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as in early Rome. Of these, Velitræ, Satricum, and Lavici, disappear from history, the two first being violently destroyed, and the third fallen to ruin. But the rest,-Signia, Circeii, Norba, Sutrium, Nepete,—are afterwards called Latin colonies; namely, (says Ihne,) because the populace retained from their first foundation only those inferior rights which were afterwards called Latin. Madvig has on the contrary inferred, that they must all have been originally Latin: but though this cannot be disproved of Signia and Circeii, which are referred to the regal period, Ihne will not admit it of Norba,—from its site beyond the Latin limits; nor of Sutrium and Nepete,-because they were planted during hostilities with Latium; the former, seven years after the Gallic conflagration according to Valerius, the latter B. C. 382,-Liv. vi. 21. When the plebeians had established full and equal rights with the patricians in Rome itself, we may perhaps believe that, even without express enactment, (for no one can refer to the Lex Genucia de Fœnore,) full and equal rights in the Roman colonies followed of course. The zeal for Latin colonies which presently springs up, is then well explained by Ihne, as a new artifice of the nobility. He adds, that C. Flaminius's colony in Picenum, against which the aristocracy was so furious, and by which the people were so delighted, must have been a Roman one. The words of Cicero (De Senect. 4,) "agrum viritim contra senatus auctoritatem dividenti,” imply that the mode of division was in some sense a new thing, of which the senate disapproved; and in so far it countenances Ihne's idea, that in the ordinary colonies the plebeians did not receive a perfect and clear freehold. Since Latin colonies were founded with the senate's sanction at Brundusium (B. C. 244,) at Spoletum (242,) and again at Cremona and Placentia (218,) in the Gallic land itself, he infers that the Picenian colony of 232, which so displeased the senate, must have had strictly Roman rights. A priori (all will probably concede to Ihne,) the whole policy of Rome, and the confessions of ancient writers that every colony was an image of the mother city, justify us in believing, that at a time when the plebeians were depressed at home, they were also depressed in the colonies, as far as all political right was concerned: but it is not so clear that no greater substantial rights, as of land, were there granted them; and if there had not been any, it is difficult to

imagine how the patricians ever expected to induce men to expose themselves on the frontier.

That Dr. Ihne rightly rejects Niebuhr's doctrine, of the plebeians possessing the decisive majority in the Comitia Centuriata, appears to be testified by every page of the history: but we need not infer that all of that order were sedulously kept down. If plebeians were introduced into the senate in the regal times, or by the first consuls, we must surely look upon it merely as an ennobling of them into patricians, so as to draw off from the commoners those who would else have been their leaders against the aristocracy. Instead of doubting the fact, with Ihne, we should rather be disposed to think it one of the causes which left the poor plebeians so helpless; for such a measure would elevate only individuals, and weaken the order which they had left. That, as an order, they were exceedingly depressed immediately after the struggle against the Tarquins, is too plain to insist upon; and it seems wonderful how any one can have imagined that they were supreme in the Comitia Centuriata, which was the sovereign power of the nation. Niebuhr was, perhaps, led into this paradox by his theory, that the patricians formed only six centuries of knights in the Servian comitia ; whom he identifies with the Sex Suffragia of Festus. But he names Festus only to say that he was quite mistaken; and then deliberately sets aside the testimony of Livy, Dionysius, and Cicero, who describe these Comitia as giving all power to the rich, and hereby to the noble and few. We may admit to him that it is remarkable, if the centuriate assembly was timocratic, and the curiate aristocratic; but there is no real contradiction here, any more than between a House of Commons and of Lords in England: and, on the whole, such a constitution agrees very well with the history. But to infer with Niebuhr, that "the preponderance, nay, the whole power in the Centuriata, lay with the plebs," would involve exactly the state of things which he had just pointed at (vol. I. p. 433,)—the rending asunder of the nation between two co-ordinate and hostile bodies. If the plebs had really been predominant in the centuriata, what could have made them so eager for the tributa comitia? and what could possibly have forced them to contend by Secessions, and by the Intercessio of the tribune, not by the assembly itself? Niebuhr may, in many places, seem to reply,-Because the clients outvoted the plebs. But this is to allow that

the plebs was not decisively predominant, and it swells the clients into a nation of rich men. For, that wealth predominated in that assembly, (only not patrician wealth,) is fully conceded by Niebuhr.8

F. W. N.

IV.

COMMENTARIES ON, AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF, THE ENEIS OF VIRGIL.

BY JAMES HENRY, M.D.,

Fellow of the College of Physicians, Dublin.

PART I.-COMPREHENDING THE FIRST 350 LINES
OF BOOK I.

Ille ego, &c.-Imitated both by Spenser and Milton:-
Lo! I, the man whose muse whylome did maske,
As time her taught, in lowly shepheard's weeds,
Am now enforst a farre unfitter taske,

For trumpets sterne to chaunge mine oaten reeds,
And sing of knights' and ladies' gentle deeds.

Faerie Queene, st. 1.

I who erewhile the happy garden sung.

Par. Reg. v. 1.

V. 1. Martis arma.-Martis joined with arma is not (as a hasty view has led some commentators to suppose,) supererogatory; because arma is not a specific term, corresponding to the English arms, and like it applicable only to martial weapons, but a general term, applicable to all kinds of implements, martial, agricultural, (Georg. 1. 160,) nautical, (En. v.15,) culinary, (En. I. 177,) &c. Martis is therefore a proper adjunct to arma, and

8 Dr. Ihne writes as if it were a new thing to dissent from Niebuhr's view of these Comitia: but even Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, in his History of Rome, (p. 75,) acquiesces in the common view,

that "patricians and plebeians met on a footing of equality; for there the importance of every citizen was determined by no other standard than that of property and age."

in the present instance peculiarly proper, because it was incumbent on the poet, well to distinguish between the arma, the subject of his present poem, and the arma, of which he had treated in that former poem to which, in the passage before us, he makes direct reference. Having formerly defined the arma of which he was then treating, as those quæ sint duris agrestibus-Queis sine nec potuere seri nec surgere messes, (Georg. I. 160,) he now defines the arma which form his present theme, to be arma Martis: hence, as from every observation which tends to shew the correctness of their diction, an additional argument in favour of the authenticity of the four introductory lines of the Eneis. For a further argument, derived from the same source, see comment, En. II. 247.

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V. 4. Sava.-The Latin savus has never been correctly defined by any lexicographer. It means, I think, possessed of, or exercising a strong power to injure; and corresponding more nearly to the Greek dervos than to either of its usually assigned German and English equivalents "streng" and "fierce," has an invariable reference to the infliction or forcible causing of something evil,—some pain, punishment, harm, wrong, or damage, V. 11. Tantæne animis, &c.-Oft imitated line :

In heavenly spirits could such perverseness dwell?

Par. Lost, VI. 788.

And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty rage?

Rape of the Lock, 1. 12.

Tant de fiel entre t'il dans l'ame des devots ?

Boileau, Lutrin. 1.

32. Acti fatis.-Ever since the time of Servius, these words have been understood to be equivalent to jactati fatis: "Si odio Junonis fatigabantur quomodo dixit acti fatis? sed hoc ipsum Junonis odium fatale est," Servius. On the contrary, actus

is never jactatus, but always impulsus; and the impulsion by the Fates not only does not coincide with the impulsion by Juno, but it is directly contrary to it. The Eneada are driven onward, or toward Latium, by the Fates, (acti Fatis,) while, at the same time, they are driven backward, or from Latium, by Juno (arcebat longe Latio.) The result is, "multos per annos errabant maria omnia circum:" words could not more clearly express the opposition of the forces between which the Eneada are placed; an opposition on which hangs the whole action of the poem.

V. 45. Turbine corripuit, &c.—

Caught in a fiery tempest shall be hurled,

Each on his rock transfixed.-Par. Lost, п. 180.

V. 56. Celsa sedet Eolus arce.-Heyne, whose interpretation of this passage is silently acquiesced in by Wagner, understands Eolus to be represented as seated on an arx or eminence or peak of the mountain outside the cave in which the winds are confined." Celsa in arce, extra antrum, alto in montis cacumine, infra (vers. 140) aula dicta, seu regia;" but, 1st, the picture thus presented of sceptred Eolus seated outside on a peak of the mountain, within which the winds are confined, is not very far removed from the ridiculous; 2dly, the words vasto antro are placed so much more immediately in contact with the words rex Eolus than with the words ventos tempestatesque, that it is hardly possible to doubt that they are connected with the former and not with the latter, and that their meaning is, King Eolus, in a vast cave, keeps down the winds with his empire, and not King Eolus keeps down with his empire, the winds in a vast cave. 3dly, the aula in which (as admitted by all commentators,) the arx was situated, is plainly declared by the epexegetic et in Neptune's message to Eolus, (vers. 140,) to be one and the same with the carcer ventorum. 4thly, it is not easy to conceive how Eolus could, from his seat on the arx, exercise his office of mollifying the spirits and tempering the anger of the winds, (celsa sedet Eolus arce, mollitque animos et temperat iras,) if the arx were outside the mountain, and the winds within. 5thly, the opening made in the side of the mountain by Eolus seated on the summit, must have been so near to, and so much in the direction of the summit, that the course of the winds rushing through it, would have been, not,

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