25.
And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome!
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[1] at the temple of Romulus, under the Palatine, and is universally believed to be that mentioned by the Latin historian, as having been made from the money collected by a fine on usurers, and as standing under the Ruminal fig-tree.[2] The other was that which Cicero[3] has celebrated both in prose and verse, and which the historian Dion also records as having suffered the same accident as is alluded to by the orator.[4] The question agitated by the antiquaries is, whether the wolf now in the Conservator's 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 Faunus[5] says, that it is the one alluded to by both, which is impossible, and also by Virgil, which may be. Fulvius Ursinus[6] calls it the wolf of Dionysius, and Marlianus[7] talks of it as the one
- ↑ Antiq. Rom., lib. i., Χάλκεα ποιήματα παλαῖας ἐργασίας.
- ↑ Liv., Hist., lib. x. cap. xxiii.
- ↑ "Tum statua Nattæ, tum simulacra Deorum, Romulusque et Remus cum altrice belua vi fulminis icti conciderunt."—Cic, De Divinat., ii. 20. "Tactus est etiam ille qui hanc urbem condidit Romulus: quem inauratum in Capitolio parvum atque lactentem uberibus lupinis inhiantem fuisse meministis."—In Catilin., iii. 8.
"Hic silvestris erat Romani nominis altrix
Martia, quæ parvos Mavortis semine natos
Uberibus gravidis vitali rore rigabat:
Quæ tum cum pueris flammato fulminis ictu
Concidit, atque avulsa pedum vestigia liquit."De Suo Consulatu, lib. ii. lines 42-46. - ↑ Dion., Hist., lib. xxxvii. p. 37, edit. Rob. Steph., 1548.
- ↑ Luc. Fauni De Antiq. Urb. Rom., lib. ii. cap. vii., ap. Sallengre, 1745, i. 217.
- ↑ Ap. Nardini Roma Vetus, lib. v. cap. iv., ap. J. G. Græv., Thes. Antiq. Rom., iv. 1146.
- ↑ Marliani Urb. Rom. Topograph., Venice, 1588, p. 23.
