Pensieri di varia filosofia e di bella letteratura/4458
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in this spirit: all the favorite Kings befriend freedom: the patricians appear in a horrible and detestable light, as accomplices in the murder of Servius: next to the holy Numa the plebeian Servius is the most excellent King: Gaia Cecilia, the Roman wife of the elder Tarquinius, is a plebeian, a Kinswoman of the Metelli: the founder of the republic and Mucius Scaevola are plebeians: among the other party the only noble characters are the Valerii and Horatii; houses friendly to the commons. Hence I should be inclined not to date these poems, in the form under which we know their contents, before the restoration of the city after the Gallic disaster at the earliest. This is also indicated by the consulting the Pythian oracle. The story of the symbolical instruction sent by the last King to his son to get rid of the principal men of Gabii, is a Greek tale in Herodotus: so likewise we find the stratagem of Zopyrus repeated (dal figlio di Tarquinio a Gabii): (anche la storia di Muzio Scevola è greca, cosa non notata dall’autore neppure a suo luogo, e da me osservata altrove; e greche sono quelle tante raccolte da Plutarco nel libro da me citato altrove in tal proposito) we must therefore suppose some knowledge of Greek legends, though not necessarily of Herodotus himself (5-8 febbraio 1829).
* Alla p. 4359. Niebuhr (loc. cit. p. 4431, fine) sezione intitolata The Beginning of the Republic and the Treaty with Carthage, not. 1078, p. 456-7. This play (the Brutus of L. Attius) was a praetextata, the noblest among the three kinds of the Roman national drama; all which assuredly, and not merely the Atellana, might be represented by well-born Romans without risking their franchise.