L>IMI 



AN ESSAY ON THE NATIONAL CHARACTER OF 

 THE ROMANS. 



In a paper on the National Character of the Romans, it will be 

 necessary, in the first place, to make a few brief observations on the 

 origin and early history of their celebrated commonwealth. 



It is not here intended to offer any remarks upon the subject of 

 Roman history, but simply to write upon the national character of 

 the people. The Romans may be said to have been the inventors 

 of the science of politics — to have first laid down practical rules and 

 maxims for national exertions — and to have set out, even when they 

 were but a petty state, upon a system of which the conquest of the 

 world was only the necessary consequence. In the present Essay, 

 however, it is not exactly my business to concern myself with these 

 matters. 



It has been admirably observed by a modern historian, that 

 " numberless are the events and the changes through which the 

 Romans passed from one extreme to the opposite : vast destinies, 

 mi<*htv deeds, and men who were worthy to wield a gigantic power, 

 have preserved the memory of much, in the history of Rome, even 

 during the most ignorant ages. But, in the early part of it, Poetry 

 has drawn her party-coloured veil over historical truth : afterwards 

 vain fictions, still more frequently than popular legends, under vari- 

 ous forms, are mixed up, within the outlines of dry chronicles, with 

 the scantv results collected by one or two genuine historians from 

 authentic sources. Often they are irreconcilable and easily disco- 

 vered ; but sometimes there is a deceitful congruity."* There can, 

 indeed, be no doubt but, in the early history of Rome, poetry has 

 done much, national vanity much, and individual credulity much, to 

 embroider the plain fabric of truth with no inconsiderable proportion 

 of embellishment. Still, however, from the nature of the pattern 

 we may, perhaps, form an opinion as to the taste, not only of the 

 embroiderers, but also of the public or community for whom their 

 wares were originally fashioned. In other words, even if Niebuhr 

 is perfectly correct, throughout the whole of those lectures in which 

 he makes such unmerciful use of his pruning hook, yet from the 

 character of the embellishments, or if you like it better, inventions, 

 we may certainly form an opinion as to those qualities which were 



• Hall and Thirlwall's Nitbuhr, Vol. I, p. 1. 



