the advantage of not being able to be flooded,--a high and dry plain, whither the country people might take refuge in case of war. For this reason Servius Tullius constructed his great rampart from the Porta Collina to the Esquiline gate,--almost the fifth of a German mile, and a moat besides, an hundred feet broad and thirty deep. The earth from the moat formed the rampart, which was protected by a lining wall on the side of the ditch, and by battlements and towers on the top. Of this stupendous work, which Pliny justly regards with wonder, there is hardly anything whatever left; its line only may yet be traced. But in the times of Augustus, even in those of Pliny, it was in perfect preservation, and therefore it was not possible to talk at random about it. It was a public promenade of the Romans: Dionysius has seen it, and walked on it a hundred times. Rome had now gained her seven hills, since the Viminal was first brought by that wall within the precincts of the city, which thus had a circumference of more than a German mile, like Athens after the Persian wars; a considerable town even for our days. We therefore see again how false is the opinion of Florus and others, who look upon the time of the kings, as being one of childhood (_infans in cunis vagiens_): on the contrary, after the expulsion of the kings Rome fell to a low ebb for a long time. Well worth our attention is the Etruscan tradition concerning Servius Tullius, and the fragment of Claudius’ speech on the tablets at Lyons, which contains the notices of Cæles Vibenna and Mastarna from Etruscan historians.[81] I never was so much surprised by any literary discovery as by this. Not a soul had taken any heed of it before;--people don’t look at such square letters, especially when they are those of the silly Claudius. I at that time still believed in the Etruscan origin of Rome, and thought that quite a new light would thus be shed upon the whole of the Roman history. Cælius Vibenna must be an historical person: mention is made of him too frequently and too distinctly; his name also is such that the Romans could not have invented it, as the Etruscan language was as foreign to them, as the Celtic to us Germans. Nor is it perhaps to be doubted that he had a friend Mastarna. But when I search into the legislation which is ascribed to Servius Tullius,--whatever abatements may be made on the score of historical precision, especially with regard to chronology, although the fact is unquestionable that Servius reigned before the last king, and was overthrown by the thoroughly historical Tarquin the Proud,--this legislation was yet so peaceful and so free, that I cannot bring myself to believe that a condottiere, a captain of freebooters (for such were those enlisted troops) should have made such mild laws, and intended to change the monarchy into a republic. The whole civil and political legislation of Servius Tullius bears the impress of a thoroughly Latin