Egeria, the wife of Numa, is inconsolable after his death, and is changed into a fountain. The horses of Hippolytus being frightened by a sea-monster, he is killed by being thrown from his chariot, and becomes a God, under the name of Virbius. Tages, the Diviner, arises out of a clod of earth. The lance of Romulus is changed into a cornel-tree. Cippus becomes horned, and goes into voluntary banishment, rather than his country should be deprived of its liberty by his means.
With his mind cultivated with precepts such as these and others, they say that Numa returned to his country, and, being voluntarily invited,53 received the sovereignty of the Roman people. Blest with a Nymph for his wife, and the Muses for his guides, he taught the rites of sacrifice, and brought over to the arts of peace a race inured to savage warfare. After, full of years, he had finished his reign and his life, the Latian matrons and the people and the Senators lamented Numa at his death. But his wife, leaving the city, lay hid, concealed in the thick groves of the valley of Aricia, and by her groans and lamentations disturbed the sacred rites of Diana, brought thither by Orestes. Ah! how oft did the Nymphs of the grove and of the lake entreat her not to do so, and utter soothing words. Ah! how often did the hero, the son of Theseus, say to her as she wept, “Put an end to it; for thy lot is not the only one to be lamented. Consider the like calamities of others, thou wilt then bear thine own better. And would that an example, not my own, could lighten thy grief! yet even my own can do so.”
“I suppose, in discourse it has reached thy ears that a certain Hippolytus met with his death through the credulity of his father, by the deceit of his wicked step-mother. Thou wilt wonder, and I shall hardly be able to prove it; but yet I am he. In former times, the daughter of Pasiphaë, having tempted me in vain, pretended that I wished to defile the couch of my father, a thing that she herself wished to do; and having turned the accusation against me, (whether it was more through dread of discovery, or through mortification at her repulse) she charged me. And my father expelled me, thus innocent, from the city, and as I went he uttered imprecations against my head, with ruthless prayers. I was going to Trœzen, the city of Pittheus,54 in my flying chariot, and I was now proceeding along the shores of the Corinthian gulf, when the sea was aroused, and an enormous mass of waters seemed to bend and to grow in the form of a mountain, and to send forth a roaring noise, and to burst asunder at its very summit. Thence, the waves being divided, a horned bull was sent forth, and erect in the light air as far as his breast, he vomited forth a quantity of sea-water from his nostrils and his open mouth. The hearts of my attendants quailed; my mind remained without fear, intent only on my exile, when the fierce horses turned their necks towards the sea, and were terrified, with ears erect; and they were alarmed with dread of the monster, and precipitated the chariot over the lofty rocks. I struggled, with unavailing hand, to guide the bridle covered with white foam, and, throwing myself backwards, I pulled back the loosened reins. And, indeed, the madness of my steeds would not have exceeded that strength of mine, had not the wheel, by running against a stump, been broken and disjoined just where it turns round on the long axle-tree.
“I was hurled from my chariot; and, the reins entwined around my limbs, you might have seen my palpitating entrails dragged, my sinews fasten upon the stump, my limbs partly torn to pieces and partly left behind, being caught by various obstacles, my bones in their breaking emit a loud noise, and my exhausted breath become exhaled, and not a part in my body which you could recognize; and the whole of me formed but one continued wound. And canst thou, Nymph, or dost thou venture to compare thy misfortune to mine? I have visited, too, the realms deprived of light, and I have bathed my lacerated body in the waves of Phlegethon.55 Nor could life have been restored me, but through the powerful remedies of the son of Apollo. After I had received it, through potent herbs and the Pæonian aid,56 much against the will of Pluto, then Cynthia threw around me thick clouds, that I might not, by my presence, increase his anger at this favour; and that I might be safe, and be seen in security, she gave me a more aged appearance, and left me no features that could be recognized. For a long time she was doubtful whether she should give me Crete or Delos for me to possess. Delos and Crete being abandoned, she placed me here, and, at the same time, she ordered me to lay aside my name, which might have reminded me of my steeds, and she said, ‘Thou, the same who wast Hippolytus, be thou now Virbius.’57 From that time I have inhabited this grove; and, as one of the lower Gods, I lie concealed under the protection of my mistress, and to her am I devoted.”58
But yet the misfortunes of others were not able to alleviate the grief of Egeria; and, throwing herself down at the base of the hill, she dissolved into tears; until, moved by her affection as she grieved, the sister of Phœbus formed a cool fountain from her body, and dissolved her limbs in ever-flowing waters.
But this new circumstance surprised the Nymphs; and the son of the Amazon59 was astonished, in no other manner than as when the Etrurian ploughman beheld the fate-revealing clod in the midst of the fields move at first of its own accord and no one touching it, and afterwards assume a human form, and lose that of earth, and open its new-made mouth with the decrees of future destiny. The natives called him Tages. He was the first to teach the Etrurian nation to foretell future events.
Or, as when Romulus once saw his lance, fixed in the Palatine hill, suddenly shoot forth; which now stood there with a root newly-formed, and not with the iron point driven in; and, now no longer as a dart, but as a tree with limber twigs, it sent forth, for the admiring spectators, a shade that was not looked for.
Or, as when Cippus beheld his horns in the water of the stream, (for he did see them) and, believing that there was a false representation in the reflection, often returning his fingers to his forehead, he touched what he saw. And now, no longer condemning his own eyesight, he stood still, as he was returning victorious from the conquest of the enemy; and raising his eyes towards heaven, and his hands in the same direction, he exclaimed, “Ye Gods above! whatever is portended by this prodigy, if it is auspicious, then be it auspicious to my country and to the people of Quirinus; but if unfortunate, be it so for myself.” And then he made atonement at the grassy altars built of green turf, with odoriferous fires, and presented wine in bowls, and consulted the panting entrails of slaughtered sheep what the meaning of it was. Soon as the soothsayer of the Etrurian nation had inspected them, he beheld in them the great beginnings of future events, but still not clearly. But when he raised his searching eyes from the entrails of the sheep, to the horns of Cippus, he said, “Hail, O king! for thee, Cippus, thee and thy horns shall this place and the Latian towers obey. Only do thou lay aside all delay; hasten to enter the gates wide open; thus the fates command thee. For, once received within the City, thou shalt be king, and thou shalt safely enjoy a lasting sceptre.” He retreated backwards, and turning his stern visage away from the walls of the City, he exclaimed, “Far, O far away may the Gods drive such omens! Much more righteously shall I pass my life in exile, than if the Capitol were to see me a king.”
Thus he says; and forthwith he convokes the people and the dignified Senate; but first, he veils his horns with laurel that betokens peace, and he stands upon a mound raised by his brave soldiers; and praying to the Gods after the ancient manner, “Behold!” says he, “one is here who will be king, if you do not expel him from the City. I will tell you who he is by a sign, and not by name. He wears horns on his forehead; the augur predicts to you, that if he enters the City, he shall give you laws as his slaves. He, indeed, was able to enter the open gates, but I have opposed him; although no one is more nearly allied with him than myself. Forbid your City to this man, ye Romans, or, if he shall deserve it, bind him with heavy fetters; or else end your fears by the death of the destined tyrant.”
As the murmur which arises among the groves of the slender pine,60 when the furious East wind whistles among them, or as that which the waves of the ocean produce, if any one hears them from afar, such is the noise of the crowd. But yet amid the confused words of the shouting multitude, one cry is distinguished, “Which is he?” And then they examine the foreheads, and seek the predicted horns. Cippus again addresses them: “Him whom you require, ye now have;” and, despite of the people, throwing the chaplet from his head, he exhibits his temples, remarkable for two horns. All cast down their eyes, and utter groans, and (who would have supposed it?) they unwillingly look upon that head famed for its merits. And no longer suffering it to be deprived of its honours, they place upon it the festive chaplet. But the nobles, Cippus, since thou art forbidden to enter the city, give thee as much land, as a mark of honour, as thou canst, with the oxen yoked to the pressed plough, make the circuit of from the rising of the sun to its setting. They carve, too, the horns, imitating their wondrous form, on the door-posts adorned with brass, there to remain for long ages.
Footnotes:
53. Voluntarily invited.]—Ver. 481. He was living at the Sabine town of Cures, when the throne was pressed upon him by the desire of both the Roman and the Sabine nations.
54. City of Pittheus.]—Ver. 506. Pittheus was the son of Pelops, and the father of Æthra, the mother of Theseus; consequently he was the great-grandfather of Hippolytus.
55. Phlegethon.]—Ver. 532. This was said to be one of the rivers of the Infernal Regions, and to be flowing with fire and brimstone.
56. Pæonian aid.]—Ver. 536. Pæon was a skilful physician, mentioned by Homer, in the Fifth Book of the Iliad. Eustathius thinks that Apollo is meant under that name.
57. Virbius.]—Ver. 544. This name is formed from the words ‘vir’ and ‘bis,’ twice a man.
58. Am I devoted.]—Ver. 546. In the same relation to her as Adonis was to Venus, Ericthonius to Minerva, and Atys to Cybele.
59. Son of the Amazon.]—Ver. 552. Hippolytus was the son either of the Amazon Hippolyta, or Antiope.
60. Slender pine.]—Ver. 603-4. The words ‘succinctis pinetis’ are rendered by Clarke, ‘the neat pine-groves.’
