"Rome Living Was The World's Sole Ornament;
And Dead Is Now The World's Sole Monument.
.
. . . .
With her own weight down pressed now she lies,
And by her heaps her hugeness testifies."
If one doubts whether Grecian valor and patriotism are not a
fiction of the poets, he may go to Athens and see still upon the
walls of the temple of Minerva the circular marks made by the
shields taken from the enemy in the Persian war, which were
suspended there. We have not far to seek for living and
unquestionable evidence. The very dust takes shape and confirms
some story which we had read. As Fuller said, commenting on the
zeal of Camden, "A broken urn is a whole evidence; or an old gate
still surviving out of which the city is run out." When Solon
endeavored to prove that Salamis had formerly belonged to the
Athenians, and not to the Megareans, he caused the tombs to be
opened, and showed that the inhabitants of Salamis turned the
faces of their dead to the same side with the Athenians, but the
Megareans to the opposite side. There they were to be
interrogated.
Some minds are as little logical or argumentative as nature; they
can offer no reason or "guess," but they exhibit the solemn and
incontrovertible fact. If a historical question arises, they
cause the tombs to be opened. Their silent and practical logic
convinces the reason and the understanding at the same time. Of
such sort is always the only pertinent question and the only
satisfactory reply.
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