Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

two she-wolves of whom history makes particular mention. One of these, of brass in ancient work, was seen by Dionysius1 at the temple of Romulus, under the Palatine, and is universally believed to be that mentioned by the Latin historian, as having been made from the money collected by a fine on usurers, and as standing under the Ruminal fig-tree.2 The other was that which Cicero has celebrated both in prose and verse, and which the historian Dion also records as having suffered the same accident as is alluded to by the orator. The question agitated by

3

1 Χάλκεα ποιήματα παλαιᾶς ἐργασίας. Antiq. Rom. lib. 1.

2 "Ad ficum Ruminalem simulacra infantium conditorum urbis sub uberibus lupa posuerunt." Liv. Hist. lib. x. cap. lxix. This was in the year U. C. 455, or 457.

3 "Tum statua Nattæ, tum simulacra Deorum, Romulusque et Remus cum altrice bellua vi fulminis icti conciderunt." De Divinat. ii. 20. "Tactus est ille etiam qui hanc urbem condidit Romulus, quem inauratum in Capitolio parvum atque lactantem, uberibus lupinis inhiantem fuisse meministis." In Catilin. iii. 8.

"Hic silvestris erat Romani nominis altrix
Martia, quæ parvos Mavortis semine natos
Uberibus gravidis vitali rore rigebat

Quæ tum cum pueris flammato fulminis ictu
Concidit, atque avulsa pedum vestigia liquit."

De Consulatu. lib. ii. (lib. i. de Divinat. cap. ii.)

* Ἐν γὰρ τῷ καπητωλιῳ ἀνδριάντες πολλοὶ ὑπὸ κεραυνῶν συνε χωνεύθησαν, καὶ ἀγάλματα ἄλλα τε, καὶ διὸς ἐπὶ κίονος ἱδρυμένον, εικών τέ τις λυκάινης σὺν τε τῶ Ῥώμω καὶ σύν τῷ Ρωμύλω ἱδρυμένη ἔπεση. Dion. Hist. lib. xxxvii. pag. 37. edit. Rob. Steph. 1548. He goes on to mention that the letters of the columns on which the laws were written were liquified and become ¿uvdpa. All that the Romans did was to erect a large statue to Jupiter, looking towards the east: no mention is afterwards made of the wolf. This happened in A. U. C. 689. The Abate Fea, in noticing this passage of Dion, (Storia delle arti, &c. tom. i. pag. 202. note x.), says, Non ostante, aggiunge Dione, che fosse ben fermata, (the wolf), by which it is clear the Abate translated the Xylandro-Leuclavian version, which puts quamvis stabilita for the original idpuμévn, a word that does not mean ben-fermata, but only raised, as may be distinctly seen from another passage of the same Dion: Ἠβουλήθη μὲν οὖν ὁ ̓Αγρίππας καὶ τὸν Αὔγουστον ἐνταῦθα ἱδρύσαι. Hist. lib. ivi. Dion says that Agrippa" wished to raise a statue of Augustus in the Pantheon."

the antiquaries is, whether the wolf now in the conservators' palace is that of Livy and Dionysius, or that of Cicero, or whether it is neither one nor the other. The earlier writers differ as much as the moderns: Lucius Faunus' says, that it is the one alluded to by both, which is impossible, and also by Virgil, which may be. Fulvius Ursinus 2 calls it the wolf of Dionysius, and Marlianus3 talks of it as the one mentioned by Cicero. To him Rycquius tremblingly assents.* Nardini is inclined to suppose it may be one of the many wolves preserved in ancient Rome; but of the two rather bends to the Ciceronian statue. 5 Montfaucon mentions it as a point without doubt. Of the latter writers the decisive Winkelmann proclaims it as having been found at the church of Saint Theodore, where, or near where, was the temple of Romulus, and consequently makes it the wolf of Dionysius. His authority is Lucius Faunus, who, however, only says that it was placed, not found, at the Ficus

"In eadem porticu ænea lupa, cujus uberibus Romulus ac Remus lactantes inhiant, conspicitur: de hac Cicero et Virgilius semper intellexere. Livius hoc signum ab Ædilibus ex pecuniis quibus muletati essent fœneratores, positum innuit. Antea in Comitiis ad Ficum Ruminalem, quo loco pueri fuerant expositi locatum pro certo est." Luc. Fauni. de Antiq. Urb. Rom. lib. ii. cap. vii. ap. Sallengre, tom. i. p. 217. In his XVIIth chapter he repeats that the statues were there, but not that they were found there.

2 Ap. Nardini. Roma Vetus. lib. v. cap iv.

3 Marliani. Urb. Rom. topograph. lib. ii. cap. ix. He mentions another wolf and twins in the Vatican. lib. v. cap. xxi.

4" Non desunt qui hanc ipsam esse putent, quam adpinximus, quæ è comitio in Basilicam Lateranam, cum nonnullis aliis antiquitatum reliquiis, atque hinc in Capitolium postea relata sit, quamvis Marlianus antiquam Capitolinam esse maluit a Tullio descriptam, cui ut in re nimis dubia, trepidè adsentimur." Just. Rycquii de Capit. Roman. Comm. cap. xxiv. pag. 250. edit. Lugd. Bat. 1696.

s Nardini Roma Vetus. lib. v. cap. iv.

"Lupa hodieque in capitolinis prostat ædibus, cum vestigio fulminis quo ictam narrat Cicero." Diarium. Italic. tom. i. p. 174.

7 Storia delle arti, &c. lib. iii. cap. iii. § ii. note 10. Winkelmann has made a strange blunder in the note, by saying the Ciceronian wolf was not in the Capitol, and that Dion was wrong in saying so.

Ruminalis by the Comitium, by which he does not seem to allude to the church of Saint Theodore. Rycquius was the first to make the mistake, and Winkelmann followed Rycquius.

Flaminius Vacca tells quite a different story, and says he had heard the wolf with the twins was found' near the arch of Septimius Severus. The commentator on Winkelmann is of the same opinion with that learned person, and incensed at Nardini for not having remarked that Cicero, in speaking of the wolf struck with lightning in the Capitol, makes use of the past tense. But, with the Abate's leave, Nardini does not positively assert the statue to be that mentioned by Cicero, and, if he had, the assumption would not perhaps have been so exceedingly indiscreet. The Abate himself is obliged to own that there are marks very like the scathing of lightning in the hinder legs of the present wolf; and, to get rid of this, adds, that the wolf seen by Dionysius might have been also struck by lightning, or otherwise injured.

Let us examine the subject by a reference to the words of Cicero. The orator in two places seems to particularize the Romulus and the Remus, especially the 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.

"Intesi dire, che l'Ercolo di bronzo, che oggi si trova nella sala di Campidoglio, fu trovato nel foro Romano appresso l'arco di Settimio; e vi fu trovata anche la lupa di bronzo che allata Romolo e Remo, e stà nella Loggia de conservatori." Flam. Vacca. Memorie, num. iii. pag. 1. ap. Montfaucon Diar. Ital. tom. i.

1

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 be supposed to make part of the ancient group. It 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 favissa. 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' 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 Winkelmann 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 3 asserts that in his time the Romans worshipped a wolf; and it is known that the Lupercalia held out to a very late period after every other observance of the ancient superstition had totally expired. This may account for the preservation

1 Luc. Faun. ibid.

2 See note to stanza LXXX. in Historical Illustrations.

3" Romuli nutrix Lupa honoribus est affecta divinis, et ferrem si animal ipsum fuisset, cujus figuram gerit." Lactant. de falsa religione. Lib. 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.

To A. D. 496. Quis credere possit, says Baronius, [Ann. Eccle. tom. viii. p. 602. in an. 496.] "viguisse adhuc Romæ ad Gelasii tempora, quæ 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.

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 against 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, however, 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; notwithstanding that an inscription found in this very island of the Tyber showed the Simon Magus of Eusebius to be a certain indigenal god, called Semo Sangus or Fidius.'

Even when the worship of the founder of Rome had been abandoned, 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. The practice is continued to this day; and 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 Diony

1 Eusebius has these words; καὶ ἀνδριάντι παρ' ὑμῖν ὡς θεός, τετίμηται, ἐν τῷ Τίβερι ποταμῷ μεταξὺ τῶν δύο γεφυρῶν, ἔχων ἐπιγραφὴν ρωμαϊκὴν ταυτην Είμωνι δέω (άγκτω.

Ecclesi. Hist. Lib. ii. cap. xiii. p. 40. Justin Martyr had told the story before; but Baronius himself was obliged to detect this fable. See 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, &c. di Roma Moderna dell' Ab. Ridolf. Venuti, 1766.

« ForrigeFortsett »