they had done so well that it was thought wise to continue them in power
for another year. But when the time for election came round, Appius
Claudius managed to have his nine associates defeated, he alone being
re-elected. The other nine chosen were men whom he felt sure he could
control. And now, having a year's rule assured him, he threw off the
cloak of moderation he had worn, and began a career of oppression of the
plebeians, aided by his subservient associates. The first step taken was
to add two new laws to the code, which became known, therefore, as the
"Twelve Tables." These new laws proved so distasteful to the people that
they almost broke into open rebellion. It was evident that the haughty
decemvirs were seeking to increase the power of their class.
The decemvirs did not confine themselves to passing oppressive laws.
They began a career of outrage and oppression that filled Rome with woe.
The youthful patricians followed their lead, and insult and murder
became common incidents in Rome. When the second year of the decemvirate
expired, Appius and his colleagues, knowing that they could not be
elected again, showed no intention of yielding up their authority. They
were supported by the senate and the patricians, and had gained such
power that they defied the plebeians. Those of the people who were
active in opposition were quietly disposed of, and so intolerable became
the tyranny that numbers of the plebeian party fled from Rome.
While this was going on war broke out with the Sabines and the AEquians.
Of the armies sent against these nations, one was commanded by Lucius
Sicinius Dentatus, among the bravest of the Romans, and who had fought
in one hundred and twenty battles and was covered with the scars of old
wounds. On his way to his post this veteran was murdered by bravos sent
by Appius Claudius. Decemvirs were now appointed to command the armies,
Appius and one of his colleagues remaining in Rome to look after the
safety of the city.
The story goes that both armies were beaten by their foes, and forced to
retreat within Roman territory. While they lay encamped, not many miles
from Rome, an event occurred in the city which gave them new work to do,
and proved that the worst enemies of Rome were not without, but within,
her walls.
In the army sent against the AEquians was a centurion named Lucius
Virginius, who had a beautiful daughter named Virginia, whom he had
betrothed to Lucius Icilius, recently one of the tribunes of Rome. But
the tyranny of the decemvirs was directed against the wives and
daughters as well as the men of the plebeians, as was now to be
strikingly shown.
One day, as the beautiful maiden was on her way, attended by her nurse,
to school in the Forum (around which the schools were placed), she was
seen by Appius Claudius, who was so struck by her beauty that he
determined to gain possession of her, and sought to win her by insidious
words. The innocent girl repelled his advances, but this only increased
his desire to possess her, and he determined, as she was not to be had
by fair means, to have her by foul. He therefore laid a wicked plot for
her capture.
Marcus Claudius, one of his clients, instigated by him, seized the girl
as she entered the Forum, claiming that she was his slave. The nurse
screamed for help, and a crowd quickly gathered. Many of these well knew
the maiden, her father, and her betrothed, and vowed to protect her from
wrong. But the villain declared that he meant no harm, and that he only
claimed his own, and was quite willing to submit his claim to the
decision of the law.
Followed by the crowd, he led the weeping maiden to where Appius
Claudius occupied the judgment-seat, and demanded justice at his hands.
He declared that the wife of Virginius, being childless, had got this
child from its mother and presented it to Virginius as her own, and said
that the real mother had been his slave, and that, therefore, the
daughter was his slave also. This he would prove to Virginius on his
return to Rome. Meanwhile it was but just that the master should keep
possession of his slave.
This specious appeal was earnestly combated by the friends of the
maiden, many of whom were present in the throng. Virginius, they said,
was absent from Rome in the service of the commonwealth. To take such
action in his absence was unjust. They would send him word at once, and
in two days he would be in the city.
"Let the case stand until he can appear," they demanded. "The law
expressly declares that in cases like this every one shall be considered
free till proved a slave. The maiden, therefore, should legally be left
with her friends till the day of trial. Put not her fair fame in peril
by giving up a free-born maiden into the hands of a man whom she knows
not."
To this reasonable appeal Appius, with a show of judicial moderation,
replied,--
"Truly, I know the law you speak of, and hold it just and good, for it
was enacted by myself. But this maiden cannot in any case be free; she
belongs either to her father or to her master. And as her father is not
here, who but her master can have any claim to her? I decide, therefore,
that M. Claudius shall keep her till Virginius comes, and shall require
him to give sureties to bring her before my judgment-seat when the day
comes for hearing the case between them."
This illegal decision was far from satisfying the multitude. The
decemvirs and their adherents had gained an unholy reputation for
dishonorable treatment of the wives and daughters of the people, and it
was not safe to trust a maiden in their hands. Word had been hastily
sent to Numitorius, the uncle of Virginia, and Icilius, her betrothed,
and they now came up in great haste, and protested so vigorously against
the sentence, that the surrounding people became roused to fury. Appius,
seeing the temper of the throng, and fearing a riotous demonstration,
felt forced to change his decision. He said, therefore, that, in view of
the rights of fathers over their children, he would let the case rest
till the next day.
"If, then," he said, with a show of stern dignity, "Virginius does not
appear, I plainly tell Icilius and his fellows that I will support the
laws which I have made. Violence shall not prevail over justice at this
tribunal."
Obliged to be content with this, the friends of Virginia conducted her
home, and Icilius sent messengers in all haste to the camp, to bid
Virginius come without an hour's delay to Rome. Surety was given that
the maiden should appear before Appius the next day.
It was fortunate that the army in which Virginius was a centurion had
been obliged to retreat, and then lay not many miles from Rome. The
messengers sent reached the camp that same evening, and told Virginius
of the peril of his daughter. Appius had also sent messengers to his
colleagues in command of the army, secretly instructing them not to let
Virginius leave the camp on any pretence. But the messengers of right
outstripped those of wrong, and when word came from the decemvirs in
command to restrain Virginius he had already been given leave of
absence, and was speeding on the road to Rome, spurred by love and
indignation.
Morning came, and Appius resumed his judgment-seat, under the delusion
that his vile scheme was safe. To his surprise and dismay, he saw
Virginius, whom he supposed detained in camp, dressed in mean attire,
like a suppliant, and leading his daughter into the Forum. With him came
a body of Roman matrons and a great troop of friends, for the affair had
roused the people almost to the point of revolt.
"This is not my cause only, but the cause of all," said Virginius, in
moving accents, to the people. "If my daughter shall be robbed from me,
what father and mother among you all is safe?"
Icilius earnestly seconded this appeal, and the mothers who stood by
wept with pity, their tears moving the people even more than the words
of the father and lover.
But Appius was not to be moved by tears or appeals. Bent on gaining his
unholy ends, he did not even give Virginius time to address the
tribunal, but before Claudius had done speaking he hastened to give
sentence. The maiden, he said, should be considered a slave until proved
to be free-born. In the mean time she should remain in the custody of
her master Claudius.
This monstrous decision, a perversion of all law, natural and civil,
filled the people with astonishment. Could the maker of the laws of Rome
thus himself set them at defiance? They stood as if stunned, until
Claudius approached to lay hands on the maiden, when the women and her
friends gathered around her and kept him off, while Virginius broke out
in passionate threats that he would not tamely submit to so great a
wrong.
Appius had prepared for this. He had brought with him a body of armed
patricians, and, supported by them, he bade his lictors to drive back
the crowd. Before their threatening axes the unarmed people fell back,
and the weeping maiden was left standing alone. Virginius looked on in
despair. Was he to be robbed of his daughter in the face of Rome, and in
defiance of all justice and honor? There was one way still to save her,
and only one.
With an aspect of humility he asked Appius to let him speak one word to
the nurse in the maiden's hearing, that he might learn whether she were
really his child or not. "If I am not indeed her father, I shall bear
her loss the lighter," he said.
Appius, with a show of moderation, consented, and the distracted father
drew the nurse and his daughter aside to a spot where stood some
butchers' booths, for the Forum of Rome was then a place of trade as
well as of justice. Here he snatched a knife from a butcher, and,
holding the poor girl in his arm, he cried, "This is the only way, my
child, to keep thee free," and plunged the weapon to her heart.
Then, turning to Appius, he cried, in threatening accents, "On you and
on your head be the curse of this blood!"
"Seize the madman!" yelled Appius.
But, brandishing the bloody knife, Virginius broke through the
multitude, which readily made way for his passage, and flew to the city
gates, where, seizing a horse, he rode with wild haste to the camp of
Tusculum.
Meanwhile Icilius and Numitorius held up the maiden's body, and bade the
people see the bloody result of the decemvir's unholy purpose. A tumult
instantly arose, the people rushing in such fury upon the tribunal that
the lictors and armed patricians were driven back, and Appius, stricken
with fear, covered his face with his robe and fled into a neighboring
house.
Never had Rome been so stirred to fury. The colleague of Appius rushed
with his followers to the Forum, but the people were too strong for all
the force he could gather. The senate met, but could do nothing in the
excited state of public feeling. An attempt to support the decemvirs now
might cause the commons once more to secede to the Sacred Hill.
While this was going on in the city, Virginius, followed by many
citizens, had reached the camp. Here the encrimsoned knife he held, the
blood on his face and body, and the many unarmed citizens who followed
him, brought the soldiers crowding round to learn what all this meant.
The tale was told in moving accents. On hearing it the whole army burst
into a storm of indignation. Heedless of the orders of their generals,
they rushed excitedly to arms, pulled up their standards, and put
themselves in hasty march for Rome. The only leader they recognized was
Virginius, who, knife in hand, led the way in the van.
Reaching the city, the soldiers called on the commons to assert their
liberties and elect new tribunes, the decemvirs having deprived them of
these officials. They then marched to the Aventine Hill, where they
selected ten military tribunes. The senate sent to them to know what
they wanted, but they replied that they had no answer to give except to
their own friends.
The other army had also heard of the outrage, and soon appeared at the
Aventine, led by Icilius and Numitorius, who had hastened with the
dreadful story to its camp. It, too, elected ten tribunes, and waited to
hear what the senate had to propose. They waited in vain. No word came
to them. The senate, distracted by the sudden occurrence, sought to
temporize, but the people were in too deadly earnest to be thus dealt
with. In the end the armies left the Aventine, marched through the city,
and made their way to the Sacred Hill, where the seceding commoners had
established themselves on a famous occasion long before. Men, women, and
children followed them in multitudes. Once more the city was deserted by
the plebeians, and the patricians were left to keep Rome together as
they could.
This brought the senate to terms. The decemvirs agreed to resign.
Deputies were sent to ask what the people demanded. They replied that
they wanted their tribunes and the right of appeal restored, full
indemnity for all the leaders in the secession, and the punishment of
their oppressors.
"These decemvirs," said Icilius, "are public enemies, and we will have
them die the death of such. Give them up to us, that they may be burnt
with fire, as they have richly deserved."
This blood-thirsty desire, however, was not insisted on. All their other
requests were granted, and the people returned to Rome. The decemvirs
had resigned. Ten tribunes were chosen, among them Virginius and
Icilius. The people of Rome had regained the liberty of which they had
been robbed by their late oppressors.
But though the decemvirs had been spared from death by fire, they were
not forgiven. Virginius, as a tribune, impeached Appius for having given
a decision in defiance of the law. The proud patrician appeared in the
Forum surrounded by a body of young nobles, but he gained nothing by
this bravado. He refused to go before the judge, appealed to the people,
and demanded to be released on bail. This Virginius refused. He could
not be trusted at liberty. He was therefore thrown into prison, to await
the judgment of the people.
This judgment he did not live to hear. Whether he killed himself in
prison, or was killed by order of his accusers, we do not know. We only
know that he died. His colleague, who had come to his aid on that fatal
day, was also thrown into prison, on the charge of having wantonly
scourged an old and distinguished soldier. He also died there. The other
decemvirs, with M. Claudius, who had claimed Virginia as his slave, were
allowed to give bail, and all fled from Rome. The property of all of
them was confiscated and sold.
Rome had experienced enough of decemvirate rule. The tribunes of the
people were restored, and thereafter they were both freely chosen by the
people, which had not been the case before.
And thus it was that Virginia was revenged and justice once more reigned
in Rome.
_CAMILLUS AT THE SIEGE OF VEII._
We have now to tell the story of another dictator of Rome. Like
Cincinnatus, Camillus is largely a creature of legend, but he plays an
active part in old Roman annals, and the tale of his doings is well
worth repeating.
Rome was at war with the city of Veii, a large and strong city beyond
the Tiber, and not many miles away. In the year of Rome 350 (or 403
B.C.) the siege of Veii began, and was continued for seven years. We are
told that the Romans surrounded the city, five miles in circumference,
with a double wall, but it could not have been complete, or the
Veientians could not have held out against starvation so long. For the
end of the siege and the taking of the city we must revert to the
legendary tale.
For seven years and more, so the legend says, the Romans had been
besieging Veii. During the last year of the siege, in late summer, the
springs and rivers all ran low; but of a sudden the waters of the Lake
of Alba began to rise, and the flood continued until the banks were
overflowed and the fields and houses by its side were drowned. Still
higher and higher the waters swelled till they reached the tops of the
hills which rose like a wall around the lake. In the end they
overflowed these hills at their lowest points, and poured in a mighty
torrent into the plain beyond.
The prayers and sacrifices of the Romans had failed to check the flood,
which threatened their city and fields, and despairing of any redress
from their own gods they sent to Delphi, in Greece, and applied there to
the famous oracle of Apollo. While the messengers were on their way, it
chanced that a Roman centurion talked with an old Veientian on the walls
whom he had known in times of peace, and knew to be skilled in the
secrets of Fate. The Roman condoled with his friend, and hoped that no
harm would come to him in the fall of Veii, sure to happen soon. The old
man laughed in reply, and said,--
"You think, then, to take Veii. You shall not take it till the waters of
the Lake of Alba are all spent, and flow out into the sea no more."
This remark troubled the Roman, who knew the prophetic foresight of his
friend. The next day he talked with him again, and finally enticed him
to leave the city, saying that he wished to meet him at a certain secret
place and consult with him on a matter of his own. But on getting him in
this way out of the city, he seized and carried him off to the camp,
where he brought him before the generals. These, learning what the old
man had said, sent him to the senate at Rome.
The prisoner here spoke freely. "If the lake overflow," he said, "and
its waters run out into the sea, woe unto Rome; but if it be drawn off,
and the waters reach the sea no longer, then it is woe unto Veii."
This he gave as the decree of the Fates; but the senate would not accept
his words, and preferred to wait until the messengers should return from
Delphi with the reply of the oracle.
When they did come, they confirmed what the old prophet had said. "See
that the waters be not confined within the basin of the lake," was the
message of Apollo's priestess: "see that they take not their own course
and run into the sea. Thou shalt take the water out of the lake, and
thou shalt turn it to the watering of the fields, and thou shalt make
courses for it till it be spent and come to nothing."
What all this could possibly have to do with the siege of Veii the
oracle did not say. But the people of the past were not given to ask
such inconvenient questions. The oracle was supposed to know better than
they, so workmen were sent with orders to bore through the sides of the
hills and make a passage for the water. This tunnel was made, and the
waters of the lake were drawn off, and divided into many courses, being
given the duty of watering the fields of the Romans. In this way the
water of the lake was all used up, and no drop of it flowed to the sea.
Then the Romans knew that it was the will of the gods that Veii should
be theirs.
Despite all this, the army of Rome must have met with serious
difficulties and dangers at Veii, for the senate chose a dictator to
conduct the war. This was their ablest and most famous man, Marcus
Furius Camillus, a leader among the aristocrats, and a statesman of
distinguished ability.
Under the command of Camillus the army hotly pressed the siege. So
straitened became the Veientians that they sent envoys to Rome to beg
for peace. The senate refused. In reply, one of the chief men of the
embassy, who was a skilled prophet, rebuked the Romans for their
arrogance, and predicted coming retribution.
"You heed neither the wrath of the gods nor the vengeance of men," he
said. "Yet the gods shall requite you for your pride; as you destroy our
country, so shall you shortly after lose your own."
This prediction was verified before many years in the invasion of the
Gauls and the destruction of Rome,--a tale which we have next to tell.
Camillus, finding that Veii was not to be taken by assault over its
walls, began to approach it from below. Men were set to dig an
underground tunnel, which should pass beneath the walls, and come to the
surface again in the Temple of Juno, which stood in the citadel of Veii.
Night and day they worked, and the tunnel was in course of time
completed, though the ground was not opened at its inner extremity.
Then many Romans came to the camp through desire to have a share in the
spoil of Veii. A tenth part of this spoil was vowed by Camillus to
Apollo, in reward for his oracle; and the dictator also prayed to Juno,
the goddess of Veii, begging her to desert this city and follow the
Romans home, where a temple worthy of her dignity should be built.
All being ready, a fierce assault was made on the city from every side.
The defenders ran to the walls to repel their foes, and the fight went
vigorously on. While it continued the king of Veii repaired to the
Temple of Juno, where he offered a sacrifice for the deliverance of the
city. The prophet who stood by, on seeing the sacrifice, said, "This is
an accepted offering. There is victory for him who offers the entrails
of this victim upon the altar."
The Romans who were in the secret passage below heard these words.
Instantly the earth was heaved up above them, and they sprang, arms in
hand, from the tunnel. The entrails were snatched from the hands of
those who were sacrificing, and Camillus, the Roman dictator, not the
Veientian king, offered them upon the altar. While he did so his
followers rushed from the citadel into the streets, flung open the city
gates, and let in their comrades. Thus both from within and without the
army broke into the town, and Veii was taken and sacked.
From the height of the citadel Camillus looked down upon the havoc in
the city streets, and said in pride of heart, "What man's fortune was
ever so great as mine?" But instantly the thought came to him how little
a thing can bring the highest fortune down to the lowest, and he prayed
that if some evil should befall him or his country it might be light.
As he prayed he veiled his head, according to the Roman custom, and
turned toward the right. In doing so his foot slipped, and he fell upon
his back on the ground. "The gods have heard my prayer," he said. "For
the great fortune of my victory over Veii they have sent me only this
little evil."
He then bade some young men, chosen from the whole army, to wash
themselves in pure water, and clothe themselves in white, so that there
would be about them no stain or sign of blood. This done, they entered
the Temple of Juno, bowing low, and taking care not to touch the statue
of the goddess, which only the priest could touch. They asked the
goddess whether it was her pleasure to go with them to Rome.
Then a wonder happened; from the mouth of the image came the words "I
will go." And when they now touched it, it moved of its own accord. It
was carried to Rome, where a temple was built and consecrated to Juno on
the Aventine Hill.
On his return to Rome Camillus entered the city in triumph, and rode to
the Capitol in a chariot drawn by four white horses, like the horses of
Jupiter or those of the sun. Such was his ostentation that wise men
shook their heads. "Marcus Camillus makes himself equal to the blessed
gods," they said. "See if vengeance come not on him, and he be not made
lower than other men."
There is one further legend about Camillus. After the fall of Veii he
besieged Falerii. During this siege a school-master, who had charge of
the sons of the principal citizens, while walking with his boys outside
the walls, played the traitor and led them into the Roman camp.
But the villain received an unexpected reward. Camillus, justly
indignant at the act, put thongs in the boys' hands and bade them flog
their master back into the town, saying that the Romans did not war on
children. On this the people of Falerii, overcome by his magnanimity,
surrendered themselves, their city, and their country into the hands of
this generous foe, assured of just treatment from so noble a man.
But trouble came upon Camillus, as the wise men had predicted. He was an
enemy of the commons and was to feel their power. It was claimed that he
had kept for himself part of the plunder of Veii, and on this charge he
was banished from Rome. But the time was near at hand when his foes
would have to pray for his return. The next year the Gauls were to come,
and Camillus was to be revenged upon his ungrateful country. This story
we have next to tell.
_THE GAULS AT ROME._