fate, and both armies withdrew to their camps; but neither would allow
the other the credit of a victory. The legend goes on to state that the
god Silvanus--an alarmist among the classical deities, and synonymous
with Pan--was heard shouting in the night that the Etruscans having lost
one man more than the Romans, the latter had gained the battle. This
announcement of the result of the contest, though only by a majority of
one, so alarmed the Etruscans, who were always panic struck at the voice
of Pan, that they took to flight, leaving the enemy to carry everything
before them, including all the property that the fugitives had left
behind them. The remains of Brutus were brought to the Forum, where they
lay in state; but the state in which they lay was truly deplorable; for
the deceased consul had been so knocked about, that had he been alive,
he would scarcely have known himself, even by the aid of reflection. His
colleague, Valerius, delivered an oration over his departed virtues,
making a catalogue of the whole, and fixing the highest price to every
one of them.
The question of "Shall Brutus have a statue?" was soon answered in the
affirmative, and he was placed among the kings, though he had destroyed
the monarchy. Where failure constitutes the traitor, success makes the
patriot: and upon the merest accident may depend the question whether
the originator of a design against a bad government shall go to the
block of the sculptor, or to that of the executioner.
P. Valerius was in no hurry to ask the people for a colleague, and he
for some time did the whole of the business of the chief magistracy
himself; so that had it not been for the mere name of the office, Rome
might just as well have remained a monarchy. This fact seems to have
flashed at last on the public mind; and when it was found that P.
Valerius was building himself a stone residence, in a strong position, a
rumour was spread abroad that he was aiming at the foundation of his own
house, or family, in the kingly power. On hearing the report he
immediately stopped the works of his intended residence, and having
called a meeting of the curiæ, he appeared before them with his fasces
reversed; a sign that the bundles of rods were not intended to be used
on the backs of the people alone, but that they were held, as it were,
in trust, and in pickle for the punishment of delinquency in general.
This treatment of the fasces so fascinated the people, that they
acquitted P. Valerius of every charge, and acknowledging their
suspicions of a plot to be groundless, they gave him a plot of ground to
build his house upon. Pleased with the taste of popularity, he continued
to court it with so much success, that he gained the name of Publicola,
or one who honours the public; and he certainly introduced many very
wholesome legal reforms, by dabbling in law, in a spirit truly
lau-dable. He gave an appeal from the magistrate to the people, in cases
where the punishment awarded had been a fine, a whipping, or a hanging;
and in the last instance the provision was extremely salutary, for the
suspending of a sentence might often avoid the necessity for suspending
an alleged criminal. This right of appeal was, however, limited to
within a mile from the city; an arrangement that would have justified
the formation of a league to abolish the mile, as an unnecessary
distinction, of which we can only expose the absurdity, by suggesting
the possibility of an offence committed at Knightsbridge being
punishable at Newgate with immediate death; while the culprit of Holborn
Hill, though nearer the place of execution, would be further from the
scaffold.
Having passed several salutary acts, and secured, as it were, the cream
of popularity to himself, he proposed the election of a colleague who
might share the skim with him. The new consul was Spurius Lucretius; but
poor Spurius enjoyed none of the genuine sweets of power. He was so far
advanced in years, at the period of his advancement to office, that he
had already one foot in the grave, and the other foot went in after it
immediately on his taking his new position. M. Horatius Pulvillius was
chosen in the poor old man's stead, and an incident speedily happened
which caused a difference, leading to something more than personal
indifference between the two consuls. The temple of Jupiter, on the
Capitoline, so called from the incident already related, of the Caput
Toli, or head of Tolus, had not yet been dedicated; and it having been
arranged that the thing was to be done, the next question that arose
was, "Who is to do it?" Both consuls were anxious for the job; and it
was at length arranged that lots should be drawn, in order to settle the
undecided point, which had led to such a decided coolness between P.
Valerius and his colleague. Horatius was the happy man whom fortune
favoured by her choice; and he was in the act of performing the
ceremony, when, without any ceremony at all, a messenger rushed in,
exclaiming that the son of the consul had suddenly expired. Believing
the alarm to be false, Horatius hinted at his suspicion of its being one
of the blackest of jobs, by suggesting that those who brought the news
should go and attend the funeral. "As for me," he exclaimed, "I have
other engagements just now;" and, continuing the work of dedication, he
proceeded to mark the commencement of a new era, by driving a huge nail
into the wall of the temple. Such was the mode by which chronology was
taught to the early Romans, who had their dates literally hammered into
them; and, as long as the consul hit the right nail upon the head, or
went upon the proper tack, mistake was almost impossible.
The first specimen of diplomacy to be met with in the records of Rome
must be referred to the first year of the Republic, when a treaty was
concluded with Carthage, and engraved on brazen tables. The material was
appropriate to the purpose it served; and the language was so obscure,
that a modern treaty could scarcely have surpassed it in ambiguity. Some
parts of it were unintelligible to the most learned of the Romans
themselves; and, had any difference arisen as to the interpretation of
the treaty, the tables must have been left to brazen it out; for no one
could have explained their meaning. Though the document may have
mystified many things, it made one thing clear, for it proved history to
have been wrong in stating that Horatius succeeded Brutus, for they are
described as both being consuls together at the date of the treaty. In
following the ordinary version or perversion of the facts or fictions
connected with the rise of Rome, we take history as we find it; and
though much of it is known to be false, we, by continually making the
admission, prevent the bane from remaining very long without the
antidote.
P. Valerius was still consul, with P. Lucretius for a colleague, when
the old King Tarquin happened to be on a visit, at Clusium, in Etruria,
with the local Lar, Porsenna.[13] After supper, Tarquin often grew
garrulous about his alleged wrongs, and worked on the sympathies of his
host, who declared the Romans should receive, through the medium of
Porsenna, a tremendous physicking. The Lar accordingly set forth at the
head of his army, and its approach being announced, the people in the
suburbs of Rome were frightened out of their wits, and into the city.
Throughout the whole of his journey, Porsenna administered a strong dose
to all that opposed his way; and he scoured the country by the most
drastic system of pillage. On arriving at Rome, he at once forced the
Janiculum, the garrison rushing with their leader at their head, and the
foe almost at their heels, into the city. Nothing was now between the
Romans and their assailants but the wooden bridge, or _Pons Sublicius_;
and when the people asked for consolation from their consul, he had none
to offer them. Looking at the water, he saw there was no time for
reflection; and he ordered the bridge to be cut down, when Horatius
Cocles, the gatekeeper, volunteered to offer a check to the enemy. "I
want but two," cried Horatius, "two only are wanted, to join with me in
throwing for that great stake, the safety of Rome;" and there
immediately presented themselves, as ready to "stand the hazard of the
die," if die they must, the youthful Spurius Lartius of the Neminian
race, and Herminius, belonging to the Tities. The three heroes took
their station at the foot of the bridge, resolved that no one should
pass without paying a poll-tax, in the shape of a blow on the head,
which the valiant trio stood prepared to administer. A shout of derisive
laughter was the only salute they received from the Etruscan army; but
the laughter was soon transferred to the other side of the Etruscan
mouth, and subsided altogether when no less than half-a-dozen tongues
were found to have licked the dust, instead of the enemy. Porsenna's
army had advanced to the sound of trumpets, which seemed no longer in a
flourishing condition, but were as incapable of dealing out a blow as
the soldiers themselves. A few of the troops in the rear shouted
"Forward!" to those in the van; but there was such a determined cry of
"Keep back!" among the foremost men, that all were under the influence
of a general gib, and every rank gave evidence of rank cowardice.
While the Etruscans were shaking in their shoes on one side of the
river, the Romans were shivering their own timbers, and knocking down
beams and rafters on the other. They had razed the bridge to the ground,
or rather lowered it to the water, when they called to their gallant
defenders to come back, while there was still a plank left--a single
deal to enable them to cut over to their partners.
Lartius and Herminius, seeing the game was nearly over, thought the only
card they had to play was to discard their companion, and save
themselves by a trick, which, however, would leave all the honours to
Horatius. The two former darted across just before the remainder of the
bridge fell, splashing into the water below, and rendering the tide
untidy with the broken fragments.
Horatius was now alone in his glory, with the foe before him, and the
flood behind; his only alternative being between a fatally hot reception
by the one, and an uncomfortably cold reception by the other.
Disdaining to beg for mercy from Porsenna, he prayed for pity from the
Tiber, and making a bold plunge, he threw himself on the kind indulgence
of the river. Being fastened up in armour, his case was a particularly
hard one, and being encumbered as he was with his arms, to use his legs
was scarcely possible. He nevertheless got on swimmingly, for his heart
never sank, and at length, feeling his foot touch the bottom, he knew
that his hopes were not groundless.
[Illustration: Horatius Cocles Defending the Bridge.]
By courage and strength Horatius prevailed over every obstacle, and
Cocles owed to the cockles of his heart, as well as to the muscles of
his body, the happy results of his hazardous experiment. To recompense
him for his risk by water, the grateful nation gave him a large portion
of land, and erected his statue in the Comitium, a portion of the Forum
from which orators were in the habit of holding forth, and where the
figure of Horatius was placed to speak for itself to the populace.
Though the enemy was kept out of the city, the Romans were kept in,
while provisions were growing shorter and shorter every day--a sort of
growth that led of course to a constant diminution. Such was the
gratitude of the citizens to Horatius, that they subscribed to give him
always as much as he could eat; and although the fact involves a pun we
abominate, we are obliged to state the truth, that, in order to give him
his desert, many went without their dinners.
The Romans had declared they would hold out to the last, and though they
were left with scarcely any food, though they might have at once
procured it, had they consented to eat their own words, they declined to
satisfy their hunger by such a humiliating process. All hope of saving
the city being apparently lost, the senate entered into an agreement
with one Caius Mucius, who could talk a little Tuscan, and who undertook
to go across the water for the purpose of killing Porsenna. Mucius
disguised himself in an Etrurian helmet--a sort of Tuscan bonnet--and
with a sword concealed under the folds of his ample Roman wrap-rascal,
he arrived at Porsenna's camp, just as the salaries were being paid to
the soldiers. While the troops were intent on drawing their pay, Mucius
slily drew his sword, and seeing an individual rather handsomely
dressed, rushed upon him to administer to him, with the weapon, a most
unhandsome dressing.
The individual thus assailed was rapidly despatched, but it turned out
that the victim, instead of being the king, was an unfortunate scribe,
or writer, who could have been by no means prepared for this unusual
fate of genius. Had the critics unmercifully cut him up, the scribe
would have felt that his death was, to a certain extent, in the way of
business; but to be murdered by mistake for a king, was a result that
any member of the republic of letters might fairly have objected to. It
may appear at first sight startling that a literary man should have been
well-dressed, and in the company of a king, but it must be remembered
that the scribe was not necessarily a man of remarkable ability. His art
was that of a mere copyist, which, even in these days, frequently gains
a reputation for the imitator, who is often confounded with, instead of
being confounded by the man of original genius. The scribes of
antiquity, like many modern writers, did no more than set down the
thoughts of others, and, as their style was extremely hard, consisting
of a piece of iron, with which they wrote upon wax, their works were not
likely to make a very deep or lasting impression.
Our pity for the unfortunate literary character is considerably lessened
by the fact, that being in the camp he had no doubt been dining with the
guards; and we know he was wearing a showy dress--two circumstances
indicating an affectation of the manners of the fast man, which are
always unbecoming to the man of letters.
Mucius was about to retire after the execution of the deed, but he was
seized by the attendants, and then seized by remorse when he was
informed that he had despatched a harmless literary man instead of
Porsenna. Being taken to the king, Mucius found him sitting before the
fire of a large altar. The Etruscan chief, on hearing the charge,
pointed out the penalty that had been incurred, when the prisoner,
thrusting his right hand into the fire, allowed it to remain, with
extraordinary coolness, or, rather, with most intense heat, until it was
consumed as far as the wrist; and he concluded the act of self
incendiarism, by declaring there were three hundred others who were just
as ready as himself to take up arms and burn off a hand, in defiance of
their oppressor. Porsenna, who had watched the painful process with
extreme interest, was so delighted at the fortitude displayed, that he
jumped from his seat, and mentally remarking that "the fellow was a
wonderfully cool hand at an operation of the kind," ordered some guards
to conduct him in safety to Rome; at the same time advising Mucius to
conduct himself more wisely for the future.
[Illustration: Mucius Scævola before Porsenna.]
Mucius returned to Rome, where he obtained the name of Scævola (from
_Scærus_) in consequence of his being left-handed, or it might have been
because of his having evinced such an utter want of dexterity in the
business he had undertaken.
Porsenna, having heard that there were three hundred Romans ready to
take his life, felt uneasy at such fearful odds as three hundred to one
against him; nor could he enjoy a moment's peace with himself until a
peace with Rome was concluded. He sent ambassadors to negotiate a
treaty, which was soon arranged; the only difficulty arising on the
subject of the proposed restoration of Tarquin, which his subjects would
not listen to; and, though he and Porsenna had hitherto rowed in the
same boat, the latter found it absolutely necessary to throw the former
overboard. Rome was compelled to return the territory taken from the
Veii, and Porsenna claimed several hostages, among whom were sundry
young ladies of the principal Roman families. One of these was named
Clælia, who, with other maidens, having resolved on a bold plunge for
their liberty, jumped into the Tiber's bed, and swam like a party of
ducks to the other side of the river. Clælia ran home in her dripping
clothes, but, instead of a warm reception, she was met with a wet
blanket, for her father fearing that her having absconded would be
visited upon Rome, sent her back like a runaway school-girl to the camp
of Porsenna. That individual behaved with his usual magnanimity, for he
not only pardoned Clælia and her companions, but sent them home to their
parents, who, perhaps, knew better than Porsenna how to manage them.
[Illustration: Clælia and her Companions escaping from the Etruscan
Camp.]
The Etruscan monarch seems to have been one of those who could do
nothing by halves, but having once granted quarter to the foe, he was
not satisfied until he had surrendered the whole of what he had taken
from the vanquished. He gave them unprovisionally all the provisions
remaining in his camp, and, in fact, he left behind him so many goods
and chattels, that at public auctions it was customary for many years
afterwards to advertise the effects as "the property of King Porsenna."
Returning to Clusium, he is believed to have shut himself up at home,
and never stirred out again, for we meet with him no more in any of the
highways or byways of history.
The Romans having recovered from the blow, or series of blows, they had
received from Porsenna, were prepared to turn their anger on the subject
nearest at hand, and the Sabines were conveniently situated to receive a
great deal of it. Irritated by the enemy, the Sabines lost their temper
towards each other, and several of them, among whom were Atta Clausus,
or Appius Claudius and family, went over to Rome. The renegades were
received by their new allies with honour; for apostacy, which should
carry with it disgrace, was even in those days treated too often as a
virtue. The Claudii were made patricians of Rome, which seems to have
always courted converts by offering the highest price to those who were
ready to part with their old opinions and principles. Valerius
Publicola--or as some call him, Popli-cola, one who honoured the
people--died soon after the last-mentioned event, and received the
compliment of a magnificent funeral. The procession commenced with a
band of pipers, every one of whom the public paid, and the crown was
carried in state; but on such an occasion as this, the empty crown could
be suggestive of nothing but its own hollowness.
The armour belonging to the deceased was buried with him, as if in
mockery of its uselessness against the attacks of the grim enemy; and
the face was painted, as is still the custom in Italy, where the attempt
to disguise the complexion to which we must come at last, only gives to
the reality a hideousness neither necessary nor natural. After the
funeral of a great or a much lamented man, it was usual to hang branches
of cypress on his house, and his gates were decorated with pine by those
who were left pining after him.
It was about this period that the great battle of Lake Regillus is
supposed to have been fought, when the Latins, who had been trying to
translate into Latin everything belonging to Rome, were at length taught
that the Roman character was strong enough to maintain its own
individuality.
In times of extreme peril, it has always been found that two heads,
instead of being better than one, are likely to neutralise each other,
and to reduce the supreme power under one head is the best mode of
making it effectual. The Romans, when seriously threatened by the
Latins, proceeded at once to the appointment of a dictator, from whose
decrees there should be no appeal; so that whatever he said should be no
sooner said than done--a principle of action which contributes
materially to the success of every great enterprise. P. Lartius was the
first dictator; but we can find no traces of his dictation, and he seems
to have been speedily superseded by Aulus Postumius, whose sword is
said to have been known "to bite,"[14]--a propensity which must have
rendered his blade rather liable to snap, unless its temper was
excellent. The appointment of dictator was only for six months; so that
the people were soon absolved from the absolute power under which they
placed themselves. The best piece of patronage at the disposal of the
dictator, was the place of Master of the Horse, which Aulus conferred on
Æbutius; the latter acting completely under the guidance of the former,
who never parted with the reins while deputing the mastership of the
horse to another. Aulus and Æbutius set forward towards the Lake
Regillus, on the margin of which they waited till it was pitch dark
before they pitched their tent, with the intention of preparing for a
pitched battle.
The Latins were led by Mamilius, and the foe being face to face, engaged
themselves hand to hand with the most desperate energy. According to the
legend, Æbutius and Mamilius, meeting in the thick of the fight, came
individually to blows, which resulted in the unhorsing of the Master of
the Horse, who was almost bored to death with the points of the swords
of the enemy. At one time the battle seemed so much in favour of the
Latins, that Aulus entreated the Romans not to resign themselves to the
ravens, to be crowed over in a double sense, by the birds of prey and
the enemy. So mutual was the slaughter, and so equal the bravery on both
sides, that it would have been difficult to decide the battle; and the
legend, in its equal apportionment of valour to each party, would have
come to no practical result, had not supernatural agency stepped in
opportunely to give to one side the victory. Two gigantic youths were
seen fighting on the Roman side, and though nobody knew their names,
their address was the admiration of every one. Their valour was shown at
the expense of the unfortunate Latins, who, unable to sustain the heavy
charge that was now made upon them, made no further attempt to meet any
engagement, but resorted to flight, as the only act that seemed to offer
benefit.
The warriors wore nothing on their heads, and many surmises arose as to
who they could be; but nobody suspected the truth,--that the heroes,
without helmets or hats, were Castor, who never was unaccompanied by his
friend Pollux, and Pollux, who never went anywhere without his Castor.
The same noble youths were the first to announce in Rome the news of the
victory, acting as "their own reporters" of their own exploits. Having
delivered their message, they disappeared as mysteriously as they came;
for the legend loses sight of them in a horse-trough near the temple of
Vesta. Hither they repaired to water their steeds, and to refresh
themselves at an adjacent well; and those who feel the insatiable thirst
of curiosity, are referred to the bottom of this well for the truth, if
a deeper inquiry into the legend is desired. For many ages a
superstitious reverence was shown for the margin of the Lake Regillus,
where a mark, said to be the impression of a celestial horse's hoof,
remained, to make a lasting impression on the softness of credulity.
We have hitherto been swimming, as well as we can, in the sea of
conjecture, catching eagerly at the lightest cork or bladder, in the
shape of fact, to keep us afloat in the stream of events flowing from
legendary sources.
The continuation of the journey will be chiefly on the _terra firma_ of
fact; and, instead of being, now and then, so thoroughly at sea as to
find ourselves wandering into the wildest latitudes, with no other pilot
than tradition, we shall henceforth, in our progress, have good and
substantial grounds to go upon. Hitherto we have had credulity pulling
at the oars, the idle and uncertain breezes of rumour filling our sails,
and our rudder in the hands of various authorities distinguished for
nothing but their disagreement with each other, and who would, in fact,
be without distinction of any kind if they were without a difference.
We are now about to pursue our journey by a more certain road, to carry
on our history, as it were, by the rail; and, though the line may be a
peculiar one of our own, the train of facts will be regular, coming, we
trust into no violent collision with others pursuing the same path, and
arriving, in due time, at the appointed terminus.
FOOTNOTES: