BOOK II. Character of the legend. Greek features in the story. Camillus saw that the sentence of the people would go against him, he left Rome, and retired to Ardea. Thus runs the legend of the conquest of Veii. It looks like an attempt to introduce the narrative of a war resembling that of Troy into the early history of Rome. Hence the account of the ten years' duration of the siege, and especially of the wonderful manner of taking the town by a mine which opened in the midst of the town, and from which issued armed foes, as from the Trojan horse. On the other hand, we can discover the character of genuine Italian imagination in the fable of the sudden appearance of the Romans in the sanctuary of Juno, of the declaration of the Etruscan priest that the victory was destined to him who should perform the present sacrifice, and of the readiness and cunning of Camillus, who anticipates the king of Veii and obtains the victory for Rome by complying with the decree of fate. We have met with a similar story before,' relating that a Sabine had a cow of wonderful size, which he was going to sacrifice in the temple of Diana on the Aventine, in order to secure to his people the supreme power, according to the advice of the soothsayers; but that a Roman persuaded the Sabine first to perform his ablutions in the Tiber, and meanwhile sacrificed the cow for the benefit of the Romans. It is evident that the story of the Etruscan soothsayer and that of the Delphian oracle are of different origin, and were not originally part of the same narrative. The one clearly excludes the other. One is of native Italian growth, the other is Greek in its origin. There can be no doubt that it is also more recent, for the worship of Apollo was, at the time in question, not yet introduced in Rome.2 Livy i. 45. 2 The first temple of Apollo in Rome was dedicated in the year 352 B.C. (Liry, vii. 20). It is true that, according to general tradition, a temple of Apollo was dedicated as early as 431 B.C. But as there was only one temple of Apollo in Rome before the time of Augustus (Becker, Röm. Alterth., i. 605, Anm. 74), we must reject either one or the other of these two statements. In such cases it is always preferable to credit a statement which refers to a time further removed from the prehistoric period. The building of a temple in 352 B.c. is more likely to have been faithfully recorded than that of a temple What is said of the pious pirate Timasitheos proves nothing. When Rome became powerful, many towns tried to discover some old connexion, either of relationship or friendship, and the Romans were not displeased to discover that their ancestors had enjoyed familiar intercourse with the Greek nation. Hence the story of the Delphian offering is probably nothing more than an idle tale, which the Delphians made up at the time when Rome became to the Greeks the object of fear or veneration. CHAP. XVI. Lake. The outlet of the Alban Lake, of which the legend speaks, The draining exists even at the present day. But whether it was made of the at the time of the last war with Veii, and how the legend Alban arose, it is perhaps impossible to determine. We can hardly suppose that Rome and Latium, just in the middle of a war which strained all their powers, would undertake an important public work, the object of which was, after all, only an agricultural improvement in the vicinity of the lake. It is far more probable that the outlet belongs to that period when the Etruscans had dominion in Latium, and when they constructed in Rome itself similar important works for draining the lower parts of the city. In the immediate neighbourhood of the Alban Lake was Tusculum, which was once Etruscan, and it is most likely that the outlet was made in the time before the expulsion of the Etruscans from this town, i.e. in the time of the Roman kings. Possibly during the siege of Veii an obstruction of the sewers made repairs or cleaning necessary, and thus the tradition may have arisen which ascribes the construction of the outlet to the time of the last Veientine war.1 eighty years earlier. We often discover the attempt of writers to exaggerate the age of historical monuments, especially when the object was to increase the antiquity and grandeur of a family. Such attempts were facilitated in Rome when the name of a particular family occurred in the earlier Fasti. For the year 431 B.C. the Fasti contained the name of C. Julius Mento as consul, and for the year 352 that of C. Julius Julus as dictator. The family chronicles of the Julian house were not satisfied with recording the dedication of the temple of Apollo by a Julius in 352. They claimed the same honour also for 431, in which year a C. Julius was consul. Hence the two contradictory statements. This is Schwegler's opinion (Röm. Gesch., iii. 220). Compare Abeken, Mittelitalien, p. 118, Anm. 4. BOOK II. Later features of the legend. Unhistorical details. Some of the stories of Camillus are evidently drawn from the imagination of a foreigner, probably a Greek, who was imperfectly acquainted with Roman customs and institutions, and therefore relates things and attributes motives which no Roman would have hit upon. Thus we are told that Camillus gave offence because on the occasion of his triumph he decorated himself with the insignia of Jupiter, and drove to the Capitol in a chariot drawn by four white horses. But we know that it was customary at Rome for the victorious general, on the day of his triumph, to personate, as it were, the Capitoline Jupiter, as if to show that Jupiter himself triumphed over the enemies of Rome.3 2 5 Not less open to objection is the story that, before the storming of Veii, the whole population of Rome were invited to share in the sack of the town. Who can think it compatible either with the strict Roman discipline, or with any kind of military order, to invite indiscriminately the populace of a town into the camp for the purpose of taking part in the plunder of a captured city ?6 Thus we find that, while the conquest of Veii is an incontrovertible historical fact, all the details connected with it in the annalistic reports are untrustworthy; nor we discover satisfactorily what consequences the Roman conquest had on the neighbouring Etruscan towns. can 1 See above, p. 79. To a like source must be traced the story of the commission sent to Athens before the decemvirate for the sake of studying Greek laws and usages.-Livy iii. 31. See Sir G. C. Lewis, Credibility of Early Roman History, ii. 222. 2 Livy, v. 23: 'Triumphus omnem consuetum honorandi diei illius modum aliquantum excessit. Maxime conspectus ipse est curru equis albis iuncto urbem invectus; parumque id non civile modo sed humanum etiam visum. Iovis Solisque equis æquiparari dictatorem in religionem etiam trahebant.' 3 * This is stated, curiously enough, by Livy himself (x. 7: 'Qui Iovis optimi maximi ornatu decoratus curru aurato per urbem vectus in Capitolium ascenderit') who seems to have forgotten his previous statement. See Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., iii. 228. Livy, v. 20, 21. According to Zonaras (vii. 21), only volunteers left Rome for the camp, and they also took part in the fighting. This is a material difference. ⚫ Compare especially Polybius, x. 16. • According to Livy, v. 21: Ingens profecta multitudo replevit castra.' XVI. The annalists report wars with Capena and Falerii,' and CHAP. even tell of military expeditions over the Ciminian mountains, the boundary of South Etruria, to Volsinii and Salpinum. How much of these accounts may be true it is not possible to decide; it seems, however, natural that, after the fall of Veii, the towns which had been subject to it, or closely allied with it, must likewise have fallen into the power of the Romans. This must have been the case with Capena, and also with Sutrium and Nepete, which from this time appear as subject to Rome. Falerii, on the other hand, maintained her independence, and Rome appears not to have shown herself at all hostile to Tarquinii and Cære, perhaps because they had remained neutral in the last war with Veii, or had even favoured Rome. ance of the The conquest of Veii was so important an extension of Importthe extremely narrow old Roman territory, that the former conquest acquisitions of the territory of Corioli and Fidenæ, as well of Veii. as the colonisation of Labici, become comparatively insignificant. Shortly after, in the year 387 B.C., four new tribes were added to the twenty-one original Roman tribes, and these new tribes perhaps surpassed the old ones in fertility as well as extent. The Roman state had now so decidedly grown in power, that its relations to the allied towns in Latium were essentially altered. If we are justified in supposing that Veii, before its fall, was about equal to Rome, the power of the latter was nearly doubled, and probably not one of the existing towns of Etruria was now a match for her. The wide space enclosed by the wall of the city could now be filled by a denser population, and the hills, which had thus far been largely used for agricultural purposes, could grow into a town. The wealth acquired by the capture of the works of art of the Etruscan town could not fail to give a strong impulse to industry, enterprise, and commerce. For the first time Rome obtained a great accession of slaves in the numerous captives,3 The story of the Faliscan schoolmaster is well known.-Livy, v. 27. Plutarch, Camill., 10. 2 Schwegler, Röm. Gesch., iii. 232. Müller, Etrusker, i. 360. Livy, v. 22: Libera corpora dictator sub corona vendidit.' BOOK II. who formed a skilled and industrious population; whilst the conquered country offered to the poor plebeian peasant, as well as to the wealthy patrician, abundant land for assignments and occupation. Rome, in her rapid development, was now in the act of emerging from the position of a federal capital of the Latins to become the mistress of a large country, when she was suddenly and unexpectedly overtaken by a disaster which threatened not only her growth, but her life, and which, like a hail-storm, swept away the first blossoms of the young republic. Six years after the destruction of Veii, the Gauls rioted amidst the smoking ruins of Rome. |