No More Learning

In 1874 he was German commissioner to Greece to negotiate for permission to excavate at Olympia. His chief works are " Peloponnesus " (1851-1852), " His tory of Greece" (1852-1867), — a standard work, but most valuable for the exhaustive topographical knowledge brought to bear on historical problems,— "The Ionians and their Migrations" (1855), "Attic Studies" (1864), "Seven Maps of Athens" (1886), " History of the City of Athens" (1891). ]
We speak of Europe and Asia, and involuntarily allow these terms to suggest to us two distinct quarters of the globe, sepa rated from one another by natural boundaries. But where are these boundaries ? Possibly a frontier line may be found in the north, where the Ural Mountains cut through the broad com plexes of land; but to the south of the Pontus nature has nowhere severed east from west, but rather done her utmost closely and inseparably to unite them. The same mountain ranges which pass across the Archipelago extend on dense suc cessions of islands over the Propontis : the coast lands on either side belong to one another as if they were two halves of one country : and harbors such as Thessalonica and Athens have from the first been incomparably nearer to the coast towns of Ionia than to their own interior, while from the western shores of their own continent they are still farther separated by broad tracts of land and by the difficulties of a lengthy sea voyage.
Sea and air unite the coasts of the Archipelago into one connected whole ; the same periodical winds blow from the Hellespont as far as Crete, and regulate navigation by the same conditions, and the climate by the same changes. Scarcely a single point is to be found between Asia and Europe where, in clear weather, a mariner would feel himself left in a solitude
NATURE AND MAN IN GREECE. 355
between sky and water ; the eye reaches from island to island, and easy voyages of a day lead from bay to bay. And there fore at all times the same nations have inhabited either shore, and since the days of Priam the same languages and customs have obtained both here and there. The Greek of the islands is as much at home at Smyrna as he is at Nauplia ; Salonichi lies in Europe, and yet belongs to the trading towns of the Levant ; notwithstanding all changes of political circumstances, Byzantium to this day ranks as the metropolis on either side ; and as one swell of the waves rolls from the shore of Ionia up to Salamis, so neither has any movement of population ever affected the coast on one side without extending itself to the other. Arbitrary political decisions have in ancient and mod ern times separated the two opposite coasts, and used some of the broader straits between the islands as boundary lines ; but no separation of this kind has ever become more than an ex ternal one, nor has any succeeded in dividing what nature has so clearly appointed for the theater of a common history.
As decided as the homogeneous character of the coast lands, which lie opposite one another from east to west, is the differ ence between the regions in the direction from north to south. On the northern border of the iEgean Sea no myrtle leaf adorns the shore, and the climate resembles that of a district of Central Germany ; no southern fruit grows in any part of Roumelia.
With the 40th degree of latitude a new region begins. Here, on the coasts, and in the sheltered valleys, occur the first signs of the neighborhood of a warmer world, and the first forests of constant verdure. But here, also, a trifling elevation suffices to change the whole condition of its vicinity ; thus a mountain like Athos bears on its heights nearly all European species of trees at once. And totally and utterly different is the natural condition of the interior. The Bay of Joannina, lying nearly a degree farther south than Naples, has the climate of Lombardy : in the interior of Thessaly no olive tree will flourish, and the entire Pindus is a stranger to the flora of Southern Europe.
At the 39th degree, and not before, the warm air of sea and coast penetrates into the interior, where a rapid advance makes itself visible. Even in Phthiotis rice and cotton are already grown, and frequent specimens of the olive tree begin to occur. In Eubcea and Attica there are even scattered instances of the palm tree, which in larger groups adorns the southern Cyclades,
356 NATURE AND MAN IN GREECE.
and which in the plains of Messenia will, under favorable cir cumstances, at times even produce edible dates. None of the rarer southern fruits prosper in the neighborhood of Athens without special cultivation ; while on the east coast of Argolis lemon and orange trees grow in thick forests, and in the gardens of the Naxiotes even the tender lime ripens, whose fragrant fruit, plucked in January, is transported in the space of a few hours to coasts where neither vine nor olive will flourish.
Thus, within a boundary of not more than two degrees of latitude, the land of Greece reaches from the beeches of Pindus into the climate of the palm ; nor is there on the entire known surface of the globe any other region in which the different zones of climate and flora meet one another in so rapid a succession.
The results are a variety in the living forms of nature and an abundance of her produce, which necessarily excited the minds of the inhabitants, awakened their attention and indus try, and called mercantile interchange into life among them.
These differences of climate are, as a rule, common to both shores. Yet even the regions of the eastern and western shores, with all their homogeneousness, show a thorough difference be tween one another ; for the similarity of the shores is not more strongly marked than the difference in the formation of the countries themselves.
It would seem as if the . 3Sgean were in possession of the peculiar power of transforming, after a fashion of its own, all the mainland — in other words, of everywhere penetrating into and breaking it up, of forming by this resolving process islands, peninsulas, necks of land, and promontories, and thus creating a line of coast of disproportionately great extent, with innumer able natural harbors. Such a coast may be called a Greek coast, because those regions in which Hellenes have settled possess it as peculiar to them before all countries of the earth.
In Asia great complexes of countries possess a history com mon to all of them. There one nation raises itself over a mul titude of others, and in every case decrees of fate fall, to which vast regions, with their millions of inhabitants, are uniformly subjected. Against a history of this kind every foot breadth of Greek land rises in protest. There the ramification of the mountains has formed a series of cantons, every one of which has received a natural call and a natural right to a separate existence.
NATURE AND MAN IN GREECE. 357
The villagers of wide plains quail at the thought of defend ing their laws and property against an overpowering force of arms; they submit to what is the will of heaven, and the sur vivor tranquilly builds himself a new hut near the ruins of the old. But where the land which has been with difficulty culti vated is belted by mountains with lofty ridges and narrow passes, which a little band is able to hold against a multitude, there men receive, together with these weapons of defense, the courage for using them. In the members of every local federa tion arises the feeling of belonging together by the will and command of God ; the common state grows by itself out of the hamlets of the valley; and in every such state there springs up at the same time a consciousness of an independence fully justified before God and man. He who desires to enslave such a land must attack and conquer it anew in every one of its mountain valleys. In the worst case the summits of the moun tains and inaccessible caves are able to shelter the remnant of the free inhabitants of the land.
But, besides the political independence, it is also the mul tiplicity of culture, manners, and language characteristic of Ancient Greece which it is impossible to conceive as existent without the multiplicitous formation of its territory, for with out the barriers of the mountains the various elements compos ing its population would have early lost their individuality by contact with one another.
Now Hellas is not only a secluded and well-guarded coun try, but, on the other hand, again, more open to commerce than any other country of the ancient world. For from three sides the sea penetrates into all parts of the country; and while it accustoms men's eyes to greater acuteness and their minds to higher enterprise, never ceases to excite their fancy for the sea, which, in regions where no ice binds it during the whole course of the year, effects an incomparably closer union between the lands than is the case with the inhospitable inland seas of the North.
Men soon learn all the secrets of the art of river navigation to an end, but never those of navigating the sea; the differ ences between dwellers on the banks of a river soon vanish by mutual contact, whereas the sea suddenly brings the greatest contrasts together; strangers arrive, who have been living under another sky and according to other laws: there ensues an endless comparing, learning, and teaching, and the more remu nerative the interchange of the produce of different countries, the
358 NATURE AND MAN IN GREECE.
more restlessly the human mind labors victoriously to oppose the dangers of the sea by a constant succession of new inventions.
The Euphrates and the Nile from year to year offer the same advantages to the population on their banks, and regulate its occupations in a constant monotony, which makes it possible for centuries to paso over the land without any change taking place in the essential habits of the lives of its inhabitants. Revolu tions occur, but no development, and mummylike, the civiliza tion of the Egyptians stagnates, enshrouded in the valley of the Nile ; they count the monotonous beats of the pendulum of time, but time contains nothing for them ; they possess a chro nology, but no history in the full sense of the word. Such a death in life is not permitted by the flowing waves of the ^Egean, which, as soon as commerce and mental activity have been once awakened, unceasingly continues and develops them.
Lastly, with regard to the natural gifts of the soil, a great difference prevailed between the eastern and western half of the land of Greece. The Athenian had only to ascend a few hours' journey from the mouths of the rivers of Asia Minor to assure himself how much more remunerative agriculture was there, and to admire and envy the deep layers of most fertile soil in . 3iolis and Ionia. There the growth of both plants and animals manifested greater luxuriance, the intercourse in the wide plains incomparably greater facility. We know how in the European country the plains are only let in between the mountains like furrows or narrow basins, or, as it were, washed on to their ex- tremest ridge ; and the single passage from one valley to the other led over lofty ridges, which men were obliged to open up for themselves, and then, with unspeakable labor, to provide with paths for beasts of burden and vehicles. The waters of the plains were equally grudging of the blessings expected from them. Far the greater number of them in summer were dried- up rivers, sons of the Nereides dying in their youth, according to the version of mythology ; and although the drought in the country is incomparably greater now than it was in ancient times, yet, since men remembered, the veins of water of the Ilissus, as well as of the Inachus, had been hidden under a dry bed of pebbles. Yet this excessive drought is again accompa nied by a superabundance of water, which, stagnating in one place in the basin of a valley, in another between mountains and sea, renders the air pestiferous and cultivation difficult. Every where there was a call for labor and a struggle. And yet at
WHY ROME BECAME GREAT. 359
how early a date would Greek history have come to an end had its only theater been under the skies of Ionia ! It was, after all, only in European Hellas that the fullness of energy of which the nation was capable came to light, on that soil so much more sparingly endowed by nature ; here, after all, men's bodies re ceived a more powerful, and their minds a freer, development ; here the country which they made their own, by drainage, and embankment, and artificial irrigation, became their native land in a fuller sense than the land on the opposite shore, where the gifts of God dropped into men's laps without any effort being necessary for their attainment. Its inhabitant enjoys the full blessings of the South. His necessaries of life he easily obtains from land and sea ; nature and climate train him in temperance. His country is hilly ; but his hills, instead of being rude heights, are arable and full of pastures, and thus act as the guardians of liberty. He dwells in an island country blessed with all the advantages of southern coasts, yet enjoying at the same time the benefits proper to a vast and uninterrupted complex of territory.
WHY ROME BECAME GREAT. By THEODOR MOMMSEN.
(From the " History of Rome. ")
[Theodoh Mommsen : A German historian ; born at Garding, Schleswig, November 30, 1817. He was professor of law at Leipsic (1848-1850), of Roman law at Zurich (1852-1854), and at Breslau (1854-1858). He was professor of ancient history at Berlin in 1858. His works are : " Roman History " (1854- 1856 ; 8th ed. , 1888-1889; vol. 5, 3d ed. , 1886), "Roman Chronology down to Cajsar" (2d ed. , 1859), " History of Roman Coinage" (1860), " Roman Investi gations " (1864-1879), " History of Roman Political Law " (3d ed. , 1888). He was editor in chief of the "Body of Latin Inscriptions" (15 vols, and supple ment, 1863-1893). ]
About fourteen miles up from the mouth of the river Tiber, hills of moderate elevation rise on both banks of the stream, higher on the right, lower on the left bank. With the latter group there have been closely associated for at least two thousand five hundred years the name of the Romans. We are unable, of course, to tell how or when that name arose ; this much only is certain, that in the oldest form of it known to us the inhabitants of the canton are called not Romans, but
360 WHY ROME BECAME GREAT.
(by a shifting of sound that frequently occurs in the earlier period of a language, but fell very early into abeyance in Latin) Ramnians (Ramne»), a fact which constitutes an expres sive testimony to the immemorial antiquity of the name. Its derivation cannot be given with certainty; possibly "Ramnes" may mean "foresters " or "bushmen. "
But they were not the only dwellers on the hills by the bank of the Tiber. In the earliest division of the burgesses of Rome a trace has been preserved of the fact that that body arose out of the amalgamation of three cantons once probably independent, the Ramnians, Tities, and Luceres, into a single commonwealth —in other words, out of such a synoikismos as that from which Athens arose in Attica. The great antiquity of this threefold division of the community is perhaps best evinced by the fact that the Romans, in matters especially of constitutional law, regularly used the forms tribuere
divide into three ") and tribus (" a third ") in the general sense of " to divide," and " a part," and the latter expression tribus, like our " quarter," early lost its original signification of number. After the union each of these three communities — once separate, but now forming subdivisions of a single com munity — still possessed its third of the common domain, and had its proportional representation in the burgess force and in the council of the elders. In ritual also, the number divisible
by three of the members of almost all the oldest colleges — of the Vestal Virgins, the Salii, the Arval Brethren, the Luperci, the Augurs — probably had reference to that threefold parti tion. These three elements into which the primitive body of burgesses in Rome was divided have had theories of the most extravagant absurdity engrafted upon them. The irrational opinion that the Roman nation was a mongrel people finds its support in that division, and its advocates have striven by various means to represent the three great Italian races as elements entering into the composition of the primitive Rome, and to transform a people which has exhibited in language, polity, and religion a pure and national development such as few have equaled, into a confused aggregate of Etruscan and Sabine, Hellenic and, forsooth ! even Pelasgian fragments.
Setting aside self-contradictory and unfounded hypotheses, we may sum up in a few words all that can be said respecting the nationality of the component elements of the primitive Roman commonwealth. That the Ramnians were a Latin
("to
WHY ROME BECAME GREAT. 361
stock cannot be doubted, for they gave their name to the new Roman commonwealth, and therefore must have substantially determined the nationality of the united community. Respect ing the origin of the Luceres nothing can be affirmed, except that there is no difficulty in the way of our assigning them, like the Ramnians, to the Latin stock. The second of these communities, on the other hand, is with one consent derived from Sabina ; and this view can at least be traced to a tradi tion preserved in the Titian brotherhood, which represented that priestly college as having been instituted, on occasion of the Tities being admitted into the collective community, for the preservation of their distinctive Sabine ritual. It would appear, therefore, that at a period very remote, when the Latin and Sabellian stocks were beyond question far less sharply con trasted in language, manners, and customs than were the Roman and the Samnite of a later age, a Sabellian community entered into a Latin canton union ; and, as in the older and more credible traditions without exception the Tities take pre cedence of the Ramnians, it is probable that the intruding Tities compelled the older Ramnians to accept the synoikismos. A mixture of different nationalities certainly therefore took place ; but it hardly exercised an influence greater than the migration, for example, which occurred some centuries after wards of the Sabine Attus Clauzus, or Appius Claudius, and his clansmen and clients to Rome. The earlier admission of the Tities among the Ramnians does not entitle us to class the community among mongrel peoples any more than does that subsequent reception of the Claudii among the Romans. With the exception, perhaps, of isolated national institutions handed down in connection with ritual, the existence of Sabellian elements can nowhere be pointed out in Rome ; and the Latin language in particular furnishes absolutely no support to such an hypothesis. It would in fact be more than surprising if the Latin nation should have had its nationality in any sen sible degree affected by the insertion of a single community from a stock so very closely related to it ; and, besides, it must not be forgotten that at the time when the Tities settled beside the Ramnians, Latin nationality rested on Latium as its basis, and not on Rome. The new tripartite Roman commonwealth was, notwithstanding some incidental elements which were originally Sabellian, just what the community of the Ramnians had previously been — a portion of the Latin nation.
362 WHY ROME BECAME GREAT.
Long, in all probability, before an urban settlement arose on the Tiber, these Ramnians, Tities, and Luceres, at first sep arate, afterwards united, had their stronghold on the Roman hills, and tilled their fields from the surrounding villages. The " wolf festival " (Lupercalia), which the gens of the Quinctii celebrated on the Palatine hill, was probably a tradition from these primitive ages — a festival of husbandmen and shepherds, which more than any other preserved the homely pastimes of patriarchal simplicity, and, singularly enough, maintained itself longer than all the other heathen festivals in Christian Rome.
From these settlements the later Rome arose. The found ing of a city in the strict sense, such as the legend assumes, is of course to be reckoned altogether out of the question : Rome was not built in a day. But the serious consideration of the historian may well be directed to the inquiry, in what way Rome could so early attain the prominent political position which it held in Latium — so different from what the physical character of the locality would have led us to anticipate. The site of Rome is less healthy and less fertile than that of most of the Latin towns. Neither the vine nor the fig succeed well in the immediate environs, and there is a want of springs yield ing a good supply of water ; for neither the otherwise excellent fountain of the Camenae before the Porta Capena, nor the Capitoline well, afterwards inclosed within the Tullianum, furnish it in any abundance. Another disadvantage arises from the frequency with which the river overflows its banks. Its very slight fall renders it unable to carry off the water, which during the rainy season descends in large quantities from the mountains, with sufficient rapidity to the sea, and in consequence it floods the low-lying lands and the valleys that open between the hills, and converts them into swamps. For a settler the locality was anything but attractive. In antiquity itself an opinion was expressed that the first body of immigrant cultivators could scarce have spontaneously resorted in search of a suitable settlement to that unhealthy and unfruitful spot in a region otherwise so highly favored, and that it must have been necessity, or rather some special motive, which led to the establishment of a city there. Even the legend betrays its sense of the strangeness of the fact : the story of the founda tion of Rome by refugees from Alba under the leadership of the sons of an Alban prince, Romulus and Remus, is nothing
WHY ROME BECAME GREAT. 363
but a naive attempt of primitive quasi history to explain the singular circumstance of the place having arisen on a site so unfavorable, and to connect at the same time the origin of Rome with the general metropolis of Latium. Such tales, which profess to be historical but are merely improvised ex planations of no very ingenious character, it is the first duty of history to dismiss ; but it may perhaps be allowed to go a step further, and after weighing the special relations of the locality to propose a positive conjecture not regarding the way in which the place originated, but regarding the circumstances which occasioned its rapid and surprising prosperity and led to its occupying its peculiar position in Latium.
Let us notice first of all the earliest boundaries of the Roman territory. Towards the east the towns of Antemnte, Fidenae, Caenina, Collatia, and Gabii lie in the immediate neighborhood, some of them not five miles distant from the gates of the Servian Rome; and the boundary of the canton must have been in the close vicinity of the city gates. On the south we find at a distance of fourteen miles the powerful com munities of Tusculum and Alba ; and the Roman territory ap pears not to have extended in this direction beyond the Fossa Cluilia, five miles from Rome. In like manner, towards the southwest, the boundary betwixt Rome and Lavinium was at the sixth milestone. While in a landward direction the Roman canton was thus everywhere confined within the narrowest possible limits, from the earliest times, on the other hand, it extended without hindrance on both banks of the Tiber towards the sea. Between Rome and the coast there occurs no locality that is mentioned as an ancient canton center, and no trace of any ancient canton boundary. The legend, indeed, which has its definite explanation of the origin of everything, professes to tell us that the Roman possessions on the right bank of the Tiber, the "seven hamlets " (septem pagi), and the important salt works at its mouth, were taken by King Romulus from the Veientes, and that King Ancus fortified on the right bank the tSte du pont, the " mount of Janus " (Iani- culurn), and founded on the left the Roman Peiraeus, the sea port at the river's "mouth" (Ostia). But in fact we have evidence more trustworthy than that of legend, that the pos sessions of the Etruscan bank of the Tiber must have belonged to the original territory of Rome ; for in this very quarter, at the fourth milestone on the later road to the port, lay the
364 WHY ROME BECAME GREAT.
grove of the creative goddess (2>ea Dia), the primitive chief seat of the Arval festival and Arval brotherhood of Rome. Indeed, from time immemorial the clan of the Romilii, the chief probably of all the Roman clans, was settled in this very quar ter ; the Janiculum formed a part of the city itself, and Ostia was a burgess colony or, in other words, a suburb.
This cannot have been the result of mere accident. The Tiber was the natural highway for the traffic of Latium ; and its mouth, on a coast scantily provided with harbors, became necessarily the anchorage of seafarers. Moreover, the Tiber formed from very ancient times the frontier defense of the Latin stock against their northern neighbors. There was no place better fitted for an emporium of the Latin river and sea traffic, and for a maritime frontier fortress of Latium, than Rome. It combined the advantages of a strong position and of immediate vicinity to the river ; it commanded both banks of the stream down to its mouth ; it was so situated as to be equally convenient for the river navigator descending the Tiber or the Anio, and for the seafarer with vessels of so moderate a size as those which were then used ; and it afforded greater protection from pirates than places situated immediately on the coast. That Rome was indebted accordingly, if not for its origin, at any rate for its importance, to these commercial and strategical advantages of its position, there are numerous indications to show — indications which are very different weight from the statements of quasi-historical romances. Thence arose its very ancient relations with Caere, which was to Etruria what Rome was to Latium, and accordingly became Rome's most intimate neighbor and commercial ally. Thence arose the unusual importance of the bridges over the Tiber, and of bridge building generally in the Roman commonwealth. Thence came the galley in the city arms ; thence, too, the very ancient Roman port duties on the exports and imports of Ostia, which were from the first levied only on what was to be ex posed for sale (promercale), not on what was for the shipper's own use (usuarium), and which were therefore in reality a tax upon commerce. Thence, to anticipate, the comparatively early occurrences in Rome of coined
treaties with transmarine states. In this sense, then, it is cer tainly not improbable that Rome may have been, as the legend assumes, a creation rather than a growth, and the youngest
money, and of commercial
WHY ROME BECAME GREAT. 365
rather than the oldest among the Latin cities. Beyond doubt the country was already in some degree cultivated, and the Alban range as well as various other heights of the Campagna were occupied by strongholds, when the Latin frontier empo rium arose on the Tiber. Whether it was a resolution of the Latin confederacy, or the clear-sighted genius of some unknown founder, or the natural development of traffic, that called the city of Rome into being, it is vain even to surmise.
But in connection with this view of the position of Rome as the emporium of Latium, another observation suggests itself. At the time when history begins to dawn on us, Rome appears, in contradistinction to the league of the Latin communities, as a compact urban unity. The Latin habit of dwelling in open villages, and of using the common stronghold only for festivals and assemblies or in case of special need, was subjected to restriction at a far earlier period, probably, in the canton of Rome than anywhere else in Latium. The Roman did not cease to manage his farm in person, or to regard it as his proper home ; but the unwholesome atmosphere of the Campagna could not but induce him to take up his abode as much as pos sible on the more airy and salubrious city hills ; and by the side of the cultivators of the soil there must have been a numerous non-agricultural population, partly foreigners, partly natives, settled there from early times. This to some extent accounts for the dense population of the old Roman territory, which may be estimated at the utmost at 115 square miles, partly of marshy or sandy soil, and which, even under the earliest constitu tion of the city, furnished a force of 3300 freemen ; so that it must have numbered at least 10,000 free inhabitants. But further, every one acquainted with the Romans and their history is aware that it is their urban and mercantile character which forms the basis of whatever is peculiar in their public and private life, and that the distinction between them and the other Latins and Italians in general is preeminently the distinc tion between citizen and rustic. Rome, indeed, was not a mer cantile city like Corinth or Carthage ; for Latium was an essentially agricultural region, and Rome was in the first instance, and continued to be, preeminently a Latin city. But the distinction between Rome and the mass of the other Latin towns must certainly be traced back to its commercial position, and to the type of character produced by that position in its
366 GREECE AND ROME.
citizens. If Rome was the emporium of the Latin districts, we can readily understand how, along with and in addition to Latin husbandry, an urban life should have attained vigorous and rapid development there, and thus have laid the foundation for its distinctive career.
GREECE AND ROME. By PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
[Percy Bysshe Shelley, English poet, was born in Sussex, August 4, 1792, and educated at Eton and at University College, Oxford, whence he was expelled for a tract on the "Necessity of Atheism. " His first notable poem, "Queen Mab," was privately printed in 1813. He succeeded to his father's estate in 1815. " Alastor " was completed in 1816 ; " The Revolt of Islam," " Rosalind and Helen," and "Julian and Maddalo," in 1818; "Prometheus Unbound," "The Cenci," "The Coliseum," "Peter Bell the Third," and the "Mask of Anarchy," in 1819 ; " (Edipus Tyrannus " and the " Witch of Atlas," in 1820 ; " Epipsychidion," "The Defense of Poetry," "Adonais," and "Hellas," in
1822.
He was drowned at sea July 8, 1822. ]
The nodding promontories, and blue isles,
And cloudlike mountains, and dividuous waves
Of Greece, baskt glorious in the open smiles
Of favoring heaven : from their enchanted caves
Prophetic echoes flung dim melody.
On the unapprehensive wild
The vine, the corn, the olive mild,
Grow savage yet, to human use unreconciled ; And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea,
Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, Like aught that is which wraps what is to be,
Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein Of Parian stone ; and yet a speechless child,
Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain
Her lidless eyes for thee ; when o'er the jEgean main
Athens arose : a city such as vision
Builds from the purple crags and silver towers
Of battlemented cloud, as in derision
Of kingliest masonry : the ocean floors
Pave it ; the evening sky pavilions it ; Its portals are inhabited
By thunder-zoned winds, each head Within its cloudy wings with sunfire garlanded,
GREECE AND ROME.
A divine work ! Athens diviner yet
Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will
Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set;
For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill
Peopled with forms that mock the eternal dead
In marble immortality, that hill
Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle.
Within the surface of Time's fleeting river Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay
Immovably unquiet, and forever
It trembles, but it cannot pass away!
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder With an earth-awakening blast Thro' the caverns of the past ;
Religion veils her eyes : Oppression shrinks aghast : A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, Which soars where Expectation never flew,
Rending the veil of space and time asunder I
One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew
One sun illumines heaven; one spirit vast
With life and love makes chaos ever new,
As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew.
Then Rome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest, Like a wolf cub from a Cadmsean Meenad,
She drew the milk of greatness, tho' thy dearest From that Elysian food was yet un weaned ;
And many a deed of terrible uprightness By thy sweet love was sanctified; And in thy smile, and by thy side,
Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Atilius died.
But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness,
And gold profaned thy Capitolian throne, Thou didst desert, with spirit-winged lightness,
The senate of the tyrants : they sunk prone Slaves of one tyrant : Palatinus sighed
Faint echoes of Ionian song ; that tone
Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown.
368 LEGENDS OF EARLY ROME.
LEGENDS OF EARLY ROME. By LIVY.
[Titos Livius, Roman historian, was born near what is now Padua, b. c. 59. He lived at Rome under Augustus, making so splendid a literary reputation that one man went from Spain to Rome and back merely to look at him ; but he re tired to his native town, and died there b. c. 17. His enduring repute rests on his History of Rome from its foundation to the death of Drusus, in one hundred and forty-two books, of which only thirty -five are extant]
Birth of Romulus and Remus.
Ascanius, the son of ^Eneas, Lavinium being overstocked with inhabitants, left that flourishing — and considering the times, wealthy — city to his mother or stepmother, and built for himself a new one at the foot of Mount Alba which being extended on the ridge of a hill, was from its situation called Longa Alba. Between the founding of Lavinium and the transplanting this colony to Longa Alba, about thirty years intervened. Yet its power had increased to such a degree, especially after the defeat of the Etrurians, that not even upon the death of iEneas, nor after that, during the regency of Lavinia, and the first essays of the young prince's reign, did Mezentius, the Etrurians, or any other of its neighbors dare to take up arms against it. A peace had been concluded between the two nations on these terms : that the river Albula, now called Tiber, should be the common boundary between the Etrurians and Latins. . . .
Proca begets Numitor and Amulius. To Numitor, his eldest son, he bequeaths the ancient kingdom of the Sylvian family. But force prevailed more than the father's will or the respect due to seniority ; for Amulius, having dispossessed his brother, seizes the kingdom ; he adds crime to crime, murders his brother's male issue ; and under pretense of doing his brother's daughter, Rhea Sylvia, honor, having made her a vestal virgin, by obliging her to perpetual virginity he deprives her of all hopes of issue. The vestal Rhea, being deflowered by force, when she had brought forth twins, declares Mars to be the father of her illegitimate offspring, either because she believed it to be so, or because a god was a more credit able author of her offense. But neither gods nor men protect her or her children from the king's cruelty : the priestess is
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bound and thrown into prison ; the children he commands to be thrown into the ourrent of the river. By some interposition of Providence, the Tiber, having overflowed its banks in stag nant pools, did not admit of any access to the regular bed of the river ; and the bearers supposed that the infants could be drowned in water however still ; thus, as if they had effectually executed the king's orders, they expose the boys in the nearest land flood, where now stands the ficus Ruminalis (they say that it was called Romularis). The country thereabout was then a vast wilderness.
The tradition is, that when the water, subsiding, had left the floating trough in which the children had been exposed, on dry ground, a thirsty she-wolf, coming from the neighboring mountains, directed her course to the cries of the infants, and that she held down her dugs to them with so much gentleness, that the keeper of the king's flock found her licking the boys with her tongue. It is said his name was Faustulus ; and that they were carried by him to his homestead to be nursed by his wife Laurentia. The children thus born and thus brought up, when arrived at the years of manhood, did not loiter away their time in tending the folds or following the flocks, but roamed and hunted in the forests. Having by this exercise improved their strength and courage, they not only encountered wild beasts, but even attacked robbers laden with plunder, and afterwards divided the spoil among the shepherds.
Foundation op Rome.
A desire seized Romulus and Remus to build a city on the spot where they had been exposed and brought up. And there was an overflowing population of Albans and of Latins. The shepherds, too, had come into that design, and all these readily inspired hopes, that Alba and Lavinium would be but petty places in comparison with the city which they intended to build. But ambition of the sovereignty, the bane of their grandfather, interrupted these designs, and thence arose a shameful quarrel from a beginning sufficiently amicable.
For as they were twins, and the respect due to seniority could not determine the point, they agreed to leave to the tutelary gods of the place to choose, by augury, which should give a name to the new city, which govern it when built.
Romulus chose the Palatine and Remus the Aventine hill vol. ii. —24
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as their stands to make their observations. It is said, that to Remus an omen came first, six vultures ; and now, the omen having been declared, when double the number presented itself to Romulus, his own party saluted each king ; the former claimed the kingdom on the ground of priority of time, the latter on account of the number of birds. Upon this, having met in an altercation, from the contest of angry feelings they turn to bloodshed ; there Remus fell from a blow received in the crowd. A more common account is, that Remus, in deri sion of his brother, leaped over his new-built wall, and was, for that reason, slain by Romulus in a passion ; who, after sharply chiding him, added words to this effect, "So shall every one fare, who shall dare leap over my fortifications. " Thus Romu lus got the sovereignty to himself ; the city, when built, was called after the name of its founder. . . .
Meanwhile the city increased by their taking in various lots of ground for buildings, whilst they built rather with a view to future numbers than for the population which they then had. Then, lest the size of the city might be of no avail, in order to augment the population, — according to the ancient policy of the founders of cities, who, after drawing together to them an obscure and mean multitude, used to feign that their offspring sprung out of the earth, — he opened as a sanctuary a place which is now inclosed as you go down "to the two groves. " Hither fled from the neighboring states, without distinction whether freemen or slaves, crowds of all sorts, desirous of change : and this was the first accession of strength to their rising greatness. When he was now not dissatisfied with his strength, he next sets about forming some means of directing that strength. He creates one hundred senators, either because that number was sufficient, or because there were only one hun dred who could name their fathers. They certainly were called Fathers, through respect, and their descendants, Patricians.
"Rape of the Sabines. "
And now the Roman state was become so powerful that it was a match for any of the neighboring nations in war; but from the paucity of women, its greatness could only last for one age of man ; for they had no hope of issue at home, nor had they any intermarriages with their neighbors. Therefore, by the advice of the Fathers, Romulus sent ambassadors to
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the neighboring states to solicit an alliance and the privilege of intermarriage for his new subjects. Nowhere did the em bassy obtain a favorable hearing : so much did they at the same time despise, and dread for themselves and their posterity, so great a power growing up in the midst of them. They were dismissed by the greater part with the repeated question, "Whether they had opened any asylum for women also, for that such a plan only could obtain them suitable matches? " The Roman youth resented this conduct bitterly, and the matter unquestionably began to point towards violence.
Romulus, to afford a favorable time and place for this, dis sembling his resentment, purposely prepares games in honor of Neptunus Equestris ; he calls them Consualia. Great numbers assembled, from a desire also of seeing the new city ; especially their nearest neighbors, the Caeninenses, Crustumini, and Antemnates. Moreover, the whole multitude of the Sa- bines came, with their wives and children. When the time of the spectacle came on, and while their minds and eyes were intent upon it, according to concert a tumult began, and upon a signal given the Roman youth ran different ways to carry off the virgins by force. A great number were carried off at hap hazard, according as they fell into their hands. Persons from the common people, who had been charged with the task, con veyed to their houses some women of surpassing beauty, des tined for the leading senators. The festival being disturbed by this alarm, the parents of the young women retire in grief, appealing to the compact of violated hospitality, and invoking the god, to whose festival and games they had come, deceived by the pretense of religion and good faith. Neither had the ravished virgins better hopes of their condition, or less indig nation. But Romulus in person went about and declared, " That what was done was owing to the pride of their fathers, who had refused to grant the privilege of marriage to their neighbors ; but notwithstanding, they should be joined in law ful wedlock, participate in all their possessions and civil privi leges, and, than which nothing can be dearer to the human heart, in their common children. He begged them only to assuage the fierceness of their anger, and cheerfully surrender their affections to those to whom fortune had consigned their persons. " [He added] "That from injuries love and friend ship often arise ; and that they should find them kinder hus bands on this account, because each of them, besides the
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performance of his conjugal duty, would endeavor to the utmost of his power to make up for the want of their parents and native country. " To this the caresses of the husbands were added, excusing what they had done on the plea of passion and love — arguments that work most successfully on women's hearts.
At this juncture the Sabine women, from the outrage on whom the war originated, with hair disheveled and garments rent, the timidity of their sex being overcome by such dreadful scenes, had the courage to throw themselves amid the flying weapons, and making a rush across, to part the incensed armies, and assuage their fury, imploring their fathers on the one side, their husbands on the other, "that as fathers-in-law and sons-in-law they would not contaminate each other with impious blood, nor stain their offspring with parricide, the one their grandchildren, the other their children. If you are dissatisfied with the affinity between you, if with our marriages, turn your resentment against us ; we are the cause of war, we of wounds and of bloodshed to our husbands and parents. It were better that we perish than live widowed or fatherless without one or other of you. " The circumstance affects both the multitude and the leaders. Silence and a sudden suspension ensue. Upon this the leaders come forward in order to concert a treaty, and they not only conclude a peace, but form one state out of two. They associate the regal power, and transfer the entire sovereignty to Rome. [Romulus disappeared in a thunder storm, and was never seen again. ]
f The Horatii and Curiatii.
It happened that there were in each of the two armies three brothers born at one birth, unequal neither in age nor strength. That they were called Horatii and Curiatii is certain enough ; nor is there any circumstance of antiquity more celebrated ; yet in a matter so well ascertained, a doubt remains concerning their names, to which nation the Horatii and to which the Curiatii belonged. Authors claim them for both sides ; yet I find more who call the Horatii Romans. My inclination leads me to follow them. The kings confer with the three brothers, that they should fight with their swords each in defense of their respective country, (assuring them) that dominion would be on that side on which victory should be. No objection is
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made ; time and place are agreed on. Before they engaged, a compact is entered into between the Romans and Albans on these conditions, that the state whose champions should come off victorious in that combat, should rule the other state with out further dispute.
The treaty being concluded, the twin brothers, as had been agreed, take arms. Whilst their respective friends exhortingly reminded each party " that their country's gods, their country and parents, all their countrymen both at home and in the army, had their eyes then fixed on their arms, on their hands ; naturally brave, and animated by the exhortations of their friends, they advance into the midst between the two lines. The two armies sat down before their respective camps, free rather from present danger than from anxiety ; for the sover eign power was at stake, depending on the valor and fortune of so few. Accordingly, therefore, eager and anxious, they have their attention intensely riveted on a spectacle far from pleasing. The signal is given ; and the three youths on each side, as if in battle array, rush to the charge with determined fury, bearing in their breasts the spirits of mighty armies ; nor do the one or the other regard their personal danger ; the pub lic dominion or slavery is present to their mind, and the fortune of their country, which was ever after destined to be such as they should now establish it. As soon as their arms clashed on the first encounter, and their burnished swords glittered, great horror strikes the spectators ; and, hope inclining to neither side, their voice and breath were suspended.
Then having engaged hand to hand, when not only the movements of their bodies, and the rapid brandishings of their arms and weapons, but wounds also and blood were seen, two of the Romans fell lifeless, one upon the other, the three Albans being wounded. And when the Alban army raised a shout of joy at their fall, hope entirely, anxiety however not yet, deserted the Roman legions, alarmed for the lot of the one, whom the three Curiatii surrounded. He happened to be unhurt, so that, though alone he was by no means a match for them all together, yet he was confident against each singly. In order, therefore, to separate their attack, he takes to flight, presuming that they would pursue him with such swiftness as the wounded state of his body would suffer each. He had now fled a con siderable distance from the place where they had fought, when, looking behind, he perceives them pursuing him at great inter
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vals from each other ; and that one of them was not far from him. On him he turned round with great fury. And whilst the Alban army shouts out to the Curiatii to succor their brother, Horatius, victorious in having slain his antagonist, was now proceeding to a second attack. Then the Romans encourage their champion with a shout such as is usually (given) by persons cheering in consequence of unexpected suc cess ; he also hastens to put an end to the combat. Wherefore before the other, who was not far off, could come up, he dis patches the second Curiatius also.
And now, the combat being brought to an equality of num bers, one on each side remained, but they were equal neither in hope nor in strength. The one his body untouched by a weapon, and by a double victory made courageous for a third contest ; the other dragging along his body exhausted from the wound, exhausted from running, and dispirited by the slaughter of his brethren before his eyes, presents himself to his victori ous antagonist. Nor was that a fight. The Roman, exulting, says, " Two I have offered to the shades of my brothers ; the third I will offer to the cause of this war, that the Roman may rule over the Alban. " He thrusts his sword down into his throat, whilst faintly sustaining the weight of his armor ; he strips him as he lies prostrate. The Romans receive Horatius with triumph and congratulation ; with so much the greater joy, as success had followed so close on fear. They then turn to the burial of their friends with dispositions by no means alike ; for the one side was elated with (the acquisition of) empire, the other subjected to foreign jurisdiction ; their sepul- chers are still extant in the place where each fell ; the two Roman ones in one place nearer to Alba, the three Alban ones towards Rome ; but distant in situation from each other, and just as they fought.
Before they parted from thence, when Mettus, in conformity to the treaty which had been concluded, asked what orders he had to give, Tullus orders him to keep the youth in arms, that he designed to employ them, if a war should break out with the Veientes. After this both armies returned to their homes. Horatius marched foremost, carrying before him the spoils of the three brothers ; his sister, a maiden who had been betrothed to one of the Curiatii, met him before the gate Capena ; and having recognized her lover's military robe, which she herself had wrought, on her brother's shoulders, she tore her hair, and
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with bitter waitings called by name on her deceased lover. The sister's lamentations in the midst of his own victory, and of such great public rejoicings, raised the indignation of the excited youth. Having therefore drawn his sword, he run the damsel through the body, at the same time chiding her in these words : " Go hence, with thy unseasonable love to thy spouse, forgetful of thy dead brothers, and of him who survives, forget ful of thy native country. So perish every Roman woman who shall mourn an enemy. "
This action seemed shocking to the fathers and to the peo ple; but his recent services outweighed its guilt. Neverthe less, he was carried before the king for judgment. The king, that he himself might not be the author of a decision so melan choly, and so disagreeable to the people, or of the punishment consequent on that decision, having summoned an assembly of the people, says, " I appoint, according to law, duumvirs to pass sentence on Horatius for treason. " The law was of dread ful import. " Let the duumvirs pass sentence for treason. If he appeal from the duumvirs, let him contend by appeal ; if they shall gain the cause, cover his head ; hang him by a rope from a gallows ; scourge him either within the pomcerium or without the pomcerium. " When the duumvirs appointed by this law, who did not consider that, according to the law, they could acquit even an innocent person, had found him guilty, one of them says : " P. Horatius, I judge thee guilty of treason. Go, lictor, bind his hands. " The lictor had approached him, and was fixing the rope. Then Horatius, by the advice of Tullus, a favorable interpreter of the law, says, "I appeal. " Accordingly the matter was contested by appeal to the people.
On that trial persons were much affected, especially by P. Horatius, the father declaring that he considered his daughter deservedly slain ; were it not so, that he would by his authority as a father have inflicted punishment on his son. He then entreated that these would not render childless him whom but a little while ago they had beheld with a fine prog eny. During these words the old man, having embraced the youth, pointing to the spoils of the Curiatii fixed up in that place which is now called Pila Horatia, " Romans," said he, " can you bear to see bound beneath a gallows amidst scourges and tortures, him whom you just now beheld marching deco rated (with spoils) and exulting in victory ; a sight so shock
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ing as the eyes even of the Albans could scarcely endure. Go, lictor, bind those hands, which but a little while since, being armed, established sovereignty for the Roman people. Go, cover the head of the liberator of this city ; hang him on the gallows ; scourge him, either within the pomcerium, so it be only amid those javelins and spoils of the enemy; or without the pomoerium, only amid the graves of the Curiatii. For whither can you bring this youth, where his own glories must not redeem him from such ignominy of punishment ? "
The people could not withstand the tears of the father, or the resolution of the son, so undaunted in every danger ; and acquitted him more through admiration of his bravery than for the justice of his cause. But that so notorious a murder might be atoned for by some expiation, the father was com manded to make satisfaction for the son at the public charge. He, having offered certain expiatory sacrifices, which were ever after continued in the Horatian family, and laid a beam across the street, made his son pass under it as under a yoke, with his head covered. This remains even to this day, being constantly repaired at the expense of the public ; they call it Sororium Tigillum. A tomb of square stone was erected to Horatia in the place where she was stabbed and fell.
Sextus Tarquin and Lucretia.
As it commonly happens in standing camps, the war against the Rutulians being rather tedious than violent, furloughs were easily obtained, more so by the officers, however, than the common soldiers. The young princes sometimes spent their leisure hours in feasting and entertainments. One day as they were drinking in the tent of Sextus Tarquin, where Collatinus Tarquinius, the son of Egerius, was also at supper, mention was made of wives. Every one commended his own in an ex travagant manner, till a dispute arising about it, Collatinus said: "There was no occasion for words, that it might be known in a few hours how far his Lucretia excelled all the rest. If then, added he, we have any share of the vigor of youth, let us mount our horses and examine the behavior of our wives ; that must be most satisfactory to every one, which shall meet his eyes on the unexpected arrival of the husband. " They were heated with wine. " Come on, then," say all. They immedi ately galloped to Rome, where they arrived in the dusk of the
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evening. From thence they went to Collatia, where they find Lucretia, not like the king's daughters-in-law, whom they had seen spending their time in luxurious entertainments with their equals, but though at an advanced time of night, employed at her wool, sitting in the middle of the house amid her maids working around her. The merit of the contest regarding the ladies was assigned to Lucretia. Her husband on his arrival, and the Tarquinii, were kindly received ; the husband, proud of his victory, gives the young princes a polite invitation. There the villanous passion for violating Lucretia by force seizes Sex- tus Tarquin ; both her beauty, and her approved purity, act as incentives. And then, after this youthful frolic of the night, they return to the camp.
A few days after, without the knowledge of Collatinus, Sextus came to Collatia with one attendant only ; where, being kindly received by them, as not being aware of his intention, after he had been conducted after supper into the guests' cham ber, burning with passion, when everything around seemed sufficiently secure, and all fast asleep, he comes to Lucretia, as she lay asleep, with a naked sword, and with his left hand press ing down the woman's breast, he says, " Be silent, Lucretia ;
I I have a sword in my hand ; you shall die, if you utter a word. " When awaking terrified from sleep, the woman beheld no aid, impending death nigh at hand; then
am Sextus Tarquin ;
Tarquin acknowledged his passion, entreated, mixed threats with entreaties, tried the female's mind in every possible way. When he saw her inflexible, and that she was not moved even by the terror of death, he added to terror the threat of dis honor ; he says that he will lay a murdered slave naked by her side when dead, so that she may be said to have been slain in infamous adultery.
When by the terror of this disgrace his lust, as it were vic torious, had overcome her inflexible chastity, and Tarquin had departed, exulting in having triumphed over a lady's honor, Lucretia, in melancholy distress at so dreadful a misfortune, dispatches the same messenger to Rome to her father, and to Ardea to her husband, that they would come each with one trusty friend ; that it was necessary to do so, and that quickly. Sp. Lucretius comes with P. Valerius, the son of Volesus, Col latinus with L. Junius Brutus, with whom, as he was returning to Rome, he happened to be met by his wife's messenger. They find Lucretia sitting in her chamber in sorrowful dejection.
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On the arrival of her friends the tears burst from her eyes ; and to her" husband, on his inquiry " whether all was right," she says : By no means, for what can be right with a woman who has lost her honor? The traces of another man are on your bed, Collatinus. But the body only has been violated, the mind is guiltless; death shall be my witness. But give me your right hands, and your honor, that the adulterer shall not come off unpunished. It is Sextus Tarquin, who, an enemy in the guise of a guest, has borne away hence a triumph fatal to me, and to himself, if you are men. "
They all pledge their honor ; they attempt to console her, distracted as she was in mind, by turning away the guilt from her, constrained by force, on the perpetrator of the crime ; that it is the mind sins, not the body ; and that where intention was wanting guilt could not be. " It is for you to see," says she, " what is due to him. As for me, though I acquit myself of guilt, from punishment I do not discharge myself ; nor shall any woman survive her dishonor pleading the example of Lu- cretia. " The knife, which she kept concealed beneath her gar ment, she plunges into her heart, and falling forward on the wound, she dropped down expiring. The husband and father shriek aloud.
Brutus, while they were overpowered with grief, having drawn the knife out of the wound, and holding it up before him reeking with blood, said, " By this blood, most pure before the pollution of royal villainy, I swear, and I call you, O gods, to witness my oath, that I shall pursue Lucius Tarquin the Proud, his wicked wife, and all their race, with fire, sword, and all other means in my power ; nor shall I ever suffer them or any other to reign at Rome. " Then he gave the knife to Col latinus, and after him to Lucretius and Valerius, who were sur prised at such extraordinary mind in the breast of Brutus. However, they all take the oath as they were directed, and, converting their sorrow into rage, follow Brutus as their leader, who from that time ceased not to solicit them to abolish the regal power.
Coriolanus.
In this year, when everything was quiet from war abroad, and the dissensions were healed at home, another much more serious evil fell upon the state ; first a scarcity of provisions, in consequence of the lands lying untilled during the secession
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379
of the commons ; then a famine such as befalls those who are besieged. And it would have ended in the destruction of the slaves at least, and indeed some of the commons also, had not the consuls adopted precautionary measures, by
sending per . . . It was debated in the senate at what rate it should be given to the commons. Many were of the opinion that the time was come for putting
down the commons, and for recovering those rights which had been wrested from the senators by secession and violence. In particular, Marcius Coriolanus, an enemy to tribunitian power, says: "If they desire the former rate of provisions, let them restore to the senators their former rights. Why do I, after being sent under the yoke, after being, as it were, ransomed from robbers, behold plebeian magistrates and Sicinius invested with power ? Shall I submit to these indignities longer than is necessary ? Shall I, who would not have endured King Tar- quin, tolerate Sicinius ? Let him now secede, let him call away the commons. The road lies open to the sacred mount and to other hills. Let them carry off the corn from our lands, as they did three years since. Let them have the benefit of that scarcity which in their frenzy they have occasioned. I will venture to say, that, brought to their senses by these sufferings, they will themselves become tillers of the lands, rather than, taking up arms and seceding, they would prevent them from being tilled. "
This proposal both appeared to the senate too harsh, and from exasperation well-nigh drove the people to arms : " That they were now assailed with famine, as if enemies; that they were defrauded of food and sustenance; that the foreign corn, the only support which fortune unexpectedly furnished to them, was being snatched from their mouth, unless the tribunes were given up in chains to C. Marcius, unless he glut his rage on the backs of the commons of Rome. That in him a new executioner had started up, who ordered them to die or be slaves. " An assault would have been made on him as he left the senate house, had not the tribunes very opportunely ap pointed him a day for trial ; by this their rage was suppressed, every one saw himself become the judge, the arbiter of the life and death of his foe. At first Marcius heard the threats of the tribunes with contempt; but the commons had risen with such violent determination, that the senators were obliged to extri cate themselves from danger by the punishment of one.
sons in every direction to buy up corn.
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They resisted, however, in spite of popular odium, and em ployed, each individual his own powers, and all those of the entire order. And first, the trial was made whether they could upset the affair, by posting their clients (in several places), by deterring individuals from attending meetings and cabals. Then they all proceeded in a body (you would suppose that all the senators were on their trial) earnestly entreating the com mons, that if they would not acquit as innocent, they would at least pardon as guilty, one citizen, one senator. As he did not attend on the day appointed, they persevered in their resent ment. Being condemned in his absence, he went into exile to the Volsci, threatening his country, and even then breathing all the resentment of an enemy.
[He is made general of the Volscians, ravages Roman territory, and puts Rome itself in imminent danger. ]
Sp. Nautius and Sex. Furius were now consuls. Whilst they were reviewing the legions, posting guards along the walls and other places where they had determined that there should be posts and watches, a vast multitude of persons de manding peace terrified them first by their seditious clamor; then compelled them to convene the senate, to consider the question of sending ambassadors to C. Marcius. The senate entertained the question, when it became evident that the spirits of the plebeians were giving way, and ambassadors being sent to Marcius concerning peace, brought back a harsh answer, " If their lands were restored to the Volscians, that they might then consider the question of peace ; if they were disposed to enjoy the plunder of war at their ease, that he, mindful both of the injurious treatment of his countrymen, as well as of the kindness of strangers, would do his utmost to make it appear that his spirit was irritated by exile, not crushed. " When the same persons are sent back a second time, they are not admitted into the camp. It is recorded that the priests also, arrayed in their insignia, went as suppliants to the enemy's camp; and that they did not influence his mind more than the ambassadors.
Then the matrons assemble in a body around Veturia, the mother of Coriolanus, and his wife, Volumnia : whether that was the result of public counsel, or of the women's fear, I can not ascertain. They certainly carried their point that Veturia, a lady advanced in years, and Volumnia, leading her two sons by Marcius, should go into the camp of the enemy, and that
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women should defend by entreaties and tears a city which men. were unable to defend by arms. When they reached the camp and it was announced to Coriolanus that a great body of women were approaching, he, who had been moved neither by the maj esty of the state in its ambassadors, nor by the sanctity of reli gion so strikingly addressed to his eyes and understanding in its priests, was much more obdurate against the women's tears. Then one of his acquaintances, who recognized Veturia, distin guished from all the others by her sadness, standing between her daughter-in-law and grandchildren, says, " Unless my eyes deceive me, your mother, children, and wife are approaching. "
When Coriolanus, almost like one bewildered, rushing in consternation from his seat, offered to embrace his mother as she met him, the lady, turning from entreaties to angry rebuke, says : " Before I receive your embrace, let me know whether I have come to an enemy or to a son ; whether Iam in your camp a captive or a mother? —Has length of life and a hapless old age reserved me for this to behold you an exile, then an enemy ? Could you lay waste this land, which gave you birth and nurtured you? Though you had come with an incensed and vengeful mind, did not your resentment subside when you entered its frontiers? When Rome came within view, did it not occur to you, within these walls my house and guardian gods are, my mother, wife, and children ? So then, had I not been a mother, Rome would not be besieged : had I not a son, I might have died free in a free country. But I can now suffer nothing that is not more discreditable to you than distressing to me; nor however wretched I may be, shall I be so long. Look to these, whom, if you persist, either an untimely death or lengthened slavery awaits. " Then his wife and children embraced him : and the lamentation proceeding from the entire crowd of women, and their bemoaning themselves and their country, at length overcame the man; then, after embracing his family, he sends them away ; he moved his camp farther back from the city.