It is Friday afternoon. The "scholars" of School Number
Nine, having droned through a week of lessons, are beginning
the "weekly exercises." Come visitors--Freddy Jones's mother
and aunt, and William Groso's father, and the minister, and
old Mrs. Huggins, who never misses the occasion, though she
has no children of her own. Teacher, working into her voice
an unwonted note of encouragement, calls the first name on
the program, and Freddy Jones, his legs very stiff, marches
to the platform, jerks his head toward teacher, and faces
his mates. His legs are no longer stiff; on the contrary,
his knee-joints seem to be made of whalebone. His mouth is
dry and his forehead is clammy.
Freddy is not the biggest or strongest of the boys; he is
not a leader among them. He has even been known to play with
the girls. He is sandy as to hair and complexion, and stubby
as to hands and feet and nose. Yet he begins: "Ye call me
chief----"
How often, while practising the lines up in the attic, he
has attained to an exalted sense of his leadership! How
often he has leaned metaphorically upon his sword and
surveyed with scornful contempt the fawning groundlings, the
Roman Adonises, the shouting rabble! He was Spartacus then.
But now--now he is a small boy with a doubtful memory; and
mother, from the front row of benches, has to prompt him
twice.
This thrilling old piece of declamation, this address of
Spartacus to the Gladiators, was written by the Rev. Elijah
Kellogg, who also wrote a great many books for boys--"The
Elm Island Series," the "Pleasant Cove Series," the
"Whispering Pine Series," and others which are still read.
He was born in Portland, Maine, May 20, 1813; went to
Bowdoin College and Andover Theological Seminary; served as
a minister and chaplain from 1843 to 1865, and thereafter
devoted himself almost exclusively to writing until his
death, at Harpswell, Maine, March 17, 1901.
Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who for twelve long
years has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad Empire
of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one
among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my
actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be
three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come
on. And yet I was not always thus--a hired butcher, a savage chief of
still more savage men. My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled
among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella.
My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at
noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the
shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in
the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together
our rustic meal. One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all
seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old
man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a
little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a
whole army.
I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I know not why,
and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting
the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go
to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. That very
night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished
me trampled by the hoof of the war-horse--the bleeding body of my father
flung amid the blazing rafters of our dwelling! To-day I killed a man in
the arena; and, when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend.
He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died--the same sweet smile upon
his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the
lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish
triumph!
I told the praetor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and
brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body, to burn it on a
funeral pile, and mourn over its ashes. Aye! upon my knees, amid the dust
and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled
maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call Vestals, and the rabble,
shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's
fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of
bleeding clay! And the praetor drew back as if I were pollution, and
sternly said, "Let the carrion rot; there are no noble men but Romans."
And so, fellow gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs.
O, Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Aye! thou hast given
to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone
than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to
drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm
it in the marrow of his foe--to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the
fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he shall pay
thee back, until the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its
deepest ooze thy life-blood lies curdled!
Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The strength of brass is in your
toughened sinews, but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume
from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and
bet his sesterces upon your blood. Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his
den? 'Tis three days since he has tasted flesh; but to-morrow he shall
break his fast upon yours--and a dainty meal for him ye will be! If ye are
beasts, then stand here like fat oxen, waiting for the butcher's knife! If
ye are men, follow me!
Strike down yon guard, gain the mountain passes, and there do bloody work,
as did your sires at old Thermopylae! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian
spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored
hound beneath his master's lash? O comrades! Warriors! Thracians! If we
must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us
slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky,
by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle!