assumption that these two words are to be regarded as conclusive evidence of Egyptian settlements at Athens,-in short, as proving the historical character as well as the Egyptian origin of Kekrops or Cecrops, Erechtheus, and Erichthonios. Now it is quite possible that real personages bearing these names may have lived at Athens or elsewhere; but it is the bounden duty of anyone who speaks of them, especially to young students, to recount honestly and straightforwardly the stories related of them. To put aside every single feature of their mythical history and then to insist on their reality as a manifest and ascertained fact is simply to speak falsely and to deceive. But the student is not told here what is related of these beings, nor is so much as a hint given that the stories told of them were of a totally different kind from the dry and dull outlines of prosaic probabilities which are put before him in these pages. When he speaks of the Parian marble, Mr. Rawlinson informs his readers that it exhibited a chronological arrangement of im'portant events in Greek history from the accession of Cecrops to the archonship of Callistratus, B.C. 355.'* If Mr. Rawlinson holds that blind submission to their teachers and guides is the whole duty of the young, he may perhaps feel himself justified in using such expressions; but if he believes that it is the duty of a teacher to speak the truth and not to put forth as certain that which he knows at the least to be not certain, we need not say how sadly his practice falls short of his theory. Not a hint is thrown out that any of the statements here put forward as facts have been seriously called into question or absolutely denied; and from the words of Mr. Rawlinson it would be impossible for any student to gather that there is any essential difference between the accession of Kekrops and the archonship of Kallistratos. So far as the form of the expression is concerned, they are both historical events, and Kekrops succeeds his predecessor, whoever he may have been, as George IV. followed George III. In the same fashion we are told that the Eupatrids had acquired power 'enough under the kings to abolish monarchy at the death

in another, with which it has no affinity, while all reference is omitted to other dialects with which it is really akin, the labours of philologists become rather less profitable than child's play. If Athênê is to be ex

plained by Neith, we must also account on the same ground for the Sanskrit Ahanâ and Dahanâ and the Greek Daphne. Hephaistos is, as Professor Max Müller has shown, the Sanskrit javishtha, a superlative of which the Greek Hêbê, like the Latin juvenis, represents the positive.'-Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, II. 194.

Manual, p. 7.

of Codrus, and to substitute for it the life-archonship, which, though confined to the descendants of Codrus, was not a royal dignity, but a mere chief magistracy.'* 'Thirteen 'such archons,' he adds, held office before any further change 'was made, their united reigns covering a space of about three ' centuries, B.C. 1050 to 752,' when the Eupatrids determined that the archons should be elected for ten years, an arrangement which remained in force until the supreme power was 'put in commission, B.C. 684.' All these changes are stated without qualification as facts; and, from the historical point of view, they are either facts or utterly worthless fictions. Unless we are to speak of the reigns of Bladud, or Lear, or Lucius of Britain, as we speak of the reigns of Charles I. or Queen Anne, it is simply disingenuous to speak of the accession of a king who is dragon-bodied, whose father was a snake, whose mother was the dew, and whose sister was married to the darling of the dawn. Is it honest to keep back from the young at the present day the knowledge that, in the opinion of one so sober in his scepticism as Niebuhr, the years of the archons for life have as little authenticity as those of Theseus and Erech'theus,' and that we know absolutely nothing of the history ' of Attica under the government of the archons for life, and those who held their office for ten years, until we approach the time of Solon"? Is it fair to withhold the statement that for this whole period we possess two lists, but do not know a single fact, if we except the mention of the ayos Kvλóvelov and the legislation of Dracon,'t-in short, that for a supposed period of some twelve or fourteen centuries, covered by the chronology of the Parian marble, there are only about two centuries and a half for which we have any history at all?

It is the same everywhere. At Argos we have a political reaction which sets in about B.C. 780-770,'' on the accession ' of a monarch of more than ordinary capacity.' This is Pheidôn, a great man in every way.' But Mr. Rawlinson does not say why he assigns him to the years B.C. 780-770 rather than to either of the two dates B.C. 895 and 748 (separated by an interval of only 147 years), which are usually said

* Manual, p. 133.

†These words of Niebuhr are quoted by Sir Cornewall Lewis in his analysis of the evidence which proves the completely fictitious nature of Athenian history as a whole down to a time removed by not much more than two centuries from the age of Perikles. (Credibility of Early Roman History, ii. 548.)

Manual, p. 126.

6

to mark the beginning of his rule. His mode of dealing with Homeric traditions is simply that of Euêmeros. The story of the Trojan war is set aside because it is full of marvels, and the expedition is ascribed to a cause which is not among the causes alleged by Herodotus or Thucydides, by Sterichoros or Dion Chrysostom, by Mr. Gladstone or Mr. Blackie. If we turn to his account of Rome, we find the same astonishing credulity, and the same unreasoning and unfounded scepticism which mark his history of the Eastern monarchies. As he there disliked the look of the names Chômasbêlos and Euechios, so here he thinks that the names of Romulus, Titus Tatius, and Numa Pompilius seem fictitious,' while he insists that there is every reason to believe' that Tullus Hostilius, the third traditional monarch,' actually lived and reigned.'* If the reader asks why, there is no answer to be given beyond the fact that Mr. Rawlinson chooses to think so. There is no pretence of a contemporary history for the time. The reign is one of a series, the whole chronology of which has been conclusively shown and emphatically declared by Niebuhr to be a forgery and a fiction;' and it is followed by a crowd of events for some centuries, the accounts of which are, for the most part, contradictory, impossible, or absurd. The very conquest which, in Mr. Rawlinson's opinion, establishes the historical character of Tullus, is signalised by the fight of the Horatii and Curiatii; but, apart from all the other improbabilities of the legend, the tombs to which later writers appealed in proof of the fact are no better evidence for it than the tools of Epeus at Metapontum are of the Trojan horse, or the pickled sow at Lavinium of the prodigy seen by Æneas.'† When Mr. Rawlinson, speaking of the early years of the Republic, says that no plebeian was allowed to enjoy the honours of the consulship after Brutus, he forgets to state

6

* Manual, p. 341.

† Sir G. C. Lewis, Credibility of Early Roman History, i. 462. Dr. Ihne says emphatically of this king that 'wherever we begin, and whichever portion we examine of the legends of Romulus and Tullus, 'we arrive always at the same result, viz., that the alleged history of 'these two kings resolves itself into two different versions of the same 'old legend, in which the most careful research can discover no trace of genuine historical truth.' (History of Rome, Book I. ch. iv.) We are glad to learn that an English translation of this excellent history will shortly appear, and we cannot but anticipate the most wholesome results from the publication of a work in which the author so scrupulously lays before the reader whatever may be needed to enable him to form his judgment on the several questions discussed.

that he is here following a mere guess of Niebuhr, made in the teeth of all the old historians who profess to tell the story.

We are not called on to wade through pages of dry and dull summaries, which are as trustworthy and as amusing as the legend of Jack the Giant Killer, with the giant, the giant's wife, the beanstalk ladder, and the hen which laid the golden egg every morning, all left out. We cannot, however, pass in silence Mr. Rawlinson's account of the Decemviral legislation; and our anxiety to do him justice must be our excuse for giving it, so far as we can, in his own words. The first Decemvirs,' we are told, did not disappoint the expectations formed of them. In their codification of the laws they did little but stereotype "the existing practice, putting, for the most part, into a written 'form what had previously been matter of precedent and usage. . . . The code of the Twelve Tables-fons omnis publici privatique juris-which dates from this time, was a most ' valuable digest of the early Roman law, and even in the fragmentary state in which it has come down to us, deserves 'careful study.'* If words mean anything, we have here the positive statement that the Twelve Tables were drawn up by the Decemvirs of the first year. Where is this version of the story found? Not in Livy, or Dionysios, or Diodoros, or Cicero. And why should the student be left to suppose that there was no difference of character between the Ten Tables, which are said to be the work of the first Decemvirs, and the Two Tables, which were added, we are told, in the second year? Why should he not be told that the former were considered just, the latter iniquitous; that the former were fixed up in a conspicuous part of the forum in the first year, while the latter, for some mysterious reason, became law only after the fall of the Decemvirs? The main work' of the Decemvirs, Mr. Rawlinson adds, was the constitution which they devised and sought to establish. In lieu of the double magistracy, half Patrician and half Plebeian, which had recently divided the State, and had threatened actual disruption, the De'cemvirs instituted a single governmental body,-a board of ten, half Patrician and half Plebeian, which was to supersede ' at once the consulate and the tribunate, and to be the sole Roman executive. The centuries were to elect; and the Patrician assembly was, probably, to confirm the election. It is suspected that the duration of the office was intended to 'exceed a year; but this is, perhaps, uncertain. Fairly as this constitution was intended, and really liberal as were its

* Manual, p. 357.

'provisions, as a practical measure of relief it failed entirely. One member of the board, Appius Claudius, obtained a complete ascendency over his colleagues, and persuaded them, as soon as they came into office, to appear and act as tyrants.' The serenity with which Mr. Rawlinson proceeds to weave his historical web out of his inner consciousness is amazing: how the process is reconciled with his sense of truthfulness it is not for us to say. But it is impossible to deny that the second Decemvirate is here represented as a constitutional change distinctly contemplated and devised by the first Decemvirs. Why are we not told that these Decemvirs, at the end of their term, resigned their offices, and went on to hold the comitia for the election of the ordinary magistrates, when the people interfered and insisted on the continuance of the Decemvirate for another year, and that this change was not, therefore, suggested or planned by the Decemvirs themselves? Why are we not told that this very story of their resignation constitutes one of the many overwhelming difficulties beneath the burden of which the whole narrative is crushed,-that if Appius did so resign, it is impossible that he should have behaved afterwards as he did, and that in any case ten men. (even if we admit the absurd supposition of their perfect unanimity †) could without guards, without resources, and without an army, have withstood all other orders and classes in the State whom they had roused to righteous indignation and fury by their misdoings? When Mr. Rawlinson says that the yoke of the Decemvirs pressed most heavily on the Plebeians, why does he not add that it was, at the least, as hateful to the Patricians? Why does he not so much as breathe a hint that the narratives which we are apt to call the histories of these times are full of inconsistencies and contradictions,-that although they belong to a period some two centuries earlier than that of the first writers of Roman history, and to a time the records of which are said to have been burnt when Rome was sacked by the Gauls, they are yet drawn out with a minuteness of detail and a vividness of colouring which could be supplied only by eye-witnesses, or by others to whom these eye-witnesses had told the story? We have but one further question to ask. What answer would Mr. Rawlinson be prepared to give to a boy who should tell him that he had read his account of the Decemvirate, and, having compared it with

Manual, p. 357.

A supreme oligarchy of ten without internal jealousies is an impossibility.-Lewis, Credibility, &c., ii. 249.