THE VIRGIN TARPEJA. Several years ago I was much struck by what appeared to me a singular instance of the credulity of scepticism. The great German who has re-written Roman history and deprived us of a good deal of our schoolboy belief, states that he was informed by some girls, the inhabitants of the cottages on the Capitoline hill, that "in the heart of the hill the fair Tarpeja is sitting, covered with gold and jewels, and bound by a spell; that no one, try as he may, can ever find out the way to her, and that the only time she had ever been seen was by the brother of one of the girls."* Now, I have wandered about this famous hill a hundred times, and have been often joined in my way by some of the very guides to whom Niebuhr alludes, yet did I never hear of this living popular legend of the guilt of Tarpeja, or, as the German terms it, "that genuine oral tradition which has kept Tarpeja for five and twenty hundred years in the mouths of the common people;" nor did I ever hear from any one of the professed antiquarian guides of Rome that such a story still might be heard on the Capitoline hill. I am persuaded that some one practised upon the propensity of Niebuhr to believe in such traditions. Since making this remark I find that our late most learned Chancellor of the Exchequer† has entertained * History of Rome, vol. i. p. 227, Trans. by Thirlwall. similar doubts of the existence of the legend. They may be found in his work on the Credibility of Early Roman History (vol. i., p. 99, note, and p. 425), and also in the pleasing miscellany, called 'Notes and Queries,' in the number for May 2, 1857.* Sir George Lewis took, it seems, the pains to inquire of an intelligent resident at Rome, Dr. Pantaleoni, whose answer to the query concerning the said legend was given in these words: "With respect to the popular legend described by Niebuhr, I have made all possible inquiries through people living in that quarter of the town, and by their profession and character conversant with the lower orders, but I have not discovered any trace of it; and it is certain that I could not have failed in verifying it if it at all deserved the name of popular ;" and the Doctor subjoins to this the following remarks: "I may, perhaps, be allowed to add that, even if this tradition were really in existence, I could by no means agree with Niebuhr in supposing it to have been preserved for 2500 years. Almost all the oral traditions of Roman antiquities, which are locally current at Rome, had their origin during the middle ages, and were the fanciful invention of ignorant antiquaries. Thus a medieval tower-the tomb of Nero on the Flaminian road-is shown as the place where Nero was singing during the fire of Rome.” Sir George Lewis cites several German stories of dead The quotation from Niebuhr, made by Sir G. Lewis, changes the brother into a mother of one of the girls. emperors and others spell-bound in subterranean abodes, and equally authentic with the enchanted virgin of the Tarpejan rock. THE MUSEUMS OF THE CAPITOL-THE WOLF. Ancient Rome, like modern Sienna, abounded most probably with images of the foster-mother of her founder; but there were two she-wolves of whom history makes particular mention. One of these, of brass in ancient work, was seen by Dionysius* at the temple of Romulus, under the Palatine, and is universally believed to be that mentioned by Livy as having been made from the money collected by a fine on usurers, and as standing under the Ruminal fig-tree.† The other was that which Cicero has celebrated both in prose and verse, and * Χάλκεα ποιήματα παλαιᾶς ἐργασίας.—Antig. Rom., lib. i. "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. ‡ “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 De Consulatu, lib. ii. (lib. i. de Divinat. cap. ii.) The which the historian Dion also records as having suffered the same accident as is alluded to by the orator." question agitated by 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 Faunust says that it is the one alluded to by both, which is impossible, and also by * Ἐν γὰρ τῷ καπιτωλιῳ ἀνδριάντες τὲ πολλοὶ ὑπὸ κεραυνών συνεχωνεύθησαν, καὶ ἀγάλματα ἄλλα τε, καὶ Διὸς ἐπὶ κίονος ἱδρυμένον, εἰκών τέ τις λυκάινης σὺν τε τῶ Ῥώμω καὶ σύν τῷ Ρωμύλω ἱδρυμένη ἔπεσε. Dion. Hist., lib. xxxvii, c. 37. edit. Robt. Steph. 1548. He goes on to mention that the letters of the columns on which the laws were written were liquefied and become ἀμυδρά. 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. p. 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 idpvμévŋ, a word that does not mean ben-fermata, but only established, as may be distinctly seen from another passage of the same Dion—Ήβουλήθη μὲν οὖν ὁ ̓Αγρίππας καὶ τὸν Αὔγουστον ἐνταῦθα ἱδρύσαι. Hist. lib. Ivi. Dion says that Agrippa "wished to establish a statue of Augustus in the Pantheon." "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 mulctati 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. Virgil, which may be. Fulvius Ursinus* calls it the wolf of Dionysius, and Marlianus† 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.§ 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 Ruminalis by the Comitium,** by which he does not seem to allude to the church of Saint Theodore. Rycquius was the * Ap. Nardini Roma Vetus, lib. v. cap. iv. † Marliani. Urb. Rom. topograph., lib. ii. cap. ix. another wolf and twins in the Vatican, lib. v. cap. xxi. He mentions "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. p. 250, edit. Lugd. Bat. 1696. § 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. ¶ 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. ** Luc. Fauni, ib., chap. xvii. |