more benignant Roman
Empire manvantaras back, when the Mysteries were in their flower
and Theosophy guided the relations of men and nations, some thin
stream of that divine knowledge flowed down into the pralaya;
that an echo lingered,--at Cumae, perhaps, where the Sibyl was,--
or somewhere among the Oscan or Sabine mountains. Certainly
nothing remained, regnant and recognised in the cities, to
suggest a repugnance to the summer campaigns, or that other
nations had their rights. Yet there was something to make life
sweeter than it might have been.

They said that of old there had been a King in Rome who was a
Messenger of the Gods and link between earth and heaven; and
that it was he had founded their religion. Was Numa Pompilius, a
real person?--By no means, says modern criticism. I will quote
you Mr. Stobart:--

"The Seven Kings of Rome are for the most part mere names
which have been fitted by rationalizing historians, presumably
Greek, with inventions appropriate to them. Tomulus is simply
the patron hero of Rome called by her name. Numa, the second,
whose name suggests _numen,_ was the blameless Sabine who
originated most of the old Roman cults, and received a complete
biography largely borrowed from that invented for Solon."

--He calls attention, too, to the fact that Tarquin the Proud is
made a typical Greek Tyrant, and is said to have been driven out
of Rome in 510,--the very year in which that other typical Greek
Tyrant, Hippias, was driven out of Athens;--so that on the whole
it is not a view for easy unthinking rejection. But Madame
Blavatsky left a good maxim on these matters: that tradition
will tell you more truth than what goes for history will; and
she is quite positive that there is much more truth in the tales
about the kings than in what comes down about the early Republic.
Only you must interpret the traditions; you must understand
them. Let us go about, and see if we can arrive at something.

Before the influx of the Crest-Wave began, Rome was a very petty
provincial affair, without any place at all in the great sweep of
world-story. Her annals are about as important as those of the
Samnium of old, of which we know nothing; or those, say, of
Andorra now, about which we care less. Our school histories
commonly end at the Battle of Acium; which is the place where
Roman history becomes universal and important: a point wisely
made and strongly insisted on by Mr. Stobart. I shows h