period, has been handed down to us; and it is sufficiently interesting
to be handed on to the readers of this work, who are at liberty either
to take it up, or to set it down at its real value. It is said that
Tarquin was waited upon by a female, who brought with her nine books,
and, expressing herself willing to do business, asked three hundred
pieces of gold for the entire set of volumes. The King pooh-poohed the
proposition, on the ground of the exorbitant price, and desired her to
be off with the books, when she solemnly advised him not to off with the
bargain. Finding him obstinate, the woman, who was, it seems, a sibyl,
and eked out her bookseller's profits by the business of a prophetess,
threw into the flames three of the volumes, which, assuming, for a few
minutes, the aspect of illuminated copies, soon left no traces--not even
a spark--of any genius by which they might have been inspired. The
sibyl, soon after, paid a second visit to Tarquin, bringing with her the
six remaining volumes; and having asked in vain the same sum for the
imperfect copy as she had done for the whole work, she went through a
sort of second edition of Burns, by throwing three more of her books
into the fire. To the surprise of Tarquin, she appeared a third time
with her stock of books, now reduced to three; and upon the King's
observing to her "What do you want for these?" she replied that three
hundred pieces of gold was her price; that she made no abatement; that
if the books were not instantly bought, they would speedily be converted
into light literature, and being condensed into one thick volume of
smoke, would, of course, take their final leaves of the royal residence.
The King, astonished at the woman's pertinacity, resolved at last to
send for a valuer, to look at the books, who declared them to be well
worth the money. They contained a variety of remedies for diseases,
directions for preparing sacrifices, and other interesting matter, with
a collection of the oracles of Cumæ, by way of appendix, so that the
volumes formed a sort of encyclopædia, embracing the advantages of a
Cookery Book, a Buchan's Domestic Medicine, and a Complete
Fortune-teller. Tarquin[10] became the purchaser of these three very odd
volumes, which seem to have been estimated less according to their
intrinsic value, than the price they had brought; and they were
carefully put away in the Temple library.
It was the desire of the Government to prevent the people from knowing
what these books might contain, and the office of librarian was
entrusted to two individuals of illustrious birth, under the idea--not
very flattering to aristocracy--that patricians would be found the best
promoters of ignorance. One of these officers, having acted so
inconsistently with his rank, as to have imparted some information to a
fellow-citizen, was dismissed from his place and thrown into the sea in
a bag; so that he may be said, by the heartless punster, to have got the
sack in a double meaning.
While building operations were going on at home, destruction was being
dealt out abroad; and the Gabii being about twelve miles from Rome, were
the objects of the King's hostility. Having sent one of his captains
against them, who was repulsed by a major force, Tarquinius resolved on
trying treachery. He accordingly despatched his son, Sextus, to complain
of ill-treatment at his father's hands, and to implore the pity of the
Gabii, who were gabies enough not only to believe the story, but even to
appoint Sextus their general. He was ultimately chosen their governor;
and finding the Gabii completely in his hands, he sent to his own
governor--Tarquinius--to know what to do with them. The King was in the
garden when the messenger arrived; and whenever the latter asked a
question, the former made no reply, but kept knocking off the heads of
the tallest poppies with his walking-stick. The messenger ventured to
intimate, once or twice, that he was waiting for an answer; but the
heads of the poppies flying off in all directions, he began to tremble
for his own, and he flew off himself, to prevent accidents. On his
return, he mentioned the circumstances to Sextus, who regarded the
poppies as emblems of the Gabii; and, indeed, the latter seemed so
thoroughly asleep, that the comparison was no less just than odious.
Sextus, taking the paternal hint, knocked off several of the heads of
the people; and keeping up the allegory to the fullest extent, cut off
the flower of the Gabii. Many of their fairest blossoms perished by a
too early blow; and being thus deprived of what might fairly be termed
its primest pick, the soil was soon planted with the victorious
standards of Tarquinius. He, however, instead of introducing any apple
of discord, judiciously grafted the Gabian on the Roman stock; and thus
cultivated the only really valuable fruits of victory.
[Illustration: The Evil Conscience of Tarquin.]
Tarquin was a great deal troubled by the signs of the times; or, rather,
he was made so uncomfortable by an evil conscience, that if a snake
appeared in his path, it seemed to hang over him like a horrible load;
and if he went to sleep, there was a mare's-nest always at hand, to
trouble him with a night-mare. He dreamed that some eagles had built in
his gardens, and that in their temporary absence from the nest, some
vultures had breakfasted on the new-laid eggs, and, armed with their
beaks, taken possession of the deserted small tenement. Unable to drive
the vultures out of his head, he was anxious to ascertain the meaning of
the omen, for he had become so superstitious, that if he saw a sparrow
dart from a branch, he regarded it as an emblem that he was himself
about to hop the twig in some unexpected manner. Doubting the efficiency
of his own augurs, on whom he was beginning to throw some of the
discredit to which prophets in their own country are liable, Tarquin
resolved on seeking the aid of foreign talent; and as the omens were
worse than Greek to him, he sent to the oracles at Delphi, thinking if
the matter was Greek to them they would be able to interpret it. His
messengers to the fortune-tellers were his two sons, Aruns and Titus,
together with his nephew, one Lucius Junius Brutus, who, though an
extremely sensible young man, was in the habit of playing the fool, in
order to avert the suspicions of his uncle. Though Brutus assumed the
look of an idiot, and generally had his eye on vacancy, it was only to
conceal the fact that a vacancy on the throne was what he really had his
eye upon. Valuable gifts were taken to the oracle, which was slow to
speak in the absence of presents. When Brutus put a _báton_ into the
hand of the Priestess, she knew, by the weight, that the _báton_ was a
hollow pretext for the conveyance of a bribe, which she looked for,
found, and pocketed. On the strength of a large lump of gold, thus
cunningly conveyed to the Priestess, Brutus ventured to ask who would be
the next King of Rome, to which she replied by a recommendation that
all the applicants should go home to their mothers, for that "he who
kissed his mother first should be the one to govern." Titus and Aruns
made at once for their mamma, and eager to kiss her, ran as fast as they
could to catch the first bus, but Brutus, whom they had perhaps tripped
up, to prevent his getting a fair start, saluted his mother earth with a
smack of the lip in return for the blow on the face that his fall had
occasioned him.
When the ambassadors returned to Rome they found Tarquin as nervous as
ever; and there is little doubt, that if tea had been known in those
days, the King would have sat for ever over his cups, endeavouring to
read the grounds for his fears in the grounds of the beverage. The
treasury having been exhausted by his building speculations, the people
were growing more dissatisfied every day; and, in order to turn their
discontent away from home, he engaged them in a quarrel with Ardea, a
city situated on a lofty rock, against which the Romans threw themselves
with a sort of dashing energy. The attempt to take the place by a common
assault and battery was vain, for the rock stood firm; and it was
probable, that if the Romans remained at the gates, and continued
knocking over and over again, they would ultimately be compelled to
knock under. They therefore resolved on hemming the Ardeans in, as there
was no chance of whipping them out, and military works were run in a
continuous thread round the borders of the city.
The Romans, acting as a sort of army of occupation, had, of course,
scarcely any occupation at all; and there being nothing that soldiers
find it so difficult to kill as their time, the officers were in the
habit of going halves in suppers at each other's quarters. At one of
these entertainments the King's sons, and their cousin, one Tarquinius,
surnamed Collatinus, from the town of Collatia, were discussing the
merits of their respective wives, and each of the officers, with an
uxuriousness among the military that the commonest civility would have
restrained, was praising his own wife at the expense of all others.
It was at length agreed that the husbands should proceed forthwith to
Rome, and that having paid an unexpected visit to all the ladies, the
palm should be awarded to her who should be employed in the most
praiseworthy way, when thus unceremoniously popped in upon. They first
visited the wife of Sextus, who had got a large evening party and ball
at home, and who was much confused by this unexpected revelation of her
midnight revels. Dancing was at its height; and as a great writer has
said of dancing among the Romans, "_Nemo fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte
insaniat_,"[11]--any one who dances must be either very drunk, or stark
mad,--we may guess the state of the company that Sextus found at his
residence. In one corner the game of _Par et Impar_--"odd or
even"--might perhaps have been played; for nothing can be more purely
classical than the origin of some of those sports which form almost the
only pretexts for the employment of our modern street-keepers. A portion
of the guests might have been amusing themselves with the _Tali_, or
"knuckle-bones," others might have been employed at _Jactus
bolus_--"pitch and toss;" while here and there among the revellers might
have been heard the familiar cry of _Aut caput aut navem_--the "heads or
tails" of antiquity.
[Illustration: Mrs. Sextus consoles herself with a Little Party.]
Their next call was at the house of Collatinus, whose wife, Lucretia,
was also engaged with a ball, but it was of cotton, and instead of
devoting herself to the whirl of the dance, she was spinning with her
maids, by way of spinning out the long, dreary hours of her husband's
absence. Sextus at once admitted that Collatinus had indeed got a
treasure of a wife, and the officers returned to the camp; but a few
evenings afterwards, availing himself of the introduction of her
husband, Sextus paid the lady a second visit. Being a kinsman, he was
asked to make himself at home, but his manner became so strange, that
Lucretia could not make him out; and as he did not seem disposed to go
home till morning, she retired to her chamber, with the impression, no
doubt, that being left alone in the sitting-room he would take the hint,
order his horse, and proceed to his lodgings. Lucretia was, however,
disturbed in the middle of the night by Sextus, who was standing over
her with a drawn sword, and who was guilty of such brutal insolence,
that she sent a messenger, the first thing in the morning, to fetch her
husband from Ardea, and her father from Rome, who speedily arrived with
his friend, P. Valerius, a highly respectable man, who afterwards got
the name of Publicola. Collatinus brought with him L. J. Brutus, and
Lucretia having rapidly run through the story of her wrongs, she still
more rapidly run through herself before any one had time to arrest the
deadly weapon. Revenge against Tarquin and his whole race was instantly
sworn, in a sort of quartette, by the four friends, and L. J. Brutus,
snatching up the dagger, made a great point of it in a speech he
addressed to the people in the market place. Indignation was now
thoroughly roused against the Tarquin family, and Brutus, proceeding to
Rome, called a public meeting in the Forum. He opened the business of
the day by stating what had been done, and having made his deposition he
proposed the deposition of the king; when it was moved, by way of
amendment, and carried unanimously, that the resolution should be
extended by the addition of the words, "and the banishment of his wife
and family." A volunteer corps was at once formed to set out for Ardea,
where the king was supposed to be; but on hearing of the insurrection,
he had at once decamped from the camp, and proceeded to Rome, where he
found the gates closed, and feeling himself shut out from the throne, he
took refuge with his two sons, Titus and Aruns, at Caere, in Etruria.
There history loses sight of the old king, but Sextus has been traced to
Gabii, a principality of which he thought he was the head; but the
people soon undeceived him, by showing him they would have no head at
all, for they cut him off one day in a tumult.
Tullia had fled, and it is not known whither; but mercy to the fallen
king would lead us to hope that the queen had gone in a different
direction from that which he had taken. The Ardeans agreed to a truce
for fifteen years--a somewhat lengthy letter of license--during which
all hostile proceedings were to be stayed, and the people decreed the
total abolition of the kingly dignity. The royal stock was converted, as
it were, into consuls, and L. Junius Brutus, with L. Tarquinius
Collatinus, were elected for one year, to fill the latter character.
Before closing an account of what is usually termed the kingly period of
the history of Rome, it is due to truth to state, that though some of
the alleged kings were good and others were bad, they must all be
considered as very doubtful characters. The fact of their existence
depends on no better authority than certain annals, compiled more than
a century and a half after the materials for compiling them had been
destroyed; and we are thus driven to rely upon the statements of certain
story-tellers, belonging, we fear, to a class, whose memories, according
to the proverb, ought to be excellent. In pretending to recollect what
they never knew, they have sometimes forgotten themselves, and in
building up their stories, they have shown how mere fabrication may
raise an ostensibly solid fabric.
Of the seven kings, who are said to have ruled in Rome during a period
of nearly two hundred and fifty years, three or four were murdered;
another subsided in a bog, and another ran for his life, which he saved
by his speed, though he was the last of the race of royalty. It is
difficult to spread these seven sovereigns over a space of two centuries
and a half, and we feel that we might as well attempt to cover an acre
of bread with a thin slice of ham, or turn the river Thames into negus
by throwing a few glasses of sherry into it. Of the earliest Roman
annals, some were burnt, leaving nothing to the student but the tinder,
from which it is, in these days, hardly possible to obtain much light,
but the greater portion of the early history of Rome has come down to us
by tradition, that extraordinary carrier, who is continually adding to
the bulk, but diminishing the weight of the matters consigned to it for
delivery.
Of the condition of the people at this early period little or nothing
can be known, and to amuse ourselves with idle guesses, would be
scarcely better than to turn into a game of blindman's buff the
important business of history. We can however state, with confidence,
that the earliest Romans had no regular coinage, but were in the habit
of answering with brass, in the rudest shape, the demands of their
creditors. Servius Tullius is reputed to have been the first who
converted the brass into coin, and marked it with the figure of a horse
or some other animal,[12] as an emblem, perhaps, of the fact, that money
runs away very rapidly.
Among the early Romans, the most honourable occupations were agriculture
and war; the latter enabling the citizens to make a conquest of the soil
with the sword, and the former teaching them to subdue it to their
purposes by the implements of husbandry. Trade and commerce were held in
contempt, and left to the plebeians; the patrician considering himself
suitably employed only when he was thrashing his corn, or performing the
same operation on his enemies.
During the early existence of the city the native artists were few, and
the great works of architecture undertaken by the later kings were
embellished by foreign talent from Etruria. The writing-master had made
so little progress in ancient Rome, that it is doubtful whether many of
the patricians could write their own names; and even some of the most
distinguished characters of the day were men of mark, not only by their
position, but by their signatures.
It is not very gratifying to the friends of education to find that
though ignorance was almost universal among the early Romans, there was
a wholesome tone of morality among the people, which led them, not only
to condemn in their traditions the cruelty and laxity of principle
prevailing in the family of their last king, but to pay due reverence to
the domestic virtues of Lucretia. The legend of the latter being found
spinning with her maids, while the princesses of the house of Tarquin
were reeling in the dance, during the absence of their respective
husbands, is sufficient to show the estimation in which decency and
sobriety were held, as well as the odium that attached to riotous
revelry. The patrician youth of infant and unlettered Rome would have
been ashamed of those nocturnal gambols which have prevailed among
portions of the juvenile aristocracy and gentry in more civilised
countries, and in a more enlightened age, when door-knockers, and
bell-handles, have been carried off as the _spolia opima_ of some
disorderly triumph.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Some say that Tarquinius Priscus bought the books; but it is of
little consequence who was the real buyer, as the whole story is very
probably "a sell" on the part of the narrators, as well as of the sibyl.
[11] Cicero. It is true this was said at a much later time than that of
which we are now writing; but dancing, except in connection with certain
ceremonies, was considered degrading by the Romans from the earliest
period.
[12] Hence, from the word _pecus_, cattle, was derived _pecunia_,
signifying money, and giving rise to our own word "pecuniary."
CHAPTER THE FIFTH.
FROM THE BANISHMENT OF TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS TO THE BATTLE OF LAKE
REGILLUS.
[Illustration]
Brutus, who had gained his eminence by swearing that there should be no
monarch or single ruler in Rome, found himself in sole possession of the
supreme authority. His position presents nothing very remarkable to the
modern observer, who is accustomed to see those who have denounced a
system yesterday participating in the profits of the same system to-day,
and declaring their own arguments to be thoroughly out of place, as
applied to themselves when in office. Brutus, however, could not
consistently exercise a power he had sworn to overthrow; and to carry
out his anti-monarchical principles, he had either to go out himself, or
to ask for a colleague. On the same principle that prefers the half
quartern to utter loaflessness, Brutus proposed a partnership in the
government; and Collatinus was taken into the firm, which proved to have
no firmness at all, for it was dissolved very speedily. The difficulty
of agreement between two of the same trade was severely felt by the two
popular reformers, who were dividing the substance without the name of
that power they had vowed to destroy; it was soon evident that if they
had thought it too much for one, they considered it not enough for two;
and they were accordingly always quarrelling. To prevent collision, they
tried the experiment of taking the supreme authority by turns, each
assuming the fasces for a month at a time; but this alternate chopping
of the regal sticks, or fasces, which were the emblems of power, led to
nothing satisfactory.
A question at length arose, upon which the duality of the ruling mind
was so distinctly marked, that the two consuls, whose very name is
derived from _con_, with, and _salio_, to leap, were trying to leap in
two opposite ways; and an end of their own power was the only conclusion
to which they were likely to jump together. Tarquin had retired to
Caere, waiting the chances of a restoration of his line; but his line
had fallen into such contempt, that he was fishing in vain for his
recall, though he nevertheless sent ambassadors to demand the
restoration of himself, or at all events of his private property.
The senate decreed that though Tarquin could not have the fasces, he was
at liberty to make a bundle of all the other sticks that might belong to
him. On this question Brutus and Collatinus were violently opposed, and
both becoming hot, their excessive warmth led to a mutual coolness that
ended in an open hostility, which shut out every hope of compromise.
Collatinus gave in by going out, and was succeeded by P. Valerius, one
of the party of four who had roused the popular spirit over the bier of
Lucretia.
Tarquin's ambassadors, instead of being satisfied with the permission to
remove his goods, had other objects in the back-ground; for they had a
plan for his restoration in the rear, while they let nothing appear in
the van, but the late king's furniture. The plot was being discussed
after dinner, by a party of the conspirators, when one of the waiters,
who had concealed himself behind the door, overheard the scheme, and ran
to Valerius with the exclusive intelligence. The traitors were secured,
and when they were brought up before the consuls, Brutus recognising
among the offenders his two sons, subjected both them and himself to a
very severe trial. Asking them what they had to say to the charge, and
getting "nothing" in reply, he looked in the faces of his sons, and
declaring that he must class all malefactors under one general head,
which must be cut off, he called upon the lictors to do their duty. In
leaving the other prisoners to be tried by Valerius, Brutus whispered to
his colleague, "Now try them, and acquit them, if you can;" but he could
only execute the law, and the law could only execute the criminals. The
ambassadors were allowed to remain at large, though their plotting
proved that they had been at something very little; and the government
withdrew the permission that had been granted for the removal of
Tarquin's goods, which were divided by means of a scramble among the
populace.
Thus Tarquin, who had broken the twenty valuable tables of Servius, was
doomed to have the tables turned upon him by the destruction of his own,
while every leaf of the former was restored under the Consular
government. The landed estates of the Tarquins were distributed among
the plebeians, so that the banished family had no chance of recovering
their lost ground, which was afterwards known as the Field of Mars, or
Campus Martius. The corn on the confiscated property was ripe; but the
people felt a conscientious objection to consuming the produce which no
labour of their own had reared; and they did not allow the tyrant's
grain to outweigh their honest scruple. Throwing all idea of profit
overboard, they cast the corn into the Tiber, which, it is said, was so
shallow, that the sheaves stuck in the mud, and formed the small island
known as the Insula Tiberina. That a piece of land, however small,
should be formed by a crop of corn, however plentiful, is difficult to
believe: but the story of the wheat can only find reception from the
very longest ears; for common sense will admit that in the effort to
give credit to the tale, it must go thoroughly against the grain on a
proper sifting of all the evidence.
Tarquin relinquishing his hopes of a restoration by stratagem, resolved
on resorting to strategy, and brought into the field a large army, of
which the Veii formed a considerable part, and his son Aruns headed the
Etruscan cavalry. The Roman consuls commanded their own forces; Valerius
being at the head of the foot, and Brutus mounted on a clever cob, with
a strong sword, that might be called a useful hack, taking the lead of
the equestrians. When Aruns entered the field, he recognised Brutus in
Tarquin's cloak, and the young man felt the blood mantling with
indignation into his cheek at the first sight of the mantle. He
instantly made for Brutus, who with equal eagerness made for Aruns, and
so violent was the collision, that the breath was knocked at one blow
out of both their bodies.
[Illustration: Aruns and Brutus.]