (Hist. J. R. 1. i. No. 26) maintains that the twelve tables were of brass — aereas : in the text of Pomponius we [rightly] read eboreas ; for whioh Scaliger has substituted roboreas (Bynkeishoek, p. 286). Wood, brass, and ivory might be successively employed. [The text of the Twelve Tables will be found in Bruns, op. cit., 17 sqq., or in Gneist's Institutionum et Regularum iuris Roman^Syntagma. The scientific reconstruction of the code was inaugurated by Dirksen's Ubersicht der bisherigen Versuohe zur Herstellung der XII. Tafeln, 1824.] 13 His exile is mentioned by Cicero (Tusculan. Queestion. v. 36) ; his statue [in the comitium] by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 11). The letter, dream, and prophecy of Heraolitus are alike spurious (Epistolee Greec. Divers, p. 337). [Cp. also Strabo, 14, 25, and John Lydus, de Mag. 1, 34.] 14 This intricate subjeot of the Sioilian and Roman money is ably discussed by Dr. Bentley (Dissertation on the EpiBtles of Phalaris, p. 427-479), whose powers in