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In the Berlin Galleries, which are made up, like other Galleries, of goat-footed Pan, Europa's Bull, Romulus's She-Wolf, and the correggiosity of Correggio; and contain, for instance, no Portrait of Frederick the Great; no Likenesses at all, or next to none at all, of the noble series of Human Realities, or of any part of them, who have sprung not from the idle brains of dreaming Dilettanti, but from the Head of God Almighty, to make this poor authentic Earth a little memorable for us, and to do a little work that may be eternal there: in those expensive Halls of "High Art" at Berlin, there were, to my experience, few Pictures more agreeable than this of Pesne's.
His manners were little agreeable or acceptable to the people, and he received very slender marks of their favor; witness his repulse when he sued for the consulship, which he lost, as Cicero says, for acting rather like a citizen in Plato's commonwealth, than among the dregs of Romulus's posterity, the same thing happening to him, in my opinion, as we observe in fruits ripe before their season, which we rather take pleasure in looking at and admiring, than actually use; so much was his old-fashioned virtue out of the present mode, among the depraved customs which time and luxury had introduced, that it appeared indeed remarkable and wonderful, but was too great and too good to suit the present exigencies, being so out of all proportion to the times.
In the times of Varro the philosopher, a man deeply read in Roman history, lived one Tarrutius, his familiar acquaintance, a good philosopher and mathematician, and one, too, that out of curiosity had studied the way of drawing schemes and tables, and was thought to be a proficient in the art; to him Varro propounded to cast Romulus's nativity, even to the first day and hour, making his deductions from the several events of the man's life which he should be informed of, exactly as in working back a geometrical problem; for it belonged, he said, to the same science both to foretell a man's life by knowing the time of his birth, and also to find out his birth by the knowledge of his life.
XXVI. This was Romulus's last war. After it, he, like nearly all those who have risen to power and fame by a great and unexpected series of successes, became filled with self-confidence and arrogance, and, in place of his former popular manners, assumed the offensive style of a despot.
Antiquity indeed has received fables that have at times been sufficiently improbable: but this epoch, which was already so cultivated, disdaining every fiction that was impossible, rejected * We may therefore, perhaps, attach some credit to this story of Romulus's immortality, since human life was at that time experienced, cultivated, and instructed.
Romulus would not part with the young women, yet proposed to the Sabines to enter into an alliance with them; upon which point some consulted and demurred long, but Acron, king of the Ceninenses, a man of high spirit and a good warrior, who had all along a jealousy of Romulus's bold attempts, and considering particularly from this exploit upon the women that he was growing formidable to all people, and indeed insufferable, were he not chastised, first rose up in arms, and with a powerful army advanced against him.
The first thing he did at his entrance into government was to dismiss the band of three hundred men which had been Romulus's life-guard, called by him Celeres, saying, that he would not distrust those who put confidence in him, nor rule over a people that distrusted him.
For Romulus's success was due to the great favour of Heaven, whereas the oracle given to Aegeus, to refrain from all women in foreign parts, seems to argue that the birth of Theseus took place contrary to the will of the gods.
Not far from these were the souls of Romulus's successors in the' early days of Rome, Numa Pompilius, who first would give his country laws, and encourage the arts of peace; Tullus Hostilius, who would wage victorious wars, and extend the territories of Rome; Ancus Martius, not less successful in the field; and Tarquin, destined to lose the throne through his oppressive reign.
* The Piazza del Campidoglio is really a depression between the Capitolium proper and the northern height called the Arx. It is supposed to have been the exact site of Romulus's traditional Asylum. Trans.
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