BIOGRAPHER, HISTORIAN, AND MAN OF LETTERS. 241 



As before said, Roman society, so heterogeneous in its 

 composition, had its lines of normal evolution broken by 

 intruding influences. But still we trace some connexion 

 between the priest and the historian. According to Duruy 

 and others 



&quot;The pontiffs were concerned in keeping up the memory of events 

 as accurately as possible. Thus the Romans had the Annals of the 

 Pontiffs, or Annales Maximi, the Fasti Magistratuwn, the Fasti Trium- 

 phales, the rolls of the censors, etc. &quot; 



&quot;Every year the chief pontiff inscribed on a white tablet, at the head 

 of which were the names of the consuls and other magistrates, a daily 

 record of all memorable events both at home and abroad. These com 

 mentaries or registers were afterwards collected into eighty books 

 which were entitled by their authors Annales Maximi.&quot; 



Further, by its associations, the body offetiales was appar 

 ently shown to have had some sacerdotal character. 



&quot;By the side of these two oldest and most eminent corporations of 

 men versed in spiritual lore [augures and pontifices] may be to some extent 

 ranked the college of the twenty state- heralds (fetiales, of uncertain 

 derivation), destined as a living repository to preserve traditionally 

 the remembrance of the treaties concluded with neighbouring com 

 munities.&quot; 



If, as is alleged, Romulus was regarded by the Romans as 

 one of their great gods, honoured by a temple and a sacri 

 ficing priest, it seems inferable that the story of his deeds 

 which, mythical as it may have chiefly been, had probably 

 some nucleus of fact, was from time to time repeated in the 

 laudations of his priest ; and that the speech or hymn uttered 

 by his priest at festivals, had, like the kindred ones which 

 Greek priests uttered, a biographico-historical character. 



Though but indirectly relevant to the immediate issue, 

 it is worth while adding that the earliest Roman historian, 

 Ennius, was also an epic poet &quot; the Homer of Latium,&quot; as 

 he called himself. The versified character of early history 

 exemplified in his writings, as also we shall presently see in 

 later writings, is, of course, congruous with that still earlier 

 union of the two, which was seen in the laudatory narra 

 tives of the primitive priest-poet. 



