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Unfortunately, I could not attend the lectures of Ernst Curtius, who had just been summoned to Gottingen, on account of the hours at which they were given. My wish to join Waitz's classes was also unfulfilled, but I went to those of the philosopher Lotze, and they opened a new world to me. I was also one of the most eager of Professor Unger's hearers.
The Scene of this Play is laid in Babylon. The author afterwards not only polished his native language, but altered the Play itself; as to the plot consult Q. Curtius, Diodorus Siculus, Justin, Plutarch's Life of Alexander, &c. Julius Cæsar, a Tragedy.
All the armies and the triumphs have marched into the great chasm, with their martial music playing, as they stepped over the brink. All the heroes, the statesmen, and the poets! All piled upon poor Curtius, who thought to have saved them all! I am loath to smile at the self-conceit of that gallant horseman, but cannot well avoid it."
Straightway he mounted his horse and, just as he was, dashed heroically forward and passed down into that frightful pit. No sooner had he rushed down the incline than the fissure closed; and the rest of the Romans from above scattered flowers. From this event the name of Curtius was applied also to a cellar. Tzetzes, Scholia for the Interpretation of Homer's Iliad, p. 136, 17, Cp.
I write to you, Curtius, as from my last you were doubtless led to expect, from Emesa, a Syrian town of some consequence, filled now to overflowing with the Roman army. Here Aurelian reposes for a while, after the fatigues of the march across the desert, and here justice is to be inflicted upon the leaders of the late revolt, as by Rome it is termed.
But Curtius and Diodorus represent him as engaged in a long struggle against Alexander himself, and as only flying when he was in imminent danger of falling into the enemy's hands. Justin goes further, and states that he was actually wounded. The character gained by Darius in his earlier years makes it improbable that he would under any circumstances have exhibited personal cowardice.
It was at this time that the earth is said to have been opened in the forum by an earthquake, and that Curtius cast himself into it as a sacrifice; but, as we have read of the occurrence before we shall not stop to consider it again. The young hero was called Mettus Curtius in the former instance, but now the name given to him is Marcus Curtius.
The product of an era of convulsions, in all of whose changes he took part, and which he at last closed by subjecting all ideas under a rule, which at one time promised to be lasting, he, like Catiline, requires a Sallust; like Charlemagne, an Eginhard; and like Alexander, a Quintus Curtius.
They probably contain more poetry than history, particularly that of Curtius and the gulf. Yet they were accepted as history by the Romans, and are given in all their detail in the fine old work of Livy, the rarest and raciest of the story-tellers of Rome. The conquest of Italy by Rome was attended by many interesting events, of which we propose to relate here some of the more striking.
No one can marvel, my Curtius, that a letter in the terms of Aurelian's should be rejected, nor that it should provoke such an answer as Zenobia's. It has served merely to exasperate passions which were already enough excited.
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