eve, that the deputies of Rome visited Athens under the
wise and splendid administration of Pericles; and the laws of Solon were
transfused into the twelve tables. If such an embassy had indeed been
received from the Barbarians of Hesperia, the Roman name would have
been familiar to the Greeks before the reign of Alexander; [18] and
the faintest evidence would have been explored and celebrated by the
curiosity of succeeding times. But the Athenian monuments are silent;
nor will it seem credible that the patricians should undertake a long
and perilous navigation to copy the purest model of democracy. In the
comparison of the tables of Solon with those of the Decemvirs, some
casual resemblance may be found; some rules which nature and reason have
revealed to every society; some proofs of a common descent from Egypt
or Phoenicia. [19] But in all the great lines of public and private
jurisprudence, the legislators of Rome and Athens appear to be strangers
or adverse at each other.

[Footnote 11: Compare Livy (l. iii. c. 31--59) with Dionysius
Halicarnassensis, (l. x. p. 644--xi. p. 691.) How concise and animated
is the Roman--how prolix and lifeless the Greek! Yet he has admirably
judged the masters, and defined the rules, of historical composition.]

[Footnote 12: From the historians, Heineccius (Hist. J. R. l. i. No. 26)
maintains that the twelve tables were of brass--aereas; in the text of
Pomponius we read eboreas; for which Scaliger has substituted roboreas,
(Bynkershoek, p. 286.) Wood, brass, and ivory, might be successively
employed. Note: Compare Niebuhr, vol. ii. p. 349, &c.--M.]

[Footnote 1211: Compare Niebuhr, 355, note 720.--M. It is a most
important question whether the twelve tables in fact include laws
imported from Greece. The negative opinion maintained by our author, is
now almost universally adopted, particularly by Mm. Niebuhr, Hugo, and
others. See my Institutiones Juris Romani privati Leodii, 1819, p. 311,
312.--W. Dr. Arnold, p. 255, seems to incline to the opposite opinion.
Compare some just and sensible observations in the Appendix to Mr.
Travers Twiss's Epitome of Niebuhr, p. 347, Oxford, 1836.--M.]

[Footnote 13: His exile is mentioned by Cicero, (Tusculan. Quaestion. v.
36; his statue by Pliny, (Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 11.) The letter, dream, and
prophecy of Heraclitus, are alike spurious, (Epistolae Graec. Divers. p.
337.) * Note: Compare Niebuhr, ii. 209.--M. See the Mem de l'Academ. des
Inscript