completely unmanned, and though nearly every one who remained was
somebody beside himself, the population had, owing to the foolish panic,
been most sensibly diminished. Among those who remained were eighty old
patricians, who had filled in their turns, the chief offices of state,
and who, having sworn to die, took the oaths and their seats in the
Forum. They wore their official robes, occupied their ivory chairs, and
being carefully got up with venerable white beards, they had all the
imposing effect of a _tableau vivant_ upon the Gauls who entered the
Forum. One of the barbarians, attracted by the singularity of the scene,
stroked the beard of the aged Papirius to ascertain if he was real, when
the aged P. having returned the salutation by a smart stroke with his
sceptre, the inquisitive Gaul found his head and the charm broken
together. Though the patricians had, at first, worn the appearance of
mere wax-work, they now began to wax warm, which led to their speedy
dissolution; for the Gauls, falling violently upon them, converted the
whole scene into a chamber of horrors. The eighty senators were slain,
to the immense satisfaction of the Romans themselves, who felt a
conviction that after this alarming sacrifice they were sure of a
triumph. They seemed to look upon the venerable victims as so much old
stock that must be cleared off, and the previously depressed citizens
began to rally with all the renewed vigour of a bankrupt who has just
undergone the operation of an extensive failure. The Gauls invested the
Capitol, but its defenders feeling that no one had a right to invest
that Capitol but themselves, did their utmost to keep it standing in
their own names; and, not even for the sake of ensuring their own lives,
would they agree to an unconditional surrender. The barbarians, finding
nothing better to do, commenced firing the city in several parts,
pulling down the walls and throwing them into the Tiber; a species of
sacking that must have been very injurious to the bed of the river.
The occupants of the Capitol continued to hold out, or rather, to keep
in, and it being desirable to communicate with them, a bold youth, named
Pontius Cominius, attempted the hazardous enterprise. Having encased
himself in a suit of cork, he crossed the Tiber, and clambering on his
hands, he performed the wonderful feat of reaching the Capitol. He
returned in the same manner; and, on the following day the Gauls
observing the track, thought to be all fours with him, by stealing up on
the points of their fingers and the tips of their toes, to the point he
had arrived at. With a cat-like caution, which eluded even the vigilance
of the dogs, and while the sentinels were off their guard, a party of
the Gauls crept up one by one to the top of the rock, which was the
summit of their wishes. Just as they had effected their object, a
wakeful goose,[24] with a head not unworthy of the sage, commenced a
vehement cackle, and the solo of one old bird was soon followed by a
full chorus from a score of others. Marcus Manlius, who resided near the
poultry, was so alarmed at the sound that he instantly jumped out of his
skin--for, in those days, a sheep's skin was the usual bedding--and ran
to the spot, where he caught hold of the first Gaul he came to, and,
giving him a smart push, the whole pack behind fell like so many cards
to the bottom.
Manlius was rewarded with the scarcest luxury the city contained, in the
shape of plenty to eat, and it cannot be said that we have greatly
improved upon the early Romans in matters of the same kind, for a dinner
is still a common mode of acknowledging the services of a public man,
and literally feeding his vanity.
The Gauls continued to invest Rome, and heard with savage delight of the
diminishing supplies, or rather, to use an Irishism, the increasing
scarcity. News at last came that the garrison had been for some time
living upon soles, and it is an admitted fact that they had consumed all
but a few remaining pairs belonging to the shoes of their generals.
Driven at length to desperation, they baked as hard as they could the
flour they still had on hand, and making it up into quarterns, or four
pounders, threw it at the enemy. The Gauls looked up with astonishment,
when another volley of crust satisfied them that bread was coming "down
again;" and not wishing to get their heads broken with the staff of
life, which they fancied must be very plentiful in Rome, they offered
terms of ransom. The price fixed upon was one thousand pounds of gold,
in the weighing of which the Gauls are said to have used false weights,
but it is difficult to say what weight ought to be given to the
accusation. The story goes on to say that the Gallic king, on being
remonstrated with for his dishonesty, cut dissension short with his
sword, and throwing it into the scale with a cry of _Væ victis_, turned
the balance still more in his own favour.
[Illustration: The Citadel saved by the cackling of the Geese.]
In the meantime the Romans at Veii had called Camillus from exile, and
chosen him Dictator; for it was the opinion of the day that good use
could always be made of a man after thoroughly ill-using him. Camillus
arrived at Rome just as the gold was being weighed, when he declared
that he would deliver his country, but would not allow the delivery of
the treasure. He added, that the metal with which all claims upon Rome
should be met was steel; that he cared not who might draw upon him, for
he was ready, at sight, with prompt acceptance. While the discussion was
proceeding, a Roman legion arrived; and the Gauls were driven out of the
city, having lost not only their self-possession, but possession of the
gold that had been assigned to them. On the road to Gabii a battle
ensued, in which every Gaul, it is said, was slain, not one being left
alive to tell the tale; and as there are two sides of a story, as well
as of a fight, it is impossible, in the absence of the other party, to
say which side was victorious.
When the Romans returned to their city, they found it little better than
a dust-heap, or a plot of ground on which a shooting party had met for
the purpose of shooting dry rubbish. The people were called upon to
rebuild their houses; but even in those days the principle of the
proverb, that fools build houses for wise men to live in, appears to
have been recognised. There was a general disinclination to dabble in
mortar; and there seemed to be a conspiracy not to enter upon a plot for
building purposes.
Rome seemed very unlikely to be built in that day; and it might never
have been restored, had not an accident--on which they put an ominous
construction--caused the citizens to proceed to the re-construction of
their city. While Camillus was "on his legs" in the senate, a centurion,
passing the House of Assembly with a flag in his hand, was heard to say,
"Let us plant our banner here, for this is the place for us to stop at."
The senators, rushing forth, declared their acceptance of the omen,
though there was nothing ominous in the fact; and the people, carried
away, or rather attracted to the spot, by the same stupidly
superstitious feeling, declared that on that place they would rebuild
the city. There is no doubt that the anxiety of the senators for the
restoration of Rome was owing to the fact of their own property lying
near at hand; and they were desirous, therefore, of improving the
neighbourhood. There was very little patriotism, and a large amount of
self-interest, in a suggestion that materially enhanced their own
estates; and it was extremely easy to find an omen that would put twenty
or thirty per cent. upon the value of their property. In pursuance of
the "omen," they liberally gave bricks that did not belong to them, and
followed up their munificence by allowing stone to be cut from the
public quarries, in order that the works might be hastened; while, as a
further act of generosity, it was permitted to the citizens to pull to
pieces their houses at Veii, for the purpose of embellishing Rome and
its vicinity. Speed being the order of the day, every other kind of
order was neglected. All idea of a general plan fell to the ground, in
consequence of every one having a ground plan of his own. The houses,
instead of wearing the aspect of uniformity, showed a variety of faces,
and told each a different story; while the streets were so constructed,
with reference to the sewers, that the latter were as useless as if
they had been devised by a modern commission.
Rome was still exposed to aggression on various sides from numerous
foes; but Camillus, in his capacity of Dictator, first vanquished them,
and then, admitting them to the franchise, received them in the light of
friends, as if, like old carpets, a thorough beating brought them out in
new colours. Whatever may be the fortune of war, it is its misfortune
invariably to entail a heavy debt; and it is a truth of universal
application, that a country, like an individual, no sooner gets into hot
water, than liquidation becomes extremely difficult. Such was the case
with Rome, where taxation became so high, that the poor were compelled
to borrow of the rich, who, with the usual short-sightedness of avarice,
added an exorbitant claim for interest to the principal debt, and thus,
by insisting on both, got in most cases neither.
Manlius, whose quick apprehension of a goose's cackle had rendered him
the deliverer of his country, was exceedingly hurt at the neglect with
which he had been treated, though he had little cause of complaint; for
his merit, after all, consisted chiefly in the fact of his living within
hearing of the fowl-house. He was, however, jealous of the honours
conferred on others; for he expected, no doubt, that the whole of the
plumage of the sacred geese would have been feathers in his cap in the
eyes of his countrymen. Seeking, therefore, another mode of gaining
popularity, he cast his eye upon some unfortunate birds of a different
description--the unhappy plebeians, who were being plucked like so many
pigeons in the hands of their patrician creditors. He went about with
purses in his hand, like the philanthropist of the old school of comedy,
releasing prisoners for debt; and declaring his determination to extend
his bounty to all who needed it. This advertisement of his intention
brought crowds of applicants to his house; for there was always "a case
of real distress" at hand, for the indulgence of one whose greatest
luxury was the liquidation of other people's liabilities. The popularity
of Manlius excited the jealousy of the patricians, who, not appreciating
his magnanimity, thought him little better than a goose that was always
laying golden eggs, and he retaliated upon them by declaring he had
rather be a fool than a knave; that the money he disposed of was his
own, but that they had grown rich upon gold embezzled from the price of
the city's ransom. Their only answer to the charge was to get him thrown
into prison for making it. The plebeians, finding their friend and
banker in gaol, with nobody to pay their debts, were dissolved in
tears--the only solvency of which they were capable. Some went into
mourning, while those who could not afford it put on black looks, and
threatened to release him from custody.
The Senate, unable to maintain any charge, and tired, perhaps, of the
expense of keeping him in prison, sent him forth to maintain himself at
his own charge; but his means having been greatly reduced, he found a
corresponding reduction in his popularity. While his resources flowed in
a golden stream, he was a rich pump that any one was ready to make a
handle of; but no sooner did the supply fall off, and the pump cease to
act, than he was left destitute of the commonest succour. He was
eventually brought to trial; and being called upon for his defence, he
produced four hundred insolvents whose debts he had paid--and who passed
through the Court of Justice--as witnesses to his liberality. He then
showed his wounds, which were not the sore places of which the
patricians complained; and he ultimately pointed to the Capitol, in the
preservation of which he had acquitted himself so well, that on the
recollection of it, his acquittal was pronounced by the citizens. His
persecutors, however, obtained a new trial, upon which he was condemned
to death; and a slave having been sent with the despatch containing the
news, proceeded to the despatch of Manlius himself in a treacherous
manner. Proposing a walk along the cliff, under the pretence of
friendship, the slave gradually got Manlius near the edge, until the
latter suddenly found himself driven to the last extremity. Upon this he
received a push which sent him down the Tarpeian Rock; and the man who
pretended to have come as a friend, had been base enough to throw him
over. The sudden idea of the traitor was afterwards carried into
frequent execution; for the practice he had commenced, was subsequently
applied to the execution of criminals.
After the death of Manlius, his house was levelled with the ground, and
he himself experienced the fate of most men when thoroughly down, for he
was repudiated even by his own family. The gens, or gents, of the
Manlii, with a contemptible want of manliness, resolved that none of the
members should ever bear the name of Marcus, which they avoided as a
mark of disgrace, though at one time it had been a title of honour.
Rome seemed now to be declining, and going down all its seven hills at
once; pestilence killed some, and gave the vapours to others, and the
sewers no longer fulfilled their office, but overflowing, in consequence
of the irregular rebuilding of the city, they threw a damp upon the
inhabitants. The free population was growing daily less, while the
number of patricians continued the same, and there seemed reason to fear
that Rome would soon become one of those most inconvenient of
oligarchies, in which there are many to govern and comparatively few to
be governed. The "eternal city" was in danger of being prematurely cut
off by an early decline, for its constitution was not yet matured; and
though it had once been saved by mere quackery,[25] it was now to be
preserved by a bolder and wiser regimen.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] These geese were sacred to Juno, who was the goddess of marriage;
but we cannot say whether the goose became identified with her on that
account.
[25] See _ante_, the anecdote of the Sacred Geese.
CHAPTER THE TENTH.
FROM THE TRIBUNESHIP OF C. LICINIUS TO THE DEFEAT OF THE GAULS BY
VALERIUS.
[Illustration: Roman Soldier.]
Rome was now overwhelmed with debt, and fresh taxes were imposed to
rebuild the wall of stone; but it would have been as easy to have got
blood out of the stones themselves, as money from the pockets of the
people. The more they went on not paying, the more were they called upon
to pay; and ruin appeared inevitable, until it occurred to the great
financial reformers of the day that there can be no permanent balance to
the credit of a state without a due adjustment of the balance of power.
Happily for the interests of humanity, there is scarcely ever a crisis
requiring a hero, but there is a hero for the crisis,--no situation
demanding a man, without a man for the situation; and though there may
be on hand a formidable list of those who perpetually "Want places," we
have the consolation of feeling that when there is a vacant place to be
filled up, there is no lack of the material required to fill it.
The man for the situation in which Rome then happened to be, was a
certain C. Licinius, who had married the younger daughter of the
patrician, M. Fabius. The lady was considered to have wed below her
station, and the Roman noses of her relatives were converted into snubs,
by the habit of turning up for the purpose of snubbing her. Being on a
visit with her sister, who was the wife of Servius Sulpicius, the
Consular Tribune, she was one day alarmed by such a knocking at the door
as she had never yet heard, and on inquiring the cause, she found that
the lictors of old, like the modern footmen, were in the habit of
estimating, by the number of raps he was worth, the dignity of their
master. The elder Fabia, perceiving her sister's surprise, took the
opportunity of administering a rap on the knuckles, through the medium
of the knocker, and observed, that if the latter had not married a low
plebeian, she would have been accustomed to hearing her own husband
knock as loud, instead of being obliged to knock under.
The vanity of Fabia had received a blow which had deprived her of sense;
and the effect of the knocking at the door had been so stunning, that
she could scarcely call her head her own. She was resolved that her
husband should make as much noise in the world as her brother-in-law,--
that he should gain an important post, and win the privilege of knocking
as violently as he chose at his own threshold.
[Illustration: Miss Fabia, the Younger, astonished at the Patrician's
double-knock.]
Those who would supply a higher motive to the ambition of C. Licinius,
have asserted that his wife must have been accustomed to the loud
knockings at the house of her father, who had once been consul; but
whether the young lady heard them, unless she remained at home to answer
the door, may be an open question. Whatever may have been the spur used
to stir up ambition in his breast, we, at all events, know the fact,
that C. Licinius was elected a tribune of the people, in conjunction
with his friend Lucius Sextius; so that even if the former were roused
by the knocker, it is not likely that ambition was hammered into the
latter by the same ignoble instrument.
Having obtained their places, they began to bid very high for
popularity; but, like many other bold bidders in the same market, it was
by no means at their own expense that they proposed to make their
purchases. They introduced three new laws: the first, touching other
people's money; the second, touching other people's land; and, in
reference to both these matters, touching and taking were nearly
synonymous.
The first of these laws related to the debts of the plebs, and
furnished an easy mode of payment, by providing that all the money paid
as interest should be considered as principal. By this arrangement, if
Spurius owed his tailor one hundred asses, and paid him five per cent.,
by way of interest, the tailor would, in thirty years, not only have had
his debt cancelled, without receiving his money, but he would have to
refund no less than fifty asses to Spurius.
This law was sure to obtain for its framers a certain kind of
popularity; for as those who do not meet their engagements are always a
numerous class, it is a safe clap-trap to legislate in favour of the
insolvent classes of the community. C. Licinius became at once the idol
of all those who were continually running into debt one day, and out of
the way the next, and whose valour far outstripped the discretion of
those who had trusted them.
The second law related to land, enacting that no one should occupy more
than five hundred jugera, or acres, and that if he had a surplus, he
should be deprived of it, for the benefit of those who wished to settle
their own liabilities with other people's property. From this
arrangement there was no appeal, for the land was taken away; and if the
owner wished to complain, he had no ground for it.
The third law provided for the restoration of the Consuls, and
stipulated that one should always be a plebeian; but the patricians, who
wanted everything their own way, just as the plebeians wanted everything
theirs, succeeded in putting a veto upon the propositions.
In the meantime, the people, placed between two parties--one of which
was seeking popularity at any price, while the other was endeavouring to
preserve its exclusive interests at any cost--were for eight years
deprived of all benefit from either side; and though the public would
have accepted a compromise, Licinius, who knew that when the point was
settled his popularity would be on the wane, declared that they should
either have all or nothing. This policy, which is the same as that of
prohibiting a starving man from accepting a moderate meal, unless he is
invited to a banquet, was well adapted to the purposes of those whose
happiness depends upon the dissatisfaction of all around, and to whom
the success of all their avowed designs is the consummation of failure.
As long as the bills continued to be thrown out year after year, C.
Licinius and Sextius were pretty sure of their annual election to the
tribuneship. At about the end of the fifth year, the opposition began to
wane, and it became exceedingly likely that the three bills would pass,
when Licinius kept the popularity market brisk, by proposing a fourth
measure, which was sure to be strenuously objected to. This was a
proposal to put on eight new hands to the keeping of the Sibylline
books, by increasing from two to ten the number of the librarians. As
the books were but three, there would, of course, be no less than three
book-keepers and a fraction to each volume,--an arrangement as
objectionable as pluralism, though in an opposite direction; for it is
scarcely worse to give ten offices to one man, than to put ten men into
one office. Excuses were, however, found for the suggestion, on the
ground that as five of the book-keepers were to be plebeians, the skill
they would acquire in the interpretation of auguries would qualify a
larger number for the consulship; the patricians having maintained that
at least a smattering of the fortune-telling art was required for the
due execution of the office.
Rome was now suffering from domestic wounds, when, fortunately, a little
counter-irritation was got up, by an attack of the Veliternians on
Tusculum. There is no better cure for a family quarrel, than the sudden
incursion of a neighbour; and when relatives are breaking each other's
heads at Number One, a stone thrown from the garden of Number Two will
frequently, by the establishment of a single new wound, be the cause of
healing half a-dozen. The threatened aggression from without had caused
the ten Tribunes to agree to the measures of their colleagues, Licinius
and Sextius; but the patricians still held out, and appointed the
veteran Furius Camillus to the dictatorship. The tribes were in the act
of voting, when Furius ordered them away, with violent menaces; but the
fury of Furius was impotent from age, and the Tribunes coolly threatened
him with a fine of five hundred thousand asses. They had come to the
correct conclusion that he could not get together so many asses without
selling himself up; he thought it better to abdicate, and P. Manlius was
chosen to stop the fermentation that the sour old man had created.
The bills were now all passed; and L. Sextius had been appointed
plebeian consul, when the patricians, refusing to sanction what they
could not prevent, declined to ratify the election. As the avalanche
does not wait for the consent of the object it is about to sweep away,
so the will of the public overcame the feeble opposition of the
patricians. The latter, however, succeeded in taking a large portion of
power from the consuls, and giving it to a new magistrate, called a
Prætor, who was invested with authority that some historians have
described as almost preternatural. He was chosen from the patricians,
and was, in fact, a sort of third consul, whose duty it was _Jus in urbe
dicere_,[26] to lay down the law--a privilege that, if improperly
exercised, might include the prostration of justice--in the city. The
patricians thus kept to themselves the power of interpreting the law;
and as ambiguity seems inherent in the very nature of law, almost any
latitude was left to those who were at liberty to declare its meaning.
The power of the patricians was further augmented by the appointment of
two curule or aristocratic Ædiles, in addition to the two chosen from
the plebeians; and though their duties related chiefly to the mending of
the roads, they had opportunities of paving the way for many
encroachments on the part of their own order.
The struggle between the patrician and the plebeian parties was severe,
and each endeavoured to represent itself as the only real friend of the
people. Among other acts, in the interest of the masses, was a measure
introduced by C. Poetelius, consisting of a _lex de ambitû_, an election
law, relating to the getting round, or circumventing, of the electors by
the candidates. It will astonish those acquainted with election
practices to be told, that the word "candidate" is derived from
_candidus_, in allusion to the white robe usually worn as an emblem of
purity by the seeker of popular suffrages. The white robe, however, was
notoriously, in many cases, a white lie, and the law _de ambitû_ was
passed to prohibit canvassing on market-days, when many more things were
purchased than the articles ostensibly sold; and the butcher has been
known to include in the price of a calf's head, the value he placed upon
his own judgment.
The cause of reform made slow but inevitable progress, though it was
occasionally discredited by some of those incidents which still cause us
to look well to our pockets in the presence of the professional lover of
liberty. C. Licinius, the framer of the law against occupying more than
a certain quantity of the public land, was, it is said, the first to pay
the fine, for holding a double allowance, comprising five hundred jugera
in his own name, and five hundred in that of his son; a piece of
duplicity which was detected and duly punished. Other instances of
private peculation were discovered among those most clamorous for the
public good; and it became necessary in those days, as in our own, to
look among the loudest talkers for the smallest doers, and the greatest
doos of the community.