Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography Volume II.djvu/743

 ROMA. settled on the Palatine hill seems also to have been sometimes accepted by those who referred the real foundation of Kome to a much later period. The tradition respecting this settlement is interesting to the topographer, as the names of certain places .at Kome were said to bu derived from circumstances connected with it. The Pahatium, or Palatine hill, itself was thought to have been named after the Ar- cadian town of Pallantium, the n and one I having been dropped in the couree of time ; though others derived the appellation in different ways, and espe- cially from Palliis, the grandson of Evander by his daughter Dyna and Hercules (Paus. viii. 43 ; Dionys. i. 32.) So, too, the Porta Carmentalis of the Servian city derived its name from a neighbour- ing altar of Carmentis, or Carmenta, the mother of Evander. (Dionys. /. c; Virg. Aen. viii. 338.) Nothing indeed can be a more striking proof of the antiquity of this tradition, as well as of the deep root which it must have taken among the Roman people, than the circumstance that to a late period divine honours continued to be paid to Carmenta, as well as to Evander himself. Another indication of a similar tendency was the belief which prevailed among the Romans, and was entertained even by such writers as Livy and Tacitus, that letters and the arts of civilisation were iirst introduced among them by Evander. (Liv. i. 7; Tac. Ann. xi. 14; Plut. Q. R. 56.) The greater part of those who held the second opinion regarded Aeneas, or one of his immediate descendants, .as the founder of Rome. This theory was particularly current among Greek wiiters. Sometimes the Trojans alone were regarded as the founders ; sometimes they are represented as uniting in the task with the Aborigines. Occasionally, how- ever, Greeks are substituted for Trojans, and the origin of Rome is ascribed to a son of Ulysses and Circe ; nay, in one case Aene.is is represented as coming into Italy in company with Ulysses. But though this view was more particularly Grecian, it was adopted by some Latin writers of high repute. Sallust (Ca<. 6) ascribes a Trojan origin to Rome ; snd Propertius (iv. 1), without expressly naming Aeneas as the founder, evidently refers its origin to him: — " Hoc quodcunque vides, hospes, qua maxima Roma est, Ante Phrygem Aenean collis et herba fuit; " though in the same passage he also refers to the occupation of the Palatine hill by Evander. One very prevalent form of this tradition, which appears to have been known to Aristotle (Dionys. i. 72), represents either a matron or a female slave, named Rom^, as burning the ships after the Trojans had landed. They were thus compelled to remain ; and when the settlement became a flourishing city, they named it after the woman who had been the cause of its foundation. The third form of tradition, which ascribed the origin of Rome to Romulus, was by far the most universally received among the Romans. It nmst be regarded as ultimately forming the national tra- dition ; and there is every probability that it was of native growth, as many of its incidents serve to ex- plain Roman rites and institutions, such as the wor- siiip of Vesta, the Lupercalia, Larentalia, Lcniuria, Arval Brothers, &c. (Lewis, vol. i. p. 409.) The legend was of high antiquity among the Romans, although inferior in this respect to some of the Greek ROMA. 723 accounts. It was recorded in its present form by Fabius Pictor, one of the earliest Roman annalists, and was adopted by other ancient antiquarians and' historians (Dionys. i. 79). Nay, from the testimony of Livy we may infer that it prevailed at a much earlier date, since he tells us (x. 23) that an image of the she-wolf suckling the two royal infants was erected near the Ficus Ruminalis by the curule aediles B.C. 296.* The story is too well known to be re- THE CAPITOLINE WOLF. peated here. We shall merely remark that although according to this tradition Aeneas still remains the mythical ancestor of the Romans, yet that the building of two cities and the lapse of many generations in- tervene between his arrival in Italy and the founda- tion of Rome by his descendant Romulus. Aeneas himself founds Lavinium, and his son Ascanius -A.lba Longa, after a lapse of thirty years. We are little concerned about the sovereigns who are sup- posed to have reigned in the latter city down to the time of Numitor, the grandfather of Romulus, ex- the same statue mentioned by Cicero {de Diu. i. 12, Cat. iii. 8), and described as having been struck by lightning ; but this can hardly be the case, as the image described by Cicero stood in the Capitol. A bronze statue answering Cicero's description is still preserved in the Capitoline Museum at Rome, which is regarded by Kiebuhr as a genuine relic (Hist. vol. i. p. 210), and has been immor- talised in the verse of Byron. A modern critic finds it a production too clumsy for the state of Ro- man art at the time assigned by Livy, and thinks that the holes in the hind-leg of the wolf were not produced by lightning, but arise from a defect in the casting. (Braun, Ruins and Museums of Rome, p. 81.) Fabius Pictor, however, who mentions this statue in the passage cited from his work by Dionysius (/. c), expressly remarks the primitive nature of its workmanship, — x°-^'^^"- '''on'i/j.aTa iraXoua^ ipyaaias, — tliougli con.viderabIy less tiiaii a century must have elapsed between his time and the date of its erection. It was rude, therefore, even when compared with the state of Roman art towards the end of the third century n. c, though it had been erected only at the beginning of that century. Monmisen is inclined to believe that the Capitoline wolf is the genuine one erected by the Ogulnii and described by Livy, from the circunistai;ce of its having been found near the arch of Severus. (De Comilio Rom., in the Aiinali dell' Instiluto, 1844, vol. xvi. p. 300.) Whoever has seen the group will perhaps at all events agree with Winckehnann tiiat the twins are evidently of a different period from the wolf. 3 A 2
 * It has been conjectured that this was probably