calamity it is manifest that the most valuable documents must have
been dispersed or destroyed, and the part that escaped thrown into
great disorder. The heroic songs might indeed have been preserved in
the memory of the public reciters; but there is little necessity for
proving that poetic historians would naturally mingle so much fiction
with truth, that few of their assertions could be deemed authentic.
The history of the four first centuries of the Roman state is
accordingly full of the greatest inconsistences and improbabilities;
so much so, that many respectable writers have rejected the whole as
unworthy of credit; but this is as great an excess in scepticism, as
the reception of the whole would be of credulity. But if the
founders of the city, the date of its erection, and the circumstances
under which its citizens were assembled be altogether doubtful, as
will subsequently be shown, assuredly the history of events that
occurred four centuries previous must be involved in still greater
obscurity. The legend of Æneas, when he first appears noticed as a
progenitor of the Romans, differs materially from that which
afterwards prevailed. Romulus, in the earlier version of the story, is
invariably described as the son or grandson of Æneas. He is the
grandson in the poems of Nævius and Ennius, who were both nearly
contemporary with Fabius Pictor. This gave rise to an insuperable
chronological difficulty; for Troy was destroyed B.C. 1184, and Rome
was not founded until B.C. 753. To remedy this incongruity, a list of
Latin kings intervening between Æne'as and Rom'ulus, was invented; but
the forgery was so clumsily executed, that its falsehood is apparent
on the slightest inspection. It may also be remarked, that the actions
attributed to Æneas are, in other traditions of the same age and
country, ascribed to other adventurers; to Evander, a Pelasgic leader
from Arcadia, who is said to have founded a city on the site
afterwards occupied by Rome; or to Uly'sses, whose son Tele'gonus is