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by Arthur Gilman

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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, 2004  [EBook #6427]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on December 11, 2002]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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*** 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 the facts that the Carthaginians attended to their own
business, and the Romans did not engage to any extent in maritime
enterprises. On several occasions, however, Carthage had sent her
compliments across to Rome, though Rome does not appear to have
reciprocated them to any great degree; and four formal treaties between
the cities are reported, B.C. 509, 348, 306, and 279.

It is said that when Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, was about to leave
Sicily, he exclaimed: "What a grand arena [Footnote: _Arena_ in
Latin meant "sand," and as the central portions of the amphitheatres
were strewn with sand to absorb the blood of the fighting gladiators
and beasts, an arena came to mean, as at present, any open, public
place for an exhibition. To the ancients, however, it brought to mind
the desperate combats to which the thousands of spectators were wont to
pay wrapt attention, and it was a much more vivid word than it now is.]
this would be for Rome and Carthage to contend upon!" It did not
require the wisdom of an oracle to suggest that such a contest would
come at some time, for the rich island lay just between the two cities,
apparently ready to be grasped by the more enterprising or the
stronger. As Carthage saw the gradual extension of Roman authority over
Southern Italy, she realized that erelong the strong arm would reach
out too far in the direction of the African continent. She was,
accordingly, on her guard, as she needed to be.

At about the time of the beginning of the war with Pyrrhus, a band of
soldiers from Campania, which had been brought to Sicily, took
possession of the town of Messana, a place on the eastern end of the
island not far from the celebrated rocks Scylla and Charybdis, opposite
Rhegium. Calling themselves Mamertines, after Mars, one form of whose
name was Mamers, these interlopers began to extend their power over the
island. In their contests with Hiero, King of Syracuse, they found
themselves in need of help. In the emergency there was a fatal division
of counsel, one party wishing to call upon Rome and the other thinking
best to ask Carthage, which already held the whole of the western half
of the island and the northern coast, and had for centuries been aiming
at complete possession of the remainder. Owing to this want of united
purpose it came about that both cities were appealed to, and it very
naturally happened that the fortress of the Mamertines was occupied by
a garrison from Carthage before Rome was able to send its army.

The Roman senate had hesitated to send help to the Mamertines because
they were people whom they had driven out of Rhegium, as robbers, six
years before, with the aid of the same Hiero, of Syracuse, who was now
besieging them. However, the people of Rome, not troubled with the
honest scruples of the senate, were, under the direction of the
consuls, inflamed by the hope of conquest and of the riches that they
expected would follow success, and a war which lasted twenty-three
years was the result of their reckless greed (B.C. 264).

The result was really decided during the first two years, for the
Romans persuaded the Mamertines to expel the Carthaginians from
Messana, and then, though besieged by them and by Hiero, drove them
both off, and in the year 263 took many Sicilian towns and even
advanced to Syracuse. Then Hiero concluded a peace with Rome to which
he was faithful to the time of his death, fifty years afterward. The
Sicilian city next to Syracuse in importance was Agrigentum, and this
the Romans took the next year, thus turning the tables and making
themselves instead of the Carthaginians masters of most of the
important island, with the exception of Panormus and Mount Eryx, near
Drepanum (B.C. 262).

The Carthaginians, being a commercial people, were well supplied with
large ships, and the Romans now saw that they, too, must have a navy.
Possessing no models on which to build ships of war larger than those
with three banks of oars, [Footnote: The ancient war vessels were moved
by both sails and oars; but the oars were the great dependence in a
fight. At first there was but one bank of oars; but soon there were two
rows of oarsmen, seated one above the other, the uppermost having long
oars. After awhile three banks were arranged, then four, now five, and
later more, the uppermost oars being of immense length, and requiring
several men to operate each. We do not now know exactly how so many
ranges of rowers were accommodated, nor how such unwieldly oars were
managed. The Athenians tried various kinds of ships, but concluded that
light and active vessels were better than awkward quinquiremes.] they
took advantage of the fact that a Carthaginian vessel of five banks (a
_quinquireme_) was wrecked on their shores, and in the remarkably
short space of time of less than two months built and launched one
hundred and thirty vessels of that size! They were clumsy, however, and
the crews that manned them were poorly trained, but, nevertheless, the
bold Romans ventured, under command of Caius Duilius, to attack the
enemy off the Sicilian town of Mylæ, and the Carthaginians were
overwhelmed, what remained of their fleet being forced to seek safety
in flight. The naval prestige of Carthage was destroyed. There was a
grand celebration of the victory at Rome, and a column adorned with the
ornamental prows of ships was set up in the forum.

[Illustration: A ROMAN WAR VESSEL.]

For a few years the war was pursued with but little effect; but in the
ninth year, when the favorite Marcus Atilius Regulus was consul, it was
determined to carry it on with more vigor, to invade Africa with an
overwhelming force, and, if possible, close the struggle. Regulus
sailed from Economus, not far from Agrigentum, with three hundred and
thirty vessels and one hundred thousand men, but his progress was soon
interrupted by the Carthaginian fleet, commanded by Hamilcar. After one
of the greatest sea-fights of all time, in which the Carthaginians lost
nearly a hundred ships and many men, the Romans gained the victory, and
found nothing to hinder their progress to the African shore. The enemy
hastened with the remainder of their fleet to protect Carthage, and the
conflict was transferred to Africa. Regulus prosecuted the war with
vigor, and, owing to the incompetence of the generals opposed to him,
was successful to an extraordinary degree. Both he and the senate
became intoxicated to such an extent, that when the Carthaginians made
overtures for peace, only intolerable terms were offered them. This
resulted in prolonging the war, for the Carthaginians called to their
aid Xanthippus, a Spartan general, who showed them the weakness of
their officers, and, finally, when his army had been well drilled,
offered battle to Regulus on level ground, where the dreaded African
elephants were of service, instead of among the mountains. The Roman
army was almost annihilated, and Regulus himself was taken prisoner
(B.C. 255).

The Romans saw that to retain a footing in Africa they must first have
control of the sea. Though the fleet that brought back the remains of
the army of Regulus was destroyed, another of two hundred and twenty
ships was made ready in three months, only, however, to meet a similar
fate off Cape Palinurus on the coast of Lucania. The Romans, at
Panormus (now Palermo), were, in the year 250, attacked by the
Carthaginians, over whom they gained a victory which decided the
struggle, though it was continued nine years longer, owing to the rich
resources of the Carthaginians. After this defeat an embassy was sent
to Rome to ask terms of peace. Regulus, who had then been five years a
captive, accompanied it, and, it is said, urged the senate not to make
terms. He then returned to Carthage and suffered a terrible death. The
character given him in the old histories and his horrible fate made
Regulus the favorite of orators for ages.

The Romans now determined to push the war vigorously, and began the
siege of Lilybæum (now Marsala), which was the only place besides
Drepanum, fifteen miles distant, yet remaining to the enemy on the
island of Sicily (B.C. 250). It was not until the end of the war that
the Carthaginians could be forced from these two strongholds. Six years
before that time (B.C. 247), there came to the head of Carthaginian
affairs a man of real greatness, Hamilcar Barca, whose last name is
said to mean lightning; but even he was not strong enough to overcome
the difficulties caused by the faults of others, and in 241 he
counselled peace, which was accordingly concluded, though Carthage was
obliged to pay an enormous indemnity, and to give up her claim to
Sicily, which became a part of the Roman dominion (the first "province"
so-called), governed by an officer annually sent from Rome. Hamilcar
had at first established himself on Mount Ercte, overhanging Panormus,
whence he made constant descents upon the enemy, ravaging the coast as
far as Mount Ætna. Suddenly he quitted this place and occupied Mount
Eryx, another height, overlooking Drepanum, where he supported himself
two years longer, and the Romans despaired of dislodging him.

In their extremity, they twice resorted to the navy, and at last, with
a fleet of two hundred ships, defeated the Carthaginians off the Ægusæ
Islands, to the west of Sicily, and as the resources of Hamilcar were
then cut off, it was only a question of time when the armies at Eryx,
Drepanum, and Lilybæum would be reduced by famine. It was in view of
this fact that the settlement was effected.

A period of peace followed this long war, during which at one time, in
the year 235, the gates of the temple of Janus, which were always open
during war and had not been shut since the days of Numa, were closed,
but it was only for a short space. After this war, the Carthaginians
became involved with their own troops, who arose in mutiny because they
could not get their pay, and Rome took advantage of this to rob them of
the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, and at the same time to demand a
large addition to the indemnity fund that had been agreed upon at the
peace (B.C. 227). Such arbitrary treatment of a conquered foe could not
fail to beget and keep alive the deepest feelings of resentment, of
which, in after years, Rome reaped the bitter fruits.

The Adriatic Sea was at that time infested with pirates from Illyria,
the country north of Epirus, just over the sea to the east of Italy,
and as Roman towns suffered from their inroads, an embassy was sent to
make complaint. One of these peaceful messengers was murdered by
direction of the queen of the country, Teuta, by name, and of course
war was declared, which ended in the overthrow of the treacherous
queen. Her successor, however, when he thought that the Romans were too
much occupied with other matters to oppose him successfully, renewed
the piratical incursions (B.C. 219), and in spite of the other wars
this brought out a sufficient force from Rome. The Illyrian sovereign
was forced to fly, and all his domain came under the Roman power.

Meantime the Romans had begun to think of the extensive tracts to the
north acquired from the Gauls, and in 232 B.C., a law was passed
dividing them among the poorer people and the veterans, in the
expectation of attracting inhabitants to that part of Italy. The
barbarians were alarmed by the prospect of the approach of Roman
civilization, and in 225, united to make a new attack upon their old
enemies. When it was rumored at Rome that the Gauls were preparing to
make a stand and probably intended to invade the territory of their
southern neighbors, the terrible days of the Allia were vividly brought
to mind and the greatest consternation reigned. The Sibylline or other
sacred books were carefully searched for counsel in the emergency, and
in obedience to instructions therein found, two Gauls and two Greeks (a
man and a woman of each nation) were buried alive in the Forum Boarium,
[Footnote: The Forum Boarium, though one of the largest and most
celebrated public places in the city, was not a regular market
surrounded with walls, but an irregular space bounded by the Tiber on
the west, and the Palatine Hill and the Circus Maximus on the east. The
Cloaca Maxima ran beneath it, and it was rich in temples and monuments.
On it the first gladiatorial exhibition occurred, B.C. 264, and there
too, other burials of living persons had been made, in spite of the
long-ago abolishment of such rites by Numa.] and the public excitement
somewhat allayed in that horrible way. A large army was immediately
raised, and sent to meet the Gauls at Ariminum on the Adriatic, but
they avoided it by taking a route further to the west. They were met by
a reserve force, however, which suffered a great defeat, probably near
Clusium. Afterwards the main army effected a junction with another body
coming from Pisa, and as the Gauls were attacked on both sides at once,
they were annihilated. This battle occurred near Telamon, in Etruria,
not far from the mouth of the Umbria. The victory was followed up, and
after three years, the whole of the valley of the Po, between the Alps
and the Apennines, was made a permanent addition to Roman territory.
Powerful colonies were planted at Placentia and Cremona to secure it.

[Illustration: HANNIBAL.]

No greater generals come before us in the grand story of Rome than
those who are now to appear. One was born while the first Punic war was
still raging, and the other in the year 235, when the gates of the
temple of Janus were, for the first time in centuries, closed in token
that Rome was at peace with the world. Hannibal, the elder of the two
was son of Hamilcar Barca, and inherited his father's hatred of Rome,
to which, indeed, he had been bound by a solemn oath, willingly sworn
upon the altar at the dictation of his father.

When Livy began his story of the second war between Rome and Carthage,
he said that he was about to relate the most memorable of all wars that
ever were waged; and though we may not express ourselves in such
general terms, it is safe to say that no struggle recorded in the
annals of antiquity, or of the middle age, surpasses it in importance
or in historical interest. The war was to decide whether the conqueror
of the world was to be self-centred Rome; or whether it should be a
nation of traders, commanded by a powerful general who dictated to them
their policy,--a nation not adapted to unite the different peoples in
bonds of sympathy,--one whose success would, in the words of Dr.
Arnold, "have stopped the progress of the world."

Hannibal stands out among the famed generals of history as one of the
very greatest. We must remember that we have no records of his own
countrymen to show how he was estimated among them; but we know that
though he was poorly supported by the powers at home, he was able to
keep together an army of great size, by the force of his own
personality, and to wage a disastrous war against the strongest people
of his age, far from his base of supplies, in the midst of the enemy's
country. It has well been said that the greatest masters of the art of
war, from Scipio to Napoleon, have concurred in homage to his genius.

The other hero, and the successful one, in the great struggle, was
Publius Cornelius Scipio, who was born in that year when the temple of
Janus was closed, of a family that for a series of generations had been
noted in Roman history, and was to continue illustrious for generations
to come.

Another among the many men of note who came into prominence during the
second war with Carthage was Quintus Fabius Maximus, a descendant of
that Rullus who in the Sabine wars brought the names Fabius and Maximus
into prominence. His life is given by Plutarch under the name Fabius,
and he is remembered as the originator of the policy of delay in war,
as our dictionaries tell us, because his plan was to worry his enemy,
rather than risk a pitched battle with him. On this account the Romans
called him _Cunctator_, which meant delayer, or one who is slow
though safe, not rash. He was called also _Ovicula_, or the lamb,
on account of his mild temper, and _Verrucosus_, because he had a
wart on his upper lip (_Verruca_, a wart).

The second Punic war was not so much a struggle between Carthage and
Rome, as a war entered into by Hannibal and carried on by him against
the Roman republic in spite of the opposition of his own people; and
this fact makes the strength of his character appear in the strongest
light. Just at the close of the first war, the Carthaginians had
established in Spain a city which took the name of New Carthage--that
is, New New City,--and had extended their dominion over much of that
country, as well as over most of the territory on the south shore of
the Mediterranean Sea. Hannibal laid siege to the independent city of
Saguntum, on the northeast of New Carthage, and, after several months
of desperate resistance, took it, thus throwing down the gauntlet to
Rome and completing the dominion of Carthage in that region (B.C. 218).
Rome sent ambassadors to Carthage, to ask reparation and the surrender
of Hannibal: but "War!" was the only response, and for seventeen years
a struggle of the most determined sort was carried on by Hannibal and
the Roman armies.

After wintering at New Carthage, Hannibal started for Italy with a
great army. He crossed the Pyrenees, went up the valley of the Rhone,
and then up the valley of the Isère, and most probably crossed the Alps
by the Little St. Bernard pass. It was an enterprise of the greatest
magnitude to take an army of this size through a hostile country, over
high mountains, in an inclement season; but no difficulty daunted this
general. In five months he found himself in the valley of the Duria
(modern Dora Baltea), in Northern Italy, with a force of twenty
thousand foot and six thousand cavalry (the remains of the army of
ninety-four thousand that had left New Carthage), with which he
expected to conquer a country that counted its soldiers by the hundred
thousand. The father of the great Scipio met Hannibal in the plains
west of the Ticinus, and was routed, retreating to the west bank of the
Trebia, where the Romans, with a larger force, were again defeated,
though the December cold caused the invading army great suffering and
killed all the elephants but one. The success of the Carthaginians led
the Gauls to flock to their standard, and Hannibal found himself able
to push forward with increasing vigor.

[Illustration: TERENCE, THE LAST ROMAN COMIC POET.]

Taking the route toward the capital, he met the Romans at Lake
Trasimenus, and totally routed them, killing the commander, Caius
Flaminius, who had come from Arretium to oppose him. The defeat was
accounted for by the Romans by the fact that Flaminius, always careless
about his religious observances, had broken camp at Ariminum, whence he
had come to Arretium, though the signs had been against him, and had
also previously neglected the usual solemnities upon his election as
consul before going to Ariminum. The policy of Hannibal was to make
friends of the allies of Rome, in order to attract them to his support,
and after his successes he carefully tended the wounded and sent the
others away, often with presents. He hoped to undermine Rome by taking
away her allies, and after this great success he did not march to the
capital, though he was distant less than a hundred miles from it,
because he expected to see tokens that his policy was a success.

The dismay that fell upon Rome when it was known that her armies had
twice been routed, can better be imagined than described. The senate
came together, and for two days carefully considered the critical state
of affairs. They decided that it was necessary to appoint a dictator,
and Fabius Maximus was chosen. Hannibal in the meantime continued to
avoid Rome, and to march through the regions on the Adriatic, hoping to
arouse the inhabitants to his support. In vain were his efforts. Even
the Gauls seemed now to have forgotten him, and Carthage itself did not
send him aid. Fabius strove to keep to the high lands, where it was
impossible for Hannibal to attack him, while he harassed him or tried
to shut him up in some defile.

In the spring of the year 216, both parties were prepared for a more
terrible struggle than had yet been seen. The Romans put their forces
under one Varro, a business man, who was considered the champion of
popular liberty. The armies met on the field of Cannæ, on the banks of
the river Aufidus which enters the Adriatic, and there the practical
man was defeated with tremendous slaughter, though he was able himself
to escape toward the mountains to Venusia, and again to return to
Canusium. There he served the state so well that his defeat was almost
forgotten, and he was actually thanked by the senate for his skill in
protecting the remnant of the wasted army.

The people now felt that the end of the republic had come, but still
they would not listen to Hannibal when he sent messengers to ask terms
of peace. They were probably surprised when, instead of marching upon
their capital, the Carthaginian remained in comparative inactivity, in
pursuance of his former policy. He was not entirely disappointed this
time, in expecting that his brilliant victory would lead some of the
surrounding nations to declare in his favor, for finally the rich city
of Capua, which considered itself equal to Rome, opened to him its
gates, and he promised to make it the capital of Italy (B.C. 216). With
Capua went the most of Southern Italy, and Hannibal thought that the
war would soon end after such victories, but he was mistaken.

Two other sources of help gave him hope, but at last failed him. Philip
V., one of the ablest monarchs of Macedon, who had made a treaty with
Hannibal after the battle of Cannæ, tried to create a diversion in his
favor on the other side of the Adriatic, but his schemes were not
energetically pressed, and failed. Again, a new king of Syracuse, who
had followed Hiero, offered direct assistance, but he, too, was
overcome, and his strong and wealthy city taken with terrible carnage,
though the scientific skill of the famous Archimedes long enabled its
ruler to baffle the Roman generals (B.C. 212). The Romans overran the
Spanish peninsula, too, and though they were for a time brought to a
stand, in the year 210 the state of affairs changed. A young man of
promise, who had, however, never been tried in positions of great
trust, was sent out. It was the great Scipio, who has been already
mentioned. He captured New Carthage, made himself master of Spain, and
was ready by the year 207 to take the last step, as he thought it would
be, by carrying the war into Africa, and thus obliging Hannibal to
withdraw from Italy.

At home, the aged Fabius was meantime the trusted leader in public
counsels, and by his careful generalship Campania had been regained.
Capua, too, had been recaptured, though that enterprise had been
undertaken in spite of his cautious advice. Hannibal was thus obliged
to withdraw to Lower Italy, after he had threatened Rome by marching
boldly up to its very gates. The Samnites and Lucanians submitted, and
Tarentum fell into the hands of Fabius, whose active career then
closed. He had opposed the more aggressive measures of Scipio which
were to lead to success, but we can hardly think that the old commander
was led to do this because, seeing that victory was to be the result,
he envied the younger soldier who was to achieve the final laurels,
though Plutarch mentions that sinister motive. The career of Fabius,
which had opened at the battle of Cannæ, and had been successful ever
since, culminated in his triumph after the fall of Tarentum, which
occurred in B.C. 209.

[Illustration: PUBLIUS CORNELIUS SCIPIO AFRICANUS.]

Now the Carthaginian army in Spain, under command of Hasdrubal, made an
effort to go to the help of Hannibal, and, taking the same route by the
Little St. Bernard pass, arrived in Italy (B.C. 208) almost before the
enemy was aware of its intention. Hannibal, on his part, began to march
northward from his southern position, and after gaining some
unimportant victories, arrived at Canusium, where he stopped to wait
for his brother. The Romans, however, managed to intercept the
dispatches of Hasdrubal, and marched against him, in the spring of 207,
after he had wasted much time in unsuccessfully besieging Placentia.
The two armies met on the banks of the river Metaurus. The
Carthaginians were defeated with terrible slaughter, and the Romans
felt that the calamity of Cannæ was avenged. Hasdrubal's head was sent
to his brother, who exclaimed at the sight: "I recognize the doom of
Carthage!"

For four years Hannibal kept his army among the mountains of Southern
Italy, feeling that his effort at conquering Rome had failed. Meantime
Scipio was making arrangements to carry out his favorite project,
though in face of much opposition from Fabius and from the senate,
which followed his lead. The people were, however, with Scipio, and
though he was not able to make such complete preparations as he wished,
by the year 204 he had made ready to set out from Lilybæum for Africa.
At Utica he was joined by his allies, and, in 203, defeated the
Carthaginians and caused them to look anxiously across the sea toward
their absent general for help. Pretending to desire peace, they took
advantage of the time gained by negotiations to send for Hannibal, who
reached Africa before the year closed, after an absence of fifteen
years, and took up his position at Hadrumentum, where he looked over
the field and sadly determined to ask for terms of peace. Scipio was
desirous of the glory of closing the long struggle, and refused to make
terms, thus forcing Hannibal to continue the war. The Romans went about
ravaging the country until, at last, a pitched battle was brought about
at a place near Zama, in which, though Hannibal managed his army with
his usual skill, he was overcome and utterly routed. He now again
advised peace, and accepted less favorable terms than had been before
offered. Henceforth Carthage was to pay an annual war-contribution to
Rome, and was not to enter upon war with any nation in Africa, or
anywhere else, without the consent of her conquerors. Scipio returned
to Rome in the year 201, and enjoyed a magnificent triumph, the name
Africanus being at the same time added to his patronymic. Other honors
were offered him, but the most extraordinary of them he declined to
accept.

Hannibal, though overcome, stands forth as the greatest general. At the
age of forty-five he now found himself defeated in the proud plans of
his youth; but, with manly strength, he refused to be cast down, and
set about work for the improvement of his depressed city. It was not
long before he aroused the opposition which has often come to public
benefactors, and was obliged to flee from Carthage. From that time, he
was a wanderer on the earth. Ever true to his hatred of Rome, however,
he continued to plot for her downfall even in his exile. He went to
Tyre and then to Ephesus, and tried to lead the Syrian monarch
Antiochus to make successful inroads upon his old enemy. Obliged to
flee in turn from Ephesus, he sought an asylum at the court of Prusias,
King of Bithynia. At last, seeing that he was in danger of being
delivered up to the Romans, in despair he took his own life at Libyssa,
in the year 182 or 181. Thus ignominiously ended the career of the man
who stood once at the head of the commanders of the world, and whose
memory is still honored for the magnificence of his ambition in daring
to attack and expecting to conquer the most powerful nation of his
time.




XI.

THE NEW PUSHES THE OLD--WARS AND CONQUESTS.



There were days of tumult in Rome in the year 195, which illustrate the
temper of the times, and show how the city and the people had changed,
and were changing, under the influence of two opposite forces. A vivid
picture of the scenes around the Capitol at the time has been
preserved. Men were hastening to the meeting of the magistrates from
every direction. The streets were crowded, and not with men chiefly,
for something which interested the matrons seemed to be uppermost, and
women were thronging in the same direction, in spite of custom, which
would have kept them at home; in spite even of the commands of many of
their husbands, who were opposed to their frequenting public
assemblies. Not only on one day did the women pour out into all the
avenues leading to the forum, but once and again they thrust themselves
into the presence of the law-makers. Nor were they content to stand or
sit in quiet while their husbands and brothers argued and made eloquent
speeches; they actually solicited the votes of the stronger sex in
behalf of a motion that was evidently very important in their minds.

Of old time, the Romans had thought that women should keep at home, and
that in the transaction of private business even they should be under
the direction of their parents, brothers, or husbands. What had wrought
so great a change that on these days the Roman matrons not only
ventured into the forum, but actually engaged in public business, and
that, as has been said, in many instances, in opposition to those
parents, brothers, and husbands who were in those old times their
natural directors? We shall find the reason by going back to the days
when the cost of the Punic wars bore heavily upon the state. It was
then that a law was passed that no woman should wear any garment of
divers colors, nor own more gold than a half-ounce in weight, nor ride
through the streets of a city in a carriage drawn by horses, nor in any
place nearer than a mile to a town, except for the purpose of engaging
in a public religious solemnity. The spirited matrons of Rome were ever
ready to bear their share of the public burdens, and though some
thought this oppressive, but few murmurs escaped them as they read the
Oppian law, as it was called, when it was passed, for the days were
dark, and the shadow of the defeat at Cannæ was bowing down all hearts,
and their brothers and parents and husbands were trembling, strong men
that they were, at the threatening situation of the state. Now,
however, the condition of affairs had changed. The conquests of the
past few years had brought large wealth into the city, and was it to be
expected that women should not wish to adorn themselves, as of yore,
with gold and garments of richness?

[Illustration: A ROMAN MATRON.]

When now the repeal of the law was to be discussed, the excitement
became so intense that people forgot that Spain was in a state of
insurrection, and that war threatened on every side. Women thronged to
the city from towns and villages, and even dared, as has been said, to
approach the consuls and other magistrates to solicit their votes.
Marcus Porcius Cato, a young man of about forty years, who had been
brought up on a farm, and looked with the greatest respect upon the
virtue of the olden times, before Grecian influences had crept in to
soften and refine the hard Roman character, represented the party of
conservatism. Now, thought he, is an opportunity for me to stand
against the corrupting influence of Magna Græcia. He therefore rose and
made a long speech in opposition to the petition of the matrons. He
thought they had become thus contumacious, he said, because the men had
not individually exercised their rightful authority over their own
wives. "The privileges of men are now spurned, trodden under foot," he
exclaimed, "and we, who have shown that we are unable to stand against
the women separately, are now utterly powerless against them as a body.
Their behavior is outrageous. I was filled with painful emotions of
shame as I just now made my way into the forum through the midst of a
body of women. Will you consent to give the reins to their intractable
nature and their uncontrolled passions? The moment they had arrived at
equality with you, they will have become your superiors. What motive
that common decency will allow is pretended for this female
insurrection? Why, that they may shine in gold and purple; that they
may ride through our city in chariots triumphing over abrogated law;
that there may be no bounds to waste and luxury! So soon as the law
shall cease to limit the expenses of the wife, the husband will be
powerless to set bounds to them." As the uttermost measure of the
abasement to which the women had descended, Cato declared with
indignation that they had solicited votes, and he concluded by saying
that though he called upon the gods to prosper whatever action should
be agreed upon, he thought that on no account should the Oppian law be
set aside.

When Cato had finished, one of the plebeian tribunes, Lucius Valerius,
replied to him sarcastically, saying that in spite of the mild
disposition of the speaker who had just concluded, he had uttered some
severe things against the matrons, though he had not argued very
efficiently against the measure they supported. He referred his hearers
to a book of Cato's, [Footnote: Livy is authority for this statement,
but it has been doubted if Cato's book had been written at the time.]
called _Origines_, or "Antiquities," in which it was made clear
that in the old times women had appeared in public, and with good
effect too. "Who rushed into the forum in the days of Romulus, and
stopped the fight with the Sabines?" he asked. "Who went out and turned
back the army of the great Coriolanus? Who brought their gold and
jewels into the forum when the Gauls demanded a great ransom for the
city? Who went out to the sea-shore during the late war to receive the
Idæan mother (Cybele) when new gods were invited hither to relieve our
distresses? Who poured out their riches to supply a depleted treasury
during that same war, now so fresh in memory? Was it not the Roman
matrons? Masters do not disdain to listen to the prayers of their
slaves, and we are asked, forsooth, to shut our ears to the petitions
of our wives!

"I have shown that women have now done no new thing. I will go on and
prove that they ask no unreasonable thing. It is true that good laws
should not be rashly repealed; but we must not forget that Rome existed
for centuries without this one, and that Roman matrons established
their high character, about which Cato is so solicitous, during that
period, the return of which he now seems to think would be subversive
of every thing good. This law served well in a time of trial; but that
has passed, and we are enjoying the return of plenty. Shall our matrons
be the only ones who may not feel the improvement that has followed a
successful war? Shall our children, and we ourselves, wear purple, and
shall it be interdicted to our wives? Elegances of appearance and
ornaments and dress are the women's badges of distinction; in them they
delight and glory, and our ancestors called them the women's world.
Still, they desire to be under control of those who are bound to them
by the bonds of love, not by stern law, in these matters. The consul
just now used invidious terms, calling this a female 'secession' as
though our matrons were about to seize the Sacred Mount or the
Aventine, as the plebeians did of yore; but their feeble nature is
incapable of such a thing. They must necessarily submit to what you
think proper, and the greater your power the more moderation should you
use in exercising it. "Thus, day after day, the men spoke and the women
poured out to protest, until even stern and inflexible Cato gave way,
and women were declared free from the restrictions of the Oppian law.

[Figure: ROMAN HEAD-DRESSES.]

Cato and Scipio represented the two forces that were at this time
working in society, the one opposing the entrance of the Grecian
influence, and the other encouraging the refinement in manners and
modes of living that came with it, even encouraging ostentation and the
lavish use of money for pleasures. When Scipio was making his
arrangements to go to Africa, he was governor of Sicily, and lived in
luxury. Cato, then but thirty years old, had been sent to Sicily to
investigate his proceedings, and act as a check upon him; but Scipio
seems to have been little influenced by the young reformer, telling him
that he would render accounts of his _actions_, not of the money
he spent. Upon this Cato returned to Rome, and denounced Scipio's
prodigality, his love of Greek literature and art, his magnificence,
and his persistence in wasting in the gymnasium or in the pursuit of
literature time which should have been used in training his troops.
Joining Fabius, he urged that an investigating committee be sent to
look into the matter, but it returned simply astonished at the
efficient condition of the army, and orders were given for prompt
advance upon Carthage.

[Illustration: GLADIATORS AT A FUNERAL.]

The influences coming from Greece at this time were not all the best,
for that land was in its period of decadence, and Cato did well in
trying to protect his countrymen from evil. While literature in Greece
had reached its highest and had become corrupt, there had been none in
Rome during the five centuries of its history. All this time, too,
there had been but one public holiday and a single circus; but during
the interval between the first and second Punic wars a demagogue had
instituted a second circus and a new festival, called the plebeian
games. Other festivals followed, and in time their cost became
exceedingly great, and their influence very bad. Fights of gladiators
were introduced just at the outbreak of the first Punic war, on the
occasion of the funeral of D. Junius Brutus, and were given afterward
on such occasions, because it was believed that the manes, the spirits
of the departed, loved blood. Persons began to leave money for this
purpose in their wills, and by degrees a fondness for the frightful
sport increased, for the Romans had no leaning towards the ideal, and
delighted only in those pursuits which appealed to their coarse,
strong, and, in its way, pious nature. Humor and comedy with them
became burlesque, sometimes repulsive in its grotesqueness. Dramatic
art grew up during this period. We have seen that dramatic exhibitions
were introduced in the year 363, from Etruria, at a time of pestilence,
but they were mere pantomimes. Now plays began to be written.
Trustworthy history begins at the time of the Punic wars, and the
annals of Fabius Pictor commence with the year 216, after the battle of
Cannæ.

Rome itself was changed by the increased wealth of these times. The
streets were made wider; temples were multiplied; and aqueducts were
built to bring water from distant sources; the same Appius who
constructed the great road which now bears his name, having built the
first, which, however, disappeared long ago. Another, forty-three miles
in length, was paid for out of the spoils of the war with Pyrrhus, and
portions of it still remain. With the increase of wealth and luxury
came also improvement in language and in its use, and in the year 254,
studies in law were formally begun in a school established for the
purpose.

[Figure: ACTORS MASKS.]

The Romans had conquered Italy and Carthage, and the next step was to
make them masters of the East. Philip V., King of Macedon, was, as we
have seen, one of the most eminent of monarchs of that country. His
treaty with Hannibal after the battle of Cannæ, involved him in war
with the Romans, which continued, with intermissions, until Scipio was
about to go over into Africa. Then the Romans were glad to make peace,
though no considerable results followed the struggle, and it had indeed
been pursued with little vigor for much of the time. By the year 200,
Philip had been able to establish himself in Greece, and the Romans
were somewhat rested from the war with Carthage. The peace of 205 had
been considered but a cessation of hostilities, and both people were
therefore ready for a new war. There were pretexts enough. Philip had
made an alliance with Antiochus the Great, of Syria, against Ptolemy
Epiphanes, of Egypt, who applied to Rome for assistance; and he had
sent aid to soldiers to help Hannibal, who had fought at the battle of
Zama. Besides this he had attempted to establish his supremacy in the
Ægean Sea at the expense of the people of Rhodes, allies of Rome, who
were assisted by Attalus, King of Pergamus, likewise in league with
Rome.

The senate proposed that war should be declared against Philip, but the
people longed for rest after their previous struggles, and were only
persuaded to consent by being told that if Philip, then at the pitch of
his greatness, were not checked, he would follow the example of
Hannibal, as he had been urged to follow that of Pyrrhus. No great
progress was made in the war until the command of the Roman army in
Greece was taken by a young man of high family and noble nature, well
acquainted with Greek culture, in the year 197. Flamininus, for this
was the name of the new commander, met the army of Philip that year on
a certain morning when, after a rain, thick clouds darkened the plain
on which they were. The armies were separated by low hills known as the
Dog-heads (Cynocephalæ), and when at last the sun burst out it showed
the Romans and Macedonians struggling on the uneven ground with varying
success. The Macedonians were finally defeated, with the loss of eight
thousand slain and five thousand prisoners. In 196 peace was obtained
by Philip, who agreed to withdraw from Greece, to give up his fleet,
and to pay a thousand talents for the expenses of the war.

At the Isthmian games, the following summer, Flamininus caused a
trumpet to command silence, and a crier to proclaim that the Roman
senate and he, the proconsular general, having vanquished Philip,
restored to the Grecians their lands, laws, and liberties, remitting
all impositions upon them and withdrawing all garrisons. So astonished
were the people at the good news that they could scarcely believe it,
and asked that it might be repeated. This the crier did, and a shout
rose from the people (who all stood up) that was heard from Corinth to
the sea, and there was no further thought of the entertainment that
usually engrossed so much attention. Plutarch says gravely that the
disruption of the air was so great that crows accidentally flying over
the racecourse at the moment fell down dead into it! Night only caused
the people to leave the circus, and then they went home to carouse
together. So grateful were they that they freed the Romans who had been
captured by Hannibal and had been sold to them, and when Flamininus
returned to Rome with a reputation second only, in the popular esteem,
to Scipio Africanus, these freed slaves followed in the procession on
the occasion of his triumph, which was one of the most magnificent, and
lasted three days.

Scarcely had Flamininus left Greece before the Ætolians, who claimed
that the victory at Cynocephalæ was chiefly due to their prowess, made
a combination against the Romans, and engaged Antiochus to take their
part. This monarch had occupied Asia Minor previously, and would have
passed into Greece but for Flamininus. This was while Hannibal was at
the court of Antiochus. The Romans declared war, and sent an army into
Thessaly, which overcame the Syrians at the celebrated pass of
Thermopylæ, on the spot where Leonidas and his brave three hundred had
been slaughtered by the Persians two hundred and eighty-nine years
before (B.C. 191). Lucius Cornelius Scipio, brother of Africanus,
closed the war by defeating Antiochus at Magnesia, in Asia Minor, at
the foot of Mount Sipylus (B.C. 190). The Syrian monarch is said to
have lost fifty-three thousand men, while but four hundred of the
Romans fell. Antiochus resigned to the Romans all of Asia west of the
Taurus mountains, agreed to pay them fifteen thousand talents, and to
surrender Hannibal. The great Carthaginian, however, escaped to the
court of Prusias, King of Bithynia, where, as we have already seen, he
took his own life. Scipio carried immense booty to Rome, where he
celebrated a splendid triumph, and, in imitation of his brother
Africanus, added the name Asiaticus to his others.

The succeeding year, the Ætolians were severely punished, their land
was ravaged, and they were required to accept peace upon humiliating
terms. Never again were they to make war without the consent of Rome,
whose supremacy they acknowledged, and to which they paid an indemnity
of five hundred talents. At this time the most famous hero of later
Grecian history comes before us indirectly, just as the greatness of
his country was sinking from sight forever. Philopoemen, who was born
at Megalopolis in Arcadia (not far from the spot from which old Evander
started for Italy), during the first Punic war, just before Hamilcar
appeared upon the scene, raised himself to fame, first by improving the
armor and drill of the Achæan soldiers, when he became chief of the
ancient league, and then by his prowess at the battle of Mantinea, in
the year 207, when Sparta was defeated. He revived the ancient league,
which had been dormant during the Macedonian supremacy; but in 188, he
took fierce revenge upon Sparta, for which he was called to account by
the Romans; and five years later, in 183, he fell into the hands of the
Messenians, who had broken from the league, and was put to death by
poison. It was in the same year that both Hannibal and Scipio, the two
other great soldiers of the day died. [Footnote: See the Student's
Merivale, ch. xxv., for remarks about these three warriors.]

Philip V. of Macedon followed these warriors to the grave five years
later, after having begun to prepare to renew the war with Rome. His
son Perseus continued these preparations, but war did not actually
break out until 171, and then it was continued for three years without
decisive result. In 168 the Romans met the army of Perseus at Pydna, in
Macedonia, north of Mount Olympus, on the 22d June, [Footnote: This
date is proved by an eclipse of the sun which occurred at the time. It
had been foretold by a scientific Roman so that the army should not see
in it a bad omen.] and utterly defeated it. Perseus was afterward taken
prisoner and died at Alba. From the battle of Pydna the great historian
Polybius, who was a native of Megalopolis, dates the complete
establishment of the universal empire of Rome, since after that no
civilized state ever confronted her on an equal footing, and all the
struggles in which she engaged were rebellions or wars with
"barbarians" outside of the influence of Greek or Roman civilization,
and since all the world recognized the senate as the tribunal of last
resort in differences between nations; the acquisition of Roman
language and manners being henceforth among the necessary
accomplishments of princes. Rome had never before seen so grand a
triumph as that celebrated by Æmilius Paulus, the conqueror of
Macedonia, after his return. Plutarch gives an elaborate account of it.

In pursuance of its policy of conquest a thousand of the noblest
citizens of Achæa were sent to Italy to meet charges preferred against
them. Among them was the historian Polybius, who became well acquainted
with Scipio Æmilianus, son by adoption of a son of the conqueror of
Hannibal. For seventeen years these exiles were detained, their numbers
constantly decreasing, until at last even the severe Cato was led to
intercede for them and they were returned to their homes. Exasperated
by their treatment they were ready for any desperate enterprise against
their conquerors, but Polybius endeavored to restrain them. The
historian went to Carthage, however, and while he was away disputes
were stirred up which gave Rome an excuse for interfering. Corinth was
taken with circumstances of barbarous cruelty, and plundered of its
priceless works of art, the rough and ignorant Roman commander sending
them to Italy, after making the contractors agree to replace any that
might be lost with others of equal value! With Corinth fell the
liberties of Greece; a Roman province took the place of the state that
for six centuries had been the home of art and eloquence, the
intellectual sovereign of antiquity; but though overcome and despoiled
she became the guide and teacher of her conqueror.

When Carthage had regained some of its lost riches and population, Rome
again became jealous of her former rival, and Cato gave voice to the
feeling that she ought to be destroyed. One day in the senate he drew
from his toga a bunch of early figs, and, throwing them on the floor,
exclaimed: "Those figs were gathered but three days ago in Carthage; so
close is our enemy to our walls!" After that, whenever he expressed
himself on this subject, or any other, in the senate, he closed with
the words "_Delenda est Carthago_,"--"Carthage ought to be destroyed!"
Internal struggles gave Rome at last an opportunity to interfere, and
in 149 a third Punic war was begun, which closed in 146 with the utter
destruction of Carthage. The city was taken by assault, the inhabitants
fighting with desperation from street to street. Scipio Æmilianus, who
commanded in this war, was now called also Africanus, like his ancestor
by adoption.

For years the tranquillity of Spain, which lasted from 179 to 153, had
been disturbed by wars, and it was not until Scipio was sent thither
that peace was restored. That warrior first put his forces into an
effective condition, and then laid siege to the city of Numantia,
situated on an elevation and well fortified. The citizens defended
themselves with the greatest bravery, and showed wonderful endurance,
but were at last obliged to surrender, and the town was levelled to the
ground, most of the inhabitants being sold as slaves.

The great increase in slaves, and the devastation caused by long and
exhaustive wars, had brought about in Sicily a servile insurrection,
before the Numantians had been conquered. It is said that the number of
those combined against their Roman masters reached the sum of two
hundred thousand. In 132, the strongholds of the insurgents were
captured by a consular army, and peace restored. The barbarism of Roman
slavery had nowhere reached such extremes as in Sicily. Freedmen who
had cultivated the fields were there replaced by slaves, who were ill-
fed and poorly cared for. Some worked in chains, and all were treated
with indescribable brutality. They finally became bandits in despair,
and efforts at repression of their disorders led to the open and
fearful war. The same year that this war ended, the last king of
Pergamos died, leaving his kingdom and treasures to the Roman people,
as he had no children, and Pergamos became the "province" of Asia.
Besides this, Rome had the provinces of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica,
Spain, Gallia Cisalpina, Macedonia, Illyricum, Southern Greece (Achæa),
and Africa, to which was soon to be added the southern portion of Gaul
over the Alps, between those mountains and the Pyrenees called
_Provincia Gallia_ (Provence).




XII.

A FUTILE EFFORT AT REFORM.



One day when the conqueror of Carthage, Scipio Africanus, was feasting
with other senators at the Capitol, the veteran patrician was asked by
the friends about him to give his daughter Cornelia to a young man of
the plebeian family of Sempronia, Tiberius Gracchus by name. This young
man was then about twenty-five years old; he had travelled and fought
in different parts of the world, and had obtained a high reputation for
manliness. Just at this time he had put Africanus under obligations to
him by defending him from attacks in public life, and the old commander
readily agreed to the request of his friends. When he returned to his
home and told his wife that he had given away their daughter, she
upbraided him for his rashness; but when she heard the name of the
fortunate man, she said that Gracchus was the only person worthy of the
gift. The mother's opinion proved to be correct. The young people lived
together in happiness, and Cornelia became the mother of three
children, who carried down the good traits of their parents. One of
these was a daughter named, like her mother, Cornelia, who became the
wife of Scipio Africanus the younger, and the others were her two
brothers. Tiberius and Caius, who are known as _the_ Gracchi. Tiberius
Gracchus lived to be over fifty years old, and won still greater
laurels in war and peace at home and in foreign lands. Cicero says that
he did a great service to the state by gathering together on the
Esquiline the freedmen who had spread themselves throughout the
tribes, and restricting their franchise (B.C. 169). Thus, Cicero
thought, he succeeded for a time in checking the ruin of the republic.
[Footnote: The freedmen had been confined to the four city tribes in
220 B.C.]

There was sad need of some movement to correct abuses that had grown up
in Rome, and the men destined to stand forth as reformers were the two
Gracchi, sons of Cornelia and Tiberius. Their father did not live to
complete their education, but their mother, though courted by great
men, and by at least one king, refused to marry again, and gave up her
time to educating her sons, whom she proudly called her "jewels" when
the Roman matrons, relieved from the restrictions of the Oppian law,
boastfully showed her the rich ornaments of gold and precious stones
that they adorned themselves with. The brothers had eminent Greeks to
give them instruction, and grew up wise, able and eloquent, though each
exhibited his wisdom and ability in a different way.

Tiberius, who was nine years older than his brother, came first into
public life. He went to Africa with his brother-in-law, when the
younger Africanus completed the destruction of Carthage, and afterward
he took part in the wars in Spain. It is said that, as he went through
Etruria on his way to Spain, he noticed that the fields were cultivated
by foreign slaves, working in clanking chains, instead of by freemen;
and that because the rich had taken possession of great ranges of
territory, the poor Romans had not even a clod to call their own,
though they had fought the battles by which the land had been made
secure. The sight of so much distress in a fertile country lying waste
affected Tiberius very deeply, and when he returned to Rome, he
bethought himself that it was in opposition to law that the rich
controlled such vast estates. He remembered that the Licinian Rogation,
which became a law more than two hundred years before this time,
forbade any man having such large tracts in his possession, and thought
that so beneficent a law should continue to be respected. He told the
people of Rome that the wild beasts had their dens and caves, while the
men who had fought and exposed their lives for Italy enjoyed in it
nothing more than light and air, and were obliged to wander about with
their wives and little ones, their commanders mocking them by calling
upon them to fight "for their tombs and the temples of their gods,"--
things that they never possessed nor could hope to have any interest
in. "Not one among many, many Romans," said he, "has a family altar or
an ancestral tomb. They have fought to maintain the luxury of the
great, and they are called in bitter irony the 'masters of the world'
while they do not possess a clod of earth that they may call their
own!"

It was a noble patriotism that filled the heart of Tiberius, but it was
not easy to carry out a reform like the one he contemplated. It may not
have appeared difficult to re-enact the old law, but we must remember
that, during two centuries of its neglect, generations of men had
peaceably possessed the great estates, of which its enforcement would
deprive them all at once. Was it to be supposed that they would quietly
permit this to be done? Was it just to deprive men of possessions that
they had received from their parents and grandparents without protest
on the part of the nation? Cornelia urged Tiberius to do some great
work for the state, telling him that she was called the "daughter of
Scipio," while she wished to be known as the "mother of the Gracchi."
The war in Sicily emphasized the troubles that Tiberius wished to put
an end to, and in the midst of it he was elected one of the tribunes,
the people hoping something from him, and putting up placards all over
the city calling upon him to take their part.

The people seemed to feel sure that Gracchus was intending to do
something for them, and they eagerly came together and voted for him,
and when he was elected, they crowded into the city from all the
regions about to vote in favor of the re-establishment of the Licinian
laws, with some alterations. They were successful; much to the disgust
of the aristocrats, [Footnote: Aristocrat is a word of Greek origin,
and means one of a governing body composed of the best men
(_aristos_, best) in the state. The aristocrats came to be called
also _optimatos_, from _optimus_, the corresponding Latin word for
best.] who hated Gracchus, and thenceforth plotted to overthrow him and
his power. For a while, the lands that had been wrongfully occupied by
the rich were taken by a commission and returned to the government.

When Attalus, the erratic king of Pergamus, left his estates to Rome,
Gracchus had an opportunity to perform an act of justice, by refunding
to the rich the outlays they had made on the lands of which they had
been deprived. This would have been politic as well as just, but
Gracchus did not see his opportunity. He proposed, on the other hand,
to divide the new wealth among the plebeians, to enable them to buy
implements and cattle for the estates they had acquired.

It was easy at that excited time to make false accusations against
public men, and to cause the populace to act upon them, and,
accordingly, the aristocrats now stirred up the people to believe that
Gracchus was aspiring to the power of king, which, they were reminded,
had been forever abolished ages before. No opportunity was given him to
explain his intentions. A great mob was raised and a street fight
precipitated, in the midst of which three hundred persons were killed
with sticks and stones and pieces of benches. Among them was Gracchus
himself, who thus died a martyr to his patriotic plans for the Roman
republic. [Footnote: The course of Gracchus was not understood at the
time by all good citizens; and even for ages after he was considered a
designing demagogue. It was not until the great Niebuhr, to whom we owe
so much in Roman history, explained fully the nature of the agrarian
laws which Gracchus passed, that the world accepted him for the hero
and honest patriot that he was.]

Caius Gracchus was in Spain at the time of his brother's murder, and
Scipio, his brother-in-law, was there also. So little did Scipio
understand Tiberius, that when he heard of his death he quoted the
words of Minerva to Mercury, which he remembered to have read in his
Homer, "So perish he who doth the same again!" The next year brother
and brother-in-law returned from Spain, but Caius did not seem to care
to enter political life, and as he lived in quiet for some years, it
was thought that he disapproved his brother's laws. Little did the
public dream of what was to come.

Meantime Scipio became the acknowledged leader of the optimates, and in
order to keep the obnoxious law from being enforced, proposed to take
it out of the hands of the commission and give it to the senate. His
proposition was vigorously opposed in the forum, and when he retired to
his home to prepare a speech to be delivered on the subject, a number
of friends thought it necessary to accompany him as protectors. The
next morning the city was startled by the news that he was dead. His
speech was never even composed. No effort was made to discover his
murderer, though one Caius Papirius Carbo, a tribune, leader of the
opposing party, was generally thought to have been the guilty one.

The eloquence of young Gracchus proved greater than that of any other
citizen, and by it he ingratiated himself with the people to such an
extent, that in the year 123 B.C. they elected him one of their
tribunes. Though the aristocrats managed to have his name placed fourth
on the list, his force and eloquence made him really first in all
public labors, and he proceeded to use his influence to further his
brother's favorite projects. He was impetuous in his oratory. As he
spoke, he walked from side to side of the rostra, and pulled his toga
from his shoulder as he became warm in his delivery. His powerful voice
filled the forum, and stirred the hearts of his hearers, who felt that
his persuasive words came from an honest heart.

[Illustration: A ROMAN MILE-STONE.]

The optimates were of course offended by the acts of the new tribune,
who abridged the power of the senate, and in all ways showed an
intention of working for the people. He was exceedingly active in works
of public benefit, building roads and bridges, erecting mile-stones
along the principal routes, extending to the Italians the right to
vote, and alleviating the distressing poverty of the lower orders by
directing that grain should be sold to them at low rates. The laws
under which he accomplished these beneficent changes are known, from
the family to which the Gracchi belonged, as the Sempronian Laws. In
carrying out the necessary legislation and in executing the laws, Caius
labored himself with great assiduity, and his activity afforded his
enemies the opportunity to say falsely that he made some private gain
from them.

The optimates soon saw that the labors of Gracchus had drawn the people
close to him, and they determined to weaken his influence by indirect
means, rather than venture to make any immediate display of opposition.
They according adopted the sagacious policy of making it appear that
they wished to do more for the people than their own champion proposed.
They allowed a rich and eloquent demagogue, Marcus Livius Drusus, to
act for them, and he deceived the people by proposing measures that
appeared more democratic than those of Gracchus, whose power over the
people was thus somewhat undermined. The next step was then taken. In
the midst of an election a tumult was excited, and Gracchus was obliged
to flee, over the wooden bridge, to the Grove of the Furies. Death was
his only deliverance. The optimates tried to make it out that he had
been an infamous man, but the common people afterward loved both the
brothers and esteemed them as great benefactors who had died for them,

The fall of the Gracchi left the people without a leader, and the
optimates easily kept possession of the government, though they did not
yet feel disposed to proceed at once to carry out their own wishes
fully, for fear that they might sting the _populares_ beyond
endurance. They stopped the assignments of lands, however, allowing
those who had occupied large tracts to keep them, and thus the
desolation and retrogression which had so deeply moved Gracchus
continued and increased even more rapidly than it had in his time. The
state fell into a condition of corruption in every department, and
office was looked upon simply as a means of acquiring wealth, not as
something to be held as a trust for the good of the governed. The
nation suffered also from servile insurrections; the seas were overrun
with pirates; the rich plunged into vice; the poor were pushed down to
deeper depths of poverty; judicial decisions were sold for money; the
inhabitants of the provinces were looked upon by the nobles as fit
subjects for plunder, and the governors obtained their positions by
purchase; everywhere ruin stared the commonwealth in the face, though
there seems to have been no one with perceptions clear enough to
perceive the trend of affairs.

In this degenerate time there arose two men of the most diverse traits
and descent, whose lives, running parallel for many years, furnish at
once instructive studies and involve graphic pictures of public
affairs. The elder of them was with Scipio when Numantia fell into his
hands, and with Jugurtha, a Numidian prince, won distinction by his
valor on that occasion. Caius Marius was the name of this man, and he
belonged to the commons. He was twenty-three years of age, and had
risen from the low condition of a peasant to one of prominence in
public affairs. Fifteen years after the fall of Numantia we find him a
tribune of the people, standing for purity in the elections, against
the opposition of the optimates. Rough, haughty, and undaunted, he
carried his measures and waited for the gathering storm to furnish him
more enlarged opportunities for the exercise of his strength and
ambition.

The opponent and final conqueror of this commoner was but four years of
age when Numantia fell, and came into public life later than Marius.
Lucius Cornelius Sulla was an optimate of illustrious ancestry and
hereditary wealth, a student of the literature and art of Greece and
his native land, and he united in his person all the vices as well as
accomplishments that Cato had been accustomed to denounce with the
utmost vigor.

Marius and Sulla, the plebeian and the optimate, the man without
education of the schools, and the master of classic culture, were
brought together in Africa in the year 107. Numidia had long been an
ally of Rome, but upon the death of one of its kings, Jugurtha, who had
gained confidence in himself during the Numantian campaign, attempted
to gain control of the government. Rome interfered, but so accessible
were public men to bribes, that Jugurtha obtained from the senate a
decree dividing the country between him and the rightful claimant of
the throne. Not contented with this, he attempted to conquer his rival
and obtain the undivided sway. This action aroused the Roman people,
who were less corrupt than their senate, and they forced their rulers
to interfere. War was declared, but the first commander was corrupted
by African gold, and the struggle was intermitted. Jugurtha was called
to Rome, with promise of safety, to testify against the officer who had
been bribed, and remained there awhile, until he grew bold enough to
assassinate one of his enemies, when he was ordered to leave Italy. As
he left, he is said to have exclaimed [Footnote: "_Urbem venalem, et
mature perituram, si emptorem invenerit_"--Sallust's "Jugurtha,"
chapter 35.]: "A city for sale, ready to fall into the hands of the
first bidder!" These memorable words, whether really uttered by the
Numidian or not, well characterize the state of affairs at this corrupt
period.

[Illustration: IN A ROMAN STUDY.]

One general and another were sent to oppose Jugurtha, but he proved too
much for them, either corrupting them by bribes or overcoming them by
skill of arms. The spirit of the Roman people was at last fully
aroused, and an investigation was made, which resulted in convicting
some of the optimates, one of them being Opimius, the consul, who had
been cruelly opposed to Caius Gracchus. A general of integrity was
chosen to go to Africa. He was Cæcilius Metellus, member of a family
which had come into prominence during the first Punic war. Marius was
with him, and when Jugurtha saw that men of this high character were
opposed to him, he began to despair. While the struggle progressed,
Marius remembered that a witch whom he had had with him in a former war
had prophesied that the gods would help him in advancing himself, and
resolved to go to Rome to try to gain the consulship. Metellus at first
opposed this scheme, but was finally persuaded to allow Marius to
leave. Though but few days elapsed before the election, after Marius
announced himself as a candidate, he was chosen consul, and then he
began to exult over the optimates who had so long striven to keep him
down. He vaunted his lowly birth, declared that his election was a
victory over the pusillanimity and license of the rich, and boldly
compared his warlike prowess with the effeminacy of the nobility, whom
he determined to persecute as vigorously as they had pursued him.

[Illustration: THE ROMAN CAMP]

Marius brought the Numidian War to a close by obtaining possession of
Jugurtha in the year 106, but as his subordinate, Sulla, was the
instrument in actually taking the king, the enemies of Marius claimed
for the young aristocrat the credit of the capture, and Sulla irritated
his senior still more by constantly wearing a ring on which he had
caused to be engraved a representation of the surrender. Marius did not
immediately return to Rome, but remained to complete the subjugation of
Numidia, Sulla the meantime making every effort to ingratiate himself
with the soldiers, sharing every labor, and sitting with them about the
camp-fires as they softened the asperities of a hard life by telling
tales of past experience, and making prophesies of the future.

Sulla was not a prepossessing person. His blue eyes were keen and
glaring; but they were rendered forbidding and even terrible at times
by the bad complexion of his face, which was covered with red blotches
that told the story of his debaucheries. "Sulla is a mulberry sprinkled
over with meal," is the expression that a Greek jester is said to have
used in describing his frightful face.

It was the first of January, 104, when Marius entered Rome in triumph,
accompanied by evidences of his victories, the greatest of which was
the pitiful Numidian king himself, who followed in the grand
procession, and was afterwards ruthlessly dropped into the horrible
Tulliarium, or Mamertine prison, to perish by starvation in the watery
chill. He is said to have exclaimed as he touched the water at the
bottom of the prison, "Hercules! how cold are thy baths!"

During the absence of Marius in Africa, there had come over Rome the
shadow of a greater peril than had been known since the days when
Hannibal's advance had made the strongest hearts quail. The tumultuous
multitudes who inhabited the unexplored regions of Central Europe, the
Celts and Germans, [Footnote: The Cimbri, who formed a portion of this
invading body, had their original home in the modern peninsula of
Jutland, whence came also early invaders of Britain, and they were
probably a Celtic people.] had gathered a mass comprising, it is said,
more than three hundred thousand men capable of fighting, besides hosts
of women and children, and were marching with irresistible force
towards the Roman domains. Nine years before (B.C. 113), these
barbarians had defeated a Roman army in Noricum, north of Illyricum,
and after that they had roamed at will through Switzerland, adding to
their numbers, and ravaging every region, until at last they had poured
over into the plains of Gaul. Year after year passed, and army after
army of the Romans was cut to pieces by these terrible barbarians.

As Marius entered the city he was looked upon as the only one who could
stem the impetuous human torrent that threatened to overwhelm the
republic, for, in the face of the supreme danger, as is usual in such
cases, every party jealousy was forgotten. The proud commoner accepted
the command with alacrity, setting out for distant Gaul immediately,
and taking Sulla as one of his subordinates. After two years of
inconsequent strategy, he overcame the barbarians at a spot twelve
miles distant from _Aquæ Sextiæ_ (the Springs of Sextius, the modern
Aix, in Provence), (B.C. 102). He collected the richest of the spoil to
grace a triumph that he expected to celebrate, and was about to offer
the remainder to the gods, when, just as he stood amid the encircling
troops in a purple robe, ready to touch the torch to the pile, horsemen
dashed into the space, announcing that the Romans had for the fifth
time elected him consul! The village of Pourrières (_Campi Putridi_)
now marks the spot, and the rustics of the vicinity still celebrate a
yearly festival, at which they burn a vast heap of brushwood on the
summit of one of their hills, as they shout _Victoire! victoire!_ in
memory of Marius.

During this period Sulla gained renown by his valorous deeds, but the
jealousy that had begun in Africa increased, and in 103 or 102, he left
Marius and joined himself to his colleague Lutatius Catulus, who was
endeavoring to stem another torrent of barbarians, this time pouring
down toward Rome from the valley of the Po. When Marius reached home
after his victories in Gaul, he was offered a triumph, but refused to
celebrate it until he had marched to the help of Catulus, who, he
found, was then retreating before the invaders in a panic. After the
arrival of Marius the flight was stopped, and the barbarians totally
destroyed at a battle fought near Vercellæ. Though much credit for this
wonderful victory was awarded to both Catulus and Sulla, the whole
honor was at Rome given to Marius, who celebrated a triumph, was called
the third founder of the city (as Camillus had been the second), and
enjoyed the distinction of having his name joined with those of the
gods when offerings and libations were made. The jealousy of Sulla was
all this time growing from its small beginnings.

While Marius and Sulla were fighting the barbarians there had been a
second insurrection among the slave population of Italy, and it was not
distant Sicily only that was troubled at this time, for though the
uprising spread to that island, many towns of Campania were afflicted,
and at last the contagion had affected thousands of the slaves, who
arose and struck for freedom. The outbreak in Campania was repressed in
103, but it was not until 99 that quiet was restored on the island, and
then it was by the destruction of many thousands of lives. Large
numbers of the captives were taken to Rome to fight in the arena with
wild beasts, but they disappointed their sanguinary masters by killing
each other instead in the amphitheatre. The condition of the slaves
after this was worse than before. They were deprived of all arms, and
even the spear with which the herdsmen were wont to protect themselves
from wild beasts was taken away.

At this time the power of the optimates was rather decreasing, and
signs of promise for the people appeared. In the year 103, a law had
been passed which took from the senate the right to select the chief
pontiffs, and it had been given to the populares. [Footnote: This
important law was passed through the tribune Cneius Domitius
Ahenobarbus, in order to effect his own election as pontiff in the
place of his father, and is known as the Domitian law. The people
elected him afterward out of gratitude. The chief pontiff was an
influential factor in politics, as he pronounced the verdict of the
Sibylline books on public questions, and gave or withheld the divine
approval from public acts, besides appointing the rites and
sacrifices.] An agrarian law was proposed in the following year, a
speaker on the subject asserting that in the entire republic there were
not two thousand landholders, so rapidly had the rich been able to
concentrate in themselves the ownership of the land. The powers of the
senate were still further restricted in the year 100, by a law intended
to punish magistrates who had improperly received money, and to take
from the senators the right to try such offences. [Footnote: The exact
date of this law is uncertain. It was directed against Quintus
Servilius Cæpio, who, when the barbarians were threatening Italy,
commanded in Gaul, and enriched himself by the wealth of Tolosa, which
he took (B.C. 106), thus giving rise to the proverb, "He has gold of
Toulouse"--ill-gotten gains (_aurum Tolosanum habet_). He was also
held responsible for a terrible defeat at Arausio (Orange), where
eighty thousand Romans and forty thousand camp-followers perished,
October 6, B.C. 105. The day became another black one in the Roman
calendar.] At the same time the right of citizenship was offered to all
Italians who should succeed in convicting a magistrate of peculation or
extortion. Thus it seemed as though the reforms aimed at by the Gracchi
might be brought about if only the man for the occasion were to present
himself. Marius presented himself, but we shall find that he mistook
his means, and only cast the nation down into deeper depths of misery.
His star was at its highest when he celebrated his triumph, and it
would have been better for his fame had he died at that time.




XIII.

SOCIAL AND CIVIL WARS.



Marius was brave and strong and able to cope with any in the rush of
war, but he knew little of the arts of peace and the science of
government. Sulla, his enemy, was at Rome, living in quiet, but the
same, fiery, ambition that animated Marius, and the same jealousy of
all who seemed to be growing in popularity, burned in his bosom and
were ready to burst out at any time. The very first attempts of Marius
at government ended in shame, and he retired from the city in the year
99. He had supported two rogations, called the Appuleian laws, from the
demagogue who moved them, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, and they were
carried by violence and treachery. They enacted that the lands acquired
from the barbarians should be divided among both the Italians and the
citizens of Rome, thus affording relief to all Italy; and that corn
should be sold to Romans by the state at a nominal price.

When Marius retired, the authority of the senate was restored, but the
state was in a deplorable condition, for the violence and bloodshed
that had been familiar for the half century since the triumph over
Greece and Carthage, were bearing their legitimate fruits. Not only was
the separation between the rich and poor constantly growing greater,
but the effect of the luxury and license of the wealthy was debauching
the public conscience, and faith was everywhere falling away. Impostors
and foreign priests had full sway.

Opposed to Saturninus was a noble of the most exalted type of
character, Marcus Livius Drusus, son of the Drusus who had opposed the
Gracchi. A genuine aristocrat, possessed of a colossal fortune, strict
in his morals and trustworthy in every position, he was a man of
acknowledged weight in the national councils. In the year 91, he was
elected tribune, and endeavored to bring about reform. He obtained the
adherence of the people by laws for distributing corn at low prices,
and by holding out to the allies hopes of the franchise. The allies had
long looked for this, and as their condition had been growing worse
year by year, their impatience increased, until at last they were no
longer willing to brook delay. The Romans (whose party cry was "Rome
for the Romans") ever opposed this measure, and now they stirred up
opposition to the conservative Drusus, who paid the penalty of his life
to his efforts at civil reform and the alleviation of oppression.
Though he tried to please all parties, the senate first rendered his
laws nugatory, and their partisans not satisfied with his civil defeat,
afterwards caused him to be assassinated. [Footnote: Velleius
Paterculus, the historian, relates that as Drusus was dying, he looked
upon the crowd of citizens who were lamenting his fortune, and said, in
conscious innocence: "My relations and friends, will the commonwealth
ever again have a citizen like me?" He adds, as illustrating the purity
of his intentions, that when Drusus was building a house on the
Palatine, his architect offered to make it so that no observer could
see into it, but he said: "Rather, build my house so that whatever I do
may be seen by all."] It was then enacted that all who favored the
allies should be considered guilty of treason to the state. Many
prominent citizens were condemned under this law, and the allies
naturally became convinced that there was no hope for them except in
revolution.

Rome was in consequence menaced by those who had before been her
helpers, and the danger was one of the greatest that she had ever
encountered. The Italians were prepared for the contest, but the Romans
were not. It was determined by the allies that Rome should be
destroyed, and a new capital erected at Corfinum, which was to be known
as Italica. On both sides it was a struggle for existence.

The Marsians were the most prominent among the allies in one division,
and the Samnites were at the head of another. [Footnote: The Marsians
were an ancient people of Central Italy, inhabiting a mountainous
district, and had won distinction among the allies for their skill and
courage in war. "The Marsic cohorts" was an almost proverbial
expression for the bravest troops in the time of Horace and Virgil.]
The whole of Central Italy became involved in the desperate struggle.
The Etruscans and Umbrians took the part of Rome, being offered the
suffrage for their allegiance. At the end of the first campaign this
was offered also to those of the other antagonistic allies who would
lay down their arms, and by this means discord was thrown into the camp
of the enemy. The campaign of 89 was favorable to the Romans, who, led
by Sulla, drove the enemy out of Campania, and captured the town of
Bovianum. The following year the war was closed, but Rome and Italy had
lost more than a quarter of a million of their citizens, while the
allies had nominally obtained the concessions that they had fought for.

Ten new tribes were formed in which the new citizens were enrolled,
thus keeping them in a body by themselves; and it was natural that
there should be much discontent among them on account of the manner in
which their privileges had been awarded. The franchise could only be
obtained by a visit to Rome, which was difficult for the inhabitants of
distant regions, and there was besides no place in the city large
enough to contain all the citizens, if they had been able to come. The
new citizens found, too, that there was still a difference between
themselves and those who had before enjoyed the suffrage, something
like that which existed between the freedmen and the men who had never
been enslaved.

Marius and Sulla, the ever-vigilant rivals, had both been engaged in
the Marsic war, but they came out of it in far differing frames of
mind. The young aristocrat boasted that fortune had permitted him to
strike the last decisive blow; and the old plebeian, now seventy years
of age, found his heart swelling with indignation because he received
only new mortifications in return for his new services to the state, in
whose behalf he had this time fought with reluctance. A spirit of dire
vengeance was agitating his heart, the results of which we are soon to
observe.

The troubles of the state now seemed to accumulate with terrible
rapidity. Two wars broke out immediately upon the close of that which
we have just considered, one at home and the other in Asia. The one was
the strife of faction, and the other an effort to repel attacks upon
allies of the republic. Mithridates the Great, King of Pontus, the
sixth of his name, was remarkable for his physical and mental
development, no less than for his great ambition and boundless
activity. Under his rule his kingdom had reached its greatest power.
This monarch had attempted to add to his dominion Cappadocia, the
country adjoining Pontus on the south, by placing his nephew on the
throne, but Sulla, who was then in Cilicia, prevented it. Mithridates
next interfered in the government of Bithynia, to the southwest,
expecting that the oppressive rule of the Roman governors would lead
the inhabitants to be friendly to him, while the troubles of the Romans
at home would make it difficult for them to interfere. The close of the
Marsian struggle, however, left Rome free to engage the Eastern
conqueror, and war was determined upon.

The success of Sulla in the East made it plain that he was the one to
lead the army, but Marius was still ambitious to gain new laurels, and
in order to prove that he was not too old to endure the hardships of a
campaign, he went daily to the Campus Martius and exercised with the
young men. His efforts proved vain, and he determined to take more
positive measures. He procured the enactment of a law distributing the
new citizens, who far out-numbered the old ones, among the tribes,
knowing that they would vote in his favor. It was not without much
opposition that this law was enacted, but Marius was then appointed,
instead of Sulla, to lead the army against Pontus. Sulla meantime
hastened to the army and obtained actual command of the soldiers, who
loved him, caused the tribunes of Marius to be murdered, and left the
old commander without support. Marius in turn raised another army by
offering freedom to slaves, and with it attempted to resist Sulla, but
in vain. He was obliged to fly, and a price was placed upon his head.
He sailed for Africa, but was thrown back upon the shores of Italy, was
cast into prison, and ordered to execution; but the slave commissioned
to carry out the judgment was frightened by the flashing eyes of the
aged warrior and refused to perform the act, as he heard a voice from
the darkness of the cell haughtily asking: "Fellow, darest thou kill
Caius Marius?" The magistrates, struck with pity and remorse, as they
reflected that Marius was the preserver of Italy, let him go to meet
his fate on other shores, and at last he found his way to Africa.

The departure of both Marius and Sulla from Rome left it exposed to a
new danger. As soon as Sulla had left for Pontus, Lucius Cornelius
Cinna, one of the consuls, began to form a popular party, composed
largely of the newly made citizens, for the purpose of overpowering the
senate and recalling Marius. A frightful conflict ensued on a day of
voting, and thousands were butchered in the struggle. Cinna was driven
from the city, but received the support of a vast number of Italians,
which enabled him to march again upon Rome.

Meantime Marius returned from Africa, captured Ostia and other places,
and joined Cinna. Then, by cutting off its supplies, he caused the city
to yield. Marius and Cinna entered the gates, and again the streets ran
blood; for every one who had given Marius cause to hate or fear him was
hunted to the death without mercy, and with no respect to rank, talent,
or former friendship. Cinna and Marius named themselves consuls for the
year 86 without the form of election, [Footnote: See note on page 64.]
but the firm constitution of the old hero was completely undermined by
his sufferings and fatigues, and he succumbed to an attack of pleurisy
after a few days, during which, as Plutarch tells us, he was terrified
by dreams and by the anticipated return of Sulla. The people rejoiced
that they were freed from the cruelty of his ruthless tyranny, little
knowing what new horrors the grim future had in store for them.

We return now to Sulla. When he had driven Marius from Rome, he was
obliged to hasten away to carry on the war in Asia, though he marched
first against Athens, which had become the head-quarters of the allies
of Mithridates in Greece. The siege of this city was long and
obstinate, and it was not until March I, 86, that it was overcome, when
Sulla gave it up to rapine and pillage. He then advanced into Boeotia,
and success continued to follow his arms until the year 84, when he
crossed the Hellespont to carry the war into Asia. Mithridates had put
to death all Roman citizens and allies, wherever found, with all the
reckless ferocity of an Asiatic tyrant, but had met many losses and was
now anxious to have peace. Sulla settled the terms at a personal
interview at Dardanus, in the Troad. Enormous sums (estimated at more
than $100,000,000) were exacted from the rich cities, and a single
settled government was restored to Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor.
The soldiers were compensated for their fatigues by a luxurious winter
in Asia, and, in the spring of 83, they were transferred, in 1,600
vessels, from Ephesus to the Piraeus, and thence to Brundusium. Sulla
carried with him from Athens the valuable library of Apellicon of Teos,
which contained the works of Aristotle and his disciple, Theophrastus,
then not in general circulation, for he did not forget his interest in
literature even in war. Thus it was that the rich thoughts of the great
philosopher came to the knowledge of the Roman students. [Footnote:
Aristoteles, sometimes called the Stagirite, because he was born in
Stagira, in Macedonia, lived at Athens in the fourth century before our
era. Theophrastus was his friend and disciple, both at Stagira and
Athens.]

Sulla sent a letter to the senate, announcing the close of the war and
his intention to return, in the course of which he took occasion to
recount his services to the republic, from the time of the war with
Jugurtha to the conquest of Mithridates, and announced that he should
take vengeance upon his enemies and upon those of the commonwealth. The
senate was alarmed, and proposed to treat with him for peace, but Cinna
hastened to oppose the arrogant conqueror with force. He was, however,
assassinated by his own soldiers.

On the sixth of July, after the arrival of Sulla at Brundusium (B.C.
83), Rome was thrown into a state of consternation by the burning of
the capitol and the destruction of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus,
with the Sibylline oracles, those valuable books which had directed the
counsels of the nation for ages, and the close of a historic era
approached. [Footnote: Ambassadors were afterwards sent to various
places in Greece, Asia, and Italy, to make a fresh collection, and when
the temple was rebuilt it was put in the place occupied by the lost
books.] Sulla easily marched in triumph through lower Italy on his way
to Rome, for his opponents were not well organized, but it was not
until months had passed that the fierce struggle was decided. He was
besieging Præneste, when the Samnites, after finding that they could
not relieve it, marched directly upon Rome. Sulla followed them, and a
bloody battle was fought at the Colline gate, on the northern side of
the city. It was a fight for the very existence of Rome, for Pontius
Telesinus, commander of the Samnites, declared that he intended to raze
the city to the ground. Fifty thousand are said to have fallen on each
side, and most of the leaders of the party of Marius perished or were
afterward put to death. All the Samnites (8,000) who were taken were
collected by Sulla in the Campus Martius and ruthlessly butchered.

If the former scenes had been terrible, much more so were those that
now followed. Sulla was made dictator, an officer that had been unknown
for a century and a quarter, and proceeded to show his adhesion to the
optimates by attempting to blot out the popular party. He announced
that he would give a better government to Rome, but he found it
necessary to kill all whom he pretended to think her enemies. It was
Marius who had brought on the era of carnage by attempting to deprive
Sulla of his command in the war against Mithridates, and accordingly
the body of the great plebeian was torn from its tomb and cast into the
Anio. A list was drawn up of those whose possessions were to be
confiscated, and who were themselves to be executed in vengeance. On
this the names of the family of Marius came first. Fresh lists were
constantly posted in the forum. Each of these was called a _tabula
proscriptionis_, a list of proscription, and it presents the first
instance of a proscription in Roman history. [Footnote: A proscription
had formerly been an offering for sale of any thing by advertisement;
but Sulla gave it a new meaning,--the sale of the property of those
unfortunates who were put to death by his orders. The victims were said
to be proscribed. The meaning given by Sulla still lives in the English
word.] Sulla placed on these lists not only the names of enemies of the
state, but his personal opponents, those whose property he coveted, and
those who were enemies of friends whom he desired to please. No man was
safe, for his name might appear at any time on the terrible lists, and
then he would be an outlaw, whom any one might kill with impunity.
Especially were the rich and prominent liable to find themselves in
this position. Many thousands of unfortunate citizens perished before
Sulla was content to put a stop to the horrors. He then celebrated with
exceeding magnificence the postponed triumph on account of his victory
over Mithridates, and received from a trembling people the title
_Felix_, the lucky.

It has been said that after having killed the men with his sword, Sulla
made it his work to kill the party that opposed him, by laws. He wished
to have in Rome the silence and the autocracy of a camp. He put some
three hundred new members into the senate, and gave that body the power
to veto legislative enactments, while at the same time he restricted
the authority of the tribunes of the people and of the _comitia
tributa,_ the general convention of the tribes. On the other hand,
he reduced debts by one fourth, to conciliate the masses, and paid his
soldiers for their services in the civil strife with vast amounts of
booty and great numbers of slaves. The _pomoerium_ was extended to
embrace all Italy, and, as is supposed, the northern boundary of Roman
territory was extended to the Rubicon. New courts were established and
the judicial system was reorganized; the censors were practically
shelved, but sumptuary laws were passed to prevent extravagance and
luxury. All of the laws of Sulla were submitted to the people for
formal approval; but as no one was hardy enough to differ from the
dictator, it mattered little what the people thought.

By the beginning of the year 79, Sulla considered that his reforms were
complete, and bethought himself of retiring to see at a little distance
the effect of his regulations. He felt that no danger could overtake
him, for he had settled his old veterans (called Cornelians), to the
number of more than a hundred thousand, in colonies scattered
throughout Italy, on the estates and in the cities that he had
confiscated, and thought that they would prove his supporters in any
event. He boldly summoned the people and, announcing his purpose,
offered to render an account of his official conduct. He gave the crowd
a _congiarium_, as it was called--that is, he glutted them with
the costliest meats and the richest wines, and so great was his
profusion that vast quantities that the gorged multitude were unable to
eat were cast into the Tiber. He then discharged his armed attendants,
dismissed his lictors, descended from the rostra, and retired on foot
to his house, accompanied only by his friends, passing through the
midst of the populace which he had given every reason to desire to
wreak vengeance upon him. It was audacity of the supremest sort. Sulla
afterwards withdrew to his estate at Puteoli, where he spent the brief
remainder of his life in the most remarkable alternation of nocturnal
orgies and cultured enjoyment, sharing his time with male and female
debauchees and learned students of Greek literature, and concluding the
memoirs of his life and times, in which, through twenty-two books, he
recorded the story of his deeds, colored doubtless to a great extent by
his own magnificent self-love. In the last words of his "Memoirs" he
characterized himself, with a certain degree of truth from his own
point of view, as "fortunate and all-powerful to his last hour."

The senate voted Sulla a gorgeous funeral, in spite of opposition on
the part of the consul Lepidus, and his body was carried to the Campus
Martius, preceded by the magistrates, the senate, the equites, the
vestal virgins, and the veterans. There it was burned, that no future
tyrant could treat it as that of Marius had been, though up to that
time the Cornelian gens, to which Sulla belonged, had always buried
their dead.

Thus lived and thus died the man who, though he relieved Rome of the
last of her invaders, infused into her system a malady from which she
was to suffer in the future; for the pampered veterans whom he had
distributed throughout Italy in scenes of peace, all unwonted to such a
life, were to be the ones on which another oppressor was to depend in
his efforts to subvert the government.




XIV.

THE MASTER SPIRITS OF THIS AGE.



Rome was now ruled by an oligarchy,--that is, the control of public
affairs fell into the hands of a few persons. There was an evident
tendency, however, towards the union of all the functions of
governmental authority in the person of a single man, whenever one
should be found of sufficient strength to grasp them. The younger
Gracchus had exercised almost supreme control, and Marius, Cinna, and
Sulla had followed him; but their power had perished with them, leaving
no relics in the fundamental principles of the government, except as it
marked stages in the general progress. Now other strong men arise who
pursue the same course, and lead directly up to the concentration of
supreme authority in the hands of one man, and he not a consul, nor a
tribune, nor a dictator, but an emperor, a titled personage never
before known in Rome. With this culmination the life of the populus
Romanus was destined to end.

A dramatist endeavoring to depict public life at Rome during the period
following the death of Sulla, would find himself embarrassed by the
multitude of men of note crowding upon his attention. One of the eldest
of these was Quintus Sertorius, a soldier of chivalric bravery, who had
come into prominence during the Marian wars in Gaul. He had at that
time won distinction by boldly entering the camp of the Teutones
disguised as a spy, and bringing away valuable information, before the
battle at Aix. When Sulla was fighting Mithridates, Sertorius was on
the side of Cinna, and had to flee from the city with him. When the
battle was fought at the Colline gate, Sertorius served with his old
comrade Marius, whom he did not admire, and with Cinna, but we do not
know that he shared the guilt of the massacre that followed. Certainly
he punished the slaves that surrounded Marius for their cruel excesses.
When Sulla returned, Sertorius escaped to Spain, where he raised an
army, and achieved so much popularity that the Romans at home grew very
jealous of him. [Footnote: Sertorius is almost the only one among the
statesmen of antiquity who seems to have recognized the modern truth,
that education is a valuable aid in making a government firm. He
established a school in Spain in which boys of high rank, dressed in
the garb of Romans, learned the languages that still form the basis of
a classical education, while they were also held as hostages for the
good behavior of their elders. He was not a philanthropist, but a
sagacious ruler, and the author of Latin colonies in the West. He was
for a time accompanied by a white fawn, which he encouraged the
superstitious barbarians to believe was a familiar spirit, by means of
which he communicated with the unseen powers and ensured his success.]
He did not intentionally go to live in Spain, but having heard that
there were certain islands out in the Atlantic celebrated since the
days of Plato as the abode of the blest; where gentle breezes brought
soft dews to enrich the fertile soil; where delicate fruits grew to
feed the inhabitants without their trouble or labor; where the yellow-
haired Rhadamanthus was refreshed by the whistling breezes of Zephyrus;
he longed to find them and live in peace and quiet, far from the rush
of war and the groans of the oppressed. From this bright vision he was
turned, but perhaps his efforts to establish a merciful government in
Spain may be traced to its influence.

Another prominent man on the stage at this time was a leader of the
aristocratic party, Marcus Crassus, who lived in a house that is
estimated to have cost more than a quarter of a million dollars.
Probably he would not have been very prominent if his father had not
left him a small fortune, to which he had added very largely by methods
that we can hardly consider noble. It is said that when the Sullan
proscription was going on, he obtained at ruinously low prices the
estates that the proscribed had to give up, and, whenever there was a
fire, he would be on the spot ready to buy the burning or ruined
buildings for little or nothing. He owned many slaves who were
accomplished as writers, silversmiths, stewards, and table-waiters,
whom he let out to those who wished their services, and thus added
largely to his income. He did not build any houses, except the one in
which he lived, for he agreed with the proverb which says that fools
build houses for wise men to live in, though "the greatest part of Rome
sooner or later came into his hands," as Plutarch observes. He was of
that sordid, avaricious character which covets wealth merely for the
desire to be considered rich, for the vulgar popularity that
accompanies that reputation, and not for ambition or enjoyment. He was
said to be uninfluenced by the love of luxury or by the other passions
of humanity. He was not a man of extensive learning, though he was
pretty well versed in philosophy and in history, and by pains and
industry had made himself an accomplished orator. He could thus wield a
great influence by his speeches to the people from the rostra.

Among the aristocrats who composed the oligarchy that ruled at about
this time were two men born in the same year (106 B.C.): the egotistic,
vain, and irresolute, but personally pure orator, Marcus Tullius
Cicero; and the cold and haughty soldier, Cneius Pompeius Magnus,
commonly known as Pompey the Great. The philosophical, oratorical, and
theological writings of Cicero are still studied in our schools as
models in their different classes. Inheriting a love of culture from
his father, a member of an ancient family, he was afforded every
advantage in becoming acquainted with all branches of a polite
education; and travelled to the chief seats of learning in Greece and
Asia Minor with this end in view. When he was twenty-six years of age,
he made his first appearance as a public pleader, and soon gained the
reputation of being the first orator at the Roman bar. Besides these
pursuits, Cicero had had a brief military experience, during the war
between Sulla and Marius.

Pompey, likewise, began to learn the art of war under his father, in
the same struggle, but he continued its exercise until he became a
consummate warrior. For his success in pursuing the remains of the
Marian faction in Africa and Sicily, Pompey was honored with the name
Magnus (the Great), and with a triumph, a distinction that had never
before been won by a man of his rank who had not previously held public
office.

[Illustration: POMPEY (CNEIUS POMPEIUS MAGNUS).]

Older than these men there was one whose character is forever blackened
on the pages of history by the relentless pen of Cicero, Caius Licinius
Verres, who, if we may believe the only records we have regarding him,
was the most phenomenal freebooter of all time. The story of his career
is a vivid demonstration of the manner in which the people of the Roman
provinces were outraged by the officers sent to rule over them, and we
shall anticipate our story a little in tracing it. The provincial
governors were, as a class, corrupt, and Verres was as vile as any of
them, but he was also brutal in his manners and natural instincts,
rapacious, licentious, cruel, and fond of low companions. At first, one
of the Marian faction, he betrayed his associates, embezzled the funds
that had been entrusted to him, and joined himself to Sulla, who sent
him to Brundusium, allowing him a share in the confiscated estates.
Thence he was transferred to Cilicia, where again he proved a traitor
to his superior officer, and stole from cities, private persons,
temples, and public places, every thing that his rapacity coveted. One
city offered him a vessel as a loan, and he refused to return it;
another had a statue of Diana covered with gold, and he scraped off the
precious metal to put it in his pocket. Using the money thus gained to
ensure his election to office at Rome, Verres enjoyed a year at the
Capitol, and then entered upon a still more outrageous career as
governor of the island of Sicily. Taking with him a painter and a
sculptor well versed in the values of works of art, he systematically
gathered together all that was considered choice in the galleries and
temples. Allowing his officers to make exorbitant exactions upon the
farmers, he confiscated many estates to his own use, and reaped the
crops. Even travellers were attacked to enrich this extraordinary
thief, and six vessels were afterward dispatched to Rome with the
plunder, which he asserted was sufficient to permit him to revel in
opulence the remainder of his life, even if he were obliged to give up
two thirds in fines and bribes.

The people Verres had outraged did not, however, suffer in quiet. They
engaged Cicero to conduct their case against him, and this the great
orator did with overwhelming success. [Footnote: The orations of Cicero
against Verres are based upon information which the orator gathered by
personally examining witnesses at the scenes of the rascality he
unveiled. The orator showed a true Roman lack of appreciation of Greek
art, and exercised his own love of puns to a considerable extent,
playing a good deal upon the name Verres, which meant a boar. The
extreme corpulence of the defendant, too, offered an opportunity for
gross personal allusions. Cicero compared him to the Erymanthean boar,
and called him the "drag-net" of Sicily, because his name resembled the
word _everriculum_, a drag-net.] Though protected by Hortensius,
an older advocate, who, during the absence of Cicero, on his travels,
had acquired the highest rank as an orator, so terrible was the
arraignment in its beginning that, at the suggestion of Hortensius,
Verres did not remain to hear its close, but hastened into voluntary
exile. He precipitately took ship for Marseilles, and for twenty-seven
years was forced to remain in that city. Would that every misdoer among
the provincial governors had thus been followed up by the law!

The representative of the Sullan party at this time was Lucius Sergius
Catiline, an aristocrat, who, during the proscription, behaved with
fiendish atrocity towards those of the opposite party, torturing and
killing men with the utmost recklessness. His early years had been
passed in undisguised debaucheries and unrestrained vice, but in spite
of all his acts, he made political progress, was prætor, governor of
Africa, and candidate for the consulship by turn. Failing in the last
effort, however, he entered into a conspiracy to murder the successful
candidates, and was only foiled by his own impatience. We shall find
that he was encouraged by this failure which so nearly proved a
success.

There was one man among the host of busy figures on the stage at this
eventful period who seems to stalk about like a born master, and the
lapse of time since his days has not at all dimmed the fame of his
deeds, so deep a mark have they left upon the laws and customs of
mankind, and so noteworthy are they in the annals of Rome. Caius Julius
Cæsar was six years younger than Pompey and Cicero, and was of the
popular or Marian party, both by birth and tastes. His aunt Julia was
wife of the great Marius himself, and though he had married a young
woman of high birth to please his father, he divorced her as soon as
his father died, and married Cornelia, daughter of Cinna, the devoted
opponent of Sulla, to please himself.

When Sulla returned to Rome from the East, he ordered Pompey to put
away his wife, and he obeyed. He ordered Cæsar, a boy of seventeen, to
give up his Cornelia, and he proudly replied that he would not. Of
course he could not remain at Rome after that, and he fled to the land
of the Sabines until Sulla was induced to grant him a pardon. Still, he
did not feel secure at Rome, and a second time he sought safety in
expatriation. Upon the death of the dictator, he returned, having
gained experience in war, and having developed his talents as an orator
by study in a school at Rhodes. He plunged immediately into public life
and won great distinction by his effective speaking.

These are enough characters for us to remember at present. They
represent four groups, all striving for supreme power. There are the
men of the oligarchy, represented by Pompey and Cicero, actually
holding the reins of government; and Crassus, standing for the
aristocrats, who resent their claims; Cæsar, foremost among the
Marians, the former opponents of Sulla and his schemes; and Catiline,
at the head of the faction which included the host of warriors that
Sulla had settled in peaceful pursuits throughout Italy,--in peaceful
pursuits that did not at all suit their impetuous spirits, ever eager
as they were for some revolution that would plunge them again into
strife, and perchance win for them some spoil.

[Illustration: CAIUS JULIUS CÆSAR.]

The consuls at the time of the death of Sulla were Lepidus and Catulus,
who now fell out with one another, Lepidus taking the part of the
Marians, and Catulus holding with the aristocrats. This was the same
Lepidus who had opposed the burial of the dictator Sulla in the Campus
Martius. As soon as the Marians saw that one consul was ready to favor
them, there was great excitement among the portion of the community
that looked for gain in confusion. Those who had lost their riches and
civic rights, hoped to see them restored; young profligates trusted
that in some way they might find means to gratify their love of luxury;
and the people in general, who had no other reason, thought that after
the three years of the calm of despotism, it would be refreshing to see
some excitement in the forum. Lepidus was profuse in promises; he told
the beggars that he would again distribute free grain; and the families
deprived of their estates, that they might soon expect to enjoy them
again. Catulus protested in vain, and the civil strife constantly
increased, without any apparent probability that the Senate, now weak
and inefficient, would or could successfully interfere. Finally it was
decreed that Lepidus and Catulus should each be sent to the provinces
under oath not to turn their swords against each other.

Lepidus slowly proceeded to carry out his part of this decree, but
Catulus remained behind long enough to complete a great temple, which
towered above the forum on the Capitoline Hill. The foundations only
remain now, but they bear an inscription placed there by order of the
senate, testifying that Catulus was the consul under whom the structure
was completed. Lepidus did not consider his oath binding long, and the
following year (B.C. 77) he marched straight to Rome again, announcing
to the senators that he came to re-establish the rights of the people
and to assume the dictatorship himself. He was met by an army under
Pompey and Catulus, at a spot near the Mulvian bridge and the Campus
Martius, almost on the place where the fate of the Roman Empire was to
be determined four centuries later by a battle between Maxentius and
Constantine (A.D. 312). Lepidus was defeated and forced to flee.
Shortly after, he died on the island of Sardinia, overcome by chagrin
and sorrow. One would expect to read of a new proscription, after this
success, but the victors did not resort to that terrible vengeance.
Thus Pompey found himself at the head of Roman affairs.

His first duty was to march against the remnant of the party of the
Marians. They had joined Sertorius in Spain. It was the year 76 when
Pompey arrived on the scene of his new operations. He found his enemy
more formidable than he had supposed, and it was not until five years
had passed, and Sertorius had been assassinated, that he was able to
achieve the victory and scatter the army of the Marians. Meantime the
Romans had been fearing that Sertorius would actually prove strong
enough to march upon the capital and perhaps overwhelm it. Hardly had
their fears in this respect been quieted than they found themselves
menaced by a still more frightful catastrophe.

We remember how, in the year 264 B.C., two young Romans honored the
memory of their father by causing men to fight each other to the death
with swords to celebrate his funeral, and hints from time to time have
shown how the Romans had become more and more fond of seeing human
beings hack and hew each other in the amphitheatres. The men who were
to be "butchered to make a Roman holiday," as the poet says, were
trained for their horrid work with as much system as is now used in our
best gymnasiums to fit men to live lives of happy peace, if not with
more. They were divided into classes with particular names, according
to the arms they wore, the hours at which they fought, and their modes
of fighting, and great were the pains that their instructors took to
make them perfect in their bloody work. Down at Capua, that celebrated
centre of refinement and luxury, there was a school of gladiators, kept
by one Lentulus, who hired his fierce pupils out to the nobles to be
used at games and festivals.

While Pompey was away engaged with Sertorius, the enemies of Rome
everywhere thought it a favorable moment to give her trouble, and these
gladiators conspired in the year 73 to escape to freedom, and thus
cheat their captors out of their expected pleasures, and give their own
wives and children a little more of their lives. So large was the
school that two hundred engaged in the plot, though only seventy-eight
were successful in escaping. They hurried away to the mountains, armed
with knives and spits that they had been able to snatch from the stalls
as they fled, and, directed by one Spartacus who had been leader of a
band of robbers, found their way to the crater of Mount Vesuvius, not a
comfortable resort one would think; but at that time it was quite
different in form from what it is now, the volcano being extinct, so
that it afforded many of the advantages of a fortified town. From every
quarter the hard-worked slaves flocked to the standard of Spartacus,
and soon he found himself at the head of a large army. His plan was to
cross the Alps, and find a place of refuge in Gaul or in his native
Thrace; but his brutalized followers thought only of the present. They
were satisfied if they could now and then capture a rich town, and for
a while revel in luxuries; if they could wreak their vengeance by
forcing the Romans themselves to fight as gladiators; or, if they had
the opportunity to kill those to whom they attributed their former
distresses. They cared not to follow their leader to the northward, and
thus his wiser plans were baffled; but, in spite of all obstacles, he
laid the country waste from the foot of the Alps to the most southern
extremity of the toe of the Italian boot. For two years he was able to
keep up his war against the Roman people, but at last he was driven to
the remotest limits of Bruttium, where his only hope was in getting
over to Sicily, in the expectation of gaining other followers; but his
army was signally defeated by Crassus, a small remnant only escaping to
the northward, where they were exterminated by Pompey, then returning
from Spain (B.C. 71). From Capua to Rome six thousand crosses, each
bearing a captured slave, showed how carefully and ruthlessly the man-
hunt had been pursued by the frightened and exasperated Romans. Both
Crassus and Pompey claimed the credit of the final victory, Pompey
asserting that though Crassus had scotched the serpent, he had himself
killed it.

[Illustration: GLADIATORS.]

On the last day of the year 71 Pompey entered Rome with the honor of a
triumph, while Crassus received the less important distinction of an
ovation, [Footnote: In a triumph in these times, the victorious
general, clad in a robe embroidered with gold, and wearing a laurel
wreath, solemnly entered the city riding in a chariot drawn by four
horses. The captives and spoils went before him, and the army followed.
He passed along the Via Sacra on the Forum Romanum, and went up to the
Capitol to sacrifice in the temple of Jupiter. In the ovation the
general entered the city on foot, wore a simple toga, and a wreath of
myrtle, and was in other respects not so conspicuously honored as in
the triumph. The two celebrations differed in other respects also.] as
it was called, because his success had been obtained over slaves, less
honorable adversaries than those whom Pompey had met. Each desired to
be consul, but neither was properly qualified for the office, and
therefore they agreed to overawe the senate and win the office for
both, each probably thinking that at the first good opportunity he
would get the better of the other. In this plan they were successful,
and thus two aristocrats came to the head of government, and the
oligarchy, to which one of them belonged, went out of power, and soon
Pompey, who all the time posed as the friend of the people, proceeded
to repeal the most important parts of the legislation of Sulla. The
tribunes were restored, and Pompey openly broke with the aristocracy to
which by birth he belonged, thus beginning a new era, for the social
class of a man's family was no longer to indicate the political party
to which he should give his adherence.

[Illustration: TRIUMPHAL PROCESSION OF A ROMAN GENERAL]




XV.

PROGRESS OF THE GREAT POMPEY.



The master spirits of this remarkable age were now in full action on
the stage, and it is difficult to keep the eye fixed upon all of them
at once. Now one is prominent and now another; all are pushing their
particular interests, while each tries to make it appear that he has
nothing but the good of the state at heart. Whenever it is evident that
a certain cause is the popular one, the various leaders, opposed on
most subjects, are united to help it, in the hope of catching the
popular breeze. During the consulship of Pompey and Catulus, Pompey was
the principal Roman citizen, and he tried to make sure that his
prestige should not be lessened when he should step down from his high
office.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A ROMAN HOUSE]

Crassus, aristocrat by birth and aristocrat by choice, had been a
candidate for the senate in opposition to Pompey, but he soon found
that his interest demanded that he should make peace with his powerful
colleague, and as he did it, he told the people that he did not
consider that his action was in any degree base or humiliating, for he
simply made advances to one whom they had themselves named the Great.
Crowds daily courted Pompey on account of his power; but a multitude
equally numerous surrounded Crassus for his wealth, and Cicero on
account of his wonderful oratory. Even Julius Cæsar, the strong Marian,
who pronounced a eulogy upon his aunt, the widow of Marius, seemed also
to pay homage to Pompey, when, a year later, he took to wife Pompeia, a
relative of the great soldier (B.C. 67).

Both Cæsar and Pompey saw that gross corruption was practised by the
chiefs of the senate when they had control of the provinces, and knew
that it ought to be exposed and effectually stopped, but Cæsar was the
first to take action. He was quickly followed by Pompey, however, who
encouraged Cicero to denounce the crimes of Verres with the success
that we have already noticed. Cicero loftily exclaimed that he did not
seek to chastise a single wicked man who had abused his authority as
governor, but to extinguish and blot out all wickedness in all places,
as the Roman people had long been demanding; but with all his eloquence
he was not able to make the people appreciate the fact that the
interests of Rome were identical with the well-being and prosperity of
her allies, distant or near at hand.

Both Crassus and Pompey retired from the consulship amid the plaudits
of the people and with the continued friendship of the optimates.
Crassus, out of his immense income, spread a feast for the people on
ten thousand tables; dedicated a tenth of his wealth to Hercules; and
distributed among the citizens enough grain to supply their families
three months. With all his efforts, however, he could not gain the
favor which Pompey apparently held with ease. For two years Pompey
assumed royal manners, and gave himself up to the enjoyment of his
popularity, but then beginning to fear that without some new evidence
of genius he might lose the admiration of the people, he began to make
broad plans to astonish them.

For years the Mediterranean Sea had been infested by daring pirates,
who at last made it unsafe for a Roman noble even to drive to his sea-
side villa, or a merchant to venture abroad for purposes of trade.
Cities had been ravaged, and the enemies of Rome had from time to time
made alliances with the marauders. The pirates dyed their sails with
Tyrian purple, they inlaid their oars with silver, and they spread gold
on their pennants, so rich had their booty made them. Nor were they
less daring than rich; they had captured four hundred towns of
importance, they had once kidnapped Cæsar himself, and held him for
enormous ransom, [Footnote: This occurred in the year 76 B.C., when
Cæsar, at the age of twenty-four, was on his way to Rhodes, intending
to perfect himself in oratory at the school of Apollonius Molo, the
teacher of Cicero, lie was travelling as a gentleman of rank, and was
captured off Miletus. After a captivity of six weeks, during which he
mingled freely with the games and pastimes of the pirates, though
plainly assuring them that he should one day hang them all, Cæsar was
liberated, on payment of a ransom of some fifty thousand dollars. Good
as his word, he promptly collected a fleet of vessels, returned to the
island, seized the miscreants as they were dividing their plunder,
carried them off to Pergamos, and had them crucified. He then went on
to Rhodes, and practised elocution for two years.] and now they
threatened to cut off the entire supply of grain that came from Africa,
Sardinia, and Sicily,

The crisis was evident to all, and in it Pompey saw his opportunity. In
the year 67, he caused a law to be introduced by the tribune Gabinius,
ordaining that a commander of consular rank should be appointed for
three years, with absolute power over the sea and the coasts about it
for fifty miles inland, together with a fleet of two hundred sail, with
officers, seamen, and supplies. When the bill had passed, Gabinius
declared that there was but one man fit to exercise such remarkable
power, and it was conferred with acclamations upon Pompey, whom he
nominated. The price of grain immediately fell, for every one had
confidence that the dread crisis was passed. The people were right, for
in a few weeks the pirates had all been brought to terms. Pompey had
divided the sea into thirteen parts, and in each of them the
freebooters had been encountered in open battle, driven into creeks and
captured, or forced to take refuge in their castles and hunted out of
them, so that those who were not taken had surrendered.

The next move among the master spirits led to the still greater
advancement of Pompey. His supporters at Rome managed to have him
appointed to carry on a war in the East. In the year 74, when other
enemies of the republic seized the opportunity to rise against Rome,
Mithridates, never fully conquered, entered upon a new war. Lucius
Licinius Lucullus, who had gained fame in the former struggle with
Mithridates, was sent again to protect Roman interests in Pontus. He
completely broke the power of the great monarch, in spite of his vast
preparations for the struggle, but, under a pretext, he was now
superseded by Pompey, who went out with a feigned appearance of
reluctance, to pluck the fruit just ready to drop (B.C. 66). Cicero
urged Pompey to accept this new honor, [Footnote: When the Manilian law
which enlarged the powers of Pompey was under discussion, Cicero made
his first address to the Roman people, and though vigorously opposed by
Hortensius and Catulus, carried the day against the senate and the
optimates whom they represented. This oration contains a panegyric of
Pompey for suppressing piracy, and argues that a public servant who has
done well once deserves to be trusted again.] and Cæsar, who enjoyed
the precedents that Pompey had established, in adopting monarchical
style, was now glad to have a rival removed from the country, that he
might have, better opportunity to perfect his own plans.

[Illustration: A ROMAN POETESS.]

The third or great Mithridatic war lasted from the year 74, when
Lucullus was sent out, to 61. By the terms of the Manilian law, Pompey
went out with unlimited power over the whole of Asia, as far as
Armenia, as well as over the entire Roman forces; and as he already was
supreme over the region about the Mediterranean Sea, he was practically
dictator throughout all of the dominions of the republic. He planned
his first campaign with so much skill that he cut Mithridates off from
all help by sea, and destroyed every hope of alliances with other
rulers. So clearly did it appear to the Pontic monarch that resistance
would be vain, that he sued for peace. Pompey would accept no terms but
unconditional surrender, however, and negotiations were broken off.
Mithridates determined to avoid battle, but Pompey finally surprised
and defeated him in Lesser Armenia, forcing him to flight. He found a
retreat in the mountainous region north of the Euxine Sea, where Pompey
was unable to follow him. There he meditated grand schemes against the
Romans, which he was utterly unable to carry out, and at last he fell a
victim to the malevolence of one of his former favorites (B.C. 63).

Pompey continued his conquering progress throughout Asia Minor, and did
not return to Rome until he had subdued Armenia, Syria, Phoenicia, and
Palestine, [Footnote: There was civil war in Palestine at the time, and
the king surrendered to Pompey, but the people refused, took refuge in
the stronghold of the temple, and were only overcome after a seige of
three months. Pompey explored the temple, examined the golden vessels,
the table of shew bread, and the candlesticks in their places, but was
surprised to find the Holy of Holies empty, there being no
representation of a deity. He reverently refrained from touching the
gold, the spices, and the money that he saw, and ordered the place to
be cleansed and purified that service might be resumed.] had
established many cities, and had organized the frontier of the Roman
possessions from the Euxine to the river Jordan. When he arrived at
Rome, on the first of January, 61, he found that affairs had
considerably changed during his absence, and it was not easy for him to
determine what position he should assume in relation to the political
parties. Cicero offered him his friendship; Cato, grandson of the stern
old censor, and an influential portion of the senate opposed him;
Crassus and Lucullus, too, were his personal enemies; and Cæsar, who
appeared to support him, had really managed to prepare for him a
secondary position in the state. On the last day of September, Pompey
celebrated the most splendid triumph that the city had ever seen, and
with it the glorious part of his life ended. Over three hundred captive
princes walked before his chariot, and brazen tablets declared that he
had captured a thousand fortresses, many small towns, and eight hundred
ships; that he had founded thirty-nine cities, and vastly raised the
public revenue.

The year following the departure of Pompey for the East was rendered
noteworthy by the breaking out of a conspiracy that will never be
forgotten so long as the writings of Cicero and Sallust remain. These
were times of treasons, stratagems, and greed for spoils. Vice and
immorality were rampant, and among the vicious and debased none had
fallen lower than Lucius Sergius Catiline, a ferocious man of powerful
body and strong mind, who first appears as a partisan of Sulla and an
active agent in his proscription. All his powers were perverted to
evil, and when to his natural viciousness there was added the intensity
of disappointed political ambition, he was ready to plunge his country
into the most desperate strife to gratify his hate. He stands for the
worst vices of this wretched age. He had been a provincial governor,
and in Africa had perpetrated all the crimes that Cicero could impute
to a Verres, and thus had proclaimed himself a villain of the deepest
dye, both abroad and at home.

Gathering about him the profligate nobles and the criminals who had
nothing to lose and every thing to gain by revolution, Catiline plotted
to murder the consuls and seize the government; but his attempt was
foiled, and he waited for a more favorable opportunity. Two years later
he was defeated by Cicero as candidate for the consulship, and the plot
was renewed, it being then determined to add the burning of the city to
the other atrocities contemplated. Cicero discovered the scheme, and
unveiled its horrid details in four orations; but again the miserable
being was permitted to escape justice. He was present and listened in
rage to the invective of Cicero until he could bear it no longer, and
then rushed wildly out and joined his armed adherents, an open enemy of
the state. His plot failed in the city through imprudence of the
conspirators and the skill of Cicero, and he himself fled, hoping to
reach Gaul. He was, however, hemmed in by the Roman army and killed in
a battle. Catiline's head was sent to Rome to assure the government
that he was no more. Cicero, who had caused nine of the conspirators to
be put to death, [Footnote: Under Roman law no citizen could legally be
put to death except by the sanction of the Comitia Curiata, the
sovereign assembly of the people, though it often happened that the
regulation was ignored. If nobody dared or cared to object, no notice
was taken of the irregularity, but we shall see that Cicero paid dearly
for his action at this time.] now laid down his consular authority amid
the plaudits of the people, who, under the lead of Cato and Catulus,
hailed him as the Father of his Country.

Cicero was apparently spoiled by his success. Carried away by his own
oratorical ability, he too often reminded the people in his long and
eloquent speeches of the great deeds that he had done for the country.
They cheered him as he spoke, but after this they never raised him to
power again.

Just about this time a noble named Publius Clodius Pulcher, who was a
demagogue of the worst moral character, in the pursuance of his base
intrigues, committed an act of sacrilege by entering the house of
Cæsar, disguised as a woman, during the celebration of the mysteries of
the Bona Dea, to which men were never admitted. He was tried for the
impiety, and, through the efforts of Cicero, was almost convicted,
though he managed to escape by bribery. He was ever afterward a
determined enemy of the great orator, and, by the aid of Pompey, Cæsar,
and Crassus, finally succeeded in having him condemned for putting to
death the Catilinian conspirators without due process of law. Cicero
does not appear manly in the story of this affair. He left Rome,
fearing to face the result; and after he had gone Clodius caused a bill
to be passed by which he was declared a public enemy, and every citizen
was forbidden to give him fire or water within four hundred miles of
Rome (spring of 58). He found his way to Brundusium and thence to
Greece, where he passed his time in the most unmanly wailings and
gloomy forebodings. His property was confiscated, his rich house on the
Palatine Hill and his villas being given over to plunder and
destruction. Strange as it appears, Cicero was recalled the next year,
and entered the city amid the hearty plaudits of the changeful people,
though his self-respect was gone and his spirit broken.

Meantime, Cæsar had been quietly pushing himself to the front. He had
returned from Spain, where he had been governor, at about the time that
Pompey had returned from the East. He reconciled that great warrior to
Crassus (called from his immense wealth _Dives_, the rich), and with
the two made a secret arrangement to control the government. This was
known as the _First Triumvirate_ [Footnote: Each of the three pledged
himself not to speak nor to act except to subverse the common interest
of all, though of course they were not sincere in their promises of
mutual support.] or government of three men, though it was only a
coalition, and did not strictly deserve the name given it (B.C. 60).
Cæsar reaped the first-fruits of the league, as he intended, by
securing the office of consul, through the assistance of his
colleagues, whose influence proved irresistible.

[Illustration: THE FORUM ROMANUM IN MODERN TIMES.]

Entering upon his office in the year 59, Cæsar very soon obtained the
good-will of all,--first winning the people by proposing an agrarian
law dividing the public lands among them. This was the last law of this
sort, as that of Cassius (B.C. 486) had been the first. [Footnote: See
page 83.] He rewarded Crassus by means of a law remitting one third of
the sum that the publicans who had agreed to farm the revenues in Asia
Minor had contracted to pay to the state; and satisfied Pompey by a
ratification of all his acts in the East. The distribution of the lands
among the people was placed in the hands of Pompey and Crassus.

At the end of his term of office Cæsar was made governor of Gaul, an
office which he sought no more for the opportunity it afforded of
gaining renown by conquering those ancient enemies who had formerly
visited Rome with such dire devastation, than because he hoped to win
for himself an army and partisans who would be useful in carrying out
further ambitious ends.

Cæsar now entered upon a wonderful career of conquest, which lasted
nine years. The story of what he accomplished during the first seven is
given in his "Commentaries," as they are called, which are still read
in schools, on account of the incomparable simplicity, naturalness, and
purity of the style in which they are written, as well as because they
seem to give truthful accounts of the events they describe. Sixty years
before this time the Romans had possessed themselves of a little strip
of Gaul south of the Alps, which was known as the Province, [Footnote:
See pages 166 and 182.] and though they had ever since thought that
there was a very important region to the north and west that might be
conquered, they made no great effort to gain it. Cæsar was now to win
imperishable laurels by effecting what had been before only vaguely
dreamed of. He first made himself master of the country of the Helvetii
(modern Switzerland), defeated the Germans under their famous general
Ariovistus, and subjected the Belgian confederacy. The frightful
carnage involved in these campaigns cannot be described, and the
thousands upon thousands of brave barbarians who were sacrificed to the
extension of Roman civilization are enough to make one shudder. When
the despatches of Cæsar announcing his successes reached Rome, the
senate, on motion of Cicero, though against the protestations of Cato,
ordained that a grand public thanksgiving, lasting fifteen days, should
be celebrated (B.C. 57). This was an unheard-of honor, the most
ostentatious thanksgiving of the kind before--that given to Pompey,
after the close of the war against Mithridates--having lasted but ten
days.

Pompey and Crassus had fallen out during the absence of Cæsar, and he
now invited them to meet and consult at Lucca, at the foot of the
Apennines, just north of Pisa, where (April, 56) he held a sort of
court, hundreds of Roman senators waiting upon him to receive the
bribes with which he ensured the success of his measures during his
absences in the field. [Footnote: Pompey had left Rome ostensibly for
the purpose of arranging for supplies of grain from Africa and
Sardinia. He was followed by many of his most noted adherents, the
conference counting more than two hundred senators and sixscore
lictors. Cæsar, like a mighty magician, caused the discordant spirits
to act in concert. The power of the triumvirs is shown by the change
that came over public opinion, and the calmness with which their acts
were submitted to, though it was evident that the historic form of
government was to be overturned, and a monarchy established. ] Here the
three agreed that Pompey should rule Spain, Crassus Syria, and Cæsar
Gaul, which he had made his own. Cæsar still kept on with his
conquests, meeting desperate resistance, however, from the hordes of
barbarians, who would not remain conquered, but engaged in revolts that
caused him vast trouble and the loss of large numbers of soldiers.
Incidentally to his other wars, he made two incursions into Britain,
the home of our forefathers (B.C. 55 and 54), and nominally conquered
the people, but it was not a real subjugation. Shakespeare did not make
a mistake when he put into the mouth of the queen-wife of Cymbeline the
words:

  * * * "A kind of conquest
  Cæsar made here; but made not here his brag
  Of 'came' and 'saw' and 'overcame,'"

and certainly the brave Britons did not continue to obey their self-
styled Roman "rulers."

In the sixth year of Cæsar's campaigns in Gaul, it seemed as if all was
to be lost to the Romans. There arose a young general named
Vercingetorix, who was much abler than any leader the Gauls had ever
opposed to their enemies, and he united them as they had never been
united before. This man persuaded his countrymen to lay their own
country waste, in order that it might not afford any abiding place for
the Romans, but contrary to his intentions one town that was strongly
fortified was left, and to that Cæsar laid siege, finally taking it and
butchering all the men, women, and children that it contained.
Vercingetorix then fortified himself at Alesia (southeast of Paris),
where he was, of course, besieged by the Romans, but soon Cæsar found
his own forces attacked in the rear, and surrounded by a vast army of
Gauls, who had come to the relief of their leader. In the face of such
odds, he succeeded in vanquishing the enemy, and took the place,
achieving the most wonderful act of his genius. The conquered chief was
reserved to grace a Roman triumph, and to die by the hand of a Roman
executioner. [Footnote: The historian Mommsen says of this unfortunate
"barbarian": "As after a day of gloom the sun breaks through the clouds
at its setting, so destiny bestows on nations in their decline a last
great man. Thus Hannibal stands at the close of the Phoenician history
and Vercingetorix at the close of the Celtic. They were not all to save
the nations to which they belonged from a foreign yoke, but they spared
them the last remaining disgrace--an ignominious fall.... The whole
ancient world presents no more genuine knight [than Vercingetorix],
whether as regards his essential character or his outward appearance."]
The fate of Gaul was now certain, and Cæsar found comparatively little
difficulty in subduing the remaining states, the last of which was
Aquitania, the flat and uninteresting region in the southwest of modern
France, watered by the Garonne and washed by the Atlantic. The
conqueror treated the Gauls with mildness, and endeavored in every way
to make them adopt Roman habits and customs. As they had lost all hope
of resisting him, they calmly accepted the situation, and the
foundation of the subsequent Romanizing of the west of Europe was laid.
Three million Gauls had been conquered, a million had been butchered,
and another million taken captive, while eight hundred cities, centres
of active life and places of the enjoyment of those social virtues for
which the rough inhabitants of the region were noted, had been
destroyed. Legions of Roman soldiers had been cut to pieces in
accomplishing this result, the influence of which upon the history of
Europe can hardly be over-estimated Cæsar had completely eclipsed the
military prestige of his rival, Pompey the Great.




XVI.

HOW THE TRIUMVIRS CAME TO UNTIMELY ENDS.



It was agreed at the conference of Lucca that Pompey should rule Spain,
but it did not suit his plans to go to that distant country. He
preferred to remain at Rome, where he thought that he might do
something that would establish his influence with the people, and give
him the advantage over his colleagues that they were each seeking to
get over him. In order to court popularity, he built the first stone
theatre that Rome had ever seen, capable of accommodating the enormous
number of forty thousand spectators, and opened it with a splendid
exhibition (B.C. 55). [Footnote: This theatre was built after the model
of one that Pompey had seen at Mitylene, and stood between the Campus
Martius and Circus Flaminius. Adjoining it was a hall affording shelter
for the spectators in bad weather, in which Julius Cæsar was
assassinated. The Roman theatres had no roofs, and, in early times, no
seats. At this period there were seats of stone divided by broad
passages for the convenience of the audience in going in and out. A
curtain, which was drawn down instead of up, served to screen the
actors from the spectators. Awnings were sometimes used to protect the
audience from rain and sun. A century before this time the Senate had
stopped the construction of a theatre, and prohibited dramatic
exhibitions as subversive of good morals. The actors usually wore
masks. See page 159.] Day after day the populace were admitted, and on
each occasion new games and plays were prepared for their
gratification. For the first time a rhinoceros was shown; eighteen
elephants were killed by fierce Libyan hunters, and five hundred
African lions lost their lives in the combats to which they were
forced; the vehement, tragic actor Æsopus, then quite aged, came out of
his retirement for the occasion, and uttered his last words on the
stage, the juncture being all the more remarkable from the fact that
his strength failed him in the midst of a very emphatic part; gymnasts
contended, gladiators fought to the death, and the crowd cheered, but,
alas for Pompey! the cheers expressed merely temporary enjoyment at the
scenes before them, and did not at all indicate that he had been
received to their hearts.

Crassus, in the meantime, was thinking that he too must accomplish
something great or he would be left behind by both of his associates.
He reflected that Cæsar had won distinction in Gaul, and Pompey by
overcoming the pirates and conquering the East, and determined to show
his skill as a warrior in his new province, Parthia. There was no cause
for war against the people of that distant land, but a cause might
easily be found, or a war begun without one, the great object aimed at
being the extension of the sovereignty of Rome, and marking the name of
Crassus high on the pillar of fame. This would surely, he thought, give
him the utmost popularity. Thus, in the year 54, he set out for Syria,
and the world saw each of the triumvirs busily engaged in pushing his
own cause in his own way. Ten years later not one of them was alive to
enjoy that which they had all so earnestly sought.

[Illustration: AN ELEPHANT IN ARMOR]

It is not necessary to follow Crassus minutely in his campaign. He
spent a winter in Syria, and in the spring of 53 set out for the still
distant East, crossing the Euphrates, and plunging into the desert
wastes of old Mesopotamia, where he was betrayed into the hands of the
enemy, and lost, not far from Carrhæ (Charran or Haran), the City of
Nahor, to which the patriarch Abraham migrated with his family from Ur
of the Chaldees. Thus there remained but two of the three ambitious
seekers of popular applause.

Pompey had been in some degree attached to Cæsar through his daughter
Julia, whom he had married; but she died in the same year that Crassus
went to the East, and from that time he gravitated toward the
aristocrats, with whom his former affiliations had been. The ten years
of Cæsar's government were to expire on the 1st of January, 48, and it
became important for him to obtain the office of consul for the
following year; but the senate and Pompey were equally interested to
have him deprived of the command of the army before receiving any new
appointment. The reason for this was that Cato [Footnote: This Cato was
great-grandson of Cato the Censor (see page 152), was a man who
endeavored to remind the world constantly of his illustrious descent by
imitating the severe independence of his great ancestor, and by
assuming marked peculiarity of dress and behavior. His life, blighted
by an early disappointment in love, was unfortunate to the last. He was
a consistent, but often ridiculous, leader of the minority opposed to
the triumvirs.] had declared that as soon as Cæsar should become a
private citizen he would bring him to trial for illegal acts of which
his enemies accused him; and it was plain to him, no less than to all
the world, that if Pompey were in authority at the time, conviction
would certainly follow such a trial. One of Cicero's correspondents
said on this subject: "Pompey has absolutely determined not to allow
Cæsar to be elected consul on any terms except a previous resignation
of his army and his government, while Cæsar is convinced that he must
inevitably fall if he has once let go his army."

In the year 50, Cæsar went into Cisalpine Gaul, that is, into the
region which is now known as Northern Italy, and was received as a
great conqueror. He then went over the mountains to Farther Gaul and
reviewed his army--the army that he had so often led to victory. He did
not lose sight of the fact that it was now, more than ever before,
necessary for him to have some one in Rome who would look out for his
interests in his absences, and he bethought himself of a man whom he
had known from his youth, Caius Scribonius Curio by name, a spendthrift
whom he had vainly tried to inspire with higher ambition than the mere
gratification of his appetites. He was married to Fulvia, a scheming
woman of light character, widow of Clodius (who afterwards become wife
of Marc Antony), and he was harassed by enormous debts. Though Curio
was allied to the party of Pompey, Cæsar won him over by paying his
debts, [Footnote: The debts of this young man have been estimated as
high as $2,500,000, and their vastness shows by contrast how wealthy
private citizens sometimes became at this epoch.] and he then began
cautiously to turn his back upon his former associates. At first, he
pretended to act against Cæsar as usual; then he cautiously assumed the
appearance of neutrality; and, when the proper opportunity arrived, he
threw all the weight of his influence in favor of the master to whom he
had sold himself. Curio was not the only person whom Cæsar bought, for
he distributed immense sums among other citizens of influence, as he
had not hesitated to do before, and they quietly interposed objections
to any movement against him, though outwardly holding to Pompey's
party.

The senate, assisted by the solemn jugglery of the pontiffs, who had
charge of the calendar and were accustomed to shorten or lengthen the
year according as their political inclinations impelled them, proposed
to weaken Cæsar's position by obliging him to resign his authority
November 13th, though his term did not expire, as we know, until the
following January.

Under these circumstances, Curio, then one of the tribunes of the
people, began his tactics by plausibly urging that it would be only
fair that Pompey, who was not far from the city at the head of an army,
should also give up his authority at the same time before entering the
city. Pompey had no intention of doing this, though everybody saw that
it was reasonable, and Curio took courage and went a step farther,
denouncing him as evidently designing to make himself tyrant.
[Footnote: A tyrant was simply a ruler with dictatorial powers, and it
was not until he abused his authority that he became the odious
character indicated by the modern meaning of the title; but any thing
that looked like a return to the government of a king was hateful to
the Romans.] However, in order to keep up his appearance of
impartiality, he approved a declaration that unless both generals
should lay down their authority, they ought to be denounced as public
enemies, and that war should be immediately declared against them.
Pompey became indignant at this. Finally it was decided that each
commander should be ordered to give up one legion, to be used against
the Parthians, in a war which it was pretended would soon open. Pompey
readily assented, but craftily managed to perform his part without any
loss; for he called upon Cæsar to return to him a legion that he had
borrowed three years before. The senate then sent both legions to Capua
instead of to Asia, intending, in due time, to use them against Cæsar.
Cæsar gave up the two legions willingly, because he thought that with
the help of the army that remained, and with the assistance of the
citizens whom he had bribed, he would be able to take care of himself
in any emergency, but nevertheless he endeavored to bind the soldiers
of these legions more firmly to him by giving a valuable present to
each one as he went away. [Footnote: One of Cicero's correspondents
writing in January, 50, says in a postscript: "I told you above that
Curio was freezing, but he finds it warm enough just at present,
everybody being hotly engaged in pulling him to pieces. Just because he
failed to get an intercalary month, without the slightest ado he has
stepped over to the popular side, and begun to harangue in favor of
Cæsar." In replying to this, Cicero wrote: "The paragraph you added was
indeed a stab from the point of your pen. What! Curio now become a
supporter of Cæsar. Who could ever have expected this but myself? for,
upon my life, I really did expect it. Good heavens! how I miss our
laughing together over it." ] Not long after this Curio went to Ravenna
to consult Cæsar.

We see on our maps a little stream laid down as the boundary between
Italy and Gaul. It is called the Rubicon; but when we go to Italy and
look for the stream itself we do not find it so easily, because there
are at least two rivers that may be taken for it. However, it is not of
much importance for the purposes of history which was actually the
boundary. North of the Rubicon we see the ancient city of Ravenna,
which stood in old times like Venice, on islands, and like it was
intersected in all directions by canals through which the tide poured
volumes of purifying salt water twice every day. Now the canals are all
filled up, and the city is four miles from the sea, so large have been
the deposits from the muddy waters that flow down the rivers into the
Adriatic at that place. Thirty-three miles south of Ravenna and nine
miles from the Rubicon, the map shows us another ancient town called
Ariminum. connected directly with Rome by the Flaminian road, which was
built some two hundred years before the time of which we are writing.
Ravenna was the last town in the territory of Cæsar on the way to Rome,
and there he took his position to watch proceedings, for it was not
allowed him to leave his province.

[Illustration: ITALIAN AND GERMAN ALLIES, COMSTUMES, AND ARMOR.]

On the first of January, 49, Curio arrived at Rome with a letter from
Cæsar offering to give up his command provided Pompey would do the
same. The consuls at that time were partisans of Pompey, and they at
first refused to allow the letter to be read; but the tribunes of the
people were in favor of Cæsar, and they forced the senators to listen
to it. A violent debate followed, and it was finally voted that unless
Cæsar should disband his army within a certain time he should be
considered an enemy of the state, and be treated accordingly. On the
sixth of the same month the power of dictators was given to the
consuls, and the two tribunes who favored Cæsar--one of whom was Marc
Antony--fled to him in disguise, for there was no safety for them in
Rome.

Now there was war. On the one side we have Pompey, proud and confident,
but unprepared because he was so confident; and on the other, Cæsar,
cool and unperturbed, relying not only on his army, but also upon the
friends that his money and tact had made among the soldiers with him,
no less than among those at Capua and elsewhere, upon which his
opponent also depended.

The moment is one that has been fixed in the memory of men for all time
by a proverbial expression based upon an apochryphal event that might
well have happened upon the banks of the little Rubicon. As soon as
Cæsar heard of the action of the senate he assembled his soldiers and
asked them if they would support him. They replied that they would
follow him wherever he commanded. The story runs that he then ordered
the army to advance upon Ariminum, but that when he arrived at the
little dividing river he ordered a halt, and meditated upon his course.
He knew that when he crossed that line blood would surely flow from
thousands of Romans, and he asked himself whether he was right in
bringing such woes upon his countrymen, and how his act would be
represented in history.

It is not improbable that the great conqueror entertained thoughts like
these, for he was a writer of history as well as one of the mightiest
makers of it; but he mentions nothing of the sort in his own story of
the advance, and we may well doubt whether it was not invented by
Suetonius, or some other historian, who wished to make his account as
picturesque as possible. It is said that after these thoughts Cæsar
exclaimed: "The die is cast; let us go where the gods and the injustice
of our enemies direct us!" He then urged his charger through the
stream.

There had been confusion in the capital many a time before, but
probably never was there such a commotion as arose when it was known
that the conqueror of Gaul, the man who had for years marched through
that great region as a mighty monarch, was on the way towards it. That
the consuls were endowed with dictatorial power for the emergency,
availed little. A few days before, some one had asked Pompey what he
should do for an army if Cæsar should leave his province with his
soldiers, and he replied haughtily that he should need but to stamp on
the ground and soldiers would spring up. Now he stamped, and stamped in
vain; no volunteers came at his call. The venerable senators,
successors of those who had remained in their seats when the barbarians
were coming, hastened away for dear life; they did not make the usual
sacrifices; they did not take their goods and chattels; they even
forgot the public treasure, which would have been of the utmost use to
them and to the cause of Pompey.

Cæsar's army supported him as a whole, but there was one self-important
man among the leaders of it who proved an exception. Titus Labienus,
who had been with Cæsar in Spain, who had performed some brilliant
feats when Vercingetorix revolted, and who was in all his master's
confidence, had allowed his little mind to become filled with pride and
ambition until he began to believe that he was at the bottom of Cæsar's
success, and probably as great a general as he! He was ready to allow
the Pompeians to beguile him from his allegiance, and at last went over
to them. Cæsar, to show how little he cared for the defection of
Labienus, hastened to send his baggage after him; but in Rome he was
welcomed with acclamations. Cicero, the trimmer, exclaimed: "Labienus
has behaved quite like a hero!" and believed that Cæsar had received a
tremendous blow by his defection. This deserter's act had, however, no
effect whatever on the progress of Cæsar, who, though it was the middle
of winter, marched onwards, receiving the surrender of city after city,
giving to all the conquered citizens the most liberal terms, and thus
binding them firmly to his cause. [Footnote: As Cæsar approached Rome,
Cato took flight, and, determined to mourn until death the unhappy lot
of his country, allowed his hair to grow, and resigned himself to
unavailing grief. Too weak and perplexed to stand against opposing
troubles, he fondly thought that resolutions and laws and a temporizing
policy might avail to bring happiness and order to a distraught
commonwealth.]

Pompey did not even attempt to interrupt the triumphant career of his
enemy, but determined to find safety out of Italy, and hastened to
Brundusium as fast as possible. After mastering the whole country,
Cæsar reached the same port before Pompey was able to get away, and
began a siege, in the progress of which Pompey escaped. Cæsar was not
able to follow, on account of a want of vessels. He therefore turned
back to Rome, where he encountered no opposition, except from Metellus,
a tribune of the people, who attempted to keep him from taking
possession of the gold in the temple of Saturn, traditionally supposed
to have been that which Camillus had recovered from Brennus. It was
intended for use in case the Gauls should make another invasion, but
Cæsar said that he had conquered the Gauls, and they need be feared no
more. "Stand aside, young man!" he exclaimed; "it is easier for me to
do than to say!" Metellus saw that it was not worth while to discuss
the question with such a man, and prudently stepped aside.

Cæsar did not remain at Rome at this time, but hastened to Spain, where
partisans of Pompey were in arms, leaving Marc Antony in charge of
Italy in general, and Marcus Lepidus responsible for order in the city.
Both of these men were destined to become more prominent in the future.
At the same time, legions were sent to Sicily and Sardinia, and their
success, which was easily gained, preserved the city from a scarcity of
grain. Cæsar himself overcame the Pompeians in Spain, and, in
accordance with his policy in Italy, dismissed them unharmed. Most of
their soldiers were taken into his own army. He then felt free to
continue his movements against Pompey himself, and returned to the
capital.

For eleven days Cæsar was dictator of Rome, receiving the office from
Lepidus, who had been authorized to give it by those senators who had
not fled with Pompey. In that short period he passed laws calling home
the exiles; giving back their rights as citizens to the children of
those who had suffered in the Sullan proscription; and affording relief
to debtors. Then, causing the senate to declare him consul, he started
for Brundusium to pursue his rival. It was the fourth of January, 48,
when he sailed for the coast of Epirus, and the following day he landed
on the soil of Greece. He met Pompey at Dyrrachium, but his force was
so small that he was defeated. He then retreated to the southeast, and
another battle was fought on the plain of Pharsalia, in Thessaly, June
6, 48. The forces were still very unequal, Pompey having more than two
soldiers to one of Cæsar's; but Cæsar's were the better warriors, and
Pompey was totally defeated. Feeling that every thing was now lost,
Pompey sought an asylum in Egypt; and there he was assassinated by
order of the reigning monarch, who hoped to win the favor of Cæsar in
his contest with his sister, Cleopatra, who claimed the throne.

Cæsar followed his adversary with his usual promptness, and when he had
reached Egypt was shown his rival's severed head, from which he turned
with real or feigned sadness and tears. This alarmed the king and his
partisans, and they still further lost heart when Cleopatra won Cæsar
to her support by the charms of her personal beauty.

After a brief struggle known as the Alexandrine War, which closed in
March, 47, Cæsar placed the queen and her brother on the throne. It was
at this time that the great Library and Museum at Alexandria were
destroyed by fire. Four hundred thousand volumes were said to have been
burned. The next month Cæsar was called from Egypt to Pontus, where a
son of Mithridates was in arms, and, after a campaign of five days, he
gained a decisive victory at a place called Zela, boastfully announcing
his success to the senate in three short words: "_Veni, vidi, vici_"
(I came, I saw, I overcame). In September, Cæsar was again in Rome,
where he remained only three months, arranging affairs. There were
fears lest he should make a proscription, but he proceeded to no such
extremity, exercising his characteristic clemency towards those who had
been opposed to him. A revolt occurred at this time among the soldiers
at Capua, and they marched to Rome, but Cæsar cowed them by a display
of haughty coolness.

The remnant of the adherents of Pompey gathered together and went to
Africa, whither Cæsar followed, and after a short campaign defeated
them on the field of Thapsus, April 6, 46. They were commanded by
Scipio, father-in-law of Pompey, and by Cato, who had accepted the
position after it had been declined by Cicero, his superior in rank.
After the defeat of Thapsus Cato retreated to Utica, where he
deliberately put an end to his life after occupying several hours in
reading Plato's _Phædo_, a dialogue on the immortality of the
soul. From the place of his death he is known in history as Cato of
Utica.

When the news of this final victory reached Rome Cæsar was appointed
dictator for ten years, and a thanksgiving lasting forty days was
decreed. He was also endowed with a newly created office-that of
Overseer of Public Morals (_Præfectus Morum_). Temples and statues
were dedicated to his honor; a golden chair was assigned for his use
when he sat in the senate; the month Quintilis was renamed after him
Julius (July); and other unheard of honors were thrust upon him by a
servile senate. He was also called the Father of his Country (a title
that had been before borne by Camillus and Cicero), and four triumphs
were celebrated for him. On his own part, Cæsar feasted the people at
twenty-two thousand tables, and caused combats of wild animals and
gladiators to be celebrated in the arenas beneath awnings of the
richest silks.

The great conqueror now prepared to carry out schemes of a beneficent
nature which would have been of great value to the world; but their
achievement was interfered with, first by war and then by his own
death. He intended to unify the regions controlled by the republic by
abolishing offensive political distinctions, and to develop them by
means of a geographical survey which would have occupied years to
complete under the most competent management; and he wished to codify
the Roman law, which had been growing up into a universal
jurisprudence, a work which Cicero looked upon as a hopeless though
brilliant vision, and one that Justinian actually accomplished, though
not until six hundred years later. He contemplated also the erection of
vast public works. His knowledge of astronomy led him to accomplish one
important change, for which we have reason to remember him to-day. He
reformed the calendar, substituting the one used until 1582 (known from
him as the Julian calendar) for that which was then current. [Footnote:
The Gregorian calendar was introduced in the Catholic states of Europe
in 1582, but owing to popular prejudice England did not begin to use it
until 1752, in which year September 3d became, by act of Parliament,
September 14th. Usage in America followed that of the mother country.]
Three hundred and fifty-five days had been called a year from the time
of Numa Pompilius, but as that number did not correspond with the
actual time of the revolution of the earth around the sun, it had been
customary to intercalate a month, every second year, of twenty-two and
twenty-three days alternately, and one day had also been added to make
a fortunate number. This made the adaptation of the nominal year to the
actual a matter of great intricacy, the duty being intrusted to the
chief pontiffs. These officers were often corrupted, and managed to
effect political ends from time to time by the addition or omission of
the intercalary days and months. At this time the civil calendar was
some weeks in advance of the actual time, so that the consuls, for
example, who should have entered office January 1, 46, really assumed
their power October 13, 47. The Julian calendar made the year to
consist of 365 days and six hours, which was correct within a few
minutes; but, by the time of Pope Gregory XIII, this had amounted to
ten days, and a new reform was instituted. Cæsar now added ninety days
to the year in order to make the year 45 begin at the proper time,
inserting a new month between the 23d and 24th of February, and adding
two new months after the end of November, so that the long year thus
manufactured (445 days) was very justly called the "year of confusion",
or "the last year of confusion."

Cæsar had also in mind plans of conquest. He had not forgotten that the
Roman arms had been unsuccessful at Carrhæ, and he wished to subdue the
Parthians, but the ghost of Pompey would not down. His sons raised the
banner of revolt in Spain, and the officers sent against them did not
succeed in their efforts to assert the supremacy of Rome. It was
necessary that Cæsar himself should go there, and accordingly he set
out in September. Twenty-seven days later he was on the ground, and
though he found himself in the face of greater difficulties than he had
anticipated, a few months sufficed to completely overthrow the enemy,
who were defeated finally at the battle of Munda, not far from
Gibraltar (March, 17, 45). Thirty thousand of them perished. Cæsar did
not return to Rome until September, because affairs of the province
required attention. Again he celebrated a triumph, marked by games and
shows, and new honors from the senate.

Cæsar's ambition now made him wish to continue the supreme power in his
family, and he fixed upon a great-nephew named Octavius as his
successor. In the fifth year of his consulate (B.C. 44), on the feast
of Lupercalia (Feb. 15th), he attempted to take a more important step.
He prevailed upon Marc Antony to make him an offer of the kingly
diadem, but as he immediately saw that it was not pleasing to the
people that he should accept it, he pushed the glittering coronet from
him, amid their plaudits, as though he would not think of assuming any
sign of authority that the people did not freely offer him themselves.
[Footnote: "I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown; yet 't was not a
crown neither, 't was one of these coronets; and, as I told you, he
put it by once; but for all that, to my thinking, he would fain have
had it. Then he offered it to him again; then he put it by again; but
to my thinking, he was very loth to lay his fingers off it. And then he
offered it the third time; he put it the third time by, and still as
he refused it, the rabblement shouted and clapped their chapped hands,
and threw up their sweaty night-caps, and uttered such a deal of
stinking breath because Cæsar refused the crown, that it had almost
choked Cæsar; for he swooned and fell down at it." Casca's account, in
Shakespeare's _Julius Cæsar_, act i., sc. 2.] Cæsar still longed
for the name of king, however, and became irritated because it was not
given him. This was shown in his intercourse with the nobles, and they
were now excited against him by one Caius Cassius Longinus (commonly
called simply Cassius), who had wandered and fought with Crassus in
Parthia, but had escaped from that disastrous campaign. He had been a
follower of Pompey, and had fallen into Cæsar's hands shortly after the
battle of Pharsalia. Though he owed his life to Cæsar, he was
personally hostile to him, and his feelings were so strong that he
formed a plot for his destruction, in which sixty or eighty persons
were involved. Among these was Marcus Junius Brutus, then about forty
years of age, who had also been with Pompey at Pharsalia. He was of
illustrious pedigree, and claimed to be descended from the shadowy hero
of his name, who is said to have pursued the Tarquins with such
patriotic zeal. His life also had been spared by Cæsar at Pharsalia,
and he had made no opposition to his acts as dictator. Cato was his
political model, and at about this time, he divorced his wife to marry
Portia, Cato's daughter. Cassius had married Junia Tertulla, half-
sister of Brutus, and now offered him the place of chief adviser of the
conspirators, who determined upon a sudden and bold effort to
assassinate the dictator. They intended to make it appear that
patriotism gave them the reason for their act, but in this they failed.

The senate was to convene on the Ides of March, and Cæsar was warned
that danger awaited him; but he was not to be deterred, and entered the
chamber amid the applause of the people. The conspirators crowded about
him, keeping his friends at a distance, and at a concerted signal he
was grasped by the hands and embraced by some, while others stabbed him
with their fatal daggers. He fell at the base of the statue of Pompey,
pierced with more than a score of wounds. It is said that when he
noticed Brutus in the angry crowd, he exclaimed in surprise and sorrow:
"_Et tu Brute!_" (And thou, too, Brutus!).

Brutus had prepared a speech to deliver to the senate, but when he
looked around, he found that senators, centurions, lictors, and
attendants, all had fled, and the place was empty. He then marched with
his accomplices to the forum. It was crowded with an excited multitude,
but it was not a multitude of friends. The assassins saw that there was
no safety for them in the city. Lepidus was at the gates with an army,
and Antony had taken possession of the papers and treasures of Cæsar,
which gave him additional power; but all parties were in doubt as to
the next steps, and a reconciliation was determined upon as giving time
for reflection. Cassius went to sup with Antony, and Brutus with
Lepidus. This shows plainly that the good of the republic was not the
cause nearest the hearts of the principal actors; but that each, like a
wary player at chess, was only anxious lest some adversary should get
an advantage over him.

The senate was immediately convened, and under the direction of Cicero,
who became its temporary leader, it was voted that the acts of Cæsar,
intended as well as performed, should be ratified, and that the
conspirators should be pardoned, and assigned to the provinces that
Cæsar had designated them for.

Antony now showed himself a consummate actor, and a master of the art
of moving the multitude. He prepared for the obsequies of the dictator,
at which he was to deliver the oration, and, while pretending to
endeavor to hold back the people from violence against the murderers,
managed to excite them to such an extent that nothing could restrain
them. He brought the body into the Campus Martius for the occasion, and
there in its presence displayed the bloody garment through which the
daggers of the conspirators had been thrust; identified the rents made
by the leader, Cassius, the "envious Casca," the "well-beloved Brutus,"
and the others; and displayed a waxen effigy that he had prepared for
the occasion, bearing all the wounds. He called upon the crowd the
while, as it swayed to and fro in its threatening violence, to listen
to reason, but at the same time told them that if he possessed the
eloquence of a Brutus he would ruffle up their spirits and put a tongue
in every wound of Cæsar that would move the very stones of Rome to rise
in mutiny. He said that if the people could but hear the last will of
the dictator, they would dip their kerchiefs in his blood--yea, beg a
hair of him for memory, and, dying, mention it in their wills as a rich
legacy to their children.

The oration had its natural effect. The people, stirred from one degree
of frenzy to another, piled up chairs, benches, tables, brushwood, even
ornaments and costly garments for a funeral pile, and burned the whole
in the forum. Unable to restrain themselves, they rushed with brands
from the fire towards the homes of the conspirators to wreak vengeance
upon them. Brutus and Cassius had fled from the city, and the others
could not be found, so that the fury of their hate died out for want of
new fuel upon which to feed.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE FORUM ROMANUM]

Antony was now the chief man of Rome, and it was expected that he would
demand the dictatorship. To the astonishment of all, he proposed that
the office itself should be forever abolished, thus keeping up his
pretence of moderation; but, on the other hand, he asked for a body-
guard, which the senate granted, and he surrounded himself with a force
of six thousand men. He appointed magistrates as he wished, recalled
exiles, and freed any from prison whom he desired, under pretence of
following the will of Cæsar.

It soon became apparent that, in the words of Cicero addressed to
Cassius, the state seemed to have been "emancipated from the king, but
not from the kingly power," for no one could tell where Antony would
stop his pretence of carrying out the plans of Cæsar. The republic was
doubtless soon to end, and it was not plain what new misery was in
store for the distracted people.




XVII.

HOW THE REPUBLIC BECAME AN EMPIRE.



When Cæsar had planned to go to Parthia, he sent in that direction some
of his legions, which wintered at Apollonia, just over the Adriatic,
opposite Brundusium, and with them went the young and sickly nephew
whom Cæsar had mentioned in his will as his heir. While the young man
was engaged in familiarizing himself with the soldiers and their life,
a freedman arrived in camp to announce from his mother the tragedy of
the Ides of March. The soldiers offered to go with him to avenge his
uncle's death, but he decided to set out at once and alone for the
capital. At Brundusium he was received by the army with acclamations.
He did not hesitate to assume the name Cæsar, and to claim the
succession, though he thus bound himself to pay the legacies that Cæsar
had made to the people. He was known as Caius Julius Cæsar Octavianus,
or, briefly, as Octavius. [Footnote: Octavius was son of Caius Octavius
and Atia, daughter of Julia, sister of Julius Cæsar, and was born Sept.
23, B.C. 63. His true name was the same as that of his father, but he
is usually mentioned in history as Augustus, an untranslatable title
that he assumed when he became emperor. His descent was traced from
Atys, son of Alba, an old Latin hero.] Cæsar had bequeathed his
magnificent gardens on the opposite side of the Tiber to the public as
a park, and to every citizen in Rome a gift of three hundred sesterces,
equal to ten or fifteen dollars. These provisions could not easily be
carried out except by Antony, who had taken possession of Cæsar's
moneys, and who was at the moment the most powerful man in the
republic. Next to him stood Lepidus, who was in command of the army.
These two seemed to stand between Octavius and his heritage.

Octavius understood the value of money, and took possession of the
public funds at Brundusium, captured such remittances from the
provinces as he could reach, and sent off to Asia to see how much he
could secure of the amount provided for the Parthian expedition, just
as though all this had been his own personal property.

Thus the timid but ambitious youth began to prepare himself for supreme
authority. When he reached Rome his mother and other friends warned him
of the risks involved in his course, but he was resolute. He had made
the acquaintance at Apollonia of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, then twenty
years of age, who afterwards became a skilful warrior and always was a
valuable adviser, and now he determined to make a friend of Cicero.
This remarkable orator had already been intimate with all the prominent
men of his day; had at one time or another flattered or cajoled Curio,
Cassius, Crassus, Pompey, Antony, and Cæsar, and now, after thoroughly
canvassing the probabilities, he decided to take the side of Octavius,
though he was loth to break with either Brutus or Antony. His weakness
is plainly and painfully presented by his own hand in his interesting
letters, which add much light to the story of this period. [Footnote:
James Anthony Froude says: "In Cicero, Nature half-made a great man and
left him uncompleted. Our characters are written in our forms, and the
bust of Cicero is the key to his history. The brow is broad and strong,
the nose large, the lips tightly compressed, the features lean and keen
from restless intellectual energy. The loose, bending figure, the neck
too weak for the weight of the head, explain the infirmity of will, the
passion, the cunning, the vanity, the absence of manliness and
veracity. He was born into an age of violence with which he was too
feeble to contend. The gratitude of mankind for his literary excellence
will forever preserve his memory from too harsh a judgment."--"Cæsar, a
Sketch," chapter xxvii.]

Octavius gathered together enough money to pay the legacies of Cæsar by
sales of property, and by loans, in spite of the fact that Antony
refused to give up any that he had taken. He artfully won the soldiers
and the people by his liberality (that could not fail to be contrasted
with the grasping action of Antony), and by the shows with which he
amused them. Thus with it all he managed to make the world believe that
he was not laying plans of ambition, but simply wished to protect the
state from the selfish designs of his rival. In this effort he was
supported by the oratory of Cicero, who began to compose and deliver or
publish a remarkable series of fourteen speeches known as Philippics,
from their resemblance to the four acrimonious invectives against
Philip of Macedon which the great Demosthenes launched at Athens during
the eleven years in which he strove to arouse the weakened Greeks from
inactivity and pusillanimity (352-342 B.C.).

Cicero entered Rome on the first of September, and delivered his first
Philippic the next day, in the same Temple of Concord in which he had
denounced Catiline twenty years before. He then retired from the city,
and did not hear the abusive tirade with which Antony attempted to
blacken his reputation. In October he prepared a second speech, which
was not delivered, but was given to the public in November. This is the
most elaborate and the best of the Philippics, and it is also much more
fierce than the former. The last of the series was delivered April 22,
43. Antony was soon declared a public enemy, and Cicero in his speeches
constantly urged a vigorous prosecution of the war against him.

Octavius gained the confidence of the army, and then demanded the
consulate of the senate. When that powerful office had been obtained,
he broke with the senate, and marched to the northward, ostensibly to
conquer Antony and Lepidus, who were coming down with another great
army. Instead of precipitating a battle, Lepidus contrived to have a
meeting on a small island in a tributary of the Po, not far from the
present site of Bologna, and there, toward the end of October, it was
agreed that the government of the Roman world should be peaceably
divided between the three captains, who were to be called Triumvirs for
the settlement of the affairs of the republic. They were to retain
their offices until the end of December, 38, Lepidus ruling Spain;
Octavius, Sicily, Sardinia, and Africa; and Antony, the two Gauls;
while Italy was to be governed by the three in common, their authority
being paramount to senate, consuls, and laws. This is known as the
Second Triumvirate, though we must remember that the former
arrangement, made by Cæsar, Pompey, and Crassus, was simply a private
league without formal sanction of law. The second triumvirate was
proclaimed November, 27, 43 B.C.

[Illustration: MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO.]

The first work of the three rulers was to rid themselves of all whom
they feared as enemies, and we have to imagine them sitting down to
make out a list of those who, like the sufferers at the dreadful time
of Marius and Sulla, were proscribed. Among the prominent men seventeen
were first chosen to be butchered, and on the horrid list are found the
names of a cousin of Octavius, a brother of Lepidus, and an uncle of
Antony. To the lasting execration of Octavius, he consented that
Cicero, who had so valiantly fought for him, should be sacrificed to
the vengeance of Antony, whom the orator had scarified with his burning
words.

This was but the beginning of blood-shedding, for when the triumvirs
reached Rome they issued list after list of the doomed, some names
being apparently included at the request of daughters, wives, and
friends to gratify private malice. The head and hands of Cicero were
cut off and sent to be affixed to the rostra, where they had so often
been seen during his life. It is said that on one occasion a head was
presented to Antony, and he exclaimed: "I do not recognize it, show it
to my wife"; and that on another, when a man begged a few moments of
respite that he might send his son to intercede with Antony, he was
told that it was that son who had demanded his death. The details are
too horrible for record, and yet it is said that the massacre was not
so general as in the former instance. In this reign of terror, three
hundred senators died, and two thousand knights.

While these events had occurred in Rome, Brutus and Cassius had been
successfully pursuing their conquests in Syria and Greece, and were now
masters of the eastern portion of the Roman world. When they heard of
the triumvirate and the proscription, they determined to march into
Europe; but Antony and Octavius were before them, and the opposed
forces met on the field of Philippi, which lies nine miles from the
Ægean Sea, on the road between Europe and Asia, the Via Egnatia, which
ran then as now from Dyrrachium and Apollonia in Illyricum, by way of
Thessalonica to Constantinople, or Byzantium, as it was then called.
Brutus engaged the forces of Octavius, and Cassius those of Antony.
Antony made head against his opponent; but Octavius, who was less of a
commander, and fell into a fit of illness on the beginning of the
battle, gave way before Brutus, though in consequence of misinformation
of the progress of the struggle, Cassius killed himself just before a
messenger arrived to tell him of his associate's success. Twenty days
afterwards the struggle was renewed on the same ground, and Brutus was
defeated, upon which he likewise put an end to his own life. If the
murderers of Cæsar had fought for the republic, there was no hope for
that cause now. The three rulers were reduced to two, for Lepidus was
ignored after the victory of his associates, and it only remained to
eliminate the second member of the triumvirate to establish the
monarchy. For the present, Octavius and Antony divided the government
between them, Antony taking the luxurious East, and leaving to Octavius
the invidious task of governing Italy and allotting lands to the
veterans.

Thousands of the inhabitants of Cisalpine Gaul were expelled from their
homes to supply the soldiers with farms, but still they remained
unsatisfied, and Italy was filled with complaints which Octavius was
unable to allay. Antony, on the other hand, gave himself up to the
grossest dissipation, careless of consequences. At Tarsus, he had an
interview with Cleopatra, then twenty-eight years of age, whom he had
seen years before when he had accompanied Gabinius to Alexandria, and
later, when she had lived at Rome the favorite of Cæsar. Henceforth he
was her willing slave. She sailed up the river Cydnus in a vessel
propelled by silver oars that moved in unison with luxurious music, and
filled the air with fragrance as she went, while beautiful slaves held
the rudder and the ropes. The careless and pleasure-loving warrior
forgot every thing in his wild passion for the Egyptian queen. He
forgot his wife, Fulvia, but she was angry with Octavius because he had
renounced his wife Claudia, her daughter, and stirred up a threatening
revolt against him, which she fondly hoped might also serve to recall
Antony from the fascinations of Cleopatra. With her supporters she
raised a considerable army, by taking the part of the Italians who had
been dispossessed to give farms to the veterans, and by pretending also
to favor the soldiers, to whom rich spoils from Asia were promised.
They were, however, pushed from place to place until they found
themselves shut up in the town of Perusia, in Etruria, where they were
besieged and forced to surrender, by the military skill of Agrippa,
afterwards known as one of the ablest generals of antiquity.

Meantime, Antony's fortunes in the East were failing, and he determined
upon a brave effort to overthrow Octavius. He sailed for Brundusium,
and laid siege to it; but the soldiers on both sides longed for peace.
Fulvia had died, and mutual friends prevailed upon Octavius and Antony
to make peace and portion out the world anew. Again the East fell to
Antony and the West to his colleague. Antony married Octavia, sister of
Octavius, and both repaired to the capital, where they celebrated games
and festivities in honor of the marriage and the reconciliation. This
was at the end of the year 40 B.C.

[Illustration: CLEOPATRA'S SHOW-SHIP.]

The next year peace was effected with Sextus, a son of the great
Pompey, who had been proscribed as one of the murderers of Cæsar,
though he had really had no share in that deed. He had been engaged in
marauding expeditions having for their purpose the injury of the
triumvirs, and at this time had been able to cut off a considerable
share of the supply of grain from Sicily and Africa. He was indemnified
for the loss of his private property and was given an important command
for five years. This agreement was never consummated, for Antony had
not been consulted and refused to carry out a portion of it that
depended upon him. Again Pompey entered upon his marauding expeditions,
and the price of grain rose rapidly at Rome. Two years were occupied in
preparing a fleet, which was placed under command of Agrippa, who
defeated Pompey off Naulochus, on the northwestern coast of Sicily
(Sept. 3, 36.)

In the midst of the preparations for the war with Pompey, (B.C. 37)
discord had arisen between Antony and Octavius, and the commander of
the Eastern army set out for Italy with a fleet of three hundred sail.
Octavius forbade his landing, and he kept on his course to Tarentum,
where a conference was held. There were present on this memorable
occasion, besides the two triumvirs, Agrippa, the great general;
Octavia, sister of one triumvir and wife of the other, one of the
noblest women of antiquity; and Caius Cilnius Mæcenas, a wealthy
patron of letters, who had also been present when the negotiations were
made previous to the peace of Brundusium, three years before. Probably
the satiric poet Horace was also one of the group, for he gives, in one
of his satires, an account of a journey from Rome to Brundusium, which
he is supposed to have made at the time that Mæcenas was hurrying to
the conference.

Horace says that he set out from Rome accompanied by Heliodorus, a
rhetorician whom he calls by far the most learned of the Greeks, and
that they found a middling inn at Aricia, the first stopping-place, on
the Appian Way, sixteen miles out, at the foot of the Alban mount.

Next they rested, or rather tried to rest, at Appii Forum, a place
stuffed with sailors, and then took a boat on the canal for Tarracina.
He gives a vivid picture of the confusion of such a place, where the
watermen and the slaves of the travellers were mutually liberal in
their abuse of each other, and the gnats and frogs drove off sleep.
Drunken passengers, also, added to the din by the songs that their
potations incited them to. At Feronia the passengers left the boat,
washed their faces and hands, and crawled onward three miles up to the
heights of Anxur, where Mæcenas and others joined the party. Slowly
they made their way past Fundi, and Formiæ, where they seem to have
been well entertained. The next day they were rejoiced by the addition
of the poet Virgil and several more friends to the party, and
pleasantly they jogged onwards until their mules deposited their pack-
saddles at Capua, where Mæcenas was soon engaged in a game of tennis,
while Horace and Virgil sought repose. The next stop was not far from
the celebrated Caudine Forks, at a friend's villa, where they were very
hospitably entertained, and supplied with a bountiful supper, at which
buffoons performed some droll raillery. Thence they went directly to
Beneventum, where the bustling landlord almost burned himself and those
he entertained in cooking their dainty dinner, the kitchen fire falling
through the floor and spreading the flames towards the highest part of
the roof. It was a ludicrous moment, for the hungry guests and
frightened slaves hardly knew whether to snatch their supper from the
flames or to try to extinguish the fire.

From Beneventum the travellers rode on in sight of the Apuleian
mountains to the village of Trivicum, where the poet gives us a glimpse
of the customs of the times when he tells us that tears were brought to
their eyes by the green boughs with the leaves upon them with which a
fire was made on the hearth. Hence for twenty-four miles the party was
bowled away in chaises to a little town that the poet does not name,
where water was sold, the worst in the world, he thought it, but where
the bread was very fine. Through Canusium they went to Rubi, reaching
that place fatigued because they had made a long journey and had been
troubled by rains. Two days more took them through Barium and Egnatia
to Brundusium, where the journey ended.

At this conference it was agreed that the triumvirate should continue
five years longer, Antony agreeing to assist Octavius with 120 ships
against Pompey, and Octavius contributing a large land force to help
Antony against the Parthians. After Pompey had been overcome, Lepidus
claimed Sicily, but Octavius seduced his soldiers from him, and obliged
him to throw himself upon his rival's mercy. He was permitted to retire
into private life, but was allowed to enjoy his property and dignities.
He lived in the ease that he loved until 13 B.C., first at Circeii, not
far from Tarracina, and afterwards at Rome, where he was deprived of
honors and rank. Lepidus had not been a strong member of the
triumvirate for a long time, but after this he was not allowed to
interfere even nominally in affairs of government. Antony and Octavius
were now to wrestle for the supremacy, and the victor was to be
autocrat.

For three years after his marriage with Octavia, Antony seems to have
been able to conquer the fascinations of the Egyptian queen, but then,
when he was preparing to advance into Parthia, he allowed himself to
fall again into her power, and the chances that he could hold his own
against Octavius were lessened (B.C. 37). He advanced into Syria, but
called Cleopatra to him there, and delayed his march to remain with
her, overwhelming her with honors. When at last he did open the
campaign, he encountered disaster, and, hardly escaping the fate of
Crassus, retreated to Alexandria, where he gave himself up entirely to
his enchantress. He laid aside the dress and manners of a Roman, and
appeared as an Eastern monarch, vainly promising Cleopatra that he
would conquer Octavius and make Alexandria the capital of the world.
The rumors of the mad acts of Antony were carried to Rome, where
Octavius was growing in popularity, and it was inevitable that a
contrast should be made between the two men. Octavius easily made the
people believe that they had every thing to fear from Antony. The
nobles who sided with Antony urged him to dismiss Cleopatra, and enter
upon a contest with his rival untrammelled; but, on the contrary, in
his infatuation he divorced Octavia.

War was declared against Cleopatra, for Antony was ignored, and
Octavius as consul was directed to push it. Mæcenas was placed in
command at Rome, Agrippa took the fleet, and the consul himself the
land forces. The decisive struggle took place off the west coast of
Greece, north of the islands of Samos and Leucas, near the promontory
of Actium, which gained its celebrity from this battle (September 2,
B.C. 31). The ships of Agrippa were small, and those of Antony large,
but difficult of management, and Cleopatra soon became alarmed for her
safety, She attempted to flee, and Antony sailed after her, leaving
those who were fighting for them. Agrippa obtained a decisive victory,
and Octavius likewise overcame the forces on land.

Agrippa was sent back to Rome, and for a year Octavius busied himself
in Greece and Asia Minor, adding to his popularity by his mildness in
the treatment of the conquered. He had intended to pass the winter at
Samos, but troubles among the veterans called him to Italy, where he
calmed the rising storm, and returned again to his contest, after an
absence of only twenty-seven days.

Both Cleopatra and Antony sent messengers to solicit the favor of
Octavius, but he was cold and did not satisfy them, and calmly pushed
his plans. An effort was made by Cleopatra to flee to some distant
Arabian resort, but it failed: Antony made a show of resistance, but
found that his forces were not to be trusted, and both then put an end
to their lives, leaving Octavius master of Egypt, as he was of the rest
of the world. He did not hasten back to Rome, where he knew that
Mæcenas and Agrippa were faithfully attending to his interests, but
occupied himself another year away from the capital in regulating the
affairs of his new province.

[Illustration: ANCIENT STATUS OF AUGUSTUS. (THE RIGHT ARM IS A
RESTORATION.)]

In the summer of the year 29, however, Octavius left Samos, where he
had spent the winter in rest, and entered Rome amid the acclamations of
the populace, celebrating triumphs for the conquest of Dalmatia, of
Actium, and of Egypt, and distributing the gold he had won with such
prodigality that interest on loans was reduced two thirds and the price
of lands doubled. Each soldier received a thousand sesterces (about
$40), each citizen four hundred, and a certain sum was given to the
children, the whole amounting to some forty million dollars.

Octavius marked the end of the old era by himself closing the gates of
the temple of Janus for the third time in the history of Rome, and by
declaring that he had burned all the papers of Antony. Several months
later, by suppressing all the laws of the triumvirate he emphasized
still more the fact which he wished the people to understand, that he
had broken with the past.

The Roman Republic was ended. The Empire was not established in name,
but the government was in reality absolute. The chief ruler united in
himself all the great offices of the state, but concealed his strength
and power, professing himself the minister of the senate, to which,
however, he dictated the decrees that he ostentatiously obeyed.




XVIII.

SOME MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE.



We have now traced the career of the people of Rome from the time when
they were the plain and rustic subjects of a king, through their long
history as a conquering republic, down to the period when they lost the
control of government and fell into the hands of a ruler more
autocratic than their earlier tyrants. The heroic age of the republic
had now long since passed away, and with it had gone even the
admiration of those personal qualities which had lain at the foundation
of the national greatness.

History at its best is to such an extent made up of stories of the
doings of rulers and fighting-men, who happen by their mere strength
and physical force to have made themselves prominent, that it is often
read without conveying any actual familiarity with the people it is
ostensibly engaged with. The soldiers and magistrates of whom we have
ourselves been reading were but few, and we may well ask what the
millions of other citizens were doing all these ages. How did they
live? What were their joys and griefs? We have, it is true, not failed
to get an occasional glimpse of the intimate life of the people who
were governed, as we have seen a Virginia passing through the forum to
her school, and a Lucretia spinning among her maidens, and we have
learned that in the earliest times the workers were honored so much
that they were formed into guilds, and had a very high position among
the centuries (see pages 31 and 50), but these were only suggestions
that make us all the more desirous to know particulars.

Rome had not become a really magnificent city, even after seven hundred
years of existence. We know that it was a mere collection of huts in
the time of Romulus, and that after the burning of the principal
edifices by the Gauls, it was rebuilt in a hurried and careless manner,
the houses being low and mean, the streets narrow and crooked, so that
when the population had increased to hundreds of thousands the crowds
found it difficult to make their way along the thoroughfares, and
vehicles with wheels were not able to get about at all, except in two
of the streets. The streets were paved, it is true, and there were
roads and aqueducts so well built and firm that they claim our
admiration even in their ruins.

[Illustration: THE HOUSE-PHILOSOPHER.]

The Roman house at first was extremely simple, being of but one room
called the _atrium_, or darkened chamber, because its walls were
stained by the smoke that rose from the fire upon the hearth and with
difficulty found its way through a hole in the roof. The aperture also
admitted light and rain, the water that dripped from the roof being
caught in a cistern that was formed in the middle of the room. The
atrium was entered by way of a vestibule open to the sky, in which the
gentleman of the house put on his toga as he went out. [Footnote: When
Cincinnatus went out to work in the field, he left his toga at home,
wearing his tunic only, and was "naked" (_nudus_), as the Romans
said. The custom illustrates MATT, xxiv., 18. (See p. 86.)] Double
doors admitted the visitor to the entrance-hall or _ostium_. There
was a threshold, upon which it was unlucky to place the left foot; a
knocker afforded means of announcing one's approach, and a porter, who
had a small room at the side, opened the door, showing the caller the
words _Cave canem_ (beware of the dog), or _Salve_ (welcome), or
perchance the dog himself reached out toward the visitor as far as
his chain would allow. Sometimes, too, there would be noticed in the
mosaic of the pavement the representation of the faithful domestic
animal which has so long been the companion as well as the protector of
his human friend. Perhaps myrtle or laurel might be seen on a door,
indicating that a marriage was in process of celebration, or a chaplet
announcing the happy birth of an heir. Cypress, probably set in pots in
the vestibule, indicated a death, as a crape festoon does upon our own
door-handles, while torches, lamps, wreaths, garlands, branches of
trees, showed that there was joy from some cause in the house.

[Illustration: DINING TABLE AND COUCHES.]

In the "black room" the bed stood; there the meals were cooked and
eaten, there the goodman received his friends, and there the goodwife
sat in the midst of her maidens spinning. The original house grew
larger in the course of time: wings were built on the sides, and the
Romans called them wings as well as we (_ala_, a wing). Beyond the
black room a recess was built in which the family records and archives
were preserved, but with it for a long period the Roman house stopped
its growth.

Before the empire came, however, there had been great progress in
making the dwelling convenient as well as luxurious. Another hall had
been built out from the room of archives, leading to an open court,
surrounded by columns, known as the _peristylum_ (_peri_ about,
_stulos_, a pillar), which was sometimes of great magnificence.
Bedchambers were made separate from the atrium, but they were small,
and would not seem very convenient to modern eyes.

The dining-room, called the _triclinium_ (Greek, _kline_, a bed) from
its three couches, was a very important apartment. In it were three
lounges surrounding a table, on each of which three guests might
be accommodated. The couches were elevated above the table, and each
man lay almost flat on his breast, resting on his left elbow, and
having his right hand free to use, thus putting the head of one near
the breast of the man behind him, and making natural the expression
that he lay in the bosom of the other. [Footnote: In the earliest times
the Romans sat at table on benches. The habit of reclining was
introduced from Greece, but Roman women sat at table long after the men
had fallen into the new way.] As the guests were thus arranged by
threes, it was natural that the rule should have been made that a party
at dinner should not be less in number than the Graces nor more than
the Muses, though it has remained a useful one ever since.

Spacious saloons or parlors were added to the houses, some of which
were surrounded with galleries and highly adorned. In these the dining-
tables were spread on occasions of more ceremony than usual. After the
capture of Syracuse, and the increase of familiarity with foreign art,
picture-rooms were built in private dwellings; and after the second
Punic war, book-rooms became in some sort a necessity. Before the
republic came to an end, it was so fashionable to have a book-room that
ignorant persons who might not be able to read even the titles of their
own books endeavored to give themselves the appearance of erudition by
building book-rooms in their houses and furnishing them with elegance.
The books were in cases arranged around the walls in convenient manner,
and busts and statues of the Muses, of Minerva, and of men of note were
used then as they are now for ornaments. [Footnote: The books were
rolls of the rind (_liber_) of the Egyptian papyrus, which early
became an article of commerce, or of parchment, written on but one side
and stained of a saffron color on the other. Slaves were employed to
make copies of books that were much in demand, and booksellers bought
and sold them.] House-philosophers were often employed to open to the
uninstructed the stores of wisdom contained in the libraries.

As wealth and luxury increased, the Romans added the bath-room to their
other apartments. In the early ages they had bathed for comfort and
cleanliness once a week, but the warm bath was apparently unknown to
them. In time this became very common, and in the days of Cicero there
were hot and cold baths, both public and private, which were well
patronized. Some were heated by fires in flues, directly under the
floors, which produced a vapor bath. The bath was, however, considered
a luxury, and at a later date it was held a capital offence to indulge
in one on a religious holiday, and the public baths were closed when
any misfortune happened to the republic.

Comfort and convenience united to take the cooking out of the atrium
(which then became a reception-room) into a separate apartment known as
the _culina_, or kitchen, in which was a raised platform on which
coals might be burned and the processes of broiling, boiling, and
roasting might be carried on in a primitive manner, much like the
arrangement still to be seen at Rome. On the tops of the houses, after
a while, terraces were planned for the purpose of basking in the sun,
and sometimes they were furnished with shrubs, fruit-trees, and even
fishponds. Often there were upwards of fifty rooms in a house on a
single floor; but in the course of time land became so valuable that
other stories were added, and many lived in flats. A flat was sometimes
called an _insula_, which meant, properly, a house not joined to
another, and afterwards was applied to hired lodgings. _Domus_, a
house, meant a dwelling occupied by one family, whether it were an
_insula_ or not.

The floors of these rooms were sometimes, but not often, laid with
boards, and generally were formed of stone, tiles, bricks, or some sort
of cement. In the richer dwellings they were often inlaid with mosaics
of elegant patterns. The walls were often faced with marble, but they
were usually adorned with paintings; the ceilings were left uncovered,
the beams supporting the floor or the roof above being visible, though
it was frequently arched over. The means of lighting, either by day or
night, were defective. The atrium was, as we have seen, lighted from
above, and the same was true of other apartments--those at the side
being illuminated from the larger ones in the middle of the house.
There were windows, however, in the upper stories, though they were not
protected by glass, but covered with shutters or lattice-work, and, at
a later period, were glazed with sheets of mica. Smoking lamps, hanging
from the ceiling or supported by candelabra, or candles, gave a gloomy
light by night in the houses, and torches without.

The sun was chiefly depended upon for heat, for there were no proper
stoves, though braziers were used to burn coals upon, the smoke
escaping through the aperture in the ceiling, and, in rare cases, hot-
air furnaces were constructed below, the heat being conveyed to the
upper rooms through pipes. There has been a dispute regarding chimneys,
but it seems almost certain that the Romans had none in their
dwellings, and, indeed, there was little need of them for purposes of
artificial warmth in so moderate a climate as theirs.

Such were some of the chief traits of the city houses of the Romans.
Besides these, there were villas in the country, some of which were
simply farm-houses, and others places of rest and luxury supported by
the residents of cities. The farm villa was placed, if possible, in a
spot secluded from visitors, protected from the severest winds, and
from the malaria of marshes, in a well-watered place near the foot of a
well-wooded mountain. It had accommodations for the kitchen, the wine-
press, the farm-superintendent, the slaves, the animals, the crops, and
the other products of the farm. There were baths, and cellars for the
wine and for the confinement of the slaves who might have to be
chained.

Varro thus describes life at a rural household: "Manius summons his
people to rise with the sun, and in person conducts them to the scene
of their daily work. The youths make their own bed, which labor renders
soft to them, and supply themselves with water-pot and lamp. Their
drink is the clear fresh spring; their fare, bread, with onions as a
relish. Every thing prospers in house and field. The house is no work
of art, but an architect might learn symmetry from it. Care is taken of
the field that it shall not be left disorderly, and waste or go to ruin
through slovenliness or neglect; and, in return, grateful Ceres wards
off damage from the produce, that the high-piled sheaves may gladden
the heart of the husbandman. Here hospitality still holds good; every
one who has but imbibed mother's milk is welcome. The bread-pantry, the
wine-vat, and the store of sausages on the rafter,--lock and key are at
the service of the traveller, and piles of food are set before him;
contented, the sated guest sits, looking neither before him nor behind,
dozing by the hearth in the kitchen. The warmest double-wool sheepskin
is spread as a couch for him. Here people still, as good burgesses,
obey the righteous law which neither out of envy injures the innocent,
nor out of favor pardons the guilty. Here they speak no evil against
their neighbors. Here they trespass not with their feet on the sacred
hearth, but honor the gods with devotion and with sacrifices; throw to
the familiar spirit his little bit of flesh into his appointed little
dish, and when the master of the household dies accompany the bier with
the same prayer with which those of his father and of his grandfather
were borne forth."

The pleasure villa had many of the appointments of the town house, but
was outwardly more attractive, of course. It stood in the midst of
grassy slopes, was approached through avenues of trees leading to the
portico, before which was a terrace and ornaments made of box-trees cut
into fantastic forms representing animals. The dining-room stood out
from the other buildings, and was light and airy. Perhaps a grand
bedchamber was likewise built out from the others, so that it might
have the warmth of the sun upon it through the entire day. Connected
with the establishment were walks ornamented with flowerbeds, closely
clipped hedges, and trees tortured into all sorts of unnatural shapes.
There were shaded avenues for gentle exercise afoot or in litters;
there were fountains, and perhaps a hippodrome formed like a circus,
with paths divided by hedges and surrounded by large trees in which the
luxurious owner and his guests might run or exercise themselves in the
saddle. [Footnote: Roman extravagance ran riot in the appointments of
the villa. One is mentioned that sold for some $200,000, chiefly
because it comprised a desirable fish-pond. A late writer says of the
site of Pompey's villa on a slope of the Alban hills: "It has never
ceased in all the intervening ages to be a sort of park, and very fine
ruins, from out of whose massive arches grow a whole avenue of live
oaks, attest to the magnificence which must once have characterized the
place. The still beautiful grounds stretch along the shore of the lake
as far as the gate of the town of Albano.... The house in Rome I
occupy, stands in the old villa of Mæcenas, an immense tract of land
comprising space enough to contain a good-sized city.... Where did the
Plebs live? and what air did they and their children breathe? Who cared
or knew, so long as Pompey or Cæsar fared sumptuously? What marvel that
there were revolutions!"]

In such houses the Roman family lived, composed as families must be, of
parents and children, to which were usually added servants, for after
the earlier times of simplicity had passed away it became so
fashionable to keep slaves to perform all the different domestic
labors, that one could hardly claim to be respectable unless he had at
least ten in his household. The first question asked regarding a
stranger was: "How many slaves does he keep?" and upon its answer
depended the social position the person would have in the inquirer's
estimation. The son did not pass from his father's control while that
parent lived, but the daughter might do so by marriage. The power of
the father over his children and grandchildren, as well as over his
slaves was very great, and the family spirit was exceedingly strong.

When a man and a woman had agreed to marry, and the parents and friends
had given their consent, there was sometimes a formal meeting at the
maiden's house, at which the marriage-agreement was written out on
tablets and signed by the engaged persons. It seems, too, that in some
cases the man placed a ring on the hand of his betrothed. It was no
slight affair to choose the wedding-day, for no day that was marked
_ater_ on the calendar would be considered fit for the purpose of
the rites that were to accompany the ceremony. The calends (the first
day of the month), the nones (the fifth or seventh), and the ides (the
thirteenth or fifteenth), would not do, nor would any day in May or
February, nor many of the festivals.

In early times, the bride dressed herself in a long white robe, adorned
with ribbons, and a purple fringe, and bound herself with a girdle on
her wedding day. She put on a bright yellow veil and shoes of the same
color, and submitted to the solemn religious rites that were to make
her a wife. The pair walked around the altar hand in hand, received the
congratulations of their friends, and the bride, taken with apparent
force from the arms of her mother, as the Sabine women were taken in
the days of Romulus, was conducted to her new home carrying a distaff
and a spindle, emblems of the industry that was thought necessary in
the household work that she was to perform or direct. Strong men lifted
her over the threshold, lest her foot should trip upon it, and her
husband saluted her with fire and water, symbolic of welcome, after
which he presented her the keys. A feast was then given to the entire
train of friends and relatives, arid probably the song was sung of
which _Talasia_ was the refrain. [Footnote: See page 22.]
Sometimes the husband gave another entertainment the next day, and
there were other religious rites after which the new wife took her
proud position as mater-familias, sharing the honors of her husband,
and presiding over the household.

The wives and daughters made the cloth and the dresses of the
household, in which they had ample occupation, but their labors did not
end there. [Footnote: Varro contrasts the later luxury with past
frugality, setting in opposition the spacious granaries, and simple
farm arrangements of the good old times, and the peacocks and richly
inlaid doors of a degenerate age. Formerly even the city matron turned
the spindle with her own hand, while at the same time she kept her eye
upon the pot on the hearth; now the wife begs the husband for a bushel
of pearls, and the daughter demands a pound of precious stones: then
the wife was quite content if the husband gave her a trip once or twice
in the year in an uncushioned wagon; now she sulks if he go to his
country estate without her, and as she travels my lady is attended to
the villa by the fashionable host of Greek menials and singers.] The
grinding of grain and the cooking was done by the servants, but the
wife had to superintend all the domestic operations, among which was
included the care of the children, though old Cato thought it was
necessary for him to look after the washing and swaddling of his
children in person, and to teach them what he thought they ought to
know. The position of the woman was entirely subordinate to the
husband, though in the house she was mistress. She belonged to the
household and not to the community, and was to be called to account for
her doings by her father, her husband, or her near male relatives, not
by her political ruler. She could acquire property and inherit money
the same as a man could, however. When the pure and noble period of
Roman history had passed, women became as corrupt as the rest of the
community. The watering-places were scenes of unblushing wickedness;
women of quality, but not of character, masquerading before the gay
world with the most reckless disregard of all the proprieties of life.
[Footnote: Cato the Elder, who enjoyed uttering invectives against
women, was free in denouncing their chattering, their love of dress,
their ungovernable spirit, and condemned the whole sex as plaguy and
proud, without whom men would probably be more godly.]

[Illustration: COVERINGS FOR THE FEET.]

The garments of Roman men and women were of extreme simplicity for a
long period, but the desire of display and the love of ornament
succeeded in making them at last highly adorned and varied. Both men
and women wore two principal garments, the tunic next to the body, and
the pallium which was thrown over it when going abroad; but they also
each had a distinctive article of dress, the men wearing the
_toga_ (originally worn also by women), a flowing outer garment which
no foreigner could use, and the women the _stola_, which fell over the
tunic to the ankles and was bound about the waist by a girdle. Boys and
girls wore a toga with a broad border of purple, but when the boy
became a man he threw this off and wore one of the natural white color
of the wool.

Sometimes the stola was clasped over the shoulder, and in some
instances it had sleeves. The _pallium_ was a square outer garment
of woollen goods, put on by women as well as men when going out. It
came into use during the civil wars, but was forbidden by Augustus.
Both sexes also wore in travelling a thick, long cloak without sleeves,
called the _pænula_, and the men wore also over the toga a dark
cloak, the _lacerna_.

On their feet the men wore slippers, boots, and shoes of various
patterns. The _soccus_ was a slipper not tied, worn in the house;
and the _solea_ a very light sandal, also used in the house only.
The _sandalium_ proper was a rich and luxurious sandal introduced
from Greece and worn by women only. The _baxa_ was a coarse sandal
made of twigs, used by philosophers and comic actors; the _calcæus_
was a shoe that covered the foot, though the toes were often exposed;
and the _cothurnus_, a laced boot worn by horsemen, hunters, men of
authority, and tragic actors, and it left the toes likewise exposed.

An examination of the mysteries of the dressing-rooms of the ladies of
Rome displays most of the toilet conveniences that women still use.
They dressed their hair in a variety of styles (see page 155), and used
combs, dyes, oils, and pomades just as they now do. They had mirrors,
perfumes, soaps in great variety, hair-pins, ear-rings, bracelets,
necklaces, gay caps and turbans, and sometimes ornamental wigs.

[Illustration: ARTICLES OF THE ROMAN TOILET.]

The change that came over Rome during the long period of the kingdom
and the republic is perhaps as evident in the table customs as in any
respect. For centuries the simple Roman sat down at noon to a plain
dinner of boiled pudding made of spelt (_far_), and fruits, which,
with milk, butter, and vegetables, formed the chief articles of his
diet. His table was plain, and his food was served warm but once a day.
When the national horizon had been enlarged by the foreign wars, and
Asiatic and Greek influences began to be felt, hot dishes were served
oftener, and the two courses of the principal meal no longer sufficed
to satisfy the fashionable appetite. A baker's shop was opened at the
time of the war with Perseus, and scientific cookery rapidly came into
vogue.

We cannot follow the course of the history of increasing luxury in its
details. Towards the end of the republic, breakfast (_jentaculum_),
consisting of bread and cheese, with perhaps dried fruit, was taken at
a very early hour, in an informal way, the guests not even sitting
down. At twelve or one o'clock luncheon followed (_prandium_). There
was considerable variety in this meal. The principal repast of the day
(_cæna_) occurred late in the afternoon, some time just before sunset,
there having been the same tendency to make the hour later and later
that has been manifested in England and America. There were three usual
courses, the first comprising stimulants to the appetite, eggs, olives,
oysters, lettuce, and a variety of other such delicacies. For the
second course the whole world was put under requisition. There were
turbots and sturgeon, eels and prawns, boar's flesh and venison,
pheasants and peacocks, ducks and capons, turtles and flamingoes,
pickled tunny-fishes, truffles and mushrooms, besides a variety of
other dishes that it is impossible to mention here. After these came
the dessert, almonds and raisins and dates, cheese-cakes and sweets and
apples. Thus the egg came at the beginning, and the apple,
representative of fruit in general, at the end, a fact that gave Horace
ground for his expression, _ab ovo usque ad mala_, from the egg to the
apple, from the beginning to the end. [Footnote: The practical side of
the Roman priesthood was the priestly _cuisine_; the augural and
pontifical banquets were, as we may say, the official gala days in the
life of a Roman epicure, and several of them form epochs in the history
of gastronomy: the banquet on the occasion of the inauguration of the
augur Quintus Hortensius, for instance, brought roast peacocks into
vogue.--Mommsen. Book IV., chap. 12.]

The Roman dinner was served with all the ostentatious elegance and
formality of our own days, if not with more. The guests assembled in
gay dresses ornamented with flowers; they took off their shoes, lest
the couch, inlaid with ivory, perhaps, or adorned with cloth of gold,
should be soiled; and laid themselves down to eat, each one adjusting
his napkin carefully, and taking his position according to his relative
importance, the middle place being deemed the most honorable. About the
tables stood the servants, dressed in the tunic, and carrying napkins
or rough cloths to wipe off the table, which was of the richest wood
and covered by no cloth. While some served the dishes, often of
magnificent designs, other slaves offered the feasters water to rinse
their hands, or cooled the room with fans. At times music and dances
were added to give another charm to the scene.

The first occupation of the Romans was agriculture, in which was
included the pasturage of flocks and herds. In process of time trades
were learned, and manufactures (literally making with the hand,
_manus_, the hand, _facere_, to make) were introduced, but not, of
course, to any thing like the extent familiar in our times. There were
millers and shoe-makers, butchers and tanners, bakers and blacksmiths,
besides other tradesmen and laborers. In the process of time there were
also artists, but in this respect Rome did not excel as Greece had long
before. There were also physicians, lawyers, and teachers, besides
office-holders. [Footnote: There were office-seekers, also, and of the
most persistent kind, throughout the whole history of the republic, and
they practised the corrupt arts of the most ingenious of the class in
modern times. The candidate went about clad in a toga of artificial
whiteness (_candidus_, white), accompanied by a _nomenclator_, who gave
him the names of the voters they might meet, so that he could
compliment them by addressing them familiarly, and he shook them by the
hand. He "treated" the voters to drink or food in a very modern
fashion, though with a more than modern profusion; and he went to the
extreme of bribing them if treating did not suffice. Against these
practices Coriolanus haughtily protests, in Shakespeare's play.
Sometimes candidates canvassed for votes outside of Rome, as Cicero
proposed in one of his letters to Atticus.]

When the Roman wished to go from place to place he had a variety of
modes among which to choose, as we have already had suggested by Horace
in his account of the trip from Rome to Brundusium. He might have his
horse saddled, and his saddle-bags packed, as our fathers did of yore;
he could do as one of the rich provincial governors described by Cicero
did when, at the opening of a Sicilian spring, he entered his rose-
scented litter, carried by eight bearers, reclining on a cushion of
Maltese gauze, with garlands about his head and neck, applying a
delicate scent-bag to his nose as he went. There were wagons and cars,
in which he might drive over the hard and smooth military roads, and
canals; and along the routes, there were, as Horace has told us,
taverns at which hospitality was to be expected.

The Roman law was remarkable for embodying in itself "the eternal
principles of freedom and of subordination, of property and legal
redress," which still reign unadulterated and unmodified, as Mommsen
says; and this system this strong people not only endured but actually
ordained for itself, and it involved the principle that a free man
could not be tortured, a principle which other European peoples
embraced only after a terrible and bloody struggle of a thousand years.

One of the punishments is worthy of mention here. We have already
noticed its infliction. It was ordered that a person might not live in
a certain region, or that he be confined to a certain island, and that
he be interdicted from fire and water, those two essentials to life, in
case he should overstep the bounds mentioned. These elements with the
Romans had a symbolical meaning, and when the husband received his
bride with fire and water, he signified that his protection should ever
be over her. Thus their interdiction meant the withdrawal of the
protection of the state from a person, which left him an outlaw. Such a
law could only have been made after the nation had become possessed of
regions somewhat remote from its centre of power. England can now exile
its criminals to another hemisphere, and Russia to a distant region of
deserts and cold, but neither country could have punished by exile
before it owned such regions.




XIX.

THE ROMAN READING AND WRITING.



In the earliest times the education of young Romans was probably
confined to instruction in dancing and music, though they became
acquainted with the processes of agriculture by being called upon to
practise them in company with their elders. It was not long before the
elementary attainments of reading, writing, and counting were brought
within their reach, even among the lower orders and the slaves, and we
know that it was thought important to make the latter class proficient
in many departments of scholarship.

The advance in the direction of real mental culture was, however, not
great until after the contact with Greece. So long as the Romans
remained a strong and self-centred people, deriving little but tribute
from peoples beyond the Italian peninsula, and looking with disdain
upon all outside that limit, there was not much to stimulate their
mental progress; but when contrast with another civilization showed
that there was much power to be gained by knowledge, it was naturally
more eagerly sought. The slaves and other foreigners, to whom the
instruction of the children was assigned, were familiar with the Greek
language, and it had the great advantage over Latin of being the casket
in which an illustrious literature was preserved. For this reason Roman
progress in letters was founded upon that of Greece.

The Roman parent for a long time made the Twelve Tables the text-book
from which his children were taught, thus giving them a smattering of
reading, of writing, and of the laws of the land at once. Roman
authorship and the study of grammar, however, were about coincident in
their beginnings with the temporary cessation of war and the second
closing of the temple of Janus. Cato the elder prepared manuals for the
instruction of youth (or, perhaps, one manual in several parts), which
gave his views on morals, oratory, medicine, war, and agriculture (a
sort of encyclopædia), and a history entitled _Origines_, which
recounted the traditions of the kings, told the story of the origin of
the Italian towns, of the Punic wars, and of other events down to the
time of his own death. [Footnote: See page 153. "Cato's encyclopædia...
was little more than an embodiment of the old Roman household
knowledge, and truly when compared with the Hellenic culture of the
period, was scanty enough."--MOMMSEN, bk. IV., ch. 12.] This seems to
have originated in the author's natural interest in the education of
his son, a stimulating cause of much literature of the same kind since.

The Roman knowledge of medicine came first from the Etruscans, to whom
they are said to have owed so much other culture, and subsequently from
the Greeks. The first person to make a distinct profession of medicine
at Rome, however, was not an Etruscan, but a Greek, named Archagathus,
who settled there in the year 219, just before the second Punic war
broke out. He was received with great respect, and a shop was bought
for him at the public expense; but his practice, which was largely
surgical, proved too severe to be popular. In earlier days the father
had been the family physician, and Cato vigorously reviled the foreign
doctors, and like the true conservative that he was, strove to bring
back the good old times that his memory painted; but his efforts did
not avail, and the professional practice of the healing art not only
became one of the most lucrative in Rome, but remained for a long
period almost a monopoly in the hands of foreigners. Science, among the
latest branches of knowledge to be freed from the swaddling-clothes of
empiricism, received, in its applied form, some attention, though
mathematics and physics were not specially favored as subjects of
investigation.

The progress of Roman culture is distinctly shown by a comparison of
the curriculum of Cato with that of Marcus Terentius Varro, a long-time
friend of Cicero, though ten years his senior. [Footnote: Varro is said
to have written of his youth. "For me when a boy there sufficed a
single rough coat and a single undergarment, shoes without stockings, a
horse without a saddle. I had no daily warm bath, and but seldom a
river bath." Still, he utters warnings against over-feeding and over-
sleeping, as well as against cakes and high living, pointing to his own
youthful training, and says that dogs were in his later years more
judiciously cared for than children.] Varro obtained from Quintilian
the title "the most learned of the Romans," and St. Augustine said that
it was astonishing that he could write so much, and that one could
scarcely believe that anybody could find time even to read all that he
wrote. He was proscribed by the triumvirs at the same time that Cicero
was, but was fortunate enough to escape and subsequently to be placed
under the protection of Augustus. Cato thought that a proper man ought
to study oratory, medicine, husbandry, war, and law, and was at liberty
to look into Greek literature a little, that he might cull from the
mass of chaff and rubbish, as he affected to deem it, some serviceable
maxims of practical experience, but he might not study it thoroughly.
Varro extended the limit of allowed and fitting studies to grammar,
logic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music, medicine, and
architecture.

Young children were led to their first studies by the kindergarten path
of amusement, learning their letters as we learned them ourselves by
means of blocks, and spelling by repeating the letters and words in
unison after the instructor. Dictation exercises were turned to account
in the study of grammar and orthography, and writing was taught by
imitation, though the "copy-book" was not paper, but a tablet covered
with a thin coating of wax, and the pen a stylus, pencil-shaped, sharp
at one end and flat at the other, so that the mark made by the point
might be smoothed out by reversing the instrument. Thus _vertere
stilum_, to turn the stylus, meant to correct or to erase. [Footnote:
See illustrations on pages 23 and 219.] The first school-book seems to
have been an Odyssey, by one Livius Andronicus, probably a Tarentine,
who was captured during the wars in Southern Italy. He became a slave,
of course, and was made instructor of his master's children. He
familiarized himself with the Latin language, and wrote dramas in it.
Thus though he was a native of Magna Græcia, he is usually mentioned as
the first Roman poet. It is not known whether his Odyssey and other
writings were imitations of the Greek or translations, but it matters
little; they were immediately appreciated and held their own so well
that they were read in schools as late as the time of Horace. This
first awakener of Roman literary effort was born at the time of Pyrrhus
and died before the battle of Zama.

A few other Roman writers of prominence claim our attention. With some
reason the Romans looked upon Ennius as the father of their literature.
He, like Andronicus, was a native of Magna Græcia, claiming lordly
ancestors, and boasting that the spirit of Homer, after passing through
many mortal bodies, had entered his own. His works remain only in
fragments gathered from others who had quoted them, and we cannot form
any accurate opinion of his rank as a poet; but we know that his
success was so great that Cicero considered him the prince of Roman
song, that Virgil was indebted to him for many thoughts and
expressions, and that even the brilliance of the Augustan poets did not
lessen his reputation. His utterances were vigorous, bold, fresh, and
full of the spirit of the brave old days. He found the language rough,
uncultivated, and unformed, and left it softer, more harmonious, and
possessed of a system of versification. He was born in 239 B.C., the
year after the first plays of Andronicus had been exhibited on the
Roman stage, and died just before the complete establishment of the
universal empire of Rome as a consequence of the battle of Pydna.
[Footnote: See Page 164.]

At the head of the list of Roman prose annalists stands the name of
Quintus Fabius Pictor, at one time a senator, who wrote a history of
his nation beginning, probably, like other Roman works of its class,
with the coming of Æneas, and narrating later events, to the end of the
second Punic war, with some degree of minuteness. He wrote in Greek,
and made the usual effort to preserve and transmit a sufficiently good
impression of the greatness of his own people. That Pictor was a
senator proves his social importance, which is still further
exemplified by the fact that after the carnage of Cannæ, he was sent to
Delphi to learn for his distressed countrymen how they might appease
the angry gods. We only know that his history was of great value from
the frequent use that was made of it by subsequent investigators in the
antiquities of the Roman people, because no manuscript of it has been
preserved.

Titus Maccius, surnamed, from the flatness of his feet, Plautus, was
the greatest among the comic poets of Rome. Of humble origin, he was
driven to literature by his necessities, and it was while turning the
crank of a baker's hand-mill that he began the work by which he is now
known. He wrote three plays which were accepted by the managers of the
public games, and he was thus able to turn his back upon menial
drudgery. Born at an Umbrian village during the first Punic war, not
far from the year when Regulus was taken, [Footnote: See page 133.] he
came to Rome at an early age, and after he began to write, produced a
score or more of plays which captivated both the learned and the
uneducated by their truth to the life that they depicted, and they held
their high reputation long after the death of the author. Moderns have
also attested their merit, and our great dramatist in his amusing
_Comedy of Errors_ imitated the _Menoechmi_ of this early play-wright.
[Footnote: Rude farces, known as _Atellanæ Fabula_, were introduced
into Rome after the contact with the Campanians, from one of whose
towns, Atella, they received their name. Though they were at a later
time divided into acts, they seem to have been at first simply
improvised raillery and satire without dramatic connection. The Atellan
plays were later than the imitations of Etruscan acting mentioned on
page 110.]

Publius Terentius Afer, commonly known as Terrence, the second and last
of the comic poets, was of no higher social position than Plautus, and
was no more a Roman than the other writers we have referred to, for he
was a native of Carthage, Rome's great rival, where he was born at the
time that Hannibal was a refugee at the court of Antiochus at Ephesus.
In spite of his foreign origin, Terence was of sufficient ability to
exchange the slave-pen of Carthage for the society of the best circles
in Rome, and he attained to such purity and ease in the use of his
adopted tongue that Cicero and Cæsar scarcely surpass him in those
respects. His first play, the _Andria_ (the Woman of Andros), was
produced in 166 B.C., the year before Polybius and the other Achæans
were transported to Rome. [Footnote: See page 164; and portrait, page
141] It has been imitated and copied in modern times, and notably by
Sir Richard Steele in his _Conscious Lovers_. Andria was followed
by _Hecyra_ (the Stepmother), _Heautontimoroumenos_, (the Self-
Tormentor), _Eunuchus_ (the Eunuch), _Phormio_ (named from a parasite
who is an active agent in the plot), and _Adelphi_ (the Brothers), the
plot of which was mainly derived from a Greek play of the same title.
This foreign influence is further shown in the names of these plays,
which are Greek.

Cato, the Censor, found time among his varied public labors to
contribute to the literature of his language. His _Origines_ and
other works have already been mentioned. [Footnote: See pages 153 and
239.] The varied literary productions of Cicero have also come under
our notice, [Footnote: See page 202] but they deserve more attention,
though they are too many to be enumerated. Surpassing all others in the
art of public speaking, he was evidently well prepared to write on
rhetoric and oratory as he did; but his general information and
scholarly taste led him to go far beyond this limit, and he made
considerable investigations in the domains of politics, history, and
philosophy, law, theology, and morals, besides practising his hand in
his earlier years on the manufacture of verses that have not added to
his reputation. The writings of Cicero of greatest interest to us now
are his orations and correspondence, both of which give us intimate
information concerning life and events that is of inestimable value,
and it is conveyed in a literary style at once so appropriate and
attractive that it is itself forgotten in the impressive interest of
the narrative. The period covered by the eight hundred letters of
Cicero that have been preserved is one of the utmost importance in
Roman history, and the author and his correspondents were in the
hottest of the exciting movements of the time.

When he writes without reserve, he gives his modern readers
confidential revelations of the utmost piquancy; and when he words his
epistles with diplomatic care, he displays with equal acuteness, to the
student familiar with the intrigues of public life at Rome at the time,
the sinuosities of contemporary statesmanship and the wiles of the wary
politician, and the revelation is all the more entertaining and
important because it is an unintentional exhibition. The orations of
Cicero are likewise storehouses of details connected with public and
private life, gathered with the minute care of an advocate persistently
in earnest and determined not to allow any item to pass unnoticed that
might affect the decision of his cause.

The learned Varro, already mentioned, deserves far more attention than
we can afford him. He had the advantage at an early age of the
acquaintance of a scholar of high attainments in Greek and Latin
literature, who was well acquainted also with the history of his own
country, from whom he imbibed a love of intellectual pursuits. During
the wars with the pirates (in which he obtained the naval crown) and
with Mithridates, he held a high command, and after supporting Pompey
and the senate during the civil struggles, he was compelled to
surrender to Cæsar (though he was not changed in his opinions), and
passed over to Greece, where he was finally overcome by the dictator,
and owed his subsequent opportunities for study to the clemency of his
conqueror, who gave him pardon after the battle of Pharsalia. All the
rest of his life was passed aloof from the storm that raged around him,
the circumstances of his proscription and pardon being the only
indication of his personal connection with it. He died in the year 28
B.C., after the temple of Janus had been closed the third time, when
Augustus had entered upon the enjoyment of his absolute power.

Of nearly five hundred works that Varro is said to have written, one
only has come down to our time complete, though some portions of
another are also preserved. The first is a laboriously methodical and
thorough treatise on agriculture. The other work (a treatise on Latin
grammar) is of value in its mutilated and imperfect state (it seems
never to have received its author's final revision), because it
preserves many terms and forms that would otherwise have been lost,
besides much curious information concerning ancient civil and religious
usages. In regard to the derivation of words, his principles are sound,
but his practice is often amusingly absurd. We must remember, however,
that the science of language did not advance beyond infancy until after
our own century had opened. The great reputation of Varro was founded
upon a work now lost, entitled "Book of Antiquities," in the first part
of which he discussed the creation and history of man, especially of
man in Italy from the foundation of the city in 753 B.C. (which date he
established), not omitting reference to Æneas, of course, and
presenting details of the manners and social customs of the people
during all their career. In a second part Varro gave his attention to
Divine Antiquities, and as St. Augustine drew largely from it in his
"City of God," we may be said to be familiar with it at second hand. It
was a complete mythology of Italy, minutely describing every thing
relating to the services of religion, the festivals, temples,
offerings, priests, and so on. Probably the loss of the works of Varro
may be accounted for by their lack of popular interest, or by their
infelicities of style, which rendered them little attractive to
readers.

Julius Cæsar must be included among the authors of Rome, though most of
his works are lost, his _Commentaries_ (mentioned on p. 226) being
the only one remaining. This book is written in Latin of great purity,
and shows that the author was master of a clear style, though the
nature of the work did not admit him to exhibit many of the graces of
diction. The Commentaries seem to have been put into form in winter
quarters, though roughly written during the actual campaigns. Cæsar
always took pleasure in literary pursuits and in the society of men of
letters.

Valerius Catullus, a contemporary of the writers just named, was born
when Cinna was Consul (B.C. 87), and died at the age of thirty or
forty, for the dates given as that of his death are quite doubtful. His
father was a man of means and a friend of Cæsar, whom he frequently
entertained. Catullus owned a villa near Tibur, but he took up his
abode at Rome when very young, and mingled freely in the gayest
society, the expensive pleasures of which made great inroads upon his
moderate wealth. Like other Romans, he looked to a career in the
provinces for means of improving his fortune, but was disappointed, and
like our own Chaucer, but more frequently, he pours forth lamentations
to his empty purse. He was evidently a friend of most of the prominent
men of letters of his time, and he entered freely into the debauchery
of the period. Thus his verse gives a representation of the debased
manners of the day in gay society. His style was remarkably felicitous,
and it is said that he adorned all that he touched. Most of his poems
are quite short, and their subjects range from a touching outburst of
genuine grief for a brother's death to a fugitive epigram of the most
voluptuous triviality. His verses display ease and impetuosity,
tumultuous merriment and wild passion, playful grace and slashing
invective, vigorous simplicity and ingenious imitation of the learned
stiffness and affectation of the Alexandrian school. They are strongly
national, despite the author's use of foreign materials, and made
Catullus exceedingly popular among his countrymen.

Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) was a native of Italy, whose birth is
said to have occurred B.C. 95, His death was caused by his own hand, or
by a philtre administered by another, about 50 B.C., and very little is
known about his life. His great work, entitled About the Nature of
Things (_De Rerum Natura_), is a long poem, in which an attempt is
made to present in clear terms the leading principles of the philosophy
of Epicurus, and it is acknowledged to be one of the greatest of the
world's didactic poems. He undertakes to demonstrate that the miseries
of men may be traced to a slavish dread of the gods; and in order to
remove such apprehensions, he would prove that no divinity ever
interposed in the affairs of the earth, either as creator or director.
The Romans were not, as we have had occasion to observe, inclined to
philosophic pursuits, and Lucretius certainly labored with all the
force of an extraordinary genius to lead them into such studies. He
brought to bear upon his task the power of sublime and graceful verse,
and it has been said that but for him "we could never have formed an
adequate idea of the strength of the Latin language. We might have
dwelt with pleasure upon the softness, flexibility, richness, and
musical tone of that vehicle of thought which could represent with full
effect the melancholy tenderness of Tibullus, [Footnote: Albius
Tibullus was a poet of singular gentleness and amiability, who wrote
verses of exquisite finish, gracefully telling the story of his worldly
misfortunes and expressing the fluctuations that marked his indulgence
in the tender passion, in which his experience was extensive and his
record real. He was a warm friend of Horace.] the exquisite ingenuity
of Ovid, [Footnote: Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) was born March 20, B.C.
43, and did not compose his first work, The Art of Love (Ars Amatoria),
until he was more than fifty years of age. He wrote subsequently The
Metamorphoses, in fifteen books; The Fasti, containing accounts of the
Roman festivals; and the Elegies, composed during his banishment to a
town on the Euxine, near the mouth of the Danube, where he died, A.D.
18. Niebuhr places him after Catullus the most poetical among the Roman
poets, and ranks him first for facility. He did not direct his genius
by a sound judgment, and has the unenviable fame of having been the
first to depart from the canons of correct Greek taste.] the inimitable
felicity and taste of Horace, the gentleness and high spirit of Virgil,
and the vehement declamation of Juvenal, but, had the verses of
Lucretius perished, we should never have known that it could give
utterance to the grandest conceptions with all that sustained majesty
and harmonious swell in which the Grecian Muse rolls forth her loftiest
outpourings."

Caius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust) was born the year that Marius died
(B.C. 86) of a plebeian family, and during the civil wars was a
partisan of Cæsar, whom he accompanied to Africa, after having brought
to him the news of the mutiny of his troops in Campania (B.C.
46). [Footnote: See page 245.] Left as governor, Sallust seems to have
pursued the methods common to that class, for he became immensely rich.
Upon his return from Africa, he retired to an extensive estate on the
Quirinal Hill, and lived through the direful days which followed the
death of Cæsar. He died in the year 34 B.C., his last years being
devoted to diligent pursuits of literature. His two works are
_Catilina_, a history of the suppression of the conspiracy of
Catiline, and _Jugurtha_, a history of the war against Jugurtha,
in both of which he took great pains with his style. As he witnessed
many of the events he described, his books have a great value to the
student of the periods. Roman writers asserted that he imitated the
style of Thucydides, but there is an air of artificiality about his
work which he did not have the skill to conceal. He has the honor of
being the first Roman to write history, as distinguished from mere
annals.

Livy (Titus Livius) was born in the year of Cæsar's first consulship
(B.C. 59), at Patavium (Padua), and died A.D. 17. His writings, like
those of Ovid, come therefore rather into the period of the empire. His
great work is the History of Rome, which he modestly called simply
_Annales_. Little is known of his life, but he was of very high
repute as a writer in his own day, for it is said by Pliny that a
Spaniard travelled all the way from his distant home merely to see him,
and as soon as his desire had been accomplished, returned. Livy's
history comprised one hundred and forty-two books, of which thirty-five
only are extant, though with the exception of two of the missing books
valuable epitomes are preserved. Though wanting many of the traits of
the historian, and though he was of course incapable of looking at
history with the modern philosophic spirit, Livy was honest and candid,
and possessed a wonderful command of his native language. His work
enjoyed an unbounded popularity, not entirely to be accounted for by
the fascinations of his theme, He realized his desire to present a
clear and probable narrative, and no history of Rome can now be written
without constant reference to his pages.

Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) was born on the river Aufidus, in the
year 65 B.C., and was son of a freeman who seems to have been a
publican or collector of taxes. At about the age of twelve, after
having attended the local school at Venusia, to which the children of
the rural aristocracy resorted, he was taken to Rome, where he enjoyed
the advantages of the best means of education. He studied Livius
Andronicus, and Homer, and was flogged with care by at least one of his
masters. He was accompanied at the capital by his father, of whom he
always speaks with great respect, and because he mingled with boys of
high rank, was well dressed and attended by slaves. The gentle
watchfulness of the father guarded Horace from all the temptations of
city life, and at the age of eighteen he went to Athens, as most well-
educated Romans were obliged to, and studied in the academic groves,
though for a while he was swept away by the youthful desire to acquire
military renown under Brutus, who came there after the murder of Cæsar.
Like the others of the republican army, he fled from the field of
Philippi, and found his military ardor thoroughly cooled. He
thenceforth devoted himself to letters. Returning to Rome, he attracted
notice by his verses, and became a friend of Mæcenas and Virgil, the
former of whom bestowed upon him a farm sufficient to sustain him. His
life thereafter was passed in frequent interchange of town and country
residence, a circumstance which is reflected with charming grace in his
verses. His rural home is described in his epistles. It was not
extensive, but was pleasant, and he enjoyed it to the utmost. His
poetry is deficient in the highest properties of verse, but as the
fresh utterances of a man of the world who was possessed of quick
observation and strong common-sense, and who was honest and bold, they
have always charmed their readers. The Odes of Horace are unrivalled
for their grace and felicitous language, but express no great depth of
feeling. His Satires do not originate from moral indignation, but the
writer playfully shoots folly as it flies, and exhibits a wonderful
keenness of observation of the ways of men in the world. His Epistles
are his most perfect work, and are, indeed, among the most original and
polished forms of Roman verse. His Art of Poetry is not a complete
theory of poetic art, and is supposed to have been written simply to
suggest the difficulties to be met on the way to perfection by a
versifier destitute of the poetic genius. The works of Horace were
immediately popular, and in the next generation became text-books in
the schools.

Cornelius Nepos was a historical writer of whose life almost no
particulars have come down to us, except that he was a friend of
Cicero, Catullus, and probably of other men of letters who lived at the
end of the republic. The works that he is known to have written are all
lost, and that which goes under his name, The Biographies of
Distinguished Commanders (_Excellentium Imperatorum Vitæ_), seems
to be an abridgment made some centuries after his death, and tedious
discussions have been had regarding its authorship. The lives are,
however, valuable for their pure Latinity, and interesting for the
lofty tone in which the greatness of the Roman people is celebrated.
The life of Atticus, the friend and correspondent of Cicero, is the one
of the biographies regarding which the doubts have been least. The work
is still a favorite school-book and has been published in innumerable
editions.

This brief list of celebrated writers whose works were in the hands of
the reading public of Rome during the time of the republic, must be
closed with reference to Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), the writer
who stands at the head of the literature of Rome, sharing his pre-
eminence only with his younger friend, Horace. Born on his father's
small estate near Mantua, Virgil studied Greek at Naples, and other
branches, probably, at Rome, where in time he became the friend of the
munificent patron of letters, Mæcenas, with whom we have already seen
him on the noted journey to Brundusium. It was at the instigation of
Mæcenas that Virgil wrote his most finished work, the agricultural poem
entitled _Georgica_, which was completed after the battle of Actium
(B.C. 31), when Augustus was in the East. It had been preceded by ten
brief poems called Bucolics (_Bucolica_, Greek, _boukolos_, a cowherd),
noteworthy for their smooth versification and many natural touches,
though they have only the form and coloring of the true pastoral poem.
The Æneid, which was begun about 30 B.C., occupied eleven years in
composition, and yet lacked the finishing touches when the poet was on
his death-bed. His death occurred September 22, B.C. 19, at Brundusium,
to which place he had come from Greece, where he had been in company
with Augustus, and he was buried between the first and second
milestones on the road from Naples to Puteoli, where a monument is
still shown as his.

Though always a sufferer from poor health, and therefore debarred from
entering upon an oratorical or a military career, Virgil was
exceptionally fortunate in his friendships and enjoyed extraordinary
patronage which enabled him to cultivate literature to the greatest
advantage. He was fortunate, too, in his fame, for he was a favorite
when he lived no less than after his death. Before the end of his own
generation his works were introduced as text-books into Roman schools;
during the Middle Age he was the great poet whom it was heresy not to
admire; Dante owned him as a master and a model; and the people finally
embalmed him in their folk-lore as a mysterious conjurer and
necromancer. His _Æneid_, written in imitation of the great Greek
poem on the fall of Troy, is a patriotic epic, tracing the wanderings,
the struggles, and the death of Æneas, and vaunting the glories of Rome
and the greatness of the royal house of the emperor.

Thus, through long ages the Roman wrote, and thus he was furnished with
books to read. For centuries he had no literature excepting those rude
ballads in which the books of all countries have begun, and all trace
of them has passed away. When at last, after the conquest of the Greek
cities in Southern Italy, the Tarentine Andronicus began to imitate the
epics of his native language in that of his adoption, the progress was
still quite slow among a people who argued with the sword and saw
little to interest them in the fruit of the brain. As the republic
totters to its fall, however, the cultivators of this field increase,
and we must suppose that readers also were multiplied. At that time and
during the early years of the empire, a Mæcenas surrounded himself with
authors and stimulated them to put forth all their vigor in the effort
to create a native literature.

On the Esquiline Hill there was a spot of ground that had been a place
of burial for the lower orders. This the hypochondriacal invalid
Mæcenas bought, and there he laid out a garden and erected a lofty
house surmounted by a tower commanding a view of the city and vicinity.
Effeminate and addicted to every sort of luxury, Mæcenas calmed his
sometimes excited nerves by the sweet sound of distant symphonies,
gratified himself by comforting baths, adorned his clothing with
expensive gems, tickled his palate with dainty confections of the cook,
and regaled himself with the loftier delights afforded by the
companionship of the wits and virtuosi of the capital. Magnificent was
the patronage that he dispensed among the men of letters; and that he
was no mean critic, his choice of authors seems to prove. They were the
greatest geniuses and most learned men of the day. At his table sat
Virgil, Horace, and Propertius, besides many others, and his name has
ever since been proverbial for the patron of letters. No wealthy public
man has since arisen who could rival him in this respect.




XX.

THE ROMAN REPUBLICANS SERIOUS AND GAY.



It is easier to think of the old Roman republicans as serious than gay,
when we remember that they considered that their very commonwealth was
established upon the will of the gods, and that no acts--at least no
public acts--could properly be performed without consulting those
spiritual beings, which their imagination pictured as presiding over
the hearth, the farm, the forum--as swarming throughout every
department of nature. The first stone was not laid at the foundation of
the city until Romulus and Remus had gazed up into the heavens, so
mysterious and so beautiful, and had obtained, as they thought, some
indication of the fittest place where they might dig and build. The
she-wolf that nurtured the twins was elevated into a divinity with the
name Lupa, or Luperca (_lupus_, a wolf), and was made the wife of
a god who was called Lupercus, and worshipped as the protector of sheep
against their enemies, and as the god of fertility. On the fifteenth of
February, when in that warm clime spring was beginning to open the
buds, the shepherds celebrated a feast in honor of Lupercus. Its
ceremonies, in some part symbolic of purification, were rude and almost
savage, proving that they originated in remote antiquity, but they
continued at least down to the end of the period we have considered,
and the powerful Marc Antony did not disdain to clothe himself in a
wolfskin and run almost naked through the crowded streets of the
capital the month before his friend Julius Cæsar was murdered.
[Footnote: see page 248*] It was a fitting festival for the month of
which the name was derived from that of the god of purification
(_februare_, to purify).

It was at the foot of a fig-tree that Romulus and Remus were fabled to
have been found by Faustulus, and that tree was always looked upon with
special veneration, though whenever the Roman walked through the woods
he felt that he was surrounded by the world of gods, and that such a
leafy shade was a proper place to consecrate as a temple. A temple was
not an edifice in those simple days, but merely a place separated and
set apart to religious uses by a solemn act of dedication. When the
augur moved his wand aloft and designated the portion of the heavens in
which he was to make his observations, he called the circumscribed area
of the ethereal blue a temple, and when the mediæval astrologer did the
same, he named the space a "house." On the Roman temple an altar was
set up, and there, perhaps beneath the spreading branches of a royal
oak, sacred to Jupiter, the king of the gods, or of an olive, sacred to
Minerva, the maiden goddess, impersonation of ideas, who shared with
him and his queen the highest place among the Capitoline deities,
prayers and praises and sacrifices were offered.

When the year opened, the Roman celebrated the fact by solemnizing in
its first month, March, the festivity of the father of the Roman people
by Rhea Silvia, the god who stood next to Jupiter; who, as Mars
Silvanus, watched over the fields and the cattle, and, as Mars Gradivus
(marching), delighted in bloody war, and was a fitting divinity to be
appealed to by Romulus as he laid the foundation of the city.
[Footnote: See page 19.] As spring progressed, sacrifices were offered
to Tellus, the nourishing earth; to Ceres, the Greek goddess Demeter,
introduced from Sicily B.C. 496, to avert a famine, whose character did
not, however, differ much from that of Tellus; and to Pales, a god of
the flocks. At the same inspiring season another feast was observed in
honor of the vines and vats, when the wine of the previous season was
opened and tasted. [Footnote: This was the ,_Vinalia urbana_ (_urbs_, a
city), but there was another festival celebrated August 19th, when the
vintage began, known as the _Vinalia rustica_ when lambs were
sacrificed to Jupiter. While the flesh was still on the altar, the
priest broke a cluster of grapes from a vine, and thus actually opened
the wine harvest.]

In like manner after the harvest, there were festivals in honor of Ops,
goddess of plenty, wife of that old king of the golden age, Saturnus,
introducer of social order and god of sowing, source of wealth and
plenty. The festival of Saturnus himself occurred on December 17th, and
was a barbarous and joyous harvest-home, a time of absolute relaxation
and unrestrained merriment, when distinctions of rank were forgotten,
and crowds thronged the streets crying, _Io Saturnalia!_ even slaves
wearing the _pileus_ or skullcap, emblem of liberty, and all throwing
off the dignified toga for the easy and comfortable _synthesis_,
perhaps a sort of tunic.

Other festivals were devoted to Vulcanus, god of fire, without whose
help the handicraftsmen thought they could not carry on their work; and
Neptunus, god of the ocean and the sea, to whom sailors addressed their
prayers, and to whom commanders going out with fleets offered
oblations. Family life was not likely to be forgotten by a people among
whom the father was the first priest, and accordingly we find that
every house was in a certain sense a temple of Vesta, the goddess of
the fireside, and that as of old time the family assembled in the
atrium around the hearth, to partake of their common meal, the renewal
of the family bond of union was in later days accompanied with acts of
worship of Vesta, whose actual temple was only an enlargement of the
fireside, uniting all the citizens of the state into a single large
family. In her shrine there was no statue, but her presence was
represented by the eternal fire burning upon her hearth, a fire that
Æneas was fabled to have brought with him from old Troy. The purifying
flames stood for the unsullied character of the goddess, which was also
betokened by the immaculate maidens who kept alive the sacred coals. As
Vesta was remembered at every meal, so also the Lares and Penates,
divinities of the fireside, were worshipped, for there was a
purification at the beginning of the repast and a libation poured upon
the table or the hearth in their honor at its close. When one went
abroad he prayed to the Penates for a safe return, and when he came
back, he hung his armor and his staff beside their images, and gave
them thanks. In every sorrow and in every joy the indefinite divinities
that went under these names were called upon for sympathy or help.

In the month of June the mothers celebrated a feast called
_Matralia_, to impress upon themselves their duties towards children;
and at another they brought to mind the good deeds of the Sabine women
in keeping their husbands and fathers from war. [Footnote: see page 26]
This was the _Matronalia_, and the epigrammatist Martial, who lived
during the first century of our era, called it the Women's Saturnalia,
on account of its permitted relaxation of manners. At that time
husbands gave presents to their wives, lovers to their sweethearts, and
mistresses feasted their maids.

The _Lemuria_ was a family service that the father celebrated on
the ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth of May, when the ghosts of the
departed were propitiated. It was thought that these spirits were wont
to return to the scenes of their earthly lives to injure those who were
still wrestling with the severe realities of time, and specially did
they come up during the darkness of night. Therefore it was that at
midnight the father rose and went forth with cabalistic signs,
skilfully adapted to keep the spectres at a distance. After thrice
washing his hands in pure spring water, he turned around and took
certain black beans into his mouth, and then threw them behind him for
the ghosts to pick up. The goodman then uttered other mystic
expressions without risking any looks towards the supposed sprites,
after which he washed his hands, and beat some brazen basins, and nine
times cried aloud: "Begone, ye spectres of the house!" Then could he
look around, for the ghosts were harmless.

Thus the Roman forefathers worshipped personal gods, but they did not,
in the early times, follow the example of the imaginative Greeks, and
represent them, as possessing passions like themselves, nor did they
erect them into families and write out their lines of descent, or
create a mythology filled with stories of their acts good and bad. The
gods were spiritual beings, but the religion was not a spiritual life,
nor did it have much connection with morality. It was mainly based on
the enjoyment of earthly pleasures. If the ceremonious duties were
done, the demands of Roman religion were satisfied. It was a hard and
narrow faith, but it seemed to tend towards bringing earthly guilt and
punishment into relation with its divinities, and it contained the idea
of substitution, as is clearly seen in the stories of Curtius, Decius
Mus, and others. [Footnote: "When the gods of the community were angry,
and nobody could be laid hold of as definitely guilty, they might be
appeased by one who voluntarily gave himself up."--MOMMSEN, Book I.,
chapter 12. ]

As time passed on the rites and ceremonies increased in number and
intricacy, and it became necessary to have special orders to attend to
their observance, for the fathers of the families were not able to give
their attention to the matter sufficiently. Thus the colleges of
priests naturally grew up to care for the national religion, the most
ancient of them bearing reference to Mars the killing god. They were
the augurs and the pontifices, and as the religion grew more and more
formal and the priests less and less earnest, the observances fell into
dull and insipid performances, in which no one was interested, and in
time public service became not only tedious, but costly, penny
collections made from house to house being among the least onerous
expedients resorted to for the support of the new grafts on the tree of
devotion.

As early as the time of the first Punic war, a consul was bold enough
to jest at the auspices in public. Superstitions and impostures
flourished, the astrology of ancient Chaldea spread, the Oriental
ceremonies were introduced with the pomps that accompanied the
reception of the unformed boulder which the special embassy brought
from Pessinus when the weary war with Hannibal had rendered any source
of hope, even the most futile, inspiring. [Footnote: B.C. 204. See page
153.] Then the abominable worship of Bacchus came in, and thousands
were corrupted and made vicious throughout Italy before the authorities
were able to put a stop to the midnight orgies and the crimes that
daylight exposed.

Cato the elder, who would have nothing to do with consulting Chaldeans
or magicians of any sort, asked how it were possible for two such
ministers to meet each other face to face without laughing at their own
duplicity and the ridiculous superstition of the people they deceived.
[Footnote: It had been in early times customary to dismiss a political
gathering if a thunder-storm came up, and the augurs had taken
advantage of the practice to increase their own power by laying down an
occult system of celestial omens which enabled them to bring any such
meeting to a close when the legislation promised to thwart their plans.
They finally reached the absurd extreme of enacting a law, by the terms
of which a popular assembly was obliged to disperse, if it should occur
to a higher magistrate merely to look into the heavens for signs of the
approach of such a storm. The power of the priests under such a law was
immeasurable. (See pages 236 and 247). ] Cato was very much shocked by
the preaching of three Greek philosophers: Diogenes, a stoic;
Critolaus, a peripatetic; and Carneades, an academic, who visited Rome
on a political mission, B.C. 155; because it seemed to him that they,
especially the last, preached a doctrine that confounded justice and
injustice, a system of expediency, and he urged successfully that they
should have a polite permission to depart with all speed. The
philosophers were dismissed, but it was impossible to restrain the
Roman youth who had listened to the addresses of the strangers with an
avidity all the greater because their utterances had been found
scandalous, and they went to Athens, or Rhodes, to hear more of the
same doctrine.

Thus in time the simplicity of the people was completely undermined,
and while they became more cosmopolitan they also grew more lax. They
used the Greek language, and employed Greek writers, as we have seen,
to make their books for them, which, though bearing Greek titles, were
composed in Latin. The public men performed in the forenoon their civil
and religious acts; took their siestas in the middle of the day;
exercised in the Campus Martius, swimming, wrestling, and fencing, in
the afternoon; enjoyed the delicacies of the table later, listening to
singing and buffoonery the while, and were thus prepared to seek their
beds when the sun went down. At the bath, which came to be the polite
resort of pleasure-seekers, all was holiday; the toga and the foot-
coverings were exchanged for a light Greek dressing-gown, and the time
was whiled away in gossip, idle talk, lounging, many dippings into the
flowing waters, and music. Pleasure became the business of life, and
morality was relaxed to a frightful extent.

When we consider the gay moods of the Roman people we turn probably
first to childhood, and try to imagine how the little ones amused
themselves. We find that the girls had their dolls, some of which have
been dug out of ruins of the ancient buildings, and that the boys
played games similar to those that still hold dominion over the young
English or American school-boy at play. In their quieter moods they
played with huckle-bones taken from sheep, goats, or antelopes, or
imitated in stone, metal, ivory, or glass. From the earliest days these
were used chiefly by women and children, who used five at a time, which
they threw into the air and then tried to catch on the back of the
hand, their irregular form making the success the result of
considerable skill. The bones were also made to contribute to a variety
of amusements requiring agility and accuracy; but after a while the
element of chance was introduced. The sides were marked with different
values, and the victor was he who threw the highest value, fourteen,
the numbers cast being each different from the rest. This throw
obtained at a symposium or drinking party caused a person to be
appointed king of the feast.

One of the oldest games of the world is that called by the Romans
little marauders (_latrunculi_), because it was played like draughts or
checkers, there being two sets of "men," white and red, representing
opposed soldiers, and the aim of each player being to gain advantage
over the other, as soldiers do in a combat. This game is as old as
Homer, and is represented in Egyptian tombs, which are of much greater
antiquity than any Grecian monuments. In this game, too, skill was all
that was needed at first, but in time spice was given by the addition
of chance, and dice (_tessera_, a die) were used as in backgammon; but
gambling was deemed disreputable, and was forbidden during the
republic, except at the time of the Saturnalia, though both Greeks and
Romans permitted aged men to amuse themselves in that way. [Footnote: A
gambler was called _aleator_, and sometimes his implement was spoken of
as _alea_, which meant literally gaming. When Suetonius makes Cæsar
say, before crossing the Rubicon, "The die is cast," he uses the words
_Jacta alea est!_]

The games of the Romans range from the innocent tossing of huckle-bones
to the frightful scenes of the gladiatorial show. Some were celebrated
in the open air, and others within the enclosures of the circus or the
amphitheatre. Some were gay, festive, and abandoned, and others were
serious and tragic. Some were said to have been instituted in the
earliest days by Romulus, Servius Tullius, or Tarquinius Priscus, and
others were imported from abroad or grew up naturally as the nation
progressed in experience or in acquaintance with foreign peoples. The
great increase of games and festivals and their enormous cost were
signs of approaching trouble for the republic, and foretold the
terrible days of the empire, when the rabblement of the capital,
accustomed to be amused and fed by their despotic and corrupt rulers,
should cry in the streets: "Give us bread for nothing and games
forever!" It was gradually educating the populace to think of nothing
but enjoyment and to abhor honest labor, and we can imagine the
corruption that must have been brought into politics when honors were
so expensive that a respectable gladiatorical show cost more than
thirty-five thousand dollars (£7,200). If money for such purposes could
not be obtained by honest means, the nobles, who lived on popular
applause, would seek to force it from poor citizens of the colonies or
win it by intrigue at home.

There were impressive games celebrated from the fourth to the twelfth
of September, called the great games of the Roman Circus, but it is a
disputed point what divinities they were in honor of. Jupiter was
thought surely to be one, and Census another, by those who believed the
legends asserting that they were a continuation of those established by
Romulus when he wished to get wives from the Sabines. Others think that
Tarquinius Priscus, after a victory over the Latins, commemorated his
success by games in a valley between the Aventine and the Palatine
hills, where the spectators stood about to look on, or occupied stages
that they erected for their separate use. The racers went around in a
circuit, and it is perhaps on this account that the course and its
scaffolds was called the circus (_circum,_ round about). The course was
long, and about it the seats of the spectators were in after times
arranged in tiers. A division, called the _spina (spine)_, was built
through the central enclosure, separated the horses running in one
direction from those going in the other.

A variety of different games were celebrated in the circus. The races
may be mentioned first. Sometimes two chariots, drawn by two horses or
four each (the _biga_ or the _quadriga_), entered for the trial of
speed. Each had two horsemen, one of whom, standing in the car with the
reins behind his back to enable him to throw his entire weight on them,
drove, while the other urged the beasts forward, cleared the way, or
assisted in managing the reins. Before the race lists of the horses
were handed about and bets made on them, the utmost enthusiasm being
excited, and the factions sometimes even coming to blows and blood. The
time having arrived, the horses were brought from stalls at the end of
the course, and ranged in line, a trumpet sounded, or a handkerchief
was dropped, and the drivers and animals put forth every exertion to
win the prize. Seven times they whirled around the course, the applause
of the excited spectators constantly sounding in their ears. Now and
then a biga would be overturned, or a driver, unable to control his
fiery steeds, would be thrown to the ground, and, not quick enough to
cut the reins that encircled him with the bill-hook that he carried for
the purpose, would be dragged to his death. Such an accident would not
stop the onrushing of the other competitors, and at last the victor
would step from his car, mount the _spina_, and receive the sum of
money that had been offered as the prize.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE COLOSSEUM SEEN FROM THE PALATINE HILL]

Another game was the Play of Troy, fabled to have been invented by
Æneas, in which young men of rank on horses performed a sham fight. On
another occasion the circus would be turned into a camp, and
equestrians and infantry would give a realistic exhibition of battle.
Again, there would be athletic games, running, boxing, wrestling,
throwing the discus or the spear, and other exercises testing the
entire physical system with much thoroughness. One day the amphitheatre
would be filled with huge trees, and savage animals would be brought to
be hunted down by criminals, captives, or men especially trained for
the desperate work, who made it their profession.

For the purposes of these combats the circus was found not to be the
best, and the amphitheatre was invented by Curio for the celebration of
his father's funeral games. It differed from a theatre in permitting
the audience to see on both sides (Greek _amphi_, both), but the
distinctive name was first applied to a structure built by Cæsar, B.C.
46. The Flavian Amphitheatre, better known as the Colosseum, of which
the ruins now stand in Rome, was the culmination of this sort of
building, and affords a good idea of the general arrangement of those
that were not so grand. That of Cæsar was, however, of wood, which
material was used in constructing theatres also; the first one of stone
was not erected until 30 B.C., when Augustus was consul. [Footnote:
History gives an account of one edifice of this kind made of wood that
fell down owing to imperfect construction, killing many thousand
spectators, and of another that was destroyed by fire. Pompey's theatre
of stone, built B.C. 55, has already been mentioned (page 231).]

Variety was given to the exhibitions of the amphitheatre by introducing
sufficient water to float ships, and by causing the same wretched class
that fought the wild beasts to represent two rival nations, and to
fight until one party was actually killed, unless preserved by the
clemency of the ruler.

It must not be supposed that all these exhibitions were known in early
times, for, in reality, they were mostly the fruit of the increased
love of pleasure that characterized the close of the period of the
republic, and reached their greatest extravagance only under the
emperors.

The departure of a Roman from this world was considered an event of
great importance, and was attended by peculiar ceremonies, some of
which have been imitated in later times. At the solemn moment the
nearest relative present tried to catch in his mouth the last expiring
breath, and as soon as life had passed away, he called out the name of
the departed and exclaimed "Vale!" (farewell). The ring had been
previously taken from the finger, and now the body was washed and
anointed by undertakers, who had been called from a place near the
temple of Venus Libitina, where the names of all who died were
registered, and where articles needed for funerals were hired and sold.
[Footnote: Libitina was an ancient Italian divinity about whom little
is known. She has been identified with both Proserpina (the infernal
goddess of death and queen of the domain of Pluto her husband) and with
Venus.]

A small coin was placed in the mouth of the deceased to pay Charon the
ferryman who was to take it across the rivers of the lower world, the
body was laid out in the vestibule, with its feet toward the door,
wearing the simple toga, in the case of an ordinary citizen, or the
toga _prætexta_ in case of a magistrate, and flowers and leaves
were used for decorations as they are at present. If the deceased had
received a crown for any act of heroism in life, it was placed upon his
head at death. We have already seen that cypress was put at the door to
express to the passer-by the bereavement of the dwellers in the house.
If the person had been of importance, the funeral was public, and
probably it would be found that he had left money for the purpose; but
if he had omitted to do that, the expenses of burial would devolve on
those who were to inherit his property. These charges in case of a poor
person would be but slight, the funeral being celebrated; as in the
olden times of the republic, at night and in a very modest style.

The master of the funeral, as he was called, attended by lictors
dressed in black, directed the ceremonies in the case of a person of
importance. On the eighth day the body would be taken to its cremation
or burial, accompanied by persons wearing masks, representing the
ancestors of the deceased and dressed in the official costumes that had
been theirs, while before it would be borne the military and civic
rewards that the deceased had won.

Musicians playing doleful strains headed the procession, followed by
hired mourners who united lamentations with songs in praise of the
virtue of the departed. Players, buffoons, and liberated slaves
followed, and of the actors one represented the deceased, imitating his
words and actions. The couch on which the body rested as it was carried
was often of ivory adorned with gold, and was borne by the near
relatives or freedmen, though Julius Cæsar was carried by magistrates
and Augustus by senators.

Behind the body the relatives walked in mourning, which was black or
dark blue, the sons having their heads veiled, and the daughters
wearing their hair dishevelled, and both uttering loud lamentations,
the women frantically tearing their cheeks and beating their breasts.
As the procession passed through the forum it stopped, and an oration
was delivered celebrating the praises of the deceased, after which it
went on through the city to some place beyond the walls where the body
was burned or buried. We have seen that burial was the early mode of
disposing of the dead, and that Sulla was the first of his gens to be
burned. [Footnote: See page 197.] In case of burning, the body was
placed on a square, altar-like pile of wood, still resting on the
couch, and the nearest relative, with averted face, applied the torch.
As the flames rose, perfumes, oil, articles of apparel, and dishes of
food were cast into them. Sometimes animals, captives, or slaves were
slaughtered on the occasion, and, as we have seen, gladiators were
hired to fight around the flaming pile. [Footnote: See pages 158 and
210]

When the fire had accomplished its work, and the whole was burned down,
wine was thrown over the ashes to extinguish the expiring embers, and
the remains were sympathetically gathered up and placed in an urn of
marble or less costly material. A priest then sprinkled the ashes with
pure water, using a branch of olive or laurel, the urn was placed in a
niche of the family tomb, and the mourning relatives and friends
withdrew, saying as they went _Vale, vale_! When they reached their
homes they underwent a process of purification, the houses themselves
were swept with a broom of prescribed pattern, and for nine days the
mourning exercises, which included a funeral feast, were continued. In
the case of a great man this feast was a public banquet, and
gladiatorial shows and games were added in some instances, and they
were also repeated on anniversaries of the funeral.

[Illustration: A COLUMBARIUM.]

The public buried the illustrious citizens of the nation, and those
whose estates were too poor to pay such expenses; the former being for
a long time laid away in the Campus Martius, until the site became
unhealthy, when it was given to Mæcenas, who built a costly house on
it. The rich often erected expensive vaults and tombs during their own
lives, and some of the streets for a long distance from the city gate
were bordered with ornamental but funereal structures, which must have
made the traveller feel that he was passing through unending burial-
places. If a tomb was fitted up to contain many funeral ash-urns, it
was known as a columbarium, or dove-cote (_columba_, a dove), the
ashes of the freedmen and even slaves being placed in niches covered by
lids and bearing inscriptions. The Romans ornamented their tombs in a
variety of ways, but did not care to represent death in a direct
manner. The place of burial of a person, even a slave, was sacred, and
one who desecrated it was liable to grave punishment--even to death,--
if the bodies or bones were removed. Oblations of flowers, wine, and
milk were often brought to the tombs by relatives, and sometimes they
were illuminated.

Almost every country lying under a southern sun is accustomed to
rejoice at the annual return of flowers, and ancient Rome was not
without its May-day. Festivals of the sort are apt to degenerate
morally, and that, also, was true of the Floralia, as these feasts were
called at Rome. It is said that in the early age of the republic there
was found in the Sibylline books a precept commanding the institution
of a celebration in honor of the goddess Flora, who presided over
flowers and spring-time, in order to obtain protection for the
blossoms. The last three days of April and the first two of May were
set apart for this purpose, and then, under the direction of the
ædiles, the people gave themselves up to all the delights and, it must
be confessed, to many of the dissipations of the opening spring. The
amusements were of a varied character, including scenic and other
theatrical shows, great merriment, feasting, and drinking. Dance and
song added to the gay pleasures, and flowers adorned the scenes that
met the eye on every hand. Probably no particular deity was honored at
these festivals at first. They were simply the unbending of the rustics
after the cold of winter, the rejoicings natural to man in spring; but
finally the personal genius of the flowers was developed and her name
given to the gay festival.

The rustic simplicity represented well the primal homeliness of the
nation during the heroic ages; the orgies of the crowded city may be
put for the growing decay of the later period when, enriched and
intoxicated by foreign conquest and maddened by civil war, the republic
fell, and the way was made plain for the great material growth of the
empire, as well as for the final fall of the vast power that had for so
many centuries been invincible among the nations of the earth;--a power
which still stands forth in monumental grandeur, and is to-day studied
for the lessons it teaches and the warnings its history utters to
mankind.




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