LETTER XV. THE CAPITOL. How I hate antiquarians! They destroy all one's happy illusions and delightful dreams, and leave one nothing in return but dismal doubts and cold uncertainties. "When ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise;" but wise I must be, though sadly against my will; and yet, after hearing and comparing all the contradictory opinions of the most famous of these stupid people-after listening to more dry discussions, and poring over more musty old books, than my ears and eyes can well endure; the end of all my knowledge is, that, like the Athenian sage, I know that I know nothing, and what is worse, I suspect that nothing is to be known; nothing at least that I want to know, can they tell me, and what they have to teach, I do not wish to learn. They have carefully grubbed up all the rubbish of antiquity, but lost the gems; and the reproach that was made to one of the tribe applies justly to all "O fie!" quoth Time to Thomas Hearne, Antiquarianism seems to me to be the mere art of guessing, the genuine science of puzzling. It begins and ends in pure supposition. It is the region of uncertainty-the atmosphere of mist-and "shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it." It is like a labyrinth, the farther you go into it, the more you are bewildered; and its professors, who pretend to be your guides through its mazes, only lead you farther astray. They can perplex, but they cannot clear up; they can tell you what a thing is not, but not what it is. If to doubt be philosophical, then are they the greatest of philosophers, for they never do any thing else; and yet their credulity is at times even more extraordinary than their scepticism. Would you believe that one of them gave me a long account of the revolutions of Latium, for about a thousand years before Romulus, as true history! But this was even surpassed by the piece of information imparted to me, with profound gravity, by a learned, and exceedingly solemn amateur antiquary, that the Sicuti, a people of Illyrium, had possession of the Capitoline Hill several centuries before the time of the Aborigenes! This was no lapsus lingua; for, in answer to my reiterated inquiries, he kindly repeated the information again and again. Would you like to have any more of their lucubrations? Will it be any satisfaction to you to know, that, at the time old Janus lived on Mons Janiculus, Saturn inhabited the Capitoline Hill, then called Saturnius; and that they were in the constant habit of fighting with each other in the most neigh bourly manner possible, until at last Saturn, at the head of an army of Cretans, got the better of Janus, and Aborigenes, and reigned unmolested over both hills? About the time these old gods were carrying on these martial operations here, I suppose Pales, the Goddess of Sheep, might be pastorally tending her flocks on the neighbouring Palatine, and Hercules slaying Cacus on the Aventine. Indeed, if we go back to what, to the utter scandal of the antiquaries, I call the fabulous history of these hills, we shall find the days of Romulus and his Rome comparatively quite recent. We shall hear of the Sicani, a body of Spanish people, who had possession of the Palatine, but who being molested by some other people, went away in a pet to Sicily, and made room for Evander and a colony of Arcadians, who did not, however, come to inhabit it for several centuries afterwards-the precise number of which is not very accurately ascertained. We shall, if we have patience, be entertained with long histories of a variety of people, cities, wars, and revolutions, both before and after the time of Janus and Saturn, -with catalogues of kings, whose existence is not very certain—and with accounts of more dynasties, catastrophes, battles, and tumults, than you, I am sure, could be brought to listen to. I will, therefore, spare you the recital of all this farrago, which I was doomed to endure; and, referring you to Virgil for all the traditional history of the Romans that is worth attending to, I will at once generously bring you down to the period when Æneas and his Trojans built Lavinium near the sea, (about twenty miles south of Rome,) and his son Ascanius founded Alba Longa, the capital of Latium, on the sloping side of the Alban Mount, the site of which can be traced to this day-by antiquarian eyes,although the city was razed to the ground by Tullus Hostilius. It was nobody knows how many centuries after this that Rome was built on the Palatine; and one of the first cares of its warlike founder, was to protect his infant city by a fortress on the Capitoline Hill. But he seemed to have been more solicitous for its safety than its sanctity; for it does not appear that he erected any temple for the worship of the gods, until, after having defeated in single combat Acron, King of the Ceninensians, a Sabine people, who are supposed to have come from Monte Celli near Tivoli; he made a trophy of the arms of his defeated royal antagonist, slung them on an oak, and bore them in triumph, with his head crowned with laurel, to the Capitol Hill, where he dedicated these opima spolia to Jupiter Feretrius, in whose honour he built a temple, the most ancient of Rome.* Plutarch's Life of Romulus. Livy, book i. chap. 10.His example was ever afterwards religiously followed by every victorious Roman general who killed with his own hand the king or leader of the enemy's troops; but, as these were few, I believe only two other instances of the opima spolia being offered up in the Temple of Feretrian Jove occurred during the whole course of the Republic; and these were by Cornelius Cossus and Claudius Marcellus. It was in the interval between the Rape of the Sabines, and the union with that nation, that this event happened. This temple, which was afterwards enlarged by Ancus Martius,* and rebuilt by Augustus, with a portico of six columns in front, is generally believed to have stood on the Tarpeian Rock-which had not then received the name it has since borne for nearly three thousand years. Tarpeia's treachery has procured her immortality; but for that, her name would not have been given to this hill, and we should never have heard of her. When the Sabines had got possession of the citadel by her treason, and when they fought with the Romans, with all the rancour of deadly hatred and revenge, in the plain between the hills, which was afterwards the Forum ;-in the moment of desperate conflict, the Romans were driven back even to the gate of their city, where their leader, after vainly endeavouring to rally them, threw up his hands to heaven, and called on the Omnipotent Jove to stop their flight. They instantly wheeled round, and in turn repulsed the Sabines; and on the spot where his prayer was granted, Romulus vowed a temple to Jupiter Stator, who was ever afterwards adored as the god that prevented the Romans from flying from their enemies.† + From a passage in Livy, it would appear, that this tem ple was not built till the year of Rome 458, "when M. Attilius Regulus, in a battle against the Samnites, vowed a temple to Jupiter Stator, as Romulus had formerly done. But as hitherto there had only been a place marked out and consecrated for that temple, the Commonwealth being a second |