No More Learning

Hellenic measures in Italy.
266 MEASURING AND WRITING BOOK I
first step towards mathematical thought. The consistent duodecimal development of this idea appears to have be longed to the Italian nation, and to have preceded the first contact with the Greeks.
But when at length the Hellenic trader had opened up the route to the west coast of Italy, the measures of surface remained unaffected, but the measures of length, of weight, and above all of capacity—in other words those definite
standards without which barter and traflic are impossible experienced the effects of the new international intercourse. The oldest Roman foot has disappeared; that which we know, and which was in use at a very early period among the Romans, was borrowed from Greece, and was, in addi tion to its new Roman subdivision into twelfths, divided after the Greek fashion into four hand-breadths (palmus) and sixteen finger-breadths (dzlgitus). Further, the Roman weights were brought into a fixed proportional relation to the Attic system, which prevailed throughout Sicily but not in Cumae-another significant proof that the Latin traflic was chiefly directed to the island; four Roman pounds were assumed as equal to three Attic minae, or rather the Roman pound was assumed as equal to one and a half of the Sicilian lz'trae, or half-minae 259). But the most singular and chequered aspect presented by the Roman measures of capacity, as regards both their names and their proportions. Their names have come from the Greek terms either by corruption (amp/Zara, moa'ius after ,ué8quvos, congius
from xonig, lzemina, qyat/zus) or by translation
from ééfiflmfiov); while conversely saw]; corruption of rextarius. All the measures are not identical, but those in most common use are so; among liquid measures the :ongr'us or c/zus, the sextarz'us, and the tyatlzus, the two last also for dry goods; the Roman amp/Zora was equalized in water-weight to the Attic talent, and at the same time stood to the Greek metretes in the fixed ratio of 2, and
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can. xrv MEASURING AND WRITING
267
to the Greek medimnos of 2 : 1. To one who can decipher the significance of such records, these names and numerical proportions fully reveal the activity and importance of the intercourse between the Sicilians and the Latins.
The Greek numeral signs were not adopted; but the Roman probably availed himself of the Greek alphabet, when it reached him, to form ciphers for 50 and 1000, perhaps also for too, out of the signs for the three aspir
ated letters which he had no use for. In Etruria the sign for 100 at least appears to have been obtained in a similar way. Afterwards, as usually happens, the systems of notation among the two neighbouring nations became assimilated by the adoption in substance of the Roman system in Etruria.
In like manner the Roman calendar-and probably that The Italian
of the Italians generally—began with an independent de calendar before the
velopment of its own, but subsequently came under the influence of the Greeks. In the division of time the returns of sunrise and sunset, and of the new and full moon, most directly arrest the attention of man; and accordingly the day and the month, determined not by cyclic calculation but by direct observation, were long the exclusive measures of time. Down to a late age sunrise and sunset were proclaimed in the Roman market-place by the public crier, and in like manner it may be presumed that in earlier times, at each of the four phases of the moon, the number of days that would elapse from that phase until the next was proclaimed by the priests. The mode of reckoning therefore in Latium-and the like mode, it may be presumed, was in use not merely among the Sabellians, but also among the Etruscans-was by days, which, as already mentioned, were counted not forward
from the phase that had last occurred, but backward from that which was next expected; by lunar weeks, which varied in length between 7 and 8 days, the average length
period of Greek influence in Italy.
268 MEASURING AND WRITING I00! I
being 7%; and by lunar months which in like manner were sometimes of 29, sometimes of 30 days, the average dura tion of the synodical month being 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes. For some time the day continued to be among
the Italians the smallest, and the month the largest, division of time. It was not until afterwards that they began to distribute day and night respectively into four portions, and it was much later still when they began to employ the division into hours; which explains why even stocks otherwise closely related differed in their mode of fixing the commencement of day, the Romans placing it at midnight, the Sabellians and the Etruscans at noon. No calendar of the year had, at least when the Greeks separated from the Italians, as yet been organized, for the names for the year and its divisions in the two languages have been formed quite independently of each other. Nevertheless the Italians appear to have already in the pre-Hellenic period advanced, if not to the arrangement of a fixed calendar, at any rate to the institution of two larger units of time. The simplifying of the reckoning according to lunar months by the application of the decimal system, which was usual among the Romans, and the designation of a term of ten months as a “ring " (annus) or complete year, bear in them all the traces of a high antiquity. Later, but still at a period very early and undoubtedly previous to the opera tion of Greek influences, the duodecimal system (as we have already stated) was developed in Italy, and, as it derived its very origin from the observation of the fact that the solar period was equal to twelve lunar periods, it was certainly applied in the first instance to the reckoning of time. This view accords with the fact that the individual names of the months—which can only have originated after the month was viewed as part of a solar year particularly those of March and of May, were similar among the different branches of the Italian stock, while
can. xrv MEASURING AND WRITING
269
there was no similarity between the Italian names and the Greek. 'It is not improbable therefore that the problem of laying down a practical calendar which should correspond at once to the moon and the sun-a problem which may be compared in some sense to the quadrature of the circle, and the solution of which was only recognized as impossible and abandoned after the lapse of many centuries—had_ already employed the minds of men in Italy before the epoch at which their contact with the Greeks began; these purely national attempts to solve however, have passed into oblivion.
What we know of the oldest calendar of Rome and of The oldest some other Latin cities—as to the Sabellian and Etruscan measurement of time we have no traditional information--—is
decidedly based on the oldest Greek arrangement of the
year, which was intended to answer both to the phases of the moon and to the seasons of the solar year, constructed on the assumption of lunar period of 29% days and solar period of 12% lunar months or 368i,t days, and on the regular alternation of full month or month of thirty days with hollow month or month of twenty-nine days and of a year of twelve with year of thirteen months, but at the same time maintained in some sort of harmony with the actual celestial phenomena arbitrary curtailments and intercala tions. possible that this Greek arrangement of the year in the first instance came into use among the Latins with out undergoing any alteration; but the oldest form of the Roman year which can be historically recognized varied from its model, not indeed in the cyclical result nor yet in the alternation of years of twelve with years of thirteen months, but materially the designation and in the measuring off of the individual months. The Roman year
began with the beginning of spring; the first month in and the only one which bears the name of god, was named from Mars (Mart/us), the three following from
a
it
in
It is
a
a
by a a
a
it,
270
MEASURING AND WRITING 8001; |
sprouting (aprilrls), growing (rna1'us), and thriving (ium'us), the fifth onward to the tenth from their ordinal numbers
sextilis, September, 0:106”, rial/ember, deceml'er), the eleventh from commencing (r'anuarz'us) 213), with reference presumably to the renewal of agricultural opera tions that followed midwinter and the season of rest, the twelfth, and in an ordinary year the last, from cleansing
To this series recurring in regular succession there was added the intercalary year nameless “labour month” (mem'a'om'us) at the close of the year, viz. after February. And, as the Roman calendar was independent as respected the names of the months which were probably taken from the old national ones, was also independent as regarded their duration. Instead of the four years of the Greek cycle, each composed of six months of 30 and six of 29 days and an intercalary month inserted every second year alternately of 29 and 30 days (354+ 384+
54 383 = 147 days), the Roman calendar substituted four years, each containing four months-the first, third, fifth, and eighth-of 31 days and seven of 29 days, with a February of 28 days during three years and of 29 in the fourth, and an intercalary month of 27 days inserted every second year (355 383 355 382 = 1475 days). In like manner this calendar departed from the original division of the month into four weeks, sometimes of sometimes of days; made the eight-day-week run on through the years without regard to the other relations of the
calendar, as our Sundays do, and placed the weekly market on the day with which began (noundinae). Along with this once for all fixed the first quarter in the months of 31 days on the seventh, in those of 29 on the fifth day, and the full moon in the former on the fifteenth, in the latter on the thirteenth day. As the course of the months was thus permanently arranged, was henceforth necessary to proclaim only the number of days lying between the new
(Quinc/ill},
(februarius).
it
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+
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CHAP- xrv MEASURING AND WRITING
271
moon and the first quarter; thence the day of the new moon received the name of “ proclamation-day ” (kalendae). The first day of the second section of the month, uniformly of 8 days, was-in conformity with the Roman custom of reckoning, which included the terminus adquem-designated as “nine-day” (mmae). The“day of the full moon retained the old name of idus (perhaps dividing-day The motive lying at the bottom of this strange remodelling of the calendar seems chiefly to have been belief in the salutary
virtue of odd numbers and while in general based on the oldest form of the Greek year, its variations from that form distinctly exhibit the influence of the doctrines of
which were then paramount in Lower Italy, and which especially turned upon mystic view of numbers. But the consequence was that this Roman calendar, clearly as bears traces of the desire that should harmonize with the course both of sun and moon, in reality by no means so corresponded with the lunar course as did at least on the whole its Greek model, while, like the oldest Greek cycle, could only follow the solar seasons means of frequent arbitrary excisions, and did in all probability follow them but very imperfectly, for scarcely likely that the calendar would be handled with greater skill than was manifested in its original arrangement. The retention moreover of the reckoning by months or-which the same thing-by years of ten months implies tacit, but not to be misunderstood, confession of the irregularity and untrustworthiness of the oldest Roman solar year. This Roman calendar may be regarded, at least in its essential
From the same cause all the festival-days are odd. as well those recurring every month (kalendae on the 1st, rumae on the 5th or 7th, idw on the 13111 or 15th), as also, with but two exceptions, those of the 45 annual festivals mentioned above (p. 207). This carried so far, that in the case of festivals of several days the intervening even days were dropped out. and so, for example, that of Carmentis was celebrated on Jan. 11, :5, that of the Grove-festival (Lucaria) on July 1g, 21. and that of the Ghosts-festival on May 11, and r3.
Pythagoras,
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272
MEASURING AND WRITING BOOK I
features, as that generally current among the Latins. When we consider how generally the beginning of the year and the names of the months are liable to change, minor variations in the numbering and designations are quite compatible with the hypothesis of a common basis; and with such a calendar-system, which practically was irrespective of the lunar course, the Latins might easily come to have their mouths of arbitrary length, possibly marked ofi‘ by annual festivals-as in the case of the Alban months, which varied between 16 and 36 days. It would appear probable there fore that the Greek triderzt had early been introduced from Lower Italy at least into Latium and perhaps also among ‘ the other Italian stocks, and had thereafter been subjected in the calendars of the several cities to further subordinate alterations.
Introduc tion of Hellenic alphabets into Italy.
For the measuring of periods of more than one year the regnal years of the kings might have been employed: but it is doubtful whether that method of dating, which was in use in the East, occurred in Greece or Italy during earlier times. On the other hand the intercalary period recurring every four years, and the census and lustration of the community connected with appear to have suggested a reckoning by lustra similar in plan to the Greek reckoning
by Olympiads-a method, however, which early lost its chronological significance in consequence of the irregular
ity that now prevailed as to the due holding of the census at the right time.
The art of expressing sounds by written signs was of later origin than the art of measurement. The Italians did not any more than the Hellenes develop such an art of themselves, although we may discover attempts at such development in the Italian numeral signs 264), and possibly also in the primitive Italian custom—formed independently of Hellenic influence-of drawing lots by means of wooden tablets. The difliculty which must have
(p.
a
it,
CHAP. XIV MEASURING AND WRITING
273
attended the first individualizing of sounds-occurring as they do in so great a variety of combinations-is best demonstrated by the fact that a single alphabet propagated from people to people and from generation to generation has sufficed, and still suflices, for the whole of Aramaic, Indian, Graeco-Roman, and modern civilization; and this most important product of the human intellect was the joint creation of the Aramaeans and the Indo-Germans. The Semitic family of languages, in which the vowel has a subordinate character and never can begin a word, facilitates on that very account the individualizing of the consonants ; and it was among the Semites accordingly that the first alphabet—in which the vowels were still wanting—was invented. It was the Indians and Greeks who first inde
of each other and by very divergent methods created, out of the Aramaean consonantal writing brought to them by commerce, a complete alphabet by the addition of the vowels-which was effected by the application of four letters, which the Greeks did not use as consonantal
T6. 157‘: ‘ye M01): (trip/sax’ 6p0u5a'as #6”: 'Arpwva Ital ¢wvoiiv1a, o'vMaBds 1e 0els,
'EEefipow dvfipu’nrowt 'ypdpnar’ ewévar.
This Aramaeo-Hellenic alphabet was
brought to the Italians through the medium, doubtless, of the Italian Hellenes ; not, however, through the agricul tural colonies of Magna Graecia, but through the merchants
of Cumae or Tarentum, by whom it would be brought in the first instance to the very ancient emporia of international traflic in Latium and Etruria—to Rome and Caere. The alphabet received by the Italians was by no means the oldest Hellenic one ; it had already experienced
VOL. I 18
pendently
possibly
i o, and by the formation of a
signs, for the four vowels a e
new sign for u-in other words by the introduction of the syllable into writing instead of the mere consonant, or, as Palamedes says in Euripides,
accordingly
274
MEASURING AND WRITING BOOK 1
several modifications, particularly the addition of the three letters if 4> x and the alteration of the signs for t 7 L1 We have already observed 258) that the Etruscan and Latin
1 The history of the alphabet among the Hellenes turns essentially on the fact that—assu. ming the primitive alphabet of 23 letters, that is to say, the Phoenician alphabet vocalized and enlarged by the addition of the 14 proposals of very various kinds were made to supplement and improve
and each of these proposals has a history of its own. The most import out of these, which interesting to keep in view as hearing on the history of Italian writing, are the following :-—I. The introduction of special signs for the sounds x. This proposal so old that all the Greek alphabets- with the single exception of that of the islands Thera, Melos, and Crete—and all alphabets derived from the Greek without exception, exhibit its influence. At first probably the aim was to append the signs X=£i‘, <I>=¢i‘, and \II=XZ' to the close of the alphabet, and in this shape was adopted on the mainland of Hellas—with the exception of Athens and Corinth-and also among the Sicilian and Italian Greeks. The Greeks of Asia Minor on the other hand, and those of the islands of the Archipelago, and also the Corinthians on the mainland appear, when
this proposal reached them, to have already} had in use for the sound E? the fifteenth sign of the Phoenician alphabet (Samech) accordingly of the three new signs they adopted the for 452, but employed the X not for ET, but for xi‘. The third sign originally invented for xi‘ was probably allowed in most instances to drop; only on the mainland of Asia Minor was retained, but received the value of #12‘. The mode of writing adopted in Asia Minor was followed also by Athens; only in its case not merely the i/li', but the also, was not received and in their room the two consonants continued to be written as before. —II. Equally early, not still earlier, an effort was made to obviate the confusion that might so easily occur between the forms for and for for all the Greek alphabets known to us bear traces of the endeavour to distinguish them otherwise and more precisely. Already in very early times two such proposals of change must have been made, each of which found field for its difl'usion. In the one case they employed for the sibilant-for which the Phoenician alphabet furnished two signs, the fourteenth (M) for sk and the eighteenth (E) for s—not the latter, which was in sound the
more suitable, but the former; and such was in earlier times the mode of writing in the eastern islands, in Corinth and Corcyra, and among the Italian Achaeans. In the other case they substituted for the sign of the simple stroke which was by far the more usual, and at no very late date became at least so far general that the broken everywhere disappeared, although individual communities retained the in the form M alongside of the l. —IIl. Of later date the substitution of for (h) which might readily be confounded with 7. This we meet with in Athens and Boeotia, while Corinth and the communities dependent on Corinth
attained the same object by giving to the the semicircular form instead of the hook-shape. —lV. The forms for and r likewise very liable to be confounded, were distinguished by transforming the latter into which more recent form was not used by the Greeks of Asia
Minor. the Cretans, the Italian Achaeans, and a few other districts, but on the other hand greatly preponderated both in Greece proper and in
R;
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it
7 p
rSi Si E
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P\I i
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can. XIV MEASURING AND WRITING
:75
alphabets were not derived the one from the other, but both directly from the Greek; in fact the‘ Greek alphabet came to Etruria in a form materially different from that which reached Latium. The Etruscan alphabet has a
Magna Graecia and Sicily. Still the older form of the r P did not so early and so completely disappear there as the older form of the I; this alteration therefore beyond doubt is to be placed later. —V. The differen tiating of the long and short a and the long and short 0 remained in the earlier times confined to the Greeks of Asia Minor and of the islands of the Aegean Sea.
All these technical improvements are of a. like nature and from a historical point of view of like value, in so far as each of them arose at a definite time and at a definite place and thereafter took its own mode of diffusion and found its special development. The excellent investigation of Kirchhoff‘ (Studien sur Gerchiclzte des grieclzirclzen Alphabets), which has thrown a clear light on the previously so obscure history of the Hellenic alphabet, and has also furnished essential data for the earliest relations between the Hellenes and Italians—establishing, in particular, incontrovertibly the previously uncertain home of the Etruscan alphabet
is afi'ected by a certain one-sidedness in so far as it lays proportionally too great stress on a single one of these proposals. If systems are here to be distinguished at all, we may not divide the alphabets into two classes according to the value of the X as E or as x. but we shall have to distinguish the alphabet of 23 from that of 25 or 26 letters, and perhaps further in this latter case to distinguish the Ionic of Asia Minor, from which the later common alphabet proceeded, from the common Greek of earlier times. In dealing, however, with the different proposals for the modification of the alphabet the several districts followed an essentially eclectic course, so that one was received here and another there ; and it is just in this respect that the history of the Greek alphabet is so instructive, because it shows how particular groups of the Greek lands exchanged improvements in handicraft and art, while others exhibited no such reciprocity. As to Italy in particular we have already called attention to the remarkable contrast between the Achaean agricultural towns and
the Chalcidic and Doric colonies of a more mercantile character (p. 173) ; in the former the primitive forms were throughout retained, in the latter the improved forms were adopted, even those which coming from different quarters were somewhat inconsistent, such as the C 'y alongside of the \I I. The Italian alphabets proceed, as Kirchhoff has shown, wholly from the alphabet of the Italian Greeks and in fact from the Chalcidico-Doric ; but that the Etruscans and Latins received their alphabet not the one from the other but both directly from the Greeks, is placed beyond doubt especially by the different form of the 1'. For, while of the four modifications of the alphabet above described which concern the Italian Greeks (the fifth was confined to Asia Minor) the first three were already carried out before the alphabet passed to the Etruscans and Latins, the difi'erentiation ofp and 9' had not yet taken place when it came to Etruria, but on the other hand had at least begun when the Latins received it; for which reason the Etruscans do not at all know the form R for r, whereas among the Faliscans
and the Latins. with the single exception of the Dressel vase (p. 277, note), the younger form is met with exclusively.
:76
MEASURING AND WRITING sooK 1
double sign s (sigma s and san s11) and only a single k, 1 and of the r only the older form P; the Latin has, so far as we know, only a single s, but a double sign for k (kappa k and koppa and of the r almost solely the more recent form R. The oldest Etruscan writing shows no knowledge of lines, and winds like the coiling of snake; the more recent employs parallel broken-0E lines from right to left the Latin writing, as far as our monuments reach back, exhibits only the latter form of parallel lines, which originally perhaps may have run at pleasure from left to right or from right to left, but subsequently ran among the Romans in the former, and among the Faliscans in the latter direction. The model alphabet brought to Etruria must notwithstanding its comparatively remodelled character reach back to an epoch very ancient, though not positively to be determined for, as the two sibilants sigma and san were always used by the Etruscans as different sounds side by side, the Greek alphabet which came to Etruria must doubtless still have possessed both of them in this way as living signs of sound; but among all the monu ments of the Greek language known to us not one presents sigma and san in simultaneous use.
The Latin alphabet certainly, as we know bears on
That the Etruscans always were without the koppa. seems not doubt ful for not only no sure trace of to be met with elsewhere, but is wanting in the model alphabet of the Galassi vase. The attempt to show its presence in the syllabarium of the latter at any rate mistaken, for the syllabarium can and does only take notice of the Etruscan letters that were afterwards in common use, and to these the koppa notoriously did not belong moreover the sign placed at the close cannot well from its position have any other value than that of the which was in fact the last letter in the Etruscan alphabet, and which could not be Omitted in a syllabarium exhibiting the variations of that alphabet from its model. It certainly surprising that the koppa should be absent from the Greek alphabet that came to Etruria, when otherwise so long maintained its place in the Chalcidico-Doric but this may well have been a local peculiarity of the town whose alphabet first reached Etruria. Caprice and accident have at all times had a. share in determining whether a sign becoming superfluous shall be retained or dropped from the alphabet thus the Attic alphabet lost the eighteenth Phoenician sign, but retained the others which had dis appeared from the u
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;
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it,
;
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a
CHAP. xiv MEASURING AND WRITING
271
the whole a more recent character ; and it is not improbable that the Latins did not simply receive the alphabet once for all, as was the case in Etruria, but in consequence of their lively intercourse with their Greek neighbours kept pace for a considerable period with the alphabet in use among these, and followed its variations. We find, for instance, that the forms /W P1 and 2 were not unknown to the Romans, but were superseded in common use by the later forms M R and S—a circumstance which can only be explained by supposing that the Latins employed for a considerable period the Greek alphabet as such in writing either their mother-tongue or Greek. It is dangerous therefore to draw from the more recent character of the Greek alphabet which we meet with in Rome, as compared with the older character of that brought to Etruria, the inference that writing was practised earlier in Etruria than in Rome.
The powerful impression produced by the acquisition of the treasure of letters on those who received them, and the vividness with which they realized the power that slumbered in those humble signs, are illustrated by a remarkable vase from a sepulchral chamber of Caere built before the invention of the arch, which exhibits the old Greek model alphabet as it came to Etruria, and also an Etruscan syllabarlum formed from which may be compared to that of Palamedes--—evidently sacred relic of the introduction and acclimatization of alphabetic writing in Etruria.
Not less important for history than the derivation of the Develop alphabet the further course of its development on Italian 33228:“ soil: perhaps even of more importance; for by means in Italy. of gleam of light thrown upon the inland commerce
The golden bracelet of Praeneste recently brought to light (Mitik. der "For. Inst. 1887), far the oldest of the intelligible monuments of the Latin language and Latin writing, shows the older form of the m; the enigmatic clay vase from the Quirinal (published by Dressel in the Annah' dell‘ Institute, 1880) shows the older form of the r.
1
a
it
is
it is
it, a
is
278
MEASURING AND WRITING BOOK 1
of Italy, which is involved in far greater darkness than the commerce with foreigners on its coasts. In the earliest epoch of Etruscan writing, when the alphabet was used without material alteration as it had been introduced, its use appears to have been restricted to the Etruscans on the Po and in what is now Tuscany. In course of time this alphabet, manifestly diffusing itself from Atria and Spina, reached southward along the east coast as far as the Abruzzi, northward to the Veneti and subsequently even to the Celts at the foot of, among, and indeed beyond the Alps, so that its last offshoots reached as far as the Tyrol
and Styria. The more recent epoch starts with a reform of the alphabet, the chief features of which were the intro duction of writing in broken-off lines, the suppression of the 0, which was no longer distinguished in pronunciation from the u, and the introduction of a new letter j: for which the alphabet as received by them had no corresponding sign. This reform evidently arose among the western Etruscans, and while it did not find reception beyond the Apennines, became naturalized among all the Sabellian tribes, and especially among the Umbrians. In its further course the alphabet experienced various fortunes in connection with the several stocks, the Etruscans on the Arno and around Capua, the Umbrians and the Samnites; frequently the media were entirely or partially lost, while elsewhere again new vowels and consonants were developed. But that West-Etruscan reform of the alphabet was not merelyas old as the oldest tombs found in Etruria; it was considerably older, for the syllabarium just mentioned as found probably in one of these tombs already presents the reformed alphabet in an essentially modified and modernized shape;
and, as the reformed alphabet itself is relatively recent as compared with the primitive one, the mind almost fails in the effort to reach back to the time when that alphabet came to Italy.
can. xiv MEASURING AND WRITING
279
While the Etruscans thus appear as the instruments in diffusing the alphabet in the north, east, and south of the peninsula, the Latin alphabet on the other hand was con fined to Latium, and maintained its ground, upon the whole, there with but few alterations; only the letters 7 K and {a gradually became coincident in sound, the consequence of which was, that in each case one of the homophonous signs (x Q disappeared from writing. In Rome it can be shown that these were already laid aside before the end of the fourth century of the city,1 and the whole monumental and literary tradition that has reached us knows nothing of them, with a single exception. 2 Now when we consider that in the oldest abbreviations the distinction between 7 c and x k is still regularly maintained ; a that the period, accordingly, when the sounds became in pronunciation coincident, and before that again the period during which the abbreviations became fixed, lies beyond the beginning of the Samnite wars ; and lastly, that a consider able interval must necessarily have elapsed between the introduction of writing and the establishment of a conven
1 At this period we shall have to place that recorded form of the Twelve Tables, which subsequently lay before the Roman philologues, and of which we possess fragments. Beyond doubt the code was at its very origin committed to writing; but that those scholars themselves referred their text not to the original exemplar, but to an official document written down after the Gallic conflag'ration, is proved by the story of the Tables having undergone reproduction at that time. This enables us easily to explain how their text by no means exhibited the oldest orthography, which was not unknown to them ; even apart from the consideration that in the case of such a written document, employed, moreover, for the purpose of being committed to memory by the young, a. philologically exact transmission cannot possibly be assumed.
2 This is the inscription of the bracelet of Praeneste which has been mentioned at p. 277, note. On the other hand even on the Ficoroni cista C has the later form of K.
3 Thus C represents Gaiur; CN Gnaeur; while K stands for Kaeso. With the more recent abbreviations of course this is not the case ; in these 7 is represented not by C, but by G (GAL Galeria), x, as a rule, by C (C centum COS consul; COL Collina), or before a by K (KAR karma-Malia; MERK merkaiur). For they expressed for a time the sound x before the
i o and before all consonants by C, before a on the other hand
vowels e
by K, before u by the old sign of the koppa Q.
280 MEASURING AND WRITING 3001: r
tional system of abbreviation; we must, both as regards Etruria and Latium, carry back the commencement of the art of writing to an epoch which more closely approximates to the first incidence of the Egyptian Sirius-period within historical times, the year r 321 no, than to the year 776, with which the chronology of the Olympiads began in Greece. 1 The high antiquity of the art of writing in Rome is evinced otherwise by numerous and plain indications. The existence of documents of the regal period is sufliciently attested; such was the special treaty between ‘Rome and Gabii, which was concluded by a king Tarquinius and probably not by the last of that name, and which, written on the skin of the bullock sacrificed on the occasion, was preserved in the temple of Sancus on the Quirinal, which was rich in antiquities and probably escaped the conflagra tion of the Gauls ; and such was the alliance which king Servius Tullius concluded with Latium, and which Dionysius saw on a copper tablet in the temple of Diana on» the Aventine. What he saw, however, was probably a copy restored after the fire with the help of a Latin exemplar, for it was not likely that engraving on metal was practised as early as the time of the kings. The charters of foundation of the imperial period still refer to the charter founding this temple as the oldest document of the kind in Rome and the common model for all. But even then they scratched (exarare, scrikers, akin to strobes 2) or painted (linen, thence
on leaves (falium), inner bark (liber), or wooden tablets (tabula, album), afterwards also on leather and linen. The sacred records of the Samnites as well as of the priest
1 If this view is correct, the origin of the Homeric poems (though of course not exactly that of the redaction in which we now have them) must have been far anterior to the age which Herodotus assigns for the flourish
850. ing of Homer (100 before Rome); for the introduction of the Hellenic alphabet into Italy, as well as the beginning of intercourse at all between Hellas and Italy, belongs only to the post-Homeric period.
a Just as the old Saxon writan signifies properly to tear, thence to write.
littera)
CHAP. XIV MEASURING AND WRITING 281
hood of Anagnia were inscribed on linen rolls, and so were the oldest lists of the Roman magistrates preserved in the temple of the goddess of recollection (Juno manela) on the Capitol. It is scarcely necessary to recall further proofs in the primitive marking of the pastured cattle (szrr'flura), in the mode of addressing the senate, “fathers and enrolled” (patres consm'ptz'), and in the great antiquity of the books of oracles, the clan-registers, and the Alban and Roman calendars. When Roman tradition speaks of halls in the Forum, where the boys and girls of quality were taught to read and write, already in the earliest times of the republic, the statement may be, but is not necessarily to be deemed, an invention. We have been deprived of information as to the early Roman history, not in consequence of the want of a knowledge of writing, or even perhaps of the lack of documents, but in consequence of the incapacity of the historians of the succeeding age, which was called to inves tigate the history, to work out the materials furnished by the
archives, and of the perversity which led them to desire for the earliest epoch a delineation of motives and of char acters, accounts of battles and narratives of revolutions, and while engaged in inventing these, to neglect what the extant written tradition would not have refused to yield to the serious and self-denying inquirer.
The history of Italian writing thus furnishes in the first place a confirmation of the weak and indirect influence exercised by the Hellenic character over the Sabellians as compared with the more western peoples. The fact that the former received their alphabet from the Etruscans and not from the Romans is probably to be explained by supposing that they already possessed it before they entered upon their migration along the ridge of the Apennines, and that therefore the Sabines as well as Samnites carried it along with them from the mother-land to their new abodeS. On the other hand this history of writing contains a salutary
Results.
383 MEASURING AND WRITING 300K I
warning against the adoption of the hypothesis, originated by the later Roman culture in its devotedness to Etruscan mysticism and antiquarian trifling, and patiently repeated by modern and even very recent inquirers, that Roman civilization derived its germ and its pith from Etruria. If this were the truth, some trace of it ought to be more especially apparent in this field; but on the contrary the germ of the Latin art of writing was Greek, and its develop ment was so national, that it did not even adopt the very desirable Etruscan sign for f1 Indeed, where there is an appearance of borrowing, as in the numeral signs, it is on the part of the Etruscans, who took over from the Romans
at least the sign for 50.
lastly it is a significant fact, that among all the Italian
Corruption
oflanguage stocks the development of the Greek alphabet primarily
andwriting.
consisted in a process of corruption. Thus the media disappeared in the whole of the Etruscan dialects, while the Umbrians lost 7 and d, the Samnites d, and the Romans 7 ; and among the latter a’ also threatened to amalgamate with r. In like manner among the Etruscans a and :1 early coalesced, and even among the Latins we meet with a tendency to the same corruption. Nearly the converse occurred in the case of the sibilants ; for while the Etruscan retained the three signs 2, s, s11, and the Umbrian rejected the last but developed two new sibilants in its room, the Samnite and the Faliscan confined themselves like the Greek to s and s, and the Roman of later times even to s alone. It is plain that the more delicate distinctions of sound were duly felt by the introducers of the alphabet, men of culture
1 The enigma as to hofw the Latins came to employ the Greek sign corresponding to 'u for the quite different in soundl has been solved by the bracelet of Praeneste (p. 277, note) with its flu/baked for fuit, and thereby at the same time the derivation of the Latin alphabet from the Chalcidian colonies of Lower Italy has been confirmed. For in a Boeolian inscription belonging to the same alphabet we find in the word fltekadamoe
(Gustav Meyer, Griec/l. Grammatik, § 244, a), fin. ) the same combination of sound, and an aspirated ‘u might certainly approximate in sound to the Latin f.
mar. xiv MEASURING AND WRITING
283
and masters of two languages ; but after the national writing became wholly detached from the Hellenic mother-alphabet, the media: and their tenues gradually came to coincide, and :he sibilants and vowels were thrown into disorder-trans positions or rather destructions of sound, of which the first in particular is entirely foreign to the Greek. The de struction of the forms of fiexion and derivation went hand in hand with this corruption of sounds. The cause of this barbarization was thus, upon the whole, simply the necessary process of corruption which is continuously eating away every language, where its progress is not stemmed by literature and reason ; only in this case indications of what has elsewhere passed away without leaving a trace have been preserved in the writing of sounds. The circumstance that this barbarizing process affected the Etruscans more strongly than any other of the Italian stocks adds to the numerous proofs of their inferior capacity for culture. The fact on the other hand that, among the Italians, the Umbrians apparently were the most affected by a similar corruption of language, the Romans less so, the southern Sabellians least of all, probably finds its explanation, at least in part, in the more lively intercourse maintained by the former with the Etruscans, and by the latter with the
Greeks.
CHAPTER XV ART
Aitistic en- POETRY is impassioned language, and its modulation is
‘00K 1
dowments of the Italians.
melody. While in this sense no people is without poetry and music, some nations have received a pre-eminent en dowment of poetic gifts. The Italian nation, however, was not and is not one of these. The Italian is deficient in the passion ot the heart, in the longing to idealize what is human and to confer humanity on what is lifeless, which form the very essence of poetic art. His acuteness of per ception and his graceful versatility enabled him to excel in irony and in the vein of tale-telling which we find in Horace and Boccaccio, in the humorous pleasantries of love and song which are presented in Catullus and in the good popular songs of Naples, above all in the lower comedy and in farce. Italian soil gave birth in ancient times to burlesque tragedy, and in modern times to mock heroic poetry. In rhetoric and histrionic art especially no other nation equalled or equals the Italians. But in the more perfect kinds of art they have hardly advanced beyond dexterity of execution, and no epoch of their literature has produced a true epos or a genuine drama. The very highest literary works that have been successfully produced in Italy, divine poems like Dante’s Cammedia, and historical treatises such as those of Sallust and Macchiavelli, of Tacitus and Colletta, are pervaded by a
can. xv ART 28
passion more rhetorical than spontaneous. Even in music, both in ancient and modern times, really creative talent has been far less conspicuous than the accomplishment which speedily assumes the character of virtuosoship, and en thrones in the room of genuine and genial art hollow and heart-withering idol. The field of the inward in art—so far as we may in the case of art distinguish an inward and an outward at all—is not that which has fallen to the Italian as his special province; the power of beauty, to have its full effect upon him, must be placed not ideally before his mind, but sensuously before his eyes. Accordingly he thoroughly at home in architecture, painting, and sculpture; in these he was during the epoch of ancient culture the best disciple of the Hellenes, and in modern times he has become the master of all nations.
From the defectiveness of our traditional information
not possible to trace the development of artistic ideas music, and song in
among the several groups of nations in Italy; and in Latium. particular we are no longer in position to speak of the
poetry of Italy; we can only speak of that of Latium.
Latin poetry, like that of every other nation, began in the lyrical form, or, to speak more correctly, sprang out of those primitive festal rejoicings, in which dance, music, and song were still inseparably blended. remarkable, however, that in the most ancient religious usages dancing, and next to dancing instrumental music, were far more prominent than song. In the great procession, with which the Roman festival of victory was opened, the chief place, next to the images of the gods and the champions, was assigned to the dancers grave and merry.
The grave dancers were arranged in three groups of men, youths, and boys, all clad in red tunics with copper belts, with swords and short lances, the men being moreover furnished with helmets,
in full armed attire. The merry dancers were divided into two companies-“ the sheep” in sheep
and generally
It is
a
is
it is
_~,
a
Religious chants.
286 ART BOOK I
skins with a party-coloured over-garment, and “ the goats ” naked down to the waist, with a buck’s skin thrown over them. In like manner the “leapers ” (salii) were perhaps the most ancient and sacred of all the priesthoods (p. 2 r 5), and dancers (ludiz', ludiones) were indispensable in all public processions, and particularly at funeral solemnities ; so that dancing became even in ancient times a common trade. But, wherever the dancers made their appearance, there ap peared also the musicians or-—which was in the earliest times the same thing—the pipers. They too were never wanting at a sacrifice, at a marriage, or at a funeral; and by the side of the primitive public priesthood of the “leapers” there was ranged, of equal antiquity although of far inferior rank, the guild of the “ pipers ” (collegium tibidnum, p. 249), whose true character as strolling musicians is evinced by their ancient privilege—maintained even in spite of the strictness of Roman police—of wandering through the streets at their annual festival, wearing masks and full of sweet wine. While dancing thus presents itself as an honourable function and music as one subordinate but still
so that public corporations were instituted for both of them, poetry appears more as a matter incidental and, in some measure, indifferent, whether it may have come into existence on its own account or to serve as an accompaniment to the movements of the dancers.
The earliest chant, in the view of the Romans, was that which the leaves sang to themselves in the green solitude of the forest. The whispers and pipings of the “favour
necessary,
from fawn) in the grove were reproduced for men, by those who had the gift of listening
to him, in rhythmically measured language (msmm, after wards :armen, from canere). Of a kindred nature to these soothsaying songs of inspired men and women (vates) were the incantations properly so called, the formulae for conjur
ing away diseases and other troubles, and the evil spells by
able spirit” (faunas,
can. xv ART
287
which they prevented rain and called down lightning or even enticed the seed from one field to another; only in these instances, probably from the outset, formulae of mere sounds appear side by side with formulae of words. 1 More firmly rooted in tradition and equally ancient were the religious litanies which were sung and danced by the Salii and other priesthoods ; the only one of which that has come down to us, a dance-chant of the Arval Brethren in honour of Mars probably composed to be sung in alternate
parts, deserves a place here.
Ems, Laser, iu'oatel
Na value rue, Marmar, sins {mun-are in pleura‘! Saturfu, fer: Mars! limen . tali ! . rta! beréerl Semum's alternei adwcapit conctarl
Enos, Murmur, iuz/ato I
Triumpel
Which may be thus interpreted:
To the gods’
T0 the indivi- du a1 brethren. To all the brethren.
To the god. T0 the indivi- dual brethren.
[N05, Lures, fur/ate!
Ne 'uzluem ( = malam 111m) ruem ( = ruinam) ' Mamm,
sinus incurrere in plural Satur esto, fen lllars/
. ,
. .
In 1zmen mrrlz/ sta! verbera
Semanu altemi adwmi'e
Nor, Mamerr, fur/ate!
. . Tflpudm, a
}
I.
(hmen I)! cum'tar !
1 Thus Cato the Elder (dc R. R. 160) gives as potent against sprains the formula: Izauat hauat haunt irta piJ-ra rirta damia bodannaurtra, which was presumably quite as obscure to its inventor as it is to us. Of course, along with these there were also formulae of words; eg. it was a remedy for gout, to think, while fasting, on some other person, and thrice nine times to utter the words, touching the earth at the same time and spitting :—“ I think of thee, mend my feet. Let the earth receive the ill, let health with me dwell" (lerra pas-fem teneta, salus hie maneto. Varro dz R. R. i. 2, 27).
2 Each of the first five lines was repeated thrice, and the call at the close five times. Various points in the interpretation are uncertain, particularly as respects the third line. -—The three inscriptions of the clay vase from the Quirinal (p. 277, note) run thus : z'01’: sat deiuosgoi med mitat an’ ted endo gasmir uirgo sied-arted noiri ope toilesiai pakariuoir—a’uenar med faked (=bonus me fail) enmzmam :inom dz: noine (probably=di¢
Panegyrlca and lam poons.
:88 ART 300: r
The Latin of this chant and of kindred fragments of the Salian songs, which were regarded even by the philologues of the Augustan age as the oldest documents of their mother-tongue, is related to the Latin of the Twelve Tables somewhat as the language of the Nibelungen is related to the language of Luther; and we may perhaps compare these venerable litanies, as respects both language and contents, with the Indian Vedas.
Lyrical panegyrics and lampoons belonged to a later epoch. We might infer from the national character of the Italians that satirical songs must have abounded in Latium in ancient times, even if their prevalence had not been attested by the very ancient measures of police directed against them. But the panegyrical chants became of more importance. When a burgess was borne to burial, the bier was followed by a female relative or friend, who, accom panied by a piper, sang his dirge (nem'a). In like manner at banquets boys, who according to the fashion of those days attended their fathers even at feasts out of their own houses, sang by turns songs in praise of their ancestors, sometimes to the pipe, sometimes simply reciting them without accompaniment (assa 110a amen). The custom of men singing in succession at banquets was
We know no further particulars of these ancestral
but it is self-evident that they must have attempted descrip tion and narration and thus have developed, along with and out of the lyrical element, the features of epic poetry.
Other elements of poetry were called into action in the primitive popular carnival, the comic dance or satura 35), which beyond doubt reached back to period
noni) med male stalod. Only individual words admit of being understood with certainty; especially noteworthy that forms, which we have hitherto known only as Umbrian and Oscan, like the adjective pacer and the particle n'nom with the value of at, here probably meet us withal as old-Latin.
The masked farce.
presumably borrowed from the Greeks, and that not till a later age.
lays;
it is
(p.
a
can. xv ART
389
anterior to the separation of the stocks. On such occasions song would never be wanting; and the circumstances under which such pastimes were exhibited, chiefly at public festivals and marriages, as well as the mainly practical shape which they certainly assumed, naturally suggested that several dancers, or sets of dancers, should take up reciprocal parts; so that the singing thus came to be associated with a species of acting, which of course was chiefly of a comical and often of a licentious character. In this way there arose not merely alternative chants, such as afterwards went by the name of Fescennine songs, but also the elements of a popular comedy—which were in this instance planted in a soil admirably adapted for their growth, as an acute sense of the outward and the comic, and a delight in gesticulation and masquerade have ever been leading traits of Italian character.
No remains have been preserved of these inamabula of the Roman epos and drama. That the ancestral lays were traditional is self-evident, and is abundantly demonstrated by the fact that they were regularly recited by children; but even in the time of Cato the Elder they had completely passed into oblivion. The comedies again, if it be allow able so to name them, were at this period and long after wards altogether improvised. Consequently nothing of this popular poetry and popular melody could be handed down but the measure, the accompaniment of music and choral dancing, and perhaps the masks.
Whether what we call metre existed in the earlier times Mm is doubtful; the litany of the Arval Brethren scarcely accommodates itself to an outwardly fixed metrical system,
and presents to us rather the appearance of an animated recitation. 0n the other hand we find in subsequent times
a very ancient rhythm, the so-called Saturnian 1 or Faunian
1 The name probably denotes nothing but "the chant-measure," inasmuch as the sdtura was originally the chant sung at the carnival
VOL. I I9
39o
ART loo: 2
metre, which is foreign to the Greeks, and may be con
to have arisen contemporaneously with the oldest Latin popular poetry. The following poem, belonging, it is true, to a far later age, may give an idea of it :
Quad r! sud dgwdm-aperz afldm Purim Iimlns lm'c vdm'l-vdta M: . taldto
fiumdfaddpoloddazldberdr lublnll: A Donal dandnlvlllrmlei—mdxmmlvmlnto
Sand! 13min! u vJti-cribro
jectured
Iv I I I vvv ‘av
Melody.
That which, misfortune dreading-sharply to’ alfiict him,
An anxious parent vowed here, —when his wish was granted,
A sacred tenth for banquet-gladly give his children
To Hercules a tribute-most of all deserving ;
And now they thee beseech, that-often thou wouldst hear them.
Panegyrics as well as comic songs appear to have been uniformly sung in Satumian metre, of course to the pipe, and presumably in such a way that the canura in particular in each line was strongly marked ; and in alternate singing the second singer probably took up the verse at this point. The Saturnian measure like every other occurring in Roman and Greek antiquity, based on quantity; but of all the antique metres perhaps the least thoroughly
elaborated, for besides many other liberties allows itself the greatest license in omitting the short syllables, and
at the same time the most imperfect in construction, for these iambic and trochaic half-lines opposed to each other were but little fitted to develop rhythmical structure adequate for the purposes of the higher poetry.
The fundamental elements of the national music and
The god of sowing, Saetumu: or Saitumur, afterwards Sdtumur, received his name from the same root his feast, the Saturnalia, was certainly a son of carnival, and possible that the farces were originally exhibited chiefly at this feast. But there are no proofs of a relation between the Satura and the Saturnalia, and may be presumed that the immediate association of the warm: sdtumius with the god Saturn, and the lengthening of the first syllable in connection with that view, belong only to later times.
(p. 35).
II
v
cdnvde'mna.
; it
it is
it is
a
it is
it
is,
cw. xv ART
:9!
choral dancing in Latium, which must likewise have been established during this period, are buried for us in oblivion; except that the Latin pipe is reported to have been a short and slender instrument, provided with only four holes, and originally, as the name shows, made out of the light thigh bone of some animal.
Lastly, the masks used in after times for the standing Mash. characters of the Latin popular comedy or the Atellana,
as it was called: Maccus the harlequin, Bucco the glutton, Pappus the good papa, and the wise Dossennus-masks
which have been cleverly and strikingly compared to the
two servants, the pantalan and the dottore, in the Italian comedy of Pulcinello-already belonged to the earliest
Latin popular art. That they did so cannot of course be strictly proved; but as the use of masks for the face in Latium in the case of the national drama was of immemorial antiquity, while the Greek drama in Rome did not adopt
them for a century after its first establishment, as, moreover,
those Atellane masks were of decidedly Italian origin, and
as, in fine, the origination as well as the execution of improvised pieces cannot well be conceived apart from
fixed masks assigning once for all to the player his proper position throughout the piece, we must associate fixed
masks with the rudiments of the Roman drama, or rather
regard them as constituting those rudiments themselves.
If our information respecting the earliest indigenous Earliest culture and art of Latium is so scanty, it may easlly be conceived that our knowledge will be sti“ scantier regarding
the earliest impulses imparted in this respect to the Romans
from without. In a certain sense we may include under this head their becoming acquainted with foreign languages, particularly the Greek. To this latter 1? aruage, of course, the Latins generally were Strangers, as was shown by their enactment in respect to the Sibylline oracles 230); but an acquaintance with must hay; hem OW‘ lwm’imml
it
(p.
:92
ART 300: r
in the case of merchants. The same may be affirmed of the knowledge of reading and writing, closely connected as it was with the knowledge of Greek (p. 273). The culture of the ancient world, however, was not based either on the knowledge of foreign languages or on elementary technical accomplishments. An influence more important than any thus imparted was exercised over the development of Latium by the elements of the fine arts, which were already in very early times received from the Hellenes For it
was the Hellenes alone, and not the Phoenicians or the Etruscans, that in this respect exercised an influence on the Italians. We nowhere find among the latter any stimulus of the fine arts which can be referred to Carthage or Caere, and the Phoenician and Etruscan forms of civilization may be in general perhaps classed with those that are hybrid, and for that reason not further productive. 1 But the influence of Greece did not fail to bear fruit. The Greek seven-stringed lyre, the “strings ” (fides, from o¢i8'q, gut; also barh'tus, ,Bdp/S'wos), was not like the pipe indigenous in Latium, and was always regarded there as an
instrument of foreign origin ; but the early period at which it gained a footing is demonstrated partly by the barbarous mutilation of its Greek name, partly by its being employed
1 The statement that "formerly the Roman boys " were trained in Etruscan culture, as they were in later times in Greek (Liv. ix. 36), is quite irreconcilable with the original character of the Roman training of youth, and it is not easy to see what the Roman boys could have learned in Etruria. Even the most zealous modern partizans of Tages-worship will not maintain that the study of the Etruscan language played such a part in Rome then as the learning of French does now with us; that a non-Etruscan should understand anything of the art of the Etruscan Ilarwpiur was considered, even by those who availed themselves of that art, to be a disgrace or rather an impossibility (Muller, Etr. ii. 4). Perhaps the statement was concocted by the Etruscizing antiquaries of the last age of the republic out of stories of the older annals, aiming at a causal explanation of facts, such as that which makes Mucius Scaevola learn Etruscan when a child for the sake of his conversation with Porsena (Dionysius, v. 28; Plutarch, Pqlimla, 17; comp. Dionyslus, 70), But there was at any rate an epoch when the dominion of Rome over Italy demanded a certain knowledge of the language of the country on the part of Romans of rank.
can. xv ART
:93
even in ritual. 1 That some of the legendary stores of the Greeks during this period found their way into Latium, is shown by the ready reception of Greek works of sculpture with their representations based so thoroughly upon the poetical treasures of the nation; and the old Latin barbarous conversions of Persephone into Prosepna, Bellerophontes into Melerpanta, Kyklops into Cocles, Laomedon into Alumentus, Ganymedes into Catamitus, Neilos into Melus, Semele into Stimula, enable us to perceive at how remote a period such stories had been heard and repeated by the Latins. Lastly and especially, the Roman chief festival or festival of the city (ludi maximi, Romani) must in all probability have owed, if not its origin, at any rate its later arrangements to Greek influence. It was an extraordinary thanksgiving festival celebrated in honour of the Capitoline Jupiter and the gods dwelling along with him, ordinarily in pursuance of a vow made by
the general before battle, and therefore usually observed on the return home of the burgess-force in autumn. A festal procession proceeded toward the Circus staked off between the Palatine and Aventine, and furnished with an arena and places for spectators ; in front the whole boys of Rome, arranged according to the divisions of the burgess-force, on horseback and on foot; then the champions and the groups of dancers which we have described above, each with their own music ; thereafter the servants of the gods with vessels of frankincense and other sacred utensils; lastly the biers
l The employment of the lyre in ritual is attested by Cicero a’: Ora).
iii. 51, I97; Tun‘. iv. 2, 4; Dionysius, vii. 72; Appian, Pun. 66; and
the inscription in Orelli, 2448, comp. 1803. It was likewise used at the neniae (Varro ap. Nonium, 1/. nenia and praqficae). But playing on the
lyre remained none the less unbecoming (Scipio a). Macrob. Sat. ii. 10,
at 41. ). The prohibition of music in 639 exempted only the "Latin 115. player on the pipe along with the singer," not the player on the lyre, and
the guests at meals sang only to the pipe (Cato in Cic. Tun‘. i. 2, 3 ; iv.
2, 3; Varro ap. Nonium, 1;. arm ‘you; Horace, Carm. iv. 15, 3o). Quintilian, who asserts the reverse (Inst. i. 10, 20), has inaccurately transferred to private banquets what Cicero (dc Orat. iii. 51) states in reference to the feasts of the gods.
:94
ART coo: r
with the images of the gods themselves. The spectacle itself was the counterpart of war as it was waged in primitive times, a contest on chariots, on horseback, and on foot. First there ran the war-chariots, each of which carried in Homeric fashion a charioteer and a combatant; then the combatants who had leaped off; then the horsemen, each of whom appeared after the Roman style of fighting with a horse which he rode and another led by the hand (desultor) ;
lastly, the champions on foot, naked to the girdle round their loins, measured their powers in racing, wrestling, and boxing. In each species of contest there was but one competition, and that between not more than two com petitors. A chaplet rewarded the victor, and the honour in which the simple branch which formed the wreath was held is shown by the law permitting it to be laid on the bier of the victor when he died. The festival thus lasted only one day, and the competitions probably still left sufficient time on that day for the carnival proper, at which the groups of dancers may have displayed their art and above all exhibited their farces ; and doubtless other repre sentations also, such as competitions in juvenile horseman ship, found a place. 1 The honours won in real war also played their part in this festival ; the brave warrior exhibited on this day the equipments of the antagonist whom he had
1 The city festival can have only lasted at first for a single day, for in the sixth century it still consisted of four days of scenic and one day of Circensian sports (Ritschl, Parerga, i. 313) and it is well known that the scenic amusements were only a subsequent addition. That in each kind of contest there was originally only one competition, follows from Livy, xliv. 9; the running of five-and-twenty pairs of chariots in succession on one day was a subsequent innovation (Varro up. Serv. Georg. iii. 18). That only two chariots-and likewise beyond doubt only two horsemen and two wrestlers-strove for the prize, may be inferred from the circum stance, that at all periods in the Roman chariot-races only as many chariots competed as there were so-called factions; and of these there were originally only two, the white and the red. The horsemanship competition of patrician youths which belonged to the Circensian games, the so-called Troia, was, as is well known, revived by Caesar; beyond doubt it was connected with the cavalcade of the boy-militia, which Dionyslus mentions
7a).
cl-ulr. xv ART
295
slain, and was decorated with a chaplet by the grateful community just as was the victor in the competition.
Such was the nature of the Roman festival of victory or city-festival ; and the other public festivities of Rome may be conceived to have been of a similar character, although less ample in point of resources. At the celebration of a public funeral dancers regularly bore a part, and along with them, if there was to be any further exhibition, horse-racers ; in that case the burgesses were specially invited beforehand to the funeral by the public crier.
But this city-festival, so intimately bound up with the manners and exercises of the Romans, coincides in all essentials with the Hellenic national festivals : more especially in the fundamental idea of combining a religious solemnity and a competition in warlike sports; in the selection of the several exercises, which at the Olympic festival, according to Pindar’s testimony, consisted from the first in running, wrestling, boxing, chariot-racing, and throwing the spear and stone; in the nature of the prize of victory, which in Rome as well as in the Greek national festivals was a chaplet, and in the one case as well as in the other was assigned not to the charioteer, but to the owner of the team; and lastly in introducing the feats and rewards of general patriotism in connection with the general national festival. This agreement cannot have been accidental, but
must have been either a remnant of the primitive connection between the peoples, or a result of the earliest international intercourse; and the probabilities preponderate in favour of the latter hypothesis. The city-festival, in the form in which we are acquainted with was not one of the oldest institutions of Rome, for the Circus itself was only laid out in the later regal period 141); and just as the reform of the constitution then took place under Greek influence (p. 123), the city-festival may have been at the same time so far transformed as to combine Greek races with, and
(p.
it,
096
ART soox r
eventually to a certain extent to substitute them for, an older mode of amusement-the “leap” (m'umpus, p. 3 5), and possibly swinging, which was a primitive Italian custom and long continued in use at the festival on the Alban mount. Moreover, while there is some trace of the use of the war-chariot in actual warfare in Hellas, no such trace exists in Latium. Lastly, the Greek term o~ré8wv
(Doric was at a very early period transferred to the Latin
Character of poetry and of education in Latium.
exists even an express statement that the Romans derived their horse and chariot races from the people of Thurii, although, it is true, another account derives them from Etruria. It thus appears that, in addition to the impulses imparted by the Hellenes in music and poetry, the Romans were indebted to them for the fruitful idea of gymnastic competitions.
Thus there not only existed in Latium the same funda- mental elements out of which Hellenic culture and art grew, but Hellenic culture and art themselves exercised a powerful influence over Latium in very early times. Not only did the Latins possess the elements of gymnastic training, in so far as the Roman boy learned like every farmer's son to manage horses and waggon and to handle the hunting-spear, and as in Rome every burgess was at the same time a soldier; but the art of dancing was from the first an object of public care, and a powerful impulse was further given to such culture at an early period by the introduction of the Hellenic games. The lyrical poetry and tragedy of Hellas grew out of songs similar to the festal lays of Rome; the ancestral lay contained the germs of epos, the masked farce the germs of comedy; and in this field also Grecian in fluences were not wanting.
In such circumstances it is the more remarkable that these germs either did not spring up at all, or were soon arrested in their growth. The bodily training of the Latin
mrof‘o‘tov)
language, retaining its signification, as . spatium ,- and there
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youth continued to be solid and substantial, but far removed from the idea of artistic culture for the body, such as was the aim of Hellenic gymnastics. The public games of the Hellenes when introduced into Italy, changed not so much their formal rules as their essential character. While they were intended to be competitions of burgesses and beyond doubt were so at first in Rome, they became contests of professional riders and professional boxers, and, while the proof of free and Hellenic descent formed the first condition for participating in the Greek festal games, those of Rome soon passed into the hands of freedmen and foreigners and even of persons not free at all. Consequently the circle of fellow-competitors became converted into a public of spectators, and the chaplet of the victorious champion, which has been with justice called the badge of Hellas, was afterwards hardly ever mentioned in Latium.
A similar fate befel poetry and her sisters. The Greeks and Germans alone possess a fountain of song that wells up spontaneously ; from the golden vase of the Muses only a few drops have fallen on the green soil of Italy. There was no formation of legend in the strict sense there. The Italian gods were abstractions and remained such; they never became elevated into or, as some may prefer to say, obscured under, a true personal shape. In like manner men, even the greatest and noblest, remained in the view of the Italian without exception mortal, and were not, as in the longing recollection and affectionately cherished tradition of Greece, elevated in the conception of the multitude into god-like heroes. But above all no develop ment of national poetry took place in Latium. It is the deepest and noblest effect of the fine arts and above all
of poetry, that they break down the barriers of civil com munities and create out of tribes a nation and out of the nations a world. As in the present day by means of our cosmopolitan literature the distinctions of civilized nations
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are done away, so Greek poetic art transformed the narrow and egoistic sense of tribal relationship into the conscious ness of Hellenic nationality, and this again into the con sciousness of a common humanity. But in Latium nothing similar occurred. There might be poets in Alba and in Rome, but there arose no Latin epos, nor even-what were still more conceivable-a catechism for the Latin farmer of a kind similar to the “Works and Days ” of Hesiod. The Latin federal festival might well have become a national festival of the fine arts, like the Olympian and Isthmian games of the Greeks. A cycle of legends might well have gathered around the fall of Alba, such as was woven around the conquest of Ilion, and every community and every noble clan of Latium might have discovered in or imported into the story of its own origin. But neither of these results took place, and Italy remained without national poetry or art.