being quickly called, it was voted that the Tarquins should be banished,
and the office of king should be forever abolished in Rome. Tullia,
learning of the cause of the tumult, hastily left the palace, and fled
from Rome in her chariot through throngs that followed her with threats
and curses. Brutus, perhaps with the crimsoned knife still in his hand,
bade the young men to follow him, and set off in haste to Ardea, to
spread through the army the story of the deed of crime and blood.
Meanwhile, Tarquin had been told of the revolt, and was hurrying to Rome
to put it down. Brutus turned aside from the road that he might not meet
him, and hastened on to the camp, where the story of the revolt and its
cause was told the soldiers. On hearing the story the whole army broke
into a tumult of indignation, drove the king's sons from the camp, and
demanded to be led to Rome. The siege of Ardea was at once abandoned and
the backward march began.
Meanwhile, Tarquin had reached the city, but only to find the gates
closed against him and stern men on the walls. "You cannot enter here,"
they cried. "You are banished from Rome, you and all of yours, and shall
never set foot within its walls again. And you are the last of our
kings. No man after you shall ever call himself king of Rome."
Just in what threats, promises, and persuasions Tarquin indulged we do
not know. But the men on the walls were not to be moved by threats or
promises, and he was obliged to take himself away, a crownless wanderer.
As for Sextus, to whom all the trouble was due, some say that he was
killed in a town whose people he had betrayed, while others say that he
was slain in battle while his father was fighting to regain his throne.
But this is certain, no king ever reigned in Rome again. The people,
talking among each other, said, "Let us follow the wise laws of good
King Servius. He bade us to meet in our centuries (or hundreds) and to
choose two men year by year to govern us, instead of a king. This let us
do, as Servius would have done himself had he not been basely murdered."
So the centuries of the people met in the Campus Martius (Field of
Mars), and there chose two men,--Brutus, the leader in the revolution,
and Lucius Tarquin, the husband of the fated Lucretia. These officials
were afterwards called Consuls, and were given ruling power in Rome.
But they had to lay down their office at the end of the year and be
succeeded by two others elected in their stead. The people, however,
were afraid of the very name of Tarquin, and in electing Lucius to the
consulate it seemed as if they had put a new Tarquin on the throne. So
they prayed him to leave the city; and, taking all his goods, he went
away and settled at Lavinium, a new consul being elected in his place. A
law was now passed that all the house of the Tarquins should be
banished, whether they were of the king's family or not.
Thus ended the kingly period in Rome, after six kings had followed
Romulus. With the consuls many of the laws of King Servius, which
Tarquin had set aside, were restored, and a much greater degree of
freedom came to the people of Rome. But that there might not now seem to
be two kings instead of one, it was decreed that only one of the consuls
should rule at a time, each of them acting as ruler for a month, and
then giving over the power to his associate.
_HOW BRAVE HORATIUS KEPT THE BRIDGE._
The banished King Tarquin did not lightly yield his realm. He roused the
neighboring cities against Rome and fought fiercely for his throne. Soon
after he was exiled from Rome he sent messengers there for his goods.
These the senate decreed should be given him. But his messengers had
more secret work to do. They formed a plot with many of the young nobles
to bring back the king, and among these traitors were Titus and
Tiberius, the sons of Brutus.
A slave overheard the conspirators and betrayed them to the consuls, and
they were seized and brought to the judgment-seat in the Forum. Here
Brutus, sitting in judgment, beheld his two sons among the culprits. He
loved them, but he loved justice more, and though he grieved deeply
inwardly, his face was grave and stern as he gave judgment that the law
must take its course. So the sons of this stern old Roman were scourged
with rods before his eyes, and then, with the other conspirators, were
beheaded by the lictors, while he looked steadily on, never turning his
eyes from the dreadful sight. But men could see that his heart bled for
his sons.
Soon afterwards Tarquin led an army of Etruscans against Rome, and the
two consuls marched against them at the head of the Roman army. In the
battle that followed Brutus met Aruns, the king's son, in advance of the
lines of battle. Aruns, seeing Brutus dressed in royal robes and
attended by the lictors of a king, was filled with anger, and levelled
his spear and spurred his horse against him. Brutus met him in
mid-career with levelled spear. Both were run through, and together fell
dead upon the field.
The day ended with neither party victors. But during the night a
woodland deity was heard speaking from a forest near by. "One man more
has fallen of the Etruscans than of the Romans," it said; "the Romans
are to conquer." This strange oracle ended the war. It was a reason,
surely, for which war was never ended before or since. The Etruscans,
affrighted, marched hastily home; while the Romans carried home their
slain patriot, for whom their women mourned a whole year, in honor of
his noble service in avenging Lucretia.
The banished king still craved his lost kingdom, and made other efforts
to regain it. Having failed in his first attempt, he went to another
city, named Clusium, in the distant part of Etruria, and here besought
Lars Porsenna, the king of that city, to aid him recover his throne.
Lars Porsenna, with a fellow-feeling for his dethroned brother king,
raised a large army and marched with Tarquin and his fellow-exiles
against defiant Rome.
The Romans now awaited him at home, and the two armies met on the hill
called Janiculum, beyond the river from the city. Here came the crash of
battle, but the men of Clusium proved the stronger, and after a sharp
struggle the Romans gave way and were driven pell-mell down the hill and
across the bridge which spanned the Tiber at this point. This was a
wooden bridge on which the Romans set great store, as it was their only
means of crossing the stream. But it now was likely to serve as a means
of the loss of their city. Their flying army was pouring in panic across
it, with the Etruscans in hot pursuit, seeking strenuously to win the
bridge.
The bridge must be speedily destroyed or the city would be lost, but it
seemed too late for this; unless the enemy could in some way be kept
back till the bridge was cut down, Tarquin and his allies would be in
the streets of Rome.
At this juncture a brave and stalwart son of Rome, Horatius Cocles by
name, stepped forward and offered his life in his city's defence. "Cut
away with all haste," he said; "I will keep the bridge until it falls."
Two others, Spurius Lartius and Titus Herminius, sprang to his side, and
the three, fully armed and stout of heart, ranged themselves across the
narrow causeway, while behind them the axes of the Romans played
ringingly upon the supports of the bridge.
On came the Etruscans in force. But the bridge was so narrow that only a
few could advance at once, and these found in the way the sharp spears
and keen-edged blades of the patriot three. Down went the leading
Etruscans, and others pressed on, only to fall, till the defenders of
the bridge had a bulwark of the slain in their front.
[Illustration: HORATIUS KEEPING THE BRIDGE.]
And now the bridge creaked and groaned as the axes kept up their lively
play, the ring of steel finding its chorus in the cheering shouts of the
Romans on the bank.
"Back! back!" cried the axemen. "It will be down in a minute more; back
for your lives!"
"Back!" cried Horatius to his comrades, and they hastily retreated; but
he stood unmoving, still boldly facing the foe.
"Fly! It is about to fall!" was the shout.
"Let it," cried Horatius, without yielding a step.
And there he stood alone, defying the whole army of the Etruscans. From
a distance they showered their javelins on him, but he caught them on
his shield and stood unhurt. Furious that they should be kept from their
prey by a single man, they gathered to rush upon him and drive him from
his post by main force; but just then the creaking beams gave way, and
the half of the bridge behind him fell with a mighty crash into the
stream below.
The Etruscans paused in their course at this crashing fall, and gazed,
not without admiration, at the stalwart champion who had stayed an army
in its victorious career. He was theirs now; he could not escape; his
life should pay the penalty for their failure.
But Horatius had no such thought. He looked down on the stream, and
prayed to the god of the river, "O Father Tiber, I pray thee to receive
these arms and me who bear them, and to let thy waters befriend and
save me."
Then, with a quick spring, he plunged, heavy with armor, into the
swift-flowing stream, and struck out boldly for the shore. The foemen
rushed upon the bridge and poured their darts thick about him; yet none
struck him, and he swam safely to the shore, where his waiting friends
drew him in triumph from the stream.
For this grand deed of heroism the Romans set up a statue to Horatius in
the comitium, and gave him in reward as much land as he could drive his
plough round in the space of a whole day. Such deeds cannot be fitly
told in halting prose, and Lord Macaulay, in his "Lays of Ancient Rome,"
has most ably and picturesquely told
"How well Horatius kept the bridge
In the brave days of old."
But though Rome was saved from capture by assault, the war was not
ended, and other deeds of Roman heroism were to be done. Porsenna
pressed the siege of the city so closely that hunger became his ally,
and the Romans suffered greatly. Then another patriot devoted his life
to his city's good. This man, a young noble named Caius Mucius, went to
the senate and offered to go to the Etruscan camp and slay Lars Porsenna
in the midst of his men.
His proposal acceded to, he crossed the stream by stealth and slipped
covertly into the camp, through which he made his way, seeking the king.
At length he saw a man dressed in a scarlet robe and seated on a lofty
seat, while many were about him, coming and going. "This must be King
Porsenna," he said to himself, and he glided stealthily through the
crowd until he came near by, when, drawing a concealed dagger from
beneath his cloak, he sprang upon the man and stabbed him to the heart.
But the bold assassin had made a sad mistake. The man he had slain was
not the king, but his scribe, the king's chief officer. Being instantly
seized, he was brought before Porsenna, where the guards threatened him
with sharp torments unless he would truly answer all their questions.
"Torments!" he said. "You shall see how little I care for them."
And he thrust his right hand into the fire that was burning on the
altar, and held it there till it was completely consumed.
King Porsenna looked at him with an admiration that subdued all anger.
Never had he seen a man of such fortitude.
"Go your way," he cried, "for you have harmed yourself more than me. You
are a brave man, and I send you back to Rome free and unhurt."
"And you are a generous king," said Caius, "and shall learn more from me
for your kindness than tortures could have wrung from my lips. Know,
then, that three hundred noble youths of Rome have bound themselves by
oath to take your life. I am but the first; the others will in turn lie
in wait for you. I warn you to look well to yourself."
He was then set free, and went back to the city, where he was
afterwards known as Scaevola, the left-handed.
The warning of Caius moved King Porsenna to offer the Romans terms of
peace, which they gladly accepted. They were forced to give up all the
land they had conquered on the west bank of the Tiber, and to agree not
to use iron except to cultivate the earth. They were also to give as
hostages ten noble youths and as many maidens. These were sent; but one
of the maidens, Cloelia by name, escaped from the Etruscan camp, and,
bidding the other maidens to follow, fled to the river, into which they
all plunged and swam safely across to Rome.
They were sent back by the Romans, whose way it was to keep their
pledges; but King Porsenna, admiring the courage of Cloelia, set her
free, and bade her choose such of the youths as she wished to go with
her. She chose those of tenderest age, and the king set them free.
The Romans rewarded Caius by a gift of land, and had a statue made of
Cloelia, which was set up in the highest part of the Sacred Way. And
King Porsenna led his army home, with Tarquin still dethroned.
_THE BATTLE OF LAKE REGILLUS._
A third time Tarquin the Proud marched against Rome, this time in
alliance with the Latins, whose thirty cities had joined together and
declared war against the Romans. But as many of the Romans had married
Latin wives, and many of the Latins had got their wives from Rome, it
was resolved that the women on both sides, who preferred their native
land to their husbands, might leave their new homes and take with them
their virgin daughters. And, as the legend tells, all the Latin women
but two remained in Rome, while all the Roman women returned with their
daughters to their fathers' homes.
The two armies met by the side of Lake Regillus, and there was fought a
battle the story of which reads like a tale from the Iliad of Homer; for
we are told not of how the armies fought, but of how their champions met
and fought in single combats upon the field. King Tarquin was there, now
hoary with years, yet sitting his horse and bearing his lance with the
grace and strength of a young man. And there was Titus his son, leading
into battle all the banished band of the Tarquins. And with them was
Octavius Mamilius, the leader of the Latins, who swore to seat Tarquin
again on his throne and to make the Romans subjects of the Latins.
On the Roman side were many true and tried warriors, among them Titus
Herminius, one of those who fought on the bridge by the side of Horatius
Cocles, when that champion fought so well for Rome.
It is too long to tell how warrior rode against warrior with levelled
lances, and how this one was struck through the breast and that one
through the arm, and so on in true Homeric style. The battle was a
series of duels, like those fought on the plain of Troy. But at length
the Tarquin band, under the lead of Titus, charged so fiercely that the
Romans began to give way, many of their bravest having been slain.
At this juncture Aulus, the leader of the Romans, rode up with his own
chosen band, and bade them level their lances and slay all, friend or
foe, whose faces were turned towards them. There was to be no mercy for
a Roman whose face was turned from the field. This onset stopped the
flight, and Aulus charged fiercely upon the Tarquins, praying, as he did
so, to the divine warriors Castor and Pollux, to whom he vowed to
dedicate a temple if they would aid him in the fight. And he promised
the soldiers that the two who should first break into the camp of the
enemy should receive a rich reward.
Then suddenly, at the head of the chosen band, appeared two unknown
horsemen, in the first bloom of youth and taller and fairer than mortal
men, while the horses they rode were white as the driven snow. On went
the charge, led by these two noble strangers, before whom the enemy fled
in mortal terror, while Titus, the last of the sons of King Tarquin,
fell dead from his steed. The camp of the Latins being reached, these
two horsemen were the first to break into it, and soon the whole army of
the enemy was in disorderly flight and the battle won.
Aulus now sought the two strange horsemen, to give them the reward he
had promised; but he sought in vain; they were not to be found, among
either the living or the dead, and no man had set eyes upon them since
the camp was won. They had vanished as suddenly as they had appeared.
But on the hard black rock which surrounds the lake was visible the mark
of a horse's hoof, such as no earthly steed could ever have made. For
ages afterwards this mark remained.
But the strangers appeared once again. It was known in Rome that the
armies were joined in battle, and the longing for tidings from the field
grew intense. Suddenly, as the sun went down behind the city walls,
there were seen in the Forum two horsemen on milk-white steeds, taller
and fairer than the tallest and fairest of men. Their horses were bathed
in foam, and they looked like men fresh from battle.
Alighting near the Temple of Vesta, where a spring of water bubbles from
the ground, these men, whom no Romans had ever seen before, washed from
their persons the battle-stains. As they did so men crowded round and
eagerly questioned them. In reply, they told them how the battle had
been fought and won,--though in truth the battle ended only as the sun
went down over Lake Regillus. They then mounted their horses and rode
from the Forum, and were seen no more. Men sought them far and wide, but
no one set eyes on them again.
Then Aulus told the Romans how he had prayed to Castor and Pollux, the
divine twins, and said that it could be none but they who had broken so
fiercely into the enemy's camp, and had borne the news of victory with
more than mortal speed to Rome. So he built the temple he had vowed to
the hero gods, and gave there rich offerings as the rewards he had
promised to the two who should first enter the camp of the foe.
Thus ended the hopes of King Tarquin, against whom the gods had taken
arms. His sons and all his family slain, he was left ruined and
hopeless, and retired to the city of Cumae, whence formerly the Sibyl had
come to his court. Here he died, and thus passed away the last of the
Roman kings.
_THE REVOLT OF THE PEOPLE._
The overthrow of the kings of Rome did not relieve the people from all
their oppression. The inhabitants of that city had long been divided
into two great classes, the Patricians, or nobles, and the Plebeians, or
common people, and the former held in their hand nearly all the wealth
and power of the state. The senate, the law-making body, were all
Patricians; the consuls, the executors of the law, were chosen from
their ranks; and the Plebeians were left with few rights and little
protection.
It was through the avarice of money-lending nobles that the people were
chiefly oppressed. There were no laws limiting the rate of interest, and
the rich lent to the poor at extravagant rates of usury. The interest,
when not paid, was added to the debt, so that in time it became
impossible for many debtors to pay.
And the laws against debtors had become terribly severe. They might,
with all their families, be held as slaves. Or if the debtor refused to
sell himself to his creditor, and still could not pay his debt, he might
be imprisoned in fetters for sixty days. At the end of that time, if no
friend had paid his debt, he could be put to death, or sold as a slave
into a foreign state. If there were several creditors, they could
actually cut his body to pieces, each taking a piece proportional in
size to his claim.
This cruel severity was more than any people could long endure. It led
to a revolution in Rome. In the year 495 B.C., fifteen years after the
Tarquins had been expelled, a poor debtor, who had fought valiantly in
the wars, broke from his prison, and--with his clothes in tatters and
chains clanking upon his limbs--appealed eloquently to the people in the
Forum, and showed them on his emaciated body the scars of the many
battles in which he had fought.
His tale was a sad one. While he served in the Sabine war, the enemy had
pillaged and burned his house; and when he returned home, it was to find
his cattle stolen and his farm heavily taxed. Forced to borrow money,
the interest had brought him deeply into debt. Finally he had been
attacked by pestilence, and being unable to work for his creditor, he
had been thrown into prison and cruelly scourged, the marks of the lash
being still evident upon his bleeding back.
This piteous story roused its hearers to fury. The whole city broke into
tumult, as the woful tale passed from lip to lip. Many debtors escaped
from their prisons and begged protection from the incensed multitude.
The consuls found themselves powerless to restore order; and in the
midst of the uproar horsemen came riding hotly through the gates, crying
out that a hostile army was near at hand, marching to besiege the city.
Here was a splendid opportunity for the Plebeians. When called upon to
enroll their names and take arms for the city's defence, they refused.
The Patricians, they said, might fight their own battles. As for them,
they had rather die together at home than perish separate upon the
battle-field.
This refusal left the Patricians in a quandary. With riot in the streets
and war beyond the walls they were at the mercy of the commons. They
were forced to promise a mitigation of the laws, declaring that no one
should henceforth seize the goods of a soldier while he was in camp, or
hinder a citizen from enlisting by keeping him in prison. This promise
satisfied the people. The debtors' prisons were emptied, and their late
tenants crowded with enthusiasm into the ranks. Through the gates the
army marched, met the foe, and drove him in defeat from the soil of the
Roman state.
Victory gained, the Plebeians looked for laws to sustain the promises
under which they had fought. They looked in vain; the senate took no
action for their redress. But they had learned their power, and were not
again to be enslaved. Their action was deliberate but decided. Taking
measures to protect their homes on the Aventine Hill, they left the city
the next year in a body, and sought a hill beyond the Anio, about three
miles beyond the walls of Rome. Here they encamped, built
fortifications, and sent word to their lordly rulers that they were done
with empty promises, and would fight no more for the state until the
state kept its faith. All the good of their fighting came to the
Patricians, they said, and these might now defend themselves and their
wealth.
The senate was thrown into a panic by this decided action. When the
hostile cities without should learn of it, they might send armies in
haste to undefended Rome. The people left in the city feared the
Patricians, and the Patricians feared them. All was doubt and anxiety.
At length the senate, driven to desperation, sent an embassy to the
rebels to treat for peace, being in deadly fear that some enemy might
assail and capture the city in the absence of the bulk of its
inhabitants.
The messenger sent, Menenius Agrippa Lanatus, was a man famed for
eloquence, and a popular favorite. In his address to the people in their
camp he repeated to them the following significant fable:
"At a time when all the parts of the body did not agree together, as
they do now, but each had its own method and language, the other parts
rebelled against the belly. They said that it lay quietly enjoying
itself in the centre, while they, by care, labor, and service, kept it
in luxury. They therefore conspired that the hands should not convey
food to the mouth, the mouth receive it, nor the teeth chew it. They
thus hoped to subdue the belly by famine; but they found that they and
all the other parts of the body suffered as much. Then they saw that the
belly by no means rested in sloth; that it supplied instead of receiving
nourishment, sending to all parts of the body the blood that gave life
and strength to the whole system."
It was the same, he said, with the body of the state. All must work in
unity, if all would prosper. This homely argument hit the popular fancy.
The people consented to treat for their return if their liberties could
be properly secured. But they must now have deeds instead of words. It
was not political power they sought, but protection, and protection they
would have.