Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
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276 - 333.) But the laws of Zaleucus and Charondas, which imposed
on Diodorus and Stobaeus, are the spurious composition of a
Pythagorean sophist, whose fraud has been detected by the
critical sagacity of Bentley, p. 335 - 377.]
[Footnote 18: I seize the opportunity of tracing the progress of
this national intercourse 1. Herodotus and Thucydides (A. U. C.
300 - 350) appear ignorant of the name and existence of Rome,
(Joseph. contra Appion tom. ii. l. i. c. 12, p. 444, edit.
Havercamp.) 2. Theopompus (A. U. C. 400, Plin. iii. 9) mentions
the invasion of the Gauls, which is noticed in looser terms by
Heraclides Ponticus, (Plutarch in Camillo, p. 292, edit. H.
Stephan.) 3. The real or fabulous embassy of the Romans to
Alexander (A. U. C. 430) is attested by Clitarchus, (Plin. iii.
9,) by Aristus and Asclepiades, (Arrian. l. vii. p. 294, 295,)
and by Memnon of Heraclea, (apud Photium, cod. ccxxiv. p. 725,)
though tacitly denied by Livy. 4. Theophrastus (A. U. C. 440)
primus externorum aliqua de Romanis diligentius scripsit, (Plin.
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9.) 5. Lycophron (A. U. C. 480 - 500) scattered the first
seed of a Trojan colony and the fable of the Aeneid, (Cassandra,
1226 - 1280.)
A bold prediction before the end of the first Punic war!
Note: Compare Niebuhr throughout. Niebuhr has written a
dissertation (Kleine Schriften, i. p. 438,) arguing from this
prediction, and on the other conclusive grounds, that the
Lycophron, the author of the Cassandra, is not the Alexandrian
poet. He had been anticipated in this sagacious criticism, as he
afterwards discovered, by a writer of no less distinction than
Charles James Fox. - Letters to Wakefield. And likewise by the
author of the extraordinary translation of this poem, that most
promising scholar, Lord Royston. See the Remains of Lord
Royston, by the Rev. Henry Pepys, London, 1838.]
[Footnote 19: The tenth table, de modo sepulturae, was borrowed
from Solon, (Cicero de Legibus, ii. 23 - 26:) the furtem per
lancem et licium conceptum, is derived by Heineccius from the
manners of Athens, (Antiquitat. Rom. tom. ii. p. 167 - 175.) The
right of killing a nocturnal thief was declared by Moses, Solon,
and the Decemvirs, (Exodus xxii. 3. Demosthenes contra
Timocratem, tom. i. p. 736, edit. Reiske. Macrob. Saturnalia, l.
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c. 4. Collatio Legum Mosaicarum et Romanatum, tit, vii. No. i.
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218, edit. Cannegieter.)
Note: Are not the same points of similarity discovered in
the legislation of all actions in the infancy of their
civilization? - W.]
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