Set III-3-tib-002. A collection of selected literary quotations associated with "Tiberinus" as the main subject. The entries are organised chronologically, from the the earliest to the latest. The intentionally omitted textual fragments are indicated by an ellipsis placed inside angle brackets. The translator's notes and curator's commentaries are placed inside square brackets and indicated by the quartz colour. Direct mentions of the main subject are indicated by the azure colour. Direct mentions of snakes/serpents and their derivatives are indicated by the amber colour and complemented by references to the sources' original language and the words' lemmas. Important descriptive details that inform the artefacts' iconographic interpretation are indicated by the malachite colour.
------------------------------------------------- « ● Selected Classical Quotations ● » --------------------------------------------------
“
⟨...⟩ a god named Tiberinus [Translator's note: The god of the river Tiber.] ⟨...⟩ But about the name of the Tiber there are two accounts. For Etruria believes it is hers, and so does Latium, because there have been those who said that at first, from Thebris, the near-by chieftain of the Veians, it was called the Thebris. There are also those who in their writings have handed down the story that the Tiber was called Albula [Translator's note: "Whitish", from albus "white"; or perhaps more probably "the mountain stream", containing a pre-Italic word seen in Alpes "Alps".] as its early Latin name, and that later it was changed on account of Tiberinus king of the Latins [Translator's note: King of Alba Longa [r. 922-914 BC; legendary dates], ninth in descent from Aeneas [r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates], and great-grandfather of Numitor [r. 794?, 752-? BC; legendary dates; father of Rhea Silvia (Ilia), mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome] and Amulius [r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates]; he lost his life in crossing the river.], because he died there; for, as they relate, it was his burial-place.
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From springs and rivers and the other waters gods are named, as Tiberinus from the river Tiber ⟨...⟩
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| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Marcus Terentius Varro
(116-27 BC) |
On the Latin Language |
● V: iv, 29-30
● V: x, 71 |
Roland Grubb Kent |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 333) © Harvard
University Press, 1938 |
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“
What State's origin is so famous or so well known to all men as the foundation of this city [Rome] by Romulus [r. 753-716 BC; legendary dates]? He was the son of Mars (for we may grant that much to the popular tradition, especially as it is not only very ancient, but has been wisely handed down by our ancestors, who desired that those who have deserved well of the commonwealth should be deemed actual descendants of the gods, as well as endowed with godlike qualities), and after his birth they say that Amulius [r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates], the Alban king, fearing the overthrow of his own royal power, ordered him, with his brother Remus, to be exposed on the banks of the Tiber. There he was suckled by a wild beast from the forest, and was rescued by shepherds, who brought him up to the life and labours of the countryside. And when he grew up, we are told, he was so far superior to his companions in bodily strength and boldness of spirit that all who then lived in the rural district where our city now stands were willing and glad to be ruled by him. After becoming the leader of such forces as these (to turn now from fable to fact), we are informed that with their assistance he overthrew Alba Longa, a strong and powerful city for those times, and put King Amulius to death.
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| Author: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
Marcus Tullius Cicero
(106-43 BC) |
On the Republic |
● II: ii, 4 |
Clinton Walker Keyes |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 213) © Harvard
University Press, 1928 |
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“
After Heracles had passed through the lands of the Ligurians and of the Tyrrhenians [Translator's note: Etruscans.] he came to the river Tiber and pitched his camp at the site where Rome now stands. But this city was founded many generations afterwards by Romulus [r. 753-716 BC; legendary dates], the son of Ares, and at this time certain people of the vicinity had their homes on the Palatine Hill, as it is now called, and formed an altogether inconsiderable city. Here some of the notable men, among them Cacius and Pinarius, welcomed Heracles with marked acts of hospitality and honoured him with pleasing gifts; and memorials of these men abide in Rome to the present day. For, of the nobles of our time, the gens which bears the name Pinarii still exists among the Romans, being regarded as very ancient, and as for Cacius, there is a passage on the Palatine which leads downward, furnished with a stairway of stone, and is called after him the "Steps of Cacius" [Translator's note: The scalae Caci.], and it lies near the original house of Cacius. Now Heracles received with favour the good-will shown him by the dwellers on the Palatine and foretold to them that, after he had passed into the circle of the gods, it would come to pass that whatever men should make a vow to dedicate to Heracles a tithe of their goods would lead a more happy and prosperous life. And in fact this custom did arise in later times and has persisted to our own day; for many Romans, and not only those of moderate fortunes but some even of great wealth, who have taken a vow to dedicate a tenth to Heracles and have thereafter become happy and prosperous, have presented him with a tenth of their possessions, which came to four thousand talents. [Lucius Licinius] Lucullus [118-57/56 BC; questor 88-80 BC; consul 74 BC], for instance, who was perhaps the wealthiest Roman of his day, had his estate appraised and then offered a full tenth of it to the god, thus providing continuous feastings and expensive ones withal. Furthermore, the Romans have built to this god a notable temple on the bank of the Tiber [Temple of Hercules Victor at the Forum Boarium?], with the purpose of performing in it the sacrifices from the proceeds of the tithe. Heracles then moved on from the Tiber, and as he passed down the coast of what now bears the name of Italy he came to the Cumaean Plain.
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| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Diodorus Siculus
(c. 90-30 BC) |
Library of
History |
● IV: xxi, 1-5 |
Charles Henry Oldfather |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 303) © Harvard
University Press, 1935 |
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“
⟨...⟩ three years elapsed after the taking of Troy before Aeneas received the kingship over the Latins; this kingship he held for three years [1179-1176 BC; legendary dates], and then he disappeared from among men and received immortal honours. His son Ascanius [r. 1176-1138 BC; legendary dates] succeeded him on the throne and founded Alba Longa, as it is now called, naming it after the river which was then called Alba and now bears the name Tiber.
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“
⟨...⟩ Tiberius Silvius [reigned] for eight years [922-914 BC; legendary dates]. The latter undertook a campaign against the Etruscans, but while leading his army across the Alba river he fell into the flood and met his death, whence the name of the river was made Tiber.
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| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Diodorus Siculus
(c. 90-30 BC) |
Library of
History |
● VII: v, 2
● VII: v, 10 |
Charles Henry Oldfather |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 340) © Harvard
University Press, 1939 |
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“
Then from the assembly to the mound he [Aeneas, r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates] passed, amid many thousands, the centre of the great attending throng. Here in due libation he pours on the ground two goblets of unmixed wine, two of fresh milk, two of the blood of victims, and showering bright blossoms, thus he cries: "Hail, holy father, once again; hail, ashes, rescued though in vain, and you, soul and shade of my sire! Not with you was I suffered to seek the destined bounds and fields of Italy, nor Ausonian [Italian] Tiber, whatever that name imports." So had he spoken, when from the foot of the shrine a slippery serpent [anguis] trailed seven huge coils, fold upon fold seven times, peacefully circling the mound and gliding among the altars; his back chequered with blue spots, and his scales ablaze with the sheen of dappled gold, as in the clouds the rainbow darts a thousand shifting tints athwart the sun. Aeneas was awestruck at the sight. At last, sliding with long train amid the bowls and polished cups, the serpent [serpens] tasted the viands, and again, all harmless, crept beneath the tomb, leaving the altars where he fed. More eagerly, therefore, does he renew his father's interrupted rites, knowing not whether to deem it the genius of the place or the attendant spirit of his sire. Two sheep he slays, as is meet, two swine, and as many dark-backed heifers, while he poured wine from bowls and called great Anchises' shade and the ghost released from Acheron. Moreover, his comrades, as each has store, gladly bring gifts, heap the altars and slay the steers; others in turn set the cauldrons and, spreading over the grass, put live coals under the spits and roast the flesh.
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| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Publius Vergilius Maro
(70-19 BC) |
Aeneid |
● V: 75-103 |
Henry Rushton Fairclough; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 063) © Harvard
University Press, 1999 |
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“
Now the sea was reddening with the rays of dawn, and from heaven's height the goddess of Dawn on her rosy chariot shone in saffron light, when the winds dropped and suddenly every breeze sank; the oars toil slowly against the marble smoothness of the water. At this moment Aeneas [r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates], looking from the sea, beholds a mighty forest. Through its midst the Tiber's lovely stream leaps forth to sea in swirling eddies with his burden of golden sand. Around and above, birds of many a kind that haunt the river's banks and channel were thrilling heaven with their song and flying in the grove. He bids his comrades change their course and turn their prows to land, and joyfully enters the shady river.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Publius Vergilius Maro
(70-19 BC) |
Aeneid |
● VII: 25-36 |
Henry Rushton Fairclough; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 064) © Harvard
University Press, 2001 |
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“
It was night, and over all lands deep sleep held wearied creatures, birds and beasts alike, when father Aeneas [r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates], his heart troubled by woeful war, lay down on the bank under the vault of the cold sky, and let sleep at last steal over his limbs. He dreamed that before him the very god of the place, Tiberinus of the pleasant stream, raised his aged head amid the poplar leaves; fine linen draped him in a mantle of grey, and shady reeds crowned his hair. Then thus he spoke to him, and with these words took away his cares: "Seed of a race divine, you who from foemen's hands bring back to us our Trojan city, and preserve her towers for ever, you who have been long looked for on Laurentine ground and Latin fields, here your home is sure - draw not back - and sure are your gods! Be not scared by threats of war; all the swelling wrath of Heaven has abated. ⟨...⟩ Even now, lest you deem these words the idle feigning of sleep, you will find a huge sow lying under the oaks on the shore, just delivered of a litter of thirty young, a white mother reclining on the ground - white, too, the young about her teats. Here shall be the city's site, here a sure rest from your toils. By this token in thirty revolving years Ascanius [r. 1176-1138 BC; legendary dates] will found a city, Alba of glorious name [Alba Longa]. Not doubtful is my prophecy. Now in what way you can make your way triumphant through this present ill, in few words - pay heed - I will explain. On these coasts Arcadians, a race sprung from Pallas, who were the company of King Evander and followed his banner, have chosen a site and set their city on the hills, from their forefather Pallas called Pallanteum. They wage war ceaselessly with the Latin race; them you must take to your camp as allies, and join with them in league. I myself will guide you along the banks straight up the stream, that so, impelled by your oars, you may overcome the opposing current. Up, arise, goddess-born, and, as the stars first set, duly offer prayers to Juno, and with suppliant vows vanquish her wrath and her threats. To me you will pay your tribute when victorious. I am he whom you see grazing my banks with full flood and cleaving the rich tilth - the blue Tiber, river best beloved of Heaven. Here is my mighty home; among lofty cities flows forth my fountainhead." So spoke the River, then plunged into his deep pool, seeking the lowest depths; night and sleep left Aeneas. He arises and, gazing toward the eastern beams of the celestial sun, uplifts water from the stream in his hollow palms as use ordains, and pours forth to Heaven this prayer: "O Nymphs, Laurentine Nymphs, from whom rivers have their being, and you, father Tiber, you and your hallowed stream - receive Aeneas, and at last shield him from perils. In whatever spring your water contains you as you pity our travails, from whatever soil you flow forth in all your beauty, ever with my offerings, ever with my gifts, you will be graced, horned [!] stream, lord of Hesperian waters. Only be with me, and confirm your will with your presence." So he speaks, and choosing two galleys from his fleet mans them with crews, and at once equips his comrades with arms. But lo! a portent, sudden and wondrous to see. Gleaming white through the wood, of one colour with her milk-white brood, there lay outstretched on the green bank before their eyes a sow; good Aeneas offers her in sacrifice to you, indeed to you, most mighty Juno, and sets her with her young before your altar. All that night long Tiber calmed his swelling flood, and flowing back with silent wave so halted that like a gentle pool or quiet mere he smoothed his watery plain, so that the oars might know no struggle. Therefore with cheering cries they speed the voyage they have begun; over the waters glides the well-pitched pine; in wonder the waves, in wonder the woods unused to such a sight, view the far-gleaming shields of warriors and the painted hulls floating on the stream. They with their rowing give night and day no rest, pass the long bends, are shaded with diverse trees, and cleave the green woods on the calm surface. The fiery sun had scaled the mid arch of heaven, when at a distance they see walls and a citadel, and scattered rooftops which today Roman might has exalted to heaven, but then Evander ruled, a scant domain [Pallantium]. Quickly they turn the prows to land and draw near the town. It chanced that on that day the Arcadian king was paying wonted homage to Amphitryon's mighty son and the gods in a grove before the city. With him his son Pallas, with him all the foremost of his people and his humble senate were offering incense, and the warm blood smoked at the altars. When they saw the high ships, saw them gliding up between the shady woods and noiselessly plying their oars, they are alarmed by the sudden sight, and rise up as one, quitting the feast. But Pallas, undaunted, forbids them to break off the rites and, seizing his spear, flies to meet the strangers himself, and from a mound at a distance cries: "Warriors, what cause has driven you to try unknown paths? Where are you heading? Of what race are you? From what home? Is it peace or war you bring hither?" Then father Aeneas speaks thus from the high stern, holding out in his hand a branch of peaceful olive: "You see men of Trojan stock and arms hostile to Latins - men whom they have driven to flight by insolent warfare. We seek Evander; bear this message, and say that chosen captains of Dardania are come, suing for alliance in arms." Pallas was astounded, struck by that mighty name. "Come forth," he cries, "whoever you are; speak to my father face to face, and come as a guest beneath our roof!" And with a grasp of welcome he caught and clung to his hand. Advancing, they enter the grove and leave the river.
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Then kings arose, and fierce Thybris [Tiberinus, r.914-873 BC; legendary dates] with giant bulk, from whose name we Italians have since called our river Tiber; the ancient river Albula has lost her true name.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Publius Vergilius Maro
(70-19 BC) |
Aeneid |
● VIII: 26-125
● VIII: 330-332 |
Henry Rushton Fairclough; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 064) © Harvard
University Press, 2001 |
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Amazed were the Rutulians at heart; Messapus himself was terror-stricken, his horses afraid; and the loud murmuring stream is stayed, as Tiberinus turns back his footsteps from the deep.
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| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Publius Vergilius Maro
(70-19 BC) |
Aeneid |
● IX: 121-125 |
Henry Rushton Fairclough; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 064) © Harvard
University Press, 2001 |
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“
From the settlement of Lavinium to the planting of the colony at Alba Longa was an interval of some thirty years [1181-1151 BC; legendary dates]. Yet the nation had grown so powerful, in consequence especially of the defeat of the Etruscans, that even when Aeneas [r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates] died, and even when a woman [Lavinia] became its regent and a boy began his apprenticeship as king [Ascanius (Julus/Iulus), r. 1176-1138 BC; legendary dates], neither Mezentius and his Etruscans nor any other neighbours dared to attack them. Peace had been agreed to on these terms, that the River Albula, which men now call the Tiber, should be the boundary between the Etruscans and the Latins. Next Silvius reigned [1139-1110 BC; legendary dates], son of Ascanius, born, as it chanced, in the forest. He begat Aeneas Silvius [r. 1110-1079 BC; legendary dates], and he Latinus Silvius [r. 1079-1028 BC; legendary dates]. By him several colonies were planted, and called the Ancient Latins. Thereafter the cognomen Silvius was retained by all who ruled at Alba [Longa]. From Latinus came Alba [r. 1028-989 BC; legendary dates], from Alba Atys [r. 989-963 BC; legendary dates], from Atys Capys [r. 963-935 BC; legendary dates], from Capys Capetus [r. 934-921 BC; legendary dates], from Capetus Tiberinus [r. 922-914 BC; legendary dates]. This last king was drowned in crossing the River Albula, and gave the stream the name which has been current with later generations. Then Agrippa, son of Tiberinus, reigned [914-873 BC; legendary dates], and after Agrippa Romulus Silvius [r. 873-854 BC; legendary dates] was king, having received the power from his father. Upon the death of Romulus by lightning, the kingship passed from him to Aventinus [r. 854-817 BC; legendary dates]. This king was buried on that hill, which is now a part of the city of Rome, and gave his name to the hill. Proca ruled next [817-794 BC; legendary dates]. He begat Numitor [r. 794?, 752-? BC; legendary dates; father of Rhea Silvia (Ilia), mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome] and Amulius [r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates]; to Numitor, the elder, he bequeathed the ancient realm of the Silvian family. Yet violence proved more potent than a father's wishes or respect for seniority. Amulius drove out his brother and ruled in his stead. Adding crime to crime, he destroyed Numitor's male issue; and Rhea Silvia, his brother's daughter, he appointed a Vestal under pretence of honouring her, and by consigning her to perpetual virginity, deprived her of the hope of children.
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But the Fates were resolved, as I suppose, upon the founding of this great City [Rome], and the beginning of the mightiest of empires, next after that of Heaven. The Vestal was ravished, and having given birth to twin sons [Romulus and Remus], named Mars as the father of her doubtful offspring, whether actually so believing, or because it seemed less wrong if a god were the author of her fault. But neither gods nor men protected the mother herself or her babes from the king's cruelty; the priestess he ordered to be manacled and cast into prison, the children to be committed to the river. It happened by singular good fortune that the Tiber having spread beyond its banks into stagnant pools afforded nowhere any access to the regular channel of the river, and the men who brought the twins were led to hope that being infants they might be drowned, no matter how sluggish the stream. So they made shift to discharge the king's command, by exposing the babes at the nearest point of the overflow, where the fig-tree [!] Ruminalis - formerly, they say, called Romularis - now stands. In those days this was a wild and uninhabited region. The story persists that when the floating basket in which the children had been exposed was left high and dry by the receding water, a she-wolf, coming down out of the surrounding hills to slake her thirst, turned her steps towards the cry of the infants, and with her teats gave them suck so gently, that the keeper of the royal flock found her licking them with her tongue. Tradition assigns to this man the name of Faustulus, and adds that he carried the twins to his hut and gave them to his wife Larentia to rear. Some think that Larentia, having been free with her favours, had got the name of "she-wolf" among the shepherds, and that this gave rise to this marvellous story. The boys, thus born and reared, had no sooner attained to youth than they began - yet without neglecting the farmstead or the flocks - to range the glades of the mountains for game. Having in this way gained both strength and resolution, they would now not only face wild beasts, but would attack robbers laden with their spoils, and divide up what they took from them among the shepherds, with whom they shared their toils and pranks, while their band of young men grew larger every day.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Titus Livius
(c. 64/59 BC-
12/17 AD) |
History of Rome |
● I: iii, 4-11
● I: iv, 1-9 |
Benjamin Oliver Foster |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 114) © Harvard
University Press, 1919 |
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“
The land of the Tarquinii, lying between the City [Rome] and the Tiber, was consecrated to Mars and became the Campus Martius. It happened, they say, that there was then standing upon it a crop of spelt, ripe for the harvest. Since this produce of the land might not, for religious reasons, be consumed, the grain was cut, straw and all, by a large body of men, who were set to work upon it simultaneously, and was carried in baskets and thrown into the Tiber, then flowing with a feeble current, as is usually the case in midsummer. So the heaps of grain, caught in the shallow water, settled down in the mud, and out of these and the accumulation of other chance materials such as a river brings down, there was gradually formed an island [Insula Tiberina]. Later, I suppose, embankments were added, and work was done, to raise the surface so high above the water and make it strong enough to sustain even temples and porticoes.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Titus Livius
(c. 64/59 BC-
12/17 AD) |
History of Rome |
● II: v, 2-5 |
Benjamin Oliver Foster |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 114) © Harvard
University Press, 1919 |
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“
⟨...⟩ the chapel of Patrician Modesty, which stands in the Cattle Market [Forum Boarium], by the round temple of Hercules [Temple of Hercules Victor].
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In that same year [295 BC] Gnaeus and Quintus Ogulnius the curule aediles brought a number of usurers to trial, and, confiscating their possessions, employed the share which came into the public treasury to put brazen thresholds in the Capitol, and silver vessels for the three tables in the shrine of Jupiter, and a statue of the god in a four-horse chariot on the roof, and at the fig-tree Ruminalis [!] [Translator's note: Popular etymology made Ruminalis come from Romularis and that from Romulus. It was in the overflow of the Tiber near this fig-tree that the twins were exposed.] a representation of the infant Founders of the City [Romulus and Remus] being suckled by the wolf.
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The year [292 BC] had been one of many blessings, which yet were hardly a consolation for one misfortune - a pestilence which ravaged both city [Rome] and countryside. Its devastation was now grown portentous, and the [Sibylline] Books were consulted to discover what end or what remedy the gods proposed for this misfortune. It was discovered in the [Sibylline] Books that Aesculapius must be summoned to Rome from Epidaurus; but nothing could be done about it that year, because the consuls were occupied with the war [?], except that for one day a supplication to that god was held [Translator's note: It was two or three years later and the pestilence was still raging when a deputation under Q[uintus] Ogulnius was dispatched to Epidaurus and brought away a serpent to Rome which passed for the god himself. A temple of Aesculapius was then erected on the island in the Tiber [Insula Tiberina].].
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Titus Livius
(c. 64/59 BC-
12/17 AD) |
History of Rome |
● X: xxiii, 3-4
● X: xxiii, 11-13
● X: xlvii, 6-7 |
Benjamin Oliver Foster |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 191) © Harvard
University Press, 1926 |
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“
When the state was troubled with a pestilence [292 BC], the envoys dispatched to bring over the image of Aesculapius from Epidaurus to Rome fetched away a serpent [anguis], which had crawled into their ship and in which it was generally believed that the god himself was present. On the serpent's [Ø] going ashore on the island of the Tiber, a temple was erected there to Aesculapius.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Titus Livius
(c. 64/59 BC-
12/17 AD) |
History of Rome |
● Summary
of Book XI |
Benjamin Oliver Foster |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 191) © Harvard
University Press, 1926 |
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“
⟨...⟩ the people were aroused to hope that the war would be waged that year [204 BC] in Africa, and that the end of the [Second] Punic war [218-201 BC] was at hand. That situation had filled men's minds with superstitious fears and they were inclined both to report and to believe portents. ⟨...⟩ In addition they deliberated on the reception of the Idaean Mother [Cybele], in regard to whom not only had Marcus Valerius [?], one of the ambassadors, arriving in advance, reported that she would be in Italy very soon, but also there was recent news that she was already at Tarracina. It was no unimportant decision that occupied the senate - the question who was the best man in the state. At any rate every man would have preferred a real victory in that contest to any high commands or magistracies, whether conferred by vote of the senators or of the people. Publius Scipio [Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, b. 227 BC; fl. 204-171 BC; consul 191 BC], son of the Gnaeus [Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus; consul 222 BC; d. 211 BC] who had fallen in Spain, was the young man not yet of an age to be quaestor, whom they judged to be the best of good men among all the citizens.
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Publius Cornelius was ordered to go to Ostia with all the matrons to meet the goddess, and himself to receive her from the ship, and carrying her to land to turn her over to the matrons to carry. After the ship had reached the mouth of the river Tiber, in compliance with the order he sailed out into open water on a ship, received the goddess from her priests [Translator's note: A Phrygian man and woman. Romans were excluded by a decree of the senate, but the restriction was later removed (2nd century AD).] and carried her to land. The foremost matrons in the state, among whom the name of one in particular, that of Claudia Quinta [Translator's note: Her statue was later placed in the temple of the Magna Mater dedicated in 191 BC, the consulship of Nasica. Between 204 and 191 BC the black stone remained in the Temple of Victory.], is conspicuous, received her. Claudia's repute, previously not unquestioned, as tradition reports it, has made her purity the more celebrated among posterity by a service so devout. The matrons passed the goddess from hand to hand in an unbroken succession to each other, while the entire city poured out to meet her. Censers had been placed before the doors along the route of the bearers, and kindling their incense, people prayed that gracious and benignant she might enter the city of Rome. It was to the Temple of Victory, which is on the Palatine, that they carried the goddess on the day before the Ides of April, and that was a holy day. The people thronged to the Palatine bearing gifts for the goddess, and there was a banquet of the gods, and games also, called the Megalesia [Translator's note: Later the festival was shifted to pridie nonas, the 4th of April in place of the 12th. Its name came from her Megalesion at Pergamum, the temple from which she was brought to Rome.].
„
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Titus Livius
(c. 64/59 BC-
12/17 AD) |
History of Rome |
● XXIX: xiv, 2-3
● XXIX: xiv, 5-14 |
Frank Gardner Moore |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 381) © Harvard
University Press, 1949 |
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Marcus Fulvius [Nobilior] [fl. 190s-170s BC; praetor 193 BC; consul 189 BC; censor 179 BC] put out for contract a larger number of works, and ones that were also more practical: a harbor and pillars for a bridge on the Tiber [Translator's note: The Pons Aemilius, thought to be Rome's first stone bridge.] (some years later the censors Publius [Cornelius] Scipio Africanus [Aemilianus] [185-129 BC; censor 142 BC] and Lucius Mummius [Achaicus] [b. 190s BC; praetor 154 BC; consul 146 BC; censor 142 BC] contracted out the work of setting arches on these pillars); a basilica to the rear of the new banking houses, and a fish market surrounded by shops, which Fulvius sold for private enterprise; and a forum and colonnade outside the Trigemina Gate [Translator's note: In the Servian wall between the Aventine and the Tiber (Porta Trigemina).], and other colonnades behind the dockyards, at the temple of Hercules, behind the temple of Hope [Spes] on the Tiber bank, and at the temple of Healing Apollo [Apollo Medicus].
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Titus Livius
(c. 64/59 BC-
12/17 AD) |
History of Rome |
● XL: li, 4-6 |
J. C. Yardley |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 313) © Harvard
University Press, 2018 |
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⟨...⟩ Tiberinus reigned for a period of eight years [922-914 BC; legendary dates]. This king, it is said, was slain in a battle that was fought near a river, and being carried away by the stream, gave his name to the river, which had previously been called the Albula. Tiberinus' successor, Agrippa, reigned forty-one years [914-873 BC; legendary dates]. After Agrippa, Allodius [Romulus Silvius or Aremulus], a tyrannical creature and odious to the gods, reigned nineteen years [873-854 BC; legendary dates]. Contemptuous of the divine powers, he had contrived imitations of lightning and sounds resembling thunder-claps, with which he proposed to terrify people as if he were a god. But rain and lightning descended upon his house, and the lake beside which it stood rose to an unusual height, so that he was overwhelmed and destroyed with his whole household. And even now when the lake is clear in a certain part, which happens whenever the flow of water subsides and the depths are undisturbed, the ruins of porticoes and other traces of a dwelling appear.
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When the councillors found that the king's [Amulius's, r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates] decision was inspired by implacable anger, they, too, voted, as he demanded, that the law should be carried out which provided that a Vestal [Rhea Silvia (Ilia), mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome] who suffered herself to be defiled should be scourged with rods and put to death and her offspring thrown into the current of the river. To-day, however, the sacred law ordains that such offenders shall be buried alive.
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By the order of Amulius some of his servants took the babes in an ark and carried them to the river, distant about a hundred and twenty stades from the city, with the intention of throwing them into it. But when they drew near and perceived that the Tiber, swollen by continual rains, had left its natural bed and overflowed the plains, they came down from the top of the Palatine hill to that part of the water that lay nearest (for they could no longer advance any farther) and set down the ark upon the flood where it washed the foot of the hill. The ark floated for some time, and then, as the waters retired by degrees from their extreme limits, it struck against a stone and, overturning, threw out the babes, who lay whimpering and wallowing in the mud. Upon this, a she-wolf that had just whelped appeared and, her udder being distended with milk, gave them her paps to suck and with her tongue licked off the mud with which they were besmeared. In the meantime the herdsmen happened to be driving their flocks forth to pasture (for the place was now become passable) and one of them, seeing the wolf thus fondling the babes, was for some time struck dumb with astonishment and disbelief of what he saw. Then going away and getting together as many as he could of his fellows who kept their herds near at hand (for they would not believe what he said), he led them to see the sight themselves. When these also drew near and saw the wolf caring for the babes as if they had been her young and the babes clinging to her as to their mother, they thought they were beholding a supernatural sight and advanced in a body, shouting to terrify the creature. The wolf, however, far from being provoked at the approach of the men, but as if she had been tame, withdrew gently from the babes and went away, paying little heed to the rabble of shepherds. Now there was not far off a holy place, arched over by a dense wood, and a hollow rock from which springs issued; the wood was said to be consecrated to Pan, and there was an altar there to that god [The Lupercal cave]. To this place, then, the wolf came and hid herself. The grove, to be sure, no longer remains, but the cave from which the spring flows is still pointed out, built up [Translator's note: The cave became a shrine and received some sort of architectural adornment, which must have included at least a dignified entrance. The Lupercal is named in the Monumentum Ancyranum (4, 2) in a list of public buildings repaired by Augustus [Caesar Augustus (Gaius Octavius), r. 27 BC-14 AD].] against the side of the Palatine hill on the road which leads to the Circus, and near it is a sacred precinct in which there is a statue commemorating the incident; it represents a she-wolf suckling two infants, the figures being in bronze and of ancient workmanship [Translator's note: The statue here mentioned is doubtless the one erected by Cn[aeus] and Q[uintus] Ogulnius near the Ficus Ruminalis in 295 BC. Another similar group stood on the summit of the Capitol, and was struck by lightning in 65 BC. The wolf of this second group is almost certainly the famous one still preserved in the Palazzo dei Conservatori, since the animal's hind legs show the effects of lightning; the wolf is dated about 600 BC, but the infants are a modern restoration.]. This spot is said to have been a holy place of the Arcadians who formerly settled there with Evander. As soon as the beast was gone the herdsmen took up the babes, and believing that the gods desired their preservation, were eager to bring them up. There was among them the keeper of the royal herds of swine, whose name was Faustulus, an upright man, who had been in town upon some necessary business at the time when the deflowering of Ilia and her delivery were made public. And afterwards, when the babes were being carried to the river, he had by some providential chance taken the same road to the Palatine hill and gone along with those who were carrying them. This man, without giving the least intimation to the others that he knew anything of the affair, asked that the babes might be delivered to him, and having received them by general consent, he carried them home to his wife. And finding that she had just given birth to a child and was grieving because it was still-born, he comforted her and gave her these children to substitute in its place, informing her of every circumstance of their fortune from the beginning. And as they grew older he gave to one the name of Romulus and to the other that of Remus. When they came to be men, they showed themselves both in dignity of aspect and elevation of mind not like swineherds and neatherds, but such as we might expect those to be who are born of royal race and are looked upon as the offspring of the gods; and as such they are still celebrated by the Romans in the hymns of their country. But their life was that of herdsmen, and they lived by their own labour, generally upon the mountains in huts which they built, roofs and all, out of sticks and reeds. One of these, called the hut of Romulus [Translator's note: The present passage gives us our most detailed account of the casa Romuli. Plutarch (Romulus XX, 4) adds the detail that it stood near the scalae Caci, a landmark on the south-west corner of the Palatine hill. There was also another casa Romuli on the Capitoline, probably a replica of the first. Vitruvius (On Architecture II, i, 5), after mentioning the primitive custom of constructing roofs out of reeds, brushwood or straw, cites the hut of Romulus on the Capitoline as a good example of the ancient practice. Cf. Virgil (Aeneid VIII, 654): Romuleoque recens horrebat regia culmo; and Ovid's similar description of the original temple of Vesta (Fasti VI, 261-282).], remained even to my day on the flank of the Palatine hill which faces towards the Circus, and it is preserved holy by those who have charge of these matters; they add nothing to it to render it more stately, but if any part of it is injured, either by storms or by the lapse of time, they repair the damage and restore the hut as nearly as possible to its former condition.
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Dionysius of Halicarnassus
(c. 60-7 BC) |
Roman Antiquities |
● I: lxxi, 2-4
● I: lxxvii, 5
● I: lxxix, 4-11 |
Earnest Cary |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 319) © Harvard
University Press, 1937 |
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⟨...⟩ the stories about Amollius [Amulius, r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates] and his brother Numitor [r. 794?, 752-? BC; legendary dates] ⟨...⟩ stories partly fabulous but partly closer to the truth. In the first place, both brothers succeeded to the rule of Alba [Longa] (which extended as far as the Tiber) from the descendants of Ascanius [Julus (Iulus), r. 1176-1138 BC; legendary dates]; but Amollius, the younger, elbowed the elder out and reigned alone; but since Numitor had a son and a daughter, Amollius treacherously murdered the son while on a hunt, and appointed the daughter, in order that she might remain childless, a priestess of Vesta, so as to keep her a virgin (she is called Rhea Silvia); then, on discovering that she had been ruined (for she gave birth to twins [Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome]), instead of killing her, he merely incarcerated her, to gratify his brother, and exposed the twins on the banks of the Tiber in accordance with an ancestral custom. In mythology, however, we are told that the boys were begotten by Ares [Mars], and that after they were exposed people saw them being suckled by a she-wolf; but Faustulus, one of the swineherds near the place, took them up and reared them (but we must assume that it was some influential man, a subject of Amollius, that took them and reared them), and called one Romulus and the other Romus [Remus]; and upon reaching manhood they attacked Amollius and his sons, and upon the defeat of the latter and the reversion of the rule to Numitor, they went back home and founded Rome - in a place which was suitable more as a matter of necessity than of choice; for neither was the site naturally strong, nor did it have enough land of its own in the surrounding territory to meet the requirements of a city, nor yet, indeed, people to join with the Romans as inhabitants; for the people who lived thereabouts were wont to dwell by themselves (though their territory almost joined the walls of the city that was being founded), not even paying any attention to the Albani themselves.
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| Author: |
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Strabo
(c. 64 BC-24 AD) |
Geography |
● V: iii, 2 |
Horace
Leonard
Jones |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 050) © Harvard
University Press, 1923 |
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Tiberinus [r. 922-914 BC; legendary dates] received the kingdom ⟨...⟩ drowned in the waters of the Tuscan stream, gave his name to that river.
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Publius Ovidius Naso
(43 BC-17 AD) |
Metamorphoses |
● XIV: 614-616 |
Frank Justus Miller; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 043) © Harvard
University Press, 1916 |
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Reveal to me now, O Muses, ye ever-helpful divinities of bards (for you know, nor has far-stretching time dimmed your memory), whence did the island bathed by the deep Tiber [Insula Tiberina] bring Coronis' son [Aesculapius] and set him midst the deities of Rome. In olden time [292 BC] a deadly pestilence had corrupted Latium's air, and men's bodies lay wasting and pale with a ghastly disease. When, weary with caring for the dead, men saw that their human efforts were as nothing, and that the healers' arts were of no avail, they sought the aid of heaven, and, coming to Delphi, situate in the earth's central spot, the sacred oracle of Phoebus [Apollo], they begged that the god would vouchsafe with his health-bringing lots to succour them in their wretchedness and end the woes of their great city. Then did the shrine and the laurel-tree and the quiver which the god himself bears quake together, and the tripod from the inmost shrine gave forth these words and stirred their hearts trembling with fear: "What you seek from this place you should have sought, O Roman, from a nearer place. And even now seek from that nearer place. Nor have you any need of Apollo to abate your troubles, but of Apollo's son [Aesculapius]. Go with kindly auspices and call on my son." When the senate, rich in wisdom, heard the commands of the god they sought in what city the son of Phoebus [Aesculapius] dwelt, and sent an embassy by ship to seek out the coast of Epidaurus. When the embassy had beached their curved keel upon that shore, they betook them to the council of the Grecian elders and prayed that they would give the god who with his present deity might end the deadly woes of the Ausonian [Italian] race; for thus the oracle distinctly bade. The elders disagreed and sat with varying minds. Some thought that aid should not be refused; but the many advised to keep their god and not let go the source of their own wealth nor deliver up their deity. And while they sat in doubt the dusk of evening dispelled the lingering day and the darkness spread its shadows over the world. Then did the health-giving god seem in your dreams to stand before your couch, O Roman, even as he is wont to appear in his own temple, holding his rustic staff in his left hand and with his right stroking his flowing beard, and with calm utterance to speak these words: "Fear not! I shall come and leave my shrine. Only look upon this serpent [serpens] which twines about my staff, and fix it on your sight that you may know it. I shall change myself to this, but shall be larger and shall seem as great as celestial bodies should be when they change." Straightway the god vanished as he spoke, and with the voice and the god sleep vanished too, and the kindly day dawned as sleep fled. The next morning had put the gleaming stars to flight when the chiefs, still uncertain what to do, assembled at the sumptuous temple of the sought-for god and begged him by heavenly tokens to reveal where he himself wished to abide. Scarce had they ceased to speak when the golden god, in the form of a serpent [serpens] with high crest, uttered hissing warnings of his presence, and at his coming the statue, altars, doors, the marble pavement and gilded roof, all rocked. Then, raised breast-high in the temple's midst, he stood and gazed about with eyes flashing fire. The terrified multitude quaked with fear; but the priest, with his sacred locks bound with a white fillet, recognized the divinity and cried: "The god! behold the god! Think holy thoughts and stand in reverent silence, all ye who are in this presence. And, O thou most beautiful, be this vision of thee expedient for us and bless thou this people who worship at thy shrine." All in the divine presence worshipped the god as they were bid, repeating the priest's words after him, and the Romans, too, performed their pious devotions with heart and lips. The god nodded graciously to them and, moving his crest, thrice emitted with darting tongue a hiss in confirmation of his favour. Then he glided down the polished steps and with backward gaze looked fixedly upon the ancient altars which he was about to leave, and saluted his well-known home and the shrine where he had dwelt so long. Thence the huge serpent [Ø] wound his way along the ground covered with scattered flowers, bending and coiling as he went, and proceeded through the city's midst to the harbour guarded by a curving embankment. Here he halted and, seeming with kindly expression to dismiss his throng of pious followers, he took his place within the Ausonian [Italian] ship. It felt the burden of the deity and the keel was forced deep down by the god's weight. The Romans were filled with joy and, after sacrificing a bull upon the beach, they wreathed their ship with flowers and cast loose from the shore. A gentle breeze bore the vessel on, while the god, rising on high and reclining heavily with his neck resting upon the ship's curving stern, gazed down upon the azure waters. With fair winds he sailed through the Ionian sea and on the sixth morning he reached Italy, sailed past the shores of Lacinium, famed for Juno's temple, past Scylaceum, left Iapygia behind, and, avoiding the Amphrisian rocks upon the left and the Cocinthian crags upon the right, skirted Romethium and Caulon and Narycia; then passed the Sicilian sea and Pelorus' narrow strait, sailed by the home of Hippotades, past the copper mines of Temesa, and headed for Leucosia and mild Paestum's rose-gardens. Thence he skirted Capreae, Minerva's promontory, and the hills of Surrentum rich in vines; thence sailed to Herculaneum and Stabiae and Parthenope [Translator's note: Naples.], for soft pleasure founded, and from there to the temple of the Cumaean Sibyl. Next the hot pools [Translator's note: Of Baiae.] were reached, and Liternum, thick grown with mastic-bearing trees, and the Volturnus, sweeping along vast quantities of sand beneath its whirling waters; Sinuessa, with its thronging flocks of snow-white doves; unwholesome Minturnae and the place [Translator's note: Caieta.] named for her whose foster-son [Translator's note: Aeneas.] entombed her there; the home of Antiphates, marsh-encompassed Trachas, Circe's land also, and Antium with its hard-packed shore. When to this place the sailors turned their ship with sails full spread (for the sea was rough) the god unfolded his coils and, gliding on with many a sinuous curve and mighty fold, entered his father's [Apollo's] temple set on the tawny strand. When the sea had calmed again, the Epidaurian god left his paternal altars and, having enjoyed the hospitality of his kindred deity, furrowed the sandy shore as he dragged his rasping scales along and, climbing up the rudder, reposed his head on the vessel's lofty stern, until he came to Castrum, the sacred seats of Lavinium and the Tiber's mouth. Hither the whole mass of the populace came thronging to meet him from every side, matrons and fathers and the maids who tend thy fires, O Trojan Vesta, and they saluted the god with joyful cries. And where the swift ship floated up the stream incense burned with a crackling sound on altars built in regular order on both the banks, the air was heavy with sweet perfumes, and the smitten victim warmed the sacrificial knife with his blood. And now the ship had entered Rome, the capital of the world. The serpent [serpens] raised himself aloft and, resting his head upon the mast's top, moved it from side to side, viewing the places fit for his abode. The river, flowing around, separates at this point into two parts, forming the place called the Island [Insula Tiberina]; on each side it stretches out two equal arms with the land between. On this spot the serpent-son [anguis] of Phoebus disembarked from the Latian ship and, resuming his heavenly form, put an end to the people's woes and came to them as health-bringer to their city. Now he came to our shrines as a god from a foreign land; but Caesar [Gaius Julius Caesar, 100-44 BC] is god in his own city.
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Publius Ovidius Naso
(43 BC-17 AD) |
Metamorphoses |
● XV: 622-746 |
Frank Justus Miller; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 043) © Harvard
University Press, 1916 |
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Perhaps you may also ask why that place [Translator's note: A cave on the [east] of the Palatine, said to have been the she-wolf's den.] is called the Lupercal, and what is the reason for denoting the day by such a name. [Rhea] Silvia, a Vestal, had given birth to heavenly babes [Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome], what time her uncle [Amulius, r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates] sat upon the throne. He ordered the infant boys to be carried away and drowned in the river. Rash man! one of those babes will yet be Romulus [r. 753-716 BC; legendary dates]. Reluctantly his servants carry out the mournful orders (though they weep) and bear the twins to the place appointed. It chanced that the Albula, which took the name of Tiber from Tiberinus [r. 914-873 BC; legendary dates], drowned in its waves, was swollen with winter rain: where now the forums are, and where the valley of the Circus Maximus lies, you might see boats floating about. Hither when they were come, for farther they could not go, one or other of them said: "But how like they are! how beautiful is each! Yet of the two this one has more vigour. If lineage may be inferred from features, unless appearances deceive me, I fancy that some god is in you - but if some god were indeed the author of your being, he would come to your rescue in so perilous an hour; surely their mother would bring aid, if only aid she lacked not, she who has borne and lost her children in a single day. Ye bodies, born together to die together, together pass beneath the waves!" He ended, and from his bosom he laid down the twins. Both squalled alike: you would fancy they understood. With wet cheeks the bearers wended their homeward way. The hollow ark in which the babes were laid supported them on the surface of the water: ah me! how big a fate the little plank upbore! The ark drifted towards a shady wood, and, as the water gradually shoaled, it grounded on the mud. There was a tree [!] (traces of it still remain), which is now called the Rumina fig-tree, but was once the Romulan fig-tree. A she-wolf which had cast her whelps came, wondrous to tell, to the abandoned twins: who could believe that the brute would not harm the boys? Far from harming, she helped them; and they whom ruthless kinsfolk would have killed with their own hands were suckled by a wolf! She halted and fawned on the tender babes with her tail, and licked into shape their two bodies with her tongue. You might know they were scions of Mars: fearless, they sucked her dugs and were fed on a supply of milk that was never meant for them. The she-wolf (lupa) gave her name to the place, and the place gave their name to the Luperci. Great is the reward the nurse has got for the milk she gave.
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| Author: |
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Publius Ovidius Naso
(43 BC-17 AD) |
Fasti |
● II: 381-422 |
James George Frazer; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 253) © Harvard
University Press, 1931 |
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And when Tiberinus [r. 914-873 BC; legendary dates] possessed his father's kingdom after the death of Calpetus [r. 934-921 BC; legendary dates], he was drowned, it is said, in a deep pool of the Tuscan river [Albula].
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When Aeneas carried Troy to the Italian fields, the goddess [Cybele] almost followed the ships that bore the sacred things; but she felt that fate did not yet call for the intervention of her divinity in Latium, and she remained behind in her accustomed place. Afterwards, when mighty Rome had already seen five centuries [Translator's note: In 204 BC, year of Rome 549, the Sibylline books were consulted. The Sibyl lived at Cumae, a colony of Euboea.], and had lifted up her head above the conquered world, the priest consulted the fateful words of the Euboean song. They say that what he found ran thus: 'The Mother is absent; thou Roman, I bid thee seek the Mother. When she shall come, she must be received by chaste hands.' The ambiguity of the dark oracle puzzled the senators to know who the Parent was, and where she was to be sought. Paean [Translator's note: Delphic Apollo. The envoys sent from Rome, M[arcus] Valerius Laevinus, M[arcus] Caecilius Metellus, Ser[vius] Sulpicius Gallus, consulted the oracle at Deiphi on their way and received a favourable answer.] was consulted and said, 'Fetch the Mother of the Gods; she is to be found on Mount Ida.' Nobles were sent. The sceptre of Phrygia was then held by Attalus [Attalus I Soter, r. 241-197 BC]; he refused the favour to the Ausonian [Italian] lords. Wonders to tell, the earth trembled and rumbled long, and in her shrine thus did the goddess speak: 'Twas my own will that they should send for me. Tarry not: let me go, it is my wish. Rome is a place meet to be the resort of every god.' Quaking with terror at the words Attalus said, 'Go forth. Thou wilt still be ours. Rome traces its origin to Phrygian ancestors.' Straightway unnumbered axes fell those pinewoods which had supplied the pious Phrygian [Translator's note: Aeneas.] with timber in his flight: a thousand hands assemble, and the Mother of the Gods is lodged in a hollow ship painted in encaustic colours. She is borne in perfect safety across the waters of her son and comes to the long strait named after the sister of Phrixus [Translator's note: Helles-pontus.]; she passes Rhoeteum, where the tide runs fast, and the Sigean shores, and Tenedos, and Eetion's ancient realm. Leaving Lesbos behind, she came next to the Cyclades and to the wave that breaks on the Carystian shoals. She passed the Icarian Sea also, where Icarus lost his wings that slipped, and where he gave his name to a great water. Then she left Crete on the larboard and the Pelopian billows on the starboard, and steered for Cythera, the sacred isle of Venus. Thence she passed to the Trinacrian [Translator's note: Sicilian.] Sea, where Brontes and Steropes and Acmonides [Translator's note: Usually called Pyracmon. These are the three Cyclopes who forged Jupiter's thunderbolts under Mount Etna.] are wont to dip the white-hot iron. She skirted the African main, and beheld astern to larboard the Sardinian realms, and made Ausonia. "She had reached the mouth where the Tiber divides to join the sea and flows with ampler sweep. All the knights and the grave senators, mixed up with the common folk, came to meet her at the mouth of the Tuscan river. With them walked mothers and daughters and brides, and the virgins who tended the sacred hearths. The men wearied their arms by tugging lustily at the rope; hardly did the foreign ship make head against the stream. A drought had long prevailed; the grass was parched and burnt; the loaded bark sank in the muddy shallows. Every man who lent a hand toiled beyond his strength and cheered on the workers by his cries. Yet the ship stuck fast, like an island firmly fixed in the middle of the sea. Astonished at the portent, the men did stand and quake. Claudia Quinta traced her descent from Clausus [Translator's note: A Sabine leader, said to have assisted Aeneas: Virgil Aeneid VII, 706. Ancestor of the Claudian house.] of old, and her beauty matched her nobility. Chaste was she, though not reputed so. Rumour unkind had wronged her, and a false charge had been trumped up against her: it told against her that she dressed sprucely, that she walked abroad with her hair dressed in varied fashion, that she had a ready tongue for gruff old men. Conscious of innocence, she laughed at fame's untruths; but we of the multitude are prone to think the worst. When she had stepped forth from the procession of the chaste matrons, and taken up the pure water of the river in her hands, she thrice let it drip on her head, and thrice lifted her palms to heaven (all who looked on her thought that she was out of her mind), and bending the knee she fixed her eyes on the image of the goddess, and with dishevelled hair uttered these words: 'Thou fruitful Mother of the Gods, graciously accept thy suppliant's prayers on one condition. They say I am not chaste. If thou dost condemn me, I will confess my guilt; convicted by the verdict of a goddess, I will pay the penalty with my life. But if I am free of crime, give by thine act a proof of my innocency, and, chaste as thou art, do thou yield to my chaste hands.' She spoke, and drew the rope with a slight effort. My story is a strange one, but it is attested by the stage. The goddess was moved, and followed her leader, and by following bore witness in her favour: a sound of joy was wafted to the stars. They came to a bend in the river, where the stream turns away to the left: men of old named it the Halls of Tiber. Night drew on; they tied the rope to an oaken stump, and after a repast disposed themselves to slumber light. At dawn of day they loosed the rope from the oaken stump; but first they set down a brazier and put incense on it, and crowned the poop, and sacrificed an unblemished heifer that had known neither the yoke nor the bull. There is a place where the smooth Almo flows into the Tiber, and the lesser river loses its name in the great one. There a hoary-labeled priest in purple robes washed the Mistress and her holy things in the waters of Almo. The attendants howled, the mad flute blew, and hands unmanly beat the leathern drums. Attended by a crowd, Claudia walked in front with joyful face, her chastity at last vindicated by the testimony of the goddess. The goddess herself, seated in a wagon, drove in through the Capene Gate; fresh flowers were scattered on the yoked oxen. Nasica [Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, b. 227 BC; fl. 204-171 BC; consul 191 BC] received her. The name of the founder of the temple has not survived; now it is Augustus [Caesar Augustus (Gaius Octavius), r. 27 BC-14 AD]; formerly it was Metellus." [Translator's note: The temple was dedicated in 191 BC. It was burnt down in 111 BC, when one Metellus restored it (Q[uintus] Caecilius Metellus ?); and in 3 AD, when Augustus [Caesar Augustus (Gaius Octavius), r. 27 BC-14 AD] restored it.]
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Publius Ovidius Naso
(43 BC-17 AD) |
Fasti |
● IV: 47-48
● IV: 251-348 |
James George Frazer; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 253) © Harvard
University Press, 1931 |
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“
Then, too, the Virgin is wont to throw the rush-made effigies of ancient men from the oaken bridge [Pons Sublicius]. He who believes that after sixty years men were put to death, accuses our forefathers of a wicked crime. There is an old tradition, that when the land was called Saturnia these words were spoken by soothsaying Jove: "Do ye cast into the water of the Tuscan river two of the people as a sacrifice to the Ancient who bears the sickle [Saturn]." The gloomy rite was performed, so runs the tale, in the Leucadian manner every year, until the Tirynthian hero [Hercules] came to these fields; he cast men of straw into the water, and now dummies are thrown after the example set by Hercules. Some think that the young men used to hurl the feeble old men from the bridges, in order that they themselves alone should have the vote. O Tiber, inform me of the truth: thy bank is older than the City [Rome]: thou canst well know the origin of the rite. The Tiber raised his reed-crowned head from the mid channel, and opened his hoarse mouth to utter these words: "These regions I have seen when they were solitary grass-lands without any city walls: scattered kine pastured on either bank; and I, the Tiber, whom the nations now both know and fear, was then a thing to be despised even by cattle. You often hear mention of the name of Arcadian Evander: he came from far and churned my waters with his oars. Alcides [Hercules] also came, attended by a troop of Greeks. At that time, if I remember aright, my name was Albula. The Pallantian hero [Evander] received him hospitably; and Cacus got at last the punishment he deserved. The victorious Hercules departed and carried off with him the kine, the booty he had taken from Erythea. But his companions refused to go farther: a great part of them had come from Argos, which they abandoned. On these hills they set their hope and their home; yet were they often touched by the sweet love of their native land, and one of them in dying gave this brief charge: 'Throw me into the Tiber, that, borne upon his waves, my empty dust may pass to the Inachian shore.' His heir disliked the charge of sepulture thus laid on him: the dead stranger was buried in Ausonian [Italian] ground, and an effigy of rushes was thrown into the Tiber instead of him, that it might return to his Greek home across the waters wide." Thus far did Tiber speak, then passed into the dripping cave of living rock: ye nimble waters checked your flow.
„
| Author: |
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Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Publius Ovidius Naso
(43 BC-17 AD) |
Fasti |
● V: 621-662 |
James George Frazer; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 253) © Harvard
University Press, 1931 |
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“
Or like Evenus, drowned in a river torrent, or Tiberinus, mayst thou give thy name to the rapid stream [Translator's note: Evenus threw himself into the Lycormas, a river of Aetolia, which was called after him; Tiberinus [r. 914-873 BC; legendary dates], an early king of Alba [Longa], fell into the Tiber, so called after him.].
„
| Author: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
Publius Ovidius Naso
(43 BC-17 AD) |
Ibis |
● 513-514 |
J. H. Mozley; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 232) © Harvard
University Press, 1929 |
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“
Father Tiber himself shuddered in his yellow waves, and from midstream raised his cloudy head. Then with huge hand he lifted from his cerulean face the tresses interwoven with willow and reed and moss, and sent forth streams of tears from brimming eyes; the deep channel scarce holds the added waters. Already was he resolved to extinguish the flames upon the pyre with the impact of the stream, and take away the corpse unharmed; he was checking his waters, and staying their course to the sea, that he might flood the pyre with his whole river; but Mavors [Mars] in his neighbouring shrine, near dweller to the Campus, spoke thus, his own cheeks also wet: "Though anger becomes rivers, yet, Tiber, keep thou still; not to thee, not to any is it given to conquer Fate. He died my votary [Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus (Drusus the Elder), 38-9 BC; consul 9 BC; son of Livia Drusilla (Julia Augusta), 59/58 BC-29 AD, wife of Tiberius Claudius Nero, 85-33 BC, and, later, of the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus (Gaius Octavius), r. 27 BC-14 AD]: among arms and swords he died, a captain in his country's service; his cause is forgotten in his death. Such tribute as I could pay, I have paid: the victory has been won; gone is the author of the work, yet the work remains. Once did I assail Clotho and her two sisters, who draw with sure thumb the inexorable threads, that Remus, Ilia's son, and his brother [Romulus, r. 753-716 BC; legendary dates], founder of the City [Rome], might by some way escape the depths below. Of the three one said to me: 'Take that part of the gift which is given thee; one of the two shall be according to thy prayer. He to thee is promised, to Venus hereafter Caesars twain: these gods alone are owed by Martian Rome.' Thus sang the goddesses; and thou, O Tiber, struggle not in vain, nor with thy river stay the flames, nor spoil the last honours of the dead youth. Go now, glide on thy way with unchecked current." He obeys, and lengthwise unfolds his watery mass, and enters his house wrought out of hanging rock.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Publius Ovidius Naso
(43 BC-17 AD) |
A Poem of Conso-lation to Livia Ausgusta on the Death of Her Son, Drusus Nero |
● 221-252 |
J. H. Mozley; Revised by George Patrick Goold |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 232) © Harvard
University Press, 1929 |
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“
A fig-tree [!] growing in the actual forum and meeting-place of Rome is worshipped as sacred because things struck by lightning are buried there, and still more as a memorial of the fig-tree under which the nurse of Romulus and Remus first sheltered those founders of the empire on the Lupercal Hill - the tree that has been given the name of Ruminalis, because it was beneath it that the wolf was discovered giving her rumis (that was the old word for breast) to the infants - a marvellous occurrence commemorated in bronze close by, as though the wolf had of her own accord passed across the meeting-place while Attus Naevius was taking the omens. And it is also a portent of some future event when it withers away and then by the good offices of the priests is replanted. There was also a fig-tree in front of the temple of Saturn, which in 404 BC, after a sacrifice had been offered by the Vestal Virgins, was removed, because it was upsetting a statue of Silvanus. A tree of the same kind that was self-sown lives in the middle of the forum, at the spot where, when the foundations of the Empire were collapsing in portent of disaster, Curtius had filled up the gulf [Translator's note: In 362 BC a chasm opened in the forum, which the sooth-sayers said could only be filled by throwing into it Rome's greatest treasure. M[arcus] Curtius mounted his horse and leaped into it, and the earth closed over him. The spot was marked by a circular pavement, and called the Lacus Curtius.] with the greatest of treasures, I mean virtue and piety and a glorious death. Likewise self-sown is a vine in the same locality, and there is an olive planted by the care of the populace for the sake of the shade; an altar in the forum was removed on the occasion of the gladiatorial show given by his late Majesty Julius [?], the most recent one that fought in the forum.
„
| Author: |
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Verse/Fragment: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
Gaius Plinius Secundus
(23-79 AD) |
Natural History |
● XV: xx, 77-78 |
Harris Rackham |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 370) © Harvard
University Press, 1945 |
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“
It was not medicine that our forefathers condemned, but the medical profession, chiefly because they refused to pay fees to profiteers in order to save their lives. For this reason even when Aesculapius was brought as a god to Rome, they are said to have built his temple outside the city, and on another occasion upon an island [Insula Tiberina], and when, a long time too after Cato [Marcus Porcius Cato (Cato the Censor, the Elder, or the Wise), 234-149 BC; military tribune 214 BC; quaestor 204 BC; aedile 199 BC; praetor 198 BC; consul 195 BC; censor 184 BC], they banished Greeks from Italy, to have expressly included physicians.
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⟨...⟩ many remedies are believed to be obtained from a snake [Ø], as I shall relate in their proper order, and this is why it is sacred to Aesculapius. Democritus [c. 460-370 BC] indeed invents some weird stories about snakes [Ø], how for instance, they make it possible to understand the language of birds. The Aesculapian snake [anguis] was brought to Rome from Epidaurus, and a snake [Ø] is commonly kept as a pet even in our homes; so that were not their eggs destroyed in fires there would be an incurable plague of them.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Gaius Plinius Secundus
(23-79 AD) |
Natural History |
● XXIX: viii, 16
● XXIX: xxii, 72 |
William Henry Samuel Jones |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 418) © Harvard
University Press, 1963 |
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In ancient times the Sibyl had foretold that, in order to dislodge an invader from Italian soil, the Romans must invite the Mother of the Gods [Translator's note: Cybele, the Great Mother, was the chief deity of Asia Minor; and her image, a square block of stone that had fallen from heaven, was kept at Pessinus, an ancient city of Galatia. This stone the Romans now [204 BC] imported. The oracle of Delphi required that the goddess should be welcomed to Rome by the most virtuous Roman; and P[ublius] Cornelius Scipio Nasica [optimus vir ("best man"), b. 227 BC; fl. 204-171 BC; consul 191 BC], a youthful son of Cn[aeus] Scipio [Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, d. 211 BC; consul 222 BC] who had fallen in Spain, was chosen by the Senate to perform this duty.] to leave her seat in Phrygia, and must set up her worship within the walls of their city; and the goddess must be received at her landing by that citizen whom the whole body of the Senate chose out as the most virtuous of men then living. That was a title more glorious and higher than any triumph. So Cybele was invited, and now she was nearing land, on board a Roman vessel [navis salvia ("saviour ship")], when Scipio, given precedence by all the noble senators, made haste to meet the foreign deity. His father was uncle of the Scipio [Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, 236/235-183 BC; consul 205, 194 BC] just chosen to conduct the war in Africa; and his lineage was long and illustrious. When he had welcomed the goddess after her long voyage with hands held up in prayer and, standing high, had brought the vessel to the loud-sounding mouth of Tuscan Tiber, the hands of women were next employed, to draw the tall ship up the stream with ropes. The cymbals made a noise all round with their hollow tinklings, and the hoarse note of the drums vied with the cymbals. And her troop of unsexed votaries were there - those who haunt the twin peaks of chaste Mount Dindyma, and who hold revel in the cave of Dicte, and those who know the heights of Ida and its silent sacred groves. Amid their wild cries and the prayers of the rejoicing multitude, the sacred ship refused to answer the pull of the ropes: she stopped suddenly and remained motionless on the river-bed. Then a priest [Translator's note: One of the foreign priests who had brought the goddess over the sea.] cried aloud from the centre of the ship: "Touch not the ropes with guilty hands! Away, away! far from hence, all ye unchaste, I warn you, and take no share in the sacred task; or the goddess may not be content with a mere warning. But if any woman is strong in her chastity, if any who stands here is conscious of a body unstained, let her, even single-handed, undertake the pious duty". Then Claudia [Claudia Quinta, castissima femina ("purest or most virtuous woman"), fl. 204 BC] spoke out. She derived her name from the ancient stock of the Clausi [Translator's note: The Claudii.], but false report among the people had darkened her fame. Turning her eyes and open hands to the vessel, she spoke thus: "O Mother of the gods, divine parent of all whom we worship, whose children cast lots for kingdoms and rule the earth and sea, the stars and the nether world, if I am free from all stain of unchastity, chastity, come thou and bear me witness, and prove my innocence by the ease with which the vessel moves." Then, full of confidence, she grasped a rope; and suddenly it seemed that the roaring of lions [Translator's note: Cybele was commonly represented in art and in poetry as sitting in a car drawn by a pair of lions.] was heard, and Cybele's drums, though no hand beat them, sounded louder in all ears. The ship moved forward as if driven by the wind and outstripped Claudia as she drew it along against the stream. At once all hearts were cheered by stronger hopes that an end of war [The Second Punic War, 218-201 BC] and an end of disaster was coming at last.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus
(c. 25-101 AD) |
Punica |
● XVII: 1-47 |
James Duff Duff |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 278) © Harvard
University Press, 1934 |
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“
⟨...⟩ at the taking of Troy some of its people escaped, found sailing vessels, were driven by storms upon the coast of Tuscany, and came to anchor in the river Tiber ⟨...⟩
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⟨...⟩ they say that Tarchetius, king of the Albans, who was most lawless and cruel, was visited with a strange phantom in his house, namely, a phallus rising out of the hearth and remaining there many days. Now there was an oracle of Tethys in Tuscany, from which there was brought to Tarchetius a response that a virgin must have intercourse with this phantom, and she should bear a son most illustrious for his valour, and of surpassing good fortune and strength. Tarchetius, accordingly, told the prophecy to one of his daughters, and bade her consort with the phantom; but she disdained to do so, and sent a handmaid in to it. When Tarchetius learned of this, he was wroth, and seized both the maidens, purposing to put them to death. But the goddess Hestia appeared to him in his sleep and forbade him the murder. He therefore imposed upon the maidens the weaving of a certain web in their imprisonment, assuring them that when they had finished the weaving of it, they should then be given in marriage. By day, then, these maidens wove, but by night other maidens, at the command of Tarchetius, unravelled their web. And when the handmaid became the mother of twin children by the phantom, Tarchetius gave them to a certain Teratius with orders to destroy them. This man, however, carried them to the river-side and laid them down there. Then a she-wolf visited the babes and gave them suck, while all sorts of birds brought morsels of food and put them into their mouths, until a cow-herd spied them, conquered his amazement, ventured to come to them, and took the children home with him. Thus they were saved, and when they were grown up, they set upon Tarchetius and overcame him.
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⟨...⟩ the story which has the widest credence and the greatest number of vouchers ⟨...⟩ The descendants of Aeneas [r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates] reigned as kings in Alba, and the succession devolved at length upon two brothers, Numitor [r. 794?, 752-? BC; legendary dates] and Amulius [r. 854-817 BC; legendary dates]. Amulius divided the whole inheritance into two parts, setting the treasures and the gold which had been brought from Troy over against the kingdom, and Numitor chose the kingdom. Amulius, then, in possession of the treasure, and made more powerful by it than Numitor, easily took the kingdom away from his brother, and fearing lest that brother's daughter should have children, made her a priestess of Vesta, bound to live unwedded and a virgin all her days. Her name is variously given as Ilia, or Rhea, or Silvia. Not long after this, she was discovered to be with child, contrary to the established law for the Vestals. She did not, however, suffer the capital punishment which was her due, because the king's daughter, Antho, interceded successfully in her behalf, but she was kept in solitary confinement, that she might not be delivered without the knowledge of Amulius. Delivered she was of two boys, and their size and beauty were more than human. Wherefore Amulius was all the more afraid, and ordered a servant to take the boys and cast them away. This servant's name was Faustulus, according to some, but others give this name to the man who took the boys up. Obeying the king's orders, the servant put the babes into a trough and went down towards the river [Tiber], purposing to cast them in; but when he saw that the stream was much swollen and violent, he was afraid to go close up to it, and setting his burden down near the bank, went his way. Then the overflow of the swollen river took and bore up the trough, floating it gently along, and carried it down to a fairly smooth spot which is now called Kermalus, but formerly Germanus, perhaps because brothers are called "germani".
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Now there was a wild fig-tree [!] hard by, which they called Ruminalis, either from Romulus, as is generally thought, or because cud-chewing, or ruminating, animals spent the noon-tide there for the sake of the shade, or best of all, from the suckling of the babes there; for the ancient Romans called the teat "ruma", and a certain goddess, who is thought to preside over the rearing of young children, is still called Rumilia, in sacrificing to whom no wine is used, and libations of milk are poured over her victims. Here, then, the babes lay, and the she-wolf of story here gave them suck, and a woodpecker came to help in feeding them and to watch over them. Now these creatures are considered sacred to Mars, and the woodpecker is held in especial veneration and honour by the Latins, and this was the chief reason why the mother was believed when she declared that Mars was the father of her babes. And yet it is said that she was deceived into doing this, and was really deflowered by Amulius himself, who came to her in armour and ravished her. But some say that the name of the children's nurse, by its ambiguity, deflected the story into the realm of the fabulous. For the Latins not only called she-wolves "lupae", but also women of loose character, and such a woman was the wife of Faustulus, the foster-father of the infants, Acca Larentia by name. Yet the Romans sacrifice also to her, and in the month of April the priest of Mars pours libations in her honour, and the festival is called Larentalia.
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As for the babes, they were taken up and reared by Faustulus, a swineherd of Amulius, and no man knew of it; or, as some say with a closer approach to probability, Numitor did know of it, and secretly aided the foster-parents in their task. And it is said that the boys were taken to Gabii to learn letters and the other branches of knowledge which are meet for those of noble birth. Moreover, we are told that they were named, from "ruma", the Latin word for teat, Romulus and Romus (or Remus), because they were seen sucking the wild beast.
„
| Author: |
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Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus
(c. 46-120 AD) |
Parallel Lives I: Romulus |
● I, 2
● II, 3-6
● III, 1-5
● IV, 1-3
● VI, 1-2 |
Bernadotte Perrin |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 046) © Harvard
University Press, 1914 |
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“
Aemilius [Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, c. 229-160 BC; consul 182, 168 BC; censor 164 BC] ⟨...⟩ crossed into Italy with his forces, and sailed up the river Tiber on the royal galley, which had sixteen banks of oars and was richly adorned with captured arms and cloths of scarlet and purple, so that the Romans actually came in throngs from out the city, as it were to some spectacle of triumphant progress whose pleasures they were enjoying in advance, and followed along the banks as the splashing oars sent the ship slowly up the stream.
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| Author: |
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Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus
(c. 46-120 AD) |
Parallel Lives VI: Aemilius Paulus |
● XXX, 1-3 |
Bernadotte Perrin |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 098) © Harvard
University Press, 1918 |
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Why is the shrine of Aesculapius [Cf. Pliny Natural History XXIX, viii, 16; xxii, 72; Livy History of Rome X, xlvii, 6-7; Summary of Book XI.] outside the city? Is it because they considered it more healthful to spend their time outside the city than within its walls? In fact the Greeks, as might be expected, have their shrines of Asclepius situated in places which are both clean and high. Or is it because they believe that the god came at their summons from Epidaurus, and the Epidaurians have their shrine of Asclepius not in the city, but at some distance? Or is it because the serpent [δράκων] came out from the trireme into the island [Insula Tiberina], and there disappeared, and thus they thought that the god himself was indicating to them the site for building?
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| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus
(c. 46-120 AD) |
Moralia IV: Roman Questions |
● 94, 286 C-D |
Frank Cole Babbitt |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 305) © Harvard
University Press, 1936 |
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When a Plague had overspread Sparta, the god gave an oracle that it would cease if they sacrificed a noble maiden each year. Once when Helen had been chosen by lot and had been led forward adorned for the sacrifice, an eagle swooped down, snatched up the sword, carried it to the herds of cattle, and let it fall on a heifer; wherefore the Spartans refrained from the slaying of maidens. So Aristodemus in his Third Collection of Fables. When a Plague had gained a wide hold on the city of Falerii, and many perished of it, an oracle was given that the terror would abate if they sacrificed a maiden to Juno each year. This superstitious practice persisted and once, as a maiden chosen by lot, Valeria Luperca, had drawn the sword, an eagle swooped down, snatched it up, and placed a wand tipped with a small hammer upon the sacrificial offerings; but the sword the eagle cast down upon a certain heifer which was grazing near the shrine. The maiden understood the import: she sacrificed the heifer, took up the hammer, and went about from house to house, tapping the sick lightly with her hammer and rousing them, bidding each of them to be well again; whence even to this day this mystic rite is performed. So Aristeides [Aristides of Miletus, fl. 100s BC] in the nineteenth book of his Italian History.
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Amulius [r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates], being despotically disposed toward his brother Numitor [r. 794?, 752-? BC; legendary dates], killed his brother's son Aenitus in hunting, and his daughter [Rhea] Silvia, or Ilia, he made a priestess of Juno [Vestal Virgin]. But Mars got Silvia with child. She gave birth to twins [Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome] and acknowledged the truth to the despot; he became frightened and threw both the children into the water by the banks of the Tiber. But they found a haven at a place where was the den of a wolf which had recently whelped. She abandoned her cubs and suckled the children. A shepherd Faustus was witness of this event and reared the children; he named them Remus and Romulus [r. 753-716 BC; legendary dates], who became the founders of Rome. So Aristeides the Milesian [Aristides of Miletus, fl. 100s BC] in his Italian History.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus
(c. 46-120 AD) |
Moralia IV: Greek and Roman Parallel Stories |
● 35, 314 C-E
● 36, 314 F-315 A |
Frank Cole Babbitt |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 305) © Harvard
University Press, 1936 |
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⟨...⟩ when the children [twin brothers, Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome] were born and the despot [Amulius, r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates] gave orders to do away with them, by the decree of Fortune no barbarous or savage servant but a compassionate and humane man received them, with the result that he did not kill them; but there was a margin of the river [Tiber], bordering upon a green meadow, shaded round about with lowly shrubs; and here the servant deposited the infants near a certain wild fig-tree [!], to which people later gave the name Ruminalis. Then a she-wolf, that had newly whelped, with her dugs distended and overflowing with milk because her young had perished, being herself in great need of relief, circled around the infants and then gave them suck, thus ridding herself of the pain caused by the milk as if it had been a second birth-pang. And a bird sacred to Mars, which they call the woodpecker, visited them and, perching near on tiptoe, would, with its claw, open the mouth of each child in turn and place therein a morsel, sharing with them a portion of its own food. Wherefore they named this wild fig-tree Ruminalis, from the teat (ruma) which the wolf offered to the children as she crouched beside the tree. And for a long time the people who dwelt near this place preserved the custom of never exposing any of the new-born infants, but they acknowledged and reared them all, in honour of Romulus's experience and the similarity of the childrens' case with his.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus
(c. 46-120 AD) |
Moralia IV: On
the Fortune of
the Romans |
● 8, 320 C-E |
Frank Cole Babbitt |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 305) © Harvard
University Press, 1936 |
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“
In the same year [Probably 58/59 AD, the year Julia Agrippina the Younger (15-59 AD), the mother of Emperor Nero (r. 54-68 AD), was murdered in brutal and messy affair involving a grotesque shipwreck.], the tree [!] in the Comitium, known as the Ruminalis [Translator's note: The fig-tree under which the wolf suckled the twins. It migrated spontaneously - augurante Atto Navio - from the Lupercal on the Palatine to the Comitium, opposite the senate-house (Pliny Natural History XV, xx, 77-78).], which eight hundred and thirty years earlier [771 BC] had sheltered the infancy of Remus and Romulus [twin brothers, the founders of the city of Rome], through the death of its boughs and the withering of its stem, reached a stage of decrepitude which was regarded as a portent, until it renewed its verdure in fresh shoots.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Publius Cornelius Tacitus
(c. 56-120 AD) |
Annals |
● XIII: lviii |
John Jackson |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 322) © Harvard
University Press, 1937 |
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The women also have records equally diverse, since both the famous Claudias belonged to that family: the one [Claudia Quinta] who drew the ship with the sacred properties of the Idaean Mother of the Gods [Cybele] from the shoal in the Tiber on which it was stranded [Translator's note: In 204 BC the cult of Cybele was introduced into Rome, where she was worshipped as the Magna Mater.], after first publicly praying that it might yield to her efforts only if her chastity were beyond question; and the one who was tried by the people for treason ⟨...⟩
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
(c. 69-120s AD) |
Lives of the Caesars |
● III. Tiberius: ii, 3 |
John Carew Rolfe |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 031) © Harvard
University Press, 1914 |
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The first founder both of the city [Rome] and of the empire was Romulus [r. 753-716 BC; legendary dates], the son of Mars and Rhea Silvia. That Mars was his father the priestess confessed when she was pregnant, and presently common report no longer doubted it when, by order of King Amulius [r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates], Romulus was thrown with his brother Remus into the river: but his life could not be destroyed; for not only did the Tiber stay its stream, but a she-wolf left her young to follow the infants' cries, offered them her udder and played the part of mother to them. Finding them in these circumstances under a tree [!], Faustulus, the shepherd of the royal flock, took them to his cottage and brought them up. Alba [Longa] was at that time the chief city of Latium, having been built by Iulus [Ascanius (Julus), r. 1176-1138 BC; legendary dates]; for he had disdained Lavinium, the city of his father Aeneas [r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates]. Amulius, of the seventh generation from Aeneas and Iulus, was reigning, having driven out his brother Numitor [r. 794?, 752-? BC; legendary dates], whose daughter was mother of Romulus. Romulus, therefore, in the first ardour of youth, expelled his uncle from the citadel and restored his grandfather. He himself, being a lover of the river and mountains amongst which he had been brought up, conceived the idea of building a new city [Rome]. As he and Remus were twins, they resolved to call in the help of the gods to decide which of them should inaugurate the city and rule there. Remus took his stand on the Aventine, Romulus on the Palatine hill. Remus first observed six vultures, Romulus was after him in time but saw twelve. Being thus victorious in augury, he began to build the city, full of hope that it would prove warlike; for the birds, accustomed to blood and prey, seemed to indicate this. It was thought that a rampart was enough for the protection of the new city. In derision of its small size Remus leaped over it and was put to death for doing so, whether by his brother's order or not is uncertain; at any rate he was the first victim and hallowed the fortification of the new city with his blood. Romulus had brought into being the idea of a city rather than an actual city; for inhabitants were lacking.
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| Author: |
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Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
(Publius Annius?) (Julius?) (Lucius Annaeus?) Florus
(c. 70s-130s AD) |
Epitome of Roman History |
● I: I. The Period of
the Seven Kings, Beginning with Romulus, i, 1-9 |
Edward Seymour Forster |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 231) © Harvard
University Press, 1929 |
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The say that ⟨...⟩ Tiberinus [r. 922-914 BC; legendary dates] was son of Capetys [r. 934-921 BC; legendary dates], Agropas [Agrippa, 914-873 BC; legendary dates] was son of Tiberinus ⟨...⟩ Procas [817-794 BC; legendary dates] had two sons, the elder named Nemetor [Numitor, r. 794?, 752-? BC; legendary dates], the younger Amulius [r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates]. On the death of his father, the elder son took over the kingdom, but the younger insolently removed him by force and held power. He also murders his nephew, Egestus, and makes his niece Rhea Silvia a priestess, so that she would remain childless. Nemetor [Numitor], however, was saved from an assassination attempt by the gentleness of his character and great virtue; and Silvia became pregnant in contravention of the law, Amulius punishing her with imprisonment. The two sons she bore he gave to shepherds with instructions to throw the babies into the nearby river; the Thyber was the name of the river, and the boys were called Romus [Remus] and Romulus. They were descended on their mother's side from Aeneas [r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates], but their father's lineage is unclear.
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⟨...⟩ Tiberinus ⟨...⟩ as the eighth [King of Alba Longa] ⟨...⟩ The father of Nemetor [Numitor] and Amulius [Procas, r. 817-794 BC; legendary dates] left the throne to Nemetor [Numitor, r. 794?, 752-? BC; legendary dates] as he was the elder, but Amulius [r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates], his brother, ousted him and ruled as king. Suspecting there would be an attempt to take revenge, he murders Egestus, son of the ousted Nemetor [Numitor], on a hunting expedition, and makes Egestus' sister a priestess, afraid she might have a son. But she did become pregnant, by Ares, so it was said, when she was drawing water at his well; and she gives birth to Romus [Remus] and Romulus. So Amulius imprisoned her and orders the children to be thrown into the Tiber, or Thyber, as it was then called. The men who received the children - they were shepherds - took them to the river and placed the vessel close by at the edge of the water. But the river was in flood, and when they had gone, the water receded and the babies were left on dry land; and a wolf came across the vessel and nursed them. Laurentia, wife of the shepherd Faustulus ⟨...⟩ they had turned to banditry on reaching manhood, they arrested Romus [Remus] for raiding the estate of Nemetor [Numitor] and took him before Amulius; but Amulius sent him to Nemetor [Numitor] his brother for conviction and punishment, as he was the one who had been robbed by him. Nemetor [Numitor], however, looking at the appearance of the boy and working out the date when the children were exposed and the other matters, began to suspect the truth and questioned him about his upbringing. Romulus was alarmed, and learning from Faustulus the story of himself and his brother and how his mother had been imprisoned, he collected a band of shepherds and joins them in launching their attacks. They killed Amulius and declare Nemetor [Numitor] king of the Albans. Romus [Remus] and Romulus [r. 753-716 BC; legendary dates] founded a town beside the river where they had been exposed, nursed and had turned to banditry. They called it Rome, the word for "square" at that time, as it had a perimeter of sixteen stades, each side four stades long.
„
| Author: |
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Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Appian of Alexandria
(c. 95-165 AD) |
Roman History |
● I. The Book of Kings: i, 4-6
● I. The Book of Kings: ia, 4-9 |
Brian McGing |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 002) © Harvard
University Press, 2019 |
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At Rome, when alarming omens arrived from Zeus, the ten-man board for examining the Sibylline Books said that in the coming days something would fall from heaven at Pessinus in Phrygia, where the Phrygians worship the mother of the gods [Cybele], and that it should be brought to Rome. Not long after, it was reported that an image had indeed fallen, and it was brought to Rome [Translator's note: The main task of the decemviri sacris faciundis (ten-man commission for doing sacred things - it was later increased to fifteen) was the care and interpretation of the Sibylline Books, a set of discursive Greek oracles dating, so legend recorded, from Rome's regal period.]. And to the present day, they still celebrate the anniversary of its original conveyance to the city as a festival dedicated to the mother of the gods [Translator's note: The Megalesia, the festival to which Appian refers, in honor of the Anatolian goddess Cybele, was celebrated at Rome in early April.]. The story goes that the ship on which it was being carried stuck fast in the mud of the river Tiber, and they could find no way to pull it free. Eventually, the seers declared that the ship would only follow if a woman who had never committed adultery pulled it. Claudia Quinta was a woman who had a still untried charge of adultery against her - her profligate lifestyle made it a very credible charge - but vehemently protesting her innocence, she tied the boat to her belt, and the goddess followed. Claudia, of course, now exchanged her most shameful reputation for a most honorable one. Before Claudia's intervention, the Sibylline Books had ordered the Romans to send the best man among them to bring the image of the goddess back from Phrygia. So they had sent the man judged to be the best among them at that time, Scipio surnamed Nasica [Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, b. 227 BC; fl. 204-171 BC; consul 191 BC], son of the Gnaeus Scipio [Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus, d. 211 BC; consul 222 BC] who had commanded in Iberia and had fallen in battle there, and cousin of the first Scipio to have the name Africanus [Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, 236/235-183 BC, consul 205, 194 BC], who deprived the Carthaginians of their dominance.
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So it was that the goddess arrived in Rome by the agency of their best man [optimus vir] and best woman [castissima femina].
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Appian of Alexandria
(c. 95-165 AD) |
Roman History |
● VII. The Hanniba-lic Book: lvi, 233-236
● VII. The Hanniba-lic Book: lvii, 237 |
Brian McGing |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 002) © Harvard
University Press, 2019 |
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It is the Tiber, O Tuscan, the Tiber that thou biddest be penned in: the river Tiber, master and monarch of all circumfluent waters ⟨...⟩
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Marcus Cornelius Fronto
(c. 100-176 AD) |
Correspondence: To Antoninus Augustus |
● 11 |
Charles Reginald Haines |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 113) © Harvard
University Press, 1920 |
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Tiberinus [r. 914-873 BC; legendary dates], who next became ruler, lost his life by falling into a river called the Albula. It was this river that was renamed the Tiber after him. Flowing through Rome, it serves many purposes of the city and is in the highest degree useful to the Romans. Amulius [Mistaken identity? Most likely, this is the reference to Romulus Silvius (Allodius or Aremulus), r. 873-854 BC; legendary dates], a descendant of Tiberinus [r. 914-873 BC; legendary dates], displayed an overweening pride and dared to make himself a god; he went so far as to match the thunder with artificial thunder, to answer lightning with lightning, and to hurl thunderbolts. He met his end by the sudden overflow of the lake beside which his palace was built; it submerged both him and his palace. ⟨...⟩ Tiberinus [r. 914-873 BC; legendary dates] ⟨...⟩ So much regarding Alba [Longa] and the Albans; the story of Rome now begins. ⟨...⟩ Numitor [r. 794?, 752-? BC; legendary dates] while king was driven out by Amulius [r. 794-752 BC; legendary dates], who killed Numitor's son Aegestes on a hunting party and made Silvia, or Rhea Ilia, the sister of Aegestes, and daughter of the aforesaid Numitor, a priestess of Vesta, so that she might remain a virgin. For he stood in dread of an oracle which declared that he should be slain by the children of Numitor. It was for this reason that he killed Aegestes and made his sister priestess of Vesta, that she might continue a virgin and childless. But she while drawing water in Mars' grove conceived, and bore Romulus and Remus [twin brothers, founders of the city of Rome]. The daughter of Amulius by her entreaties saved her from being put to death, but the babes were given to Faustulus, a shepherd, husband of Laurentia, to be exposed beside the river Tiber. These the shepherd's wife took and reared; for it happened that she had at that time borne a dead child. When Romulus and Remus were grown they kept flocks in the fields of Amulius, but as they killed some of the shepherds of their grandfather Numitor a watch was set for them. When Remus was arrested, Romulus ran and told Faustulus, and he ran and related the whole story to Numitor. Finally Numitor recognized them as his own daughter's children. They with the assistance of many others killed Amulius, and after bestowing the kingdom of Alba [Longa] on their grandfather Numitor made a beginning themselves of founding Rome in the eighteenth year of Romulus' life. [But prior to this great Rome,] which Romulus [r. 753-716 BC; legendary dates] founded on the Palatine mount near the dwelling of Faustulus, [another Rome in the form of a square had been founded by a Romulus and Remus more ancient than these.]
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Lucius Cassius Dio
(c. 155-235 AD) |
Roman History |
● I (via Tzetzes in Lycophron, Alexan-dra v. 1232; Zonaras 7, 1-3) |
Earnest Cary, Herbert B. Foster |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 032) © Harvard
University Press, 1914 |
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When the Roman state was growing powerful, it is said that an oracle announced to the Romans that their empire would endure and grow still greater if they brought the goddess of Pessinous [Cybele] to Rome. Whereupon they sent an embassy to the Phrygians asking for the statue [Translator's note: In 204 BC. The story appears in Livy History of Rome XXIX, xiv, 5-14; Catullus Poems LXIII; Ovid Fasti IV, 251-348; Seneca Fragments 80; Suetonius Tiberius ii, 3. The reference to Aeneas here may be due to a misunderstanding of Ovid Fasti IV: 250-255.]. They gained their request without difficulty by citing their kinship with the Phrygians and outlining how they were the descendants of Aeneas the Phrygian. When the statue had been transported by ship and had reached the mouth of the River Tiber (which the Romans used to use as their harbour) some supernatural force made the vessel run aground. The Roman people turned out in force and spent a long time trying to tow the ship off but it was held fast by the sandbar and refused to sail upstream. Finally they brought to the scene the priestess of the goddess [that is, the goddess Vesta] [Translator's note: The text is almost certainly corrupt beyond repair. The name of the goddess is so clumsily introduced that it is probably a marginal gloss; but if it is omitted there is no mention of Vesta by name elsewhere. It seems inconceivable that H[erodian] thought Magna Mater and Vesta were the same, though one should note the Vesta-Mater worship cultivated by Julia Domna, wife of Severus.] who was under a vow of chastity but was being charged with adultery [Claudia Quinta]. Since judgement was on the point of being passed on her, the priestess begged the people to allow the goddess of Pessinous [Cybele] to give the verdict. She took off her sash and threw it on to the prow of the ship with a prayer that, if she were still an innocent virgin, the ship would respond to her. When the ship with the sash tied to it followed her without hindrance, the Romans were full of awe at this manifestation of the goddess and the holiness of the maiden.
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Just at this time a plague struck Italy, but it was most severe in Rome, which, apart from being normally overcrowded, was still getting immigrants from all over the world. The result was a tremendous toll of life among men and beasts of burden.
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At the same time there was a famine in the city [Rome] ⟨...⟩
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Herodian of Antioch
(c. 170s-240s AD) |
History of the Empire |
● I: xi, 3-5
● I: xii, 1
● I: xii, 3 |
Charles Richard Whittaker |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 454) © Harvard
University Press, 1969 |
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The indigenous gods of the Romans we know; Romulus, Picus, Tiberinus [Translator's note: Romulus [r. 753-716 BC; legendary dates], the reputed founder of Rome, was deified as Quirinus; Picus, son of Saturn, a mythical king of Italy, was an agricultural divinity, associated with augury through his sacred bird, the woodpecker; Tiberinus was the deified river Tiber; Consus was associated with the storage of grain; Pilumnus, another rural deity, was patron of millers and bakers; Volumnus brought luck to young children. Acca Larentia, by one account the nurse of Romulus, by others played on the affections of the wealthy, and left her gains to the people of Rome. Flora, Queen of Flowers, was the goddess of fertility in all living things.], and Consus and Pilumnus and Volumnus; Tatius invented and worshipped Cloacina; Hostilius Pavor (Panic) and Pallor; some one or another canonized Febris (Fever); such, in superstition, is the foster-child of your city of diseases and maladies. Presumably Acca Larentia too and Flora, prostitutes lost to shame, may be numbered among the diseases - and the gods - of Rome.
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| Author: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
Marcus Minucius Felix
(c. 200s AD) |
Octavius |
● XXV, 8 |
Gerald Henry Rendall |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 250) © Harvard
University Press, 1931 |
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And in the midst of this great military slaughter [?] there arose a deadly plague among the women, for the pregnant women died before the time of delivery. At this point, I suppose, Aesculapius made the excuse that his profession was chief physician, not midwife. Cattle, too, likewise perished in such numbers that it was thought the whole race of animals would become extinct. What about that remarkable winter, so incredibly severe, when snow lay even in the forum dreadfully deep for forty days running and the Tiber also was frozen? If this had happened in our time, what would they have said! What about that other great plague [292 BC] which raged so long and killed so many? Despite the presence of Aesculapius, it was entering its second year far more severe when recourse was had to the Sibylline books. In the case of this kind of oracle, as Cicero [106-43 BC] tells us in his books On Divination, greater faith is put in interpreters who make what guess they can or choose about the application of an ambiguous passage. In this instance it was said that the cause of the plague was the fact that so many consecrated shrines were occupied for private uses. Thus, for the present, Aesculapius was freed from the serious charge of ignorance or laziness.
„
| Author: |
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Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Augustine of Hippo
(354-430 AD) |
City of God Against the Pagans |
● III: xvii |
George Englert McCracken |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 411) © Harvard
University Press, 1957 |
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Let us take up the miracles presented by history as performed by the gods that are worshipped by the pagans. I do not mean those portentous events which occur from time to time for obscure reasons belonging to the natural world itself, reasons which nevertheless are shaped and regulated by the overruling power of divine providence. Such are the freakish births of animals and unusual manifestations in the heavens and on earth, some merely alarming, others harmful as well. Their menace is said to be dispelled and mitigated by demonic rites, such is the craft and utter deceit of the demons. No, I mean those marvels that we have evidence enough to show were brought about by the might and power of the demons. For instance, it is reported that the images of the Penates which Aeneas [r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates] carried with him when he fled from Troy moved by themselves from one place to another; that Tarquin cut a whetstone with a razor; that the serpent [serpens] of Epidaurus attached itself to Aesculapius and accompanied him on his voyage to Rome; that the ship on which travelled the statue of the Phrygian mother [Cybele], after resisting all the mighty efforts of men and oxen to move it, was set in motion and drawn along by a frail woman who had attached her girdle to it in proof of her chastity [Translator's note: Cicero De Haruspicum Responsis xiii, 27; Ovid Fasti IV, 295-326.]; that a Vestal Virgin [Claudia Quinta] whose purity was in question settled all controversy by filling a sieve with water from the Tiber which did not escape through the holes [Translator's note: Valerius Maximus Memorable Doings and Sayings VIII, 1, 5; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Roman Antiquities II, lxix, 1-3]. These marvels, then, and others like them can by no means be compared in power and scale with those that we read were performed among the people of God. How much less can we compare those practices which, even by the legal ordinances of the nations that worshipped such gods, were judged worthy of being forbidden and punished, that is works of magic or, if you like, theurgy! Most of them are mere specious illusions that cheat men's senses by playing upon their imagination, like the trick of drawing down the moon "until" as Lucan [39-65 AD] says, "from close at hand she foams her dew upon the plants below" [Translator's note: Lucan The Civil War VI, 499-506. The ancient witches of Thessaly were thought to have the power of drawing the moon down to earth by their incantations. See Aristophanes Clouds 749-756; Virgil Eclogues VIII, 70; Horace Epodes 5, 45-46. That the moon produces dew was also a common belief of antiquity.]. Even though certain of these miracles, it is true, appear to match in effect some of those performed by the saints, the ends that they serve are different, and consideration of these ends makes it plain that our wonders are incomparably superior. Their miracles show that the multitude of gods is so much the less deserving of sacrificial worship the more they demand it [Translator's note: Augustine refers probably to the prodigies by which the gods sought to exact from their devotees the performance of such expiatory ceremonies (called procurationes) as athletic games, sacrifices, lustral processions and lectisternia. For examples, see Livy History of Rome XXI, 62 and XXII, 9-10.]. Our miracles, however, support the worship of the one God, who makes it clear that he has no need of such things, both by the witness of his own Scriptures and by the eventual suppression of these same sacrifices.
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| Author: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
Augustine of Hippo
(354-430 AD) |
City of God Against the Pagans |
● X: xvi |
David S. Wiesen |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 413) © Harvard
University Press, 1968 |
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Father Tiber, seated in that low valley, heard the sound in his labyrinthine cave. He stays with ears pricked up wondering whence this sudden popular clamour comes. Straightway he leaves his couch of green leaves, his mossy bed, and entrusts his urn to his attendant nymphs. Grey eyes flecked with blue shine out from his shaggy countenance, recalling his father Oceanus; thick curled grasses cover his neck and lush sedge crowns his head. This the Zephyrs may not break nor the summer sun scorch to withering; it lives and burgeons around those brows immortal as itself. From his temples sprout horns [!] like those of a bull; from these pour babbling streamlets; water drips upon his breast, showers pour down his hair-crowned forehead, flowing rivers from his parted beard. There clothes his massy shoulders a cloak woven by his wife Ilia [Rhea Silvia, mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome], who threaded the crystalline loom beneath the flood. There lies in Roman Tiber's stream an island [Insula Tiberina] where the central flood washes as 'twere two cities parted by the sundering waters: with equal threatening height the tower-clad banks rise in lofty buildings. Here stood Tiber and from this eminence beheld his prayer of a sudden fulfilled, saw the twin-souled brothers [Brothers Anicius Probinus and Anicius Hermogenianus Olybrius, fl. 395-397 AD; consuls 395 AD] enter the Forum amid the press of thronging senators, the bared axes gleam afar and both sets of fasces brought forth from one threshold. He stood amazed at the sight and for a long time incredulous joy held his voice in check.
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| Author: |
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Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Claudius Claudianus
(c. 370-404 AD) |
Panegyric on the Consuls Probinus
and Olybrius |
● 209-235 |
Maurice Platnauer |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 135) © Harvard
University Press, 1922 |
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⟨...⟩ Rome found her strength in the oracles of the Sibyl, her vigour in the hallowed laws of Numa [Numa Pompilius, r. 715-673 BC; legendary dates]. For her Jove [Jupiter] brandishes his thunderbolts; 'tis she to whom Minerva offers the full protection of her shield [Gorgoneion]; to her Vesta brought her sacred flame, Bacchus his rites, and the turret-crowned mother of the gods [Cybele] her Phrygian lions. Hither to keep disease at bay came, gliding with steady motion, the snake [Ø] whose home was Epidaurus, and Tiber's isle [Insula Tiberina] gave shelter to the Paeonian [Translator's note: I.e. Aesculapius. "Paeonian" from the Greek Παιών, the Healer.] serpent [draco] from beyond the sea [from Epidauros]. This is the city whom thou, Stilicho [Flavius Stilicho, c. 359-408 AD], and heaven guard, her thou protectest, mother of kings and generals, mother, above all, of thee.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Claudius Claudianus
(c. 370-404 AD) |
On Stilicho's Consulship |
● III (XXIV): 166-176 |
Maurice Platnauer |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 136) © Harvard
University Press, 1922 |
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⟨...⟩ You, my father [Anchises?], take up the holy objects and ancestral Penates: since I [Aeneas?] have come fresh from the bloodshed of this great battle [Trojan War?], it is unlawful for me to handle them until I have cleansed myself in a flowing stream. So too, after burying his nurse, Caieta [Aeneas's wet-nurse], where could he more properly sail and put in to shore than the region where ⟨...⟩ the Tiber's pleasant stream ⟨...⟩ bursts forth into the sea, so that on the very threshold of Italy he might be cleansed by the river water and so invoke, with perfect ritual purity, ⟨...⟩ Jupiter and the Phrygian mother [Cybele] one after the other ⟨...⟩? ⟨...⟩ Consider the fact that when Aeneas [r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates] is going to visit Evander - and in fact will find him celebrating the rites of Hercules - he sails along the Tiber, so that he might thus be purified before attending his host's rites. Hence, too, Juno's bitter complaint, provoked as much by the fact that he reached "the Tiber's longed-for channel" ⟨...⟩ as by the fact that he had succeeded in reaching Italy against her will: for she knew that once he was purified by the river he could also sacrifice to her acceptably - and she did not even want to receive his supplication. ⟨...⟩ I've now shown the care Virgil [70-19 BC] takes in treating the ritual purity appropriate to the rites of the heavenly gods ⟨...⟩
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⟨...⟩ the Tiber, caught between the two bridges [Possible candidates: Pons Sublicius, Pons Aemilius, Pons Fabricius, Pons Cestius.].
„
| Author: |
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Collection & Publisher: |
Macrobius Ambro-sius Theodosius
(c. 390-400s AD) |
Saturnalia |
● III: i, 1-5
● III: xvi, 18 |
Robert Andrew Kaster |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 511) © Harvard
University Press, 2011 |
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Let Tiber's self, garlanded with triumphal reed, apply his waters to serve the needs of Romulus' race, and 'twixt his peaceful banks bear for thee down-stream the wealthy cargoes of the fields and up-stream those of the sea.
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Then at length I proceed to the ships [Translator's note: There were several boats (cymbae I: 219) used by Rutilius' company on their coasting voyage northwards: Cf. I: 559, puppibus ergo meis.], where with twy-horned [!] brow the branching Tiber cleaves his way to the right [Translator's note: About eighteen miles from Rome and some miles from the sea the Tiber branches so as to form the Isola Sacra (Cf. Virgil Aeneid VIII, 727, Rhenusque bicornis, referring to the two mouths of the Rhine: the "horn" idea is associated with the bull-like force of rivers in flood). At the mouth of the left branch was Ostia, the ancient port of Rome, which in time became blocked up with silt and sand. On the right branch harbour-works were undertaken by the Emperor Claudius [r. 41-54 AD] and improved by Trajan [r. 98-117 AD].]. The channel on the left is avoided for its unapproachable sands: its one remaining boast is to have welcomed Aeneas [r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates].
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Rutilius Claudius Namatianus
(c. late 300s-400s AD) |
A Voyage Home
to Gaul |
● I: 151-154
● I: 179-182 |
J. Wight Duff, Arnold M. Duff |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 434) © Harvard
University Press, 1934 |
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Oenotria [Translator's note: Oenotria, old and poetical name for Italy, here treated as a goddess.], when from the crags of towering Apennine she beheld this calamity, hied her to the glassy abode of blue Tiber.
„
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So she [Oenotria, i.e. Italy, or Roma?] entered the cave of Tiber's stream. There sat the running river. On his green hair drifted a like-hued clump of tall reeds. The water sounded as it fell from his chin, though a beard of shaggy bristles underneath did much to dull the roar. From his breast he threw out streams, and falling more rapidly the flood now furious furrowed his soaking stomach. As the goddess drew nigh fear seized him; his hands relaxed, and the urn and the oar fell from them.
„
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Father Tiber heard and heeded. To the city he went and straightway with his own eyes beheld the goddess, and bowed in humble adoration, so that his horns [!] touched her breast and her uncovered bosom.
„
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Her conquering arm was thrust into a shield, whose orb was filled with the twin sons of Mars [Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome], with the wolf and Tiber and Love and Mars and Ilia [Rhea Silvia, mother of the twins Romulus and Remus].
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Gaius Sollius Modestus Apollinaris Sidonius
(c. 430-485 AD) |
Poems |
● II. Panegyric on Anthemius, 318-320
● II. Panegyric on Anthemius, 332-340
● II. Panegyric on Anthemius, 387-389
● II. Panegyric on Anthemius, 395-397 |
William Blair Anderson |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 296) © Harvard
University Press, 1936 |
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Here a glowing shield of vast circumference supports her [Roma's] left side. Thereon can be seen, cast in thick metal, the cave of Rhea, and the mother-wolf, whose very caresses were fearsome with those open jaws - yet even in her pictured guise she is afraid to devour the sons of Mars. The near side figures Tiber, outstretched under a porous rock of scaly tuff and breathing forth his humid slumber through his grey-green throat. His breast is covered with a robe which his wife Ilia [Rhea Silvia] had spun, and she, close to that dripping couch, would fain stop the plashing and guard the sleep of her watery mate. Such are the pictures that sparkle on the shield.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Gaius Sollius Modestus Apollinaris Sidonius
(c. 430-485 AD) |
Poems |
● V. Panegyric on Maiorianus, 21-31 |
William Blair Anderson |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 296) © Harvard
University Press, 1936 |
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“
This harbour [Ostia] is distant from the city [Rome] one hundred and twenty-six stades [~25 km]; for Rome lacks only so much of being on the sea; and it is situated where the Tiber River has its mouth. Now as the Tiber flows down from Rome, and reaches a point rather near the sea, about fifteen stades [~3 km] from it, the stream divides into two parts and makes there the Sacred Island, as it is called. As the river flows on the island becomes wider, so that the measure of its breadth corresponds to its length, for the two streams have between them a distance of fifteen stades [~3 km]; and the Tiber remains navigable on both sides. Now the portion of the river on the right empties into the harbour, and beyond the mouth the Romans in ancient times built on the shore a city [Translator's note: The Emperor Claudius [r. 41-54 AD] cut the northern channel for the river, in order to prevent inundations of Rome, and made the "Portus Claudii", opening to the sea, near its mouth; a second enclosed harbour, adjoining that of Claudius, was built by Trajan [r. 98-117 AD].], which is surrounded by an exceedingly strong wall; and it is called, like the harbour, "Portus". But on the left at the point where the other part of the Tiber empties into the sea is situated the city of Ostia, lying beyond the place where the river-bank ends, a place of great consequence in olden times, but now entirely without walls. Moreover, the Romans at the very beginning made a road leading from Portus to Rome, which was smooth and presented no difficulty of any kind. And many barges are always anchored in the harbour ready for service, and no small number of oxen stand in readiness close by. Now when the merchants reach the harbour with their ships, they unload their cargoes and place them in the barges, and sail by way of the Tiber to Rome; but they do not use sails or oars at all, for the boats cannot be propelled in the stream by any wind since the river winds about exceedingly and does not follow a straight course, nor can oars be employed, either, since the force of the current is always against them. Instead of using such means, therefore, they fasten ropes from the barges to the necks of oxen, and so draw them just like waggons up to Rome. But on the other side of the river, as one goes from the city of Ostia to Rome, the road is shut in by woods and in general lies neglected, and is not even near the bank of the Tiber, since there is no towing of barges on that road.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Procopius of Caesarea
(c. 490s-560s AD) |
History of the Wars |
● V. The Gothic War: xxvi, 4-13 |
Henry Bronson Dewing |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 107) © Harvard
University Press, 1916 |
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“
⟨...⟩ the Romans love their city above all the men we know, and they are eager to protect all their ancestral treasures and to preserve them, so that nothing of the ancient glory of Rome may be obliterated. For even though they were for a long period under barbarian sway, they preserved the buildings of the city and the most of its adornments, such as could through the excellence of their workmanship withstand so long a lapse of time and such neglect. Furthermore, all such memorials of the race as were still left are preserved even to this day, and among them the ship of Aeneas [r. 1179-1176 BC; legendary dates], the founder of the city, an altogether incredible sight. For they built a ship-house in the middle of the city on the bank of the Tiber, and depositing it there, they have preserved it from that time. And I shall now explain what sort of a ship this is, having seen it myself. The ship is one with a single bank of oars and is very long, being one hundred and twenty feet [~36.5 m] in length and twenty-five feet [~7.5 m] wide, and its height is all that it can be without becoming impossible to row. But there is nowhere in the boat any piecing together of timbers at all nor are the timbers fastened together by any device of iron, but all the timbers are of one piece, a thing strange and unheard of and true only, as far as we know, of this one boat. For the keel, which is a single piece, extends from the extreme stern to the bow, gradually sinking to the middle of the ship in a remarkable way and then rising again thence properly and in due order until it stands upright and rigid. And all the heavy timbers which fit into the keel (these the poets call "oak-stays", but others call them "shepherds") extend each and every one from one side all the way to the other side of the ship. These, too, sinking from either end, form a remarkably shapely bend, in order that the ship may be fashioned with a very wide hull, whether nature under the constraint of their future use originally carved out the timbers and fashioned this arch or the sweep of the ribs was properly adjusted by craftsmen's skill and other devices. Each plank, furthermore, extends from the very stem to the other end of the ship, being of one piece and pierced by iron spikes only for this purpose, that by being fastened to the timbers they may form the side of the ship. This ship thus constructed makes an impression when seen which transcends all description, for the nature of things always makes those works which are most cunningly built not easy for men to describe, but by means of her innovations so prevails over our usual habits of mind as to check even our power of speech. Now none of these timbers has either rotted or given the least indication of being unsound, but the ship, intact throughout, just as if newly constructed by the hand of the builder, whoever he was, has preserved its strength in a marvellous way even to my time. Such are the facts relating to the ship of Aeneas.
„
| Author: |
Work/Anthology: |
Verse/Fragment: |
Translator(s): |
Collection & Publisher: |
Procopius of Caesarea
(c. 490s-560s AD) |
History of the Wars |
● VIII. The Gothic War: xxii, 5-16 |
Henry Bronson Dewing |
Loeb Classical Library
(LCL 217) © Harvard
University Press, 1928 |
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