THE ROMAN COLLEGIA.
36
Engaddi
^
by Zoar.
Tlie
kuowledge of their subsequent movements, Mr Herbert frankly admits
on to say that Attila, who he identifies with King Arthur of
to be a desideratum, but goes
whom
Britain,^ in his kingly style, after enumerating various nations over
"
himself to be descended from Nimrod the Great, and nursed in Engaddi."
As
he reigned, averred
had been among people exceeding the other barbarians in rudeness
ferocity, equally unacquainted with the huntsman King of Babel, and with the
Pythagoreans of Palestine, the only possible meaning his words can bear is, according to Mr
"
Herbert, that he was instructed in the mysteries of the Essenians, and valued them iipon a
his original nurture
and
When the Arthurian, that is Attilane, island
par with his highest titles of sovereignty.
received the crown and sceptre of David, the magic wand of Moses, etc., we are clearly to
understand that
it
became the new Engaddi, and the residence of the chief Essene
III.
^
lodge."
THE EOMAN COLLEGIA.*
The question as to how far the laws and institutions of mediaeval Europe have been
founded upon and modified by those of Imperial Eome, is a subject which has been long
debated with vast learning and ability, but which has never yet been satisfactorily determined,
from the nature of things,
nor,
is
it
probable that
it
ever wUl.
It will be suflScient in this
place to observe that for several hundi-ed years before the Teutonic invasion of the Empire,
the territorial area overspread by the barbarians was, to a great extent, conterminous with
the imperial frontiers.
The line of demarcation separating the two races was of the most
character.
Of necessity there was much intercourse between them, and it is
shadowy
therefore
fairly
deducible that as the
Goths and other neighbouring peoples gi-adually
Eoman laws and customs must, in some
acquired some of the characteristics of civilisation,
qualified
on
form, have
Eoman
been introduced among them.
Consequently,
when they appeared
as conquerors, they possessed
soil
many institutions which, though apparently
and imperfect reproductions of the old usages of
the Empu-e. To this it must be added, that the Eoman influence over Germany was much
more extensive than has been generally supposed. The defeat of Varus by Arminius by no
means excluded the Romans from the right bank of the lihine
and dming the most
original,
were in
reality only modified
;
1
Book
Pliny states,
v.,
"
Mr
Below
this people (the Essenes),
was formerly the town of Engadda
(.Eng'Ciii).
"—Natural History,
chap. xvii.
"
3
"
Is it credible that two miraculous sword-bearers should have
thought, or even feigned, to spring up, conquer
Europe, successively assaU and shake the Eoman Empire, return home, and perish, under circumstances so similar, and
with so close a synchronism?" (Herbert, Britannia after the Romans, vol. i.,
Mr Herbert adds: "I do not
p. 120).
believe that two beings so similar and consistent as the Hunn and the
pretended Briton were thus brought into
"
juxtaposition without the idea of identifying them
(Ibid., p. 125).
Herbert observes
:
" The result
"
proved is, that the Keo-Druids, or
Appolinares Mystici," souglit the alliance
life and nominal
of Gwrtheym
reign
secretly acknowledged the mysteries of his
of the great barbarian, during the
dtemon sword
;
huntsman, the
*
and beheld in him
spirit of the
The leading
sun
authorities
"
;
a re-incarnation of
Hen-Valen, or Belenus the Ancient, of Mithras the robber and
(Britannia after the Eomans, vol.
upon whom
I
Corporibvs Opificvm, Opera omnia, Geneva, 1766, vol.
1810, pp.
Eomans
74-85; Smith, Diet,
of Antiquities,
of Britain, 1878, pp. 383-413.
p. 124).
titles,
:
Heineccius,
De
Collcgiis et
Massman, Libellus Aurarius, Leipsic,
" Universitas " H. C.
"Collegium," "Societas,"
Coote, The
ii.,
pp.
Tlie precision observed
footnotes ajipearing on a single page (78).
i.,
have relied in the following sketch are
368-418;
J. F.
;
by Massman
is
very remarkable
— no less than forty-five