What were Rome's most precious possessions? To this question a splendid
answer was given by Marcus Curtius. In the midst of the Forum--the
market-place in the heart of the city where public business was
transacted and men met daily to discuss politics and listen to
speeches--the citizens found one morning that a yawning gulf had opened.
This, so the priests declared, would not close until the most precious
thing that Rome possessed had been thrown into it. Then the republic
would be safe and everlasting. For a time men puzzled and pondered over
the meaning of this dark saying. Marcus Curtius, a youth who had covered
himself with honour in many battles, solved the riddle. Brave men, he
said, had made Rome great: the city had nothing so precious. Clad in
full armour and mounted on his war-horse he leaped into the gulf. It
closed over him at once, nor ever opened again.
_The Devotion of Marcus Curtius_
During the same year, as the story goes, a cavern of measureless
depth was opened in the middle of the Forum, either from the shock
of an earthquake or from some other hidden force; and though all
did their best by throwing soil into it, the gulf could not be
filled up till, warned by the gods, the people began to inquire
what was Rome's greatest treasure. For that treasure, so the
prophets declared, must be offered in it, if the Roman
commonwealth was to be safe and lasting. Whereupon Marcus Curtius,
a warrior renowned in war, rebuked them for doubting whether the
Romans had any greater blessing than arms and valour. Amid a
general silence he devoted himself, looking to the Capitol and the
temples of the immortal gods that overhang the Forum, and
stretching out his hands, at one time to the sky, at another to
the yawning chasm that reached to the world below. Then, fully
armed and seated on a horse splendidly caparisoned, he plunged
into its depths, while a crowd of men and women showered corn and
other offerings after him. Thus we may suppose that the Curtian
Lake got its name from him, and not from Curtius Mettus, in old
time the famous soldier of Titus Tatius.
Livy, vii. 6.
[Illustration: LACUS CURTIUS
Restored]
In Mucius Scaevola, in Regulus, in Marcus Curtius, and many others the
fine qualities of the old Roman temper, pride, courage, will, devotion,
a love of their country that went beyond all other feelings, even unto
death, stand out. One can see the main lines of the character that made
the Romans what they afterwards became--the conquerors and law-givers
first of a single city, Rome, then of the whole plain of Latium in which
that city stood: then, after driving back barbarian invaders from the
north and Greek invaders from the south, of all Italy: later of the
known world.