[111] Of the sacred bucklers, or _ancilia_ of Rome, which were kept in the temple of Mars, Plutarch gives the following account:--“In the eighth year of Numa’s reign, a pestilence prevailed in Italy; Rome also felt its ravages. While the people were greatly dejected, we are told that a brazen buckler fell from heaven into the hands of Numa. Of this he gave a very wonderful account, received from Egeria and the Muses: that the buckler was sent down for the preservation of the city, and should be kept with great care; that eleven others should be made as like it as possible in size and fashion, in order that, if any person were disposed to steal it, he might not be able to distinguish that which fell from heaven from the rest. He further declared, that the place, and the meadows about it, where he frequently conversed with the Muses, should be consecrated to those divinities; and that the spring which watered the ground should be sacred to the use of the Vestal Virgins, daily to sprinkle and purify their temple. The immediate cessation of the pestilence is said to have confirmed the truth of this account.”--_Life of Numa._ [112] “Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the _crowning city_, whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of the earth?”--_Isaiah_, chap. 23. [113] “Un mélange bizarre de grandeur d’àme et de foiblesse entroit dès cette époque (l’onzième siècle) dans le caractère des Romains. Un mouvement généreux vers les grandes choses faisoit place tout-à-coup à l’abattement; ils passoient de la liberté la plus orageuse, à la servitude la plus avilissante. On auroit dit que les ruines et les portiques déserts de la capitale du monde, entretenoient ses habitans dans le sentiment de leur impuissance; au milieu de ces monumens de leur domination passée, les citoyens éprouvoient d’une manière trop décourageante leur propre nullité. Le nom des Romains qu’ils portoient ranimoit fréquemment leur enthousiasme, comme il le ranime encore aujourd’hui; mas bientôt la vue de Rome, du forum désert, des sept collines de nouveau rendues au pâturage des troupeaux, des temples désolés, des monumens tombant en ruine, les ramenoit à sentir qu’ils n’étoient plus les Romains d’autrefois.”--Sismondi, _Histoire des Républiques Italiennes_, vol. i. p. 172. PART II.