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Makers of History
Romulus
BY JACOB ABBOTT
WITH ENGRAVINGS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1901
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
in the Clerk's Office for the Southern District of New York.
Copyright, 1880, by BENJAMIN VAUGHAN ABBOTT, AUSTIN ABBOTT,
LYMAN ABBOTT, and EDWARD ABBOTT.
[Illustration: THE HARPIES.]
PREFACE
In writing the series of historical narratives to which the present
work pertains, it has been the object of the author to furnish to the
reading community of this country an accurate and faithful account of
the lives and actions of the several personages that are made
successively the subjects of the volumes, following precisely the
story which has come down to us from ancient times. The writer has
spared no pains to gain access in all cases to the original sources of
information, and has confined himself strictly to them. The reader
may, therefore, feel assured in perusing any one of these works, that
the interest of it is in no degree indebted to the invention of the
author. No incident, however trivial, is ever added to the original
account, nor are any words even, in any case, attributed to a speaker
without express authority. Whatever of interest, therefore, these
stories may possess, is due solely to the facts themselves which are
recorded in them, and to their being brought together in a plain,
simple, and connected narrative.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. CADMUS 13
II. CADMUS'S LETTERS 36
III. THE STORY OF AENEAS 59
IV. THE DESTRUCTION OF TROY 79
V. THE FLIGHT OF AENEAS 103
VI. THE LANDING IN LATIUM 131
VII. RHEA SILVIA 155
VIII. THE TWINS 179
IX. THE FOUNDING OF ROME 202
X. ORGANIZATION 225
XI. WIVES 248
XII. THE SABINE WAR 270
XIII. THE CONCLUSION 295
ENGRAVINGS.
PAGE
THE HARPIES _Frontispiece._
JUPITER AND EUROPA 28
MAP--JOURNEYINGS OF CADMUS 30
SYMBOLICAL WRITING 37
SYMBOLICAL AND PHONETIC WRITING 44
HIEROGLYPHICS 56
MAP--ORIGIN OF VENUS 61
AENEAS DEFENDING THE BODY OF PANDARUS 68
THE TORTOISE 98
HELEN 105
MAP--WANDERINGS OF AENEAS 119
MAP--LATIUM 134
SILVIA'S STAG 145
RHEA SILVIA 180
FAUSTULUS AND THE TWINS 184
SITUATION OF ROME 209
PROMISING THE BRACELETS 284
THE DEATH OF ROMULUS 305
ROMULUS
CHAPTER I.
CADMUS.
B.C. 1500
Different kinds of greatness.--Founders of cities.--Rome.--Interest
in respect to its origin.--The story of AEneas.--The Mediterranean
sea.--Italy and Greece in ancient times, and now.--Ancient
chieftains.--Their modes of life.--Religious ideas of the ancient
Greeks and Romans.--Ancient studies of nature.--Purpose of
them.--History.--Ancient poems and tales.--How far founded
in fact.--Cadmus.--Interest felt in respect to the
origin of writing.--True story of Cadmus.--His father
Agenor.--Europa.--Telephassa.--The pursuit of Europa.--Fruitless
result.--Cadmus settles in Greece.--Thebes.--Arts introduced by
him.--The ancient legend of Cadmus.--Jupiter.--Adventures of
Jupiter.--His love for Europa.--His elopement.--Jupiter and Europa
in Crete.--The expedition of Cadmus.--His various wanderings.--Death
of Telephassa.--Visit to the oracle at Delphi.--The directions of
the oracle.--Cadmus finds his guide.--The place for his city
determined.--The fountain of Dirce.--The dragon's teeth.--Thebes
built.--Cadmia.--Ancient ideas of probability.--Belief in supernatural
tales.--Final recording of the ancient tales.
Some men are renowned in history on account of the extraordinary
powers and capacities which they exhibited in the course of their
career, or the intrinsic greatness of the deeds which they performed.
Others, without having really achieved any thing in itself very great
or wonderful, have become widely known to mankind by reason of the
vast consequences which, in the subsequent course of events, resulted
from their doings. Men of this latter class are conspicuous rather
than great. From among thousands of other men equally exalted in
character with themselves, they are brought out prominently to the
notice of mankind only in consequence of the strong light reflected,
by great events subsequently occurring, back upon the position where
they happened to stand.
The celebrity of Romulus seems to be of this latter kind. He founded a
city. A thousand other men have founded cities; and in doing their
work have evinced perhaps as much courage, sagacity, and mental power
as Romulus displayed. The city of Romulus, however, became in the end
the queen and mistress of the world. It rose to so exalted a position
of influence and power, and retained its ascendency so long, that now
for twenty centuries every civilized nation in the western world have
felt a strong interest in every thing pertaining to its history, and
have been accustomed to look back with special curiosity to the
circumstances of its origin. In consequence of this it has happened
that though Romulus, in his actual day, performed no very great
exploits, and enjoyed no pre-eminence above the thousand other
half-savage chieftains of his class, whose names have been long
forgotten, and very probably while he lived never dreamed of any
extended fame, yet so brilliant is the illumination which the
subsequent events of history have shed upon his position and his
doings, that his name and the incidents of his life have been brought
out very conspicuously to view, and attract very strongly the
attention of mankind.
* * * * *
The history of Rome is usually made to begin with the story of AEneas.
In order that the reader may understand in what light that romantic
tale is to be regarded, it is necessary to premise some statements in
respect to the general condition of society in ancient days, and to
the nature of the strange narrations, circulated in those early
periods among mankind, out of which in later ages, when the art of
writing came to be introduced, learned men compiled and recorded what
they termed history.
The countries which formed the shores of the Mediterranean sea were as
verdant and beautiful, in those ancient days, and perhaps as fruitful
and as densely populated as in modern times. The same Italy and Greece
were there then as now. There were the same blue and beautiful seas,
the same mountains, the same picturesque and enchanting shores, the
same smiling valleys, and the same serene and genial sky. The level
lands were tilled industriously by a rural population corresponding
in all essential points of character with the peasantry of modern
times; and shepherds and herdsmen, then as now, hunted the wild
beasts, and watched their flocks and herds on the declivities of the
mountains. In a word, the appearance of the face of nature, and the
performance of the great function of the social state, namely, the
procuring of food and clothing for man by the artificial cultivation
of animal and vegetable life, were substantially the same on the
shores of the Mediterranean two thousand years ago as now. Even the
plants and the animals themselves which the ancient inhabitants
reared, have undergone no essential change. Their sheep and oxen and
horses were the same as ours. So were their grapes, their apples, and
their corn.
If, however, we leave the humbler classes and occupations of society,
and turn our attention to those which represent the refinement, the
cultivation, and the power, of the two respective periods, we shall
find that almost all analogy fails. There was an aristocracy then as
now, ruling over the widely extended communities of peaceful
agriculturalists and herdsmen, but the members of it were entirely
different in their character, their tastes, their ideas, and their
occupations from the classes which exercise the prerogatives of
government in Europe in modern times. The nobles then were military
chieftains, living in camps or in walled cities, which they built for
the accommodation of themselves and their followers. These chieftains
were not barbarians. They were in a certain sense cultivated and
refined. They gathered around them in their camps and in their courts
orators, poets, statesmen, and officers of every grade, who seem to
have possessed the same energy, genius, taste, and in some respects
the same scientific skill, which have in all ages and in every clime
characterized the upper classes of the Caucasian race. They carried
all the arts which were necessary for their purposes and plans to high
perfection, and in the invention of tales, ballads and poems, to be
recited at their entertainments and feasts, they evinced the most
admirable taste and skill;--a taste and skill which, as they resulted
not from the operation and influence of artificial rules, but from the
unerring instinct of genius, have never been surpassed. In fact, the
poetical inventions of those early days, far from having been
produced in conformity with rules, were entirely precedent to rules,
in the order of time. Rules were formed from them; for they at length
became established themselves in the estimation of mankind, as models,
and on their authority as models, the whole theory of rhetorical and
poetical beauty now mainly reposes.
The people of those days formed no idea of a spiritual world, or of a
spiritual divinity. They however imagined, that heroes of former days
still continued to live and to reign in certain semi-heavenly regions
among the summits of their blue and beautiful mountains, and that they
were invested there with attributes in some respects divine. In
addition to these divinities, the fertile fancy of those ancient times
filled the earth, the air, the sea, and the sky with imaginary beings,
all most graceful and beautiful in their forms, and poetical in their
functions,--and made them the subjects, too, of innumerable legends
and tales, as graceful, poetical, and beautiful as themselves. Every
grove, and fountain, and river,--every lofty summit among the
mountains, and every rock and promontory along the shores of the
sea,--every cave, every valley, every water-fall, had its imaginary
occupant,--the genius of the spot; so that every natural object which
attracted public notice at all, was the subject of some picturesque
and romantic story. In a word, nature was not explored then as now,
for the purpose of ascertaining and recording cold and scientific
realities,--but to be admired, and embellished, and animated;--and to
be peopled, everywhere, with exquisitely beautiful, though imaginary
and supernatural, life and action.
What the genius of imagination and romance did thus in ancient times
with the scenery of nature, it did also on the field of history. Men
explored that field not at all to learn sober and actual realities,
but to find something that they might embellish and adorn, and animate
with supernatural and marvelous life. What the sober realities might
have actually been, was of no interest or moment to them whatever.
There were no scholars then as now, living in the midst of libraries,
and finding constant employment, and a never-ending pleasure, in
researches for the simple investigation of the truth. There was in
fact no retirement, no seclusion, no study. Every thing except what
related to the mere daily toil of tilling the ground bore direct
relation to military expeditions, spectacles and parades; and the only
field for the exercise of that kind of intellectual ability which is
employed in modern times in investigating and recording historic
truth, was the invention and recitation of poems, dramas and tales, to
amuse great military audiences in camps or public gatherings, convened
to witness shows or games, or to celebrate great religious festivals.
Of course under such circumstances there would be no interest felt in
truth as truth. Romance and fable would be far more serviceable for
such ends than reality.
Still it is obvious that such tales as were invented to amuse for the
purposes we have described, would have a deeper interest for those who
listened to them, if founded in some measure upon fact, and connected
in respect to the scene of their occurrence, with real localities. A
prince and his court sitting at their tables in the palace or the
tent, at the close of a feast, would listen with greater interest to a
story that purported to be an account of the deeds and the marvelous
adventures of their own ancestors, than to one that was wholly and
avowedly imaginary. The inventors of these tales would of course
generally choose such subjects, and their narrations would generally
consist therefore rather of embellishments of actual transactions,
than of inventions wholly original. Their heroes were consequently
real men; the principal actions ascribed to them were real actions,
and the places referred to were real localities. Thus there was a
semblance of truth and reality in all these tales which added greatly
to the interest of them; while there were no means of ascertaining the
real truth, and thus spoiling the story by making the falsehood or
improbability of it evident and glaring.
We cannot well have a better illustration of these principles than is
afforded by the story of Cadmus, an adventurer who was said to have
brought the knowledge of alphabetic writing into Greece from some
countries farther eastward. In modern times there is a very strong
interest felt in ascertaining the exact truth on this subject. The art
of writing with alphabetic characters was so great an invention, and
it has exerted so vast an influence on the condition and progress of
mankind since it was introduced, that a very strong interest is now
felt in every thing that can be ascertained as actually fact, in
respect to its origin. If it were possible now to determine under what
circumstances the method of representing the elements of sound by
written characters was first devised, to discover who it was that
first conceived the idea, and what led him to make the attempt, what
difficulties he encountered, to what purposes he first applied his
invention, and to what results it led, the whole world would take a
very strong interest in the revelation. The essential point, however,
to be observed, is that it is the _real truth_ in respect to the
subject that the world are now interested in knowing. Were a romance
writer to invent a tale in respect to the origin of writing, however
ingenious and entertaining it might be in its details, it would excite
in the learned world at the present day no interest whatever.
There is in fact no account at present existing in respect to the
actual origin of alphabetic characters, though there is an account of
the circumstances under which the art was brought into Europe from
Asia, where it seems to have been originally invented. We will give
the facts, first in their simple form, and then the narrative in the
form in which it was related in ancient times, as embellished by the
ancient story-tellers.
The facts then, as now generally understood and believed, are, that
there was a certain king in some country in Africa, named Agenor, who
lived about 1500 years before Christ. He had a daughter named Europa,
and several sons. Among his sons was one named Cadmus. Europa was a
beautiful girl, and after a time a wandering adventurer from some part
of the northern shores of the Mediterranean sea, came into Africa, and
was so much pleased with her that he resolved if possible, to obtain
her for his wife. He did not dare to make proposals openly, and he
accordingly disguised himself and mingled with the servants upon
Agenor's farm. In this disguise he succeeded in making acquaintance
with Europa, and finally persuaded her to elope with him. The pair
accordingly fled, and crossing the Mediterranean they went to Crete,
an island near the northern shores of the sea, and there they lived
together.
The father, when he found that his daughter had deceived him and gone
away, was very indignant, and sent Cadmus and his brothers in pursuit
of her. The mother of Europa, whose name was Telephassa, though less
indignant perhaps than the father, was overwhelmed with grief at the
loss of her child, and determined to accompany her sons in the search.
She accordingly took leave of her husband and of her native land, and
set out with Cadmus and her other sons on the long journey in search
of her lost child. Agenor charged his sons never to come home again
unless they brought Europa with them.
Cadmus, with his mother and brothers, traveled slowly toward the
northward, along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean sea,
inquiring everywhere for the fugitive. They passed through Syria and
Phenicia, into Asia Minor, and from Asia Minor into Greece. At length
Telephassa, worn down, perhaps, by fatigue, disappointment, and grief,
died. Cadmus and his brothers soon after became discouraged; and at
last, weary with their wanderings, and prevented by their father's
injunction from returning without Europa, they determined to settle in
Greece. In attempting to establish themselves there, however, they
became involved in various conflicts, first with wild beasts, and
afterward with men, the natives of the land, who seemed to spring up,
as it were, from the ground, to oppose them. They contrived, however,
at length, by fomenting quarrels among their enemies, and taking sides
with one party against the rest, to get a permanent footing in Greece,
and Cadmus finally founded a city there, which he called Thebes.
In establishing the institutions and government of Thebes, and in
arranging the organization of the people into a social state, Cadmus
introduced among them several arts, which, in that part of the
country, had been before unknown. One of these arts was the use of
copper, which metal he taught his new subjects to procure from the ore
obtained in mines. There were several others; but the most important
of all was that he taught them sixteen letters representing elementary
vocal sounds, by means of which inscriptions of words could be carved
upon monuments, or upon tablets of metal or of stone.
It is not supposed that the idea of representing the elements of vocal
sounds by characters _originated_ with Cadmus, or that he invented the
characters himself. He brought them with him undoubtedly, but whether
from Egypt or Phenicia, can not now be known.
Such are the facts of the case, as now generally understood and
believed. Let us now compare this simple narration with the romantic
tale which the early story-tellers made from it. The legend, as they
relate it, is as follows.
Jupiter was a prince born and bred among the summits of Mount Ida, in
Crete. His father's name was Saturn. Saturn had made an agreement that
he would cause all his sons to be slain, as soon as they were born.
This was to appease his brother, who was his rival, and who consented
that Saturn should continue to reign only on that condition.
Jupiter's mother, however, was very unwilling that her boys should be
thus cruelly put to death, and she contrived to conceal three of them,
and save them. The three thus preserved were brought up among the
solitudes of the mountains, watched and attended by nymphs, and nursed
by a goat. After they grew up, they engaged from time to time in
various wars, and met with various wonderful adventures, until at
length Jupiter, the oldest of them, succeeded, by means of
thunderbolts which he caused to be forged for his use, in vast
subterranean caverns beneath Mount Etna and Mount Vesuvius, conquered
all his enemies, and became universal king. He, however, divided his
empire between himself and his brothers, giving to them respectively
the command of the sea and of the subterranean regions, while he
reserved the earth and the heavenly regions for himself.
[Illustration: JUPITER AND EUROPA.]
He established his usual abode among the mountains of Northern Greece,
but he often made excursions to and fro upon the earth, appearing in
various disguises, and meeting with a great number of strange and
marvelous adventures. In the course of these wanderings he found his
way at one time into Egypt, and to the dominions of Agenor,--and there
he saw Agenor's beautiful daughter, Europa. He immediately determined
to make her his bride; and to secure this object he assumed the form
of a very finely shaped and beautiful bull, and in this guise joined
himself to Agenor's herds of cattle. Europa soon saw him there. She
was much pleased with the beauty of his form, and finding him gentle
and kind in disposition, she approached him, patted his glossy neck
and sides, and in other similar ways gratified the prince by marks of
her admiration and pleasure. She was at length induced by some secret
and magical influence which the prince exerted over her, to mount upon
his back, and allow herself to be borne away. The bull ran with his
burden to the shore, and plunged into the waves. He swam across the
sea to Crete,[A] and there, resuming his proper form, he made the
princess his bride.
[Footnote A: See Map, p. 30.]
Agenor and Telephassa, when they found that their daughter was gone,
were in great distress, and Agenor immediately determined to send his
sons on an expedition in pursuit of her. The names of his sons were
Cadmus, Phoenix, Cylix, Thasus, and Phineus. Cadmus, as the oldest
son, was to be the director of the expedition. Telephassa, the mother,
resolved to accompany them, so overwhelmed was she with affliction at
the loss of her daughter. Agenor himself was almost equally oppressed
with the calamity which had over whelmed them, and he charged his sons
never to come home again until they could bring Europa with them.
Telephassa and her sons wandered for a time in the countries east of
the Mediterranean sea, without being able to obtain any tidings of the
fugitive. At length they passed into Asia Minor, and from Asia Minor
into Thrace, a country lying north of the Egean Sea. Finding no traces
of their sister in any of these countries, the sons of Agenor became
discouraged, and resolved to make no farther search; and Telephassa,
exhausted with anxiety and fatigue, and now overwhelmed with the
thought that all hope must be finally abandoned, sank down and died.
[Illustration: THE JOURNEYING OF CADMUS.]
Cadmus and his brothers were much affected at their mother's death.
They made arrangements for her burial, in a manner befitting her high
rank and station, and when the funeral solemnities had been performed,
Cadmus repaired to the oracle at Delphi, which was situated in the
northern part of Greece, not very far from Thrace, in order that he
might inquire there whether there was any thing more that he could do
to recover his lost sister, and if so to learn what course he was to
pursue. The oracle replied to him that he must search for his sister
no more, but instead of it turn his attention wholly to the work of
establishing a home and a kingdom for himself, in Greece. To this end
he was to travel on in a direction indicated, until he met with a cow
of a certain kind, described by the oracle, and then to follow the cow
wherever she might lead the way, until at length, becoming fatigued,
she should stop and lie down. Upon the spot where the cow should lie
down he was to build a city and make it his capital.
Cadmus obeyed these directions of the oracle. He left Delphi and went
on, attended, as he had been in all his wanderings, by a troop of
companions and followers, until at length in the herds of one of the
people of the country, named Pelagon, he found a cow answering to the
description of the oracle. Taking this cow for his guide, he followed
wherever she led the way. She conducted him toward the southward and
eastward for thirty or forty miles, and at length wearied apparently,
by her long journey, she lay down. Cadmus knew immediately that this
was the spot where his city was to stand.
He began immediately to make arrangements for the building of the
city, but he determined first to offer the cow that had been his
divinely appointed guide to the spot, as a sacrifice to Minerva, whom
he always considered as his guardian goddess.
Near the spot where the cow lay down there was a small stream which
issued from a fountain not far distant, called the fountain of Dirce.
Cadmus sent some of his men to the place to obtain some water which it
was necessary to use in the ceremonies of the sacrifice. It happened,
however, that this fountain was a sacred one, having been consecrated
to Mars,--and there was a great dragon, a son of Mars, stationed there
to guard it. The men whom Cadmus sent did not return, and accordingly
Cadmus himself, after waiting a suitable time, proceeded to the spot
to ascertain the cause of the delay. He found that the dragon had
killed his men, and at the time when he arrived at the spot, the
monster was greedily devouring the bodies. Cadmus immediately
attacked the dragon and slew him, and then tore his teeth out of his
head, as trophies of his victory. Minerva had assisted Cadmus in this
combat, and when it was ended she directed him to plant the teeth of
the dragon in the ground. Cadmus did so, and immediately a host of
armed men sprung up from the place where he had planted them. Cadmus
threw a stone among these armed men, when they immediately began to
contend together in a desperate conflict, until at length all but five
of them were slain. These five then joined themselves to Cadmus, and
helped him to build his city.
He went on very successfully after this. The city which he built was
Thebes, which afterward became greatly celebrated. The citadel which
he erected within, he called, from his own name, Cadmia.
Such were the legends which were related in ancient poems and tales;
and it is obvious that such narratives must have been composed to
entertain groups of listeners whose main desire was to be excited and
amused, and not to be instructed. The stories were believed, no doubt,
and the faith which the hearer felt in their truth added of course
very greatly to the interest which they awakened in his mind. The
stories are _amusing_ to us; but it is impossible for us to share in
the deep and solemn emotion with which the ancient audiences listened
to them, for we have not the power, as they had, of believing them.
Such tales related in respect to the great actors on the stage in
modern times, would awaken no interest, for there is too general a
diffusion both of historical and philosophical knowledge to render it
possible for any one to suppose them to be true. But those for whom
the story of Europa was invented, had no means of knowing how wide the
Mediterranean sea might be, and whether a bull might not swim across
it. They did not know but that Mars might have a dragon for a son, and
that the teeth of such a dragon might not, when sown in the ground,
spring up in the form of a troop of armed men. They listened therefore
to the tale with an interest all the more earnest and solemn on
account of the marvelousness of the recital. They repeated it word for
word to one another, around their camp-fires, at their feasts, in
their journeyings,--and when watching their flocks at midnight, among
the solitudes of the mountains. Thus the tales were handed down from
generation to generation, until at length the use of the letters of
Cadmus became so far facilitated, that continuous narrations could be
expressed by means of them; and then they were put permanently upon
record in many forms, and were thus transmitted without any farther
change to the present age.