The twelve tables of the Decemvirs I shall not repeat the well-known story of the Decemvirs,[1] who sullied by their actions the honour of inscribing on brass, or wood, or ivory, the twelve tables of the Roman laws.[2] They were dictated by the rigid and jealous spirit of an aristocracy, which had yielded with reluctance to the just demands of the people. But the substance of the Twelve Tables was adapted to the state of the city; and the Romans had emerged from barbarism, since they were capable of studying and embracing the institutions of their more enlightened neighbours. A wise Epliesian was driven by envy from his native country; before he could reach the shores of Latium, he had observed the various forms of human nature and civil society; he imparted his knowledge to the legislators of Rome; and a statue was erected in the forum to the perpetual memory of Hermodorus.[3] The names and the divisions of the copper-money, the sole coin of the infant state, were of Dorian origin;[4] the harvests of Campania and Sicily relieved the wants of a people whose agriculture was often interrupted by war and faction; and, since the trade was established,[5] the deputies who sailed from the Tiber might return from the same harbours with a more
- ↑ Compare Livy (l. iii. c. 31-59) with Dionysius Halicarnassensis (l. x. p. 644 [c. 55], xi. p. 691 [c. 1]). How concise and animated is the Roman — how prolix and lifeless is the Greek! Yet he has admirably judged the masters, and defined the rules, of historical composition.
- ↑ From the historians, Heineccius (Hist. J. R. l. i. No. 26) maintains that the twelve tables were of brass — aereas: in the text of Pomponius we [rightly] read eboreas; for which Scaliger has substituted roboreas (Bynkershoek, p. 286). Wood, brass, and ivory might be successively employed.
- ↑ His exile is mentioned by Cicero (Tusculan. Quæstion, v. 36); his statue [in the comitium] by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 11). The letter, dream, and prophecy of Heraclitus are alike spurious (Epistolæ Græc. Divers, p. 337). [Cp. also Strabo, 14, 25, and John Lydus, de Mag. 1, 34.]
- ↑ This intricate subject of the Sicilian and Roman money is ably discussed by Dr. Bentley (Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris, p. 427-479), whose powers in this controversy were called forth by honour and resentment.
- ↑ The Romans, or their allies, sailed as far as the fair promontory of Africa (Polyb. l. iii. p. 177, edit. Casaubon, in folio). Their voyages to Cumæ, &c. are noticed by Livy and Dionysius.
explained of a Crestona in Thrace (Notes de Larcher, tom. i. p. 256-261). The savage dialect of the Eugubine tables has exercised, and may still elude, the divination of criticism; but the root is undoubtedly Latin, of the same age and character as the Saliare Carmen, which, in the time of Horace, none could understand. The Roman idiom, by an infusion of Doric and Æolic Greek, was gradually ripened into the style of the xii tables, of the Duillian colunm, of Ennius, of Terence, and of Cicero (Gruter Inscript. tom. i. p. cxlii. Scipion Maffei, Istoria Diplomatica, p. 241-258. Bibliothèque Italique, tom. iii. p. 30-41, 174-205, tom. xiv. p. 1-52). [The language of the Eugubine Tables is neither Etruscan nor Pelasgic, nor both, but Umbrian.]
