HORATIUS. THERE can be little doubt that among those parts of early Roman history which had a poetical origin was the legend of Horatius Cocles. We have several versions of the story, and these versions differ from each other in points of no small importance. Polybius, there is reason to believe, heard the tale recited over the remains of some Consul or Prætor descended from the old Horatian patricians, for he introduces it as a specimen of the narratives with which the Romans were in the habit of embellishing their funeral oratory. It is remarkable that according to him Horatius defended the bridge alone, and perished in the waters. According to the chronicles which Livy and Dionysius followed, Horatius had two companions, swam safe to shore, and was loaded with honours and rewards. These discrepancies are easily explained. Our own literature, indeed, will furnish an exact parallel to what may have taken place at Rome. It is highly probable that the memory of the war of Porsena was preserved by compositions much resembling the two ballads which stand first in the Relics of Ancient English Poetry. In both those ballads the English, commanded by the Percy, fight with the Scots, commanded by the Douglas. In one of the ballads the Douglas is killed by a nameless English archer, and the Percy by a Scottish spearman in the other the Percy slays the Douglas in single combat, and is himself made prisoner. In the former, Sir Hugh Montgomery is shot through the heart by a Northumbrian bowman in the latter he is taken, and exchanged for the Percy. Yet both the ballads relate to the same event, and that an event which probably took place within the memory of persons who were alive when both the ballads were made. One of the minstrels says: "Old men that knowen the grounde well yenoughe Call it the battel of Otterburn: At Otterburn began this spurne Ther was the dougghte Doglas slean: The other poet sums up the event in the following lines : "Thys fraye bygan at Otterborne It is by no means unlikely that there were two old Roman lays about the defence of the bridge; and that, while the story which Livy has transmitted to us was preferred by the multitude, the other, which ascribed the whole glory to Horatius alone, may have been the favourite with the Horatian house. The following ballad is supposed to have been made about a hundred and twenty years after the war which it celebrates, and just before the taking of Rome by the Gauls. The author seems to have been an honest citizen, proud of the military glory of his country, sick of the disputes of factions, and much given to pining after good old times which had never really existed. The allusion, however, to the partial manner in which the public lands were allotted could proceed only from a plebeian; and the allusion to the fraudulent sale of spoils marks the date of the poem, and shows that the poet shared in the general discontent with which the proceedings of Camillus, after the taking of Veii, were regarded. The penultimate syllable of the name Porsena has been shortened in spite of the authority of Niebuhr, who pronounces, without assigning any ground for his opinion, that Martial was guilty of a decided blunder in the line, "Hanc spectare manum Porsena non potuit." It is not easy to understand how any modern scholar, whatever his attainments may be--and those of Niebuhr were undoubtedly immense-can venture to pronounce that Martial did not know the quantity of a word which he must have A LAY MADE ABOUT THE YEAR OF THE CITY CCCLX. I. LARS PORSENA of Clusium By the Nine Gods he swore And bade his messengers ride forth, To summon his array. II. East and west and south and north The messengers ride fast, And tower and town and cottage Have heard the trumpet's blast. Shame on the false Etruscan Who lingers in his home, When Porsena of Clusium Is on the march for Rome. III. The horsemen and the footmen Are pouring in amain From many a stately market-place; From many a fruitful plain; From many a lonely hamlet, Which, hid by beech and pine, Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest IV. From lordly Volaterræ, Where scowls the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants For godlike kings of old; From seagirt Populonia, Whose sentinels descry Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops Fringing the southern sky; V. From the proud mart of Pisa, Heavy with fair-haired slaves; From where sweet Clanis wanders Through corn and vines and flowers; From where Cortona lifts to heaven Her diadem of towers. VI. Tall are the oaks whose acorns Drop in dark Auser's rill; Fat are the stags that champ the boughs Of the Ciminian hill; Beyond all streams Clitumnus Is to the herdsman dear; Best of all pools the fowler loves VII. But now no stroke of woodman Is heard by Auser's rill; No hunter tracks the stag's green path Up the Ciminian hill; Unwatched along Clitumnus Grazes the milk-white steer; Unharmed the water fowl may dip In the Volsinian mere. VIII. The harvests of Arretium, This year, the must shall foam Round the white feet of laughing girls Whose sires have marched to Rome. IX. There be thirty chosen prophets, Both morn and evening stand: Have turned the verses o'er, Traced from the right on linen white By mighty seers of yore. X. And with one voice the Thirty Have their glad answer given: "Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena; Go forth, beloved of Heaven; Go, and return in glory To Clusium's royal dome; And hang round Nurscia's altars The golden shields of Rome." XI. And now hath every city Sent up her tale of men; The foot are fourscore thousand, Is met the great array. Upon the trysting day. XII. For all the Etruscan armies Were ranged beneath his eye, And many a banished Roman, And many a stout ally; And with a mighty following To join the muster came The Tusculan Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name XIII. But by the yellow Tiber A mile around the city, The throng stopped up the ways; A fearful sight it was to see Through two long nights and days. XIV. For aged folks on crutches, And women great with child, And mothers sobbing over babes That clung to them and smiled, And sick men borne in litters High on the necks of slaves, And troops of sun-burned husbandmen With reaping hooks and staves, XV. And droves of mules and asses Laden with skins and wine, And endless flocks of goats and sheep, And endless herds of kine, And endless trains of waggons, That creaked beneath the weight Of corn-sacks and of household goods, Choked every roaring gate. |