Tea at Trianon: Tomb of Romulus

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, March 7, 2020

Tomb of Romulus

From Ancient Origins:

Archaeologists have unearthed a tomb beneath the Roman Forum that they think might be the resting place of the legendary Romulus, founder of Rome . In Roman mythology, Romulus and his twin brother Remus were sons of Rhea Silvia, but Amulius, king of Alba Longa, ordered that the infants, twin grandnephews, be murdered. Their mother placed her twins in a basket on the River Tiber and under a fig tree a she-wolf suckled and raised the brothers.

When the boys grew up and learned of their true ancestry they overthrew Amulius but Romulus later killed Remus in a fight on what became Palatine Hill in 753 BC. And now, archaeologists think they might have found the burial place of Romulus , the founder and first king of Rome.

The ancient tomb was discovered in an underground temple buried beneath the entrance stairway to the curia in the Roman Forum in an area that archaeologists know was devoted to the legendary 6th century BC king, Romulus. The rock sarcophagus measures 4.6 feet (1.4 meters) long and the director of the Colosseum Archaeological Park Alfonsina Russo told The Times that the discovery was “extraordinary”. (Read more.)