r as the Saliare Carmen, which, in the time of Horace,
none could understand. The Roman idiom, by an infusion of Doric and
Aeolic Greek, was gradually ripened into the style of the xii. tables,
of the Duillian column, of Ennius, of Terence, and of Cicero, (Gruter.
Inscript. tom. i. p. cxlii. Scipion Maffei, Istoria Diplomatica, p.
241--258. Bibliotheque Italique, tom. iii. p. 30--41, 174--205. tom.
xiv. p. 1--52.) * Note: The Eugubine Tables have exercised the ingenuity
of the Italian and German critics; it seems admitted (O. Muller,
die Etrusker, ii. 313) that they are Tuscan. See the works of Lanzi,
Passeri, Dempster, and O. Muller.--M]

I shall not repeat the well-known story of the Decemvirs, [11] who
sullied by their actions the honor of inscribing on brass, or wood, or
ivory, the Twelve Tables of the Roman laws. [12] They were dictated by
the rigid and jealous spirit of an aristocracy, which had yielded with
reluctance to the just demands of the people. But the substance of the
Twelve Tables was adapted to the state of the city; and the Romans
had emerged from Barbarism, since they were capable of studying and
embracing the institutions of their more enlightened neighbors. [1211]
A wise Ephesian was driven by envy from his native country: before he
could reach the shores of Latium, he had observed the various forms
of human nature and civil society: he imparted his knowledge to the
legislators of Rome, and a statue was erected in the forum to the
perpetual memory of Hermodorus. [13] The names and divisions of the
copper money, the sole coin of the infant state, were of Dorian origin:
[14] the 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, [15] the deputies who sailed from the
Tyber might return from the same harbors with a more precious cargo
of political wisdom. The colonies of Great Greece had transported and
improved the arts of their mother country. Cumae and Rhegium, Crotona
and Tarentum, Agrigentum and Syracuse, were in the rank of the most
flourishing cities. The disciples of Pythagoras applied philosophy to
the use of government; the unwritten laws of Charondas accepted the
aid of poetry and music, [16] and Zaleucus framed the republic of the
Locrians, which stood without alteration above two hundred years. [17]
From a similar motive of national pride, both Livy and Dionysius are
willing to beli