The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
General
The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
English poetry
Trajan's "moderation was known unto all men." Pliny, in his
_Panegyricus_ (xxii.), describes his first entry into Rome. He might
have assumed the state of a monarch or popular hero, but he walked
afoot, conspicuous, pre-eminent, a head and shoulders above the crowd--a
triumphal entry; but it was imperial arrogance, not civil liberty, over
which he triumphed. "You were our king," he says, "and we your subjects;
but we obeyed you as the embodiment of our laws." Martial (_Epig._, x.
72) hails him not as a tyrant, but an emperor--yea, more than an
emperor--as the most righteous of lawgivers and senators, who had
brought back plain Truth to the light of day; and Claudian (viii. 318)
maintains that his glory will live, not because the Parthians had been
annexed, but because he was "mitis patriæ." The divine honours which he
caused to be paid to his adopted father, Nerva, he refused for himself.
"For just reasons," says Pliny, "did the Senate and people of Rome
assign thee the name and title of Optimus." Another honour awaited him:
"Il est seul Empereur," writes M. De La Berge, "dont les restes aient
reposé dans l'enceinte de la ville Eternelle." (See Pliny's
_Panegyricus, passim;_ and _Essai sur le règne de Trajan_, Bibliothèque
de L'Ecole des Hautes Études, Paris, 1877.)]
[490] {412} [The archæologists of Byron's day were unable to fix the
exact site of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline.
"On which side," asks Hobhouse (_Hist. Illust._, p. 224), "stood the
citadel, on what the great temple of the Capitol; and did the temple
stand in the citadel?" Excavations which were carried on in 1876-7 by
Professors Jordan and Lanciani enabled them to identify with "tolerable
certainty" the site of the central temple and its adjacent wings, with
the site of the Palazzo Caffarelli and its dependencies which occupy the
south-east section of the Mons Capitolinus. There are still, however,
rival Tarpeian Rocks--one (in the Vicolo della Rupe Tarpea) on the
western edge of the hill facing the Tiber, and the other (near the Casa
Tarpea) on the south-east towards the Palatine. But if Dionysius, who
describes the "Traitor's Leap" as being in sight of the Forum, is to be
credited, the "actual precipice" from which traitors (and other
criminals, e.g. "bearers of false witness") were thrown must have been
somewhere on the southern and now less precipitous escarpment of the
mount.]
[oj] {413} _The State Leucadia_----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[491] [M. Manlius, who saved the Capitol from the Gauls in B.C. 390, was
afterwards (B.C. 384) arraigned on a charge of high treason by the
patricians, condemned, and by order of the tribunes thrown down the
Tarpeian Rock. Livy (vi. 20) credits him with a "foeda cupiditas
regni"--a "depraved ambition for assuming the kingly power."]
[ok]
_There first did Tully's burning accents glow?_
_Yes--eloquently still--the echoes tell me so_.--[D.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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