Corcyrean sedition—Civil wars of Rome—Jacquerie—Factions of the Circus
at Constantinople—Massacre of Sept. 2, 1792.
The year which witnessed the unhappy fate of the brave Platæans was
made remarkable by the Corcyrean sedition also: on which, as on the
plague of Athens, the pen of Thucydides has conferred a lasting
celebrity.
Corcyra, an island situated on the western coast of Greece, by sedulous
attention to commerce, had risen, a little before the Peloponnesian
war, to the possession of a navy capable of rivalling in strength
that of any Grecian state, except Athens. It was a colony of Corinth;
but, in consequence of some disputes which arose out of the affairs
of Epidamnus, a Corcyrean colony, war broke out between Corcyra and
the mother country, the Corcyreans concluded a defensive alliance with
the Athenians, and the democratical interest was of course established
in power. A naval battle ensued, in which the Corinthians had the
advantage, and took upwards of a thousand prisoners. It rarely happened
in any of the smaller Grecian states, that either the democratic or the
oligarchical party obtained an uncontested and permanent ascendancy;
and the Corinthians were not inclined to resign without a struggle that
respect and influence which the manners and religion of Greece taught
to be due from the colony to the mother country. Of the prisoners above
mentioned, eight hundred, who were slaves, were sold by the victors;
the rest, to the number of two hundred and fifty, were citizens, most
of them men of consequence in Corcyra, who probably looked with no
friendly eye on the Athenian alliance, and at all events were ready to
break it off, and revert to the connexion of Corinth, as the price
of their liberty. They were accordingly suffered to return home. The
tumults to which their subsequent attempts to restore the oligarchy
gave rise are celebrated in history under the name of the Corcyrean
sedition. A more heinous scene of treachery and murder has seldom
been exhibited even in civil warfare; or a more deplorable state of
morals described than that which is said by Thucydides in the following
passage to have prevailed, not only in Corcyra, but throughout Greece.
“The sedition in Corcyra began upon the coming home of those captives
which were taken in the battles by sea at Epidamnus, and released
afterwards by the Corinthians at the ransom, as was voiced, of eight
hundred talents, for which they had given security to their hosts,[36]
but in fact, because they had persuaded the Corinthians that they would
put Corcyra into their power. These persons going round from man to
man, solicited the city to revolt from the Athenians; and two galleys
being now come in, one of Athens, another of Corinth, with ambassadors
from both those states, the Corcyreans, upon audience of them both,
decreed to hold the Athenians for their confederates, on articles
agreed on: but withal to remain friends to the Peloponnesians, as
they had formerly been. There was one Pithias, voluntary host of the
Athenians, and that had been principal magistrate of the people. Him
these men called into judgment, and laid to his charge a practice to
bring the city into the servitude of the Athenians. He again, being
acquit, called in question five of the wealthiest of the same men,
saying they had cut certain stakes[37] in the ground belonging to the
temples both of Jupiter and of Alcinous, upon every one of which there
lay a penalty of a stater.[38] And being sentenced to pay the fine,
they took sanctuary in the temples, to the end, the sum being great,
they might pay it by portions, as they should be taxed. But Pithias
(for he was also of the senate) obtained that the law should proceed.
These five being by the law shut out of hope, and understanding that
Pithias, as long as he was a senator, would cause the people to hold
for friends and foes the same that were so to the Athenians, conspired
with the rest, and armed with daggers, suddenly brake into the senate
house, and slew both Pithias and others, as well private men as
senators, to the number of about sixty persons; only a few of those of
Pithias his faction escaped into the Athenian galley that lay yet in
the harbour.
“When they had done this, and called the Corcyreans to an assembly,
they told them, that what they had done was for the best, and that they
should not be now in bondage to the Athenians. And for the future they
advised them to be in quiet, and to receive neither party with more
than one galley at once; and to take them for enemies if they were
more: and when they had spoken forced them to decree it accordingly.
They also presently sent ambassadors to Athens, both to show that
it was fit for them to do what they had done, and also to dissuade
such Corcyreans as were fled thither of the other faction, from doing
anything to their prejudice, lest there should be a counter–revolution.
“When these arrived, the Athenians apprehended both the ambassadors
themselves, as seditious persons, and also all those Corcyreans whom
they had there prevailed with, and sent them to custody in Ægina.
In the mean time, upon the coming in of a galley of Corinth with
ambassadors from Lacedæmon, that party that had the rule assailed
the commons, and overcame them in fight; and night coming on, the
commons fled into the citadel, and the higher parts of the city, where
they rallied themselves and encamped, and made themselves masters
of the haven called the Hillaic haven. But the others seized on the
market–place (where also the most of them dwelt) and on the haven on
the side toward the continent.
“The next day they skirmished a little with shot,[39] and both parts
sent abroad into the villages to solicit the slaves, with promise of
liberty, to take their parts; and the greatest part of the slaves took
part with the commons, and the other side had an aid of 800 men from
the continent.
“The next day but one they fought again, and the people had the
victory, having the odds both in strength of places, and in number of
men. And the women also manfully assisted them, throwing tiles from the
houses, and enduring the tumult, even beyond the condition of their
sex. The few began to fly about twilight, and fearing lest the people
should attack, and at the first onset gain possession of the arsenal,
and put them to the sword, to stop their passage, set fire to the
houses in the market–place, and those adjoining them, sparing neither
their own property nor others. Much goods of merchants were hereby
burnt, and the whole city, if the wind had risen and carried the flame
that way, had been in danger to have been destroyed. Then ceasing from
battle, forasmuch as both parties were at rest, they set watch for the
night. And the Corinthian galley stole away, because the people had
gotten the victory, and most of the auxiliaries got over privily to the
continent.
“The next day Nicostratus the son of Diotrephes, an Athenian commander,
came in with twelve galleys and five hundred Messenian men of arms
from Naupactus, and both negotiated a reconciliation, and induced them
(to the end they might agree) to condemn ten of the principal authors
of the sedition (who presently fled) and to let the rest alone, with
articles both between themselves and with the Athenians, to esteem
friends and enemies the same as the Athenians did. When he had done
this, he would have been gone, but the people persuaded him before he
went to leave behind him five of his galleys, the better to keep their
adversaries from stirring, and to take as many of theirs, which they
would man with Corcyreans, and send with him. To this he agreed, and
they made a list of those that should embark, consisting altogether of
their enemies. But these fearing to be sent to Athens, took sanctuary
in the temple of Castor and Pollux: but Nicostratus endeavoured to
raise them, and spake to them, to put them into courage: but when he
could not prevail, the people (arming themselves on pretence that
their diffidence to go along with Nicostratus proceeded from some evil
intention) took away their arms out of their houses, and would also
have killed some of them, such as they chanced on, if Nicostratus had
not hindered them. Others also, when they saw this, took sanctuary in
the temple of Juno, and they were in all above four hundred. But the
people, fearing some innovation, got them by persuasion to rise, and
conveying them into the island that lieth over against the temple of
Juno, sent them their necessaries thither.
“The sedition standing in these terms, the fourth or fifth day
after the putting over of these men into the island, arrived the
Peloponnesian fleet from Cyllene, where, since their voyage of Ionia,
they had lain at anchor, to the number of three and fifty sail.
Alcidas had the command of these, as before, and Brasidas came with
him as a counsellor. And having first put in at Sybota, a haven of the
continent, they came on the next morning by break of day toward Corcyra.
“The Corcyreans being in a great tumult and fear, both of the seditious
within, and of the invasion without, made ready threescore galleys,
and still as any of them were manned, sent them out against the enemy;
whereas the Athenians had advised them to give leave to them to go
forth first, and then the Corcyreans to follow after with the whole
fleet together. But when their scattered ships neared the enemy, two
of them immediately deserted, and in others they that were aboard
went together by the oars, and nothing was done in due order. The
Peloponnesians, seeing their confusion, opposed themselves to the
Corcyreans with twenty galleys only, the rest they set in array against
the twelve galleys of Athens.
“The Corcyreans having come disorderly up, and by few at once, were
of their own fault in much distress; but the Athenians, fearing
an overmatch of numbers, and that they should be surrounded, did
not charge upon the close array, nor on the centre of the enemy;
but attacked the wing, and sunk one of their galleys: and when
the Peloponnesians afterwards had put their fleet into a circular
figure, they then went about and about it, endeavouring to put them
into disorder; which they that were fighting against the Corcyreans
perceiving, and fearing such another chance as befel them formerly at
Naupactus, went to their aid, and uniting themselves, came upon the
Athenians all together. But they, backing their oars, retreated with
their prows to the enemy, that the Corcyreans should take that time to
escape in; they themselves in the mean time going as leisurely back as
was possible, and keeping the enemy still opposed to them. Such was
this battle, and it ended about sunset.
“The Corcyreans fearing lest the enemy, in pursuit of their victory,
should have come directly against the city, or take aboard the men
which they had put over into the island, or do them some other
mischief, fetched back the men into the temple of Juno again, and
guarded the city. But the Peloponnesians, though they had won the
battle, yet durst not invade the city, but having taken thirteen of
the Corcyrean galleys, went back into the continent from whence they
had set forth. The next day they came not unto the city, no more than
before, although it was in great tumult and affright: and though also
Brasidas (as it is reported) advised Alcidas to it, but had not equal
authority: but only landed soldiers at the promontory of Leucimna, and
wasted their territory.
“In the mean time the people of Corcyra, fearing extremely lest
those galleys should come against the city, not only conferred with
those in sanctuary, and with the rest, about how the city might be
preserved, but also induced some of them to serve on shipboard. For
notwithstanding the confusion they had still manned thirty galleys, in
expectation that the fleet of the enemy should have entered. But the
Peloponnesians having been wasting of their fields till it was about
noon, went their ways again. And during the night the Corcyreans had
notice by beacon–fires of threescore Athenian galleys coming toward
them from Leucas, which the Athenians, upon intelligence of the
sedition, and of the fleet to go to Corcyra under Alcidas, had sent to
aid them, under the conduct of Eurymedon the son of Thucles.
“The Peloponnesians, therefore, as soon as night came, sailed speedily
home, keeping still the shore, and causing their galleys to be carried
over at the Isthmus of Leucas, that they might not come in sight as
they doubled it. But the people of Corcyra, hearing of the Attic
galleys coming in, and the going off of the Peloponnesians, brought
into the city the Messenians,[40] who till this time had been kept
outside the walls, and appointing the galleys which they had equipped
to come about into the Hillaic haven; they in the mean time slew all
the contrary faction they could lay hands on, and also afterwards threw
overboard out of the same galleys all those (i. e., of the oligarchical
party) they had before persuaded to embark, and so went thence. And
coming to the temple of Juno, they persuaded fifty of those that had
taken sanctuary, to refer themselves to a legal trial; all which they
condemned to die. But most of those who had taken sanctuary, that is,
all those that were not induced to stand to trial by law, when they saw
what was done, killed one another there, right in the temple: some
hanged themselves on trees; every one, as he had means, made himself
away. And for seven days together that Eurymedon staid there with his
threescore galleys, the Corcyreans did nothing but kill such of their
city as they took to be their enemies, laying to their charge indeed
that they had conspired against the commons, but some among them were
slain upon private hatred, and some by their debtors, for the money
which they had lent them. All forms of death were then seen, and (as in
such cases it usually falls out) whatsoever had happened at any time,
happened also then, and more. For the father slew his son, men were
dragged out of the temples, and then slain hard by; and some walled
up within the temple of Bacchus[41] died there. So cruel was this
sedition; and it seemed so the more, because it was among these men the
first.
“For afterwards all Greece, as a man may say, was in commotion; and
quarrels arose every where between the patrons of the commons, that
sought to bring in the Athenians, and the Few[42] that desired to
bring in the Lacedæmonians. Now in time of peace they could have no
pretence, nor would have been so forward to call them in; but being
war, and confederates to be had for either party, both to hurt their
enemies, and strengthen themselves, such as desired alteration easily
got foreign help to their end. And many heinous things happened in
the cities through this sedition, which though they have been before,
and shall be ever, as long as human nature is the same, yet they are
more violent, or more tranquil, and of different kinds, according to
the several[43] conjunctures at which they occur. For in peace and
prosperity both cities and private men are better minded, because
they fall not into such emergencies as constrain men to do things,
whether they will or no; but war taking away the affluence of daily
necessaries, is a most violent master, and conformeth most men’s
passions to the present occasion. So sedition prevailed in the cities,
and those that fell into it later, having heard what had been done in
the former, far exceeded them in newness of conceit, both for the art
of assailing, and for the strangeness of their revenges. The received
value of names imposed for signification of things, was changed
into arbitrary: for inconsiderate boldness was counted true–hearted
manliness; provident deliberation, a handsome fear; modesty, the cloak
of cowardice; to be wise in every thing, to be lazy in every thing.
A furious suddenness was reputed a point of valour. To re–advise for
the better security, was held for a fair pretext of tergiversation.
He that was fierce, was always trusty; and he that contraried such
a one, was suspected. He that did insidiate, if he took, was a wise
man; but he that could find out the trap, a cleverer man than he:
but he that had been so provident as not to need to do one or the
other, was said to be a dissolver of fellowship, and one that stood
in fear of his adversary. In brief, he that could outstrip another
in the doing of an evil act, or that could persuade another thereto,
that never meant it, was commended. To be kin to another, was not
to be so near as to be of his fellowship, because these were ready
to undertake any thing, without standing upon pretexts. For these
fellowships[44] looked not to benefits consistent with the existing
laws, but to self–aggrandizement, contrary to them. And as for mutual
trust amongst them, it was confirmed not so much by divine law,[45] as
by the communication of guilt. And what was handsomely spoken by their
adversaries, they received with an eye to their actions, to see whether
they were too strong for them or not, and not ingenuously. To be
revenged was in more request, than never to have received injury. And
oaths of reconcilement (if any were) given by one to another, because
in the present conjuncture they could do nought else, were binding, as
long as the parties had no power otherwise; but upon opportunity, he
that first durst, if he saw an unguarded place, thought his revenge
sweeter by the trust than if he had taken the open way. And this course
was valued both for its security, and because he that circumvented his
adversary by fraud assumed to himself withal a mastery in point of
wit. And dishonest men for the most part are sooner called able, than
simple men honest. And men are ashamed of this title, but take a pride
in the other. The cause of this is desire of rule, out of avarice and
ambition, and the zeal of contention[46] from those two proceeding.
For such as were of authority in the cities, both of the one and the
other faction, the one under the decent pretext of political equality
of the many, the other of moderate aristocracy, though in words they
seemed to be servants of the public, they made it in effect but
the prize of their contention. And striving by whatsoever means to
overcome, both ventured on most horrible outrages, and revenged them
even beyond the provocations, without any regard of justice, or the
public good, but limiting them, each faction, by their own appetite:
and stood ready, whether by unjust sentence, or with their own hands,
when they should get the uppermost, to satisfy their spite. So that
neither side thought to do any thing by honest means; but they were
best spoken of, that could pass a business though against the grain,
with fair words. The neutrals of the city were destroyed by both
factions; partly because they would not side with them, and partly for
envy that they should so escape.
“Thus was wickedness on foot in every kind, throughout all Greece,
by the occasion of the party conflicts. Sincerity (whereof there is
much in a generous nature) was laughed down, and vanished. And it
was far the best course to stand distrustfully against each other,
for neither were words powerful, nor oaths terrible enough to assure
reconciliation. And being all of them, the more they considered, the
more desperate of security, they rather contrived how to avoid a
mischief, than were able to rely on any man’s faith. And for the most
part such as had the least wit had the best success; for both their own
defect, and the subtilty of their adversaries, putting them in a great
fear to be overcome in words, or at least in pre–insidiation, by their
enemies’ great craft, they therefore went roundly to work with them,
with deeds. Whereas the other, thinking in their arrogance that they
should be aware in time, and that they needed not to take by force what
they might do by plot, were thereby unprovided, and so the more easily
slain.
“In Corcyra then were most of these evils committed first: and besides
these, all that men might perpetrate in retaliation, who had been
tyrannically governed by that very party which they now saw in their
power; or that men just freed from their accustomed poverty, and
greedily coveting their neighbour’s goods, would against justice agree
to; or which men, assailing each other, not upon desire of gain, but
as equal against equal, in the intemperance of anger would cruelly and
inexorably execute. And the common course of life being at that time
confounded in the city, the nature of man, which is wont even against
law to do evil, gotten now above the law, was very ready to display
itself as intemperately passionate, too strong for justice, and an
enemy to all superiority. For they would never else have preferred
revenge to sanctity, and gain to that condition of justice, in which
envy would have lost its power to do harm. And for the laws common to
all men in such cases (which, as long as they be in force, give hope to
all that suffer injury), men desire not to leave them standing, against
the need a man in danger may have of them, but by their revenges on
others, to be beforehand in subverting them.[47]
“Such were the passions of the Corcyreans first of all other Grecians,
towards one another in the city. And Eurymedon and the Athenians
departed with their galleys. Afterwards such of the Corcyreans as had
fled (for there escaped about five hundred of them) having seized
on the forts in the continent, established themselves in their own
territory on the mainland opposite the island, and from thence came
over and robbed the islanders, and did them much hurt; and there
grew a great famine in the city. They likewise sent ambassadors to
Lacedæmon and Corinth, to negotiate concerning their return; and when
they could get nothing done, having gotten boats, and some auxiliary
soldiers, they passed a while after to the number of about six hundred
into the island. Where when they had set their boats on fire, that
they might have no hope but in the making themselves masters of the
country, they went up into the hill Istone, and having there fortified
themselves with a wall, infested those within, and were masters of the
territory.[48]
“In the seventh year of the war[49] Eurymedon and Sophocles, after
their departure from Pylus with the Athenian fleet towards Sicily,
arriving at Corcyra, joined with those of the city, and made war upon
those Corcyreans which lay encamped upon the hill Istone, and which,
after the sedition, had come over, and made themselves masters of the
country, and done much harm: and having assaulted their fortification,
took it. But the men all in one troop escaped to a certain high ground,
and thence made their composition, which was this; ‘that they should
deliver up the foreigners that aided them; and that they themselves,
having rendered their arms, should stand to the judgment of the people
of Athens.’ Hereupon the generals granted them truce, and transported
them to the island of Ptychia, to be there in custody till the
Athenians should send for them; with this condition, ‘that if any one
of them should be taken running away, then the truce to be broken for
them all.’ But the leaders of the commons of Corcyra, fearing lest the
Athenians would not kill those who were sent to them, devise against
them this plot. To some few of those in the island they secretly send
their friends, and instruct them to say, as if forsooth, it were for
good will, that it was their best course with all speed to get away
(and withal to offer to provide them of a boat), for that the Athenian
commanders intended verily to deliver them to the Corcyrean people.
“When they were persuaded to do so, and that a boat was treacherously
prepared, as they rowed away they were taken, and the truce being
now broken, were all given up into the hands of the Corcyreans. It
did much further this plot, by giving to the pretence held out an
appearance of reality, and making the agents in it less fearful, that
the Athenian generals evidently did not wish the men to be carried
home by others, whilst they themselves were to go into Sicily, and
the honour of it be ascribed to those that should convoy them. The
Corcyreans having received them into their hands, imprisoned them in a
large edifice, from whence afterwards they took them out by twenty at a
time, and made them pass through a lane of men of arms, bound together,
and receiving strokes and thrusts from those on either side, according
as any one espied his enemy. And to hasten the pace of those that went
slowliest on, others were set to follow them with whips.
“They had taken out of the room in this manner, and slain, to the
number of threescore, before they that remained knew it, who thought
they were but removed, and carried to some other place. But when they
knew the truth, some or other having told them, they then cried out
to the Athenians, and bid them, if they wished their death, kill them
themselves; and refused any more to go out of the building, nor would
suffer, they said, as long as they were able, any man to come in. But
neither had the Corcyreans any purpose to force entrance by the door,
but getting up to the top of the house, uncovered the roof, and threw
tiles, and shot arrows at them. They in prison defended themselves as
well as they could; but many also slew themselves with the arrows shot
by the enemy, by thrusting them into their throats, and strangling
themselves with the cords of certain beds that were in the room, and
with halters made of their own garments rent in pieces. And having
continued most part of the night (for night overtook them in the
action), partly strangling themselves by all such means as they found,
and partly shot at from above, they all perished. When day came, the
Corcyreans laid them one across another[50] in carts, and carried them
out of the city. And of their wives, as many as were taken in the
fortification, they made bond–women. In this manner were the Corcyreans
that kept the hill,[51] brought to destruction by the commons. And thus
ended this far–spread sedition, for so much as concerned this present
war: for other seditions there remained nothing worth the relation.”[52]
It would be difficult to find a more thoroughly hateful state of
society than that which appears from this passage, and from the
description of the plague of Athens, to have existed in Greece at
this period. The picture, it is to be remembered, comes to us on the
authority of one whose impartiality and deep powers of observation
are alike unquestioned, no splenetic, no visionary, but one who had
mixed largely and in high station among the stirring times of which he
writes. The most astonishing circumstance connected with the depravity
here exhibited, is the short period in which it appears to have shot
up into such rank growth. We possess, it is true, little knowledge of
any thing but the public acts of Greece anterior to the Peloponnesian
war, at which time the contemporary historian, and still more the
contemporary comedian Aristophanes, supply us with abundant notices of
private life, which are continued and enlarged by the philosophers and
orators. Still, as far as we have the means of judging, there seems no
reason to ascribe to the Greeks, until about the Peloponnesian war,
a smaller share of morality and religion than has usually been found
among heathen nations. Whence then in so short a time this utter loss
of moral sense and disruption of the bonds of society? The question is
not an easy one to answer, but the substance of the best answer that we
can give is comprised in the introductory chapter to this volume.
To supply a series of parallels to this domestic contest is scarcely
possible. Among insurrections and civil wars, events of equal atrocity
and more astounding magnitude might be found, but scarcely events
of the same character. We naturally turn first to the other great
nation of antiquity. Here we are warned against the most obvious
comparison by a late eminent scholar. After speaking of the dangers
incident to the struggle between the aristocracy and the people in
that often–occurring form of a nation’s early existence, when it is
divided into a privileged race or caste, whose power is founded on
conquest, and a commonalty personally free, but politically dependant,
as were the Saxons, while the distinction between Saxon and Norman
blood continued in England; after speaking of the dangers which beset
that contest which is sure to take place when the spread of wealth and
knowledge has equalized the personal qualities of the rulers and the
ruled, he continues: “If the nation escapes these, either originally
or finally, it enters upon its state of manhood, and is exposed to a
somewhat different succession of struggles. The contest is then between
property and numbers, and wherever it has come to a crisis, I know not
that it has in any instance terminated favourably. Such was the state
of Greece in the time of Thucydides; of Rome from the passing of the
Publilian laws to the end of the commonwealth: and such has been the
state of England since the Revolution of 1688. Comparisons drawn from
the preceding period are inapplicable to this; while on the other hand,
as the phenomena of this second period arise out of causes connected
with the earlier state of things, they cannot be clearly understood
unless that former state be fully known to us. Thus, to argue that
the Romans were less bloody than the Greeks from a comparison between
the factions of the Peloponnesian war, and the struggles of the Roman
commons against the patricians, is to compare the two nations under
very different circumstances; it is instituting a comparison between
the intensity of our passions in manhood and in childhood. The bloody
factions of Corcyra and Megara are analogous to the civil wars of
Marius and Sylla, of Cæsar and Pompey, of Brutus and Cassius against
the Triumvirs: the harmless contests between the commons and patricians
can only be compared to those which prevailed in Greece before the
Persian invasion, when the party of the coast at Athens was disputing
the exclusive ascendency so long enjoyed by the eupatridæ or party of
the plain.[53] And the true conclusion is, that the second contest
between property and numbers is far more inevitably accompanied by
atrocious crimes, than that earlier quarrel, in which property and
numbers were united against property and birth.”[54]
The Corcyrean sedition differed from the secession to the Mons
Sacer, and other disputes between patricians and plebeians, in being
a struggle of parties, not ranks. Very little positive information
concerning the constitution of the island has been preserved.[55]
Originally, probably, its Corinthian colonists established an
oligarchy: but the prosecution of maritime affairs was always held
greatly to favour the ascendency of the people, and in Thucydides we
find no trace of a privileged body of citizens at Corcyra any more than
at Athens. When speaking of the 250, whom the Corinthians selected
as a sort of hostages to regain their influence, he calls them, “for
the most part the first men of the city in power.”[56] Elsewhere he
describes them as “those in possession of things,” or “the few,”[57]
but not as the magistracy, or in terms which lead us to suppose that
they formed a constitutional aristocracy either of birth or wealth.
This, therefore, was a branch of the great struggle which gave its
character to the whole Peloponnesian war, whether the oligarchical
principle, under the patronage of Lacedæmon, or the democratic under
the patronage of Athens, should reign in Greece. The co–existence of
the two in peace seems, from the restless and intriguing temper of the
people, to have been impossible; and the experience of other cities had
shown that for the worsted party there was no security but in flight,
attended usually by sentence of exile and confiscation. And there is
no authority to which men submit so reluctantly, no hardships which
they feel so keenly, as those which arise from the elevation of their
former equals. The circumstances of the times, therefore, combined with
the spreading moral pestilence to give a desperation to this contest,
from which the early dissensions of patricians and plebeians, happily
for Rome, were free. Here each party had a definite object to contend
for; the one, the relaxation of oppressive privileges; the other, to
maintain unimpaired the immunities and dignity of their order: and each
had wisdom, the one to be moderate in its demands; the other to concede
moderately, rather than hazard the very being of the state by an
appeal to arms. No personal or political hatred inflamed the passions,
unless where some enslaved debtor was maddened by suffering, or some
hot–headed patrician, such as the old legends of Rome represented
Coriolanus to be, became impatient that the swinish multitude should
believe they had rights; each party felt that the other was necessary
to its welfare, and though driven to violence, the plebeians still
looked up with respect and affection to their hereditary aristocracy.
As these disturbances belong to an earlier, so the civil wars of
Marius and Sylla, and those which ended in the establishment of
the Empire, belong, we think, to a more advanced stage of society
than does the Corcyrean sedition, which is compared to them in the
foregoing quotation. Rome had reached, and had passed the period at
which a true democracy becomes impossible except through the medium of
representation; while at Corcyra, even when the popular faction was
supreme, the government was an oligarchy, in respect of the _whole_
population of the state, of which slaves and foreigners constituted, we
may presume, a considerable majority. The legislative and the armed
body were identical; a part of that body might triumph over the rest,
but no one could mount on the shoulders of the people to a military
despotism, and then kick away the step by which he had risen. No leader
seems to have risen to the absolute power of Marius, or Sylla, or
Cæsar; if there had, it must have been by consent of the prevailing
party, who would therefore have been implicated in his actions. At
Rome the case was very different: the legislative authority centred in
the resident citizens, the military power of the state was more than
equally shared with them by the provincial armies, composed partly of
barbarians, partly of subjects of the state, entitled to a greater
or lesser share of the privileges of citizenship, but not to vote in
the assemblies of the people, and partly, it is true, of citizens,
but those long absent from the seat of government, and careless about
politics, but devoted to the leader who had led them on to plunder,
honour, and victory. Some faction therefore was to be courted to gain
place and power, but he who had gained them, and with them military
command and influence, was in great measure independent of his former
associates. Sylla and Marius were terrible to friends as well as foes,
and it would be unfair to charge upon the Roman people the enormous
crimes committed under the military tyrannies which they established.
If we look for parallels in modern history, the search will not be
more successful. The domestic quarrels as well as the structure of the
Italian states, bear a close analogy to those of the Greek republics,
and the contests of the oligarchical and democratic parties, and the
influence of Sparta or Athens, as one or the other prevailed, may
be closely exemplified by the bitter quarrels of the Guelphs and
Ghibelines, and the interest exerted, by means of these parties, by
the Pope and the Emperor. But full as is Italian history of desperate
feuds, we cannot call to mind any one worthy to be compared with the
transactions at Corcyra. The massacre, called the Sicilian Vespers,
when 8000 French were surprised and slain in one night, by a
simultaneous insurrection of the native Sicilians, is a memorable and
frightful example of popular revenge: but the act of a people rising in
defence of its rights, atrocious as is such a method of asserting them,
is not to be placed by the side of so cold–blooded, and unprovoked, and
faithless a massacre as that of the conquered Corcyreans. The massacre
of St. Bartholomew might compete with it in point of treachery, but the
ground of quarrel, and the relation of the contending parties, were
entirely dissimilar.
The outrages committed in France by the insurgent peasantry, called
Jacquerie, are unlike the massacres at Corcyra, inasmuch as they belong
to an earlier stage of society, a stage again different from that
contemplated by Dr. Arnold, when he speaks of the harmless nature of
that earlier quarrel in which property and numbers are united against
property and birth. These risings, and the corresponding risings in
England, were the acts of men without property, and many of them
without a legal capability of acquiring it; men hostile to all the
institutions of society, because to them society had been little but
an engine of oppression. They were the efforts of brute force against
all that is superior to itself; the rage of the untamed wolf after he
has broken his chain. We say this not in justification of the conduct
of their feudal lords, nor in censure of their earnest desire to break
the yoke which bore them down to the ground. But whether their cause
was good or bad, the method of their advocating it was brutal; and
herein servile wars, if not most formidable as to their result, are
most to be deprecated, because the passions of each party are sure to
be exasperated to the uttermost: and because the insurgents, being
without the pale of the laws of war, have no temptation to show mercy,
and no hope but in victory. And so to the Jacquerie, every thing more
refined or exalted than themselves was the object of their deadly hate.
They had no thought to raise themselves; that was beyond the grasp of
their minds: but they were bent on pulling down others to their own
level, so that distinctions the most inoffensive or laudable were as
odious to them as the rank and power which had been misused to the
oppression of the commonalty. “Be it known unto thee by these presence,
even the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom that must sweep
the court clear of such filth as thou art. Thou hast most traitorously
corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar–school: and
whereas, before our fore–fathers had no other books but the score and
the tally, thou hast caused printing to be used, and contrary to the
king, his crown, and his dignity, thou hast built a paper–mill. It will
be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk
of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian can
endure to hear. Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men
before them about matters that they were not able to answer. Moreover,
thou hast put them in prison, and because they could not read thou hast
hanged them, when, indeed, only for that cause they have been most
worthy to live.”[58]
This picture is somewhat highly coloured, but if the reader will
consult Holinshed for the account of Wat Tyler’s rebellion in 1381,
he will find that there is good authority for it. “To recite what was
done in every part of the realme, in time of these hellish troubles,
it is not possible; but this is to be considered, that the rage of the
commons was universallie such, as it might seem they had generallie
conspired together to do what mischeefe they could devise. As among
sundrie other, what wickednesse was it to compell teachers of children
in grammar schooles to swear never to instruct any in their art! Again,
they could never have a more mischievous meaning than to burn and
destroy all old and auncient monuments, and to murder and despatch out
of the way all such as were able to commit to memorie either any new or
old records. For it was dangerous among them to be known for one that
was learned, and more dangerous if any man were found with a penner and
inkhorn at his side, for such seldom escaped from them with life.”[59]
The fidelity with which Shakspeare has copied the chronicles may be
readily exemplified from a variety of passages.
_Cade._ How now! who’s there?
_Smith._ The clerk of Chatham; he can write, and read, and cast accompt.
_Cade._ O, monstrous! Come hither, sirrah. I must examine thee. What is
thy name?
_Clerk._ Emmanuel.
_Dick._ They used to write it on the top of letters. ‘Twill go hard with
you.
_Cade._ Let me alone. Dost thou use to write thy name, or hast thou a
mark to thyself, like an honest plain–dealing man?
_Clerk._ Sir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can
write my name.
_All._ He hath confessed: away with him: he’s a villain and a traitor.
_Cade._ Away with him, I say: hang him with his pen and inkhorn about
his neck.
_Henry VI._, II. iv. 2.
It is time, however, to proceed to the historical evidence on which our
statements of the excesses of the Jacquerie are founded.
“Anon (A. D. 1358) there began a marvelouse trybulacion in the realme
of France, for certayne people of the common villages, without any head
or ruler, assembled togyder in Beauvoisin. In the beginning they passed
nat a hundred in nombre: they sayd how the noblemen of the realme of
Fraunce, knyghtes, and squyers, shamed the realme, and that it shulde
be a grete wealth to distroy them all; and eche of them sayd it was
true, and sayd alle with one voice,—Shame have he that doth nat his
power to distroy all the gentylmen of the realme. Thus they gathered
togyder without any other counsayle, and without any armure, saving
with staves and knyves, and so went to the house of a knyght dwelling
thereby, and brake up his house, and slew the knyght, and the lady,
and all his children, grete and small, and brent his house: and so dyd
they to dyvers other castelles and good houses. And they multiplied
so that they were a six thousand; and ever as they went forward they
increased, for such lyke as they were fell ever to them; so that every
gentylman fledde fro them, and took their wyves and chyldren with them,
and fledde x or xx leages off to be in suretie, and left their houses
voyde and their goods therein.—These myschevous people thus assembled
without capitayne or armure, robbed, brent, and slew all gentylmen
that they coude lay handes on, and forced and ravysshed ladyes and
damoselles, and dyd such shameful dedes, that no humayn creature ought
to think on any such, and he that dyd most mischiefe was most pleased
with them, and greatest maister.—Whan the gentylmen of Beauvoisin, of
Corbois, of Vermandois, and of other lands whereas these myschevous
people were conversant, saw the woodnesse[60] among them, they sent for
socours to their frendes into Flanders, to Brabant, to Hainault, and
to Bohemia: so there came fro all partes, and so all these gentylmen
straungers assembled togyder, and dyd sette upon these people wher
they might fynde them, and slew and hanged them upon trees by heapes.
The kynge of Naver on a day slew of them mo than thre thousand, beside
Cleremont in Beauvoisin. It was time to take them up, for and they had
been all togyder assembled, they were mo than an hundred thousand, and
when they were demanded why they dyd so yvell dedes, they wolde answer
and say, they could nat tell, but they did as they sawe other do,
thinking thereby to have distroyed all the nobles and gentylmen of the
world.”[61]
It was the same spirit which somewhat later, in England, prompted that
rebellion of Wat Tyler, of which we have above spoken. This was a
servile war, produced by oppression and misery; a rising of the serfs
against the nobles, “who hade grete fraunchise over the commons, and
kepeth them in servage, that is to say, their tenants ought by custom
to laboure the lorde’s landes, to gather and bring home theyr corne,
and some to thrash and to fanne; and by servage to make theyr hay, and
to hew theyr wood, and bring it home: all these things they ought to do
by servage.”——“These unhappy people beganne to styrre because they were
kept in grete servage; and in the begynning of the world, they sayd,
there were no bondmen; wherefore they mayntayned that none ought to be
bonde, without he dyd treason to his lorde, as Lucifer dyd to God; but
they sayd they coude have no such batayle, for they were nouther angels
nor spirittes, but men formed to the similitude of their lordes. Of
this imagynacyon was a folisshe priest of Kent, called Johan Ball, who
wolde oft tymes, on the sondaye after masse, assemble the people about
him, and say thus, A ye good people, the mater goth nat well to passe
in Englande, nor shall nat do tyll every thing be common; and that
there be no vyllayns nor gentylmen, but that we be all unied togyder,
and that the lordes be no greater maisters than we be. What have we
deserved, or why sholde we be thus kept in servage? We be all come
fro one father and one mother, Adam and Eve; whereby can they say or
showe that they be gretter lordes than we be?”[62] Part of the matter
of the priest’s sermon was well enough, and the cause was good, if its
supporters had been capable of self–government; but their object was to
establish anarchy, not liberty, and none will be found hardy enough to
regret their failure.
After dwelling so long on things which ought to be distinguished
from the Corcyrean sedition, it is time now, if ever, to produce
those which admit of being compared with it. We have but two to
bring forward: the second bears a more than usual resemblance to it
in respect of the events which took place; the first bears little
resemblance to it in respect of events, but is distinguished, if we
may trust the contemporary historian, by a forgetfulness of natural
ties, and relaxation of the bonds of society, very like that described
by Thucydides, and not less worth noticing because the two arose out
of entirely different circumstances, political and other. We allude
to the seditions which tore Constantinople, especially under the
reign of Justinian, ostensibly commencing in so petty a cause as the
superiority of one colour to another in skill or fortune in the public
games, in which those who contended for prizes, like our jockies,
were distinguished by colours. “The race,” says Gibbon, “in its first
institution, was a simple contest of two chariots, whose drivers were
distinguished by white and red liveries; two additional colours, a
light green and a cerulean blue, were afterwards introduced, and as the
races were repeated twenty–five times, one hundred chariots contributed
in the same day to the pomp of the circus. The four factions soon
acquired a legal establishment, and a mysterious origin, and their
fanciful colours were derived from the various appearances of nature
in the four seasons of the year; the red dogstar of summer, the snows
of winter, the deep shades of autumn, and the cheerful verdure of the
spring. Another interpretation preferred the elements to the seasons,
and the struggle of the green and blue was supposed to represent the
conflict of the earth and sea. Their respective victories announced
either a plentiful harvest, or a prosperous navigation, and the
hostility of the husbandmen and mariners was somewhat less absurd than
the blind ardour of the Roman people, who devoted their lives and
fortunes to the colour which they had espoused.”[63]
With the seat of government, the amusements and the laws of the Roman
circus were of course transferred to Constantinople. Here the mutual
jealousy of the colours soon became combined with political and
theological quarrels, and gave rise to disturbances which shook some
emperors on their thrones, and vitally affected the peace and welfare
of the state. The historian of the eastern empire has not traced the
steps by which these graver discords became connected with the badges
of amusement. A scholar of our own day has collected the scattered
facts which bear on this question, but still without furnishing a
satisfactory account of the origin or history of these divisions.[64]
It may indeed be inferred from a passage in Procopius, which we shall
presently quote, that even in his time no account could be given
or reason be assigned for so preposterous and blind an enmity. Nor
will this surprise any person who reflects how easily an accidental
quarrel is perpetuated by the adoption of a name or symbol, and how
greedily the vulgar adopt the outward sign of faction, regardless of
the principles which it indicates. Many bloody tumults and desperate
feuds would have been spared to Ireland if green and orange had never
been adopted as the signs of national and religious hatred; for men
would soon have ceased to care or inquire whether their neighbour went
to church or chapel, had not the insulting badges of ascendancy and of
dissent been continually paraded before their eyes. Any measure which
did away with the use of party colours at elections would contribute
largely to the quiet and well–being of England. Whatever raises an
ostensible division between two classes of society should be sedulously
discouraged by a government. The late Lord Liverpool, according to a
current story, showed his prudence in wearing and recommending white
hats, when that article of dress was the badge of a party violently
opposed to his government. His intention was answered perfectly, and
we now wear what we please without compromising our political faith.
Whatever was the origin and progress of the quarrel, we find in
the early part of the sixth century the blue and green factions
inveterately opposed to each other; the red having merged in the green,
and the white in the blue. In the reign of Anastasius, the greens
having brought concealed weapons into the theatre, massacred at once
3000 of their blue adversaries. A soldier of fortune, named Justin,
succeeded Anastasius, and was succeeded by his own nephew, Justinian,
during whose reign the blue faction gained the ascendancy: “A secret
attachment to the family or sect of Anastasius was imputed to the
greens; the blues were zealously devoted to the cause of orthodoxy and
Justinian, and their grateful patron protected, above five years, the
disorders of a faction, whose seasonable tumults overawed the palace,
the senate, and capitals of the East.”[65] “In every city,” says the
contemporary Procopius, “the people are from old time split into two
factions, of the blue and green; but it is not long since this frenzy
first possessed them, that in the cause of these names and colours in
which they appear at the public games, they will spend their substance,
expose their bodies to the bitterest indignities, and even consent to
die by a shameful death. And while they fight with the opposite party
they cannot tell the nature of their quarrel; being at the same time
aware that even if they get the upper hand in battle, they will then be
led to prison, and suffer a death of the worst tortures. This hatred of
one man to another springs up without cause; but it remains endless,
yielding neither to the rights of kindred or friendship, even though
brethren, or such near relations, be partisans of these colours. And
so long as their faction may have the uppermost, they care neither for
things human nor divine, whether there be any impiety offered towards
God, or whether the laws and government be violated by friend or
enemy. For being themselves probably in want of common necessaries,
they care not however deeply their country be injured, so long as their
own party is likely to thrive by it. And even women share in this
taint, not merely following their husbands, but even opposing them (if
it shall so chance), though they go never to the theatres, and are not
therefore excited by any such motives. So that I can call this nothing
better than a disease of the mind.”[66]
“In the Anecdotes, he speaks again, and more fully, of the excesses
committed by the blues under the protection of Justinian.
“They dressed their hair in a manner new to the Romans, letting the
moustache and beard grow to an extreme length, like the Persians, while
they shaved the fore part of their heads to the very temples, leaving
it to grow as long and thick as it liked behind, in imitation of the
Massagetæ, after whom they called this the Hunnish mode. In dress they
affected a splendour beyond their means, defraying the cost at other
men’s expense. Their sleeves were made very close at the wrist, but
up towards the shoulder they spread to an unutterable breadth.[67]
So that in the theatre or hippodrome as often as they moved their
hands in shouting, or encouraging others, as was their custom, they
usually raised the limb to make fools think their bodies so robust,
as that a garment of that size was necessary; not perceiving that by
the emptiness of the garment the spareness of the body was the more
shown. At first they carried arms, by night openly, and by day wore
double–edged daggers concealed under their clothes; and coming out
in companies as it grew dark, they stripped the better sort either
in the open market or in passages, robbing those who fell into their
hands of cloaks, golden brooches, or whatever else it might be. And
some they even killed after robbing them, that they might tell no
tales. By these doings all men were much grieved, and especially those
that were not of the blue faction (for even they themselves went not
scot–free), and from thenceforth men wore brass brooches, and girdles
and cloaks beneath their condition.... There was no known crime which
at this time was not committed and left unpunished. First they only
killed their adversaries, then advancing in guilt they slew those who
never had offended them. Many hired them to take off an enemy, which
they did under pretence that the dead man was of the green party,
though really he were quite unknown to them. And these things were not
done in darkness as before, but in every hour of the day and place
of the city, and before the eyes of the most eminent men: for being
in no fear of punishment they cared not for concealment; but rather
esteemed it a glory to those who laid claim to strength and manhood,
that at one blow they could kill any unarmed person who came across
them. In this slippery conjuncture no one had any hope of surviving;
for no place was strong, no season sacred enough to warrant security;
for even in the most honoured temples and assemblies men were slain,
and no account taken of them. There was no more trusting either in
friends or relations, for many perished by those who were nearest to
them. And no inquiry was made into what had been done, but evil fell
without warning, and no one helped him that was down. Law and contracts
were no longer binding; every thing went according to the will of the
strongest, and the state was like an unestablished tyranny, continually
passing into new hands and beginning afresh. The minds of the
authorities seemed to be amazed and enslaved by fear of one man; and
the judges determined causes not according to law and justice, but as
the parties in the suit were in good or bad odour with the parties in
the state. For it was a capital offence that a judge should controvert
the orders of the ruling party, the blues.”[68]
Such was the state of Constantinople, the blues exulting in the royal
favour, when, in January, 532, the citizens were assembled in the
hippodrome, the Emperor himself presiding over the games. The green
faction disturbed the peace of the assembly by complaints, until at
length Justinian was induced to enter into a parley with them by the
voice of an officer called Mandator, a sort of civil aide–de–camp,
whose duty was to receive and transmit his sovereign’s orders. The
dialogue which ensued is justly characterized by Gibbon, who has only
given a short specimen of it, as the most singular that ever passed
between a prince and his subjects.
We may premise, to account for the strange and unintelligible turn of
many of the sentences, that the original is written in the corrupt
Greek popularly spoken at Constantinople in the sixth century, and
is full of allusions to which we possess no key, and words which the
lexicographers have not explained, and sentences in which it is not
possible to make out any grammatical construction. These difficulties,
however, make the passage the more curious; inasmuch as they give
reason to suppose that the dialogue was taken down as it occurred, and
has not been polished in passing through the hands of historians.
_Green._ Long may you live, august Justinian. I am aggrieved, thou only
good one, I cannot bear it. God knows, I dare not name him, lest it turn
to his advantage and to my peril.
_Mandator._ Who is he? I know not.
_Green._ He who wrongs me will be found among the shoemakers,[69] thrice
august.
_Mand._ No one wrongs you.
_Green._ One, and one only wrongs me. Mother of God, may he never lift
his head again!
_Mand._ What man is he? I know not.
_Green._ You, and you only know, august Justinian, who wrongs me to–day.
_Mand._ If in truth there be any, I know him not.
_Green._ Calopodius, the armour–bearer, wrongs me, Master of all.
_Mand._ Calopodius has no employment.
_Green._ Be he who he may, he shall die the death of Judas! God repay
him his injuries to me, and that quickly!
_Mand._ You come, not to the games, but to insult your rulers.
_Green._ If any wrong me, he shall die the death of Judas!
_Mand._ Be quiet, ye Jews, Manichæans, and Samaritans.
_Green._ Jews are we, and Samaritans? the mother of God is with all.
_Mand._ How long will you heap curses on yourselves?
_Green._ If any deny that our master believes rightly, let him be
accursed like Judas!
_Mand._ I tell you to be baptized in the name of one.
This seems to be a theological gibe at the unorthodox party, which
they repel with anger. There is an ambiguity in the reply, which it is
not easy to translate, because, from the corruption of the text, or
from the debased Greek in which the dialogue is chiefly written, we
can come to no certain conclusion as to the real meaning. They express
their willingness to be baptized according to order, and use a word
which has been interpreted either to mean “Bring water,” or to confer
on Justinian the appellation of “Pump.” There certainly was something
in it which raised the Emperor’s wrath, and extracted from him a reply
more to the purpose than any yet made.
_Mand._ In truth, if you are not quiet I will cut off your heads.
_Green._ Every one seeks power for his own safety, and if we speak
because of our affliction, let not your greatness be indignant, for God
endures all of us. We having cause for what we say, give to every thing
its right name. We know not, thrice august, where the palace is, nor the
condition of the state. We go not into the city, except to lay snares
against the ass,[70] and I wish we went not for that, thrice august.
_Mand._ Every free man appears where he will, without danger.
_Green._ I hope I am free, yet I cannot appear without danger. And if a
man is free, if he be suspected to be green, he shall be openly punished.
_Mand._ Hang–dogs, have you no mercy on your own lives?
_Green._ Abolish our colour—justice is at an end. Cease yourself from
slaughter; then go to, we will be punished. See that blood–streaming
fountain, and then punish whom you will. Verily human nature cannot bear
these two things at once! O that Sabbatius[71] had never been born, then
would he never have begotten such a murderer. This is the twenty–sixth
murder that is done at Zeugma. In the morning he was at the theatre, in
the evening he was slain, Master of all!
_Blue._ You alone contain all the murderers of this stadium.
_Green._ When do you depart without slaughter?
_Blue._ You slay and disturb us; for you alone contain all the murderers
of the stadium.
_Green._ Justinian, master, they provoke and no one kills them. One
cannot choose but understand this. Who killed the carpenter at Zeugma?
_Mand._ You did.
_Green._ Who killed the son of Epagathus, O Emperor?
_Blue._ You murdered him, and you accuse the blues.
_Green._ Now the Lord pity us! Truth is oppressed. I should like to
enter into controversy with those who say that God directs affairs.
Whence this misery?
_Mand._ God is not tempted by evil. (_Θέος κακῶν ἀπέιραστος_)
_Green._ God is not tempted by evil. And who then is it that wrongs me?
If there be here philosopher or hermit, let him distinguish between the
two.
_Mand._ Blasphemers, odious to God, when will you cease?
_Green._ If your greatness wishes it I keep quiet, though against my
will. Thrice august, I know all—all—but I am silent. Justice, farewell,
your time is up. I change sides and turn Jew; nay, better to turn
Gentile than blue, God knows.
_Blue._ May I never see such a pollution! their envy troubles me.
_Green._ Dig up the bones of the spectators.[72]
After this the green party quitted the hippodrome, and left there
the Emperor and the blues. The sequel may warn sovereigns against
encouraging faction for their own ends. At this moment seven notorious
murderers of both factions were paraded through the city previous
to their execution. Five were immediately put to death, the other
two obtained a respite by the breaking of the rope which should have
hanged them. One of these surviving wretches belonged to the blue, the
other to the green faction; and the parties forgot their enmity for
a time to join in taking vengeance upon the government, which durst
do justice upon their members. The consequence was a desperate tumult
and insurrection, which lasted five days, during which a great part of
the city was burnt; and which is known by the name of Nika, Conquer,
from the watchword adopted by the rioters. For the history of it we
must refer to Gibbon, or to the original authorities quoted by him,
especially Procopius (Pers. i. 24) and Theophanes. At length Justinian
found means to revive the mutual animosity of the factions; the blues
resumed their allegiance to their protector, and the greens, left alone
in the hippodrome, were attacked by the veteran troops of Belisarius,
supported by their inveterate opponents. More than 30,000 persons are
said to have perished in the massacre.
A curious anecdote connected with this subject is related elsewhere by
Procopius. When Chosroes, the King of Persia, invaded Syria, he went to
Apamea to see the sports of the circus; and having heard of Justinian’s
devotion to the blue faction, he thought it expedient to patronize
the green. The blue charioteer at first had the advantage, the green
following close upon his track. Chosroes thinking this was done on
purpose to thwart him, became very angry, and cried out with threats,
that it was not fair to give Cæsar the start,[73] and ordered the
foremost to hold in their horses, and let the green get before them.
This was done, and Chosroes and the greens plumed themselves on their
victory.
The other example which we proposed to bring forward, which probably
has already suggested itself to many of our readers, is one of the most
memorable events of the French Revolution, the massacre of September
2–6, 1792. A short preface may serve to introduce it, since the history
of the Revolution is pretty generally familiar.
In the summer of 1792 the executive power of the state was in effect
wrested from the nominal authority, the Legislative Assembly, by a
body of men styled the Commune, who had possessed themselves of the
municipal government of Paris. In this body the leading persons were
the flagitious triumvirate, Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. It is
needless to speculate on the motives of such men. Whether the deed
which we are about to relate was perpetrated only to further the
ends of their party; whether, as some have said, it was prompted by
the desire to get rid of those who might lay claim to a large mass
of valuable personal property which had been seized from persons who
had been denounced and arrested, and is said to have been embezzled
by those disinterested patriots; or whether it were prompted solely
by a savage thirst for blood:—which of these, or what other motive
was the moving cause of this transaction, is of so little consequence
towards determining its character, that it would be a waste of words to
institute the inquiry. We proceed briefly to relate the facts.
[Illustration: Hippodrome of Constantinople.]
At the end of August, 1792, the invasion of the Prussians, their
advance to Verdun, and the capture of that strong place, created a
great panic in the capital. Apprehensions were felt or expressed of a
corresponding movement within the country on the part of the royalists,
and the stern Danton asserted, in boding words, that it was necessary
to strike fear into those who were disaffected to the republic. Before
this time many _aristocrats_, chiefly priests and nobles, had been
confined within the various prisons of Paris. Their numbers were now
increased to a fearful extent by recent arrests of persons adverse to
the Jacobin party, which then ruled in the Commune, until all these
receptacles of human misery were filled to overflowing. The near
approach of the Prussians was doubly favourable to the views of that
party; it gave a colourable pretext for taking strong measures against
all who could be represented as favouring the views of the invaders,
and a reason for summoning to the field the citizens who could be
called on to bear arms. The city being thus cleared of a large portion
of those who were most able, and probably most inclined to interfere by
force in the cause of justice and humanity, a free and safe course was
left open to the fury of that turbulent party, whose yoke bore so heavy
upon the liberated nation. It was determined by the junta in authority,
that the safety of France required the massacre of the prisoners; and
in the Marseillois and the mob of the capital, fit agents of the bloody
mandate were readily found.
The total number of persons confined in the Parisian prisons is so
differently stated that it is no easy matter even to approximate to the
truth; it is estimated by Scott (vol. ii. p. 41) at about 8000. Early
on the morning of September 2, news arrived of the capture of Verdun by
the Prussians. This struck a terror into Paris, by which the projectors
of the massacre hastened to profit. The barriers were shut, the tocsin
sounded, the alarm–gun fired. The prisons of Les Carmes, the Abbaye,
and La Force, were first attacked, not in consequence of any general
popular impulse; not by multitudes, such as had carried the Bastille
and the Tuileries against superior arms and discipline; but by a crew
of ruffians, composed partly of Marseillois, partly of the savage mob
of Paris, in number not perhaps much exceeding a hundred, and goaded,
it is said, with wine and spirits mixed with stimulating and maddening
drugs. Armed with pikes, sabres, and similar weapons, they beset the
prison doors to the sound of the Marseillois hymn, and demanded that
the conspirators, as they called them, should be delivered into their
hands: and the gaolers offered no resistance to their entrance.
Les Carmes, the Carmelite convent, had been converted into a prison
for suspected ecclesiastics. This was the first object of attack; and,
without parley, or the pretence of trial or inquiry, the murderers
burst in and began to fire on their victims. “Where,” it was asked,
“is the Archbishop of Arles?” That prelate advanced boldly, and was
cut down without his uttering a word of complaint. Others were hunted
round the gardens, and shot like wild beasts; some escaped over the
walls. At last, to proceed in a more orderly manner, and give less
opportunity for escape, the survivors were all collected in the church,
and led down two by two to be executed in the garden. The Bishop of
Saintes, whose leg had been broken by a bullet, is reported to have
said, “Gentlemen, I am ready to go and die, like the rest; but you see
the state in which I am, my leg is broken; I beg that you will assist
me, and I will go willingly to execution.” The difficulty of obtaining
correct information concerning these events may be estimated from the
statements of the number of ecclesiastics who perished in Les Carmes. A
royalist account raises it to 1168, a republican account reduces it to
163.[74] If it were necessary to make choice of either, we should not
hesitate to adopt the smaller number.
The Abbaye and La Force were the next objects of attack. Here there
was some mockery of judicial observances. The form of trial was brief
enough; a few armed ruffians constituted themselves a tribunal, before
which the prisoners were led one by one. The investigation seldom went
much beyond asking the name of the person, and referring to the charges
alleged against him in the gaoler’s register. If these afforded ground
for the suspicion of incivism, and the judges, as was almost always
the case, decreed his death, their sentence, to prevent the dangerous
efforts of despair, was conveyed in the equivocal terms, “Give the
prisoner freedom,” or, “Convey him to La Force,” if he were confined at
the Abbaye, and _vice versâ_. He was then led from the room, and struck
down, for the most part, before he reached the court–yard, with eager
cruelty. Women as well as men mingled in this frightful scene, and
inflicted the most loathsome indignities on the mangled bodies.
These proceedings were virtually authorized and encouraged by the
presence of deputies from the Commune, wearing the municipal scarf, but
nominally charged to select and deliver those who were imprisoned for
debt. Not content with this negative sanction, Billaud Varennes, who
was one of them, openly stimulated the murderers, promising them not
only the plunder of the dead bodies, but the further gratification of
a louis per day, as the reward of their good service. And it appears
from the records of the time, that this money was actually paid. Yet
much of the trifling property found on the persons of the slain was
delivered up, it is said, for the use of the state; as if the actors
of these horrors, by some strange caprice, had professed to be really
disinterested.
An officer named Saint Méard, who was confined in the Abbaye, has
written, under the title, ‘Mon Agonie de trente–huit heures,’ an
account of the feelings and conduct of the prisoners during the
frightful period of suspense, which elapsed between the commencement
of the massacres, and the moment when the fatal summons reached each
of the sufferers. “Our most important occupation,” he says, “was to
observe in what manner death might be met most easily when we should
enter the place of slaughter. From time to time we sent one of our
number to a turret–window, to let us know how the miserable men who
were destroyed met their fate, and to consider, from what they told
us, how it would be best for us to conduct ourselves. They said that
those who stretched out their hands protracted their sufferings,
because the sabre–strokes were deadened before they reached the head:
that sometimes their hands and arms were even hewn off before they
fell, and that those who placed their hands behind their backs would
suffer least. It was on such horrid particulars as these that we
had to deliberate. We calculated the advantages of this last–named
position, and in turn advised each other to assume it when our turn
should arrive.” It is hard to conceive a situation more trying to
human fortitude. The prisoners generally met their fate with firmness,
and in many instances boldly avowed and gloried in the principles and
hereditary honours which were the sure passports to their fate. In some
few instances the murderers relented. One or two men were preserved by
the devoted interposition of female relatives. But very few of those
who were imprisoned on political grounds lived to relate the horrors
which they had passed through. Saint Méard, although he boldly avowed
himself a royalist, was one of the number.[75]
For four days did this frightful scene continue, unsanctioned by
authority, save the instigation and half–expressed approbation of the
Commune, perpetrated by an insignificant mob, who, with the smallest
portion of energy, might have been overpowered at once. The Legislative
Assembly sent some of their members to remonstrate; men known as
Jacobins, who came back, and related that their interference had
been ineffectual, and no further steps were taken. The National Guard
remained quiet, waiting the orders of their superiors. Meanwhile, amid
this fear or lethargy, for neither the Assembly nor the Guard viewed
this butchery with favourable eyes, the judges and executioners ate,
drank, and slept, and returned unmolested and with new vigour to their
several functions.
The thirst of blood, once indulged, appears to have given rise to a
sort of intoxication. The mob attacked even the Bicêtre, a prison
containing none but criminals and lunatics. Here only they experienced
resistance; and the resistance was desperate. The gaolers made common
cause with the prisoners against the assailants; the stones and iron
bars of the building supplying them with weapons. They made good their
defence until cannon were brought against them, and they were mowed
down in the mass.
Of the number of persons who perished in this fearful scene no exact
account has ever been given. It is said, however, that not more than
200 or 300 of the prisoners committed for political offences are known
to have escaped; and on the smallest reckoning the slain amounted to
2000 or 3000. Some estimate them at double that number. Truchat stated
to the Legislative Assembly that 4000 had fallen. One statement, which
is introduced only to show the tendency to exaggeration in these
matters, raised the number to 12,800. Those who were imprisoned for
debt were set free by order of the Commune; and to these we must look
to make up the difference between the number of the slain and the
total number of 8000, said to have been in prison on September 2. The
bodies were interred in trenches, prepared, it is said, beforehand
by the Commune, but their bones were subsequently transferred to
the Catacombs. “In these melancholy regions, while other relics of
mortality lie exposed all around, the remains of those who perished in
the massacres of September are alone excluded from the public eye. The
vault in which they repose is closed with a screen of freestone, as if
relating to crimes unfit to be thought of even in the proper abode of
death, and which France would willingly hide in oblivion.”[76]