Chap. V. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 



I CI 



fame obfervation to Homer's poems. If I confidered his heroes as 

 no more than men of this world, I Ihould confider the things he re- 

 lates of them as quite ridiculous ; hut, believing them to be men 

 very much fuperior to us, I read Homer with the higheft admira- 

 tion, not only as a poet, but as the hiftorian of the noblePi race of 

 men that ever exilled — Thus, by having right notions of the fupe- 

 rior ity of men in former times, we both improve our pliilofophy of 

 man, and ourtafte in poetry. But, to proceed: 



The Romans were, as I have faid *, defcended of four Greek co- 

 lonies, which fettled in Latium at diiferent times ; the firft, a mofl 

 antient one, from Arcadia, under CEnotrus, no lefs than feventeen 

 generations before the Trojan war. They were therefore an old na- 

 tion, when they firft came to have any thing to do with the Gauls, 

 who were a ypung nation, compared with them. We are, there- 

 fore, not to wonder that the Romans, though they may be fuppofed 

 to have been originally as big men as the Greeks who fought at 

 Troy, yet, by havingbeen fo long civilized, notwithftanding their great 

 fobriety, parfimony, and even aufterity of manners, and notw^ith- 

 ftanding their conftant practice of war, were fo much inferior 

 to the Gauls in fize, ftrength, and liercenefs, that they could not 

 bear their firft onfet at the battle of Allia, but ran away almoft 

 without refiftence. The w^onderful pre-eminence of the Gauls in 

 fize is evident from the account that Livy gives of the combat be- 

 twixt Manlius and a Gaulilh champion f. Tlie fame fuperiority con- 

 tinued 



* P. III. 



t Liv. Lib- vii. Cap. lo. Where, defcribing the fuperior flature oi 



the Gaul, he fays, Callus, velut moles fiiperne imminenSy attacked the Roman, 

 who was of the ordinary military flature at that time It is evident, from his 

 account of the combat, that it was by the agility of Manlius, getting within 



the 



