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from the small cellular structure at the end of the Spina, which was probably the chapel of the god Consus. This cell is half beneath the soil, as it must have been in the circus itself, for Dionysius* could not be persuaded to believe that this divinity was the Roman Neptune, because his altar was under-ground.

57.

Yet let us ponder boldly.

Stanza cxxvii. line 1.

"At all events," says the author of the Academical Questions, "I trust, whatever may be the fate of my own speculations, that philosophy will regain that estimation which it ought to possess. The free and philosophic spirit of our nation has been the theme of admiration to the world. This was the proud distinction of Englishmen, and the luminous source of all their glory. Shall we then forget the manly and dignified sentiments of our ancestors, to prate in the language of the mother or the nurse about our good old prejudices? This is not the way to defend the cause of truth. It was not thus that our fathers maintained it in the brilliant periods of our history. Prejudice may be trusted to guard the outworks for a short space of time while reason slumbers in the citadel; but if the latter sink into a lethargy, the former will quickly erect a standard for herself. Philosophy, wisdom, and liberty, support each other: he who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot, is a fool; and he who dares not, is a slave." Preface, p. xiv, xv. vol. i. 1805.

58.

Great Nemesis!

Here, where the ancient paid thee homage long.

Stanza cxxxii. lines 2 and 3.

We read in Suetonius, that Augustus, from a warning received in a dream †, counterfeited, once a year, the beg.

* Antiq. Rom. lib. ii. cap. xxxi. † Sueton. in Vit. Augusti, cap. 91. Casaubon, in the note, refers to Plutarch's Lives of Camillus and Æmilius Paulus, and also to his apophthegnis, for the character of this deity.

gar, sitting before the gate of his palace with his hand hollowed and stretched out for charity. A statue formerly in the Villa Borghese, and which should be now at Paris, represents the Emperor in that posture of supplication. The object of this self degradation was the appeasement of Nemesis, the perpetual attendant on good fortune, of whose power the Roman conquerors were also reminded by certain symbols attached to their cars of triumph. The symbols were the whip and the crotalo, which were discovered in the Nemesis of the Vatican. The attitude of beggary made the above statue pass for that of Belisarius: and until the criticism of Winkelmann * had rectified the mistake, one fiction was called in to support another. It was the same fear of the sudden termination of prosperity that made Amasis king of Egypt warn his friend Polycrates of Samos, that the gods loved those whose lives were chequered with good and evil fortunes. Nemesis was supposed to lie in wait particularly for the prudent; that is, for those whose caution rendered them accessible only to mere accidents: and her first altar was raised on the banks of the Phrygian Æsepus by Adrastus, probably the prince of that name who killed the son of Croesus by mistake. Hence the goddess was

called Adrasteat.

The Roman Nemesis was sacred and august: there was a temple to her in the Palatine under the name of Rhamnusia so great indeed was the propensity of the ancients to trust to the revolution of events, and to believe in the divinity of Fortune, that in the same Palatine there was a

The hollowed hand was reckoned the last degree of degradation; and when the dead body of the præfect Rufinus was borne about in triumph by the people, the indignity was increased by putting his hand in that position.

* Storia delle Arti, &c. lib. xii. cap. iii. tom. ii. p. 422. Visconti calls the statue, however, a Cybele. It is given in the Museo Pio-Clement. tom. i. par. 40. The Abate Fea (Spiegazione dei Rami. Storia, &c. tom. iii. p. 513.) calls it a Chrisippus.

Dict. de Bayle, article Adrastea.

It is enumerated by the regionary Victor.

temple to the Fortune of the day*. This is the last superstition which retains its hold over the human heart; and from concentrating in one object the credulity so natural to man, has always appeared strongest in those unembarrassed by other articles of belief. The antiquaries have supposed this goddess to be synonymous with Fortune and with Fate but it was in her vindictive quality that she was worshipped under the name of Nemesis.

59.

I see before me the Gladiator lie.

Stanza cxl. line 1.

Whether the wonderful statue which suggested this image be a laquearian gladiator, which in spite of Winkelmann's criticism has been stoutly maintained ‡, or whether it be a Greek herald, as that great antiquary positively asserted §, or whether it is to be thought a Spartan or barbarian shield

* Fortunæ hujusce diei. Cicero mentions her, de Legib. lib. ii.

DEAE NEMESI

SIVE FORTUNAE

PISTORIVS

RVGIANVS

V. C. LEGAT.

LEG. XIII. G.
CORD.

See Questiones Romanæ, &c. ap. Græv. Antiq. Roman. tom. v. p. 942. See also Muratori, Nov. Thesaur. Inscrip. Vet. tom. i. p. 88, 89, where there are three Latin and one Greek inscription to Nemesis, and others to Fate.

By the Abate Bracci, dissertazione supra un clipeo votivo, &c. Preface, pag. 7. who accounts for the cord round the neck, but not for the horn, which it does not appear the gladiators themselves ever used. Note A, Storia delle Arti, tom. ii. p. 205.

§ Either Polifontes, herald of Laius, killed by Edipus; or Cepreas, herald of Euritheus, killed by the Athenians when he endeavoured to drag the Heraclidæ from the altar of mercy, and in whose honour they instituted annual games, continued to the time of Hadrian; or Anthemocritus, the Athenian herald, killed by the Megarenses, who never recovered the impiety. See Storia delle Arti, &c. tom. ii. pag. 203, 204, 205, 206, 207. lib. ix. cap. ii.

bearer, according to the opinion of his Italian editor*, it must assuredly seem a copy of that masterpiece of Ctesilaus which represented "a wounded man dying who perfectly expressed what there remained of life in him †." Montfaucon and Maffei § thought it the identical statue; but that statue was of bronze. The gladiator was once in the villa Ludovizi, and was bought by Clement XII. The right arm is an entire restoration of Michael Angelo ||.

60.

He, their sire,

Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday.

Stanza cxli. lines 6 and 7.

Gladiators were of two kinds, compelled and voluntary; and were supplied from several conditions; from slaves sold for that purpose; from culprits; from barbarian captives either taken in war, and, after being led in triumph, set apart for the games, or those seized and condemned as rebels; also from free citizens, some fighting for hire (auctorati), others from a depraved ambition: at last even knights and senators were exhibited, a disgrace of which the first tyrant was naturally the first inventor ¶. In the end, dwarfs, and even women, fought; an enormity prohibited by Severus. Of these the most to be pitied undoubtedly were the barbarian captives; and to this species a Christian writer ** justly applies the epithet "innocent,” to distinguish them from the professional gladiators. Aurelian and Claudius supplied great numbers of these unfortunate victims; the one after his triumph, and the other on the pretext of a rebel

*Storia, &c. tom. ii. p. 207. Not. (A.)

+"Vulneratum deficientem fecit in quo possit intelligi quantum restat animæ." Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xxxiv. cap. 8. Antiq. tom. iii. par. 2. tab. 155.

§ Race. Stat. tab. 64.

Mus. Capitol. tom. iii. p. 154. edit. 1755.

Julius Cæsar, who rose by the fall of the aristocracy, brought Furius Leptinus and A. Calenus upon the arena.

**Tertullian, "certe quidem et innocentes gladiatores in ludum veniunt, et voluptatis publicæ hostiæ fiant." Just. Lips. Saturn. Sermon. lib. ii. cap. iii.

lion *. No war, says Lipsius †, was ever so destructive to the human race as these sports. In spite of the laws of Constantine and Constans, gladiatorial shows survived the old established religion more than seventy years; but they owed their final extinction to the courage of a Christian. In the year 404, on the kalends of January, they were exhibiting the shows in the Flavian amphitheatre before the usual immense concourse of people. Almachius or Telemachus, an eastern monk, who had travelled to Rome intent on his holy purpose, rushed into the midst of the area, and endeavoured to separate the combatants. The prætor Alypius, a person incredibly attached to these games ‡, gave instant orders to the gladiators to slay him; and Telemachus gained the crown of martyrdom, and the title of saint, which surely has never either before or since been awarded for a more noble exploit. Honorius immediately abolished the shows, which were never afterwards revived. The story is told by Theodoret § and Cassiodorus, and seems worthy of credit notwithstanding its place in the Roman martyrology ¶. Besides the torrents of blood which flowed at the funerals, in the amphitheatres, the circus, the forums, and other public places, gladiators were introduced at feasts, and tore each other to pieces amidst the supper tables, to the great delight and applause of the guests. Yet Lipsius permits himself to suppose the loss of courage, and the evident degeneracy of mankind, to be nearly connected with the abolition of these bloody spectacles **.

Vopiscus, in vit. Aurel. and in vit. Claud. ibid.

+"Credo imò scio nullum bellum tantam cladem vastitiemque generi humano intulisse, quam hos ad voluptatem ludos." Just. Lips. ibid. lib. i. cap. xii.

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Augustinus (lib. vi. confess. cap. viii.), Alypium suum gladiatorii spectaculi inhiatu incredibiliter abreptum," scribit. ib. lib. i. cap. xii.

& Hist. Eccles. cap. xxvi. lib. v.

Cassiod. Tripartita, l. x. c. xi. Saturn. ib. ib.

Baronius, ad. ann. et in notis ad Martyrol. Rom. 1. Jan. See-Marangoni delle memorie sacre e profane dell' Anfiteatro Flavio, p. 25. edit. 1746.

**Quod? non tu Lipsi momentum aliquod habuisse censes ad virtutem? Magnum. Tempora nostra, nosque ipsos videamus. Oppidum ecce unum alterumve captum, direptum est; tumultus circa nos, non in nobis: et tamen concidimus et tur

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