en interrupted
by war and faction; and since the trade was established, 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, and Zaleucus framed the republic
of the Locrians, which stood without alteration above two hundred years.
From a similar motive of national pride, both Livy and Dionysius are
willing to believe, that the deputies of Rome visited Athens under the
wise and splendid administration of Pericles; and the laws of Solon were
transfused into the twelve tables. If such an embassy had indeed been
received from the Barbarians of Hesperia, the Roman name would have been
familiar to the Greeks before the reign of Alexander; and the faintest
evidence would have been explored and celebrated by the curiosity of
succeeding times. But the Athenian monuments are silent; nor will it
seem credible that the patricians should undertake a long and perilous
navigation to copy the purest model of democracy. In the comparison of
the tables of Solon with those of the Decemvirs, some casual resemblance
may be found; some rules which nature and reason have revealed to every
society; some proofs of a common descent from Egypt or Phnicia. But in
all the great lines of public and private jurisprudence, the legislators
of Rome and Athens appear to be strangers or adverse at each other.

Chapter XLIV: Idea Of The Roman Jurisprudence.--Part II.

Whatever might be the origin or the merit of the twelve tables, they
obtained among the Romans that blind and partial reverence which
the lawyers of every country delight to bestow on their municipal
institutions. The study is recommended by Cicero as equally pleasant and
instructive. "They amuse the mind by the remembrance of old words and
the portrait of ancient manners; they inculcate the soundest principles
of government and morals; and I am not afraid to affirm, that the brief
composition of the Decemvirs surpasses in genuine value the libraries of
Grecian philosophy. How admirable," says Tully, with honest or affected
prejudice, "is the wisdom of our ancestors! We alone