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The Story of Rome from the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic

by Arthur Gilman · English · Gutenberg #6427 · 504,648 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Story of Rome from the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic

Author: Arthur Gilman


        
Release date: September 1, 2004 [eBook #6427]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6427

Credits: Anne Soulard, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF ROME FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE END OF THE REPUBLIC ***




Anne Soulard, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.



THE STORY OF ROME FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE END OF THE REPUBLIC

BY ARTHUR GILMAN, M.A.




PREFACE.



It is proposed to rehearse the lustrous story of Rome, from its
beginning in the mists of myth and fable down to the mischievous times
when the republic came to its end, just before the brilliant period of
the empire opened.

As one surveys this marvellous vista from the vantage-ground of the
present, attention is fixed first upon a long succession of well-
authenticated facts which are shaded off in the dim distance, and
finally lost in the obscurity of unlettered antiquity. The flesh and
blood heroes of the more modern times regularly and slowly pass from
view, and in their places the unsubstantial worthies of dreamy
tradition start up. The transition is so gradual, however, that it is
at times impossible to draw the line between history and legend.
Fortunately for the purposes of this volume it is not always necessary
to make the effort. The early traditions of the Eternal City have so
long been recounted as truth that the world is slow to give up even the
least jot or tittle of them, and when they are disproved as fact, they
must be told over and over again as story.

Roman history involves a narrative of social and political struggles,
the importance of which is as wide as modern civilization, and they
must not be passed over without some attention, though in the present
volume they cannot be treated with the thoroughness they deserve. The
story has the advantage of being to a great extent a narrative of the
exploits of heroes, and the attention can be held almost the whole time
to the deeds of particular actors who successively occupy the focus or
play the principal parts on the stage. In this way the element of
personal interest, which so greatly adds to the charm of a story, may
be infused into the narrative.

It is hoped to enter to some degree into the real life of the Roman
people, to catch the true spirit of their actions, and to indicate the
current of the national life, while avoiding the presentation of
particular episodes or periods with undue prominence. It is intended to
set down the facts in their proper relation to each other as well as to
the facts of general history, without attempting an incursion into the
domain of philosophy.

A.G.

CAMBRIDGE, _September_, 1885.




CONTENTS



I.

ONCE UPON A TIME

The old king at Troy--Paris, the wayward youth--Helen carried off--The
war of ten years--Æneas, son of Anchises, goes to Italy--His death--
Fact and fiction in early stories--How Milton wrote about early
England--How Æneas was connected with England--Virgil writes about
Æneas--How Livy wrote about Æneas--Was Æneas a son of Venus?--Italy, as
Æneas would have seen it--Greeks in Italy--How Evander came from
Arcadia--How Æneas died--Thirty cities rise--Twins and a she-wolf--
Trojan names in Italy--How the Romans named their children and
themselves.

II.

HOW THE SHEPHERDS BEGAN THE CITY

Augury resorted to--Romulus and Remus on two hills--Vultures determine
a question--Pales, god of the shepherds--Beginning the city--Celer
killed--An asylum--Bachelors want wives--A game of wife-snatching--
Sabines wish their daughters back--Tarpeia on the hill--A duel between
two hills--Two men named Curtius--Women interfere for peace--Where did
Romulus go?--Society divided by Romulus--Numa Pompilius chosen king--
Laws of religion given the people--Guilds established--The year divided
into months--Tullus Hostilius king--Six brothers fight--Horatia killed
--Ancus Martius king--The wooden bridge.

III.

HOW CORINTH GAVE ROME A NEW DYNASTY

Magna Græcia--Cypselus, the democratic politician--Demaratus goes to
Tarquinii--Etruscan relics--Lucomo's cap lifted--Lucomo changes his
name--A Greek king of Rome--A circus and other great public works--A
light around a boy's head--Servius Tullius king--How the kingdom passed
from the Etruscan dynasty.

IV.

THE RISE OF THE COMMONS

A king of the plebeians--A league with Latin cities--A census taken--
The Seven Hills--Classes formed among the people--Assemblies of the
people--How ace means one--Heads of the people--Armor of the different
classes--A Lustration or _Suovetaurilia_--What is a lustrum?--
Servius divides certain lands--A wicked husband and a naughty wife--
King Servius killed--Sprinkled with a father's blood.

V.

HOW A PROUD KING FELL

A tyrant king--The mysterious Sibyl of Cumæ comes to sell books--The
head found on the Capitoline--A serpent frightens a king--A serious
inquiry sent to Delphi--A hollow stick filled with gold helps a young
man--A good wife spinning--A terrible oath--The Tarquins banished--A
republic takes the place of the kingdom--The first of the long line of
consuls--The good Valerius--The god Silvanus cries out to some effect--
Lars Porsena of Clusium and what he tried to do--Horatius the brave--
Rome loses land--A dictator appointed--Castor and Pollux help the army
at Lake Regillus--Caius Marcius wins a crown--Appius Claudius comes to
town.

VI.

THE ROMAN RUNNYMEDE

The character of the Romans--Traits of the kings--Insignificance of
Latin territory--Occupations--Art backward--A narrow religion--Who were
the _populus Romanus?_--Patricians oppress the people--Wrongs of
Roman money-lending--How a debtor flaunted his rags to good purpose--
Appius Claudius defied--A secession to the Anio--Apologue of the body
and its members--Laws of Valerius re-affirmed--Tribunes of the people
appointed--Peace by the treaty of the Sacred Mount.

VII.

HOW THE HEROES FOUGHT FOR A HUNDRED YEARS

Coriolanus fights bravely--He enrages the plebeians--Women melt the
strong man's heart--Plebeians gain ground--Agrarian laws begin to be
made--Cassius, who makes the first, undermined--The family of the Fabii
support the commons--A black day on the Cremara--Cincinnatus called
from his plow--The Æquians subjugated--What a conquest meant in those
days--The Aventine Hill given to the commons--The ten men make ten laws
and afterwards twelve--The ten men become arrogant--How Virginia was
killed--Appius Claudius cursed--The second secession of the plebeians--
The third secession--The commons make gains--Censors chosen--The
wonderful siege of Veii--How a tunnel brings victory--Camillus the
second founder of Rome--How the territory was increased, but ill omens
threaten.

VIII.

A BLAST FROM BEYOND THE NORTH WIND

What the Greeks thought when they shivered--A warlike people come into
notice--Brennus leads the barbarians to victory--A voice from the
temple of Vesta--Tearful Allia--The city alarmed and Camillus called
for--How the sacred geese chattered to a purpose--Brennus successful,
but defeated at last--A historical game of scandal--Camillus sets to
work to make a new city--Camillus honored as the second founder of
Rome--Manlius less fortunate--Poor debtors protected by a law of Stolo
--A plague comes to Rome, and priests order stage-plays to be
performed--The floods of the Tiber come into the circus.

IX.

HOW THE REPUBLIC OVERCAME ITS NEIGHBORS

Alexander the Great strides over Persia--Suppose he had attacked Rome?
--The man with a chain, and the man helped by a crow--How the Samnites
came into Campania--The memorable battle of Mount Gaurus--How Carthage
thought best to congratulate Rome--Debts become heavy again--How Decius
Mus sacrificed himself for the army--Misfortune at the Caudine Forks--A
general muddle, in which another Mus sacrifices himself--Another
secession of the commons--An agrarian law and an abolition of debts--
What the wild waves washed up--Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, takes a lofty
model--How Cineas asked hard questions--Blind Appius Claudius stirs up
the people--Maleventum gets a better name--Ptolemy Philadelphus thinks
best to congratulate Rome--How the Romans made roads--The classes of
citizens.

X.

AN AFRICAN SIROCCO

How an old Bible city sent out a colony--Carthage attends strictly to
its own business--Sicily a convenient place for a great fight--The
Mamertines not far from Scylla and Charybdis--Ancient war-vessels and
how they were rowed--The prestige of Carthage on the water destroyed--
Xanthippus the Spartan helps the Carthaginians--The horrible fate of
noble Regulus--Hamilcar, the man of lightning, comes to view--Gates of
the temple of Janus closed the second time--A perfidious queen
overthrown--Two Gauls and two Greeks buried alive--Hannibal hates Rome
--Rome and Carthage fight the second time--Scipio and Fabius the
Delayer fight for Rome--Hannibal crosses the Alps--The terrible rout at
Lake Trasimenus--A business man beaten--Syracuse falls and Archimedes
dies--Fabius takes Tarentum--A great victory at the Metaurus--War
carried to Africa and closed at Zama--Hannibal a wanderer.

XI.

THE NEW PUSHES THE OLD--WARS AND CONQUESTS

Tumultuous women stir up the city--What the Oppian Law forbade--Cato
the Stern opposes the women--The women find a valorous champion--How
did the matrons establish their high character?--Two parties look at
the growing influence of ideas from Greece--What were those
influences?--How Rome coveted Eastern conquests--How Flamininus fought
at the Dog-heads--How the Grecians cried for joy at the Isthmian games
--Great battles at Thermopylæ and Magnesia, and their results--
Philopoemen, Hannibal, and Scipio die--The battle of Pydna marks an
era--Greece despoiled of its works of art--Cato wishes Carthage
destroyed--Numantia destroyed--The slaves in Sicily give trouble.

XII.

A FUTILE EFFORT AT REFORM

Scipio gives away his daughter--Tiberius Gracchus serves the state--
Romans without family altars or tombs--Cornelia urges Gracchus to do
somewhat for the state--Gracchus misses an opportunity--Another son of
Cornelia comes to the front--The younger Gracchus builds roads and
makes good laws--Drusus undermines the reformer--Office looked upon as
a means of getting riches--Marius and Sulla appear--Jugurtha fights and
bribes--Metellus, the general of integrity--Marius captures Jugurtha--A
shadow falls upon Rome--A terrible battle at Vercellæ--The slaves rise
again--The Domitian law restricts the rights of the senate--The ill-
gotten gold of Toulouse.

XIII.

SOCIAL AND CIVIL WARS

The agrarian laws of Appuleius--Luxury increases and faith falls away--
Rome for the Romans--Another Drusus appears--The brave Marsians menace
Rome--Ten new tribes formed--A war with Mithridates of Pontus--Marius
and Sulla struggle and Marius goes to the wall--Sulla besieges Athens--
Sulla threatens the senate--The capitol burned--A battle at the Colline
Gate--Proscription and carnage--Sulla makes laws and retires to see the
effect--A _congiarium_--A grand funeral and a cremation.

XIV.

THE MASTER-SPIRITS OF THIS AGE

Tendency towards monarchy--Sertorius and his white fawn--Crassus and
his great house--Cicero, the eloquent orator--Verres, the great thief--
How Verres ran away--Catiline the Cruel--Cæsar, the man born to rule--
Looking for gain in confusion--Lepidus flees after the fight of the
Mulvian bridge--How the two young men caused gladiators to fight--What
Spartacus did--Six thousand crosses--Pompey overawes the senate.

XV.

PROGRESS OF THE GREAT POMPEY

Pompey the principal citizen--Crassus feeds the people at ten thousand
tables--How the pirates caught Cæsar, and how Cæsar caught the pirates
--Gabinius makes a move--The Manilian law sets Pompey further on--
Mithridates fights and flees--Times of treasons, stratagems, and
spoils--Catiline plots--The sacrilege of Clodius--Cæsar pushes himself
to the front--The last agrarian law--Cæsar's success in Gaul--
Vercingetorix appears--Cæsar's conquests.

XVI.

HOW THE TRIUMVIRS CAME TO UNTIMELY ENDS

Pompey builds a theatre--Crassus must make his mark--Cato against
Cæsar--Curio helps Cæsar--Solemn jugglery of the pontiffs--Curio warm
enough--At the Rubicon--Crossing the little river--Pompey stamps in
vain--Cato flees from Rome--Metellus stands aside--Pompey killed--
_Veni, vidi, vici_--Honors and plans of Cæsar--The calendar
reformed--Cæsar has too much ambition--'T was one of those coronets--
The Ides of March--Antony, the actor--Antony the chief man in Rome--
What next?.

XVII.

HOW THE REPUBLIC BECAME AN EMPIRE

How Octavius became a Cæsar--Agrippa and Cicero give him their help--
Octavius wins the soldiers, and Cicero launches his Philippics--Antony,
Lepidus, and Octavius become Triumvirs--Their first work a bloody one--
Cicero falls--Brutus and Cassius defeated at Philippi--Antony forgets
Fulvia--Antony and Octavius quarrel and meet for discussion at
Tarentum--How Horace travelled to Brundusium--The duration of the
Triumvirate extended five years--Cleopatra beguiles Antony a second
time--The great battle off Actium--Octavius wins complete power, and a
new era begins--The Republic ends.

XVIII.

SOME MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE

How did these people live?--The first Roman house--The vestibule and
the dark room--The dining-room and the parlor--Rooms for pictures and
books--Cooking taken out of the atrium--How the houses were heated and
lighted--Life in a villa--The extravagance of the pleasure villa--When
a man and a woman had agreed to marry--How the bride dressed and what
the groom did--The wife's position and work--The _stola_ and the
_toga_--Foot-gear from _soccus_ to _cothurnus_--Breakfast, luncheon,
and dinner--The formal dinner--How the Romans travelled, and how they
sought office--The law and its penalties.

XIX.

THE ROMAN READING AND WRITING

Grecian influence on Roman mental culture--Textbooks--Cato and Varro on
education--Dictation and copy-books--The early writers--Fabius Pictor--
Plautus--Terence--Atellan plays--Cicero's works--Varro's works--Cæsar
and Catullus--Lucretius--Ovid and Tibullus--Sallust--Livy--Horace--
Cornelius Nepos--Virgil and his works--Life at the villa of Mæcenas.

XX.

THE ROMAN REPUBLICANS SERIOUS AND GAY

The will of the gods sought for--The first temples--Festivals in the
first month--Vinalia and Saturnalia--Fires of Vulcan and Vesta--
Matronly and family services--No mythology at first--Colleges of
priests needed--An incursion of Greek philosophers--Games of childhood
--Checkers and other games of chance--The people cry for games--Games
in the circus--The amphitheatre invented--Men and beasts fight--Funeral
ceremonies--Charon paid--The mourning procession--Inurning the ashes
--The columbarium--The Roman May-day--Change from rustic simplicity to
urban orgies.

INDEX.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


MAP OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
MAP OF ANCIENT ROME
VIEW OF THE COLOSSEUM AND PORTION OF MODERN ROME
THE PLAIN OF TROY IN MODERN TIMES
ROMAN GIRLS WITH A STYLUS AND WRITING-TABLET
A ROMAN ALTAR MONUMENT OF THE HORATII AND THE CURIATII
MOUTH OF THE CLOACA MAXIMA AT THE TIBER, AND THE SO-CALLED
  TEMPLE OF VESTA
ROMAN SOLDIERS, COSTUMES AND ARMOR
THE RAVINE OF DELPHI
THE CAPITOL RESTORED
ROMAN STREET PAVEMENT
A PHOENICIAN VESSEL (TRIREME)
A ROMAN WAR-VESSEL
HANNIBAL
TERENCE, THE LAST ROMAN COMIC POET
PUBLIUS CORNELIUS SCIPIO AFRICANUS
A ROMAN MATRON
ROMAN HEAD-DRESSES
GLADIATORS AT A FUNERAL
ACTORS' MASKS
A ROMAN MILE-STONE
IN A ROMAN STUDY
PLAN OF A ROMAN CAMP IN THE TIME OF THE REPUBLIC
POMPEY (CNEIUS POMPEIUS MAGNUS)
CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR
GLADIATORS
TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION OF A ROMAN GENERAL
INTERIOR OF A ROMAN HOUSE
A ROMAN POETESS
THE FORUM ROMANUM IN MODERN TIMES
AN ELEPHANT IN ARMOR
ITALIAN AND GERMAN ALLIES, COSTUMES AND ARMOR
INTERIOR OF THE FORUM ROMANUM
MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO
CLEOPATRA'S SHOW SHIP
ANCIENT STATUE OF AUGUSTUS
THE HOUSE-PHILOSOPHER
DINING-TABLE AND COUCHES
COVERINGS FOR THE FEET
ARTICLES OF THE ROMAN TOILET
RUINS OF THE COLOSSEUM, SEEN FROM THE PALATINE HILL
A COLUMBARIUM




THE STORY OF ROME.




I.

ONCE UPON A TIME.



Once upon a time, there lived in a city of Asia Minor, not far from
Mount Ida, as old Homer tells us in his grand and beautiful poem, a
king who had fifty sons and many daughters. How large his family was,
indeed, we cannot say, for the storytellers of the olden time were not
very careful to set down the actual and exact truth, their chief object
being to give the people something to interest them. That they
succeeded well in this respect we know, because the story of this old
king and his great family of sons and daughters has been told and
retold thousands of times since it was first related, and that was so
long ago that the bard himself has sometimes been said never to have
lived at all. Still; somebody must have existed who told the wondrous
story, and it has always been attributed to a blind poet, to whom the
name Homer has been given.

The place in which the old king and his great family lived was Ilium,
though it is better known as Troja or Troy, because that is the name
that the Roman people used for it in later times. One of the sons of
Priam, for that was the name of this king, was Paris, who, though very
handsome, was a wayward and troublesome youth. He once journeyed to
Greece to find a wife, and there fell in love with a beautiful daughter
of Jupiter, named Helen. She was already married to Menelaus, the
Prince of Lacedæmonia (brother of another famous hero, Agamemnon), who
had most hospitably entertained young Paris, but this did not interfere
with his carrying her off to Troy. The wedding journey was made by the
roundabout way of Phoenicia and Egypt, but at last the couple reached
home with a large amount of treasure taken from the hospitable
Menelaus.

This wild adventure led to a war of ten years between the Greeks and
King Priam, for the rescue of the beautiful Helen. Menelaus and some of
his countrymen at last contrived to conceal themselves in a hollow
wooden horse, in which they were taken into Troy. Once inside, it was
an easy task to open the gates and let the whole army in also. The city
was then taken and burned. Menelaus was naturally one of the first to
hasten from the smoking ruins, though he was almost the last to reach
his home. He lived afterwards for years in peace, health, and happiness
with the beautiful wife who had cost him so much suffering and so many
trials to regain.

[Illustration: THE PLAINS OF TROY IN MODERN TIMES.]

Among the relatives of King Priam was one Anchises, a descendant of
Jupiter, who was very old at the time of the war. He had a valiant son,
however, who fought well in the struggle, and the story of his deeds
was ever afterwards treasured up among the most precious narratives of
all time. This son was named Æneas, and he was not only a descendant of
Jupiter, but also a son of the beautiful goddess Venus. He did not take
an active part in the war at its beginning, but in the course of time
he and Hector, who was one of the sons of the king, became the most
prominent among the defenders of Troy. After the destruction of the
city, he went out of it, carrying on his shoulders his aged father,
Anchises, and leading by the hand his young son, Ascanius, or Iulus, as
he was also called. He bore in his hands his household gods, called the
Penates, and began his now celebrated wanderings over the earth. He
found a resting-place at last on the farther coast of the Italian
peninsula, and there one day he marvellously disappeared in a battle on
the banks of the little brook Numicius, where a monument was erected to
his memory as "The Father and the Native God." According to the best
accounts, the war of Troy took place nearly twelve hundred years before
Christ, and that is some three thousand years ago now. It was before
the time of the prophet Eli, of whom we read in the Bible, and long
before the ancient days of Samuel and Saul and David and Solomon, who
seem so very far removed from our times. There had been long lines of
kings and princes in China and India before that time, however, and in
the hoary land of Egypt as many as twenty dynasties of sovereigns had
reigned and passed away, and a certain sort of civilization had
flourished for two or three thousand years, so that the great world was
not so young at that time as one might at first think If only there had
been books and newspapers in those olden days, what revelations they
would make to us now! They would tell us exactly where Troy was, which
some of the learned think we do not know, and we might, by their help,
separate fact from fiction in the immortal poems and stories that are
now our only source of information. It is not for us to say that that
would be any better for us than to know merely what we do, for poetry
is elevating and entertaining, and stirs the heart; and who could make
poetry out of the columns of a newspaper, even though it were as old as
the times of the Pharaohs? Let us, then, be thankful for what we have,
and take the beginnings of history in the mixed form of truth and
fiction, following the lead of learned historians who are and long have
been trying to trace the true clue of fact in the labyrinth of poetic
story with which it is involved.

When the poet Milton sat down to write the history of that part of
Britain now called England, as he expressed it, he said: "The beginning
of nations, those excepted of whom sacred books have spoken, is to this
day unknown. Nor only the beginning, but the deeds also of many
succeeding ages, yes, periods of ages, either wholly unknown or
obscured or blemished with fables." Why this is so the great poet did
not pretend to tell, but he thought that it might be because people did
not know how to write in the first ages, or because their records had
been lost in wars and by the sloth and ignorance that followed them.
Perhaps men did not think that the records of their own times were
worth preserving when they reflected how base and corrupt, how petty
and perverse such deeds would appear to those who should come after
them. For whatever reason, Milton said that it had come about that some
of the stories that seemed to be the oldest were in his day regarded as
fables; but that he did not intend to pass them over, because that
which one antiquary admitted as true history, another exploded as mere
fiction, and narratives that had been once called fables were afterward
found to "contain in them many footsteps and reliques of something
true," as what might be read in poets "of the flood and giants, little
believed, till undoubted witnesses taught us that all was not feigned."
For such reasons Milton determined to tell over the old stories, if for
no other purpose than that they might be of service to the poets and
romancers who knew how to use them judiciously. He said that he did not
intend even to stop to argue and debate disputed questions, but,
"imploring divine assistance," to relate, "with plain and lightsome
brevity," those things worth noting.

After all this preparation Milton began his history of England at the
Flood, hastily recounted the facts to the time of the great Trojan war,
and then said that he had arrived at a period when the narrative could
not be so hurriedly dispatched. He showed how the old historians had
gone back to Troy for the beginnings of the English race, and had
chosen a great-grandson of Æneas, named Brutus, as the one by whom it
should be attached to the right royal heroes of Homer's poem. Thus we
see how firm a hold upon the imagination of the world the tale of Troy
had after twenty-seven hundred years.

Twenty-five or thirty years before the birth of Christ there was in
Rome another poet, named Virgil, writing about the wanderings of Æneas.
He began his beautiful story with these words: "Arms I sing, and the
hero, who first, exiled by fate, came from the coast of Troy to Italy
and the Lavinian shore." He then went on to tell in beautiful words the
story of the wanderings of his hero,--a tale that has now been read and
re-read for nearly two thousand years, by all who have wished to call
themselves educated; generations of school-boys, and schoolgirls too,
have slowly made their way through the Latin of its twelve books. This
was another evidence of the strong hold that the story of Troy had upon
men, as well as of the honor in which the heroes, and descent from
them, were held.

In the generation after Virgil there arose a graphic writer named Livy,
who wrote a long history of Rome, a large portion of which has been
preserved to our own day. Like Virgil, Livy traced the origin of the
Latin people to Æneas, and like Milton, he re-told the ancient stories,
saying that he had no intention of affirming or refuting the traditions
that had come down to his time of what had occurred before the building
of the city, though he thought them rather suitable for the fictions of
poetry than for the genuine records of the historian. He added, that it
was an indulgence conceded to antiquity to blend human things with
things divine, in such a way as to make the origin of cities appear
more venerable. This principle is much the same as that on which Milton
wrote his history, and it seems a very good one. Let us, therefore,
follow it.

In the narrative of events for several hundred years after the city of
Rome was founded, according to the early traditions, it is difficult to
distinguish truth from fiction, though a skilful historian (and many
such there have been) is able, by reading history backwards, to make up
his mind as to what is probable and what seems to belong only to the
realm of myth. It does not, for example, seem probable that Æneas was
the son of the goddess Venus; and it seems clear that a great many of
the stories that are mixed with the early history of Rome were written
long after the events they pretend to record, in order to account for
customs and observances of the later days. Some of these we shall
notice as we go on with our pleasant story.

We must now return to Æneas. After long wanderings and many marvellous
adventures, he arrived, as has been said, on the shores of Italy. He
was not able to go rapidly about the whole country, as we are in these
days by means of our good roads and other modes of communication, but
if he could have done this, he would have found that he had fallen upon
a land in which the inhabitants had come, as he had, from foreign
shores. Some of them were of Greek origin, and others had emigrated
from countries just north of Italy, though, as we now know that Asia
was the cradle of our race, and especially of that portion of it that
has peopled Europe, we suppose that all the dwellers on the boot-shaped
peninsula had their origin on that mysterious continent at some early
period.

If Æneas could have gone to the southern part of Italy,--to that part
from which travellers now take the steamships for the East at Brindisi,
he would have found some of the emigrants from the North. If he had
gone to the north of the river Tiber, he would have seen a mixed
population enjoying a greater civilization than the others, the
aristocracy of which had come also from the northern mountains, though
the common people were from Greece or its colonies. These people of
Greek descent were called Etruscans, and it has been discovered that
they had advanced so far in civilization, that they afterwards gave
many of their customs to the city of Rome when it came to power. A
confederacy known as the "Twelve Cities of Etruria" became famous
afterwards, though no one knows exactly which the twelve were. Probably
they changed from time to time; some that belonged to the union at one
period, being out of it at another. It will be enough for us to
remember that Veii, Clusium, Fidenæ, Volsinii, and Tarquinii were of
the group of Etruscan cities at a later date.

The central portion of the country to which Æneas came is that known as
Italia, the inhabitants of which were of the same origin as the Greeks.
It is said that about sixty years before the Trojan war, King Evander
(whose name meant good man and true) brought a company from the land of
Arcadia, where the people were supposed to live in a state of ideal
innocence and virtue, to Italia, and began a city on the banks of the
Tiber, at the foot of the Palatine Hill. Evander was a son of Mercury,
and he found that the king of the country he had come to was Turnus,
who was also a relative of the immortal gods. Turnus and Evander became
fast friends, and it is said that Turnus taught his neighbors the art
of writing, which he had himself learned from Hercules, but this is one
of the transparent fictions of the story. It may be that he taught them
music and the arts of social life, and gave them good laws. What ever
became of good Evander we do not know.

The king of the people among whom Æneas landed was one Latinus, who
became a friend of his noble visitor, giving him his daughter Lavinia
to wife, though he had previously promised her to Turnus. Æneas named
the town in which he lived Lavinium, in honor of his wife. Turnus was
naturally enraged at the loss of his expected bride, and made war upon
both Æneas and Latinus. The Trojan came off victorious, both the other
warriors being killed in the struggle. Thus for a short time, Æneas was
left sole king of all those regions, with no one to dispute his title
to the throne or his right to his wife; but the pleasure of ruling was
not long to be his, for a short time after his accession to power, he
was killed in battle on the banks of the Numicius, as has already been
related. His son Ascanius left the low and unhealthy site of Lavinium,
and founded a city on higher ground, which was called Alba Longa (the
long, white city), and the mountain on the side of which it was, the
Alban mountain. The new capital of Ascanius became the centre and
principal one of thirty cities that arose in the plain, over all of
which it seemed to have authority. Among these were Tusculum, Præneste,
Lavinium, and Ardea, places of which subsequent history has much to
say.

Ascanius was successful in founding a long line of sovereigns, who
reigned in Alba for three hundred years, until there arose one Numitor
who was dispossessed of his throne by a younger brother named Amulius.
One bad act usually leads to another, and this case was no exception to
the rule, for when Amulius had taken his brother's throne, he still
feared that the rightful children might interfere with the enjoyment of
his power. Though he supported Numitor in comfort, he cruelly killed
his son and shut his daughter up in a temple. This daughter was called
Silvia, or, sometimes, Rhea Silvia. Wicked men are not able generally
to enjoy the fruits of their evil doings long, and, in the course of
time, the daughter of the dethroned Numitor became the mother of a
beautiful pair of twin boys, (their father being the god of war, Mars,)
who proved the avengers of their grandfather. Not immediately, however.
The detestable usurper determined to throw the mother and her babes
into the river Tiber, and thus make an end of them, as well as of all
danger to him from them. It happened that the river was at the time
overflowing its banks, and though the poor mother was drowned, the
cradle of the twins was caught on the shallow ground at the foot of the
Palatine Hill, at the very place where the good Evander had begun his
city so long before. There the waifs were found by one of the king's
shepherds, after they had been, strangely enough, taken care of for a
while by a she-wolf, which gave them milk, and a woodpecker, which
supplied them with other food. Faustulus was the name of this shepherd,
and he took them to his wife Laurentia, though she already had twelve
others to care for. The brothers, who were named Romulus and Remus,
grew up on the sides of the Palatine Hill to be strong and handsome
men, and showed themselves born leaders among the other shepherds, as
they attended to their daily duties or fought the wild animals that
troubled the flocks.

The grandfather of the twins fed his herds on the Aventine Hill, nearer
the river Tiber, just across a little valley, and a quarrel arose
between his shepherds and those of Faustulus, in the course of which
Remus was captured and taken before Numitor. The old man thus
discovered the relationship that existed between him and the twins who
had so long been lost. In consequence of the discovery of their origin,
and the right to the throne that was their father's, they arose against
their unworthy uncle, and with the aid of their followers, put him to
death and placed Numitor in supreme authority, where he rightfully
belonged. The twins had become attached to the place in which they had
spent their youth, and preferred to live there rather than to go to
Alba with their royal grandfather. He therefore granted to them that
portion of his possessions, and there they determined to found a city.

Thus we have the origin of the Roman people. We see how the early
traditions "mixed human things with things divine," as Livy said had
been done to make the origin of the city more respectable; how Æneas,
the far-back ancestor, was descended from Jupiter himself, and how he
was a son of Venus, the goddess of love. How Romulus and Remus, the
actual founders, were children of the god of war, and thus naturally
fitted to be the builders of a nation that was to be strong and to
conquer all known peoples on earth. The effort to ascribe to their
nation an origin that should appear venerable to all who believed the
stories of the gods and goddesses, was remarkably successful, and there
is no doubt that it gave inspiration to the Roman people long after the
worship of those divinities had become a matter of form, if not even of
ridicule.

This was not all that was done, however, to establish the faith in the
old stories in the minds of the people. In some way that it is not easy
to explain, the names of the first heroes were fixed upon certain
localities, just as those of the famous British hero, King Arthur, have
long been fixed upon places in Brittany, Cornwall, and Southern
Scotland. We find at a little place called Metapontem, the tools used
by Epeus in making the wooden horse that was taken into Troy. The bow
and arrows of Hercules were preserved at Thurii, near Sybaris; the tomb
of Philoctetes, who inherited these weapons of the hero, was at
Macalla, in Bruttium, not far from Crotona, where Pythagoras had lived;
the head of the Calydonian Boar was at Beneventum, east of Capua, and
the Erymanthian Boar's tusks were at Cumæ, celebrated for its Sibyl;
the armor of Diomede, one of the Trojan heroes, was at Luceria, in the
vicinity of Cannæ; the cup of Ulysses and the tomb of Elpenor were at
Circei, on the coast; the ships of Æneas and his Penates were at
Lavinium, fifteen miles south of Rome; and the tomb of the hero himself
was at a spot between Ardea and Lavinium, on the banks of the brook
Numicius. Most men are interested in relics of olden times, and these,
so many and of such great attractiveness, were doubtless strong proofs
to the average Roman, ready to think well of his ancestors, that
tradition told a true story.

As we read the histories of other nations than our own, we are struck
by the strangeness of many of the circumstances. They appear foreign
(or "outlandish," as our great-grandparents used to say), and it is
difficult to put ourselves in the places of the people we read of,
especially if they belong to ancient times. Perhaps the names of
persons and places give us as much trouble as any thing. It seems to
us, perhaps, that the Romans gave their children too many names, and
they often added to them themselves when they had grown up. They did
not always write their names out in full; sometimes they called each
other by only one of them, and at others by several. Marcus Tullius
Cicero was sometimes addressed as "Tullius" and is often mentioned in
old books as "Tully"; and he was also "M. Tullius Cicero." It was as if
we were to write "G. Washington Tudela," and call Mr. Tudela familiarly
"Washington." This would cause no confusion at the time, but it might
be difficult for his descendants to identify "Washington" as Mr.
Tudela, if, years after his death, they were to read of him under his
middle name only. The Greeks were much more simple, and each of them
had but one name, though they freely used nicknames to describe
peculiarities or defects. The Latins and Etruscans seem to have had at
first only one name apiece, but the Sabines had two, and in later times
the Sabine system was generally followed. A Roman boy had, therefore, a
given name and a family name, which were indispensable; but he might
have two others, descriptive of some peculiarity or remarkable event in
his life--as "Scævola," left-handed; "Cato," or "Sapiens," wise;
"Coriolanus," of Corioli. "Appius Claudius Sabinus Regillensis" means
Appius of the Claudian family of Regillum, in the country of the
Sabines. "Lucius Cornelius Scipio Africanus" means Lucius, of the
Cornelian family, and of the particular branch of the Scipios who won
fame in Africa. These were called the prænomen (forename), nomen
(name), cognomen (surname), and agnomen (added name).




II.

HOW THE SHEPHERDS BEGAN THE CITY.



The proverbs says that Rome was not built in a day. It was no easy task
for the twins to agree just where they should even begin the city.
Romulus thought that the Palatine Hill, on which he and his brother had
lived, was the most favorable spot for the purpose, while Remus
inclined no less decidedly in favor of the Aventine, on which Numitor
had fed his flocks. In this emergency, they seem to have asked counsel
of their grandfather, and he advised them to settle the question by
recourse to augury, [Footnote: Augury was at first a system of divining
by birds, but in time the observation of other signs was included. At
first no plebeians could take the auspices, as they seem to have had no
share in the divinities whose will was sought, but in the year 300,
B.C., the college of augurs, then comprising four patricians, was
enlarged by the admission of five plebeians. The augurs were elected
for life.] a practice of the Etrurians with which they were probably
quite familiar, for they had been educated, we are told, at Gabii, the
largest of the towns of Latium, where all the knowledge of the region
was known to the teachers.

Following this advice, the brothers took up positions at a given time
on the respective hills, surrounded by their followers; those of
Romulus being known as the Quintilii, and those of Remus as the Fabii.
Thus, in anxious expectation, they waited for the passage of certain
birds which was to settle the question between them. We can imagine
them as they waited. The two hills are still to be seen in the city,
and probably the two groups were about half a mile apart. On one side
of them rolled the muddy waters of the Tiber, from which they had been
snatched when infants, and around them rose the other elevations over
which the "seven-hilled" city of the future was destined to spread.
From morning to evening they patiently watched, but in vain. Through
the long April night, too, they held their posts, and as the sun of the
second day rose over the Coelian Hill, Remus beheld with exultation six
vultures swiftly flying through the air, and thought that surely
fortune had decided in his favor. The vulture was a bird seldom seen,
and one that never did damage to crops or cattle, and for this reason
its appearance was looked upon as a good augury. The passage of the six
vultures did not, however, settle this dispute, as Numitor expected it
would, for Romulus, when he heard that Remus had seen six, asserted
that twelve had flown by him. His followers supported this claim, and
determined that the city should be begun on the Palatine Hill. It is
said that this hill, from which our word palace has come, received its
name from the town of Pallantium, in Arcadia, from which Evander came
to Italy.

The twenty-first of April was a festal day among the shepherds, and it
was chosen as the one on which the new city should be begun (753 B.C.).
In the morning of the day, it was customary, so they say, for the
country people to purify themselves by fire and smoke, by sprinkling
themselves with spring water, by formal washing of their hands, and by
drinking milk mixed with grape-juice. During the day they offered
sacrifices, consisting of cakes, milk, and other eatables, to Pales,
the god of the shepherds. Three times, with faces turned to the east, a
long prayer was repeated to Pales, asking blessings upon the flocks and
herds, and pardon for any offences committed against the nymphs of the
streams, the dryads of the woods, and the other deities of the Italian
Olympus. This over, bonfires of hay and straw were lighted, music was
made with cymbal and flute, and shepherds and sheep were purified by
passing through the flames. A feast followed, the simple folk lying on
benches of turf, and indulging in generous draughts of their homely
wines, such, probably, as the visitor to-day may regale himself with in
the same region. Towards evening, the flocks were fed, the stables were
cleansed and sprinkled with water with laurel brooms, and laurel boughs
were hung about them as adornments. Sulphur, incense, rosemary, and
fir-wood were burned, and the smoke made to pass through the stalls to
purify them, and even the flocks themselves were submitted to the same
cleansing fumes.

The beginning of a city in the olden time was a serious matter, and
Romulus felt the solemnity of the acts in which he was about to engage.
He sent men to Etruria, from which land the religious customs of the
Romans largely came, to obtain for him the minute details of the rites
suitable for the occasion.

At the proper moment he began the Etrurian ceremonies, by digging a
circular pit down to the hard clay, into which were cast with great
solemnity some of the first-fruits of the season, and also handfuls of
earth, each man throwing in a little from the country from which he had
come. The pit was then filled up, and over it an altar was erected,
upon the hearth of which a fire was kindled. Thus the centre of the new
city was settled and consecrated. Romulus then harnessed a white cow
and a snow-white bull to a plow with a brazen share, and holding the
handle himself, traced the line of the future walls with a furrow
(called the pomoerium [Footnote: _Pomoerium_ is composed of _post_,
behind, and _murus_, a wall. The word is often used as meaning simply a
boundary or limit of jurisdiction. The _pomoerium_ of Rome was several
times enlarged.]), carrying the plow over the places where gates were
to be left, and causing those who followed to see that every furrow as
it fell was turned inwards toward the city. As he plowed, Romulus
uttered the following prayer:

_Do thou, Jupiter, aid me as I found this city; and Mavors_ [that
is, Mars, the god of war and protector of agriculture], _my father,
and Vesta, my mother, and all other, ye deities, whom it is a religious
duty to invoke, attend; let this work of mine rise under your auspices.
Long may be its duration; may its sway be that of an all-ruling land;
and under it may be both the rising and the setting of the day._

It is said that Jupiter sent thunder from one side of the heavens and
lightnings from the other, and that the people rejoiced in the omens as
good and went on cheerfully building the walls. The poet Ovid says that
the work of superintending the building was given to one Celer, who was
told by Romulus to let no one pass over the furrow of the plow. Remus,
ignorant of this, began to scoff at the lowly beginning, and was
immediately struck down by Celer with a spade. Romulus bore the death
of his brother "like a Roman," with great fortitude, and, swallowing
down his rising tears, exclaimed: "So let it happen to all who pass
over my walls!"

Plutarch, who is very fond of tracing the origin of words, says that
Celer rushed away from Rome, fearing vengeance, and did not rest until
he had reached the limits of Etruria, and that his name became the
synonym for quickness, so that men swift of foot were called _Celeres_
by the Romans, just as we still speak of "celerity," meaning rapidity
of motion. Thus the walls of the new city were laid in blood.

In one respect early Rome was like our own country, for Plutarch says
that it was proclaimed an asylum to which any who were oppressed might
resort and be safe; but it was more, for all who had incurred the
vengeance of the law were also taken in and protected from punishment.
Romulus is said to have erected in a wood a temple to a god called
Asylæus, where he "received and protected all, delivering none back--
neither the servant to his master, the debtor to his creditor, nor the
murderer into the hands of the magistrate; saying it was a privileged
place, and they could so maintain it by an order of the holy oracle;
insomuch that the city grew presently very populous." It was men, of
course, who took advantage of this asylum, for who ever heard of women
who would rush in great numbers to such a place? Rome was a colony of
bachelors, and some of them pretty poor characters too, so that there
did not seem to be a very good chance that they could find women
willing to become their wives. Romulus, like many an ardent lover
since, evidently thought that all was fair in love and war, and, after
failing in all his efforts to lead the neighboring peoples to allow the
Roman men to marry their women, he gave it out that he had discovered
the altar of the god Consus, who presided over secret deliberations,--a
very suitable divinity to come up at the juncture,--and that he
intended to celebrate his feast.

Consus was honored on the twenty-first of August, and this celebration
would come, therefore, just four months after the foundation of the
city. There were horse and chariot races, and libations which were
poured into the flames that consumed the sacrifices. The people of the
country around Rome were invited to take part in the novel festivities,
and they were nothing loth to come, for they had considerable curiosity
to see what sort of a city had so quickly grown up on the Palatine
Hill. They felt no solicitude, though perhaps some might have thought
of the haughtiness with which they had refused the offers of matrimony
made to their maidens. Still, it was safe, they thought, to attend a
fair under the protection of religion, and so they went,--they and
their wives and their daughters.

At a signal from Romulus, when the games were at the most exciting
stage, and the strangers were scattered about among the Romans, each
follower of Romulus siezed the maiden that he had selected, and carried
her off. It is said that as the men made the siezure, they cried out,
"Talasia!" which means spinning, and that at all marriages in Rome
afterwards, that word formed the refrain of a song, sung as the bride
was approaching her husband's house. We cannot imagine the disturbance
with which the festival broke up, as the distracted strangers found out
that they were the victims of a trick, and that their loved daughters
had been taken from them. They called in vain upon the god in whose
honor they had come, and they listened with suppressed threats of
vengeance to Romulus, as he boldly went about among them telling them
that it was owing to their pride that this calamity had fallen upon
them, but that all would now be well with their daughters. Each new
husband would, he said, be the better guardian of his bride, because he
would have to take the place with her of family and home as well as of
husband.

The brides were soon comforted, but their parents put on mourning for
them and went up and down through the neighborhood exciting the
inhabitants against the city of Romulus. Success crowned their efforts,
and it was not long before Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines, from
among whose people most of the stolen virgins had been taken, found
himself at the head of an army sufficient to attack the warlike
citizens of the Palatine. He was not so prompt, however, as his
neighbors, and two armies from Latin cities had been collected and sent
against Romulus, and had been met and overcome by him, before his
arrangements were completed; the people being admitted to Rome as
citizens, and thus adding to the already increasing power of the
community.

[Illustration: ROMAN GIRLS WITH A STYLUS AND WRITING TABLET. ]

The Romans had a citadel on the Capitoline Hill, and Tatius desired to
win it. The guardian was named Tarpeius, and he had a daughter,
Tarpeia, who was so much attracted by the golden ornaments worn by the
Sabines, that she promised to open the citadel to them if each soldier
would give his bracelet to her. This was promised, and as each entered
he threw his golden ornament upon the poor maiden, until she fell
beneath the weight and died, for they wished to show that they hated
treachery though willing to profit by it. Her name was fixed upon the
steep rock of the Capitoline Hill from which traitors were in after
years thrown.

We now have the Sabines on one hill and the Romans on another, with a
swampy plain of small extent between them, where the forum was
afterward built. The Romans wished to retake the Capitoline Hill (which
was also called the Hill of Saturn), and a battle was fought the next
day in the valley. It is said that two men began the fight, Mettus
Curtius, representing the Sabines, and Hostus Hostilius, the Romans,
and that though the Roman was killed, Curtius was chased into the
swamp, where his horse was mired, and all his efforts with whip and
spur to get him out proving ineffectual, he left the faithful beast and
saved himself with difficulty. The swamp was ever after known as
_Lacus Curtius_, and this story might be taken as the true origin
of its name (for _lacus_ in Latin meant a marsh as well as a
lake), if it were not that there are two other accounts of the reason
for it. One story is that in the year 362 B.C.--that is, some four
centuries after the battle we have just related, the earth in the forum
gave way, and all efforts to fill it proving unsuccessful, the oracles
were appealed to. They replied that the spot could not be made firm
until that on which Rome's greatness was based had been cast into the
chasm, but that then the state would prosper. In the midst of the
doubting that followed this announcement, the gallant youth, Curtius,
came forward, declaring that the city had no greater treasure than a
brave citizen in arms, upon which he immediately leaped into the abyss
with his horse. Thereupon the earth closed over the sacrifice. This is
the story that Livy prefers. The third is simply to the effect that
while one Curtius was consul, in the year 445 B.C., the earth at the
spot was struck by lightning, and was afterwards ceremoniously enclosed
by him at the command of the senate. This is a good example of the sort
of myth that the learned call _ætiological_--that is, myths that
have grown up to account for certain facts or customs. The story of the
carrying off of the Sabine women is one of this kind, for it seems to
have originated in a desire to account for certain incidents in the
marriage ceremonies of the Romans. We cannot believe either, though it
is reasonable to suppose that some event occurred which was the basis
of the tradition told in connection with the history of different
periods. We shall find that, in the year 390, all the records of Roman
history were destroyed by certain barbarians who burned the city, and
that therefore we have tradition only upon which to base the history
before that date. We may reasonably believe, however, that at some time
the marshy ground in the forum gave way, as ground often does, and that
there was difficulty in filling up the chasm. A grand opportunity was
thus offered for a good story-teller to build up a romance, or to touch
up the early history with an interesting tale of heroism. The
temptation to do this would have been very strong to an imaginative
writer.

The Sabines gained the first advantage in the present struggle, and it
seemed as though fortune was about to desert the Romans, when Romulus
commended their cause to Jupiter in a prayer in which he vowed to erect
an altar to him as Jupiter Stator--that is, "Stayer," if he would stay
the flight of the Romans. The strife was then begun with new vigor, and
in the midst of the din and carnage the Sabine women, who had by this
time become attached to their husbands, rushed between the fierce men
and urged them not to make them widows or fatherless, which was the sad
alternative presented to them. "Make us not twice captives!" they
exclaimed. Their appeal resulted in peace, and the two peoples agreed
to form one nation, the ruler of which should be alternately a Roman
and a Sabine, though at first Romulus and Tatius ruled jointly. The
women became thus dearer to the whole community, and the feast called
Matronalia was established in their honor, when wives received presents
from their husbands and girls from their lovers.

Romulus continued to live on the Palatine among the Romans, and Tatius
on the Quirinal, where the Sabines also lived. Each people adopted some
of the fashions and customs of the other, and they all met for the
transaction of business in the Forum Romanum, which was in the valley
of the Curtian Lake, between the hills. For a time this arrangement was
carried on in peace, and the united nation grew in numbers and power.
After five years, however, Tatius was slain by some of the inhabitants
of Lavinium, and Romulus was left sole ruler until his death.

Under him the nation grew still more rapidly, and others were made
subject to it, all of which good fortune was attributed to his prowess
and skill. Romulus became after a while somewhat arrogant. He dressed
in scarlet, received his people lying on a couch of state, and
surrounded himself with a body of young soldiers called _Celeres_,
from the swiftness with which they executed his orders. It was a
suspicious fact that all at once, at a time when the people had become
dissatisfied with his actions, Romulus disappeared (717 B.C.). Like
Evander, he went, no one knew where, though one of his friends
presented himself in the forum and assured the people under oath that
one day, as he was going along the road, he met Romulus coming toward
him, dressed in shining armor, and looking comelier than ever.
Proculus, for that was the friend's name, was struck with awe and
filled with religious dread, but asked the king why he had left the
people to bereavement, endless sorrow, and wicked surmises, for it had
been rumored that the senators had made away with him. Romulus replied
that it pleased the gods that, after having built a city destined to be
the greatest in the world for empire and glory, he should return to
heaven, but that Proculus might tell the Romans that they would attain
the height of power by exercising temperance and fortitude, in which
effort he would sustain them and remain their propitious god Quirinus.
An altar was accordingly erected to the king's honor, and a festival
called the Quirinalia was annually celebrated on the seventeenth of
February, the day on which he is said to have been received into the
number of the gods.

Romulus left the people organized into two great divisions, Patricians
and Clients: the former being the _Populus Romanus_, or Roman People,
and possessing the only political rights; and the others being entirely
dependent upon them. The Patricians were divided into three tribes—the
Romans (_Ramnes_), the Etruscans (_Luceres_), and the Sabines
(_Tities_, from Tatius). Another body, not yet organized, called
Plebeians, or Plebs, was composed of inhabitants of conquered towns and
refugees. These, though not slaves, had no political rights. Each tribe
was divided into ten Curiae, and the thirty Curiae composed the
_Comitia Curiata_, which was the sovereign assembly of the Patricians,
authorized to choose the king and to decide all cases affecting the
lives of the citizens. A number of men of mature age, known as the
_Patres_, composed the Senate, which Romulus formed to assist him in
the government. This body consisted of one hundred members until the
union with the Sabines, when it was doubled, the Etruscans not being
represented until a later time. The army was called a Legion, and was
composed of a contribution of a thousand foot-soldiers and a hundred
cavalry (_Equites_, Knights) from each tribe.

A year passed after the death of Romulus before another king was
chosen, and the people complained that they had a hundred sovereigns
instead of one, because the senate governed, and that not always with
justness. It was finally agreed that the Romans should choose a king,
but that he should be a Sabine. The choice fell upon Numa Pompilius, a
man learned in all laws, human and divine, and two ambassadors were
accordingly sent to him at his home at Cures, to offer the kingdom to
him. The ambassadors were politely received by the good man, but he
assured them that he did not wish to change his condition; that every
alteration in life is dangerous to a man; that madness only could
induce one who needed nothing to quit the life to which he was
accustomed; that he, a man of peace, was not fitted to direct a people
whose progress had been gained by war; and that he feared that he might
prove a laughing-stock to the people if he were to go about teaching
them the worship of the gods and the offices of peace when they wanted
a king to lead them to war. The more he declined, the more the people
wished him to accept, and at last his father argued with him that a
martial people needed one who should teach them moderation and
religion; that he ought to recognize the fact that the gods were
calling him to a large sphere of usefulness. These arguments proved
sufficient, and Numa accepted the crown. After making the appropriate
offerings to the gods, he set out for Rome, and was met by the populace
coming forth to receive him with joyful acclamations. Sacrifices were
offered in the temples, and with impressive ceremonies the new
authority was joyfully entrusted to him (715 B.C.).

As Romulus had given the Romans their warlike customs, so now Numa gave
them the ceremonial laws of religion; but before entering upon this
work, he divided among the people the public lands that Romulus had
added to the property of the city by his conquests, by this movement
showing that he was possessed of worldly as well as of heavenly wisdom.
He next instituted the worship of the god Terminus, who seems to have
been simply Jupiter in the capacity of guardian of boundaries. Numa
ordered all persons to mark the limits of their lands by consecrated
stones, and at these, when they celebrated the feast of Terminalia,
sacrifices were to be offered of cakes, meal, and fruits. Moses had
done something like this hundreds of years before, in the land of
Palestine, when he wrote in his laws: "Thou shalt not remove thy
neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set, in thine
inheritance which thou shalt inherit, in the land that the Lord thy God
giveth thee." He had impressed it upon the people, repeating in a
solemn religious service the words: "Cursed be he that removeth his
neighbor's landmark," to which all the people in those primitive times
solemnly said "Amen!" You will find the same sentiment repeated in the
Proverbs of Solomon. When Romulus had laid out the pomoerium, he made
the outline something like a square, and called it _Roma Quadrata_,
that is "Square Rome," but he did not direct the landmarks of the
public domain to be distinctly indicated. The consecration of the
boundaries undoubtedly made the people consider themselves more secure
in their possessions, and consequently made the state itself more
stable.

In order to make the people feel more like one body and think less of
the fact that they comprised persons belonging to different nations,
Numa instituted nine guilds among which the workmen were distributed.
These were the pipers, carpenters, goldsmiths, tanners, leather-
workers, dyers, potters, smiths, and one in which all other
handicraftsmen were united. Thus these men spoke of each other as
members of this or that guild, instead of as Etruscans, Romans, and
Sabines.

[Illustration: A ROMAN ALTAR]

Human sacrifices were declared abolished at this time; the rites of
prayer were established; the temple of Janus was founded (which was
closed in time of peace and open in time of war); priests were ordained
to conduct the public worship, the Pontifex Maximus [Footnote: Pontifex
means bridge-builder (_pons_, a bridge, _facere_, to make), and the
title is said to have been given to these magistrates because they
built the wooden bridge over the Tiber, and kept it in repair, so that
sacrifices might be made on both sides of the river. The building of
this bridge is, however, ascribed to Ancus Martius at a later date,
and so some think the name was originally _pompifex_ (_pompa_, a solemn
procession), and meant that the officers had charge of such
celebrations.] being at the head of them, and the Flamens, Vestal
Virgins, and Salii, being subordinate. Numa pretended that he met by
night a nymph named Egeria, at a grotto under the Coelian Hill, not far
from the present site of the Baths of Caracalla, and that from time to
time she gave him directions as to what rites would be acceptable to
the gods. Another nymph, whom Numa commended to the special veneration
of the Romans, was named Tacita, or the silent. This was appropriate
for one of such quiet and unobtrusive manners as this good king
possessed.

Romulus is said to have made the year consist of but ten months, the
first being March, named from Mars, the god whom he delighted to honor;
but Numa saw that his division was faulty, and so he added two months,
making the first one January, from Janus, the god who loved civil and
social unity, whose temple he had built; and the second February, or
the month of purification, from the Latin word _februa_. If he had
put in his extra months at some other part of the year, he might have
allowed it still to begin in the spring, as it naturally does, and we
should not be obliged to explain to every generation why the ninth,
tenth, eleventh, and twelfth months are still called the seventh,
eighth, ninth, and tenth. [Footnote: We shall find that in the course
of time this arrangement of the year proved very faulty in its turn,
and that Julius Cæsar made another effort to reform it. (See page
247.)]

  The poets said in the peaceful days of Numa,
  Rust eats the pointed spear and double-edged sword.
  No more is heard the trumpet's brazen roar,
  Sweet sleep is banished from our eyes no more,

and that over the iron shields the spiders hung their threads, for it
was a sort of golden age, when there was neither plot, nor envy, nor
sedition in the state, for the love of virtue and the serenity of
spirit of the king flowed down upon all the happy subjects. In due
time, after a long reign and a peaceful and useful life, Numa died, not
by disease or war, but by the natural decline of his faculties. The
people mourned for him heartily and honored him with a costly burial.

After the death of this king an interregnum followed, during which the
senate ruled again, but it was not long before the Sabines chose as
king a Roman, Tullus Hostilius, grandson of that Hostus Hostilius who
had won distinction in the war with the Sabines. The new sovereign
thought that the nation was losing its noble prestige through the
quietness with which it lived among its neighbors, and therefore he
embraced every opportunity to stir up war with the surrounding peoples,
and success followed his campaigns. The peasants between Rome and Alba
[Footnote: Alba became the chief of a league of thirty Latin cities,
lying in the southern part of the great basin through which the Tiber
finds its way to the sea, between Etruria and Campania.] afforded him
the first pretext, by plundering each other's lands. The Albans were
ready to settle the difficulty in a peaceful manner, but Tullus,
determined upon aggrandizement, refused all overtures. It was much like
a civil war, for both nations were of Trojan origin, according to the
traditions. The Albans pitched their tents within five miles of Rome,
and built a trench about the city. The armies were drawn up ready for
battle, when the Alban leader came out and made a speech, in which he
said that as both Romans and Sabines were surrounded by strange nations
who would like to see them weakened, as they would undoubtedly be by
the war, he proposed that the question which should rule the other,
ought to be decided in some less destructive way.

[Illustration: MONUMENT OF THE HORATII AND THE CURIATII]

It happened that there were in the army of the Romans three brothers
known as the Horatii, of the same age as three others in the Alban army
called the Curiatii, and it was agreed that these six should fight in
the place of the two armies. At the first clash of arms two of the
Romans fell lifeless, though every one of the Curiatii was wounded.
This caused the Sabines to exult, especially as they saw the remaining
Roman apparently running away. The flight of Horatius was, however,
merely feigned, in order to separate the opposing brothers, whom he met
as they followed him, and killed in succession. As he struck his sword
into the last of the Albans, he exclaimed: "Two have I offered to the
shades of my brothers; the third will I offer to the cause of this war,
that the Roman may rule over the Alban!" A triumph [Footnote: A
"triumph" was a solemn rejoicing after a victory, and included a
_pompa_, or procession of the general and soldiers on foot with
their plunder. Triumphs seem to have been celebrated in some style in
the earliest days of Rome. In later times they increased very much in
splendor and costliness.] followed; but it appears that a sister of
Horatius, named Horatia, [Footnote: The Romans seem in one respect to
have had little ingenuity in the matter of names, though generally they
had too many of them, and formed that of a woman from the name of a man
by simply changing the end of it from the masculine form to the
feminine.] was to have married one of the Curiatii, and when she met
her victorious brother bearing as his plunder the military robe of her
lover that she had wrought with her own hands, she tore her hair and
uttered bitter exclamations. Horatius in his anger and impatience
thrust her through with his sword, saying: "So perish every Roman woman
who shall mourn an enemy?" For this act, the victorious young man was
condemned to death, but he appealed to the people, and they mitigated
his sentence in consequence of his services to the state.

Another war followed, with the Etruscans this time, and the Albans not
behaving like true allies, their city was demolished and its
inhabitants removed to Rome, where they were assigned to the Coelian
Hill. Some of the more noble among them were enrolled among the
Patricians, and the others were added to the Plebs, who then became for
the first time an organic part of the social body, though not belonging
to the Populus Romanus (or Roman People), so called. On another
occasion Tullus made war upon the Sabines and conquered them, but
finally he offended the gods, and in spite of the fact that he
bethought himself of the good Numa and began to follow his example,
Jupiter smote him with a thunder-bolt and destroyed him and his house.

Again an interregnum followed, and again a king was chosen, this time
Ancus Marcius, a Sabine, grandson of the good Numa, a man who strove to
emulate the virtues of his ancestor. It is to be noticed that the four
kings of Rome thus far are of two classes, the warlike and peaceful
alternating in the legends. The neighbors expected that Ancus would not
be a forceful king, and some of them determined to take advantage of
his supposed weakness. He set himself to repair the neglected religion,
putting up tables in the forum on which were written the ceremonial
law, so that all might know its demands, and seeking to lead the people
to worship the gods in the right spirit. Ancus seems to have united
with his religious character, however, a proper regard for the rights
of the nation, and when the Latins who lived on the river Anio, made
incursions into his domain, thinking that he would not notice it, in
the ardor of his services at the temples and altars, he entered upon a
vigorous and successful campaign, conquering several cities and
removing their inhabitants, giving them homes on the Aventine Hill,
thus increasing the lands that could be divided among the Romans and
adding to the number of the Plebeians. Ancus founded a colony at Ostia
at the mouth of the Tiber, and built a fortress on the Janiculum Hill,
across the river, connecting it with the other regions by means of the
first Roman bridge, called the _Pons Sublicius_, or in simple English,
the wooden bridge. This is the one that the Romans wanted to cut down
at a later period, as we shall see, and had great difficulty in
destroying. Another relic of Ancus is seen in a chamber of the damp
Mamertine prison under the Capitoline Hill, the first prison in the
city, rendered necessary by the increase of crime. After a reign of
twenty-four years, Ancus Martius died, and a new dynasty, of Etruscan
origin, began to control the fortunes of the now rapidly growing
nation.




III.

HOW CORINTH GAVE ROME A NEW DYNASTY.



The city of Corinth, in Greece, was one of the most wealthy and
enterprising on the Mediterranean in its day, and at about the time
that Rome is said to have been founded, it entered upon a new period of
commercial activity and foreign colonization. So many Greeks went to
live on the islands around Italy, and on the shores of Italy itself,
indeed, that that region was known as _Magna Græcia_, or Great
Greece, just as in our day we speak of Great Britain, when we wish to
include not England only, but also the whole circle of lands under
British rule. At this time of commercial activity there came into power
in Corinth a family noted for its wealth and force no less than for the
luxury in which it lived, and the oppression, too, with which it ruled
the people. One of the daughters of the sovereign married out of the
family, because she was so ill-favored that no one in her circle was
willing to have her as wife.

In due time the princess became the mother of a boy, of whom the oracle
at Delphi prophesied that he should be a formidable opponent of the
ruling dynasty. Whenever the oracle made such a prophecy about a child,
it was customary for the ruler to try to make away with it, and that
the ruler of Corinth did in this case. All efforts were unsuccessful,
however, because his homely mother hid him in a chest when the spies
came to the house. Now the Greek word for chest is _kupsele_, and
therefore this boy was called Cypselus. He grew up to be a fine young
man, and entered political life as champion of the people--the
_demos_, as the Greeks would say, and was therefore a _democratic_
politician. [Footnote: A politician is a person versed in the science
of government, from the Greek words _polis_, a city, _polites_, a
citizen. Though a very honorable title, it has been debased in familiar
usage until it has come to mean in turn a partisan, a dabbler in public
affairs, and even an artful trickster.]

He opposed the aristocratic rulers, and at last succeeded in
overturning their government and getting into the position of supreme
ruler himself. He ruled thirty years in peace, and was so much loved by
the Corinthians that he went about among them in safety without any
body-guard.

When Cypselus came into power the citizens of Corinth who belonged to
the aristocratic family were obliged to go elsewhere, somewhat as those
princes called _émigrès_ (emigrants) left France during the Revolution,
in 1789. One of them, whose name was Demaratus, a wealthy and
intelligent merchant, concluded to go westward, to Magna Græcia,
into the part of the world from which his ships had brought him his
revenues. Accordingly, accompanied by his family, a great retinue, and
some artists and sculptors, he sailed away for Italy and settled at the
Etruscan town of Tarquinii. He did not go more than five or six hundred
miles from home, but his enterprise was as marked as that of our
fathers was considered when, in the last generation, they removed from
New York to Chicago, though the distance was not nearly so great. No
wonder Demaratus thought that it would be a comfort to have with him
some of the artists and sculptors whose genius had made his Corinthian
home beautiful.

As he had come to Tarquinii to spend all his days, Demaratus married a
lady of the place, and she became the mother of a son, Lucomo. When
this young man grew up, he found that, though a native of the city, he
was looked upon as a foreigner on his father's account, and that,
though he belonged to a family of the highest rank and wealth through
his mother's connections, he was excluded from political power and
influence. He had inherited the love of authority that had possessed
his father's ancestors, and as his father had migrated from home to
gain peace, he felt no reluctance in leaving Tarquinii in the hope of
gaining the power he thought his wealth and pedigree entitled him to.
There was no more attractive field for his ambition than Rome
presented, and Lucomo probably knew that that city had been from its
very foundation an asylum for strangers. Thither, therefore, he decided
to take himself.

We can imagine the removal, as the long procession of chariots and
footmen slowly passed over the fifty miles that separated Tarquinii
from Rome. Just above Civita Vecchia you may see on your modern map of
Italy a town called Corneto, and a mile from that, perhaps, another
named Turchina, which is all that remains of the old town in which
Lucomo lived. Even now relics of the Tarquinians are found there, and
there are many in the museums of Europe that illustrate the ancient
civilization of the Etruscans, which was greater at this time than that
of the Romans. On his journey Lucomo was himself seated in a chariot
with his wife Tanaquil, whom he seems to have honored very highly, and
the long train of followers stretched behind them. It represented all
that great wealth directed by considerable cultivation could purchase,
and must have formed an imposing sight. Rome was approached from the
south side of the Tiber, by the way of the Janiculum Hill and over the
wooden bridge.

When the emigrants reached the Janiculum, and saw the hills and the
modest temples of Rome before them, an eagle, symbol of royalty, flew
down, and gently stooping, took off Lucomo's cap. Then, after having
flown around the chariot with loud screams, it replaced it, and was
soon lost again in the blue heavens. It was as though it had been sent
by the gods to encourage the strangers to expect good fortune in their
new home. Tanaquil, who was well versed in the augury of her
countrymen, embraced her husband; told him from what divinity the eagle
had come, and from what auspicious quarter of the heavens; and said
that it had performed its message about the highest part of the body,
which was in itself prophetic of good.

Considerable impression must have been made upon the subjects of Ancus
Martius as the distinguished stranger and his long suite entered the
city over the bridge, and when Lucomo bought a fine house, and showed
himself affable and courteous, he was received with a cordial welcome,
and soon admitted to the rights of a Roman citizen. Seldom had the town
received so acceptable an addition to its population. Lucomo soon
changed his name to Lucius Tarquinius, and to this, in after years,
when there were two of the same family name, the word Priscus, or
Elder, was added. Tarquinius, as we may now call him, flattered the
Romans by invitations to his hospitable mansion, where his
entertainments added greatly to his popularity, and in time Ancus
himself heard of his acts of kindness, and added his name to the list
of the new citizen's intimate friends. Tarquinius was admitted by the
king to private as well as public deliberations about matters of
foreign and domestic importance, and doubtless his knowledge of other
countries stood him in good stead on these occasions.

The stranger had taken the king and people by storm, and when Ancus
died, he left his sons to the guardianship of Tarquinius, and the
Populus Romanus chose him to be their king. Thus Rome came to have at
the head of its affairs a man not a Roman nor a Sabine, but a citizen
of Greek extraction, who was familiar with a much higher state of
civilization than was known on the banks of the Tiber. The result is
seen in the great strides in advance that the city took during his
reign. The architectural grandeur of Rome dates its beginning from this
time. Tarquinius laid out vast drains to draw away the water that stood
in the Lacus Curtius, between the Capitoline and the Palatine hills,
and these remain to this day, as any one who has visited Rome
remembers--the mouth of the Cloaca Maxima (the great sewer) being one
of the remarkable sights there. The king also drained other parts of
the city; vowed to build, and perhaps began, the temple on the
Capitoline; built a wall about the city, and erected the permanent
buildings on the great forum. These works involved vast labor and
expense, and must have been very burdensome to the people. Like other
oppressive monarchs, Tarquinius planned games and festivities to amuse
them. He enlarged the Circus Maximus, and imported boxers and horses
from his native country to perform at games there, which were
afterwards celebrated annually. Besides these victories of peace, this
king conquered the people about him, and greatly added to the number of
his subjects. He for the first time instituted the formal "triumph," as
it was afterwards celebrated, riding into the city after a victory in a
chariot drawn by four white horses, and wearing a robe bespangled with
gold. He brought in also the augural science of his country, which had
been only partially known before.

[Illustration: MOUTH OF CLOACA MAXIMA, AT THE TIBER, AND THE SO-CALLED
TEMPLE OF VESTA.]

While Tarquinius was thus adding to the greatness of Rome, there
appeared in the palace one of those marvels that the early historians
delighted to relate, such as, indeed, mankind in all ages has been
pleased with. A boy was asleep in the portico when a flame was seen
encircling his little head, and the attendants were about to throw
water upon it, when the queen interfered, forbidding the boy to be
disturbed. She then brought the matter to the notice of her husband,
saying: "Do you see this boy whom we are so meanly bringing up? He is
destined to be a light in our adversity, and a help in our distress.
Let us care for him, for he will become a great ornament to us and to
the state." Tarquinius knew well the importance of his wife's advice,
and educated the boy, whose name was Servius Tullius, in a way
befitting a royal prince. In the course of time he married the king's
daughter, and found himself in favor with the people as well as with
his royal father-in-law.

For all the forty years of the prosperous reign of Tarquinius, the
traditions would have us believe, the two sons of Ancus had been
nursing their wrath and inwardly boiling over with indignation because
they had been deprived of the kingship, and now, as they saw the
popularity of young Servius, they determined to wrench the crown from
him after destroying the king. They therefore sent two shepherds into
his presence, who pretended to wish advice about a matter in dispute.
While one engaged Tarquin's attention, the other struck him a fatal
blow with his axe. The queen was, however, quick-witted enough to keep
them from enjoying the fruit of their perfidy, for she assured the
people from a window that the king was not killed but only stunned, and
that for the present he desired them to obey the directions of Servius
Tullius. She then called upon the young man to let the celestial flame
with which the gods had surrounded his head in his youth arouse him to
action. "The kingdom is yours!" she exclaimed; "if you have no plans of
your own, then follow mine!" For several days the king's death was
concealed, and Servius took his place on the throne, deciding some
cases, and in regard to others pretending that he would consult
Tarquinius (B.C. 578). Thus he made the senate and the people
accustomed to seeing him at the head of affairs, and when the actual
fact was allowed to transpire, Servius took possession of the kingdom
with the consent of the senate, but without that of the people, which
he did not ask. This was the first king who ascended the throne without
the suffrages of the Populus Romanus. The sons of Ancus went into
banishment, and the royal power, which had passed from the Romans to
the Etruscans, now fell into the hands of a man of unknown citizenship,
though he has been described as a native of Corniculum, one of the
mountain towns to the northeast of Rome, which is never heard of
excepting in connection with this reign.




IV.

THE RISE OF THE COMMONS.



Whatever may have been the origin of the new king, he was evidently not
of the ruling class, the Populus Romanus, and for this reason his
sympathies were naturally with the Plebeians, or, as they would now be
called, the Commons. The long reign of Servius was marked by the
victories of peace, though he was involved in wars with the surrounding
nations, in which he was successful. These conquests seemed to fix the
king more firmly upon the throne, but they did not render him much less
desirous of obtaining the good-will of his subjects, and they never
seemed to tempt him to exercise his power in a tyrannical manner. He
thought that by marrying his two daughters to two sons of Tarquin, he
might make his position on the throne more secure, and he accomplished
this intention, but it failed to benefit him as he had expected.

Besides adding largely to the national territory, Servius brought the
thirty cities of Latium into a great league with Rome, and built a
temple on the Aventine consecrated to Diana (then in high renown at
Ephesus), at which the Romans, Latins, and Sabines should worship
together in token of their unity as one civil brotherhood, though it
was understood that the Romans were chief in rank. On a brazen pillar
in this edifice the terms of the treaty on which the league was based
were written, and there they remained for centuries. The additions to
Roman territory gave Servius an opportunity of strengthening his hold
upon the commons, for he took advantage of it to cause a census to be
taken under the direction of two Censors, on the basis of which he made
new divisions of the people, and new laws by which the plebeians came
into greater prominence than they had enjoyed before. The census showed
that the city and suburbs contained eighty-three thousand inhabitants.

The increase of population led to the extension of the pomoerium, and
Servius completed the city by including within a wall of stone all of
the celebrated seven hills [Footnote: The "seven hills" were not always
the same. In earlier times they had been: Palatinus, Cermalus, Velia,
Fagutal, Oppius, Cispius, and Coelius. Oppius and Cispius, were names
of summits of the Esquiline; Velia was a spur of the Palatine; Cermalus
and Fagutal, according to Niebuhr, were not hills at all.]--the
Palatine, Aventine, Capitoline, Coelian, Quirinal, Viminal, and
Esquilian,--for, though new suburbs grew up beyond this wall, the legal
limits of the city were not changed until the times of the empire.

The inhabitants within the walls were divided into four "regions" or
districts--the Palatine, the Colline, the Esquiline, and the Suburran.
The subjected districts outside, which were inhabited by plebeians,
were divided into twenty-six other regions, thus forming thirty tribes
containing both plebeians and patricians. The census gave Servius a
list of all the citizens and their property, and upon the basis of this
information he separated the entire population into six classes,
comprising one hundred and ninety-three subdivisions or "centuries,"
thus introducing a new principle, and placing wealth at the bottom of
social distinctions, instead of birth. This naturally pleased the
plebeians, but was not approved by the citizens of high pedigree, who
thus lost some of their prestige. The newly formed centuries together
constituted the _Comitia Centuriata_ (gathering of the centuries),
or National Assembly, which met for business on the Campus Martius,
somewhat after the manner of a New England "Town Meeting." In these
conclaves they elected certain magistrates, gave sanction to
legislative acts, and decided upon war or peace. This Comitia formed
the highest court of appeal known to Roman law.

Besides this general assembly of the entire Populus Romanus, Servius
established a _Comitia_ in each tribe, authorized to exercise
jurisdiction in local affairs.

The first of the six general classes thus established comprised the
Horsemen, _Equites_, Knights, or Cavalry, consisting of six patrician
centuries of Equites established by Romulus, and twelve new ones formed
from the principal plebeian families. Next in rank to them were eighty
centuries composed of persons owning property (not deducting debts) to
the amount of one hundred thousand ases (_æs_, copper, brass, bronze),
and two centuries of persons not possessed of wealth, but simply
_Fabrûm_, or workmen who manufactured things out of hard material, so
important to the state were such considered at the time. One would not
think it very difficult to get admission to this high class, when it is
remembered that an _as_ (originally a pound of copper in weight)
[Footnote: The English word _ace_ gets its meaning, "one," from the
fact that in Latin as signified the unit either of weight or measure.
Two and a half ases were equal to a sestertius, and ten ases (or four
sesterces) equalled one denarius, worth about sixteen cents.] was worth
but about a cent and a half, and that a hundred thousand such coins
would amount to only about fifteen hundred dollars; though, of course,
we should have to make allowance for the price of commodities if we
wished to arrive at the exact value in the money of our time. The
second, third, and fourth centuries were arranged on a descending grade
of property qualification, and the fifth comprised those persons whose
property was not worth less than twelve thousand five hundred ases, or
about two hundred dollars. The sixth class included all whose
possessions did not amount to even so little as this. These were called
_Proletarii_ or _Capite Censorum_; _caput_, the Latin for head, being
used in reference to these unimportant citizens for "person," as
farmers use it nowadays when they enumerate animals as so many "head."

Though the new arrangement of Servius Tullius gave the plebeians power,
it did not give them so much as might be supposed, because it was
contrived that the richest class should have the greatest number of
votes, and they with the Equites had so many that they were able to
carry any measure upon which they agreed. The older men, too, had an
advantage, for every class was divided into Seniors and Juniors, each
of which had an equal number of votes, though it is apparent that the
seniors must have been always in the minority. Servius did not dare to
abolish the old Comitia Curiata, and he felt obliged to enact that the
votes of the new Comitia should be valid only after having received the
sanction of the more ancient body. Thus it will be seen that there were
three assemblies, with sovereignty well defined.

The armor of the different classes was also accurately ordered by the
law. The first class was authorized to wear, for the defence of the
body, brazen helmets, shields, and coats of mail, and to bear spears
and swords, excepting the mechanics, who were to carry the necessary
military engines and to serve without arms. The members of the second
class, excepting that they had bucklers instead of shields and wore no
coats of mail, were permitted to bear the same armor, and to carry the
sword and spear. The third class had the same armor as the second,
excepting that they could not wear greaves for the protection of their
legs. The fourth had no arms excepting a spear and a long javelin. The
fifth merely carried slings and stones for use in them. To this class
belonged the trumpeters and horn-blowers.

[Illustration: ROMAN SOLDIERS, COSTUMES, AND ARMOR]

These reforms were very important, and very reasonable, too, but though
they gained for the king many friends, it was rather among the
plebeians than among the more wealthy patricians, and from time to time
hints were thrown out that the consent of the people had not been asked
when Servius took his seat upon the throne, and that without it his
right to the power he wielded was not complete. There was a very solemn
and striking ceremony on the Campus Martius after the census had been
finished. It was called the Lustration or _Suovetaurilia_. The first
name originated from the fact that the ceremony was a purification of
the people by water, and the second because the sacrifice on the
occasion consisted of a pig, a sheep, and an ox, the Latin names of
which were _sus_, _ovis_, and _taurus_, these being run together in a
single manufactured word. Words are not easily made to order, and this
one shows how awkward they are when they do not grow naturally.

On the completion of the census (B.C. 566) Servius ordered the members
of all the Centuries to assemble on the Campus Martius, which was
enclosed in a bend of the Tiber outside of the walls that he built.
They came in full armor, according to rank, and the sight must have
been very grand and impressive. Three days were occupied in the
celebration. Three times were the pig, the sheep, and the bull carried
around the great multitude, and then, amid the flaunting of banners,
the burning of incense, and the sounding of trumpets, the libation was
poured forth, and the inoffensive beasts were sacrificed for the
purification of the people. Once every five years the inhabitants were
thus counted, and once in five years were they also purified, and in
this way it came to pass that that period was known as a _lustrum_.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, says the proverb, and it was
true in the case of Servius, for he could never forget that the people
had not voted in his favor. For this reason he divided among them the
lands that he had taken from the enemies he had defeated, and then,
supposing that he had obtained their good-will, he called upon them to
vote whether they chose and ordered that he should be king. When the
votes came to be counted, Servius found that he had been chosen with a
unanimity that had not been manifested before in the selection of a
sovereign. Whatever confidence he may have derived from this vote, his
place was not secure, and his fatal enemy proved to be in his own
household.

It happened that of the two husbands of the daughters of Servius, one
was ambitious and unprincipled, and the other quiet and peaceable. The
same was true of their wives, only the unprincipled wife found herself
mated with the well-behaving husband. Now the wicked wife agreed with
the wicked husband that they should murder their partners and then
marry together, thus making a pair, both members of which should be
ambitious and without principle. This was accomplished, and then the
wicked wife, whose name was Tullia, told her husband, whose name was
Lucius Tarquinius, that what she wanted was not a husband whom she
might live with in quiet like a slave, but one who would remember of
whose blood he was, who would consider that he was the rightful king;
and that if _he_ would not do it he had better go back to Tarquinii or
Corinth and sink into his original race, thus shaming his father and
Tanaquil, who had bestowed thrones upon her husband and her son-in-law.
The taunts and instigations of Tullia led Lucius to solicit the younger
patricians to support him in making an effort for the throne. When he
thought he had obtained a sufficient number of confederates, he one day
rushed into the forum at an appointed time, accompanied by a body of
armed men, and, in the midst of a commotion that ensued, took his seat
upon the throne and ordered the senate to attend "King Tarquinius."
That august body convened very soon, some having been prepared
beforehand for the summons, and then Tarquinius began a tirade against
Servius, whom he stigmatized as "a slave and the son of a slave," who
had favored the most degraded classes, and had, by instituting the
census, made the fortunes of the better classes unnecessarily
conspicuous, so as to excite the envy and base passions of the meaner
citizens.

Servius came to the senate-house in the midst of the harangue, and
called to Lucius to know by what audacity he had taken the royal seat,
and summoned the senate during the life of the sovereign. Lucius
replied in an insulting manner, and, taking advantage of the king's
age, seized him by the middle, carried him out, and threw him down the
steps to the bottom! Almost lifeless, Servius was slain by emissaries
of Lucius as he was making his way to his home on the Esquiline Hill
(B.C. 534). The royal retinue, in their fright, left the body where it
fell, and there it was when Tullia, returning from having congratulated
her husband, reached the place. Her driver, terrified at the sight,
stopped, and would have avoided the king's corpse, though the
narrowness of the street made it difficult; but the insane daughter
ordered him to drive on, and stained and sprinkled herself with her
father's blood, which seemed to cry out for vengeance upon such a cruel
act! The vengeance came speedily, as we shall see.




V.

HOW A PROUD KING FELL.



The new king was a tyrant. He was elected by no general consent of the
people he governed; he allowed himself to be bound by no laws; he
recognized no limit to his authority; and he surrounded himself with a
body-guard for protection from the attacks of any who might wish to
take the crown from him in the way that he had snatched it from his
predecessor. As soon as possible after coming to the throne, he swept
away all privilege and right that had been conceded to the commons,
commanded that there should no longer be any of those assemblages on
the occasions of festivals and sacrifices that had before tended to
unite the people and to break the monotony of their lives; he put the
poor at taskwork, and mistrusted, banished, or murdered the rich. To
strengthen the position of Rome as chief of the confederates cities,
and his own position as the ruler of Rome, he gave his daughter to
Octavius Mamilius of Tusculum to wife; and to beautify the capital he
warred against other peoples, and with their spoil pushed forward the
work on the great temple on the Capitoline Hill, [Footnote: This hill
is said to have received its name from the fact that as the men were
preparing for the foundation of the temple, they came upon a human
head, fresh and bleeding, from which it was augured that the spot was
to become the head of the world. (_Caput_, a head.)] a wonderful
and massy structure.

It is said that Amalthea, the mysterious sibyl of Cumæ, one day came to
Tarquin with nine sealed prophetical books (which, she said, contained
the destiny of the Romans and the mode to bring it about), that she
offered to sell. The king refused, naturally unwilling to pay for
things that he could not examine; and thereupon the unreasonable being
went away and destroyed three of the volumes that she had described as
of inestimable value. Soon after she returned and offered the remaining
six for the price that she had demanded for the nine. Once more, the
tyrant declined the offer, and again the aged sibyl destroyed three,
and demanded the original price for the remainder. The king's curiosity
was now aroused, and he bought the three books, upon which the
prophetess vanished. The volumes were placed under the new temple on
the Capitoline, no one doubting that they actually contained precepts
of the utmost importance. The wise-looking augurs came together, peered
into the rolls, and told the king and the people that they were right,
and age after age the books were appealed to for direction, though, as
the people never were permitted even to peep into the sacred cell in
which they were hidden, they never could be quite certain that the
augurs who consulted them found any thing in them that they did not put
there themselves.

While Tarquinius was going on with his great works, while he was
oppressing his own people and conquering his neighbors uninterruptedly,
he was suddenly startled by a dire portent. A serpent crawled out from
beneath the altar in his palace and coolly ate the flesh of the royal
sacrifice. The meaning of this appalling omen could not be allowed to
remain uncertain, and as no one in Italy was able to explain it,
Tarquin sent to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, to ask the
signification. Delphi is a place situated in the midst of the most
sublime scenery of Greece, just north of the Gulf of Corinth. Shut in
on all sides by stupendous cliffs, among which flow the inspiring
waters of the Castalian Spring, thousands of feet above which frowns
the summit of Parnassus, on which Deucalion is said to have landed
after the deluge, this romantic valley makes a deep impression on the
mind of the visitor, and it is not strange that at an age when signs
and wonders were looked for in every direction, it should have become
the home of a sibyl.

[Illustration: THE RAVINE OF DELPHI]

The king's messengers to Delphi were his two sons and a nephew named
Lucius Junius Brutus, a young man who had saved his life by taking
advantage of the fact that a madman was esteemed sacred by the Romans,
and assuming an appearance of stupidity [Footnote: _Brutus_ in
Latin means irrational, dull, stupid, brutish, which senses our word
"brute" preserves.] at a time when his tyrannical uncle had put his
brother to death that he might appropriate his wealth. Upon hearing the
question of the king, the oracle said that the portent foretold the
fall of Tarquin. The sons then asked who should take his throne, and
the reply was: "He who shall first kiss his mother." Brutus had
propitiated the oracle by the present of a hollow stick filled with
gold, and learned the symbolical meaning of this reply. The sons
decided to allow their remaining brother Sextus to know the answer, and
to determine by lot which of them should rule; but Brutus kept his own
counsel, and on reaching home, fell upon mother earth, as by accident,
and kissed the ground, thus observing the terms of the oracle.

The prophecy now hastened to its fulfilment. As the army lay before the
town of Ardea, belonging to the Rutulians, south of Rome, a dispute
arose among the sons of the king and their cousin Collatinus, as to
which had the most virtuous wife. There being nothing to keep them in
camp, the young men arose from their cups and rode to Rome, where they
found the princesses at a banquet revelling amid flowers and wine.
Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, was found at Collatia among her
maidens spinning, like the industrious wife described in the Proverbs.
The evil passions of Sextus were aroused by the beauty of his cousin's
wife, and he soon found an excuse to return to the home of Collatinus.
He was hospitably entertained by Lucretia, who did not suspect the
demon that he was, and one night he entered her apartment and with vile
threats overcame her. In her terrible distress, Lucretia sent
immediately for her father, Lucretius, and her husband, Collatinus.
They came, each bringing a friend, Brutus being the companion of the
outraged husband. To them, with bitter tears, Lucretia, clad in the
garments of mourning and almost beside herself with sorrow, told the
story of crime, and, saying that she could not survive dishonor,
plunged a knife into her bosom and fell in the agony of shame and
death!

At this juncture Brutus threw off the assumed stupidity that had veiled
the strength of his spirit, and taking up the reeking knife, exclaimed:
"By this blood most pure, I swear, and I call you, O gods, to witness
my oath, that I shall pursue Lucius Tarquin the Proud, his wicked wife,
and all the race, with fire and sword, nor shall I permit them or any
other to reign in Rome!" So saying, the knife was handed to each of the
others in turn, and they all took the same oath to revenge the innocent
blood. The body of Lucretia was laid in the forum of Collatia, her
home, and the populace, maddened by the sight, were easily persuaded to
rise against the tyrant. A multitude was collected, and the march began
to Rome, where a like excitement was stirred up; a gathering at the
forum was addressed by Brutus, who recalled to memory not only the
story of Lucretia's wrongs, but also the horrid murder of Servius, and
the blood-thirstiness of Tullia. On the Campus Martius the citizens met
and decreed that the dignity of king should be forever abolished and
the Tarquins banished. Tullia fled, followed by the curses of men and
women; Sextus found his way to Gabii, where he was slain; and the
tyrant himself took refuge in Cære, a city of Etruria, the country of
his father.

There is a tradition that it had been the intention of Servius to
resign the kingly honor, and to institute in its stead the office of
Consul, to be jointly held by two persons chosen annually. There seems
to be some ground for this belief, because immediately after the
banishment of the Tarquins, the republic was established with two
consuls at its head. [Footnote: The custom of confiding the chief civil
authority and the command of the army to two magistrates who were
changed each year, was not given up as long as the republic endured,
but towards its end, Cinna maintained himself in the office alone for
almost a year, and Pompey was appointed sole consul to keep him from
becoming dictator. The authority of consul was usurped by both Cinna
and Marius. The consuls were elected by the comitia of the centuries.
They could not appear in public without the protection of twelve
lictors, who bore bundles of twigs (fasces) and walked in single file
before their chiefs.] The first to hold the highest office were Lucius
Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, husband of Lucretia.

Some time after Tarquin had fled to Cære, he found an asylum at
Tarquinii, and from that city made an effort to stir up a conspiracy in
his favor at Rome. He sent messengers ostensibly to plead for the
restoration of his property, but really for the purpose of exciting
treason. There were at Rome vicious persons who regretted that they
were obliged to return to regular ways, and there were patricians who
disliked to see the plebeians again enjoying their rights. Some of
these were ready to take up the cause of the deposed tyrant. The
conspirators met for consultation in one of the dark chambers of a
Roman house, and their conference was overheard. They were brought
before the consuls in the Comitium, and, to the dismay of Brutus, two
of his own sons were found among the number. With the unswerving virtue
of a Roman or a Spartan, he condemned them to death, and they were
executed before his eyes. The discovery of the plot of Tarquin put an
end to his efforts to regain any foothold at Rome by peaceable methods,
and he made the appeal to arms. These plots led to the banishment of
the whole Tarquinian house, even the consul whose troubles had brought
the result about being obliged to lay down his office and leave the
city. Publius Valerius was appointed in his stead. For a time he was in
office alone, and several times he was re-chosen. He was afterwards
known as Poplicola, "the people's friend," on account of certain laws
that he passed, limiting the power of the aristocrats and alleviating
the condition of the plebeians. [Footnote: When Valerius was consul
alone he began to build a house for himself on the Velian Hill, and a
cry was raised that he intended to make himself king, upon which he
stopped building. The people were ashamed of their conduct and granted
him land to build on. One of his laws enacted that whoever should
attempt to make himself king should be devoted to the gods, and that
any one might kill him. When Valerius died he was mourned by the
matrons for ten months. See Plutarch, _Poplicola_.]

In pursuance of his new plans, Tarquin obtained the help of the people
of Veii and Tarquinii and marched against Rome. He was met by an army
under Brutus, and a bloody battle was fought near Arsia. Brutus was
killed and the Etruscans were about to claim the victory, when, in the
night, the voice of the god Silvanus was heard saying that the killed
among the Etruscans outnumbered by one man those of the Romans. Upon
this the Etruscans fled, knowing that ultimate victory would not be
theirs. This is not the way that a modern army would have acted.
Valerius returned to Rome in triumph, and the matrons mourned Brutus as
the avenger of Lucretia, an entire year.

This is the time of heroes and of highly ornamented lays, and we are
not surprised to find truth covered up beneath a mass of fulsome
bombast. It is related that Tarquinius now obtained the help of Prince
or Lars Porsena of Clusium in Etruria, and with a large army proceeded
undisturbed quite up to the Janiculum Hill on his march to Rome. There
he found himself separated from the object of his long struggle only by
the wooden bridge. We may picture to ourselves the city stirred to its
centre by the fearful prospect before it. The bridge that had been of
so much use, that the pontifices had so carefully built and preserved,
must be cut away, or all was lost. At this critical juncture, the brave
Horatius Cocles, with one on either hand, kept the enemy at bay while
willing arms swung the axes against the supports of the structure, and
when it was just ready to fall uttered a prayer to Father Tiber,
plunged into the muddy torrent, fully armed as he was, and swam to the
opposite shore amid the plaudits of the rejoicing people, as related in
the ballad of Lord Macaulay. Then it was, too, that the people
determined to erect a bridge which could be more readily removed in
case of necessity. Baffled in this attempt to enter Rome, the enemy
laid siege to the city, and as it was unprepared, it soon suffered the
distress of famine. Then another brave man arose, Caius Mucius by name,
and offered to go to the camp of the invaders and kill the hated king.
He was able to speak the Etruscan language, and felt that a little
audacity was all that he needed to carry his mission out safely. Though
he went boldly, he killed a secretary dressed in purple, instead of his
master, and was caught and threatened with torture. Putting his right
hand into the fire on the altar near by, he held it there until it was
destroyed, [Footnote: Mucius was after this called Scævola, the left-
handed.] and said that suffering had no terrors for him, nor for three
hundred of his companions who had all vowed to kill the king. The Roman
writers say that, thereupon Porsena took hostages from them and made
peace. It is true that peace was made, but Rome was forced to agree not
to use iron except in cultivating the earth, and she lost ten of her
thirty "regions," being all the territory that the kings had conquered
on the west bank of the Tiber. [Footnote: See Niebuhr's
_Lectures_, chapter xxiv.]

Tarquin had been foiled in his attempts to regain his throne, but still
he tried again, the last time having the aid of his son-in-law,
Mamilius of Tusculum. It was a momentous juncture. The weakened Romans
were to encounter the combined powers of the thirty Latin cities that
had formerly been in league with them. They needed the guidance of one
strong man; but they had decreed that there should never be a king
again, and so they appointed a "dictator" with unlimited power, for a
limited time. We shall find them resorting to this expedient on other
occasions of sudden and great trouble. A fierce struggle followed at
Lake Regillus, in which the Latins were turned to flight through the
intervention of Castor and Pollux, who fought at the head of the Roman
knights on foaming white steeds. There was no other quarter to which
Tarquinius could turn for help, and he therefore fled to Cumæ, where he
died after a wretched old age. A temple was erected on the field of the
battle of Lake Regillus in honor of Castor and Pollux, and thither
annually on the fifteenth of July the Roman knights were wont to pass
in solemn procession, in memory of the fact that the twins had fought
at the head of their columns in the day of distress when fortune seemed
to be about to desert the national cause. At this battle Caius Marcius,
a stripling descended from Ancus Marcius, afterwards known as
Coriolanus, received the oaken crown awarded to the man who should save
the life of a Roman citizen, because he struck down one of the Latins,
in the presence of the commander, just as he was about to kill a Roman
soldier.

In the year 504 B.C., there was in the town of Regillum, a man of
wealth and importance, who, at the time of the war with the Sabines,
had advocated peace, and as his fellow-citizens were firmly opposed to
him, left them, accompanied by a long train of followers (much as we
suppose the first Tarquin left Tarquinii), and took up his abode in
Rome. The name of this man was Atta Clausus, or perhaps Atta Claudius,
but, however that may be, he was known at Rome as Appius Claudius. He
was received into the ranks of the patricians, ample lands were
assigned to him and his followers, and he became the ancestor of one of
the most important Roman families, that of Claudius, noted through a
long history for its hatred of the plebeians. His line lasted some five
centuries, as we shall have occasion to observe.




VI.

THE ROMAN RUNNYMEDE.



The establishment of the republic marked an era in the history of Rome.
The people had decreed, as has been said, that for them there never
should be a king, and the law was kept to the letter; though, if they
meant that supreme authority should never be held among them by one
man, it was violated many times. The story of Rome is unique in the
history of the world, for it is not the record of the life of one great
country, but of a city that grew to be strong and successfully
established its authority over many countries. The most ancient and the
most remote from the sea of the cities of Latium, Rome soon became the
most influential, and began to combine in itself the traits of the
peoples near it; but owing to the singular strength and rare
impressiveness of the national character, these were assimilated, and
the inhabitant of the capital remained distinctively a Roman in spite
of his intimate association with men of different origin and training.

The citizen of Rome was practical, patriotic, and faithful to
obligation; he loved to be governed by inflexible law; and it was a
fundamental principle with him that the individual should be
subordinate to the state. His kings were either organizers, like Numa
and Ancus Marcius, or warriors, like Romulus and Tullus Hostilius; they
either made laws, like Servius, or they enforced them with the
despotism of Tarquinius Superbus. It is difficult for us to conceive of
such a majestic power emanating from a territory so insignificant. We
hardly realize that Latium did not comprise a territory quite fifty
miles by one hundred in extent, and that it was but a hundred miles
from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic. It was but a short walk from
Rome to the territory of the Etruscans, and when Tarquin found an
asylum at Cære, he did not separate himself by twenty miles from the
scene of his tyranny. Ostia was scarcely more distant, and one might
have ridden before the first meal of the day to Lavinium, or Alba, or
Veii, or to Ardea, the ancient city of the Rutuli. It is important to
keep these facts in mind as we read the story of the remarkable city.

All towns were built on hills in these early days, for safety in case
of war, as well as because the valleys were insalubrious, but this is
not a peculiarity of the Romans, for in New England in the late ages of
our own ancestors they were obliged to follow the same custom. On the
tops and slopes of seven hills, as they liked to remind themselves, the
Romans built their city. They were not impressive elevations, though
their sides were sharp and rocky, for the loftiest rose less than three
hundred feet above the sea level. Their summits were crowned with
groves of beech trees and oaks, and in the lower lands grew osiers and
other smaller varieties.

The earlier occupations of the Roman people were war and agriculture,
or the pasturage of flocks and herds. They raised grapes and made
wines; they cultivated the oil olive and knew the use of its fruit.
They found copper in their soil and made a pound (_as_) of it their
unit of value, but it was so cheap that ten thousand ases were required
to buy a war horse, though cattle and sheep were much lower. They yoked
their oxen and called the path they occupied a _jugerum_ (_jugum_, a
cross-beam, or a yoke), and this in time came to be their familiar
standard of square measure, containing about two thirds of an acre. Two
of these were assigned to a citizen, and seven were the narrow limit to
which only one's landed possessions were for a long time allowed to
extend. In time commerce was added to the pursuits of the men, and with
it came fortunes and improved dwellings and public buildings.

Laziness and luxury were frowned upon by the early Romans. Mistress and
maid worked together in the affairs of the household, like Lucretia and
other noble women of whom history tells, and the man did not hesitate
to hold the plow, as the example of Cincinnatus will show us. Time was
precious, and thrift and economy were necessary to success. The father
was the autocrat in the household, and exercised his power with stern
rigidity.

Art was backward and came from abroad; of literature there was none,
long after Greece had passed its period of heroic poetry. The dwellings
of the citizens were low and insignificant, though as time passed on
they became more massive and important. The vast public structures of
the later kings were comparable to the task-work of the builders of the
Egyptian pyramids, and they still strike us with astonishment and
surprise.

The religion of these strong conquerors was narrow, severe, and dreary.
The early fathers worshipped native deities only. They recognized gods
everywhere--in the home, in the grove, and on the mountain. They
erected their altars on the hills; they had their Lares and Penates to
watch over their hearthstones, and their Vestal Virgins kept
everlasting vigil near the never-dying fires in the temples. With the
art of Greece that made itself felt through Etruria, came also the
influence of the Grecian mythology, and Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva
found a shrine on the top of the Capitoline, where the first statue of
a deity was erected. The mysterious Sibylline Books are also a mark of
the Grecian influence, coming from Cumæ, a colony of Magna Græcia.

During the period we have considered, the city passed through five
distinct stages of political organization. The government at first, as
we have seen, was an elective monarchy, the electors being a
patriarchal aristocracy. After the invasion of the Sabines, there was a
union with that people, the sovereignty being held by rulers chosen
from each; but it was not long before Rome became the head of a federal
state. The Tarquins established a monarchy, which rapidly degenerated
into an offensive tyranny, which aroused rebellion and at last led to
the republic. We have noted that in Greece in the year 510 B.C., the
tyranny of the family of Pisistratus was likewise overturned.

During all these changes, the original aristocrats and their
descendants firmly held their position as the Populus Romanus, the
Roman People, insisting that every one else must belong to an inferior
order, and, as no body of men is willing to be condemned to a
hopelessly subordinate position in a state, there was a perpetual
antagonism between the patricians and the plebeians, between the
aristocracy and the commonalty. This led to a temporary change under
Servius Tullius, when property took the place of pedigree in
establishing a man's rank and influence; but, owing to the peculiar
method of voting adopted, the power of the commons was not greatly
increased. However, they had made their influence felt, and were
encouraged. The overturning of the scheme by Tarquin favored a union of
the two orders for the punishment of that tyrant, and they combined;
but it was only for a time. When the danger had been removed, the tie
was found broken and the antagonism rather increased, so that the
subsequent history for five generations, though exceedingly
interesting, is largely a record of the struggles of the commons for
relief from the burdens laid upon them by the aristocrats.

The father passed down to his son the story of the oppression of the
patricians, and the son told the same sad narrative to his offspring.
The mother mourned with her daughter over the sufferings brought upon
them by the rich, for whom their poor father and brothers were obliged
to fight the battles while they were not allowed to share the spoil,
nor to divide the lands gained by their own prowess. The struggle was
not so much between patrician and plebeian as between the rich and the
poor. It was intimately connected with the uses of money in those
times. What could the rich Roman do with his accumulations? He might
buy land or slaves, or he might become a lender; to a certain extent he
could use his surplus in commerce; but of these its most remunerative
employment was found in usury. As there were no laws regulating the
rates of interest, they became exorbitant, and, as it was customary to
compound it, debts rapidly grew beyond the possibility of payment. As
the rich made the laws, they naturally exerted their ingenuity to frame
them in such a way as to enable the lender to collect his dues with
promptness, and with little regard for the feelings or interests of the
debtor.

It is difficult, if not impossible, for us to form a proper conception
of the magnitude of the wrongs involved in the system of money-lending
at Rome during the period of the republic. The small farmers were ever
needy, and came to their wealthy neighbors for accommodation loans. If
these were not paid when due, the debtor was liable to be locked up in
prison, to be sold into slavery, with his children, wife, and
grandchildren; and the heartless law reads, that in case the estate
should prove insufficient to satisfy all claims, the creditors were
actually authorized to cut the body to pieces, that each Shylock might
take the pound of flesh that he claimed.

At last the severity of the lenders overreached itself. It was in the
year four hundred and ninety-five, B.C., that a poor, but brave debtor,
one who had been at the very front in the wars, broke out of his
prison, and while the wind flaunted his rags in the face of the
populace, clanked his chains and told the story of his calamities so
effectually in words of natural eloquence, that the commons were
aroused to madness, and resolved at last to make a vigorous effort and
seek redress for their wrongs in a way that could not be resisted. The
form of this man stands out forever on the pages of Roman history, as
he entered the forum with all the badges of his misery upon him.
[Footnote: See Livy, Book II., chapter xxiii.] His pale and emaciated
body was but partially covered by his wretched tatters; his long hair
played about his shoulders, and his glaring eyes and the grizzled beard
hanging down before him added to his savage wildness. As he passed
along, he uncovered the scars of near twoscore battles that remained
upon his breast, and explained to enquirers that while he had been
serving in the Sabine war, his house had been pillaged and burned by
the enemy; that when he had returned to enjoy the sweets of the peace
he had helped to win, he had found that his cattle had been driven off,
and a tax imposed. To meet the debts that thronged upon him, and the
interest by which they were aggravated, he had stripped himself of his
ancestral farms. Finally, pestilence had overtaken him, and as he was
not able to work, his creditor had placed him in a house of detention,
the savage treatment in which was shown by the fresh stripes upon his
bleeding back.

At the moment a war was imminent, and the forum--the entire city, in
fact--already excited, was filled with the uproar of the angry
plebeians. Many confined for debt broke from their prison houses, and
ran from all quarters into the crowds to claim protection. The majesty
of the consuls was insufficient to preserve order, and while the
discord was rapidly increasing, horsemen rushed into the gates
announcing that an enemy was actually upon them, marching to besiege
the city. The plebeians saw that their opportunity had arrived, and
when proud Appius Claudius called upon them to enroll their names for
the war, they refused the summons, saying that the patricians might
fight their own battles; that for themselves it was better to perish
together at home rather than to go to the field and die separated.
Threatened with war beyond the gates, and with riot at home, the
patricians were forced to promise to redress the civil grievances. It
was ordered that no one could seize or sell the goods of a soldier
while he was in camp, or arrest his children or grandchildren, and that
no one should detain a citizen in prison or in chains, so as to hinder
him from enlisting in the army. When this was known, the released
prisoners volunteered in numbers, and entered upon the war with
enthusiasm. The legions were victorious, and when peace was declared,
the plebeians anxiously looked for the ratification of the promises
made to them.

Their expectations were disappointed. They had, however, seen their
power, and were determined to act upon their new knowledge. Without
undue haste, they protected their homes on the Aventine, and retreated
the next year to a mountain across the Anio, about three miles from the
city, to a spot which afterwards held a place in the memories of the
Romans similar to that which the green meadow on the Thames called
Runnymede has held in British history since the June day when King John
met his commons there, and gave them the great charter of their
liberties.

The plebeians said calmly that they would no longer be imposed upon;
that not one of them would thereafter enlist for a war until the public
faith were made good. They reiterated the declaration that the lords
might fight their own battles, so that the perils of conflict should
lie where its advantages were. When the situation of affairs was
thoroughly understood, Rome was on fire with anxiety, and the enforced
suspense filled the citizens with fear lest an external enemy should
take the opportunity for a successful onset upon the city. Meanwhile
the poor secessionists fortified their camp, but carefully refrained
from actual war. The people left in the city feared the senators, and
the senators in turn dreaded the citizens lest they should do them
violence. It was a time of panic and suspense. After consultation, good
counsels prevailed in the senate, and it was resolved to send an
embassy to the despised and down-trodden plebeians, who now seemed,
however, to hold the balance of power, and to treat for peace, for
there could be no security until the secessionists had returned to
their homes.

The spokesman on the occasion was Menenius Agrippa Lanatus, who was
popular with the people and had a reputation for eloquence. In the
course of his argument he related the famous apologue which Shakespeare
has so admirably used in his first Roman play. He said:

"At a time when all the parts of the body did not, as now, agree
together, but the several members had each its own scheme, its own
language, the other parts, indignant that every thing was procured for
the belly by their care, labor, and service, and that it, remaining
quiet in the centre, did nothing but enjoy the pleasures afforded it,
conspired that the hands should not convey food to the mouth, nor the
mouth receive it when presented, nor the teeth chew it. They wished by
these measures to subdue the belly by famine, but, to their dismay,
they found that they themselves and the entire body were reduced to the
last degree of emaciation. It then became apparent that the service of
the belly was by no means a slothful one; that it did not so much
receive nourishment as supply it, sending to all parts of the body that
blood by which the entire system lived in vigor."

Lanatus then applied the fable to the body politic, showing that all
the citizens must work in unity if its greatest welfare is to be
attained. The address of this good man had its desired effect, and the
people were at last willing to listen to a proposition for their
return. It was settled that there should be a general release of all
those who had been handed over to their creditors, and a cancelling of
debts, and that two of the plebeians should be selected as their
protectors, with power to veto objectionable laws, their persons being
as inviolable at all times as were those of the sacred messengers of
the gods. These demands, showing that the plebeians did not seek
political power, were agreed to, the Valerian laws were reaffirmed, and
a solemn treaty was concluded, each party swearing for itself and its
posterity, with all the formality of representatives of foreign
nations. The two leaders of the commons, Caius Licinius and Lucius
Albinius, were elected the first Tribunes of the People, as the new
officers were called, with two Ædiles to aid them. [Footnote: The
duties of the ædiles were various, and at first they were simple
assistants of the tribunes. _Ædes_ means house or temple, and the
ædiles seem to have derived their name from the fact that they had the
care of the temple of Ceres, goddess of agriculture, a very important
divinity in Rome as well as in Greece.] They were not to leave the city
during their term of office; their doors being open day and night, that
all who needed their protection might have access to them. The hill
upon which this treaty had been concluded was ever after known as the
Sacred Mount; its top was enclosed and consecrated, an altar being
built upon it, on which sacrifices were offered to Jupiter, the god of
terror and deliverance, who had allowed the commons to return home in
safety, though they had gone out in trepidation. Henceforth the commons
were to be protected; they were better fitted to share the honors as
well as the benefits of their country, and the threatened dissolution
of the nation was averted.

Towards the end of the year, Lanatus, the successful intercessor, died,
and it was found that his poverty was so great that none but the most
ordinary funeral could be afforded. Thereupon the plebeians contributed
enough to give him a splendid burial; but the sum was afterwards
presented to his children, because the senate decreed that the funeral
expenses should be defrayed by the state. (B.C. 494.)




VII.

HOW THE HEROES FOUGHT FOR A HUNDRED YEARS.



There is a long story connected with the young stripling who, at the
battle of Lake Regillus received the oaken crown for saving the life of
a Roman citizen. The century after that event was filled with wars with
the neighboring peoples, and in one of them this same Caius Marcius
fought so bravely at the taking of the Latin town of Corioli that he
was ever after known as Coriolanus (B.C. 493). He was a proud
patrician, and on one occasion when he was candidate for the office of
consul, behaved with so much unnecessary haughtiness toward the
plebeians that they refused him their votes. [Footnote: The whole
interesting story is found in Plutarch's Lives, and in Shakespeare's
play which bears the hero's name.] After a while a famine came to
Rome,--famines often came there,--and though in a former emergency of
the kind Coriolanus had himself obtained corn and beef for the people,
he was now so irritated by his defeat that when a contribution of grain
arrived from Syracuse, in Sicily (B.C. 491), he actually advocated that
it should not be distributed among the people unless they would consent
to give up their tribunes which had been assured to them by the laws of
the Sacred Mount! This enraged the plebeians very much, and they caused
Coriolanus to be summoned for trial before the comitia of the tribes,
which body, in spite of his acknowledged services to the state,
condemned him to exile. When he heard this sentence, Coriolanus angrily
determined to cast in his lot with his old enemies the Volscians, and
raised an army for them with which he marched victoriously towards
Rome. As he went, he destroyed the property of the plebeians, but
preserved that of the patricians. The people were in the direst state
of anxious fear, and some of the senators were sent out to plead with
the dreaded warrior for the safety of the city. These venerable
ambassadors were repelled with scorn. Again, the sacred priests and
augurs were deputed to make the petition, this time in the name of the
gods of the people; but, alas, they too entreated in vain. Then it was
remembered that the stern man had always reverenced his mother, and she
with an array of matrons, accompanied by the little ones of Coriolanus,
went out to add their efforts to those which had failed. As they
appeared, Coriolanus exclaimed, as Shakespeare put it:

  "I melt, and am not
  Of stronger earth than others.--My mother bows;
  As if Olympus to a molehill should
  In supplication nod; and my young boy
  Hath an aspect of intercession, which,
  Great Nature cries: 'Deny not.' Let the Volsces
  Plow Rome and harrow Italy; I'll never
  Be such a gosling to obey instinct; but stand,
  As if a man were author of himself,
  And knew no other kin!"*

The strong man is finally melted, however, by the soft influences of
the women, and as he yields, says to them:

  "Ladies, you deserve
  To have a temple built you; all the swords
  In Italy, and her confederate arms,
  Could not have made this peace!"

A temple was accordingly built in memory of this event, and in honor of
Feminine Fortune, at the request of the women of Rome, for the senate
had decreed that any wish they might express should be gratified. As
for Coriolanus, he is said to have lived long in banishment, bewailing
his misfortune, and saying that exile bore heavily on an old man. The
entire story, heroic and tragic as it is related to us, is not
substantiated, and we do not really know whether if true it should be
assigned to the year 488 B.C., or to a date a score of years later.

During all the century we are now considering, the plebeians were
slowly gaining ground in their attempts to improve their political
condition, though they did not fail to meet rebuffs, and though they
were many times unjustly treated by their proud opponents. These
efforts at home were complicated, too, by the fact that nearly all the
time there was war with one or another of the adjoining nations.
Treaties were made at this period with some of the neighboring peoples,
by a good friend of the plebeians, Spurius Cassius, who was consul in
the year 486, and these to a certain extent repaired the losses that
had followed the war with Porsena after the fall of the Tarquins.
Cassius tried to strengthen the state internally, too, by dividing
certain lands among the people, and by requiring rents to be paid for
other tracts, and setting the receipts aside to pay the commons when
they should be called out as soldiers. This is known as the first of
the many Agrarian Laws (_ager_, a meadow, a field) that are recorded in
Roman history, though something of the same nature is said to have
existed in the days of Servius Tullius.

There were public and private lands in Roman territory, just as there
are in the territory of the United States, and in those days, just as
in our own, there were "squatters," as they have been called in our
history, who settled upon public lands without right, and without
paying any thing to the government for the privileges they enjoyed.
Laws regulating the use and ownership of the public lands were passed
from time to time until Julius Cæsar (B.C. 59) enacted the last. They
had for their object the relief of poverty and the stopping of the
clamors of the poor, the settling of remote portions of territory, the
rewarding of soldiers, or the extension of the popularity of some
general or other leader. The plan was not efficient in developing the
country, because those to whom the land was allotted were often not at
all adapted to pursue agriculture successfully, and because the evils
of poverty are not to be met in that way.

It was a sign of the power of the people that this proposition of
Cassius should have been successful; but it irritated the patricians
exceedingly, because they had derived large wealth from the improper
use of the public lands. The following year consuls came into power who
were more in sympathy with the patricians, and they accused Cassius of
laying plans to be made king. His popularity was undermined, and his
reputation blasted. Finally he was declared guilty of treason by his
enemies, and condemned to be scourged and beheaded, while his house was
razed to the ground. For seven years after this one of the consuls was
always a member of the powerful family of the Fabii, which had been
influential in thus overthrowing Cassius. The Fabians had opposed the
laws dividing the lands, and they now refused to carry them out. The
result was that the commons, deprived of their rights, again went to
the extreme of refusing to fight for the state; and when on one
occasion they were brought face to face with an enemy, they refused to
conquer when they had victory in their hands. A little later they went
one step further, and attempted to stop entirely the raising of an
army. One of the patrician family just mentioned, Marcus Fabius, proved
too noble willingly to permit such strife between the classes to
interfere with the progress of the state, and determined to conciliate
the commons. He succeeded, and led them to battle, and, though his army
won victory, was himself killed in the combat (B.C. 481). The other
members of the family took up the cause, cared kindly for the wounded,
and thus still further ingratiated themselves with the army. The next
year (B.C. 480) another Fabian was consul, and he too determined to
stand up for the laws of Spurius Cassius. He was treated with scorn by
his fellow patricians, and finding that he could not carry out his
principles and live at peace in Rome, determined to exile himself.
Going out with his followers, he established a camp on the side of the
river Cremera, a few miles above Rome, and alone carried on a war
against the fortified city of Veii. The unequal strife was continued
for two years; but then the brave family was completely cut off. There
was not a member left, excepting one who seems to have refused to
renounce the former opinions of the family, and had remained at Rome
[Footnote: The Fabii were cut off on the Cremera on the 16th of July, a
day afterwards marked by a terrible battle on the Allia, in which the
Gauls defeated the Romans.] (B.C. 477). He became the ancestor of the
Fabii of after-history.

The support thus received from the aristocratic Fabii encouraged the
commons, and the sacrifice of the family exasperated them. They felt
anew that it was possible for them to exert some power in the state,
and they promptly accused one of the consuls, Titus Menenius, of
treason, because he had allowed his army to lie inactive near Cremera
while the Fabii were cut off before him. Menenius was found guilty, and
died of vexation and shame. The aristocrats now attempted to frighten
the commons by treachery and assassination, and succeeded, until one,
Volero Publilius, arose and took their part. He boldly proposed a law
by which the tribunes of the people, instead of being chosen by the
comitia of the centuries, in which, as we have seen, the aristocrats
had the advantage, should be chosen by the comitia of the tribes, in
which there was no such inferiority of the commons. Though violently
opposed by the patricians, this law was passed, in the year 471 B.C.
Other measures were, however, still necessary to give the plebeians a
satisfactory position in the state.

In the year 458, the ancient tribe of the Æquians came down upon Rome,
and taking up a position upon Mount Algidus, just beyond Alba Longa,
repulsed an army sent against them, and surrounded its camp. We can
imagine the clattering of the hoofs on the hard stones of the Via
Latina as five anxious messengers, who had managed to escape before it
was too late, hurried to Rome to carry the disheartening news. All eyes
immediately turned in one direction for help. There lived just across
the Tiber a member of an old aristocratic family, one Lucius Quintius,
better known as Cincinnatus, because that name had been added to his
others to show that he wore his hair long and in curls. Lucius was
promptly appointed Dictator--that is, he was offered supreme authority
over all the state,--and messengers were sent to ask him to accept the
direction of affairs. He was found at work on his little farm, which
comprised only four jugera, either digging or plowing, and after he had
sent for his toga, or outer garment, which he had thrown off for
convenience in working, and had put it on, he listened to the message,
and accepted the responsibility. The next morning he appeared on the
forum by daylight, like an early rising farmer, and issued orders that
no one should attend to private business, but that all men of proper
age should meet him on the field of Mars by sunset with food sufficient
for five days. At the appointed hour the army was ready, and, so
rapidly did it march, that before midnight the camp of the enemy was
reached. The Æquians, not expecting such promptness, were astonished to
hear a great shout, and to find themselves shut up between two Roman
armies, both of which advanced and successfully hemmed them in. They
were thus forced to surrender, and Cincinnatus obliged them to pass
under the yoke, in token of subjugation. (_Sub_, under, _jugum_, a
yoke.) The yoke in this case was made of two spears fastened upright in
the ground with a third across them at the top. In the short space of
twenty-four hours, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus raised an army, defeated
an enemy, and laid down his authority as dictator! It was decreed that
he should enter the city in triumph. He rode in his chariot through the
streets, the rejoicing inhabitants spreading tables in front of their
houses, laden with meat and drink for the soldiers. The defeated chiefs
walked before the victor, and after them followed the standards that
had been won, while still farther behind were the soldiers, bearing the
rich spoils. It was customary in those days for a conqueror to take
every thing from the poor people whom he had vanquished,--homes, lands,
cattle, wealth of every sort,--and then even to carry the men, women,
and children away into slavery themselves. Thus a subjugated country
became a desolation, unless the conquerors sent settlers to occupy the
vacant homes and cultivate the neglected farms. Bad and frightful as
war is now, it is not conducted on such terrible principles as were
followed in early times.

Though from time to time concessions were made to the commons, they
continued to feel that they were deprived of many of their just
political rights, and the antagonism remained lively between them and
the patricians. The distresses that they suffered were real, and
endured even for two centuries after the time assigned to Coriolanus.
We have now, indeed, arrived at a period of their sore trial, though it
was preceded by some events that seemed to promise them good. In the
year 454, Lucius Icilius, one of the tribunes of the people, managed to
have the whole of the Aventine Hill given up to them, and as it was,
after the Capitoline, the strongest of all the seven, their political
importance was of course increased. It was but a few years later (B.C.
451) when, according to tradition, after long and violent debates it
was decided that a commission should be sent to Athens, or to some
colony of the Greeks, to learn what they could from the principles of
government adopted by that ancient and wise people, which was then at
the very height of its prosperity and fame. After this commission had
made its report (in the year B.C. 450), all the important magistrates,
including the consuls, tribunes, and ædiles, were replaced by ten
patricians, known as Decemvirs (_decem_, ten, _vir_, a man), appointed
to prepare a new code of laws.

The chief of this body was an Appius Claudius, son of the haughty
patrician of the same name, and equally as haughty as he ever was. The
laws of Rome before this time had been in a mixed condition, partly
written and partly unwritten and traditional; but now all were to be
reduced to order, and incorporated with those two laws that could not
be touched--that giving the Aventine to the plebeians, and the sacred
law settled on the Roman Runnymede after the first secession to the
Sacred Mount. After a few months the ten men produced ten laws, which
were written out and set up in public places for the people to read and
criticise. Suggestions for alterations might be made, and if the ten
men approved them, they made them a part of their report, after which
all was submitted to the senate and the curiæ, and finally approved.
The whole code of laws was then engraved on ten tables of enduring
brass and put up in the comitium, where all might see them and have no
excuse for not obeying them.

We do not know exactly what all these laws were, but enough has come
down to us to make it clear that they were drawn up with great
fairness, because they met the expectations of the people; and this
shows, of course, that the political power of the plebeians was now
considerable, because ten patricians would not have made the laws fair,
unless there had been a strong influence exerted over them, obliging
them to be careful in their action. The ten had acted so well, indeed,
that it was thought safe and advisable to continue the government in
the same form for another year. This proved a mistake, for Appius
managed to gain so much influence that he was the only one of the
original ten who was re-elected, and he was able also to cause nine
others to be chosen with him who were weak men, whom he felt sure that
he could control. When the new decemvirs came into power, they soon
added two new laws to the original ten, and the whole are now known,
therefore, as the "Twelve Tables." The additional laws proved so
distasteful to the people that they were much irritated, and seemed
ready to revolt against the government on the slightest provocation.
The decemvirs became exceedingly ostentatious and haughty, too, in
their bearing, as well as tyrannical in their acts, so that the city
was all excitement and opposition to the government that a few weeks
before had been liked so well. Nothing was needed to bring about an
outbreak except a good excuse, and that was not long waited for.
Nations do not often have to wait long for a cause for fighting, if
they want to find one.

A war broke out with the Sabines and the Æquians at the same time, and
armies were sent against them both, commanded by friends of the
plebeians. Lucius Sicinius Dentatus, one of the bravest, was sent out
at the head of one army with some traitors, who, under orders from the
decemvirs, murdered him in a lonely place. The other commander was
Lucius Virginius, who will be known as long as literature lasts as
father of the beautiful but unfortunate Virginia. While Virginius was
fighting the city's war against the Æquians, the tyrant Appius was
plotting to snatch from him his beloved daughter, who was affianced to
the tribune Lucius Icilius, the same who had caused the Aventine to be
assigned to the plebeians. At first wicked Appius endeavored to entice
the maiden from her noble lover, but without success; and he therefore
determined to take her by an act of tyranny, under color of law. He
caused one of his minions to claim her as his slave, intending to get
her into his hands before her father could hear of the danger and
return from the army. The attempt was not successful, for trusty
friends carried the news quickly, and Virginius reached Rome in time to
hear the cruel sentence by which the tyrant thought to gratify his evil
intention. Before Virginia could be taken from the forum, Virginius
drew her aside, suddenly snatched a sharp knife from a butcher's stall,
and plunged it in her bosom, crying out: "This is the only way, my
child, to keep thee free!" Then, turning to Appius, he held the bloody
knife on high and cried: "On thy head be the curse of this blood."
Vainly did Appius call upon the crowd to arrest the infuriated father;
the people stood aside to allow him to pass, as though he had been
something holy, and he rushed onward toward his portion of the army,
which was soon joined by the troops that Dentatus had commanded.
Meantime, Icilius held up the body of his loved one before the people
in the forum, and bade them gaze on the work of their decemvir. A
tumult was quickly stirred up, in the midst of which Appius fled to his
house, and the senate, hastily summoned, cast about for means to stop
the wild indignation of the exasperated populace; for the people were
then, as they are now, always powerful in the strength of outraged
feeling or righteous indignation.

All was vain. The two armies returned to the Aventine united, and from
the other parts of the city the plebeians flocked to them. This was the
second secession, and, like the first, it was successful. The decemvirs
were compelled to resign, their places being filled by two consuls;
Appius was thrown into prison, to await judgment, and took his life
there; and ten tribunes of the people were chosen to look out for the
interests of the commons, Virginius and Icilius being two of the
number. Thus, for the first time since the days of Publius Valerius,
the control of government was in the hands of men who wished to carry
it on for the good of the country, rather than in the interest of a
party. Thus good came out of evil.

Among the laws of the Twelve Tables, the particular one which had at
this time excited the plebeians was a statute prohibiting marriages
between members of their order and the patricians. There had been such
marriages, and this made the opposition to the law all the more bitter,
though no one was powerful enough to cause it to be abolished. There
now arose a tribune of the people who possessed force and persistence,
Caius Canuleius by name, and he urged the repeal of this law. For the
third time the plebeians seceded, this time going over the Tiber to the
Janiculum Hill, where it would have been possible for them to begin a
new city, if they had not been propitiated. Canuleius argued with vigor
against the consuls who stood up for the law, and at last he succeeded.
In the year 445 the restriction was removed, and plebeian girls were at
liberty to become the wives of patrician men, with the assurance that
their children should enjoy the rank of their fathers. This right of
intermarriage led in time to the entrance of plebeians upon the highest
magistracies of the city, and it was, therefore, of great political
importance.

It was agreed in 444 B.C. that the supreme authority should be centred
in two magistrates, called Military Tribunes, who should have the power
of consuls, and might be chosen from the two orders. The following
year, however (443 B.C.), the patricians were allowed to choose from
their own order two officers known as Censors, who were always
considered to outrank all others, excepting the dictator, when there
was one of those extraordinary magistrates. The censors wore rich robes
of scarlet, and had almost kingly dignity. They made the register of
the citizens at the time of the census, [Footnote: After the expulsion
of the Tarquins, the consuls took the census, and this was the first
appointment of special officers for the purpose.] administered the
public finances, and chose the members of the senate, besides
exercising many other important duties connected with public and
private life. The term of office of the censors at first was a lustrum
or five years, but ten years later it was limited to eighteen months.
In 421, the plebeians made further progress, for the office of quæstor
(paymaster) was opened to them, and they thus became eligible to the
senate. A score of years passed, however, before any plebeian was
actually chosen to the office of military tribune even, owing to the
great influence of the patricians in the comitia centuriata.

All the time that these events were occurring, Rome was carrying on
intermittent wars with the surrounding nations, and by her own efforts,
as well as by the help of her allies, was adding to her warlike
prestige. Nothing in all the story of war exceeds in interest the
poetical narrative that relates to the siege and fall of the Etruscan
city of Veii, with which, since the days of Romulus, Rome had so many
times been involved in war.

Year after year the army besieged the strong place, and there seemed no
hope that its walls would fall. It was allied with Fidenæ, another city
halfway between it and Rome, which was taken by means of a mine in the
year 426. A peace with Veii ensued, after which the incessant war began
again, and fortune sometimes favored one side and sometimes the other.
The siege of the city can be fittingly compared to that of Troy, Seven
years had passed without result, when of a sudden, in the midst of an
autumn drought, the waters of the Alban Lake, away off to the other
side of Rome, began to rise. Higher and still higher they rose without
any apparent cause, until the fields and houses were covered, and then
they found a passage where the hills were lowest, and poured down in a
great torrent upon the plains below. Unable to understand this portent,
for such it was considered, the Romans called upon the oracle at Delphi
for counsel, and were told that not until the waters should find their
way into the lowlands by a new channel, should not rush so impetuously
to the sea, but should water the country, could Veii be taken. It is
hardly necessary to say that no one but an oracle or a poet could see
the connection between the draining of a lake fifteen miles from Rome
on one side, and the capture of a fortress ten miles away on the other.
However, the lake was drained. With surprising skill, a tunnel was
built directly through the rocky hills, and the waters allowed to flow
over the fields below. The traveller may still see this ancient
structure performing its old office. It is cut for a mile and a half,
mainly through solid rock, four feet wide and from seven to ten in
height. The lake is a thousand feet above the sea-level, and of very
great depth.

Marcus Furius Camillus is the hero who now comes to the rescue. He was
chosen dictator in order that he might push the war with the utmost
vigor. The people of Veii sent messengers to him to sue for peace, but
their appeal was in vain. Steadily the siege went on. We must not
picture to ourselves the army of Camillus using the various engines of
war that the Romans became acquainted with in later times through
intercourse with the Greeks, but trusting more to their strong arms and
their simple means of undermining the walls or breaking down the gates.
Their bows and slings and ladders were weak instruments against strong
stone walls, and the siege was a long and wearisome labor. It proved so
long in this case, indeed, that the soldiers, unable to make visits to
their homes to plant and reap their crops, were for the first time paid
for their services.

As the unsuccessful ambassadors from Veii turned away from the senate-
house, one of them uttered a fearful prophecy, saying that though the
unmerciful Romans feared neither the wrath of the gods nor the
vengeance of men, they should one day be rewarded for their hardness by
the loss of their own country.

Summer and winter the Roman army camped before the doomed city, but it
did not fall. At last, to ensure success, Camillus began a mine or
tunnel under the city, which he completed to a spot just beneath the
altar in the temple of Juno. When but a single stone remained to be
taken away, he uttered a fervent prayer to the goddess, and made a vow
to Apollo consecrating a tenth part of the spoil of the city to him. He
then ordered an assault upon the walls, and at the moment when the king
was making an offering on the altar of Juno, and the augur was telling
him that victory in the contest was to fall to him who should burn the
entrails then ready, the Romans burst from their tunnel, finished the
sacrifice, and rushing to the gates, let their own army in. The city
was sacked, and as Camillus looked on, he exclaimed: "What man's
fortune was ever so great as mine?" A magnificent triumph was
celebrated in Rome. Day after day the temples were crowded, and
Camillus, hailed as a public benefactor, rode to the capitol in a
chariot drawn by four white horses. The territory of the conquered city
was divided among the patricians, but Camillus won their hatred after a
time by calling upon them to give up a tenth part of their rich booty
to found a temple to Apollo, in pursuance of his vow, which he claimed
to have forgotten meanwhile. It was not long before he was accused of
unfairness in distributing the spoils, some of which he was said to
have retained himself, and when he saw that the people were so incensed
at him that condemnation was inevitable, he went into banishment. As he
went away, he added a malediction to the prophecy of the ambassador
from Veii, and said that the republic might soon have cause to regret
his loss. He was, as he had expected, condemned, a fine of one hundred
and fifty thousand ases being laid upon him.

Thus was the territory of Rome greatly increased, after a hundred years
of war and intrigue, and thus did the warrior to whom the city owed the
most, and whom it had professed to honor, go from it with a malediction
on his lips. Let us see how the ill omens were fulfilled.




VIII.

A BLAST FROM BEYOND THE NORTH-WIND.



When the Greeks shivered in the cold north-wind, they thought that
Boreas, one of their divinities who dwelt beyond the high mountains,
had loosened the blast from a mysterious cave. The North was to them an
unknown region. Far beyond the hills they thought there dwelt a nation
known as Hyperboreans, or people beyond the region of Boreas, who lived
in an atmosphere of feathers, enjoying Arcadian happiness, and
stretching their peaceful lives out to a thousand years. That which is
unknown is frightful to the ignorant or the superstitious, and so it
was that the North was a land in which all that was alarming might be
conjured up. The inhabitants of the Northern lands were called Gauls by
the Romans. They lived in villages with no walls about them, and had no
household furniture; they slept in straw, or leaves, or grass, and
their business in life was either agriculture or war. They were hardy,
tall, and rough in appearance; their hair was shaggy and light in color
compared with that of the Italians, and their fierce appearance struck
the dwellers under sunnier climes with dread.

These warlike people had come from the plains of Asia, and in Central
and Northern Europe had increased to such an extent that they could at
length find scarcely enough pasturage for their flocks. The mountains
were full of them, and it was not strange that some looked down from
their summits into the rich plains of Italy, and then went thither;
and, tempted by the crops, so much more abundant than they had ever
known, and by the wine, which gave them a new sensation, at last made
their homes there. It was a part of their life to be on the move, and
by degrees they slipped farther and farther into the pleasant land.
They flocked from the Hercynian forests, away off in Bohemia or
Hungary, and swarmed over the Alps; they followed the river Po in its
course, and they came into the region of the Apennines too. [Footnote:
No one knows exactly when the Gauls first entered Northern Italy. Some
think that it was as long back as the time of the Tarquins, while
others put it only ten or twenty years before the battle of the Allia--
410-400 B.C.] It was they who had weakened the Etruscans and made it
possible for the Romans to capture Veii. Afterwards they came before
the city of Clusium (B.C. 391), and the people in distress begged for
aid from Rome. No help was given, but ambassadors were sent to warn the
invaders courteously not to attack the friends of the Roman people who
had done them no harm. Such a request might have had an effect upon a
nation that knew the Romans better, but the fierce Northerners who knew
nothing of courtesy replied that if the Clusians would peaceably give
up a portion of their lands, no harm should befall them; but that
otherwise they should be attacked, and that in the presence of the
Romans, who might thus take home an account of how the Gauls excelled
all other mortals in bravery. Upon being asked by what right they
proposed to take a part of the Clusian territory, Brennus, the leader
of the barbarians, replied that all things belonged to the brave, and
that their right lay in their trusty swords.

In the battle that ensued, the Roman ambassadors fought with the
Clusians, and one of them killed a Gaul of great size and stature. This
was made the basis for an onset upon Rome itself. Then the Romans must
have remembered how just before the hero of Veii had gone into
banishment, a good and respectable man reported to the military
tribunes that one night as he was going along the street near the
temple of Vesta, he heard a voice saying plainly to him: "Marcus
Cædicius, the Gauls are coming!" Probably they remembered, too, how
lightly they esteemed the information, and how even the tribunes made
sport of it. Now the Northern scourge was actually rushing down upon
them, and Camillus was gone! In great rage the invaders pushed on
towards the city, alarming all who came in their way by their numbers,
their fierceness, and the violence with which they swept away all
opposition. There was little need of fear, however, for the rough men
took nothing from the fields, and, as they passed the cities, cried out
that they were on their way to Rome, and that they considered the
inhabitants of all cities but Rome friends who should receive no harm.

The Romans had a proverb to the effect that whom the gods wish to
destroy they first make mad, and, according to their historian Livy, it
was true in this case, for when the city was thus menaced by a new
enemy, rushing in the intoxication of victory and impelled by the fury
of wrath and the thirst for vengeance, they did not take any but the
most ordinary precautions to protect themselves; leaving to the usual
officers the direction of affairs, and not bestirring themselves as
much as they did when threatened by the comparatively inferior forces
of the neighboring states. They even neglected the prescribed religious
customs and the simplest precautions of war. When they sent out their
army they did not select a fit place for a camp, nor build ramparts
behind which they might retreat, and they drew up the soldiers in such
a way that the line was unusually weak in the parts it presented to the
on-rushing enemy.

Under such unpropitious circumstances the impetuous Gauls were met on
the banks of the river Allia, ten miles from Rome, on the very day on
which the Fabii had been destroyed by the Etruscans the century before
(July 16, 390). The result was that terror took possession of the
soldiers, and the Gauls achieved an easy victory, so easy, indeed, that
it left them in a state of stupefied surprise. A part of the Romans
fled to the deserted stronghold of Veii, and others to their own city,
but many were overtaken by the enemy and killed, or were swept away by
the current of the Tiber. [Footnote: That this was a terrible defeat is
proved by the fact that the sixteenth of July was afterward held
unlucky (_ater,_ black), and no business was transacted on it.
Ovid mentions it as "the day to which calamitous Allia gives a name in
the calendar," and on which "tearful Allia was stained with the blood
of the Latian wounds."]

There was dire alarm in the city. The young and vigorous members of the
senate, with their wives and children and other citizens, found refuge
in the capitol, which they fortified; but the aged senators took their
seats in the forum and solemnly awaited the coming of Brennus and his
hosts. The barbarians found, of course, no difficulty in taking and
burning the city, and for days they sacked and pillaged the houses. The
venerable senators were immediately murdered, and the invaders put the
capitol in a state of siege.

Then the curses of the ambassador of Veii and of Camillus found their
fulfilment; and then also did the thoughts of the Romans turn to their
once admired commander, who, they were now sure, could help them. The
refugees at Veii, too, turned in their thoughts to Camillus, and
messengers were sent to him at Ardea, where he was in exile, asking him
to come to the assistance of his distressed countrymen. Camillus was
too proud to accept a command to which he was not called by the senate,
while he was under condemnation for an offence of which he did not feel
guilty. The senate was shut up in the capitol, and hard to get at, but
an ambitious youth offered to climb the precipitous hill, in spite of
the besieging barbarians, and obtain the requisite order. The daring
man crossed the Tiber, and scaled the hill by the help of shrubs and
projecting stones. After obtaining for Camillus the appointment of
dictator, he successfully returned to Veii, and then the banished
leader accepted the supreme office for the second time.

The sharp watchers among the Gauls had, however, noticed in the broken
shrubs and loosened stones the marks of the daring act of the messenger
who had climbed the hill, and determined to take the hint and enter the
capitol in that way themselves. In the dead of night, but by the bright
light of the moon we may suppose, since the battle of Allia was fought
at the full of the moon, the daring barbarians began slowly and with
great difficulty to climb the rocky hill. They actually reached its
summit, and, to their surprise, were not noisy enough to awaken the
guards; but, alas for them, the sacred geese of the capitol, kept for
use in the worship of Juno, were confined near the spot where the
ascent had been made. Alarmed by the unusual occurrence, the geese
uttered their natural noises and awakened Marcus Manlius, who quickly
buckled on his armor and rushed to the edge of the cliff. He was just
in time to meet the first Gaul as he came up, and to push him over on
the others who were painfully following him. Down he fell backwards,
striking his companions and sending them one after another to the foot
of the precipice in promiscuous ruin. In the morning the captain of the
watch was in turn cast down upon the heads of the enemies, to whom his
neglect had given such an advantage.

Now there remained nothing for the Gauls to do but sit down and wait,
to see if they could starve the Romans confined in the capitol. Months
passed, and, indeed, they almost accomplished their object, but while
they were listlessly waiting, the hot Roman autumn was having its
natural effect upon them, accustomed as they were to an active life in
those Northern woods where the cool winds of the mountains fanned them
and the leafy shades screened their heads from the heat of the sun. The
miasma of the low lands crept up into their camps, and the ashes of the
ruins that they had made blew into their faces and affected their
health. They might almost as well have been shut up on the hill. The
result was that both Gaul and Roman felt at last that peace would be a
boon no matter at how high a price purchased, and it was agreed by
Brennus that if the Romans would weigh him out a thousand pounds of
rich gold, he would take himself and his horde back to the more
comfortable woods. The scales were prepared and the gold was brought
out, but the Romans found that their enemies were cheating in the
weight. When asked what it meant, Brennus pulled off his heavy sword,
threw it into the balances and said: "What does it mean, but woe to the
vanquished!" "_Væ victis!_"

It was very bad for the Romans, but the story goes on to tell us that
at that very moment, the great Camillus was knocking at the gates, that
he entered at the right instant with his army, took the gold out of the
scales, threw the weights, and the scales themselves, indeed, to the
Gauls, and told Brennus that it was the custom of the Romans to pay
their debts in iron, not in gold. The Gauls immediately called their
men together and hastened from the city, establishing a camp eight
miles away on the road to Gabii, where Camillus overtook them the next
day and defeated them with such great slaughter that they were able to
do no further damage.

[Illustration: THE CAPITOL RESTORED.]

It seems a pity to spoil so good a story, but it is like many others
that have grown up in the way that reminds one of the game of "scandal"
that the children play. The Roman historians always wished to glorify
their nation, and they took every opportunity to make the stories
appear well for the old heroes. It seems that at this time some Gauls
were really cut off by the people of Cære, or some neighboring place,
and, to improve the story, it was at first said that they were the very
ones that had taken Rome. Then, another writer added, that the gold
given as a ransom for the city was retaken with the captives; and, as
another improvement, it was said that Camillus was the one who
accomplished the feat, but that it was a long time afterwards, when the
Gauls were besieging another city. The last step in adding to the story
was taken when some one, thinking that it could be improved still more,
and the national pride satisfied, brought Camillus into the city at the
very moment that the gold was in the scales, so that he could keep it
from being delivered at all, and then proceed to cut off all the enemy,
so that not a man should be left to take the terrible tale back over
the northern mountains! The story is not all false, for there are good
evidences that Rome was burned, but the heroic embellishments are
doubtless the imaginative and patriotic additions of historians who
thought more of national pride than historic accuracy.

Camillus now proceeded to rebuild the city, and came to be honored as
the second founder of Rome. The suffering people rushed out of the
capitol weeping for very joy; the inhabitants who had gone elsewhere
came back; the priests brought the holy things from their hiding-
places; the city was purified; a temple was speedily erected to Rumor
or Voice on the spot where Cædicius had heard the voice announcing the
coming barbarians; and there was a diligent digging among the ashes to
find the sites of the other temples and streets. It was a tedious and
almost hopeless task to rebuild the broken-down city, and the people
began to look with longing to the strongly-built houses and temples
still standing at Veii, wondering why they might not go thither in a
body and live in comfort, instead of digging among ashes to rebuild a
city simply to give Camillus, of whom they quickly began to be jealous,
the honor that had been an attribute of Romulus only. Then the senate
appealed to the memories of the olden time; the stories of the sacred
places, and especially of the head that was found on the Capitoline
Hill, were retold, and by dint of entreaty and expostulation the
distressed inhabitants were led to go to work to patch up the ruins.
They brought stones from Veii, and to the poor the authorities granted
bricks, and gradually a new, but ill-built, city grew up among the
ruins, with crooked streets and lanes, and with buildings, public and
private, huddled together just as happened to be the most convenient
for the immediate occasion.

Camillus lived twenty-five years longer, and was repeatedly called to
the head of affairs, as the city found itself in danger from the
Volscians, Æquians, Etruscans and other envious enemies. Six times was
he made one of the tribunes, and five times did he hold the office of
dictator. When the Gauls came again, in the year 367, Camillus was
called upon to help his countrymen for the last time, and though he was
some fourscore years of age, he did not hesitate, nor did victory
desert him. The Gauls were defeated with great slaughter, and it was a
long time before they again ventured to trouble the Romans. The second
founder of Rome, after his long life of warfare, died of a plague that
carried away many of the prominent citizens in the year 365. His
victories had not all been of the same warlike sort, however. "Peace
hath her victories no less renowned than war," and Camillus gained his
share of them.

Marcus Manlius, the preserver of the capitol, was less fortunate, for
when he saw that the plebeians were suffering because the laws
concerning debtors were too severe, and came forward as patron of the
poor, he received no recognition, and languished in private life, while
Camillus was a favorite. He therefore turned to the plebeians, and
devoted his large fortune to relieving suffering debtors. The
patricians looking upon him as a deserter from their party, brought up
charges against him, and though he showed the marks of distinction that
he had won in battles for the country, and gained temporary respite
from their enmity, they did not relent until his condemnation had been
secured. He was hurled from the fatal Tarpeian Rock, and his house was
razed to the ground in the year 384.

Eight years after the death of Manlius (B.C. 376), two tribunes of the
plebeians, one of whom was Caius Licinius Stolo, proposed some new laws
to protect poor debtors, whose grievances had been greatly increased by
the havoc of the Gauls, and after nine more years of tedious discussion
and effort, they were enacted (B.C. 367), and are known as the Licinian
Laws, or rather, Rogations, for a law before it was finally passed was
known as a rogation, and these were long discussed before they were
agreed to. (_Rogare_, to ask, that is, to ask the opinion of one.)
So great was the feeling aroused by this discussion, that Camillus was
called upon to interfere, and he succeeded in pacifying the city;
Lucius Sextius was chosen as the first plebeian consul, and Camillus,
having thus a third time saved the state, dedicated a temple to
Concord. As a plebeian had been made consul, the disturbing struggles
between the two orders could not last much longer, and we find that the
plebeians gradually gained ground, until at last the political
distinction between them and the patricians was wiped out for
generations. The laws that finally effected this were those of
Publilius, in 339, and of Hortensius, the dictator, in 286.

The period of the death of Camillus is to be remembered on account of
several facts connected with a plague that visited Rome in the year
365. The people, in their despair, for the third time in the history of
the city, performed a peculiar sacrifice called the _Lectisternium_
(_lectus_, a couch, _sternere_, to spread), to implore the favor of
offended deities. They placed images of the gods upon cushions or
couches and offered them viands, as if the images could really eat
them. Naturally this did not effect any abatement of the ravaging
disease, and under orders of the priests, stage plays were instituted
as a means of appeasing the wrath of heaven. The first Roman play-
writer, Plautus, did not live till a hundred years after this time, and
these performances were trivial imitations of Etruscan acting, which
thus came to Rome at second-hand from Greece; but, as the Romans did
not particularly delight in intellectual efforts at that time,
buffoonery sufficed instead of the wit which gave so much pleasure to
the cultivated attendants at the theatre of Athens. Livy says that
these plays neither relieved the minds nor the bodies of the Romans;
and, in fact, when on one occasion the performances were interrupted by
the overflowing waters of the Tiber which burst into the circus, the
people turned from the theatre in terror, feeling that their efforts to
soothe the gods had been despised. It was at this time that the earth
is said to have been opened in the forum by an earthquake, and that
Curtius cast himself into it as a sacrifice; but, as we have read of
the occurrence before we shall not stop to consider it again. The young
hero was called Mettus Curtius in the former instance, but now the name
given to him is Marcus Curtius.




IX.

HOW THE REPUBLIC OVERCAME ITS NEIGHBORS.



We have now reached the time when Rome had brought under her sway all
the country towards Naples as far as the river Liris, and, gaining
strength, she is about to add materially to her territory and to lay
the foundation for still more extensive conquests. During the century
that we are next to consider, she conquered her immediate neighbors,
and was first noticed by that powerful city which was soon to become
her determined antagonist, Carthage. It was the time when the great
Macedonian conqueror, Alexander, finished his war in Persia, and the
mention of his name leads Livy to pause in his narrative, and,
reflecting that the age was remarkable above others for its conquerors,
to enquire what would have been the consequences if Alexander had been
minded to turn his legions against Rome, after having become master of
the Eastern world. Alexander died, however, before he had an
opportunity to get back from the East; but, as the old historian says,
it is entertaining and relaxing to the mind to digress from weightier
considerations and to embellish historical study with variety, and he
decides that if the great Eastern conqueror had marched against Rome,
he would have been defeated. While Livy was probably influenced in this
decision by that desire to magnify the prowess of his country which is
plainly seen throughout his work, we may agree with him without fear of
being far from correct, especially when we remember that Alexander
achieved his great success against peoples that had not reached the
stage of military science that Rome had by this time attained. "The
aspect of Italy," Livy says, "would have appeared to him quite
different from that of India, which he traversed in the guise of a
reveller at the head of a crew of drunkards * * * Never were we worsted
by an enemy's cavalry, never by their infantry, never in open fight,
never on equal ground," but our army "has defeated and will defeat a
thousand armies more formidable than those of Alexander and the
Macedonians, provided that the same love of peace and solicitude about
domestic harmony in which we now live continue permanent." This is what
patriotism says for Rome, and we can hardly say less, when we remember
that when she came into conflict with great Carthage, led by diplomatic
and scientific Hannibal, she proved the victor. We are, however, more
interested now in what the Roman arms actually accomplished than in
enquiries, however interesting, about what they might have done. They
subjugated the world, and that is enough for us.

One of the most favored and celebrated families in the history of Rome
for a thousand years was that called Valerian, and at the time to which
our thoughts are now directed, one of the members comes into prominence
as the most illustrious general of the era. Marcus Valerius Corvus was
born at about the time when the rogations of Licinius Stolo became
laws, and in early life distinguished himself as a soldier in an
assault made on the Romans by the Gauls, who seem not to have all been
swept away for a long time. It was in the year 349. The dreaded enemy
rushed upon Rome, and the citizens took up arms in a mass. One soldier,
Titus Manlius, met a gigantic Gaul on a bridge over the Anio, and after
slaying him, carried off a massy chain that he bore on his neck.
_Torquatus_ in Latin means "provided with a chain," and this word
was added to the name of Manlius ever after. It was at the same time
that Marcus Valerius encountered another huge Gaul in single combat,
and overcame him, though he was aided by a raven which settled on his
helmet, and in the contest picked at the eyes of the barbarian.
_Corvus_ is the Latin word for raven, and it was added to the other
names of Valerius. A golden crown and ten oxen were presented to him,
and the people chose him consul.

Corvus was no less powerful than popular. He competed with the other
soldiers in their games of the camp, and listened to their jokes like a
companion without taking offence. He thus established a bond between
the two orders. Six times he served as consul, and twice as dictator.
Never was such a man more needed than was he now. At an unknown period
there had come down from the snowy tops of the Apennines a strong
people, known afterwards as Samnites, who now began to press upon the
inhabitants of the region called Campania, in the midst of which is the
volcano Vesuvius. [Footnote: Among the strange customs of the olden
times in Italy was one called _ver sacrum_ (sacred spring). In time of
distress a vow would be made to sacrifice every creature born in April
and May to propitiate an offended deity. In many cases man and beast
were thus offered; but in time humanity revolted against the sacrifice
of children, and they were considered sacred, but allowed to grow up,
and at the age of twenty were sent blindfolded out into the world
beyond the frontier to found a colony wherever the gods might lead
them. The Mamertines in Sicily sprang from such emigrants, and it is
supposed that the Samnites had a similar origin.] There, too, were Cumæ
and Capua, of which we have had occasion to speak, and Herculaneum and
Pompeii; there was Naples on its beautiful bay, and there was
Palæopolis, the "old city," not far distant (_Nea,_ new, _polis,_ city;
_palaios,_ old, _polis,_ city). This was a part of Magna Græcia, which
included many rich cities in the southern portion of the peninsula,
among which were Tarentum, and there had been the earliest of the Greek
colonies, Sybaris, the abode of wealth and luxury, until its
destruction at the time of the fall of the Tarquins.

The Campanians invoked the help of Rome against their sturdy foes, and
a struggle for the mastery of Italy began, which lasted for more than
half a century, though there were three wars, separated by intervals of
peace. The first struggle lasted from 343 to 341, and is important for
its first battle, which was fought at the foot of Mount Gaurus, three
miles from Cumæ. It is memorable because Valerius Corvus, who lived
until the Samnites had been finally subdued, was victorious, and the
historian Niebuhr tells us that though we find it but little spoken of,
it is one of the most noteworthy in all the history of the world,
because it indicated that Rome was to achieve the final success, and
thus take its first step towards universal sovereignty. After this
victory the Carthaginians, with whom Rome was to have a desperate war
afterwards, sent congratulations, accompanied by a golden crown for the
shrine of Jupiter in the capitol. It is said that at the time of the
expulsion of the Tarquins, the Romans and Carthaginians had entered
into a treaty of friendship, which had been renewed five years before
the war with the Samnites, but we are not certain of it.

The results of the burning of Rome by the Gauls had not all ceased to
be felt, and many of the plebeians were still suffering under the
burden of debts that they could not pay. A portion of the army,
composed, as we know, of plebeians, was left to winter at Capua. There
it saw the luxurious extravagance of the citizens, and felt its own
burdens more than ever by contrast. A mutiny ensued, and though it was
quelled, more concessions were made to the plebeians, and their debts
were generally abolished. Meantime the Latins saw evidence that the
power of Rome was growing more rapidly than their own, and they,
therefore, determined to go to war to obtain the equality that they
thought the terms of the treaty between the nations authorized them to
expect. The Samnites were now the allies of Rome, and fought with her.
The armies met under the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. In a vision, so the
story runs, it had been foretold to the Romans that the leader of one
army and the soldiers of the other were forfeited to the gods; and
when, during the battle, the plebeian consul, Marcus Decius Mus, who
had been a hero in the previous war, saw that his line was falling
back, he uttered a solemn prayer and threw himself into the thickest of
the fight. By thus giving up his life, as the partial historians like
to tell us that many Romans have done at various epochs, he ensured
victory on this occasion, and subsequently the conquest of the world,
to his countrymen. Other battles and other victories followed, and the
people of Latium became dependent upon Rome. The last engagement was at
Antium, an ancient city on a promontory below Ostia, which, having a
little navy, had interfered with the Roman commerce. The prows of the
vessels of Antium were set up in the Roman forum as an ornament to the
_suggestum_, or stage from which orators addressed the people. This was
called the _rostra_ afterward. (_Rostra_, beaks of birds or ships.)

Thus the city kept on adding to its dependents, and increasing its
power. In 329, the Volscians were overcome and their long warfare with
Rome ended. Two years later, the Romans declared war against Palæopolis
and Neapolis, and after taking the Old City, made a league with the
New. One war thus led to another, and as the Samnites, getting jealous
of the increasing power of their ally, had aided these two cities, Rome
declared war the second time against them, in 326. It proved the most
important of the three Samnite wars, lasting upward of twenty years.
The aim of each of the combatants seems to have been to gain as many
allies as possible, and to lessen the adherents of the enemy. For this
reason the war was peculiar, the armies of Rome being often found in
Apulia, and those of the enemy being ever ready to overrun Campania.

Success at first followed the Samnite banners, and this was notably the
case at the battle of Caudine Forks, fought in a pass on the road from
Capua to Beneventum (then Maleventum), in the year 321, when the Romans
were entrapped and all obliged to pass under the yoke. Such a success
is apt to influence allies, and this tended to strengthen the Samnites.
It was not until seven years had passed that the Romans were able to
make decided gains, and though their cause appeared quite hopeful, the
very success brought new troubles, because it led the Etruscans to take
part with the Samnites and to create a diversion on the north. This
outbreak is said to have been quelled by Fabius Maximus Rullus, (a
general whose personal prowess is vaunted in the highest terms by the
historians of Rome,) who defeated the Etruscans at Lake Vadimonis, B.C.
310. Success followed in the south, also, and in the year 304,
Bovianum, in the heart of Samnium, which had been before taken by them,
fell into the hands of the Romans and closed the war, leaving Rome the
most powerful nation in Central Italy.

Unable to overcome its northern neighbor, Samnium now turned to attack
Lucania, the country to the south, which reached as far as the
Tarentine Gulf, just under the great heel of Italy. Magna Græcia was
then in a state of decadence, and Lucania was an ally of Rome, which
took its part against Samnium, not as loving Samnium less, but as
loving power more. The struggle became very general. The Etruscans had
begun a new war with Rome, but were about to treat for peace, when the
Samnites induced them to break off the negotiations, and they attacked
Rome at once on the north and the south. The undaunted Romans struck
out with one arm against the Etruscans and their allies the Gauls on
the north, and with the other hurled defiance at the Samnites on the
south. The war was decided by a battle fought in 295, on the ridge of
the Apennines, near the town of Sentinum in Umbria, where the allies
had all managed to unite their forces. On this occasion it is related
that Publius Decius Mus, son of that hero who had sacrificed himself at
Mount Vesuvius, followed his father's example, devoted himself and the
opposing army to the infernal gods, and thus enabled the Romans to
achieve a splendid victory.

The Samnites continued the desperate struggle five years longer, but in
the year 290 they became subject to Rome; their leader, the hero of the
battle of the Caudine Forks, having been taken two years previously and
perfidiously put to death in Rome as the triumphal car of the victor
ascended the Capitoline Hill. This is considered one of the darkest
blots on the Roman name, and Dr. Arnold forcibly says that it shows
that in their dealings with foreigners, the Romans "had neither
magnanimity, nor humanity, nor justice."

The Etruscans and the Gauls did not yet cease their wars on the north,
and in 283 they encountered the Roman army at the little pond, between
the Ciminian Hills and the Tiber, known as Lake Vadimonis, on the spot
where the Etrurian power had been broken thirty years before by Fabius
Maximus, and were defeated with great slaughter. The constant wars had
made the rich richer than before, while at the same time the poor were
growing poorer, and after the third Samnite war we are ready to believe
that debts were again pressing with heavy force upon many of the
citizens. Popular tumults arose, and the usual remedy, an agrarian law,
was proposed. There was a new secession of the people to the Janiculum,
followed by the enactment of the Hortensian laws, celebrated in the
history of jurisprudence because they deprived the senate of its veto
and declared that the voice of the people assembled in their tribes was
supreme law. Debts were abolished or greatly reduced, and seven jugera
of land were allotted to every citizen. We see from this that the
commotions of our own days, made by socialists, communists, and
nihilists, as they are called, are only repetitions of such agitations
as those which took place so many centuries ago.

In the midst of a storm in the especially boisterous winter season of
the year 280, the waves of the Mediterranean washed upon the shores of
Southern Italy a brave man more dead than alive, who was to take the
lead in the last struggle against the supremacy of Rome among its
neighbors. The winds and the waves had no respect for his crown. They
knew not that he ruled over a strong people whose extensive mountainous
land was known as the "continent," and that he had left it with
thousands of archers and slingers and footmen and knights; and that he
had also huge elephants trained to war, beasts then unknown in Italian
warfare, which he expected would strike horror into the cavalry of the
country he had been cast upon.

As we study history, we find that at almost every epoch it centres
about the personality of some strong man who has either power to
control, or sympathetic attractiveness that holds to him those who are
around him. It was so in this case. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, was born
seven years after the great Alexander died, and was at this time
thirty-seven years of age. Claiming descent from Pyhrrus, son of
Achilles, and being a son of Æacides, he was in the direct line the
Kings of Epirus. He was also cousin of an Alexander, who, in the year
332, had crossed over from Epirus to help the Tarentines against the
Lucanians, had formed an alliance with the Romans, and had finally been
killed by a Lucanian on the banks of the Acheron, in 326. After a
variety of vicissitudes, Pyrrhus had ascended the throne of his father
at the age of twenty-three, and, taking Alexander the Great as his
model, had soon become popular and powerful. Aiming at the conquest of
the whole of Greece, he attacked the king of Macedonia and overcame
him. After resting a while upon his laurels, he found a life of
inactivity unbearable, and accepted a request, sent him in 281, to
follow in the footsteps of his cousin Alexander, and go to the help of
the people of Tarentum against the Romans, with whom they were then at
war. This is the reason why he was voyaging in haste to Italy, and it
was this ambition that led to his shipwreck on a winter's night.

Pyrrhus had a counsellor named Cineas, who asked him how he would use
his victory if he should be so fortunate as to overcome the Romans, who
were reputed great warriors and conquerors of many peoples. The Romans
overcome, replied the king, no city, Greek nor barbarian, would dare to
oppose me, and I should be master of all Italy. Well, Italy conquered,
what next? Sicily next would hold out its arms to receive me, Pyrrhus
replied. And, what next? These would be but forerunners of greater
victories. There are Libya and Carthage, said the king. Then? Then,
continued Pyrrhus, I should be able to master all Greece. And then?
continued Cineas. Then I would live at ease, eat and drink all day, and
enjoy pleasant conversation. And what hinders you from taking now the
ease that you are planning to take after such hazards and so much
blood-shedding? Here the conversation closed, for Pyrrhus could not
answer this question.

Once on the Italian shore the invading king marched to Tarentum, and
found it a city of people given up to pleasures, who had no thought of
fighting themselves, but expected that he would do that work for them
while they enjoyed their theatres, their baths, and their festivities.
They soon found, however, that they had a master instead of a servant.
Pyrrhus shut up the theatres and was inflexible in demanding the
services of the young and strong in the army. His preparations were
made as promptly as possible, but Rome was ahead of him, and her army
was superior, excepting that the Grecians brought elephants with them.
The first battle was fought on the banks of the river Liris, and the
elephants gave victory to the invader, but the valor of the Romans was
such that Pyrrhus is said to have boasted that if he had such soldiers
he could conquer the world, and to have confessed that another such
victory would send him back to Epirus alone. It is not to be wondered
at, therefore, that he sent Cineas to Rome to plead for peace. The
Romans were on the point of entering into negotiations, when aged and
blind Appius Claudius, hearing of it, caused himself to be carried to
the forum, where he delivered an impassioned protest against the
proposed action. So effectual was he that the people became eager for
war, and sent word to Pyrrhus that they would only treat with him when
he should withdraw his forces from Italy. Pyrrhus then marched rapidly
towards Rome, but when he had almost reached the city, after
devastating the country through which he had passed, he learned that
the Romans had made peace with the Etruscans, with whom they had been
fighting, and that thus another army was free to act against him. He
therefore retreated to winter quarters at Tarentum. The next year the
two forces met on the edge of the plains of Apulia, at Asculum, but the
battle resulted in no gain to Pyrrhus, who was again obliged to retire
for the winter to Tarentum. (B.C. 279.)

In the last battle the brunt of the fighting had fallen to the share of
the Epirots, and Pyrrhus was not anxious to sacrifice his comparatively
few remaining troops for the benefit of the Tarentines. Therefore,
after arranging a truce with Rome, he accepted an invitation from the
Greeks of Sicily to go to their help against the Carthaginians. For two
years he fought, at first with success; but afterwards he met repulses,
so that being again asked to assist his former allies in Italy, he
returned, in 276, and for two years led the remnants of his troops and
the mercenaries that he had attracted to his standard against the
Romans. His Italian career closed in the year 274, when he encountered
his enemy in the neighborhood of Maleventum, and was defeated, the
Romans having learned how to meet the formerly dreaded elephants. The
name of this place was then changed to Beneventum. Two years later
still, in 272, Tarentum fell under the sway of Rome, which soon had
overcome every nation on the peninsula south of a line marked by the
Rubicon on the east and the Macra on the west,--the boundaries of
Gallia Cisalpina. (_Cis_, on this side, _alpina_, alpine.)

Not only had Rome thus gained power and prestige at home, but she had
begun to come in contact with more distant peoples. Carthage had
offered to assist her after the battle of Asculum, sending a large
fleet of ships to Ostia in earnest of her good faith. Now, when the
news of the permanent repulse of the proud king of Epirus was spread
abroad, great Ptolemy Philadelphus, the Egyptian patron of art,
literature, and science, sent an embassy empowered to conclude a treaty
of amity with the republic. The proposition was accepted with
earnestness, and ambassadors of the highest rank were sent to
Alexandria, where they were treated with extraordinary consideration,
and allowed to see all the splendor of the Egyptian capital.

Rome had now reached a position of wealth and physical prosperity; the
rich had gained much land, and the poor had been permitted to share the
general progress; commerce, agriculture, and, to some extent,
manufactures had advanced. Rome kept a firm hold upon all of the
territory she had won, connecting them with the capital by good roads,
but making no arrangements for free communication between the chief
cities of the conquered regions. The celebrated military roads, of
which we now can see the wonderful remains, date from a later period,
with the exception of the Appian Way, which was begun in 312, and,
after the conquest of Italy was completed to Brundusium, through Capua,
Tres Taberna, and Beneventum. Other than this there were a number of
earth roads leading from Rome in various directions. One of the most
ancient of these was that over which Pyrrhus marched as far as
Præneste, known as the Via Latina, which ran over the Tusculum Hills,
and the Alban Mountain. The Via Ostiensis ran down the left bank of the
Tiber; the Via Saleria ran up the river to Tibur, and was afterward
continued, as the Via Valeria, over the Apennines to the Adriatic.

[Illustration: ROMAN STREET PAVEMENT.]

The population of Italy (at this time less than three million) was
divided into three general classes: first, the _Roman Citizens_,
comprising the members of the thirty-three tribes, stretching from Veii
to the river Liris, the citizens in the Roman colonies, and in certain
municipal towns; the _Latin Name_, including the inhabitants of
the colonies generally, and some of the most flourishing towns of
Italy; and the _Allies_, or all other inhabitants of the peninsula
who were dependent upon Rome, but liked to think that they were not
subjects. The Romans had been made rich and prosperous by war, and were
ready to plunge into any new struggle promising additional power and
wealth.




X.

AN AFRICAN SIROCCO.



All the time that the events that we have been giving our attention to
were occurring--that is to say, ever since the foundation of Rome,
another city had been growing up on the opposite side of the
Mediterranean Sea, in which a different kind of civilization had been
developed. Carthage, of which we have already heard, was founded by
citizens of Phoenicia. The early inhabitants were from Tyre, that old
city of which we read in the Bible, which in the earliest times was
famous for its rich commerce. How long the people of Phoenicia had
lived in their narrow land under the shadow of great Libanus, we cannot
tell, though Herodotus, when writing his history, went there to find
out, and reported that at that time Tyre had existed twenty-three
hundred years, which would make its foundation forty-five hundred years
ago, and more. However that may be, the purple of Tyre and the glass of
Sidon, another and still older Phoenician city, were celebrated long
before Rome was heard of. It was from this ancient land that the people
of Carthage had come. It has been usual for emigrants to call their
cities in a new land "new," (as Nova Scotia, New York, New England, New
Town, or Newburg,) and that is the way in which Carthage was named, for
the word means, in the old language of the Phoenicians, simply new
city, just as Naples was merely the Greek for new city, as we have
already seen.

[Illustration: A PHOENICIAN VESSEL (TRIREME).]

Through six centuries, the people of Carthage had been permitted by the
mother-city to attend diligently to their commerce, their agriculture,
and to the building up of colonies along the southern coast of the
Mediterranean, and the advantages of their position soon gave them the
greatest importance among the colonies of the Phoenicians. There was
Utica, near by, which had existed for near three centuries longer than
Carthage, but its situation was not so favorable, and it fell behind.
Tunes, now called Tunis, was but ten or fifteen miles away, but it also
was of less importance. The commerce of Carthage opened the way for
foreign conquest, and so, besides having a sort of sovereignty over all
the peoples on the northern coast of Africa, she established colonies
on Sardinia, Corsica, Sicily, and other Mediterranean islands, and
history does not go back far enough to tell us at how early a date she
had obtained peaceable possessions in Spain, from the mines of which
she derived a not inconsiderable share of her riches.

Perhaps it may be thought strange that Carthage and Rome had not come
into conflict before the time of which we are writing, for the distance
between the island of Sicily and the African coast is so small that but
a few hours would have been occupied in sailing across. It may be
accounted for by 

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