Historical Parallels, vol. 3 (of 3)
by Arthur Thomas Malkin · English · Gutenberg #47304 · 594,286 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Historical Parallels, vol. 3 (of 3)
Author: Arthur Thomas Malkin
Release date: November 6, 2014 [eBook #47304]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORICAL PARALLELS, VOL. 3 (OF 3) ***
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
—Obvious print and punctuation errors were corrected.
—This work is divided into three volumes, all of them available on PG;
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mantained at the end of third volume.
HISTORICAL
PARALLELS.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
CHARLES KNIGHT & Co., LUDGATE STREET.
1846.
LONDON: WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET.
CONTENTS.
Page
CHAPTER XIII.
Siege of Platæa—Numantia—Tyre—Syracuse—Lines of
Circumvallation—Siege of Jerusalem—Of La Réole—Effects of the
invention of gunpowder—Siege of Ostend—Magdeburg—Character of
the mercenary troops of the seventeenth century—Siege of
Zaragoza 5
CHAPTER XIV.
Corcyrean sedition—Civil wars of Rome—Jacquerie—Factions of the
Circus at Constantinople—Massacre of Sept. 2, 1792 78
CHAPTER XV.
Character of Cleon—Blockade and capture of the Lacedæmonians
at Pylos—Comparison with the capture of Porto Bello by Admiral
Vernon—Greek comedy—Sketch of the Knights of
Aristophanes—Subsequent history of Cleon—Account of the Popish
Plot—Character and history of Titus Oates—Mutilation of
the Hermæ at Athens 121
CHAPTER XVI.
Athenian expedition against Sicily—Siege of Syracuse—Retreat
and destruction of the army—Retreat of Ney in Russia—Retreat
of Sir John Hawkwood in Italy 171
CHAPTER XVII.
Sketch of the interval which elapsed between the defeat in
Sicily, and the battle of Arginusæ—Battle of
Arginusæ—Prosecution and death of the Athenian
Generals—Massacre of the De Witts—End of the Peloponnesian war 198
CHAPTER XVIII.
History and character of Socrates—Account of his
death—Prosecution of John Huss, and Jerome of Prague—Attempt
to re–establish Prelacy in Scotland—Brown—Guthrie—Reformation
in England—Account of Rowland Taylor 218
INDEX OF VOLUME III. 285
GENERAL INDEX OF PRINCIPAL SUBJECTS IN ALL VOLUMES 286
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Page
Medal, containing a plan of Ostend 5
Battering Ram, from Pompeii 22
Moveable Towers, from ditto 25
Plan of Zaragoza 63
Hippodrome of Constantinople 113
Medal struck after Sir E. Godfrey’s murder 151
Medal of Titus Oates 168
Prow of an ancient vessel found at Genoa 198
Disposition of Athenian fleet at Arginusæ 201
Medal struck after the massacre of the De Witts
Obverse 211
Reverse 212
Bust of Socrates 218
Head of Plato 242
The medals have been engraved from the originals in the British Museum.
HISTORICAL PARALLELS.
CHAPTER XIII.
[Illustration: Medal struck after the siege of Ostend.]
Siege of Platæa—Numantia—Tyre—Syracuse—Lines of circumvallation—Siege
of Jerusalem—Of La Réole—Effects of the invention of Gunpowder—Siege of
Ostend—Magdeburg—Character of the mercenary troops of the seventeenth
century—Siege of Zaragoza.
The cautious policy of Pericles, and the plague, combined to render
the two first years of the war barren of incidents. The third campaign
opened more energetically with the siege of Platæa, the old and
faithful ally of Athens. This is the earliest siege of which we have
any full and particular account; and some surprise may be felt at the
rudeness and inefficacy of the means employed in prosecuting it by the
most military nation of Greece. For this, however, all previous history
prepares us. To the early Greeks fortifications of any strength appear
to have presented insuperable obstacles. Not a city of any note can be
mentioned which was taken by fair fighting. Troy was impregnable by
force. Eira was taken in consequence of its being accidentally left
unguarded.[1] Ithome held out for ten years, and at last obtained
honourable terms of surrender. And when Cyrus marched against Babylon,
the inhabitants, trusting in their walls and their magazines, “made
no account at all of being besieged; but Cyrus became greatly puzzled
what to do, having spent much time there and made no progress at
all.”[2] The stratagem by which he took it at last is well known: he
laid dry the bed of the Euphrates, and introduced a body of troops
through the deserted channel; yet danger, even from this quarter, had
been foreseen and guarded against, if proper caution had been used.
Each side of the river was lined with walls, and gates were placed at
the end of the streets which led down to the water side; so that, as
Herodotus himself remarks, if the Persians had been on their guard the
attempt might have been defeated by merely closing the gates, and the
assailants might have been cut off entirely by missile weapons. But, to
return to Platæa; the Spartans were notoriously unskilled, even among
the Greeks, in this branch of warfare. Military engines they had none;
a want arising probably from their national poverty; for the ram was
known, and was employed, some say invented, by Pericles, at the siege
of Samos, some years before the Peloponnesian war broke out. It is
remarkable that from this time downwards to the invention of gunpowder,
no material discovery was made in this branch of the military art,
except the introduction of moving towers. Lines of circumvallation, as
they were the earliest, continued to be the surest means of overcoming
the pertinacious resistance of stone and mortar. Such was the case
even at Rome, after the vast influx of wealth from conquered provinces
had facilitated the construction of the largest and most expensive
machines; and the vast scale upon which those temporary enclosures were
completed, exhibits most strikingly the laboriousness of the Roman
legionaries. This, however, is foreign to our present subject. If the
reader has any curiosity respecting these works, he will find some
remarkable ones described in Cæsar’s Commentaries.[3]
Just before war broke out between Athens and Sparta, the Thebans,
always jealous of Athens, and more especially envious of its strict
connection with Platæa, over which, as the head of the Bœotian
confederacy, they claimed the same undefined but oppressive authority
which was exercised by the Athenians and other leading cities over
their allies, made an attempt to gain possession of Platæa, in concert
with a party within its walls, consisting of citizens dissatisfied
with the existing government. By the contrivance of the latter, a
body of Theban troops was introduced by night, who without a struggle
became, to all appearance, masters of the town, piled their arms in the
market–place, and invited the inhabitants to place themselves under the
protection of Thebes. But the Athenian party was greatly preponderant,
and discovering the small number of their enemies they took courage
and assaulted them. Almost all the Thebans were made prisoners, and
subsequently put to death, in contravention of a promise of personal
security implied, if not absolutely expressed in words. Immediate
notice of what had occurred was sent to the Athenians, who, considering
this as the commencement of war, removed the women and children, and
all who were unfit for military duty, from Platæa, sending thither
eighty of their own citizens to increase the garrison, and also
probably to guard against any further attempts on the part of the
disaffected.
No disturbance was given to Platæa during the two first years of the
war. At the commencement of the third, Archidamus, the Spartan king
and general, finding that the annual devastation of Attica was of no
service to the Peloponnesian confederacy, and unwilling perhaps to
incur the hazard of entering an infected country, marched to Platæa,
which, in consequence of its exertions in the Persian war, had been
invested by the general consent of Greece with privileges of an almost
sacred character. The nature of these privileges, and the singular
proposal to which they gave rise, will be best understood from the
narration of Thucydides.
“The next summer the Peloponnesians and their confederates came not
into Attica, but turned their arms against Platæa, led by Archidamus,
the son of Zeuxidamus, king of the Lacedæmonians, who, having
pitched his camp, was about to waste the territory thereof. But the
Platæans sent ambassadors presently unto him, with words to this
effect:—’Archidamus, and you Lacedæmonians, you do neither justly,
nor worthy yourselves and ancestors, in making war upon Platæa. For
Pausanias of Lacedæmon, the son of Cleombrotus, having (together
with such Grecians as were content to undergo the danger of the
battle that was fought in this our territory) delivered all Greece
from the slavery of the Persians, when he offered sacrifice in the
market–place of Platæa to Jupiter the deliverer, called together all
the confederates, and granted to the Platæans this privilege: that
their city and territory should be free; that none should make unjust
war against them, nor go about to enslave them; and if any did, the
confederates then present should use their utmost ability to revenge
their quarrel.[4] These privileges your fathers granted us for our
valour and zeal in those dangers. But now do you the clean contrary,
for you join with our greatest enemies, the Thebans, to bring us into
subjection. Therefore calling to witness the gods then sworn by, and
the gods peculiar to your ancestral descent, and our own local gods,
we require you, that you do no damage to the territory of Platæa, nor
violate those oaths; but that you suffer us to enjoy our liberty in
such sort as was allowed us by Pausanias.’[5]
“The Platæans having thus said, Archidamus replied, and said thus:—’Men
of Platæa, if you would do as ye say, you say what is just. For as
Pausanias hath granted to you, so also be you free; and help to set
free the rest, who having been partakers of the same dangers then,
and being comprised in the same oath with yourselves, are now brought
into subjection by the Athenians. And this so great preparation and
war is only for the deliverance of them and others: of which if you
will especially participate, keep your oaths; at least (as we have also
advised you formerly) be quiet, and enjoy your own, in neutrality,
receiving both sides in the way of friendship, neither side in the way
of faction. And these things will content us.’ Thus said Archidamus.
And the ambassadors of Platæa, when they heard him, returned to the
city; and having communicated his answer to the people, brought word
again to Archidamus, ‘That what he had advised was impossible for them
to perform, without leave of the Athenians, in whose keeping were their
wives and children; and that they feared also for the whole city, lest
when the Lacedæmonians were gone the Athenians should come and take
the custody of it out of their hands; or that the Thebans, as being
comprehended in the oath that they would admit both parties, should
again attempt to surprise it.’ But Archidamus, to encourage them,
made this answer: ‘Deliver you unto us Lacedæmonians your city and
your houses; show us the bounds of your territory; give us your trees
by tale, and whatsoever else can be numbered; and depart yourselves,
whither you shall think good, as long as the war lasteth. And when it
shall be ended we will deliver it all unto you again: in the mean time
we will keep these things as deposited, and will cultivate your ground,
and pay you rent for it, as much as shall suffice for your maintenance.’
“Hereupon the ambassadors went again into the city, and having
consulted with the people, made answer: ‘That they would first acquaint
the Athenians with it, and if they would consent they would then accept
the condition; till then they desired a suspension of arms, and not to
have their territory wasted.’ Upon this he granted them so many days’
truce as was requisite for their return, and for so long forbore to
waste their territory. When the Platæan ambassadors were arrived at
Athens, and had advised on the matter with the Athenians, they returned
to the city with this answer: ‘The Athenians say, that neither in
former times, since we where their confederates, did they ever abandon
us to the injury of any, nor will they now neglect us, but give us
their utmost assistance; and they conjure us, by the oath of our
fathers, not to make any alienation touching the league.’
“When the ambassadors had made this report, the Platæans resolved in
their councils not to betray the Athenians, but rather to endure, if
it must be, the wasting of their territory before their eyes, and to
suffer whatsoever misery could befal them; and no more to go forth, but
from the walls to make them this answer: ‘That it was impossible for
them to do as the Lacedæmonians had required.’ When they had answered
so, Archidamus the king first made a protestation to the gods and
heroes of the country, saying thus: ‘All ye gods and heroes, protectors
of the land of Platæa, be witnesses that we neither invade this
territory, wherein our fathers, after their vows unto you, overcame
the Medes, and which you made propitious for the Grecians to fight
in, unjustly now in the beginning, because they have first broken the
league they had sworn; nor what we shall further do will be any injury,
because though we have offered many and reasonable conditions, they
have yet been all refused. Assent ye also to the punishment of the
beginners of injury, and to the revenge of those that bear lawful arms.’
“Having made this protestation to the gods, he made ready his army for
the war. And first having felled trees, he therewith made a palisado
about the town that none might go out. That done, they raised a mound
against the wall, hoping, with so great an army all at work at once,
to have quickly taken it. And, having cut down timber in the mountain
Cithæron, they built a frame of timber and wattled it about on either
side, to serve instead of a wall, to keep the earth from falling too
much away, and cast into it stones and earth, and whatsoever else would
serve to fill it up. Seventy days and nights continually they cast up
the mound, dividing the work between them for rest in such manner, as
some might be carrying, whilst others took their sleep and food. And
they were urged to labour by the Lacedæmonian officers, who commanded
severally the contingents of the allied cities. The Platæans seeing
the mound to rise, made the frame of a wall with wood, which, having
placed on the wall of the city in the place where the mound touched,
they built it within full of bricks, taken from the adjoining houses,
for that purpose demolished; the timbers serving to bind them together,
that the building might not be weakened by the height. The same was
also covered with skins and leather, both to keep the timber from shot
of wildfire and those that wrought from danger. So that the height of
the wall was great on one side, and the mound went up as fast on the
other. The Platæans used also this device; they broke a hole in their
own wall, where the mound joined, and drew the earth from it into the
city. But the Peloponnesians, when they found it out, rammed clay into
cases made of reeds, which they cast into the cavity, with intention
that the mound should not moulder, and be carried away like loose
earth. The Platæans, excluded here, gave over that plot, and digging a
secret mine, which they carried under the mound from within the city
by conjecture, fetched away the earth again, and were a long time
undiscovered; so that the earth being continually carried out below,
it was no use to cast fresh stuff on the mound, which still settled
down into the excavation. Nevertheless, fearing that they should not be
able even thus to hold out, being few against many, they devised this
further; they gave over working at the high wall against the mound, and
beginning at both ends of it, where the wall was low, built another
wall in form of a crescent, inward to the city, that, if the great wall
were taken, this might resist, and put the enemy to make another mound,
in the continuing of which further inwards they should have their
labour over again, and withal should be more exposed on either side to
missile weapons. And at the same time that they were raising the mound,
the Peloponnesians brought to the city their engines of battery; one of
which, by help of the mound, they applied to the high wall, wherewith
they much shook it, and put the Platæans into great fear; and others to
other parts of the wall, which the Platæans broke partly by casting
ropes about them, and partly with great beams, which being hung in long
iron chains by either end upon two other great beams jetting over, and
inclining from above the wall like two horns, they drew up to them in
a horizontal position, and when the engine was about to make a blow
any where, they let go the chains and let the beam fall, which, by the
violence of its descent, broke off the head of the battering–ram.
“After this, the Peloponnesians, seeing their engines availed not, and
thinking it hard to take the city by any present violence, prepared
themselves to draw an enclosure all around it. But first they thought
fit to attempt it by fire, being no great city, and when the wind
should rise, if they could, to burn it; for there was no way they
did not think on, to have gained it without expense and long siege.
Having therefore brought faggots, they cast them from the mound into
the space between it and their new wall, which by so many hands was
quickly filled; and then into as much of the rest of the city as
at that distance they could reach; and throwing amongst them fire,
together with brimstone and pitch, kindled the wood, and raised such
a flame, as the like was never seen before, made by the hand of man.
For it has been known that a forest in the mountains has taken fire[6]
spontaneously from the friction of its boughs in a high wind, and burst
into flames. But this fire was a great one, and the Platæans, that had
escaped other mischiefs, wanted little of being consumed by this; for
there was a large part of the town within which it was impossible to
approach; and if the wind had blown the fire that way (as the enemy
hoped it might) they could never have escaped. It is also reported that
there fell uch rain then, with great thunder, and that the flame was
extinguished and the danger ceased by that.
“Now the Peloponnesians, when they failed likewise of this, retaining a
part of their army, and dismissing the rest, enclosed the city about
with a wall, dividing the circumference thereof to the charge of the
several cities. There was a ditch both within and without it, out of
which they made their bricks; and after it was finished, which was
about the rising of Arcturus,[7] they left a guard for one–half of the
wall (for the other was guarded by the Bœotians), and departed with the
rest of their army, and were dissolved according to their cities. The
Platæans had before this sent their wives and children and all their
unserviceable men to Athens. The rest were besieged, being in number
of the Platæans themselves four hundred, of Athenians eighty, and one
hundred and ten women to dress their meat. These were all when the
siege was first laid, and not more, neither free nor bond, in the city.
In this manner were the Platæans besieged.”[8]
The blockade continued for about a year and a half, during which the
historian does not advert to it. At the end of that time, in the
winter, B. C. 428–7, the garrison, after deliberation, being pressed by
hunger and despairing of any help from Athens, resolved to abandon the
city, and force a passage through the line of circumvallation. Half the
number took alarm at the seeming rashness of the attempt, and declined
to share it; but about two hundred and twenty persisted in their
resolution. We now return to the historian’s narrative:—
“As for the wall of the Peloponnesians, it was thus built; it consisted
of a double circle, one towards Platæa, and another outward, in case of
an assault from Athens. These two walls were distant one from the other
about sixteen feet; and that sixteen feet of space between them was
disposed and built into cabins for the force that kept the works, which
were so joined and continued one to another, that the whole appeared
to be one thick battlements stood a great tower of the same breadth
as the walls, and stretching across them from the inner to the outer
face, so that there was no passage by the side of a tower, but through
the midst of it. And such nights as there happened any storm of rain,
they used to quit the battlements of the wall, and to watch under the
towers, as being not far asunder, and covered beside overhead. Such was
the form of the wall wherein the Peloponnesians kept their watch.
“The Platæans, after they were ready, waiting for a tempestuous night
of wind and rain, and withal moonless, went out of the city, and were
conducted by those men who had proposed the attempt. And first they
passed the ditch that was about the town, and then came up close to
the wall of the enemy, who through the darkness could not see them
coming, nor hear them for the clatter of the storm, which drowned the
noise of their approach. And they came on besides at a good distance
one from the other, that they might not be betrayed by the clashing
of their arms; and were but lightly armed, and not shod but on the
left foot, for the more steadiness in the mud. They came thus to the
battlements in one of the spaces between tower and tower, knowing that
there was now no watch kept there. And first came they that carried
the ladders, and placed them to the wall; then twelve lightly armed,
only with a dagger and a breast–plate, went up, led by Ammeas, the son
of Coræbus, who was the first that mounted; and after him ascended
his followers, to each tower six. To these succeeded others lightly
armed, that carried the darts, for whom they that came after carried
targets at their backs, that they might be the more expedite to get
up, which targets they were to deliver to them when they came to the
enemy. At length, when most of them were ascended, they were heard by
the watchmen that were in the towers; for one of the Platæans, taking
hold of the battlements, threw down a tile, which made a noise in the
fall, and presently there was an alarm, and the army ran to the wall,
for in the dark and stormy night they knew not what the danger was.
And the Platæans that were left in the city came forth withal, and
assaulted the wall of the Peloponnesians on the opposite part to that
where their men went over; so that they were all in a tumult in their
several places, and not any of them that watched durst stir to the aid
of the rest, nor were able to conjecture what had happened. But those
three hundred[9] that were appointed to assist the watch upon all
occasions of need, went without the wall, and made towards the place
of the clamour. They also held up the fires by which they used to make
known the approach of enemies, towards Thebes. But then the Platæans
likewise held out many other fires from the wall of the city, which for
that purpose they had before prepared, to confound the meaning of the
enemy’s signal–fires, and that the Thebans, apprehending the matter
otherwise than it was, might forbear to send help till their men were
over, and had recovered some place of safety.
“In the mean time those Platæans, which having scaled the wall first
and slain the watch, were now masters of both the towers, not only
guarded the passages by standing themselves in the entries, but also
applying ladders from the wall to the towers, and conveying many men
to the top, kept the enemies off with shot both from above and below.
In the mean space the greatest number of them having reared to the
wall many ladders at once, and beaten down the battlements, passed
quite over between the towers, and ever as any of them got to the
other side, they stood still upon the brink of the ditch, and with
arrows and darts kept off those that came along the wall to hinder the
passage of their companions. And when the rest were over, then last of
all, and with much ado, came they also which were in the two towers
down to the ditch. And by this time the three hundred, that were to
assist the watch, came and set upon them, and had lights with them; by
which means the Platæans that were on the further brink of the ditch
discerned them the better from out of the dark, and aimed their arrows
and darts at their most disarmed parts; for, standing in the dark, the
light of the enemy made the Platæans the less discernible: insomuch as
the last of them passed the ditch in time, though with difficulty and
force; for the water in it was frozen over, though not so hard as to
bear, but watery, and such as when the wind is at east rather than at
north; and the snow which fell that night, together with so great a
wind as there was, had very much increased the water, which they waded
through, with scarce their heads above. But yet the greatness of the
storm was the principal means of their escape.
“From the ditch the Platæans in troop took the way towards Thebes,
leaving on the right hand the shrine of the hero Androcrates, both
for that they supposed it would be least suspected that they had
taken the road leading to their enemies; and also because they saw
the Peloponnesians with their lights pursue that way, which, by Mount
Cithæron and the Oakheads, led to Athens; and for six or seven furlongs
the Platæans followed the road to Thebes; then turning off they took
that towards the mountain leading to Erythræ and Hysiæ, and, having
gotten the hills, escaped through to Athens, being two hundred and
twelve persons out of a greater number: for some of them returned
into the city before the rest went over, and one of their archers was
taken upon the ditch without. And so the Peloponnesians gave over the
pursuit, and returned to their places. But the Platæans that were
within the city knowing nothing of the event, and those that turned
back having told them that not a man escaped, as soon as it was day
sent a herald to entreat a truce for the taking up of their dead
bodies; but when they knew the truth, they gave it over. And thus these
men of Platæa passed through the fortification of their enemies, and
were saved.”[10]
A bolder and more fortunate stroke for life and liberty has never
been described. How deep must have been the mortification of those
whose courage failed at the decisive moment, upon learning the
brilliant success of their comrades’ attempt! Dearly did they pay for
disgracing their brave resistance by a single moment of timidity.
Forced at last by famine to yield up the town, which the besiegers
could at any time have taken by assault, but that they had an ulterior
object in wishing to obtain it by surrender, the only terms they
could obtain were, that they should surrender themselves and their
city to the justice of Sparta, so that none but the guilty should be
punished. Commissioners were sent out to try them. The only question
asked was this: Had they done any service to the Lacedæmonians or
their allies in the present war? The Platæans requested that instead
of merely answering this question they might reply at length; and
having obtained it, commissioned two persons to plead their cause.
They set forth the peculiarly hard situation in which this mode of
trial, if such it could be called, placed them; which, setting aside
the justice of their cause, required them to pronounce their own
certain condemnation. They reminded the hearers of their services in
the Persian war, of the privileges and immunities conferred on them
by Pausanias and the Greeks, and the respect due to their territory,
as the repository of the bones of those who fell in the great battle
which for ever relieved Greece from the fear of Persia. They urged,
that when they had sought alliance with Sparta, and protection against
Thebes, the Spartans themselves had rejected their petition, and
referred them to Athens; they suggested skilfully the high reputation
of the Spartans for probity, and dwelt on the disgrace which they
would incur, if, in a cause of such importance, they should commit
injustice. But they pleaded in vain: the character which they ascribed
to the Spartans, if ever deserved, was now deserved no longer, and
their fate was predetermined. The question, Had they done any good to
the Lacedæmonians? was repeated to them one by one; and as it could not
be answered in the affirmative, they were led off to execution to the
number of 200 Platæans and twenty–five Athenians. Nor was this a single
instance of barbarity, for it was the practice of the Spartans to put
their prisoners to death, even the crews of such merchant ships as they
captured; an example too readily followed by their antagonists. One,
and but one, such action may be cited in modern times, the massacre of
the Turkish prisoners at Jaffa, the most hateful, and save one perhaps
the most hated, of the remorseless actions of Napoleon. Yet for this
there is some shadow of excuse, however insufficient to justify the
deed to modern morals, in the broken parole of those who were put to
death. To the Greeks such excuse would have been ample; nay, none such
was required. Humanity has made no small progress, even in the midst
of warfare. The town of Platæa was levelled with the ground by the
Thebans.[11]
Similar was the fate, similar, but even more obstinate and remarkable
was the resistance, of Numantia, the last stronghold of those gallant
and generous Celtiberians, who, after the infamous murder of Viriatus,
upheld the liberties of Spain against Rome. During five successive
years, six Roman officers met with defeats, more or less signal, under
its walls, and peace, twice offered and concluded by the unsuccessful
generals to retrieve their safety, was as often disowned and violated
by the unblushing perfidy of the senate. The circumstances of one of
these treaties are so creditable to the _barbarian_ Spaniards, as they
were called by the Romans, that we will go somewhat out of the way to
relate them.
The highest estimate of the Numantine force falls short of 10,000
men. C. Hostilius Mancinus, consul A. U. 615 (B.C. 139), succeeding
to the command of 30,000 men employed in besieging them, found his
army so dispirited by a long train of reverses, that he judged it
best to retire to some distance from the town. He intended to effect
this secretly by a night march, but the besieged, getting notice of
his design, fell upon the Roman rear, killed 10,000, it is said, and
surrounded the rest in such a manner that escape was hopeless. Anxious
only for peace and independence, they readily accepted the terms
offered by Mancinus as a ransom for his army. What these were does
not appear, but they were sworn to by the consul and chief officers.
Mancinus, on the first rumour of his defeat, was recalled to Rome, and
deputies from Numantia accompanied him, to obtain the ratification of
the treaty. But the haughty senate, as once before in the celebrated
surrender at the Caudine Forks, refused to admit terms humiliating
to the dignity of the republic, though not to profit by the release
of their countrymen. The war was continued; but to satisfy their
notions of equity Mancinus was given up to the Numantines, a voluntary
testimony, to do him justice, to his own good faith in the transaction.
Returning to Spain with his successor, Furius, he was led naked to the
waist, his hands tied behind him, to the gates of Numantia. But the
Numantines refused to take vengeance on an innocent man; saying, that
the breach of the public faith could not be expiated by the death of
one person. Let the senate abide by the treaty, or deliver up those who
have escaped under the shelter of it.
At first perfidy did not seem to prosper. Furius and his successor
Calpurnius Piso made no more progress than their predecessors, and
so high grew the reputation of the besieged for valour, that no one,
Florus says, ever expected to see the back of a Numantine. At last,
A. U. 619, the Romans, weary of the war, and anxious above all things
to bring it to an end, re–elected to the office of consul Scipio
Æmilianus, celebrated as the final conqueror and destroyer of Carthage,
and expressly assigned Spain to him as his province, instead of
suffering the two consuls to draw lots for the choice of provinces, as
was the usual course. Scipio’s first care was to restore discipline
in his army, which he found corrupted by luxury. With this view he
expelled all the idle and profligate followers of the camp; practised
his troops in all military exercises, inured them to exposure and
fatigue, and when he thought the ancient tone of Roman discipline was
restored, led them, not against the formidable Numantines, but against
a neighbouring people. Obtaining a trifling advantage over a party of
the former who had attacked his foragers, he refused to prosecute it,
thinking it enough that the reputed invincibility of the Numantines
was disproved. On this occasion, says Plutarch, the Numantines being
reproached on their return to the city, for retiring before an enemy
whom they had so often beaten, replied, “The Romans might indeed be the
same sheep, but they had gotten a new shepherd.”
In the ensuing winter, his army being increased to 60,000 men, Scipio
determined to invest the town. Regardless of the disproportion of
force, the besieged often offered battle, which he refused, preferring
the slow work of famine to encountering the desperation of veteran
and approved soldiers. With this view he proceeded to draw lines of
circumvallation round the town; and it is said by Appian, that he
was the first general who ever took that method of reducing a place,
the garrison of which did not decline a battle in the open field.
The town was about three miles in compass, and lay on the slope of a
hill, at the foot of which ran the river Durius, now called the Douro.
Around it Scipio traced a double ditch, six miles in circuit, with a
rampart eight feet thick and ten feet high, not including a parapet
strengthened by towers at intervals of 125 feet. The river, where it
intersected the works, was effectually blocked up by chains and booms.
The besieged often endeavoured to check the progress of the Romans, but
the superiority of numbers, aided by restored discipline, was too much
for them.
The blockade had lasted six months, and the Numantines were hard
pressed by famine, before they condescended to inquire whether, if
they surrendered, they would meet with honourable treatment. An
unconditional surrender was required. Urged even to desperation,
they still refused to consign themselves to slavery or mutilation,
for the latter often was the fate of those whose strength and valour
the Romans had found reason to respect. Rather than submit to such a
fate, they consumed their arms and effects, and houses, in one general
conflagration, and dying by the sword, or poison, or fire, left the
victor nothing of Numantia to adorn his triumph but the name.[12]
Such was the unworthy fate of a city which had spared more Roman
soldiers than itself could muster armed men. “Most brave,” says the
historian, “and, in my opinion, most happy in its very misfortunes!
It asserted faithfully the cause of its allies; alone it resisted,
for how long a time, a nation armed with the strength of the whole
world.”[13] It is an easy thing to write rhetorical flourishes, and
very often mischievous as well as easy. Had Florus ever undergone one
tithe of the sufferings inflicted on the miserable Numantines, we might
possibly not have heard of their supreme felicity. It might have done
him some good by quickening his moral sense, and might have prevented
his beginning the next chapter with the assertion, that “hitherto the
Roman people was excellent, pious, holy.” Verily, such history as this
is a profitable study!
[Illustration: Battering–ram, combined with tower, from Pompeii, vol.
i. p. 78.]
In reading of such sieges as these, one of the first things which
strikes a reader not familiar with ancient warfare, is the extreme
rudeness of the methods employed, and the vast expense of time and
labour; yet, compared with earlier times, even the siege of Platæa is
of no extraordinary duration. Not to go back to the ten–year sieges of
Troy and Eira, the Messenians in Ithome held out against the Spartans
during nine years; and, in the Peloponnesian war itself, Potidæa
resisted for a still longer period than Platæa: such was the patience
of a besieging army in waiting for the slow operation of hunger, or for
some fortunate chance which, as at Eira, might give possession of the
town at an unguarded moment. Before the battering–ram was invented,
force could avail little against solid walls; and men soon found out,
with Wamba, in Ivanhoe, that their hands were little fitted to make
mammocks of stone and mortar. A well–conducted escalade might succeed;
a skilful stratagem might deceive the vigilance of the garrison; an
ingenious general might devise some method of attack which should
render walls useless, as in the attempt to burn out the Platæans, and
might derive some advantage from natural facilities, or even from
natural obstacles, so as to convert what the besieged most trusted in
into the means of their destruction; but to overthrow or pass the walls
by violence was commonly beyond his power. But the introduction of the
ram worked a material change in the relative strength of the besiegers
and besieged, for few walls could be found strong enough to bear the
repeated application of its powerful shocks. Next in importance to the
ram were those huge moving towers which overtopped walls, and were
provided with drawbridges, by means of which, the battlements being
previously cleared of their defenders by missile weapons from above, a
body of troops might at once be thrown upon them.
[Illustration: Moveable towers, from Pompeii, vol. i. p. 80.]
No material alteration in the methods of attack took place till the
discovery of gunpowder gave force enough to projectiles to batter down
the strongest walls, without exposing men and machinery to the hazard
of close approach. The only improvements which did take place consisted
in supplying means by which the assailants might approach with less
danger to the foot of the walls, and there apply the powerful ram, or,
in some instances, resort to mining.
In illustration of these remarks we may notice, very shortly, two
of the most remarkable sieges in ancient history, those of Tyre and
Syracuse, both resolutely sustained, both finally successful, both
carried on by rich and powerful nations who commanded every thing
that the best skill of the engineer, or the labour of numbers, could
effect. The first was undertaken by Alexander soon after the battle
of Issus, B.C. 333. From past ages the Phœnicians had been celebrated
among Asiatics for their maritime skill, and Tyre was the most powerful
of the Phœnician cities. Trusting in their naval strength to obviate
blockade and famine, and in the height of their walls and strength
of their situation to repel violence, the Tyrians refused admission
to Alexander, remaining faithful to their engagements with Persia.
Too weak at sea to assault the walls from his fleet, Alexander had no
resource but to carry out a mole to the island. Near the walls there
were three fathoms of water, which shoaled gradually to the shore. The
mole was built of stone, heaped up, we may suppose, of rough uncemented
blocks, like the Plymouth breakwater, and strengthened with piles; and
the top was constructed entirely, or in part, of wood. At first it
proceeded with despatch, but more slowly and more difficultly as it
approached the walls, from which the besieged annoyed the workmen with
missiles, and, at the same time, constantly harassed them from the sea.
To protect themselves from these attacks the Macedonians built on the
verge of the mole two high towers, armed with engines, and covered with
raw hides as defence against darts armed with fire. These the Tyrians
destroyed by a peculiarly constructed fire–ship. Having filled a large
transport with dry twigs and combustible matter, they fixed two masts
in the prow, heaped faggots high around them, and added pitch, sulphur,
and every thing that was proper to feed the flames. To each mast they
fastened two yard–arms, from the ends of which two cauldrons were
suspended, filled with combustibles. The ballast they moved entirely to
the stern, to raise her head as high out of the water as possible. Thus
prepared, they took advantage of a favourable wind to run her up on
the mole, and set fire to her, the crew escaping by swimming; and both
mole and towers were speedily involved in the conflagration. Meanwhile
the Tyrians, from ships and boats, assisted in the ruin, destroyed the
piles, and burnt those engines which would otherwise have escaped the
flames. The work therefore had to be recommenced, and it was rebuilt on
a larger scale.[14]
While this labour was proceeding, Alexander’s fleet was reinforced in
consequence of the submission of the Cypriots and Sidonians, to an
extent which enabled him to command the sea, and compelled the Tyrians
to block up the mouths of their harbours. Numerous mechanics were
employed in constructing military engines; some of which were placed
on board the largest ships of the fleet, and the rest were mounted
on the mole. The Tyrians, still to have the advantage of height,
built wooden towers upon their walls facing the mole. This would seem
scarcely necessary if we credit Arrian’s assertion, that the city
wall in that part was 150 feet high;[15] but it gives us a scale for
measuring the altitude of Alexander’s towers, which we may assume,
from this precaution, to have been as great or greater. On the side to
the sea they cast fiery darts into the attacking ships, and showers of
stones, which not only did much harm in their fall, but raised a bank
which made it impossible to get close up to the walls. The Macedonians
therefore were obliged to clear away these impediments; a work in
itself of difficulty and labour, increased by the resolution of the
Tyrians, who openly, by sending armed ships, and secretly, by means of
divers, cut adrift from their moorings the vessels employed on this
service. The Macedonians frustrated this method of defence by using
chains instead of cables for mooring, and succeeded at last in clearing
away the bank, and getting access to the wall. On the north side,
and that next the mole, it resisted their efforts; but a breach was
effected on the south side by battering from the ships, and an assault
was made, but without success. On the third day afterwards, the breach
being enlarged, a second assault was made under Alexander in person,
and the town was carried. Eight thousand Tyrians were slain, and thirty
thousand persons, natives and strangers, are said to have been sold for
slaves.
The most remarkable feature of this siege is the battering in breach
from the shipping, which would seem a most unstable base for the
cumbrous and weighty engines which must have been used. It may be
wished that Arrian had been more explicit on this subject, but he has
given no explanation of the means employed. Quintus Curtius relates
far greater wonders, and in the same proportion is less worthy of
belief than the plain and unassuming statement of Arrian, which we have
followed.
The siege of Syracuse, undertaken by the Romans under command of
Marcus Claudius Marcellus, B.C. 213, is rendered most remarkable by
the interposition of the celebrated geometrician Archimedes. Many
extraordinary stories are told of the wonderful things done by him,
which, if they rested only on the authority of Plutarch, and other
compilers of stories, it would be the natural and simple course to
reject; but some of the most singular are affirmed by Polybius, almost
a contemporary, well skilled in war, and of undoubted credit for
honesty and discernment; and one point, of which Polybius makes no
mention, has been ascertained to be practicable by modern experiment.
It is to be regretted that but a fragment of his account remains.
Syracuse was divided into five districts, the little island of Ortygia,
Acradina, Tycha, Neapolis, and Epipolæ. Marcellus directed his attack
against Acradina, which adjoined the sea, with fifty quinqueremes, or
vessels with five banks of oars, well filled with soldiers armed with
all kinds of missile weapons to clear the walls. He had also eight
ships fitted out in a peculiar way with machines called _sambucæ_,
from some fancied resemblance to a harp. They where thus prepared: two
ships were lashed together, the oars being taken from the two adjoining
sides, so as to form, as it were, one large double–keeled vessel,
affording a broad and stable base. A ladder was then made, four feet
broad, of the necessary height, protected at the sides and above with
gratings and hides, so as to form a sort of covered way to the very
summit of the walls. It was then so placed, the foot at the stern,
the head projecting beyond the prow, that it could be raised by ropes
run through pulleys at the mast–heads. At the top was a platform large
enough to contain four men, with high sides which turned on hinges, and
which being let down served as bridges to connect the ladder with the
walls of the besieged town.
At the request of Hiero, king of Syracuse, Archimedes had in past
years constructed a great number of machines for casting stones and
darts; with which the walls were so well supplied, that the Romans were
defeated in every attempt to approach: Marcellus ran his ships by night
beneath the walls, hoping to be within the range of these destructive
engines. Here, however, he was anticipated, for Archimedes had hollowed
chambers in the walls themselves, with narrow openings, like the
embrasures of a Gothic castle, from which archery, and the smaller
sorts of missile engines, were directed against the Roman ships with
destructive effect. Against the sambucæ he had contrived machines, from
which long beams or yards projected, when in use, far beyond the walls.
These were heavily weighted with stone or metal to the extent of not
less than ten talents, or 1250 pounds. A rapid circular motion being
then given to the beam by machinery within the walls, this weighted
lever was dashed against the ladder with such force as generally to
break it, while the ship itself was exposed to considerable danger.
This story not being good enough for Plutarch, he has told us, that
when the sambuca was a good way off the walls, a stone ten talents
weight was thrown into it, and then a second, and third, which
destroyed the vessel; and in consequence considerable ridicule has
been thrown on the tale. As told by Polybius it seems little open to
objection. Weights, not of half a ton, but several tons, are constantly
to be seen on our wharfs suspended on cranes, at a considerable
distance from a centre of motion. Add to one of these the machinery
requisite to give a rapid circular motion to the projecting arm thus
laden, and we have the engine of Archimedes, as described by Polybius.
The geometrician had also fitted out powerful cranes, with hooks and
chains, by which he could lift a ship almost out of the water. When it
was raised to the greatest practicable height, the chain was slipped,
and the vessel usually was either upset by the fall, or plunged so deep
as to fill with water. Marcellus is reported to have observed (it must
have been a forced joke), that Archimedes used his ships for cups to
draw water in. Finally he was obliged to abandon the attack by sea.
Appius Claudius, who conducted the siege by land, fared no better: and
it was resolved at last to give up all hopes of succeeding by force,
and trust to the slow operation of blockade. “Thus,” says Polybius,
“one man, and one art rightly prepared,[16] is for some matters a
mighty and a wonderful thing; for the Romans, having such power by land
and sea, take away but one old man of Syracuse, might have expected
immediately to capture the city; but while Archimedes was there, they
dared not even to attack it in that manner against which he was capable
of defending it.”
It is also said that Archimedes set the Roman ships on fire by means of
burning mirrors, composed of a combination of plane mirrors, adjusted
so as to reflect all the incident rays of light to the same point. The
possibility of this has several times been the subject of inquiry to
modern philosophers. Kircher took so much interest in the subject, that
he went to Syracuse expressly to inquire into the probable position of
Marcellus’s fleet, and he arrived at the conclusion, that it might have
been within thirty yards of the walls. Buffon’s experiments, made as
well as those of Archimedes with a combination of plane mirrors, are
conclusive as to the facility of setting tarred fir plank on fire at a
distance of one hundred and fifty feet, and the possibility of doing
it at considerably greater distances. Similar planks, and even more
combustible materials, were precisely what Archimedes had to deal with.
He is said to have operated in this way at the distance of a bow–shot,
in which there may very probably be exaggeration.
The sequel of the siege contains no matter of interest. Syracuse was
taken by surprise through the negligence of the guard, and Archimedes
is said to have been slain by a soldier, as he was deeply intent on the
solution of a problem.
Lines of circumvallation continued long to be the principal means
employed by the Romans in the reduction of strong places. Even the
inventive genius of Cæsar does not appear to have devised the means of
dispensing with this tedious and most laborious process. In his Gallic
wars he had frequent recourse to it, though the Gallic fortifications,
it might be thought, could not be of the most formidable description;
and the siege of Alesia furnishes one of the most remarkable instances
of it on record. The town stood on an eminence, surrounded on three
sides by hills of equal height, at a moderate distance: in front
extended a plain, three miles in length. Round the foot of this
eminence he dug a trench, twenty feet in width; and again, at an
interval of 400 feet, two more, of which the inner one was filled with
water: behind them he built a rampart twelve feet high, crowned with
battlements, and strengthened with towers at intervals of eighty feet;
and, more effectually to confine the besieged, and enable a smaller
force to guard the works, the space between them and the inner ditch
was filled with three distinct rows of obstacles. The first consisted
of a sort of abattis, made with large branches of trees, with the
ends squared and sharpened, set firmly in the earth (_cippi_). The
next were called lilies (_lilia_), from their resemblance to the
calix of that flower, with its upright pistil: these were circular
cup–shaped cavities, three feet deep, with a sharpened stake in the
centre, projecting about four inches above ground, and covered over
with brushwood to deceive assailants. Still nearer to the town iron
hooks (_stimuli_, like the Scottish _calthrop_, often used with effect
against the English cavalry) were scattered, to lacerate the feet of
the advancing enemy. The whole circuit of these works was fourteen
miles, and a similar series protected the troops from attack from
without.[17]
To come down to a period more interesting to modern readers, we find,
in the middle ages, the same principles of operation followed, but in a
ruder way, since neither men, nor money, nor science were so abundant
among the nations who established kingdoms on the ruins of the western
empire, as among the Romans; and, moreover, the turbulent independence
of a feudal army, whose term of service was usually limited to a
certain time, was unfitted for the severe labour, or the patient and
continued watching, which the Roman legionaries cheerfully underwent.
Still such skill as our ancestors of the middle ages had was borrowed
from the Romans; they employed the same species of machines, towers,
rams, and moveable galleries called cats, and the same or similar
projectile engines, mentioned under the same names of catapultæ,
onagri, scorpiones, &c., in the Latin authors of the eleventh and
twelfth centuries; and mangonels, trebuchets, war–wolfs, &c. in the
vernacular tongue. The first defence of a castle or city was usually
a strong wooden palisade called the barriers; and at these many of
the most obstinate contests and remarkable feats of arms recorded by
Froissart and other chroniclers of the times took place. These being
carried, the next step was to level the ground, drain or fill up the
ditch, and prepare for bringing up the battering–rams or towers, or
scaling–ladders, if it were thought fit to attempt an escalade. In the
first crusade the headlong valour of the Christian knights endeavoured
in vain to overleap the walls or force the gates of Jerusalem: time
was required to construct two moving towers, and on the difficulty
of procuring wood the fiction of the enchanted forest of Armida, in
Tasso’s poem, is founded. The leader of the Genoese, one of the great
maritime states of Italy, was the architect.
This man begunne with wondrous art to make
Not rammes, not mighty brakes, not slings alone,
Wherewith the firm and solid walls to shake,
To cast a dart, or throw a shaft or stone;
But, framed of pines and firres, did undertake
To build a forteresse huge, to which was none
Yet ever like, whereof he clothed the sides
Against the balles of fire with raw bulls’ hides.
In mortisses and sockets framed just
The beames, the studdes, and punchions joyned he fast;
To beat the cities wall, beneath forth burst
A ram with horned front; about her wast
A bridge the engine from her side out thrust,
Which on the wall, when need required, she cast;
And on her top a turret small up stood,
Strong, surely armed, and builded of like wood.
Set on a hundred wheels, the rolling masse
On the smooth lands went nimbly up and downe,
Though full of armes, and armed men it was,
Yet with small pains it ran as it had flowne;
Wondered the camp so quick to see it passe,
They praised the workmen, and their skill unknowne;
And on that day two towres they builded more,
Like that which sweet Clorinda burnt before.[18]
* * * * *
The archers shotte their arrowes sharpe and keene,
Dipt in the bitter juyce of poyson strong;
The shady face of heaven was scantly seen,
Hid with the cloud of shafts and quarries long;
Yet weapons sharp with greater fury beene
Cast from the towres the Pagan troops among;
For thence flew stones, and clifts of marble rocks,
Trees shod with iron, timber, logs, and blocks.
A thunderbolt seemed every stone; it brake
His limmes and armour so on whom it light,
That life and soule it did not only take,
But all his face and shape disfigured quight:
The lances staid not in the wounds they make,
But through the gored body tooke their flight
From side to side; through flesh, through skin and rinde
They flew, and flying left sadde death behinde.
But yet not all this force and fury drove
The Pagan people to forsake the walle,
But to revenge these deadly blowes they strove
With darts that flie, with stones and trees that fall;
For need so cowards oft courageous prove,
For liberty they fight, for life, for all,
And oft with arrows, shafts, and stones that flie,
Give bitter answer to a sharp replie.
This while the fierce assailants never cease,
But sternly still maintaine a threefold charge,
And ’gainst the cloud of shafts draw nigh at ease,
Under a pentise made of many a targe;
The armed towres close to the bulwarks prease,
And strive to grapple with the battled marge,
And launch their bridges out; mean while below
With iron fronts, the rammes the walls down throwe.
(68–71.)
Rinaldo, according to the romancer, raises a ladder, and scales the
walls single–handed; but Godfrey of Bouillon, who is present in one of
the towers, finds greater obstacles:—
For there not man with man, nor knight with knight
Contend, but engines there with engines fight.
For in that place the Paynims reared a post
Which late had served some gallant ship for mast,
And over it another beam they crost,
Pointed with iron sharpe, to it made fast
With ropes, which as men would the dormant tost
Now in, now out, now backe, now forward cast;
In his swift pullies oft the men withdrew
The tree, and oft the riding balke forth threw.
The mighty beame redoubled oft his blowes,
And with such force the engine smote and hit,
That her broad side the towre wide open throwes,
Her joynts were broke, her rafters cleft and split;
But yet, ‘gainst every hap whence mischief grows
Prepared, the piece (’gainst such extremes made fit),
Lanched forth two sithes, sharpe, cutting, long, and broade,
And cut the ropes, whereon the engine roade.
As an old rocke, which age, or stormy winde
Teares from some craggy hill, or mountaine steepe,
Doth breake, doth bruise, and into dust doth grinde
Woods, houses, hamlets, herds, and folds of sheep;
So fell the beame, and down with it all kinde
Of arms, of weapons, and of men did sweep,
Wherewith the towers once or twice did shake,
Trembled the walls, the hills and mountains quake.
(80, 81, 82.)
The Turks attempt to burn the tower with wildfire, but are prevented by
a providential tempest, and it approaches so close that the besiegers
throw their drawbridge on the walls. The courage of Godfrey was
animated by a divine vision of all those princes who had been slain in
the sacred war, bearing arms in behalf of the crusaders.
And on the bridge he stept, but there was staid
By Soliman, who entrance all denied;
That narrow tree to virtue great was made
The field, as in few blowes right soon was tried.
Here will I give my life for Sion’s aid,
Here will I end my days, the Soldan cried;
Behind me cut, or breake this bridge, that I
May kill a thousand Christians first, then die.
But thither fierce Rinaldo threatening went,
And at his sight fled all the Soldan’s traine;
What shall I do? if here my life be spent,
I spend and spill (quoth he) my blood in vaine;
With that his steps from Godfrey back he bent,
And to him let the passage free remaine,
Who threatening followed as the Soldan fled,
And on the walls the purple crown dispred:
About his head he tost, he turned, he cast
That glorious ensign with a thousand twines;
Thereon the wind breathes with his sweetest blast—
Thereon with golden rays glad Phebus shines:
Earth laughs for joy, the streames forbeare their hast,
Floods clap their hands, on mountains dance the pines;
And Sion’s towres and sacred temples smile
For their deliv’rance from that bondage vile.
(xviii. 98–100.)
We originally meant only to introduce Tasso’s description of the
towers, and have been led on to protract the quotation to far greater
length, from finding not only so lively, but there is all reason to
believe so accurate, a description, making allowance for a little
poetical exaggeration, of the mode of combat then in use. The poet
has at least the merit of being true to the facts related by the
historians. Two towers were constructed, one of which, intrusted to
the charge of Raymond, Count of Toulouse, was burnt by the besieged;
the other, directed by Godfrey in person, was brought safely up to
the walls. Large beams were applied to prevent its close approach, as
described by the poet, and these being cut away, were taken possession
of, and proved very serviceable to the crusaders. The walls were
cleared, not only by archery, but by a much less warlike and romantic
device. The wind blowing into the town, the assailants set on fire a
mattress stuffed with silk (_culcitram bombyce plenam_), and bags of
straw, so that “they who were appointed to defend the wall, unable to
open eyes or mouth, besotted and bewildered with the eddies of the
smoky darkness, deserted their post. Which being known, the general
with all haste commanded the beams which they had captured from the
enemy to be brought up, and one end resting on the machine, the other
on the wall, he ordered the moveable side of the tower to be let down;
which being supported on them, served in the place of a bridge of
suitable strength.”[19] This, it must be confessed, is a less romantic
way of gaining entrance than fighting hand to hand with Solyman: but
it is true, for the valour and personal prowess of Godfrey of Bouillon
were unsurpassed, and there is no reason to suspect that flattering
historians have perverted the fact, that Godfrey, noblest of the
crossed chiefs in character as in station, was the third man to enter
that holy city, for the delivery of which he longed so ardently, and
had sacrificed so much. Two brothers named Letold and Engelbert,
otherwise unknown to fame, were the first who won their way to these
contested walls.
For reasons above given the strong fortresses of feudal pride were
more frequently carried by a sudden and vigorous attack, than by the
tedious and expensive process of regular siege. Of such attacks some
remarkable instances occur in the wars between England and Scotland,
which at some future period we may perhaps notice; at present it is
more to our purpose to quote from the graphic pages of Froissart this
short passage, which is so completely ancient in character that change
the names and it might pass for the act of a Roman army:—
“The Englysshemen, that had lyen long before the Ryoll[20] more than
nyne weekes, had made in the mean space two belfroys of grete tymbre,
with four stages, every belfroy upon foure grete whelys, and the sydes
toward the towne were covered with cure boly,[21] to defend them fro
fyre and fro shotte; and into every stage there were poynted a C
archers: by strength of men these two belfroys were brought to the
walles of the towne, for they had so filled the dykes, that they might
well be brought just to the walles; the archers in these stages shotte
so holly togyder, that none durst apere at their defence, without they
were well pavysshed,[22] and between these two belfroys there were a
CC men with pic–axes to mine the walles, and so they brake through the
walles. * * * When sir Agous de Ban, who was captain within, knewe that
the people of the towne wolde yelde up, he went into the castell with
his companye of soudyers, and whyle they of the towne were entretyng he
conveyed out of the towne gret quantyte of wyne and other provisyon,
and then closed the castell gates, and sayd how he wolde not yeld up so
sone. Then the erle (of Derby) entred into the towne and layde siege
round about the castell as nere as he mighte, and rered up all his
engynes, the which caste nyght and day agaynst the walles, but they
dyd lytell hurt, the walles were so strong of harde stone; it was sayd
that of olde tyme it had been wrought by the handes of the Sarasyns,
who made their warkes so strongly that ther is none such now a dayes.
When the erle sawe that he colde do no good with his engynes, he caused
theym to cease; then he called to hym his myners, to thyntent that
they shuld make a myne under alle the walles, the whiche was nat sone
made.”[23]
In the time of Froissart the invention of gunpowder had already begun
to work a change in the art of war: still, then and for some time
afterwards, the imperfection of the artillery in use rendered them
of little real service.[24] Usually of immense and unwieldy size and
weight, the difficulty of transporting them from place to place was
extreme, and they could not be fired more than three or four times in
the day, at great expense and with uncertain execution. Even so late
as the siege of Magdeburg, in 1631, it is said that 1550 cannon shots
where fired against one wall with but little effect. But as the art
of gunnery advanced, the battering train was found to be an overmatch
for the strongest fortresses that had yet been constructed, and a new
system of fortification came gradually into use. Low bastions and
curtains took place of the lofty towers and walls of former castles;
and still the advantage is so entirely transferred from the besieged
to the besiegers, that the termination of a siege pursued according
to the rules of art is reduced almost to certainty as to the time
and method of its issue. This has diminished the interest of modern
sieges, by making ultimate capture almost a certainty, and rendering
it the interest of the garrison rather to make terms while they have
something to give up, than to hold out to those extremes of difficulty
and distress, of which ancient history abounds in striking examples.
It has also rendered both the attack and defence matters more of
combination and science, and less of individual gallantry. There is,
however, one war in the transition stage, as it were, from ancient to
modern tactics, distinguished especially by the number and length of
its sieges, and by the constancy and desperate valour shown by the
beleaguered party in every instance. Even were we indifferent to the
parties, the narrations would in themselves be deeply interesting,
but the nobleness of their cause renders the sufferings of the brave
defenders doubly affecting—their triumphs doubly glorious. The reader
will readily conclude that we refer to the desperate struggle of
the Netherlands for civil and religious liberty against the mighty
despotism of Spain. Three sieges which occurred in this war are
especially worthy of the reader’s attention, those of Leyden, Haarlem,
and Ostend. That of Leyden has been already noticed in the first
volume; and after some hesitation we have selected the siege of Ostend
for relation here, as being more full of incident, not of interest,
than that of Haarlem. We give it from the contemporary historian,
Bentivoglio:—
“We will now come to the siege of Ostend, which, being one of the most
memorable of this our age, doth certainly challenge, that, as much
brevity and diligence as may be being joyned together, it be duly
considered and represented with all clearness. It was above three years
before it was brought to an end; and it was almost as uncertain at the
last day as at the first to which side the victory did incline. The
besieged never wanted fresh succours by sea, nor did the besiegers
at any time cease advancing by land. Infinite were the batteries,
the assaults infinite; so many were the mines, and so obstinate the
countermines, as it may be almost affirmed as much work was done under
ground as above ground. New names were to be found for new engines.
There was a perpetual dispute between the sea and land: the works on
the latter could not operate so much as the mines made by the former
did destroy. Great store of blood ran every where, and men were readier
to lose it than to preserve it, till such time as the besieged wanting
ground, and rather what to defend than defence, they were at last
forced to forego that little spot of ground which was left them, and to
yield.
“Ostend stands upon the sea–shore, and in the midst of a marish ground,
and of divers channels which come from the continent; but it is chiefly
environed almost on all sides by two of the greatest of them,[25] by
which the sea enters into the land, and grows so high when it is full
sea, as you would rather think the town were buried than situated in
the sea. In former times it was an open place, and served rather for
a habitation for shepheards than for soldiers. But the importancy of
the seat being afterwards considered, the houses were inclosed with
a platform instead of a wall, and from time to time the line was so
flank round about it, as it proved to be one of the strongest towns
of all the province of Flanders. It is divided into two parts, which
are called the old town and the new. The former, which is the lesser,
stands towards the sea; the latter and greater lies towards the land.
The old town is fenced from the fury of the sea by great piles of wood
driven into the ground, and joined together for the defence of that
part, and there the waves sufficiently supply the part of a ditch.
The channels may be said to do the like on the sides; and, especially
at full sea, of channels they become havens, being then capable of
any kind of vessels, and by them at all times the middle size of
barks enter into the ditches, and from the ditches in diverse parts
into the town itself; to boot, with the chief wellflanked line on
the outside of the ditch, towards the land side is a strada coperta
raised, which is so well furnished with new flanks, and with a new
ditch, as this outward fortification doth hardly give way to any of
the inward ones. The town is but of a small compass, and is ennobled
rather by its situation and fortifications than by any splendour either
of inhabitants or houses. The United Provinces caused it to be very
carefully kept at this time, wherefore it was largely provided of
men, artillery, ammunition, and of whatsoever else was necessary for
the defence thereof. In this condition was the town when the Archduke
resolved to sit down before it.”
On the east of the town there was a detached fort called St. Alberto,
on the west another called Bredene, both which had been abandoned
by the garrison. These were occupied by the besieging army, which
proceeded to surround Ostend on the landward with a chain of works, not
without sharp fighting, for the governor, Sir Francis Vere, had raised
redoubts in front of his fortifications, and hotly contested every inch
of ground. It seemed also necessary to cut off the communication with
the sea, and with this view a bank was run out on the eastern side
from St. Alberto to prevent barks from entering by the channel on that
quarter. But it was also expedient to block up the channel on the side
of Bredene, and in doing this greater difficulties were to be overcome.
The siege began in the summer of 1601, and the autumn had been consumed
in these works, when, towards the end of December, a terrible storm
at sea so shattered the town, that the inhabitants, despairing to
resist an assault, began to parley; but their spirits were recruited,
and the negotiations broken off by a seasonable reinforcement both of
men and all manner of provisions. The Archduke, being thus deluded of
his hopes, gave order that a battery should be raised on the side of
St. Alberto, which played so furiously upon the sea bulwark, that a
practicable breach was soon made, and an assault ordered. To divert
the enemy, directions were given that Count Bucquoy, who commanded
at Bredene, should pass the channel there, and fall with his men on
the wall where it was beaten down, and that upon the land side there
should be alarms given every where. “When they came to the assault the
assailants behaved themselves gallantly, and used all means to get upon
the wall; and though many of them fell down dead and wounded, and that
the horror of night, which already came on, made their dangers the more
terrible, yet did it serve rather to set the Catholics on fire, than to
make them cool in their fight. But there appeared no less resoluteness
of resistance in those within: for opposing themselves valiantly on all
sides, and being very well able to do it, as having so many men, and
such store of all other provisions, they stoutly did defend themselves
on all sides. Upon the coming on of night they had set up many lights
in divers parts of the town, whereby they the better maintained the
places assigned to them, did with more security hit those that assailed
them, and came the better to where their help was required. They
also soon discerned that they were all false alarms that were given
without, and that the true assault was made only in one place. To this
was added, that Count Bucquoy, not finding the water of the aforesaid
channel so low as he believed, he could by no means pass over them.
Yet the Catholics did for a long time continue their assault, but the
defendants’ advantages still increasing, the assailants were at last
forced to give over with great loss; for there were above six hundred
slain and wounded. Nor did those within let slip the occasion of
prejudicing yet more the Catholics as they retreated: for plucking up
some of their sluices, by which they both received the sea–water into
their ditches and let it out again, they turned the water with such
violence into the channel, which the Catholics had passed over before
they came to the assault, and which they were to pass over again in
their retreat, as many of them were unfortunately drowned.”
The year 1602 set in with such severe cold that the Archduke was
advised to abandon the siege. But he would not be persuaded thereto,
thinking the King’s honour and his own engaged in its success. He
ordered therefore a great platform to be raised in the quarter of St.
Alberto, which might command the town as much as possible, and gave new
orders that Bucquoy should advance, with all possible speed, the great
bank which was designed to obstruct the channel of Bredene. Having
given these orders, he retired to Ghent, and left the campmaster, John
di Rivas, in command of the siege, who employed himself diligently in
forwarding these important works. “To the first and largest foundation,
which was well incorporated with wet sand and other condense matter,
others of the like sort were added, till the dyke was grown to the
height it ought to be; and the breadth thereof was very extraordinary
great. To boot with the ordinary plain thereof, upon which two great
cannons might stand abreast, there was a great parapet raised in it
against the town to shelter the soldier; and which, being in divers
places furnished with artillery, did greatly endamage the enemy
likewise on that side. This work was made in a sandy and low situation,
and whither the sea at full tide came; so as it cannot be said with how
much expense, labour, and loss of blood, this work was advanced.” Still
the town continued to receive succours as plentifully as ever, and the
works proceeded so slowly from without, that the hopes of bringing the
siege to a happy end did daily rather decrease than increase. Yet Rivas
was very diligent in discharging his duty; the platform was completed
and mounted with cannon, and the besieged were driven from some of
their outer works: these were then furnished with artillery, which he
turned against the fortifications which sheltered the town on that side.
“Some progress was likewise daily made on Bredene’s side in the
advancing the great dyke. Bucquoy had the chief charge thereof, and it
was called by his name. And he used all possible diligence to infest
the town and the entrance of the channel on that side. But there
appeared no less vigilancy in the besieged; their courage abounded,
according as the town did abound with all sorts of provisions. There
was hardly any one day in which they did not sally out; nor did the
besiegers do any thing which cost not much labour and blood. The
platform was made chiefly of bavins and other wood, and the great
dyke was composed of the like materials. Two furious batteries were
therefore levelled from the town, with artificial fire–balls against
these two works, to set them on fire, and indamage them by that means.
Nor did they fail in their design: for by long battery they at last
took fire, and were thereby so torn and spoiled, as it cost much time
and the death of many men to remake them. Nor was the enemies’ loss
less either in number or quality.
“Pompeio Torgone, a famous engineer, was at this time come from Italy
to Flanders, drawn thither by the fame of this siege. He had a very
ready wit, which made him apt for inventions in his calling; but
having never till then passed from the theory to the practical part
in military affairs, it was soon seen that many of his imaginations
did not, upon trial, prove such as in appearance they promised to be.
He began to build a castle of wood upon boats fastened together. The
castle was round, high, and large proportionably. On the top thereof it
was capable of six great pieces of artillery on one side, and on the
other side there was place enough for those soldiers who were to attend
them. Torgone intended to bring this machine into the mouth of the
channel, and to firm it there, where succour was brought into Ostend,
hoping hereby to keep the town from relief. But this could not so soon
be done, but that it was preceded by the other work of drawing the
great dyke to the same channel, whereupon to raise afterwards a fort,
by which that passage might be so much the more impeded. To accelerate
this work likewise, Torgone bethought himself of other engines, by
which that so great quantity of materials, whereof the dyke was made,
might the more easily be brought to employment. The said materials
being put together in manner as they ought to be, he put a certain
number of little barrels under the hollow of the middle thereof, and
on the sides, by which at full sea the engines floated, and were
afterwards brought by cranes to joyn with the dyke in that part where
the work was continued on. These engines were called flotes. But such
was the tempest of the enemies’ cannon–shot, which incessantly fell
upon them, when they rested upon the sand; and then again they were so
prejudiced by the sea–storms, as oft–times the work of many days was
destroyed in a few hours. And really it was a pitiful case to see how
much blood was there shed, and how little the meaner sort of people who
were employed therein did out of a desire of gain value it.”
This was the condition of Ostend when the Archduke bethought himself to
give the care of the siege to the Marquis Spinola. Great certainly was
the honour of such an employment, yet there seemed so little prospect
of success that Spinola hesitated for some time; but, finally, being
persuaded there was more of hope than fear in the offer that was made
him, he resolved cheerfully to accept it.
“The first thing the Marquis did was to make great store of provision
of all such materials as were necessary, as well for the work of the
great dyke on Bredene’s side, as for the other works which were to be
made on the side of St. Alberto, on which side the town was chiefly
intended to be straitened and forced: the ground over against it was
all sandy, and full of several channels and little rivulets, besides
those two greater channels which fell into the sea, as you have
often heard. The same sea likewise, at the flood, did so whirl about
every place thereabouts, as ground was not any where to be found to
make trenches, which were therefore to be supplied with the above
said materials. These were chiefly brought by the flotes invented by
Torgone; and though the great dyke did daily advance, yet it was known
that such a work would prove too long and too uncertain. The hope of
keeping out succour growing there every day less and less, Spinola
bent all his endeavours to take the town by force. We told you before
that all vessels were hindered from coming into the lesser channel,
on St. Alberto’s side, which falls there into the sea by a fort. Yet
the channel itself was of great advantage to the enemy on that side,
for it served for a great ditch to their counterscarp, which was
strong of itself, and yet made stronger by many flanks by which it was
defended. Before the Catholics could come to assault the counterscarp,
they must first pass over the channel, which was so hard to do with
safety or shelter in any place thereof, as it was evidently seen that
many of them must perish, being exposed to be injured by the enemy. The
oppugnation was led on, on four sides, from St. Alberto’s quarter. The
Germans wrought nearer the sea; then followed the Spaniards; after them
the Italians; and on the outmost side, more towards land, the Walloons
and Burgonians. Great was the fervency of all these nations; and such a
contention there was among them in striving which of them should most
advance the works, as the soldiers’ emulation seemed rather a contest
between enemies than between rivals. The channel was narrower and more
shallow where the Burgonians and Walloons wrought. They were therefore
the first that passed over it, and afterwards the other nations did
the like. To pass over it, a great quantity of the aforesaid materials
were thrown into every part thereof, where the aforesaid nations
wrought. Those materials were reduced to dykes or banks, upon which
the soldiers advanced towards the town. But very many of them were
slain and wounded. For the defendants, with their hail of musquet–shot
and tempest of greater artillery, charged with little bullets and
murdering shot in great quantity, and oft–time with artificial fire,
made the Catholics’ work on all sides very bloody. The soldiers, that
they might go the best sheltered that they could, invented many fences:
some consisted of gabions filled with earth, well joined and fastened
together; others of long bavins, which stood upright, and stood so
thick as they were musket proof; and others, of several forms, made of
the aforesaid materials. Torgone invented likewise a great cart, from
which a bridge made of cloth and cords might unexpectedly be thrown
over the channel, and so the enemies’ defences might the easier be
assaulted. The cart stood upon four very high wheels; and upon the
fore–part thereof rose up, as it were, the mast of a ship, which
served chiefly to let down and to take up the bridge. But the whole
bulk proved to be of so cumbersome a greatness, and so hard to be
managed, that, before it was undertaken, it was known it could work no
effect. The aforesaid fences were wrought where the artillery of the
town could not reach; and, at the flowing of the sea, they were brought
upon the floats, to the places where they were made use of. Great was
the mortality likewise of those that wrought here; the enemy making
usually such havock of them with their muskets, artillery, and sallies,
as oft–times hardly one of them could be saved. But money still got new
men, and oft–times the soldiers themselves wrought. Nor was Spinola
wanting in being in all places at all times, and in exposing himself
as well as any of the rest to all labour and danger; encouraging some,
rewarding others, and behaving himself so, as his imitating, without
any manner of respect unto himself, the most hazardous works of others,
made the rest the more ready to imitate his.
“When each nation had passed the channel, each of them began with
like emulation to force the ravelins and half–moons which sheltered
the counterscarp. And the Walloons and Burgonians, by reason of their
quarter, were the first that did it, but with much effusion of blood,
even of the noblest amongst them; for amongst the rest, Catris, a
Walloon campmaster, was lost; a valiant and greatly experienced
soldier, and whom Spinola highly esteemed, both for his deeds and
counsel. With the like progress, and no less loss of blood, did
the other nations advance. So as the enemies at last lost all the
fortifications which they had without their principal line; about which
a great ditch ran, but not so hard to pass as was the channel which
fenced the counterscarp. The easier doing of it made the Catholics hope
better in the effecting thereof; wherefore, full of fresh courage, they
prepared to continue their labours more heartily than ever, that they
might the sooner end the siege; but the winter being already come on
did much injure their works, and the sea did then more destroy them by
her tempests. The enemy did likewise make very fierce opposition; they
set up batteries within against the batteries without; mines opposed
countermines; they repaired themselves on all sides, and as fast as
one rampire was lost they set up another. So as the Catholics were to
advance by inchmeal; and yet they did so advance, as by the spring they
were got well forward into the ditch.
“These already progressions of Marquis Spinola, together with his still
daily proceedings, made the United Provinces shrewdly afraid that
they should at last lose Ostend. It was therefore consulted amongst
their chief commanders how the town might be best preserved: which
might be done by two ways; either by some important diversion, or by
raising the siege by main force. The second affair brought with it
such difficulties, as the first was embraced. Wherefore they resolved
to besiege Sluce; a town which likewise stood upon the sea, and of so
great consequence, as did rather exceed than come short of those of
Ostend.”
Sluys was accordingly besieged and taken, to the great satisfaction
of the Flemish, that, in three months’ time and with the loss of so
little blood, they had made a greater acquisition than that of Ostend,
which would cost above three years’ expense of time, and an infinity
of Spanish gold and blood, if it could hold out no longer. But though
Spinola made an unsuccessful attempt to relieve Sluys, he could not
be prevailed on to break up the siege of Ostend, and his troops were
inflamed the more by a desire of counterbalancing that loss. So that at
last, after much slaughter, they won the ditch and the first line of
fortifications; but meanwhile a new one had been raised by those within.
“Sluce was just then lost: and it was feared that Count Maurice would
come to the relief of Ostend. The Catholics being therefore so much the
more moved, and Spinola being again returned, it is not to be expressed
with what fervour they fell to their works on all sides. The greatest
progress was made towards the old town of Ostend; and because when they
should have won that, they might easily hinder the entrance into the
channel, by the mouth whereof succour was brought from the sea; and
for that the new town was much commanded by the old, therefore Spinola
did the more reinforce his batteries, assaults, mines, and all his
other most efficacious works on that side than on any other; nor was it
long ere the Catholics had almost wholly taken it.
“They likewise advanced after the same manner against the new
fortifications, so as now the besieged had no where whither to
retreat; wherefore, wanting ground to defend, when they most abounded
in all things for defence, they were at last forced to surrender the
town; which was done about the midst of September, upon all the most
honourable conditions that they could desire. Count Maurice was often
minded to attempt the succour by main force; but considering that he
was to enter into an enemy’s country, amongst strong and well–guarded
towns, and that he should meet with men that were very ready to
fight, he thought it not fit, after his prosperous success at Sluce,
to hazard falling into some misfortune, as upon such an occasion he
might peradventure do, and therefore he forebore to do it. It was a
remarkable thing to see so many soldiers march out of a town; for
there were above four thousand of them, all strong and healthful, they
having enjoyed great plenty of all things in Ostend, by reason of their
continual succours. So as besides great store of artillery, there
was found in the town such abundance of victuals, ammunition, and of
whatsoever else may be imagined for the defence of a royal town, as the
like was never known to be in any other place.
“Thus ended the siege of Ostend; very memorable, doubtless, in itself,
but much more in consideration of the so great expense of monies and
time which the winning and losing of it cost. The siege continued
above three years; in which time the constant opinion was, that there
died, what by the sword, what by sickness, above a hundred thousand
men between the one and the other side; whereby it may be conceived
what proportionable monies and other things were therein spent. The
town being yielded up, the Archduke and Infanta had the curiosity to
go see it, and went from Gaunt thither, where they found nothing but a
misshapen chaos of earth, which hardly retained any show of the first
Ostend. Ditches filled up; curtains beaten down; bulwarks torn in
pieces; half–moons, flanks, and redoubts so confused one with another,
as one could not be distinguished from another; nor could it be known
on which side the oppugnation, or on which side the defence was; yet
they would know all, and receive the whole relation from Spinola’s
own mouth. He represented at full the last posture of the siege: he
showed the Spaniards’ quarters, and that of the Italians, as also
those of each other nation. He related how stoutly they contended who
should outvie one another in painstaking; on which part the greatest
resistance was made within: where the dispute was most difficult
without; where they wanted ground to retreat unto; where the enemy
used their utmost power; and where at last the town was surrendered.
The Archduke saw the great platform, the great dyke, and whatsoever
else of curious might be suggested by the unusual face of that siege;
but not without the Infanta’s great compassion, and even almost tears,
by looking upon the horror of those parts where the sword, fire, sea,
and earth may be said to have conspired together in making so long and
so miserable a destruction of Christians. They both of them did very
much commend Spinola, and did also thank the rest of the commanders
who had deserved well in that enterprise. Nor did they less gratulate
the inferior officers and soldiers, who had exposed themselves most to
those dangers.”[26]
Remarkable in modern history is the siege and storm of Magdeburg in the
thirty years’ war by the Imperial troops, commanded by Tilly, when that
general blighted the laurels acquired in thirty–six successful battles,
and fixed an indelible stain upon his reputation. Even poetical justice
might be satisfied by the events of his after–life, which, from a
series of victories became one of reverses, produced in part, at
least, by his own act, if it be true that the excesses perpetrated
on this occasion produced a lasting bad effect on the discipline of
his army. But, on the plains of Leipzic, in the person of Gustavus
Adolphus, he met at length with his superior in the art of war.
“I must now arm my breast with sternness, my heart with
impenetrability, while I relate the events which broke in foaming
billows over this wretched city,—events, for their magnitude,
extraordinary: for their mournfulness, but too calamitous; for their
importance, rarely known in former ages; and for their rarity, easily
unheard of. So may this mind be able to recite the reverses, the tragic
incidents which in this our age, by inevitable destiny, have oppressed
Magdeburg, a city of the empire, powerful and strong as ancient,—this
pen endure through the description of such horrid destruction. But
whence to commence the tempests of so pitiable an event? whence seek
those dreadful varieties of punishment, for the relation of which all
Germany is scarce sufficient? I am far from thinking that with this
pen I can do justice to so mournful, so extraordinary a calamity. For
he who would worthily express a catastrophe, which will amaze furthest
posterity, must needs be qualified by an iron memory, a strong and
unconquered style, since it is his duty to find words answerable to
actions.”[27]
The modest doubts expressed in the above rather pompous passage have
not restrained the historian, from whom we quote, from proving, in
a long and tedious narrative, that he justly estimated the relative
extent of his subject and his powers. We purpose to take warning by his
example, and act upon the diffidence which he expresses. The reader
is as capable of imagining, as the author, unless an eye–witness, of
describing, the behaviour of soldiers flushed with rage and blood let
loose upon an unarmed population: and either is likely to produce
but a confused picture, made up chiefly by ringing the changes upon
what the author of ‘Old Mortality’ calls “the four pleas of the
crown.” Instead, therefore, of multiplying anecdotes of brutality and
suffering, we shall only give the narratives of two eyewitnesses,
the simplicity of which is a guarantee for their truth. The first is
written by the minister of a church in Magdeburg. It is necessary to
premise that the assault was made at daybreak, as the hour when the
garrison were most likely to be off their guard, and at a time when a
general belief was entertained that Tilly was about to break up the
siege. It was therefore entirely unexpected.
“Going out of church immediately after sermon, some people of St.
James’s parish passed by, and told me the enemy had entered the town.
With difficulty could I persuade myself that this was anything more
than a false alarm; but the news unfortunately proved too true. I then
lost my presence of mind, and as my wife and maid–servant were with me,
we ran directly to my colleague, M. Malsio’s house, and left our own
house open. At M. Malsio’s we found many people, who had fled to him
in great perplexity. We comforted and exhorted each other, as far as
the terror of our minds would give us leave. I was summoned thence to
discharge the last duties to a colonel, who lay dangerously wounded.
I resolved to go, and sent my maid to fetch my gown: but before my
departure from my wife and neighbours, I told them that the affair
appeared to me to be concluded, and that we should meet no more in
this world. My wife reproached me in a flood of tears, crying, ‘Can
you prevail on yourself to leave me to perish all alone? You must
answer for it before God!’ I represented to her the obligations of my
function, and the importance of the moments I was called upon to give
my assistance in.
“As I crossed the great street a multitude of matrons and young women
flocked about me, and besought me, in all the agonies of distress, to
advise them what to do. I told them, my best advice was to recommend
themselves to God’s protecting grace, and prepare for death. At length
I entered the colonel’s lodging, and found him stretched on the
floor, and very weak. I gave him such consolation as the disorder of
my mind would permit me: he heard me with great attention, and ordered
a small present of gold to be given me, which I left on the table. In
this interval, the enemy poured in by crowds at the Hamburg gate, and
fired on the multitude as upon beasts of prey. Suddenly my wife and
maid–servant entered the room, and persuaded me to remove immediately,
alleging we should meet with no quarter, if the enemy found us in an
apartment filled with arms. We ran down into the court–yard of the
house, and placed ourselves in the gateway. Our enemies soon burst
the gate open, with an eagerness that cannot be described. The first
address they made to me was, ‘Priest, deliver thy money.’ I gave them
about four and twenty shillings in a little box, which they accepted
with good will: but when they opened the box, and found only silver,
they raised their tone, and demanded gold. I represented to them that I
was at some distance from my house, and could not at present possibly
give them more. They were reasonable enough to be contented with my
answer, and left us, after having plundered the house, without offering
us any insult. There was a well–looking youth among the crowd, to whom
my wife addressed herself, and besought him in God’s name to protect
us: ‘My dear child,’ said he, ‘it is a thing impossible; we must pursue
our enemies;’ and so they retired.
“In that moment another party of soldiers rushed in, who demanded
also our money. We contented them with seven shillings and a couple
of silver spoons, which the maid fortunately had concealed in her
pocket. They were scarce gone before a soldier entered alone with the
most furious countenance I ever saw; each cheek was puffed out with a
musket–ball, and he carried two muskets on his shoulder. The moment
he perceived me, he cried with a voice of thunder, ‘Priest, give me
thy money, or thou art dead.’ As I had nothing to give him, I made my
apology in the most affecting manner: he levelled a piece to shoot me,
but my wife luckily turned it with her hand, and the ball passed over
my head. At length, finding we had no money, he asked for plate: my
wife gave him some silver trinkets, and he went his way.
“A little after came four or five soldiers, who only said, ‘Wicked
priest, what doest thou here?’ Having said thus much, they departed.
“We were now inclined to shelter ourselves in the uppermost lodgings
of the house, hoping there to be less exposed and better concealed.
We entered a chamber that had several beds in it, and passed some
time there in the most insupportable agonies. Nothing was heard in
the streets but the cries of the expiring people; nor were the houses
much more quiet; every thing was burst open or cut to pieces. We were
soon discovered in our retirement: a number of soldiers poured in, and
one who carried a hatchet made an attempt to cleave my skull, but a
companion hindered him and said, ‘Comrade, what are you doing? Don’t
you perceive that he is a clergyman?’
“When these were gone a single soldier came in, to whom my wife gave a
crape handkerchief off her neck; upon which he retired without offering
us any injury. His successor was not so reasonable: for entering the
chamber with his sword drawn, he immediately discharged a blow upon my
head, saying, ‘Priest, give me thy money.’ The stroke stunned me; the
blood gushed out in abundance, and frightened my wife and servant to
that degree that they both continued motionless. The barbarian turned
round to my wife, aimed a blow at her, but it glanced fortunately on
her gown, which happened to be lined with furs, and wounded her not.
Amazed to see us so submissive and patient, he looked at us fixedly
for some moments. I laid hold of this interval to represent to him
that I was not in my own house, being come to the place where I was to
discharge my duty to a dying person, but if he would grant us quarter,
and protect us to our home, I would then bestow upon him all I had.
‘Agreed, priest,’ said he, ‘give me thy wealth, and I will give thee
the watchword: it is Jesu Maria; pronounce that, and no one will hurt
thee.’ We went down stairs directly, highly contented to have found
such a protector. The street was covered with the dead and dying;
their cries were enough to have pierced the hearts of the greatest
barbarians. We walked over the bodies, and when we arrived at the
church of St. Catherine, met an officer of distinction on horseback.
This generous person soon discovered us, and seeing me covered
with blood, said to the person who conducted us, ‘Fellow–soldier,
fellow–soldier, take care what you do to these persons.’ At the same
time he said to my wife, ‘Madam, is yonder house yours?’ My wife
having answered that it was, ‘Well,’ added he, ‘take hold of my
stirrup, conduct me thither, and you shall have quarter.’ Then turning
to me, and making a sign to the soldiers with his hand, he said to
me, ‘Gentlemen of Magdeburg, you yourselves are the occasion of this
destruction: you might have acted otherwise.’ The soldier who had used
me ill, took this opportunity to steal away. Upon entering my house, we
found it filled with a multitude of plunderers, whom the officer, who
was a colonel, ordered away. He then said he would take up his lodging
with us, and having posted two soldiers for a guard to us, left us with
a promise to return forthwith. We gave, with great cheerfulness, a good
breakfast to our sentinels, who complimented us on the lucky fortune
of falling into their colonel’s hands; at the same time representing
to us that their fellow–soldiers made a considerable booty while
they continued inactive merely as a safe–guard to us, and, therefore
beseeching us to render them an equivalent to a certain degree. Upon
this I gave them four rose–nobles, with which they were well contented,
and showed so much humanity as to make us an offer to go and search for
any acquaintance whom we desired to place in safety with us. I told
them I had one particular friend who had escaped to the cathedral, as
I conjectured, and promised them a good gratuity on his part if they
saved his life. One of them accompanied by my maid–servant went to the
church, and called my friend often by name; but it was all in vain, no
one answered, and we never heard mention of him from that period.
“Some moments after our colonel returned, and asked if any person
had offered us the least incivility. After we had disculpated the
soldiers in this respect, he hastened abroad to see if there was any
possibility to extinguish the fire, which had already seized great part
of the city: he had hardly got into the street, when he returned, with
uncommon hastiness, and said, ‘Show me the way out of the town, for I
see plainly we shall perish in the flames if we stay here a few minutes
longer.’ Upon this we threw the best of our goods and moveables into a
vaulted cellar, covered the trap–door with earth, and made our escape.
My wife took nothing with her but my robe; my maid seized a neighbour’s
infant child by the hand, whom we found crying at his father’s door,
and led him away. We found it impossible to pass through the gates
of the town, which were all in a flame, and the streets burnt with
great fury on either side: in a word, the heat was so intense that
it was with difficulty we were able to breathe. Having made several
unsuccessful attempts, we determined at last to make our escape on the
side of the town next the Elbe. The streets were clogged with dead
bodies, and the groans of the dying were insupportable. The Walloons
and Croatians attacked us every moment, but our generous colonel
protected us from their fury. When we gained the bastion, which stands
on the bank of the Elbe, we descended it by the scaling–ladders which
the Imperialists had made use of in the assault, and arrived at length
in the enemy’s camp near Rottensee, thoroughly fatigued and extremely
alarmed.
“The colonel made us enter his tent, and presented us some
refreshments. That ceremony being over, ‘Well,’ said he, ‘having saved
your lives, what return do you make me?’ We told him that for the
present we had nothing to bestow, but that we would transfer to him
all the money and plate that we had buried in the cellar, which was
the whole of our worldly possessions. At this instant many Imperial
officers came in, and one chanced to say to me, ‘Ego tibi condoleo, ego
sum addictus Fidei Augustanæ.’ The distressed state I found myself in
made me unable to give a proper reply to the condolences of a man who
carried arms against those whose religion he professed, and whose hard
fortune he pretended to deplore.
“Next day the colonel sent one of his domestics with my maid–servant to
search for the treasure we had buried in the cellar, but they returned
without success, because as the fire still continued they could not
approach the trap–door. In the mean while the colonel made us his
guests at his own table, and during our whole stay treated us not as
prisoners, but as intimate friends.
“One day at dinner an officer of the company happened to say, that
our sins were the cause of all the evil we suffered, and that God had
made use of the Catholic army to chastise us; to whom my wife replied,
that the observation perhaps was but too true; however, take care,
continued she, lest God in the end should throw that very scourge into
the flames. This sort of prophecy was fulfilled soon afterwards on the
self–same Imperial army, which was almost totally destroyed at the
battle of Leipzic.
“At length I ventured one day to ask our colonel to give us leave to
depart: he complied immediately, on condition that we paid our ransom.
Next morning I sent my maid into the town to try if there was any
possibility of penetrating into the cellar: she was more fortunate that
day, and returned with all our wealth. Having returned our thanks to
our deliverer, he immediately ordered a passport to be prepared for us,
with permission to retire to whatever place we should think proper, and
made us a present of a crown to defray the expense of our journey. This
brave Spaniard was colonel of the regiment of Savelli, and named Don
Joseph de Ainsa.”[28]
The sack of Magdeburg was an event of uncommon atrocity, and abhorred
as such even in that age. But from the sort of clemency experienced
by this clergyman, who was plundered of his goods after having nearly
lost his life, and yet seems to feel much gratitude to his protector,
we may imagine the treatment which the peasantry and citizens received
from the rude soldiery of that time. These men, both officers and
soldiers, were in a great degree mercenaries, who resorted to the wars
expressly to mend their fortunes, and were not likely to exercise
the presumed rights of the victor with much moderation. Few of their
generals had much sympathy with the sufferings of non–combatants, of
peaceable countrymen, and wealthy burghers; and those who might have
been inclined to enforce discipline and soften the evils of war, were
shackled by the deficiency of financial resources, and the consequent
irregularity in issuing pay and other requisites to their armies.
“There are things, my lord, in the service of that great prince
(Gustavus Adolphus) that cannot but go against the stomach of any
cavalier of honour. In especial, albeit the pay be none of the most
superabundant, being only about sixty rix–dollars a month to a captain;
yet the invincible Gustavus never paid above one–third of that sum,
which was distributed monthly by way of loan, although when justly
considered it was in fact a borrowing by that great monarch of the
additional two–thirds, which were due to the soldier.”
“But were not these arrears,” said Lord Monteith, “paid to the soldiery
at some stated period?” “My lord,” said Dalgetty, “I take it upon my
conscience that at no period, and by no possible process, could one
creutzer of them ever be recovered. I myself never saw twenty dollars
of my own all the time I served the invincible Gustavus, unless it
was from the chance of a storm or victory, or the fetching in of some
town or doorp, when a cavalier of fortune who knows the usage of wars,
seldom faileth to make some small profit.”
“I begin rather to wonder, sir,” said Lord Monteith, “that you should
have continued so long in the Swedish service, than that you should
have ultimately withdrawn from it.”
“Neither should I,” answered the captain, “but that great leader,
captain and king, the Lion of the North, and bulwark of the Protestant
faith, had a way of winning battles, taking towns, over–running
countries, and levying contributions, whilk made his service
irresistibly delectable to all true–bred cavaliers who follow the noble
profession of arms. Simple as I ride here, my lord, I have myself
commanded the whole stift of Dunklespiel on the Lower Rhine, occupying
the Palsgrave’s palace, consuming his choice wines with my comrades,
calling in contributions, requisitions, and caduacs, and failing not
to lick my fingers as became a good cook. But truly all this glory
hastened to decay after our great master had been shot with three
bullets, upon the field of Lutzen; wherefore, finding that fortune had
changed sides, that the borrowings and lendings went on as before out
of our pay, while the caduacs and casualties were all cut off, I e’en
gave up my commission, and took service with Wallenstein in Walter
Butler’s Irish regiment.”
“And may I beg to know of you,” said Lord Monteith, “how you liked this
change of masters?”
“Indifferent well,” said the captain, “very indifferent well. I cannot
say that the Emperor paid much better than the great Gustavus. For hard
knocks, we had plenty of them. * * * Howbeit, in despite of heavy blows
and light pay, a cavalier of fortune may thrive indifferently well in
the Imperial service, in respect his private casualties are nothing so
closely looked to as by the Swede; and so that an officer did his duty
on the field, neither Wallenstein nor Pappenheim, nor old Tilly before
them, would likely listen to the objurgations of boors or burghers
against any commander or soldado by whom they chanced to be somewhat
closely shorn. So that an experienced cavalier, ‘knowing how to lay,’
as our Scottish phrase runs, ‘the head of the sow to the tail of the
grice,’ might get out of the country the pay which he could not obtain
from the Emperor.”
“With a full hand, sir, doubtless, and with interest,” said Lord
Monteith.
“Indubitably, my lord,” answered Dalgetty, composedly; “for it would be
doubly disgraceful for any soldado of rank to have his name called in
question for any petty delinquency.”[29]
We do not quote the great romancer as historical authority; but there
is no doubt but that Captain Dalgetty, though perhaps highly coloured,
is no unfaithful likeness of those needy and profligate adventurers who
bartered blood for gold, and formed a large portion of the armies of
the age, indifferent on which side they fought, and constant only while
pay, plunder, or promotion were at hand to reward their services.
The other narrative is that of a fisherman, a child at the time of this
event, who is said to have survived it nearly ninety years.
“The 10th of May, early in the morning, at the time the master of our
school was reading prayers, a report flew through the streets that the
town was taken, which was confirmed by the ringing of the alarm bells.
Our master dismissed us all in a moment, saying, ‘My dear children,
hasten to your homes, and recommend yourselves to the protection of
God; for it is highly probable we shall meet no more except in heaven.’
In an instant we all disappeared, some one way, and some another. For
my own part, I took my course with speed along the high street; and
found where the public steelyards are (and where the grand guard of the
city was kept), a considerable body of troops with their swords drawn;
and saw near them, and at a distance round them, a great number of
soldiers stretched dead upon the pavement. Terrified with so melancholy
a sight, I shaped my course down the street called Pelican, with a view
to conceal myself in my father’s house; but had hardly advanced a few
steps, before I fell in with a band of soldiers who had that moment
murdered a man whom I saw weltering in his blood. This sight shocked me
to such a degree, that I had not power to move forwards; but sheltering
myself in a house opposite to the Pelican inn, found a kind–speaking
middle–aged man, who said to me, ‘Child, why comest thou hither? save
thyself before the soldiers seize thee.’ I was strongly tempted to
put his advice in practice; but in that moment a party of Croatians
rushed in, and holding a sabre to his throat, demanded his wealth. The
old man immediately opened a coffer to them, full of gold and silver,
and precious stones. They crammed their pockets with his riches; yet
as the coffer was not emptied, they filled a small basket with the
part that remained, and then shot the poor old man through the head. I
stole away behind them, and found a place of safety among some empty
casks, and there found a young lady, perfectly handsome, who conjured
me to remove and make no mention of her. Anxiously reflecting where
to dispose of myself, the same Croatians surprised me again, and one
of them said, ‘Bastardly dog, carry this basket for us.’ I took it up
immediately, and followed them wherever they went. They entered several
cellars, and rifled women, maidens, and all persons that fell into
their hands, without remorse. As we ascended from one of these cellars,
we saw with astonishment that the flames had seized upon the whole fore
part of the house. We rushed through the fire, and saved ourselves. In
all probability, every soul was destroyed that remained within doors.
As for my father, mother, and relations, I never heard a syllable
concerning them from that time to the present.”[30]
This last sentence expresses briefly and emphatically the fate of
the population. The whole town was burnt, except the cathedral, the
convent of Notre Dame, with a few houses about it, and about a hundred
and thirty fishermen’s cottages on the banks of the Elbe. The number
of the slain cannot be distinctly ascertained, for we have no certain
knowledge of the population of the city; but the slaughter seems to
have been almost universal. It is said, however, that according to the
computation of those who were appointed to clear the streets, 6440
bodies were thrown into the Elbe; and this does not include those,
probably much the greater number, who were massacred in their houses,
and buried under the ruins, or consumed in the general conflagration.
One author says that 30,000 persons perished; Harte, that of 40,000
inhabitants, scarce 800 it was thought escaped: but contemporary
authors vary in their numbers, which indeed in these cases can hardly
ever be ascertained with certainty. The only lives expressly said to
have been preserved, are those of 400 persons who took refuge in the
cathedral; and in the Florus Germanicus, published only ten years later
(a book written in the Imperial interest), it is asserted that none
other were spared, and these only from respect to the sanctity of the
place. The author, however, reduces their number to a hundred. Others
must have been saved, like those whose narratives are given above, by
chance, or individual compassion; but it is plain that indiscriminate
destruction was the order of the day. This massacre will be an
everlasting blot upon Tilly’s reputation. He remained without the town;
and when solicited by those who had witnessed the horrors acted within,
to stop the indiscriminate slaughter, he replied, “The town must bleed;
it has not yet made sufficient expiation. Let the soldiers persist
another hour, and then we will reconsider the matter.” According to
another story, he said that the soldiers must have some recompense for
so much time and trouble. Yet, say the historians of his own party,
when on the third day he rode over the crackling ashes, and through
piles of corpses, he wept as he quoted some lines of Virgil, relative
to the destruction of Troy.[31]
There was no want of prodigies to foretell the fate of Magdeburg, by
monstrous births, the fall of towers, and other circumstances of equal
moment; several of which the curious reader will find mentioned by
Harte, and many more minutely described by Lotichius, as above quoted.
Such follies must have been deeply implanted in men’s minds when a
Christian writer, in the seventeenth century, has thought it worthwhile
to corroborate one of these omens by quoting a similar one from
Valerius Maximus.
[Illustration: PLAN OF ZARAGOZA.—(Copied by permission from Napier’s
History of the Peninsular War.)
1. St. Engracia. 2. Mad–house. 3. Convent of St. Francisca. 4. St.
Monica. 5. St. Augustin. 6. University. 7. Convent of Jesus. 8. Mines.
9. St. Lazar. The dotted portion shows how much of the city was gained
by the French during the second siege.]
The engineer’s art has materially diminished the interest of modern
sieges, by reducing them, independent of external relief, almost
to certainty, and substituting the combinations of science for the
personal exertions of the soldier. The warfare of trenches and
batteries, by which outwork after outwork is rendered untenable, often
without a bayonet being crossed in their defence, fails to rivet the
attention, and indeed is scarce intelligible without some share of
professional knowledge. It is not until the cannon have done their
work, and opened a way to individual strength and courage, not until
the assaulting columns are ready to ascend the breach, that the deep
interest is roused which even against our better judgment attends on
military daring. Still, after giving so many various specimens of
this branch of warfare, it may naturally be supposed that we shall
not pass in silence over all the brilliant actions of our own time:
and the attention is at once directed to the Peninsular war, not
only as the field in which the military energy of our empire was
most successfully developed, but because it produced a great number
of sieges of remarkable interest; while not one such occurs in the
campaigns which Napoleon conducted in person. A volume of sieges might
be compiled from this war, illustrative both of military resolution and
of popular energy and desperation: no wonder then if we have hesitated
between the contending claims of Zaragoza and Gerona. The latter city
is the favourite of Colonel Napier, who cites its resistance to prove
how far the regulated warfare of a disciplined force is superior to
the enthusiasm of a population untrained to arms. The grounds of his
preference are briefly these. Zaragoza was manned by above 30,000
soldiers and 25,000 armed citizens and peasants; but she wanted heavy
artillery, regular fortifications, and a controlling spirit: for both
the reputation and authority of Palafox appear to have been nominal,
and it is to the influence of plebeian leaders that the ferocious
energy of the defence is to be ascribed. Gerona contained about 3000
regular troops, and less than 6000 armed citizens; but she was well
fortified, and commanded by an experienced and resolute officer.
With this inferior force she held out twice as long as Zaragoza
against a superior attacking army, conducted the defence in regular
military order, and kept the enemy without her defences, instead of
admitting him to wage a desperate struggle on her hearthstones and in
her churches. On these grounds the defenders of Gerona may merit the
preference assigned to them by Colonel Napier for having displayed
equal bravery and devotion, with better fortune or greater skill. Still
the irregular and desperate struggle in the streets of Zaragoza, where
every house was a fortress, the end of every street a battery, where
miner counterplotted miner, and every foot of ground was purchased by
blood and ruin, will win the attention of more readers than would the
systematic warfare carried on under the walls of Gerona.
Zaragoza is situated on the right bank of the Ebro. Before its first
siege, in 1808, it contained 50,000 inhabitants. It possessed no
regular defences, and few guns fit for service, but was surrounded
by a low brick wall. These deficiencies were in some degree remedied
by the nature of its buildings, which were well calculated for the
internal warfare subsequently carried on: the houses being mostly built
of brick and stone, and vaulted, so as to be almost incombustible.
The city was also full of churches and convents, strongly built, and
surrounded by high thick walls. A broad street, called the Cosso, bent
almost into a semicircle, concentric with the wall, and terminated at
each end by the Ebro, divided the city into an outer and an inner part.
It occupied the ground on which the Moorish walls had formerly stood,
before the city attained its present size. This street was the scene
of that heroic resistance in 1808, which kept the French at bay after
the walls and one–half of the place had fallen into their hands. On
the 3rd of August, rather more than a month after the commencement of
the siege, the convent of St. Engracia, which formed part of the wall,
was breached; and on the 4th it was stormed, and the victorious troops
carried all before them as far as the Cosso, and before night were in
possession of one–half of the city. The French general now considered
the city as his own, and summoned it to surrender in a note containing
only these words: “Head–quarters, St. Engracia: Capitulation.”
The emphatic reply is well–known, and will become proverbial:
“Head–quarters, Zaragoza: War to the knife.”
“The contest which was now carried on is unexampled in history. One
side of the Cosso, a street about as wide as Pall–Mall, was possessed
by the French, and in the centre of it their general, Verdier, gave his
orders from the Franciscan convent. The opposite side was maintained
by the Arragonese, who threw up batteries at the openings of the
cross–streets, within a few paces of those which the French erected
against them. The intervening space was presently heaped with dead,
either slain upon the spot, or thrown out from the windows. Next day,
the ammunition of the citizens began to fail: the French were expected
every moment to renew their efforts for completing the conquest, and
even this circumstance occasioned no dismay, nor did any one think of
capitulation. One cry was heard from the people, whenever Palafox rode
amongst them, that if powder failed, they were ready to attack the
enemy with their knives—formidable weapons in the hands of desperate
men. Just before the day closed, Don Francisco Palafox, the general’s
brother, entered the city with a convoy of arms and ammunition, and
a reinforcement of 3000 men, composed of Spanish guards, Swiss, and
volunteers of Arragon: a succour as little expected by the Zaragozans,
as it had been provided against by the enemy.
“The war was now continued from street to street, from house to house,
and from room to room; pride and indignation having wrought up the
French to a pitch of obstinate fury, little inferior to the devoted
courage of the patriots. During the whole siege no man distinguished
himself more remarkably than the curate of one of the parishes within
the walls, by name P. Santiago Suss. He was always to be seen in the
streets, sometimes fighting with the most determined bravery, at other
times administering the sacrament to the dying, and confirming with
the authority of faith that hope, which gives to death, under such
circumstances, the joy, the exaltation, the triumph, and the spirit of
martyrdom. Palafox reposed the utmost confidence in the brave priest,
and selected him when anything peculiarly difficult or hazardous was to
be done. At the head of forty chosen men he succeeded in introducing
into the town a supply of powder so essentially necessary for its
defence.
“This most obstinate and murderous conflict was continued for eleven
successive days and nights, more indeed by night than by day; for it
was almost certain death to appear by daylight within reach of those
houses which were occupied by the other party. But under cover of the
darkness, the combatants frequently dashed across the street to attack
each other’s batteries; and the battles which began there were often
carried on into the houses beyond, where they fought from room to room,
and from floor to floor. The hostile batteries were so near each other,
that a Spaniard in one place made way under cover of the dead bodies
which completely filled the space between them, and fastened a rope
to one of the French cannons; in the struggle which ensued the rope
broke, and the Zaragozans lost their prize at the very moment when they
thought themselves sure of it.
“A new horror was added to the dreadful circumstances of war in this
ever memorable siege. In general engagements the dead are left upon
the field of battle, and the survivors removed to clear ground and
an untainted atmosphere; but here, in Spain, and in the month of
August, there where the dead lay the struggle was still carried on, and
pestilence was dreaded from the enormous accumulation of putrefying
bodies. Nothing in the whole course of the siege so much embarrassed
Palafox as this evil. The only remedy was to tie ropes to the French
prisoners, and push them forward amid the dead and dying, to remove
the bodies and bring them away for interment. Even for this necessary
office there was no truce, and it would have been certain death to the
Arragonese who should have attempted to perform it: but the prisoners
were in general secured by the pity of their own soldiers, and in this
manner the evil was in some degree diminished.
“A council of war was held by the Spaniards on the 8th, not for the
purpose which is too usual in such councils, but that their heroic
resolution might be communicated to the people. It was, that in those
quarters of the city where the Arragonese still maintained their
ground, they should continue to defend themselves with the same
firmness: should the enemy at last prevail, they were then to retire
over the Ebro into the suburbs, break down the bridge, and defend the
suburbs till they perished. When this resolution was made public, it
was received with the loudest acclamations. But in every conflict
the citizens now gained ground upon the soldiers, winning it inch by
inch, till the space occupied by the enemy, which on the day of their
entrance was nearly half the city, was reduced gradually to about an
eighth part. Meantime intelligence of the events in other parts of
Spain was received by the French, all tending to dishearten them.
During the night of the 13th, their fire was particularly fierce and
destructive: in the morning, the French columns, to the great surprise
of the Spaniards, were seen at a distance retreating over the plain, on
the road to Pampeluna.”[32]
Zaragoza, however, was a place of too much importance long to enjoy in
quiet her hard–earned laurels. In the course of the autumn, the French
recovered their superiority in Arragon, and had no sooner done so,
than they bent their strength to repair the disgrace which their arms
had sustained, and overthrow the firmest bulwark of independence in the
western provinces of Spain. The inhabitants, aware that their heroic
resistance had purchased only a temporary deliverance, employed the
intervening time in repairing and improving their external defences,
and still more so in preparing to renew to greater advantage that
internal conflict, in which experience had shown their real strength to
exist.
“It has already been observed, that the houses of Zaragoza were
fire–proof, and generally of only two stories, and that in all the
quarters of the city the numerous and massive convents and churches
rose like castles above the low buildings, and that the greater streets
running into the broadway, called the Cosso, divided the town into
a variety of districts, unequal in size, but each containing one or
more large structures. Now the citizens, sacrificing all personal
convenience, and resigning all idea of private property, gave up
their goods, their bodies, and their houses to the war; and being
promiscuously mingled with the peasantry and the regular soldiers, the
whole formed one mighty garrison, well suited to the vast fortress into
which Zaragoza was transformed: for the doors and windows of the houses
were built up, and their fronts loop–holed; internal communications
were broken through the party–walls, and the streets were trenched
and crossed by earthen ramparts mounted with cannon, and every strong
building was turned into a separate fortification. There was no weak
point, because there could be none in a town which was all fortress,
and where the space covered by the city was the measurement for the
thickness of the ramparts; nor in this emergency were the leaders
unmindful of moral force.
“The people were cheered by a constant reference to their former
successful resistance; their confidence was raised by the contemplation
of the vast works that had been executed; and it was recalled to their
recollection that the wet, usual at that season of the year, would
spread disease among the enemy’s ranks, and impair, if not entirely
frustrate, his efforts. Neither was the aid of superstition neglected:
processions imposed upon the sight, false miracles bewildered the
imagination, and terrible denunciations of divine wrath shook the
minds of men whose former habits and present situation rendered them
peculiarly susceptible of such impressions. Finally, the leaders were
themselves so prompt and terrible in their punishments, that the
greatest cowards were likely to show the boldest bearing, in their wish
to escape suspicion.
“To avoid the danger of any great explosion, the powder was made as
occasion required; and this was the more easily effected, because
Zaragoza contained a royal depôt and refinery for saltpetre, and
there were powder–mills in the neighbourhood, which furnished workmen
familiar with the process of manufacturing that article. The houses
and trees beyond the walls were all demolished and cut down, and the
materials carried into the town. The public magazines contained six
months’ provisions; the convents were well stocked; and the inhabitants
had likewise laid up their own stores for several months. General Doyle
had also sent a convoy into the town from the side of Catalonia, and
there was abundance of money, because, in addition to the resources
of the town, the military chest of Castaños’s army, which had been
supplied only the night before the battle of Tudela, had been in the
flight carried into the town.
“Companies of women, enrolled to attend the hospitals, and to carry
provisions and ammunition to the combatants, were commanded by the
Countess Burita, a lady of an heroic disposition, who is said to have
displayed the greatest intelligence and the noblest character during
both sieges. There were thirteen engineer officers, and 800 sappers and
miners, composed of excavators, formerly employed on the canal, and
there were from 1500 to 2000 cannoneers.
“The regular troops that fled from Tudela being joined by two small
divisions which retreated at the same time from Sanguessa and Caparosa,
formed a garrison of 30,000 men, and together with the inhabitants
and peasantry presented a mass of 50,000 combatants, who with passions
excited almost to frenzy awaited an assault amidst those mighty
entrenchments, where each man’s home was a fortress and his family a
garrison. To besiege with only 35,000 men a city so prepared was truly
a gigantic undertaking.”[33]
It was on December 20, 1808, that Marshals Moncey and Mortier appeared
in front of the town. We pass over the early part of the siege, which
contains nothing to distinguish it from a multitude of others. The
French, supported by a powerful battering and mortar train, advanced
their trenches slowly towards the town until January 22, when Marshal
Lasnes arrived to assume the command. On the 29th four breaches were
declared practicable. That night four columns rushed to the assault;
one was repulsed, the other three established themselves, and the
ramparts of the city became the front line of the French trenches.
“The walls of Zaragoza thus went to the ground, but Zaragoza herself
remained erect; and as the broken girdle fell from the heroic city,
the besiegers started at the view of her naked strength. The regular
defences had indeed crumbled before the skill of the assailants, but
the popular resistance was immediately called with its terrors into
action. * * * The war being now carried into the streets of Zaragoza,
the sound of the alarm–bell was heard over all the quarters of the
city, and the people assembling in crowds, filled the houses nearest to
the lodgments made by the French. Additional traverses and barricadoes
were constructed across the principal streets; mines were prepared in
the more open spaces; and the communications from house to house were
multiplied, until they formed a vast labyrinth of which the intricate
windings were only to be traced by the weapons and the dead bodies of
the defenders. The members of the junta, become more powerful from
the cessation of regular warfare, with redoubled activity and energy
urged the defence, but increased the horrors of the siege by a ferocity
pushed to the very verge of frenzy. Every person, without regard to
rank or age, who excited the suspicion of these furious men, or those
immediately about them, was instantly put to death; and amid the noble
bulwarks of war a horrid array of gibbets was to be seen, on which
crowds of wretches were suspended each night, because their courage had
sunk beneath the accumulating dangers of their situation, or because
some doubtful expression or gesture of distress had been misconstrued
by their barbarous chiefs.
“From the heights of the walls which he had conquered, Marshal Lasnes
contemplated this terrific scene; and judging that men so passionate
and so prepared could not be prudently encountered in open battle, he
resolved to proceed by the slow but certain progress of the mattock and
the mine; and this was also in unison with the Emperor’s instructions.
Hence from the 29th of January to the 2d February, the efforts of the
French were directed to the enlargement of their lodgment on the walls;
and they succeeded after much severe fighting and several explosions in
working forward through the nearest houses, but at the same time they
had to sustain many counter–assaults from the Spaniards.
“It has been already observed that the crossing of the large streets
divided the town into certain small districts or islands of houses.
To gain possession of these, it was necessary not only to mine but to
fight for each house. To cross the large intersecting streets it was
indispensable to construct traverses above or to work by underground
galleries, because a battery raked each street, and each house was
defended by a garrison that, generally speaking, had only the option of
repelling the enemy in front, or dying on the gibbet erected behind.
But as long as the convents and churches remained in possession of
the Spaniards, the progress of the French among the islands of small
houses was of little advantage to them, because the large garrisons in
the greater buildings enabled the defenders not only to make continual
and successful sallies, but also to countermine their enemies, whose
superior skill in that kind of warfare was often frustrated by the
numbers and persevering energy of the besieged. * * *
“The experience of these attacks[34] induced a change in the mode
of fighting on both sides. Hitherto the play of the French mines
had reduced the houses to ruins, and thus the soldiers were exposed
completely to the fire from the next Spanish posts. The engineers
therefore diminished the quantity of powder, that the interior only
might fall, and the outward walls stand, and this method was found
successful. Hereupon the Spaniards, with ready ingenuity, saturated
the timbers and planks of the houses with rosin and pitch, and setting
fire to those which could no longer be maintained, interposed a burning
barrier which often delayed the assailants for two days, and always
prevented them from pushing their successes during the confusion that
necessarily followed the bursting of the mines. The fighting was
however incessant, a constant bombardment, the explosion of mines, the
crash of falling buildings, clamorous shouts, and the continued echo of
musketry deafened the ear, while volumes of smoke and dust clouded the
atmosphere, and lowered continually over the heads of the combatants,
as hour by hour the French with a terrible perseverance pushed forwards
their approaches to the heart of the miserable but glorious city.
“Their efforts were chiefly directed against two points, namely, that
of San Engracia, which may be denominated the left attack, and that of
St. Augustin and St. Monica, which constituted the right attack. At
San Engracia they laboured on a line perpendicular to the Cosso, from
which they were separated only by the large convent of the daughters
of Jerusalem, and by the hospital for madmen, which was entrenched,
although in ruins since the first siege. The line of this attack was
protected on the left by the convent of the Capuchins, which General
Lacoste had fortified to repel the counter–assaults of the Spaniards.
The right attack was more diffused, because the localities presented
less prominent features to determine the direction of the approaches:
and the French, having mounted a number of light six–inch mortars on
peculiar carriages, drew them from street to street, and from house
to house, as occasion offered. On the other hand, the Spaniards
continually plied their enemies with hand–grenades, which seem to have
produced a surprising effect, and in this manner the never–ceasing
combat was prolonged until the 7th of February, when the besiegers, by
dint of alternate mines and assaults, had worked their perilous way at
either attack to the Cosso, but not without several changes of fortune
and considerable loss. They were, however, unable to obtain a footing
on that public walk, for the Spaniards still disputed every house with
undiminished resolution.
“The 8th, 9th, and 10th were wasted by the besiegers in vain attempts
to pass the Cosso; they then extended their flanks. * * * The 11th
and 12th, mines were worked under the University, a large building on
the Spanish side of the Cosso, in the line of the right attack; but
their play was insufficient to open the walls, and the storming party
was beaten with the loss of fifty men. Nevertheless, the besiegers
continuing their labours during the 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th,
passed the Cosso by means of traverses, and prepared fresh mines under
the University, but deferred their explosion until a simultaneous
effort could be combined on the side of the suburb.
“At the left attack also a number of houses bordering on the Cosso
being gained, a battery was established that raked that great
thoroughfare above ground; while under it, six galleries were carried,
and six mines loaded to explode at the same moment; but the spirit of
the French army was now exhausted; they had laboured and fought without
intermission for fifty days; they had crumbled the walls with their
bullets, burst the convents with their mines, and carried the walls
with their bayonets. Fighting above and beneath the surface of the
earth, they had spared neither fire nor the sword; their bravest men
were falling in the obscurity of a subterranean warfare; famine pinched
them, and Zaragoza was still unconquered!
“‘Before this siege,’ they exclaimed, ‘was it ever heard that 20,000
men should besiege 50,000?’ Scarcely a fourth of the town was won, and
they themselves were already exhausted. ‘We must wait,’ they said,
‘for reinforcements, or we shall all perish among these cursed ruins,
which will become our own tombs before we can force the last of these
fanatics from the last of their dens.’
“Marshal Lasnes, unshaken by these murmurs and obstinate to conquer,
endeavoured to raise the soldiers’ hopes. He pointed out to them
that the losses of the besieged so far exceeded their own, that the
Spaniards’ strength must soon be wasted, and their courage must sink,
and that the fierceness of their defence was already abated; but if,
contrary to expectation, they should renew the example of Numantia,
their utter destruction must quickly ensue from the combined effects of
battle, misery, and pestilence.
“These exhortations succeeded, and on the 18th, all the combinations
being complete, a general assault took place. The French at the right
attack having opened a party wall by the explosion of a petard, made
a sudden rush through some burning ruins, and carried without a check
the island of houses leading down to the quay, with the exception
of two buildings. The Spaniards were thus forced to abandon all the
external fortifications between St. Augustin and the Ebro, which they
had preserved until that day. And while this assault was in progress,
the mines under the university, containing 3000 pounds of powder, were
sprung; and the walls tumbling with a terrific crash, a column of the
besiegers entered the place, and after one repulse secured a lodgment.
During this time fifty pieces of artillery thundered upon the suburb,
and ploughed up the bridge over the Ebro, and by mid–day opened a
practicable breach in the great convent of St. Lazar, which was the
principal defence on that side. Lasnes, observing that the Spaniards
seemed to be shaken by this overwhelming fire, immediately ordered an
assault, and St. Lazar being carried forthwith, all retreat to the
bridge was thus intercepted, and the besieged falling into confusion,
and their commander, Baron Versage, being killed, were all destroyed
or taken, with the exception of two or three hundred men, who, braving
the terrible fire to which they were exposed, got back into the town.
General Gazan immediately occupied the abandoned works, and having
thus cut off above 2000 men that were stationed on the Ebro, above the
suburb, forced them also to surrender.
“This important success being followed on the 19th by another fortunate
attack on the right bank of the Ebro, and by the devastating explosion
of 1600 pounds of powder, the constancy of the besieged was at last
shaken. An aide–de–camp of Palafox came forth to demand certain terms,
before offered by the Marshal, adding thereto that the garrison should
be allowed to join the Spanish armies, and that a certain number of
covered carriages should follow them. Lasnes rejected these proposals,
and the fire continued; but the hour of surrender was come. Fifty
pieces of artillery, on the left bank of the Ebro, laid the houses on
the quay in ruins. The church of Our Lady of the Pillar, under whose
especial protection the city was supposed to exist, was nearly effaced
by the bombardment; and the six mines under the Cosso, loaded with many
thousand pounds of powder, were ready for a simultaneous explosion,
which would have laid a quarter of the remaining houses in the dust. In
fine, war had done its work, and the misery of Zaragoza could no longer
be endured.
“The bombardment, which had never ceased from the 10th of January,
had forced the women and children to take refuge in the vaults, with
which the city abounded. There the constant combustion of oil, the
closeness of the atmosphere, unusual diet, and fear and restlessness of
mind, had combined to produce a pestilence, which soon spread to the
garrison. The strong and weak, the daring soldier and the timid child,
fell before it alike; and such was the state of the atmosphere, and the
disposition to disease, that the slightest wound gangrened and became
incurable. In the beginning of February the deaths were from four
to five hundred daily; the living were unable to bury the dead, and
thousands of carcases scattered about the streets and court–yards, or
piled in heaps at the doors of the churches, were left to dissolve in
their own corruption, or to be licked up by the flames of the burning
houses as the defence became contracted.
“The suburb, the greatest part of the walls, and one–fourth of the
houses were in the hands of the French; 16,000 shells thrown during
the bombardment, and the explosion of 45,000 pounds of powder in the
mines, had shaken the city to its foundations, and the bones of more
than 40,000 persons of every age and sex bore dreadful testimony to the
constancy of the besieged.
“Palafox was sick; and of the plebeian chiefs, the most distinguished
having been slain in battle, or swept away by the pestilence, the
obdurate violence of the remaining leaders was so abated that a fresh
junta was formed; and, after a stormy consultation, the majority being
for a surrender, a deputation waited on Marshal Lasnes on the 20th of
February to negotiate a capitulation.”[35]
Some doubt exists as to the terms obtained; the French writers assert
that the place surrendered at discretion; the Spaniards say the
following conditions were obtained: that the garrison should march out
with the honours of war, to be constituted prisoners and marched to
France; the peasants to be sent home, and property and religion to be
guaranteed. On the 21st, from 12,000 to 15,000 sickly men laid down the
arms which they could scarcely support, and this memorable siege was
terminated.
CHAPTER XIV.
Corcyrean sedition—Civil wars of Rome—Jacquerie—Factions of the Circus
at Constantinople—Massacre of Sept. 2, 1792.
The year which witnessed the unhappy fate of the brave Platæans was
made remarkable by the Corcyrean sedition also: on which, as on the
plague of Athens, the pen of Thucydides has conferred a lasting
celebrity.
Corcyra, an island situated on the western coast of Greece, by sedulous
attention to commerce, had risen, a little before the Peloponnesian
war, to the possession of a navy capable of rivalling in strength
that of any Grecian state, except Athens. It was a colony of Corinth;
but, in consequence of some disputes which arose out of the affairs
of Epidamnus, a Corcyrean colony, war broke out between Corcyra and
the mother country, the Corcyreans concluded a defensive alliance with
the Athenians, and the democratical interest was of course established
in power. A naval battle ensued, in which the Corinthians had the
advantage, and took upwards of a thousand prisoners. It rarely happened
in any of the smaller Grecian states, that either the democratic or the
oligarchical party obtained an uncontested and permanent ascendancy;
and the Corinthians were not inclined to resign without a struggle that
respect and influence which the manners and religion of Greece taught
to be due from the colony to the mother country. Of the prisoners above
mentioned, eight hundred, who were slaves, were sold by the victors;
the rest, to the number of two hundred and fifty, were citizens, most
of them men of consequence in Corcyra, who probably looked with no
friendly eye on the Athenian alliance, and at all events were ready to
break it off, and revert to the connexion of Corinth, as the price
of their liberty. They were accordingly suffered to return home. The
tumults to which their subsequent attempts to restore the oligarchy
gave rise are celebrated in history under the name of the Corcyrean
sedition. A more heinous scene of treachery and murder has seldom
been exhibited even in civil warfare; or a more deplorable state of
morals described than that which is said by Thucydides in the following
passage to have prevailed, not only in Corcyra, but throughout Greece.
“The sedition in Corcyra began upon the coming home of those captives
which were taken in the battles by sea at Epidamnus, and released
afterwards by the Corinthians at the ransom, as was voiced, of eight
hundred talents, for which they had given security to their hosts,[36]
but in fact, because they had persuaded the Corinthians that they would
put Corcyra into their power. These persons going round from man to
man, solicited the city to revolt from the Athenians; and two galleys
being now come in, one of Athens, another of Corinth, with ambassadors
from both those states, the Corcyreans, upon audience of them both,
decreed to hold the Athenians for their confederates, on articles
agreed on: but withal to remain friends to the Peloponnesians, as
they had formerly been. There was one Pithias, voluntary host of the
Athenians, and that had been principal magistrate of the people. Him
these men called into judgment, and laid to his charge a practice to
bring the city into the servitude of the Athenians. He again, being
acquit, called in question five of the wealthiest of the same men,
saying they had cut certain stakes[37] in the ground belonging to the
temples both of Jupiter and of Alcinous, upon every one of which there
lay a penalty of a stater.[38] And being sentenced to pay the fine,
they took sanctuary in the temples, to the end, the sum being great,
they might pay it by portions, as they should be taxed. But Pithias
(for he was also of the senate) obtained that the law should proceed.
These five being by the law shut out of hope, and understanding that
Pithias, as long as he was a senator, would cause the people to hold
for friends and foes the same that were so to the Athenians, conspired
with the rest, and armed with daggers, suddenly brake into the senate
house, and slew both Pithias and others, as well private men as
senators, to the number of about sixty persons; only a few of those of
Pithias his faction escaped into the Athenian galley that lay yet in
the harbour.
“When they had done this, and called the Corcyreans to an assembly,
they told them, that what they had done was for the best, and that they
should not be now in bondage to the Athenians. And for the future they
advised them to be in quiet, and to receive neither party with more
than one galley at once; and to take them for enemies if they were
more: and when they had spoken forced them to decree it accordingly.
They also presently sent ambassadors to Athens, both to show that
it was fit for them to do what they had done, and also to dissuade
such Corcyreans as were fled thither of the other faction, from doing
anything to their prejudice, lest there should be a counter–revolution.
“When these arrived, the Athenians apprehended both the ambassadors
themselves, as seditious persons, and also all those Corcyreans whom
they had there prevailed with, and sent them to custody in Ægina.
In the mean time, upon the coming in of a galley of Corinth with
ambassadors from Lacedæmon, that party that had the rule assailed
the commons, and overcame them in fight; and night coming on, the
commons fled into the citadel, and the higher parts of the city, where
they rallied themselves and encamped, and made themselves masters
of the haven called the Hillaic haven. But the others seized on the
market–place (where also the most of them dwelt) and on the haven on
the side toward the continent.
“The next day they skirmished a little with shot,[39] and both parts
sent abroad into the villages to solicit the slaves, with promise of
liberty, to take their parts; and the greatest part of the slaves took
part with the commons, and the other side had an aid of 800 men from
the continent.
“The next day but one they fought again, and the people had the
victory, having the odds both in strength of places, and in number of
men. And the women also manfully assisted them, throwing tiles from the
houses, and enduring the tumult, even beyond the condition of their
sex. The few began to fly about twilight, and fearing lest the people
should attack, and at the first onset gain possession of the arsenal,
and put them to the sword, to stop their passage, set fire to the
houses in the market–place, and those adjoining them, sparing neither
their own property nor others. Much goods of merchants were hereby
burnt, and the whole city, if the wind had risen and carried the flame
that way, had been in danger to have been destroyed. Then ceasing from
battle, forasmuch as both parties were at rest, they set watch for the
night. And the Corinthian galley stole away, because the people had
gotten the victory, and most of the auxiliaries got over privily to the
continent.
“The next day Nicostratus the son of Diotrephes, an Athenian commander,
came in with twelve galleys and five hundred Messenian men of arms
from Naupactus, and both negotiated a reconciliation, and induced them
(to the end they might agree) to condemn ten of the principal authors
of the sedition (who presently fled) and to let the rest alone, with
articles both between themselves and with the Athenians, to esteem
friends and enemies the same as the Athenians did. When he had done
this, he would have been gone, but the people persuaded him before he
went to leave behind him five of his galleys, the better to keep their
adversaries from stirring, and to take as many of theirs, which they
would man with Corcyreans, and send with him. To this he agreed, and
they made a list of those that should embark, consisting altogether of
their enemies. But these fearing to be sent to Athens, took sanctuary
in the temple of Castor and Pollux: but Nicostratus endeavoured to
raise them, and spake to them, to put them into courage: but when he
could not prevail, the people (arming themselves on pretence that
their diffidence to go along with Nicostratus proceeded from some evil
intention) took away their arms out of their houses, and would also
have killed some of them, such as they chanced on, if Nicostratus had
not hindered them. Others also, when they saw this, took sanctuary in
the temple of Juno, and they were in all above four hundred. But the
people, fearing some innovation, got them by persuasion to rise, and
conveying them into the island that lieth over against the temple of
Juno, sent them their necessaries thither.
“The sedition standing in these terms, the fourth or fifth day
after the putting over of these men into the island, arrived the
Peloponnesian fleet from Cyllene, where, since their voyage of Ionia,
they had lain at anchor, to the number of three and fifty sail.
Alcidas had the command of these, as before, and Brasidas came with
him as a counsellor. And having first put in at Sybota, a haven of the
continent, they came on the next morning by break of day toward Corcyra.
“The Corcyreans being in a great tumult and fear, both of the seditious
within, and of the invasion without, made ready threescore galleys,
and still as any of them were manned, sent them out against the enemy;
whereas the Athenians had advised them to give leave to them to go
forth first, and then the Corcyreans to follow after with the whole
fleet together. But when their scattered ships neared the enemy, two
of them immediately deserted, and in others they that were aboard
went together by the oars, and nothing was done in due order. The
Peloponnesians, seeing their confusion, opposed themselves to the
Corcyreans with twenty galleys only, the rest they set in array against
the twelve galleys of Athens.
“The Corcyreans having come disorderly up, and by few at once, were
of their own fault in much distress; but the Athenians, fearing
an overmatch of numbers, and that they should be surrounded, did
not charge upon the close array, nor on the centre of the enemy;
but attacked the wing, and sunk one of their galleys: and when
the Peloponnesians afterwards had put their fleet into a circular
figure, they then went about and about it, endeavouring to put them
into disorder; which they that were fighting against the Corcyreans
perceiving, and fearing such another chance as befel them formerly at
Naupactus, went to their aid, and uniting themselves, came upon the
Athenians all together. But they, backing their oars, retreated with
their prows to the enemy, that the Corcyreans should take that time to
escape in; they themselves in the mean time going as leisurely back as
was possible, and keeping the enemy still opposed to them. Such was
this battle, and it ended about sunset.
“The Corcyreans fearing lest the enemy, in pursuit of their victory,
should have come directly against the city, or take aboard the men
which they had put over into the island, or do them some other
mischief, fetched back the men into the temple of Juno again, and
guarded the city. But the Peloponnesians, though they had won the
battle, yet durst not invade the city, but having taken thirteen of
the Corcyrean galleys, went back into the continent from whence they
had set forth. The next day they came not unto the city, no more than
before, although it was in great tumult and affright: and though also
Brasidas (as it is reported) advised Alcidas to it, but had not equal
authority: but only landed soldiers at the promontory of Leucimna, and
wasted their territory.
“In the mean time the people of Corcyra, fearing extremely lest
those galleys should come against the city, not only conferred with
those in sanctuary, and with the rest, about how the city might be
preserved, but also induced some of them to serve on shipboard. For
notwithstanding the confusion they had still manned thirty galleys, in
expectation that the fleet of the enemy should have entered. But the
Peloponnesians having been wasting of their fields till it was about
noon, went their ways again. And during the night the Corcyreans had
notice by beacon–fires of threescore Athenian galleys coming toward
them from Leucas, which the Athenians, upon intelligence of the
sedition, and of the fleet to go to Corcyra under Alcidas, had sent to
aid them, under the conduct of Eurymedon the son of Thucles.
“The Peloponnesians, therefore, as soon as night came, sailed speedily
home, keeping still the shore, and causing their galleys to be carried
over at the Isthmus of Leucas, that they might not come in sight as
they doubled it. But the people of Corcyra, hearing of the Attic
galleys coming in, and the going off of the Peloponnesians, brought
into the city the Messenians,[40] who till this time had been kept
outside the walls, and appointing the galleys which they had equipped
to come about into the Hillaic haven; they in the mean time slew all
the contrary faction they could lay hands on, and also afterwards threw
overboard out of the same galleys all those (i. e., of the oligarchical
party) they had before persuaded to embark, and so went thence. And
coming to the temple of Juno, they persuaded fifty of those that had
taken sanctuary, to refer themselves to a legal trial; all which they
condemned to die. But most of those who had taken sanctuary, that is,
all those that were not induced to stand to trial by law, when they saw
what was done, killed one another there, right in the temple: some
hanged themselves on trees; every one, as he had means, made himself
away. And for seven days together that Eurymedon staid there with his
threescore galleys, the Corcyreans did nothing but kill such of their
city as they took to be their enemies, laying to their charge indeed
that they had conspired against the commons, but some among them were
slain upon private hatred, and some by their debtors, for the money
which they had lent them. All forms of death were then seen, and (as in
such cases it usually falls out) whatsoever had happened at any time,
happened also then, and more. For the father slew his son, men were
dragged out of the temples, and then slain hard by; and some walled
up within the temple of Bacchus[41] died there. So cruel was this
sedition; and it seemed so the more, because it was among these men the
first.
“For afterwards all Greece, as a man may say, was in commotion; and
quarrels arose every where between the patrons of the commons, that
sought to bring in the Athenians, and the Few[42] that desired to
bring in the Lacedæmonians. Now in time of peace they could have no
pretence, nor would have been so forward to call them in; but being
war, and confederates to be had for either party, both to hurt their
enemies, and strengthen themselves, such as desired alteration easily
got foreign help to their end. And many heinous things happened in
the cities through this sedition, which though they have been before,
and shall be ever, as long as human nature is the same, yet they are
more violent, or more tranquil, and of different kinds, according to
the several[43] conjunctures at which they occur. For in peace and
prosperity both cities and private men are better minded, because
they fall not into such emergencies as constrain men to do things,
whether they will or no; but war taking away the affluence of daily
necessaries, is a most violent master, and conformeth most men’s
passions to the present occasion. So sedition prevailed in the cities,
and those that fell into it later, having heard what had been done in
the former, far exceeded them in newness of conceit, both for the art
of assailing, and for the strangeness of their revenges. The received
value of names imposed for signification of things, was changed
into arbitrary: for inconsiderate boldness was counted true–hearted
manliness; provident deliberation, a handsome fear; modesty, the cloak
of cowardice; to be wise in every thing, to be lazy in every thing.
A furious suddenness was reputed a point of valour. To re–advise for
the better security, was held for a fair pretext of tergiversation.
He that was fierce, was always trusty; and he that contraried such
a one, was suspected. He that did insidiate, if he took, was a wise
man; but he that could find out the trap, a cleverer man than he:
but he that had been so provident as not to need to do one or the
other, was said to be a dissolver of fellowship, and one that stood
in fear of his adversary. In brief, he that could outstrip another
in the doing of an evil act, or that could persuade another thereto,
that never meant it, was commended. To be kin to another, was not
to be so near as to be of his fellowship, because these were ready
to undertake any thing, without standing upon pretexts. For these
fellowships[44] looked not to benefits consistent with the existing
laws, but to self–aggrandizement, contrary to them. And as for mutual
trust amongst them, it was confirmed not so much by divine law,[45] as
by the communication of guilt. And what was handsomely spoken by their
adversaries, they received with an eye to their actions, to see whether
they were too strong for them or not, and not ingenuously. To be
revenged was in more request, than never to have received injury. And
oaths of reconcilement (if any were) given by one to another, because
in the present conjuncture they could do nought else, were binding, as
long as the parties had no power otherwise; but upon opportunity, he
that first durst, if he saw an unguarded place, thought his revenge
sweeter by the trust than if he had taken the open way. And this course
was valued both for its security, and because he that circumvented his
adversary by fraud assumed to himself withal a mastery in point of
wit. And dishonest men for the most part are sooner called able, than
simple men honest. And men are ashamed of this title, but take a pride
in the other. The cause of this is desire of rule, out of avarice and
ambition, and the zeal of contention[46] from those two proceeding.
For such as were of authority in the cities, both of the one and the
other faction, the one under the decent pretext of political equality
of the many, the other of moderate aristocracy, though in words they
seemed to be servants of the public, they made it in effect but
the prize of their contention. And striving by whatsoever means to
overcome, both ventured on most horrible outrages, and revenged them
even beyond the provocations, without any regard of justice, or the
public good, but limiting them, each faction, by their own appetite:
and stood ready, whether by unjust sentence, or with their own hands,
when they should get the uppermost, to satisfy their spite. So that
neither side thought to do any thing by honest means; but they were
best spoken of, that could pass a business though against the grain,
with fair words. The neutrals of the city were destroyed by both
factions; partly because they would not side with them, and partly for
envy that they should so escape.
“Thus was wickedness on foot in every kind, throughout all Greece,
by the occasion of the party conflicts. Sincerity (whereof there is
much in a generous nature) was laughed down, and vanished. And it
was far the best course to stand distrustfully against each other,
for neither were words powerful, nor oaths terrible enough to assure
reconciliation. And being all of them, the more they considered, the
more desperate of security, they rather contrived how to avoid a
mischief, than were able to rely on any man’s faith. And for the most
part such as had the least wit had the best success; for both their own
defect, and the subtilty of their adversaries, putting them in a great
fear to be overcome in words, or at least in pre–insidiation, by their
enemies’ great craft, they therefore went roundly to work with them,
with deeds. Whereas the other, thinking in their arrogance that they
should be aware in time, and that they needed not to take by force what
they might do by plot, were thereby unprovided, and so the more easily
slain.
“In Corcyra then were most of these evils committed first: and besides
these, all that men might perpetrate in retaliation, who had been
tyrannically governed by that very party which they now saw in their
power; or that men just freed from their accustomed poverty, and
greedily coveting their neighbour’s goods, would against justice agree
to; or which men, assailing each other, not upon desire of gain, but
as equal against equal, in the intemperance of anger would cruelly and
inexorably execute. And the common course of life being at that time
confounded in the city, the nature of man, which is wont even against
law to do evil, gotten now above the law, was very ready to display
itself as intemperately passionate, too strong for justice, and an
enemy to all superiority. For they would never else have preferred
revenge to sanctity, and gain to that condition of justice, in which
envy would have lost its power to do harm. And for the laws common to
all men in such cases (which, as long as they be in force, give hope to
all that suffer injury), men desire not to leave them standing, against
the need a man in danger may have of them, but by their revenges on
others, to be beforehand in subverting them.[47]
“Such were the passions of the Corcyreans first of all other Grecians,
towards one another in the city. And Eurymedon and the Athenians
departed with their galleys. Afterwards such of the Corcyreans as had
fled (for there escaped about five hundred of them) having seized
on the forts in the continent, established themselves in their own
territory on the mainland opposite the island, and from thence came
over and robbed the islanders, and did them much hurt; and there
grew a great famine in the city. They likewise sent ambassadors to
Lacedæmon and Corinth, to negotiate concerning their return; and when
they could get nothing done, having gotten boats, and some auxiliary
soldiers, they passed a while after to the number of about six hundred
into the island. Where when they had set their boats on fire, that
they might have no hope but in the making themselves masters of the
country, they went up into the hill Istone, and having there fortified
themselves with a wall, infested those within, and were masters of the
territory.[48]
“In the seventh year of the war[49] Eurymedon and Sophocles, after
their departure from Pylus with the Athenian fleet towards Sicily,
arriving at Corcyra, joined with those of the city, and made war upon
those Corcyreans which lay encamped upon the hill Istone, and which,
after the sedition, had come over, and made themselves masters of the
country, and done much harm: and having assaulted their fortification,
took it. But the men all in one troop escaped to a certain high ground,
and thence made their composition, which was this; ‘that they should
deliver up the foreigners that aided them; and that they themselves,
having rendered their arms, should stand to the judgment of the people
of Athens.’ Hereupon the generals granted them truce, and transported
them to the island of Ptychia, to be there in custody till the
Athenians should send for them; with this condition, ‘that if any one
of them should be taken running away, then the truce to be broken for
them all.’ But the leaders of the commons of Corcyra, fearing lest the
Athenians would not kill those who were sent to them, devise against
them this plot. To some few of those in the island they secretly send
their friends, and instruct them to say, as if forsooth, it were for
good will, that it was their best course with all speed to get away
(and withal to offer to provide them of a boat), for that the Athenian
commanders intended verily to deliver them to the Corcyrean people.
“When they were persuaded to do so, and that a boat was treacherously
prepared, as they rowed away they were taken, and the truce being
now broken, were all given up into the hands of the Corcyreans. It
did much further this plot, by giving to the pretence held out an
appearance of reality, and making the agents in it less fearful, that
the Athenian generals evidently did not wish the men to be carried
home by others, whilst they themselves were to go into Sicily, and
the honour of it be ascribed to those that should convoy them. The
Corcyreans having received them into their hands, imprisoned them in a
large edifice, from whence afterwards they took them out by twenty at a
time, and made them pass through a lane of men of arms, bound together,
and receiving strokes and thrusts from those on either side, according
as any one espied his enemy. And to hasten the pace of those that went
slowliest on, others were set to follow them with whips.
“They had taken out of the room in this manner, and slain, to the
number of threescore, before they that remained knew it, who thought
they were but removed, and carried to some other place. But when they
knew the truth, some or other having told them, they then cried out
to the Athenians, and bid them, if they wished their death, kill them
themselves; and refused any more to go out of the building, nor would
suffer, they said, as long as they were able, any man to come in. But
neither had the Corcyreans any purpose to force entrance by the door,
but getting up to the top of the house, uncovered the roof, and threw
tiles, and shot arrows at them. They in prison defended themselves as
well as they could; but many also slew themselves with the arrows shot
by the enemy, by thrusting them into their throats, and strangling
themselves with the cords of certain beds that were in the room, and
with halters made of their own garments rent in pieces. And having
continued most part of the night (for night overtook them in the
action), partly strangling themselves by all such means as they found,
and partly shot at from above, they all perished. When day came, the
Corcyreans laid them one across another[50] in carts, and carried them
out of the city. And of their wives, as many as were taken in the
fortification, they made bond–women. In this manner were the Corcyreans
that kept the hill,[51] brought to destruction by the commons. And thus
ended this far–spread sedition, for so much as concerned this present
war: for other seditions there remained nothing worth the relation.”[52]
It would be difficult to find a more thoroughly hateful state of
society than that which appears from this passage, and from the
description of the plague of Athens, to have existed in Greece at
this period. The picture, it is to be remembered, comes to us on the
authority of one whose impartiality and deep powers of observation
are alike unquestioned, no splenetic, no visionary, but one who had
mixed largely and in high station among the stirring times of which he
writes. The most astonishing circumstance connected with the depravity
here exhibited, is the short period in which it appears to have shot
up into such rank growth. We possess, it is true, little knowledge of
any thing but the public acts of Greece anterior to the Peloponnesian
war, at which time the contemporary historian, and still more the
contemporary comedian Aristophanes, supply us with abundant notices of
private life, which are continued and enlarged by the philosophers and
orators. Still, as far as we have the means of judging, there seems no
reason to ascribe to the Greeks, until about the Peloponnesian war,
a smaller share of morality and religion than has usually been found
among heathen nations. Whence then in so short a time this utter loss
of moral sense and disruption of the bonds of society? The question is
not an easy one to answer, but the substance of the best answer that we
can give is comprised in the introductory chapter to this volume.
To supply a series of parallels to this domestic contest is scarcely
possible. Among insurrections and civil wars, events of equal atrocity
and more astounding magnitude might be found, but scarcely events
of the same character. We naturally turn first to the other great
nation of antiquity. Here we are warned against the most obvious
comparison by a late eminent scholar. After speaking of the dangers
incident to the struggle between the aristocracy and the people in
that often–occurring form of a nation’s early existence, when it is
divided into a privileged race or caste, whose power is founded on
conquest, and a commonalty personally free, but politically dependant,
as were the Saxons, while the distinction between Saxon and Norman
blood continued in England; after speaking of the dangers which beset
that contest which is sure to take place when the spread of wealth and
knowledge has equalized the personal qualities of the rulers and the
ruled, he continues: “If the nation escapes these, either originally
or finally, it enters upon its state of manhood, and is exposed to a
somewhat different succession of struggles. The contest is then between
property and numbers, and wherever it has come to a crisis, I know not
that it has in any instance terminated favourably. Such was the state
of Greece in the time of Thucydides; of Rome from the passing of the
Publilian laws to the end of the commonwealth: and such has been the
state of England since the Revolution of 1688. Comparisons drawn from
the preceding period are inapplicable to this; while on the other hand,
as the phenomena of this second period arise out of causes connected
with the earlier state of things, they cannot be clearly understood
unless that former state be fully known to us. Thus, to argue that
the Romans were less bloody than the Greeks from a comparison between
the factions of the Peloponnesian war, and the struggles of the Roman
commons against the patricians, is to compare the two nations under
very different circumstances; it is instituting a comparison between
the intensity of our passions in manhood and in childhood. The bloody
factions of Corcyra and Megara are analogous to the civil wars of
Marius and Sylla, of Cæsar and Pompey, of Brutus and Cassius against
the Triumvirs: the harmless contests between the commons and patricians
can only be compared to those which prevailed in Greece before the
Persian invasion, when the party of the coast at Athens was disputing
the exclusive ascendency so long enjoyed by the eupatridæ or party of
the plain.[53] And the true conclusion is, that the second contest
between property and numbers is far more inevitably accompanied by
atrocious crimes, than that earlier quarrel, in which property and
numbers were united against property and birth.”[54]
The Corcyrean sedition differed from the secession to the Mons
Sacer, and other disputes between patricians and plebeians, in being
a struggle of parties, not ranks. Very little positive information
concerning the constitution of the island has been preserved.[55]
Originally, probably, its Corinthian colonists established an
oligarchy: but the prosecution of maritime affairs was always held
greatly to favour the ascendency of the people, and in Thucydides we
find no trace of a privileged body of citizens at Corcyra any more than
at Athens. When speaking of the 250, whom the Corinthians selected
as a sort of hostages to regain their influence, he calls them, “for
the most part the first men of the city in power.”[56] Elsewhere he
describes them as “those in possession of things,” or “the few,”[57]
but not as the magistracy, or in terms which lead us to suppose that
they formed a constitutional aristocracy either of birth or wealth.
This, therefore, was a branch of the great struggle which gave its
character to the whole Peloponnesian war, whether the oligarchical
principle, under the patronage of Lacedæmon, or the democratic under
the patronage of Athens, should reign in Greece. The co–existence of
the two in peace seems, from the restless and intriguing temper of the
people, to have been impossible; and the experience of other cities had
shown that for the worsted party there was no security but in flight,
attended usually by sentence of exile and confiscation. And there is
no authority to which men submit so reluctantly, no hardships which
they feel so keenly, as those which arise from the elevation of their
former equals. The circumstances of the times, therefore, combined with
the spreading moral pestilence to give a desperation to this contest,
from which the early dissensions of patricians and plebeians, happily
for Rome, were free. Here each party had a definite object to contend
for; the one, the relaxation of oppressive privileges; the other, to
maintain unimpaired the immunities and dignity of their order: and each
had wisdom, the one to be moderate in its demands; the other to concede
moderately, rather than hazard the very being of the state by an
appeal to arms. No personal or political hatred inflamed the passions,
unless where some enslaved debtor was maddened by suffering, or some
hot–headed patrician, such as the old legends of Rome represented
Coriolanus to be, became impatient that the swinish multitude should
believe they had rights; each party felt that the other was necessary
to its welfare, and though driven to violence, the plebeians still
looked up with respect and affection to their hereditary aristocracy.
As these disturbances belong to an earlier, so the civil wars of
Marius and Sylla, and those which ended in the establishment of
the Empire, belong, we think, to a more advanced stage of society
than does the Corcyrean sedition, which is compared to them in the
foregoing quotation. Rome had reached, and had passed the period at
which a true democracy becomes impossible except through the medium of
representation; while at Corcyra, even when the popular faction was
supreme, the government was an oligarchy, in respect of the _whole_
population of the state, of which slaves and foreigners constituted, we
may presume, a considerable majority. The legislative and the armed
body were identical; a part of that body might triumph over the rest,
but no one could mount on the shoulders of the people to a military
despotism, and then kick away the step by which he had risen. No leader
seems to have risen to the absolute power of Marius, or Sylla, or
Cæsar; if there had, it must have been by consent of the prevailing
party, who would therefore have been implicated in his actions. At
Rome the case was very different: the legislative authority centred in
the resident citizens, the military power of the state was more than
equally shared with them by the provincial armies, composed partly of
barbarians, partly of subjects of the state, entitled to a greater
or lesser share of the privileges of citizenship, but not to vote in
the assemblies of the people, and partly, it is true, of citizens,
but those long absent from the seat of government, and careless about
politics, but devoted to the leader who had led them on to plunder,
honour, and victory. Some faction therefore was to be courted to gain
place and power, but he who had gained them, and with them military
command and influence, was in great measure independent of his former
associates. Sylla and Marius were terrible to friends as well as foes,
and it would be unfair to charge upon the Roman people the enormous
crimes committed under the military tyrannies which they established.
If we look for parallels in modern history, the search will not be
more successful. The domestic quarrels as well as the structure of the
Italian states, bear a close analogy to those of the Greek republics,
and the contests of the oligarchical and democratic parties, and the
influence of Sparta or Athens, as one or the other prevailed, may
be closely exemplified by the bitter quarrels of the Guelphs and
Ghibelines, and the interest exerted, by means of these parties, by
the Pope and the Emperor. But full as is Italian history of desperate
feuds, we cannot call to mind any one worthy to be compared with the
transactions at Corcyra. The massacre, called the Sicilian Vespers,
when 8000 French were surprised and slain in one night, by a
simultaneous insurrection of the native Sicilians, is a memorable and
frightful example of popular revenge: but the act of a people rising in
defence of its rights, atrocious as is such a method of asserting them,
is not to be placed by the side of so cold–blooded, and unprovoked, and
faithless a massacre as that of the conquered Corcyreans. The massacre
of St. Bartholomew might compete with it in point of treachery, but the
ground of quarrel, and the relation of the contending parties, were
entirely dissimilar.
The outrages committed in France by the insurgent peasantry, called
Jacquerie, are unlike the massacres at Corcyra, inasmuch as they belong
to an earlier stage of society, a stage again different from that
contemplated by Dr. Arnold, when he speaks of the harmless nature of
that earlier quarrel in which property and numbers are united against
property and birth. These risings, and the corresponding risings in
England, were the acts of men without property, and many of them
without a legal capability of acquiring it; men hostile to all the
institutions of society, because to them society had been little but
an engine of oppression. They were the efforts of brute force against
all that is superior to itself; the rage of the untamed wolf after he
has broken his chain. We say this not in justification of the conduct
of their feudal lords, nor in censure of their earnest desire to break
the yoke which bore them down to the ground. But whether their cause
was good or bad, the method of their advocating it was brutal; and
herein servile wars, if not most formidable as to their result, are
most to be deprecated, because the passions of each party are sure to
be exasperated to the uttermost: and because the insurgents, being
without the pale of the laws of war, have no temptation to show mercy,
and no hope but in victory. And so to the Jacquerie, every thing more
refined or exalted than themselves was the object of their deadly hate.
They had no thought to raise themselves; that was beyond the grasp of
their minds: but they were bent on pulling down others to their own
level, so that distinctions the most inoffensive or laudable were as
odious to them as the rank and power which had been misused to the
oppression of the commonalty. “Be it known unto thee by these presence,
even the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom that must sweep
the court clear of such filth as thou art. Thou hast most traitorously
corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar–school: and
whereas, before our fore–fathers had no other books but the score and
the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and contrary to the
king, his crown, and his dignity, thou hast built a paper–mill. It will
be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk
of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian can
endure to hear. Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men
before them about matters that they were not able to answer. Moreover,
thou hast put them in prison, and because they could not read thou hast
hanged them, when, indeed, only for that cause they have been most
worthy to live.”[58]
This picture is somewhat highly coloured, but if the reader will
consult Holinshed for the account of Wat Tyler’s rebellion in 1381,
he will find that there is good authority for it. “To recite what was
done in every part of the realme, in time of these hellish troubles,
it is not possible; but this is to be considered, that the rage of the
commons was universallie such, as it might seem they had generallie
conspired together to do what mischeefe they could devise. As among
sundrie other, what wickednesse was it to compell teachers of children
in grammar schooles to swear never to instruct any in their art! Again,
they could never have a more mischievous meaning than to burn and
destroy all old and auncient monuments, and to murder and despatch out
of the way all such as were able to commit to memorie either any new or
old records. For it was dangerous among them to be known for one that
was learned, and more dangerous if any man were found with a penner and
inkhorn at his side, for such seldom escaped from them with life.”[59]
The fidelity with which Shakspeare has copied the chronicles may be
readily exemplified from a variety of passages.
_Cade._ How now! who’s there?
_Smith._ The clerk of Chatham; he can write, and read, and cast accompt.
_Cade._ O, monstrous! Come hither, sirrah. I must examine thee. What is
thy name?
_Clerk._ Emmanuel.
_Dick._ They used to write it on the top of letters. ‘Twill go hard with
you.
_Cade._ Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast thou a
mark to thyself, like an honest plain–dealing man?
_Clerk._ Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can
write my name.
_All._ He hath confessed: away with him: he’s a villain and a traitor.
_Cade._ Away with him, I say: hang him with his pen and inkhorn about
his neck.
_Henry VI._, II. iv. 2.
It is time, however, to proceed to the historical evidence on which our
statements of the excesses of the Jacquerie are founded.
“Anon (A. D. 1358) there began a marvelouse trybulacion in the realme
of France, for certayne people of the common villages, without any head
or ruler, assembled togyder in Beauvoisin. In the beginning they passed
nat a hundred in nombre: they sayd how the noblemen of the realme of
Fraunce, knyghtes, and squyers, shamed the realme, and that it shulde
be a grete wealth to distroy them all; and eche of them sayd it was
true, and sayd alle with one voice,—Shame have he that doth nat his
power to distroy all the gentylmen of the realme. Thus they gathered
togyder without any other counsayle, and without any armure, saving
with staves and knyves, and so went to the house of a knyght dwelling
thereby, and brake up his house, and slew the knyght, and the lady,
and all his children, grete and small, and brent his house: and so dyd
they to dyvers other castelles and good houses. And they multiplied
so that they were a six thousand; and ever as they went forward they
increased, for such lyke as they were fell ever to them; so that every
gentylman fledde fro them, and took their wyves and chyldren with them,
and fledde x or xx leages off to be in suretie, and left their houses
voyde and their goods therein.—These myschevous people thus assembled
without capitayne or armure, robbed, brent, and slew all gentylmen
that they coude lay handes on, and forced and ravysshed ladyes and
damoselles, and dyd such shameful dedes, that no humayn creature ought
to think on any such, and he that dyd most mischiefe was most pleased
with them, and greatest maister.—Whan the gentylmen of Beauvoisin, of
Corbois, of Vermandois, and of other lands whereas these myschevous
people were conversant, saw the woodnesse[60] among them, they sent for
socours to their frendes into Flanders, to Brabant, to Hainault, and
to Bohemia: so there came fro all partes, and so all these gentylmen
straungers assembled togyder, and dyd sette upon these people wher
they might fynde them, and slew and hanged them upon trees by heapes.
The kynge of Naver on a day slew of them mo than thre thousand, beside
Cleremont in Beauvoisin. It was time to take them up, for and they had
been all togyder assembled, they were mo than an hundred thousand, and
when they were demanded why they dyd so yvell dedes, they wolde answer
and say, they could nat tell, but they did as they sawe other do,
thinking thereby to have distroyed all the nobles and gentylmen of the
world.”[61]
It was the same spirit which somewhat later, in England, prompted that
rebellion of Wat Tyler, of which we have above spoken. This was a
servile war, produced by oppression and misery; a rising of the serfs
against the nobles, “who hade grete fraunchise over the commons, and
kepeth them in servage, that is to say, their tenants ought by custom
to laboure the lorde’s landes, to gather and bring home theyr corne,
and some to thrash and to fanne; and by servage to make theyr hay, and
to hew theyr wood, and bring it home: all these things they ought to do
by servage.”——“These unhappy people beganne to styrre because they were
kept in grete servage; and in the begynning of the world, they sayd,
there were no bondmen; wherefore they mayntayned that none ought to be
bonde, without he dyd treason to his lorde, as Lucifer dyd to God; but
they sayd they coude have no such batayle, for they were nouther angels
nor spirittes, but men formed to the similitude of their lordes. Of
this imagynacyon was a folisshe priest of Kent, called Johan Ball, who
wolde oft tymes, on the sondaye after masse, assemble the people about
him, and say thus, A ye good people, the mater goth nat well to passe
in Englande, nor shall nat do tyll every thing be common; and that
there be no vyllayns nor gentylmen, but that we be all unied togyder,
and that the lordes be no greater maisters than we be. What have we
deserved, or why sholde we be thus kept in servage? We be all come
fro one father and one mother, Adam and Eve; whereby can they say or
showe that they be gretter lordes than we be?”[62] Part of the matter
of the priest’s sermon was well enough, and the cause was good, if its
supporters had been capable of self–government; but their object was to
establish anarchy, not liberty, and none will be found hardy enough to
regret their failure.
After dwelling so long on things which ought to be distinguished
from the Corcyrean sedition, it is time now, if ever, to produce
those which admit of being compared with it. We have but two to
bring forward: the second bears a more than usual resemblance to it
in respect of the events which took place; the first bears little
resemblance to it in respect of events, but is distinguished, if we
may trust the contemporary historian, by a forgetfulness of natural
ties, and relaxation of the bonds of society, very like that described
by Thucydides, and not less worth noticing because the two arose out
of entirely different circumstances, political and other. We allude
to the seditions which tore Constantinople, especially under the
reign of Justinian, ostensibly commencing in so petty a cause as the
superiority of one colour to another in skill or fortune in the public
games, in which those who contended for prizes, like our jockies,
were distinguished by colours. “The race,” says Gibbon, “in its first
institution, was a simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were
distinguished by white and red liveries; two additional colours, a
light green and a cerulean blue, were afterwards introduced, and as the
races were repeated twenty–five times, one hundred chariots contributed
in the same day to the pomp of the circus. The four factions soon
acquired a legal establishment, and a mysterious origin, and their
fanciful colours were derived from the various appearances of nature
in the four seasons of the year; the red dogstar of summer, the snows
of winter, the deep shades of autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the
spring. Another interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons,
and the struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the
conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories announced
either a plentiful harvest, or a prosperous navigation, and the
hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat less absurd than
the blind ardour of the Roman people, who devoted their lives and
fortunes to the colour which they had espoused.”[63]
With the seat of government, the amusements and the laws of the Roman
circus were of course transferred to Constantinople. Here the mutual
jealousy of the colours soon became combined with political and
theological quarrels, and gave rise to disturbances which shook some
emperors on their thrones, and vitally affected the peace and welfare
of the state. The historian of the eastern empire has not traced the
steps by which these graver discords became connected with the badges
of amusement. A scholar of our own day has collected the scattered
facts which bear on this question, but still without furnishing a
satisfactory account of the origin or history of these divisions.[64]
It may indeed be inferred from a passage in Procopius, which we shall
presently quote, that even in his time no account could be given
or reason be assigned for so preposterous and blind an enmity. Nor
will this surprise any person who reflects how easily an accidental
quarrel is perpetuated by the adoption of a name or symbol, and how
greedily the vulgar adopt the outward sign of faction, regardless of
the principles which it indicates. Many bloody tumults and desperate
feuds would have been spared to Ireland if green and orange had never
been adopted as the signs of national and religious hatred; for men
would soon have ceased to care or inquire whether their neighbour went
to church or chapel, had not the insulting badges of ascendancy and of
dissent been continually paraded before their eyes. Any measure which
did away with the use of party colours at elections would contribute
largely to the quiet and well–being of England. Whatever raises an
ostensible division between two classes of society should be sedulously
discouraged by a government. The late Lord Liverpool, according to a
current story, showed his prudence in wearing and recommending white
hats, when that article of dress was the badge of a party violently
opposed to his government. His intention was answered perfectly, and
we now wear what we please without compromising our political faith.
Whatever was the origin and progress of the quarrel, we find in
the early part of the sixth century the blue and green factions
inveterately opposed to each other; the red having merged in the green,
and the white in the blue. In the reign of Anastasius, the greens
having brought concealed weapons into the theatre, massacred at once
3000 of their blue adversaries. A soldier of fortune, named Justin,
succeeded Anastasius, and was succeeded by his own nephew, Justinian,
during whose reign the blue faction gained the ascendancy: “A secret
attachment to the family or sect of Anastasius was imputed to the
greens; the blues were zealously devoted to the cause of orthodoxy and
Justinian, and their grateful patron protected, above five years, the
disorders of a faction, whose seasonable tumults overawed the palace,
the senate, and capitals of the East.”[65] “In every city,” says the
contemporary Procopius, “the people are from old time split into two
factions, of the blue and green; but it is not long since this frenzy
first possessed them, that in the cause of these names and colours in
which they appear at the public games, they will spend their substance,
expose their bodies to the bitterest indignities, and even consent to
die by a shameful death. And while they fight with the opposite party
they cannot tell the nature of their quarrel; being at the same time
aware that even if they get the upper hand in battle, they will then be
led to prison, and suffer a death of the worst tortures. This hatred of
one man to another springs up without cause; but it remains endless,
yielding neither to the rights of kindred or friendship, even though
brethren, or such near relations, be partisans of these colours. And
so long as their faction may have the uppermost, they care neither for
things human nor divine, whether there be any impiety offered towards
God, or whether the laws and government be violated by friend or
enemy. For being themselves probably in want of common necessaries,
they care not however deeply their country be injured, so long as their
own party is likely to thrive by it. And even women share in this
taint, not merely following their husbands, but even opposing them (if
it shall so chance), though they go never to the theatres, and are not
therefore excited by any such motives. So that I can call this nothing
better than a disease of the mind.”[66]
“In the Anecdotes, he speaks again, and more fully, of the excesses
committed by the blues under the protection of Justinian.
“They dressed their hair in a manner new to the Romans, letting the
moustache and beard grow to an extreme length, like the Persians, while
they shaved the fore part of their heads to the very temples, leaving
it to grow as long and thick as it liked behind, in imitation of the
Massagetæ, after whom they called this the Hunnish mode. In dress they
affected a splendour beyond their means, defraying the cost at other
men’s expense. Their sleeves were made very close at the wrist, but
up towards the shoulder they spread to an unutterable breadth.[67]
So that in the theatre or hippodrome as often as they moved their
hands in shouting, or encouraging others, as was their custom, they
usually raised the limb to make fools think their bodies so robust,
as that a garment of that size was necessary; not perceiving that by
the emptiness of the garment the spareness of the body was the more
shown. At first they carried arms, by night openly, and by day wore
double–edged daggers concealed under their clothes; and coming out
in companies as it grew dark, they stripped the better sort either
in the open market or in passages, robbing those who fell into their
hands of cloaks, golden brooches, or whatever else it might be. And
some they even killed after robbing them, that they might tell no
tales. By these doings all men were much grieved, and especially those
that were not of the blue faction (for even they themselves went not
scot–free), and from thenceforth men wore brass brooches, and girdles
and cloaks beneath their condition.... There was no known crime which
at this time was not committed and left unpunished. First they only
killed their adversaries, then advancing in guilt they slew those who
never had offended them. Many hired them to take off an e
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