and divisions of the copper-money, the sole coin CHA P. of the infant state, were of Dorian origin *: the XIV. harvests of Campania and Sicily relieved the wants of a people whose agriculture was often interrupted by war and faction; and since the trade was established †, the deputies who sailed from the Tyber, might return from the same harbours with a more precious cargo of political wisdom. The colonies of Great Greece had transported and improved the arts of their mother-country. Cuma and Rhegium, Crotona and Tarentum, Agrigentum and Syracuse, were in the rank of the most flourishing cities. The disciples of Pythogoras applied philosophy to the use of government; the unwritten laws of Charondas accepted the aid of poetry and music ‡, and Zaleucus framed the republic of the Locrians, which stood without alteration above two hundred years §. From a similiar motive of B 4 national

v. 36.); his statue by Pliny (Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 11.). The letter, dream, and prophecy of Heraclitus, are alike spurious (Epistolæ. Græc. Divers. p. 337-).

* This intricate subject of the Sicilian and Roman money, is ably discussed by Dr. Bentley (Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris, p. 427-479.), whose powers in this controversy were called forth by honour and resentment.

The Romans, or their allies, sailed as far as the fair promontory of Africa (Polyb. 1. iii. p. 177. edit. Casaubon, in folio). Their voyages to Cumæ, &c. are noticed by Livy and Dionysius.

This circumstance would alone prove the antiquity of Charondas, the ligislator of Rhegium and Catana, who, by a strange error of Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. 1. xii. p. 485—492.), is celebrated long afterwards as the author of the policy of Thurium.

Zaleucus, whose existence has been rashly attacked, had the merit and glory of converting a band of outlaws (the Locrians) into the most virtuous and orderly of the Greek republics (see two Memoires of the Baron de St. Croix, sur la Le

gislation

XLIV.

CHA P. national pride, both Livy and Dionysius are willing to believe, that the deputies of Rome visited Athens under the wise and splendid administration of Pericles; and the laws of Solon were transfused into the twelve tables. If such an embassy had indeed been received from the Barbarians of Hesperia, the Roman name would have been familiar to the Greeks before the reign of Alexander *; and the faintest evidence would have been explored and celebrated by the curiosity of succeedings times. But the Athenian monuments are silent; nor will it seem credible that the patricians should undertake a long and perilous navigation to copy the purest model of a democracy. In the comparison of the tables of Solon with those of the Decemvirs,

some

gislation de la Grande Gréce; Mem, de l'Academie, tom. xlij, P. 276-333) But the laws of Zaleucus and Charondas, which imposed on Diodoras and Stobæus, are the spurious composition of a Pythagorean sophist, whose fraud has been detected by the critical sagacity of Bentley (p. 335-377-).

* I seize the opportunity of tracing the progress of this national intercourse: 1. Herodotus and Thucydides (A. U. C. 330-350.) appear ignorant of the name and existence of Rome Joseph. contra Apion, tom. ii, 1, i. c. 12, p. 444. edit. Havercamp). 2. I'heopompus (A. U. C, 400. Plin. iii. 9.) mentions the invasion of the Gauls, which is noticed in looser terms by Heraclides Ponticus (Plutarch in Camillo, p. 292. edit. H. Stephan.). 3. The real or fabulous embassy of the Romans to Alexander (A. U, C. 430.), is attested by Clitarchus (Plin. iii. 9.), by Aristus and Asclepiades (Arrian, 1, vii. p. 294, 295.), and by Memnon of Heraclea (apud Photium, cod. ccxxiv. p. 725); though tacitly denied by Livy. 4. Theophrastus (A. U. C. 440.) primus externorum aliqua de Romanis diligentius scripsit (Plin. ii. 9.). 5. Lycophron (A. U. C. 480 -500.) scattered the first seed of a Trojan colony and the fable of the Aneid (Cassandre, 1226-1280.):

Γης και θαλάσσης σκήτρα και μοναρχίαν

Λαβόντες.

A bold prediction before the end of the first punic war 2,

XIV.

some casual resemblance may be found some e HA P. rules which nature and reason have revealed to every society; some proofs of a common descent from Egypt or Phoenicia *. But in all the great lines of public and private jurisprudence, the legislators of Rome and Athens appear to be strangers or adverse to each other.

66

racter and

Whatever might be the origin or the merit of Their cha the twelve tables †, they obtained among the Ro- influence. mans that blind and partial reverence which the lawyers of every country delight to bestow on their municipal institutions. The study is recommened by Cicero as equally pleasant and instructive. They amuse the mind by the remembrance of "old words and the portrait of ancient manners; they inculcate the soundest principles of govern❤ ment and morals; and I am not afraid to affirm, "that the brief composition of the Decemvirs surpasses in genuine value the libraries of Grecian philosophy. How admirable," says Tully, with honest or affected prejudice, "is the wisdom of our ancestors! We alone are the masters of civil "prudence,

66

66

66

* The tenth table, de modo sepulturæ, was borrowed from Solon (Cicero de Legibus, ii. 23-26.): the fortum per lan çem et licium conceptum, is derived by Heineccius from the manners of Athens (Antiquitat. Rom. tom. ii. p. 167-175.). The right of killing a nocturnal thief, was declared by Moses, Solon, and the Decemvirs (Exodus, xxii. 3. Demosthenes contra Timocratem, tom. i. p. 736. edit. Reiske. Macrob. Sa turnalia, 1. i. c. 4. Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romana rum, tit. vii. No. 1. p. 218. edit. Cannegietur).

† Bęαxsws xuι wĦigiTT is the praise of Diodorus (tom. i. 1. xii. p. 494.), which may be fairly translated by the eleganti atque absoluta brevitate verborum of Aulus Gellius (Noct. Attic. xxi. 1.).

Listen to Cicero (de Legibus, ii. 23.) and his representątive Crassus (de Oratore, i. 43, 44-).

СНАР. prudence, and our superiority is the more con

XLIV.

spicuous, if we deign to cast our eyes on the rude " and almost ridiculous jurisprudence of Dracon, "of Solon, and of Lycurgus." The twelve tables were committed to the memory of the young and the meditation of the old; they were transcribed and illustrated with learned diligence: they had escaped the flames of the Gauls, they subsisted in the age of Justinian, and their subsequent loss has been imperfectly restored by the labours of modern critics*. But although these venerable monuments were considered as the rule of right, and the fountain of justice †, they were overwhelmed by the weight and variety of new laws, which, at the end of five centuries, became a grievance more intolerable than the vices of the city . Three thousand brass plates, the acts of the senate and people, were deposited in the Capitol §: and some of the acts, as the Julian law against extortion, surpassed the number of an hundred chapters ||. The Decemvirs had neglected to import the sanction of Zaleucus, which so long maintained the integrity

of

* See Heineccius (Hist. J. R. No. 29-33.). I have followed the restoration of the xii tables by Gravina (Origines J. C. p. 280-307.) and Terasson (Hist. de la Jurisprudence Romaine p. 94-205.).

+Finis æqui juris (Tacit. Annal. iii. 27.). Fons omnis publici et privati juris T. Liv. iii. 34.).

De principiis juris et quibus modis ad hanc multitudinem infinitam ac varietatem legum perventum sit altius disseram Tacit. Annal. iii. 25.). This deep disquisition fills only two pages, but they are the pages of Tacitus. With equal sense, but with less energy, Livy (iii. 34. had complained in hac immenso aliarum super alias acervatarum legum cumulo, &c.

Suetonius in Vespasiano, c. 8.
Cicero ad Familiares, viii. 8.

of his republic. A Locrian who proposed any new CHA P. law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with XLIV. a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled.

The Decemvirs had been 'named, and their Laws of the people. tables were approved, by an assembly of the centuries, in which riches preponderated against numbers. To the first class of Romans, the proprietors of one hundred thousand pounds of copper*, ninety-eight votes were assigned, and only ninety five were left for the six inferior classes, distributed according to their substance by the artful policy of Servius. But the tribunes soon established a more specious and popular maxim, that every citizen has an equal right to enact the laws which he is bound to obey. Instead of the centuries, they convened the tribes; and the patricians, after an impotent struggle, submitted to the decrees of an as

sembly,

of

* Dionysius with Arbuthnot, and most of the moderns (except Eisenschmidt de Ponderibus, &c. p. 137-140.), repre sent the 100,000 asses by 10,000 Attic drachmæ, or somewnat more than 300 pounds sterling. But their calculation can apply only to the latter times, when the as was diminished to its ancient weight, nor can I believe that in the first ages, however destitute of the precious metals, a single ounce of silver could have been exchanged for seventy pounds of copper or brass. A more simple and rational method is, to value the copper itself according to the present rate, and, after comparing the mint and the market price, the Roman and averdupoise weight, the primitive as or Roman pound of copper may be appreciated at one English shilling, and the 100,000 asses of the first class amounted to 5000 pounds sterling. It will ap pear from the same reckoning, that an ox was sold at Rome for five pounds, a sheep for ten shlllings, and a quarter of wheat for one pound ten shillings (Festus, p. 30. edit. Dacier. Plin, Hist. Natur. xviii. 4.): nor do I see any reason to reject these consequences, which moderate our ideas of the poverty of the first Romans.