[467] {396} [The bronze "Wolf of the Capitol" in the Palace of the Conservators is unquestionably ancient, belonging to the end of the sixth or beginning of the fifth century B.C., and probably of Græco-Italian workmanship. The twins, as Winckelmann pointed out (see Hobhouse's _note_), are modern, and were added under the impression that this was the actual bronze described by Cicero, _Cat._, iii. 8, and Virgil, _Æn._, viii. 631. (See _Monuments de l'Art Antique_, par Olivier Rayet, Paris, 1884, Livraison II, Planche 7.)] [468] [The Roman "things" whom the world feared, set the fashion of shedding their blood in the pursuit of glory. The nations, of modern Europe, "bastard" Romans, have followed their example.] [469] {397} [Compare _The Age of Bronze_, v.--"The king of kings, and yet of slaves the slave."] [470] [In _Comparison of the Present State of France with that of Rome_, etc., published in the _Morning Post_, September 21, 1802, Coleridge speaks of Buonaparte as the "new Cæsar," but qualifies the expression in a note: "But if reserve, if darkness, if the employment of spies and informers, if an indifference to all religions, except as instruments of state policy, with a certain strange and dark superstition respecting fate, a blind confidence in his destinies,--if these be any part of the Chief Consul's character, they would force upon us, even against our will, the name and history of Tiberius."--_Essays on His Own Times_, ii. 481.] [471] [According to Suetonius, i. 37, the famous words, _Veni Vidi, Vici_, were blazoned on litters in the triumphal procession which celebrated Cæsar's victory over Pharnaces II., after the battle of Zela (B.C. 47).] [472] {398} [By "flee" in the "Gallic van," Byron means "fly towards, not away from, the foe." He was, perhaps, thinking of the Biblical phrases, "flee like a bird" (_Ps_. xi. 1), and "flee upon horses" (_Isa_. xxx. 16); but he was not careful to "tame down" words to his own use and purpose.] [nt] _Of pettier passions which raged angrily_.--[MS. M. erased.] [nu] _At what? can he reply? his lusting is unnamed_.--[MS. M. erased.] [nv] ----_How oft--how long, oh God!_--[MS. M. erased.] [473] {399} ----"Omnes poene veteres; qui nihil cognosci, nihil percipi, nihil sciri posse dixerunt; augustos sensus, imbecillos animos, brevia curricula vitar, et (ut Democritus) in profundo veritatem esse demersam; opinionibus et institutis omnia teneri; nihil veritati relinqui: deinceps omnia tenebris circumfusa esse dixerunt."--_Academ._, lib. I. cap. 12. The eighteen hundred years which have elapsed since Cicero wrote this, have not removed any of the imperfections of humanity: and the complaints of the ancient philosophers may, without injustice or affectation, be transcribed in a poem written yesterday. [474] [Compare Gray's _Elegy_, stanza xv.-- "Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear."]