towards understanding the political and religious character of the times, are of hardly any value for a chronological outline; and the question seems as the most fundamental one in our inquiry, whether a continuous record was kept during the period of the kings, and handed down to a later period. And practically the sole question is as to the annales maximi, or record kept by the pontifices, how far back they reached, what they contained, and whether they were preserved after the burning of the city by the Gauls. For the libri lintei, which were preserved, we know to have contained a mere list of magistrates during the republic; and the commentarii pontificum can hardly be forced into Mr. Dyer's service. For, in the first place, it is certain that they were destroyed in the burning of the city; and, even if restored from memory, it is far from likely that they contained, as he argues, a continued narration. They appear to have been a record of the cases which came before the pontifices for decision; for this collegium possessed many of the functions of a court of appeals, and would naturally have preserved a careful record of its decisions.

As to the annales maximi, we confess that the question is a difficult one. We agree with Mr. Dyer, that they contained more than a mere record of " prodigies, or other like events;" also that, even if the originals perished in the conflagration, as seems probable, copies of more or less authenticity existed. How far back it went- -or rather how far back it went as a contemporaneous record - is, however, a matter of great doubt. Cicero (De Rep., i. 16) speaks of an eclipse about the year 350 (according to Mommsen, 399 B.C.), as the first recorded in the annals; and says that from this it had been reckoned back to that in which Romulus disappeared. Mr. Dyer undertakes to show, that this means only that this was the first recorded as an eclipse, - former ones, the true theory not being known, would have passed simply as a darkness: but this appears to us not to be a legitimate influence from Cicero's words; although no doubt eclipses might, as he says, pass unnoticed in cloudy weather, so that this alone would not disprove a contemporary record for

some years previous. Undoubtedly the annals, in their later form, professed to extend back even beyond the founding of the city; but this argument proves too much, for one of the few citations that we possess from them shows that the fourth book contained the history of the Sylvian kings of Alba, long before Rome was founded. Besides this, the pontifices, who kept the record, were first established by King Numa: it is clear, therefore, that all before him and who knows how long after his reign?- was later addition.

We think, therefore, it may fairly be admitted, that the lists of consuls, with a meagre account of the events of each year, did come from the annals of the pontifices, and are more or less authentic. How far from trustworthy in detail, is well shown by an illustration given by Mommsen (vol. i. p. 434), from a period so late as B.C. 298. Scipio Barbatus, consul in that year, is said (liv. x. 12) to have commanded in Etruria, while his colleague commanded against the Samnites; but the sarcophagus of this same Scipio, which every one who has visited the Vatican gallery remembers, says that as consul he subdued Samnium and Lucania. And at any rate there is neither internal nor external evidence of any record beyond the first year of the republic, in which the temple upon the Capitoline was dedicated, an act which served as an era for all following time. The testimony of Livy, too (vi. 1), complaining of the paucity of materials, because "most of what was recorded in the commentaries of the pontifices, and other public and private monuments, perished when the city was burned," can fairly be interpreted to mean only that the contemporary records were almost worthless.

Much of the readiness to acquiesce in the history as given by Livy and others, arises doubtless from the degree in which the various accounts harmonize with each other; a circumstance which gives them a strong semblance of plausibility, as being testified to by a multitude of witnesses. But it is of very little consequence how many witnesses there are, when they all draw from the same original authority; and, in cases in which we have statements from collateral sources, we often find an equally astonishing difference in the tradi

tion. It is, for instance, only from a bronze tablet discovered at Lyons, containing a part of an oration of the learned Emperor Claudius (the James I. of Roman history), that we know that in the Etruscan annals the King Servius Tullius was claimed as an Etruscan adventurer, originally named Mastarna. Again, all the familiar accounts represent Atta Clausus as migrating to Rome in the early years of the republic; but a tradition preserved by Suetonius (Tib. i.) represents the Claudian gens as coming with Titus Tatius. But perhaps the most striking example of this factitious unanimity is in regard to the origin of the Etruscans. Almost all the Roman writers agree that they came by sea from Lydia; and it is common to appeal to this, as the unanimous testimony of antiquity. But these writers all copied from Herodotus; and Hellanicus, a contemporary of Herodotus, an equally good authority, gives a totally opposite account (quoted by Dionysius), that they came by the Adriatic, landing at Spina, and were Pelasgians, not Lydians.

We believe, therefore, that Niebuhr and his followers are right in rejecting the chronology of Roman history prior to the republic. No doubt names, events, and institutions in this period are matters of genuine tradition; perhaps the order of succession of the kings after Numa, or even including Numa. Beyond this we are not willing to go.

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This brings us to our second point, the argument from intrinsic probability. Would the character of the city itself, and of its institutions, lead us to assume a recent and formal foundation, such as that of the tradition? Athens, Sparta, Corinth, all the great cities of antiquity which were not recognized colonies, nay, the petty towns of Latium, of which Rome originally was one,- have no definite and recorded birth; but their origin is lost in the mists of antiquity. Rome alone claims to trace back her history to her very foundation, with precise dates and detailed events. This very exactness is suspicious. As soon as the date of the foundation is passed, all is obscure and fabulous, as even Mr, Dyer acknowledges; and it is much easier to attribute this remarkable precision in the later record to the invention

of a people who were remarkably fond of formal records, than to assume that this city was in reality an exception in

this respect.

But this is not all. To the ancients nothing seemed more a matter of course than for each city to assume an eponymous founder, to whose legislative action were ascribed all the fundamental institutions of the state. It was quite consistent with the later custom of bestowing upon some individual Solon or Zaleucus the full power of recasting the constitution of, the state; and they could see no distinction in principle between the fundamental social institutions and the formal political organization. Even to a modern, who confines his attention to one nation alone, and who has not learned to appreciate the slowness and spontaneousness of development of such institutions, there is nothing unreasonable in supposing that Roman history began in the eighth century before Christ. A century ago, this would have been conclusive reasoning. When it was believed that society existed by virtue of a formal contract entered into between prince and people, it was easy to assume a society octroyed by prince to people. But such theories as Mr. Dyer reasons upon are at the present day simply puerile. Primeval history is not to be investigated in one nation alone, nor must our modern political ideas and processes be suffered to affect our judgment of these remote ages. We cannot better state the problem which lies before us in this field, than in an extract from Mommsen's essay on the Roman clientship.*

"The great problem of the primeval times of the Indo-Germanic race, which has only within our memory entered within the horizon of science, has up to this time made very unequal progress. Comparative Philology, which, as was natural, made the beginning, is furthest advanced; and whatever set itself in opposition to it is already a mere matter of curiosity. Comparative Mythology is just making a commencement. But Comparative Political Science has scarcely begun ; for the pointing out of a few external resemblances, as for example

* Römische Forschungen, p. 322. Reprinted from Sybel's Historische Zeitschrift for 1859.

Jacob Grimm attempted to do in the preface to his 'Rechtsalterthümer,' has the same relation to it that the industrious collection of words of similar sound out of different idioms, in the dilettante Pagan court some centuries earlier, had to Comparative Philology. This is rather the object, to carry back those political and social institutions, which, when regarded as Roman, Greek, or Germanic, appear primitive, to their original unity, and thereby to recognize their real growth. This task is, to be sure, one of those which do not admit of a definite accomplishment, but only an endless approximation to their solution; and which therefore, with equal reason, are declared to be unsolvable by those who would begin history with the appearance of newspapers, and are answered in the style of revelation by self-sufficient charlatanism (Schwindel). But he who is in earnest with the matter will not suffer the right and honor of unprejudiced investigation to be narrowed on one side or the other, and will hold that end firmly in sight, however far distant it may be. In this investigation we may reasonably expect, that the political comparison will take its start in the Roman branch, as the linguistic in the Indian; for, however little we may know of the oldest Roman community, its image will yet, no doubt, always be clearer and richer than is possible in the parallel political forms (Bildungen) of the Greeks and Germans."

Looked at from this grand point of view, how petty appear the disputes upon minutiæ of antiquities; and how limited the historic sense which is satisfied with referring the establishment of the proud Roman patriciate to the arbitrary selection by Romulus of a hundred, or a hundred and fifty, or three hundred, senators!

We might rest here; for it is to us a sufficient reply to Mr. Dyer's elaborate arguments, that such an origin of the Roman state is inconceivable in itself, and is inconsistent both with what we know of the primitive history of other nations, and with the most advanced thought and scholarship of the day. But it seems desirable to point out precisely how far this investigation into comparative sociology has been carried, especially in relation to the early Roman state; and this we can best do by giving some extracts from Maine's treatise on the connection of Ancient Law with the early history of society, and its relation to modern ideas.