experience, the danger of allowing the crown to go from head to head,
without the slightest regard to a fit, determined that the interregnum
should be short, and the election of a new king was at once proceeded
with. The choice fell upon Tullus Hostilius, who was of a decidedly
warlike turn, and was ever on the look-out for a pretext to commence
hostilities. The Albans, our old friends of Alba Longa, or White's Row,
were the nearest, and consequently the most conveniently situated, for
the indulgence of his pugnacious propensities; and tradition relates
that on one occasion some Alban peasants, having been attacked and
stripped by the Romans, the former, who had lost even their clothes,
sought redress at the hands of their rulers. In the course of an attempt
to settle the dispute between Alba and Rome, each place sent
ambassadors, who crossed each other on the road, as if the two states
were determined to be in every way at cross purposes. The Alban envoys
were beguiled of all ideas of business by invitations to banquets and
feasts, so that whenever they attempted to ask for explanations, their
mouths were stopped with a dinner or a supper, given in honour of their
visit. The Roman messengers were prohibited, on the contrary, from
accepting invitations, or giving up to parties what was meant for
Romankind; and had received peremptory instructions to demand an
immediate settlement of their long-standing account from the Albans. The
parties could not understand each other, or, rather, they understood
each other too well; for war was the object of both, though neither of
them liked the responsibility of beginning it. The Albans, however,
prepared to march on Rome, and encamped themselves within the confines
of a ditch, into which ditch their King, Cluilius, tumbled, one night,
very mysteriously, and died, which caused them to dignify the ditch with
the name of _fossa Cluilia_.
[Illustration: Death of Cluilius.]
The Albans appointed one Mettius Fuffetius, a fussy and nervous
personage, as Dictator, in the place of the late King; and Fuffetius
requested an interview with Tullus, who agreed to the proposition, with
a determination, before meeting the Dictator, not to be dictated to.
Mettius represented the inconvenience of wasting whole rivers of blood,
when a few pints might answer all the purpose; and it was finally agreed
to settle the matter by a grand combat of six, sustained on either side
by three champions, chosen from each army. The Alban and the Roman
forces were graced, respectively, with a trio of brothers, whose
strength and activity rendered them worthy to be ranked with the small
family parties who attach the epithet of Herculean, Acrobatic, Indian
rubber, or Incredible, to the fraternal character in which they come
forward to astonish and amuse the enlightened age we live in.
These six young men were known as the Horatii and Curiatii,--the former
being on the Roman, the latter on the Alban side; and to them it was
agreed, by mutual consent, to trust the fate of the battle. The
story-tellers have done their utmost to render everything Roman as
romantic as possible; and the legend of the Horatii and Curiatii has
been heightened by making one of the latter batch of brothers the
accepted lover of the sister of the Horatii.
All the arrangements for the sanguinary _sestetto_ having been
completed, the six champions came forward, looking fresh and confident,
not one of them displaying nervousness by a shaking of the hand, though
they shook each other's hands very heartily. Having taken their
positions, the men presented a picture which we regret has not been
preserved for us by some sporting annalist of the period. Imagination,
who is "our own reporter" on this occasion, and, perhaps, as accurate a
reporter as many who profess to chronicle passing events, must fill up
the outlines of the sketch that has been handed down to us.
The contest commenced with a great deal of that harmless, but violent
exercise, which goes on between Shakspeare's celebrated pair of
Macs--the well known 'Beth and 'Duff--when the former requests the
latter to "lay on" to him, and there ensues a clashing of their swords,
as vigorous as the clashing of their claims to the crown of Scotland. At
length one of the Curiatii, feeling that they had all met for the
despatch of business, despatched one of the Horatii, upon which the
combatants, being set going, they continued to go one by one with great
rapidity. A few seconds had scarcely elapsed when a second of the
Horatii fell, and the survivor of the trio, thinking that he must
eventually become number three if he did not speedily take care of
number one, resolved to stop short this run of ill-luck against his
race, by attempting a run of good luck for his life; or, in other words,
having a race for it. The excellence of his wind saved him from drawing
his last breath, for the Curiatii, starting off in pursuit, soon proved
unequal in their speed, and one shot far in advance of the other two,
who, though stout of heart, were somewhat too stout of body to be as
forward as their nimbler brother in giving chase to their antagonist.
The survivor of the Horatii perceiving this, turned suddenly round upon
the nearest of his foes, and having at once disposed of him, waited
patiently for the other two, who were coming at unequal speed, puffing
and panting after him. A single blow did for the second of the Curiatii,
who was already blown by the effort of running, and it was unnecessary
to do more with the third, who came up completely out of breath, than to
render him incapable of taking in a further supply of that vitally
important article. The last of the Horatii had consequently become the
conqueror, and though when he began to run his life seemed to hang on a
thread, which an unlucky stitch in his side would have finished off, his
flight was the cause of his coming off in the end with flying colours.
After the first of the Curiatii fell, fatness proved fatal to the other
two, for Horatius, by dealing with them _en gros_, as well as _en
detail_, settled all accounts with both of them.
[Illustration: Combat between the Horatii and Curiatii.]
Seeing the result of the contest, Fuffetius, on the part of the Albans,
gave out that they gave in, and the Romans returned home with Horatius
at their head, carrying--in a huge bundle--the spoils of the Curiatii.
At the entrance of the city he met his sister, who, perceiving among the
spoils, a garment of her late lover, embroidered with a piece of work
from her own hands, commenced another piece of work of a most frantic
and desperate character. Maddened at the sight of the yarn she had spun
for the lost object of her affections, she began spinning another yarn
that threatened to be interminable, if her brother had not soon cut the
thread of it. She called him by all kinds of names but his own, and was,
in fact, as noisy and abusive as a conventional "female in distress,"
or, as that alarming and dangerous nuisance, "an injured woman."
Horatius, who had found the blades of three assailants less cutting than
a sister's tongue, interrupted her as she ran through her wrongs, by
running her through with his sword, accompanying the act with the
exclamation, "Thus perish all the enemies of Rome." Notwithstanding the
excitement and _éclat_ attending the triumphant entry of Horatius into
Rome, the proper officer of the period, whoever he may have been, was
evidently not only on duty, but prepared to do it, for the victorious
fratricide, or sororicide, was at once hurried off to the nearest Roman
station. Having been taken before the king, his majesty saw great
difficulties in the case, and was puzzled how to dispose of it. Taking
out the scales of justice, he threw the heavy crime of Horatius into
one; but the services performed for his country, when cast into the
other scale, seemed to balance the matter pretty evenly. Tullus,
therefore, referred the case to another tribunal, which sentenced the
culprit to be hanged, but he was allowed to have so capitally acquitted
himself in the fight, that he was acquitted of the capital punishment.
This was commuted for the penalty of passing under the yoke, which
consisted of the ceremony of walking under a pike raised upright on two
others, and at these three pikes the only toll placed upon his crime was
levied.
The fallen warriors were honoured with tombs in the form of
sugar-loaves, by which the unsatisfactory sweets of posthumous renown
were symbolised. Fuffetius, who though not wounded in his person, was
fearfully wounded in his pride by the result of the conflict, felt so
jealous of Tullus, that the former, though afraid to burst into open
revolt, determined on the really more revolting plan of treachery. The
rival soldiers had now to combine their forces against the Veientines
and the Fidenates, and, having set out together, they soon found the foe
drawn up in battle array, when Tullus with his Romans faced the
Veientines, and Mettius with his Albans formed a _vis à vis_ to the
Fidenates. When the conflict commenced, the Alban wing showed the white
feather, and Fuffetius gradually withdrew his forces to an adjacent
hill, which he lowered himself by ascending for the purpose of watching
the turn of events, so that he might declare himself on the side of
victory. Tullus saw the unmanly manœuvre, but winked at it, and rushed
like winking upon the Fidenates, who ran so fast that their discretion
completely out-ran their valour. The Roman leader then turned his eyes,
arms, and legs towards the Veientines, who fled towards the Tiber, into
which they desperately dived, but many of them, for divers reasons,
never got out again. The perfidious Albans, headed by Mettius Fuffetius,
now came down into the plain, and putting on a plain, straightforward
manner, he congratulated Tullus on the victory. Pretending not to have
noticed their treachery, he invited them all to a sacrifice on the
following day, and having particularly requested them to come early,
they were on the ground by sunrise, but were completely in the dark as
to the intentions of T. Hostilius. The Romans at a given signal closed
in upon the Albans, who were informed that their city should be razed,
or rather, lowered to the ground, and, that their chief, who had pulled
a different way from his new ally, should be fastened to horses who
should be driven in opposite directions. This cruel sentence, upon which
we have scarcely patience to bestow a sentence of our own, was
barbarously carried into execution. Alba fell to the ground; which is
all we have been able to pick up relating to the subject of this portion
of our history.
The remainder of the reign of Hostilius was occupied with military
successes; but he neglected the worship of the gods, who it is said
evinced their anger by a tremendous shower of stones on the Alban Mount,
in order to soften his flinty heart, by making him feel the weight of
their displeasure. From the extreme of indifference he went to the
opposite extreme of superstition, and called upon Jupiter to send him a
sign--which was, in fact, a sign of the King's head being in a
lamentable condition. The unhappy sovereign, imitating his predecessor
Numa, attempted some experiments in the hope of drawing down some
lightning, but it was not likely that one who had conducted himself so
badly could be a better conductor of the electric fluid, and the result
was, that though he learned the art of attracting the spark, it flashed
upon him with such force that he instantly expired.
Such is the tradition with reference to the death of Tullus; but it is
hard to say whether the accounts handed down to us have been
overcharged, or whether the clouds were in that condition. Some
speculators insinuate that the royal experimentalist owed his sad fate
to some mismanagement of his electrical jar while attempting to produce
an unnatural jarring of the elements. The good actions of Tullus were so
few, that his fame will not afford the omission of one, and being
desirous to put the best construction we can upon his works, we give him
credit for the construction of the Curia Hostilia, whose site still
meets the eye near the northern angle of the Palatine. Ambassadors are
spoken of as existing in the reign of Tullus Hostilius, but whether they
owe their origin to Numa, who went before, or to Ancus Martius, who came
after him, is so much a matter of doubt, that some historians, in trying
to meet the claims of both half-way, stop short of giving the merit to
either. Tullus may, at all events, have the credit of employing, if he
did not institute, the art of diplomacy in Rome; for he appointed
ambassadors, as we have already seen, to negotiate with the Albans.
These envoys were called Feciales, the chief of whom wore on his head a
fillet of white wool, with a quantity of green herbs, formed into a
turban, which must have had somewhat the appearance of a fillet of veal,
with the ingredients for stuffing. His duty was to proceed to the
offending country, and proclaim his wrongs upon the border, though there
might be no one there to listen, and having crossed the boundary--if his
indignation happened to know any bounds--he was to astonish the first
native he met by a catalogue of grievances. On reaching a city, the
ambassador went over the old story to the soldier at the gate, just as
though, at Storey's gate, an irritated foreigner should pour out his
country's real or imaginary wrongs to the sentinel on duty. To this
recital the soldier would, of course, be as deaf as his post, and the
Fecialis would then proceed to lay his complaint before the magistrates.
In the event of his obtaining no redress, he returned home for a spear,
and killing a pig with one end, he poked the fire with the other. The
instrument being thus charred in the handle and blood-stained at the
point, became an appropriate emblem of hostility, and the Fecialis
declared war by stirring it up with the long pole, which he threw across
the enemy's boundary.
After the death of Tullus Hostilius, the people lost no time in choosing
Ancus Martius, a grandson of Numa, for their sovereign. The new king
copied his grandfather, which he had a perfect right to do, but he
imposed on the Pontifex Maximus the very severe task of copying on white
tables the somewhat ponderous works of Pompilius, which were posted up
for the perusal of the populace.
Though partial on the whole to peace, Ancus was not afraid of war, and,
when his kingdom was threatened, he was quite ready to fight for it. He
subdued the Latins, and having first settled them in the field, allowed
them to settle themselves in the city. He enlarged Rome, but abridged
the distance between different parts by throwing the first bridge across
the Tiber, and his name has come down to posterity in the ditch of the
Quirites which he caused to be dug for the defence of the city, against
those who were unlikely to go through thick and thin for the purpose of
invading it. He also built a prison in the heart of the city, and what
might be truly termed a heart of stone, for the prison was formed of a
quarry, and is still in existence as a monument of the hard lot of its
inmates. Ancus Martius further signalised his reign by founding the city
of Ostia at the Tiber's mouth, and thus gave its waters the benefit of
that port which so much increased their value. On the spot may still be
seen some ruins supposed to belong to a temple dedicated to the winds,
among whom the greater part of the temple has long since been
promiscuously scattered. Salt-works were also established in its
neighbourhood, but the _sal_ was of that volatile kind that none now
remains from which buyers could fill their cellars. Ancus Martius
reigned for a period of twenty-four years, and either in tranquillity or
war--whether engaged in the works of peace, or embroiled in a piece of
work--he proved himself thoroughly worthy of his predecessors, and, in
fact, he left far behind him many who had gone before him in the task of
government.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Val. Maximùs, i. 1. § 4.
[9] There exist, in the British Museum, books older than the time of
Numa, written by the Egyptians, on these palm leaves, which show, in one
sense, the palmy state of literature at that early period.
CHAPTER THE THIRD.
FROM THE ACCESSION OF TARQUINIUS PRISCUS TO THE DEATH OF SERVIUS
TULLIUS.
[Illustration]
It is the opinion of the best authorities that the Muse of History has
employed her skipping-rope in passing, or rather skipping, from the
grave of Ancus Martius to the throne of Tarquinius Priscus; for there is
a very visible gap yawning between the two; and as we have no wish to
set the reader yawning in sympathy with the gap, we at once drag him
away from it.
Plunging into the times of Tarquinius Priscus, we describe him as the
son of a Corinthian merchant, who, being compelled to quit his country
for political reasons, had withdrawn all his Corinthian capital, and
settled at Tarquinii, an Etruscan city. Having fallen in love with a
lady of the place, or, more poetically speaking, deposited his
affections in an Etruscan vase, he became a husband to her, and the
father of two children, named respectively Lucumo and Aruns. Poor Aruns
had a very brief run, and soon met his death; but we cannot say how or
where, for we have no report of the meeting. Lucumo married Tanaquil, an
Etruscan lady, of great beauty and ambition, who professed to dive into
futurity; and, guided by this diving belle, he threw himself into the
stream of events, in the hope of being carried onwards by the tide of
fortune. She persuaded him that Tarquinii was a poor place, where
nothing was to be done; that his foreign extraction prevented him from
being properly drawn out; and that Rome alone could afford him a field
wide enough for his vast abilities. Driven by his wife, he jumped up
into his chariot, which was an open one, and was just entering Rome,
when his cap was suddenly removed from his head by a strange bird, which
some allege was an eagle; though, had they said it was a lark, we should
have believed them far more readily. Lucumo followed his hat as well as
he could with his eyes; but his wife was so completely carried away with
it, that she declared the circumstance told her he would gain a crown,
though it really proved how nearly he had lost one; for until the bird
replaced his hat upon his head, there was only a bare possibility of his
getting it back again.
The wealth of his wife enabled Lucumo to live in the first style of
fashion; and having been admitted to the rights of citizenship, he
changed his name to Lucius Tarquinius: for the sake, perhaps, of the
sound, in the absence of any sounder reason. He was introduced at Court,
where he won the favour of Ancus, who was so much taken by his dashing
exterior, that he gave him a commission in the army, as Tribunus
Celerum, a sort of Captain of the Guards, who, from the title of
Celeres, appear to have been, as we have before observed, the fast men,
as opposed to the "slow coaches" of the period.
[Illustration: Celeres.]
The Captain made himself so generally useful to Ancus, that when the
latter died, his two sons were left to the guardianship of the former,
who, on the day fixed for the election of a new king, sent his wards to
the chase, that they might be pursuing other game, instead of looking
after the Crown, which Tarquinius had set his own eye upon. In the
absence of the youths, Tarquinius, who had got the name of Priscus, or
the old hand, which he seems to have well deserved, proposed himself as
a candidate; and, in a capital electioneering speech, put forth his own
merits with such success, that he was voted on to the throne without
opposition.
The commencement of his reign was not very peaceful, for he was attacked
by the Latins; but he gave them a very severe Latin lesson, and,
crushing them under his feet, sent them back to that part of Italy
forming the lower part of the boot, with the loss of considerable booty.
He, nevertheless, found time for all manner of games; and he instituted
the Ludi Magni, which were great sport, in a space he marked out as the
Circus Maximus.
The position of the Circus was between the Palatine and Aventine Hills,
there being a slope on either side, so that the people followed the
inclination of nature as well as their own in selecting the spot for
spectacular purposes. In the earliest times a Circus was formed of
materials brought by the spectators themselves, who raised temporary
scaffolds, from which an unfortunate drop, causing fearful execution
among the crowd, would frequently happen. Tarquinius Priscus, desirous
of giving more permanent accommodation to the Roman sight seers, built a
Circus capable of containing 150,000 persons, and, from its vast
superiority in size over other similar buildings, it obtained the
distinction of Maximus. The sports of the Circus were extremely
attractive to the Romans, who looked to the _libelli_, containing the
lists of the horses, and names and colours of the drivers, with all the
eagerness of a "gentleman sportsman" seeking information from Dorling's
correct card at Epsom. In the early days of Rome the amusements of the
Circus were limited to the comparatively harmless contests of equestrian
speed; and it was not until the city had reached a high state of
refinement--cruelty having become refined like everything else--that
animals were killed by thousands, and human beings by hundreds at a
time, to glut the sanguinary appetites of the prince and the people. The
ancient Circus was circular at one end only, and the line of seats was
broken by a sort of outwork, supposed to have comprised the box and
retiring-room of the sovereign; while, at the opposite side, was another
deviation from the line of seats, to form a place for the _editor
spectaculorum_--a box for the manager. Though Tarquinius is said to have
founded the Circus Maximus in commemoration of his victory over the
Latins, they were not the only foes whom he might have boasted of
vanquishing.
Having fought and conquered the Sabines, he took from them Collatræ, as
a collateral security for their good behaviour; and coming home with a
great deal of money, he built the Temple of Jupiter on the capitol.
Tarquinius, being desirous of increasing the army, was opposed by a
celebrated augur of the day, one Attus Navius, whose reputation seems to
have been well deserved, if the annexed anecdote is to be believed; for
it indicates that he could see further into a whetstone than any one who
has either gone before or followed him. Navius declared that augury must
determine whether the plan of Tarquinius could be carried out, which
caused the latter to ask, sneeringly, whether he knew what he was
thinking about. The question was ambiguous, but Navius boldly replied he
did, and added, that what Tarquinius proposed to do was perfectly
possible. "Is it indeed," said the King, "I was thinking of cutting
through this whetstone with this razor." "It will be a close shave," was
the reply of the augur, "but it can be done, so cut away;" and the
bluntness of the observation was only equalled by the sharpness of the
blade, which cut the article in two as easily as if it had been a pound
of butter, instead of a stone of granite. This reproof was literally
more cutting than any other that could have been possibly conveyed to
the king, who ever afterwards paid the utmost respect to the augurs, of
whom he was accustomed thenceforth to say, that the affair of the
whetstone proved them to be much sharper blades than he had been willing
to take them for.