Page:Philological Museum v2.djvu/652

642 642 • Vico. sonalityj and yet be fairly considered as representing the genius of several generations. The resemblance between the opinions of Vico respecting the early constitution of Rome, and those of Niebuhr, must have been evident in the sketch already given. That all history originates in poetry, is a principle repeatedly laid down in the Scienza Nuova, and applied to the Roman his- tory, though I do not remember that Vico any where alludes to the festive songs, which Niebuhr regards as the element of the epic lays, whence the annalists derived their materials. One coincidence is remarkable ; Vico had observed, that the ancient Roman commanders who had obtained a triumph, recorded it in what has the air of an heroic verse; as L. M, Regillus, Duello magno dirimendo, Regibus subjugandis, and Acilius Glabrio, Fundit, fugat, prosternit maximas legiones. Niebuhr thinks the inscriptions on the tombs of the Scipios, commemorative of their triumphs, to be in Saturnian mea- sure. That the popitlus at Rome was at first an aristocratic body, that the comitia curiata were patrician assemblies, that the plebs were captives made in war, and not possessing any political right, much less the right of electing kings, are the fundamental positions of Niebuhr'^s history of the constitution, and at their first promulgation they came upon the world with the effect of perfect novelties ; yet these are all distinctly contained in the Scienza Nuova. There are at the same time minor differences ; Vico supposes that the plebs of Rome arose from the destruction of an old Greek town on the banks of the Tiber, whose population was thus reduced into the con- dition in which we find the original plebs ; Niebuhr seems to regard the plebs as originating with the conquests of Ancus Martins; Vico speaks of the clients as belonging to the plebs, Niebuhr, against the testimony of Livy and Dionysius, denies this ; Vico derives Quirites from quirts^ a spear, and sup- poses it to describe the original aristocracy as alone bearing arms ; Niebuhr first derived the name from Caere, afterwards from a town Quirium, which he supposed to have adjoined the original town of Romulus on the Palatine hill. The