life and aliment of the Romans.* War was, with them, not an extraordinary adventure, but their habitual trade: and, in the flourishing periods of the Republic, it would be difficult to point to any high officer of State, who had not exercised previously a command in the army. Every Roman of the age of seventeen, was liable to be called out on military duty: the youth of patrician birth volunteered under some general of distinction: he might then return with the hope of attaining political eminence at home; but after having reached the apex at which he aimed, a military province was assigned to him, as soon as he was consul designatus: after the consulship the pro-consulship awaited him, which was in the nature of a military charge, and, for the most part, reserved for those of consular dignity. Hence, the aspirations of the noble Roman were military, his duties were military, and if he acquired any reputation, that was for a long period military too.f

Thus, the seeds of war were thickly sown at Rome: and the citizens were trained to the labors of a campaign as forming, in connection with politics, the grand purpose of existence. With a military spirit so generally diffused,-with so many occasions for its exercise, and so favorable a field ever open for its display, we need not be surprised at the perfect organization of the Roman armies,-an organization which Napoleon approved and adopted,‡-nor at the great results achieved in the wars of the Roman people.

But war, so sedulously and successfully pursued, was, by no means, the sole, or even the principal phenomenon in the Roman republic. In all the histories of Rome, and essays upon her institutions, it has been magnified into the most important feature, because the most prominent. Yet it was merely one of the necessary elements, subordinate to a higher and overruling power. It was only the engine for accomplishing the political aims of the State, and achieving that universal supremacy which the constitution of Rome comprehended in idea from its foundation. If the composi

* Vide Joseph. De Bell. Jud. lib. 3-another cause of the perpetual wars of Rome, was the rivalry and ambition of magistrates annually elected.

+ It is ludicrous, but lamentable, to see the anxiety of Cicero for the honors of a triumph, because, when pro-consul of Cilicia, he nearly equalled the adventurous exploit of the gallant Earl of Mar. Vide Epp. ad Att. lib. 5, Ep. 18, 20, 21, lib. 6, Ep. 3, 6, 8. Yet this shows the extent of this military ambition.

Alison's History of Europe.

tion of the Roman people had been given, the spirit of their early government, and the circumstances in which they were placed, we might readily have anticipated their conquests. Nay, more, we might have assumed the second of these data from the other two. It is necessary, therefore, to revert to the internal affairs of Rome. In the grave deliberations of the senate,—in the angry declamation of the comitia,-in the loose chattering of the mob under the porches of the temple, or at the corners of the streets,-in the noisy vociferations of the tribunes, or the whispered murmurings of political intriguants, we perceive the constant agitation which was going on,-the incessant struggle between the populus and the plebs.* These were the two great elements in the State, but they were antagonistical. We have already shown how even their fierce opposition conduced to the generation of Roman grandeur: we shall now see how completely they harmonized with each other in the pursuit of a common object. This object was their own personal elevation, and the aggrandizement of Rome. The commons contended at first for bread; when they got bread, they demanded property; when property was conceded to them, they aspired to dignities; when these were attained they claimed power, and seized it, then, after a period of the most turbulent anarchy, they submitted to the despotism for which they had paved the way. There is none of that enthusiastic and chivalrous ardor for liberty, which we notice in Greece: a sound, a name, an idea, has no influence over them,-they seek only the tangible. There is nothing abstract in the Roman mind if they declaim about justice, it is jus Romanum; if about liberty, it is jus civitatis; if about honour, honestum et utile become convertible terms. What they aimed at was the precise, the perceptible, the real: hence the peculiar character and subsequent perfection of the Roman Law. What we have said of the plebeians, we may say of the patricians, except so far as these feelings were modified by their position. The Roman senate was composed of men: the faculties of the practical working man were there dis

The populus included the cives jure optimo, the plebs the other cives, who formed a majority in numbers: hence the patricii were included in the populus. There is a very great looseness in the use of these terms in the classical authors, as might be proved from Sallust alone.

+ The highest name for excellence at Rome was vir-tus,-the sublimation of mere humanity,-the highest manifestation of manly qualities.

played in their healthiest harmony and most perfect form ;* but they were nothing more. If they seemed to Cineas a conclave of gods, it was because they were more tranquil, cold and passionless in expression, than the marble statues of the Grecian temples. All the tenderness and poetry of human nature, were non-existent for them: they had no aspirations which were not connected with Rome, and deducible from the Twelve Tables. Religion had none of the warmth with them that it had in Greece: it was a State ordinance, a traditionary observance, and the mores majorum must be complied with. The only vista of hope that opened on the view of the youthful patrician, was the arduous path that led from the tribunatus militaris to the consulship, their only futurity a succession of offices,—and, after death, a distinguished place among the imagines of an honoured and office-holding posterity. Nothing can be conceived more thoroughly passionless and human, than a Roman senator. The natural affections were extinguished in his bosom in his family he was lord and master,-a despot and a tyrant, not a father. To the ordinary polished frigidity of an hereditary and recognized aristocracy, he added the most stoical indifference: his actions were reason in the concrete; they were never impulsive: he was all hand and head, and no heart. Hence that intense and systematic selfishness, which regarded only himself and the State: the lubido acquirendi, the sacra fames auri governed his conduct and brooded over his legislation. He lived but for two things-to line his own nest, and to fill to a plethoric state the swollen veins of Rome. It must be said, however, that the Roman was ever ready to sacrifice himself for his country and her interests. The "dulce pro patria mori," was no hollow sentiment for him. This was the brightest trait in his character:-right or wrong, the Roman dies for Rome.

The subordination of the religious system to the political, flowed in great part from the existence of such feelings in the citizen, and such tendencies in the State. From the fiery furnace in which the elements of Rome were kept in constant fusion, this came forth among many other important results. But their religion would have preserved its own superiority and prevented the development of these peculiarities, check

* "Prudentissimus quisque Romanus negotiosus maxume erat: ingenium nemo sine corpore exercebat." Sallust. Conj. Cat., c. 8.

The Romans had no word for home-domus has not that meaning.

ed them in the bud, or crushed them by a higher and more potent influence, unless there had been something in its own essence, which precluded the exercise of any independent spirit. The Roman religion was, in its origin, syncretistic; it was a grave mummery to the initiated,-a solemn superstition to the blind.* It was a religion of forms and ceremonies the Romish Church may recognize its parent in the sacred rites of Numa, but this is knowledge which it can hardly be expected to have the wisdom to attain. As the ancient statues were, in the middle ages, consecrated to the name and the memory of the new demi-gods-the Saints of the Calendar, so the fragments of the old heathenism were baptized, honoured with new appellations, and admitted as main pillars into the edifice of the holy Catholic Church. But, in old Rome, there was no faith: the Roman Olympus was a region in nubibus: the existence of the divinities was recognized in the thunder,† and the plague; but, at other times, auspices and the other creations of superstition supplied the place of a heartfelt and efficacious creed. We need only examine the mythology and the religious observances of the Romans, to be convinced of the truth of these assertions.

That their religion was purely syncretistic, is evinced by its history and its spirit. Their earliest deities were those of a pastoral and agricultural people. Saturn (Sator-vitisator,) Janus bifrons, the god of the summer and winter,Pales, Faunus, Flora, Terminus, etc.,-these were the early divinities of Rome. Next came Quirinus,t from the Sabines; Jupiter Stator and Optimus Maximus, from some Greek fountain the system of auguries, etc., from the Etruscans, together with the forms and ceremonies of the sacred rites; then the canonized virtues, Concordia, Fors, Fortuna, etc.; nor should we omit such Pelasgian deities as Vulcan, Ceres,

* St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei. lib. 4, c. 31) remarks that the doctrine of Scævola and Varro, that it was necessary for the people to be ignorant of many true things, and to believe many false ones, unveiled the whole secret of Roman policy. Cicero disputed about auspices, and Pacuvius de

nied them.

There are many reasons which lead us to regard Quirinus as Sabine, but we have no room for their development,-1st, the affinity between Quirinus and Quirites; 2d, the connection of Janus and Quirinus; 3d, the improbability of Romulus taking the name of canonization from other people than his own; 4th, the want of evidence that any deification took place, etc.

After the inter

Bona Dea, Vesta, Neptunus Consus,* etc. course with Greece became more frequent, and all of Hellas was let loose on Rome, we have the whole of the immortal dwellers on Olympus naturalized on the banks of the Tiber, while the entire system is transmuted into an Hellenistic form. About the same period, if not earlier, commenced the introduction of the Egyptian divinities: and, in later times, we have Osiris, Isis and Serapis firmly enthroned in Rome. We might produce many other instances, even to that remarkable story, related of Tiberius, that he proposed to admit our Saviour into the sacred canon. Yet, all this was done in violation of her laws. There is enough here to show how completely syncretistic the Roman mythology was in its origin and its tendencies. Twice, indeed, the laws above alluded to were put in force; in the case of the Bacchanalians, and on the introduction of the rites of Isis and Serapis but the cause of their enforcement was not their being foreign gods, but the impurities of their worship, and their establishment by private individuals.

In passing, we would remark upon the almost inextricable confusion in which the mythological systems, both of Greece and Rome, have been involved, by the neglect of two notable peculiarities,-first, by inattention to the essential differences of the two creeds, and the total dissimilarity of the attributes of gods, supposed to be identical, even when Rome had adopted the divine Bead-roll of Greece: secondly, by the disregard of the changes in the religious systems of both countries, and their various aspects at different times. In Greece there were three distinct periods: the Ante-Homeric Mythology, of which scanty traces may be gleaned, principally from the pages of Pausanias, and the fragments of the Orphica. At this time the dominant element was the Pelasgic, and the struggle between the theology of the Pelasgi and that of the Doric races, forms a very interesting subject

* It is hazardous to identify Neptune and Consus. Neptune was not originally a marine god, as his epithets, ἐννοσίγαιος—ἐνοσίχθων σεισίχθων γαιήοχος—ἐλελίχθων might evince.

+ Among the legum leges propounded by Cicero, are "separatim nemo habessit Divos: neve novos, sive (neve?) advenas nisi publice adscitos privatim colunto-Ritus familiæ patrumque servanto. Quoque hæc privatim et publice modo rituque fiant, discunto ignari a publicis sacerdotibus." De Legg. ii. c. 8.

+ S. Q. R., vol. 3, p. 139.

§ Freinshem. Suppl. lib. lxxi., c. 23.