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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



and Juvenal, have a grandeur entirely Roman 

 with which neither Homer nor any other Greek 

 has anything to do. But historical criticism, 

 without doing injustice to the poetical aspect of 

 the mystery, is bound to seek a rational solution. 

 Perhaps in seeking the solution we may in some 

 measure supply, or at least suggest the mode of 

 supplying, a deficiency which we venture to think 

 is generally found in the first chapters of histo- 

 ries. A national history, as it seems to us, ought 

 to commence with a survey of the country or lo- 

 cality, its geographical position, climate, produc- 

 tions, and other physical circumstances, as they 

 bear on the character of the people. We ought 

 to be presented, in short, with a complete de- 

 scription of the scene of the historic drama, as 

 well as with an account of the race who are to 

 be the actors. In the early stages of his devel- 

 opment, at all events, man is mainly the creature 

 of physical circumstance ; and by a systematic 

 examination of physical circumstance we may to 

 some extent cast the horoscope of the infant na- 

 tion as it lies in the arms of Nature. 



That the central position of Rome, in the 

 long and narrow peninsula of Italy, was highly 

 favorable to her Italian dominion, and that the 

 situation of Italy was favorable to her dominion 

 over the countries surrounding the Mediterrane- 

 an, has been often pointed out. But we have yet 

 to ask what launched Rome in her career of con- 

 quest, and, still more, what rendered that career 

 so different from those of ordinary conquerors? 

 What caused the empire of Rome to be so du- 

 rable? what gave it so high an organization? 

 what made it so tolerable, and even in some 

 cases beneficent to her subjects ? what enabled it 

 to perform services so important in preparing the 

 way for a higher civilization ? 



About the only answer that we get to these 

 questions is race. The Romans, we are told, 

 were by nature a peculiarly warlike race. " They 

 were the wolves of Italy," says Mr. Merivale, 

 who may be taken to represent fairly the state of 

 opinion on this subject. We are presented, in 

 short, with the old fable of the twins suckled by 

 the she-wolf in a slightly rationalized form. It 

 was more likely to be true, if anything, in its 

 original form, for in mythology nothing is so 

 irrational as rationalization. That unfortunate 

 she-wolf with her twins has now been long dis- 

 carded by criticism as an historical figure ; but 

 she still obtrudes herself as a symbolical legend 

 into the first chapter of Roman history, and 

 continues to affect the historian's imagination 

 and to give him a wrong bias at the outset. Who 



knows whether the statue which we possess is a 

 real counterpart of the original ? Who knows 

 what the meaning of the original statue was ? If 

 the group was of great antiquity, we may be 

 pretty sure that it was not political or historic, 

 but religious ; for primeval art is the handmaid 

 of religion ; historic representation and political 

 portraiture belong generally to a later age. We 

 cannot tell with certainty even that the original 

 statue was Roman : it may have been brought to 

 Rome among the spoils of some conquered city, 

 in which case it would have no reference to Ro- 

 man history at all. We must banish it entirely 

 from our minds, with all the associations and 

 impressions which cling to it, and we must do 

 the same with regard to the whole of that cycle 

 of legends woven out of misinterpreted monu- 

 ments or customs, with the embellishments of 

 pure fancy, which grouped itself round the apoc- 

 ryphal statues of the seven kings in the Capitol, 

 aptly compared by Arnold to the apocryphal 

 portraits of the early kings of Scotland in Holy- 

 rood, and those of the mediaeval founders of Ox- 

 ford in the Bodleian. We must clear our minds 

 altogether of these fictions ; they are not even 

 ancient : they came into existence at a time when 

 the early history of Rome was viewed in the de- 

 ceptive light of her later achievements ; when, 

 under the influence of altered circumstances, Ro- 

 man sentiment had probably undergone a con- 

 siderable change ; and when, consequently, the 

 national imagination no longer poiuted true to 

 anything primeval. 



Race, wheu tribal peculiarities are once 

 formed, is a most important feature in history ; 

 those who deny this and who seek to resolve every- 

 thing, even in advanced humanity, into the influ- 

 ence of external circumstances or of some particu- 

 lar external circumstance, such as food, are not less 

 one-sided or less wide of the truth than those who 

 employ race as the universal solution. Who can 

 doubt that between the English and the French, 

 between the Scotch and the Irish, there are dif- 

 ferences of character w Inch have profoundly af- 

 fected and still affect the course of history ? The 

 case is still stronger if we take races more re- 

 mote from each other, such as the English and 

 the Hindoo. But the further we inquire, the. 

 more reason there appears to be for believing that 

 peculiarities of race are themselves originally 

 formed by the influence of external circumstances 

 on the primitive tribe ; that, however marked and 

 ingrained they may be, they are not congenital 

 and perhaps not indelible. Englishmen and 

 Frenchmen are closely assimilated by education ; 



