History of Rome | Page 7

thrown into great disorder. The
heroic songs might indeed have been preserved in the memory of the
public reciters; but there is little necessity for proving that poetic
historians would naturally mingle so much fiction with truth, that few
of their assertions could be deemed authentic. The history of the four
first centuries of the Roman state is accordingly full of the greatest
inconsistences and improbabilities; so much so, that many respectable
writers have rejected the whole as unworthy of credit; but this is as
great an excess in scepticism, as the reception of the whole would be of
credulity. But if the founders of the city, the date of its erection, and the
circumstances under which its citizens were assembled be altogether
doubtful, as will subsequently be shown, assuredly the history of events
that occurred four centuries previous must be involved in still greater
obscurity. The legend of Æneas, when he first appears noticed as a
progenitor of the Romans, differs materially from that which afterwards
prevailed. Romulus, in the earlier version of the story, is invariably
described as the son or grandson of Æneas. He is the grandson in the
poems of Nævius and Ennius, who were both nearly contemporary with
Fabius Pictor. This gave rise to an insuperable chronological difficulty;
for Troy was destroyed B.C. 1184, and Rome was not founded until
B.C. 753. To remedy this incongruity, a list of Latin kings intervening
between Æne'as and Rom'ulus, was invented; but the forgery was so
clumsily executed, that its falsehood is apparent on the slightest

inspection. It may also be remarked, that the actions attributed to
Æneas are, in other traditions of the same age and country, ascribed to
other adventurers; to Evander, a Pelasgic leader from Arcadia, who is
said to have founded a city on the site afterwards occupied by Rome; or
to Uly'sses, whose son Tele'gonus is reported to have built Tus'culum.
If then we deny the historical truth of a legend which seems to have
been universally credited by the Romans, how are we to account for the
origin of the tale? Was the tradition of native growth, or was it
imported from Greece when the literature of that country was
introduced into Latium? These are questions that can only be answered
by guess; but perhaps the following theory may in some degree be
found satisfactory. We have shown that tradition, from the earliest age,
invariably asserted that Pelasgic colonies had formed settlements in
central Italy; nothing is more notorious than the custom of the Pelasgic
tribes to take the name of their general, or of some town in which they
had taken up their temporary residence; now Æne'a and Æ'nus were
common names of the Pelasgic towns; the city of Thessaloni'ca was
erected on the site of the ancient Æne'a; there was an Æ'nus in
Thrace,[A] another in Thessaly,[A] another among the Locrians, and
another in Epi'rus:[1] hence it is not very improbable but that some of
the Pelasgic tribes which entered Latium may have been called the
Æne'adæ; and the name, as in a thousand instances, preserved after the
cause was forgotten. This conjecture is confirmed by the fact, that
temples traditionally said to have been erected by a people called the
Æne'adæ, are found in the Macedonian peninsula of Pall'ene,[2] in the
islands of De'los, Cythe'ra, Zacy'nthus, Leuca'dia, and Sicily, on the
western coasts of Ambra'cia and Epi'rus, and on the southern coast of
Sicily.
The account of several Trojans, and especially Æne'as, having survived
the destruction of the city, is as old as the earliest narrative of that
famous siege; Homer distinctly asserts it when he makes Neptune
declare,
--Nor thus can Jove resign The future father of the Dardan line: The
first great ancestor obtain'd his grace, And still his love descends on all

the race. For Priam now, and Priam's faithless kind, At length are
odious, to the all-seeing mind; On great Æneas shall devolve the reign,
And sons succeeding sons the lasting line sustain. ILIAD, xx.
But long before the historic age, Phrygia and the greater part of the
western shores of Asia Minor were occupied by Grecian colonies, and
all remembrance of Æne'as and his followers lost. When the narrative
of the Trojan war, with other Greek legends, began to be circulated in
Lati'um, it was natural that the identity of name should have led to the
confounding of the Æne'adæ who had survived the destruction of Troy,
with those who had come to La'tium from the Pelasgic Æ'nus. The
cities which were said to be founded by the Æne'adæ were, Latin Troy,
which possessed empire for three years; Lavinium, whose sway lasted
thirty; Alba, which was supreme for three hundred years; and Rome,
whose dominion was to be interminable, though some assign a limit of
three