THE FORGE.
I saw a smith stand with his hammer thus,
The whilst his iron did on anvil cool.
KING JOHN.
It was the evening of the sixteenth day before the calends of November,
or, according to modern numeration, the eighteenth of October, the eve of
the consular elections, when a considerable number of rough hardy-looking
men were assembled beneath the wide low-browed arch of a blacksmith’s
forge, situated near the intersection of the Cyprian Lane with the Sacred
Way, and commanding a full view of the latter noble thoroughfare.
It was already fast growing dark, and the natural obscurity of the hour
was increased by the thickness of the lowering clouds, which overspread
the whole firmament of heaven, and seemed to portend a tempest. But from
the jaws of the semicircular arch of Roman brick, within which the group
was collected, a broad and wavering sheet of light was projected far into
the street, and over the fronts of the buildings opposite, rising and
falling in obedience to the blast of the huge bellows, which might be
heard groaning and laboring within. The whole interior of the roomy vault
was filled with a lurid crimson light, diversified at times by a brighter
and more vivid glare as a column of living flame would shoot up from the
embers, or long trains of radiant sparks leap from the bounding anvil.
Against this clear back ground the moving figures of the strong limbed
grimy giants, who plied their mighty sledges with incessant zeal on the
red hot metal, were defined sharply and picturesquely; while alternately
red lights and heavy shadows flickered across the forms and features of
many other men, who stood around watching the progress of the work, and
occasionally speaking rapidly, and with a good deal of gesticulation, at
intervals when the preponderant din of hammers ceased, and permitted
conversation to be carried on audibly.
At this moment, however, there was no such pause; for the embers in the
furnace were at a white heat, and flashes of lambent flame were leaping
out of the chimney top, and vanishing in the dark clouds overhead. A dozen
bars of glowing steel had been drawn simultaneously from the charcoal, and
thrice as many massive hammers were forging them into the rude shapes of
weapons on the anvils, which, notwithstanding their vast weight, appeared
to leap and reel, under the blows that were rained upon them faster than
hail in winter.
But high above the roar of the blazing chimney, above the din of the
groaning stithy, high pealed the notes of a wild Alcaic ode, to which,
chaunted by the stentorian voices of the powerful mechanics, the clanging
sledges made a stormy but appropriate music. "Strike, strike the iron,"
thus echoed the stirring strain,
Strike, strike the iron, children o’ Mulciber,
Hot from the charcoal cheerily glimmering!
Swing, swing, my boys, high swing the sledges!
Heave at it, heave at it, all! Together!
Great Mars, the war God, watches ye laboring
Joyously. Joyous watches the gleam o’ the
Bright sparkles, upsoaring the faster,
Faster as our merry blows revive them.
Well knoweth He that clang. It arouses him,
Heard far aloof! He laughs on us hammering
The sword, the clear harness of iron,
Armipotent paramour o’ Venus.——
Red glows the charcoal. Bend to the task, my boys,
Time flies apace, and speedily night cometh,
When we no more may ply the anvil;
Fate cometh eke, i’ the murky midnight.
Mark ye the pines, which rooted i’ rocky ground,(17)
Brave Euroclydon’s onset at evening.
Day dawns. The tree, which stood the tallest,
Preeminent i’ the leafy greenwood,
Now lies the lowest. Safely the arbutus,
Which bent before him, flourishes, and the sun
Wakens the thrush, which slept securely
Nestled in its emerald asylum.
So, when the war-shout peals i’ the noon o’ night,
Rousing the sleepers fearful, in ecstacy
When slaves avenge their wrongs, arising
Strong i’ the name o’ liberty new born,
When fury spares not beauty nor innocence,
First flame the grandest domes. I’ the massacre,
First fall the noblest. Lowly virtue
Haply the shade o’ poverty defends.
Forge then the broad sword. Quickly the night cometh,
When red the streets with gore o’ the mightiest
Shall fiercely flow, like Tiber in flood.
Rise then, avenger, the time it hath come!
Wake bloody tyrants from merry banquetting,
From downy couches, snowy-bosomed women
And ruby wine-cups, wake—The avenger
Springs to his arms, for the time it hath come!
The wild strain ceased, and with it the clang of the hammers, the bars of
steel being already beaten into the form of those short massive two-edged
blades, which were the Roman’s national and all victorious weapon. But, as
it ceased, a deep stern hum of approbation followed, elicited probably by
some real or fancied similitude between the imagery of the song, and the
circumstances of the auditors, who were to a man of the lowest order of
plebeians, taught from their cradles to regard the nobles, and perhaps
with too much cause, as their natural enemies and oppressors. When the
brief applause was at an end, one of the elder bystanders addressed the
principal workman, at the forge, in a low voice.
"You are incautious, Caius Crispus, to sing such songs as this, and at
such a time, too."
"Tush, Bassus," answered the other, "it is you who are too timid. What
harm is there, I should like to know, in singing an old Greek song done
into Latin words? I like the rumbling measure, for my part; it suits well
with the clash and clang of our rude trade. For the song, there is no
offence in it; and, for the time, it is a very good time; and, to poor men
like us, a better time is coming!"
"Oh! well said. May it be so!" exclaimed several voices in reply to the
stout smith’s sharp words.
But the old man was not so easily satisfied, for he answered at once. "If
any of the nobles heard it, they would soon find offence in it, my Caius!"
"Oh! the nobles—the nobles, and the Fathers! I am tired of hearing of the
nobles. For my part, I do not see what makes them noble. Are they a whit
stronger, or braver, or better man than I, or Marcus here, or any of us? I
trow not."
"Wiser—they are at least wiser, Caius," said the old man once more, "in
this, if in nothing else, that they keep their own councils, and stand by
their own order."
"Aye! in oppressing the poor!" replied a new speaker.
"Right, Marcus," said a second; "let them wrangle as much as they may with
one another, for their dice, their women, or their wine; in this at least
they all agree, in trampling down the poor."
"There is a good time coming," replied the smith; "and it is very near at
hand. Now, Niger," he continued, addressing one of his workmen, "carry
these blades down to the lower workshop; let Rufus fit them instantly with
horn handles; and then, see you to their grinding! Never heed polishing
them very much, but give them right keen edges, and good stabbing points."
"I do not know," answered the other man to the first part of the smith’s
speech. "I am not so sure of that."
"You don’t know what I mean," said Crispus, scornfully.
"Yes. I do—right well. But I am not so confident, as you are, in these new
leaders."
The smith looked at him keenly for a moment, and then said significantly,
"_do_ you know?"
"Aye! do I," said the other; and, a moment afterward, when the eyes of the
bystanders were not directly fixed on him, he drew his hand edgewise
across his throat, with the action of one severing the windpipe.
Caius Crispus nodded assent, but made a gesture of caution, glancing his
eye toward one or two of the company, and whispering a moment afterward,
"I am not sure of those fellows."
"I see, I see; but they shall learn nothing from what I say." Then raising
his voice, he added, "what I mean, Caius, is simply this, that I have no
so very great faith in the promises of this Sergius Catiline, even if he
should be elected. He was a sworn friend to Sylla, the people’s worst
enemy; and never had one associate of the old Marian party. Believe me, he
only wants our aid to set himself up on the horse of state authority; and
when he is firm in the saddle, he will ride us down under the hoofs of
patrician tyranny, as hard as any Cato, or Pompey, of them all."
Six or seven of the foremost group, immediately about the anvil when this
discourse was going on, interchanged quick glances, as the man used the
word elected, on which he laid a strong and singular emphasis, and nodded
slightly, as indicating that they understood his more secret meaning. All,
however, except Crispus, the owner of the forge, seemed to be moved by
what he advanced; and the foreman of the anvil, after musing for a moment,
as he leaned on his heavy sledge, said, "I believe you are right; no one
but a Plebeian can truly mean well, or be truly fitted for a leader to
Plebeians."
"You are no wiser than Crispus," interposed the old man, who had spoken
first, in a low angry whisper. "Do you want to discourage these fellows
from rising to the cry, when it shall be set up? If this be all that you
can do, it were as well to close the forge at once."
"Which I shall do forthwith," said Caius Crispus; "for I have got through
my work and my lads are weary; but do not you go away, my gossips; nor you
either," he added, speaking to the man whom he had at first suspected,
"tarry you, under one pretext or other; we will have a cup of wine, as
soon as I have got rid of these fellows. Here, Aulus," turning to his
foreman, "take some coin out of my purse, there it hangs by my clean tunic
in the corner, and go round to the wine shop, and bring thence a skinful
of the best Sabine vintage; and some of you bar up the door, all but the
little wicket. And now, my friends, good night; it is very late, and I am
going to shut up the shop. Good night; and remember that the only hope of
us working men lies in the election of Catiline tomorrow. Be in the Campus
early, with all your friends; and hark ye, you were best take your knives
under your tunics, lest the proud nobles should attempt to drive us from
the ballot."
"We will, we will!" exclaimed several voices. "We will not be cozened out
of our votes, or bullied out of them either. But how is this? do not you
vote in your class?"
"I vote _with_ my class! with my fellow Plebeians and mechanics, I would
say! What if I be one of the armorers of the first class, think you that I
will vote with the proud senators and insolent knights? No, brethren, not
one of us, nor of the carpenters either, nor of the trumpeters, or
horn-blowers! Plebeians we are, and Plebeians we will vote! and let me
tell you to look sharp to me, on the Campus; and whatever I do, so do ye.
Be sure that good will come of it to the people!"
"We will, we will!" responded all his hearers, now unanimous. "Brave
heart! stout Caius Crispus! We will have you a tribune one of these days!
but good night, good night!"
And, with the words, all left the forge, except the smith and his peculiar
workmen, and two or three others, all clients of the Prætor Lentulus, and
all in some degree associates in the conspiracy. None of them, however,
were initiated fully, except Caius himself, his foreman, Aulus, the aged
Bassus, and the stranger; who, though unknown to any one present, had
given satisfactory evidence that he was privy to the most atrocious
portions of the plot. The wine was introduced immediately, and after a
deep draught, circulated more than once, the conversation was resumed by
the initiated, who were now left alone.
"And do you believe," said the stranger, addressing Caius Crispus, "that
Catiline and his companions have any real view to the redress of
grievances, the regeneration of the state, or the equalization of
conditions?"
"Not in the least, I," answered the swordsmith. "Do you?"
"I did once."
"I never did."
"Then, in the name of all the Gods, why did you join with them?"
"Because by the ruin of the great and noble, the poor must be gainers.
Because I owe what I can never pay. Because I lust for what I can never
win—luxury, beauty, wealth, and power! And if there come a civil strife,
with proscription, confiscation, massacre, it shall go hard with Caius
Crispus, if he achieve not greatness!"
"And you," said the man, turning short round, without replying to the
smith, and addressing the aged Bassus, "why did you join the plotters, you
who are so crafty, so sagacious, and yet so earnest in the cause?"
"Because I have wrongs to avenge," answered the old man fiercely; a fiery
flush crimsoning his sallow face, and his eye beaming lurid rage. "Wrongs,
to repay which all the blood that flows in patrician veins were but too
small a price!"
"Ha?" said the other, in a tone half meditative and half questioning, but
in truth thinking little of the speaker, and reflecting only on the
personal nature of the motives, which seemed to instigate them all. "Ha,
is it indeed so?"
"Man," cried the old conspirator, springing forward and catching him by
the arm. "Have you a wife, a child, a sister? If so, listen! you can
understand me! I am, as you see old, very old! I have scars, also, all in
front; honorable scars, of wounds inflicted by the Moorish assagays, of
Jugurtha’s desert horsemen—by the huge broad swords of the Teutones and
Cimbri. My son, my only son fell, as an eagle-bearer, in the front rank of
the hastati of the brave tenth legion—for we had wealth in those days, and
both fought and voted in the centuries of the first class. But our fields
were uncultivated, while we were shedding our best blood for the state;
and to complete the ruin, my rural slaves broke loose, and joined
Spartacus the gladiator. Taken, they died upon the cross; and I was quite
undone. Law suits and usury ate up the rest; and, for these eight years
past, old Bassus has been penniless, and often cold, and always hungry.
But if this had been all, it is a soldier’s part to bear cold and
hunger—but not to bear disgrace. Man, there have been gyves on these
legs—the whip has scarred these shoulders! Ye great Gods! the whip! for
what have the poor to do with their Portian or Valerian laws? Nor was this
all—the eagle-bearer left a child, a sweet, fair, gentle girl, the image
of my gallant boy, the only solace of my famishing old age. I told you she
was fair—fatally fair—too fair for a plebeian’s daughter, a plebeian’s
wife! Her beauty caught the lustful eyes, inflamed the brutal heart of a
patrician, one of the great Cornelii. It is enough! She was torn from my
house, dishonored, and sent home, to die by her own hand, that would not
pardon that involuntary sin! She died; the censors heard the tale; and
scoffed at the teller of it! and that Cornelius yet sits in the senate;
those censors who approved his guilt yet live—I say _live_! Is not that
cause enough why I should join the plotters?"
"I cannot answer, No!" replied the other; "and you, Aulus, what is your
reason?"
"I would win me a noble paramour. Hortensia’s Julia is very soft and
beautiful."
The stranger looked at him steadily for a moment, and an expression of
disgust and horror crept over his bold face. "Alas!" he said at length,
speaking, it would seem, to himself rather than to the others, "poor Rome!
unhappy country!"
But, as he spoke, the strong smith, whose suspicion would seem to have
been excited, stepped forward and laid his hand upon the stranger’s
shoulder. "Look you," he said, "master. None of us know you here, I think,
and we should all of us be glad to know, both who you are, and, if indeed
you be of the faction, wherefore _you_ joined it, that you so closely
scrutinize our motives."
"Because I was a fool, Caius Crispus; because I believed that, for a great
stake, Romans might yet forget _self_, base and sordid _self_, and act as
becomes patriots and men! Because I dreamed, smith, till morning light
came back, and I awakened, and—"
"And the dream!" asked the smith eagerly, grasping the handle of his heavy
hammer firmly, and setting his teeth hard.
"Had vanished," replied the other calmly, and looking him full in the eye.
"Bar the door, Aulus," cried the smith, hastily. "This fellow must die
here, or he will betray us," and he caught him by the throat, as he spoke,
with an iron grip, to prevent him from calling out or giving the alarm.
But the stranger, though not to be compared in bulk or muscular
proportions with the gigantic artizan, shook off his grasp with
contemptuous ease, and answered with a scornful smile,
"Betray you!—tush, I am Fulvius Flaccus."
Had a thunderbolt fallen at the feet of the smith, he could not have
recoiled with wilder wonder.
"What, Fulvius Flaccus, to whose great wrongs all injuries endured by us
are but as flea-bites! Fulvius, the grandson of that Fulvius Flaccus,
who—"
"Was murdered by Opimius, while striving for the liberties of Romans. But
what is this! By Mars and Quirinus! there is something afoot without!"
And, as he uttered the words, he sprang to the wicket, which Aulus had not
fastened, and gazed out earnestly into the darkness, through which the
regular and steady tramp of men, advancing in ordered files, could now be
heard distinctly.
The others were beside him in an instant, with terror and amazement on
their faces.
They had not long to wait, before the cause of their alarm became visible.
It was a band of some five hundred stout young men of the upper classes,
well armed with swords and the oblong bucklers of the legion, though
wearing neither casque nor cuirass, led by a curule ædile, who was
accompanied by ten or twelve of the equestrian order, completely armed,
and preceded by his _apparitores_ or beadles, and half a dozen
torch-bearers.
These men passed swiftly on, in treble file, marching as fast as they
could down the Sacred Way, until they reached the intersection of the
street of Apollo; by which they proceeded straight up the ascent of the
Palatine, whereon they were soon lost to view, among the splendid edifices
that covered its slope and summit.
"By all the Gods!" cried Caius Crispus, "This is exceedingly strange! An
armed guard at this time of night!"
"Hist! here is something more."
And, as old Bassus spoke, Antonius, the consul, who was supposed to be
attached to the faction of Catiline, came down a bye-street, from the
lower end of the Carinæ, preceded by his torch-bearers, and followed by a
lictor(18) with his fasces. He was in full dress too, as one of the
presiding magistrates of the senate, and bore in his hand his ivory
sceptre, surmounted by an eagle.
As soon as he had passed the door of the forge, Crispus stepped out into
the street, motioning his guests to follow him, and desiring his foreman
to lock the door.
"Let us follow the Consul, at a distance," he exclaimed, "my Bassus; for,
as our Fulvius says, there is assuredly something afoot; and it may be
that it shall be well for us to know it: Come, let us follow quickly."
They hurried onward, as he proposed; and keeping some twenty or thirty
paces in the rear of the Consul’s train, soon reached the foot of the
street of Apollo. At this point, however, Antonius paused with his lictor;
for, in the opposite direction coming up from the Cerolian place toward
the Forum, another line of torches might be seen flaming through the
darkness, and, even at that distance, the axe heads of the lictors were
visible, as they flashed out by fits in the red torch-light.
"By all the Gods!" whispered Bassus, "it is the other consul, the new man
from Arpinum. Believe me, my friends, this bodes no good to us! The Senate
must have been convoked suddenly—and lo! here come the fathers. Look,
look! this is stern Cato."
And, almost as he said the words, a powerfully made and very noble looking
man passed so near as to brush the person of the mechanic with the folds
of his toga. His face, which was strongly marked, was stern certainly; but
it was with the sternness of gravity and deep thought, coupled perhaps
with something of melancholy—for it might be that he despaired at times of
man’s condition in this world, and of his prospects in the next—not of
austerity or pride. His garb was plain in the extreme, and, although his
tunic displayed the broad crimson facings, and his robe the passmenting of
senatorial rank, both were of the commonest materials, and the narrowest
and most simple cut.
"Hail, noble Cato!" said the mechanic, as the senator passed by; but his
voice faltered as he spoke, and there was something hollow and heartless
in the tones, which conveyed the greeting.
Cato raised his eyes, which had been fixed on the ground in meditation,
and perused the features of the speaker with a severe and scrutinizing
gaze; and then, shaking his head sternly, as if dissatisfied with the
result of his observation, "This is no time of night, sirrah smith," he
said, "for thee, or such as thou, to be abroad. Thy daily work done, thou
shouldst be at home with thy wife and children, not seeking profligate
adventures, or breeding foul sedition in the streets. Go home! go home!
for shame on thee! thou art known and marked."
And the severe and virtuous noble strode onward, unattended he by any
torch-bearer, or freedman, and soon joined his worthy friend, the great
Latin orator, who had come up, and having united his train to that of the
other consul, was moving up the Palatine.
In the meantime senator after senator arrived, some alone, with their
slaves or freedmen lighting them along the streets; others in groups of
two or three, all hurrying toward the Palatine. The smith and his friends,
who had been at first the sole spectators of the shew, were now every
moment joined by more and more of the rabble, until a great concourse was
assembled; through which the nobles had some difficulty in forcing their
way toward the Temple of Apollo, in which their order was assembling,
wherefore as yet they knew not.
At first the crowd was orderly enough, and quiet; but gradually beginning
to ferment and grow warm, as it were by the closeness of its packing,
cheers were heard, and loud acclamations, as any member of the popular
faction made his way through it; and groans and yells and even curses
succeeded, as any of the leaders of the aristocratic party strove to part
its reluctant masses.
And now a louder burst of acclamations, than any which had yet been heard,
rang through the streets, causing the very roofs to tremble.
"What foolery have we here?" said the smith very sullenly, who, though he
responded nothing to it, had by no means recovered from the rebuke of
Cato. "Oh! yes! I see, I see," and he too added the power of his
stentorian lungs to the clamor, as a young senator, splendidly dressed,
and of an aspect that could not fail to attract attention, entered the
little space, which had been kept open at the corner of the two streets,
by the efforts of an ædile and his beadles, who had just arrived on the
ground.
He was not much, if at all, above the middle size, but admirably
proportioned, whether for feats of agility and strength, or for the
lighter graces of society. But it was his face more especially, and the
magnificent expression of his features, that first struck the beholder—the
broad imaginative brow, the keen large lustrous eye, pervading, clear,
undazzled as the eagle’s, the bold Roman nose, the resolute curve of the
clean-cut mouth, full of indomitable pride and matchless energy—all these
bespoke at once the versatile and various genius of the great statesman,
orator, and captain, who was to be thereafter.
At this time, however, although he was advancing toward middle age, and
had already shaken off some of the trammels which luxurious vice and
heedless extravagance had cast around his young puissant intellect, he had
achieved nothing either of fame or power. He had, it is true, given signs
of rare intellect, but as yet they were signs only. Though his friends
looked forward confidently to the time, when they should see him the first
citizen of the republic; and it is more than possible, that in his own
heart he contemplated even now the attainment of a more glorious, if more
perilous elevation.
The locks of this noble looking personage, though not arranged in that
effeminate fashion, which has been mentioned as characteristic of Cethegus
and some others, were closely curled about his brow—for he, as yet,
exhibited no tendency to that baldness, for which in after years he was
remarkable—and reeked with the choicest perfumes. He wore the
crimson-bordered toga of his senatorial rank, but under it, as it waved
loosely to and fro, might be observed the gaudy hues of a violet colored
banqueting dress, sprinkled with flowers of gold, as if he had been
disturbed from some festive board by the summons to council.
As he passed through the crowd, from which loud rose the shout, following
him as he moved along—"Hail, Caius Cæsar! long live the noble Cæsar!"—his
slaves scattered gold profusely among the multitude, who fought and
scrambled for the glittering coin, still keeping up their clamorous
greeting; while the dispenser of the wasteful largesse appearing to know
every one, and to forget no face or name, even of the humblest, had a
familiar smile and a cheery word for each citizen.
"Ha! Bassus, my old hero!" he exclaimed, "it is long since thou hast been
to visit me. That proves, I hope, that things go better now-a-days at
home. But come and see me, Bassus; I have something for thee to keep the
cold from thy hearth, this freezing weather."
And he paused not to receive an answer, but moved forward a step or two,
till his eye fell upon the swordsmith.
"What, Caius," he said, "sturdy Caius, absent from his forge so early—but
I forgot, I forgot! you are a politician, perhaps you can tell me why they
have roused me from the best cup of Massic I have tasted this ten years.
What is the coil, Caius Crispus?"
"Nay! I know not," replied the mechanic, "I was about to ask the same of
you, noble Cæsar!"
"I am the worst man living of whom to inquire," replied the patrician,
with a careless smile. "I cannot even guess, unless perchance"—but as he
spoke, he discovered, standing beside the smith, the man who had called
himself Fulvius Flaccus, and interrupting himself instantly, he fixed a
long and piercing gaze upon him, and then exclaimed "Ha! is it thou?" with
an expression of astonishment, not all unmixed with vexation.
The next moment he stepped close up to him, whispered a word into his ear,
and hurried with an altered air up the steep street which scaled the
Palatine.
A minute or two afterward, Crispus turned to address this man, but he too
was gone.
In quick succession senator after senator now came up the gentle slope of
the Sacred Way, until almost all the distinguished men in Rome, whether
for good or for evil, had undergone the scrutiny of the group collected
around Caius Crispus.
But it was not till among the last that Catiline strode by, gnawing his
nether lip uneasily, with his wild sunken eyes glaring suspiciously about
him. He spoke to no one, until he came opposite the smith, on whom he
frowned darkly, exclaiming, "What do you here? Go home, sirrah, go home!"
and as Caius dropped his bold eyes, crest-fallen and abashed, he added in
a lower tone, so that, save Bassus only, none of the crowd could hear him,
"Wait for me at my house. Evil is brewing!"
Not a word more was spoken. Crispus and the old man soon extricated
themselves from the throng and went their way; and in a little time
afterward the multitude was dispersed, rather summarily, by a band of
armed men under the Prætor Pomptinus, who cleared with very little
delicacy the confines of the Palatine, whereon it was announced that the
senate were now in secret session.