Patrician looking very black at the Triumph of the General.]
In modern times, the nearest approach we have to a triumph is the
entrance into a country town of a company of equestrians, or a
travelling menagerie. The arrangements were in many respects suitable to
a fair, and it would seem to have been the opinion of the Romans that
none but the brave deserved the fair, for it was only the most eminent
warriors who were awarded the honours of a triumph. There was, however,
something very undignified in the practice of hanging about the
outskirts of the town until regularly called in, which was the usual
course adopted by those who anticipated the glory of a summons from the
senate. It sometimes happened that the summons never arrived, and the
General, who had hoped to make his entry in a chariot and four, was at
last compelled to sneak, unattended, into the city. Such might have been
the lot of L. Valerius and M. Horatius, had it not been for their
popularity, aided, probably, by the senseless love of show, which often
causes the hero to be degraded into the mountebank. As triumphs, like
Lord Mayors' shows, were nearly all the same, the following account will
comprehend, or lead the reader to comprehend, the general features of
these military pageants.
The procession opened with a band of trumpeters, and as much breath as
possible was blown out of the whole body. Next came some men with
boards, inscribed with numerous achievements, and forming, in fact, the
posting bills, or puffing placards, of the principal character. These
were followed by a variety of objects, taken from the enemy, and may be
compared to the properties used in the show, the next feature of which
was a file of flute-players, who walked in a sort of fluted column. Next
in order came the white bulls, or oxen devoted for sacrifice,
accompanied by the slaughtering priests, or holy butchers; and
immediately afterwards a remarkable beast, odd fish, or strange bird,
that had been snared, hooked, or caged, in the conquered country. These
were followed by the arms of the foe, with as many captives as possible,
in chains, and the larger the string of fettered victims, so much the
greater was the amount of "linked sweetness, long drawn out" before the
eye of the conqueror. After these were carried the gifts the General had
received from allied or friendly powers, consisting usually of crowns
made of grass, every blade of which was a tribute to the sword of the
victor. Next came a file of lictors, and then the General himself, in a
chariot and four, with a slave on the footboard behind, whispering in
his ear, to remind him of his being still "a man and a brother."
[Illustration: In all probability something of this sort.]
The Consuls having gained a civil as well as a military triumph, by
their defeat of the patricians, would have been re-elected by
acclamation for another year; but they had the good sense to retire upon
the popularity they had gained, without waiting to become bankrupt of
that very fleeting commodity. The patricians, getting tired of an
exclusiveness which seemed likely to exclude them from real power,
condescended to vie with the plebeians as candidates for the office of
Tribune. They judiciously came to the conclusion that it was better to
cast their pride under foot, than to stand too much upon their dignity;
and the result was, that, by the election of two of their order, they
obtained a voice in the new government.
Popular measures were now the order of the day; and C. Canuleius, one of
the tribunes, brought in a bill to legalise the connubium between the
Patres and the Plebs, so that the fathers of the senate might marry the
daughters of the people. This proposition for an enlargement of the
connubial noose gave rise to several very knotty points, and to much
opposition on the part of the patricians. The greater number of them
believed themselves to be the essence of all that was rare and refined,
until the more sensible portion of them perceived that the essence was
growing rarer every day, and that unless it formed a combination with
something more solid, it would all very soon evaporate. The law was
accordingly allowed to pass; and by the timely application of some
common clay, the roots of aristocracy were saved from the decay that had
threatened them. Many of the patricians, who had long been wedded to old
prejudices, found it far more agreeable to be married to young
plebeians; and matrimony was contracted, or, rather, greatly extended,
among the different classes of society.
The Reform party had now become strong enough to propose that one of the
consuls should always be a plebeian; and though the Senate tried very
hard to maintain the principle, that those only are fit for a snug place
who have been qualified by a good birth, the tide of opinion had set in
so strongly the other way, that it was hopeless, with the thickest
sculls, to pull against the current.
_Tribuni militum_, with the power of consuls, were instituted; but the
patricians managed, by a trick, to reduce these consuls into a sort of
stock for their own use, by selecting from their own body two officers
named Censors, who were to be employed in taking the census, an
extremely important part of the consular authority. The mere enumeration
of the people was not of itself a high privilege, and required no
acquaintance with the law, or of any of the twelve tables, excepting,
perhaps, the simple tables of arithmetic. Besides the privilege of
looking after the numbers of the people, the office gave especial
opportunities of looking after number one; for the administration of the
finances of the state was committed to the Censor;[23] and it has too
often happened that a collector of duties has considered that there was
a duty owing to himself, out of those received on behalf of the
Government. They were also Commissioners of the Property Tax, with full
inquisitorial powers; but, most odious part of all, they had authority
to ascertain the dates of the birth of females, as well as males, and
could mercilessly surcharge a lady for her age, as well as her husband
for his income. They were also controllers of virtue and morality, their
duty being to maintain the _mos majorum_, or manners of the old school;
for it seems to have been always the custom of mankind to lament the
past as "the good old times," no matter how bad the old times may have
been, and how infinitely inferior to the present.
The Censors, however, derived their chief influence from their power of
determining the rank of every citizen; for, from the very earliest
times, the multitude were in the habit of pursuing, through thick and
thin, that perilous Will o' the Wisp--a wisp that reduces many a man of
substance to a man of straw--a position in society. This the Censors
could award; and people were ready to pay any price for that most costly
of all stamps--though perhaps, after all, the most difficult to
purchase--the stamp of fashion. From the early days of Rome to the
present hour, we meet with frequent counterfeits of the stamp in
question, the forgery of which has spoiled, and continues to spoil, a
quantity of calves' skin, and asses' skin, that might otherwise be found
of service, at least to its owners.
Rome had begun to enjoy a short repose, like an infant in its cradle,
when it was unexpectedly made to rock to its very foundations, by a
shortness of provisions; for the absence of anything to eat is sure to
afford food to the disaffected. Grumbling is the peculiar attribute of
an empty stomach; and flatulence, caused by hunger, is an ill wind, that
blows good to nobody. During the scarcity, a wealthy citizen, one
Spurius Maelius, anxious to give his fellow-citizens a genuine meal,
purchased corn at his own expense, and sold it for a mere song--taking
the produce, perhaps, in promissory notes--to his poorer countrymen.
This liberality rendered Maelius extremely popular with all but the
patricians, who declared that they saw through his design in selling
cheap corn; that as old birds they were not to be caught with chaff: and
that his real aim was the kingly dignity. Under the pretext of
preventing him from accomplishing this object, the patricians appointed
a Dictator; and poor old Cincinnatus, bowed down with age and
agriculture, which had been his natural bent, was dragged from the tail
of the plough to the head of the state, though his own state was that of
extreme bodily decrepitude. His Master of the Horse, who really held the
reins, was Servilius Ahala, by whom Maelius was summoned before the
Dictator, to answer any charge that might be brought against him. If the
mode of making the accusation was strange, the method of answering it
was equally irregular; for Maelius, instead of meeting it with dignity,
ran away from it, with a butcher's knife, which he snatched from a stall
in the market-place. Flourishing the formidable weapon, he cut in among
the crowd, and was immediately followed by Servilius Ahala, with a party
of young patrician blades, who, in a manner that would have pierced a
heart of stone, plunged their swords into their victim's bosom.
Ahala was charged with the murder, but he was enabled to avoid the
consequences, as men of consequence in those days could do, by a
voluntary exile. Though domestic cookery had received a check from the
dearth at home, there was no scarcity of foreign broils, and the Romans
created Mam. Æmilius dictator, to encounter the Fidenates and
Veientines. Three ambassadors were sent to Fidenae, but the diplomatic
service could not have been so desirable in those days as in our own,
for the three ambassadors were slain, and perhaps the financial
reformers would say that it was very proper to cut down such a piece of
gross extravagance. The order emanated from Lar Tolumnius of Veii; and
while it said little for his heart, it cost him his head, which was cut
off by Cornelius Cossus--the master of the horse to Æmilius.
The Veientines continuing troublesome, Furius Camillus was appointed
dictator, when, with an engineering talent rare in those days, he
commenced a mine, and overcoming all minor, as well as major, or general
difficulties, he forced a way into the city. The King of Veii was
offering a sacrifice in the Temple of Juno, just as the Romans had
completed their tunnel, and as the soldiers burst like a crop of early
champions through the earth, he saw his fate written in bold Roman
characters. Everything was given to the conquerors, and it is said that
the statue of Juno, followed of its own accord; but the probability is,
the statue remained _in statu quo_, for miraculous instances of going
over to Rome were not in those days numerous.
Rome was once more at peace, when the citizens, with peculiar
ingratitude, having no other foes, began to quarrel with Camillus
himself, to whom they owed their tranquillity. They accused him of
having unduly trafficked in shares, by appropriating more than his due
portion of the booty. His unpopularity had not, however, come down upon
him until it was found that he had, in a fit of piety, dedicated a tenth
of the spoils of Veii to the Delphic God--a circumstance he had
forgotten to mention, until he had disposed of the whole of his own
share of the prize, and it became necessary for the other participators
in the plunder to redeem his promise at their own cost, and, with their
own ready money, to save his credit. His name fell at once from the
highest premium of praise to the lowest discount of disparagement, and
he incurred the especial detestation of those whom he had served; for
kindnesses are often written in marble in the hearts of those who
remember them only to repay them with ingratitude. Not liking to lie
under the imputation of dishonesty, and being unable to get over it, he
chose a middle course, and passed a sort of sentence of transportation
upon himself by going into voluntary exile. He, however, with a
littleness of mind that was not uncommon among the early Romans, vented
his spite as he left the city gate, expressing a wish that Rome might
rue his absence; but Rome consoled herself for the loss she might
sustain in him by confiscating the whole of his property.
Among the incidents of the life of Camillus, a story is told of an event
that happened, when, after having subdued the Veientines, he drove the
Faliscans out their city of Falerii. There existed within the walls a
fashionable boys' school, to which the patricians sent their sons, who
were frequently taken out walking in the suburbs. One morning the
pupils, who were two and two, found themselves growing very tired one by
one, for their promenade had been prolonged unusually by the pedagogue.
The wretch and his ushers had, in fact, ushered the unsuspecting infants
into the camp of Camillus, with an intimation that the parents of the
boys were immensely opulent, that the schooling was regularly paid, and
there could be no doubt that a rich ransom could be procured for such a
choice assemblage of fathers' prides and mothers' darlings. Camillus
nobly answered, that he did not make war on young ideas not yet taught
to shoot, and he concluded by giving the schoolmaster a lesson; for,
causing him to be stripped, and putting a scourge into the hands of the
boys, the young whipper-snappers snapped many a whip on the back of
their master.
[Illustration: School-boys flogging the Schoolmaster.]
FOOTNOTES:
[18] It has been often a subject of regret that the particulars of this
expedition have not been handed down to us, and that the three Roman
excursionists did not put their heads together to form a log during
their voyage. It is, however, seldom that the marine expeditions of the
sages are fully detailed, for nothing can be scantier than the account
of the journey of the three wise men of Gotham who went to sea in a
bowl; and there is reason to believe that many a chapter has been lost
to the philosophical transactions of the world, by the chapter of
nautical accidents.
[19] "Law of the Twelve Tables," B.C. 450. "Lex Canuleia," B.C. 445.
[20] It seems, however, to have been the custom of the period for
plebeians to send their daughters from six to sixteen to a scholastic
establishment from about nine to five; and it is ten to one that
Virginia was a pupil at one of these cheap nursery grounds, in which
young ideas were planted out for the purpose of shooting.
[21]
"Then up sprung Appius Claudius, 'Stop him--alive or dead,
Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who brings his head.'"--
_Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome._
[22] This description is not exaggerated, at least, if the authority of
Macaulay is to be relied upon; and for the incidents of this remote
period we are perhaps justified in trusting quite as much to the lay of
the poet, as to any other source. The following lines refer to the state
of Appius, when taken home, after the death of Virginia:--
"One stone hit Appius in the mouth, and one beneath the ear,
And ere he reached Mount Palatine he swooned with pain and fear.
His cursed head, that he was wont to hold so high with pride,
Now like a drunken man's, hung down, and swayed from side to side.
And when his stout retainers had brought him to his door,
His face and neck were all one cake of filth and clotted gore."
[23] At a later period, the Censors had the entire control over the
public expenditure, even to the feeding of the sacred geese; and there
is no doubt that even the geese were made to yield a considerable nest
egg to a dishonest functionary.
CHAPTER THE NINTH.
FROM THE TAKING OF ROME BY THE GAULS, TO ITS SUBSEQUENT PRESERVATION BY
MANLIUS.
[Illustration: A Gaul.]
As a prophet is sure to come right in the end, if he will go on
prophesying a thing until it really happens; so the soothsayers, who had
been constantly predicting the taking of Rome, seemed likely, at last,
to have their forebodings verified.
The Gauls were destined to be the invaders, and tradition tells us that
they were attracted to cross the Alps by the reputation of the Italian
grapes, which induced them to expect a superior glass of wine on the
other side of the mountains. The Gauls were remarkable for the hugeness
of their bodies, which presented a series of gigantic pictures in their
iron frames; and their faces being covered with long shaggy hair, they
seemed ready, by their ferocious aspect, to beard an enemy. These people
were the ancient inhabitants of modern France, and it is a curious fact,
that the occupants of the country have, up to the present time,
cultivated that hairiness of visage, in which they may be said to have
literally aped their ancestors. Tradition--that wholesale carrier, who
delivers so many parcels at the historian's door, some of which are
scarcely worth the carriage--has handed to us a small packet, with
reference to the Gauls and their origin, the contents of which we
proceed to examine. On taking it up, we find that it possesses very
little weight; but we, nevertheless, proceed to the operation of
unpacking. Beginning as we would with a basket, we find ourselves
hampered to a considerable extent, for on opening the lid, and using the
eye of discernment, we turn over the contents with eagerness, and after
all catch at little better than straw, in our attempts to take hold of
something tangible. Turning over the flimsy mass, we arrive at very
little of a solid description, though, on getting to the bottom of it,
we establish the fact that the Gauls, under Brennus, their chief,
marched upon Clusium, one of the states of Etruria. People in
difficulties are apt to grow exceedingly amiable towards those who are
in a position to help them; the man of money becomes the very "dear Sir"
of one who needs a loan, and the Clusians appealed to their "friends,"
the Romans, of whom they knew nothing, for their kind assistance.
The Roman Senate, adopting the quarrel of the Clusians, sent three
ambassadors, the sons of M. Fabius Ambustus, to the Gauls, desiring them
to withdraw; but the Gauls sent back a very galling answer. They
declared their own country was little, and their necessities were large;
that they had not land enough to supply them with bread; and, though
they wished not to tread on a neighbour's corn, they could not help
feeling where the shoe was pinching. They added, that, as to Clusium,
they did not want it all, but would willingly share it with its owners;
a proposition similar to that of a pickpocket, who, while robbing you of
your handkerchief, politely offers you the joint use of it.
This arrangement not having been acceded to, the Clusians and the Gauls
came into collision; when the Roman ambassadors, who only went to have a
few words, so far forgot their diplomatic character as to come to blows;
and, though it is not unusual for peace-makers to cause more mischief
than they prevent, it was rather too much to find the pacificators, who
had gone forth to knock discord on the head, engaged in fracturing the
skulls of those whom they went to propitiate. One of the Fabii not only
killed a Gallic chief, but, having made away with the individual, was
making off with his arms and accoutrements; when a cry of "shame!" arose
from the Gauls, who did not approve of an arrangement by which the envoy
was killing several of them, while a delicate regard to the law of
nations prevented them from killing the envoy. It is difficult for men
to stand upon a point of etiquette when threatened with the point of the
sword; but the Gauls, with extreme moderation, resolved on sending
envoys to complain of the envoys; and thus, as it were, fight the
ambassadors with their own weapons. The Roman Senate felt the justice of
the complaint; but, seeing that public feeling ran the other way, the
Senators were base enough to do an injustice rather than make an
honourable stand against the wilfulness of the people.
The Fabii, whom the Senate had been too cowardly to punish, the million
thought proper to reward by appointing them Consular Tribunes for the
year ensuing; and when the news reached the Gauls, it excited in them a
very natural bitterness. After their first burst of rage, they began to
collect themselves; and finding, when collected, they could muster
30,000 strong, they were joined by upwards of 40,000 Senones, in
alliance with whom they reached Allia, a little stream flowing towards
the Tiber. Here they were met by the Romans, who threw up entrenchments
to prevent the enemy from entrenching upon their domain; but being
comparatively few in numbers, they endeavoured to spread themselves out
as far apart as possible.
As a kettle of water thrown upon a spoonful of tea, with the intention
of making it go further, produces a weakening effect; so did the
expansion of the Roman line dilute its strength to such a degree, that
the right wing became panic-stricken, and the left catching the
infection, both wings began to fly together. Several of the Romans
plunged into the Tiber, to save their lives, and the dux or general set
the ignominious example. Some lost all self-possession, and fell
helplessly into the possession of the enemy; while others finding their
heads beginning to swim violently on shore, could not obtain the chance
of safety by swimming across the river.
A few only of the soldiers got home in safety, soaked to the skin; and
though there may be something ignoble in the picture of a party of Roman
warriors dripping in their wet clothes, we are compelled to follow the
dry threads of history. Those who escaped by means of the friendly tide,
took the sad tidings to Rome, which would now have fallen an easy prey
to the Gauls, had they not remained on the field of battle, uttering
horrid yells, shaking their yellow locks, and intoxicating themselves
with something more potent than the stream cup of success which they had
quaffed so easily. When the bad news reached Rome, the citizens began to
fly apace, and some were startled by their own shadows, as if, like
guilty creatures, they were unable to bear their own reflections. Many
of the patricians ran for safety into the Arx, or topmost part of the
city, which was carrying cowardice to the utmost height; and some who
tried to save their goods as well as their lives, packed their property
in casks with the hope of preserving it.