but the water was so impure, that it soon became necessary to let well
alone. The science of engineering, aided by that great moral engine,
their own energy, enabled the inhabitants to bring their supplies from a
considerable distance, and as the aqueducts were gradually sloped, the
water followed, as it were, its own inclination in coming to Rome.
Filtration was ingeniously provided for, at convenient distances, by
reservoirs having two compartments, into one of which the water fell,
and passing into the other before returning to the main body, there was
time for the deposit of all impurities. Every precaution was taken
against the intrusion of those unhappy families of animalculæ, which are
continually tearing each other to pieces in every drop of the London
element, and whose voracity seems to hold out a faint hope that, as they
are continually demolishing each other, they may be all mutually
swallowed, before the supply of the Metropolis with pure water is
achieved.
During the Censorship of Appius Claudius, the cause of literature, or at
least the dignity of the profession of a public writer, was
advanced--though, perhaps, we ought rather to say, that official
employment was honoured--by the promotion of Cn. Flavius, a scribe, to
the Curule Ædileship. This individual appears to have possessed the
happy gift of investing dry subjects with the garb of popularity; and he
had won considerable reputation by giving the forms of legal actions in
a shape that rendered them comprehensible to the general reader. He made
law legible in his work on _legis actiones_, and had assisted the spread
of information by an almanack or calendar, in which the _dies fasti_ and
_nefasti_ were marked down, and other information afforded which could
only have been obtained previously from the pontiffs.
The lawyers and the priests, who were less liberal in those days than in
our own, were both enraged with an author who had laid open the
mysteries of both professions by a few happy touches of his pen; and on
his being called upon to give the public the benefit of his services as
a curule ædile, they appealed to the miserable prejudice existing
against a man who had shown talent in one line, when called upon to
exert his abilities in some new direction. The nobility were especially
affected at the prospect of the public service being thrown open to
merit alone, instead of gentle or gentile dulness being allowed the sole
use and abuse of official honour and emolument. Exclusiveness and
illiberality could not, even in those days, wholly prevail, though the
opponents of the public writer succeeded in causing him to abandon not
only his literary pursuits, but to give up all his books, and thus
render himself emblematically on a par with themselves in ignorance, by
divesting himself of the types of knowledge on his acceptance of office.
At about the same period other and more important measures were adopted
for infusing into the service of the State some of that intellectual
vigour which is to be found most abundantly in the main body of the
people. The pontiffs and the augurs had been hitherto chosen from the
patricians alone, when by the Ogulnian law, passed in the tribuneship of
Q. and Cn. Ogulnius, it was enacted that four pontiffs out of eight, and
five augurs out of nine--at which the numbers were then fixed--should be
plebeians. The science of augury certainly required no particular
talent; but, as its professors were held in very high repute, the
introduction of the plebeian element into the body, was a triumph for
popular principles. The divining rod in an age of superstition was also
a very powerful rod in the hands of those who held it; and the privilege
of reading or rather interpreting the signs of the times according to
the wish of the interpreter, was a source of so much influence among a
people guided by omens, that the admission of the plebeians to the
exercise of these functions was equivalent to allowing them an important
share in the government.
The science of augury is intimately connected with the history of the
Romans, for they never took a step of a private or a public nature
without consulting the soothsayers, who were, in fact, the
fortune-tellers of antiquity. That a nation should place its destinies
in such doubtful hands, seems in the present day as absurd as if the
Prime Minister, before arranging his measures for a session, were to
take counsel with Dr. Francis Moore, and the Opposition were to frame
their tactics on the advice of Zadkiel. A glimpse at the nature of the
art of augury will demonstrate to the student the ease with which the
seer could see exactly the thing he wanted. The subjects of his
observation were, first, the clouds, which afforded ample opportunity
for obscurity; secondly, the birds, which, when seen to the right, meant
exactly opposite to that which they indicated when seen on the
left--thus allowing for a good deal to be said on both sides; thirdly,
the chickens, who were supposed to give a favourable omen if they ate
abundantly--a theory which gave rise to many a tremendous cram;
fourthly, the quadrupeds, from which the augurs could easily draw a
deduction at all fours with their own wishes; and, fifthly, and last, a
miscellaneous class of signs, or incidents, comprising a sneeze, which
enabled the augur to lead the sneezer by the nose, or a casualty, such
as a tumble, which, in the absence of any other more important sign, the
soothsayer was always willing to fall back upon.
A remarkable instance of ignorance and superstition was afforded by the
conduct of the Romans, when the city, being in about its four hundred
and sixtieth year, was visited by a pestilence. Recourse was had to the
Sibylline books for a prescription to get rid of the plague, when the
augurs, like a doctor who, unable to cure his patient, orders him
abroad, declared that the only thing to be done was to go to Epidaurus,
a town in Greece, and bring to Rome the god Æsculapius. Ten ambassadors
were despatched on the mission; but after looking in all directions for
Æsculapius, they happened to stumble over a stone, in which they were
told he was resident. Having been induced to purchase the article at a
high price, they were taking it on board their ship, when they fell in
with the proprietor of a small menagerie, who, directing their attention
to a tame snake in the collection, offered it to them a bargain as the
identical Æsculapius they were looking for. The Roman envoys, thinking
there might, after all, be nothing in the stone, concluded there might
be something in the snake, which began to twine itself affectionately
about them; and having been bought and paid for, sagaciously glided
through the town, made for the Roman vessel, and coiled himself up like
a coil of rope in the cabin of the ambassadors.
On their way home, a storm caused them to put in at Antium, when the
snake, who might have been a very good snake, but was a very bad sailor,
went ashore, took a turn or two round a palm-tree, hung out there for
three days, and then went back to the vessel. On the arrival of the
ambassadors at Rome, they began describing at some length the result of
their journey, when the snake gave them the slip, and while their
tongues were running on, managed to run off to the island in the Tiber.
Having looked in vain for the snake in the grass, they built a temple on
the spot, in honour of Æsculapius, and the serpent glided on--no one
knows where--to the end of his existence.
The wars which had been so exhausting to the almost inexhaustible
Sabines, had been scarcely less ruinous to the Romans, and indeed the
opening up of so many bones of contention had, to use the words of a
recent writer, consumed "the very marrow of the nation."[34] In spite of
all their conquests, the people were miserably poor; for destruction,
instead of production, had been their occupation during a series of
years; and though their wants had been supplied for a time by plunder,
scarcity was sure to ensue at last, from a stoppage of the very source
of all wealth, the peaceful exercise of industry. The tide of adversity
which, in the first instance, overwhelms only the lower ranks, rises,
with unerring certainty, until even the highest are absorbed, and few
are able, in the end, to keep their heads above water. When
circumstances appear hopeless, remedies become desperate, rash
legislation ensues, and thus, during the distresses of Rome, the plebs
having seceded, a proposal was adopted, in the shape of the Hortensian
Law, to allow them to do just as they liked, in order to tempt them back
again.
[Illustration: The Ambassadors purchasing Æsculapius.]
This was, happily, the last secession of the plebs, who, in their
dignified withdrawal, remained completely within the pale of the law,
while passing beyond the gates of the city. The intention of the
seceders was to get on as they could without the patrician class,
leaving the latter to do their best by themselves--a proceeding that had
speedily the effect of showing that there is a mutual dependence between
all ranks, and that one cannot exist in comfort without the association
and support of the other. In Rome, the patricians had played the
dangerous game of exercising the rights of their position without
fulfilling its duties; and the plebeians finding themselves deprived of
their share of the profits of the connection, were quite justified in
cutting it. After the passing of the Hortensian Law, the invidious
distinction between the patricians and the people was at an end, and the
word _populus_ was applied to the whole body of citizens; but with the
natural tendency of all classes to level only down to themselves, the
Romans who were well to do in the world continued to use the term
_plebs_, or _plebecula_, in a depreciatory sense, to denote the
multitude.
It is true, that some works of great utility were accomplished during
the unhappy period to which we have been alluding; and the aqueduct as
well as the Via Appia, to both of which we have already referred, were
executed at the time stated. Instead, however, of being the result of
the free industry of the nation, these undertakings were extorted
chiefly from the labour of the Samnite prisoners; so that the Romans may
be said to have watered their city with the tears, and paved their road
with the sighs,[35] of their miserable captives. The arts made
considerable progress, notwithstanding the general poverty, and perhaps
the fact, that necessity is the mother of invention, may account for the
stimulus given to the skill and ingenuity of the nation. The still
existing figure, in which two bronze babies are represented in an
attitude of playful satisfaction, deriving sustenance from a bronze
wolf, who looks as easy as the hardness of the material will allow, has
been assigned to the age alluded to, and the Sarcophagus of Scipio
Barbatus, complete even to the ancient funeral verse, which the
irreverent might estimate at the value of an old song, belongs,
probably, to the same period.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[33] The Croton Aqueduct, commenced in 1837, and finished in 1842, for
conveying water from the river Croton to the City of New York.
[34] Dr. Schmidtz, p. 223
[35] The sigh of a pavier is really a very formidable matter. We always
fancy the heart of the poor fellow is in his mouth, whenever we hear him
at his labours.
CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.
FROM THE END OF THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR TO THE SUBJUGATION OF ALL ITALY BY
THE ROMANS.
[Illustration]
Rome was for a time at rest; but its repose was broken by the alarm-bell
of war still ringing in its ears, while dissension, hanging over it like
a nightmare, placed a weight upon its chest, and became a constant
burden on its resources. As if the Romans had not enough troubles of
their own, they became involved with the disputes of their foreign
relations, who were, most of them, very poor relations indeed--a sort of
connexion which nations, as well as individuals, are apt to find
extremely burdensome.
A number of petty states began urging each other to do something that
would embarrass Rome, and many who had not the courage to strike were
desirous of seeing others display their valour. The Tarentines and the
Volsinians being anxious to fight their own battles with other people's
arms, succeeded in making cats'-paws of the Gauls, who were induced to
pounce upon Arretium. The Romans were appealed to for assistance, and
they immediately sent an army just large enough to be too little. Defeat
ensued, as a matter of course; and L. Cæcilius, the leader, being slain,
M. Curius was despatched to head the troops; but on his arrival, he
found there was no body to which he could serve as a head, for the army
had been either killed or captured.
In this disagreeable dilemma, he sent ambassadors to know the terms on
which the prisoners would be given up; but the ambassadors--like good
money sent after bad--never came back again. The Romans perceiving at
last that they were only cutting their army into convenient pieces for
the enemy to swallow up, despatched, at length, a force large enough to
put a stop to any further consumption of such valuable material. The
Romans were now decidedly successful, and the Senones were, according to
certain authorities, "just annihilated;"[36] but as the Senones are
frequently met with again, it must be presumed that the assertion, _ex
nihilo nihil fit_--"nothing can come of nothing"--is unacknowledged by
the writers of classical history.
Foreign intervention seems to have been quite the order of the day; for
the Boians rushed forward to show their sympathy at the fate of the
Senones, which, if it consisted of annihilation, must have been nothing
to the parties themselves, and should have been, _à fortiori_, nothing
to others. Touched with a similar infection, the Etrurians began to
sympathise with the Boians, and having met the Romans near Lake Vadimo,
the sympathisers were "cut to pieces," if we are to believe report; but
we know not whether to the scissors of the reporters or the shears of
fate, the cutting to pieces in question may be attributed. The
Etruscans, at all events, were able to return to Etruria[37] in
sufficient force to render them a still formidable foe to the Romans,
who were eventually glad to grant a peace on very favourable terms; and,
putting all things together, we are inclined to believe that the
Etruscans were not in that very piecemeal state to which tradition is
fond of reducing them.
A quarrel between the Lucanians and the Thurii caused another call on
the intervention of Rome, who was a thorough polygamist in espousing the
quarrels of others. C. Fabricius was sent to the relief of Thurii with
an army so small, that it began to shrink from the encounter, and thus
increase, as it were, its own littleness. The spirit of the Romans had
something, however, of the caoutchouc in its composition; for it could
be drawn out as easily as it gave in, and a trifling circumstance showed
its elasticity on the occasion of the attack on Thurii. A gigantic lad,
with a ladder in his hand, was seen approaching the ramparts, which he
proceeded to mount, and by this simple act of scaling the wall, he
turned the scale of victory.
The opposing general was taken prisoner, and numbers were left dead on
the field, including several of the Samnites, who in devoting themselves
to glut the appetite of war, appear to have formed the great _pièce de
résistance_ of the period. The feast of carnage seems never to have been
complete in these days, without this very substantial dish, which seems
to have formed literally an instance of "cut and come again," for we
find a supply of Samnites always ready for fate's relentless
carving-knife. The treasure taken by Fabricius, the Roman general, was
immense, and much of it was derived from the inexhaustible Samnites,
who, though constantly being cut up like the goose with the golden eggs,
possessed one extraordinary advantage over that auriferous bird, for
they could bear the operation as often as avarice itself could require.
The booty was wonderful in amount; but the mode in which it was disposed
of, was more marvellous still; for the general, instead of following the
general custom, by pocketing all he could, distributed a large portion
of it among the soldiers, reimbursed the amount of a year's taxes to the
citizens, and sent a handsome surplus to the treasury. It is to be
regretted that we have no such examples of justice and generosity in the
present age; for if every man were to return as conscience money to the
Exchequer all that he did not fairly earn, the National Debt might soon
figure--without any figures at all--as a myth in our financial annals.
Thurii received a small Roman garrison, which not being strong enough to
defend itself, was _à fortiori_, or rather _ab impotentiori_, too weak
to protect those for whose safety it had been appointed. Rome,
therefore, despatched ten ships to its aid, in defiance of a treaty with
Tarentum, that no armed vessel should proceed beyond a certain point.
The people of Tarentum, who happened to be at the theatre, which
commanded a view of the sea, and who were evidently looking at the ocean
as a much finer spectacle than the play, observed the approach of the
ships, and leaving the actors to finish their performance to empty
benches, they rushed out to meet the enemy. The commander of the
squadron was not prepared for an audience that would hear nothing he had
to say, the sailors were alarmed at finding themselves suddenly
assailed, and the poor rowers were completely overawed at their
unexpected position. Only five ships escaped, the remainder being sunk
or captured, with all their crews and cargoes. The Tarentines fell upon
Thurii, whose cause was now completely undefended; but the Roman
garrison, instead of being despatched by the sword, was generously
despatched home by the earliest means of conveyance.
The Romans, having lost a considerable number of men, thought it better
to recruit themselves by peace, as they were unable to find recruits for
their army. It was accordingly determined to try the effect of an
embassy upon the Tarentines, and some Feciales were employed to
propose--what Rome considered--very moderate terms of arrangement. L.
Postumius is said to have been one of the envoys, and it is added that
upon his commencing a speech in bad Greek, there was a burst of laughter
at his mistakes in grammar, orthography, and accent. He had been
selected for the charm of his eloquence, but the spell was broken by the
spelling, and in the confusion of his nominatives and datives, he was
unable to make out a case of any kind. The Senators gave way to bursts
of laughter--those bursts of nature which it is often difficult to
control--and a buffoon, encouraged by the bad example of his betters,
played some practical joke upon L. Postumius. The insulted emissary
immediately held up his toga, which had been soiled by the jester, whose
wit seems to have consisted in throwing dirt; but a shout of laughter
was the only reply that the complaint of Postumius elicited. Desiring
them to laugh on, he made an allusion to the possibility of the
operation being transferred to the other side of the Roman mouth, and he
added that a lavatory supplied by their blood was the only wash to which
he would send his toga. Returning to Rome, he pointed out the stain that
had been thrown upon him, and the Senate declared war on the spot the
moment the spot was exhibited. An army was accordingly sent against
Tarentum, but the leader, L. Aemilius Barbula,--so called probably from
his being the little-bearded or the downy one--offered peace a second
time. The Tarentines, thinking the Romans were afraid of fighting,
refused to come to terms; but seeing that the latter did not retire, it
became necessary to seek assistance in meeting them.
It appears that in these early days there were a set of persons willing
to undertake butchery as a trade, by hiring themselves, or rather
lowering themselves, to fight for any one who would pay them. Among
these, one of the most respectable was Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, whom we
may almost regard as a professional spiller of blood, for he took care
to turn his labours to a profitable account, by bleeding those on whose
side he fought, as well as those he fought against. According to some
writers, Pyrrhus was no mercenary, because in agreeing to lend his arms
to the Tarentines, he had in view a kingdom, rather than cash, or, in
other words, he did not propose to be paid by those whom he assisted,
because he intended to appropriate to himself everything out of which
they would have the means of paying him. Pyrrhus, in fact, can only be
excluded from the order of mercenaries by transferring him to the
catalogue of thieves, and of this arrangement we have no objection to
give him the benefit.
Though he lived in an age when the education of sovereigns was sadly
neglected, he possessed a fair amount of information, and he had the
fortunate habit of listening to good advice, so that he got credit for
being wise on the strength of the wisdom of his counsellors. His tongue
was no less polished than his sword, and his manners would have fully
justified their being charged as extras in the bill of any school in
which they may have been acquired. He was only thirty-seven years old
when he entered Italy with a stud, including no less than twenty
elephants and two thousand horses, though he was, of course, the
principal lion of his great travelling menagerie. He was accompanied by
a vast number of slingers, whose arms were in their slings, and a large
body of bowmen, who could draw the longest bow with a truthfulness quite
astonishing. An incident connected with the invocation of the aid of
Pyrrhus by the Tarentines has come down to us by tradition, that common
carrier who lays much at the historian's door, that he is not always
inclined to answer for. It is said that a respectable young nobleman, of
the name of Meto, appeared one day in the Tarentine senate with a
quantity of faded flowers in his hair, as if he had just come home late
from a dinner party, and had passed on his way through one of the
markets. Being attended by a female with a pipe, the Tarentines were
seized with a sudden desire to cheer, a propensity still evinced by a
modern mob in the presence of any absurdity.
[Illustration: _Pyrrhus arrives in Italy with his Troupe._]
[Illustration: Appearance in the Senate of a young Nobleman, named
Meto.]