Young Folks' History of Rome
by Charlotte M. Yonge · English · Gutenberg #16667 · 379,370 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Young Folks' History of Rome
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Young Folks' History of Rome
Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
Release date: September 7, 2005 [eBook #16667]
Most recently updated: December 12, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16667
Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Graeme Mackreth and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF ROME ***
Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Graeme Mackreth and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration]
YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY
OF
ROME.
BY
CHARLOTTE M. YONGE,
AUTHOR OF "THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE," "BOOK OF GOLDEN DEEDS," "YOUNG FOLKS'
HISTORY OF FRANCE," &c.
[Illustration]
BOSTON:
ESTES & LAURIAT,
301 WASHINGTON STREET.
COPYRIGHT BY
D. LOTHROP & CO. and ESTES & LAURIAT.
1880.
PREFACE.
This sketch of the History of Rome covers the period till the reign of
Charles the Great as head of the new Western Empire. The history has
been given as briefly as could be done consistently with such details as
can alone make it interesting to all classes of readers.
CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE.
1.--Italy 13
2.--The Wanderings of Æneas 21
3.--The Founding of Rome. B.C. 753-713 31
4.--Numa and Tullus. B.C. 713-618 39
5.--The Driving Out of the Tarquins. B.C. 578-309 47
6.--The War with Porsena 55
7.--The Roman Government 66
8.--Menenius Agrippa's Fable. B.C. 494 74
9.--Coriolanus and Cincinnatus. B.C. 458 84
10.--The Decemvirs. B.C. 450 92
11.--Camillus' Banishment 101
12.--The Sack of Rome. B.C. 390 110
13.--The Plebeian Consulate. B.C. 367 119
14.--The Devotion of Decius. B.C. 357 127
15.--The Samnite Wars 135
16.--The War with Pyrrhus. 280-271 144
17.--The First Punic War. 264-240 151
18.--Conquest of Cisalpine Gaul. 240-219 163
19.--The Second Punic War. 219 172
20. The First Eastern War. 215-183 181
21.--The Conquest of Greece, Corinth, and Carthage. 179-145 188
22.--The Gracchi. 137-122 195
23.--The Wars of Marius. 106-98 203
24.--The Adventures of Marius. 93-84 212
25.--Sulla's Proscription. 88-71 220
26.--The Career of Pompeius. 70-63 229
27.--Pompeius and Cæsar. 61-48 242
28.--Julius Cæsar. 48-44 252
29.--The Second Triumvirate. 44-33 263
30.--Cæsar Augustus. B.C. 33 A.D. 14 273
31.--Tiberius and Caligula. A.D. 14-41 285
32.--Claudius and Nero. A.D. 41-68 297
33.--The Flavian Family. 62-96 305
34.--The Age of the Antonines. 96-194 317
35.--The Prætorian Influence. 197-284 326
36.--The Division of the Empire. 284-312 337
37.--Constantine the Great. 312-337 345
38.--Constantius. 337-364 355
39.--Valentinian and his Family. 364-392 364
40.--Theodosius the Great. 392-395 374
41.--Alaric the Goth. 395-410 383
42.--The Vandals. 403 394
43.--Attila the Hun. 435-457 404
44.--Theodoric the Ostrogoth. 457-561 416
45.--Belisarius. 533-563 425
46.--Pope Gregory the Great. 563-800 434
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Pope's Doortender. (_Frontispiece._) PAGE.
The Tiber 14
Curious Pottery 15
Jupiter 17
The Coast 23
Mount Etna 25
Carthage 28
Roman Soldier 30
Gladiatorial Shows at a Banquet 34
The Forum 37
Janus 41
Actors 45
Sybil's Cave 50
Brutus condemning his sons 57
Roman Ensigns, Standards, Trumpets etc. 63
Head of Jupiter 68
Female Costumes 70
Female Costumes 71
Senatorial Palace 79
View of a Roman Harbor 81
Roman Camp 87
Ploughing 89
Death of Virginia 95
Chariot Races 98
Arrow Machine 102
Siege Machine 105
Ruins of the Forum at Rome 111
Entry of the Forum Romanum by the Via Sacra 117
Costumes 120
Costume 121
Curtius leaping into the Gulf 125
The Apennines 129
Combat between a Mirmillo and a Samnite 137
Combat between a light armed Gladiator and a Samnite 137
Ancient Rome 141
Pyrrhus 145
Roman Orator 147
Roman Ship 153
Roman Order of Battle 159
The wounded Gaul 165
Hannibal's Vow 168
In the Pyrenees 170
Meeting of Hannibal and Scipio at Zama 173
Archimedes 178
Hannibal 184
Corinth 190
Cornelia and her Sons 196
Roman Centurion 201
Marius 205
One of the Trophies, called of Marius,
at the Capitol at Rome 207
The Catapult 215
Island on the Coast 217
Palazzo Vecchio, Florence 223
Cornelius Sulla 225
Coast of Tyre 231
Mountains of Armenia 235
Cicero 238
Colossal Statue of Pompeius of the
Palazzo Spada of Rome 239
Pompeius 243
Amphitheatre 246
The Arena 247
Julius Cæsar 253
Cato 254
Funeral Solemnities in the Columbarium of
the House of Julius Cæsar at the
Porta Capena in Rome 255
Marcus Antonius 265
Marcus Brutus 268
Alexandria 270
Caius Octavius 272
Statue of Augustus at the Vatican 275
Paintings in the House of Livia 281
Ruins of the Palaces of Tiberius 287
Agrippina 290
Rome in the time of Augustus Cæsar 293
Claudius 298
Nero 301
Arch of Titus 308
Vesuvius previous to the Eruption of A.D. 63 311
Persecution of the Christians 314
Coin of Nero 316
Temple of Antoninus and Faustina 319
Marcus Aurelius 325
Septimus Severus 327
Antioch 328
Alexander Severus 329
Temple of the Sun at Palmyra 332
The Catacombs at Rome 333
Coin of Severus 336
Diocletian 338
Diocletian in Retirement 341
Constantine the Great 343
Constantinople 347
Council of Nicea 349
Catacombs 352
Julian 357
Arch of Constantine 361
Alexandria 365
Goths 367
Convent on the Hills 372
Julian Alps 375
Roman Hall of Justice 377
Colonnades of St. Peter at Rome 385
Alaric's Burial 391
Roman Clock 396
Spanish Coast 398
Vandals plundering 401
Pyramids and Sphynx, Egypt 403
Hunnish Camp 405
St. Mark's, Venice 409
The Pope's House 413
Romulus Augustus resigns the Crown 419
Illustration 423
Naples 427
Constantinople 429
Pope Gregory the Great 435
The Pope's Pulpit 437
Battle of Tours 441
[Illustration]
YOUNG FOLKS' HISTORY OF ROME.
CHAPTER I.
ITALY.
I am going to tell you next about the most famous nation in the world.
Going westward from Greece another peninsula stretches down into the
Mediterranean. The Apennine Mountains run like a limb stretching out of
the Alps to the south eastward, and on them seems formed that land,
shaped somewhat like a leg, which is called Italy.
Round the streams that flowed down from these hills, valleys of fertile
soil formed themselves, and a great many different tribes and people
took up their abode there, before there was any history to explain their
coming. Putting together what can be proved about them, it is plain,
however, that most of them came of that old stock from which the Greeks
descended, and to which we belong ourselves, and they spoke a language
which had the same root as ours and as the Greek. From one of these
nations the best known form of this, as it was polished in later times,
was called Latin, from the tribe who spoke it.
[Illustration: THE TIBER.]
About the middle of the peninsula there runs down, westward from the
Apennines, a river called the Tiber, flowing rapidly between seven low
hills, which recede as it approaches the sea. One, in especial, called
the Palatine Hill, rose separately, with a flat top and steep sides,
about four hundred yards from the river, and girdled in by the other
six. This was the place where the great Roman power grew up from
beginnings, the truth of which cannot now be discovered.
[Illustration: CURIOUS POTTERY.]
There were several nations living round these hills--the Etruscans,
Sabines, and Latins being the chief. The homes of these nations seem to
have been in the valleys round the spurs of the Apennines, where they
had farms and fed their flocks; but above them was always the hill which
they had fortified as strongly as possible, and where they took refuge
if their enemies attacked them. The Etruscans built very mighty walls,
and also managed the drainage of their cities wonderfully well. Many of
their works remain to this day, and, in especial, their monuments have
been opened, and the tomb of each chief has been found, adorned with
figures of himself, half lying, half sitting; also curious pottery in
red and black, from which something of their lives and ways is to be
made out. They spoke a different language from what has become Latin,
and they had a different religion, believing in one great Soul of the
World, and also thinking much of rewards and punishments after death.
But we know hardly anything about them, except that their chiefs were
called Lucumos, and that they once had a wide power which they had lost
before the time of history. The Romans called them Tusci, and Tuscany
still keeps its name.
The Latins and the Sabines were more alike, and also more like the
Greeks. There were a great many settlements of Greeks in the southern
parts of Italy, and they learnt something from them. They had a great
many gods. Every house had its own guardian. These were called Lares, or
Penates, and were generally represented as little figures of dogs lying
by the hearth, or as brass bars with dogs' heads. This is the reason
that the bars which close in an open hearth are still called dogs.
Whenever there was a meal in the house the master began by pouring out
wine to the Lares, and also to his own ancestors, of whom he kept
figures; for these natives thought much of their families, and all one
family had the same name, like our surname, such as Tullius or Appius,
the daughters only changing it by making it end in _a_ instead of
_us_, and the men having separate names standing first, such as
Marcus or Lucius, though their sisters were only numbered to distinguish
them.
[Illustration: JUPITER]
Each city had a guardian spirit, each stream its nymph, each wood its
faun; also there were gods to whom the boundary stones of estates were
dedicated. There was a goddess of fruits called Pomona, and a god of
fruits named Vertumnus. In their names the fields and the crops were
solemnly blest, and all were sacred to Saturn. He, according to the old
legends, had first taught husbandry, and when he reigned in Italy there
was a golden age, when every one had his own field, lived by his own
handiwork, and kept no slaves. There was a feast in honor of this time
every year called the Saturnalia, when for a few days the slaves were
all allowed to act as if they were free, and have all kinds of wild
sports and merriment. Afterwards, when Greek learning came in, Saturn
was mixed up with the Greek Kronos, or Time, who devours his offspring,
and the reaping-hook his figures used to carry for harvest became Time's
scythe. The sky-god, Zeus or Deus Pater (or father), was shortened into
Jupiter; Juno was his wife, and Mars was god of war, and in Greek times
was supposed to be the same as Ares; Pallas Athene was joined with the
Latin Minerva; Hestia, the goddess of the hearth, was called Vesta; and,
in truth, we talk of the Greek gods by their Latin names. The old Greek
tales were not known to the Latins in their first times, but only
afterwards learnt from the Greeks. They seem to have thought of their
gods as graver, higher beings, further off, and less capricious and
fanciful than the legends about the weather had made them seem to the
Greeks. Indeed, these Latins were a harder, tougher, graver, fiercer,
more business-like race altogether than the Greeks; not so clever,
thoughtful, or poetical, but with more of what we should now call
sterling stuff in them.
At least so it was with that great nation which spoke their language,
and seems to have been an offshoot from them. Rome, the name of which is
said to mean the famous, is thought to have been at first a cluster of
little villages, with forts to protect them on the hills, and temples in
the forts. Jupiter had a temple on the Capitoline Hill, with cells for
his worship, and that of Juno and Minerva; and the two-faced Janus, the
god of gates, had his upon the Janicular Hill. Besides these, there were
the Palatine, the Esquiline, the Aventine, the Cælian, and the Quirinal.
The people of these villages called themselves Quirites, or spearmen,
when they formed themselves into an army and made war on their
neighbors, the Sabines and Latins, and by-and-by built a wall enclosing
all the seven hills, and with a strip of ground within, free from
houses, where sacrifices were offered and omens sought for.
The history of these people was not written till long after they had
grown to be a mighty and terrible power, and had also picked up many
Greek notions. Then they seem to have made their history backwards, and
worked up their old stories and songs to explain the names and customs
they found among them, and the tales they told were formed into a great
history by one Titus Livius. It is needful to know these stories which
every one used to believe to be really history; so we will tell them
first, beginning, however, with a story told by the poet Virgil.
CHAPTER II.
THE WANDERINGS OF ÆNEAS.
You remember in the Greek history the burning of Troy, and how Priam and
all his family were cut off. Among the Trojans there was a prince called
Æneas, whose father was Anchises, a cousin of Priam, and his mother was
said to be the goddess Venus. When he saw that the city was lost, he
rushed back to his house, and took his old father Anchises on his back,
giving him his Penates, or little images of household gods, to take care
of, and led by the hand his little son Iulus, or Ascanius, while his
wife Creusa followed close behind, and all the Trojans who could get
their arms together joined him, so that they escaped in a body to Mount
Ida; but just as they were outside the city he missed poor Creusa, and
though he rushed back and searched for her everywhere, he never could
find her. For the sake of his care for his gods, and for his old father,
he is always known as the pious Æneas.
In the forests of Mount Ida he built ships enough to set forth with all
his followers in quest of the new home which his mother, the goddess
Venus, gave him hopes of. He had adventures rather like those of Ulysses
as he sailed about the Mediterranean. Once in the Strophades, some
clusters belonging to the Ionian Islands, when he and his troops had
landed to get food, and were eating the flesh of the numerous goats
which they found climbing about the rocks, down on them came the
harpies, horrible birds with women's faces and hooked hands, with which
they snatched away the food and spoiled what they could not eat. The
Trojans shot at them, but the arrows glanced off their feathers and did
not hurt them. However, they all flew off except one, who sat on a high
rock, and croaked out that the Trojans would be punished for thus
molesting the harpies by being tossed about till they should reach
Italy, but there they should not build their city till they should have
been so hungry as to eat their very trenchers.
[Illustration: THE COAST.]
They sailed away from this dismal prophetess, and touched on the coast
of Epirus, where Æneas found his cousin Helenus, son to old Priam,
reigning over a little new Troy, and married to Andromache, Hector's
wife, whom he had gained after Pyrrhus had been killed. Helenus was a
prophet, and gave Æneas much advice. In especial he said that when the
Trojans should come to Italy, they would find, under the holly-trees by
the river side, a large white old sow lying on the ground, with a litter
of thirty little pigs round her, and this should be a sign to them
where they were to build their city.
By his advice the Trojans coasted round the south of Sicily, instead of
trying to pass the strait between the dreadful Scylla and Charybdis, and
just below Mount Etna an unfortunate man came running down to the beach
begging to be taken in. He was a Greek, who had been left behind when
Ulysses escaped from Polyphemus' cave, and had made his way to the
forests, where he had lived ever since. They had just taken him in when
they saw Cyclops coming down, with a pine tree for a staff, to wash the
burning hollow of his lost eye in the sea, and they rowed off in great
terror.
[Illustration: MOUNT ETNA.]
Poor old Anchises died shortly after, and while his son was still
sorrowing for him, Juno, who hated every Trojan, stirred up a terrible
tempest, which drove the ships to the south, until, just as the sea
began to calm down, they came into a beautiful bay, enclosed by tall
cliffs with woods overhanging them. Here the tired wanderers landed,
and, lighting a fire, Æneas went in quest of food. Coming out of the
forest, they looked down from a hill, and beheld a multitude of people
building a city, raising walls, houses, towers, and temples. Into one of
these temples Æneas entered, and to his amazement he found the walls
sculptured with all the story of the siege of Troy, and all his friends
so perfectly represented, that he burst into tears at the sight.
Just then a beautiful queen, attended by a whole troop of nymphs, came
into the temple. This lady was Dido; her husband, Sichæus, had been king
of Tyre, till he was murdered by his brother Pygmalion, who meant to
have married her, but she fled from him with a band of faithful Tyrians
and all her husband's treasure, and had landed on the north coast of
Africa. There she begged of the chief of the country as much land as
could be enclosed by a bullock's hide. He granted this readily; and
Dido, cutting the hide into the finest possible strips, managed to
measure off with it ground enough to build the splendid city which she
had named Carthage. She received Æneas most kindly, and took all his men
into her city, hoping to keep them there for ever, and make him her
husband. Æneas himself was so happy there, that he forgot all his plans
and the prophecies he had heard, until Jupiter sent Mercury to rouse him
to fulfil his destiny. He obeyed the call; and Dido was so wretched at
his departure that she caused a great funeral pile to be built, laid
herself on the top, and stabbed herself with Æneas' sword; the pile was
burnt, and the Trojans saw the flame from their ships without knowing
the cause.
[Illustration: CARTHAGE.]
By-and-by Æneas landed at a place in Italy named Cumæ. There dwelt one
of the Sybils. These were wondrous virgins whom Apollo had endowed with
deep wisdom; and when Æneas went to consult the Cumæan Sybil, she told
him that he must visit the under-world of Pluto to learn his fate.
First, however, he had to go into a forest, and find there and gather a
golden bough, which he was to bear in his hand to keep him safe. Long
he sought it, until two doves, his mother's birds, came flying before
him to show him the tree where gold gleamed through the boughs, and he
found the branch growing on the tree as mistletoe grows on the thorn.
Guarded with this, and guided by the Sybil, after a great sacrifice,
Æneas passed into a gloomy cave, where he came to the river Styx, round
which flitted all the shades who had never received funeral rites, and
whom the ferryman, Charon, would not carry over. The Sybil, however,
made him take Æneas across, his boat groaning under the weight of a
human body. On the other side stood Cerberus, but the Sybil threw him a
cake of honey and of some opiate, and he lay asleep, while Æneas passed
on and found in myrtle groves all who had died for love, among them, to
his surprise, poor forsaken Dido. A little further on he found the home
of the warriors, and held converse with his old Trojan friends. He
passed by the place of doom for the wicked, Tartarus; and in the Elysian
fields, full of laurel groves and meads of asphodel, he found the spirit
of his father Anchises, and with him was allowed to see the souls of all
their descendants, as yet unborn, who should raise the glory of their
name. They are described on to the very time when the poet wrote to
whom we owe all the tale of the wanderings of Æneas, namely, Virgil, who
wrote the _Æneid_, whence all these stories are taken. He further tells
us that Æneas landed in Italy just as his old nurse Caiëta died, at the
place which is still called Gaëta. After they had buried her, they found
a grove, where they sat down on the grass to eat, using large round
cakes or biscuits to put their meat on. Presently they came to eating up
the cakes. Little Ascanius cried out, "We are eating our very tables;"
and Æneas, remembering the harpy's words, knew that his wanderings were
over.
[Illustration: ROMAN SOLDIER.]
CHAPTER III.
THE FOUNDING OF ROME.
B.C. 753--713.
Virgil goes on to tell at much length how the king of the country,
Latinus, at first made friends with Æneas, and promised him his daughter
Lavinia in marriage; but Turnus, an Italian chief who had before been a
suitor to Lavinia, stirred up a great war, and was only captured and
killed after much hard fighting. However, the white sow was found in the
right place with all her little pigs, and on the spot was founded the
city of Alba Longa, where Æneas and Lavinia reigned until he died, and
his descendants, through his two sons, Ascanius or Iulus, and Æneas
Silvius, reigned after him for fifteen generations.
The last of these fifteen was Amulius, who took the throne from his
brother Numitor, who had a daughter named Rhea Silvia, a Vestal virgin.
In Greece, the sacred fire of the goddess Vesta was tended by good men,
but in Italy it was the charge of maidens, who were treated with great
honor, but were never allowed to marry under pain of death. So there was
great anger when Rhea Silvia became the mother of twin boys, and,
moreover, said that her husband was the god Mars. But Mars did not save
her from being buried alive, while the two babes were put in a trough on
the waters of the river Tiber, there to perish. The river had overflowed
its banks, and left the children on dry ground, where, however, they
were found by a she-wolf, who fondled and fed them like her own
offspring, until a shepherd met with them and took them home to his
wife. She called them Romulus and Remus, and bred them up as shepherds.
When the twin brothers were growing into manhood, there was a fight
between the shepherds of Numitor and Amulius, in which Romulus and Remus
did such brave feats that they were led before Numitor. He enquired into
their birth, and their foster-father told the story of his finding them,
showing the trough in which they had been laid; and thus it became plain
that they were the grandsons of Numitor. On finding this out, they
collected an army, with which they drove away Amulius, and brought their
grandfather back to Alba Longa.
They then resolved to build a new city for themselves on one of the
seven low hills beneath which ran the yellow river Tiber; but they were
not agreed on which hill to build, Remus wanting to build on the
Aventine Hill, and Romulus on the Palatine. Their grandfather advised
them to watch for omens from the gods, so each stood on his hill and
watched for birds. Remus was the first to see six vultures flying, but
Romulus saw twelve, and therefore the Palatine Hill was made the
beginning of the city, and Romulus was chosen king. Remus was affronted,
and when the mud wall was being raised around the space intended for the
city, he leapt over it and laughed, whereupon Romulus struck him dead,
crying out, "So perish all who leap over the walls of my city."
[Illustration: GLADIATORIAL SHOWS AT A BANQUET]
Romulus traced out the form of the city with the plough, and made it
almost a square. He called the name of it Rome, and lived in the midst
of it in a mud-hovel, covered with thatch, in the midst of about fifty
families of the old Trojan race, and a great many young men, outlaws and
runaways from the neighboring states, who had joined him. The date of
the building of Rome was supposed to be A.D. 753; and the
Romans counted their years from it, as the Greeks did from the
Olympiads, marking the date A.U.C., _anno urbis conditæ_, the
year of the city being built. The youths who joined Romulus could not
marry, as no one of the neighboring nations would give his daughter to
one of these robbers, as they were esteemed. The nearest neighbors to
Rome were the Sabines, and the Romans cast their eyes in vain on the
Sabine ladies, till old Numitor advised Romulus to proclaim a great
feast in honor of Neptune, with games and dances. All the people in the
country round came to it, and when the revelry was at its height each of
the unwedded Romans seized on a Sabine maiden and carried her away to
his own house. Six hundred and eighty-three girls were thus seized, and
the next day Romulus married them all after the fashion ever after
observed in Rome. There was a great sacrifice, then each damsel was
told, "Partake of your husband's fire and water;" he gave her a ring,
and carried her over his threshold, where a sheepskin was spread, to
show that her duty would be to spin wool for him, and she became his
wife.
[Illustration: THE FORUM.]
Romulus himself won his own wife, Hersilia, among the Sabines on this
occasion; but the nation of course took up arms, under their king
Tatius, to recover their daughters. Romulus drew out his troops into
Campus Martius, or field of Mars, just beneath the Capitol, or great
fort on the Saturnian Hill, and marched against the Sabines; but while
he was absent, Tarpeia, the daughter of the governor of the little fort
he had left on the Saturnian Hill, promised to let the Sabines in on
condition they would give her what they wore on their left arms, meaning
their bracelets; but they hated her treason even while they took
advantage of it, and no sooner were they within the gate than they
pelted her with their heavy shields, which they wore on their left arms,
and killed her. The cliff on the top of which she died is still called
the Tarpeian rock, and criminals were executed by being thrown from the
top of it. Romulus tried to regain the Capitol, but the Sabines rolled
down stones on the Romans, and he was stunned by one that struck him on
the head; and though he quickly recovered and rallied his men, the
battle was going against him, when all the Sabine women, who had been
nearly two years Roman wives, came rushing out, with their little
children in their arms and their hair flying, begging their fathers and
husbands not to kill one another. This led to the making of a peace, and
it was agreed that the Sabines and Romans should make but one nation,
and that Romulus and Tatius should reign together at Rome. Romulus lived
on the Palatine Hill, Tatius on the Tarpeian, and the valley between was
called the Forum, and was the market-place, and also the spot where all
public assemblies were held. All the chief arrangements for war and
government were believed by the Romans to have been laws of Romulus.
However, after five years, Tatius was murdered at a place called
Lavinium, in the middle of a sacrifice, and Romulus reigned alone till
in the middle of a great assembly of his soldiers outside the city, a
storm of thunder and lightning came on, and every one hurried home, but
the king was nowhere to be found; for, as some say, his father Mars had
come down in the tempest and carried him away to reign with the gods,
while others declared that he was murdered by persons, each of whom
carried home a fragment of his body that it might never be found. It
matters less which way we tell it, since the story of Romulus was quite
as much a fable as that of Æneas; only it must be remembered as the
Romans themselves believed it. They worshipped Romulus under the name of
Quirinus, and called their chief families Quirites, both words coming
from _ger_ (a spear); and the she-wolf and twins were the favorite
badge of the empire. The Capitoline Hill, the Palatine, and the Forum all
still bear the same names.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
NUMA AND TULLUS.
B.C.It was understood between the Romans and the Sabines that they should
have by turns a king from each nation, and, on the disappearance of
Romulus, a Sabine was chosen, named Numa Pompilius, who had been married
to Tatia, the daughter of the Sabine king Tatius, but she was dead, and
had left one daughter. Numa had, ever since her death, been going about
from one grove or fountain sacred to the gods to another offering up
sacrifices, and he was much beloved for his gentleness and wisdom. There
was a grove near Rome, in a valley, where a fountain gushed forth from
the rock; and here Egeria, the nymph of the stream, in the shade of the
trees, counselled Numa on his government, which was so wise that he
lived at peace with all his neighbors. When the Romans doubted whether
it was really a goddess who inspired him, Egeria convinced them, for the
next time he had any guests in his house, the earthenware plates with
homely fare on them were changed before their eyes into golden dishes
with dainty food. Moreover, there was brought from heaven a bronze
shield, which was to be carefully kept, since Rome would never fall
while it was safe. Numa had eleven other shields like it made and hung
in the temple of Mars, and, yearly, a set of men dedicated to the office
bore them through the city with songs and dances. Just as all warlike
customs were said to have been invented by Romulus, all peaceful and
religious ones were held to have sprung from Numa and his Egeria. He was
said to have fixed the calendar and invented the names of the months,
and to have built an altar to Good Faith to teach the Romans to keep
their word to one another and to all nations, and to have dedicated the
bounds of each estate to the Dii Termini, or Landmark Gods, in whose
honor there was a feast yearly. He also was said to have had such power
with Jupiter as to have persuaded him to be content without receiving
sacrifices of men and women. In short, all the better things in the
Roman system were supposed to be due to the gentle Numa.
At the gate called Janiculum stood a temple to the watchman god Janus,
whose figure had two faces, and held the keys, and after whom was named
the month January. His temple was always open in time of war, and closed
in time of peace. Numa's reign was counted as the first out of only
three times in Roman history that it was shut.
[Illustration: JANUS.]
Numa was said to have reigned thirty-eight years, and then he gradually
faded away, and was buried in a stone coffin outside the Janicular gate,
all the books he had written being, by his desire, buried with him.
Egeria wept till she became a fountain in her own valley; and so ended
what in Roman faith answered to the golden age of Greece.
The next king was of Roman birth, and was named Tullus Hostilius. He was
a great warrior, and had a war with the Albans until it was agreed that
the two cities should join together in one, as the Romans and Sabines
had done before; but there was a dispute which should be the greater
city in the league and it was determined to settle it by a combat. In
each city there was a family where three sons had been born at a birth,
and their mothers were sisters. Both sets were of the same age--fine
young men, skilled in weapons; and it was agreed that the six should
fight together, the three whose family name was Horatius on the Roman
side, the three called Curiatius on the Alban side, and whichever set
gained the mastery was to give it to his city.
They fought in the plain between the camps, and very hard was the strife
until two of the Horatii were killed and all the three Curiatii were
wounded, but the last Horatius was entirely untouched. He began to run,
and his cousins pursued him, but at different distances, as one was less
hindered by his wound than the others. As soon as the first came up.
Horatius slew him, and so the second and the third: as he cut down this
last he cried out, "To the glory of Rome I sacrifice thee." As the Alban
king saw his champion fall, he turned to Tullus Hostilius and asked what
his commands were. "Only to have the Alban youth ready when I need
them," said Tullus.
A wreath was set on the victor's head, and, loaded with the spoil of the
Curiatii, he was led into the city in triumph. His sister came hurrying
to meet him; she was betrothed to one of the Curiatii, and was in agony
to know his fate; and when she saw the garment she had spun for him
hanging blood-stained over her brother's shoulders, she burst into loud
lamentations. Horatius, still hot with fury, struck her dead on the
spot, crying, "So perish every Roman who mourns the death of an enemy of
his country." Even her father approved the cruel deed, and would not
bury her in his family tomb--so stern were Roman feelings, putting the
honor of the country above everything. However, Horatius was brought
before the king for the murder, and was sentenced to die; but the people
entreated that their champion might be spared, and he was only made to
pass under what was called the yoke, namely, spears set up like a
doorway.
Tullus Hostilius gained several victories over his neighbors, but he was
harsh and presuming, and offended the gods, and, when he was using some
spell such as good Numa had used to hold converse with Jupiter, the
angry god sent lightning and burnt up him and his family. The people
then chose Ancus Martins, the son of Numa's daughter, who is said to
have ruled in his grandfather's spirit, though he could not avoid wars
with the Latins. The first bridge over the Tiber, named the Sublician,
was said to have been built by him. In his time there came to Rome a
family called Tarquin. Their father was a Corinthian, who had settled in
an Etruscan town named Tarquinii, whence came the family name. He was
said to have first taught writing in Italy, and, indeed, the Roman
letters which we still use are Greek letters made simpler. His eldest
son, finding that because of his foreign blood he could rise to no
honors in Etruria, set off with his wife Tanaquil, and their little son
Lucius Tarquinius, to settle in Rome. Just as they came in sight of
Rome, an eagle swooped down from the sky, snatched off little Tarquin's
cap, and flew up with it, but the next moment came down again and put it
back on his head. On this Tanaquil foretold that her son would be a
great king, and he became so famous a warrior when he grew up, that, as
the children of Ancus were too young to reign at their father's death,
he was chosen king. He is said to have been the first Roman king who
wore a purple robe and golden crown, and in the valley between the
Palatine and Aventine Hills he made a circus, where games could be held
like those of the Greeks; also he placed stone benches and stalls for
shops round the Forum, and built a stone wall instead of a mud one round
the city. He is commonly called Tarquinus Priscus, or the elder.
[Illustration: ACTORS]
There was a fair slave girl in his house, who was offering cakes to Lar,
the household spirit, when he appeared to her in bodily form. When she
told the king's mother, Tanaquil, she said it was a token that he wanted
to marry her, and arrayed her as a bride for him. Of this marriage
there sprang a boy called Servius Tullus. When this child lay asleep,
bright flames played about his head, and Tanaquil knew he would be
great, so she caused her son Tarquin to give him his daughter in
marriage when he grew up. This greatly offended the two sons of Ancus
Martius, and they hired two young men to come before him as
wood-cutters, with axes over their shoulders, pretending to have a
quarrel about some goats, and while he was listening to their cause they
cut him down and mortally wounded him. He had lost his sons, and had
only two baby grandsons, Aruns and Tarquin, who could not reign as yet;
but while he was dying, Tanaquil stood at the window and declared that
he was only stunned and would soon be well. This, as she intended, so
frightened the sons of Ancus that they fled from Rome; and Servius
Tullus, coming forth in the royal robes, was at once hailed as king by
all the people of Rome, being thus made king that he might protect his
wife's two young nephews, the two little Tarquins.
CHAPTER V.
THE DRIVING OUT OF THE TARQUINS.
B.C. 578--309.
Servius Tullus was looked on by the Romans as having begun making their
laws, as Romulus had put their warlike affairs in order, and Numa had
settled their religion. The Romans were all in great clans or families,
all with one name, and these were classed in tribes. The nobler ones,
who could count up from old Trojan, Latin, or Sabine families, were
called Patricians--from _pater_, a father--because they were fathers of
the people; and the other families were called Plebeian, from _plebs_,
the people. The patricians formed the Senate or Council of Government,
and rode on horseback in war, while the plebeians fought on foot. They
had spears, round shields, and short pointed swords, which cut on each
side of the blade. Tullus is said to have fixed how many men of each
tribe should be called out to war. He also walled in the city again with
a wall five miles round; and he made many fixed laws, one being that
when a man was in debt his goods might be seized, but he himself might
not be made a slave. He was the great friend of the plebeians, and first
established the rule that a new law of the Senate could not be made
without the consent of the Comitia, or whole free people.
The Sabines and Romans were still striving for the mastery, and a
husbandman among the Sabines had a wonderfully beautiful cow. An oracle
declared that the man who sacrificed this cow to Diana upon the Aventine
Hill would secure the chief power to his nation. The Sabine drove the
cow to Rome, and was going to kill her, when a crafty Roman priest told
him that he must first wash his hands in the Tiber, and while he was
gone sacrificed the cow himself, and by this trick secured the rule to
Rome. The great horns of the cow were long after shown in the temple of
Diana on the Aventine, where Romans, Sabines, and Latins every year
joined in a great sacrifice.
The two daughters of Servius were married to their cousins, the two
young Tarquins. In each pair there was a fierce and a gentle one. The
fierce Tullia was the wife of the gentle Aruns Tarquin; the gentle Tulla
had married the proud Lucius Tarquin. Aruns' wife tried to persuade her
husband to seize the throne that had belonged to his father, and when he
would not listen to her, she agreed with his brother Lucius that, while
he murdered her sister, she should kill his brother, and then that they
should marry. The horrid deed was carried out, and old Servius, seeing
what a wicked pair were likely to come after him, began to consider with
the Senate whether it would not be better to have two consuls or
magistrates chosen every year than a king. This made Lucius Tarquin the
more furious, and going to the Senate, where the patricians hated the
king as the friend of the plebeians, he stood upon the throne, and was
beginning to tell the patricians that this would be the ruin of their
greatness, when Servius came in and, standing on the steps of the
doorway, ordered him to come down. Tarquin sprang on the old man and
hurled him backward, so that the fall killed him, and his body was left
in the street. The wicked Tullia, wanting to know how her husband had
sped, came out in her chariot on that road. The horses gave back before
the corpse. She asked what was in their way; the slave who drove her
told her it was the king's body. "Drive on," she said. The horrid deed
caused the street to be known ever after as "Sceleratus," or the wicked.
But it was the plebeians who mourned for Servius; the patricians in
their anger made Tarquin king, but found him a very hard and cruel
master, so that he is generally called Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin
the proud. In his time the Sybil of Cumæ, the same wondrous maiden of
deep wisdom who had guided Æneas to the realms of Pluto, came, bringing
nine books of prophecies of the history of Rome, and offered them to him
at a price which he thought too high, and refused. She went away,
destroyed three, and brought back the other six, asking for them double
the price of the whole. He refused. She burnt three more, and brought
him the last three with the price again doubled, because the fewer they
were, the more precious. He bought them at last, and placed them in the
Capitol, whence they were now and then taken to be consulted as oracles.
[Illustration: SYBIL'S CAVE.]
Rome was at war with the city of Gabii, and as the city was not to be
subdued by force, Tarquin tried treachery. His eldest son, Sextus
Tarquinius, fled to Gabii, complaining of ill-usage of his father, and
showing marks of a severe scourging. The Gabians believed him, and he
was soon so much trusted by them as to have the whole command of the
army and manage everything in the city. Then he sent a messenger to his
father to ask what he was to do next. Tarquin was walking through a
cornfield. He made no answer in words, but with a switch cut off the
heads of all the poppies and taller stalks of corn, and bade the
messenger tell Sextus what he had seen. Sextus understood, and
contrived to get all the chief men of Gabii exiled or put to death, and
without them the city fell an easy prey to the Romans.
Tarquin sent his two younger sons and their cousin to consult the oracle
at Delphi, and with them went Lucius Junius, who was called Brutus
because he was supposed to be foolish, that being the meaning of the
word; but his folly was only put on, because he feared the jealousy of
his cousins. After doing their father's errand, the two Tarquins asked
who should rule Rome after their father. "He," said the priestess, "who
shall first kiss his mother on his return." The two brothers agreed that
they would keep this a secret from their elder brother Sextus, and, as
soon as they reached home, both of them rushed into the women's rooms,
racing each to be the first to embrace their mother Tullia; but at the
very entrance of Rome Brutus pretended to slip, threw himself on the
ground and kissed his Mother Earth, having thus guessed the right
meaning of the answer.
He waited patiently, however, and still was thought a fool when the army
went out to besiege the city of Ardea; and while the troops were
encamped round it, some of the young patricians began to dispute which
had the best wife. They agreed to put it to the test by galloping late
in the evening to look in at their homes and see what their wives were
about. Some were idling, some were visiting, some were scolding, some
were dressing, some were asleep; but at Collatia, the farm of another of
the Tarquin family, thence called Collatinus, they found his beautiful
wife Lucretia among her maidens spinning the wool of the flocks. All
agreed that she was the best of wives; but the wicked Sextus Tarquin
only wanted to steal her from her husband, and going by night to
Collatia, tried to make her desert her lord, and when she would not
listen to him he ill-treated her cruelly, and told her that he should
accuse her to her husband. She was so overwhelmed with grief and shame
that in the morning she sent for her father and husband, told them all
that that happened, and saying that she could not bear life after being
so put to shame, she drew out a dagger and stabbed herself before their
eyes--thinking, as all these heathen Romans did, that it was better to
die by one's own hand than to live in disgrace.
Lucius Brutus had gone to Collatia with his cousin, and while Collatinus
and his father-in-law stood horror-struck, he called to them to revenge
this crime. Snatching the dagger from Lucretia's breast, he galloped to
Rome, called the people together in the Forum, and, holding up the
bloody weapon in his hand, he made them a speech, asking whether they
would any longer endure such a family of tyrants. They all rose as one
man, and choosing Brutus himself and Collatinus to be their leaders, as
the consuls whom Servius Tullus had thought of making, they shut the
gates of Rome, and would not open them when Tarquin and his sons would
have returned. So ended the kingdom of Rome.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
THE WAR WITH PORSENA.
From the time of the flight of the Tarquins, Rome was governed by two
consuls, who wore all the tokens of royalty except the crown. Tarquin
fled into Etruria, whence his grandfather had come, and thence tried to
obtain admission into Rome. The two young sons of Brutus and the nephews
of Collatinus were drawn into a plot for bringing them back again, and
on its discovery were brought before the two consuls. Their guilt was
proved, and their father sternly asked what they had to say in their
defence. They only wept, and so did Collatinus and many of the senators,
crying out, "Banish them, banish them." Brutus, however, as if unmoved,
bade the executioners do their office. The whole Senate shrieked to hear
a father thus condemn his own children, but he was resolute, and
actually looked on while the young men were first scourged and then
beheaded.
Collatinus put off the further judgment in hopes to save his nephews,
and Brutus told them that he had put them to death by his own power as a
father, but that he left the rest to the voice of the people, and they
were sent into banishment. Even Collatinus was thought to have acted
weakly, and was sent into exile--so determined were the Romans to have
no one among them who would not uphold their decrees to the utmost.
Tarquin advanced to the walls and cut down all the growing corn around
the Campus Martius and threw it into the Tiber; there it formed a heap
round which an island was afterwards formed. Brutus himself and his
cousin Aruns Tarquin soon after killed one another in single combat in a
battle outside the walls, and all the women of Rome mourned for him as
for a father.
Tarquin found a friend in the Etruscan king called Lars Porsena, who
brought an army to besiege Rome and restore him to the throne. He
advanced towards the gate called Janiculum upon the Tiber, and drove the
Romans out of the fort on the other side the river. The Romans then
retreated across the bridge, placing three men to guard it until all
should be gone over and it could be broken down.
[Illustration: BRUTUS CONDEMNING HIS SONS.]
There stood the brave three--Horatius, Lartius, and Herminius--guarding
the bridge while their fellow-citizens were fleeing across it, three men
against a whole army. At last the weapons of Lartius and Herminius were
broken down, and Horatius bade them hasten over the bridge while it
could still bear their weight. He himself fought on till he was wounded
in the thigh, and the last timbers of the bridge were falling into the
stream. Then spreading out his arms, he called upon Father Tiber to
receive him, leapt into the river and swam across amid a shower of
arrows, one of which put out his eye, and he was lame for life. A statue
of him "halting on his thigh" was set up in the temple of Vulcan, and he
was rewarded with as much land as one yoke of oxen could plough in a
day, and the 300,000 citizens of Rome each gave him a day's provision of
corn.
Porsena then blockaded the city, and when the Romans were nearly
starving he sent them word that he would give them food if they would
receive their old masters; but they made answer that hunger was better
than slavery, and still held out. In the midst of their distress, a
young man named Caius Mucius came and begged leave of the consuls to
cross the Tiber and go to attempt something to deliver his country. They
gave leave, and creeping through the Etruscan camp he came into the
king's tent just as Porsena was watching his troops pass by in full
order. One of his counsellors was sitting beside him so richly dressed
that Mucius did not know which was king, and leaping towards them, he
stabbed the counsellor to the heart. He was seized at once and dragged
before the king, who fiercely asked who he was, and what he meant by
such a crime.
The young man answered that his name was Caius Mucius, and that he was
ready to do and dare anything for Rome. In answer to threats of torture,
he quietly stretched out his right hand and thrust it into the flame
that burnt in a brazier close by, holding it there without a sign of
pain, while he bade Porsena see what a Roman thought of suffering.
Porsena was so struck that he at once gave the daring man his life, his
freedom, and even his dagger; and Mucius then told him that three
hundred youths like himself had sworn to have his life unless he left
Rome to her liberty. This was false, but both the lie and the murder
were for Rome's sake; they were both admired by the Romans, who held
that the welfare of their city was their very first duty. Mucius could
never use his right hand again, and was always called Scævola, or the
Left-handed, a name that went on to his family.
Porsena believed the story, and began to make peace. A truce was agreed
on, and ten Roman youths and as many girls were given up to the
Etruscans as hostages. While the conferences were going on, one of the
Roman girls named Clelia forgot her duty so much as to swim home across
the river with all her companions; but Valeria, the consul's daughter,
was received with all the anger that breach of trust deserved, and her
father mounted his horse at once to take the party back again. Just as
they reached the Etruscan camp, the Tarquin father and brothers, and a
whole troop of the enemy, fell on them. While the consul was fighting
against a terrible force, Valeria dashed on into the camp and called out
Porsena and his son. They, much grieved that the truce should have been
broken, drove back their own men, and were so angry with the Tarquins as
to give up their cause. He asked which of the girls had contrived the
escape, and when Clelia confessed it was herself, he made her a present
of a fine horse and its trappings, which she little deserved.
This Valerius was called Publicola, or the people's friend. He died a
year or two later, after so many victories that the Romans honored him
among their greatest heroes. Tarquin still continued to seek support
among the different Italian nations, and again attacked the Romans with
the help of the Latins. The chief battle was fought close to Lake
Regillus; Aulus Posthumius was the commander, but Marcus Valerius,
brother to Publicola, was general of the horse. He had vowed to build a
temple to Castor and Pollux if the Romans gained the victory; and in the
beginning of the fight, two glorious youths of god-like stature appeared
on horseback at the head of the Roman horse and fought for them. It was
a very hard-fought battle. Valerius was killed, but so was Titus
Tarquin, and the Latin force was entirely broken and routed. That same
evening the two youths rode into the Forum, their horses dripping with
sweat and their weapons bloody. They drew up and washed themselves at a
fountain near the temple of Vesta, and as the people crowded round they
told of the great victory, and while one man named Domitius doubted of
it, since the Lake Regillus was too far off for tidings to have come so
fast, one of them laid his hand on the doubter's beard and changed it
in a moment from black to copper color, so that he came to be called
Domitius Ahenobarbus, or Brazen-beard. Then they disappeared, and the
next morning Posthumius' messenger brought the news. The Romans had no
doubt that these were indeed the glorious twins, and built their temple,
as Valerius had vowed.
[Illustration: ROMAN ENSIGNS, STANDARDS, TRUMPETS ETC.]
Tarquin had lost all his sons, and died in wretched exile at Cumæ. And
here ends what is looked on as the legendary history of Rome, for though
most of these stories have dates, and some sound possible, there is so
much that is plainly untrue mixed up with them, that they can only be
looked on as the old stories which were handed down to account for the
Roman customs and copied by their historians.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ROMAN GOVERNMENT.
So far as true history can guess, the Romans really did have kings and
drove them out, but there are signs that, though Porsena was a real
king, the war was not so honorable to the Romans as they said, for he
took the city and made them give up all their weapons to him, leaving
them nothing but their tools for husbandry. But they liked to forget
their misfortunes.
The older Roman families were called patricians, or fathers, and thought
all rights to govern belonged to them. Settlers who came in later were
called plebeians, or the people, and at first had no rights at all, for
all the land belonged to the patricians, and the only way for the
plebeians to get anything done for them was to become hangers-on--or, as
they called it, clients--of some patrician who took care of their
interests. There was a council of patricians called the Senate, chosen
among themselves, and also containing by right all who had been chief
magistrates. The whole assembly of the patricians was called the
Comitia. They, as has been said before, fought on horseback, while the
plebeians fought on foot; but out of the rich plebeians a body was
formed called the knights, who also used horses, and wore gold rings
like the patricians.
[Illustration: HEAD OF JUPITER.]
But the plebeians were always trying not to be left out of everything.
By and by, they said under Servius Tullius, the city was divided into
six quarters, and all the families living in them into six tribes, each
of which had a tribune to watch over it, bring up the number of its men,
and lead them to battle. Another division of the citizens, both
patrician and plebeian, was made every five years. They were all counted
and numbered and divided off into centuries according to their wealth.
Then these centuries, or hundreds, had votes, by the persons they chose,
when it was a question of peace or war. Their meeting was called the
Comitia; but as there were more patrician centuries than plebeian ones,
the patricians still had much more power. Besides, the Senate and all
the magistrates were in those days always patricians. These magistrates
were chosen every year. There were two consuls, who were like kings for
the time, only that they wore no crowns; they had purple robes, and sat
in chairs ornamented with ivory, and they were always attended by
lictors, who carried bundles of rods tied round an axe--the first for
scourging, the second for beheading. There were under them two prætors,
or judges, who tried offences; two quæstors, who attended to the public
buildings; and two censors, who had to look after the numbering and
registering of the people in their tribes and centuries. The consuls in
general commanded the army, but sometimes, when there was a great need,
one single leader was chosen and was called dictator. Sometimes a
dictator was chosen merely to fulfil an omen, by driving a nail into the
head of the great statue of Jupiter in the Capitol. Besides these, all
the priests had to be patricians; the chief of all was called Pontifex
Maximus. Some say this was because he was the _fax_ (maker) of
_pontes_ (bridges), as he blessed them and decided by omens where
they should be; but others think the word was Pompifex, and that he was
the maker of pomps or ceremonies. There were many priests as well as
augurs, who had to draw omens from the flight of birds or the appearance
of sacrifices, and who kept the account of the calendar of lucky and
unlucky days, and of festivals.
[Illustration: FEMALE COSTUMES.]
The Romans were a grave religious people in those days, and did not
count their lives or their affections dear in comparison with their
duties to their altars and their hearths, though their notions of duty
do not always agree with ours. Their dress in the city was a white
woollen garment edged with purple--it must have been more like in shape
to a Scottish plaid than anything else--and was wrapped round so as to
leave one arm free: sometimes a fold was drawn over the head. No one
might wear it but a free-born Roman, and he never went out on public
business without it, even when more convenient fashions had been copied
from Greece. Those who were asking votes for a public office wore it
white (_candidus_), and therefore were called candidates. The consuls
had it on great days entirely purple and embroidered, and all senators
and ex-magistrates had broader borders of purple. The ladies wore a long
graceful wrapping-gown; the boys a short tunic, and round their necks
was hung a hollow golden ball called a _bulla_, or bubble. When a boy
was seventeen, there was a great family sacrifice to the Lares and the
forefathers, his bulla was taken off, the toga was put on, and he was
enrolled by his own prænomen, Caius or Lucius, or whatever it might be,
for there was only a choice of fifteen. After this he was liable to be
called out to fight. A certain number of men were chosen from each tribe
by the tribune. It was divided into centuries, each led by a centurion;
and the whole body together was called a legion, from _lego_, to
choose. In later times the proper number for a legion was 6000 men. Each
legion had a standard, a bar across the top of the spear, with the
letters on it S P Q R--_Senatus, Populus Que Romanus_--meaning the Roman
Senate and People, a purple flag below and a figure above, such as an
eagle, or the wolf and twins, or some emblem dear to the Romans. The
legions were on foot, but the troops of patricians and knights on
horseback were attached to them and had to protect them.
[Illustration: FEMALE COSTUMES.]
The Romans had in those days very small riches, they held in general
small farms in the country, which they worked themselves with the help
of their sons and slaves. The plebeians were often the richest. They too
held farms leased to them by the state, and had often small shops in
Rome. The whole territory was so small that it was easy to come into
Rome to worship, attend the Senate, or vote, and many had no houses in
the city. Each man was married with a ring and sacrifice, and the lady
was then carried over the threshold, on which a sheepskin was spread,
and made mistress of the house by being bidden to be Caia to Caius. The
Roman matrons were good and noble women in those days, and the highest
praise of them was held to be _Domum mansit, lanam fecit_--she stayed
at home and spun wool. Each man was absolute master in his own house,
and had full power over his grown-up sons, even for life or death, and
they almost always submitted entirely. For what made the Romans so great
was that they were not only brave, but they were perfectly obedient, and
obeyed as perfectly as they could their fathers, their officers, their
magistrates, and, as they thought, their gods.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII.
MENENIUS AGRIPPA'S FABLE.
B.C. 494.
A great deal of the history of Rome consists of struggles between the
patricians and plebeians. In those early days the plebeians were often
poor, and when they wanted to improve their lands they had to borrow
money from the patricians, who not only had larger lands, but, as they
were the officers in war, got a larger share of the spoil. The Roman law
was hard on a man in debt. His lands might be seized, he might be thrown
into prison or sold into slavery with his wife and children, or, if the
creditors liked, be cut to pieces so that each might take his share.
One of these debtors, a man who was famous for bravery as a centurion,
broke out of his prison and ran into the Forum, all in rags and with
chains still hanging to his hands and feet, showing them to his
fellow-citizens, and asking if this was just usage of a man who had done
no crime. They were very angry, and the more because one of the consuls,
Appius Claudius, was known to be very harsh, proud and cruel, as indeed
were all his family. The Volscians, a tribe often at war with them,
broke into their land at the same time, and the Romans were called to
arms, but the plebeians refused to march until their wrongs were
redressed. On this the other consul, Servilius, promised that a law
should be made against keeping citizens in prison for debt or making
slaves of their children; and thereupon the army assembled, marched
against the enemy, and defeated them, giving up all the spoil to his
troops. But the senate, when the danger was over, would not keep its
promises, and even appointed a Dictator to put the plebeians down.
Thereupon they assembled outside the walls in a strong force, and were
going to attack the patricians, when the wise old Menenius Agrippa was
sent out to try to pacify them. He told them a fable, namely, that once
upon a time all the limbs of a man's body became disgusted with the
service they had to render to the belly. The feet and legs carried it
about, the hands worked for it and carried food to it, the mouth ate
for it, and so on. They thought it hard thus all to toil for it, and
agreed to do nothing for it--neither to carry it about, clothe it, nor
feed it. But soon all found themselves growing weak and starved, and
were obliged to own that all would perish together unless they went on
waiting on this seemingly useless belly. So Agrippa told them that all
ranks and states depended on one another, and unless all worked together
all must be confusion and go to decay. The fable seems to have convinced
both rich and poor; the debtors were set free and the debts forgiven.
And though the laws about debts do not seem to have been changed,
another law was made which gave the plebeians tribunes in peace as well
as war. These tribunes were always to be plebeians, chosen by their own
fellows. No one was allowed to hurt them during their year of office, on
pain of being declared accursed and losing his property; and they had
the power of stopping any decision of the senate by saying solemnly,
_Veto_, I forbid. They were called tribunes of the people, while the
officers in war were called military tribunes; and as it was on the Mons
Sacer, or Sacred Mount, that this was settled, these laws were called
the _Leges Sacrariæ_. An altar to the Thundering Jupiter was built to
consecrate them: and, in gratitude for his management, Menenius Agrippa
was highly honored all his life, and at his death had a public funeral.
But the struggles of the plebeians against the patricians were not by
any means over. The Roman land--Agri (acre), it was called--had at first
been divided in equal shares--at least so it was said--but as belonging
to the state all the time, and only held by the occupier. As time went
on, some persons of course gathered more into their own hands, and
others of spendthrift or unfortunate families became destitute. Then
there was an outcry that, as the lands belonged to the whole state, it
ought to take them all back and divide them again more equally: but the
patricians naturally regarded themselves as the owners, and would not
hear of this scheme, which we shall hear of again and again by the name
of the Agrarian Law. One of the patricians, who had thrice been consul,
by name Spurius Cassius, did all he could to bring it about, but though
the law was passed he could not succeed in getting it carried out. The
patricians hated him, and a report got abroad that he was only gaining
favor with the people in order to get himself made king. This made even
the plebeians turn against him as a traitor; he was condemned by the
whole assembly of the people, and beheaded, after being scourged by the
lictors. The people soon mourned for their friend, and felt that they
had been deceived in giving him up to their enemies. The senate would
not execute his law, and the plebeians would not enlist in the next war,
though the senate threatened to cut down the fruit trees and destroy the
crops of every man who refused to join the army. When they were
absolutely driven into the ranks, they even refused to draw their swords
in face of the enemy, and would not gain a victory lest their consul
should have the honor of it.
[Illustration: SENATORIAL PALACE.]
This consul's name was Kæso Fabius. He belonged to a very clever, wary
family, whose name it was said was originally _Foveus_ (ditch), because
they had first devised a plan of snaring wolves in pits or ditches. They
were thought such excellent defenders of the claims of the patricians
that for seven years following one or other of the Fabii was chosen
consul. But by-and-by they began either to see that the plebeians had
rights, or that they should do best by siding with them, for they went
over to them; and when Kæso next was consul he did all he could to get
the laws of Cassius carried out, but the senate were furious with
him, and he found it was not safe to stay in Rome when his consulate was
over. So he resolved at any rate to do good to his country. The
Etruscans often came over the border and ravaged the country; but there
was a watch-tower on the banks of the little river Cremera, which flows
into the Tiber, and Fabius offered, with all the men of his name--306 in
number, and 4000 clients--to keep guard there against the enemy. For
some time they prospered there, and gained much spoil from the
Etruscans; but at last the whole Etruscan army came against them,
showing only a small number at first to tempt them out to fight, then
falling on them with the whole force and killing the whole of them, so
that of the whole name there remained only one boy of fourteen who had
been left behind at Rome. And what was worse, the consul, Titus
Menenius, was so near the army that he could have saved the Fabii, but
for the hatred the patricians bore them as deserters from their cause.
[Illustration: VIEW OF A ROMAN HARBOR.]
However, the tribune Publilius gained for the plebeians that there
should be five tribunes instead of two, and made a change in the manner
of electing them which prevented the patricians from interfering. Also
it was decreed that to interrupt a tribune in a public speech deserved
death. But whenever an Appius Claudius was consul he took his revenge,
and was cruelly severe, especially in the camp, where the consul as
general had much more power than in Rome. Again the angry plebeians
would not fight, but threw down their arms in sight of the enemy.
Claudius scourged and beheaded; they endured grimly and silently,
knowing that when he returned to Rome and his consulate was over their
tribunes would call him to account. And so they did, and before all the
tribes of Rome summoned him to answer for his savage treatment of free
Roman citizens. He made a violent answer, but he saw how it would go
with him, and put himself to death to avoid the sentence. So were the
Romans proving again and again the truth of Agrippa's parable, that
nothing can go well with body or members unless each will be ready to
serve the other.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
CORIOLANUS AND CINCINNATUS.
B.C. 458.
All the time these struggles were going on between the patricians and
the plebeians at home, there were wars with the neighboring tribes, the
Volscians, the Veians, the Latins, and the Etruscans. Every spring the
fighting men went out, attacked their neighbors, drove off their cattle,
and tried to take some town; then fought a battle, and went home to reap
the harvest, gather the grapes and olives in the autumn, and attend to
public business and vote for the magistrates in the winter. They were
small wars, but famous men fought in them. In a war against the
Volscians, when Cominius was consul, he was besieging a city called
Corioli, when news came that the men of Antium were marching against
him, and in their first attack on the walls the Romans were beaten off,
but a gallant young patrician, descended from the king Ancus Marcius,
Caius Marcius by name, rallied them and led them back with such spirit
that the place was taken before the hostile army came up; then he fought
among the foremost and gained the victory. When he was brought to the
consul's tent covered with wounds, Cominius did all he could to show his
gratitude--set on the young man's head the crown of victory, gave him
the surname of Coriolanus in honor of his exploits, and granted him the
tenth part of the spoil of ten prisoners. Of them, however, Coriolanus
only accepted one, an old friend of the family, whom he set at liberty
at once. Afterwards, when there was a great famine in Rome, Coriolanus
led an expedition to Antium, and brought away quantities of corn and
cattle, which he distributed freely, keeping none for himself.
But though he was so free of hand, Coriolanus was a proud, shy man, who
would not make friends with the plebeians, and whom the tribunes hated
as much as he despised them. He was elected consul, and the tribunes
refused to permit him to become one; and when a shipload of wheat
arrived from Sicily, there was a fierce quarrel as to how it should be
distributed. The tribunes impeached him before the people for
withholding it from them, and by the vote of a large number of citizens
he was banished from Roman lands. His anger was great, but quiet. He
went without a word away from the Forum to his house, where he took
leave of his mother Veturia, his wife Volumnia, and his little children,
and then went and placed himself by the hearth of Tullus the Volscian
chief, in whose army he meant to fight to revenge himself upon his
countrymen.
Together they advanced upon the Roman territory, and after ravaging the
country threatened to besiege Rome. Men of rank came out and entreated
him to give up this wicked and cruel vengeance, and to have pity on his
friends and native city; but he answered that the Volscians were now his
nation, and nothing would move him. At last, however, all the women of
Rome came forth, headed by his mother Veturia and his wife Volumnia,
each with a little child, and Veturia entreated and commanded her son in
the most touching manner to change his purpose and cease to ruin his
country, begging him, if he meant to destroy Rome, to begin by slaying
her. She threw herself at his feet as she spoke, and his hard spirit
gave way.
"Ah! mother, what is it you do?" he cried as he lifted her up. "Thou
hast saved Rome, but lost thy son."
[Illustration: ROMAN CAMP]
And so it proved, for when he had broken up his camp and returned to the
Volscian territory till the senate should recall him as they proceeded,
Tullus, angry and disappointed, stirred up a tumult, and he was killed
by the people before he could be sent for to Rome. A temple to "Women's
Good Speed" was raised on the spot where Veturia knelt to him.
Another very proud patrician family was the Quinctian. The father,
Lucius Quinctius, was called Cincinnatus, from his long flowing curls of
hair. He was the ablest man among the Romans, but stern and grave, and
his eldest son Kæso was charged by the tribunes with a murder and fled
the country. Soon after there was a great inroad of the Æqui and
Volscians, and the Romans found themselves in great danger. They saw no
one could save them but Cincinnatus, so they met in haste and chose him
Dictator, though he was not present. Messengers were sent to his little
farm on the Tiber, and there they found him holding the stilts of the
plough. When they told their errand, he turned to his wife, who was
helping him, and said, "Racilia, fetch me my toga;" then he washed his
face and hands, and was saluted as Dictator. A boat was ready to take
him to Rome, and as he landed, he was met by the four-and-twenty lictors
belonging to the two consuls and escorted to his dwelling. In the
morning he named as general of the cavalry Lucius Tarquitius, a brave
old patrician who had become too poor even to keep a horse. Marching out
at the head of all the men who could bear arms, he thoroughly routed the
Æqui, and then resigned his dictatorship at the end of sixteen days. Nor
would he accept any of the spoil, but went back to his plough, his only
reward being that his son was forgiven and recalled from banishment.
[Illustration: PLOUGHING]
These are the grand old stories that came down from old time, but how
much is true no one can tell, and there is reason to think that, though
the leaders like Cincinnatus and Coriolanus might be brave, the Romans
were really pressed hard by the Volscians and Æqui, and lost a good deal
of ground, though they were too proud to own it. No wonder, while the
two orders of the state were always pulling different ways. However, the
tribune Icilius succeeded in the year 454 in getting the Aventine Hill
granted to the plebeians; and they had another champion called Lucius
Sicinius Dentatus, who was so brave that he was called the Roman
Achilles. He had received no less than forty-five wounds in different
fights before he was fifty-eight years old, and had had fourteen civic
crowns. For the Romans gave an oak-leaf wreath, which they called a
civic crown, to a man who saved the life of a fellow-citizen, and a
mural crown to him who first scaled the walls of a besieged city. And
when a consul had gained a great victory, he had what was called a
triumph. He was drawn in his chariot into the city, his victorious
troops marching before him with their spears waving with laurel boughs,
a wreath of laurel was on his head, his little children sat with him in
the chariot, and the spoil of the enemy was carried along. All the
people decked their houses and came forth rejoicing in holiday array,
while he proceeded to the Capitol to sacrifice an ox to Jupiter there.
His chief prisoners walked behind his car in chains, and at the moment
of his sacrifice they were taken to a cell below the Capitol and there
put to death, for the Roman was cruel in his joy. Nothing was more
desired than such a triumph; but such was often the hatred between the
plebeians and the patricians, that sometimes the plebeian army would
stop short in the middle of a victorious campaign to hinder their consul
from having a triumph. Even Sicinius is said once to have acted thus,
and it began to be plain that Rome must fall if it continued to be thus
divided against itself.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X.
THE DECEMVIRS.
B.C. 450.
The Romans began to see what mischiefs their quarrels did, and they
agreed to send three of their best and wisest men to Greece to study the
laws of Solon at Athens, and report whether any of them could be put in
force at Rome.
To get the new code of laws which they brought home put into working
order, it was agreed for the time to have no consuls, prætors, nor
tribunes, but ten governors, perhaps in imitation of the nine Athenian
archons. They were called Decemvirs (_decem_, ten; _vir_, a man),
and at their head was Lucius Appius Claudius, the grandson of him who had
killed himself to avoid being condemned for his harshness. At first they
governed well, and a very good set of laws was drawn up, which the
Romans called the Laws of the Ten Tables; but Appius soon began to give
way to the pride of his nature, and made himself hated. There was a war
with the Æqui, in which the Romans were beaten. Old Sicinius Dentatus
said it was owing to bad management, and, as he had been in one hundred
and twenty battles, everybody believed him. Thereupon Appius Claudius
sent for him, begged for his advice, and asked him to join the army that
he might assist the commanders. They received him warmly, and, when he
advised them to move their camp, asked him to go and choose a place, and
sent a guard with him of one hundred men. But these were really wretches
instructed to kill him, and as soon as he was in a narrow rocky pass
they set upon him. The brave old warrior set his back against a rock and
fought so fiercely that he killed many, and the rest durst not come near
him, but climbed up the rock and crushed him with stones rolled down on
his head. Then they went back with a story that they had been attacked
by the enemy, which was believed, till a party went out to bury the
dead, and found there were only Roman corpses all lying round the
crushed body of Sicinius, and that none were stripped of their armor or
clothes. Then the true history was found out, but the Decemvirs
sheltered the commanders, and would believe nothing against them.
Appius Claudius soon after did what horrified all honest men even more
than this treachery to the brave old soldier. The Forum was not only the
place of public assembly for state affairs, but the regular
market-place, where there were stalls and booths for all the wares that
Romans dealt in--meat stalls, wool shops, stalls where wine was sold in
earthenware jars or leathern bottles, and even booths where reading and
writing was taught to boys and girls, who would learn by tracing letters
in the sand, and then by writing them with an iron pen on a waxen table
in a frame, or with a reed upon parchment. The children of each family
came escorted by a slave--the girls by their nurse, the boys by one
called a pedagogue.
[Illustration: DEATH OF VIRGINIA.]
Appius, when going to his judgment-seat across the Forum, saw at one of
these schools a girl of fifteen reading her lesson. She was so lovely
that he asked her nurse who she was, and heard that her name was
Virginia, and that she was the daughter of an honorable plebeian and
brave centurion named Virginius, who was absent with the army fighting
with the Æqui, and that she was to marry a young man named Icilius as
soon as the campaign was over. Appius would gladly have married her
himself, but there was a patrician law against wedding plebeians, and he
wickedly determined that if he could not have her for his wife he would
have her for his slave.
There was one of his clients named Marcus Claudius, whom he paid to get
up a story that Virginius' wife Numitoria, who was dead, had never had
any child at all, but had bought a baby of one of his slaves and had
deceived her husband with it, and thus that poor Virginia was really his
slave. As the maiden was reading at her school, this wretch and a band
of fellows like him seized upon her, declaring that she was his
property, and that he would carry her off. There was a great uproar, and
she was dragged as far as Appius' judgment-seat; but by that time her
faithful nurse had called the poor girl's uncle Numitorius, who could
answer for it that she was really his sister's child. But Appius would
not listen to him, and all that he could gain was that judgment should
not be given in the matter until Virginius should have been fetched from
the camp.
[Illustration: CHARIOT RACES.]
Virginius had set out from the camp with Icilius before the messengers
of Appius had reached the general with orders to stop him, and he came
to the Forum leading his daughter by the hand, weeping, and attended by
a great many ladies. Claudius brought his slave, who made false oath
that she had sold her child to Numitoria; while, on the other hand, all
the kindred of Virginius and his wife gave such proof of the contrary as
any honest judge would have thought sufficient, but Appius chose to
declare that the truth was with his client. There was a great murmur of
all the people, but he frowned at them, and told them he knew of their
meetings, and that there were soldiers in the Capitol ready to punish
them, so they must stand back and not hinder a master from recovering
his slave.
Virginius took his poor daughter in his arms as if to give her a last
embrace, and drew her close to the stall of a butcher where lay a great
knife. He wiped her tears, kissed her, and saying, "My own dear little
girl, there is no way but this," he snatched up the knife and plunged it
into her heart, then drawing it out he cried, "By this blood, Appius, I
devote thy blood to the infernal gods."
He could not reach Appius, but the lictors could not seize him, and he
mounted his horse and galloped back to the army, four hundred men
following him, and he arrived still holding the knife. Every soldier who
heard the story resolved no longer to bear with the Decemvirs, but to
march back to the city at once and insist on the old government being
restored. The Decemvir generals tried to stop them, but they only
answered, "We are men with swords in our hands." At the same time there
was such a tumult in the city, that Appius was forced to hide himself in
his own house while Virginia's corpse was carried on a bier through the
streets, and every one laid garlands, scarfs, and wreaths of their own
hair upon it. When the troops arrived, they and the people joined in
demanding that the Decemvirs should be given up to them to be burnt
alive, and that the old magistrates should be restored. However, two
patricians, Lucius Valerius and Marcus Horatius, were able so to arrange
matters that the nine comparatively innocent Decemvirs were allowed to
depose themselves, and Appius only was sent to prison, where he killed
himself rather than face the trial that awaited him. The new code of
laws, however, remained, but consuls, prætors, tribunes, and all the
rest of the magistrates were restored, and in the year 445 a law was
passed which enabled patricians and plebeians to intermarry.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI.
CAMILLUS' BANISHMENT.
B.C. 390.
The wars with the Etruscans went on, and chiefly with the city of Veii,
which stood on a hill twelve miles from Rome, and was altogether thirty
years at war with it. At last the Romans made up their minds that,
instead of going home every harvest-time to gather in their crops, they
must watch the city constantly till they could take it, and thus, as the
besiegers were unable to do their own work, pay was raised for them to
enable them to get it done, and this was the beginning of paying armies.
[Illustration: ARROW MACHINE.]
The siege of Veii lasted ten years, and during the last the Alban lake
filled to an unusual height, although the summer was very dry. One of
the Veian soldiers cried out to the Romans half in jest, "You will
never take Veii till the Alban lake is dry." It turned out that there
was an old tradition that Veii should fall when the lake was drained. On
this the senate sent orders to have canals dug to carry the waters to
the sea, and these still remain. Still Veii held out, and to finish the
war a dictator was appointed, Marcus Furius Camillus, who chose for his
second in command a man of one of the most virtuous families in Rome, as
their surname testified, Publius Cornelius, called Scipio, or the Staff,
because either he or one of his forefathers had been the staff of his
father's old age. Camillus took the city by assault, with an immense
quantity of spoil, which was divided among the soldiers.
Camillus in his pride took to himself at his triumph honors that had
hitherto only been paid to the gods. He had his face painted with
vermilion and his car drawn by milk-white horses. This shocked the
people, and he gave greater offence by declaring that he had vowed a
tenth part of the spoil to Apollo, but had forgotten it in the division
of the plunder, and now must take it again. The soldiers would not
consent, but lest the god should be angry with them, it was resolved to
send a gold vase to his oracle at Delphi. All the women of Rome brought
their jewels, and the senate rewarded them by a decree that funeral
speeches might be made over their graves as over those of men, and
likewise that they might be driven in chariots to the public games.
Camillus commanded in another war with the Falisci, also an Etruscan
race, and laid siege to their city. The sons of almost all the chief
families were in charge of a sort of schoolmaster, who taught them both
reading and all kinds of exercises. One day this man, pretending to take
the boys out walking, led them all into the enemy's camp, to the tent of
Camillus, where he told that he brought them all, and with them the
place, since the Romans had only to threaten their lives to make their
fathers deliver up the city. Camillus, however, was so shocked at such
perfidy, that he immediately bade the lictors strip the fellow
instantly, and give the boys rods with which to scourge him back into
the town. Their fathers were so grateful that they made peace at once,
and about the same time the Æqui were also conquered; and the commons
and open lands belonging to Veii being divided, so that each Roman
freeman had six acres, the plebeians were contented for the time.
[Illustration]
The truth seems to have been that these Etruscan nations were weakened
by a great new nation coming on them from the North. They were what the
Romans called Galli or Gauls, one of the great races of the old stock
which has always been finding its way westward into Europe, and they had
their home north of the Alps, but they were always pressing on and on,
and had long since made settlements in northern Italy. They were in
clans, each obedient to one chief as a father, and joining together in
one brotherhood. They had lands to which whole families had a common
right, and when their numbers outgrew what the land could maintain, the
bolder ones would set off with their wives, children, and cattle to
find new homes. The Greeks and Romans themselves had begun first in the
same way, and their tribes, and the claims of all to the common land,
were the remains of the old way; but they had been settled in cities so
long that this had been forgotten, and they were very different people
from the wild men who spoke what we call Welsh, and wore checked tartan
trews and plaids, with gold collars round their necks, round shields,
huge broadswords, and their red or black hair long and shaggy. The
Romans knew little or nothing about what passed beyond their own
Apennines, and went on with their own quarrels. Camillus was accused of
having taken more than his proper share of the spoil of Veii, in
especial a brass door from a temple. His friends offered to pay any fine
that might be laid on him, but he was too proud to stand his trial, and
chose rather to leave Rome. As he passed the gates, he turned round and
called upon the gods to bring Rome to speedy repentance for having
driven him away.
Even then the Gauls were in the midst of a war with Clusium, the city of
Porsena, and the inhabitants sent to beg the help of the Romans, and the
senate sent three young brothers of the Fabian family to try to arrange
matters. They met the Gaulish Bran or chief, whom Latin authors call
Brennus, and asked him what was his quarrel with Clusium or his right to
any part of Etruria. Brennus answered that his right was his sword, and
that all things belonged to the brave, and that his quarrel with the men
of Clusium was, that though they had more land than they could till,
they would not yield him any. As to the Romans, they had robbed their
neighbors already, and had no right to find fault.
This put the Fabian brothers in a rage, and they forgot the caution of
their family, as well as those rules of all nations which forbid an
ambassador to fight, and also forbid his person to be touched by the
enemy; and when the men of Clusium made an attack on the Gauls they
joined in the attack, and Quintus, the eldest brother, slew one of the
chiefs. Brennus, wild as he was, knew these laws of nations, and in
great anger broke up his siege of Clusium, and, marching towards Rome,
demanded that the Fabii should be given up to him. Instead of this, the
Romans made them all three military tribunes, and as the Gauls came
nearer the whole army marched out to meet them in such haste that they
did not wait to sacrifice to the gods nor consult the omens. The
tribunes were all young and hot-headed, and they despised the Gauls; so
out they went to attack them on the banks of the Allia, only seven and
a-half miles from Rome. A most terrible defeat they had; many fell in
the field, many were killed in the flight, others were drowned in trying
to swim the Tiber, others scattered to Veii and the other cities, and a
few, horror-stricken and wet through, rushed into Rome with the sad
tidings. There were not men enough left to defend the walls! The enemy
would instantly be upon them! The only place strong enough to keep them
out was the Capitol, and that would only hold a few people within it! So
there was nothing for it but flight. The braver, stronger men shut
themselves up in the Capitol; all the rest, with the women and children,
put their most precious goods into carts and left the city. The Vestal
Virgins carried the sacred fire, and were plodding along in the heat,
when a plebeian named Albinus saw their state, helped them into his
cart, and took them to the city of Cumæ, where they found shelter in a
temple. And so Rome was left to the enemy.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SACK OF ROME.
B.C. 390.
Rome was left to the enemy, except for the small garrison in the Capitol
and for eighty of the senators, men too old to flee, who devoted
themselves to the gods to save the rest, and, arraying themselves in
their robes--some as former consuls, some as priests, some as
generals--sat down with their ivory staves in their hands, in their
chairs of state in the Forum, to await the enemy.
[Illustration: RUINS OF THE FORUM AT ROME.]
In burst the savage Gauls, roaming all over the city till they came to
the Forum, where they stood amazed and awe-struck at the sight of the
eighty grand old men motionless in their chairs. At first they looked at
the strange, calm figures as if they were the gods of the place, until
one Gaul, as if desirous of knowing whether they were flesh and blood
or not, stroked the beard of the nearest. The senator, esteeming this an
insult, struck the man on the face with his staff, and this was the
sign for the slaughter of them all.
Then the Gauls began to plunder every house, dragging out and killing
the few inhabitants they found there; feasting, revelling, and piling up
riches to carry away; burning and overthrowing the houses. Day after day
the little garrison in the Capitol saw the sight, and wondered if their
stock of food would hold out till the Gauls should go away or till their
friends should come to their relief. Yet when the day came round for the
sacrifice to the ancestor of one of these beleaguered men, he boldly
went forth to the altar of his own ruined house on the Quirinal Hill,
and made his offering to his forefathers, nor did one Gaul venture to
touch him, seeing that he was performing a religious rite.
The escaped Romans had rested at Ardea, where they found Camillus, and
were by him formed into an army, but he would not take the generalship
without authority from what was left of the Senate, and that was shut up
in the Capitol in the midst of the Gauls. A brave man, however, named
Pontius Cominius, declared that he could make his way through the Gauls
by night, and climb up the Capitol and down again by a precipice which
they did not watch because they thought no one could mount it, and that
he would bring back the orders of the Senate. He swam the Tiber by the
help of corks, landed at night in ruined Rome among the sleeping enemy,
and climbed up the rock, bringing hope at last to the worn-out and
nearly starving garrison. Quickly they met, recalled the sentence of
banishment against Camillus, and named him Dictator. Pontius, having
rested in the meantime, slid down the rock and made his way back to
Ardea safely; but the broken twigs and torn ivy on the rock showed the
Gauls that it had been scaled, and they resolved that where man had gone
man could go. So Brennus told off the most surefooted mountaineers he
could find, and at night, two and two, they crept up the crag, so
silently that no alarm was given, till just as they came to the top,
some geese that were kept as sacred to Juno, and for that reason had
been spared in spite of the scarcity, began to scream and cackle, and
thus brought to the spot a brave officer called Marcus Manlius, who
found two Gauls in the act of setting foot on the level ground on the
top. With a sweep of his sword he struck off the hand of one, and with
his buckler smote the other on the head, tumbling them both headlong
down, knocking down their fellows in their flight, and the Capitol was
saved.
By way of reward every Roman soldier brought Manlius a few grains of the
corn he received from the common stock and a few drops of wine, while
the tribune who was on guard that night was thrown from the rock.
Foiled thus, and with great numbers of his men dying from the fever that
always prevailed in Rome in summer, Brennus thought of retreating, and
offered to leave Rome if the garrison in the Capitol would pay him a
thousand pounds' weight of gold. There was treasure enough in the
temples to do this, and as they could not tell what Camillus was about,
nor if Pontius had reached him safely, and they were on the point of
being starved, they consented. The gold was brought to the place
appointed by the Gauls, and when the weights proved not to be equal to
the amount that the Romans had with them, Brennus resolved to have all,
put his sword into the other scale, saying, "Væ victis"--"Woe to the
conquered." But at that moment there was a noise outside--Camillus was
come. The Gauls were cut down and slain among the ruins, those who fled
were killed by the people in the country as they wandered in the fields,
and not one returned to tell the tale. So the ransom of the Capitol was
rescued, and was laid up by Camillus in the vaults as a reserve for
future danger.
This was the Roman story, but their best historians say that it is made
better for Rome than is quite the truth, for that the Capitol was really
conquered, and the Gauls helped themselves to whatever they chose and
went off with it, though sickness and weariness made them afterwards
disperse, so that they were mostly cut off by the country people.
Every old record had been lost and destroyed, so that, before this,
Roman history can only be hearsay, derived from what the survivors
recollected; and the whole of the buildings, temples, senate-house, and
dwellings lay in ruins. Some of the citizens wished to change the site
of the city to Veii; but Camillus, who was Dictator, was resolved to
hold fast by the hearths of their fathers, and while the debate was
going on in the ruins of the senate-house a troop of soldiers were
marching in, and the centurion was heard calling out, "Plant your ensign
here; this is a good place to stay in." "A happy omen," cried one of the
senators; "I adore the gods who gave it." So it was settled to rebuild
the city, and in digging among the ruins there were found the golden
rod of Romulus, the brazen tables on which the Laws of the Twelve Tables
were engraved, and other brasses with records of treaties with other
nations. Fabius was accused of having done all the harm by having broken
the law of nations, but he was spared at the entreaty of his friends.
Manlius was surnamed Capitolinus, and had a house granted him on the
Capitol; and Camillus when he laid down his dictatorship, was saluted as
like Romulus--another founder of Rome.
The new buildings were larger and more ornamented than the old ones; but
the lines of the old underground drains, built in the mighty Etruscan
fashion by the elder Tarquin as it was said, were not followed, and this
tended to render Rome more unhealthy, so that few of her richer citizens
lived there in summer or autumn, but went out to country houses on the
hills.
[Illustration: ENTRY OF THE FORUM ROMANUM BY THE VIA SACRA]
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PLEBEIAN CONSULATE.
B.C. 367.
All the old enemies of Rome attacked her again when she was weak and
rising out of her ruins, but Camillus had wisely persuaded the Romans to
add the people of Veii, Capena, and Falerii to the number of their
citizens, making four more tribes; and this addition to their numbers
helped them beat off their foes.
But this enlarged the number of the plebeians, and enabled them to make
their claims more heard. Moreover, the old quarrel between poor and
rich, debtor and creditor, broke out again. Those who had saved their
treasure in the time of the sack had made loans to those who had lost to
enable them to build their houses and stock their farms again, and
after a time they called loudly for payment, and when it was not
forthcoming had the debtors seized to be sold as slaves. Camillus
himself was one of the hardest creditors of all, and the barracks where
slaves were placed to be sold were full of citizens.
[Illustration: COSTUMES.]
Marcus Manlius Capitolinus was full of pity, and raised money to redeem
four hundred of them, trying with all his might to get the law changed
and to save the rest; but the rich men and the patricians thought he
acted only out of jealousy of Camillus, and to get up a party for
himself. They said he was raising a sedition, and Publius Cornelius
Cossus was named Dictator to put it down. Manlius was seized and put
into chains, but released again. At last the rich men bought over two of
the tribunes to accuse him of wanting to make himself a king, and this
hated title turned all the people against their friend, so that the
general cry sentenced him to be cast down from the top of the Tarpeian
rock; his house on the Capitol was overthrown, and his family declared
that no son of their house should ever again bear the name of Manlius.
[Illustration: COSTUME.]
Yet the plebeians were making their way, and at last succeeded in
gaining the plebeian magistracies and equal honors with the patricians.
A curious story is told of the cause of the last effort which gained the
day. A patrician named Fabius Ambustus had two daughters, one of whom he
gave in marriage to Servius Sulpicius, a patrician and military tribune,
the other to Licinius Stolo. One day, when Stolo's wife was visiting her
sister, there was a great noise and thundering at the gates which
frightened her, until the other Fabii said it was only her husband
coming home from the Forum attended by his lictors and clients, laughing
at her ignorance and alarm, until a whole troop of the clients came in
to pay their court to the tribune's wife.
Stolo's wife went home angry and vexed, and reproached her husband and
her father for not having made her equal with her sister, and so wrought
on them that they put themselves at the head of the movement in favor of
the plebeians; and Licinius and another young plebeian named Lucius
Sextius, being elected year after year tribunes of the people, went on
every time saying _Veto_ to whatever was proposed by anybody, and giving
out that they should go on doing so till three measures were
carried--viz., that interest on debt should not be demanded; that no
citizen should possess more than three hundred and twenty acres of the
public land, or feed more than a certain quantity of cattle on the
public pastures; and, lastly, that one of the two consuls should always
be a plebeian.
They went on for eight years, always elected by the people and always
stopping everything. At last there was another inroad of the Gauls
expected, and Camillus, though eighty years old, was for the fifth time
chosen Dictator, and gained a great victory upon the banks of the Anio.
The Senate begged him to continue Dictator till he could set their
affairs to rights, and he vowed to build a temple to Concord if he could
succeed. He saw indeed that it was time to yield, and persuaded the
Senate to think so; so that at last, in the year 367, Sextius was
elected consul, together with a patrician, Æmilius. Even then the Senate
would not receive Sextius till he was introduced by Camillus. From this
time the patricians and plebeians were on an equal footing as far as
regarded the magistracies, but the priesthood could belong only to the
patricians. Camillus lived to a great age, and was honored as having
three times saved his country. He died at last of a terrible pestilence
which raged in Rome in the year 365.
The priests recommended that they should invite the players from Etruria
to perform a drama in honor of the feats of the gods, and this was the
beginning of play-acting in Rome.
Not long after there yawned a terrible chasm in the Forum, most likely
from an earthquake, but nothing seemed to fill it up, and the priests
and augurs consulted their oracles about it. These made answer that it
would only close on receiving of what was most precious. Gold and
jewels were thrown in, but it still seemed bottomless, and at last the
augurs declared that it was courage that was the most precious thing in
Rome. Thereupon a patrician youth named Marcus Curtius decked himself in
his choicest robes, put on his armor, took his shield, sword, and spear,
mounted his horse, and leapt headlong into the gulf, thus giving it the
most precious of all things, courage and self-devotion. After this one
story says it closed of itself, another that it became easy to fill it
up with earth.
The Romans thought that such a sacrifice must please the gods and bring
them success in their battles; but in the war with the Hernici that was
now being waged the plebeian consul was killed, and no doubt there was
much difficulty in getting the patricians to obey a plebeian properly,
for in the course of the next twenty years it was necessary fourteen
times to appoint a Dictator for the defence of the state, so that it is
plain there must have been many alarms and much difficulty in enforcing
discipline; but, on the whole, success was with Rome, and the
neighboring tribes grew weaker.
[Illustration: CURTIUS LEAPING INTO THE GULF. (_From a Bas-Relief_.)]
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DEVOTION OF DECIUS.
B.C. 357
Other tribes of the Gauls did not fail to come again and make fresh
inroads on the valleys of the Tiber and Anio. Whenever they came,
instead of choosing men from the tribes to form an army, as in a war
with their neighbors, all the fighting men of the nation turned out to
oppose them, generally under a Dictator.
In one of these wars the Gauls came within three miles of Rome, and the
two hosts were encamped on the banks of the Anio, with a bridge between
them. Along this bridge strutted an enormous Gallic chief, much taller
than any of the Romans, boasting himself, and calling on any one of them
to come out and fight with him. Again it was a Manlius who
distinguished himself. Titus, a young man of that family, begged the
Dictator's permission to accept the challenge, and, having gained it, he
changed his round knight's shield for the square one of the foot
soldiers, and with his short sword came forward on the bridge. The Gaul
made a sweep at him with his broadsword, but, slipping within the guard,
Manlius stabbed the giant in two places, and as he fell cut off his
head, and took the torc, or broad twisted gold collar that was the mark
of all Gallic chieftains. Thence the brave youth was called Titus
Manlius Torquatus--a surname to make up for that of Capitolinus, which
had never been used again.
[Illustration: THE APENNINES.]
The next time the Gauls came, Marcus Valerius, a descendant of the old
hero Publicola, was consul, and gained a great victory. It was said that
in the midst of the fight a monstrous raven appeared flying over his
head, resting now and then on his helmet, but generally pecking at the
eyes of the Gauls and flapping its wings in their faces, so that they
fled discomfited. Thence he was called Corvus or Corvinus. The Gauls
never again came in such force, but a new enemy came against them,
namely, the Samnites, a people who dwelt to the south of them. They were
of Italian blood, mountaineers of the Southern Apennines, not unlike
the Romans in habits, language, and training, and the staunchest enemies
they had yet encountered. The war began from an entreaty from the people
of Campania to the Romans to defend them from the attacks of the
Samnites. For the Campanians, living in the rich plains, whose name is
still unchanged, were an idle, languid people, whom the stout men of
Samnium could easily overcome. The Romans took their part, and Valerius
Corvus gained a victory at Mount Gaurus; but the other consul, Cornelius
Cossus, fell into danger, having marched foolishly into a forest, shut
in by mountains, and with only one way out through a deep valley, which
was guarded by the Samnites. In this almost hopeless danger one of the
military tribunes, Publius Decius Mus, discovered a little hill above
the enemy's camp, and asked leave to lead a small body of men to seize
it, since he would be likely thus to draw off the Samnites, and while
they were destroying him, as he fully expected, the Romans could get out
of the valley. Hidden by the wood, he gained the hill, and there the
Samnites saw him, to their great amazement; and while they were
considering whether to attack him, the other Romans were able to march
out of the valley. Finding he was not attacked, Decius set guards, and,
when night came on, marched down again as quietly as possible to join
the army, who were now on the other side of the Samnite camp. Through
the midst of this he and his little camp went without alarm, until,
about half-way across, one Roman struck his foot against a shield. The
noise awoke the Samnites, but Decius caused his men to give a great
shout, and this, in the darkness, so confused the enemy that they missed
the little body of Romans, who safely gained their own camp. Decius cut
short the thanks and joy of the consul by advising him to fall at once
on the Samnite camp in its dismay, and this was done; the Samnites were
entirely routed, 30,000 killed, and their camp taken. Decius received
for his reward a hundred oxen, a white bull with gilded horns, and three
crowns--one of gold for courage, one of oak for having saved the lives
of his fellow-citizens, and one of grass for having taken the enemy's
camp--while all his men were for life to receive a double allowance of
corn. Decius offered up the white bull in sacrifice to Mars, and gave
the oxen to the companions of his glory.
Afterwards Valerius routed the Samnites again, and his troops brought in
120 standards and 40,000 shields which they had picked up, having been
thrown away by the enemy in their flight.
Peace was made for the time; but the Latins, now in alliance with Rome,
began to make war on the Samnites. They complained, and the Romans
feeling bound to take their part, a great Latin war began. Manlius
Torquatus and Decius Mus, the two greatest heroes of Rome, were consuls.
As the Latins and Romans were alike in dress, arms, and language, in
order to prevent taking friend for foe, strict orders were given that no
one should attack a Latin without orders, or go out of his rank, on pain
of death. A Latin champion came out boasting, as the two armies lay
beneath Mount Vesuvius, then a fair vine-clad hill showing no flame.
Young Manlius remembering his father's fame, darted out, fought hand to
hand with the Latin, slew him, and brought home his spoils to his
father's feet. He had forgotten that his father had only fought after
permission was given. The elder Manlius received him with stern grief.
He had broken the law of discipline, and he must die. His head was
struck off amid the grief and anger of the army. The battle was bravely
fought, but it went against the Romans at first. Then Decius,
recollecting a vision which had declared that a consul must devote
himself for his country, called on Valerius, the Pontifex Maximus, to
dedicate him. He took off his armor, put on his purple toga, covered his
head with a veil, and standing on a spear, repeated the words of
consecration after Valerius, then mounted his horse and rode in among
the Latins. They at first made way, but presently closed in and
overpowered him with a shower of darts; and thus he gave for his country
the life he had once offered for it.
The victory was won, and was so followed up that the Latins were forced
to yield to Rome. Some of the cities retained their own laws and
magistrates, but others had Romans with their families settled in them,
and were called colonies, while the Latin people themselves became Roman
citizens in everything but the power of becoming magistrates or voting
for them, being, in fact, very much what the earliest plebeians had been
before they acquired any rights.
CHAPTER XV.
THE SAMNITE WARS.
In the year 332, just when Alexander the Great was making his conquests
in the East, his uncle Alexander, king of Epirus, brother to his mother
Olympius, came to Italy, where there were so many Grecian citizens south
of the Samnites that the foot of Italy was called Magna Græcia, or
Greater Greece. He attacked the Samnites, and the Romans were not sorry
to see them weakened, and made an alliance with him. He stayed in Italy
about six years, and was then killed.
To overthrow the Samnites was the great object of Rome at this time, and
for this purpose they offered their protection and alliance to all the
cities that stood in dread of that people. One of the cities was founded
by men from the isle of Euboea, who called it Neapolis, or the New
City, to distinguish it from the old town near at hand, which they
called Palæopolis, or the Old City. The elder city held out against the
Romans, but was easily overpowered, while the new one submitted to Rome;
but these southern people were very shallow and fickle, and little to be
depended on, as they often changed sides between the Romans and
Samnites. In the midst of the siege of Palæopolis, the year of the
consulate came to an end, but the Senate, while causing two consuls as
usual to be elected, at home, would not recall Publilius Philo from the
siege, and therefore appointed him proconsul there. This was in 326, and
was the beginning of the custom of sending the ex-consul as proconsul to
command the armies or govern the provinces at a distance from home.
[Illustration: COMBAT BETWEEN A MIRMILLO AND A SAMNITE.]
[Illustration: COMBAT BETWEEN A LIGHT-ARMED GLADIATOR AND A SAMNITE.]
In 320, the consul falling sick, a dictator was appointed, Lucius
Papirius Cursor, one of the most stern and severe men in Rome. He was
obliged by some religious ceremony to return to Rome for a time, and he
forbade his lieutenant, Quintus Fabius Rullianus, to venture a battle in
his absence. But so good an opportunity offered that Fabius attacked the
enemy, beat them, and killed 20,000 men. Then selfishly unwilling to
have the spoils he had won carried in the dictator's triumph, he
burnt them all. Papirius arrived in great anger, and sentenced him to
death for his disobedience; but while the lictors were stripping him, he
contrived to escape from their hands among the soldiers, who closed on
him, so that he was able to get to Rome, where his father called the
Senate together, and they showed themselves so resolved to save his life
that Papirius was forced to pardon him, though not without reproaching
the Romans for having fallen from the stern justice of Brutus and
Manlius.
Two years later the two consuls, Titus Veturius and Spurius Posthumius,
were marching into Campania, when the Samnite commander, Pontius
Herennius, sent forth people disguised as shepherds to entice them into
a narrow mountain pass near the city of Candium, shut in by thick woods,
leading into a hollow curved valley, with thick brushwood on all sides,
and only one way out, which the Samnites blocked up with trunks of
trees. As soon as the Romans were within this place the other end was
blocked in the same way, and thus they were all closed up at the mercy
of their enemies.
What was to be done with them? asked the Samnites; and they went to
consult old Herennius, the father of Pontius, the wisest man in the
nation. "Open the way and let them all go free," he said.
"What! without gaining any advantage?"
"Then kill them all."
He was asked to explain such extraordinary advice. He said that to
release them generously would be to make them friends and allies for
ever; but if the war was to go on, the best thing for Samnium would be
to destroy such a number of enemies at a blow. But the Samnites could
not resolve upon either plan; so they took a middle course, the worst of
all, since it only made the Romans furious without weakening them. They
were made to take off all their armor and lay down their weapons, and
thus to pass out under the yoke, namely, three spears set up like a
doorway. The consuls, after agreeing to a disgraceful peace, had to go
first, wearing only their undermost garment, then all the rest, two and
two, and if any one of them gave an angry look, he was immediately
knocked down and killed. They went on in silence into Campania, where,
when night came on, they all threw themselves, half-naked, silent, and
hungry upon the grass. The people of Capua came out to help them, and
brought them food and clothing, trying to do them all honor and comfort
them, but they would neither look up nor speak. And thus they went on
to Rome, where everybody had put on mourning, and all the ladies went
without their jewels, and the shops in the Forum were closed. The
unhappy men stole into their houses at night one by one, and the consuls
would not resume their office, but two were appointed to serve instead
for the rest of the year.
[Illustration: ANCIENT ROME.]
Revenge was all that was thought of, but the difficulty was the peace
to which the consuls had sworn. Posthumius said that if it was disavowed
by the Senate, he, who had been driven to make it, must be given back to
the Samnites. So, with his hands tied, he was taken back to the Samnite
camp by a herald and delivered over; but at that moment Posthumius gave
the herald a kick, crying out, "I am now a Samnite, and have insulted
you, a Roman herald. This is a just cause of war." Pontius and the
Samnites were very angry, and they said it was an unworthy trick; but
they did not prevent Posthumius from going safely back to the Romans,
who considered him to have quite retrieved his honor.
A battle was fought, in which Pontius and 7000 men were forced to lay
down their arms and pass under the yoke in their turn. The struggle
between these two fierce nations lasted altogether seventy years, and
the Romans had many defeats. They had other wars at the same time. They
never subdued Etruria, and in the battle of Sentinum, fought with the
Gauls, the consul Decius Mus, devoted himself exactly as his father had
done at Vesuvius, and by his death won the victory.
The Samnite wars may be considered as ending in 290, when the chief
general of Samnium, Pontius Telesimus, was made prisoner and put to
death at Rome. The lands in the open country were quite subdued, but
many Samnites still lived in the fastnesses of the Apennines in the
south, which have ever since been the haunt of wild untamed men.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XVI.
THE WAR WITH PYRRHUS.
B.C. 280-271.
In the Grecian History you remember that Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, the
townsman of Alexander the Great, made an expedition to Italy. This was
the way it came about. The city of Tarentum was a Spartan colony at the
head of the gulf that bears its name. It was as proud as its parent, but
had lost all the grave sternness of manners, and was as idle and fickle
as the other places in that languid climate. The Tarentines first
maltreated some Roman ships which put into their gulf, and then insulted
the ambassador who was sent to complain. Then when the terrible Romans
were found to be really coming to revenge their honor, the Tarentines
took fright, and sent to beg Pyrrhus to come to their aid.
He readily accepted the invitation, and coming to Italy with 28,000 men
and twenty elephants, hoped to conquer the whole country; but he found
the Tarentines not to be trusted, and soon weary of entertaining him,
while they could not keep their promises of aid from the other Greeks of
Italy.
[Illustration: PYRRHUS.]
The Romans marched against him, and there was a great battle on the
banks of the river Siris, where the fighting was very hard, but when the
elephants charged the Romans broke and fled, and were only saved by
nightfall from being entirely destroyed. So great, however, had been
Pyrrhus' loss that he said, "Such another victory, and I shall have to
go back alone to Epirus."
He thought he had better treat with the Romans, and sent his favorite
counsellor Kineas to offer to make peace, provided the Romans would
promise safety to his Italian allies, and presents were sent to the
senators and their wives to induce them to listen favorably. People in
ancient Greece expected such gifts to back a suit; but Kineas found that
nobody in Rome would hear of being bribed, though many were not
unwilling to make peace. Blind old Appius Claudius, who had often been
consul, caused himself to be led into the Senate to oppose it, for it
was hard to his pride to make peace as defeated men. Kineas was much
struck with Rome, where he found a state of things like the best days of
Greece, and, going back to his master, told him that the senate-house
was like a temple, and those who sat there like an assembly of kings,
and that he feared they were fighting with the Hydra of Lerna, for as
soon as they had destroyed one Roman army another had sprung up in its
place.
However, the Romans wanted to treat about the prisoners Pyrrhus had
taken, and they sent Caius Fabricius to the Greek camp for the purpose.
Kineas reported him to be a man of no wealth, but esteemed as a good
soldier and an honest man. Pyrrhus tried to make him take large
presents, but nothing would Fabricius touch; and then, in the hope of
alarming him, in the middle of a conversation the hangings of one side
of the tent suddenly fell, and disclosed the biggest of all the
elephants, who waved his trunk over Fabricius and trumpeted
frightfully. The Roman quietly turned round and smiled as he said to the
king, "I am no more moved by your gold than by your great beast."
[Illustration: ROMAN ORATOR.]
At supper there was a conversation on Greek philosophy, of which the
Romans as yet knew nothing. When the doctrine of Epicurus was mentioned,
that man's life was given to be spent in the pursuit of joy, Fabricius
greatly amused the company by crying out, "O Hercules! grant that the
Greeks may be heartily of this mind so long as we have to fight with
them."
Pyrrhus even tried to persuade Fabricius to enter his service, but the
answer was, "Sir. I advise you not; for if your people once tasted of my
rule, they would all desire me to govern them instead of you." Pyrrhus
consented to let the prisoners go home, but, if no peace were made, they
were to return again as soon as the Saturnalia were over; and this was
faithfully done. Fabricius was consul the next year, and thus received a
letter from Pyrrhus' physician, offering for a reward to rid the Romans
of his master by poison. The two consuls sent it to the king with the
following letter:--"Caius Fabricius and Quintus Æmilius, consuls, to
Pyrrhus, king, greeting. You choose your friends and foes badly. This
letter will show that you make war with honest men and trust rogues and
knaves. We tell you, not to win your favor, but lest your ruin might
bring on the reproach of ending the war by treachery instead of force."
Pyrrhus made enquiry, put the physician to death, and by way of
acknowledgment released the captives, trying again to make peace; but
the Romans would accept no terms save that he should give up the
Tarentines and go back in the same ships. A battle was fought in the
wood of Asculum. Decius Mus declared he would devote himself like his
father and grandfather; but Pyrrhus heard of this, and sent word that he
had given orders that Decius should not be killed, but taken alive and
scourged; and this prevented him. The Romans were again forced back by
the might of the elephants, but not till night fell on them. Pyrrhus had
been wounded, and hosts of Greeks had fallen, among them many of
Pyrrhus' chief friends.
He then went to Sicily, on an invitation from the Greeks settled there,
to defend them from the Carthaginians; but finding them as little
satisfactory as the Italian Greeks, he suddenly came back to Tarentum.
This time one of the consuls was Marcus Curius--called Dentatus, because
he had been born with teeth in his mouth--a stout, plain old Roman, very
stern, for when he levied troops against Pyrrhus, the first man who
refused to serve was punished by having his property seized and sold. He
then marched southward, and at Beneventum at length entirely defeated
Pyrrhus, and took four of his elephants. Pyrrhus was obliged to return
to Epirus, and the Roman steadiness had won the day after nine years.
Dentatus had the grandest triumph that had ever been known at Rome,
with the elephants walking in the procession, the first that the Romans
had ever seen. All the spoil was given up to the commonwealth; and when,
some time after, it was asserted that he had taken some for himself, it
turned out that he had only kept one old wooden vessel, which he used in
sacrificing to the gods.
The Greeks of Southern Italy had behaved very ill to Pyrrhus and turned
against him. The Romans found them so fickle and troublesome that they
were all reduced in one little war after another. The Tarentines had to
surrender and lose their walls and their fleet, and so had the people of
Sybaris, who have become a proverb for idleness, for they were so lazy
that they were said to have killed all their crowing-birds for waking
them too early in the morning. All the peninsula of Italy now belonged
to Rome, and great roads were made of paved stones connecting them with
it, many of which remain to this day, even the first of all, called the
Appian Way, from Rome to Capua, which was made under the direction of
the censor Appius Claudius, during the Samnite war.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE FIRST PUNIC WAR.
264-240.
We are now come to the time when Rome became mixed up in wars with
nations beyond Italy. There was a great settlement of the Phoenicians,
the merchants of the old world, at Carthage, on the northern coast of
Africa, the same place at which Virgil afterwards described Æneas as
spending so much time. Dido, the queen who was said to have founded
Carthage when fleeing from her wicked brother-in-law at Tyre, is thought
to have been an old goddess, and the religion and manners of the
Carthaginians were thoroughly Phoenician, or, as the Romans called them,
Punic. They had no king, but a Senate, and therewith rulers called by
the name that is translated as judges in the Bible; and they did not
love war, only trade, and spread out their settlements for this purpose
all over the coast of the Mediterranean, from Spain to the Black Sea,
wherever a country had mines, wool, dyes, spices, or men to trade with;
and their sailors were the boldest to be found anywhere, and were the
only ones who had passed beyond the Pillars of Hercules, namely, the
Straits of Gibraltar, in the Atlantic Ocean. They built handsome cities,
and country houses with farms and gardens round them, and had all tokens
of wealth and luxury--ivory, jewels, and spices from India, pearls from
the Persian Gulf, gold from Spain, silver from the Balearic Isles, tin
from the Scilly Isles, amber from the Baltic; and they had forts to
protect their settlements. They generally hired the men of the
countries, where they settled, to fight their battles, sometimes under
hired Greek captains, but often under generals of their own.
[Illustration: ROMAN SHIP.]
The first place where they did not have everything their own way was
Sicily. The old inhabitants of the island were called Sicels, a rough
people; but besides these there were a great number of Greek
settlements, also of Carthaginian ones, and these two hated one another.
The Carthaginians tried to overthrow the Greeks, and Pyrrhus, by
coming to help his countrymen, only made them more bitter against one
another. When he went away he exclaimed, "What an arena we leave for the
Romans and Carthaginians to contend upon!" so sure was he that these two
great nations must soon fight out the struggle for power.
The beginning of the struggle was, however, brought on by another cause.
Messina, the place founded long ago by the brave exiles of Messene, when
the Spartans had conquered their state, had been seized by a troop of
Mamertines, fierce Italians from Mamertum; and these, on being
threatened by Xiero, king of Syracuse, sent to offer to become subjects
to the Romans, thus giving them the command of the port which secured
the entrance of the island. The Senate had great scruples about
accepting the offer, and supporting a set of mere robbers; but the two
consuls and all the people could not withstand the temptation, and it
was resolved to assist the Mamertines. Thus began what was called the
First Punic War. The difficulty was, however, want of ships. The Romans
had none of their own, and though they collected a few from their Greek
allies in Italy, it was not in time to prevent some of the Mamertines
from surrendering the citadel to Xanno, the Carthaginian general, who
thought himself secure, and came down to treat with the Roman tribune
Claudius, haughtily bidding the Romans no more to try to meddle with the
sea, for they should not be allowed so much as to wash their hands in
it. Claudius, angered at this, treacherously laid hands on Xanno, and he
agreed to give up the castle on being set free; but he had better have
remained a prisoner, for the Carthaginians punished him with
crucifixion, and besieged Messina, but in vain.
The Romans felt that a fleet was necessary, and set to work to build war
galleys on the pattern of a Carthaginian one which had been wrecked upon
their coast. While a hundred ships were building, oarsmen were trained
to row on dry land, and in two months the fleet put to sea. Knowing that
there was no chance of being able to fight according to the regular
rules of running the beaks of their galleys into the sides of those of
their enemies, they devised new plans of letting heavy weights descend
on the ships of the opposite fleet, and then of letting drawbridges down
by which to board them. The Carthaginians, surprised and dismayed, when
thus attacked off Mylæ by the consul Duilius, were beaten and chased to
Sardinia, where their unhappy commander was nailed to a cross by his own
soldiers; while Duilius not only received in Rome a grand triumph for
his first naval victory, but it was decreed that he should never go out
into the city at night without a procession of torch-bearers.
The Romans now made up their minds to send an expedition to attack the
Carthaginian power not only in Sicily but in Africa, and this was placed
under the command of a sturdy plebeian consul, Marcus Attilius Regulus.
He fought a great battle with the Carthaginian fleet on his way, and he
had even more difficulty with his troops, who greatly dreaded the
landing in Africa as a place of unknown terror. He landed, however, at
some distance from the city, and did not at once advance on it. When he
did, according to the story current at Rome, he encountered on the banks
of the River Bagrada an enormous serpent, whose poisonous breath killed
all who approached it, and on whose scales darts had no effect. At last
the machines for throwing huge stones against city walls were used
against it; its backbone was broken, and it was at last killed, and its
skin sent to Rome.
The Romans met other enemies, whom they defeated, and gained much
plunder. The Senate, understanding that the Carthaginians were cooped up
within their walls, recalled half the army. Regulus wished much to
return, as the slave who tilled his little farm had run away with his
plough, and his wife was in distress; but he was so valuable that he
could not be recalled, and he remained and soon took Tunis. The
Carthaginians tried to win their gods' favor back by offering horrid
human sacrifices to Moloch and Baal, and then hired a Spartan general
named Xanthippus, who defeated the Romans, chiefly by means of the
elephants, and made Regulus prisoner. The Romans, who hated the
Carthaginians so much as to believe them capable of any wickedness,
declared that in their jealousy of Xanthippus' victory, they sent him
home to Greece in a vessel so arranged as to founder at sea.
[Illustration: ROMAN ORDER OF BATTLE.]
However, the Romans, after several disasters in Sicily, gained a great
victory near Panormus, capturing one hundred elephants, which were
brought to Rome to be hunted by the people that they might lose their
fear of them. The Carthaginians were weakened enough to desire peace,
and they sent Regulus to propose it, making him swear to return if he
did not succeed. He came to the outskirts of the city, but would not
enter. He said he was no Roman proconsul, but the slave of Carthage.
However, the Senate came out to hear him, and he gave the message, but
added that the Romans ought not to accept these terms, but to stand
out for much better ones, giving such reasons that the whole people was
persuaded. He was entreated to remain and not meet the angry men of
Carthage; but nothing would persuade him to break his word, and he went
back. The Romans told dreadful stories of the treatment he met with--how
his eyelids were cut off and he was put in the sunshine, and at last he
was nailed up in a barrel lined with spikes and rolled down hill. Some
say that this was mere report, and that Carthaginian prisoners at Rome
were as savagely treated; but at any rate the constancy of Regulus has
always been a proverb.
The war went on, and one of the proud Claudius family was in command at
Trepanum, in Sicily, when the enemy's fleet came in sight. Before a
battle the Romans always consulted the sacred fowls that were carried
with the army. Claudius was told that their augury was against a
battle--they would not eat. "Then let them drink," he cried, and threw
them into the sea. His impiety, as all felt it, was punished by an utter
defeat, and he killed himself to avoid an enquiry. The war went on by
land and sea all over and around Sicily, till at the end of twenty-four
years peace was made, just after another great sea-fight, in which Rome
had the victory. She made the Carthaginians give up all they held in
Sicily, restore their prisoners, make a large payment, and altogether
humble their claims; thus beginning a most bitter hatred towards the
conquerors, who as greatly hated and despised them. Thus ended the First
Punic War.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XVIII.
CONQUEST OF CISALPINE GAUL.
240-219.
After the end of the Punic war, Carthage fell into trouble with her
hired soldiers, and did not interfere with the Romans for a long time,
while they went on to arrange the government of Sicily into what they
called a province, which was ruled by a proprætor for a year after his
magistracy at home. The Greek kingdom of Syracuse indeed still remained
as an ally of Rome, and Messina and a few other cities were allowed to
choose their own magistrates and govern themselves.
Soon after, Sardinia and Corsica were given up to the Romans by the
hired armies of the Carthaginians, and as the natives fought hard
against Rome, when they were conquered they were for the most part sold
as slaves. These two islands likewise had a proprætor.
The Romans now had all the peninsula south of themselves, and as far
north as Ariminim (now shortened into Rimini), but all beyond belonged
to the Gauls--the Cisalpine Gauls, or Gauls on this side the Alps, as
the Romans called them; while those on the other side were called
Transalpine Gauls, or Gauls across the Alps. These northern Gauls were
gathering again for an inroad on the south, and in the midst of the
rumors of this danger there was a great thunderstorm at Rome, and the
Capitol was struck by lightning. The Sybilline books were searched into
to see what this might mean, and a warning was found, "Beware of the
Gauls." Moreover, there was a saying that the Greeks and Gauls should
one day enjoy the Forum; but the Romans fancied they could satisfy this
prophecy by burying a man and woman of each nation, slaves, in the
middle of the Forum, and then they prepared to attack the Gauls in their
own country before the inroad could be made. There was a great deal of
hard fighting, lasting for years; and in the course of it the consul,
Caius Flaminius, began the great road which has since been called after
him the Flaminian Way, and was the great northern road from Rome, as
the Appian Way was the southern.
[Illustration: THE WOUNDED GAUL.]
The great hero of the war was Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who had already
made himself known for his dauntless courage. As consul, he fought a
desperate battle on the banks of the Po with the Gauls of both sides the
Alps, and himself killed their king or chief, Viridomar. He brought the
spoils to Rome, and hung them in the Temple of Jupiter. It was only the
third time in the history of Rome that such a thing had been done.
Cisalpine Gaul was thus subdued, and another road was made to secure
it; while in the short peace that followed the gates of the Temple of
Janus were shut, having stood open ever since the reign of Numa.
The Romans were beginning to make their worship the same with that of
the Greeks. They sent offerings to Greek temples, said that their old
gods were the same as those of the Greeks, only under different names,
and sent an embassy to Epidaurus to ask for a statue of Esculapius, the
god of medicine and son of Phoebus Apollo. The emblem of Esculapius was
a serpent, and tame serpents were kept about his temple at Epidaurus.
One of these glided into the Roman galley that had come for the statue,
and it was treated with great respect by all the crew until they sailed
up the Tiber, when it made its way out of the vessel and swam to the
island which had been formed by the settling of the mud round the heap
of corn that had been thrown into the river when Porsena wasted the
country. This was supposed to mean that the god himself took possession
of the place, and a splendid temple there rose in his honor.
Another imitation of the Greeks which came into fashion at this time had
a sad effect on the Romans. The old funerals in Greek poems had ended
by games and struggles between swordsmen. Two brothers of the Brutus
family first showed off such a game at their father's funeral, and it
became a regular custom, not only at funerals, but whenever there was
need to entertain the people, to show off fights of swordsmen. The
soldier captives from conquered nations were used in this way; and some
persons kept schools of slaves, who were trained for these fights and
called gladiators. The battle was a real one, with sharp weapons, for
life or death; and when a man was struck down, he was allowed to live or
sentenced to death according as the spectators turned down or turned up
their thumbs. The Romans fancied that the sight trained them to be
brave, and to despise death and wounds; but the truth was that it only
made them hard-hearted, and taught them to despise other people's
pain--a very different thing from despising their own.
Another thing that did great harm was the making it lawful for a man to
put away a wife who had no children. This ended by making the Romans
much less careful to have one good wife, and the Roman ladies became
much less noble and excellent than they had been in the good old days.
[Illustration: HANNIBAL'S VOW.]
In the meantime, the Carthaginians, having lost the three islands,
began to spread their settlements further in Spain, where their chief
colony was New Carthage, or, as we call it, Carthagena. The mountains
were full of gold mines, and the Iberians, the nation who held them,
were brave and warlike, so that there was much fighting to train up
fresh armies. Hamilcar, the chief general in command there, had four
sons, whom he said were lion whelps being bred up against Rome. He took
them with him to Spain, and at a great sacrifice for the success of his
arms the youngest and most promising, Hannibal, a boy of nine years old,
was made to lay his hand on the altar of Baal and take an oath that he
would always be the enemy of the Romans. Hamilcar was killed in battle,
but Hannibal grew up to be all that he had hoped, and at twenty-six was
in command of the army. He threatened the Iberians of Saguntum, who sent
to ask help from Rome. A message was sent to him to forbid him to
disturb the ally of Rome; but he had made up his mind for war, and never
even asked the Senate of Carthage what was to be done, but went on with
the siege of Saguntum. Rome was busy with a war in Illyria, and could
send no help, and the Saguntines held out with the greatest bravery and
constancy, month after month, till they were all on the point of
starvation, then kindled a great fire, slew all their wives and
children, and let Hannibal win nothing but a pile of smoking ruins.
[Illustration: IN THE PYRENEES.]
Again the Romans sent to Carthage to complain, but the Senate there had
made up their minds that war there must be, and that it was a good time
when Rome had a war in Illyria on her hands, and Cisalpine Gaul hardly
subdued; and they had such a general as Hannibal, though they did not
know what a wonderful scheme he had in his mind, namely, to make his
way by land from Spain to Italy, gaining the help of the Gauls, and
stirring up all those nations of Italy who had fought so long against
Rome. His march, which marks the beginning of the Second Punic War,
started from the banks of the Ebro in the beginning of the summer of
219. His army was 20,000 foot and 12,000 horse, partly Carthaginian,
partly Gaul and Iberian. The horsemen were Moorish, and he had
thirty-seven elephants. He left his brother Hasdrubal with 10,000 men at
the foot of the Pyrenees and pushed on, but he could not reach the Alps
before the late autumn, and his passage is one of the greatest wonders
of history. Roads there were none, and he had to force his way up the
passes of the Little St. Bernard through snow and ice, terrible to the
men and animals of Africa, and fighting all the way, so that men and
horses perished in great numbers, and only seven of the elephants were
left when he at length descended into the plains of Northern Italy,
where he hoped the Cisalpine Gauls would welcome him.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIX.
THE SECOND PUNIC WAR.
219.
When the Romans heard that Hannibal had passed the Pyrenees, they had
two armies on foot, one under Publius Cornelius Scipio, which was to go
to Spain, and the other under Tiberius Sempronius Longus, to attack
Africa. They changed their plan, and kept Sempronius to defend Italy,
while Scipio went by sea to Marsala, a Greek colony in Gaul, to try to
stop Hannibal at the Rhone; but he was too late, and therefore, sending
on most of his army to Spain, he came back himself with his choicest
troops. With these he tried to stop the enemy from crossing the river
Ticinus, but he was defeated and so badly wounded that his life was only
saved by the bravery of his son, who led him out of the battle.
[Illustration: MEETING OF HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO AT ZAMA.]
Before he was able to join the army again, Sempronius had fought
another battle with Hannibal on the banks of the Trebia and suffered a
terrible defeat. But winter now came on, and the Carthaginians found it
very hard to bear in the marshes of the Arno. Hannibal himself was so
ill that he only owed his life to the last of his elephants, which
carried him safely through when he was almost blind, and in the end he
lost an eye. In the spring he went on ravaging the country in hopes to
make the two new consuls, Flaminius and Servilius, fight with him, but
they were too cautious, until at last Flaminius attacked him in a heavy
fog on the shore of Lake Trasimenus. It is said that an earthquake shook
the ground, and that the eager warriors never perceived it; but again
the Romans lost, Flaminius was killed, and there was a dreadful
slaughter, for Hannibal had sworn to give no quarter to a Roman. The
only thing that was hopeful for Rome was that neither Gauls, Etruscans,
nor Italians showed any desire to rise in favor of Hannibal; and though
he was now very near Rome, he durst not besiege it without the help of
the people around to bring him supplies, so he only marched southwards,
hoping to gain the support of the Greek colonies. A dictator was
appointed, Quintus Fabius Maximus, who saw that, by strengthening all
the garrisons in the towns and cutting off all provisions, he should
wear the enemy out at last. As he always put off a battle, he was called
Cunctator, or the Delayer; but at last he had the Carthaginians enclosed
as in a trap in the valley of the river Vulturnus, and hoped to cut them
off, posting men in ambush to fall on them on their morning's march.
Hannibal guessed that this must be the plan; and at night he had the
cattle in the camp collected, fastened torches to their horns, and drove
them up the hills. The Romans, fancying themselves surrounded by the
enemy, came out of their hiding-places to fall back on the camp, and
Hannibal and his army safely escaped. This mischance made the Romans
weary of the Delayer's policy, and when the year was out, and two
consuls came in, though one of them, Lucius Æmilius Paulus, would have
gone on in the same cautious plan of starving Hannibal out without a
battle, the other, Caius Terentius Varro, who commanded on alternate
days with him, was determined on a battle. Hannibal so contrived that it
was fought on the plain of Cannæ, where there was plenty of space to use
his Moorish horse. It was Varro's day of command, and he dashed at the
centre of the enemy; Hannibal opened a space for him, then closed in on
both sides with his terrible horse, and made a regular slaughter of the
Romans. The last time that the consul Æmilius was seen was by a tribune
named Lentulus, who found him sitting on a stone faint and bleeding, and
would have given him his own horse to escape, but Æmilius answered that
he had no mind to have to accuse his comrade of rashness, and had rather
die. A troop of enemies coming up, Lentulus rode off, and looking back,
saw his consul fall, pierced with darts. So many Romans had been killed,
that Hannibal sent to Carthage a basket containing 10,000 of the gold
rings worn by the knights.
[Illustration: ARCHIMEDES.]
Hannibal was only five days' march beyond Rome, and his officers wanted
him to turn back and attack it in the first shock of the defeat, but he
could not expect to succeed without more aid from home, and he wanted to
win over the Greek cities of the south; so he wintered in Campania,
waiting for the fresh troops he expected from Africa or from Spain,
where his brother Mago was preparing an army. But the Carthaginians did
not care about Hannibal's campaigns in Italy, and sent no help; and
Publius Cornelius Scipio and his brother, with a Roman army in Spain,
were watching Mago and preventing him from marching, until at last he
gave them battle and defeated and killed them both. But he was not
allowed to go to Italy to his brother, who, in the meantime, found his
army so unstrung and ill-disciplined in the delightful but languid
Campania, that the Romans declared the luxuries of Capua were their best
allies. He stayed in the south, however, trying to gain the alliance of
the king of Macedon, and stirring up Syracuse to revolt. Marcellus, who
was consul for the third time, was sent to reduce the city, which made a
famous defence, for it contained Archimedes, the greatest mathematician
of his time, who devised wonderful machines for crushing the besiegers
in unexpected ways; but at last Marcellus found a weak part of the walls
and surprised the citizens. He had given orders that Archimedes should
be saved, but a soldier broke into the philosopher's room without
knowing him, and found him so intent on his study that he had never
heard the storming of the city. The man brandished his sword. "Only
wait," muttered Archimedes, "till I have found out my problem;" but the
man, not understanding him, killed him.
Hannibal remained in Italy, maintaining himself there with wonderful
skill, though with none of the hopes with which he had set out. His
brother Hasdrubal did succeed in leaving Spain with an army to help him,
but was met on the river Metaurus by Tiberius Claudius Nero, beaten, and
slain. His head was cut off by Nero's order, and thrown into Hannibal's
camp to give tidings of his fate.
Young Scipio, meantime, had been sent to Spain, where he gained great
advantages, winning the friendship of the Iberians, and gaining town
after town till Mago had little left but Gades and the extreme south.
Scipio was one of the noblest of the Romans, brave, pious, and what was
more unusual, of such sweet and winning temper, that it was said of him
that wherever he went he might have been a king.
On returning to Rome, he showed the Senate that the best way to get
Hannibal out of Italy was to attack Africa. Cautious old Fabius doubted,
but Scipio was sent to Sicily, where he made an alliance with
Massinissa, the Moorish king in Africa; and, obtaining leave to carry
out his plan, he was sent thither, and so alarmed Carthage, that
Hannibal was recalled to defend his own country, where he had not been
since he was a child. A great battle took place at Zama between him and
Hannibal, in which Scipio was the conqueror, and the loss of Carthage
was so terrible that the Romans were ready to have marched in on her and
made her their subject, but Scipio persuaded them to be forbearing.
Carthage was to pay an immense tribute, and swear never to make war on
any ally of Rome. And thus ended the Second Punic War, in the year 201.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XX.
THE FIRST EASTERN WAR.
215-183.
Scipio remained in Africa till he had arranged matters and won such a
claim to Massinissa's gratitude that this king of Numidia was sure to
watch over the interests of Rome. Scipio then returned home, and entered
Rome with a grand triumph, all the nobler for himself that he did not
lead Hannibal in his chains. He had been too generous to demand that so
brave an enemy should be delivered up to him. He received the surname of
Africanus, and was one of the most respected and beloved of Romans. He
was the first who began to take up Greek learning and culture, and to
exchange the old Roman ruggedness for the graces of philosophy and
poetry. Indeed the Romans were beginning to have much to do with the
Greeks, and the war they entered upon now was the first for the sake of
spreading their own power. All the former ones had been in self-defence,
and the new one did in fact spring out of the Punic war, for the
Carthaginians had tried to persuade Philip, king of Macedon, to follow
in the track of Pyrrhus, and come and help Hannibal in Southern Italy.
The Romans had kept him off by stirring up the robber Ætolians against
him; and when he began to punish these wild neighbors, the Romans
leagued themselves with the old Greek cities which Macedon oppressed,
and a great war took place.
Titus Quinctius Flaminius commanded in Greece for four years, first as
consul and then as proconsul. His crowning victory was at Cynocephalæ,
or the Dogshead Rocks, where he so broke the strength of Macedon that at
the Isthmian games he proclaimed the deliverance of Greece, and in their
joy the people crowded round him with crowns and garlands, and shouted
so loud that birds in the air were said to have dropped down at the
sound.
Macedon had cities in Asia Minor, and the king of Syria's enemy,
Antiochus the Great, hoped to master them, and even to conquer Greece by
the help of Hannibal, who had found himself unable to live in Carthage
after his defeat, and was wandering about to give his services to any
one who was a foe of Rome.
As Rome took the part of Philip, as her subject and ally, there was soon
full scope for his efforts; but the Syrians were such wretched troops
that even Hannibal could do nothing with them, and the king himself
would not attend to his advice, but wasted his time in pleasure in the
isle of Euboea. So the consul Acilius first beat them at Thermopylæ, and
then, on Lucius Cornelius Scipio being sent to conduct the war, his
great brother Africanus volunteered to go with him as his lieutenant,
and together they followed Antiochus into Asia Minor, and gained such
advantages that the Syrian was obliged to sue for peace. The Romans
replied by requiring of him to give up all Asia Minor as far as Mount
Tarsus, and in despair he risked a battle in Magnesia, and met with a
total defeat; 80,000 Greeks and Syrians being overthrown by 50,000
Romans. Neither Africanus nor Hannibal were present in this battle,
since the first was ill, and the second was besieged in a city in
Pamphylia; but while terms of peace were being made, the two are said
have met on friendly terms, and Scipio asked Hannibal whom he thought
the greatest of generals. "Alexander," was the answer. "Whom the next
greatest?" "Pyrrhus." "Whom do you rank as the third?" "Myself," said
Hannibal. "But if you had beaten me?" asked Scipio. "Then I would have
placed myself before Alexander."
[Illustration: HANNIBAL]
The Romans insisted that Hannibal should be dismissed by Antiochus,
though Scipio declared that this was ungenerous; but they dreaded his
never-ceasing enmity; and when he took refuge with the king of Bothnia,
they still required that he should be given up or driven a way. On this,
Hannibal, worn-out and disappointed, put an end to his own life by
poison, saying he would rid the Romans of their fear of an old man.
The provinces taken from Antiochus were given to Eumenes, king of
Pergamus, who was to reign over them as tributary to the Romans. Lucius
Scipio received the surname of Asiaticus, and the two brothers returned
to Rome; but they had been too generous and merciful to the conquered to
suit the grasping spirit that had begun to prevail at Rome, and directly
after his triumph Lucius was accused of having taken to himself an undue
share of the spoil. His brother was too indignant at the shameful
accusation to think of letting him justify himself, but tore up his
accounts in the face of the people. The tribune, Nævius, thereupon
spitefully called upon him to give an account of the spoil of Carthage
taken twenty years before. The only reply he gave was to exclaim, "This
is the day of the victory of Zama. Let us give thanks to the gods for
it;" and he led all that was noble and good in Rome with him to the
temple of Jupiter and offered the anniversary sacrifice. No one durst
say another word against him or his brother; but he did not choose to
remain among the citizens who had thus insulted him, but went away to
his estate at Liternum, and when he died, desired to be buried there,
saying that he would not even leave his bones to his ungrateful country.
The Cornelian family was the only one among the higher Romans who buried
instead of burning their dead. He left no son, only a daughter, who was
married to Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, a brave officer who was among
those who were sent to finish reducing Spain. It was a long, terrible
war, fought city by city, inch by inch; but Gracchus is said to have
taken no less than three hundred fortresses. But he was a milder
conqueror than some of the Romans, and tried to tame and civilize the
wild races instead of treating them with the terrible severity shown by
Marcus Porcius Cato, the sternest of all old Romans. However, by the
year 178 Spain had been reduced to obedience, and the cities and the
coast were in good order, though the mountains harbored fierce tribes
always ready for revolt.
Gracchus died early, and Cornelia, his widow, devoted herself to the
cause of his three children, refusing to be married again, which was
very uncommon in a Roman lady. When a lady asked her to show her her
ornaments, she called her two boys, Tiberius and Caius, and their sister
Sempronia, and said, "These are my jewels;" and when she was
complimented on being the daughter of Africanus, she said that the
honor she should care more for was the being called "the mother of the
Gracchi."
It was not, however, one of her sons that was chosen to carry on their
grandfather's name and the sacrifices of the Cornelian family. Probably
Caius was not born when Scipio died, for his choice had been the second
son of his sister and of Lucius Æmilius Paulus (son of him who died at
Cannæ.) This child being adopted by his uncle, was called Publius
Cornelius Scipio Æmilianus, and when he grew up was to marry his cousin
Sempronia.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXI.
THE CONQUEST OF GREECE, CORINTH, AND CARTHAGE.
179--145.
It was a great change when Rome, which to the Greeks of Pyrrhus' time
had seemed so rude and simple, was thought such a school of policy that
Greek and half-Greek kings sent their sons to be educated there, partly
as hostages for their own peaceableness, and partly to learn the spirit
of Roman rule. The first king who did this was Philip of Macedon, who
sent his son Demetrius to be brought up at Rome; but when he came back,
his father and brother were jealous of him, and he was soon put to
death.
When his brother Perseus came to the throne, there was hatred between
him and the Romans, and ere long he was accused of making war on their
allies. He offered to make peace, but they replied that they would hear
nothing till he had laid down his arms, and this he would not do, so
that Lucius Æmilius Paulus (the brother-in-law of Scipio) was sent to
reduce him. As Æmilius came into his own house after receiving the
appointment, he met his little daughter crying, and when he asked her
what was the matter, she answered, "Oh, father, Perseus is dead!" She
meant her little dog, but he kissed her and thanked her for the good
omen. He overran Macedon, and gained the great battle of Pydna, after
which Perseus was obliged to give himself up into the hands of the
Romans, begging, however, not to be made to walk in Æmilius' triumph.
The general answered that he might obtain that favor from himself,
meaning that he could die by his own hand; but Perseus did not take the
hint, which seems to us far more shocking than it did to a Roman; he did
walk in the triumph, and died a few years after in Italy. Æmilius' two
sons were with him throughout this campaign, though still boys under
Polybius, their Achaian tutor. Macedon was divided into four provinces,
and became entirely subject to Rome.
[Illustration: CORINTH.]
The Greeks of the Achaian League began to have quarrels among
themselves, and when the Romans interfered a fierce spirit broke out,
and they wanted to have their old freedom, forgetting how entirely
unable they were to stand against the power of the Romans. Caius
Cæcilius Metellus, a man of one of the best and most gracious Roman
families, was patient with them and did his best to pacify them, being
most unwilling to ruin the noble old historical cities; but these
foolish Greeks fancied that his kindness showed weakness, and forced on
the war, sending a troop to guard the pass of Thermopylæ, but they were
swept away. Unfortunately, Metellus had to go out of office, and Lucius
Mummius, a fierce, rude, and ignorant soldier, came in his stead to
complete the conquest. Corinth was taken, utterly ruined and plundered
throughout, and a huge amount of treasure was sent to Rome, as well as
pictures and statues famed all over the world. Mummius was very much
laughed at for having been told they must be carried in his triumph; and
yet, not understanding their beauty, he told the sailors to whose charge
they were given, that if they were lost, new ones must be supplied.
However, he was an honest man, who did not help himself out of the
plunder, as far too many were doing. After that, Achaia was made a Roman
province.
At this time the third and last Punic war was going on. The old Moorish
king, Massinissa, had been continually tormenting Carthage ever since
she had been weak, and declaring that Phoenician strangers had no
business in Africa. The Carthaginians, who had no means of defending
themselves, complained; but the Romans would not listen, hoping,
perhaps, that they would be goaded at last into attacking the Moor, and
thus giving a pretext for a war. Old Marcus Porcius Cato, who was sent
on a message to Carthage, came back declaring that it was not safe to
let so mighty a city of enemies stand so near. He brought back a branch
of figs fresh and good, which he showed the Senate in proof of how near
she was, and ended each sentence with saying, "_Delenda est Carthago_"
(Carthage is to be wiped out). He died that same year at ninety years
old, having spent most of his life in making a staunch resistance to the
easy and luxurious fashions that were coming in with wealth and
refinement. One of his sayings always deserves to be remembered. When he
was opposing a law giving permission to the ladies to wear gold and
purple, he said they would all be vying with one another, and that the
poor would be ashamed of not making as good an appearance as the rich.
"And," said he, "she who blushes for doing what she ought, will soon
cease to blush for doing what she ought not."
One wonders he did not see that to have no enemy near at hand to guard
against was the very worst thing for the hardy, plain old ways he was so
anxious to keep up. However, Carthage was to be wiped out, and Scipio
Æmilianus was sent to do the terrible work. He defeated Hasdrubal, the
last of the Carthaginian generals, and took the citadel of Byrsa; but
though all hope was over, the city held out in utter desperation.
Weapons were forged out of household implements, even out of gold and
silver, and the women twisted their long hair into bow-strings; and when
the walls were stormed, they fought from street to street and house to
house, so that the Romans gained little but ruins and dead bodies.
Carthage and Corinth fell on the same day of the year 179.
Part of Spain still had to be subdued, and Scipio Æmilianus was sent
thither. The city of Numantia, with only 5000 inhabitants, endured one
of those long, hopeless sieges for which Spanish cities have in all
times been remarkable, and was only taken at last when almost every
citizen had perished.
At the same time, Attalus, king of Pergamus in Asia Minor, being the
last of his race, bequeathed his dominions to the Romans, and thus gave
them their first solid footing there.
All this was altering Roman manners much. Weak as the Greeks were, their
old doings of every kind were still the admiration of every one, and the
Romans, who had always been rough, straightforward doers, began to wish
to learn of them to think. All the wealthier families had Greeks for
tutors for their sons, and expected them to talk and write the language,
and study the philosophy and poetry till they should be as familiar with
it as if they were Greeks themselves. Unluckily, the Greeks themselves
had fallen from their earnestness and greatness, so that there was not
much to be learnt of them now but vain deceit and bad taste.
Rich Romans, too, began to get most absurdly luxurious. They had
splendid villas on the Italian hill-sides, where they went to spend the
summer when Rome was unhealthy, and where they had beautiful gardens,
with courts paved with mosaic, and fish-ponds for the pet fish for which
many had a passion. One man was laughed at for having shed tears when
his favorite fish died, and he retorted by saying that it was more than
his accuser had done for his wife.
Their feasts were as luxurious as they could make them, in spite of laws
to keep them within bounds. Dishes of nightingales' tongues, of fatted
dormice, and even of snails, were among their food: and sometimes a
stream was made to flow along the table, containing the living companion
of the mullet which served as part of the meal.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE GRACCHI.
137-122.
Young Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, the eldest of Cornelia's jewels, was
sent in the year 137 to join the Roman army in Spain. As he went through
Etruria, which, as every one knew, had been a thickly peopled, fertile
country in old times, he was shocked to see its dreariness and
desolation. Instead of farms and vineyards, there were great bare spaces
of land, where sheep, kids, or goats were feeding. These vast tracts
belonged to Romans, who kept slaves to attend to the flocks; while all
the corn that was used in Rome came from Sicily or Africa, and the
poorer Romans lived in the city itself--idle men, chiefly trusting to
distributions of corn, and unable to work for themselves because they
had no ground to till; and as to trades and handicrafts, the rich men
had everything they wanted made in their own houses by their slaves.
[Illustration: CORNELIA AND HER SONS.]
No wonder the Romans were losing their old character. This was the very
thing that the Licinian law had been intended to prevent, by forbidding
any citizen to have more than a certain quantity of land, and giving the
state the power of resuming it. The law was still there, but it had
been disused and forgotten; estates had been gathered into the hands of
families and handed down, till now, though there were 400,000 citizens,
only 2,000 were men of property.
While Tiberius was serving in Spain, he decided on his plan. As his
family was plebeian, he could be a tribune of the people, and as soon as
he came home he stood and was elected. Then he proposed reviving the
Licinian law, that nobody should have more than 500 acres, and that the
rest should be divided among those who had nothing, leaving, however, a
larger portion to those who had many children.
There was, of course, a terrible uproar; the populace clamoring for
their rights, and the rich trying to stop the measure. They bribed one
of the other tribunes to forbid it; but there was a fight, in which
Tiberius prevailed, and he and his young brother Caius, and his
father-in-law Appius Claudius, were appointed as triumvers to see the
law carried out. Then the rich men followed their old plan of spreading
reports among the people that Tiberius wanted to make himself a king,
and had accepted a crown and purple robe from some foreign envoy. When
his year of office was coming to an end, he sought to be elected tribune
again, but the patricians said it was against the law. There was a
great tumult, in the course of which he put his hand to his head, either
to guard it from a blow or to beckon his friends. "He demands the
diadem," shouted his enemies, and there was a great struggle, in which
three hundred people were killed. Tiberius tried to take refuge in the
Temple of Jupiter, but the doors were closed against him; he stumbled,
was knocked down with a club, and killed.
However, the Sempronian law had been made, and the people wanted, of
course, to have it carried out, while the nobles wanted it to be a dead
letter. Scipio Æmilianus, the brother-in-law of the Gracchi, had been in
Spain all this time, but he had so much disapproved of Tiberius' doings
that he was said to have exclaimed, on hearing of his death, "So perish
all who do the like." But when he came home, he did so much to calm and
quiet matters, that there was a cry to make him Dictator, and let him
settle the whole matter. Young Caius Gracchus, who thought the cause
would thus be lost, tried to prevent the choice by fixing on him the
name of tyrant. To which Scipio calmly replied, "Rome's enemies may well
wish me dead, for they know that while I live Rome cannot perish."
When he went home, he shut himself into his room to prepare his
discourse for the next day, but in the morning he was found dead,
without a wound, though his slaves declared he had been murdered. Some
suspected his wife Sempronia, others even her mother Cornelia, but the
Senate would not have the matter enquired into. He left no child, and
the Africanus line of Cornelius ended with him.
Caius Gracchus was nine years younger than his brother, and was elected
tribune as soon as he was old enough. He was full of still greater
schemes than his brother. His mother besought him to be warned by his
brother's fate, but he was bent on his objects, and carried some of them
out. He had the Sempronian law reaffirmed, though he could not act on
it; but in the meantime he began a regular custom of having corn served
out to the poorer citizens, and found work for them upon roads and
bridges; also he caused the state to clothe the soldiers, instead of
their doing it at their own expense. Another scheme which he first
proposed was to make the Italians of the countries now one with Roman
territory into citizens, with votes like the Romans themselves; but this
again angered the patricians, who saw they should be swamped by numbers
and lose their power.
He also wanted to found a colony of plebeians on the ruins of Carthage,
and when his tribuneship was over he went to Africa to see about it; but
when he came home the patricians had arranged an attack on him, and he
was insulted by the lictor of the consul Opimius. The patricians
collected on one side, the poorer sort around Caius on the Aventine
Hill; but the nobles were the strongest, the plebeians fled, and Caius
withdrew with one slave into a sacred grove, whence he hoped to reach
the Tiber; but the wood was surrounded, his retreat was cut off, and he
commanded the slave to kill him that he might not fall alive into the
hands of his enemies, after which the poor faithful fellow killed
himself, unable to bear the loss of his master. The weight of Caius'
head in gold had been promised by the Senate, and the man who found the
body was said to have taken out the brains and filled it up with lead
that his reward might be larger. Three thousand men were killed in this
riot, ten times as many as at Tiberius' death.
Opimius was so proud of having overthrown Caius, that he had a medal
struck with Hercules slaying the monsters. Cornelia, broken-hearted,
retired to a country-house; but in a few years the feeling turned,
great love was shown to the memory of the two brothers, statues were set
up in their honor, and when Cornelia herself died, her statue was
inscribed with the title she had coveted, "The mother of the Gracchi."
[Illustration: ROMAN CENTURION.]
Things were indeed growing worse and worse. The Romans were as brave as
ever in the field, and were sure in the end to conquer any nation they
came in contact with; but at home, the city was full of overgrown rich
men, with huge hosts of slaves, and of turbulent poor men, who only
cared for their citizenship for the sake of the corn they gained by it,
and the games exhibited by those who stood for a magistracy. Immense
sums were spent in hiring gladiators and bringing wild animals to be
baited for their amusement; and afterwards, when sent out to govern the
provinces, the expenses were repaid by cruel grinding and robbing the
people of the conquered states.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE WARS OF MARIUS.
106-98.
After the death of Massinissa, king of Numidia, the ally of the Romans,
there were disputes among his grandsons, and Jugurtha, whom they held to
have the least right, obtained the kingdom. The commander of the army
sent against him was Caius Marius, who had risen from being a free Roman
peasant in the village of Arpinum, but serving under Scipio Æmilianus,
had shown such ability, that when some one was wondering where they
would find the equal of Scipio when he was gone, that general touched
the shoulder of his young officer and said, "Possibly here."
Rough soldier as he always was, he married Julia, of the high family of
the Cæsars, who were said to be descended from Æneas; and though he was
much disliked by the Senate, he always carried the people with him. When
he received the province of Numidia, instead of, as every one had done
before, forming his army only of Roman citizens, he offered to enlist
whoever would, and thus filled his ranks with all sorts of wild and
desperate men, whom he could indeed train to fight, but who had none of
the old feeling for honor or the state, and this in the end made a great
change in Rome.
Jugurtha maintained a wild war in the deserts of Africa with Marius, but
at last he was betrayed to the Romans by his friend Bocchus, another
Moorish king, and Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Marius' lieutenant, was sent
to receive him--a transaction which Sulla commemorated on a signet ring
which he always wore. Poor Jugurtha was kept two years to appear at the
triumph, where he walked in chains, and then was thrown alive into the
dungeon under the Capitol, where he took six days to die of cold and
hunger.
Marius was elected consul for the second time even before he had quite
come home from Africa, for it was a time of great danger. Two fierce and
terrible tribes, whom the Romans called Cimbri and Teutones, and who
were but the vanguard of the swarms who would overwhelm them six
centuries later, had come down through Germany to the settled countries
belonging to Rome, especially the lands round the old Greek settlements
in Gaul, which had fallen of course into the hands of the Romans, and
were full of beautiful rich cities, with houses and gardens round them.
The Province, as the Romans called it, would have been grand plundering
ground for these savages, and Marius established himself in a camp on
the banks of the Rhone to protect it, cutting a canal to bring his
provisions from the sea, which still remains. While he was thus engaged,
he was a fourth time elected consul.
[Illustration: MARIUS.]
The enemy began to move. The Cimbri meant to march eastward round the
Alps, and pour through the Tyrol into Italy; the Teutones to go by the
West, fighting Marius on the way. But he would not come out of his camp
on the Rhone, though the Teutones, as they passed, shouted to ask the
Roman soldiers what messages they had to send to their wives in Italy.
When they had all passed, he came out of his camp and followed them as
far as Aquæ Sextiæ, now called Aix, where one of the most terrible
battles the world ever saw was fought. These people were a whole
tribe--wives, children, and everything they had with them--and to be
defeated was utter and absolute ruin. A great enclosure was made with
their carts and wagons, whence the women threw arrows and darts to help
the men; and when, after three days of hard fighting, all hope was over,
they set fire to the enclosure and killed their children and themselves.
The whole swarm was destroyed. Marius marched away, and no one was left
to bury the dead, so that the spot was called the Putrid Fields, and is
still known as Les Pourrieres.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE TROPHIES, CALLED OF MARIUS, AT THE CAPITOL AT
ROME.]
While Marius was offering up the spoil, tidings came that he was a fifth
time chosen consul; but he had to hasten into Italy, for the other
consul, Catulus, could not stand before the Cimbri, and Marius met him
on the Po retreating from them. The Cimbri demanded lands in Italy for
themselves and their allies the Teutones. "The Teutones have all the
ground they will ever want, on the other side the Alps," said Marius;
and a terrible battle followed, in which the Cimbri were as entirely cut
off as their allies had been.
Marius was made consul a sixth time. As a reward to the brave soldiers
who had fought under him, he made one thousand of them, who came from
the city of Camerinum, Roman citizens, and this the patricians disliked
greatly. His excuse was, "The din of arms drowned the voice of the law;"
but the new citizens were provided for by lands in the Province, which
the Romans said the Gauls had lost to the Teutones and they had
reconquered. It was very hard on the Gauls, but that was the last thing
a Roman cared about.
The Italians, however, were all crying out for the rights of Romans, and
the more far-sighted among the Romans would, like Caius Gracchus, have
granted them. Marcus Livius Drusus did his best for them; he was a good
man, wise and frank-hearted. When he was having a house built, and the
plan was shown him which would make it impossible for any one to see
into it, he said, "Rather build one where my fellow-countrymen may see
all I do." He was very much loved, and when he was ill, prayers were
offered at the temples for his recovery; but no sooner did he take up
the cause of the Italians than all the patricians hated him bitterly.
"Rome for the Romans," was their watchword. Drusus was one day
entertaining an Italian gentleman, when his little nephew, Marcus
Porcius Cato, a descendant of the old censor, and bred in stern
patrician views, was playing about the room. The Italian merrily asked
him to favor his cause. "No," said the boy. He was offered toys and
cakes if he would change his mind, but he still refused; he was
threatened, and at last he was held by one leg out of the window--all
without shaking his resolution for a moment; and this constancy he
carried with him through life.
People's minds grew embittered, and Drusus was murdered in the street,
crying as he fell, "When will Rome find so good a citizen!" After this,
the Italians took up arms, and what was called the Social War began.
Marius had no high command, being probably too much connected with the
enemy. Some of the Italian tribes held with Rome, and these were
rewarded with the citizenship; and after all, though the consul Lucius
Julius Cæsar, brother-in-law to Marius, gained some victories, the
revolt was so widespread, that the Senate felt it wisest, on the first
sign of peace, to offer citizenship to such Italians as would come
within sixty days to claim it. Citizenship brought a man under Roman
law, freed him from taxation, and gave him many advantages and openings
to a rise in life. But he could only give his vote at Rome, and only
there receive the distribution of corn, and he further became liable to
be called out to serve in a legion, so that the benefit was not so great
as at first appeared, and no very large numbers of Italians came to
apply for it.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE ADVENTURES OF MARIUS.
93--84.
The chief foe of Marius was almost always his second in command, Publius
Cornelius Sulla, one of the men of highest family in Rome. He had all
the high culture and elegant learning that the rough soldier Marius
despised, spoke and wrote Greek as easily as Latin, and was as well read
in Greek poetry and philosophy as any Athenian could be; but he was
given up to all the excesses of luxury in which the wealthy Romans
indulged, and his way of life had made him frightful to look at. His
face was said to be like a mulberry sprinkled with salt, with a terrible
pair of blue eyes glaring out of it.
In 93 he was sent to command against Mithridates, king of Pontus, one
of the little kingdoms in Asia Minor that had sprung up out of the
break-up of Alexander's empire. Under this king, Mithridates, it had
grown very powerful. He was of Persian birth, had all the learning and
science both of Greece and the far East, and was said in especial to be
wonderfully learned in all plants and their virtues, so as to have made
himself proof against all kinds of poison, and he could speak
twenty-five languages.
He had great power in Asia Minor, and took upon himself to appoint a
king of Cappadocia, thus leading to a quarrel with the Romans. In the
midst of the Social War, when he thought they had their hands full in
Italy, Mithridates caused all the native inhabitants of Asia Minor to
rise upon the Romans among them in one night and murder them all, so
that 80,000 are said to have perished. Sulla was ordered to take the
command of the army which was to avenge their death; but, while he was
raising his forces, Marius, angry that the patricians had hindered the
plebeians and Italians from gaining more by the Social War, raised up a
great tumult, meaning to overpower the patricians' resistance. He would
have done more wisely had he waited until Sulla was quite gone, for that
general came back to the rescue of his friends with six newly-raised
legions, and Marius could only just contrive to escape from Rome, where
he was proclaimed a traitor and a price set on his head. He was now
seventy years old, but full of spirit. First he escaped to his own farm,
whence he hoped to reach Ostia, where a ship was waiting for him; but a
party of horsemen were seen coming, and he was hidden in a cart full of
beans and driven down the coast, where he embarked, meaning to go to
Africa; but adverse winds and want of food forced him to land at
Circæum, whence, with a few friends, he made his way along the coast,
through woods and rocks, keeping up the spirits of his companions by
telling them that, when a little boy, he robbed an eyrie of seven
eaglets, and that a soothsayer had then foretold that he would be seven
times consul. At last a troop of horse was seen coming towards them, and
at the same time two ships near the coast. The only hope was in swimming
out to the nearest ship, and Marius was so heavy and old that this was
done with great difficulty. Even then the ships were so near the shore
that the pursuers could command the crew to throw Marius out, but this
they refused to do, though they only waited till the soldiers were gone,
to put him on shore again. Here he was in a marshy, boggy place, where
an old man let him rest in his cottage, and then hid him in a cave under
a heap of rushes. Again, however, the troops appeared, and threatened
the old man for hiding an enemy of the Romans. It was in Marius'
hearing, and fearing to be betrayed, he rushed out into a pool, where he
stood up to his neck in water till a soldier saw him, and he was dragged
out and taken to the city of Minturnæ.
[Illustration: THE CATAPULT.]
There the council decided on his death, and sent a soldier to kill him,
but the fierce old man stood glaring at him, and said. "Darest thou
kill Caius Marius?" The man was so frightened that he ran away, crying
out, "I cannot kill Caius Marius." The Senate of Minturnæ took this as
an omen, and remembered besides that he had been a good friend to the
Italians, so they conducted him through a sacred grove to the sea, and
sent him off to Africa. On landing, he sent his son to ask shelter from
one of the Numidian princes, and, while waiting for an answer, he was
harassed by a messenger from a Roman officer of low rank, forbidding his
presence in Africa. He made no reply till the messenger pressed to know
what to say to his master. Then the old man looked up, and sternly
answered. "Say that you have seen Caius Marius sitting in the ruins of
Carthage"--a grand rebuke for the insult to fallen greatness. But the
Numidian could not receive him, and he could only find shelter in a
little island on the coast.
There he soon heard that no sooner had Sulla embarked for the East than
Rome had fallen into dire confusion. The consuls, Caius Octavius and
Publius Cornelius Cinna, were of opposite parties, and had a furious
fight, in which Cinna was driven out of Rome, and at the same time the
Italians had begun a new Social War. Marius saw that his time was come.
He hurried to Etruria, where he was joined by a party of his friends and
five hundred runaway slaves. The discontented Romans formed another army
under Quintus Sertorius, and the Samnites, who had begun the war,
overpowered the troops sent against them, and marched to Rome, declaring
they would have no peace till they had destroyed the wolf's lair. Cinna
and an army were advancing on another side, and, as he was really
consul, the Senate in their distress admitted him, hoping that he would
stop the rest; but when he marched in and seated himself again in the
chair of office, he had by his side old Marius clothed in rags.
[Illustration: ISLAND ON THE COAST.]
They were bent on revenge, and terrible it was, beginning with the
consul, Caius Octavius, who had disdained to flee, and whose head was
severed from his body and displayed in the Forum, with many other
senators of the noblest blood in Rome, who had offended either Marius or
Cinna or any of their fierce followers. Marius walked along in gloomy
silence, answering no one; but his followers were bidden to spare only
those to whom he gave his hand to be kissed. The slaves pillaged the
houses, murdered many on their own account, and everything was in the
wildest uproar, till the two chiefs called in Sertorius with a legion to
restore order.
Then they named themselves consuls, without even asking for an election,
and thus Marius was seven times consul. He wanted to go out to the East
and take the command from Sulla, but his health was too much broken, and
before the year of his consulate was over he died. The last time he had
left the house, he had said to some friends that no man ought to trust
again to such a doubtful fortune as his had been; and then he took to
his bed for seven days without any known illness, and there was found
dead, so that he was thought to have starved himself to death.
Cinna put in another consul named Valerius Flaccus, and invited all the
Italians to enroll themselves as Roman citizens. Then Flaccus went out
to the East, meaning to take away the command from Sulla, who was
hunting Mithridates out of Greece, which he had seized and held for a
short time. But Flaccus' own army rose against him and killed him, and
Sulla, after beating Mithridates, driving him back to Pontus, and making
peace with him, was now to come home.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXV.
SULLA'S PROSCRIPTION.
88-71.
There was great fear at Rome, among the friends of Cinna and Marius, at
the prospect of Sulla's return. A fire broke out in the Capitol, and
this added to their terror, for the Books of the Sybil were burnt, and
all her prophecies were lost. Cinna tried to oppose Sulla's landing, but
was killed by his own soldiers at Brundusium.
Sulla, with his victorious army, could not be stopped. Sertorius fled to
Spain, but Marius' son tried, with the help of the Samnites, to resist,
and held out Præneste, but the Samnites were beaten in a terrible battle
outside the walls, and when the people of the city saw the heads of the
leaders carried on spear points, they insisted on giving up. Young
Marius and a Samnite noble hid themselves in a cave, and as they had no
hope, resolved to die; so they fought, hoping to kill each other, and
when Marius was left alive, he caused himself to be slain by a slave.
Sulla marched on towards Rome, furious at the resistance he met with,
and determined on a terrible vengeance. He could not enter the city till
he was ready to dismiss his army and have his triumph, so the Senate
came out to meet him in the temple of Bellona. As they took their seats,
they heard dreadful shrieks and cries. "No matter," said Sulla; "it is
only some wretches being punished." The wretches were the 8000 Samnite
prisoners he had taken at the battle of Præneste, and brought to be
killed in the Campus Martius; and with these shocking sounds to mark
that he was in earnest, the purple-faced general told the trembling
Senate that if they submitted to him he would be good to them, but that
he would spare none of his enemies, great or small.
And his men were already in the city and country, slaughtering not only
the party of Marius, but every one against whom any one of them had a
spite, or whose property he coveted. Marius' body, which had been buried
and not burnt, was taken from the grave and thrown into the Tiber; and
such horrible deeds were done that Sulla was asked in the Senate where
the execution was to stop. He showed a list of eighty more who had yet
to die; and the next day and the next he brought other lists of two
hundred and thirty each. These dreadful lists were called proscriptions,
and any one who tried to shelter the victims was treated in the same
manner. The property of all who were slain was seized, and their
children declared incapable of holding any public office.
Among those who were in danger was the nephew of Marius' wife, Caius
Julius Cæsar, but, as he was of a high patrician family, Sulla only
required of him to divorce his wife and marry a stepdaughter of his own.
Cæsar refused, and fled to the Sabine hills, where pursuers were sent
after him; but his life was begged for by his friends at Rome,
especially by the Vestal Virgins, and Sulla spared his life, saying,
however, "Beware; in that young trifler is more than one Marius." Cæsar
went to join the army in the East for safety, and thus broke off the
idle life of pleasure he had been leading in Rome.
[Illustration: PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE.]
The country people were even more cruelly punished than the citizens:
whole cities were destroyed and districts laid waste; the whole of
Etruria was ravaged, the old race entirely swept away, and the towns
ruined beyond revival, while the new city of Florence was built with
their remains, and all we know of them is from the tombs which have of
late years been opened.
[Illustration: CORNELIUS SULLA.]
Both the consuls had perished, and Sulla caused himself to be named
Dictator. He had really a purpose in all the horrors he had perpetrated,
namely, to clear the way for restoring the old government at Rome, which
Marius and his Italians had been overthrowing. He did not see that the
rule which had worked tolerably well while Rome was only a little city
with a small country round it, would not serve when it was the head of
numerous distant countries, where the governors, like himself and
Marius, grew rich, and trained armies under them able to overpower the
whole state at home. So he set to work to put matters as much as
possible in the old order. So many of the Senate had been killed, that
he had to make up the numbers by putting in three hundred knights; and,
to supply the lack of other citizens, after the hosts who had perished,
he allowed the Italians to go on coming in to be enrolled as citizens;
and ten thousand slaves, who had belonged to his victims, were not only
set free, but made citizens as his own clients, thus taking the name of
Cornelius. He also much lessened the power of the tribunes of the
people, and made a law that when a man had once been a tribune he should
never be chosen for any of the higher offices of the state. By these
means he sought to keep up the old patrician power, on which he believed
the greatness of Rome depended; though, after all, the grand old
patrician families had mostly died off, and half the Senate were only
knights made noble.
After this Sulla resigned the dictatorship, for he was growing old, and
had worn out his health by his riot and luxury. He spent his time in a
villa near Rome, talking philosophy with his friends, and dictating the
history of his own life in Greek. When he died, he bade them burn his
body, contrary to the practice of the Cornelii, no doubt fearing it
would be treated like that of Marius.
The most promising of the men of his party who were growing up and
coming forward was Cnæus Pompeius, a brave and worthy man, who had while
quite young, gained such a victory over a Numidian prince that Sulla
himself gave him the title of Magnus, or the Great. He was afterwards
sent to Spain, where Sertorius held out for eight years against the
Roman power with the help of the native chiefs, but at last was put to
death by his own followers. Things were altogether in a bad state. There
were great struggles in Rome at every election, for the officers of the
state were now chiefly esteemed for the sake of the three or five years'
government in the provinces to which they led. No expense was thought
too great in shows of beasts and gladiators by which to win the votes of
the people; for, after the year of office, the candidate meant amply to
repay himself by what he could squeeze out of the unhappy province under
his charge, and nobody cared for cruelty or injustice to any one but a
Roman citizen.
Numbers of gladiators were kept and trained to fight in these shows; and
while the Spanish war was going on, a whole school of them--seventy-eight
in number--who were kept at Capua, broke out, armed themselves with the
spits, hooks, and axes in a butcher's shop, and took refuge in the crater
of Mount Vesuvius, which at that time showed no signs of being an active
volcano. There, under their leader Spartacus, they gathered together every
gladiator slave or who could run away to them, and Spartacus wanted them
to march northward, force their way through Italy, climb the Alps, and
reach their homes in Thrace and Gaul; but the plunder of Italy tempted
them, and they would not go, till an army was sent against them under
Marcus Licinius Crassus--called Dives, or the Rich, from the spoil he had
gained during the proscription. Then Spartacus hoped to escape in a fleet
of pirate ships from Cilicia, and to hold out in the passes of Mount
Taurus; but the Cilician pirates deceived him, sailed away with his money,
and left him to his fate, and he and his gladiators were all slain by
Crassus and Pompeius, who had been called home from Spain.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE CAREER OF POMPEIUS.
70-63.
Cnæus Pompeius Magnus and Lucius Licinius Crassus Dives were consuls
together in the year 70; but Crassus, though he feasted the people at
10,000 tables, was envied and disliked, and would never have been
elected but for Pompeius, who was a great favorite with the people, and
so much trusted, both by them and the nobles, that it seems to have
filled him with pride, for he gave himself great airs, and did not treat
his fellow-consul as an equal.
When his term of office was over, the most pressing thing to be done was
to put down the Cilician pirates. In the angle formed between Asia Minor
and Syria, with plenty of harbors formed by the spurs of Mount Taurus,
there had dwelt for ages past a horde of sea robbers, whose swift
galleys darted on the merchant ships of Tyre and Alexandria; and now,
after the ruin of the Syrian kingdom, they had grown so rich that their
state galleys had silken sails, oars inlaid with ivory and silver, and
bronze prows. They robbed the old Greek temples and the Eastern shrines,
and even made descents on the Italian cities, besides stopping the ships
which brought wheat from Sicily and Alexandria to feed the Romans.
To enable Pompeius to crush them, authority was given him for three
years over all the Mediterranean and fifty miles inland all round, which
was nearly the same thing as the whole empire. He divided the sea into
thirteen commands, and sent a party to fight the pirates in each; and
this was done so effectually, that in forty days they were all hunted
out of the west end of the gulf, whither he pursued them with his whole
force, beat them in a sea-fight, and then besieged them; but, as he was
known to be a just and merciful man, they came to terms with him, and he
scattered them about in small colonies in distant cities, so that they
might cease to be mischievous.
[Illustration: COAST OF TYRE.]
In the meantime, the war with Mithridates had broken out again, and
Lucius Lucullus, who had been consul after Pompeius, was fighting with
him in the East; but Lucullus did not please the Romans, though he met
with good success, and had pushed Mithridates so hard that there was
nothing left for Pompeius but to complete the conquest, and he drove the
old king beyond Caucasus, and then marched into Syria, where he
overthrew the last of the Seleucian kings, Antiochus, and gave him the
little kingdom of Commagene to spend the remainder of his life in, while
Syria and Phoenicia were made into a great Roman province.
Under the Maccabees, Palestine had struggled into being independent of
Syria, but only by the help of the Romans, who, as usual, tried to ally
themselves with small states in order to make an excuse for making war
on large ones. There was now a great quarrel between two brothers of the
Maccabean family, and one of them, Hyrcanus, came to ask the aid of
Pompeius. The Roman army marched into the Holy Land, and, after seizing
the whole country, was three months besieging Jerusalem, which, after
all, it only took by an attack when the Jews were resting on the Sabbath
day. Pompeius insisted on forcing his way into the Holy of Holies, and
was very muc
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/16667