When the Sabines came to the western side of the mountain range, they did
not try to plow much land at first. They had to find out what the land was
like.
People who lived by pasturing their cattle and sheep wherever it was
convenient hardly ever settled in the same place for good, because the
pasture differs from year to year even in the same neighborhood. A
hillside which is rich and green in a wet year may be barren and dry when
there are long months with no rain. A valley that is rich in long juicy
grass in spring may be under water later in the summer. Herdsmen need to
range over a wide country, and especially they need this if they keep
sheep. The sheep nibble the grass down to the roots, and when they have
finished with a field there is nothing on it for any other animal that
year. But the true farmer, who uses his land for a great many different
purposes, can shift his crops and his pasturage around so that he can have
a home, and this was what the Sabines wished to do.
For a farm of this kind, a place between mountain and plain is best, with
a variety of soil and good water supply. In such a mountain valley as the
Herpini chose, with wooded heights above it, the roots of the trees bind
the earth together and keep the wet of the winter rains from drying up, so
that there is not often either flood or drought, and almost always good
grass is found somewhere in the neighborhood. The people began by raising
beans and peas to dry for winter, and herbs for flavoring, and in the
summer they had kale and other fresh vegetables. Now and then, for a
holiday, they killed a sheep or a young goat or a calf and had a feast.
The heart and inner organs were burned on the altar for an offering to the
gods; the flesh was served out to the people, cooked with certain herbs
used according to old rules. For vineyards and grain fields, which needed
a certain kind of soil, they chose, after awhile, exactly the ground which
suited them, and plowed their common land, and sowed their corn and
planted their vines.
Most of the farm land was worked by all the people in common. This was a
very old custom. There were good reasons for it. In farming, the work has
to be done when the weather is suitable. The planting or haying or
harvesting cannot be put off. By working in company the men saved time and
labor, and if one happened to be ill the land was taken care of all the
same, and nothing was lost. Also, in this way all of the land suitable for
a certain crop was used for that crop. Nobody was wasting time and
strength trying to make rocky or barren soil feed his family, while his
strength and skill were needed on good ground. The third and perhaps the
best reason was, that in this way the houses were not scattered, but close
together, so that no enemy could attack any one in the village without
fighting all. The village was clean and wholesome, because no animals were
kept there except as pets. The flocks and herds were taken care of by men
and boys trained to that work. Each man had for his own the land around
his own house, and every year he was allowed a part of the common land for
his especial use, but he did not own it as he owned his house and lot,—the
_heredium_, as it was called.
Everything connected with the cultivation of the land was in the hands of
twelve men chosen for it, called the Arval Brethren, or the Brethren of
the Field. It was their work to see that all was done according to the
well-proved rules and customs, that the gods received due respect, and
that the festivals in their honor were held in proper form.
In a society where people have to depend upon each other in this way,
there is no room for a person who will not fit in, and who expects to be
taken care of without doing his share of the work. Here and there, in one
village and another, a boy grew up who shirked his work, took more good
things than his share and made trouble generally. Sometimes he got over it
as he grew older, but sometimes he did not; and if he could not live
peaceably at home, he had to be driven out to get his living where he
could. There was no place in a village ruled by the gods for any one who
did not respect and obey the laws.
These outlaws did not starve, for they could get a kind of living by
fishing and hunting, and they stole from the ignorant country people and
from travelers. They were known after awhile as _banditti_, the banished
men, the men who had been driven out of civilized society. Some of them
left their own country altogether and went down to the seashore, or into
the strange land across the yellow river. The people in the villages did
not know much about them. They were very busy with their own concerns.
There were two great festivals in the year, to do honor to the gods of the
land. One was in the shortest days of the year, early in winter. This was
the feast of Saturn. He was the god who filled the storehouses, who sent
water to drench the earth and feed the crops, who looked after the silent
world of the roots and underground growing things generally. When his
feast was held, the harvest was all in, the wine was made, and it was time
to choose the animals to be killed for food and not kept through the
winter. For four or five days there was a general jollification. No work
was done except what was necessary. There was feasting and singing and
story telling, and some of the wilder youths usually dressed up in
fantastic costumes like earth spirits, and wound up the holiday with
dancing and songs and shouting and all sorts of antics. Sometimes a clever
singer made new songs to the old tunes, with jokes and puns about
well-known people of the place. These songs were always done in a certain
style, and this style of verse came to be known later as Saturnian poetry,
and the sly personal fun in them was called satirical. It was part of the
joke that the singer should keep a perfectly grave face.
[Illustration: The people gathered in the public square]
The other festival came in the spring, when the grass was green and the
leaves were fresh and bright, and flowers were wreathing shrubs and
hillsides like dropped garlands. It was in honor of the beautiful
open-handed goddess called Dea Dia, or sometimes Maia. One spring morning
the children of the village could hear the blowing of the horn in the
public square, and then they all understood that the priest was about to
give out the announcement of the festival of Maia. They crowded up to
hear, even more excited and joyous than the older people.
There were no books or written records; not even a written language was
known to the villagers. The priest of the village, who kept account of the
days when ceremonies were due, and the changes of the moon, gave out the
news, each month, of the things which were to happen. The months were not
all the same length, and no two villages had just the same calendar. The
year was counted from the founding of the city, whenever that was, and
naturally it was not the same in different places. The people gathered in
the public square, waiting to hear what Emilius the priest had to tell
them.
He was a tall and noble-looking man, generally beloved because he always
tried to deal justly and kindly with his neighbors, and was so wise that
he usually succeeded. The person who paid him the deepest and most
reverent attention was little Emilia, his daughter, who believed him to be
the wisest and best of men. She stood with her mother in a little group
directly in front of him, looking up at him with her deep, serious blue
eyes, in happy pride.
Emilia was six and a half years old. This would be her first May festival,
to remember, for she had been ill the year before when it came, and one’s
memory is not very good before one is five years old. Her bright
gold-brown hair curled a little and looked like waves of sunshine all over
her graceful small head. It was tied with a white fillet to keep it out of
her eyes, and in the fillet, like a great purple jewel, was thrust an
anemone from a wreath her mother had been making. Her mother dressed her
in the finest and softest of undyed wool, bleached white as snow. She wore
a little tunic with a braided girdle, and over her shoulders a square of
the same soft cloth as a mantle; it looked like the wings of a white bird
as it shone in the morning sun. On her feet were sandals of kidskin, and
around her neck was a necklace of red beads that had come from far away. A
trader brought them from the place by the seashore where such things were
made. From this necklace hung a round ball of hammered copper, made to
open in two halves, and inside it was a little charm to keep off bad
spirits. The charm was made of the same red stone and looked like the head
of a little goat.
Emilia had never in her life known what it was to be afraid of any one, or
to see any one’s eyes rest upon her unkindly. The world was very
interesting to her. It was filled with wonderful and beautiful things,
especially just now. Each day she saw some new flower or bird or plant or
animal she had never seen before. Spring in those mountains was very
lovely. It hardly seemed as if it could be the real world.
The people were all rather fine-looking and strong and active. They worked
and played in the open air and led healthy lives, and being well and full
of spirits, there was really no reason why they should be ugly.
Emilius told them when the feast of Maia would take place. The moon, which
was called the measurer, was all they had to go by in reckoning the year.
The feast was to be the day after it changed. Emilius repeated the names
of the Brethren of the Field, and mentioned things that should be done to
prepare for the feast, and that was all.
Far up on the heights of the mountain above, in among the rocks where
nothing grew except wind-stunted trees and patches of moss and fern, there
was another settlement of which the village people knew nothing. Two of
its men happened to be farther down the mountain than usual, hunting, when
this announcement was made. They got up on a rock overgrown with bushes,
where they could look down into the village, and lay watching what went
on. They were not beautiful or happy. They looked as they lay on the rock,
spying over the edge with their hard, greedy eyes under shaggy unkempt
locks, rather like wild beasts.
One was a runaway from this very place, and he knew it was nearly time for
the May festival. His name was Gubbo, and he had been cast out of the
village because he was cruel. He liked to torment animals and children; he
liked to compel others to give him what he wanted. When finally he had
been caught slashing at the favorite ox of a man he had had a quarrel
with, he had been beaten and kicked out and told never to come back. He
had wandered about for some years, and then joined the banditti on the
mountain.
These banditti came from many towns; some were even of another race, of
the strange people beyond the river. There were not very many of them, but
there were enough to surprise and beat down a much larger number if
circumstances favored. Their usual plan was not to fight in the open, but
creep up near a place where stores or treasure happened to be kept, when
the most skillful thieves would get in and carry off the plunder to the
hiding-place of the others, who stood ready to fight or to act as porters,
whichever might be necessary. If they were chased, the best runners drew
off the pursuers after them and joined the rest of the band later.
They did not spend all or even very much of their time in their mountain
den. They had picked this country as their headquarters because it was
largely wilderness above the farming belt. The rocks held many caves and
good strongholds. Often they went off and were gone for perhaps a month at
a time, prowling about distant settlements, or haunting the roads the
traders traveled. Many a luckless merchant had been knocked on the head
from behind, or dragged out of his boat and drowned, by these thieves,
with no one to tell the tale.
They had found the Sabines here when they came, and it had not seemed
worth while—yet—to quarrel with them. The scattered country folk, who went
in deadly fear of the robbers and did whatever they were told, said that
the farmers could fight, and kept watch over what they had, and had very
little but their animals and food stores. There was no use in provoking a
war with them. The better plan would be to terrify them so thoroughly that
they would give the bandits anything they asked, to keep the peace.
There was no use in upsetting these quiet folk so that they could not
work. They could be told that unless they brought to a certain place, at
certain times, grain, cattle and other provision, and left them for the
outlaws, something terrible would happen to them. They certainly could not
hunt the mountains over for the band, and they could not know how many or
how few there were. This plan worked well in other places, and it would do
very well here.
The leader, the oldest of the robbers, had once been a slave, and he knew
all the things that are done to slaves who resist their masters. The
others were afraid of him, and there were very few other things in the
world of which they were afraid. He listened to the report of Gubbo and
his companion, and sent them back to watch the village during the time of
the festival, see who the chief men were, how well off the people seemed
to be, how many fighting men they had, and where they kept their grain and
other stores.
For five days one or the other of the bandits was always watching from the
edge of the rock. If they had been the kind of men to understand beauty,
they must have owned that the festival of Maia was a beautiful sight. But
it only made them angry and bitter to think that they could not have all
the comforts these people had. Often they did not have enough to eat, and
then there would be a raid on some village, and all the men would eat far
more than was comfortable, and drink more than was at all wise, and the
feast usually ended in a fight. This festival in the village was not at
all like that.
The young girls had a great part in the dancing and singing and
processions of Maia. A tall pillar, decorated with garlands and strips of
colored cloth, had been set up, and a circle of white-robed little
maidens, with wreaths of flowers on their heads, danced around it. Little
Emilia sat sedately in the center, wand in hand, and directed the dancing.
There were stately processions, and marching and countermarching of white
figures bearing garlands; the oxen appeared with their horns wreathed in
flowers; blossoms were strewn all over the public square as the day
passed. The blessing of Maia was asked upon the springing grain, now
standing like a multitude of fairy sword blades above the brown soil; upon
the bean and pea vines climbing as fast as ever they could up the poles
set for them; upon the vineyards, every vine of which was tended like a
child; and upon the orchards, all one drift of warm white petals blowing
on the wind. The chestnut trees were a-bloom and looked like huge tents
with great candelabra set here and there over them; and the steady hum of
the bees was like the drone of a chanter.
When the day was over, and all the people were asleep, the spies went back
to the den in the rocks and told what they had seen.
The chief decided that these people were to be let alone all through the
summer and early fall, until all their stores of wine and grain and fat
beasts were in, and they went afield to get nuts in the forest. That would
be the time to strike. The child of the head priest could be carried off,
perhaps, or the son of the chief man of the village. Then one of the
country people would be sent to tell the villagers that unless they agreed
to furnish provisions at certain times and places, the child would be
killed. That would bring them to heel.
So the summer passed, and the unconscious, happy people prayed for a good
harvest.
V