ugustus transferred the statue after the _curia_ was either burnt
or taken down.[629] Part of the "Pompeian shade,"[630] the portico,
existed in the beginning of the XVth century, and the _atrium_ was still
called _Satrum_. So says Blondus.[631] At all events, so imposing is the
stern majesty of the statue, and so memorable is the story, that the
play of the imagination leaves no room for the exercise of the judgment,
and the fiction, if a fiction it is, operates on the spectator with an
effect not less powerful than truth.

25.

And thou, the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome!
Stanza lxxxviii. line 1.

Ancient Rome, like modern Sienna, abounded most probably with images of
the foster-mother of her founder; but there were two she-wolves of whom
history makes particular mention. One of these, _of brass in ancient
work_, was seen by Dionysius[632] at the temple of Romulus, under the
Palatine, and is universally believed to be that mentioned by the Latin
historian, as having been made from the money collected by a fine on
usurers, and as standing under the Ruminal fig-tree.[633] The other was
that which Cicero[634] has celebrated both in prose and verse, and which
the historian Dion also records as having suffered the same accident as
is alluded to by the orator.[635] The question agitated by the
antiquaries is, whether the wolf now in the Conservator's Palace is that
of Livy and Dionysius, or that of Cicero, or whether it is neither one
nor the other. The earlier writers differ as much as the moderns: Lucius
Faunus[636] says, that it is the one alluded to by both, which is
impossible, and also by Virgil, which may be. Fulvius Ursinus[637] calls
it the wolf of Dionysius, and Marlianus[638] talks of it as the one
mentioned by Cicero. To him Rycquius _tremblingly_ assents.[639]
Nardini is inclined to suppose it may be one of the many wolves
preserved in ancient Rome; but of the two rather bends to the Ciceronian
statue.[640] Montfaucon[641] mentions it as a point without doubt. Of
the latter writers the decisive Winckelmann[642] proclaims it as having
been found at the church of Saint Theodore, where, or near where, was
the temple of Romulus, and consequently makes it the wolf of Dionysius.
His authority is Lucius Faunus, who, however, only says that it _was
placed_, not _found_, at the Ficus Ruminalis, by the Comitium, by which
he does not seem