Volume 1

The Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis / translated into English; with notes and dissertations. By Edward Spelman.

  • Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Date:
1758
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Roman antiquities of Dionysius Halicarnassensis / translated into English; with notes and dissertations. By Edward Spelman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    282/532 (page 216)
    I fhall, therefore, content myfelf with quoting two authors, whom Dionyfius might have quoted, and did not; and, after them, fome of thofe, who writ after he publifhed his hiftory. The firft I (hall mention is Saliuft, whofe authority was never, I think, called in queftion, though his ftyle has been cenfured by men of more delicacy, than judgement: Nothing can be more explicit than what he fays in his Catilinarian war; rurbem Romani (ficut ego accept) condidere atque habuere initio frojani, qui, Aenea ducet profugi, incertis fedibus vagabantur. The next is Varro, the greateft antiquary of an age, in which Cicero lived. He mentions the arrival of Aeneas at Laurentum in Italy, as attended with a circumftance not heard of before, nor fmee, I believe, but once. s Ex quo die Lrojd eft egreffus Aeneas Veneris, eum per diem quotidie Jlellam vidijfe, donee in agrum Laurentem veniret, in quo earn non viderit ulterius; qua re cognovit terras effe fatales. This hiftorical fad; was too remarkable to efcape the notice of 1 Livy, who relates it in a manner peculiar to himfelf; fed ad major a initia rerum ducentibus fat is, primo in Macedoniam [Aenea m] vemjfe; inde hi Siciliam quaerentem fedes delatum ; ab Sicilia, clajfe Laurentem agrum tenuijje. He, then, mentions the marriage of Aeneas with Lavinia, the daughter of Latinus, king of the Aborigines; the building of Alba by Afcanius, the fon of Aeneas, and all the other incidents, which Cluver, and Bochart have thought fit to treat as fabulous. After this, I would afk, whether any hiftorical fad: of an ancient date can be attefted by authors of greater authority ? And whether an attempt to fubvert the credibility of a fad:, fo attefted, by conjec¬ tures, forced conftrudions, feraps of quotations quoted by other authors, and vague aftertions, unfupported by the teftimony of a fingle hifto- rian, is not an attempt to transform all hiftory into romance, to deftroy the ufe, by deftroying the credit, of it, and to deprive mankind of the beft guides both in public and private life, examples ? We have feen what the opinion of the Roman hiftorians was con¬ cerning the arrival of Aeneas in Italy, and the defeent of the Romans from the Trojans. Let us, now, examine what opinion the leading men among the Romans, and the Roman fenate itfelf, entertained of r C. 6. * Rer. divin. B. ii. * B. i. c. j. thele