first, which his audience remembered to have been in the Capitol, as being struck with lightning. In his verses he records that the twins and wolf both fell, and that the latter left behind the marks of her feet. Cicero does not say that the wolf was consumed: and Dion only mentions that it fell down, without alluding, as the Abate has made him, to the force of the blow, or the firmness with which it had been fixed. The whole strength, therefore, of the Abate's argument, hangs upon the past tense; which, however, may be somewhat diminished by remarking that the phrase only shows that the statue was not then standing in its former position. Winkelmann has observed, that the present twins are modern; and it is equally clear that there are marks of gilding on the wolf, which might therefore he supposed to make part of the ancient group. Is is known that the sacred images of the Capitol were not destroyed when injured by time or accident, but were put into certain underground depositaries called favissae. It may be thought possible that the wolf had been so deposited, and had been replaced in some conspicuous situation when the Capitol was rebuilt by Vespasian. Rycquius, without mentioning his authority, tells that it was transferred from the Comitium to the Lateran, and thence brought to the Capitol. If it was found near the arch of Severus, it may have been one of the images which Orosius 2 says was thrown down in the Forum by lightning when Alaric took the city. That it is of very high antiquity the workmanship is a decisive proof; and that circumstance induced Winkel I I Luc. Faun. ibid. * See note to stanza LXXX. in Historical Illustrations. mann to believe it the wolf of Dionysius. The Capitoline wolf, however, may have been of the same early date as that at the temple of Romulus, Lactantius I asserts that in his time the Romans worshipped a wolf; and it is known that the Lupercalia held out to a very late period 2 after every other observance of the ancient superstition had totally expired, This may ac¬ count for the preservation of the ancient image longer than the other early symbols of Paganism. It may be permitted, however, to remark that the wolf was a Roman symbol, but that the worship of that symbol is an inference drawn by the zeal of Lactantius. The early Christian writers are not to be trusted in the charges which they make agains the Pagans. Eusebius accused the Romans to their faces of worshipping Simon Magus, and raising a statue to him in the island of the Tyber. The Romans had probably never heard of such a person before, who came, howe "Romuli nutrix Lupa honoribus est affecta divinis, et ferrem si animal ipsum fuisset, cujus figuram gerit. Lactant. de falsa religione. Lid. 1. cap. 20. pag. 101. edit. varior. 1660; that is to say, he would rather adore a wolf than a prostitute, His commentator has observed that the opinion of Livy concerning Laurentia being figured in this wolf was not universal. Strabo thought so, Rycquius is wrong in saying that Lactantius mentions the wolf was in the Capitol. 2 To A. D. 490. Quis credere possit, says Baronius, [Ann. Eccle. tom. viii. p. 602. in an. 496.] "viguisse adhuc Romae ad Gelasii tempora, quae fuere ante exordia urbis allata in Italiam Lupercalia?" "Gelasius wrote a letter which occupies four folio pages to Andromachus, the senator, and others, to show that the rites should be given up. ver, to play a considerable, though scandalous part in the church history, and has left several tokens of his aerial combat with St. Peter at Rome; nothwithstanding that an inscription found in this very island of the Tyber shewed the Simon Magus of Eusebius to be a certain indigenal god, called Semo Sangus or Fidius. I Even when the worship of the founder of Rome had been abandonned, it was thought expedient to humour the habits of the good matrons of the city by sending them with their sick infants to the church of Saint Theodore, as they had before carried them to the temple of Romulus. 2 The practice is continued to this day; snd the site of the above church seems to be thereby identified with that of the temple: so that if the wolf had been really found there, as Winkelmann says, there would be no doubt of the present statue being that seen by Dionysius. But Faunus, in saying that 3 * Eusebius has these words; καὶ ἀνδριάντι παρ' ὑμῖν ὡς θεὸς, τετίμηται, ἐν τῷ τίβερι ποταμῷ μεταξὺ τῶν δύο γεφυρῶν, ἔχων ἐπιγραφὴν ρωμαϊκὴν ταύτην Σίμωνι do Sayaro. Ecclesi. Hist. Lib. ii. cap. xiii. p. 40. Justin Martyr had told the story before; but Baronius himself was obliged to detect this fable. Se Nardini Roma Vet. lib. vii. cap. xii. 2 "In essa gli antichi pontefici per toglier la memoria de' giuochi Lupercali istituiti in onore di Romolo, introdussero l'uso di portarvi Bambini oppressi da infermità occulte, acciò si liberino per l'intercessione di questo Santo, come di continuo si sperimenta." Rione xii. Ripa accurata e succincta descrizione, etc. di Roma Moderna dell' Ab. Ridolf. Venuti, 1766. 3 Nardini, lib. v. cap. 11. convicts Pomponius Laetus erassi erroris, in putting the Ruminal fig-tree at the church of Saint Theodore: but, as Livy says, the wolf it was at the Fiscus Ruminalis by the Comitium, is only talking of its ancient position as recorded by Pliny; and even if he had been remarking where it was found, would not have alluded to the church of Saint Theodore, but to a very different place, near which it was then thought the Ficus Ruminalis had been, and also the Comitium; that is, the three columns by the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice, at the corner of the Palatine looking on the Forum. It is, in fact, a mere conjecture where the image was actually dug up, I and perhaps, on the whole, the marks of the gilding, and of the lightning, are a better argument in favour of its being the Ciceronian wolf than any that can be adduced for the contrary opinion. At any rate, it is reasonably selected in the text of the poem as one of the most interesting relics of the ancient, 2 was at the Ficus Ruminalis, and Dionysius at the temple of Romulus, he is obliged, (cap. iv.) to own that the two were close together, as well as the Lupercal cave, shaded, as it were, by the fig-tree. I "Ad comitium ficus olim Ruminalis germinabat, sub qua lupae rumam, hoc est, mammam, docente Varrone, suxerant olim Romulus et Remus; non procul a templo hodie D. Mariae Libratricis appellato ubi forsan inventa nobilis illa aenea stutua lupae geminos puerulos lactantis, quam hodie in capitolis videmus." Olai Borrichii antiqua Urbis Romana facies, cap. x. See also cap. xii. Borrichius wrote after Nardini in 1687. Ap. Graev. Antiq. Rom. iv. p. 1522. 2 Donatus, lib. xi. cap. 18. gives a medal representing on one side the wolf in the same position as that in the Capitol; and in the reverse the wolf with the head reverted. It is the time of Antoninus Pius. and is certainly the figure, if not the very animal to which Virgil alludes in his beautiful verses: "Geminos huic ubera circum Ludere pendentes pueros et lambere matrem Note 47, page 138, lines 3 and 4. For the Roman's mind Was modell'd in a less terestrial mould. It is possible to be a very great man and to be still very inferior to Julius Caesar, the most complete character, so Lord Bacon thought, of all antiquity. Nature seems incapable of such extraordinary combinations as composed his versatile capacity, which was the wonder even of the Romans themselves. The first general the only triumphant politician inferior to none in eloquence comparable to any in the attainments of wisdom, in an age made up of the greatest commanders, statesmen, orators and philosophers that ever appeared in the world an author who composed a perfect specimen of military annals in his travelling carriage — at one time in a controversy with Cato, at another writing a treatise on punning, and collecting a set of good sayings fightings 2 and making love at the same mo Aen. viii. 631. Sce Dr. Mittleton, in his Letter from Rome, who inclines to the Ciceronian wolf, but without examining the subject. 2 In his tenth book, Lucan shews him sprinkled with the blood of Pharsalia in the arms of Cleopatra, |