It is hard to understand the complicated politics of the day. At any rate, a short time after, Hercules came with a band of Argives and established a rival civic centre. In the meantime, Janus had become mixed up with Roman history and was working manfully for the New Italy. On very much the same spot "Tibris, King of the Aborigines" built a city, which must be carefully distinguished from those before mentioned.
All this happened before Romulus appeared upon the scene. One with a clear and comprehensive understanding of this early history might enjoy his first morning's walk in Rome. But to the middle-aged pilgrim from the West Riding of Yorkshire, who had come to Rome merely to see the tomb of St. Peter, it was exhausting.
But perhaps mediæval tradition did not form a more confusing atmosphere than the sentimental admiration of a later day. In the early part of the nineteenth century a writer begins a book on Rome in this fashion: "I have ventured to hope that this work may be a guide to those who visit this wonderful city, which boasts at once the noblest remains of antiquity, and the most faultless works of art; which possesses more claims to interest than any other city; which has in every age stood foremost in the world; which has been the light of the earth in ages past, the guiding star through the long night of ignorance, the fountain of civilization to the whole Western world, and which every nation reverences as the common nurse, preceptor, and parent."
This notion of Rome as the venerable parent of civilization, to be approached with tenderly reverential feelings, was easier to hold a hundred years ago than it is to-day. There was nothing to contradict it. One might muse on "the grandeur that was Rome," among picturesque ruins covered with flowering weeds. But now a Rome that is obtrusively modern claims attention. And it is not merely that the modern world is here, but that our view of antiquity is modernized. We see it, not through the mists of time, but as a contemporary might.
When Ferrero published his history we were startled by his realistic treatment. It was as if we were reading a newspaper and following the course of current events. Cæsar and Pompey and Cicero were treated as if they were New York politicians. Where we had expected to see stately figures in togas we were made to see hustling real-estate speculators, and millionaires, and labor leaders, and ward politicians, who were working for the prosperity of the city and, incidentally, for themselves. It was all very different from our notions of classic times which we had imbibed from our Latin lessons in school. But it is the impression which Rome itself makes upon the mind.