THE CAPITOL SAVED BY GEESE. 29 he was suckled by a wolf; but there is no more historical evidence for one story than the other. Except two or three notices of Polybius, we have nothing earlier than Livy and Dionysius, though they were but copyists of copyists.—Selected and abridged from the Saturday Review. HOW THE CAPITOL OF ROME WAS SAVED BY THE CACKLING OF GEESE. The goose appears to have been much maligned by the moderns, who term it a "stupid bird,” and even the trustworthiness of modern history has been impeached in support of this imputation. Every one recollects the story in Livy of the geese of Juno saving the Roman Capitol. The historical credit of this story depends in great measure upon the vigilant habits of the bird, and its superiority to the dog as a guardian. The alertness and watchfulness of the Wild Goose, which have made its chase proverbially difficult, appear, from the following testimony, to be characteristic of the bird in its domesticated state. The establishment of this fact we have in the following evidence, by Professor Owen, from Richmond Park: 66 Opposite the cottage where I live is a pond, which is frequented during the summer by two brood-flocks of Geese belonging to the keepers. These geese take up their quarters for the night along the margin of the pond, into which they are ready to plunge at a moment's notice. Several times when I have been up late, or wakeful, I have heard the old gander sound the alarm, which is immediately taken up, and has been sometimes followed by a simultaneous plunge of the flock into the pool. On mentioning this to the keeper, he, quite aware of the characteristic readiness of the Geese to sound an alarm in the night, attributed it to a foumart, or other predatory vermin. On other occasions the cackling has seemed to be caused by a deer stalking near the flock. But often has the old Roman anecdote occurred to me, when I have been awoke by the midnight alarm-notes of my anserine neighbours ; and more than once I have noticed, when the cause of alarm has been such as to excite the dogs of the next-door keeper, that the Geese were beforehand in giving loud warning of the strange steps. "I have never had the smallest sympathy with the sceptics as to Livy's statement: it is not a likely one to be feigned; it is in exact accordance with the characteristic acuteness of sight and hearing, watchfulness and power, and instinct to utter alarm-cries, of the goose.” The Gray Lag Goose, identical with the domestic goose of our farmyards, is the Anser of the Romans-the same that saved the Capitol by its vigilance, and was cherished accordingly. Pliny (lib. x., c. xxii.) speaks of this bird at much length, stating how they were driven from a distance on foot to Rome; he mentions the value of the feathers of the white ones, and relates that in some places they were plucked twice a year. In the Palazzo de' Conservatori, fifth room, are "two Ducks, in bronze, said to have been found in the Tarpeian Rock, and to be the representation of those ducks which saved the Capitol.”—Starke. 30 ROME, THE MISTRESS OF THE WORLD. The liver of the goose seems to have been a favourite morsel with epicures in all ages, and their invention appears to have been active in exercising the means of increasing the volume of that organ. The pate de foie d'oie de Strasburg is not more in request now than were the great goose-livers in the time of the Romans. See Pliny, Hist. lib. x. c. 22, &c. The Egyptian goose, which appears to be the Chelanopex of the Greeks, was much prized on account of its eggs, second only to those of the peacock. Alian notices this bird, and speaks of its cunning. But it is Herodotus who draws our attention to the bird as one of those held sacred by the Egyptians; and the researches of modern travellers have fully shown that it was at least a favourite dish with the priests. It is impossible to look at the paintings and sculptures-many will be found in the British Museum, and many more copied in Rocellini's, and other works of the same kind—without being struck with the frequent occurrence of geese represented both alive and plucked, and prepared for the table. That some of these represent the Chelanopex there can be no doubt. It is of frequent occurrence on the sculptures in the British Museum, though it was not a sacred bird; unless it may have some claims to that honour from having been a luxurious article of food for the priests. A place in Upper Egypt had its name Chenoboscion, or Chenoboscia (goose-pens), from these animals being fed there, probably for sale; though there may have been sacred geese, for the goose, we are told, was a bird under the care of Isis. The tame goose is very long-lived. "A certain friend of ours," says Willoughby, "of undoubted fidelity, told us that his father had once a goose that was known to be eighty years old, which, for aught he knew, might have lived another eighty years, had he not been constrained to kill it for its mischievousness in beating and destroying the younger geese." Dr. Buckland describes and figures from the clay in which the remains of elephant and rhinoceros are so often found, the humerus of a bird in size and shape nearly resembling that of a goose, which, says Dr. Buckland, "is the first example within my knowledge of the bones of birds being noticed in the diluvium of England." The name of gooseberry has been most probably applied from the fruit being made into a sauce and used for young or green geese. ROME, THE MISTRESS OF THE WORLD. An achievement almost unrivalled in military annals was the strategic march by Nero, which deceived Hannibal, and defeated Asdrubal. The first intelligence of Nero's return to Carthage, was the sight of Asdrubal's head thrown into his camp. When Hannibal saw this, he exclaimed, with a sigh, that "Rome would now be the mistress of the world." And yet, to this victory of Nero's it might be owing that his imperial namesake reigned at all. But the infamy of the one has eclipsed the glory of the other. CHARACTER OF CATO. 31 When the name of Nero is heard, who thinks of the consul? But such are human things!-Lord Byron: Notes to the Island. The virtues of Hannibal were counterbalanced by vices of equal magnitude: inhuman cruelty, perfidy beyond that of a Carthaginian, no regard for truth, no sense of religious obligations, no fear of the gods, and no respect for an oath. Livy ascribes to him actions which the reader is unwilling to believe of so great a man, such as making bridges and ramparts of the bodies of the dead, and even teaching his men to feed on human flesh! During the sixteen years he was in Italy, he destroyed 400 towns, and killed 300,000 men in battle. After his submission to Rome, he was persecuted by the Romans with rancour disgraceful to their national character. After wandering about destitute and forlorn, he sought the protection of Prusias, king of Bithynia, whom, however, the Romans compelled to surrender the aged and excited Hannibal a sacrifice to their vengeance, and being beset in his fort by armed men, he swallowed poison, and expired, in 185 B.C.; but other accounts of his death are given. EXTENT OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. We are sometimes under a little delusion in the estimates we form of the magnitude of the Roman Empire, or the multitude of troops that it maintained. Russia surpasses it in extent of territory, and maintains an army considerably more numerous. France and Austria, who rank nex: to Russia in the number of their standing armies, could singly bring into the field a much larger force than the whole Roman Empire. The military force of the Pagan Empire is here estimated at 450,000 men; the Christian monarchies of France and Austria are each of them reputed to maintain an army of 650,000 men. And when we reflect upon the invention of gunpowder, and the enormous force of artillery, it is evident that any one of the first-rate powers of modern Europe could bring into the field a destructive force that would sweep from the face of the earth the thirty legions of Adrian. The very division of Europe into a number of States involves this increase of soldiery. In the old Roman Empire, the great Mediterranean Sea lay peaceful as a lake, and the Roman ships had nothing to dread but the winds and the waves; whereas in modern Europe many quite artificial boundaries have to be guarded by an array of soldiers. Belgium defends her flats with a hundred thousand men, and the marshes of Holland are secured by sixty thousand Dutch."-Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. 66 CHARACTER OF CATO. Dr. Mommsen, in his History of Rome, gives the following depreciatory and unjust character of this "noble Roman":— "Cato was anything but a great man; but with all that shortsightedness, that perversity, that dry prolixity, and those spurious phrases which have stamped him, for his own and for all time, as the ideal of unreflect 32 MIDDLETON'S LIFE OF CICERO. ing republicanism, and the favourite of all who make it their hobby, he was yet the only man who honourably and courageously defended in the last struggles the great system doomed to destruction. It only elevates the deep and tragic significance of his death, that he was himself a fool; in truth, it is just because Don Quixote is a fool that he is a tragic feature. It is an affecting fact, that on that world stage on which so many great and wise men had moved and acted, the fool was destined to give the epilogue. His greatest title to respect is the involuntary homage which Cæsar rendered to him when he made an exception to the contemptuous clemency with which he was wont to treat his opponents, Pompeians as well as Republicans, in the case of Cato alone." CÆSAR'S CONQUEST OF GAUL. Dr. Mommsen, in his History of Rome, does not conceal the atrocities committed by Cæsar in this war, nor yet the carnage of the vanquished nation; nor does he dwell with too much emphasis on Cæsar's clemency in pacifying Gaul, or extol too highly his settlement of the province. He knows that a solitude may be called peace, and he is perfectly aware to what account the great Proconsul turned his conquest. But he tries to make us forget these deeds in contemplating the glorious results so far as regards the safety of Rome, and he persists not only in describing Cæsar as conquering Gaul in the interests of humanity, but he thinks him entitled to claim credit for all that ever flowed from the conquest. This, the merest fallacy of hero-worship, is thus exemplified : “What the Gothic Theodoric achieved was nearly effected by Ariovistus. Had it so happened, our civilization would have hardly stood in any more intimate relation to the Romano-Greek than to the Indian and Assyrian culture. That there is a bridge connecting the past story of Hellas and Rome with the prouder fabric of modern history; that Western Europe is Romanic and Germanic Europe classic; that the names of Themistocles and Scipio have to us a very different sound from those of Asoka and Salmanassar; that Homer and Sophocles are not merely like the Vedas and Kalidasa, attractive to the literary botanist, but bloom for us in our own garden-all this is the work of Cæsar; and while the creation of his great antagonist in the East has been almost reduced to ruin by the tempests of the Middle Ages, the structure of Cæsar has outlasted these thousands of years, and stands erect for what we may term perpetuity." MIDDLETON'S LIFE OF CICERO. Macaulay has observed that the fanaticism of the devout worshipper of genius is proof against all evidence and all argument. The character of his idol is matter of faith; and the province of faith is not to be invaded by reason. He maintains his superstition with a credulity as MIDDLETON'S LIFE OF CICERO. 33 boundless and a zeal as unscrupulous as can be found in the most ardent partisans of religious or political factions. The most decisive proofs are rejected; the plainest rules of morality are explained away; extensive and important portions of history are completely distorted The enthusiast represents facts with all the effrontery of an advocate, and confounds right and wrong with all the dexterity of a Jesuit; and all this only in order that some man who has been in his grave many ages may have a fairer character than he deserves. "Middleton's Life of Cicero is a striking instance of the influence of this sort of partiality. Never was there a character which it was easier to read than that of Cicero. Never was there a mind keener or more critical than that of Middleton. Had the biographer brought to his examination of his favourite statesman's conduct but a very small part of the acuteness and sense which he displayed when he was engaged in investigating the high pretensions of Epiphanius and Justin Martyr, he could not have failed to produce a most valuable history of a most interesting portion of time; but this most ingenious and learned man, though So wary held and wise, That, as 'twas said, he scarce received had a superstition of his own. The great Iconoclast was himself an idolater. The great Avvocato del Diavolo, while he disputed, with no small ability, the claims of Cyprian and Athanasius to a place in the calendar, was himself composing a lying legend in honour of St. Tully. He was holding up as a model of every virtue a man whose talents and acquirements, indeed, can never be too highly extolled, and who was by no means destitute of amiable qualities, but whose whole soul was under the dominion of a girlish vanity and a craven fear. Actions for which Cicero himself, the most eloquent and skilful of advocates, could conceive no excuse, actions which in his confidential correspondence he mentioned with remorse and shame, are represented by his biographer as wise, virtuous, heroic. The whole history of the great revolution which overthrew the Roman aristocracy, the whole state of parties, the character of every public man, is elaborately misrepresented, in order to make out something which may look like a defence of one most eloquent and accomplished trimmer. We are not surprised that the Emperor of the French, in his Life of Julius Cæsar, should have made the most of the weakness of Cicero, and should have glossed over his eminent qualities, for, unluckily, Cicero's view of Cæsar contradicts that of his imperial admirer. Every schoolboy can appreciate the vanity of the accomplished philosopher and rhetorician; and we quite admit that on some occasions he seems to have been timid and vacillating, that he tried to keep well with both parties in the State, and that he was a lukewarm adherent, as well as a placable antagonist. But Cicero displayed consummate ability in overwhelming the conspiracy of Catiline; his civil and even his military services in his provincial government were conspicuous; and, by his D |
