Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>And what was the end of the kings themselves? Of\r\nRomulus, a flattering legend tells us that he was assumed into\r\nheaven. But certain Roman historians relate that he was\r\ntorn in pieces by the senate for his ferocity, and that a man,\r\nJulius Proculus, was suborned to give out that Romulus had\r\nappeared to him, and through him commanded the Roman\r\npeople to worship him as a god; and that in this way the\r\npeople, who were beginning to resent the action of the senate,\r\nwere quieted and pacified. For an eclipse of the sun had also\r\nhappened; and this was attributed to the divine power of\r\nRomulus by the ignorant multitude, who did not know that\r\nit was brought about by the fixed laws of the sun's course:\r\nthough this grief of the sun might rather have been considered\r\nproof that Romulus had been slain, and that the crime\r\nwas indicated by this deprivation of the sun's light; as, in\r\ntruth, was the case when the Lord was crucified through the<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_109\">[Pg 109]</a></span>\r\ncruelty and impiety of the Jews. For it is sufficiently demonstrated\r\nthat this latter obscuration of the sun did not occur\r\nby the natural laws of the heavenly bodies, because it was\r\nthen the Jewish passover, which is held only at full moon,\r\nwhereas natural eclipses of the sun happen only at the last\r\nquarter of the moon. Cicero, too, shows plainly enough that\r\nthe apotheosis of Romulus was imaginary rather than real, when,\r\neven while he is praising him in one of Scipio's remarks in the\r\n<i>De Republica</i>, he says: \"Such a reputation had he acquired,\r\nthat when he suddenly disappeared during an eclipse of the\r\nsun, he was supposed to have been assumed into the number\r\nof the gods, which could be supposed of no mortal who had\r\nnot the highest reputation for virtue.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_142_142\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_142_142\">[142]</a> By these words, \"he\r\nsuddenly disappeared,\" we are to understand that he was mysteriously\r\nmade away with by the violence either of the tempest\r\nor of a murderous assault. For their other writers speak not\r\nonly of an eclipse, but of a sudden storm also, which certainly\r\neither afforded opportunity for the crime, or itself made an end\r\nof Romulus. And of Tullus Hostilius, who was the third king\r\nof Rome, and who was himself destroyed by lightning, Cicero\r\nin the same book says, that \"he was not supposed to have been\r\ndeified by this death, possibly because the Romans were unwilling\r\nto vulgarize the promotion they were assured or persuaded\r\nof in the case of Romulus, lest they should bring it\r\ninto contempt by gratuitously assigning it to all and sundry.\"\r\nIn one of his invectives,<a id=\"FNanchor_143_143\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_143_143\">[143]</a> too, he says, in round terms, \"The\r\nfounder of this city, Romulus, we have raised to immortality\r\nand divinity by kindly celebrating his services;\" implying\r\nthat his deification was not real, but reputed, and called so\r\nby courtesy on account of his virtues. In the dialogue <i>Hortensius</i>,\r\ntoo, while speaking of the regular eclipses of the sun,\r\nhe says that they \"produce the same darkness as covered\r\nthe death of Romulus, which happened during an eclipse\r\nof the sun.\" Here you see he does not at all shrink from\r\nspeaking of his \"death,\" for Cicero was more of a reasoner\r\nthan an eulogist.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK THIRD.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-229"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"13428be56ad5e55d88dd8126d5cad0b8341f253e0e19588029ac4f2ecbc09198","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_143_143","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_143_143","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_143_143\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_143_143\"><span class=\"label\">[143]</span></a> <i>Contra Cat.</i> iii. 2.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_143_143","text_sha256":"34b904e32f0585cb4bf0d61b504ab24358d24709e1144e60447eb9afeb9d4c73","verified":false,"work_id":null}

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