Twenty-five or thirty years before the birth of Christ there

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. ]