The Works of Lord Byron Volume II Part 75

[475] [Compare _As You Like It_, act ii. sc. 7, lines 26-28--

"And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot; And thereby hangs a tale."]

[nx] {400} _For such existence is as much to die_.--[MS. M. erased.]

or, _Bequeathing their trampled natures till they die_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[476] [In his speech _On the Continuance of the War with France_, which Pitt delivered in the House of Commons, February 17, 1800, he described Napoleon as "the child and champion of Jacobinism." At least the phrase occurs in the report which Coleridge prepared for the _Morning Post_ of February 18, 1800, and it appears in the later edition in the Collection of Pitt's speeches. "It does not occur in the speech as reported by the _Times_." It is curious that in the jottings which Coleridge, Parliamentary reporter _pro hac vice_, scrawled in pencil in his note-book, the phrase appears as "the nursling and champion of Jacobinism;" and it is possible that the alternative of the more rhetorical but less forcible "child" was the poet's handiwork. It became a current phrase, and Coleridge more than once reverts to it in the articles which he contributed to the _Morning Post_ in 1802. (See _Essays on His Own Times_, ii. 293, and iii. 1009-1019; and _Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge_, 1895, i. 327, note.)]

[ny] {401} _Deep in the lone Savannah_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[nz] _Too long hath Earth been drunk with blood and crime_.--[MS. M.

erased.]

[oa]

_Her span of freedom hath but fatal been_ _To that of any coming age or clime_.--[MS. M.]

[477] {402} [By the "base pageant" Byron refers to the Congress of Vienna (September, 1815); the "Holy Alliance" (September 26), into which the Duke of Wellington would not enter; and the Second Treaty of Paris, November 20, 1815.]

[478] [Compare Sh.e.l.ley's _h.e.l.las: Poems_, 1895, ii. 358--

"O Slavery! thou frost of the world's prime, Killing its flowers, and leaving its thorns bare!"]

[479] [Sh.e.l.ley chose the first two lines of this stanza as the motto for his _Ode to Liberty_.]

[480] Alluding to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, called Capo di Bove.

[Four words, and two initials, compose the whole of the transcription which, whatever was its ancient position, is now placed in front of this towering sepulchre: "CaeCILIae. Q. CRETICI. F. METELLae. CRa.s.sI."

"The Savelli family were in possession of the fortress in 1312, and the German army of Henry VII. marched from Rome, attacked, took, and burnt it, but were unable to make themselves, by force, masters of the citadel--that is, the tomb." The "fence of stone" refers to the quadrangular bas.e.m.e.nt of concrete, on which the circular tower rests.

The tower was originally coated with marble, which was stripped off for the purpose of making lime. The work of destruction is said to have been carried out during the interval between Poggio's (see his _De Fort.

Var._, ap. Sall., _Nov. Thes. Ant. Rom._, 1735, i. 501, _sq._) first and second visits to Rome. (See Hobhouse's _Hist. Ill.u.s.t._, pp. 202, 203; _Handbook for Rome_, p. 360.)]

[ob] {403} _So ma.s.sily begirt--what lay?_----.--[MS. M.]

[oc] {404} _Love from her duties--still a conqueress in the war_.--[MS.

M. erased.]

[481]

?? ?? ?e?? f????s?? ?p????s?e? ????

[On oi(theoi philou~sin a)pothne/skei ne/os]

?? ??? ?a?e?? ??? a?s????, ???' a?s???? ?a?e??

[To gar thanei~n ou)ch ai)schron, a)ll' ai)schro~s thanei~n].

_Gnomici Poetae Graeci_, R. F. P. Brunck, 1784, p. 231.

[482] {405} ["It is more likely to have been the pride than the love of Cra.s.sus which raised so superb a memorial to a wife whose name is not mentioned in history, unless she be supposed to be that lady whose intimacy with Dolabella was so offensive to Tullia, the daughter of Cicero, or she who was divorced by Lentulus Spinther, or she, perhaps the same person, from whose ear the son of aesopus transferred a precious jewel to enrich his daughter (_vide_ Hor., _Sat._, ii. 3. 239)" (_Hist.

Ill.u.s.t._, p. 200). The wealth of Cra.s.sus was proverbial, as his _agnomen_, Dives, testifies (Plut., _Cra.s.sus_, ii., iii., Lipsiae, 1813, v. 156, _sq._).]

[od] {406}

_Till I had called forth even from the mind_.--[MS. M. erased.]

----_with heated mind_.--[MS. M.]

[oe] _I have no home_----.--[MS. M.]

[483] {407} [Compare Rogers's _Italy:_ "Rome" (_Poems_, 1852), ii. 169--

"Or climb the Palatine, * * * * *

Long while the seat of Rome, hereafter found Less than enough (so monstrous was the brood Engendered there, so t.i.tan-like) to lodge One in his madness; and inscribe my name-- My name and date, on some broad aloe-leaf That shoots and spreads within those very walls Where Virgil read aloud his tale divine, When his voice faltered and a mother wept Tears of delight!"[-]

And compare Sh.e.l.ley's _Poetical Works_, 1895, iii. 276--

"Rome has fallen; ye see it lying Heaped in undistinguished ruin: Nature is alone undying."]

[-] [At the words _Tu Marcellus eris, etc_. (_vide_ Tib. Cl. Donatus, _Life of Virgil_ (Virg., _Opera_), Leeuwarden, 1627, vol. i.).]

[of]

----_wherein have creeped_ _The Reptiles which_.---- or, _Scorpion and blindworm_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[484] The Palatine is one ma.s.s of ruins, particularly on the side towards the Circus Maximus. The very soil is formed of crumbled brickwork. Nothing has been told--nothing can be told--to satisfy the belief of any but the Roman antiquary. [The Palatine was the site of the successive "Domus" of Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula, and of the _Domus Transitoria_ of Nero, which perished when Rome was burnt. Later emperors--Vespasian, Domitian, Septimius Severus--added to the splendour of the name-giving Palatine. "The troops of Genseric," says Hobhouse (_Hist. Ill.u.s.t._, p. 206), "occupied the Palatine, and despoiled it of all its riches... and when it again rises, it rises in ruins."

Systematic excavations during the last fifty years have laid bare much that was hidden, and "learning and research" have in parts revealed the "obliterated plan;" but, in 1817, the "shapeless ma.s.s of ruins" defied the guesses of antiquarians. "Your walks in the Palatine ruins ... will be undisturbed, unless you startle a fox in breaking through the brambles in the corridors, or burst unawares through the hole of some s.h.i.+vered fragments into one of the half-buried chambers, which the peasants have blocked up to serve as stalls for their jacka.s.ses, or as huts for those who watch the gardens" (_Hist. Ill.u.s.t._, p. 212).]

[485] {408} The author of the _Life of Cicero_, speaking of the opinion entertained of Britain by that orator and his contemporary Romans, has the following eloquent pa.s.sage:--"From their railleries of this kind, on the barbarity and misery of our island, one cannot help reflecting on the surprising fate and revolutions of kingdoms; how Rome, once the mistress of the world, the seat of arts, empire, and glory, now lies sunk in sloth, ignorance, and poverty; enslaved to the most cruel as well as to the most contemptible of tyrants, superst.i.tion and religious imposture; while this remote country, anciently the jest and contempt of the polite Romans, is become the happy seat of liberty, plenty, and letters; flouris.h.i.+ng in all the arts and refinements of civil life; yet running, perhaps, the same course which Rome itself had run before it, from virtuous industry to wealth; from wealth to luxury; from luxury to an impatience of discipline and corruption of morals: till, by a total degeneracy and loss of virtue, being grown ripe for destruction, it fall a prey at last to some hardy oppressor, and, with the loss of liberty, losing everything that is valuable, sinks gradually again into its original barbarism." (See _Life of M. Tullius Cicero_, by Conyers Middleton, D.D., 1823, sect. vi. vol. i. pp. 399, 400.)

[og] {409} _Oh, ho, ho, ho--thou creature of a Man_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[oh]

_And show of Glory's gewgaws in the van_ _And the Sun's rays with flames more dazzling filled_.--[MS. M.]

[486] [The "golden roofs" were those of Nero's _Domus Aurea_, which extended from the north-west corner of the Palatine to the Gardens of Maecenas, on the Esquiline, spreading over the sites of the Temple of Vesta and Rome on the platform of the Velia, the Colosseum, and the Thermae of t.i.tus, as far as the Sette Sale. "In the fore court was the colossal statue of Nero. The pillars of the colonnade, which measured a thousand feet in length, stood three deep. All that was not lake, or wood, or vineyard, or pasture, was overlaid with plates of gold, picked out with gems and mother-of-pearl" (Suetonius, vi. 31; Tacitus, _Ann._, xv. 42). Substructions of the _Domus Aurea_ have been discovered on the site of the Baths of t.i.tus and elsewhere, but not on the Palatine itself. Martial, _Epig._ 695 (_Lib. Spect._, ii.), celebrates Vespasian's rest.i.tution of the _Domus Aurea_ and its "policies" to the people of Rome.

"Hic ubi sidereus propius videt astra colossus Et cresc.u.n.t media pegmata celsa via, Invidiosa feri radiabant atria regis Unaque jam tola stabat in urbe domus."

"Here where the Sun-G.o.d greets the Morning Star, And tow'ring scaffolds block the public way, Fell Nero's loathed pavilion flashed afar, Erect and splendid 'mid the town's decay."]

[487] {410} [By the "nameless" column Byron means the column of Phocas, in the Forum. But, as he may have known, it had ceased to be nameless when he visited Rome in 1817. During some excavations which were carried out under the auspices of the d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re, in 1813, the soil which concealed the base was removed, and an inscription, which attributes the erection of the column to the Exarch Smaragdus, in honour of the Emperor Phocas, A.D. 608, was brought to light. The column was originally surmounted by a gilded statue, but it is probable that both column and statue were stolen from earlier structures and rededicated to Phocas. Hobhouse (_Hist. Ill.u.s.t._, pp. 240-242) records the discovery, and prints the inscription _in extenso._]

[oi] ----_all he doth deface_.--[MS. M.]

[488] The column of Trajan is surmounted by St. Peter; that of Aurelius by St. Paul. (See _Hist. Ill.u.s.t._, p. 214.)

[The column was excavated by Paul III. in the sixteenth century. In 1588 Sixtus V. replaced the bronze statue of Trajan holding a gilded globe, which had originally surmounted the column, by a statue of St. Peter, in gilt bronze. The legend was that Trajan's ashes were contained in the globe. They are said to have been deposited by Hadrian in a golden urn in a vault under the column. It is certain that when Sixtus V. opened the chamber he found it empty. A medal was cast in honour of the erection of the new statue, inscribed with the words of the Magnificat, "_Exaltavit humiles_."]

[489] {411} Trajan was _proverbially_ the best of the Roman princes; and it would be easier to find a sovereign uniting exactly the opposite characteristics, than one possessed of all the happy qualities ascribed to this emperor. "When he mounted the throne," says the historian Dion, "he was strong in body, he was vigorous in mind; age had impaired none of his faculties; he was altogether free from envy and from detraction; he honoured all the good, and he advanced them: and on this account they could not be the objects of his fear, or of his hate; he never listened to informers; he gave not way to his anger; he abstained equally from unfair exactions and unjust punishments; he had rather be loved as a man than honoured as a sovereign; he was affable with his people, respectful to the senate, and universally beloved by both; he inspired none with dread but the enemies of his country." (See Eutrop., _Hist. Rom. Brev._ lib. viii. cap. v.; Dion, _Hist. Rom._, lib. lxiii. caps, vi., vii.)

[M. Ulpius Traja.n.u.s (A.D. 52-117) celebrated a triumph over the Dacians in 103 and 106. It is supposed that the column which stands at the north end of the Forum Trajanum commemorated the Dacian victories. In 115-16 he conquered the Parthians, and added the province of Armenia Minor to the empire. It was not, however, an absolute or a final victory. The little desert stronghold of Atrae, or Hatra, in Mesopotamia, remained uncaptured; and, instead of incorporating the Parthians in the empire, he thought it wiser to leave them to be governed by a native prince under the suzerainty of Rome. His conquests were surrendered by Hadrian, and henceforth the tide of victory began to ebb. He died on his way back to Rome, at Selinus, in Cilicia, in August, 117.

Trajan's "moderation was known unto all men." Pliny, in his _Panegyricus_ (xxii.), describes his first entry into Rome. He might have a.s.sumed 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 patriae." 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 a.s.sign thee the name and t.i.tle of Optimus." Another honour awaited him: "Il est seul Empereur," writes M. De La Berge, "dont les restes aient repose dans l'enceinte de la ville Eternelle." (See Pliny's _Panegyricus, pa.s.sim;_ and _Essai sur le regne de Trajan_, Bibliotheque de L'Ecole des Hautes etudes, Paris, 1877.)]