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.