. xxii. p. 48. It would be difficult to disprove, that a certain
Hermodorus had some share in framing the Laws of the Twelve Tables.
Pomponius even says that this Hermodorus was the author of the last two
tables. Pliny calls him the Interpreter of the Decemvirs, which may lead
us to suppose that he labored with them in drawing up that law. But
it is astonishing that in his Dissertation, (De Hermodoro vero XII.
Tabularum Auctore, Annales Academiae Groninganae anni 1817, 1818,) M.
Gratama has ventured to advance two propositions entirely devoid of
proof: "Decem priores tabulas ab ipsis Romanis non esse profectas, tota
confirma Decemviratus Historia," et "Hermodorum legum decemviralium ceri
nominis auctorem esse, qui eas composuerit suis ordinibus, disposuerit,
suaque fecerit auctoritate, ut a decemviris reciperentur." This truly
was an age in which the Roman Patricians would allow their laws to be
dictated by a foreign Exile! Mr. Gratama does not attempt to prove the
authenticity of the supposititious letter of Heraclitus. He contents
himself with expressing his astonishment that M. Bonamy (as well as
Gibbon) will be receive it as genuine.--W.]

[Footnote 14: 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 honor and resentment.]

[Footnote 15: The Romans, or their allies, sailed as far as the fair
promontory of Africa, (Polyb. l. iii. p. 177, edit. Casaubon, in folio.)
Their voyages to Cumae, &c., are noticed by Livy and Dionysius.]

[Footnote 16: This circumstance would alone prove the antiquity of
Charondas, the legislator of Rhegium and Catana, who, by a strange error
of Diodorus Siculus (tom. i. l. xii. p. 485--492) is celebrated long
afterwards as the author of the policy of Thurium.]

[Footnote 17: 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 Memoirs
of the Baron de St. Croix, sur la Legislation de la Grande Grece Mem.
de l'Academie, tom. xlii. p. 276--333.) But the laws of Zaleucus and
Charondas, which imposed on Diodorus and Stobaeus, are the spurious
composition of a Pythagorean sophist, whose fraud has been detected by
the critical sagacity of Bentley, p. 335--377.]

[Footnote 18: I seize the opportunity of tracing