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.