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THE 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME, 
 
 FROM THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY TO THE END OF THE 
 COMMONWEALTH. 
 
BRADBURY, AGNBW, * CO,. £. 0, 10, BO0VERIE STRBRT 
 
LONDON : 
 CRADBURY, ACNE'.V, & CO., I'KIXTERSj WHITEFRIARS. 
 
 HTFT 
 

 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Some explanation is perhaps due from a writer who adopts 
 the title of Comic in relation to a subject which is ordi?iarily 
 considered to be so essentially grave as that of History. 
 Though the epithet may be thought by many inappropriate 
 to the theme, this work has been prompted by a very serious 
 desire to instruct those who, though willing to acquire in- 
 formation, seek in doing so as much amusement as possible. 
 
 It is true that professedly Comic literature has been the 
 subject of a familiarity not unmixed with contempt on the part 
 of a portion of the public, since that class of writing obtained 
 the popularity which has especially attended it within the last 
 few years ; but as whatever disrepute it has fallen into is 
 owing entirely to its abuse, there is no reason for abandoning 
 an attempt to make a right use of it. The title of Comic 
 has therefore been retained in reference to this work, though 
 the author has felt that its purport is likely to be misconceived 
 by many, and among them not a few whose judgment he would 
 highly esteem, who would turn away from a Comic History 
 solely on account of its name, and without giving themselves 
 the trouble to look into it. Those persons are, however, 
 grievously mistaken who have imagined that in this, and in 
 similar books from the same pen, the object has been to treat 
 History as a mere farce, or to laugh at Truth — the aim of 
 the writer having invariably been to expose falsehood, and to 
 
 b 
 
 755 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 bring into merited contempt all that has been injudiciously, 
 ignorantlyj or dishonestly held up to general admiration. His 
 method of telling a story may be objected to ; nevertheless, if he 
 does his utmost to tell it truly, he ought not, perhaps, to be very 
 severely criticised for adopting the style in which he feels him- 
 self most at home ; and if his opinions are found to be, in the 
 main, such as just and sensible persons can agree with, he only 
 asks that his views and sentiments may be estimated by what 
 they contain, and not by any peculiarity in his mode of 
 expressing them. 
 
 The writer of this book is animated by an earnest wish to 
 aid, as far as he is able, in the project of combining instruction 
 with amusement ; and he trusts he shall not be blamed for 
 endeavouring to render such ability as he possesses available 
 for as much as it is worth, in applying it to subjects of useful 
 information. 
 
 Those who are not disposed to approve of his design, will 
 perhaps give him credit for his motive ; and he may with con- 
 fidence assert, that, from the care and attention he has bestowed 
 upon this work, it will be found to form (irrespective of its 
 claims to amuse) by no means the least compendious and 
 correct of the histories already in existence of Rome to 
 the end of the Commonwealth. If he has failed in justifying 
 the application of the title of Comic to his work, he has reason 
 to believe it will be found accurate. Though the style professes 
 to be light, he would submit that truth does not necessarily 
 make more impression by being conveyed through a heavy 
 medium ; and although facts may be playfully told, it is hoped 
 that narrative in sport may be found to constitute history in 
 earnest. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 TAOS 
 OBjoS. I. — FROM THE FOUNDATION OF ROME TO THE DEATH OF ROMULUS . 1 
 
 n. — FROM THE ACCESSION OF NUMA POMPILIUS TO THE DEATH OF ANCUS 
 
 MARTIUS 14 
 
 HI. — FROM THE ACCESSION OF TARQUINIUS PR1SCUS TO THE DEATH OF 
 
 SERVIUS TULLIUS 23 
 
 IV. FROM THE ACCESSION OF TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS TO THE BANISHMENT 
 
 OF THE ROYAL FAMILY, AND THE ABOLITION OF THE KINGLY 
 DIGNITY .... 33 
 
 f. — FROM TEE BANISHMENT OF TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS TO THE BATTLE 
 
 OF LAKE REGILLUS ... . . 43 
 
 VI. — FROM THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGIE'S TO THE CLOSE OF THE 
 
 WAR WITH THE YOLSCIANS . . ... 56 
 
 VU. — FROM THE CLOSE OF THE WAR WITH THE VOLSCIANS TO THE 
 
 PASSING OF THE BILL OF TERENTILLUS 65 
 
 Vni. — FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DECEMVIRATE TO THE TAKING 
 
 OF VEII 73 
 
 IX.— FROM THE TAKING OF ROME BY THE GAULS TO ITS SUBSEQUENT 
 
 PRESERVATION BY MANLIUS 39 
 
 X. — FROM THE TRI3UNESHIP OF C. LICINIUS TO THE DEFEAT OF THE 
 
 GAULS BY VALERIUS 97 
 
 XI. — FROM THE FIRST WAR AGAINST THE SAMNITES TO THE PASSING OP 
 
 TEE LAWS OF PFBLILIU5 1 07 
 
 XIi, — FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND TO THE END OF THE TITIP.D 
 
 SAMNITE WAR II l> 
 
 Xltl. — ON THE PEACEFUL OCCUPATIONS OF THE ROMANS. FROM THE 
 
 SCARCITY OF SUBJECT, NECESSARILY A VERY SIIORT CHAPTER . 129 
 
 XIV. — FROM THE END OF THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR TO THE SUBJUGATION 
 
 OF ALL ITALY BY THE ROMANS . . .135 
 
viii CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 CHAP. XV. — THE FIRST TUNIC WAR .150 
 
 XVI. — SOME MISCELLANEOUS WARS OF ROME 161 
 
 XVII. — THE SECOND PUNIC WAR 171 
 
 XVIII. --CONCLUSION CF THE SECOND FUNIC WAR 183 
 
 XIX. — WAR WITH THE MACEDONIANS. PROCLAMATION OF THE FREEDOM 
 OF GREECE BY FLAMINIUS. WAR WITH ANTIOCHUS. DEATH OF 
 HANNIBAL, AND OF SCIPIO AFRICANUS 193 
 
 XX. PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS. MORALS, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND STATE 
 
 OF THE DRAMA AND LITERATURE AMONG THE ROMANS . . 204 
 
 XXI. — WARS AGAINST PERSEUS. THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. SIEGE AND 
 
 DESTRUCTION OF CARTHAGE, AND DITTO DITTO OF CORINTH . 215 
 
 XX11. — WARS IN SPAIN. VIRIATHUS. DESTRUCTION OF NUMANTIA. THE 
 
 SERVILE WAR IN SICILY. APPROPRIATION OF PERGAMUS . . 225 
 
 XXIII. — THE GRACCHI AND THEIR MOTHER. RISE AND FALL OF TIBERIUS 
 
 AND CAIUS GRACCHUS 234 
 
 XXTV. — THE JUGURTHINE WAR. WAR AGAINST THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONI 247 
 
 XXV. — MITHRIDATES, SULLA, MARIUS, CINNA, ET CiETERA . . . 257 
 
 XXVI. — DEATH OF CINNA. RETURN OF SULLA TO ROME. C. PAFIRIUS 
 
 CARBO. DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA 267 
 
 XXVII. — RE-ACTION AGAINST THE POLICY OF SULLA. SERVICES OF 
 Q. SERTORIUS. METELLUS. CN. POMPEY. SPIRITED STEPS OF 
 SPARTACUS. THE IRATE PIRATE 275 
 
 XXVIII. THE THIRD MITHRIDATIC WAR. DEPOSITION AND DEATH OF 
 
 MITHRIDATES 284 
 
 XXIX. — CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE. INTRODUCTION OF CICERO. C£SAR, 
 
 PiiMPElT, CRASSUS, AND CO 289 
 
 XXX.— OVERTHROW OF CRASSUS. DEFEAT OF POMPEY. DICTATORSHIP 
 
 AND DEATH OF CflvSAR. END OF THE ROMAN RF.niRLIC . 299 
 
ENGRAVINGS ON STEEL. 
 
 FAQS 
 
 1. Romulus and Remus discovered by a Gentle Shepherd ] 
 
 2. Tarquinius Superbus makes himself Kino 33 
 
 3. Appius Claudius Punished by the People 80 
 
 4. The Gallant Curtius Leaping into the Gulf 104 
 
 5. Pyrrhus Arrives in Italy with his Troupe 138 
 
 <>'. Hannibal, whilst even yet a Child, swears Eternal Hatred to 
 
 the Romans . 1C8 
 
 7. Flaminius Restoring Liberty to Greece at the Isthmian Games . .95 
 
 8. The Mother of the Gracchi 234 
 
 9. Marius discovered in the Marshes at Minturn£ . . . . 261 
 10. Cicero denouncing Catiline ...... 292 
 
ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD. 
 
 Initial T. — /Eneas and Anchiscs 
 Ithea Silvia .... 
 Romulus Consulting the Augury 
 Remus jumping over the Walls 
 Awful Appearance of the Shade of 
 
 Remus to Romulus 
 The Romans walking off with the 
 
 Sabine Women . 
 Initial R . 
 Numa Pompilius remembering the 
 
 Grotto . 
 Death of Cluilius 
 Combat between the Horatii and 
 
 Curiatii . 
 Initial . 
 
 Celeres ..... 
 Debtor and Creditor. Seizure of 
 
 Goods for a Debt . 
 Initial T 
 Tarquinius Superbus has the Sibyl 
 
 line Books valued . 
 The Evil Conscience of Tarquiu 
 Mrs. Sextos consoles herself with a 
 
 Little Party 
 Tail-piece 
 Initial B 
 
 Aruns and Brutus 
 Horatius Cocks Defending the 
 
 Bridge .... 
 Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna 
 Clselia and her Companions escaping 
 
 from the Etruscan Camp 
 Initial T .... 
 
 Coriolanus parting from his Wif' 
 
 and Family .... 
 Initial A 
 
 10 
 14 
 
 1.5 
 17 
 
 19 
 23 
 
 24 
 
 28 
 
 33 
 
 37 
 
 39 
 42 
 43 
 
 45 
 
 49 
 51 
 
 52 
 56 
 
 53 
 65 
 
 A Lictor is sent to arrest Publilins 
 
 Volero C3 
 
 Cincinnatus chosen Dictator . . 70 
 Roman Bull and Priest of the 
 Period . . . . . . 73 
 
 Virginia carried off by a Minion m 
 
 the pay of Appius . . .78 
 In the foreground of the Tableau 
 may be observed a Patrician look- 
 ing very black at the Triumph of 
 the General . . . . . o3 
 
 In all probability something of this 
 
 sort 84 
 
 School-boys flogging the School- 
 master . . . . 88 
 Initial A.— A Gaul ... 89 
 The Citadel saved by the cackling 
 
 of the Geese 93 
 
 Initial R. — Roman Soldier . . 97 
 Miss Fabia, the Younger, astonished 
 
 at the Patrician's Double-knock . 98 
 Titus threatening Pomponius . 103 
 
 Terrific Combat between Titus 
 Manlius and a Gaul of gigantic 
 
 Stature 105 
 
 Initial T 107 
 
 A Scare-crow . . . . . 109 
 Metius aggravating Titus Manlius .111 
 The Romans clothed by the Inha- 
 bitants of Capua . . . . 119 
 Samnite Soldier . . . .126 
 Initial I. — /Esculapius . . . 129 
 The Ambassadors purchasing /Es- 
 culapius . . . . .133 
 Tail-piece . . . . 134 
 
 Initial R .... 135 
 
KU 
 
 ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD 
 
 Appearance in the Senate of a young 
 Nobleman, named Meto 
 
 Self-possession of Fabricius, the 
 Ambassador, under rather Trying 
 Circumstances . . . . 
 
 Discovery of the Head of Summanus 
 
 Curius Dentatus refusing the Magni- 
 ficent Gift offered by the Samnite 
 Ambassadors . . • 
 
 Initial A 
 
 Roman Man-of-War, from a scarce 
 Medal 
 
 Initial P 
 
 Hanuo announcing to the Mercena- 
 ries the Emptiness of the Public 
 Coffers 
 
 Early Roman Gladiator and his 
 Patron 
 
 His Excellency Q,. Fabius offering 
 Peace or War to the Carthaginian 
 Senate 
 
 Hannibal crossing the Alps . 
 
 Hannibal disguising himself . . 
 
 The « Slow Coach "... 
 
 Young Yarro ... . 
 
 Archimedes taking a Warm Bath . 
 
 ■Considerate Conduct of Scipio Afri- 
 canus 
 
 Initial W 
 
 Hannibal leads the Ambassadors 
 rather a fatiguing Walk round 
 Carthage 
 
 Hannibal requesting the Cretan 
 Priests to become his Bankers . 
 
 Hannibal makes the usual neat and 
 appropriate Speech previous to 
 killing himself . ., ■ . ! 
 
 PAGF 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 Initial I 
 
 204 
 
 139 
 
 Roman Lady " Shopping " . . 
 
 205 
 
 
 Terence reading his Play to Caecilius 
 
 210 
 
 
 Light Comedy Man of the Period . 
 
 212 
 
 142 
 
 Bacchanalian Group, from a very 
 
 
 115 
 
 old Vase . . . . 
 
 223 
 
 
 Assassination of Viriathus 
 
 226 
 
 
 Arrest of Eunus . . . . 
 
 231 
 
 146 
 
 Tib. Gracchus canvassing 
 
 238 
 
 150 
 
 Melancholy end of Tib. Gracchus . 
 Scipio yEmilianus cramming him- 
 
 239 
 
 153 
 
 self for a Speech after a hearty 
 
 
 161 
 
 Supper . . . . . 
 
 240 
 
 
 Rash Act of Caius Gracchus . . 
 
 244 
 
 
 Tail-piece . 
 
 246 
 
 162 
 
 Drusus is Stabbed, and Expires 
 
 
 
 gracefully 
 
 254 
 
 165 
 
 Initial F . 
 
 257 
 
 
 " Who dares kill Marius ? " . 
 
 261 
 
 
 Marius in the Ruins of Carthage . 
 
 262 
 
 169 
 
 Marius in his Old Age . . . 
 
 266 
 
 173 
 
 Funeral Pile of Sulla . . . 
 
 274 
 
 176 
 
 Initial T — Caesar and Pompey very 
 
 
 179 
 
 much alike, especially Pompey . 
 
 275 
 
 180 
 
 Sertorius and his young Friends . 
 
 278 
 
 186 
 
 Armed Slave 
 
 280 
 
 
 Spartacus . 
 
 281 
 
 188 
 
 Mithridates, his rash act . . . 
 
 286 
 
 193 
 
 Mithridates 
 
 Initial A— Libertas, ^Equahtas, 
 
 287 
 
 
 Fraternitas . . 
 
 289 
 
 197 
 
 Cicero throws up his Brief, like a 
 
 291 
 
 200 
 
 Gentleman . . 
 
 •29G 
 
 
 Initial C 
 
 29S 
 
 
 " Quid times ? Csesarcm veins." . 
 
 301 
 
 201 
 
 The End of Julius Csesar 
 
 308 
 
 
THE 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIRST. 
 
 FBOM THE FOUNDATION OF KOME TO THE DEATH OF ROMULUS. 
 
 he origin of the Romans has long 
 been lost in that impenetrable 
 fog, the mist of ages ; which, it 
 is to be feared, will never clear 
 off, for it unfortunately seems to 
 grow thicker the more boldly we 
 try to grope about in it. In the 
 midst of these fogs, some ener- 
 getic individual will now and then 
 appear with a pretty powerful link, 
 but there are not enough of these 
 links to form a connected chain 
 of incidents. 
 
 One of the oldest and most 
 popular traditions concerning the 
 origin of the Romans, is that 
 founded on the remarkable feat of 
 filial pick-a-back alleged to have 
 been performed by iEneas, who 
 is frequently dragged in head 
 and shoulders, with his venerable 
 parent, to lead off the march of 
 
 ^neas and AncMses. eventS ' and > a3 ifc Were - °P eU the 
 
 ball of history. 
 It is said that after * the siege of Troy, iEneas snatched up his Lares 
 and Penates in one hand, and his father, Anchises, in the other ; 
 
 * The Lares of the Romans aro supposed to have been the Manes or shades of their 
 ancestors, and consisted of little waxen figures — such as we should put under shades made 
 of glass — which adorned the halls of houses. The Lares were sewn up in stout dog's-skin, 
 durability being consulted more than elegance. The Penates were a superior order of 
 deities, who were kept in the innermost parts of the establishment, and took their name 
 from penitus,vr\ihin, which caused the portion of the house they occupied to be afterwards 
 colled the penetralia. 
 
2 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP 1. 
 
 when, flinging the former over the right shoulder, and the latter 
 over the left, he ran down to the sea-shore, called " A boat a-hoy," 
 and escaped from the jaws of destruction into the mouth of the Tiber 
 There are many reasons for disbelieving this story, and it is quite 
 enough to deprive it of weight to consider what must have been the 
 weight of Anchises himself, and the large bundle of household images 
 that iEneas is alleged to have been burdened with. Putting probability 
 in one scale, and an elderly gentleman, with a lot of Lares and a 
 parcel of Penates in the other, there can be no doubt which will pre- 
 ponderate. It happens, also, that Troy is usually said to have been 
 destroyed 430 years before Rome was founded,* so that it would have 
 been to this day as unfounded as the tale itself, if the city had had 
 no other foundation than that which iEneas was supposed to have 
 given it. 
 
 The Latin Bards have adorned this story in their own peculiar way, 
 by adding that iEneas, on his arrival in the Tiber, resolved to sacrifice 
 a milk white sow, in gratitude for his safety. The sow, who must have 
 been an ancestor of the learned pig, got scent of her fate, and running 
 two or three miles up the country, produced a sad litter of thirty little 
 ones ; when iEneas, fancying he heard a voice telling him to build a 
 town on the spot, determined, " please the pigs," to found a city there. 
 The classical story-teller goes on to say, that Latinus, king of the 
 Latins, happened to be at war with Turnus — or as we might call him 
 Turner — King of the Rutuli, when the Trojans arrived, and the 
 former, thinking it better worth his while to make friends than foes of 
 the immigrants, gave them a tract of land, which rendered them ex- 
 tremely tractable. On the principle that one good turn deserves 
 another, they turned round upon Turnus, and completely routed the 
 Rutuli. Latinus, to show his gratitude, gave Lavinia — not the " lovely 
 young" one, who Thomson tells us, " once had friends; " but his own 
 daughter of that name — in marriage to iEneas, who at the death of his 
 father-in-law, ruled over the city, and called his colony Lavinium. 
 Tradition tells us further that -iEneas had a son, Ascanius, sometimes 
 called Parvus lulus, or little Juli, who subsequently left Lavinium, and 
 built Alba Longa — a sort of classical long acre — in that desirable neigh- 
 bourhood known as the Alban Mount, which, from its becoming subse- 
 quently the most fashionable part of the city, may deserve the name of 
 the Roman Albany 
 
 The descendants of Ascanius are said to have reigned 300 years, and 
 an attempt has been made to fill up the gap of tliese three centuries 
 with a quantity of dry rubbish of the antiquarian kind, which occupies 
 space, without affording anything like a solid foundation for the structure 
 to be built upon it. Of such a nature is the catalogue of matters alleged 
 to have connected iEneas with the actual founders of Rome ; but though 
 dames and dates are given, there is little doubt that the value of names 
 
 * Troy destroyed, n. c. 1184. Rome founded, b. c. 753. 
 
II WAP. I.J ORIGIN OF ROME. 3 
 
 is not even nominal, and that if we trust the dates, we shall rely on the 
 falsest data. 
 
 The spirit of antiquarianism is as ancient as the suhjects on which it 
 employs its ingenuity, and the Romans hegan puzzling themselves at 
 a very early period about their own origin. A long course of fabrication 
 ended in rearing up a legendary fabric, which was acknowledged by all 
 the Roman bards ; and however much they may have doubted the 
 truth of the tale, they deserve some credit for the consistency with 
 which they have adhered to it. 
 
 The legend states that one Procas, belonging to the family of the 
 Silvii, or Silvers, had two sons, — the elder, to whom the kingdom was 
 left, being called Numitor, and the younger going by the name of 
 Amulius. Though Numitor was the bigger brother, he does not seem 
 to have been, pugilistically speaking, the better man, for he was 
 deprived of the kingdom by Amulius, who, to prevent the chances of 
 the law of primogeniture again taking effect, by placing any of 
 Numitor's descendants on the throne, caused Rhea Silvia, the only 
 daughter of that individual to become a virgin in the Temple of Vesta. 
 The Vestals were, in fact, the old original nuns, withdrawing themselves 
 from the world, and entering into a solemn vow against marriage during 
 thirty years; after which period they were free to wed, though they 
 were scarcely ever invited to avail themselves of their rather tardy 
 privilege. The senior sister went by the highly respectable name of 
 Virgo Maxima — or old maid in chief — and was doubtless something 
 more than ordinary in her appearance, as well as in her position. The 
 Vestals were required to be plain in their dress, and in order to extend 
 this plainness as far as possible to their looks, their hair was cut very 
 6hort, however much they may have been distressed at parting with 
 their tresses. Their chief duty consisted in keeping up the fire on the 
 altar of Vesta, and they were prohibited on pain of death from giving 
 to any other flame the smallest encouragement. In the event of such 
 an offence having been committed by an unfortunate Vestal, who found 
 her position little better than being buried alive, she was made to 
 undergo literally that awful penalty. 
 
 Though the duties of the Vestals were rigidly enforced, and the 
 letting out of the sacred fire was, in some cases, punished by the 
 extinction of the delinquent's vital spark, they enjoyed some peculiar 
 advantages Though their acts were under strict control, they were, 
 in one sense, allowed a will of their own ; for they were permitted, even 
 when under age, to make their own testaments. They occupied re- 
 served seats at public entertainments ; and if they happened to meet a 
 criminal in custody, they had the privilege of releasing him from the 
 hands of the police of the period. Notwithstanding these inducements, 
 the office of Vestal was not in much request : and, in the event of a 
 vacancy, it was awarded by lot to some young lady, whose dissatisfaction 
 with her lot was usually very visible. Such is a brief outline of the 
 duties and liabilities of the order into which Amulius forced his niece, 
 
 r2 
 
<jO.MI« HISTORY Of ROMK. 
 
 [OHAP. I. 
 
 find it has been the subject of complaint in more recent times that 
 Home still occasionally does as Rome used to do. We will now return 
 to Rhea Silvia, who appears to have entered the service of the goddess 
 as a maid-of-all-work ; for she was in the habit of going to draw water 
 from a well ; and it was on one of these aquatic excursions she met 
 with a military man, passing himself off as Mars who paid his addresses 
 to her, and proved irresistible. 
 
 Rhea Silvia gave birth to twins ; upon which her cruel uncle ordered 
 her to be put to death, and desired that her infant offspring should be 
 treated as a couple of unwelcome puppies, and got rid of by drowning iD 
 the ordinary manner. 
 
 The children were placed in a cradle, or, as some say, a bowl, and 
 
CHAP. I.] ROMULUS AND REMUS. ft 
 
 turned adrift on tiie river ; so that Atnulius, if he had any misgiving 
 as to the security of his crown, preferred to drown it in the bowl with 
 his unhappy little relatives. 
 
 It happened that there had been such a run on the banks of the 
 Tiber, that its coffers or coffer-dams had poured out their contents all 
 over the adjacent plains, and caused a very extensive distribution of its 
 currency. Among other valuable deposits, it chanced to lodge for 
 security, in a branch connected with the bank, the children of Khea 
 Silvia, who, by the way, must have been very fortunate under the 
 circumstances, in being able to keep a balance. The infants were not 
 in a very enviable condition ; for there was nobody to board and lodge 
 them, though the Tiber was still at hand to wash and do for them. 
 The high tide proved a tide of good fortune to the children, who were 
 floated so far inland, that when the river receded, they were left high 
 and dry at the foot of a fig * tree, with no one, apparently, to care a fig 
 what became of them. Under these circumstances a she-wolf, who had 
 gone down to the Tiber to drink, heard the whimpering of the babies 
 among the trees, and, her attention being drawn off from the water in the 
 river to the whine in the wood, she came forward in the most handsome 
 manner in the capacity of a wet-nurse to give them suck and succour. 
 How this wolf became possessed of so much of the milk of human 
 kindness, does not appear, and it is not perhaps worth while to inquire. 
 
 The children, it is said, were awakened by receiving a gentle licking 
 from the tongue of the animal standing in loco parentis over them. 
 Finding the situation damp, the wolf removed the infants to her den, 
 where they were visited by a philanthropic woodpecker ; who, when they 
 were hungry, would bring them some tempting grub, or worm, by 
 which the woodpecker soon wormed itself into the children's confidence. 
 Other members of the feathered tribe made themselves useful in this 
 novel nursery, by keeping off the insects ; and many a gnat found itself 
 — or rather lost itself — unexpectedly in the throat of some remorseless 
 swallow. However well-meaning the animal may have been, the children 
 could not have profited greatly, if there had been no one ready to take 
 them from the month ; and happily Faustulus, the king's shepherd, who 
 had watched them as they were being carried to the wolf's cave or loup- 
 hole, provided them with another loophole to get out of it. Taking 
 advantage of the wolfs temporary absence from home, the " gentle 
 shepherd," resolving to rescue the children, by hook or by crook, removed 
 the babes to his own hut, and handed them over to his wife Laurentia, 
 as a sort of supplement to their previously rather extensive family. 
 
 Some historians, refusing to believe the story of the Wolf and the 
 Woodpecker, have endeavoured to reconcile probability with tradition, 
 by suggesting that the wife of Faustulus had got the name of the Wolf 
 from the contrast she presented to her lamb-like husband, and that the 
 supposed woodpecker was simply a hen-pecker, in the person of Laurentia. 
 
 * From this circumstance the fig was considered figurative of the foundation of the 
 city, and held sacred in Rome for many centuries. 
 
COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [chap. 1. 
 
 Romulus and Remus were the names cf the two infants, who, as they 
 grew up, began to take after their foster-mother the wolf, turning out 
 exceedingly wild lads, with a lupine propensity for wording the flocks, 
 and. going on altogether in a very brutal manner. Remus was taken up 
 on a charge of sheep stealing, or something very like it, and brought 
 before Numitor, his own grandfather, when a recognition took place in 
 a manner not much in accordance with the ordinary rules of evidence. 
 Romulus had also been apprised of his relationship by Faustulus, who 
 must have made a pretty bold guess at a fact he could not have known ; 
 and the two lads, being adopted by Numitor, were sent for their education 
 to Gabii, where everything was taught that men of rank in those days 
 were expected to learn, and whence the word Gaby is clearly derivable. 
 Anxious to do something for the old gentleman, their grandfather, 
 Romulus and Remus got up a demonstration in his favour, and they 
 succeeded in restoring him to the throne of Alba Longa, a long row of 
 white houses, which was less of a territory than a Terrace, and it is a 
 strange coincidence that Terracina, or little Terrace, formed one end of 
 it. Amulius was killed, and leaving Numitor sole master of White's 
 Row, Romulus and Remus resolved on a building speculation a great 
 deal higher up — that is to say on the spot where they had passed the 
 days of their infancy. Before the new city was commenced, a dispute 
 
 egg -^ AvEfiTIWUS 
 
 Romulus consulting t lie Augury. 
 
CHAP. I.] 
 
 DEATH Or EEMUS. 
 
 arose, first, about what it should be called, and secondly, as to who 
 should govern it. Romulus and Remus, being twins, could not bring 
 the law of primogeniture to bear upon their little differences, and it was 
 therefore agreed to refer the matter to augury, which should decide who 
 was to be inaugurated as the ruler of the new colony. Romulus mounted 
 the Palatine Mount, and Remus took his station on the Aventine, when 
 both began to keep a very sharp look out for something ominous. 
 Remus was the first to remark something odd in the shape of six 
 vultures flying from north to south, but Romulus no sooner heard the 
 news than he declared he had" seen twelve, and the question arose 
 whether, figuratively speaking, the one bird in hand seen by Remus 
 should outweigh the two in the bush that subsequently appeared to 
 Romulus. The augur, when appealed to, gave, as usual, a very ambi- 
 guous answer. It amounted, in effect, to the observation that there were 
 six of one and a dozen of the other ; so that the soothsayer, instead 
 of having said anything to soothe, was far more, likely to irritate. 
 Both parties claimed the victory ; Remus contending for the precedence 
 usually granted to the early bird, and Romulus maintaining that he had 
 been specially favoured, by having been permitted to see so many birds 
 of a feather flock together. Romulus accordingly commenced drawing 
 his plans in the Etruscan fashion, by causing a boundary line to be 
 marked out with a plough, to which were yoked a heifer and a bull; a 
 ceremony from which, perhaps, the English term bulwarks, and the 
 French word boulevards or bulvards, may or may not be derivable. The 
 line thus traced was called the Pomcerium, and where an entrance was 
 to be made, it was customary to cany the plough across the space — a 
 little engineering difficulty that 
 
 gave the name of Porta to a 
 gate, from the verb portare, to 
 carry. Remus looked on at the 
 proceedings in a half-quizzing, 
 half-quarrelsome spirit, until the 
 wall rose a little above the 
 ground, when he amused him- 
 self by leaping derisively over 
 it. " Thus," said he, " will the 
 enemy leap over those barriers." 
 " And thus," rejoined the super- 
 intendent or clerk of the works — 
 one Celer, who acted in this in- 
 stance with thoughtless celerity 
 — " thus shall die whoever may 
 leap over my barriers."* With these words he gave Remus a mortal 
 
 * The Pomcerium was not the actual wall, but a boundary line, held very sacred by 
 the Romans. It consisted of nothing but the clod turned inwards by the furrow, and, it 
 is probable, that the offensive act of Remus was not his leaping over the wall, but his 
 hopping over the clod, which would, naturally, excite indignation against him as an 
 unmannerly clod-hopper. 
 
 Remus jumping over the Walls. 
 
8 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 blow, and the legend goes on to state, that Romulus was immediately 
 seized with remorse, and subsequent visits from his brother's ghost 
 rendered Romulus himself little better than the ghost of what he used 
 to be. Remus showed as much spirit after his decease as during his 
 lifetime ; and took the form of the deadly nightshade, springing up at 
 the bed-side, to poison the existence of bis brother 
 
 Awful appearance of the Shade of Remus to Romulus. 
 
 Tradition tells us that Romulus came at length to terms with 
 the ghost, who agreed to discontinue his visits, in consideration of 
 the establishment of the festival of the Lemuria — called, originally, 
 Remuria — in honour of his memory. The rites were celebrated bare- 
 footed — an appropriate penalty for one who had stepped into a brother's 
 shoes ; the hands were thrice washed — a process much needed, as 
 a sort of expiation for dirty work ; — and black beans were thrown 
 four times behind the back, with the superstitious belief that the 
 growing up of the beans would prevent the stalking abroad of evil 
 spirits. The unfortunate twin was buried on Mount Aventine, and 
 
CHAP. I.] IUPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN 9 
 
 Romulus ordered a double set of sceptres, crowns, and royal 
 badges, in order that he might set up one set by the side of 
 his own, in honour of his late relative. These duplicates of mere 
 senseless symbols served only to commemorate the double part which 
 Romulus had acted ; for a vacant throne and a headless crown were but 
 empty tributes to a murdered brother's memory. 
 
 The city having been built, was found considerably too large for the 
 people there were to live in it ; and as a place cannot, like a garment, 
 be made to fit by taking it in, there was no alternative but to fill the 
 city with any stuff that might serve for stuffing Romulus, therefore, 
 threw open his gates to any one who chose to walk in, which caused an 
 influx of those who, from having no character at all, usually go under 
 the denomination of all sorts of characters. Society became terribly 
 mixed, and, in fact, the place was a kind of Van Demon's Land, 
 crammed with criminals, replete with runaway slaves, and forming — in 
 a word — a regular refuge for the morally destitute. It says something 
 for the females of the period, that women were very scarce at Rome, 
 and it is surprising that some learned philologist has never yet made 
 the remark, that the fact of the word Ro-man being familiar to us 
 all, while there is no such term as Ro-woman, may be taken as a 
 collateral proof of the scarcity of the gentler sex in the city founded 
 by Romulus. 
 
 The ladies of the neighbourhood were indisposed to listen to the 
 addresses of the male population of Rome, which was quite bad enough 
 to suggest the possibility of the Latin word male-factor having supplied 
 the distinctive epithet " male " to the ruder sex in general. In vain 
 were proposals of marriage made to the maidens of the adjoining states, 
 who one and all declared they would not change their state by becoming 
 the wives of Romans. Irritated by these refusals, Romulus determined 
 to prove himself more than a match for these women, every one of 
 whom thought herself too good a match for any of his people. 
 He announced his intention to give a party or pic-nic for the 
 celebration of the Consualia, which were games in honour of Cousus, 
 the god of Counsel, — a sort of lawyer's frolic, in which a mole was 
 sacrificed, probably because working in the dark was always the 
 characteristic of the legal fraternity. Invitations to these games were 
 issued in due form to the Latins and Sabines, with their wives and 
 daughters, many of whom flocked to the spot, under the influence of 
 female curiosity. 
 
 The weather being propitious, all the Sabine beauty and fashion were 
 attracted to the place, and the games, consisting of horse-racing, gave to 
 the scene all the animation of a cup day at Ascot. Suddenly, at a pre- 
 concerted signal, there was a general elopement of the Roman youth with 
 the Sabine ladies, who were, in the most ungallant manner, abandoned 
 to their fate by the Sabine gentlemen It is true that the latter were 
 taken by surprise, but they certainly made the very best of their way 
 home before they thought of avenging the wrong and insult that, had 
 
10 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [CHAP, i 
 
 been committed. Had they been all married ladies who were carried 
 off, the cynic might have suggested that the Sabine husbands would not 
 
 have objected to a cheap mode of divorce, but — to make use of an 
 Irishism — there was only one single woman who happened to bo a wife 
 
CHAP. I.J WAB WITH THE SABINES. 1 1 
 
 in the whole of the " goodly company." The small Latin states, 
 Antennae, Crustumerium, and Ccenina, were very angry at the supine- 
 ness of the Sabines, whose King — one Tatius — seemed disposed to 
 take the thing rather too tacitly. The three states above mentioned 
 commenced an action on their own account, and Acron, the King of 
 Ccenina, fell in battle by the hand of Romulus, who, stripping off the 
 apparel of the foe, caused it to be carried to Rome and hung upon an 
 oak, where the arms and armour of Acron, glittering among the acorns, 
 were dedicated, as Spolia opima, to Jupiter Feretrius. * 
 
 Though Tatius had been the last, he was not destined to be the least 
 of those taking part in the Sabine war ; and he determined to rely less 
 on strategy than stratagem. The water in those days was not so well 
 laid on as in later times ; when the lofty aqueducts, still running in 
 ruins about the neighbourhood of Rome, were carried to an elevation 
 fitted for the very highest service that could be desired. Rome, instead 
 of being well supplied, was supplied by wells ; and ladies of rank were 
 accustomed to draw the water required for domestic purposes. It 
 chanced, one afternoon, that Tarpeia, the daughter of Tarpeius, the 
 commander of the Roman city, on the Capitoline Hill, was proceeding 
 on an errand of the sort, when she met with Tatius, who, addressing her 
 in the language of a friend, requested " a drink " of her pitcher. 
 Tarpeia, dazzled by the splendour of his gold bracelets and glittering 
 armour, could not resist the request of such a highly polished gentle- 
 man. Tatius had purposely electrotyped himself for the interview, and, 
 seeing the effect he had produced, he intimated that he had several 
 friends, who were covered with metal quite as attractive as that he 
 wore, and that, if Tarpeia would only open the gate of the citadel to 
 himself and party, she should have more gold than she could carry 
 The bargain was faithfully kept on both sides ; for Tarpeia opened the 
 gate to Tatius and the Sabines, who, on their part performed their 
 contract to the letter, for, as they entered, they threw at her not only 
 their bracelets but their breast-plates, completely crushing her with the 
 weight of the gold she had coveted ; and making her think, no doubt, 
 that " never was poor woman so unmercifully put upon." So thorough 
 an illustration of an embarras des richesses is not often met with 
 in history. 
 
 Being now possessed of the Capitoline, the Sabines were in an 
 improved position ; and the Romans, having tried in vain to recover 
 the citadel, saw that they must either give in or give battle. Deter- 
 mining on the latter course, Romulus selected the valley between the 
 Palatine and the Capitoline, where a general engagement began ; but 
 the Romans seemed to have special engagements elsewhere, for they 
 were all running away, when their leader, with great tact, vowed a 
 Temple to Jupiter Stator — the flight-stayer. This gave to the action 
 a decided re-action ; for the Romans, being rallied upon their cowardice, 
 
 * The word Feretrius vn\l Btrike the merest tyro as being derived from fero, to strike, 
 and meaning to designate Jupiter in his character of Striker, or Smiter 
 
12 COMIC HISTOEI OF ROME. [CHAP. I 
 
 by their chief, began, in their turn, to rally. The contest grew 
 fierce on both sides, when suddenly the Sabine ladies, who were the 
 primary cause of the quarrel, threw themselves into the midst; 
 and, though female interference has rarely the effect of making peace, 
 the women were, on this occasion, the cause of a cessation of 
 hostility. It was agreed that the two nations should be henceforth 
 united under the name of Romans and Quirites, each having a distinct 
 king, a distinction which, had it continued, must in time have led to a 
 difference. In a few years, however, Tatius was slain at a sacrifice 
 which he had attended without the remotest idea of being made a 
 victim himself; and Romulus, finding nothing said about a successor, 
 tlwught it politic to hush the matter up without even avenging his late 
 colleague. Romulus is said to have reigned for seven-and- thirty years ; 
 but when we enquire into the exact time and manner of his death we 
 learn nothing, beyond the fact that nobody knows what became of him. 
 According to the statement of one set of authorities, he was attending 
 a review in the Palus Caprae — a marsh near the Tiber — when a total 
 eclipse of the sun took place, and on the return of light, Romulus was 
 nowhere visible. If this was really the case, it is probable that he got 
 into a perilous swamp, where he felt a rapid sinking ; and all his 
 attendants being in the dark as to his situation were unable to extricate 
 him from the marsh in which, according to some authorities, he went 
 down to posterity. 
 
 It must, however, be confessed, that when we look for the cause of 
 the death of Romulus in this fatal swamp, we have but veiy poor 
 ground to go upon. It is, nevertheless, some consolation to us for the 
 mystery that overhangs the place and manner of his decease, that his 
 existence is, after all, quite apocryphal ; and we are not expected to go 
 into an elaborate inquiry when, where, and how he died, until the fact 
 of his having ever lived at all has been satisfactorily settled. 
 
 Before we have quite done with Romulus, it will be proper to state 
 how he is said to have divided the people under his sovereignty. He 
 is alleged to have separated them into three tribes — the Latin word 
 tribus will here suggest itself to the acute student — namely the Ramnes, 
 called after the Romans ; the Tities, after Titus Tatius ; and the Luceres, 
 who derived their appellation either from one Lucumo, an Etruscan 
 ally of Romulus, or Lucerus a king of Ardea ; or Incus a grove, because 
 there was no grove, and hence we get lucerus a non luco, on the same 
 principle as lucus a non lucendo : or lastly, according to Niebuhr's 
 opinion, from a place called Lucer or Lucerum, which the Luceres 
 might have inhabited. 
 
 Each tribe was divided into ten curia,* every one of which had a 
 chapel for the performance of sacred rites, and was presided over by a 
 curio ; and the reader must have little curiosity, indeed, if he does not 
 ask whether our modern word curate may not be referred to this remote 
 
 * The hest derivation of the word curia is quiris, which, on inquiry, is found to 
 correspond with curis. 
 
CKAP I.] APPOINTMENT OF THE SENATE. 13 
 
 origin The curies were subdivided into gentes, or clans, and each gens 
 consisted of several families, called gentiles ; so that a man of family 
 and a member of the gentes, became somewhat synonymous. In time, 
 however, the gentiles got very much mixed by unsuitable marriages ; 
 and hence there arose among those who could claim to belong to a gens, 
 a distinction similar to that between the gentes, or gents, of our own day, 
 and the gentiles, or gentlemen. Romulus is said to have selected his 
 body-guard from the three tribes, taking one hundred from each, and as 
 Celer, the Etruscan, was their captain, the guards got the name of 
 Celeres — the fast men of the period. 
 
 In addition to the tribes, there existed in those early times a separate 
 body, consisting of slaves, and a somewhat higher class, called by the 
 name of clients.* The latter belonged to the common people, each of 
 whom was permitted to choose from among the patricians a patronus, 
 or patron, who could claim the life and fortune of his client in exchange 
 for the cheaper commodities of protection and patronage. The patrc."> 
 gave his countenance and advice when asked, the client giving his 
 labour and his money when wanted — an arrangement which proves that 
 clients, from the remotest times to the present hour, were liable to 
 pecuniary mulcts, even to the extent of the entire sacrifice of the whole 
 of their subsistence, for the benefit of those who had the privilege 
 of advising them. 
 
 The Senate — a term derived from the Latin word Senes, old men — 
 formed the chief council of the state, and its first institution is usually 
 referred to the reign of Romulus. Three members were nominated by 
 each tribe, and three by each of the thirty curia, making ninety-nine 
 in all, to which Romulus himself is said to have added one, for the pur- 
 pose of making up round numbers, and at the same time nominating a 
 sort of president over the assembly, who also had to take care of the city, 
 in the absence of the sovereign. There is a difference of opinion as to 
 whether one hundred new members were added to the Senate at the time 
 of the union with the Sabines, for Dionysius says there were ; but Livy 
 says there were not ; and we are disposed to attach credit to the former, 
 for he was an extremely particular man, while Livy was frequently 
 oblivious of caution in giving credence and currency to mere tradition. 
 
 Before closing this portion of the narrative of the History of Rome, it 
 is necessary to warn the reader against believing too much of it. The 
 current legends are, indeed, Legenda, or things to be read, because every 
 body is in the habit of repeating them ; but the student must guard 
 himself against placing credence in the old remark, that " what every- 
 body says must be true," for here is a direct instance of what everybody 
 says being decidedly otherwise. The life and reign of Romulus, are to 
 be taken not simply cum grano salis — with a grain of salt — but with 
 an entire cellar of that condiment, which is so useful in correcting the 
 evil consequences of swallowing too much of anything. 
 
 * The word "client" is probably derived from cluere, to hear or obey — at all ovenU 
 cluere is the be»t clue we can give to the origin of the word in question. 
 
14 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [CHAP 11. 
 
 CHAPTER THE SECOND 
 
 JfROll THE ACCESSION OF NUMA POMPILIUS TO THE DEATH OF ANCUS 
 
 MARTIUS. 
 
 omttlus having beeu swamped in the marsh of 
 Capra, or having disappeared down one of 
 those drains, which have carried away into the 
 great sea of conjecture so many of the facts of 
 \ former ages, the senate put off from week to 
 week, and from this day sennight to that day 
 sennight the choice of a successor. The 
 honourable members agreed to try their hands 
 at Government by turns, and they took the 
 sceptre for five days each by a constant rota- 
 tion, which any wheel, and more particularly 
 a commonwheal, was sure to suffer from. The 
 people growing tired of this unprofitable game 
 of fives, which threw everything into a state 
 of sixes and sevens, clamoured so loudly to be 
 reduced under one head, that permission was 
 given them to elect a sovereign. Their choice 
 fell upon Numa Pompilius, because he was 
 born on the day of the foundation of the city ; 
 so that he may be said to have succeeded by 
 birth to the berth of chief magistrate. Numa 
 Pompilius was a Sabine, who we are told had 
 been instructed by Pythagoras, and we should 
 be happy to believe what we are told, if we did 
 not happen to know that the sage belonged to 
 quite a different time, having lived two hundred 
 years later than the alleged existence of the pupil. 
 
 Before entering on his duties, the newly chosen king consulted the 
 augurs, with one of whom he walked up to the Temple on the Saturnian 
 Hill, where Numa, seated on a stone, looked to the south as far as he 
 could see, in order to ascertain whether there was any impediment to 
 his views and prospects. In the earliest periods of the history of Rome 
 no office was undertaken without a consultation of the augurs, or 
 auspices ; and the continued use of these words affords proof of the 
 ancient custom to which they relate ; though inauguration now takes 
 place under auspices of a very different character. The recognised 
 signs of those times were only two, consisting of the lightning, by 
 means of which the truth was supposed to flash across the augur's 
 
CHAP. II. | 
 
 NUMA POMPILTUS 
 
 15 
 
 mind ; and, secondly, the birds, who, by being consulted for something 
 singular in their singing, or eccentric in their flying, might, had they 
 known it, have fairly plumed themselves on the honours done to them 
 A crow on the left betokened that things were looking black, but the 
 same bird on the right imparted to everything a brighter colour ; and as 
 these birds are in the habit of wandering right and left, the augurs could 
 always declare there was something to be said on both sides. 
 
 Numa Pompilius was, according to all accounts, a just ruler, and he 
 began his career in a ruler-like manner by drawing several straight 
 lines about Rome, to mark its boundaries. He placed these under a 
 deity, termed Terminus, and he erected twelve stones within a stones 
 throw of each other, at regular intervals along the frontier. These 
 were visited once a year by twelve officers, called Fratres Arvales, 
 appointed for the purpose, and the custom originated, no doubt, the 
 parochial practice of perambulating parishes with wands and staves, 
 placed in the hands of beadles, who not unfrequently add the luxury 
 of beating the boys to the ceremony of beating the boundaries. 
 
 Numa, though he had come to the throne, was fond of the retired 
 walks of life, and frequently took a solitary stroll in the suburbs. 
 During one of his rambles chance brought him to a grotto, and he was 
 induced to remember the grotto by the surpassing loveliness of its fair 
 
 Numa Pompilius remembering the Grotto. 
 
 inhabitant. Her name was Egeria, her profession that of a fortune- 
 teller, which gave her such an influence over the superstitious mind of 
 Numa, that she ruled him with her divining rod as completely as if it 
 had been a rod of iron. He professed to act under the advice of this 
 nymph, to whom tradition — an inveterate match-maker — has married 
 him, and he instituted the Flamines, an order of priests, to give weight 
 to the falsehoods or " flams " he thought fit to promulgate. The 
 privileges of the Flamines were not altogether of the most comfortable 
 
tQ COMIC HISTOUV OK KOJ1E. L CHAP. II 
 
 kind, and consisted chiefly in the right of wearing the Apex — a cap made 
 of olive wood — and the Laena, a sort of Roman wrap-rascal, shaggy on 
 both sides, and worn above the toga, as an overcoat. The Flamen was 
 prohibited from appearing in public without his Apex, which could not 
 be kept on tbe head without strings ; but such was the stringency of 
 the regulations, that one Sulpicius* was deprived of his priesthood, in 
 consequence of his official hat, which was as light as a modern zephyr, 
 having been blown off his head in the midst of a sacrifice. 
 
 Numa added, also, a sort of ballet company to the mythological 
 arrangements of his day, by establishing twelve Salii, or dancing priests, 
 whose duty it was to execute a grand pas de douze on certain occasions 
 through the principal public thorough fares. The Salii, though a highly 
 respectable, were not a very venerable order, for no one could remain in 
 it whose father and mother were not both alive, the existence of the 
 parents of the dancing priests being, no doubt, required as a guarantee 
 that their dancing days were not yet over. 
 
 Several temples are dated from this reign, including that of Janus, 
 the double-faced deity, who presided over peace and war — a most 
 appropriate office to one capable of looking two ways at once, for there 
 are always two sides to every quarrel. This temple must have been 
 perfectly useless during the life of its founder, for it was never to 
 be opened in the time of peace, and Numa preserved for Rome 
 forty-three years of undisturbed tranquillity. He was emphatically 
 the friend of order, and its usual consequences, prosperity to trade 
 with soundness of credit, and he encouraged commerce by giving a 
 patron-saint or Lar to every industrial occupation. He marked also the 
 value of good faith by building a temple to Bona Fides, and it may be 
 presumed that the creditor, who. putting up with the loss of his little 
 bill, sacrificed a bad debt in this Temple, was still in hope that he should 
 eventually find his account in it. 
 
 If it cannot be said that Numa never lost a day, it must be admitted 
 that he made the most of his time ; for he added two whole months to 
 the year of Romulus. January and February were the names given 
 to the time thus gained ; but as the year did not then correspond with 
 the course of the sun, it was usual to introduce, every other year, a 
 supplementary month, so that if one year was too short, the next, by 
 being too long, made it as broad as it was long in the aggregate. 
 
 Numa Pompilius lived to be eighty-two ; when he had the beatitude ol 
 dying as peacefully as he had lived ; and so gently had Nature dealt 
 with him, that she had suffered him to run up more than four scores, 
 before her debt was satisfied. Certain stories are told of the funeral 
 ceremonies that followed Numa's death ; and it is said that the Senators 
 acted as porters to his bier, in token of their appreciation of the imperial 
 measures which Numa had himself carried. It has been stated, also, 
 that he caused to be placed, within his tomb, a copy, on papyrus, or 
 
 * Val. Maximus, i. 1, § 4. 
 
CHAP II.] 
 
 THE ALBANS. 
 
 17 
 
 palm leaves,* of his own works, in twenty-four books; and it is certainly 
 a happy idea to bury an author with his writings, when, if they have 
 been provocative of sleep in others, he may eventually reap the benefit 
 of their somniferous properties. 
 
 On the death of Numa, the country having been taught, by past 
 experience, the danger of allowing the crown to go from head to head, 
 without the slightest regard to a fit, determined that the interregnum 
 should be short, and the election of a new king was at once proceeded 
 with. The choice fell upon Tullus Hostilius, who was of a decidedly 
 warlike turn, and was ever on the look-out for a pretext to commence 
 hostilities. The Albans, our old friends of Alba Longa, or White's 
 Row, were the nearest, and consequently the most conveniently situated, 
 for the indulgence of his pugnacious propensities ; and tradition relates 
 that on one occasion some Alban peasants, having been attacked and 
 stripped by the Romans, the former, who had lost even their clothes, 
 sought redress at the hands of their rulers. In the course of an 
 attempt to settle the dispute between Alba and Rome, each place sent 
 ambassadors, who crossed each other on the road, as if the two states 
 were determined to be in every way at cross purposes. The Alban 
 envoys were beguiled of all ideas of business by invitations to banquets 
 and feasts, so that whenever they attempted to ask for explanations, 
 their mouths were stopped with a dinner or a supper, given in honour 
 of their visit. The Roman messengers were prohibited, on the con 
 traiy, from accepting invitations, or giving up to parties what was 
 meant for Romankind ; and had received peremptory instructions to 
 demand an immediate settlement of their long-standing account from the 
 Albans. The parties could not 
 understand each other, or, rather, 
 they understood each other too 
 well ; for war was the object of 
 both, though neither of them 
 liked the responsibility of be- 
 ginning it. The Albans, however, 
 prepared to march on Berne, 
 and encamped themselves within 
 the confines of a ditch, into 
 which ditch their King, Cluilius, 
 tumbled, one night, very mys- 
 teriously, and died, which caused 
 them to dignify the ditch with 
 the name of fossa Cluilia. 
 
 The Albans appointed one Met- 
 tius Fuffetius, a fussy and nervous 
 personage, as Dictator, in the place of the late King; and Fuffetius 
 
 * There exist, in the British Museum, books older than the time of Numa, written by 
 tho Egyptians, on these palm leaves, -which show, in one sense, the palmy state of literature 
 at that early period. 
 
 Death of Cluilius. 
 
1ft COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. II. 
 
 requested an interview with Tullus, who agreed to the proposition, with 
 a determination, before meeting the Dictator, not to be dictated to. 
 Mettius represented the inconvenience of wasting whole rivers of blood, 
 when a few pints might answer ail the purpose ; and it was finally 
 agreed to settle the matter by a grand combat of six, sustained on either 
 side by three champions, chosen from each army. The Alban and the 
 Koman forces were graced, respectively, with a trio of brothers, whose 
 strength and activity rendered them worthy to be ranked with the 
 small family parties who attach the epithet of Herculean, Acrobatic, 
 Indian rubber, or Incredible, to the fraternal character in which they 
 come forward to astonish and amuse the enlightened age we live in. 
 
 These six young men were known as the Horatii and Curiatii, — the 
 former being on the Koman, the latter on the Alban side ; and to them 
 it was agreed, by mutual consent, to trust the fate of the battle. The 
 story-tellers have done their utmost to render everything Roman as 
 romantic as possible ; and the legend of the Horatii and Curiatii has 
 been heightened by making one of the latter batch of brothers the 
 accepted lover of the sister of the Horatii. 
 
 All the arrangements for the sanguinary sestetto having been com- 
 pleted, the six champions came forward, looking fresh and confident, 
 not one of them displaying nervousness by a shaking of the hand, 
 though they shook each other's hands very heartily. Having taken 
 their positions, the men presented a picture which we regret has not 
 been preserved for us by some sporting annalist of the period. Imagi 
 nation, who is " our own reporter " on this occasion, and, perhaps, as 
 accurate a reporter as many who profess to chronicle passing events, 
 must fill up the outlines of the sketch that has been handed down to us. 
 The. contest commenced with a great deal of that harmless, but 
 violent exercise, which goes on between Shakspeare's celebrated pair of 
 Macs — the well known 'Beth and 'Duff — when the former requests the 
 latter to " lay on " to him, and there ensues a clashing of their swords, 
 as vigorous as the clashing of their claims to the crown of Scotland. 
 At length one of the Curiatii, feeling that they had all met for the 
 despatch of business, despatched one of the Horatii, upon which the 
 combatants, being set going, they continued to go one by one with great 
 rapidity. A few seconds had scarcely elapsed when a second of the 
 Horatii fell, and the survivor of the trio, thinking that he must even- 
 tually become number three if he did not speedily take care of number 
 one, resolved to stop short this run of ill-luck against his race, by 
 attempting a run of good luck for his life ; or, in other words, having a 
 race for it. The excellence of his wind saved him from drawing his 
 last breath, for the Curiatii, starting off in pursuit, soon proved unequal 
 in their speed, and one shot far in advance of the other two, who, though 
 stout of heart, were somewhat too stout of body to be as forward as 
 their nimbler brother in giving chase to their antagonist. The survivor 
 of the Koratii perceiving this, turned suddenly round upon the nearest 
 of his foes, and having at once disposed of him, waited patiently for the 
 
CHAP II. J 
 
 THE IIOKATII AND CURIATII. 
 
 19 
 
 other two, who were coming at unequal speed, puffing and panting after 
 him. A single blow did for the second of the Curiatii, who was already 
 
 Combat between the Horatii and Curiatii. 
 
 blown by the effort of running, and it was unnecessary to do more with 
 the third, who came up completely out of breath, than to render him 
 incapable of taking in a further supply of that vitally important article. 
 The last of the Horatii had consequently become the conqueror, and 
 though when he began to run his life seemed to hang on a thread, 
 which an unlucky stitch in his side would have finished off, his flight 
 was the cause of his coming off in the end with flying colours. After 
 the first of the Curiatii fell, fatness proved fatal to the other two, for 
 Horatius, by dealing with them en gros, as well as en detail, settled ail 
 accounts with both of them. 
 
 Seeing the result of the contest, Fuffetius, on the part of the Albans, 
 gave out that they gave in, and the Romans returned home with 
 Horatius at their head, canying — in a huge bundle — the spoils of the 
 
 c 2 
 
'20 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. II 
 
 Curiatii. At tae entrance of the city he met his sister, who, perceiving 
 among the spoils, a garment of her late lover, embroidered with a piece 
 of work from her own hands, commenced another piece of work of a 
 most frantic and desperate character. Maddened at the sight of the 
 yarn she had spun for the lost object of her affections, she began 
 spinning another yarn that threatened to be interminable, if her 
 brother had not soon cut the thread of it. She called bim by all kinds 
 of names but his own, and was, in fact, as noisy and abusive as a 
 conventional " female in distress," or, as that alarming and dangerous 
 nuisance, " an injured woman." Horatius, who had found the blades 
 of three assailants less cutting than a sister's tongue, interrupted her as 
 *he ran through her wrongs, by running her through with his sword, 
 accompanying the act with the exclamation, " Thus perish all the 
 enemies of Rome." Notwithstanding the excitement and eclat attending 
 the triumphant entry of Horatius into Rome, the proper officer of the 
 period, whoever he may have been, was evidently not only on duty, but 
 prepared to do it, for the victorious fratricide, or sororicide, was at once 
 hurried off to the nearest Roman station. Having been taken before 
 the king, his majesty saw great difficulties in the case, and was puzzled 
 how to dispose of it. Taking out the scales of justice, he threw the 
 heavy crime of Horatius into one ; but the services performed for his 
 country, when cast into the other scale, seemed to balance the matter 
 pretty evenly. Tullus, therefore, referred the case to another tribunal, 
 which sentenced the culprit to be hanged, but lie was allowed to have so 
 capitally acquitted himself in the fight, that he was acquitted of the 
 capital punishment. This was commuted for the penalty of passing 
 under the yoke, which consisted of the ceremony of walking under a 
 pike raised upright on two others, and at these three pikes the only 
 toll placed upon his crime was levied. 
 
 The fallen warriors were honoured with tombs in the form of sugar- 
 loaves, by which the unsatisfactory sweets of posthumous renown were 
 symbolised. Fuffetius, who though not wounded in his person, was 
 fearfully wounded in his pride by the result of the conflict, felt so 
 jealous of Tullus, that the former, though afraid to burst into open 
 revolt, determined on the really more revolting plan of treachery. The 
 rival soldiers had now to combine their forces against the Veientines and 
 the Fidenates, and, having set out together, they soon found the foe drawn 
 up in battle array, when Tullus with his Romans faced the Veientines, 
 and Mettius with his Albans formed a vis a vis to the Fidenates. When 
 the conflict commenced, the Alban wing showed the white feather, and 
 Fuffetius gradually withdrew his forces to an adjacent hill, which he 
 lowered himself by ascending for the purpose of watching the turn of 
 events, so that he might declare himself on the side of victory. Tullus 
 saw the unmanly manoeuvre, but winked at it, and rushed like winking 
 upon the Fidenates, who ran so fast that their discretion completely 
 out-ran their valour. The Roman leader then turned his eyes, arm;*, 
 and legs towards the Veientines, who fled towards the Tiber, into which 
 
CHAP. II.] TULLUS HOSTTIJUS 21 
 
 they desperately dived, but many of them, for divers reasons, never got 
 out again. The perfidious Albans, headed by Mettius Fuffetius, now came 
 down into the plain, and putting on a plain, straightforward manner, he 
 congratulated Tullus on the victory. Pretending not to have noticed 
 their treachery, he invited them all to a sacrifice on the following day, 
 and having particularly requested them to come early, they were on the 
 ground by sunrise, but were completely in the dark as to the intentions 
 of T. Plostilius. The Romans at a given signal closed in upon the 
 Albans, who were informed that their city should be razed, or rather, 
 lowered to the ground, and, that their chief, who had pulled a different 
 way from his new ally, should be fastened to horses who should be 
 driven in opposite directions. This cruel sentence, upon which we have 
 scarcely patience to bestow a sentence of our own, was barbarously 
 carried into execution. Alba fell to the ground; which is all we have 
 been able to pick up relating to the subject of this portion of our history. 
 
 The remainder of the reign of Hostilius was occupied with military 
 successes ; but he neglected the worship of the gods, who it is said 
 evinced their anger by a tremendous shower of stones on the Alban 
 Mount, in order to soften his flinty heart, by making him feel the weight 
 of their displeasure. From the extreme of indifference he went to 
 the opposite extreme of superstition, and called upon Jupiter to send 
 him a sign — which was, in fact, a sign of the King's head being in a 
 lamentable condition. The unhappy sovereign, imitating his predecessor 
 Numa, attempted some experiments in the hope of drawing down some 
 lightning, but it was not likely that one who had conducted himself so 
 badly could be a better conductor of the electric fluid, and the result 
 was, that though he learned the art of attracting the spark, it flashed 
 upon him with such force that he instantly expired. 
 
 Such is the tradition with reference to the death of Tullus ; but it is 
 hard to say whether the accounts handed down to us have been over- 
 charged, or whether the clouds were in that condition. Some speculators 
 insinuate that the royal experimentalist owed his sad fate to some mis- 
 management of his electrical jar while attempting to produce an 
 unnatural jarring of the elements. The good actions of Tullu3 were ' 
 so few, that his fame will not afford the omission of one, and being 
 desirous to put the best construction we can upon his works, we give 
 him credit for the construction of the Curia Hostilia, whose site still 
 meets the eye near the northern angle of the Palatine. Ambassadors 
 are spoken of as existing in the reign of Tullus Hostilius, but whether 
 they owe their origin to Numa, who went before, or to Ancus Martius, 
 who came after him, is so much a matter of doubt, that some historians, 
 in trying to meet the claims of both half-way, stop short of giving the 
 merit to either. Tullus may, at all events, have the credit of employing, 
 if he did not institute, the art of diplomacy in Rome ; for he appointed 
 ambassadors, as we have already seen, to negotiate with the Albans. 
 These envoys were called Feciales, the chief of whom wore on his head 
 a fillet of white wool, with a quantity of green herbs, formed into a 
 
22 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. II. 
 
 turban, which must have had somewhat the appearance of a fillet of 
 veal, with the ingredients for stuffing. His duty was to proceed 
 to the offending country, and proclaim his wrongs upon the border, 
 though there might be no one there to listen, and having crossed 
 the boundary — if his indignation happened to know any bounds — 
 he was to astonish the first native he met by a catalogue of 
 grievances. On reaching a city, the ambassador went over the old 
 story to the soldier at the gate, just as though, at Storey's gate, 
 an irritated foreigner should pour out his country's real or imaginary 
 wrongs to the sentinel on duty. To this recital the soldier would, 
 of course, be as deaf as his post, and the Fecialis would then proceed 
 to lay his complaint before the magistrates. In the event of his 
 obtaining no redress, he returned home for a spear, and killing a pig 
 with one end, he poked the fire with the other. The instrument being 
 thus charred in the handle and bjood-stained at the point, became an 
 appropriate emblem of hostility, and the Fecialis declared war by stirring 
 it up with the long pole, which he threw across the enemy's boundary. 
 
 After the death of Tullus Hostilius, the people lost no time in 
 choosing Ancus Martius, a grandson of Numa, for their sovereign. 
 The new king copied his grandfather, which he had a perfect right to 
 do, but he imposed on the Pontifex Maximus the very severe task of 
 copying on white tables the somewhat ponderous works of Pompilius, 
 which were posted up for the perusal of the populace. 
 
 Though partial on the whole to peace, Ancus was not afraid of war, 
 and, when his kingdom was threatened, he was quite ready to fight for 
 it. He subdued the Latins, and having first settled them in the field, 
 allowed them to settle themselves in the city. He enlarged Rome, but 
 abridged the distance between different parts by throwing the first 
 bridge across the Tiber, and his name has come down to posterity in the 
 ditch of the Quirites which he caused to be dug for the defence of the 
 city, against those who were unlikely to go through thick and thin Lr 
 the purpose of invading it. He also built a prison in the heart of the 
 city, and what might be truly termed a heart of stone, for the prison 
 was formed of a quarry, and is still in existence as a monument of the 
 hard lot of its inmates. Ancus Martius farther signalised his reign by 
 founding the city of Ostia at the Tiber's mouth, and thus gave its 
 waters the benefit of that port which so much increased their value. On 
 the spot may still be seen some ruins supposed to belong to a temple 
 dedicated to the winds, among whom the greater part of the temple has 
 long since been promiscuously scattered. Salt-works were also 
 established in its neighbourhood, but the sal was of that volatile kind 
 that none now remains from which buyers could fill their cellars. 
 Ancus Martius reigned for a period of twenty-four years, and either in 
 tranquillity or war — whether engaged in the works of peace, or embroiled 
 in a piece of work — he proved himself thoroughly worthy of his 
 predecessors, and, in fact, he left far behind him many who had gone 
 before him in the task of government 
 
CHAP III.] 
 
 TARQUINIUS PRISCUS. 
 
 ■23 
 
 CHAPTER THE THIRD. 
 
 FROM THE ACCESSION OF TARQUINIUS PRISCUS TO THE DEATH OF 
 SERVIUS TULLIUS. 
 
 is the opinion of the best authorities 
 that the Muse of History has employed 
 her skipping-rope in passing, or rather 
 skipping, from the grave of Ancus 
 Martius to the throne of Tarquinius 
 Priscus ; for there is a very visible 
 gap yawning between the two ; and as 
 we have no wish to set the reader 
 yawning in sympathy with the gap, we 
 at once drag him away from it. 
 
 Plunging into the times of Tar- 
 quinius Priscus, we describe him as 
 the son of a Corinthian merchant, who, 
 being compelled to quit his country for 
 political reasons, had withdrawn all 
 his Corinthian capital, and settled at 
 Tarquinii, an Etruscan city. Having 
 fallen in love with a lady of the place, 
 or, more poetically speaking, depo- 
 sited his affections in an Etruscan, 
 vase, he became a husband to her, and 
 the father of two children, named re- 
 spectively Lucumo and Aruns. Poor 
 Aruns had a very brief run, and soon 
 met his death ; but we cannot say how 
 or where, for we have no report of the meeting. Lucumo married 
 Tanaquil, an Etruscan lady, of great beauty and ambition, who professed 
 to dive into futurity ; and, guided by this diving belle, he threw himself 
 into the stream of events, in the hope of being carried onwards by the 
 tide of fortune. She persuaded him that Tarquinii was a poor place, 
 where nothing was to be done ; that his foreign extraction prevented 
 him from being properly drawn out; and that Rome alone could afford 
 him a field wide enough for his vast abilities. Driven by his wife, he 
 jumped up into his chariot, which was an open one, and was just enter- 
 ing Rome, when his cap was suddenly removed from his head by a 
 strange bird, which some allege was an eagle ; though, had they said it 
 was a lark, we should have believed them far more readily. Lucumo 
 followed his hat as well as he could with his eyes ; but his wife was so 
 completely carried away with it, that she declared the circumstance told 
 
24 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [CHAP 111 
 
 her he -would gain a crown, though it really proved how nearly he had 
 lost one ; for until the bird replaced his hat upon his head, there wa? 
 only a bare possibility of his getting it back again. 
 
 The -wealth of his -wife enabled Lucumo to live in the first style of 
 fashion; and having been admitted to the rights of citizenship, he 
 changed his name to Lucius Tarquinius : for the sake, perhaps, of 
 the sound, in the absence of any sounder reason. He was introduced 
 at Court, where he won the favour of Ancus, who was so much taken 
 by his clashing exterior, that he gave him a commission in the army, as 
 Tribunus Celerum, a sort of Captain of the Guards, who, from the 
 title of Celeres, appear to have been, as we have before observed, the 
 fast men, as opposed to the " slow coaches " of the period. 
 
 Celeres. 
 
 The Captain made himself so generally useful to Ancus, that wheD 
 the latter died, his two sons were left to the guardianship of the 
 former, who, on the day fixed for the election of a new king, sent his 
 wards to the chase, that they might be pursuing other game, instead of 
 looking after the Crown, which Tarquinius had set his own eye upon. 
 In the absence of the youths, Tarquinius, who had got the name of 
 Priscus, or the old hand, which he seems to have well deserved, pro- 
 posed himself as a candidate; and, in a capital electioneering speech, 
 put forth his own merits with such success, that he was voted on to the 
 throne without opposition. 
 
 The commencement of his reign was not very peaceful, for he waa 
 attacked by the Latins ; but he gave them a very severe Latin lesson, 
 and, crushing them under his feet, sent them back to that part of Italy 
 forming the lower part of the boot, with the loss of considerable booty. 
 He, nevertheless, found time for all manner of games ; and he instituted 
 the Ludi Magni, which were great sport, in a space he marked out as 
 the Circus Maximus. 
 
 The position of the Circus was between the Palatine and Aventine 
 
CHAP. III.] ATTUS NAVIUS. 25 
 
 Hills, there being a slope on either side, so that the people followed the 
 inclination of nature as well as their own in selecting the spot for 
 spectacular purposes. In the earliest times a Circus was formed oi 
 materials brought by the spectators themselves, who raised temporary 
 scaffolds, from which an unfortunate drop, causing fearful execution among 
 the crowd, would frequently happen. Tarquinius Priscus, desirous of giving 
 more permanent accommodation to the lioman sight seers, built a Circus 
 capable of containing 150,000 persons, and, from its vast superiority in 
 size over other similar buildings, it obtained the distinction of Maximus. 
 The sports of the Circus were extremely attractive to the Romans, who 
 looked to the Ubelli, containing the lists of the horses, and names and 
 colours of the drivers, with all the eagerness of a " gentleman sports- 
 man " seeking information from Dorling's correct card at Epsom. In 
 the early days of Rome the amusements of the Circus were limited to 
 the comparatively harmless contests of equestrian speed ; and it was not 
 until the city had reached a high state of refinement — cruelty having 
 become refined like everything else — that animals were killed by 
 thousands, and human beings by hundreds at a time, to glut the 
 sanguinary appetites of the prince and the people. The ancient Circus 
 was circular at one end only, and the line of seats was broken by a sort 
 of outwork, supposed to have comprised the box and retiring-room of the 
 sovereign ; while, at the opposite side, was another deviation from the 
 line of seats, to form a place for the editor spectaculorum — a box for 
 the manager. Though Tarquinius is said to have founded the Circus 
 Maximus in commemoration of his victory over the Latins, they were 
 not the only foes whom he might have boasted of vanquishing. 
 
 Having fought and conquered the Sabines, he took from them 
 Collatrae, as a collateral security for their good behaviour ; and coming 
 home with a great deal of money, he built the Temple of Jupiter on the 
 capitol. 
 
 Tarquinius, being desirous of increasing the army, was opposed by a 
 celebrated augur of the day, one Attus Navius, whose reputation seems 
 to have been well deserved, if the annexed anecdote is to be believed ; 
 for it indicates that he could see further into a whetstone than any one 
 who has either gone before or followed him. Navius declared that augury 
 must determine whether the plan of Tarquinius could be carried out, 
 which caused the latter to ask, sneeringly, whether he knew what he 
 was thinking about. The question was ambiguous, but Navius boldly 
 replied he did, and added, that what Tarquinius proposed to do was 
 perfectly possible. "Is it indeed," said the King, "I was thinking 
 of cutting through this whetstone with this razor." " It will be a close 
 shave," was the reply of the augur, " but it can be done, so cut away ;" 
 and the bluntness of the observation was only equalled by the sharp- 
 ness of the blade, which cut the article in two as easily as if it had been 
 a pound of butter, instead of a stone of granite. This reproof was 
 literally more cutting than any other that could have been possibly 
 conveyed to the king, who ever afterwards paid the utmost respect to 
 
26 COMIC HISTORY OJ HOME. [dlAP. III. 
 
 the augurs, of whom he was accustomed thenceforth to say, that the 
 affair of the whetstone proved them to he much sharper hlades than ho 
 had heen willing to take them for. 
 
 Having been at war with the Tuscans, whom he vanquished, he was 
 admitted into the ranks of the Kings of Etruria ; a position which led 
 him to indulge in the most extravagant desires. He must needs have 
 a crown of gold, which often tears or encumbers the brow it adorns ; a 
 throne of ivory, on whose too highly polished surface the foot is apt to 
 slip; and a sceptre, having on its top an eagle, which frequently gives 
 wings to the power it is intended to typify. His robe was of purple, 
 with so costly an edging, that the border exceeded all reasonable limits, 
 and furnished an instance of extravagance carried to the extreme, 
 while the rate at which he went on may be judged from the fact of his 
 always driving four in hand in his chariot. He did not, however, 
 wholly neglect the useful in his taste for the ornamental ; and though 
 his extravagance must have been a drain upon the public pocket, he 
 devoted himself to the more honourable drainage of the lower portions 
 of the city. He set an example to all future commissioners of sewers, 
 by his great work of the Cloaca Maxima, some portion of which still 
 exists, and which contains, in its spacious vault, a far more honourable 
 monument than the most magnificent tomb that could have been raised 
 to his memory 
 
 Tarquinius had reigned about thirty-eight years, when the sons of 
 Ancus Martius, who had been from the first brooding over their own 
 ejection from the throDe, carried their brooding so far as to hatch a 
 conspiracy, which, though regarded by the best authorities as a mare's 
 nest, forms one of those " lays " of ancient Rome which tradition gives 
 as part of her history. The youths, expecting that Tarquinius would 
 secure the succession to a favourite, named Servius Tullius, made an 
 arrangement with a couple of shepherds, who, pretending to have a 
 quarrel, went with hatchets in their hands to the king, and requested 
 him to settle their little difference. Tarquinius seems to have been in 
 a most accommodating humour, for he is said to have stepped to the 
 door of the palace, to arbitrate between these most un-gentle shepherds, 
 who, pretending that they only came with their hatchets to axe his 
 advice, began to axe him about the head ; and while he was endeavour- 
 ing to act as an arbitrator, they, acting as still greater traitors, cruelly 
 made away with him. The lictors who stood by must have had their 
 faces and their fasces turned the wrong way, for they administered a 
 beating to the shepherds when too late, after the regal crown was 
 already cracked beyond the possibility of repair, and the king was 
 almost knocked to pieces before he had time to collect himself. 
 
 Tarquinius was a practical reformer, and rested his fame on the most 
 durable foundations, among which the still-existing remains of the 
 Cloaca Maxima, or largest common sewer, have already been noticed. 
 Those who are over nice might feel repugnant to come down to poste- 
 rity by such a channel ; but that country is fortunate indeed in which 
 
CHAI\ III.] SERVIUS TULLIUS. 27 
 
 genius seeks " the bubble reputation " at the mouth of the sewer, 
 instead of in the mouth of the cannou. 
 
 It must be recorded, to the honour of Tarquinius, that he organised 
 the plebeians, and elevated some of them to the rank of patriciaus, thus 
 giving vigour to the aristocratic body, which runs the risk of becoming 
 corrupt, and losing its vitality, unless a supply of plebeian life-blood is 
 from time to time poured into it. 
 
 This measure would have been followed by other wholesome reforms, 
 but for the short-sighted and selfish policy of the patricians themselves, 
 who could not perceive the fact, full of apparent paradoxes, that if any- 
 thing is to remain, it must not stand still ; that no station can be 
 stationary with safety to itself ; and that nothing possessed of vitality 
 can grow old without something new being continually added. 
 
 The sixth king of Rome was Servius Tullius, who is said to have 
 been the son of a female in the establishment of Tanaquil. His 
 mother's name was Ocrisia ; but there is something vague about the 
 paternity of the boy, which has been assigned sometimes to the Lar, or 
 household god of the establishment, and sometimes to Vulcan. Who- 
 ever may have been the father, it was soon intimated that the child was 
 to occupy a high position ; and on one occasion, when sleeping in his 
 cradle, his head was seen to be on fire ; but no one was allowed to blow 
 out the poor boy's brains, or otherwise extinguish the flame, which 
 was rapidly consuming the hair on the head of the future heir to the 
 monarchy. The nurses and attendants were ordered to sit down and 
 see the fire burn out of its own accord, which, the tradition says, it did, 
 though common sense says it couldn't ; for the unfortunate infant 
 must have died of consumption had he been suffered to blaze away 
 in the cool manner spoken of. Though of common origin, at least 
 on his mother's side, young Servius Tullius was supposed to have 
 been completely purified by the fire, which warmed the hearts of all 
 who came near him ; and not only did the queen adopt him as her 
 own son, but the partial baking had produced such an effect upon his 
 very ordinary clay, that he was treated like a brick required for the 
 foundations of the royal house into which Tarquinius cemented him, 
 by giving him, as a wife, one of the daughters of the royal family. 
 
 Tanaquil having kept secret her husband's death, Servius Tullius 
 continued for some time to carry on the business of government, just as 
 if nothing had happened. When it was at length felt that the young 
 favourite of fortune had got the reins fairly in his hands, the murder 
 came out, and the barbarous assassination of Tarquinius was published 
 to the multitude. Servius was the first instance of a king who mounted 
 the throne without the aid of the customary pair of steps, consisting of 
 an election by the Senate, and a confirmation by the Curiae. 
 
 It might have been expected that Servius, when elevated above his 
 own humble stock, might have held his head so high and become so 
 stiff-necked as to prevent him from noticing the rank from which he 
 had sprung ; but, on the contrary, he exalted himself by endeavouring 
 
28 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 to raise others. His reign was not a continued round of fights, for 
 he preferred the trowel to the sword, and, instead of cutting his name 
 with the latter weapon, he wisely chose to build up his reputation 
 with the former instrument. His first care was to complete the city, 
 jo which he added three hills, feeling, perhaps, that his fame would 
 jecome as ancient as the hills themselves ; and with a happy perception 
 that if " walls have ears " they are just as likely to have tongues, he 
 surrounded Eome with a wall, which might speak to future ages of his 
 spirit and enterprise. He was a friend to insolvent debtors, to whom 
 he gave the benefit of an act of unexampled liberality. Desiring them 
 to make out schedules of their liabilities, he paid off the creditors in a 
 double sense, for they were extremely reluctant to receive the cash, the 
 payment of which cashiered their claim on the person and possessions 
 of their debtors. He abolished imprisonment for debt, giving power 
 to creditors over the goods and not the persons — or, as an ingenious 
 scholar has phrased it, the bona and not the bones — of their debtors. 
 
 .illlj [1111111.1111 i mini! I 
 
 itllj nTfTTTTi -:.'2—: 
 
 Debtor and Creditor.— Seizure of Goods for a Debt 
 
CHAP. III.] SERVIUS TULLIUS. 129 
 
 Servius found that while he was raising up buildings he was knocking 
 down a great deal of money ; hut being nevertheless anxious to erect a 
 temple to Diana on the Aventine Hill he persuaded the Latins, who had 
 T iade the place a sort of quarticr Latin, to subscribe to it. The Latins, 
 the Romans, and the Sabines, were every year to celebrate a sort of union 
 sacrifice on this spot, where the cutting up and cooking of oxen formed 
 what may be termed a joint festival. It happened that a Sabine 
 agriculturist had reared a prize heifer, which caused quite an effer 
 vescence among his neighbours, and taking the bull quietly by the 
 horns, he asked the augur what it would be meet for him to do with it. 
 The soothsayer looked at the bull, who turned his brilliant bull's eye upon 
 the astonished sage, with a sort of supercilious stare that almost amounted 
 to a glaring oversight. The augur, not liking the look of the animal, 
 and anxious, no doubt, to put an end to the interview, declared that 
 whoever sacrificed the beast to Diana, off-hand, would benefit his race, 
 and cause his nation to rule over the other confederates. The animal 
 was led away with a shambling gait to the sacred shambles, where the 
 Roman priest was waiting to set his hand to any Bull that might be 
 presented to him. Seeing the Sabine preparing to act as slaughterman, 
 the pontiff became tiffy, and suggested, that if the other was going to do 
 the job, he might as well do it with clean hands, upon which the 
 Sabine rushed to the river to take a finger bath While the owner was 
 occupied about his hands the Roman priest took advantage of the 
 pause to slaughter the animal, and, on his return, the Sabine found 
 that he had unintentionally washed his hands of the business altogether. 
 The oracle was thus fulfilled in favour of the Romans, who trumpeted 
 the fact through the bull's horns, which were hung up in front of the 
 temple in memory of this successful piece of priest-craft. 
 
 The growing popularity of Servius with the plebs made the patricians 
 anxious to get rid of him, for they had not the sense to feel that if they 
 aspired to be the pillars of the state, a close union with the class 
 beneath, or, as they would have contemptuously termed it, the base, was 
 indispensable. It happened that Servius, in the hope of propitiating the 
 two sons of Tarquinius, had given them his two daughters as their wives, 
 though it was a grievous mistake to suppose that family marriages are 
 usually productive of family union. Jealousy and quarrelling ensued, 
 which ended in the elder, Tullia, persuading her sister's husband Lucius 
 Tarquinius to murder his own brother and his own wife, in order that 
 he might make a match with the lump of female brimstone that had 
 inflamed his brutal passions. Not satisfied with the double murder, 
 which would have qualified her new husband to be struck in the hardest 
 wax and to occupy chambers among the worst of horrors, Tullia was 
 always whispering into his ear that she wished her father farther, and by 
 this demoniac spell she worked on the weak and wicked mind of Lucius 
 Tarquinius. It having been reported that Servius Tullus intended to 
 crown his own reign by uncrowning himself, and exchanging, as it were, 
 the royal stock for consuls, the patricians thought it would be a good 
 
30 COMTC HISTOUY OF ROME [CHAP. Til 
 
 opportunity to speculate for a fall, by attempting the king's overthrow. 
 Tullia and her husband were asked to join in this conspiracy, when it 
 was found that the wretched and corrupt pair would be quite ripe for 
 any enormity. It was arranged, therefore, that Lucius Tarquinius, at 
 a meeting of the Senate, should go down to the House with all the 
 insignia of royalty, and, having seated himself upon the throne, the 
 trumpeters in attendance were, by one vigorous blow, to proclaim him 
 as the sovereign. When Servius heard the news he proceeded to the 
 Assembly, where all things — including the trumpets — seemed to be 
 flourishing in favour of the traitor. As the sound of the instruments 
 fell upon the old king's ears, he seemed to tremble for a moment before 
 the rude blast which threatened the blasting of all his benevolent views, 
 but calling out from the doorway in which he stood, he rebuked the 
 insolence and treachery of his son-in-law. A disgraceful scene ensued, 
 in which other blows than those of the trumpeters were exchanged, and 
 Servius, who had in vain desired the traitor to "come off the throne," 
 was executing a threat to "pull him off" as well as the old man's 
 strength, or rather, his feebleness, would allow him. The senators 
 were watching the scene with the vulgar interest attaching to a prize 
 fight, and were no doubt backing up the combatants with the ordinary 
 expressions of encouragement, which we can only interpret by our own 
 familiar phrases of, " Go it," "Now then young 'un," " Bravo old 'un," 
 and " Give it him." Getting rather too near the edge of the throne, 
 but holding each other firmly in their respective grasps, the two 
 combatants rolled together down the steps of the throne — an incident 
 not to be met with in the rolls of any other Parliament. Getting 
 immediately on to their legs they again resumed their hostile footing, 
 when Tarquinius being younger and fresher than his antagonist, seized 
 up the old man, now as feeble as an infant in arms, and carried his 
 brutality to such a pitch as to pitch him down the steps of the Senate 
 House. Servius tried in vain to pick up his courage, and being picked 
 up himself, he was on his road home when he was overtaken and 
 murdered in a street, which got the name of Vicus Sceleratus, or 
 Rascally Row, from the disgraceful row that occurred in it. Tullia was 
 driving down to the House to hear the news when her coachman pulled 
 up at the horrid sight of the king lying in the street, but the female 
 fury only ordered the man to " drive on," and it is said that she 
 enforced her directions by flinging a footstool at his head, though, on 
 subjecting the story to the usual tests, we find the footstool without a 
 leg to stand upon. Servius Tullus had reigned forty-four years, and 
 Ins memory was cherished for centuries after his death, his birthday 
 being celebrated on the Nones of every month, because Ue was known 
 to have been born on some nones, but which particular nones were 
 unknown to any one. We have already noticed the wall of Servius, 
 but we must not forget the Agger, or mound, connected with it, the 
 value of which was equal to that of the wall itself, and, indeed, those 
 who give the preference to the Agger over the wall do not much 
 
CHAP. III.] DIVISION INTO TRIBES, ETC. 31 
 
 ex-aggerate. There remains to this day a great portion of the mound, 
 which was sixty feet high and fifty hroad, skirted with flag stones 
 towards the outer side, and the Romans no douht would derive more 
 security from laying down their flags on the outer wall than from 
 hanging out their banners. 
 
 The greatest work, however, of the reign of Servius was the reform 
 of the Constitution, which he constructed with a view to the reconciling 
 of the wide differences between the patricians and the plebeians, so as to 
 form one powerful body by making somebodies of those who had 
 hitherto been treated as nobodies His first care was to divide the 
 plebeians into thirty tribes — a name derived from the word tribus, or 
 three, and applied to the three plebeian tribes — the derivation being 
 so simple that were we to ask any schoolboy if he understood it, his 
 answer would be, that " he might be whipped " and he would assuredly 
 deserve to be whipped " if he didn V These thirty tribes were placed 
 under an officer called a tribunus, whose duty it was to keep a list of 
 the members and collect the tributum — a word, to which in the reader's 
 ready mind, the word tribute will at once be attributed. Besides the orders 
 of patricians and plebeians, whose position was determined by descent 
 alone, Servius thought there were many who might be connected together 
 by a tie proper to them all, namely, that of property. He accordingly 
 established a census to be held every five years, in which the name of 
 every one who had come to man's estate was put down, together with 
 the amount of his other estate, if he was lucky enough to have any. The 
 whole number was divided into two heads, one of which was foot, or 
 pedites, and the other horse, or eqvites, among whom an equitable 
 share of rights and duties had to be distributed. The pedites, or 
 infantry, were not all on the same footing, but were subdivided into six 
 classes, according to the amount of their possessions, which determined 
 their position in the army; but even the sixth class, or those who had no 
 other possession than their self-possession, were not excluded from the 
 service. Each class was divided into seniors and juniors, the former 
 being men between forty-five and sixty ; the latter, including all below 
 forty-five and above seventeen, at which early age, though frequently 
 not bearded themselves, they were expected to go forth and beard the 
 enemy. In addition to the two assemblies of the curias (the comitia 
 curiata) and the tribes (the comitia tributa), there was instituted by 
 Servius a great national assembly called the comitia centuriata, and 
 consisting of the whole of the centuries. Of these centuries there were 
 altogether one hundred and ninety-three ; but, instead of every 
 individual member being allowed a separate vote, the suffrage was 
 distributed amongst classes according to their wealth or the number of 
 asses they possessed, a principle which the opponent of a mere property 
 jualification will regard as somewhat asinine. By this arrangement 
 the poor were practically excluded from voting at all, unless the rich 
 were disagreed among themselves, when the merely industrious classes, 
 such as the Fabri — the very extensive family of the Smiths and the 
 
33 COMIC HISTORY OF SOME. [CHAP. III. 
 
 Carpenters — the Cornicines — the respectable race of Hornblowers- and 
 others of similar degree sometimes had sufficient weight to turn 
 the balance. 
 
 Though the equestrian centuries comprised the richest class, they 
 seem to have been in one respect little better than beggars on 
 horseback, for each eques received from the treasury a sum for the 
 purchase of his horse and an annual grant for its maintenance. The 
 amount was levied upon orphans and widows, who were, it is true, 
 exempt from other imposts, though their contributing from their slender 
 means to keep a horse on its legs caused many to complain that the law 
 rode rough-shod over them. The Assembly of the Centuries was a grand 
 step towards self-government, and, though many may think that wealth 
 had an actual preponderance, it was always possible for a member of a 
 lower class to get into a higher, and thus an inducement to self-advance- 
 ment was secured, which is, certainly, not one of the least useful ends of 
 government. There were numerous instances of energetic Romans rising 
 from century to century with a rapidity showing that they were greatly 
 in advance of the age, or, at all events, of the century in which they were 
 originally placed by their lot, or rather by their little. 
 
 Servius introduced into Rome the Etruscan As, of the value of which 
 we can give no nearer notion than by stating the fact that a Roman 
 sheep was worth about ten Etruscan asses. To the poorer classes these 
 coins could have been of little service, and by way of small change they 
 were permitted to use shells, from which we no doubt get the phrase of 
 " shelling out," a quaint expression sometimes used to describe the 
 process of paying In some parts of the world shells are still current 
 as cash, and even among ourselves fish are employed at cards as the 
 representatives of money. Though in ordinary use for the smaller 
 purposes of commerce, shells were not receivable as taxes, for when the 
 Government required the sinews of war it would not have been satisfied 
 with mussels or any other similar substitute. 
 
 The Roman As was of bronze and stamped on one side with a 
 portrait of Janus, whose two heads we never thought much better than 
 one, though they appeared appropriately on a coin as a sign, perhaps, 
 that people are often made doublefaced by money. On the other side 
 was the prow of a ship, which might be emblematical of the fact that 
 money is necessary to keep one above water. 
 
 In the time of Servius all were expected to arm themselves according 
 to their means, and the richest were thoroughly clad in bronze for the 
 protection of their persons, while the poorer, who could not afford 
 anything of the kind, were obliged to trust for their self-defence to their 
 own natural metal. The patricians carried a clypeus, or shield, of 
 such dimensions as to cover frequently the whole body, and by hiding 
 himself behind it the wearer often escaped a hiding from the enemy. 
 The material of which the clypeus was composed was wood covered 
 with a bull's skin that had been so thoroughly tanned as to afford 
 safety against the severest leathering 
 
CHAP IV.] 
 
 TARQUINICS SUTKKB'JS. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FOURTH. 
 
 FROM 'iriE ACCESSION OF TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS TO THE BANISHMENT 
 OF THE ROYAL FAMILY, AND THE ABOLITION OF THE KINGLY DIGNITY. 
 
 ARQUiNius had ascended the 
 throne more by the 
 force of his fists, than 
 by the strength of his 
 arms; for he had aimed 
 a blow, not only at the 
 crown, but at the face of 
 the unhappy sovereign 
 who had preceded him. 
 Carrying his hostility 
 beyond the grave, Tar 
 quinius refused to bury 
 his animosity, or to 
 grant his victim a fune 
 ral. The upstart nature 
 of the new king gained 
 for him the nickname of 
 Superbus, or the proud, 
 though he had as little 
 to be proud of as some of 
 the most contemptible 
 characters in history. 
 He, however, asserted 
 himself with so much 
 audacity, that the people were completely overawed by his pretensions, 
 and many made away with themselves, to insure their lives, by a sort 
 of Irish policy, against Tarquin's violence. He took away the privileges 
 of the plebeians, and sent many to the scaffold, by employing them as 
 common bricklayers ; but there were several who preferred laying violent 
 hands on themselves, to laying a single brick of the magnificent 
 buildings which he planned, in the hope, perhaps, that the splendour of 
 the constructions of his reign would induce posterity to place the best 
 construction on his character. 
 
 He coolly assumed the whole administration of the law, and added 
 the office of executioner to that of judge, while he combined with both 
 the character of a criminal, by seizing the property of all those whom 
 he punished, and thus adding robbery to violence. To prevent the 
 possibility of a majority against him in the Senate, he cut off several 
 of the heads of that body ; and though he never condescended to 
 
 D 
 
34 COMIC HISTOEY OF ROME. ^CHAP. IV. 
 
 submit to the Assembly a single question, he treated the unhappy 
 members as if they had much to answer for. 
 
 Finding the continued ill-treatment of his own people getting rather 
 monotonous, he sought the pleasures of variety by harassing the 
 Volscians, whom he robbed of a sufficient sum to enable him to com 
 mence a temple to Jupiter. Bricks and mortar soon ran up above 
 the estimated cost ; and Tarquin had scarcely built the lower floor, 
 when he came to the old story of shortness of funds, which he supplied 
 by making the people pay as well as work, and taxing at once their time 
 and their pockets. This temple was on the Capitoline Hill ; and it is said 
 that in digging the foundations the workmen hit upon a freshly-bleeding 
 human head, which, of course, must be regarded as an idle tale ; nor 
 would it be right for history to hold an elaborate inquest on this head, 
 since it would be impossible to find a verdict without having first found 
 the body. The augur, who, according to the legend, was present on 
 the occasion, is reported to have made a, post-mortem examination of the 
 head, which he identified as that of one Tolus ; but who Tolus was, or 
 whether he ever was at all, we are told nothing on any competent 
 authority. The augur, whose duty it was to be ready to interpret 
 anything that turned up, no sooner saw the head, than putting upon it 
 *he best face he could, he declared it to be a sign that Rome was des- 
 tined to be the head of the world — an obvious piece of fulsome adula- 
 tion, worthy of being offered to the flattest of flats, by one disposed to 
 flatter. The temple itself was a great fact, notwithstanding the nume- 
 rous fictions that are told concerning it ; and there is little doubt that 
 though, as some say, Tarquinius Priscus (the old one) may have begun 
 it, Tarquinius Superbus put to it the finishing touch, and surmounted it 
 with a chariot and four in baked clay, which, had it been preserved to 
 this day, would have been one of the most interesting of Potter's 
 Antiquities. 
 
 A curious anecdote, connected with the bookselling business of the 
 period, has been handed down to us ; and it is sufficiently interesting 
 to be handed on to the readers of this work, who are at liberty either to 
 take it up, or to set it down at its real value. It is said that Tarquin 
 was waited upon by a female, who brought with her nine books, and, 
 expressing herself wflling to do business, asked three hundred pieces of 
 gold for the entire set of volumes. The King pooh-poohed the proposi- 
 tion, on the ground of the exorbitant price, and desired her to be off with 
 the books, when she solemnly advised him not to off with the bargain. 
 Finding him obstinate, the woman, who was, it seems, a sibyl, and eked 
 out her bookseller s profits by the business of a prophetess, threw into 
 the flames three of the volumes, which, assuming, for a few minutes, 
 the aspect of illuminated copies, soon left no traces — not even a spark — 
 of any genius by which they might have been inspired. The sibyl, 
 soon after, paid a second visit to Tarquin, bringing with her the six 
 remaining volumes ; and having asked in vain the same sum for the 
 imperfect copy as she had done for the whole work, she went through a 
 
CHAP. IV. 
 
 SIISYLLINE BOOKS. 
 
 35 
 
 sort of second edition of Burns, by throwing three more of her books 
 into the fire. To the surprise of Tarquin, she appeared a thin/ 
 time with her stock of books, now reduced to three ; and upon the 
 King's observing to her " What do you want for these ? " she replied 
 that three hundred pieces of gold was her price ; that she made no 
 abatement ; that if the books were not instantly bought, they would 
 speedily be converted into light literature, and being condensed 
 into one thick volume of smoke, would, of course, take their final 
 leaves of the royal residence. The King, astonished at the woman's 
 pertinacity, resolved at last to send for a valuer, to look at the books, 
 
 Tarqniuius Supertms has the Sibylline Books valued. 
 
 who declared them to be well worth the money. Thoy contained a 
 variety of remedies for diseases, directions for preparing sacrifices, and 
 
 n 2 
 
36 COMIC HISTORY OF EOME. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 other interesting matter, "with a collection of the oracles of Cumse, by 
 way of appendix, so that the volumes formed a sort of encyclopaedia, 
 embracing the advantages of a Cookery Book, a Buchan's Domestic 
 Medicine, and a Complete Fortune-teller. Tarquin* became the pur- 
 chaser of these three very odd volumes, which seem to have been 
 estimated less according to their intrinsic value, than the price they 
 had brought ; and they were carefully put away in the Temple library. 
 
 It was the desire of the Government to prevent the people from 
 knowing what these books might contain, and the office of librarian was 
 entrusted to two individuals of illustrious birth, under the idea — not 
 very flattering to aristocracy — that patricians would be found the best 
 promoters of ignorance. One of these officers, having acted so incon- 
 sistently with his rank, as to have imparted some information to a fellow- 
 citizen, was dismissed from his place and thrown into the sea in a bag ; 
 so that he may be said, by the heartless punster, to have got the sack 
 in a double meaning. 
 
 While building operations were going on at home, destruction was 
 being dealt out abroad ; and the Gabii being about twelve miles from 
 Rome, were the objects of the King's hostility. Having sent one of his 
 captains against them, who was repulsed by a major force, Tarquinius 
 resolved on trying treachery. He accordingly despatched his son, Sextus, 
 to complain of ill-treatment at his father's hands, and to implore the pity 
 of the Gabii, who were gabies enough not only to believe the story, but 
 even to appoint Sextus their general. He was ultimately chosen their 
 governor ; and finding the Gabii completely in his hands, he sent to his 
 own governor — Tarquinius — to know what to do with them. The King 
 was in the garden when the messenger arrived ; and whenever the 
 latter asked a question, the former made no reply, but kept knocking 
 off the heads of the tallest poppies with his walking-stick. The 
 messenger ventured to intimate, once or twice, that he was waiting for 
 an answer ; but the heads of the poppies flying off in all directions, he 
 began to tremble for his own, and he flew off himself, to prevent acci- 
 dents. On his return, he mentioned the circumstances to Sextus, who 
 regarded the poppies as emblems of the Gabii ; and, indeed, the latter 
 seemed so thoroughly asleep, that the comparison was no less just than 
 odious. 
 
 Sextus, taking the paternal hint, knocked off several of the heads of 
 the people ; and keeping up the allegory to the fullest extent, cut off 
 the flower of the Gabii. Many of their fairest blossoms perished by a 
 too early blow ; and being thus deprived of what might fairly be termed 
 its primest pick, the soil was soon planted with the victorious standards 
 of Tarquinius. He, however, instead of introducing any apple of discord, 
 judiciously grafted the Gabian on the lloman stock ; and thus cultivated 
 the only really valuable fruits of victory. 
 
 * Some say that Tarquinius Priscus bought the books ; but it is of little consequence 
 who was the real buyer, as the whole story is very probably " a sell " on the part of the 
 uarraiors, as well as of the sibyl. 
 
CIIAF. IV.] 
 
 TARQUIX CONSULTS THE ORACLE. 
 
 57 
 
 Tarquin was a great deal troubled by the signs of the times ; or, 
 rather, he was made so uncomfortable by an evil conscience, that if a 
 snake appeared in his path, it seemed to hang over him like a horrible 
 
 J 
 
 
 The Evil Conscience of Tarquin. 
 
 load ; and if he went to sleep, there was a mare's-nest always at hand, 
 to trouble him with a night-mare. He dreamed that some eagles had 
 built in his gardens, and that in their temporary absence from the nest, 
 some vultures had breakfasted on the new-laid eggs, and, armed with 
 their beaks, taken possession of the deserted small tenement. Unable 
 to drive the vultures out of his head, he was anxious to ascertain the 
 meaning of the omen, for he had become so superstitious, that if he saw 
 a sparrow dart from a branch, he regarded it as an emblem that he was 
 himself about to hop the twig in some unexpected manner. Doubting 
 the efficiency of his own augurs, on whom he was beginning to throw 
 some of the discredit to which prophets in their own country are liable, 
 Tarquin resolved on seeking the aid of foreign talent ; and as the 
 omens were worse than Greek to him, he sent to the oracles at Delphi, 
 thinking if the matter was Greek to them they would be able to interpret 
 it. His messengers to the fortune-tellers were his two sons, Aruns 
 and Titus, together with his nephew, one Lucius Junius Brutus, who, 
 though an extremely sensible young man, was in the habit of playing 
 the fool, in order to avert the suspicions of his uncle. Though Brutus 
 assumed the look of an idiot, and generally had his eye on vacancy, it 
 was only to conceal the fact that a vacancy on the throne was 
 what he really had his eye upon. Valuable gifts were taken to the 
 oracle, which was slow- to speak in the absence of presents. When 
 Brutus put a baton into the hand of the Priestess, she knew, by the 
 weight, that the baton was a hollow pretext for the conveyance of a 
 bribe, which she looked for, found, and pocketed. On the strength of 
 a large lump of gold, thus cunningly conveyed to the Priestess, Brutus 
 ventured to ask who would be the next King of Rome, to which she 
 
38 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 replied by a recommendation that all the applicants should go home to 
 their mothers, for that " he who kissed his mother first should be the 
 one to govern." Titus and Aruus made at once for their mamma, and 
 eager to kiss her, ran as fast as they could to catch the first bus, but 
 Brutus, -whom they had perhaps tripped up, to prevent his getting a 
 fair start, saluted his mother earth with a smack of the lip in return for 
 the blow on the face that his fall had occasioned him. 
 
 When the ambassadors returned to Rome they found Tarquin as 
 nervous as ever ; and there is little doubt, that if tea had been known 
 in those days, the King would have sat for ever over his cups, endea- 
 vouring to read the grounds for his fears in the grounds of the beverage. 
 The treasury having been exhausted by his building speculations, the 
 people were growing more dissatisfied every day ; and, in order to turn 
 their discontent away from home, he engaged them in a quarrel with 
 Ardea, a city situated on a lofty rock, against which the Romans threw 
 themselves with a sort of dashing energy. The attempt to take the 
 place by a common assault and battery was vain, for the rock stood firm ; 
 and it was probable, that if the Romans remained at the gates, and 
 continued knocking over and over again, they would ultimately be com- 
 pelled to knock under. They therefore resolved on hemming the Ardeans 
 in, as there was no chance of whipping them out, and military works 
 were run in a continuous thread round the borders of the city. 
 
 The Romans, acting as a sort of army of occupation, had, of course, 
 scarcely any occupation at all ; and there being nothing that soldiers 
 find it so difficult to kill as their time, the officers were in the habit 
 of going halves in suppers at each other's quarters. At one of these 
 entertainments the King's sons, and their cousin, one Tarquinius, sur- 
 named Collatinus, from the town of Collatia, were discussing the merits, 
 of their respective wives, and each of the officers, with an uxuriousness 
 among the military that the commonest civility would have restrained, 
 was praising his own wife at the expense of all others. 
 
 It was at length agreed that the husbands should proceed forthwith to 
 Rome, and that having paid an unexpected visit to all the ladies, the palm 
 should be awarded to her who should be employed in the most praise- 
 worthy way, when thus unceremoniously popped in upon. They first 
 visited the wife of Sextus, who had got a large evening party and ball 
 at home, and who was much confused by this unexpected revelation of 
 her midnight revels. Dancing was at its height ; and as a great writer 
 has said of dancing among the Romans, " Nemo fere saltat sobrius, 
 nisi forte insaniat,"* — any one who dances must be either very drunk, 
 or stark mad, — we may guess the state of the company that Sextus 
 found at his residence. In one corner the game of Par et Impar — " odd 
 or even " — might perhaps have been played ; for nothing can be more 
 purely classical than the origin of some of those sports which form 
 
 * Cicero. It is true this was said at a much later time than that of which we are now 
 writing ; but dancing, except in connection with certain ceremonies, was cousMerpd 
 degrading by the Romans from the earliest period. 
 
CHAr. TV. J 
 
 1.UCRETIA. 
 
 30 
 
 almost the only pretexts for the employment of our modern street 
 keepers. A portion of the guests might have been amusing themselves 
 with the Tali, or " knuckle-bones," others might have been employed 
 at Jactus bolus — "pitch and toss;" while here and there among the 
 revellers might have been heard the familiar cry of Aut caput aut navetn 
 — the " heads or tails " of antiquity. 
 
 It 
 
 Mrs. Sextus consoles herself with a Little Party. 
 
 Their next call was at the house of Collatinus, whose wife, Lucretia 
 was also engaged with a ball, but it was of cotton, and instead of 
 devoting herself to the whirl of the dance, she was spinning with 
 her maids, by way of spinning out the long, dreary hours of her 
 husband's absence. Sextus at once admitted that Collatinus had 
 indeed got a treasure of a wife, and the officers returned to the camp ; 
 but a few evenings afterwards, availing himself of the introduction of 
 
40 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. IV. 
 
 her husband, Sextus paid the lady a second visit. Being a kinsman, 
 he was asked to make himself at home, but his manner became so 
 strange, that Lucretia could not make him out; and as he did not seem 
 disposed to go home till morning, she retired to her chamber, with the 
 impression, no doubt, that being left alone in the sitting-room he would 
 take the hint, order his horse, and proceed to his lodgings. Lucretia 
 was, however, disturbed in the middle of the night by Sextus, who was 
 standing over her with a drawn sword, and who was guilty of such 
 brutal insolence, that she sent a messenger, the first thing in the 
 morning, to fetch her husband from Ardea, and her father from Rome, 
 who speedily arrived with his friend, P. Valerius*, a highly respectable 
 man, who afterwards got the name of Publicola. Collatinus brought with 
 him L. J. Brutus, and Lucretia having rapidly run through the story 
 of her wrongs, she still more rapidly run through herself before any one 
 had time to arrest the deadly weapon. Revenge against Tarquin and 
 his whole race was instantly sworn, in a sort of quartette, by the four 
 friends, and L. J. Brutus, snatching up the dagger, made a great 
 point of it in a speech he addressed to the people in the market place. 
 Indignation was now thoroughly roused against the Tarquin family, and 
 Brutus, proceeding to Rome, called a public meeting in the Forum. He 
 opened the business of the day by stating what had been done, and 
 having made his deposition he proposed the deposition of the king; 
 when it was moved, by way of amendment, and carried unanimously, 
 that the resolution should be extended by the addition of the words, 
 " and the banishment of his wife and family." A volunteer corps was at 
 once formed to set out for Ardea, where the king was supposed to 
 be ; but on hearing of the insurrection, he had at once decamped from 
 the camp, and proceeded to Rome, where he found the gates closed, and 
 feeling himself shut out from the throne, he took refuge with his two 
 sons, Titus and Aruns, at Caere, in Etruria. There history loses sight 
 of the old king, but Sextus has been traced to Gabii, a principality 
 of which he thought he was the head ; but the people soon undeceived 
 him, by showing him they would have no head at all, for they cut him 
 off one day in a tumult. 
 
 Tullia had fled, and it is not known whither ; but mercy to the 
 fallen king would lead us to hope that the queen had gone in a 
 different direction from that which he had taken. The Ardeans 
 agreed to a truce for fifteen years — a somewhat lengthy letter of 
 license — during which all hostile proceedings were to be stayed, and 
 the people decreed the total abolition of the kingly dignity. The royal 
 stor-k was converted, as it were, into consuls, and L. Junius Brutus, 
 with L. Tarquinius Collatinus, were elected for one year, to fill the 
 latter character. 
 
 Before closing an account of what is usually termed the kingly period 
 l)f the history of Rome, it is due to truth to state, that though some of 
 the alleged kings were good and others were bad, they must all be 
 considered as very doubtful characters. The fact of their existence 
 depends on no better authority that certain annals, compiled more than 
 
CHAP. IV.] MANNERS OF THE EARLY ROMANS. 41 
 
 a century and a half after the materials for compiling them had been 
 destroyed; and we are thus driven to rely upon the statements of certain 
 story-tellers, belonging, we fear, to a class, whose memories, according 
 to the proverb, ought to be excellent. In pretending to recollect what 
 they never knew, they have sometimes forgotten themselves, and in 
 building up their stories, they have shown how mere fabrication may 
 raise an ostensibly solid fabric. 
 
 Of the seven kings, who are said to have ruled in Rome during a 
 period of nearly two hundred and fifty years, three or four were 
 murdered; another subsided in a bog, and another ran for his life, 
 which he saved by his speed, though he was the last of the race of royalty. 
 It is difficult to spread these seven sovereigns over a space of two 
 centuries and a half, and we feel that we might as well attempt to cover 
 an acre of bread with a thin slice of ham, or turn the river Thames into 
 negus by throwing a few glasses of sherry into it. Of the earliest 
 Roman annals, some were burnt, leaving nothing to the student but the 
 tinder, from which it is, in these days, hardly possible to obtain much 
 light, but the greater portion of the early history of Rome has come 
 down to us by tradition, that extraordinary carrier, who is continually 
 adding to the bulk, but diminishing the weight of the matters consigned 
 to it for delivery. 
 
 Of the condition of the people at this early period little or nothing 
 can be known, and to amuse ourselves with idle guesses, would be scarcely 
 better than to turn into a game of blindman's buff the important 
 business of history. We can however state, with confidence, that the 
 earliest Romans had no regular coinage, but were in the habit of 
 answering with brass, in the rudest shape, the demands of their 
 creditors. Servius Tullius is reputed to have been the first who con- 
 verted the brass into coin, and marked it with the figure of a horse or 
 some other animal,* as an emblem, perhaps, of the fact, that money 
 runs away very rapidly. 
 
 Among the early Romans, the most honourable occupations were 
 pgriculture and war; the latter enabling the citizens to make a conquest 
 of the soil with the sword, and the former teaching them to subdue it to 
 their purposes by the implements of husbandry. Trade and commerce 
 were held in contempt, and left to the plebeians ; the patrician consider- 
 ing himself suitably employed only when he was thrashing his corn, or 
 performing the same operation on his enemies. 
 
 During the early existence of the city the native artists were few, and 
 the great works of architecture undertaken by the later kings were 
 embellished by foreign talent from Etruria. Tbe writing-master had 
 made so little progress in ancient Rome, that it is doubtful whether 
 many of the patricians could write their own names ; and even some of 
 the most distinguished characters of the day were men of mark, not only 
 by their position, but by their signatures. 
 
 * Hence, from the word pecv.s, cattle, was derived pecuuia, signifying money, anJ 
 giving rise to our own word "pecuniary." 
 
42 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [CHAP. IV. 
 
 It is not very gratifying to the friends of education to find that though 
 ignorance was almost universal among the early Romans, there was a 
 wholesome tone of morality among the people, which led them, not only 
 to condemn in their traditions the cruelty and laxity of principle pre- 
 vailing in the family of their last king, but to pay due reverence to the 
 domestic virtues of Lucretia. The legend of the latter being found 
 spinning with her maids, while the princesses of the house of Tarquin 
 were reeling in the dance, during the absence of their respective hus- 
 bands, is sufficient to show the estimation in which decency and 
 sobriety were held, as well as the odium that attached to riotous revelry. 
 The patrician youth of infant and unlettered Rome would have been 
 ashamed of those nocturnal gambols which have prevailed among por 
 tions of the juvenile aristocracy and gently in more civilised countries, 
 and in a more enlightened age, when door-knockers, and bell-handles, 
 have been carried off as the spolia opima of some disorderly triumph. 
 
CHAP. V.J 
 
 BRUTUS AND C0LEATINU8. 
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTH. 
 
 KBOM THE BANISHMENT OF TARQU1NIUS SUPERBUS TO THE BATTLE OF 
 
 LAKE EEGILLUS. 
 
 rutus, who had gained his eminence by 
 swearing that there should be no monarch 
 or single ruler in Rome, found himself in 
 sole possession of the supreme authority. 
 His position presents nothing very remark- 
 able to the modern observer, who is accus- 
 tomed to see those who have denounced a 
 system yesterday participating in the profits 
 of the same system to-day, and declaring 
 their own arguments to be thoroughly out 
 of place, as applied to themselves when in 
 office. Brutus, however, could not con 
 sistently exercise a power he had sworn 
 to overthrow; and to carry out his anti- 
 monarchical principles, he had either to 
 go out himself, or to ask for a colleague. 
 On the same principle that prefers the half 
 quartern to utter loaflessness, Brutus pro- 
 posed a partnership in the government ; 
 and Collatinus was taken into the firm, which proved to have no 
 firmness at all, for it was dissolved very speedily. The difficulty of 
 agreement between two of the same trade was severely felt by the 
 two popular reformers, who were dividing the substance without the 
 name of that power they had vowed to destroy; it was soon evident 
 that if they had thought it too much for one, they considered it not 
 enough for two; and they were accordingly always quarrelling. To 
 prevent collision, they tried the experiment of taking the supreme 
 authority by turns, each assuming the fasces for a month at a time ; but 
 this alternate chopping of the regal sticks, or fasces, which were the 
 emblems of power, led to nothing satisfactory. 
 
 A question at length arose, upon which the duality of the ruling 
 mind was so distinctly marked, that the two consuls, whose very name 
 is derived from con, with, and salio, to leap, were trying to leap in two 
 opposite ways ; and an end of their own power was the only conclusion 
 to which they were likely to jump together. Tarquin had retired to 
 Caere, waiting the chances of a restoration of his line ; but his line had 
 fallen into such contempt, that he was fishing in vain for his recal, 
 though he nevertheless sent ambassadors to demand the restoration of 
 himself, or at all events of his private property. 
 
•4-1 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. TCHAP. V. 
 
 The senate decreed that though Tarquin could not have the fasces, 
 he was at liberty to make a bundle of all the other sticks that might 
 belong to him. On this question Brutus and Collatinus were violently 
 opposed, and both becoming hot, their excessive warmth led to a mutual 
 coolness that ended in an open hostility, which shut out every hope of 
 compromise. Collatinus gave in by going out, and was succeeded by 
 P. Valerius, one of the party of four who had roused the popular spirit 
 over the bier of Lucretia. 
 
 Tarquin's ambassadors, instead of being satisfied with the permission 
 to remove his goods, had other objects in the back-ground ; for they 
 had a plan for his restoration in the rear, while they let nothing appear 
 in the van, but the late king's furniture. The plot was being discussed 
 after dinner, by a party of the conspirators, when one of the waiters, 
 who had concealed himself behind the door, overheard the scheme, and 
 ran to Valerius with the exclusive intelligence. The traitors were 
 secured, and when they were brought up before the consuls, Brutus 
 recognising among the offenders his two sons, subjected both them and 
 himself to a very severe trial. Asking them what they had to say to 
 the charge, and getting " nothing " in reply, he looked in the faces of 
 his sons, and declaring that he must class all malefactors under one 
 general head, which must be cut off, he called upon the lictors to do 
 their duty. In leaving the other prisoners to be tried by Valerius, 
 Brutus whispered to his colleague, " Now try them, and acquit them, if 
 you can;" but he could only execute the law, and the law could only 
 execute the criminals. The ambassadors were allowed to remain at 
 large, though their plotting proved that they had been at something 
 very little; and the government withdrew the permission that had 
 been granted for the removal of Tarquin's goods, which were divided by 
 means of a scramble among the populace. 
 
 Thus Tarquin, who had broken the twenty valuable tables of Servius, 
 was doomed to have the tables turned upon him by the destruction of 
 his own, while every leaf of the former was restored under the Consular 
 government. The landed estates of the Tarquins were distributed 
 among the plebeians, so that the banished family had no chance of 
 recovering their lost ground, which was afterwards known as the Field 
 of Mars, or Campus Martius. The corn on the confiscated property 
 was ripe ; but the people felt a conscientious objection to consuming 
 the produce which no labour of their own had reared ; and they did not 
 allow the tyrant's grain to outweigh their honest scruple. Throwing 
 all idea of profit overboard, they cast the corn into the Tiber, which, it 
 is said, was so shallow, that the sheaves stuck in the mud, and 
 formed the small island known as the Insula Tiberina. That a piece 
 of laud, however small, should be formed by a crop of corn, however 
 plentiful, is difficult to believe : but the story of the wheat can only 
 find reception from the very longest ears ; for common sense will admit 
 that in the effort to give credit to the talc, it must go thoroughly 
 against the grain on a proper sifting of all the evidence. 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 AKIJNS AND EKUTUS. 
 
 !•- 
 
 Tarquin relinquishing his hopes of a restoration by stratagem, 
 resolved on resorting to strategy, and brought into the field a larg< 
 army, of which the Veii formed a considerable part, and his son Aruns 
 headed the Etruscan cavalry. The Roman consuls commanded their 
 own forces ; Valerius being at the head of the foot, and Brutus 
 mounted on a clever cob, with a strong sword, that might he called a 
 useful hack, taking the lead of the equestrians. When Aruns entered 
 the field, he recognised Brutus in Tarquin s cloak, and the youn" man 
 felt the blood mantling with indignation into his cheek at the first 
 sight of the mantle. He instantly made for Brutus, who with equal 
 eagerness made for Aruns, and so violent was the collision, that the 
 breath was knocked at one blow out of both their bodies. 
 
 Aruns and Brutus. 
 
 The hostile leaders having fallen to the ground, the battle shared 
 their fate, and both armies withdrew to their camps ; but neither would 
 allow the other the credit of a victory. The legend goes on to state 
 that the god Silvanus — an alarmist among the classical deities, and 
 synonymous with Pan — was heard shouting in the night that the 
 Etruscans having lost one man more than the Romans, the latter had 
 gained the battle. This announcement of the result of the contest, 
 though only by a majority of one, so alarmed the Etruscans, who were 
 always panic-struck at the voice of Pan, that they took to flight, leaving 
 the enemy to carry everything before them, including all the property 
 that the fugitives had left behind them. The remains of Brutus were 
 brought to the Forum, where they lay in state ; but the state in which 
 they lay was truly deplorable ; for the deceased consul had been so 
 knocked about, that had he been alive, he would scarcely have 
 known himself, even bv the aid of reflection. His colleague, Valerius, 
 
•16 COMIC HISTORY OF KOME. [CHAP. V. 
 
 delivered an oration over his departed virtues, making a catalogue of 
 the whole, and fixing the highest price to every one of them. 
 
 The question of " Shall Brutus have a statue?" was soon answered 
 in the affirmative, and he was placed among the kings, though he had 
 destroyed the monarchy. Where failure constitutes the traitor, success 
 makes the patriot : and upon the merest accident may depend the question 
 whether the originator of a design against a bad government shall go to 
 the block of the sculptor, or to that of the executioner. 
 
 P. Valerius was in no hurry to ask the people for a colleague, and 
 he for some time did the whole of the business of the chief magistracy 
 himself; so that had it not been for the mere name of the office, 
 Rome might just as well have remained a monarchy. This fact seems 
 to have flashed at last on the public mind ; and when it was found that 
 P.Valerius was building himself a stone residence, in a strong position, a 
 rumour was spread abroad that he was aiming at the foundation of his 
 own house, or family, in the kingly power. On hearing the report he 
 immediately stopped the works of his intended residence, and having 
 called a meeting of the curia?, he appeared before them with his fasces 
 reversed ; a sign that the bundles of rods were not intended to be used on 
 the backs of the people alone, but that they were held, as it were, in 
 trust, and in pickle for the punishment of delinquency in general. This 
 treatment of the fasces so fascinated the people, that they acquitted 
 P. Valerius of every charge, and acknowledging their suspicious of a 
 plot to be groundless, they gave him a plot of ground to build his house 
 upon. Pleased with the taste of popularity, he continued to court it 
 with so much success, that he gained the name of Publicola, or one 
 who honours the public ; and he certainly introduced many very whole- 
 some legal reforms, by dabbling in law, in a spirit truly lau-dable He 
 gave an appeal from the magistrate to the people, in cases where the 
 punishment awarded had been a fine, a whipping, or a hanging ; and 
 in the last instance the provision was extremely salutary, for the sus- 
 pending of a sentence might often avoid the necessity for suspending 
 an alleged criminal. This right of appeal was, however, limited to 
 within a mile from the city ; an arrangement that would have justified 
 the formation of a league to abolish the mile, as an unnecessary distinc- 
 tion, of which we can only expose the absurdity, by suggesting the 
 possibility of an offence committed at Knightsbridge being punishable 
 at Newgate with immediate death ; while the culprit of Holborn Hill, 
 though nearer the place of execution, would be further from the scaffold. 
 
 Having passed several salutary acts, and secured, as it were, the cream 
 of popularity to himself, he proposed the election of a colleague who might 
 share the skim with him. The new consul was Spurius Lucretius ; but 
 poor Spurius enjoyed none of the genuine sweets of power. He was so 
 far advanced in years, at the period of his advancement to office, that he 
 had already one foot in the grave, and the other foot went in after it 
 immediately on his taking his now position. M. Horatius Pulvillius was 
 chosen in the poor old man's stead, and an incident speedily happened 
 
CHAP. V.] TREATY WITH CARTHAOI5. 4? 
 
 which caused a difference, leading to something more than personal 
 indifference between the two consuls. The temple of Jupiter, on the 
 Capitoline, so called from the incident already related, of the Caput 
 Toli, or head of Tolus, had not yet been dedicated ; and it having been 
 arranged that the thing was to be done, the next question that arose 
 was, " Who is to do it? " Both consuls were anxious for the job ; and 
 it was at length arranged that lots should be drawn, in order to settle 
 the undecided point, which had led to such a decided coolness between 
 P. Valerius and his colleague. Horatius was the happy man whom 
 fortune favoured by her choice ; and he was in the act of performing 
 the ceremony, when, without any ceremony at all, a messenger rushed 
 in, exclaiming that the son of the consul had suddenly expired. Believ 
 ing the alarm to be false, Horatius hinted at his suspicion of its being 
 one of the blackest of jobs, by suggesting that those who brought the 
 news should go and attend the funeral. " As for me," he exclaimed, 
 " I have other engagements just now ;" and, continuing the work of 
 dedication, he proceeded to mark the commencement of a new era, by 
 driving a huge nail into the wall of the temple. Such was the mode 
 by which chronology was taught to the early Romans, who had then- 
 dates literally hammered into them ; and, as long as the consul hit the 
 right nail upon the head, or went upon the proper tack, mistake was 
 almost impossible. 
 
 The first specimen of diplomacy to be met with in the records of 
 Rome must be referred to the first year of the Republic, when a treaty 
 was concluded with Carthage, and engraved on brazen tables. The 
 material was appropriate to the purpose it served ; and the language 
 was so obscure, that a modern treaty could scarcely have surpassed it 
 in ambiguity. Some parts of it were unintelligible to the most learned 
 of the Romans themselves ; and, had any difference arisen as to the 
 interpretation of the treaty, the tables must have been left to brazen it 
 out ; for no one could have explained their meaning. Though the docu- 
 ment may have mystified many things, it made one thing clear, for it proved 
 history to have been wrong in stating that Horatius succeeded Brutus, 
 for they are described as both being consuls together at the date of the 
 treaty. In following the ordinary version or perversion of the facts or 
 fictions connected with the rise of Rome, we take history as we find it ; 
 and though much of it is known to be false, we, by continually making 
 the admission, prevent the bane from remaining very long without the 
 antidote. 
 
 P. Valerius was still consul, with F. Lucretius for a colleague, when 
 the old King Tarquin happened to be on a visit, at Clusium, in Etruria, 
 with the local Lar, Porsenua.* After supper, Tarquin often grew 
 garrulous about his alleged wrongs, and worked on the sympathies of 
 his host, who declared the Romans should receive, through the medium 
 
 * Nicbuhr spells the word with a double n, in the penultimate syllable; but Macaulay, 
 who quotes four verses from different writers in favour of his orthography, writes the 
 word Porscna, with the penultimate short. 
 
48 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. V. 
 
 of Porsenna, a tremendous physicking. The Lar accordingly set forth 
 at the head of his army, and its approach being announced, the people 
 in the suburbs of Rome were frightened out of their wits, and into the 
 city. Throughout the whole of his journey, Porsenna administered a 
 strong dose to all that opposed his way ; and he scoured the country by 
 the most drastic system of pillage. On arriving at Rome, he at once 
 forced the Janiculum, the garrison rushing with their leader at their 
 head, and the foe almost at their heels, into the city. Nothing was now 
 between the Romans and their assailants but the wooden bridge, or 
 Pons Sublicius ; and when the people asked for consolation from their 
 consul, he had none to offer them. Looking at the water, he saw there 
 was no time for reflection ; and he ordered the bridge to be cut down, 
 when Horatius Codes, the gatekeeper, volunteered to offer a check to 
 the enemy. " I want but two," cried Horatius, " two only are wanted, 
 to join with me in throwing for that great stake, the safety of Rome;" 
 and there immediately presented themselves, as ready to " stand the 
 hazard of the die," if die they must, the youthful Spurius Lartius of the 
 Neminian race, and Herminius, belonging to the Tities. The three 
 heroes took their station at the foot of the bridge, resolved that no one 
 should pass without paying a poll-tax, in the shape of a blow on the 
 head, which the valiant trio stood prepared to administer. A shout of 
 derisive laughter was the only salute they received from the Etruscan 
 army ; but the laughter was soon transferred to the other side of the 
 Etruscan mouth, ana subsided altogether when no less than half-a-dozen 
 tongues were found to have licked the dust, instead of the enemy. 
 Porsenna's army had advanced to the sound of trumpets, which seemed 
 no longer in a nourishing condition, but were as incapable of dealing 
 out a blow as the soldiers themselves. A few of the troops in the rear 
 shouted " Forward ! " to those in the van ; but there was such a deter- 
 mined cry of " Keep back ! " among the foremost men, that all were 
 under the influence of a general gib, and every rank gave evidence of 
 rank cowardice. 
 
 While the Etruscans were shaking in their shoes on one side of the 
 river, the Romans were shivering their own timbers, and knocking 
 down beams and rafters on the other. They had razed the bridge to 
 the ground, or rather lowered it to the water, when they called to their 
 valiant defenders to come back, while there was still a plank left — a 
 single deal to enable them to cut over to their partners. 
 
 Lartius and Herminius, seeing the game was nearly over, thought the 
 only card they had to play was to discard their companion, and save 
 themselves by a trick, which, however, would leave all the honours to 
 Horatius. The two former darted across just before the remaimler of 
 the bridge fell, splashing into the water below, and rendering the tide 
 untidy with the broken fragments. 
 
 Horatius was now alone in his glory, with the foe before him, and 
 the flood behind ; his only alternative being between a fatally hot re- 
 ception by the one, and an uncomfortably cold reception by the other- 
 
CHAP. V.] 
 
 HORATIUS COCLES. 
 
 49 
 
 Disdaining to beg for mercy from Porsenna, he prayed for pity from the 
 Tiber, and making a bold plunge, he threw himself on the kind indul- 
 gence of the river. Being fastened up in armour, his case was a par- 
 
 ticularly hard one, and being encumbered as he was with his arms, to 
 use his legs was scarcely possible. He nevertheless got on swimmingly, 
 for his heart never sank, and at length, feeling his foot touch the 
 bottom, he knew that his hopes were not groundless. 
 
 By courage and strength Horatius prevailed over every obstacle, and 
 Codes owed to the cockles of his heart, as well as to the muscles of his 
 body, the happy results of his hazardous experiment. To recompense 
 him for his risk by water, the grateful nation gave him a large portion 
 of land, and erected his statue in the Comitium, a portion of the Forum 
 from which orators were in the habit of holding forth, and where the 
 
50 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. V 
 
 figure of Horatius was placed to speak for itself to the populace. 
 Though the enemy was kept out of the city, the Romans were kept 
 in, while provisions were growing shorter and shorter every day — a sort 
 of growth that led of course to a constant diminution. Such was the 
 gratitude of the citizens to Horatius, that they suhscribed to give him 
 always as much as he could eat ; and although the fact involves a pun 
 we abominate, we are obliged to state the truth, that, in order to give 
 him his desert, many went without their dinners. 
 
 The Romans had declared they would hold out to the last, and 
 though they were left with scarcely any food, though they might 
 have at once procured it, had they consented to eat their own 
 words, they declined to satisfy their hunger by such a humiliating 
 process. All hope of saving the city being apparently lost, the senate 
 entered into an agreement with one Caius Mucius, who could talk a 
 little Tuscan, and who undertook to go across the water for the purpose 
 of killing Porsenna. Mucius disguised himself in an Etrurian helmet 
 — a sort of Tuscan bonnet — and with a sword concealed under the 
 folds of his ample Roman wrap-rascal, he arrived at Porsenna's 
 camp, just as the salaries were being paid to the soldiers. While 
 the troops were intent on drawing their pay. Mucius slily drew 
 his sword, and seeing an individual rather handsomely dressed, rushed 
 upon him to administer to him, with the weapon, a most unhandsome 
 dressing. 
 
 The individual thus assailed was rapidly despatched, but it turned out 
 that the victim, instead of being the king, was an unfortunate scribe, or 
 writer, who could have been by no means prepared for this unusual fate 
 of genius. Had the critics unmercifully cut him up, the scribe would 
 have felt that his death was, to a certain extent, in the way of business; 
 but to be murdered by mistake for a king, was a result that any member 
 of the republic of letters might fairly have objected to. It may appear 
 at first sight startling that a literary man should have been well- 
 dressed, and in the company of a king, but it must be remembered 
 that the scribe was not necessarily a man of remarkable ability. His 
 art was that of a mere copyist, which, even in these days, frequently 
 gains a reputation for the imitator, who is often confounded with, 
 instead of being confounded by the man of original genius. The 
 scribes of anticmity, like many modern writers, did no more than set 
 down the thoughts of others, and, as their style was extremely hard, 
 consisting of a piece of iron, with which they wrote upon wax, their 
 works were not likely to make a very deep or lasting impression. 
 
 Our pity for the unfortunate literary character is considerably 
 lessened by the fact, that being in the camp he had no doubt been dining 
 with the guards ; and we know he was wearing a showy dress — two 
 circumstances indicating an affectation of the manners of the fast man. 
 which are always unbecoming to the man of letters. 
 
 Mucius was about to retire after the execution of the deed, but he was 
 seized by the attendants, and then seized by remorse when he was informed 
 
CIIAR V.J 
 
 MUC1US SCiEVOLA 
 
 51 
 
 that he had despatched a harmless literary man instead of Porsenna. 
 Being taken to the king, Mucius found him sitting before the fire of a 
 large altar. The Etruscan chief, on hearing the charge, pointed out the 
 penalty that had been incurred, when the prisoner, thrusting his right 
 hand into the fire, allowed it to remain, with extraordinary coolness, or, 
 rather, with most intense heat, until it was consumed as far as the wrist : 
 
 Mucius Scaivola before Porsenna. 
 
 and he concluded the act of self incendiarism, by declaring there were 
 three hundred others who were just as ready as himself to take up arms 
 and burn off a hand, in defiance of their oppressor. Porsenna, who had 
 watched the painful process with extreme interest, was so delighted at the 
 fortitude displayed, that he jumped from his seat, and mentally remarking 
 that " the fellow was a wonderfully cool hand at an operation of tho 
 kind," ordered some guards to conduct him in safety to Rome; at the 
 same time advising Mucius to conduct himself more wisely for the 
 future. 
 
 Mucius returned to Rome, where he obtained the name of Screvola 
 (from Secerns) in consequence of his being left-handed, or it might have 
 been because of his having evinced such an utter want of dexterity in 
 the business he had undertaken. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF EOME. 
 
 [CHAP. 
 
 Porsenna, having heard that there were three hundred Romans 
 ready to take his life, felt uneasy at such fearful odds as three 
 hundred to one against hirn ; nor could he enjoy a moment's peace with 
 himself until a peace with Rome was concluded. He sent ambassadors 
 to negotiate a treaty, which was soon arranged ; the only difficulty 
 arising on the subject of the proposed restoration of Tarquin, which bis 
 subjects would not listen to ; and, though he and Porsenna had hitherto 
 rowed in the same boat, the latter found it absolutely necessary to 
 throw the former overboard. Rome was compelled to return the territory 
 taken from the Yeii, and Porsenna claimed several hostages, among 
 whom were sundry young ladies of the principal Roman families. One 
 of these was named Claelia, who, with other maidens, having resolved on 
 
 Claelia and her Companions escaping from the Etruscan Camp. 
 
 a bold plunge for their liberty, jumped into the Tiber's bed, and swam like 
 a party of ducks to the other side of the river. Claelia ran home in her 
 dripping clothes, but, instead of a warm reception, she was met with a 
 wet blanket, for her father fearing that her having absconded would be 
 visited upon Rome, sent her back like a runaway school-girl to the 
 camp of Porsenna. That individual behaved with his usual magna- 
 nimity, for he not only pardoned Claelia and her companions, but sent 
 them home to their parents, who, perhaps, knew better than Porsenna 
 how to manage them. 
 
 The Etruscan monarch seems to have been one of those who could 
 do nothing by halves, but having once granted quarter to the foe, he 
 was not satisfied until he had surrendered the whole of what he had 
 taken from the vanquished. He gave them unprovisionally all tho 
 
CHAP. V.] VALERIUS PUBLICOLA. 53 
 
 provisions remaining in his camp, and, in fact, he left behind him so 
 many goods and chattels, that at public auctions it was customary for 
 .nany years afterwards to advertise the effects as " the property of 
 Xing Porsenna." Returning to Clusium, he is believed to have shut 
 himself up at home, and never stirred out again, for we meet with him 
 no more in any of the highways or byways of history. 
 
 The Romans having recovered from the blow, or series of blows, they 
 had received from Porsenna, were prepared to turn their anger on the 
 subject nearest at hand, and the Sabines were conveniently situated to 
 receive a great deal of it. Irritated by the enemy, the Sabines lost 
 their temper towards each other, and several of them, among whom 
 were Atta Clausus, or Appius Claudius and family, went over to Rome. 
 The renegades were received by their new allies with honour; for 
 apostacy, which should carry with it disgrace, was even in those days 
 treated too often as a virtue. The Claudii were made patricians of 
 Rome, which seems to have always courted converts by offering the highest 
 price to those who were ready to part with their old opinions and prin 
 ciples. Valerius Publicola — or as some call him, Popli-cola, one who 
 honoured the people — died soon after the last-mentioned event, and 
 received the compliment of a magnificent funeral. The procession 
 commenced with a band of pipers, every one of whom the public 
 paid, and the crown was carried in state ; but on such an occasion 
 as this, the empty crown could be suggestive of nothing but its own 
 hollowness. 
 
 The armour belonging to the deceased was buried with him, as if in 
 mockery of its uselessness against the attacks of the grim enemy ; and 
 the face was painted, as is still the custom in Italy, where the attempt 
 to disguise the complexion to which we must come at last, only gives to 
 the reality a hideousuess neither necessary nor natural. After the 
 funeral of a great or a much lamented man, it was usual to hang branches 
 of cypress on his house, and his gates were decorated with pine by those 
 who were left pining after him. 
 
 It was about this period that the great battle of Lake Regillus is 
 supposed to have been fought, when the Latins, who had been trying to 
 translate into Latin everything belonging to Rome, were at length 
 taught that the Roman character was strong enough to maintain its own 
 individuality. 
 
 In times of extreme peril, it has always been found that two heads, 
 instead of being better than one, are likely to neutralise each other, and 
 to reduce the supreme power under one head is the best mode of making 
 it effectual. The Romans, when seriously threatened by the Latins, 
 proceeded at once to the appointment of a dictator, from whose decrees 
 there should be no appeal ; so that whatever he said should be no 
 sooner said than done — a principle of action which contributes materially 
 to the success of every great enterprise P. Lartius was the first 
 dictator ; but we can find no traces of his dictation, and he seems to 
 have been speedily superseded by Aulus Postumius, whose sword is said 
 
LJ4 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. V. 
 
 to have been known "to bite,"* — a propensity which must have 
 rendered his blade rather liable to snap, unless its temper was excellent. 
 The appointment of dictator was only for six months ; so that the people 
 were soon absolved from the absolute power under which they placed 
 themselves. The best piece of patronage at the disposal of the dictator, 
 was the place of Master of the Horse, which Aulus conferred on 
 iEbutius ; the latter acting completely under the guidance of the 
 former, who never parted with the reins while deputing the mastership 
 of the horse to another. Aulus and iEbutius set forward towards the 
 Lake Regillus, on the margin of which they waited till it was pitch dark 
 before they pitched their tent, with the intention of preparing for a 
 pitched battle. 
 
 The Latins were led by Mamilius, and the foe being face to face, 
 engaged themselves hand to hand with the most desperate energy. 
 According to the legend, iEbutius and Mamilius, meeting in the thick 
 of the fight, came individually to blows, which resulted in the unhorsing 
 of the Master of the Horse, who was almost bored to death with the 
 points of the swords of the enemy. At one time the battle seemed so 
 much in favour of the Latins, that Aulus entreated the Romans not to 
 resign themselves to the ravens, to be crowed over in a double sense, by 
 the birds of prey and the enemy. So mutual was the slaughter, and so 
 equal the bravery on both sides, that it would have been difficult to 
 decide the battle ; and the legend, in its equal apportionment of valour 
 to each party, would have come to no practical result, had not super- 
 natural agency stepped in opportunely to give to one side the victory. 
 Two gigantic youths were seen fighting on the Roman side, and though 
 nobody knew their names, their address was the admiration of every 
 one. Their valour was shown at the expense of the unfortunate Latins, 
 who, unable to sustain the heavy charge that was now made upon them, 
 made no further attempt to meet any engagement, but resorted to 
 flight, as the only act that seemed to offer benefit. 
 
 The warriors wore nothing on their heads, and many surmises arose 
 as to who they could be ; but nobody suspected the truth, — that the 
 heroes, without helmets or hats, were Castor, who never was unaccom- 
 panied by his friend Pollux, and Pollux, who never went anywhere 
 without his Castor. The same noble youths were the first to announce 
 in Rome the news of the victory, acting as " their own reporters " of 
 their own exploits. Having delivered their message, they disappeared 
 as mysteriously as they came ; for the legend loses sight of them in a 
 horse-trough near the temple of Vesta. Hither they repaired to watei 
 their steeds, and to refresh themselves at an adjacent well ; and those 
 who feel the insatiable thirst of curiosity, are referred to the bottom of 
 
 * " Camerium knows how deeply 
 The sword of Aulus bites, 
 And all our city eull9 him 
 The man of seventy fights." 
 
 Macaulay's Lay of the Battle of the Laic Pa/1 11 us. 
 
CHAP. V.j CHAPTER CONCLUDED 55 
 
 this well for the truth, if a deeper inquiry into the legend is desired 
 For many ages a superstitious reverence was shown for the margin of 
 the Lake Regillus, where a mark, said to he the impression of a celestial 
 horse's hoof, remained, to make a lasting impression on the softness of 
 credulity. 
 
 We have hitherto heen swimming, as well as we can, in the sea of 
 conjecture, catching eagerly at the lightest cork or bladder, in the shape 
 of fact, to keep us afloat in the stream of events flowing from legendary 
 sources. 
 
 The continuation of the journey will be chiefly on the terra firma of 
 fact; and, instead of being, now and then, so thoroughly at sea as to 
 find ourselves wandering into the wildest latitudes, with no other pilot 
 than tradition, we shall henceforth, in our progress, have good and 
 substantial grounds to go upon. Hitherto we have had credulity 
 pulling at the oars, the idle and uncertain breezes of rumour filling our 
 Bails, and our rudder in the hands of various authorities distinguished 
 for nothing but their disagreement with each other, and who would, in 
 fact, be without distinction of any kind if they were without a difference. 
 
 We are now about to pursue our journey by a more certain road, to 
 carry on our history, as it were, by the rail ; and, though the line may 
 be a peculiar one of our own, the train of facts will be regular, coming, 
 we trust into no violent collision with others pursuing the same path, 
 and arriving, in due time, at the appointed terminus. 
 
56 
 
 COMIC HISTOBY OF ROME 
 
 [CHAP. VI. 
 
 CHAPTER THE SIXTH. 
 
 FROM THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE BEGILLUS TO THE CLOSE OF 1HE 
 WAR WITH THE VOLSCIANS. 
 
 i he resources of Rome had hitherto 
 been derived from the plunder 
 taken in war, but the field of battle 
 is always far less fertile than the 
 field of industry. In the former 
 case, the crop once gathered is 
 rendered for ever unproductive, 
 and to beat the same enemy twice 
 over, is like the useless operation 
 &r of thrashing straw ; for if, in either 
 case, the first thrashing has been 
 complete, there is nothing to be 
 got by a second. The plebeians 
 had been so long withdrawn from 
 the cultivation of the land, that 
 \9 they found it extremely awkward 
 to cultivate a second time an 
 acquaintance once dropped ; and 
 the earth having been hitherto 
 regarded as infra dig., was not 
 likely to yield much to those who had despised until they wanted it 
 The plebeians could only reap what they had sown, and as they had 
 sown nothing of any value, they had fallen into a state of extreme 
 seediness. Begging and borrowing were the only alternatives of those 
 who could no longer steal, and the patrician body became a sort of loan 
 society to the plebeians, who pledged themselves not only morally, but 
 physically, for the return of the money that had been advanced to them 
 The law of debtor and creditor was extremely stringent in ancient Rome; 
 and indeed its stringency amounted almost to a rope round the debtor's 
 neck ; for if he could not pay within a certain time, he was tied down as 
 the slave of his creditor. In this position the assailant was called an 
 addictus, for he was regularly sold, without even the equity of. redemp- 
 tion being allowed to him. If the borrower had only pledged himself 
 without an actual sale, he was simply a nexus, with the power of paying 
 off his debt by either money or work ; but if he could do neither, he 
 became an addictus* forthwith, when he was thrown into chains, and 
 
 *This law is said to have been altered by Serving Tullius J but if legislation on the 
 subject was at one time loose, it became very binding afterwards, and was extremely strict 
 at the date above alluded to. 
 
CHAP. VI. J LAW OF DEBTOR AND CREDITOR. D7 
 
 wore nothing but the stripes, which were the ordinary liver}' of that 
 disgraceful state of servitude. 
 
 Appius Claudius had been chosen Consul, with P. Servilius as a 
 colleague, in the year of the City 258, when a miserable old insolvent, 
 with his hair like a mat, giving evidence of the severe rubs that had 
 fallen on his head, rushed into the forum. His face had the paleness 
 of ashes, and many tried to sift his countenance, in which the marks of 
 his having been ground down to the dust were plainly visible. His 
 back bore traces of recent scores, every one of which he declared should 
 be accounted as a score to be paid off upon his oppressors. His farm 
 had been burned down, and its contents burned up ; his cattle had been 
 driven he knew not where, while he himself had been driven to distrac- 
 tion. The tax-gatherer had, nevertheless, been as punctual as ever in 
 his calls, and having soundly rated the ruined agriculturist for not being 
 ready with his rates, the latter had been compelled to run into debt ; 
 for the Romans had not made insurance against fire any feature of their 
 policy. Having been unable to pay his debts, the impoverished farmer 
 became the slave of his creditor ; and the shoulders of the former bore 
 unmistakeable marks of the latter having got the whip-hand of him. 
 The excitement in the forum was intense ; for all were seized with indig- 
 nation, who might possibly be seized for debt ; and every one who 
 owed anything to anybody began to feel that he owed a great deal more 
 to common humanity. A popular outbreak seemed to be close at hand, 
 and the two Consuls consulted together on the crisis. Appius Claudius 
 gave it as his opinion, that as the people were put up, the best way was 
 to put them down ; but his colleague, Servilius, was an advocate for a 
 milder regimen. At this juncture, news arrived of the Yolscian army 
 having set out for Rome ; and the plebeians being called upon to enlist, 
 declared that they would not enlist themselves at the bidding of those 
 who would do nothing to enlist their sympathies. In this difficult 
 dilemma, P. Servilius promised that if they would come out and fight, 
 they should be released from prison during the war ; and guaranteed 
 that if they would present a bold front to the enemy's sword, their 
 backs should be safe from the scourge of domestic tyranny. There was 
 an immediate rush of insolvents into the ranks, which were soon filled 
 almost to overflowing ; for as a great majority of the population 
 happened to be hopelessly in debt, a summons to the field was the 
 only sort of summons their appearance to which might have been 
 reasonably relied upon. 
 
 They fought with the energy of desperation, for each rank had sworn 
 an oath, and there was an affidavit, therefore, on every file, to do 
 execution on the Yolscians. Never were bankrupts more determined 
 to avoid a surrender than the band of defaulters who went forth to 
 meet the foe with a confidence, which would, probably, have disappeared 
 had they recognised at the meeting a single one of their creditors 
 The success of the Romans was complete, and those who had fought 
 upon the understanding that every blow they struck was to wipe out a 
 
58 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. VI 
 
 debt, returned home in the expectation that every old liability had been 
 rubbed off, and that they would be free to rub on as they best could for 
 the future. They were, however, doomed to bitter disappointment, for 
 Appius Claudius declared that no faith ought to be kept with those who 
 had kept no faith with tbeir creditors ; and all tbe debtors who were not 
 prepared to pay upon the nail had the screw cruelly applied to them. 
 The debtors were sent back to their prisons, and many an unfortunate 
 insolvent, as he thought of the imposition that had been practised upon 
 him, could only cast his eyes upon tbe walls of his dungeon, and 
 murmur at the dreadful cell of which he had become the victim. The 
 bolts ind bars of oppression would bave brought liberty to a dead lock, 
 had it -not been for the people outside the gaols, wbo threatened to rise 
 for the purpose of falling upon the tyrants. At this critical period 
 Borne was menaced by the Sabines, when the plebeians were called upon 
 to enlist ; but they declared they would be recruits of the very rawest 
 description if they allowed themselves to be again done as they had been 
 already. Public meetings were held on the Esquiline and Aventine 
 hills, where liberal sentiments, which have now become as old as the hills 
 themselves, fell upon the popular ear with all the charm and force of 
 novelty. The patricians were divided as to the best means of dealing 
 with the difficulty their own misconduct had created, and it was obvious 
 that the fatal error having been committed of refusing to accede to a 
 just demand, the scarcely less dangerous mistake of yielding to violence 
 and clamour was the only course that could now be followed. The 
 patricians would have stood by their order; but the difficulty was to 
 know how public order, as well as their own order, could be preserved ; 
 and it was at length agreed that a dictator should be appointed. The 
 choice fell upon M. Valerius, a moderate man, whom the plebeians could 
 trust, for he came of a good stock, his father being no other than that 
 great gun of the popular party, the famous Publicola. A large army 
 was soon ready to take the field, or to take anything else that came in 
 the ordinary course of battle. Valerius marched against the Sabines, 
 who fled, or, more literally speaking, decamped ; for they left behind 
 them their camp, which was taken by the enemy. 
 
 On his return to Rome in triumph, the dictator asked for an inquiry 
 into the people's wrongs, with a view to giving them their rights ; but 
 the patrician party in the senate refusing him his committee, Valerius 
 sent in his resignation, which was accepted by the senate. He 
 apologised to the plebeians for not having been able to carry his measures 
 of reform ; and the patricians, pleased by his moderation in resigning 
 his seat, gave him a curule chair — a sort of portable stall, or reserved 
 seat, which, at the Circensian games he was privileged to occupy. 
 
 The Curule Chair, or Sella Curulis, invites us to pause for a moment, 
 and hold a short sitting upon it, for the purpose of inquiring into its 
 origin. Comfort seems to have been supplied most charily in the 
 construction of this official chair ; but there was a fine touch of 
 morality in giving uneasiness to the seat of unlimited power The 
 
CHAP. VI.] MENENIUS AGIUTTA. 59 
 
 legs of the Sella Curulis folded like those of a camp-stool ; a device 
 which may have been emblematical of the fact, that the dictatorial 
 office was liable to a speedy shutting up, for the appointment was 
 never more than of six months' duration. The material of which the 
 chair was formed was the smoothest and most highly-polished ivory ; 
 so that the fatal facility of a fall must have been frequently suggested 
 to the occupant of the seat by its exceedingly slippery surface.* 
 
 The Consuls, fearing an outbreak if the army was disbanded, ordered 
 the soldiers to remain on duty in the capacity of special constables 
 over each other — the staff being held responsible for the conduct of the 
 main body. To be continued thus as a standing army, was more than 
 the troops felt disposed to stand ; and, determining to take high 
 ground, they withdrew to the top of the Mons Sacer or Sacred Mount, 
 in the neighbourhood of Crustumenium. Electing L. Sicinius as their 
 leader, they accommodated themselves as well as they could, until 
 matters should be accommodated with the senate. 
 
 The patricians began to be greatly alarmed at the secession of the 
 plebeians ; for though the former had been accustomed to trample the 
 latter under foot, all the foundations of society seemed to be withdrawn 
 in the absence of that part which, though it may be called the base, is 
 essential to the existence of the capital. Rome, in fact, was beginning 
 to find out that an aristocracy cut off from all connection with the 
 people at large, is little better than a flower separated from the tree, 
 and doomed to fall speedily into bad odour. The patrician order 
 happily recognised the important truth, that the most delicate tendrils 
 owe all their vitality to the sap, carried up to the top of the tree from 
 those portions that are in the closest connection with the soil ; and 
 steps were therefore taken to prevent the final severing of the sturdy 
 trunk from the higher branches. An embassy, consisting of ten patri- 
 cians, was sent to negotiate ; but as the patricians were no orators, and 
 their stupidity spoke for itself, Menenius Agrippa, who had once been 
 a plebeian, was sent as their head, which of course included their 
 mouth-piece. 
 
 Menenius, using his authority as spokesman for the common weal, 
 cited the fable of the Belly and the Members, to the bellicose plebs, 
 who seemed struck by his relation of it to them, and its own relation to 
 their existing position. He told them that, once upon a time, all the 
 members of the human body resolved on aiming a blow at the stomach, 
 which was accused of leading a life of idleness. The hands struck with 
 no particular aim ; the legs, moved to rebellion, refused to stir ; the 
 eye shut down its lid ; the mouth went into open hostility, and the 
 nose joining in the general blow, there seemed every prospect that the 
 proud stomach would be glad to eat humble pie in the absence of all 
 other provisions. It was, however, soon found that, in nourishing their 
 
 * The Curule Chair is said to have been imported, with other articles of state furniture, 
 from Etruria. In some cases, the feet were formed of ivory in the shape of elephant's 
 tusks; but there are other proofs of their Tuscan oripin. 
 
60 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. \CHAP. VI. 
 
 animosity, the members were keeping all nourishment from themselves, 
 and that they and their revenge were about equally wasted. 
 
 The plebeians, understanding the moral of the story, were disposed 
 to treat, on the understanding that they should henceforth be better 
 treated. An agreement was entered into, by which the sponge was to 
 be applied to all old debts ; and all who had lost their liberty by being 
 the slaves of bad circumstances were restored to freedom. The new 
 compact provided also for the institution of two officers, named Tribunes, 
 who were invested with authority over the concerns of the plebeians ; 
 and it was certainly one of the best investments ever made for the 
 profit of the Roman people. The person of the Tribune was so sacred, 
 that a common assault upon this officer, when in the execution of his 
 duty, rendered the assailant liable not merely to be taken up, but to be 
 knocked down and killed in the streets by any one having a mania for 
 manslaughter. 
 
 The Tribune was allowed such an unlimited liberty of speech, that 
 it was punishable to interrupt him; and in default of bail, it was death 
 to cough him down while addressing the people. Even to yawn 
 during one of his discourses, was to open an abyss into which the 
 yawner might be plunged before he was aware of it ; and the involun- 
 tary action of his distended jaws would often render them the jaws of 
 his own destruction. 
 
 The house of the Tribune was open day and night; so that it 
 was as easy to find one of these officers as it is in these days to 
 find a policeman, and sometimes rather easier. The Tribunes had 
 power to bring parties before them, or, in other words, to issue sum- 
 monses, as well as to enforce fines, which, if not paid, involved the 
 forfeiture of property, or, in simpler terms, were recoverable by distress 
 warrant upon the defaulter's goods and chattels. One of the greatest 
 privileges of the Tribunes was the right of exercising a veto on any 
 decree of the senate. Though they had no seats in the assembly, they 
 were permitted to look in at the door ; and if any act was passing that 
 they disapproved, they had the privilege of exercising, by a shout of 
 " No," a sort of negative authority. This power of prevention left 
 fewer evils to be cured ; and the plebeians, having at last obtained an 
 organ of their own, may be said to have found the key to their liberties. 
 
 The Tribunes seem to have had power to add to their number, for they 
 selected three colleagues, soon after they themselves had been chosen ; 
 and, from this time forth, a struggle ensued between plebeian energy, 
 seeking its fair share of right, and patrician tenacity, holding on with 
 obstinate determination to exclusive advantages. 
 
 Contemporaneously with the institution of the Tribunes, some new 
 officers were appointed, under the name of iEdiles, who were something 
 like our Commissioners of Woods and Forests, of Sewers, and of Pavin<» 
 combined; for they had the care of public buildings, roads, and drains, 
 as well as of baths and washhouses. They sometimes decided small 
 disputes, and acted as Inspectors of Markets examining weights, settling 
 
CHAT. VI. j CORIOLANUS. 01 
 
 quarrels, and holding the scales of justice as well as of merchandise. 
 They kept an eye to unwholesome provisions, and a nose to stale fish ; 
 their ears took cognisance of bad language ; in their hands they carried 
 a staff ; and they were, in fact, a curious compound of the beadle, the 
 commissioner, the policeman, and the magistrate. 
 
 While the plebeians had been sulking on the Mons Sacer, a treaty 
 between the Latins and the Komans had been brought about by 
 Spurius Cassius, a Consul, who, though his name sounds like counter- 
 feit coin, seems to have possessed a good deal of the true metal. By 
 the treaty, both nations were to be almost entirely equal in every 
 respect ; and, even with regard to booty, they were to be on the same 
 footing. 
 
 By another clause in the act, those insolvent debtors who had beer 
 converted into "alarming sacrifices!" and were reduced to slavery, 
 because their creditors " must have cash," or its equivalent, were 
 restored to freedom. The ceremony of manumission was curious, and 
 comprised so many indignities done to the slave, that, although 
 free, he could not have been very easy under the process. He 
 was first taken before the Consul by his master, who gave him a 
 blow on the cheek, which was rather a back-handed mode of making 
 an independent man of him. The Consul then laid his wand about the 
 insolvent's back, at the same time declaring him perfectly free, and 
 telling him to go about his business — if he happened to have any. 
 The beating having been gone through, there was still more lathering 
 to be endured ; for the head of the freedman was closely shaved, as a 
 precaution, perhaps, against his going mad on the attainment of his 
 liberty. His release from his chains was not complete until he had 
 been deprived of his locks ; and to crown all, he was invested with 
 that emblem of butchery in a political, as well as a social point of view, 
 the red cap of liberty. 
 
 During the internal quarrels of Rome, agriculture had been so 
 thoroughly neglected, that the harvest had completely fallen to the 
 ground, or, rather, had never come out of it. The husbandman had 
 husbanded nothing, either for himself or others ; and as nothing had 
 been sown but civil dissension, there was nothing to reap but the fruit 
 of it. The Romans, who, until lately, had been thirsting for power, 
 were now hungry for food ; and, to prevent the people from dying at 
 home, envoys were sent to scour the surrounding countries, — a process 
 which involved many a brush with the inhabitants. It is stated, by 
 some historians, that, during the famine, an order was forwarded to 
 Gelo, of Syracuse, for corn, which that individual was quite ready to 
 supply, but for which he was so thoroughly unbusiness-like as to refuse 
 the money. The incident, though utterly without commercial interest, 
 would have been pleasing in a different point of view, were it not fo.. 
 the stern realities of chronology, which prove that Gelo could not have 
 acted as a gratuitous corn-dealer at the time specified, for he was not 
 alive at the period. 
 
02 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. VI. 
 
 While Rome was suffering from want of corn, it was wasting the 
 very flower of its population in a war with the Volscians. Among the 
 most distinguished warriors on the side of the Romans was Caius 
 Marcius, a young patrician, who led all his own clients into an action 
 in which the defendants — the unfortunate Volscians — were subjected tc 
 enormous damages. He subsequently proceeded against Corioli, which 
 made an obstinate defence ; but was ultimately beaten, and compelled 
 to pay the whole of the costs of the conflict. From this affair he took 
 the name of Coriolanus, by which he is better known than by his original 
 appellation of C. Marcius, for mankind will too often award the largest 
 measure of fame to the most extensive perpetrator of mischief ; and he 
 who would carve himself a name, may carve it much more deeply and 
 durably with the sword than with any other instrument. 
 
 When the corn arrived from Sicily, the popular party proposed a 
 gratuitous distribution of the boon ; but the patricians, headed by Corio- 
 lanus, who was a tyrant in grain, recommended that the plebeians 
 should pay for what they required. Complaint is never so open-mouthen 
 as when it has nothing to eat ; and the people became desperate when 
 they found Coriolanus advisiug, without a scruple, that not a grain should 
 be given, nor an ear lent to theii sufferings. He proposed the abolition 
 of the Tribunes as the condition of food being supplied to the people ; 
 but they, becoming every day more crusty from the want of bread, 
 insisted on his being tried for treason. Coriolanus saw the people waxing 
 resolute to seal his doom, and he accordingly made his escape, so that 
 when the time came for him to be tried, he was found wanting. Judg- 
 ment went against him by default ; his name was struck out of the list 
 !»f patricians — a sort of peerage of the period. He was sentenced, more- 
 over to aqua et ignis interdictio — prohibition from lire and water; a 
 punishment which, looking at the fiery nature of all spirituous liquors, 
 may be fancifully supposed to have involved especially a stoppage of 
 grog, as it certainly prevented everybody from entertaining him. This 
 sentence amounted, in fact, to banishment ; and, indeed, it was designed 
 to do so ; for the interdiction of fire and water left the culprit nothing 
 on earth but air, which of course it was quite impossible to live upon. 
 
 Stung with what he called the ingratitude of his countrymen, though 
 they had really not much to thank him for, Coriolanus, in a spirit not 
 very magnanimous, proceeded to offer his services to the enemy. Taking 
 leave of his wife Volumnia, a voluminous woman, who had had great- 
 ness thrust upon her by nature to an awkward extent, he departed for 
 the country of the Volscians, and arrived at Antium about supper time. 
 His name was taken up at once to Attius Tullius, who, though sitting 
 at his meal with the usual accompaniment of manus uncta, or greasy 
 Hands, determined not to allow the illustrious stranger to slip through 
 his fingers. Coriolanus was hospitably entertained, and induced to 
 take the command of the Volscian army against the Roman colonists. 
 He drove them from place to place until he had got them up against the 
 Cluilian ditch, and into it many were thrown ; a sad proof of his animosity 
 
CHAP. VI.] 
 
 CORIOLANUS AT THE WALLS OF ROME. 
 
 63 
 
 having been carried to a pitch that must always leave a black stain on 
 his memory. Here also he pitched his tent within almost a stone's 
 throw of Rome ; and as the plebeians were unwilling to fight, ambassadors 
 were sent to entreat Coriolanus to lay down his sword ; but, contemp- 
 tuously folding his ai'ms, he returned no answer. The priests next 
 tried their powers of persuasion, but though they did all they could 
 to convert Coriolanus to the cause of Rome, it was not until female 
 influence was brought into requisition, that the attempt proved suc- 
 cessful. His mother Veturia, accompanied by his considerably better 
 half, Volumnia, and a paity of Roman ladies made up for the occasion, 
 
 Coriolanus parting from his Wife and Family. 
 
 visited him at his camp, when the clamour of the strong-minded, the 
 Bighs and sobs of the weaker, the sneers of some, the tears of others, 
 and the importunity of all, proved irresistible. He had been resolute 
 
(54 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. VI 
 
 for some time ; but when his wife, with a heavy heart added to her 
 natural weight, fell upon his neck, he seemed to be sinking under that 
 which he could no longer stand up against. 
 
 His mother, Veturia, following up the advantage that had been 
 gained, tried the power of the female tongue, to which time seems to 
 go on adding all the force of which it deprives the rest of the body. 
 The old lady raved and shouted with a degree of anile energy that 
 struck Coriolanus with dismay ; and when she threw herself on the 
 ground, declaring he should walk over her body if he attempted to 
 march upon Eome, he felt that he could not take another step without 
 trampling on the tenderest relations of humanity. With Volumnia 
 hanging to his neck, and Veturia clinging to his heels, — with a wife 
 pouring the loudest lamentations into his ear, — with a mother cursing 
 everything in general, but his own birthday in particular, — with a bevy 
 of Koman ladies shrieking and sobbing in the background, — Coriolanus 
 could no longer resist, but ordered his camp to be broken up, and led 
 his legions back again. Tradition differs as to the date of the death of 
 Coriolanus, who, according to some accounts, sunk under the attack 
 made upon him by the weaker sex ; while others assert that he lived to 
 a good old age, which is likely to have been the case, if the scene we 
 have described was not immediately the death of him — for the constitu 
 tion that could have survived so severe a trial must have been of a 
 strength truly wonderful. 
 
 Coriolanus has been held up as a model of disinterestedness, but we 
 cannot help setting him down as a selfish upstart, who turned traitor to 
 his country, because it did not form the highest estimate of his personal 
 merits. His deserts are overbalanced by the fact of his being a deserter • 
 and it was, assuredly, the reverse of magnanimity to evince his spite 
 against the nation to which he belonged, merely because his own value 
 had not been put upon his own services. Such is our view of Coriolanus 
 without the masquerade dress in which he has been often made to appear; 
 for truth compels us to take off the gilt in which he has hitherto shone, 
 and to substitute the guilt that really belongs to him. 
 
 The Temple of Fortuna Muliebris was raised, in compliment to the 
 women who, by their hysterical, and now historical efforts, were said to 
 have saved Rome ; and indeed, considering the frequency with which 
 female influence operates the other way, the fact of its having been 
 exercised for the preventicn of mischief, deserves the commemoration of 
 a monument. 
 
<:hap. VII.] 
 
 SPURIUS CASSIUS 
 
 66 
 
 CHAPTER THE SEVENTH. 
 
 FROM THE CLOSE OF THE WAR WITH THE VOLSCIAN8 TO THE PASSING 
 OF THE BILL OF TERENTILLUS. 
 
 fter the war with the 
 Volscians was at aii eud, 
 the Romans are said to 
 have entered into a treaty 
 with their former foe, the 
 object of which was a 
 sort of partnership in 
 plunder ; it being agreed 
 that the new allies should 
 take the field together, 
 and divide the produce. 
 Ill-gotten gain is never 
 a source of real profit ; 
 and the land stolen in 
 war became a ground of 
 contention among the 
 Romans. The patricians 
 had hitherto grasped the 
 whole of the conquered 
 soil, though they could 
 not do so with clean hands ; and Spurius Cassius proposed that the 
 plebeians should have a share of it. The suggestion, though violently 
 resisted, became the law of the land ; but the land was not appropriated 
 in conformity with the law until a much later period. Spurius Cassius 
 did not long survive, when the year of his Consulship had expired ; for 
 the patricians caused him to be impeached, and his head was struck off 
 upon a block, though, from the services he had performed, it deserved 
 rather to have been struck off upon a medal. 
 
 The patricians tried to divert the attention of the plebeians from 
 domestic affairs by leading them constantly into battle ; but the latter, 
 though compelled to march into the field, would take no steps to secure 
 a victory. Like horses brought to the water but refusing to drink, the 
 soldiers, though conducted to the field, evinced no thirst for blood; 
 \iut firmly declining to aim a single blow, they presented a striking 
 picture of passive disobedience. In vain did the officers suggest, that 
 for those ambitious of a soldier's grave, there was at length an eligible 
 opening ; they would gain no laurels, but allowed themselves to be 
 kept at bay ; they laughed outright at their commanders, and, instead 0/ 
 
66 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. VII. 
 
 straining every nerve for success, they kept their risible muscles only 
 in full exercise. 
 
 There existed at this time a gens in Rome which had managed to 
 obtain such a share of power for itself, that it was generally recognised 
 as the governing family. The gens alluded to was that of the Fabii, 
 whose union formed their chief strength ; for no member of the family, 
 though lie might be unmiudful of his antecedents, was ever known to 
 forget his relatives. The Fabii derived their name from Faba, a bean, 
 because their ancestors had cultivated that kind of pulse ; but in later 
 times the gens became remarkable for feeling the popular pulse, and 
 making a cat's-paw of the patricians. By an arrangement with the 
 order t® which they belonged, the Fabii were ensured one of the 
 consulships, on condition of their influencing their clients to elect a 
 patrician to the other ; and thus both the people and the senate were 
 played off against each other for the special advantage of the " family.'' 
 Fortunately for society, there is in all corruption a rottenness which is 
 always bringing it towards its conclusion while it seems to be gaining 
 its end ; and the usual difficulty of getting unprincipled men to hang long 
 together by a rope of sand, was illustrated in the case of the patricians 
 and the Fabii. The quarrels among themselves helped to render them 
 contemptible to the plebeians, and the troops had become so accustomed 
 to treat their leadei's with disrespect, that many an intended fight ended 
 without a sword being taken from its sheath, and nothing was drawn 
 but the battle. 
 
 One of the Consuls had, for several years, been chosen from the family 
 of the Fabii ; when its members growing tired, at last, of their patrician 
 stock being a laughing-stock to the army, determined to make them 
 selves popular. Marcus Fabius won the hearts of the soldiers, by 
 dressing their wounds, and promising to redress their grievances. 
 Kseso Fabius, his successor, recommended the distribution of the laud 
 among the plebeians, by whose sweat it had been gained ; but he had 
 not been always equally anxious to acknowledge the claims of popular 
 perspiration ; for he had been one of those who condemned Spurius 
 Cassius for having made a similar proposition. 
 
 Tradition states that the Fabii afterwards emigrated in a body, upwards 
 of three hundred strong, taking with them four thousand clients ; but 
 whether the clients went at their own solicitation, or whether the Fabii 
 were the solicitors, we are not in a position to determine. It is said 
 that the whole party of four thousand three hundred went into action 
 together, and paid with their lives the costs of the sad affair , but the 
 critical authorities doubt the whole story ; and it is satisfactory to our 
 best feelings to know that we, on this point, know nothing.* 
 
 The Etrurians soon after wasted the country near Piorne, and wasted 
 their own time into the bargain, for they were at last glad to treat, 
 
 * Among the other difficulties of this story is the comparatively trifling one, that tho 
 Fahian race did not become extinct; but tradition hops over this dilemma, by leaving ono 
 of the family behind to serve as a father to future Fabii. 
 
CXIAP. VII. J PUBLILIUS VOLEHO. 07 
 
 though not until they had retreated. A peace was concluded ; and the 
 parties held their peace for forty years, — or, at all events, if they 
 ever had words, they did not come to blows during that lengthened 
 period. 
 
 As some of the events recorded in this chapter arose out of the Roman 
 law of debtor and creditor, it may be just as well to include in this 
 account a few items of a commercial character. When a man ran into 
 debt, he was almost sure to be brought to a stand still, for compound 
 interest continued to accrue so rapidly that there was no chance of 
 compounding with those to whom he owed money. Thirty days after a 
 debt being demanded, the defaulter was handed over to his creditor, and 
 bound with a cord, by way of accord and satisfaction ; but, at the end of 
 sixty days, a crier, whose office was enough to make him shed tears, 
 advertised the insolvent for sale as a slave in the market-place. It is 
 not surprising that the plebeians should rise against their being put up 
 to this degrading auction, more particularly when the masters to whom 
 they were knocked down were in the habit of beating and cruelly ill- 
 treating them. The patricians laid violent hands, not only upon the 
 plebeians, but upon all the property of the State, assuming to the utmost 
 all its rights, and repudiating all its duties. They took as a matter of 
 right all the offices of state ; and so complete was the seizure made 
 by the patricians of every thing in the shape of a Government situation, 
 that the name of the order which absorbed to itself all the good things 
 is to be traced in the modern word "patronage." The whole of She 
 profits of war went into the pockets of the upper class ; and though the 
 plebeians drew the sword, the patricians drew whatever money was 
 to be obtained from the enemy. 
 
 The patricians, however, were not allowed to exercise their tyranny 
 always without resistance ; for, if their conduct was revolting to human 
 nature, it was to be expected that human nature would revolt against 
 them when opportunity offered. An instance occurred during the 
 Consulship of Appius Claudius, who had been elected by the senate, 
 and who, wishing to levy troops, caused the names of all the men 
 between eighteen and forty-five to be called over in a list, which 
 furnished the materials for enlistment. Amongst the names was that 
 of Publilius Volero, who had formerly held a commission as a centu- 
 rion, or captain ; and, being now selected to serve as a common soldier, 
 declared indignantly that rather than go as a private into the ranks, 
 he would continue in a private station. Publilius, in fact, kicked 
 violently against the orders of the Consul, and being a man of very 
 powerful stamp, it was felt that when Publilius kicked in earnest, there 
 was something on foot that it was not easy to contend against. Appius 
 intimating that the Consuls must be obeyed, desired one of the lictors 
 to do his duty ; when Volero, being a strong and robust man, received 
 the lictor with open arms, and lifting him from the ground, gave him 
 a setting down that shook the nerves of the astonished officer. Having 
 thrown the lictor on the grr and, where the unhappy functionary took 
 
 f2 
 
08 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 his own measure, instead of carrying out those of his superiors, Volero 
 threw himself on the public, upon whom he made a very strong 
 impression 
 
 A Victor is sent to arrest Pablilius Volero. 
 
 Publilius from this moment had considerable weight with the pie 
 beians, who made him one of their Tribunes ; and he at once proposed 
 a large measure of reform in the mode of electing those officers. He 
 suggested an extension of the suffrage, by giving it to the tribes instead 
 of the centuries ; and public meetings were got up in support of the 
 project. These meetings were attended by the patricians, and disturb- 
 ances ensued, owing to the attempts of one party to put the other 
 party down; for public discussion in all ages seems to have been 
 conducted on the principle that it is to be all on one side, and that any 
 opinion opposed to that of the majority is not to be listened to. When 
 the strength of lungs happens to be with the party having the strength 
 of argument, there is not much harm done ; but as the patricians and 
 plebeians mustered in nearly equal numbers at the meetings alluded to, 
 personal altercations frequently took place ; and the Tribunes as well as 
 the Consuls sent their respective officers to arrest each other. 
 
 At length Laetorius, who had been elected as the colleague of Publi- 
 lius Volero, marched into the Forum with an armed force, determined 
 
CHAP. VII.] CINCINNATUS. fi9 
 
 that he would that morning carry the day ; and as he drew his sword, he 
 declared he would go through with it. The patricians, losing their own 
 resolution, offered to agree to any that he might propose ; but, refusing 
 to trust them, he took possession of the Capitol, as a guarantee for the 
 fulfilment of their promise. The Lex Publilia was accordingly passed, 
 to the great annoyance of Appius, who always treated the plebeians as 
 if different sorts of clay, as well as different moulds, were employed by 
 Nature in her great man — ufacture. When his year of office was over, he 
 was impeached by the Tribunes ; but on the day when the trial ought 
 to have come on, the worldly trials of Appius were all past, for he died 
 the night before the cause stood for hearing. Posterity has agreed 
 on the verdict which the judges were not required to pronounce; 
 and it has even been said that he fell by his own hand, in consequence 
 of his sense of guilt preventing him from knowing how to acquit 
 himself. 
 
 To add to its troubles, Home was visited by a double plague, in the 
 shape of an external foe and an internal pestilence. The enemy 
 having approached the gates of the city, the country people had taken 
 refuge inside the walls, bringing with them their cattle in such numbers 
 that the place was literally littered with pigs, while the oxen and sheep 
 were packed in pens to an extent of which our own pen can furnish but 
 a faint outline. The summer was at the height of its heat, and the 
 sufferings of tbe poor dumb animals, as they lost their fat, and met 
 their fate, were enough to melt not only a heart of stone, but many a 
 stone of suet. The foe, fearing from the pestilence a plaguy deal of 
 trouble, broke up their camp ; and Rome was allowed to enjoy an 
 interval of peace, though disease did more havoc than might have been 
 expected at the hands of an enemy. 
 
 We now come to the legend of Cincinnatus ; and though it is no better 
 than a legend, which, as the smallest student will be aware, is so called 
 from legendum, a thing to be read, we must proceed upon the assump- 
 tion that, as it is a thing to be read, it is a fortiori a thing to be written. 
 Lucius Quinctius, surnamed Cincinnatus from his curly locks — for nature 
 had dressed his hair to a turn — was of a high patrician family. He 
 passed his life as a country gentleman occupying his own estate, and 
 occupying himself in looking after it. His land, it must be admitted, 
 was better cultivated than his manners, which were haughty and im- 
 perious. His virtues were all of the domestic kind ; he was equally 
 attached to his wife and his farm, and he was an excellent husband, as 
 well as a good husbandman. 
 
 It happened tbat Rome was in such a perilous state as to need a 
 strong hand, when Cincinnatus, being famed for the use of the spade, was 
 invited to leave his otium cum dig. — as everybody knows already, and 
 somebody may have said before — that he might assume the office of 
 dictator. When the messengers arrived from the senate, Cincinnatus 
 was at work in the fields, perhaps sowing up some old tares, or examining 
 the state of his pulse — a favourite crop in those days — or cutting out 
 
70 
 
 C^MIC HISTORY OF HOME. 
 
 [CHAP. VII. 
 
 the sickliest of his com with the sickle. The soil heiug loamy, and 
 Cinunnatus being in the thick of his work, he was not very presentable ; 
 but hastily throwing his toga round him, he made the best appearance 
 he could before the messengers of the senate. They at once hailed him 
 as dictator, and carried him to Home, where he called out everv man 
 
 Cincinnatus chosen Dictator. 
 
 capable of bearing arms ; and every man thus called out, accepted the 
 patriotic challenge. Every soldier was to carry with him food for five 
 days, and twelve stakes cut into lengths to form a barricade ; so that, 
 as the stakes weighed several pounds, and the eatables were solid, the 
 burden of each man, together with his accoutrements — which included a 
 cask on tbe head from which the perspiration poured — must have been 
 inconveniently ponderous. Notwithstanding their heavy load, the legend, 
 which is less weighty than their equipments, goes on to state that the 
 soldiers started at sunset, with Cincinnatus at their head, and reached 
 the camp, a distance of two-and-twenty miles, at a quick march, or rather 
 at a fast trot, by midnight. Though the story runs thus, we are com 
 pelled to doubt the running of the troops, who, with their legs 
 encumbered by their arms and other equipments, must have found speed 
 impossible. On arriving at Mount Algidus, where the enemy was 
 encamped, Cincinnatus made his soldiers surround the place, and by 
 aiming at all in the ring, they were sure to hit somebody. Finding 
 themselves in the midst of a circle by no means social, the iEquians 
 suod for mercy ; but Cincinnatus threw Gracchus Clcelius aud his 
 lieutenants into chains, which was equivalent to making them enter 
 into bonds for their future good behaviour. Clcelius continued in his 
 command after having been thus formally tied down, and Cincinnatus 
 returned to Rome in triumph. Having held the dictatorship only six 
 
cTIAP. VII.] KjESO quinctius. 71 
 
 teen days, he laid it quietly down, and returning to his farming opera- 
 tions, after having submitted the enemy to the yoke, he fitted it once 
 more to the necks of his oxen. 
 
 While engaged in fighting with an external enemy, a nation often 
 forgets the foes she has within ; and it is the cruel policy of despotism 
 to waste the popular energy on quarrels with strangers, in order to 
 divert the attention of the public from domestic grievances. The war 
 being ended, the people began to look at home, and they soon perceived 
 that, while the sword of aggression had been in constant use, the sword 
 of justice had been rusting in the scabbard, or had been only drawn 
 forth to inflict, occasionally, a wound on public liberty. A movement 
 arose in favour of law reform, and C. Terentillus Arsa brought in a bill 
 for getting the patricians and plebeians to a better understanding, by 
 putting them on nearly the same footing. The measure led to con- 
 siderable agitation ; for, though the tribunes passed it, the senate could 
 not get over it at all ; and, the latter having thrown it out, the former 
 brought in a bill, containing a great deal more than the original demand, 
 in the year following. In political, as well as pecuniary affairs, a just 
 claim carries interest, which accumulates as long as the claim remains 
 unsatisfied ; and every day, while it augments the debt due, increases 
 the difficulty of meeting it. 
 
 The proposition of Terentillus was much discussed in large assem- 
 blies, the harmony of which was disturbed by some of the young 
 patricians ; for, even in the early days of which we write, the noble art 
 of laughing down, or crowing over a discomfited orator, was understood 
 by some of the juvenile scions of aristocracy. It happened that 
 Oiucinnatus had four sons, who were exceedingly fine young men, with 
 very coarse manners. One of them, named Kseso, was continually 
 getting into street rows, or disturbing public meetings ; and frequently 
 went so far as to interfere with Virginius, a tribune, in the execution of 
 his duty. The officer was for a long time patient; but, at length, was 
 goaded to take the matter, as well as the offender, up ; and Kaeso was 
 charged with a series of assaults, of a more or less aggravated and 
 aggravating character. While these accusations were hanging over him, 
 an old case of manslaughter came to light ; the victim having been an 
 aged invalid, whom Ka?so, in a disreputable night brawl, had cruelly 
 maltreated. He was already under heavy sureties when this fresh 
 charge was brought up, and, to avoid meeting it, this proud patrician 
 ran away from his bail, leaving their recognizances to be forfeited. 
 
 Reports were soon afterwards spread, that the man who had left the 
 city as a contemptible runaway, was about to return to it in the more 
 formidable character of a robber and a murderer. One night when the 
 people had gone to bed, many of them heard in their sleep the trampling 
 of horses, which seemed to come like a tremendous nightmare over the 
 city. Presently a shout arose, which beat upon the drum of every ear 
 like a call to battle. The Consuls sprang out of bed, and throwing 
 about them the first substitute for a toga that the bedclothes presented, 
 
72 COMIC HISTORY OF EOilE. [CHAP. VII 
 
 they made at once for the walls of the city. The plebeians, when called 
 upon, refused to serve ; and the Consuls, feeling how weak they were 
 in going to the wall alone, made the usual promises, which the people, 
 as usual, were induced to discount, at a great personal sacrifice. Pro- 
 ceeding to the Capitol, they found it in the possession of a large band 
 of exiles and runaway slaves, who would have been glad to run away a 
 second time, had escape been possible. Many fell, and were felled to 
 the earth, on both sides, while P. Valerius after putting several to the 
 sword, had the sword put to him in a most uncomfortable manner. 
 
 The exiles took nothing by their expedition as far as the attack was 
 concerned ; but many of them owed something to the expedition with 
 which they fled from the contest. After this battle, all traces of Kaeso 
 Quinctius are lost; but whether he fell in the fray, or whether the 
 thread of his existence was frayed out in some other way, is a mystery 
 we have no means of unravelling. 
 
 Appius Claudius was now called upon, as the surviving partner of 
 P. Valerius, to redeem the pledge given by the latter ; but Appius, with 
 a chicanery worthy of Chancery in its best, or rather in its worst days, 
 pleaded the death of his colleague as a bar to the suit, declaring that 
 both consuls must be joined in it, though he knew all the while that a bill 
 of revivor for the purpose of including the deceased consul was quite 
 impossible. During these unhappy differences between the two orders, 
 many of the leading plebeians were murdered at the instigation of the 
 patricians, who, however, were rapidly cutting their own throats ; for 
 violence,-, while it thinned the body, added to the stoutness of heart 
 of the popular party. The tribunes were increased in number from five 
 to ten ; and, somewhat later, a still higher point was gained for the 
 plebeians by limiting to a couple of sheep and thirty beeves the fines to 
 which they were liable. These exactions were, however, enforced with 
 such rigour that the tenderest lamb was allowed no quarter if a fine had 
 been incurred, and the smallest stake in the country — if the stake 
 happened to be beef — was seized without remorse if the owner had 
 become subject to a penalty. 
 
 It was many years before the Bill of Terentillus — which has been 
 specially noted — was at length taken up, when the patricians graciously 
 consented to a change in the laws, and offered the benefit of their 
 services into the bargain, by taking upon themselves to determine the 
 sort of change that was required. Hitting, by anticipation, on the 
 modern expedient for delaying useful measures, the patricians appointed 
 a select committee to inquire into law reform, and, by way of ren- 
 dering the chances of legislation still more remote, they ordered the 
 members to proceed to Athens, where, under the enervating influence 
 of Attic associations, they were likely to go to sleep over the subject 
 of their labours. The special commissioners became, no doubt, so 
 tboroughly Greek in all their ideas, that, even the preparation of their 
 report was deferred until the Greek Kalends 
 
CHAP. VIII.] 
 
 THE DECKMV1RATK. 
 
 1i 
 
 CHAPTER THE EIGHTH. 
 
 FBOM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DECEMVIRATE TO THE TAKING 
 
 OF VEIL 
 
 — he Romans, being at p< ace 
 abroad, began to think of 
 improving the means of 
 quarrelling among them- 
 selves at home, and a desire 
 for law reform became ge- 
 neral. Three senators had 
 been sent to Athens to col- 
 lect information, but what 
 they picked up in 
 Greece was so tho- 
 roughly Greek to 
 them, that they were 
 obliged to get it 
 translated into Latin 
 by one Hermodorus, 
 an Ephesiau refugee, 
 before they could 
 understand a word of it.* As one job naturally leads to another, it was 
 arranged that three commissioners having been employed in cramming, 
 the process of digesting should be entrusted to ten mere, who were 
 called the Decemviri. These were appointed from the patricians, after a 
 struggle on the part of the plebeians to get five selected from their own 
 order; but, with a laudable regard to public order, they withdrew 
 their opposition. The especial object for which the Decemviri had been 
 appointed was to frame a new code of laws, but it seems to have been 
 always understood that the practical purpose of a commission is to delay 
 an object, quite as much as to further it. Lest the Decemviri should 
 proceed too rapidly with the work they had been specially chosen to do, 
 arrangements were made for distracting their attention from it by 
 throwing on them the whole business of Government. Had they been 
 
 Roman Bull nnd Priest of the period. 
 
 * It has been often a subject of regret that the particulars of this expedition have not 
 been handed down to us, and that the three Roman excursionists did not put their heads 
 together to form a log during their voyage. It is, however, seldom that the marine 
 expeditions of the sages arc fully detailed, for nothing can be scantier than the account of 
 the journey of the three wise men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl ; and there 
 is reason to believe that many a chapter has been lost to the philosophical transactions of 
 the world, by the chacter of nautical accident*. 
 
74 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 modem commissioners of inquiry, they would have needed no excuse for 
 delay ; hut, with a stuhhorn resolution to get through their task, they 
 surmounted, or avoided, the obstacles they might have been excused for 
 stumbling at. Instead of making their administrative duties an inter- 
 ruption to their legislative labours, and urging the necessity for 
 attending to both as a plea for the performance of neither, the com- 
 missioners took the sovereignty in rotation for five days at a time, and 
 as ten rulers acting all at once would have kept nothing straight, this 
 arrangement for obtaining the strength of unity was altogether a 
 judicious one. At the expiration of their year of office the Decemviri 
 had completed a system of laws, which was engraved on ten tables ; — 
 a proof of the industry of the Government of the day, for in these 
 times it would be hopeless to expect ten tables from those who might 
 be, at the same time, forming a cabinet. 
 
 Though the Decemviri had done enough to win the public favour, 
 they had left enough undone to afford a pretext for the prolongation of 
 their powers. It was suggested that though the ten tables were very 
 good as far as they went, there was room for two more ; and to give an 
 opportunity for this small sum in addition being completed, the con- 
 tinuance of the decemviral form of government was agreed upon. As 
 the time for the election approached, the most disgraceful election 
 intrigues were practised, and in order to disqualify Appius Claudius — 
 one of the former Decemviri — the patricians put him in the chair, or 
 elected him president, on the day of the nomination of the candi- 
 dates. Appius had for some time been acting the character of the 
 " people's friend," and he had shown himself a consummate actor, for, 
 being a tyrant by nature, he must have been wholly indebted to art for 
 appearing otherwise Having been called upon to preside, he opened 
 the business of the day by proposing nine names of little note — including 
 five plebeians — and then, with an air of frankness, he suggested himself 
 as a fit and proper person to complete the number. The people — 
 surprised and amused at the coolness of the proposition — proceeded to 
 elect the very candid candidate, who, being joined with a number of 
 nonentities, formed the unit to the ten of which the rest composed the 
 cipher. Soon after their election, the new Decemviri proceeded to com- 
 plete the twelve tables — and as they formed the origin of the Civil Law, 
 embodying principles which the best jurists have been unable to improve 
 — we will spread these tables before the student, and ask him to sit 
 down with us for a few moments over them. 
 
 We cannot promise him any other than a dry repast, with little or 
 nothing to whet his curiosity ; and unless his appetite for information 
 is extremely vigorous, there will be little to suit his taste on those 
 plates of bronze or ivory — the material is immaterial, and has been 
 variously described — on which the provisions we are about to serve up 
 were originally carved. 
 
 The first table coincided in some respects with our County Courts 
 Act, and furnished a cheap mode of bringing a defendant into court by 
 
CHAP. VIII.] LAWS OF THE TWELVE TABLES. 7*1 
 
 a simple summons though if he refused to walk, a mule, an appropriate 
 type of obstinacy, was to be provided for him. 
 
 By the second table, it was justifiable to kill a thief in the night ; 
 but a person robbed in the day was to have the thief as his slave: 
 a privilege equal to that of being allowed to take into your service, as 
 your page, the urchin who has just picked your pocket. Such an 
 exploit would no doubt indicate a smart lad, and, in order to make him 
 literally smart, the Roman law, in the spirit of our Juvenile Offenders 
 Act, ordered the knave a whipping. 
 
 The third table was in some respects an interest table ; for it 
 prohibited the taking of more than 12 percent, on a loan; but if a 
 debtor did not pay within thirty days, he might be bound with chains ; 
 an arrangement by which his exertions to get out of difficulty must 
 have been grievously fettered. Having been made to enter into these 
 unprofitable bonds for sixty days, the debtor, if his creditors were 
 more than one, might have been divided between them ; but human 
 nature must have found it difficult, under such circumstances, to declare 
 a dividend. 
 
 The fourth table seems hardly to have a sound leg to stand upon , 
 for it gave a father the right of life and death over all his children, 
 together with the privilege of selling them. To prevent a parent from 
 pursuing a disgraceful traffic in a series of alarming sacrifices of his 
 family stock, he was not permitted to sell the same child more than 
 three times over, when the infant was permitted to go into the market 
 on his own account, free of all filial duty. 
 
 The fifth table related to the estates of deceased persons ; and if a 
 freedman died without a will or a direct heir, the law provided for the 
 distribution of his goods without providing for his family. Fallacious 
 hopes among poor relations were checked by handing over to the patron 
 all that remained ; and thus the client may be said to have been subject 
 to costs, even after the debt of nature had been satisfied. 
 
 In the sixth table, there is nothing worthy of remark ; but the 
 seventh guards against damage done by quadrupeds, and not only meets 
 the old familiar case of the donkey among the chickens, but declares 
 that any one wilfully treading on a neighbour's corn shall pay a suitable 
 penalty. 
 
 Agriculture was protected by making it a capital offence to blast by 
 iucantation another's wheat ; so that had the farmers of the day moaned 
 over each other's ruined prospects as they have done in more recent 
 times, performing a sort of incantation by singing the same old song of 
 despair, they might have been liable to lose their heads in the literal 
 as well as in the intellectual sense of which the phrase is susceptible 
 By the same table, a man breaking another's limb was exposed to 
 retaliation ; and a simple fracture was compensated by a simple fracture, 
 though the parties were allowed to compound if they preferred doing so. 
 
 The eighth table was equivalent to a Building Act; and by providing 
 a space of two feet and a half between house and house, it prevented 
 
76 COMIC H1S10KV: OF HOME. |CHAP. VIII. 
 
 collisions among neighbours ; while the fruit dropping from one person's 
 tree into another's garden, fell by law into the hands of the latter. 
 
 The purity of justice was provided for by the ninth table, which 
 ordered the execution of a judge who accepted a bribe in the execution 
 of his office. It inflicted the same penalty on a corrupt arbitrator, or 
 — that greater traitor still — the wretch who should deliver up a Roman 
 citizen to the enemy. 
 
 The tenth table might teach a lesson to our own enlightened age, in 
 which it is too generally the custom to waste in hollow and costly cere- 
 monies over the dead, much that might be made serviceable to the 
 living. More than twenty centuries have passed since the Roman law- 
 makers seeing how mourners might be caught by the undertakers in 
 the traps and trappings of woe, limited to a certain sum the costs of a 
 funeral. The outlay upon the " infernal deities," to whom sacrifices 
 were made in those days, and to whom, therefore, we may compare the 
 black job-masters of our own time, was also reduced to the very lowest 
 figure. In measures of health the Romans were equally in advance of 
 us ; for we still accumulate our dead in the grave-yards of our towns, 
 though by the laws of the twelve tables, burials within the city we^e 
 prohibited. 
 
 The eleventh and twelfth tables have come down to us in such mere 
 fragments, that it is difficult to make up an entire leaf from both of 
 them put together. To the eleventh, is attributed the aristocratic 
 provision against marriages between the patricians and the plebeians ; 
 but as the law could not always prevent a flame, it was at last found 
 expedient to allow a match which was permitted five years later by the 
 Lex Canuleia.* 
 
 Such is a brief account of the Laws of the Twelve Tables ; which 
 although cut up by the shears of time into very little bits, say much, 
 in broken sentences, to the honour of their authors. Even as late as 
 the days of Cicero, it was a part of a boy's education to leam these 
 laws as a carmen necessarium — or necessary verse — though they were 
 not necessarily in verse at all ; for the better opinion is, that they were 
 all in prose, and that they were, in fact, as free from rhyme as they 
 were full of reason. 
 
 The Decemvirs had now completed their allotted task ; but, though 
 elected for a limited time, they seemed determined to remain in their 
 offices after their office hours were fairly over. During the first 
 Decemvirate the members had taken the Government alternately for 
 twenty-four hours at a time, on the principle of every lucky dog having his 
 day : but now the whole ten assumed, at once, the insignia of royalty. 
 Unable to resist the fascination of the fasces, the Decemvirs were each 
 of them preceded, when they walked abroad, by a bundle of those 
 imposing sticks ; the sight of which, at last, aroused public attention to 
 the number of rods that might be in pickle for the backs of the people 
 
 * " Law of the Twelve Tables," b.c. 450. " Lex Canuleia," B.C. 445. 
 
CHAP. VIIT J VIRGINIA. 77 
 
 Murmurs at home were echoed by rumours of war abroad ; the 
 JEquians and Sabines had renewed their hostility ; and the Decemvirs, 
 who could not levy troops or money, summoned the country gentlemen 
 from their seats out of town to their seats in the senate. Many 
 honourable members protested strongly against the Government, but 
 agreed to the necessary supplies ; from which it seems that the practice 
 of speaking one way and voting another is a very ancient one. The 
 Decemvirs stuck to their places with an adhesiveness that might suggest 
 a comparison with Roman cement, but for the fact that the adhesiveness 
 is not uncommon in modern times, though the secret of the Roman 
 cement has perished. Armies were despatched to meet the foe, the people 
 having met the expenses, and Appius remained at home with one of his 
 colleagues. The Roman forces abroad had to contend with internal as 
 well as external enemies; for a venerable, but too garrulous soldier, one 
 Dentatus, called also Siccius, was constantly declaring himself heartily 
 sick of the tyranny of the Decemvirs. He had even talked of another 
 secession of the plebs ; and, to prevent him from taking himself off, a 
 plan was formed to cut him off by a summary process. He received 
 orders from his superior officer to go up the country, with a few others, and 
 select a spot where a tent might be pitched, in the event of a pitched 
 battle. His companions were assassins in disguise, who, on arriving at 
 a lonely spot, threw off their masks, and appeared in their true features. 
 They immediately fell upon the astonished Dentatus ; who must have 
 seen through his assailants before he died, for many were found 
 perforated with the sword of the veteran. 
 
 While the rest of the Decemvirs were disgusting the people by 
 their tyranny, Appius was proceeding to render himself one of those 
 objects of contempt at which not only the Roman nose, but the nose 
 of all humanity, was destined to turn up, and at which scorn was to 
 point her imperishable finger-post. 
 
 A centurion, named Virginias, had an only daughter, named Virginia, 
 whom her father, with a want of caution pardonable, perhaps, in a 
 widower, permitted to go backwards and forwards alone through the 
 public streets to a private day-school.* The young lady, in all the playful 
 innocence of sixteen, was in the habit of dancing and singing along the 
 thoroughfare, when the smallness of her feet, and the beauty of her voice, 
 struck the eye and ear of Appius. According to some authorities, 
 Virginia was attended by a nurse-maid : but it is scarcely necessary to 
 remark, that the same fatal fascination, which in military neighbourhoods 
 attracts female attention from children that ought to be, to men that are, 
 in arms, was no less powerful in the Via Sacra than in Rotten Row, — 
 by the banks of the Tiber, than on the shores of the Serpentine. One 
 morning, as Virginia was passing through the market-place, on her way 
 
 * It seems, however, to have heen the custom of the period for plebeians to send their 
 daughters from six to sixteen to a scholastic establishment from about nine to five ; and 
 it is ten to one that Virginia was a pupil at one of these cheap nursery grounds, in which 
 young ideas were planted out for the purpose of shooting. 
 
78 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [CHAP. Till. 
 
 to the seminary, with her tablets and school-bag— or more familiarly 
 speaking, her slate and satchel — on her arm, a minion, under the 
 dominion of Appius, seized an opportunity for seizing the maiden by the 
 wrist. The nurse was either absent, or more probably talking to one 
 
 w (1 
 
 Hi I - 
 
 Virginia carried off by a Minion in the pay of Appius. 
 
 of the officers on duty round the corner ; for the fasces were as irre- 
 sistible to the female .servants of the day, as the honied words and 
 oilskin capes of a similar class of officials at a much later period. 
 Virginia screamed for assistance, and they only who have heard the cry 
 of a female in distress, can imagine the shrillness of the shriek that 
 ran" through the market. Marcus — for such was the minion's name — 
 was instantly surrounded by a circle of respectable tradesmen, who knew 
 and desired to rescue Virginia. The smith, though he had other irons 
 
OHAP. VIII.] VIRGINIA. 75 
 
 in the fire, left his 'bellows to deal Marcus a blow ; the butcher with 
 uplifted cleaver, was preparing a most extensive chop ; and the money- 
 changer was just on the point of paying off the ruffian in a new kind of 
 coin, when he declared Virginia to be his slave, and announced himself 
 as the client of the dreaded Appius. At this formidable name, the 
 smith's work seemed to be done, the butcher became a senseless block, 
 and there was a sudden change in the note of the money-changer. 
 
 The officer on duty, who had arrested the attention of the nurse, 
 being at length called away by some trifling charge, had left her 
 at leisure to look after the more precious charge with which she had 
 been entrusted. As those usually talk the loudest who do the least, 
 the remonstrances of the female attendant were, no doubt, v:hement 
 in proportion to her neglect ; and, indeed, the confusion created by the 
 shrieks of the nurse was rather calculated to draw off the attention of 
 the crowd from Virginia herself, who was carried away by Marcus, with 
 an intimation that he should at once take the case before a magistrate. 
 Among the other consequences of the neglect of the maid, was an 
 attachment that had sprung up between the day-school miss and a 
 young gentleman, named Icilius. This impetuous youth, having heard 
 of what had happened, proceeded to the court at which the case was 
 about to come on, and which was presided over by the tyrant Appius. 
 Icilius prayed for an adjournment, on the ground of the absence of the 
 young lady's father ; and it was found impossible to resist the applica- 
 tion of such an earnest solicitor. This point having been conceded, 
 the friends of Virginia applied for her admission to bail ; and there was 
 such a general tender of securities among the throng, that Appius felt 
 he could not calculate on his own security if he refused the request 
 that had been made to him. The next morning the matter again came 
 on, in the shape of a remanded case ; and Virginius, who had been on 
 duty with his regiment the day before, was now present at the hearing. 
 
 Had there been in those days the same love of the horrible that has 
 prevailed in our own times, the startling incident of a girl killed by her 
 own father, would have probably come down to us, through the medium 
 of the fullest reports, amplified by " other accounts," and a long succes 
 sion of "latest particulars." We must, however, on the present occa 
 sion, be satisfied with the merest summary ; for the Romans, in the 
 time of Appius, were equally destitute of relish for the details of the 
 spilling of blood, and of " family Sunday newspapers," whose respectable 
 proprietors are always ready to avail themselves of a sanguinary affair, 
 with an eagerness that seems to show that they look upon blood as 
 essential to the vitality of a journal, and involving the true theory of 
 the circulation. It remains only to be told, that Virginius, after taking 
 leave of his daughter, and finding her escape from the power of Appius 
 impossible, stabbed her with a knife, snatched up from a butcher's stall, 
 and, brandishing the weapon in the air, threatened perdition to the 
 tyrant. Appius, at the sight of the blood-stained steel, felt his heart 
 fluttering, as if affected by magnetic influence ; and losing, for the time. 
 
80 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME 'jOHAP. VIII. 
 
 his own head, he offered ten thousand pounds of copper for that of 
 Virginiiis.* 
 
 It is the common characteristic of a moving spectacle to strike every 
 one motionless ; and the guards of Appius, when ordered to seize Vir- 
 ginius, found themselves fixed to the spot by so many stirring incidents. 
 In vain did Appius call upon his clients and his lictors to do their duty. 
 Among all his numerous attendants there was not a sole but shook in 
 its shoe, while the tyrant trembled from head to foot w r ith bootless 
 anger. Urged at length by the commands of Appius, the officers 
 attempted to clear the spot, when a severe scuffle ensued, and 
 the authorities were assailed with all sorts of missiles. The market- 
 place supplied abundance of ammunition. Ducks and geese flew in all 
 directions. Some of the lictors found calves' heads suddenly lighting 
 on their shoulders. Others, who Avere treated, or rather maltreated, 
 with oysters, suffered severely from an incessant discharge of shells, and 
 many received the entire contents of a Roman feast, ab ovo usque ad 
 malum, — from the assault and battery of the egg, to the malum in se 
 of a well-aimed apple. The stalls of the dealers in vegetables were 
 speedily cleared of their contents ; and a trembling lictor, smothered — 
 like a rabbit — in onions, might be seen, trying to creep away unper- 
 ceived, while others, who were receiving their desert in the form of 
 fresh fruit, fled, under a smart shower of grape, from the fury of the 
 populace. At length, the stock of the market being exhausted, the 
 assailants had recourse to stones ; and Appius, feeling that he was 
 within a stone's throw of his life, entreated the lictors to remove him 
 from the scene of danger. Four of the stoutest of his attendants, 
 hoisting his curule chair on to their shoulders, made the best of their 
 way home, where Appius at length arrived, with the apple of his eye 
 damaged by a blow from a pear, his mouth choked with indignation and 
 mud, his lips blue with rage and grape juice, his robe caked with con- 
 fectionary, and his head, which had been made spongy with the loaves 
 thrown at it, affected with a sort of drunken roll.f Such is the melan- 
 choly portrait which historical truth compels us to draw of the unhappy 
 Appius, for whom, however, no pity can be felt, even though his case 
 and his countenance presented many very sad features. The assault in 
 
 * " Then up sprung Appius Claudius, ' Stop him — alive or dead, 
 
 Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who brings his head.' " — 
 
 Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. 
 
 •p This description is not exaggerated, at least, if the authority of Macaulay is to be 
 rcliid upon ; and for the incidents of this remote period we are perhaps justified in trusting 
 quite as much to the lay of the poet, as to any other source. The following lines refer to 
 the state of Appius, when taken home, after the death of Virginia : — 
 
 " One stone hit Appius in the mouth, and one beneath the car, 
 
 And ere he reached Mount Palatine he swooned with pain and fear. 
 His cursed head, that ho was wont to hold so high with pride, 
 Now like a drunken man's, hung down, and swayed from side to side. 
 And when his stout retainers had brought him to his door, 
 His face and neck were all one cake of filth and clotted gore." 
 
CHAP. Viii. J THE TRIBUNATE. 81 
 
 the market-place must have rendered it difficult for an artist of the day 
 to have taken his likeness, after the caiTots, whirling ahout his head, 
 had settled in his hair, the rich oils having given to his Roman nose a 
 touch of grease, and the eggs thrown by the populace, who continued to 
 egg each other on, having lengthened his round cheeks into an oval 
 countenance. 
 
 Having gained his palace, the wretched tyrant ran up stairs, in the 
 hope that he might save himself by such a flight ; but he was overtaken, 
 and thrown into gaol, where he, who had hitherto been permitted to do 
 precisely as he pleased, was allowed just rope enough to hang himself; 
 a process, it is believed, he performed, though the subject is so knotty, 
 that we are not prepared to disentangle it. 
 
 Virginius had returned to the camp, where the soldiers, having heard 
 of the fall of the decemvir, proceeded to hit him, as usual, when down, 
 renouncing the authority of Appius and his colleagues. The valour ot 
 the insurgents was, however, of a negative kind ; for in times of danger 
 they seemed to think absence of body better than presence of mind, and 
 their policy was to secede from the city. They withdrew to the Sacred 
 Mount, where ambassadors from the Senate were sent after them, to see 
 if matters might not be arranged ; when the popular chiefs, with a sort 
 of one-sided liberality, in which some friends of freedom are too apt to 
 indulge, asked an amnesty for themselves, and the immediate putting to 
 death of the whole of the late government. The ambassadors, not 
 liking a precedent, which might be applied to succeeding administra- 
 tions, of which themselves might form a part, suggested the proprietv of 
 trying the decemvirs first, and executing them, if necessary, afterwards. 
 It was some time before the friends of freedom and justice could bring 
 themselves to consent to the trial preceding the punishment; but upon 
 being assured that the decemvirs would have little chance of escape, it 
 was at length agreed to allow them the preliminary forms of a trial. 
 
 The plebeians having got the upper hand, became almost as intolerant 
 as the tyrants they had displaced, — a common error, unfortunately, 
 among the professing lovers of liberty. They demanded that the 
 Tribunes should be restored, which was well enough; that the Tribunate 
 should be perpetual, — which was an insolent and overbearing inter- 
 ference with the will of any succeeding generation ; and, by way of 
 climax, they required that any one suggesting the abolition of their 
 favourite office should be burnt as a traitor. They were no doubt 
 fully justified in having a will of their own, but they had no authority to 
 entail that will upon a subsequent age ; and least of all had they the 
 right to make bonfires of those who were of a different way of thinking. 
 It is true that, at such a moment, few are willing to put their lives 
 litenlly at stake, by uttering their opinions ; but these arbitrary pranks, 
 'so frequently committed in the name of freedom, account sufficiently for 
 the frequent use of the words " more free than welcome." The truth 
 is, that when Liberty becomes a notorious public character, she seems 
 t j disappear from private life ; and, indeed, how is she to be found at 
 
 o 
 
82 C01IIC HISTORY OF ROME. [ciIAP. VIII 
 
 home, if she is occupied out of doors, knocking off the hats of those who 
 will not give her a cheer, or breaking the windows of those who will not 
 illuminate in her honour? 
 
 The plebeians having gained the permission of the Senate to hang 
 and burn to their hearts' content all who might give way to difference of 
 opinion, under the weak-minded impression that it would never alter 
 friendship, proceeded to the election of Tribunes in place of the Decem- 
 virs, who were thrown into prison. This is said to have been the first 
 instance of the incarceration of any one belonging to the patrician order ; 
 and the sensation in the upper circles was immense when they heard 
 that a few exclusives of their own set were in actual custody. Some 
 aristocratic families went into mourning on the melancholy occasion, and 
 offered any fine, as a matter of course, for the release of their kindred. 
 
 Appius Claudius and Spurius Appius — probably an illegitimate 
 member of the family — were thrown into the same cell, where, it is 
 said, they made away with themselves or each other ; but whether there 
 5s any truth in this story of the cell, or whether it is merely a cellular 
 tissue of falsehood, it is difficult to decide, after so long an interval. 
 The eight remaining Decemviri went into exile, or, in other words, were 
 transported for life ; while Marcus Claudius, who had claimed Virginia, 
 repaired to Tibur, now Tivoli, and may be said to have taken his 
 conscience out to wash in the famous baths of the neighbourhood. 
 Other authorities say that he fled to avoid the ironing for life with 
 which he had been threatened, or that he feared the mangling to which 
 he might be exposed at home, at the hands of the infuriated populace. 
 
 Consuls had already been elected, in the persons of L. Valerius and 
 M. Horatius ; but ten Tribunes were now chosen, among whom, of 
 course, were the leaders in the revolution ; for it is a popular notion, 
 that those who have overthrown one government, must necessarily be 
 the fittest persons to construct another. It is, however, much easier to 
 knock down than to build up ; and those who have shown themselves 
 extremely clever at bowling out, are often bowled out rapidly in turn, 
 when they get their innings. 
 
 It is a characteristic of nations, as well as of individuals, that those 
 who have no affairs of their own immediately on hand, are apt to concern 
 themselves with the affairs of their neighbours. The Romans having 
 arranged matters among themaelves, began to look abroad, and having 
 rid themselves of domestic foes, they sent their Consuls, L. Valerius 
 and M. Horatius, to deal with foreign enemies. Valerius seized upon the 
 camp of the iEqui, just as they were canvassing their prospects under 
 their tents ; and Horatius, after routing the Sabines, made them free of 
 the city ; thus converting into respectable tradesmen those who had 
 been hitherto extremely troublesome customers. 
 
 When the Consuls returned to Rome, they expected the Senate 
 would pay them the usual compliment of a triumph ; and instead of 
 entering the city at once, they put up at the temple of Bellona, outside 
 the walls, waiting for orders. The patricians, who were jealous of the 
 
CHAP. V1I1.J 
 
 UOMAN TRIUMPH. 
 
 8!l 
 
 generals, thought to deprive them of the customary honours, by a low 
 trick ; but the tribes dealing more fairly with the warriors, or, to use a 
 familiar expression, lending them a hand, decreed the triumph which 
 the Senate had denied to them. Thus did the patricians lose a privilege 
 they had abused ; and the two Consuls drove four-in-hand into the city 
 in spite of them 
 
 In the foreground of the Tableau may be observed a Patrician looking very black at the 
 Triumph of the General. 
 
 In modern times, the nearest approach we have to a triumph is the 
 entrance into a country town of a company of equestrians, or a travelling 
 menagerie. The arrangements were in many respects suitable to a 
 fair, and it would seem to have been the opinion of the Romans that 
 none but the brave deserved the fair, for it was only the most eminent 
 warriors who were awarded the honours of a triumph. There was, 
 however, something very undignified in the practice of hanging about 
 the outskirts of the town until regularly called in, which was the usual 
 course adopted by those who anticipated the glory of a summons from 
 the senate. It sometimes happened that the summons never arrived, 
 and the General, who had hoped to make his entry in a chariot and 
 four, was at last compelled to sneak, unattended, into the city. Such 
 might have been the lot of L. Valerius and M. Horatius, had it not 
 been for their popularity, aided, probably, by the senseless love of show, 
 which often causes the hero to be degraded into the mountebank. Aa 
 triumphs, like Lord Mayors' shows, were nearly all the same, the fol- 
 lowing account will comprehend, or lead the reader to comprehend, the 
 general features of these military pageants. 
 
 The procession opened with a band of trumpeters, and as much 
 breath as possible was blown out of the whole body. Next came 
 some men with boards, inscribed with numerous achievements, and 
 forming, in fact, the posting bills, or puffing placards, of the principal 
 
 g2 
 
84 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. VI] I. 
 
 character. These were followed by a variety of objects, taken from the 
 enemy, and may be compared to the properties used in the show, the 
 next feature of which was a file of flute-players, who walked in a sort of 
 fluted column. Next in order came the white bulls, or oxen devoted 
 for sacrifice, accompanied by the slaughtering priests, or holy butchers ; 
 End immediately afterwards a remarkable beast, odd fish, or strange 
 
 In all probability something of this sort. 
 
 bird, that had been snared, hooked, or caged, in the conquered country 
 These were followed by the arms of the foe, with as many captives as 
 possible, in chains, and the larger the string of fettered victims, so 
 much the greater was the amount of " linked sweetness, long drawn out " 
 before the eye of the conqueror. After these were carried the gifts the 
 General had received from allied or friendly powers, consisting usually 
 of crowns made of grass, every blade of which was a tribute to the 
 sword of the victor. Next came a file of lictors, and then the General 
 himself, in a chariot and four, with a slave on the footboard behind, 
 whispering in his ear, to remind him of his being still " a man and a 
 brother." 
 
 The Consuls having gained a civil as well as a military triumph, by 
 their defeat of the patricians, would have been re-elected by acclamation 
 for another year ; but they had the good sense to retire upon the popu- 
 larity they had gained, without waiting to become bankrupt of that very 
 fleeting commodity. The patricians, getting tired of an exclusiveness 
 which seemed likely to exclude them from real power, condescended to 
 vie with the plebeians as candidates for the office of Tribune. They 
 judiciously came to the conclusion that it was better to cast their pride 
 under foot, than to stand too much upon their dignity; and the result 
 was, that, by the election of two of their order, they obtained a voice in 
 the new government. 
 
 Popular measures were now the order of the day; and C. Canuleius, 
 one of the tribunes, brought in a bill to legalise the connubium 
 between the Patres and the Plebs, so that the fathers of the senate 
 
CHAP. VIII.] THE CENSORS. 85 
 
 might marry the daughters of the people. This proposition for an 
 enlargement of the connubial noose gave rise to several very knotty 
 points, and to much opposition on the part of the patricians. The 
 greater number of them believed themselves to be the essence of all 
 that was rare and refined, until the more sensible portion of them 
 perceived that the essence was growing rarer every day, and that unless 
 it formed a combination with something more solid, it would all very 
 soon evaporate. The law was accordingly allowed to pass ; and by the 
 timely application of some common clay, the roots of aristocracy were 
 saved from the decay that had threatened them. Many of the 
 patricians, who had long been wedded to old prejudices, found it far 
 more agreeable to be married to young plebeians ; and matrimony was 
 contracted, or, rather, greatly extended, among the different classes of 
 society. 
 
 The Reform party had now become strong enough to propose that 
 one of the consuls should always be a plebeian ; and though the Senate 
 tried very hard to maintain the principle, that those only are fit for a 
 snug place who have been qualified by a good birth, the tide of opinion 
 had set in so strongly the other way, that it was hopeless, with the 
 thickest sculls, to pull against the current. 
 
 Tribuni militum, with the power of consuls, were instituted ; but 
 the patricians managed, by a trick, to reduce these consuls into a sort 
 of stock for their own use, by selecting from their own body two officers 
 named Censors, who were to be employed in taking the census, an 
 extremely important part of the consular authority. The mere 
 enumeration of the people was not of itself a high privilege, and 
 required no acquaintance with the law, or of any of the twelve tables, 
 excepting, perhaps, the simple tables of arithmetic. Besides the 
 privilege of looking after the numbers of the people, the office gave 
 especial opportunities of looking after number one ; for the administration 
 of the finances of the state was committed to the Censor ;* and it has too 
 often happened that a collector of duties has considered that there was 
 a duty owing to himself, out of those received on behalf of the Govern- 
 ment. They were also Commissioners of the Property Tax, with full 
 inquisitorial powers; but, most odious part of all, they had authority 
 to ascertain the dates of the birth of females, as well as males, and 
 could mercilessly surcharge a lady for her age, as well as her husband 
 for his income. They were also controllers of virtue and morality, their 
 duty being to maintain the vxos majorum, or manners of the old school ; 
 for it seems to have been always the custom of mankind to lament the 
 past as " the good old times," no matter how bad the old times may 
 have been, and how infinitely inferior to the present. 
 
 The Censors, however, derived their chief influence from their power of 
 determining the rank of every citizen ; for, from the very earliest times, 
 
 * At a later period, the Censors had the entire control over the puhlic expenditure, 
 even to the feeding of the sacred geese ; and there is no doubt that even the geese were 
 made to yield a considerable nest egg to a dishonest functionary. 
 
86 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. ("CIIAP. VIII. 
 
 the multitude were in the habit of pursuing, through thick and thin, 
 that perilous Will o' the Wisp — a wisp that reduces many a man of 
 substance to a man of straw — a position in society. This the Censors 
 could award ; and people were ready to pay any price for that most 
 costly of all stamps — though perhaps, after all, the most difficult to 
 purchase — the stamp of fashion. From the early days of Rome to the 
 present hour, we meet with frequent counterfeits of the stamp in 
 question, the forgery of which has spoiled, and continues to spoil, a 
 quantity of calves' skin, and asses' skin, that might otherwise be found 
 of service, at least to its owners. 
 
 Rome had begun to enjoy a short repose, like an infant in its cradle, 
 when it was unexpectedly made to rock to its very foundations, by a 
 shortness of provisions ; for the absence of anything to eat is sure to 
 afford food to the disaffected. Grumbling is the peculiar attribute of an 
 empty stomach ; and flatulence, caused by hunger, is an ill wind, that 
 blows good to nobody. During the scarcity, a wealthy citizen, one 
 Spurius Maelius, anxious to give his fellow-citizens a genuine meal, 
 purchased corn at his own expense, and sold it for a mere song — taking 
 the produce, perhaps, in promissory notes — to his poorer countrymen. 
 This liberality rendered Maelius extremely popular with all but the 
 patricians, who declared that they saw through his design in selling 
 cheap corn ; that as old birds they were not to be caught with chaff : 
 and that his real aim was the kingly dignity. Under the pretext of 
 preventing him from accomplishing this object, the patricians appointed 
 a Dictator; and poor old Cincinnatus, bowed down with age and agricul- 
 ture, which had been his natural bent, was dragged from the tail of the 
 plough to the head of the state, though his own state was that of 
 extreme bodily decrepitude. His Master of the Horse, who really held 
 the reins, was Servilius Ahala, by whom Maelius was summoned before 
 the Dictator, to answer any charge that might be brought against him. 
 If the mode of making the accusation was strange, the method of 
 answering it was equally irregular ; for Maelius, instead of meeting it 
 with dignity, ran away from it, with a butcher's knife, which he snatched 
 from a stall in the market-place. Flourishing the formidable weapon, 
 he cut in among the crowd, and was immediately followed by Servilius 
 Ahala, with a party of young patrician blades, who, in a manner that 
 would have pierced a heart of stone, plunged their swords into their 
 victim's bosom. 
 
 Ahala was charged with the murder, but he was enabled to avoid the 
 consequences, as men of consequence in those days could do, by a 
 voluntary exile. Though domestic cookery had received a check from 
 the dearth at home, there was no scarcity of foreign broils, and the 
 Romans created Mam. JEmilius dictator, to encounter the Fidenates 
 and Veientines. Three ambassadors were sent to Fidenae, but the 
 diplomatic service could not have been so desirable in those days as in 
 our own, for the three ambassadors were slain, and perhaps the financial 
 reformers would say that it was very proper to cut down such a piece 
 
CHAr. VIII. j 
 
 FURIUS CAMILLUS. 67 
 
 of gross extravagance The order emanated from Lar Tolumnius of 
 Veii : and while it said little for his heart, it cost him his head, which 
 was cut off by Cornelius Cossus — the master of the horse to ^Emilius. 
 
 The Veientines continuing troublesome, Furius Camillus was ap- 
 pointed dictator, when, with an engineering talent rare in those days, 
 he commenced a mine, and overcoming all minor, as well as major, or 
 general difficulties, he forced a way into the city. The King of Veii 
 was offering a sacrifice in the Temple of Juno, just as the Romans had 
 completed their tunnel, and as the soldiers burst like a crop of early 
 champions through the earth, he saw his fate written in bold Roman 
 characters. Everything was given to the conquerors, and it is said that 
 the statue of Juno, followed of its own accord; but the probability is, 
 the statue remained in statu quo, for miraculous instances of going 
 over to Rome were not in those days numerous. 
 
 Rome was once more at peace, when the citizens, with peculiar in- 
 gratitude, having no other foes, began to quarrel with Camillus himself, 
 to whom they owed their tranquillity. They accused him of having 
 unduly trafficked in shares, by appropriating more than his due portion 
 of the booty. His unpopularity had not, however, come down upon him 
 uutil it was found that he had, in a fit of piety, dedicated a tenth of the 
 spoils of Veii to the Delphic God — a circumstance he had forgotten to 
 mention, until he had disposed of the whole of his own share of the prize, 
 and it became necessary for the other participators in the plunder to 
 redeem his promise at their own cost, and, with their own ready money, 
 to save his credit. His name fell at once from the highest premium of 
 praise to the lowest discount of disparagement, and he incurred the 
 especial detestation of those whom he had served ; for kindnesses are 
 often written in marble in the hearts of those who remember them 
 only to repay them with ingratitude. Not liking to lie under the impu- 
 tation of dishonesty, and being unable to get over it, he chose a middle 
 course, and passed a sort of sentence of transportation upon himself by 
 coinf into voluntary exile. He, however, with a littleness of mind thav. 
 was not uncommon among the early Romans, vented his spite as he 
 left the city gate, expressing a wish that Rome might rue his absence ; 
 but Rome consoled herself for the loss she might sustain in him by 
 confiscating the whole of his property. 
 
 Among the incidents of the life of Camillus, a story is told of an 
 event that happened, when, after having subdued the Veientines, he 
 drove the Faliscans out their city of Falerii. There existed within 
 the walls a fashionable boys' school, to which the patricians sent their 
 sons, who were frequently taken out walking in the suburbs. One 
 morning the pupils, who were two and two, found themselves grow- 
 ing very tired one by one, for their promenade had been prolonged 
 unusually by the pedagogue. The wretch and his ushers had, in 
 fact, ushered the unsuspecting infants into the camp of Camillus, with 
 an intimation that the parents of the boys were immensely opulent, that 
 the schooling was regularly paid, and there could be no doubt that a 
 
88 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROUE. 
 
 [CHAP. VIII. 
 
 rich ransom could be procured for such a choice assemblage of fathers' 
 prides and mothers' darlings. Camillus nobly answered, that he did 
 not make war on young ideas not yet taught to shoot, and he concluded 
 by giving the schoolmaster a lesson ; for, causing him to be stripped, and 
 putting a scourge into the hands of the boys, the young whipper- 
 snappers snapped many a whip on the back of their master. 
 
 School-boys flogging the Schoolmaster. 
 
aiAP. ix j 
 
 THE GAULS. 
 
 89 
 
 CHAPTEH THE NINTH. 
 
 1-HOM THE TAKING OF ROME BY THE GAULS, TO ITS SUBSEQUENT 
 PRESERVATION BY MANLIUS. 
 
 s a prophet is sure to come right 
 in the end, if he will go on pro- 
 phesying a thing until it really 
 happens ; so the soothsayers, who 
 had been constantly predicting 
 the taking of Rome, seemed 
 likely, at last, to have their fore- 
 bodings verified. 
 
 The Gauls were destined to 
 be the invaders, and tradition 
 tells us that they were attracted 
 to cross the Alps by the reputa- 
 tion of the Italian grapes, which 
 induced them to expect a supe- 
 rior glass of wine on the other 
 side of the mountains. The Gauls 
 were remarkable for the huge- 
 ness of their bodies, which pre- 
 sented a series of gigantic pic- 
 tures in their iron frames ; and 
 their faces being covered with 
 long shaggy hair, they seemed 
 A Gaul - ready, by their ferocious aspect, 
 
 to beard an enemy These people 
 wero the ancient inhabitants of modern France, and it is a curious 
 fact, that the occupants of the country have, up to the present time, 
 cultivated that hairiness of visage, in which they may be said to 
 have literally aped their ancestors. Tradition — that wholesale carrier, 
 who delivers so many parcels at the historian's door, some of which 
 are scarcely worth the carriage — has handed to us a small packet, 
 with reference to the Gauls and their origin, the contents of which 
 we proceed to examine. On taking it up, we find that it possesses 
 very little weight ; but we, nevertheless, proceed to the operation of 
 unpacking. Beginning as we would with a basket, we find ourselves 
 hampered to a considerable exteut, for on opening the lid, and using 
 the eye of discernment, we turn over the contents with eagerness, 
 and after all catch at little better than straw, in our attempts to 
 take hold of something tangible. Turning over the flimsy mass, we 
 arrive at very little of a solid description, though, on getting to the 
 
90 COMIC HISTORY OF HOME. [CHAP. TX. 
 
 bottom of it, we establish the fact that the Gauls, under Brennus, their 
 <;hief, marched upon Clusium, one of the states of Etruria. People in 
 difficulties are apt to grow exceedingly amiable towards those who are in a 
 position to help them ; the man of money becomes the very " dear Sir" 
 of one who needs a loan, and the Clusians appealed to their " friends,"' 
 the Romans, of whom they knew nothing, for their kind assistance 
 
 The Roman Senate, adopting the quarrel of the Clusians, sent three 
 ambassadors, the sons of M. Fabius Ambustus, to the Gauls, desiring 
 them to withdraw ; but the Gauls sent back a very galling answer. They 
 declared their own country was little, and their necessities were large , 
 that they bad not land enough to supply them with bread ; and, though 
 they wished not to tread on a neighbour's corn, they could not help 
 feeling where the shoe was pinching. They added, that, as to Clusium. 
 they did not want it all, but would willingly share it with its owners ; 
 a proposition similar to that of a pickpocket, who, while robbing you of 
 your handkerchief, politely offers you the joint use of it. 
 
 This arrangement not having been acceded to, the Clusians and the 
 Gauls came into collision ; when the Roman ambassadors, who only 
 went to have a few words, so far forgot their diplomatic character as to 
 come to blows ; and, though it is not unusual for peace-makers to cause 
 more mischief than they prevent, it was rather too much to find the 
 pacificators, who had gone forth to knock discord on the head, engaged 
 in fracturing the skulls of those whom they went to propitiate. One of 
 the Fabii not only killed a Gallic chief, but, having made away with 
 the individual, was making off with his arms and accoutrements ; when 
 a cry of " shame ! " arose from the Gauls, who did not approve of an 
 arrangement bv which the envoy was killing several of them, while a 
 delicate regard to the law of nations prevented them from killing the 
 envoy. It is difficult for men to stand upon a point of etiquette when 
 threatened with the point of the sword; but the Gauls, with extreme 
 moderation, resolved on sending envoys to complain of the envoys; 
 and thus, as it were, fight the ambassadors with their own weapons. 
 The Romnn Senate felt the justice of the complaint ; but, seeing that 
 public feeling ran the other way, the Senators were base enough to do 
 an injustice rather than make an honourable stand against the 
 wilfulness of the people. 
 
 The Fabii, whom the Senate had been too cowardly to punish, the 
 million thought proper to reward by appointing them Consular Tribunes 
 for the year ensuing ; and when the news reached the Gauls, it excited 
 in them a very natural bitterness. After their first burst of rage, they 
 began to collect themselves ; and finding, when collected, they could 
 muster 30,000 strong, they were joined by upwards of 40,000 Senones, 
 in alliance with whom they reached Allia, a little stream flowing 
 towards the Tiber. Here they were met by the Romans, who threw up 
 entrenchments to prevent the enemy from entrenching upon their 
 domain ; but being comparatively few in numbers, they endeavoured to 
 spread themselves out as far apart as possible. 
 
CHAP. IX.] THE GAULS ENTER THE FOBUM. Ul 
 
 As a kettle of water thrown upon a spoonful of tea, with the intention 
 of making it go further, produces a weakening effect ; so did the expan- 
 sion of the Roman line dilute its strength to such a degree, that the right 
 wing becam epanic-strickeu, and the left catching the infection, both wings 
 began to ily together. Several of the Romans plunged into the Tiber, 
 to save their lives, and the dux or general set the ignominious example. 
 Some lost all self-possession, and fell helplessly into the possession of 
 the enemy ; while others finding their heads beginning to swim violently 
 on shore, could not obtain the chance of safety by swimming across the 
 river. 
 
 A few only of the soldiers got home in safety, soaked to the skin ; 
 and though there may be something ignoble in the picture of a party of 
 Roman warriors dripping in their wet clothes, we are compelled to 
 fullow the dry threads of history. Those who escaped by means of the 
 friendly tide, took the sad tidings to Home, which would now have 
 fallen an easy prey to the Gauls, had they not remained on the field of 
 battle, uttering horrid yells, shaking their yellow locks, and intoxicating 
 themselves with something more potent than the stream cup of success 
 which they had quaffed so easily. When the bad news reached Rome, the 
 citizens began to fly apace, and some were startled by their own shadows, 
 as if, like guilty creatures, they were unable to bear their own reflections. 
 Many of the patricians ran for safety into the Arx, or topmost part 
 of the city, which was carrying cowardice to the utmost height; and 
 some who tried to save their goods as well as their lives, packed their 
 property in casks with the hope of preserving it. 
 
 On the arrival of the Gauls, they found the walls and the inhabitants 
 completely unmanned, and though nearly every one who remained was 
 somebody beside himself, the population had, owing to the foolish panic. 
 been most sensibly diminished. Among those who remained were 
 eighty old patricians, who had filled in their turns, the chief offices of 
 state, and who, having sworn to die, took the oaths and their seats in 
 the Forum. They wore their official robes, occupied their ivory chairs 
 and being carefully got up with venerable white beards, they had all 
 the imposing effect of a tableau vivant upon the Gauls who entered the 
 Forum. One of the barbarians, attracted by the singularity of the 
 scene, stroked the beard of the aged Papirius to ascertain if he was 
 real, when the aged P. having returned the salutation by a smart 
 stroke with his sceptre, the inquisitive Gaul found his head and the charm 
 broken together. Though the patricians had, at first, worn the 
 appearance of mere wax-work, they now began to wax warm, which led 
 to their speedy dissolution ; for the Gauls, falling violently upon them, 
 converted the whole scene into a chamber of horrors. The eighty 
 senators were slain, to the immense satisfaction of the Romans them- 
 selves, who felt a conviction that after this alarming sacrifice they were 
 sure of a triumph. They seemed to look upon the venerable victims 
 as so much old stock that must be cleared off, and the previously 
 depressed citizens began to rally with all the renewed vigour of a 
 
92 COMIC HISTORY OF KOME. [CHAP. IX. 
 
 bankrupt who has just undergone the operation of an extensive failure 
 The Gauls invested the Capitol, but its defenders feeling that no one 
 had a right to invest that Capitol but themselves, did their utmost to 
 keep it standing in their own names ; and, not even for the sake of 
 ensuring their own lives, would they agree to an unconditional surrender. 
 The barbarians, finding nothing better to do, commenced firing the city 
 in several parts, pulling down the walls and throwing them into the 
 Tiber; a species of sacking that must have been very injurious to tho 
 bed of the river 
 
 The occupants of the Capitol continued to hold out, or rather, to 
 keep in, and it being desirable to communicate with them, a bold 
 youth, named Pontius Cominius, attempted the hazardous enterprise. 
 Having encased himself in a suit of cork, he crossed the Tiber, and 
 clambering on his hands, he performed the wonderful feat of reaching 
 the Capitol. He returned in the same manner ; and, on the following 
 day the Gauls observing the track, thought to be all fours with him, 
 by stealing up on the points of their fingers and the tips of their toes, 
 to the point he had arrived at. With a cat-like caution, which eluded 
 even the vigilance of the dogs, and while the sentinels were off their 
 guard, a party of the Gauls crept up one by one to the top of the rock, 
 which was the summit of their wishes. Just as they had effected their 
 object, a wakeful goose,* with a head not unworthy of the sage, 
 commenced a vehement cackle, and the solo of one old bird was soon 
 followed by a full chorus from a score of others. Marcus Manlius, who 
 resided near the poultry, was so alarmed at the sound that he instantly 
 jumped out of his skin — for, in those days, a sheep's skin was the usual 
 bedding — and ran to the spot, where he caught hold of the first Gaul 
 he came to,- and, giving him a smart push, the whole pack behind fell 
 like so many cards to the bottom. 
 
 Manlius was rewarded with the scarcest luxury the city contained, in 
 the shape of plenty to eat, and it cannot be said that we have greatly 
 improved upon the early Romans in matters of the same kind, for a 
 dinner is still a common mode of acknowledging the services of a public 
 man, and literally feeding his vanity. 
 
 The Gauls continued to invest Rome, and heard with savage delight 
 of the diminishing supplies, or rather, to use an Irishism, the increasing 
 scarcity. News at last came that the garrison had been for some time 
 living upon soles, and it is an admitted fact that they had consumed all 
 but a few remaining pairs belonging to the shoes of their generals. 
 Driven at length to desperation, they baked as hard as they could the 
 flour they still had on hand, and making it up into quarterns, or four 
 pounders, threw it at the enemy. The Gauls looked up with astonish- 
 ment, when another volley of crust satisfied them that bread was coming 
 " down again ;" and not wishing to get their heads broken with the staff 
 of life, which they fancied must be very plentiful in Rome, they o lie red 
 
 * These geese were sacred to Juno, who was the goddess of marriage; but wc cannot 
 any whether the goose became identified with her on that account. 
 
CHAP IX.] CAMILLUS. 93 
 
 terms of ransom. The price fixed upon was one thousand pounds of 
 gold, in the weighing of which the Gauls are said to have used false 
 
 The Citadel saved "by the cackling of the Geese. 
 
 weights, hut it is difficult to say what weight ought to be given to the 
 accusation. The story goes on to say that the Gallic king, on being 
 remonstrated with for his dishonesty, cut dissension short with his 
 sword, and throwing it into the scale with a cry of Va victis, turned 
 the balance still more in his own favour. 
 
 In the meantime the Romans at Veii had called Camillus from exile, 
 and chosen him Dictator ; for it was the opinion of the day that good 
 use could always be made of a man after thoroughly ill-using him. 
 Camillus arrived at Rome just as the gold was being weighed, when ho 
 
94 COMIC HISTOEY OF ROME. [CHAP IX. 
 
 declared thai he would deliver bis country, but would not allow the 
 delivery of the treasure. He added, that the metal with which all 
 claims upon Rome should be met was steel ; that he cared not who 
 might draw upon him, for he was ready, at sight, with prompt accept- 
 ance. While the discussion was proceeding, a Roman legion arrived ; 
 and the Gauls were driven out of the city, having lost not only their 
 self-possession, but possession of the gold that bad been assigned to 
 them. On the road to Gabii a battle ensued, in which every Gaul, it 
 it is said, was slain, not one being left alive to tell the tale ; and as 
 there are two sides of a story, as well as of a fight, it is impossible, in 
 the absence of the other party, to say which side was victorious. 
 
 When the Romans returned to their city, they found it little better 
 than a dust-heap, or a plot of ground on which a shooting party had 
 met for the purpose of shooting dry rubbish. The people were called 
 upon to rebuild their houses , but even in those days the principle of 
 the proverb, that fools build houses for wise men to live in, appears to 
 have been recognised. There was a general disinclination to dabble in 
 mortar ; and there seemed to be a conspiracy not to enter upon a plot 
 for building purposes. 
 
 Rome seemed very unlikely to be built in that clay ; and it might 
 never have been restored, had not an accident — on which they put an 
 ominous construction — caused the citizens to proceed to the re-construc- 
 tion of their city. While Camillus was " on his legs " in the senate, a 
 centurion, passing the House of Assembly with a flag in his hand, was 
 heard to say, " Let us plant our banner here, for this is the place for us 
 to stop at." The senators, rushing forth, declared their acceptance of 
 the omen, though there was nothing ominous in the fact; and the 
 people, carried away, or rather attracted to the spot, by the same 
 stupidly superstitious feeling, declared that on that place they would 
 rebuild the city. There is no doubt that the anxiety of the senators for 
 the restoration of Rome was owing to the fact of their own property 
 lying near at hand ; and they were desirous, therefore, of improving the 
 neighbourhood. There was very little patriotism, and a large amount 
 of self-interest, in a suggestion that materially enhanced their own 
 estates ; and it was extremely easy to find an omen that would put 
 twenty or thirty per cent, upon the value of their property. In pur 
 suance of the "omen," they liberally gave bricks that did not belong to 
 them, and followed up their munificence by allowing stone to be cut 
 from the public quarries, in order that the works might be hastened ; 
 while, as a further act of generosity, it was permitted to the citizens to 
 pull to pieces their houses at Yeii, for the purpose of embellishing 
 Rome and its vicinity. Speed being the order of the day, every other 
 kind of order was neglected. All idea of a general plan fell to 
 the ground, in consequence of every one having a ground plan of 
 his own. The houses, instead of wearing the aspect of uniformity, 
 showed a variety of faces, and told each a different story; while 
 the streets were so constructed, with reference to the sewers, that 
 
CHAP. IX.] MANLIUS. «J3 
 
 the latter were as useless as if they had heen devised by a modern 
 commission. 
 
 Rome was still exposed to aggression on various sides from numerous 
 foes; but Camillus, in his capacity of Dictator, first vanquished them, 
 and then, admitting them to the franchise, received them in the light 
 of friends, as if, like old carpets, a thorough beating brought them out 
 in new colours. Whatever may be the fortune of war, it is its misfortune 
 invariably to entail a heavy debt; and it is a truth of universal appli- 
 cation, that a country, like an individual, no sooner gets into hot water, 
 than liquidation becomes extremely difficult. Such was the case with 
 Home, where taxation became so high, that the poor were compelled to 
 borrow of the rich, who, with the usual short-sightedness of avarice, 
 added an exorbitant claim for interest to the principal debt, and thus, 
 by insisting on both, got in most cases neither. 
 
 Manlius, whose quick apprehension of a goose's cackle had rendered 
 him the deliverer of his country, was exceedingly hurt at the neglect 
 with which he had been treated, though he had little cause of complaint ; 
 for his merit, after all, consisted chiefly in the fact of his living within 
 hearing of the fowl-house. He was, however, jealous of the honours 
 conferred on others ; for he expected, no doubt, that the whole of the 
 plumage of the sacred geese would have been feathers in his cap in the 
 eyes of his countrymen. Seeking, therefore, another mode of gaining 
 popularity, he cast his eye upon some unfortunate birds of a different 
 description — the unhappy plebeians, who were being plucked like so 
 many pigeons in the hands of their patrician creditors. He went about 
 with purses in his hand, like the philanthropist of the old school of 
 comedy, releasing prisoners for debt ; and declaring his determination 
 to extend his bounty to all who needed it. This advertisement of his 
 intention brought crowds of applicants to his house ; for there was always 
 " a case of real distress "at hand, for the indulgence of one whose greatest 
 luxury was the liquidation of other people's liabilities. The popularity 
 of Manlius excited the jealousy of the patricians, who, not appreciating 
 his magnanimity, thought him little better than a goose that was always 
 laying golden eggs, and he retaliated upon them by declaring he had 
 rather be a fool than a knave ; that the money he disposed of was his 
 own, but that they had grown rich upon gold embezzled from the price 
 of the city's ransom. Their only answer to the charge was to get him 
 thrown into prison for making it. The plebeians, finding (heir friend 
 and banker in gaol, with nobody to pay their debts, were dissolved in 
 tears — the only solvency of which they were capable Some went into 
 mourning, while those who could not afford it put on black looks, and 
 threatened to release him from custody. 
 
 The Senate, unable to maintain any charge, and tired, perhaps, of 
 the expense of keeping him in prison, sent him forth to maintain 
 himself at his own charge ; but his means having been greatly reduced, 
 he found a corresponding reduction in his popularity. While his 
 "esources flowed in a golden stream, he was a rich pump that any one 
 
06 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP IX. 
 
 was read}- to make a handle of ; but no sooner did the supply fall off, 
 and the pump cease to act, than he was left destitute of the commonest 
 succour. He was eventually brought to trial ; and being called upon 
 for his defence, he produced four hundred insolvents whose debts he 
 had paid — and who passed through the Court of Justice — as witnesses 
 to his liberality. He then showed his wounds, which were not the sore 
 places of which the patricians complained; and he ultimately pointed to 
 the Capitol, in the pi'eservation of which he had acquitted himself so 
 well, that on the recollection of it, his acquittal was pronounced by the 
 citizens. His persecutors, however, obtained a new trial, upon which 
 he was condemned to death ; and a slave having been sent with the 
 despatch containing the news, proceeded to the despatch of Manlius 
 himself in a treacherous manner. Proposing a walls along the cliff, 
 under the pretence of friendship, the slave gradually got Manlius near 
 the edge, until the latter suddenly found himself driven to the last 
 extremity. Upon this he received a push which sent him down the 
 Tarpeian Rock ; and the man who pretended to have come as a friend, 
 had been base enough to throw him over. The sudden idea of the 
 traitor was afterwards carried into frequent execution ; for the practice 
 he had commenced, was subsequently applied to the execution of 
 criminals. 
 
 After the death of Manlius, his house was levelled with the ground, 
 and he himself experienced the fate of most men when thoroughly 
 down, for he was repudiated even by his own family. The gens, or 
 gents, of the Manlii, with a contemptible want of manliness, resolved 
 that none of the members should ever bear the name of Marcus, which 
 they avoided as a mark of disgrace, though at one time it had been a 
 title of honour. 
 
 Rome seemed now to be declining, and going down all its seven hills 
 at once ; pestilence killed some, Sbd gave the vapours to others, and 
 the sewers no longer fulfilled their office, but overflowing, in con- 
 sequence of the irregular rebuilding of the city, they threw a damp 
 upon the inhabitants. The free population was growing daily less, 
 while the number of patricians continued the same, and there seemed 
 reason to fear that Rome would soon become one of those most 
 inconvenient of oligarchies, in which there are many to govern and 
 comparatively few to be governed. The " eternal city " was in danger 
 of being prematurely cut off by an early decline, for its constitution was 
 not yet matured ; and though it had once been saved by mere quackery,* 
 it was now to be preserved by a bolder and wiser regimen. 
 
 * See ante, the anerdotc of the Sacred Geese. 
 
CHAP. X.] 
 
 C. L1CINTUS. 
 
 07 
 
 CHAPTER THE TENTH. 
 
 FROM THE TBIBUNESHIP OF C. LICINIUS TO THE DEFEAT OF THE 
 GAULS BY VALERIUS. 
 
 ome was now overwhelmed with debt, and 
 fresh taxes were imposed to rebuild the 
 wall of stone ; but it would have been as 
 easy to have got blood out of the stones 
 themselves, as money from the pockets of 
 the people. The more they went on not 
 paying, the more were they called upon to 
 pay; and ruin appeared inevitable, until 
 it occurred to the great financial reformers 
 of the day that there can be no permanent 
 balance to the credit of a state without a 
 due adjustment of the balance of power- 
 Happily for the interests of humanity, there 
 is scarcely ever a crisis requiring a hero, 
 but there is a hero for the crisis, — no situ- 
 ation demanding a man, without a man 
 for the situation ; and though there may be 
 on hand a formidable list of those who per- 
 petually " Want places," we have the con- 
 solation of feeling that when there is a 
 vacant place to be filled up, there is no 
 lack of the material required to fill it. 
 The man for the situation in which Rome then happened to be, was 
 a certain C. Licinius, who had married the younger daughter of the 
 patrician, M. Eabius. The lady was considered to have wed below her 
 station, and the Roman noses of her relatives were converted into 
 snubs, by the habit of turning up for the purpose of snubbing her. 
 Being on a visit with her sister, who was the wife of Servius Sulpicius, 
 the Consular Tribune, she was one day alarmed by such a knocking at 
 the door as she had never yet heard, and on inquiring the cause, she 
 found that the lictors of old, like the modern footmen, were in the 
 habit of estimating, by the number of raps he was worth, the dignity of 
 their master. The elder Fabia, perceiving her sister's surprise, took 
 the opportunity of administering a rap on the knuckles, through the 
 medium of the knocker, and observed, that if the latter had not 
 married a low plebeian, she would have been accustomed to hearing 
 her own husband knock as loud, instead of being obliged to knock under 
 The vanity of Fabia had received a blow which had deprived her of 
 
 Roman Soldier. 
 
98 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROUE 
 
 [CHAP. X. 
 
 sense ; and the effect of the knocking at the door had heen so stunning, 
 that she could scarcely call her head her own. She was resolved that 
 her hushand should make as much noise in the world as her brother-in- 
 law, — that he should gain an important post, and win the privilege of 
 knocking as violently as he chose at his own threshold. 
 
 Miss Fabia, the Younger, astonished at the Patrician's double-knock. 
 
 Those who would supply a higher motive to the ambition of C. Liciuius, 
 have asserted that his wife must have been accustomed to the loud 
 knockings at the house of her father, who had once been consul ; but 
 whether the young lady heard them, unless she remained at home to 
 answer the door, may be an open question. "Whatever may have been 
 the spur used to stir up ambition in his breast, we, at all events, know 
 the fact, that C. Licinius was elected a tribune of the people, in con- 
 junction with his friend Lucius Sextius; so that even if the former 
 were roused by the knocker, it is not likely that ambition was hammered 
 into the latter by the same ignoble instrument. 
 
 Having obtained their places, they began to bid very high for popu 
 larity ; but, like many other bold bidders in the same market, it was by 
 no means at their own expense that they proposed to make their pur- 
 chases. They introduced three new laws : the first, touching other 
 people's money ; the second, touching other people's land ; and, in 
 reference to both these matters, touching and taking were nearly 
 synonymous 
 
 The first of these laws related to the debts of the plebs, and fur- 
 
CHAP X.J LEGISLATION OF C. LICINIUS. 99 
 
 nished an easy mode of payment, by providing that all the money 
 paid as interest should be considered as principal. By this arrange- 
 ment, if Spurius owed his tailor one hundred asses, and paid him five 
 per cent., by way of interest, the tailor would, in thirty years, not only 
 have had his debt cancelled, without receiving his money, but he would 
 have to refund no less than fifty asses to Spurius 
 
 This law was sure to obtain for its framers a certain kind of popu- 
 larity ; for as those who do not meet their engagements are always a 
 numerous class, it is a safe clap-trap to legislate in favour of the in 
 solvent classes of the community. C. Licinius became at once the idol 
 of all those who were continually running into debt one day, and out 
 of the way the next, and whose valour far outstripped the discretion of 
 those who had trusted them. 
 
 The second law related to land, enacting that no one should occupy 
 more than five hundred jugera, or acres, and that if he had a surplus, he 
 should be deprived of it, for the benefit of those who wished to settle 
 their own liabilities with other people's property. From this arrange- 
 ment there was no appeal, for the land was taken away ; and if the 
 owner wished to complain, he had no ground for it. 
 
 The third law provided for the restoration of the Consuls, and stipu- 
 lated that one should always be a plebeian ; but the patricians, who 
 wanted everything their own way, just as the plebeians wanted everything 
 theirs, succeeded in putting a veto upon the propositions. 
 
 In the meantime, the people, placed between two parties — one of 
 which was seeking popularity at any price, while the other was endea- 
 vouring to preserve its exclusive interests at any cost — were for eight 
 years deprived of all benefit from either side ; and though the public 
 would have accepted a compromise, Licinius, who knew that when the 
 point was settled his popularity would be on the wane, declared that 
 they should either have all or nothing. This policy, which is the same 
 as that of prohibiting a starving man from accepting a moderate meal, 
 unless he is invited to a banquet, was well adapted to the purposes of 
 those whose happiness depends upon the dissatisfaction of all around, 
 and to whom the success of all their avowed designs is the consummation 
 of failure. 
 
 As long as the bills continued to be thrown out year after year, 
 C. Licinius and Sextius were pretty sure of their annual election to the 
 tribuneship. At about the end of the fifth year, the opposition began 
 to wane, and it became exceedingly likely that the three bills would 
 pass, when Licinius kept the popularity market brisk, by proposing a 
 fourth measure, which was sure to be strenuously objected to. This 
 was a proposal to put on eight new hands to the keeping of the Sibylline 
 books, by increasing from two to ten the number of the librarians. As 
 the books were but three, there would, of course, be no less than three 
 book-keepers and a fraction to each volume, — an arrangement as objec- 
 tionable as pluralism, though in an opposite direction ; for it is scarcely 
 worse to give ten offices to one man, than to put ten men into one 
 
 h2 
 
100 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. X. 
 
 office. Excuses were, however, found for the suggestion, on the ground 
 that as five of the book-keepers were to be plebeians, the skill they 
 would acquire in the interpi'etation of auguries would qualify a larger 
 number for the consulship ; the patricians having maintained that at 
 least a smattering of the fortune-telling art was required for the due 
 execution of the office. 
 
 Rome was now suffering from domestic wounds, when, fortunately, a 
 little counter-irritation was got up, by an attack of the Veliternians on 
 Tusculum. There is no better cure for a family quarrel, than the 
 sudden incursion of a neighbour ; and when relatives are breaking each 
 other's heads at Number One, a stone thrown from the garden of 
 Number Two will frequently, by the establishment of a single new wound, 
 be the cause of healing half a-dozen. The threatened aggression from 
 without had caused the ten Tribunes to agree to the measures of their 
 colleagues, Licinius and Sextius ; but the patricians still held out, and 
 appointed the veteran Furius Camillus to the dictatorship. The 
 tribes were in the act of voting, when Furius ordered them away, with 
 violent menaces ; but the fury of Furius was impotent from age, and 
 the Tribunes coolly threatened him with a fine of five hundred thousand 
 asses. They had come to the correct conclusion that he could not get 
 together so many asses without selling himself up ; he thought it better 
 to abdicate, and P Manlius was chosen to stop the fermentation that 
 the sour old man had created. 
 
 The bills were now all passed ; and L. Sextius had been appointed 
 plebeian consul, when the patricians, refusing to sanction what they 
 could not prevent, declined to ratify the election. As the avalanche 
 does not wait for the consent of the object it is about to sweep away, so 
 the will of the public overcame the feeble opposition of the patricians. 
 The latter, however, succeeded in taking a large portion of power from 
 the consuls, and giving it to a new magistrate, called a Praetor, who was 
 invested with authority that some historians have described as almost 
 preternatural. He was chosen from the patricians, and was, in fact, a 
 sort of third consul, whose duty it was Jus in urbe dicere,* to lay down 
 the law — a privilege that, if improperly exercised, might include the 
 prostration of justice — in the city. The patricians thus kept to them- 
 selves the power of interpreting the law ; and as ambiguity seems 
 inherent in the very nature of law, almost any latitude was left to those 
 who were at liberty to declare its meaning. The power of the patricians 
 was further augmented by the appointment of two curule or aristocratic 
 iEdiles, in addition to the two chosen from the plebeians ; and though 
 their duties related chiefly to the mending of the roads, they had 
 opportunities of paving the way for many encroachments on the part of 
 their own order. 
 
 The struggle between the patrician and the plebeian parties was 
 severe, and each endeavoured to represent itself as the only real friend 
 
 * liivy, vi., 42. 
 
CHAP. X. | I-AW REFORMS 101 
 
 ti the people. Among other acts, in the interest of the masses, 
 was a measure introduced by C. Poetelius, consisting of a lex de ambitu, 
 an election law, relating to the getting round, or circumventing, of the 
 electors by the candidates. It will astonish those acquainted with 
 election practices to be told, that the word " candidate " is derived from 
 candidus, in allusion to the white robe usually worn as an emblem of 
 purity by the seeker of popular suffrages. The white robe, however, 
 was notoriously, in many cases, a white lie, and the law de ambitu was 
 passed to prohibit canvassing on market-days, when many more things 
 were purchased than the articles ostensibly sold ; and the butcher has 
 been known to include in the price of a calf's head, the value he placed 
 upon his own judgment. 
 
 The cause of reform made slow but inevitable progress, though 
 it was occasionally discredited by some of those incidents which still 
 cause us to look well to our pockets in the presence of the profes- 
 sional lover of liberty. C. Licinius, the framer of the law against 
 occupying more than a certain quantity of the public land, was, it is 
 said, the first to pay the fine, for holding a double allowance, com- 
 prising five hundred jugera in his own name, and five hundred in that 
 of his son ; a piece of duplicity which was detected and duly punished. 
 Other instances of private peculation were discovered among those 
 most clamorous for the public good ; and it became necessary in those 
 days, as in our own, to look among the loudest talkers for the smallest 
 doers, and the greatest doos of the community. 
 
 The law of debt had been rendered somewhat less severe ; but the 
 impossibility of permanently helping those who could not help them- 
 selves was strikingly exemplified. The rate of interest had been 
 reduced ; and advances were to be made by the State to those who 
 could give security ; but those who could give none were to have no 
 assistance whatever. To those who could pay no interest at all, it 
 mattered little whether the interest was moderate or high; and an 
 extension of time for discharging a debt, in the case of a man who 
 could pay nothing, was only like lengthening the rope with which he 
 was to hang himself. 
 
 In the year of the City 390, a plague broke out in Rome, and the 
 calamity, which swallowed up thousands, beiug ascribed to the gods, 
 repasts were prepared for them, under the title of lectistcrnia, in order 
 to draw off their appetites from the people The richest luxuries were 
 laid out upon tables, to which the gods were invited ; but these tables 
 caused no diminution in the tables of mortality. As the guests did 
 not accept in person the invitations addressed, to them, they were 
 represented by images ; but this imaginary attendance at a real feast 
 fed nothing but the superstition of the people. A statue of Jupiter 
 was laid, at fidl length, upon a couch of ivory, covered with the softest 
 cushions ; but it was found impossible to produce the sort of impression 
 that was so earnestly desired. Chairs were also set round for the 
 goddesses, but none came forward to take the chair at this unfortunate 
 
IOQ COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. X 
 
 banquet. An effort was then made to divert the attention of the gods, 
 by getting up stage plays, or histriones : * but the gods did not patronise 
 the drama in those days, more than in our own ; and whether the 
 Olympian dinner-hour interfered, or whether no interest was felt in an 
 entertainment translated from Etruria, as the English drama is from 
 France, the result was the same in both cases, for the plays, during 
 their short-lived career, were dead failures. To add to the misery 
 of the whole affair, while the stage performances were unattended, 
 there was an inconvenient " succession of overflows" of the Tiber's 
 banks, which damped the spirits and deluged the houses of the 
 inhabitants. 
 
 Seizing hold of every piece of superstition, instead of taking the 
 pestilence fairly in hand, the Eomans, hearing that a plague had once 
 been stopped by knocking a nail into the wall of a temple, resolved on 
 going on that absurd tack ; and, for this purpose, a hammer was put 
 by the ninny-hammers into the hands of Manlius. As the pestilence 
 had by this time begun to wear itself out, the people were foolish 
 enough to suppose that the plague had been driven in with the nail ; 
 and Manlius having fulfilled the task, which any carpenter might have 
 performed, resigned the dictatorship. 
 
 It is always the fate of a real or supposed benefactor of the public to 
 have plenty of private foes ; and, indeed, an elevated position is usually 
 an inviting mark for the arrows of malevolence. Manlius became a 
 target forthwith ; and, had the very bull's eye been aimed at, the apple 
 of his eye could not have been more effectually hit, than by a wound 
 sought to be inflicted on him, through his son Titus. The youth had, 
 it seems, an unfortunate hesitation in his speech, which irritated his 
 hasty parent ; and as the boy could scarcely stammer out a word, a few 
 words with his father became a very frequent consequence. As he 
 laboured so much in his speech, the unhappy lad was sent to labour 
 with his hands among the slaves ; and Pomponius, the plebeian 
 ti'ibune, having a spite against the father, began to regard the son with 
 the most enlarged benevolence 
 
 Pomponius, by way of prosecuting his vindictive plans, resolved on 
 prosecuting Manlius, for cruelty to his son ; but the boy, in a powerful 
 fit of filial piety, though he had a considerable hesitation in his own 
 delivery, had no hesitation whatever about the delivery of his father 
 from the hands of his enemies. Proceeding to the house of Pomponius, 
 under the cloak of friendship, and with a dagger under his cloak, he 
 desired to speak with the Tribune, who was still in bed, and not being 
 up to the designs of Titus, ordered his admission to the chamber. 
 The young man had been received in a spirit of friendly confidence by 
 
 * The word "Histriones" is said to be derived from the Etruscan luster, a dancer. 
 The earliest performers introduced into Rome were dancers — in fact, a ballet company — 
 from Etruria. Those sensitive admirers of the purely classical in tho entertainments of 
 the stage, who clamour against opera and ballet, will, perhaps, bo surprised to lo?rn that 
 the most truly classical performances are those which they most energetical!/ protest 
 against. 
 
CHAP. X.] 
 
 EARTHQUAKE AT ROME. 
 
 103 
 
 Pomponius, who only discovered that young Manlius was at daggers- 
 drawu, when he was seen to brandish a glittering weapon. He 
 demanded an unconditional withdrawal of the charge against his father ; 
 when the terrified Tribune, finding it impossible to bolster up his 
 
 Titas threatening Pomponius. 
 
 courage, muttered a promise to stay all proceedings ; and Titus, who 
 had formerly irritated his father by stammering, was received with open 
 arms, for having spoken out so boldly in his favour. 
 
 No sooner were the divisions of the people healed, than the city 
 itself began to be torn to pieces in a most extraordinary manner. 
 Rome was convulsed to its centre : the earth began to quake, and the 
 citizens to tremble. A tremendous chasm appeared at length in the 
 Forum ; and as the abyss yawned more and more, it was thought unsafe 
 for the people to go to sleep over it. Some thought it was a freak of 
 Nature, who, as if in enjoyment of the cruel sport she occasioned, had 
 gone into convulsions, and split her sides. Others formed different 
 conjectures ; but the chasm still remained, — a formidable open question 
 Some of the people tried to fill it up with dry rubbish, but they only 
 filled up their own time, without producing the least effect upon the 
 cavity. In vain did the largest contractors undertake the job, for it was 
 impossible to contract the aperture, that, instead of being small by 
 degrees and beautifully less, grew every day large by fits and starts, 
 and horribly greater 
 
104 COMJC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. X.. 
 
 At length the augurs were consulted, who, taking a view of the hole, 
 announced their conviction that the perforation of the earth would 
 continue, and that, in fact, it would become in time a frightful bore, if the 
 most precious thing in Rome were not speedily thrown into it. Upon 
 this, a young guardsman, named Marcus Curtius, fancying there could be 
 nothing more precious than his precious self, arrayed himself in a full 
 suit of armour, and went forth, fully determined to show his metal. 
 Notice was given that at an appointed time a rapid act of horsemanship 
 would be performed by M. Curtius ; and as there is always great attrac- 
 tion in a feat which puts life in jeopardy, the attendance, at a perform- 
 ance where death for the man and the courser was a matter of course, 
 was what we should call numerous and respectable. All the rank and 
 fashion of Rome occupied the front seats, at a spectacle throwing every 
 thing else into the shade, and the performer himself into the very centre 
 of the earth, which was to prove to him a centre of so much gravity 
 Having cantered once or twice round the ring, he prepared for the bold 
 plunge ; but his horse having looked before he leaped, began to plunge 
 in a different direction. Taking another circuit, M. Curtius, spurred 
 on by ambition, put his spurs into the animal's side, and the poor brute 
 was hurried into the abyss, though, had there been any way of backing 
 out, he would have eageily jumped at it. The equestrian performance 
 was no sooner over, than the theatre of the exploit was immediately 
 closed, and a lake arose on the spot, as if to mark the scene as one that 
 might command a continued overflow. The place got the name of the 
 Lacus Curtius, in honour of the hero, if such he may be called ; and 
 his fate certainly involved the sacrifice of one of the most precious 
 articles in Rome, for it would have been impossible to find in the whole 
 city such a precious simpleton. 
 
 Rome continued at war with the Gauls, who made frequent inroads ; 
 and on one occasion, during the dictatorship of T. Quinctius Peunus, came 
 within a short distance from the city The two armies were divided by 
 the Anio, when the Gauls, who had a giaut in their van, sent him on to 
 the bridge, with an offer to fight any one of the enemy. The Gaul being 
 at least twenty stone, was far above the ordinary pitch ; but Titus 
 Manlius, a tight-built light-weight — the plebeian pet, who had already 
 proved himself too much for the Tribune, Pomponius — came forward to 
 accept the polite offer of the giant The fight was one of extreme 
 interest, and both parties came up to the encounter with surly con- 
 fidence. The plebeian pet wore a suit of plain bronze ; but the 
 giant was painted in various colours, presenting a formidable picture. 
 The giant aimed the first blow with his right, but the young one 
 having got away cleverly, commenced jobbing his opponent with such 
 effect, that the latter, finding it a bad job, fell heavily. The giaut 
 was unable to continue the contest, and young Manlius, taking the 
 collar, or torques, from his victim's neck, got the title of Torquatus, 
 which, from its connection with his neckcloth, descended to bis domestic 
 ties, and became a stock name in his family. 
 
CHAP. X.] 
 
 MARCUS VALERIUS. 
 
 105 
 
 The Gauls retreated for a while, but having subsequently joined the 
 Volscii, they got into the Pontine Marshes, and resolved to go through 
 thick and thin for the purpose of attacking the Romans. Again a 
 giant appeared in the Gallic ranks, where, it would seem, a giant was 
 
 Terrific Combat between Titus Manlius and a Gaul of gigantic stature. 
 
 always to be found, — an appendage indicating less of the brave than of 
 the fair in the composition of the Gallic army. Again a young Roman 
 was ready to meet an opponent twice his size ; and Marcus Valerius 
 declared that if the giant meant fighting, he, Marcus Valerius, was to 
 be heard of at a place agreed upon. The terms were concluded, and 
 
106 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. X. 
 
 the giant came up, with the appearance of contemplating mischief, 
 when a crow, settling on the Gaul's helmet, by way of crest, soon 
 enabled the Roman to crow over his crest-fallen antagonist. The bird, 
 flapping his wings whenever the giant attempted to hit out, put so many 
 feathers in his face as to render his position ticklish ; and as he could 
 not see with a bundle of crow-quills in his eye, his look-out became 
 rather desperate. Valerius, in the mean time, laid about him with such 
 vigour and effect, that the giant, who was doubly blinded with rage and 
 feathers, knew not where to have him. The contest soon terminated in 
 favour of the Roman youth, who took the name of Corvus, or the Crow, 
 from the cause already mentioned. The Gauls were vanquished, and 
 Valerius was awarded no less than ten prize oxen ; so that he obtained 
 in solid beef, rather than in empty praise, an acknowledgment of his 
 services. At his triumph, 4000 Volscians were drawn up on each side 
 of him in chains ; but there is something in the idea of his passing 
 through this Fetter Lane which is repugnant to our more civilised 
 notions of true alorv. 
 
CHAI-. XI. 
 
 THE SA1INITES. 
 
 107 
 
 CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH. 
 
 FROM THE FIRST WAR AGAINST THE SAMNITES TO THE PASSING OF 
 THE .LAWS OF PUBLILIUS. 
 
 he Romans were now about to en- 
 counter a truly formidable foe, in the 
 Samnites, — a warlike people, who had 
 been extending their territory, by going 
 to great lengths, and allowing them 
 selves extraordinary latitude. Coming 
 down upon Campania, they overlooked 
 Capua, or rather they did not overlook 
 it ; for, having an eye to its wealth, 
 they resolved to do their utmost to 
 become possessed of it. Under these 
 circumstances, the Campanians, being 
 unable to find the means of a sue 
 cessful campaign, applied to Rome for 
 assistance. 
 Two consular armies were equipped ; one under M. Valerius Corvus, 
 or the Crow, who was really ravenous for glory, and the other under 
 A. Cornelius Cossus ; this A. Cossus being in fact the Cossus already 
 spoken of.* 
 
 Corvus was an enormous favourite with the soldiers ; less, however, 
 on the strength of his moral qualities, than on the strength of his arms 
 and legs ; for he was an athlete of remarkable power. He Oculd leap 
 so high as to be able to jump over the heads of others of his own stand- 
 ing ; and the rapidity of his promotion is therefore not astonishing. He 
 was no less light with his tongue than with his legs ; for he could run 
 on almost as pleasantly with the former as he could with the latter. 
 He was, in fact, an agreeable rattle, who could make and take a joke 
 with equal ease, — a quality common in more modern times ; for those 
 who profess to make jokes of their own are very much in the habit of 
 taking those of other people. He loved a glass of wine, and could 
 drink it without professing his connoisseurship, after the manner of those 
 learned whie-bibbers of the present day who are addicted to talking so 
 much unmeaning buzz on the subject of bees-wing. His relish for the 
 grape allured him to Mount Gaurus, then clad with vines, where he 
 could take his observations among the raisins, aud make in his mind's 
 eye a sort of catalogue raisonnee of the enemy. 
 
 On this spot a battle ensued, which was fought with such fierceness on 
 
 * Vide page 87 . 
 
108 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME [CHAP. XI. 
 
 the side of the Romans, that the Samnites afterwards declared they had 
 seen fire in their opponents' eyes ; but the Samnites must have beet, 
 light-headed themselves, to have made so absurd a statement. Valerius 
 Aaving been thus far successful, advanced into the Apennines, where 
 what are called the mountain fastnesses, are rendered dangerous by 
 those occasional loosenesses of the earth that give rise to, or cause the 
 fall of, an avalanche. Though nothing of this sort fell upon him, he 
 was expecting the descent of the foe, which suddenly appeared on the 
 topmost heights, and came down with such a run, that the escape of the 
 Eomans seemed impossible. In this difficult dilemma, a subordinate 
 officer proved to be the safeguard of the whole Roman army ; and as the 
 noble lion, when netted to the profit of a bold hunter, was delivered by a 
 mouse, so was the noble-hearted Valerius indebted to P. Decius Mus 
 for the safety of himself and his followers. P. Decius laid, in fact, a 
 snare for the Samnites, who were caught in this trap of Mus, or military 
 mouse-trap. He climbed, with a little band, a height so narrow, that 
 large numbers could not reach it to dislodge him, though it was neces- 
 sary to keep an eye upon him ; and, while the Mus attracted the cat-like 
 vigilance of the whols Samnite army, Valerius and his followers were 
 allowed to steal away unperceived to their own quarters. 
 
 When the enemy, tired with watching, had fallen asleep, Mus crept 
 out, as quietly as his name would imply, and reached his camp in safety 
 He received immediately from the Consul an ox, with gilded horns, 
 through which he might trumpet his fame ; and the soldiers presented 
 him with a corona obsidionaUs — a crown made of blades of grass — in 
 commemoration of their having been gallantly rescued from the blades 
 of the enemy. The materials for a crown of this description were 
 plucked on the spot, in memory of the pluck shown on the spot by the 
 gallant recipient. Such a crown conveyed a finer lesson of morality 
 than anything that the cold brilliance of gold or jewels could suggest, 
 for the wreath of grass, converted, by the very sunshine in which it 
 cashed, into the dry and lifeless hayband, told, in a few hours, the 
 perishable nature of glory. 
 
 Aided by the manoeuvre of the Mus, the success of Valerius 
 was complete : the Samnites fled in such consternation that they 
 left behind them 40,000 shields and 170 standards; so that the 
 Romans must have found the way literally paved with the flags of the 
 vanquished. A triumph was decreed to both the Consuls, and foreign 
 nations sent to congratulate the Romans on their success ; the Cartha 
 ginians forwarding a crown of gold, twenty-five pounds in weight, the 
 mere cartage of which from Carthage must have been costly and 
 difficult. Compliments poured in upon the conquerors from every side ; 
 for good fortune increases the number of addresses to a state, just as 
 the success of an individual causes a sensible, or rather a senseless, 
 addition to the contents of his card-basket. Rome was inundated with 
 calls upon her — many of which were for assistance from feeble countries, 
 whose weak states seemed to be threatened with speedy dissolution. 
 
CHAP. XI. 
 
 INSURRECTION AT CAPUA. 
 
 109 
 
 It was about this time (b. c. 342) that the garrison at Capua broke 
 out into revolt, arising, it is said, from the fact that Capua was extremely 
 rich, and the soldiers very poor ; that the latter were hopeless debtors, 
 and forgot what they owed their country in the vast sums they owed to 
 their creditors. The story goes on to say, that a corps of heavy 
 insolvents first originated the idea of sacking the city and bagging its 
 wealth, by placing it among their own baggage. The Consul, C. Martius 
 Rutilius, was sent to take the command, and he attempted the soothing 
 system ; but the soldiers were goaded with the fetters of debt, and 
 refused to be smoothed over, or to submit to remain under irons. 
 Being in want of a leader, they seized on T. Quinctius, an aged veteran, 
 whose head was so completely bowed down, that he could not do otherwise 
 than bow when asked if he would lead them as their general. The nod 
 of palsy was interpreted into the nod of assent, and T. Quinctius was 
 selected to oppose Corvus, or the Crow, though the only chance for the 
 veteran was. that in the capacity of a scare-crow he might succeed in 
 
 tis^^^mw^ 
 
 A Scare-crew. 
 
 frightening his antagonist. The armies at length met, when the 
 insurgents, led by a shivering veteran, began to follow their leader, and 
 to shake with fear, which induced Valerius to offer them terms, and the 
 quaking Quinctius was the first to recommend his troops to accept an 
 amnesty. Thus ended an insurrection, of which the motive appears 
 vague, and the management thoroughly contemptible The best opinion 
 of its origin seems to be, that the army abounded in debtors, who were 
 
110 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME [CHAP XI. 
 
 afraid to go home, and who preferred the chances of a mutiny to the 
 certainty of having to meet their creditors. The only concession they 
 asked was the cancelling of all their debts ; a proposition that savours 
 rather of the swindler than the patriot. It is, however, an almost 
 universal fact, that the insolvent classes of a community are to be found 
 in opposition to the constituted authorities ; and, indeed, the strength 
 or weakness of such an opposition is no bad test, after all, of the merits 
 of an administration ; for if the majority of the people are well-to-do, 
 the inference must be favourable to the government. 
 
 Peace was concluded with the Samnites, but Rome was now on the 
 brink of a war with the Latins, who sent ambassadors, proposing that 
 the two people should henceforth be considered as one, in order to 
 establish their unity. The Senate was to be half Latin and half 
 Roman ; but the latter declared they would not recognise this sort of 
 half and half in any of their measures. The Consul, T. Manlius, when 
 he heard the terms, went off into a series of clap-ti-aps, in which he 
 knew he was perfectly safe ; for the contingency in which he might have 
 been called upon to keep his word, was not at all likely to happen 
 He exclaimed, that if the Senate should be half Latin, he would enter 
 the assembly with his drawn sword, and cause vacancies in half the 
 seats of the house by slaying all the Latin occupants. This species of 
 paulo-post-future patriotism is equally common and convenient, for it 
 pledges the professor to do nothing until after the doing of something 
 else, which, in all probability, may never happen. T. Manlius was not 
 put to the test, though he certainly proved himself, in some respects, 
 ready for the Latins, had they come on in earnest ; for poor Annius, 
 their spokesman, having tumbled down stairs from top to bottom, the 
 consul brutally chuckled over the weak legs of the unhappy legate. 
 " Ha ! ha ! " roared Manlius, with savage mirth, " thus will I prostrate 
 all the Latins ; " and he proceeded to kick at the ambassador, who, 
 being a man of several stone, was completely stunned by his too facile 
 descent from the upper landing to the basement of the Temple of 
 Jupiter. 
 
 The two Consuls went forth to fight, and both commenced their 
 campaign by going to sleep, which led naturally to the inquiry, what 
 they could both have been dreaming about. So thoroughly sympathetic 
 were they in their drowsiness, that they had dreamed precisely the same 
 dream, in wdiich each had seen a ghost, who had addressed both in the 
 same spirit. The spectre, who was decidedly on the shady side of 
 existence, professed through his lantern jaws to throw a light upon 
 Rome's future destiny. He told the Consuls that the general on one 
 side was doomed ; but, as this was merely dealing with generalities, he 
 went on to add, that the whole army on one side was to be buried in 
 the earth ; a suggestion neither side would be very anxious to fall in 
 with. The spectre, who was rather more communicative than spectres 
 usually are, and who was not so monosyllabic as a fair average ghost, 
 proceeded to further explanations, in the course of which he rsmarked. 
 
CHAP. XI.] 
 
 TITUS MAN LICS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 that " the general who first devoted himself to the infernal gods, would, 
 by that act of devotion, consign the whole of the opposing army to " 
 a most unpleasant neighbourhood. Both agreed that the one whose 
 army was the first to back out, should be the first to rush into danger. 
 The hostile armies accordingly began to recede as far as they could, and 
 the only contest was to ascertain who could be the cleverest and quickest 
 in walking in one direction, whilst looking in another. It was an 
 understood thing that nobody was to fight unless first attacked, and the 
 general aim was to avoid aiming at anything. Foraging parties went out 
 daily to try and provoke each other to an onslaught, and the prevailing 
 sentiment on both sides was a hope, that " somebody would only just 
 do so and so." Titus Manlius, the son of Torquatus, approached the 
 Latin camp, when Metius, of Tusculum, attempted by all sorts of pro- 
 voking signals to induce the raw youth to commence a combat ; but the 
 
 \^^> S 
 
 Metius aggravating Titus Manlius. 
 
IIS COMIC HISTORY OF ROME [CHAP. XI. 
 
 boy for some time combated nothing but his own inclination, which 
 would have set him on to an onset. At length he became so irritated 
 that he could restrain himself no longer, but hurling his javelin with all his 
 might, it stuck in the mane of the horse of Metius. The poor brute, 
 looking for sympathy to his master, fell back upon him for protection ; 
 but this act of affectionate confidence was fatal to Metius, who, being 
 brought to the ground, was saddled with the whole weight of the 
 unfortunate quadruped. Titus, taking advantage of the position of 
 Metius, stabbed him with his sword, and the latter, feeling himself pierced, 
 could only set up a piercing cry, by way of retaliation upon his antagonist. 
 Having stripped off the armour of his victim, young Titus bore it in 
 triumph to his father, Torquatus Manlius, who proceeded to imitate 
 Brutus ; but, like most imitations, the appearance of T. Manlius in the 
 part of the " heavy father " was by no means successful. 
 
 Collecting the troops by the sound of trumpet, so that the audience 
 might be sufficiently large, he threw himself into an imposing attitude ; 
 but the imposition was seen through, and the reception he met with was 
 far from flattering He next called forward his son, and denouncing 
 him as an officer who had disobeyed his governor in a double sense — 
 his father and his consul — the lictors were ordered to proceed, by the 
 execution of the son, to the execution of their duty. Manlius, having 
 witnessed the ceremony, buried his face in his toga, expecting at least 
 three rounds of applause ; but the performance fell as dead as his 
 unhappy offspring. On his return to Rome he was universally cut by 
 the young men, who were peculiarly alive to a penalty that might be 
 the death of any one of them. The remains of young Manlius were 
 collected into a dreary pile, and the trophies he had illegally won were 
 added as the materials for a bonfire. -His obsequies were the first of 
 the same kind among the Romans that we have been able to meet 
 with, after a truly industrious analysis of every hole in which the 
 dust of ages might be found, and a careful sifting of the ashes of 
 antiquity. 
 
 The two armies were still standing, when Decius Mus, who was most 
 anxious to distinguish himself, and was watching intently to discover 
 which way the cat would jump, observed a backward movement among 
 bis spearmen. His opportunity for glory had now arrived, and the 
 gallant Mus, rushing recklessly to the scratch, behaved himself less 
 like a mus than a lion in the conflict. He fell under a perfect shower 
 of javelins, and lay on the field literally pique with the pikes of his 
 enemies. The latter were dismayed, and his own friends animated by 
 what had taken place ; but the rule of contraries must here have pre- 
 vailed, for the death of an adverse general should not have disheartened 
 the Latins, while the sacrifice of their own chief was, if looked at 
 in a proper light, but poor encouragement for the Romans. They, 
 however, grew bold ; but it was scarcely necessary for them to strike a 
 blow, as the Latins yielded under the stroke of a panic. They fell in 
 such numbers, that three parts are said to have perished, and only a 
 
CHAP. XI. J SUBJUGATION OF LAT1UM. ] 1 Jj 
 
 fourth of the army remained to tell of the little quarter allowed them 
 by the enemy. 
 
 The Latins suffered so severely from the victory of Decius Mus, that 
 like rats running from a tottering house, their allies, one by one, fell 
 away from them. Numisius, the Latin commander, did his utmost to 
 stir up the spirit of the nation ; but the spirit was so thoroughly 
 weakened by cold water, that it was the act of a spoon to endeavour to 
 agitate so feeble a compound. Pie succeeded in raising a slight ferment- 
 ation, but what little spirit remained, went off by speedy evaporation 
 in the process of warming up, under the influence of patriotic fire. 
 A small and disorderly band, which could not act in concert, was brought 
 into pla} r , but produced no effect, though it was conducted by Numisius 
 with considerable energy. The Romans succeeded on every side, the 
 Latin army was broken down, the confederacy broken up, and one town 
 after another showed a preference for the better part of valour by 
 surrendering at discretion. The land taken from the conquered was 
 distributed among the Roman people ; but the word " people " has 
 frequently a very contracted meaning when profits are being shared, 
 though the term is comprehensive enough to take in a whole nation 
 when the services of the " people " are required. It is to be feared 
 the people who went out for the fight were far more numerous than those 
 who came in for the spoil that had been got by it. 
 
 The beaten Latins had the additional mortification of having to pay 
 their successful assailants ; an arrangement as provoking as it would be 
 to the victim of an assault to be obliged to discharge the amount of 
 the penalty, in addition to suffering the inconvenience of the outrage. 
 Thus was Capua compelled to pension 1600 Campanian knights ; and 
 this pension the Capuans had to give to the knights, simply because the 
 knights had, in a different sense, given it — severely — to the Capuans 
 It is doubtful whether the Samnites took anything by the general 
 adjustment — if that can be called an adjustment in which justice had 
 little share ; but that they left much behind them is quite notorious. 
 
 Among their equipments for battle had been several gorgeous gold 
 and silver-mounted shields, in the shape of a boy's kite, and as the 
 Samnites ultimately protected themselves by flying, the kite-like form 
 of their shields was thoroughly appropriate. Their breasts were covered 
 with sponge, which gave them a soft-hearted air ; and the sinking of 
 their bosoms under nearly every blow, was clearly perceptible. They 
 wore a shirt of mail, composed of brazen scales, and the display of so 
 much metal in their shirts enabled them to present at times a bold 
 front to the enemy. They had greaves upon their legs, which were a 
 grievous impediment to their running away ; and their helmets, adorned 
 <vith lofty plumes, only served to render more conspicuous in defeat 
 their crest-fallen condition. They wore tunics or coats of cotton next 
 their skin, and put on their shirts outside ; but between these, was a 
 short garment of wool : so that the only idea we can give of the mode ot 
 making a Samnite toilette is by asking the reader to begin by putting 
 
114 COMIC HISTORI OF HOME. [CHAP. XI, 
 
 on his coat , to place over that his flannel waistcoat, and to add his 
 shirt by way of finish 
 
 Among the other spoils of the war with the Latins, were the ships 
 taken from the port of Antium ; but the Romans, who were not a 
 nautical people, had so little idea of the value of a fleet, that they 
 carried the beaks or prows of the vessels to Rome, and fixed them in 
 the Forum, as pulpits for their orators.* How the ships could have 
 kept above water when subjected to mutilation, it is difficult to conceive ; 
 and indeed it would appear probable that having been deprived of their 
 heads, they must have gone down, as a matter of stern necessity. We 
 must, however, do the Roman people the justice to add, that two officers 
 had been appointed to the superintendence of naval affairs ; and some 
 will declare they see in the mere existence of an Admiralty Board sufficient 
 to account for much extravagance, and all sorts of blundering. Rome 
 had hitherto been in the condition of a house divided against itself, or 
 rather of the adjoining houses pulling against each other, and every 
 widening of the breach must of course have been attended with danger 
 to both of them. The cessation of war with the Latins enabled Rome 
 to draw closer the neighbouring social fabric, and many of its inhabitants 
 were invited to join, and make themselves part of the family of the Romans. 
 The latter also began to see the impolicy of keeping up certain distinctions 
 between class and class, which have the same effect upon a nation, as 
 the bitter feuds between separate floors are likely to produce upon the 
 nappiness and comfort of a lodging-house. When an upstart one-pair- 
 front sneers at its own back, or looks down upon an abased basement ; 
 when a crushed and crouching kitchen, waiting in vain for its turn at 
 the only copper, revenges itself by cutting the only clothes-line — if the 
 line is drawn only for the good of those in a higher station, instead of its 
 being a line drawn, as every line should be, for the good of all ; — wheu a 
 household is in such a state, we may see in it the type of a badly ordered 
 community. Such had been long the unhappy lot of Rome, until it 
 began to strike on the minds of a few influential men, that no nation 
 can be really great while the mass of its people are in a state of abject 
 littleness. The majority of the patricians fortunately took an equally 
 sensible view of their case, and arrived at the wise conclusion, that 
 moderate privileges fairly held, and freely conceded, are preferable to 
 any amount of exclusive advantage, improperly assumed on the one 
 hand, and impatiently submitted to on the other. Happily for tho 
 patricians, they had among them a man bold enough to incorporate in a 
 law the opinions of the main part of his own order, and strong enough 
 to prevail over the weakness and prejudice of the meaner members of 
 the body. 
 
 The name of this patrician reformer was Q. Publilius Philo, who 
 introduced three laws calculated to extend the basis of political power. 
 
 * From this circumstance, the word Rostrum, which means the prow of a ship, has 
 been derived, and lias got into such universal use as to describe the box from which an 
 auctioneer launches his eloquence. 
 
CHAp. XI.] THE PUBLILIAN LAWS. 116 
 
 By the first, the curia, consisting of patricians only, were compelled to 
 confirm the laws passed by the centuries in which the two orders were 
 mixed ; by the second, the plebiscita, or decrees of the plebs, were to 
 be binding on all Roman citizens ; and the third provided, that there 
 should always be one plebeian censor. These laws, though, perhaps, 
 well adapted to the wants of the age, were not exactly such as we 
 should hail with enthusiasm if they were to be brought forward in our 
 own day by the head of a government. Depriving the curiae of a veto 
 was a measure equivalent to a proposition that the measures of the 
 House of Commons should not require the concurrence of the House ot 
 Lords ; and giving the force of law to a plebiscitum was much the same 
 thing as determining that every resolution of every public meeting 
 should at once be embodied in the statute-book. Such an arrangement 
 in the present day would render our laws a curiosity of legislative mosaic 
 work, laid down without the advantage of uniformity or design. If the 
 interpretation of an act of Parliament is sometimes difficult, we may 
 conceive the utter hopelessness of the effort to understand the laws, if 
 they were to consist of a body of resolutions pouring in constantly 
 from Exeter Hall, or Freemasons' Tavern, and, occasionally, from a 
 lamp-post in Trafalgar Square, or a cart on Kennington Common. 
 
 With every due respect for the plebiscita — or resolutions of public 
 meetings — we doubt whether any party would be desirous of accepting 
 them as a substitute for our present method of law-making. The only 
 chance of safety would be in the fact, that the plebiscitum of to-morrow 
 would be sure to repeal the plebiscitum of to-day, and the best security 
 for the state would consist in keeping a public meeting always 
 assembled to negative every new proposition. 
 
 It was many years, however, before Rome, though it had suffered so 
 much from patrician insolence, was prepared to go to the length of allowing 
 a plebiscitum the force of law without being subject to the veto of the 
 senate.* Aristocratic pretension had, however, been carried to such 
 an extent in Rome, that we could hardly be surprised at any amount of 
 democratic license ; for extremes are sure to meet, and it is unfortunate, 
 indeed, for a country that is reduced to such extremities. 
 
 The Hortensian Law, carried some years later by Q. Hortensius. 
 
11G COMIC HISTORY OF ROAUS. [CHAP. XTT. 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWELFTH. 
 
 FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE SECOND TO THE END OF THE THIRD 
 SAMNITE WAR. 
 
 Rome had entered into an alliance with the Samnites ; but the 
 latter became rather suspicious, when they found the former making 
 friends with all their enemies. Every one who aimed a blow at 
 Samnium was forthwith taken into the favour of Rome ; and as Samnium 
 was being attacked on every side, the new connexions of Rome became 
 very numerous. Alexander of Epirus, who had come over as a friend 
 to the Tarentines, thought he might vary the object of his visit by 
 becoming the foe to somebody else; and he accordingly pitched upon the 
 Samnites, who might fairly have traced the Roman hand in some of the 
 hostile demonstrations that were made against them. There being 
 some inconvenience in fighting through a third party, to say nothing of 
 the unsatisfactory nature of such an arrangement to the go-between, 
 the Romans and the Samnites soon came into direct collision. 
 
 One of the Consuls, D. J. Brutus, was sent with troops to Apulia ; 
 but the other Consul, L. Furius Camillus, was in such wretched health, 
 that he could scarcely hold up his own head, and was quite unfit for the 
 head of an army. L. Papirius Cursor, the dictator, undertook the 
 command himself ; but on his way to Samnium he was suddenly 
 recalled to Rome, in consequence of some blunder with the auspices. 
 Leaving behind him Q. Fabius, his master of the horse, he desired that, 
 officer to do nothing ; for L. P. Cursor having taken a cursory view of 
 the state of affairs, saw there was a victory to be gained, and wished to 
 reserve to himself the glory of gaining it. Q. Fabius, with a natural 
 reluctance to bo shelved, determined to do the work himself; and by 
 the time his chief returned, had won a brilliant victory. The rage 
 of the principal knew no bounds, when he discovered that everything 
 had been accomplished in his absence ; for though there might have 
 been no objection to the subordinate's actually doing all that was to bo 
 done, there was an unpardonable violation of official etiquette in its 
 having been got through when the chief was away, and when it was, 
 therefore, notorious that he could have had no hand in it. The 
 dictator was so indignant, that he would have visited his deputy with 
 all the severity of military law, for having dared to show a capacity to 
 command, when his capacity was, in fact, subordinate. It was looked 
 upon by official men as an act likely to spoil the official market, by 
 showing that the most highly-paid services are not always the best ; 
 and it was felt, also, that the chief had been ousted of his prescriptive 
 title to claim, as his own perquisites, all the tact and talent of his 
 underling 
 
CHAP. XII.] SECOND SAMNITE WAR. 117 
 
 L. P. Cursor swore vengeance upon the head of Q. Fabius ; but the 
 soldiers threatened a revolt in the event of his being punished, and 
 the hero who bad put a whole army to flight was obliged to take to his 
 heels for having dared to use his head in the absence of bis superior. 
 
 The Dictator had rendered himself very unpopular with the troops 
 by his injustice and cruelty to Q. Fabius ; but he regained his popularity 
 by allowing them to be guilty of all sorts of injustice and cruelty 
 towards a vanquished enemy. Though their indignation had been 
 raised against him, through the medium of their generous sympathies, 
 lie now appealed to their meanest passions, by promising them the 
 fullest license in plundering the foe ; and such is the inconsistency of 
 human nature, that he did not appeal in vain ; for, urged by avarice, 
 they fought with such determination as to secure a victory. Pillage 
 became at once the order of the day, and a truce was granted for one 
 year, on condition that the Samnites, who had been robbed of everything 
 available at the moment, should become responsible for a twelvemonth's 
 pay to the Dictator's army. 
 
 The period of the truce was occupied in negotiation ; for it would 
 have been rather too gross a piece of effrontery on the part of the 
 Romans to continuue attacking the very party from whom they were 
 receiving their pay : and having waited till the receipt of the last 
 instalment, they announced that the only terms they would accept 
 would be the unconditional assent of the Samnites to anything that 
 might be proposed to them. 
 
 This result was so excessively disgusting to the Samnites, that some 
 actually cried with rage, while others cried for vengeance. A few of 
 the most influential, with tears in their eyes, went to their fellow- 
 countrymen literally with a cry ; but amidst all this broken-heartedness, 
 there was a general raising of the nation's spirit. The Samnites felt 
 that the time for action had arrived, and C. Pontius was chosen to act 
 as their general. He at once laid siege to Luceria, when disguising ten 
 of his soldiers as shepherds, he sent them forth with instructions to look 
 as sheepish as they could, and they had also full directions how to 
 act in the event of their being captured. The Romans, commanded 
 by T. Veturius and Sp. Postumius, soon fell in with the Samnite 
 masqueraders, whose real character was not suspected ; for it does not 
 appear to have excited any surprise that ten shepherds should be 
 hanging about a neighbourhood in which no sheep were perceptible. 
 With a simplicity more suited to romance than history, the Romans 
 submitted themselves to the guidance of the ten anonymous shepherds. 
 who conducted the whole army into the Caudine forks, as easily as if 
 the veterans had connived at their own betrayal. No sooner were they 
 lost among the forks, than the soldiers learned what spoons they had 
 been, for they found themselves blocked in by the enemy. They fought 
 with considerable bravery, but the Samnites, who lined the surrounding 
 heights, were completely out of their reach, and the Romans, having 
 made a few wn efforts to throw up their spears, suddenly threw un 
 
118 comic msxoRr of rome. [chap. xii. 
 
 the contest. Of every weapon they burled, the consequence fell upon 
 their own heads, and nothing was left but to make the best terms they 
 could with the enemy. 
 
 Pontius, the Samnite general, was puzzled how to act, and sent to 
 inquire of his father what he should do, when the old man replied, 
 " Eelease them unhurt ! " and the answer not being quite satisfactory, 
 another messenger was sent, who brought back the brief but expressive 
 recommendation to "cut them all to pieces." Pontius, thinking the 
 old gentleman had gone out of his mind, sought a personal explanation ; 
 but the veteran, who was clearly averse to doing anything by halves, or 
 meeting anybody half-way, persevered in his recommendation to his 
 son, to do one thing or the other. The Samnites were struck with 
 admiration at the wisdom of the sage ; but although all were dumb- 
 founded by the profound philosophy of the advice, nobody thought of 
 taking it. Pontius proposed terms, and having been deceived so fre- 
 quently by the Romans before, he magnanimously resolved to try and 
 be even with them at last, by putting them and his own countrymen on 
 a perfect equality. He stipulated for the restoration to the Samnites of 
 all the places taken from them ; but the most painful portion of the 
 arrangement to the Eonians was their being called upon to pass under 
 the yoke, — a ceremony which was supposed to lower for ever all who 
 had once stooped to it. 
 
 Six hundred equites were held as hostages for the due observance of 
 the treaty, and these knights were, in fact, so many pawns, held in 
 pledge for the honour of the Romans. The Consuls, stripped of every 
 thing but their shirts, and looking the most deplorable objects, crawled 
 under the yoke, followed by the whole army in the same wretched 
 undress as their leaders. As they passed through Capua, the inhabitants, 
 touched with sympathy, came forth with bundles of left-off wearing 
 apparel, which was tendered to the humiliated troops; but their wounds 
 were too deep for ordinary dressing. They walked silently to their 
 homes, through the back streets of the city. All business was suspended 
 on the day of their arrival, and though the Romans had seen suffering 
 in almost every variety of guise, they had never met with it under such 
 melancholy Guys as those that were then before them. The Consuls 
 resigned their offices as rapidly as they could, for their nominal dignity 
 only added to their real disgrace, and they may be supposed to have felt 
 the relief experienced by the broken-spirited cur, whose tail has just 
 undergone the curtailment of the hateful, but glittering kettle. 
 
 Rome, smarting under the disgrace of a defeat, brought on by want 
 of resolution in the troops, proceeded to incur a still greater disgrace by 
 a resolution of the Senate. That body having met to consider the 
 agreement entered into with the Samnites, determined not to ratify it ; 
 and, though aware of the fact, that six hundred Roman knights were 
 detained as hostages, in chains, the Senate cared as little feir their bonds 
 as for the words of the Consuls, which had been passed for the fulfil- 
 ment of the treaty Spurius Postumius. who had nothing genuine 
 
ChAP XII.] 
 
 SPURIUS P0STUMIU8. 
 
 1JU 
 
 in Lis conduct, was among the first to propose the violation of the 
 arrangement he had made, and recommended that he himself, as well 
 
 ■— '^^"IrSSSt- 
 
 5 ^: ^ i; ^_i 1 _ ra= __A-^3^^^-^^J^Aj! ; i^ 
 
 The Romans clothed hy the Inhabitants of Capita. 
 
 as all who had agreed to peace, should be, for the look of the thing, 
 surrendered to the Samuites. He entered so fully into the deception 
 about to be enacted, that when the Lictor was tying the cord loosely, as 
 if conscious of the illusory character of the whole proceeding, Spurius 
 insisted upon the cords being drawn sufficiently tight to enable him to 
 declare to the Samnites that his hands were really tied, and that, if 
 the Senate refused to be bound by his arrangements, he was so 
 thoroughly bound by theirs as to be utterly powerless. Carrying the 
 farce still further, he was no sooner delivered up to the Samnites than 
 
]20 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP XII. 
 
 he turned round upon the Roman Fecial, and exclaiming, " I am now 
 a Samnite," administered to the proper officer a violent kick, as if to 
 show that he and Rome 'were to be henceforth on a hostile footing. 
 The Samnite general looked on with contempt at the whole affair ; 
 the hostages were refused, and the 600 knights were also sent back ; for 
 Pontius had expected the Romans to keep their word, and was neither 
 ready nor willing to be burdened with the keep of several hundred 
 captives. This remarkable breach of their own faith left a more 
 permanent mark upon them than any breach that could have been made 
 by an enemy in the walls of their city; and the fact of their having 
 built a temple to Public Credit, rendered their discreditable conduct 
 still more remarkable. 
 
 The Samnites and the Romans were now perfectly agreed in their 
 determination to fall out, wherever they might happen to fall in with 
 one another. A series of small conflicts ensued, of which the accounts 
 are almost as conflicting as the battles themselves ; but there is every 
 reason to believe that Fortune showered her favours right and left, by 
 giving them first to one side and then to the other. L. Papirius 
 Cursor, the Roman Consul, seems to have made himself the pre-cursor 
 of his country's ultimate success, for he is said to have led the way to 
 it by recovering Luceria. Hostilities had by this time become so fierce, 
 that it was necessary to take a little breathing time on both sides, and 
 a truce of two years was agreed upon. The war was then renewed 
 under L. iEmilius and Q. Fabius, the dictators, who fought with various 
 results, taking occasionally a city, and at other times being compelled to 
 take what they were not at all disposed to receive at the hands of an 
 enemy. No very remarkable incident occurred at the recommencement 
 of the war, excepting the taking of the town of Sora by treachery ; but 
 meanness and deception were so common in the time we write of, that 
 any event involving those despicable qualities cannot be considered 
 unusual. Sora was situated on a rocky eminence, and though secure to 
 a certain extent in its lofty position, it was not above the reach of that 
 low cunning which will stoop to anything for the attainment of its object. 
 A deserter, who appears to have had everything his own way among the 
 Samnites, as well as among the Romans, persuaded the latter to retire 
 some miles off, as if they had abandoned the siege, and then ordered 
 them to have a regiment of cavalry concealed in a wood near the city. 
 What the Samnites were about during these proceedings does not 
 appear; nor is it easy to understand how they could have overlooked an 
 important branch of the forces of the enemy among the trees ; but 
 tradition, when she wishes to shut her eyes to a difficulty, never hesitates 
 to shut the eyes of all whose vigilance might have been fatal to the 
 incident about to be related The inhabitants of Sora may therefore 
 be supposed to have been fast asleep and slow to wake, or to have had 
 their backs turned, or to have taken something which had turned their 
 heads, when the deserter was making his arrangements for the betrayal 
 of their city. Having taken the steps already described, he conducted 
 
CHAP. XII.] DEFEAT OF THE SAMNITES. 12* 
 
 ten Roman soldiers up a sort of back staircase behind the crags ; and 
 the blindness of the inhabitants of Sora had come to such a pass, that 
 the mountain pass was so thoroughly lost sight of as to be left without 
 a single sentinel. Having lodged the ten men in the fortress, he 
 concealed them there until night ; but it is difficult to say how the ten 
 stalwart soldiers could have been so thoroughly put away in the day-time 
 as not to be observed, unless tradition, wishing to put her own construc- 
 tion on the affair, has proceeded to the construction of some secret cup- 
 board in the fortress, where the men may have been closeted together 
 until the hour arrived for their being brought into action. "Waiting 
 till the dead of night, the deserter desired the ten men to shout 
 as loud as they possibly could, and to keep on hallooing until the cavalry 
 were out of the wood ; a movement which was to be effected when the 
 deserter, rushing into the city, had frightened the inhabitants out of it, 
 by running all over the town in a state of pretended alarm, which was 
 to be accounted for by the continued shouting of the ten men in the 
 citadel. Notwithstanding the numerous objections to the veracity of this 
 story, tradition has handed it down to us, and we, as in duty bound, 
 continue to hand it on, though we do not allow it to pass through our 
 fingers without taking the precaution to stamp it with the mark of 
 counterfeit. Tradition proceeds to say that the scheme was perfectly 
 successful : that the citizens, frightened by the shouting of the ten 
 soldiers in the citadel, ran into, or rather ou to, the arms of the legions 
 who were advancing with drawn swords to the gates of the city. 
 
 The Samnites having become weary of war, and tired of an existence 
 which was passed in continually fighting for their lives, determined to 
 bring matters to an issue as fast as possible. They met the Romans 
 under Q. Fabms at Lautulae, where Q. was driven into a corner, and ran 
 away, when his army not receiving from him the cue to fight, rapidly 
 followed his example. C. Fabius having subsequently come to the 
 assistance of Q., they united their forces, and being almost two to one 
 against the Samnites, they obtained a victory. 
 
 Rome had, however, quite enough to contend against in various 
 quarters ; and, among others, the Ausonians betrayed hostile feelings, 
 which were rendered abortive by another betrayal of a very disgrace- 
 ful character. Among the Ausonians there existed a nominal nobility, 
 whose rank gave them a sort of respectability to which they possessed 
 no moral. title. These nobles, by name and ignobles by nature, were 
 mean enough to admit, by stealth, into some of the cities of Ausonia, a 
 number of Roman soldiers in disguise, who, with the cruelty so com 
 monly associated with fraud, commenced a general slaughter of the 
 inhabitants. 
 
 It would be a waste of time and patience, both to writer and reader, 
 were we to ask him to accompany us into every little field where a little 
 6kirmish may have taken place, at about this period, between Rome and 
 her enemies. To describe the fluctuations of the fortune of war, would 
 be as dry and unprofitable as the minute narration of all the incidents 
 
n2 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [ CIIaP - XU - 
 
 of a long game at heads and tails ; nor would the historian have 
 repeated very often the particulars of tho throwing up the coin, hefore 
 the reader would be found throwing up the history. We shall, there- 
 fore, content ourselves with giving the heads in a curtailed form, 
 without going into the particulars of the movements of the generals. 
 There was an enormous quantity of putting to the sword on both sides, 
 but without running through the whole, we will submit to the eye of 
 the reader the points best adapted for the use of the pupil. In the 
 north of Samnium, the Romans were surprised by an Etruscan army, 
 and nearly destroyed ; but when they were more than half killed, they 
 began to look alive, and completely exterminated the foe, whose 
 survivors, consisting of their cattle, fell into the hands of the con- 
 querors. The Consul, C. Marcius, had succeeded in taking a place 
 called Allifse ; but the Samnites soon afterwards brought themselves 
 completely round, and made him the centre of a circle, which, as he was 
 entirely cut off from Rome, was to him a centre of extreme gravity. 
 Not even a messenger could find a way to take to the city the tidings 
 of the Consul's perilous position ; but it seems to have become known, 
 by some means or other, for L. Cursor hastened to the scene, and 
 caused the Samnites to abandon their position. Beginning to despond, 
 they sought a truce, for which they had to pay a most exorbitant price, 
 in cash, corn, and clothes ; for they had to pay, feed, and clothe for 
 three months the troops who had paid them off, in another shape, and 
 submitted them to a long series of thorough dressings. They, how- 
 ever, still held out against acknowledging the sovereignty of Rome 
 and thought themselves exempt from humiliation in making them 
 selves the slaves in fact, as long as they remained independent in 
 name, of that ambitious power The main point of dispute remaining 
 still undisposed of, more fighting ensued, until Samnium was at length 
 so thoroughly reduced as to be obliged to confess itself beaten at last ; 
 and the Samnites, who had by degrees parted with everything they 
 possessed for the luxury of maintaining that they were free to do as 
 they pleased with their own, acknowledged Rome to be their master. 
 Rome also needed relaxation ; for her energies had become relaxed by a 
 war of twenty years ; and both parties having done each other all the 
 harm they could, ceased only because the power of mischief had become 
 completely lost on one side, and seriously impaired on the other. 
 
 So inveterate was the hostility between Samnium and Rome, that 
 any pause in their actual conflict was filled up by preparations for a 
 renewal, the first opportunity for which they were eagerly expecting tc 
 take advantage of. The third Samnite war was commenced by an 
 attempt on the part of the Samnites to recover Lucania, and for that 
 purpose they st«upified the Lucanians by a series of severe beatings, 
 which deadened the sense of the inhabitants to their danger. The 
 nobles, who seem to have had the instinct of self-preservation in a higher 
 degree than the virtue of patriotism, were quite prepared to obey a 
 master who would purchase, rather than resist an enemy who would 
 
CHAP. XII. J THIRD SAMNITE WAR. 123 
 
 harass, them. They accordingly offered their allegiance to Rome, on 
 condition that Rome would save them the trouble of defending them 
 selves against Samnium. Roman envoys were despatched, in compliance 
 with this arrangement, to call upon the Samnites to evacuate Lucania ; 
 but the envoys were unceremoniously ordered off, and betook themselves 
 to a very quick return, unattended by the smallest profit. After a 
 few minor encounters, the two Consuls, Q. Fabius and P. Decius Mus. 
 the son of old Mus, already alluded to, led their combined forces 
 into Samnium, and went different ways, though they fully purposed 
 pulling together. Q. Fabius met the whole of the Samnite army, 
 and a battle commenced, in which each was rapidly destroying the 
 other's soldiers in about equal numbers, without any good to either, 
 beyond the very melancholy satisfaction of being even with each 
 other in the losing game that both sides were playing. This would 
 probably have continued until the chances of war had degenerated into 
 a game of odd man, in which the sole survivor would have been the 
 victor, when a Samnite soldier, rather more fai'-seeing than the rest, 
 espied what he supposed to be the army of Decius. That there are 
 some things to which it is better to shut one's eyes, was proved on this 
 occasion ; for the long-sighted Samnite had no sooner espied a body of 
 men in the back-ground, who were in reality the reserve of Q. Fabius, 
 than he frightened himself and his fellow soldiers, by spreading a rumour 
 that Mus was creeping slowly, but surely, up to them. The Samnites 
 were at once struck with a panic, the blow inflicted by which is always 
 more fatal than that of the sword, and the loss of spirit led to the 
 destruction of nearly the whole body. Decius having joined his colleague, 
 the two Consuls hunted the country of the Samnites, making game of 
 everything that came in the way, while Appius Claudius carried on the 
 war in Etruria. We should be curious to see the population returns — 
 if any such existed — in relation to the Samnites, who were, according to 
 tradition, being continually cut to pieces, routed, ravaged, and otherwise 
 destroyed ; but who, nevertheless, were, according to tradition, con- 
 tinually taking the field again in large numbers, as if nothing had 
 happened. L. Valerius had just returned from assisting his colleague- 
 Appius Claudius, in Etruria, when the Samnites turned up rather 
 abundantly on the Vulturnus, and being at once attacked, were again 
 cut to pieces, for by no means the last or only time on the great stage of 
 history. 
 
 At about the same time, when the news of this victory reached Rome 
 the Gauls were expected, and though it was against the law that the same 
 Consul should be elected twice in ten years, the Romans, altering the 
 constitution, without the trouble of revision, suspended the law for the 
 purpose of securing the services of Q. Fabius. 
 
 He was re-elected with his colleague Decius Mus, and before 
 setting out for battle, they consulted the augurs, who evinced their 
 usual readiness to interpret the omens in the most favourable manner. 
 On coming to the fortified camp of Appius Claudius, Fabius fouud the 
 
124 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [c HAP. XII 
 
 soldiers collecting wood, to form a stockade, which drew from him the 
 remark, " It is not by cutting sticks you can succeed, but by showing a 
 bold front to the enemy." The soldiers, animated by his words — which, 
 to say the truth, do not appear to have anything particularly invigorating 
 about them — were suddenly roused iuto lions, after having been in a 
 lamb-like or sheepish condition, and instead of cutting any more wood, 
 or pulling up the trunks of trees, began to pluck up a proper spirit. 
 The Romans had now about 90,000 troops in the field, if we adopt the 
 round numbers, handed down to us, which do not always square with 
 probability ; but the historians wisely provide, as far as possible, for any 
 deficiency that may arise in the course of the various cuttings to pieces, 
 annihilations, and other contingencies which are at one time or othei 
 the alleged fate of nearly every army. The vast necessity for a surplus 
 that may be boldly dealt with, can perhaps be understood from a cir- 
 cumstance recorded with reference to a legion led by L. Scipio. It had 
 been stationed near Camerinum, and had in an engagement with the 
 foe been cut to pieces without having been missed ; nor was the loss 
 discovered until their own countrymen recognised their heads carried on 
 the lances of the advancing enemy. When the fact thus frightfully 
 stared them in the face, the countenances of the Romans fell with 
 sympathy at the fate of their comrades, which it must be confessed 
 presented some very horrid features. 
 
 At length the hostile armies met near Sentinum in Umbria — the 
 Romans mustering in considerable force, and the Samnites, in spite of 
 much pruning, which seemed only to have the effect of increasing their 
 growth, forming a highly respectable remnant. The latter had also a 
 considerable accession in the shape of Gauls, Umbrians, and Etrurians ; 
 for tradition, when it desires to give interest to a battle, is always 
 prepared to sci'ape together from all quarters a sufficient number of 
 soldiers, on both sides, to equalise the chances of victory. While the 
 armies were drawn out in line before each other, they are said to have 
 been suddenly occupied in the contemplation of the following rather 
 remarkable incident. A deer, pursued by a wolf, ran rapidly down 
 the middle, and the two animals were on the point of going up again, 
 when the deer, apparently changing its mind, ran among the Gauls, 
 who, without hesitation, converted it into venison. The wolf, with a 
 cunning worthy of the fox, declined venturing on an experiment that 
 had been so costly to the deer, and turned in among the Romans, who, 
 perhaps, fearing that the wolf might have a taste for calves as well as 
 for sheep, took the precaution to save their legs, by making as wide an 
 opening as possible. No sooner was the wolf out of the way, than the 
 Romans began to boast that fear had gone to the foe in the shape of a 
 deer, while valour had come to their side in the person of Mara, whom 
 they declared they saw hidden under the hide of a wolf, his favourite 
 animal. The battle at length commenced, and the day being ex- 
 ceedingly warm, added, in one sense, most inconveniently to the heat 
 of the contest. The Gauls created immense consternation among the 
 
CHAP. XII J SAMNITES AGAIN DEFEATED. 1JJ5 
 
 Romans by rushing down upon them in chariots armed with scythes, at 
 the sight of which they were terribly cut up, and unmercifully cut down, 
 before they had time to recover from their astonishment. Not wishing 
 to be left as a wretched harvest on the field, tbe Romans were about to 
 fly, when they wei'e once more saved by a Mus, who on this occasion 
 will be thought by some to have deserved the epithet of " ridiculus." 
 Recollecting the example of his father, he resolved to sacrifice himself 
 for the benefit of his country, and, calling upon the pontiff, he caused 
 his vow to be regularly registered. The ceremony having been 
 gone through, in due form, he put spurs to his horse, and rushing 
 in among the foe, he became, as it were, a scabbard for the 
 swords of all who could get within reach of him The Gauls were 
 so completely stupified by what they saw, that tney were literally 
 lost in wonder ; for, while they stood staring with astonishment, the 
 Romans fell upon and massacred nearly the whole of them. Gellius 
 Egnatius, the Samnite General, was slain, together with many thou 
 sands of his own countrymen, who are described by tradition as having 
 been once more cut to pieces, though these pieces are not the last 
 in which they are destined to make their appearance. History, 
 with a natural anxiety to keep a stock of Samnites on hand for 
 future use, suggests that 5000 ran away, though the Romans were 
 too much reduced to run after them, and as the fugitives lost a 
 thousand of their number by fighting, during their retreat, it must 
 be presumed that, in their extreme nervousness, they began attacking 
 each other. 
 
 Q. Fabius led back his army into Etruria, which had recently been 
 thoroughly ravaged by Cn. Fulvius ; and the Etruscans, who had already 
 been beaten once, were thoroughly beaten again, so that any residue of 
 strength might be effectually knocked out of them. The retreating 
 Samnites had by this time arrived at the valley of Vulturnus, where the 
 country was in such a state that they could find nothing to eat ; but, 
 for a people who were accustomed to survive the constant infliction of 
 the sword, the absence of food was a very subordinate grievance. 
 Volumnius and Appius Claudius fell upon them with their united forces, 
 and the Samnites were once more cut to pieces ; but, notwithstanding 
 their fragmentary condition, they were able to appear collected and calm, 
 before the end of the following year, in Etruria. They, at length, 
 mustered all their strength, and determined on making a desperate 
 effort against the Romans, who were in great force under Papirius 
 Cursor, near Aquilonia. Papirius sent for an augur, who kept a small 
 brood of sacred chickens, for the purpose of hatching up something to 
 say to those who consulted him. The augur declared that the omens were 
 favourable, for the chickens had eaten a hearty meal ; but an officer, 
 who had watched the birds at breakfast, and had been struck by the 
 extreme delicacy of their appetites, came forward to impute foul play 
 to the augur. Papirius immediately ordered the soothsayer to be placed 
 in the front of the line of battle, where the poor old man, who was vo 
 
120 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [CHAP. XII. 
 
 chicken in age, whatever he may have been at heart, was made to 
 answer with his life for having failed to answer with truth the questions 
 proposed to him. 
 
 The Samnites paid no attention to omens, but bound each other by 
 awful oaths to undergo their usual fate of being cut to pieces rather 
 than surrender ; and it must be admitted that they bore the penalty 
 of defeat with a coolness that can only be accounted for by their being 
 thoroughly used to it. No less than 16,000 took the oath, and kept 
 it so well that the whole 10,000 were found in bits precisely where they 
 had taken their places in battle. We might express our doubts upon 
 this subject, were it not that the sage critics, who are averse to any 
 departure from the gravity of history, would perhaps accuse us of levity 
 in refusing credence to Livy, on whose authority the tale is told, though 
 dulness itself will probably be roused to a stare, if incapable of a smile, 
 at the remarkable dish of hash which the serious historians call upon 
 him to swallow. 
 
 v«*"0<tCL~ 
 
 mm 
 
 Samnite Soldier. 
 
 The victory of Rome was complete, and the Samnites, whose riches 
 seem to have been almost as inexhaustible as their numbers, yielded up 
 spoil that might appear fabulous in the eyes of any but those who are 
 so thoroughly matter-of-fact as to be incapable of distinguishing a 
 matter of fiction. To swell the triumph of the conquerors, Papirius is 
 said to have given crowns of gold and silver to officers and men, with 
 
CHAP. XII.] END OF THE THIRD SAMKITE WAR. 127 
 
 collars and bracelets of the same precious material; from which it 
 would seem that the Samnites had abandoned their ornaments in 
 running away ; for metal, though current on ordinary occasions, goes a 
 very little way in the hands of those who are groaning beneath the 
 weight of it. 
 
 Once more the Samnites poured themselves as copiously and myste- 
 riously as the streams that flow from the inexhaustible bottle of the 
 conjuror over the greater part of Campania, and Q. Fabius Gurges 
 took the command of the Roman army. The Samnites were led by 
 C. Pontius, an aged prodigy, who had seen much service, which had 
 been of no service whatever to his countrymen, for they had not 
 even learned to profit, by the lessons of experience. C. Pontius 
 combined, in a remarkable degree, the imbecility of age with the 
 rashness of youth, and presented the sad spectacle of juvenile and 
 senile indiscretion combined, or the junction of the characteristics of an 
 old fool and a young fool in the same individual. Q. Fabius, however, 
 reckoned too confidently on success ; and seeing a detachment of the 
 Samnites executing a manoeuvre, he thought it was the whole body in 
 the act of retreat, which caused him to proceed so carelessly, that he 
 was himself defeated, and would have had his army utterly destroyed, 
 but for the feebleness of his antagonists. 
 
 The news of the defeat of Fabius excited much dissatisfaction 
 at Eome, and the General was about to be recalled, when his father, in 
 an uncontrollable fit of nepotism, implored the people to allow the 
 young man to keep his place — a request that was at length granted. 
 The impolicy of overlooking the incompetence of the son at the 
 request of the father, was nearly being exemplified in a fatal manner ; 
 for the younger Fabius was on the point of another failure, and an 
 alarming sacrifice of all his army, when Fabius Maximus came up with 
 a reserve, which turned the fortune of the day, by the cutting to pieces 
 of 20,000 Samnites ; while 4000, including poor old Pontius, were 
 made prisoners. It will be seen that tradition, while dooming 20,000 
 Samnites to the sword, reserves 4000 in captivity as a surplus to 
 supply future contingencies. Although the better authorities con- 
 sider that in the last-mentioned battle this people, who were almost as 
 endless as their hostilities were aimless, must have been used up, 
 there are still a few skirmishes to be met with on the borders, if not 
 within the verge of truth, which require that a few thousand Samnites 
 should be kept as a reserve for the purposes of the historian. 
 
 C. Pontius was led as a prisoner in the triumph granted to the 
 Fabii ; but this triumph, and everything connected with it, was con- 
 verted into a disgrace by the beheading of the poor old Samnite chief, 
 who, if he had been weak enough to place himself in opposition to 
 Some, had, after the battle of the Caudine forks, evinced an amiable 
 weakness towards the captives that had fallen into his power. Fabius 
 Maximus having died soon after, tradition, who is much addicted to 
 returning verdicts in the absence of evidence, declares the ca-.\»e of 
 
128 COMIC HISTORY OF HOME. [CHAP. XII. 
 
 death to have heen a broken heart ; arid, as it would certainly have 
 been proper under all the circumstances that he should have done so, 
 we have no inclination to disturb the rather doubtful decision. 
 
 Some authorities,* finding they have a Samnite surplus to deal 
 with, describe the Samnites as being again defeated by M. Curius 
 Dentatus, who seems to have been a curiosity in his way ; for, having 
 been offered a house with seven hundred jugera as his share of booty, 
 he refused to accept more than seven, which was the portion allotted to 
 his comrades. Those who are accustomed to read of, and admire, the 
 system on which prize-money is apportioned in modem times,! will 
 probably set down Curius Dentatus as a remarkable fool ; and indeed, 
 though his self-denial smacks of patriotism, we are not sure of its 
 justice ; for, if he had performed his duty as a general, his services to 
 his country must have been more valuable than those of the ordinary 
 soldiers under him. It may be, however, that he knew best what he 
 had done, and what he deserved ; nor must we forget the great fact 
 that in taking a man's own estimate of his own merits, we run very 
 little danger of underrating them. 
 
 * Eutrop. ii., 5. 
 
 -f" A reference to any Gazette containing the announcement of an appropriation of 
 prize-money, will introduce to the reader's notice such items as the following, which are 
 extracted from a very recently-published document, stating the proportions of prize-money 
 granted on the seizure of a slave-vessel : — Flag, £87 12s. 3d.; Lieutenant commanding, 
 £164 5s. "id. The proportions then diminish rapidly through several classes down to the 
 tenth, which is adjudged to receive £2 13s. 3d. The ratio may be all fair enough, 
 but we must confess the large sum always wrapped up in the flag seems somewhat of a 
 mystery. 
 
CHAP. xin. 
 
 THE VIA APPIA. 
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH. 
 
 ON THE PEACEFUL OCCUPATIONS OF THE ROMANS. FROM SCARCITY OP 
 SUBJECT, NECESSARILY A VERY SHORT CHAPTER. 
 
 T is with sincere satisfaction that 
 we turn from the monotonous 
 details of war to the arts of peace; 
 and though it is usually said that 
 the stain of blood can never be 
 wiped out, we are glad to find 
 that the marks and traces of dis- 
 cord are doubtful and few, while 
 the evidences of the nobler pur- 
 suits of man are numerous and 
 genuine. Among the most en- 
 during monuments of the art 
 and industry of the Romans, may 
 still be traced the remains of the 
 celebrated Via Appia, or Appian 
 Way, tbe secret for the formation 
 of which would be invaluable to 
 the inhabitants of our large towns, 
 and particularly to the Paving 
 Boai'ds of the Metropolis. While 
 parts of the Via Appia remain 
 perfect after upwards of twenty 
 centuries, the streets of London 
 are torn to pieces year after year ; and it might melt a heart of stone 
 — if stone possessed a heart — to see the granite continually disturbed 
 by the remorseless pickaxe. The Via Appia was constructed of large 
 blocks placed very closely together ; and though modern Paving Boards 
 have clone their best by laying their heads together to imitate the plan, 
 success has never rewarded their labours. 
 
 Not less wonderful than the road of Appius, was the aqueduct that 
 bore his name, and which had solved the question so apparently 
 incapable of solution in our own times, of the means of securing a 
 supply of water to a great Metropolis. Though water was not com- 
 monly drunk by the Romans as it is by ourselves, and though the 
 Tiber was purity itself compared with the Thames, the liquid was so 
 clearly or rather so thickly undrinkable, that a supply was brought from 
 a distance of eight miles, in the manner we have mentioned. 
 
 While all admit the grandeur of the aqueducts of ancient Rome, 
 
 K 
 
 ^Esculapius. 
 
\.oO COMIC HISTOEY OF ROME. [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 objection lias been made to their construction as a needless expense ; 
 and it has been said, that their lofty arches proved only the height to 
 which folly and extravagance could be carried. Pipes have been 
 suggested as capable of answering every useful purpose ; but considering 
 the difficulty of obtaining them sufficiently large, of keeping tbem always 
 free from obstruction, and other obvious disadvantages, it is doubtful 
 whether the pipe, after payment of the piper, would prove so economical 
 in the main. The aqueduct, indeed, has been recently adopted on a 
 large scale, by a people not likely to retrograde in arts and sciences, 
 though the rapidity with which they go a-head may cause them to run 
 through the whole circle of ingenuity, till the most modern invention, 
 arriving at the same point as the most ancient, affords an illustration of 
 the meeting of extremes. New York now receives its supply of water 
 through an aqueduct,* carried on solid masonry, over valleys and rivers, 
 under hills and tunnels, for a distance of forty miles ; a proof that when 
 a city has the will to obtain pure water, there is always a way — though 
 it may be forty miles in length — for getting what is required. 
 
 In Rome, it had been customary to bore a well where water was 
 wanted, but the water was so impure, that it soon became necessary to 
 let well alone. The science of engineering, aided by that great moral 
 engine, their own energy, enabled the inhabitants to bring their supplies 
 from a considerable distance, and as the aqueducts were gradually sloped, 
 the water followed, as it were, its own inclination in coming to Rome. 
 Filtration was ingeniously provided for, at convenient distances, by 
 reservoirs having two compartments, into one of which the water fell, 
 and passing into the other before returning to the main body, there was 
 time for the deposit of all impurities. Every precaution was taken 
 against the intrusion of those unhappy families of anirnalculae, which are 
 continually tearing each other to pieces in every drop of the London 
 element, and whose voracity seems to hold out a faint hope that, as they 
 are continually demolishing each other, they may be all mutually 
 swallowed, before the supply of the Metropolis with pure water is 
 achieved. 
 
 During the Censorship of Appius Claudius, the cause of literature, 
 or at least the dignity of the profession of a public writer, was advanced 
 — though, perhaps, we ought rather to say, that official employment was 
 lionoured — by the promotion of Cn. Flavius, a scribe, to the Curule 
 JEdileship. This individual appears to have possessed the happy gift of 
 investing dry subjects with the garb of popularity ; and he had won 
 considerable reputation by giving the forms of legal actions in a shape 
 that rendered them comprehensible to the general reader. He made 
 law legible in his work on legis actiones, and had assisted the spread 
 of information by an almanack or calendar, in which the dies fasti and 
 nefasti were marked down, and other information afforded which could 
 only have been obtained previously from the pontiffs. 
 
 * The Croton Aqueduct, commenced in 1837, and finished in 1842, for conveying 
 water from the river Croton to the City of New York. 
 
CHAP. XIII. J SCIENCE OF AUGURY. 13) 
 
 The lawyers and the priests, who were less liberal in those days 
 than in our own, were both enraged with an author who had laid 
 open the mysteries of both professions by a few happy touches of his 
 pen ; and on his beiug called upon to give the public the benefit 
 of his services as a curule sedile, they appealed to the miserable 
 prejudice existing against a man who had shown talent in one line, 
 when called upon to exert his abilities in some new direction. The 
 nobility were especially affected at the prospect of the public service 
 being thrown open to merit alone, instead of gentle or gentile dulness 
 being allowed the sole use and abuse of official honour and emolument. 
 Exclusiveness and illiberality could not, even in those days, wholly 
 prevail, though the opponents of the public writer succeeded in causing 
 him to abandon not only his literary pursuits, but to give up all his 
 books, and thus render himself emblematically on a par with themselves 
 in ignorance, by divesting himself of the types of knowledge on his 
 acceptance of office. 
 
 At about the same period other and more important measures were 
 adopted for infusing into the service of the State some of that intellec- 
 tual vigour which is to be found most abundantly in the main body of 
 the people. The pontiffs and the augurs had been hitherto chosen 
 from the patricians alone, when by the Ogulnian law, passed in the 
 tribuneship of Q. and Cn. Ogulnius, it was enacted that four pontiffs 
 out of eight, and five augurs out of nine— at which the numbers were 
 then fixed — should be plebeians. The science of augury certainly 
 required no particular talent ; but, as its professors were held in very 
 high repute, the introduction of the plebeian element into the body, 
 was a triumph for popular principles. The divining rod in an age of 
 superstition was also a very powerful rod in the hands of those who 
 held it ; and the privilege of reading or rather interpreting the signs of 
 the times according to the wish of the interpreter, was a source of so 
 much influence among a people guided by omens, that the admission of 
 the plebeians to the exercise of these functions was equivalent to 
 allowing them an important share in the government. 
 
 The science of augury is intimately connected with the history of the 
 Romans, for they never took a step of a private or a public nature 
 without consulting the soothsayers, who were, in fact, the fortune-tellers 
 of antiquity. That a nation should place its destinies in such doubtful 
 hands, seems in the present day as absurd as if the Prime Minister, 
 before arranging his measures for a session, were to take counsel with 
 Dr. Francis Moore, and the Opposition were to frame their tactics on 
 the advice of Zadkiel. A glimpse at the nature of the art of augury 
 will demonstrate to the student the ease with which the seer could see 
 exactly the thing he wanted. The subjects of his observation were, 
 first, the clouds, which afforded ample opportunity for obscurity ; 
 ■.secondly, the birds, which, when seen to the right, meant exactly 
 opposite to that which they indicated when seen on the left — thus 
 allowing for a good deal to be said on both sides ; thirdly, the chickens. 
 
 k2 
 
132 COMIC HISTORY OF BOKE [CHAP. XIII. 
 
 nho were supposed to give a favourable omen if they ate abundantly — 
 a theory which gave rise to many a tremendous cram ; fourthly, the 
 quadrupeds, from which the augurs could easily draw a deduction at all 
 fours with their own wishes ; and, fifthly, and last, a miscellaneous class 
 of signs, or incidents, comprising a sneeze, which enabled the augur to 
 lead the sneezer by the nose, or a casualty, such as a tumble, which, in 
 the absence of any other more important sign, the soothsayer was always 
 willing to fall back upon. 
 
 A remarkable instance of ignorance and superstition was afforded by 
 the conduct of the Romans, when the city, being in about its four 
 hundred and sixtieth year, was visited by a pestilence. Recourse was 
 had to the Sibylline books for a prescription to get rid of the plague, 
 when the augurs, like a doctor who, unable to cure his patient, orders 
 him abroad, declared that the only thing to be done was to go to 
 Epidaurus, a town in Greece, and bring to Rome the god iEsculapius. 
 Ten ambassadors were despatched on the mission ; but after looking in 
 all directions for iEsculapius, they happened to stumble over a stone, 
 in which they were told he was resident. Having been induced to 
 purchase the article at a high price, they were taking it on board their 
 ship, when they fell in with the proprietor of a small menagerie, who, 
 directing their attention to a tame snake in the collection, offered it to 
 them a bargain as the identical iEsculapius they were looking for. The 
 Roman envoys, thinking there might, after all, be nothing in the stone, 
 concluded there might be something in the snake, which began to twine 
 itself affectionately about them ; and having been bought and paid for, 
 sagaciously glided through the town, made for the Roman vessel, and 
 coiled himself up like a coil of rope in the cabin of the ambassadors. 
 
 On their way home, a storm caused them to put in at Antium, when 
 the snake, who might have been a very good snake, but was a very bad 
 sailor, went ashore, took a turn or two round a palm-tree, hung out 
 there for three days, and then went back to the vessel. On the arrival 
 of the ambassadors at Rome, they began describing at some length the 
 result of their journey, when the snake gave them the slip, and while 
 their tongues were running on, managed to run off to the island in the 
 Tiber. Having looked in vain for the snake in the grass, they built a 
 temple on the spot, in honour of iEsculapius, and the serpent glided on 
 — no one knows where — to the end of his existence. 
 
 The wars which had been so exhausting to the almost inexhaustible 
 Sabines, had been scarcely less ruinous to the Romans, and indeed the 
 opening up of so many bones of contention had, to use the words of a 
 recent writer, consumed " the very marrow of the nation." * In spite of 
 all their conquests, the people were miserably poor ; for destruction, in- 
 stead of production, had been their occupation during a series of years ; 
 and though their wants had been supplied for a time by plunder, scarcity 
 was sure to ensue at last, from a stoppage of the very source of all 
 
 * Di. Schmidti, p. 223. 
 
CHAP. XIII. J 
 
 THE H0RTEN-8IAK LAW. 
 
 133 
 
 wealth, the peaceful exercise of industry. The tide of adversity which, 
 in the first instance, overwhelms only the lower ranks, rises, with 
 
 The Ambassadors purchasing ^Esculapius. 
 
 unerring certainty, until even the highest are absorbed, and few are able, 
 in the end, to keep their heads above water. When circumstances 
 appear hopeless, remedies become desperate, rash legislation ensues, 
 and thus, during the distresses of Rome, the plebs having seceded, a 
 proposal was adopted, in the shape of the Hortensian Law, to allow them 
 to do just as they liked, in order to tempt them back again. 
 
 This was, happily, the last secession of the plebs, who, in their dig- 
 aified withdrawal remained completely within the pale of the law, while 
 
13* 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [CHAP. XIIL 
 
 passing beyond the gates of the city. The intention of the secedera 
 was to get on as they could without the patrician class, leaving the latter 
 to do their best by themselves — a proceeding that had speedily the effect 
 of showing that there is a mutual dependence between all ranks, and 
 that one cannot exist in comfort without the association and support of 
 the other. In Rome, the patricians had played the dangerous game of 
 exercising the rights of their position without fulfilling its duties ; and 
 the plebeians finding themselves deprived of their share of the profits 
 >f the connection, were quite justified in cutting it. After the passing 
 if the Hortensian Law, the invidious distinction between the patricians 
 and the people was at an end, and the word populus was applied to the 
 whole body of citizens ; but with the natural tendency of all classes to 
 level only down to themselves, the Eomans who were well to do in the 
 world continued to use the term plebs, or plebecula, in a depreciatory 
 sense, to denote the multitude. 
 
 It is true, that some works of great utility were accomplished during 
 the unhappy period to which we have been alluding ; and the aqueduct as 
 well as the Via Appia, to both of which we have already referred, were 
 executed at the time stated. Instead, however, of being the result of the 
 free industry of the nation, these undertakings were extorted chiefly from 
 the labour of the Samnite prisoners ; so that the Romans may be said 
 to have watered their city with the tears, and paved their road with the 
 sighs,* of their miserable captives The arts made considerable progress, 
 notwithstanding the general poverty, and perhaps the fact, that necessity 
 is the mother of invention, may account for the stimulus given to the 
 skill and ingenuity of the nation. The still existing figure, in which 
 two bronze babies are represented in an attitude of playful satisfaction, 
 deriving sustenance from a bronze wolf, who looks as easy as the hard- 
 ness of the material will allow, has been assigned to the age alluded to. 
 and the Sarcophagus of Scipio Barbatus, complete even to the ancient 
 funeral verse, which the irreverent might estimate at the value of an 
 old song, belongs, probably, to the same period 
 
 * The sigli of a pavier is really a very formidable matter. We always fancy the 
 heait of the poor fellow is in his mouth, whenever we hear him at his labours. 
 
CHaI'. XIV.] 
 
 ROMANS DEFEATED BY THE GAULS. 
 
 135 
 
 CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH. 
 
 FROM THE END OF THE THIRD SAMNITE WAR TO THE SUBJUGATION OF 
 ALL ITALY BY THE ROMANS. 
 
 ome was for a time at rest; but its 
 repose was broken by the alarm-bell 
 of war still ringing in its ears, while 
 dissension, hanging over it like a 
 nightmare, placed a weight upon its 
 chest, and became a constant burden 
 on its resources. As if the Romans 
 had not enough troubles of their own, 
 they became involved with the dis- 
 putes of their foreign illations, who 
 were, most of them, very poor rela- 
 tions indeed — a sort of connexion 
 which nations, as well as individuals, 
 are apt to find extremely burdensome. 
 A number of petty states began 
 urging each other to do something 
 that would embarrass Rome, and 
 many who had not the courage to 
 strike were desirous of seeing others 
 display their valour. The Taren- 
 tines and the Yolsinians being anxious 
 to fight their own battles with other 
 people's arms, succeeded in making 
 cats'-paws of the Gauls, who were induced to pounce upon Arretium. 
 The Romans were appealed to for assistance, and they immediately sent 
 an army just large enough to be too little. Defeat ensued, as a matter 
 of course ; and L. Caecilius, the leader, being slain, M. Curius was 
 despatched to head the troops ; but on his arrival, he found there was 
 no body to which he could serve as a head, for the army had been either 
 killed or captured. 
 
 In this disagreeable dilemma, he sent ambassadors to know the 
 terms on which the prisoners would be given up ; but the ambassadors 
 — like good money sent after bad— never came back again. The 
 Romans perceiving at last that they were only cutting their army into 
 convenient pieces for the enemy to swallow up, despatched, at length, 
 a force large enough to put a stop to any further consumption of such 
 valuable material. The Romans were now decidedly successful, and 
 the Senones were, according to certain authorities, "just annihilated; "* 
 
 PolybiuB. 
 
136 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 but as the Seuones are frequently met with again, it must he presumed 
 that the assertion, ex nihilo nihil Jit — " nothing can come of nothing " — 
 is unacknowledged by the writers of classical history. 
 
 Foreign intervention seems to have been quite the order of the day ; 
 for the Boians rushed forward to show their sympathy at the fate of the 
 Senones, which, if it consisted of annihilation, must have been nothing 
 to the parties themselves, and should have been, a fortiori, nothing 
 to others. Touched with a similar infection, the Etrurians began 
 to sympathise with the Boians, and having met the Romans near Lake 
 Vadimo, the sympathisers were "cut to pieces," if we are to believe 
 report ; but we know not whether to the scissors of the reporters or the 
 shears of fate, the cutting to pieces in question may be attributed. 
 The Etruscans, at all events, were able to return to Etruria* in 
 sufficient force to render them a still formidable foe to the Romans, 
 who were eventually glad to grant a peace on very favourable terms ; 
 and, putting all things together, we are inclined to believe that the 
 Etruscans were not in that very piecemeal state to which tradition is 
 fond of reducing them. 
 
 A quarrel between the Lucanians and the Thurii caused another 
 call on the intervention of Rome, who was a thorough polygamist in 
 espousing the quarrels of others. C. Fabricius was sent to the relief 
 of Thurii with an army so small, that it began to shrink from the 
 encounter, and thus increase, as it were, its own littleness. The spirit 
 of the Romans had something, however, of the caoutchouc in its com- 
 position ; for it could be drawn out as easily as it gave in, and a trifling 
 circumstance showed its elasticity on the occasion of the attack on 
 Thurii. A gigantic lad, with a ladder in his hand, was seen approach- 
 ing the ramparts, which he proceeded to mount, and by this simple act 
 of scaling the wall, he turned the scale of victory. 
 
 The opposing general was taken prisoner, and numbers were left 
 dead on the field, including several of the Samnites, who in devoting 
 themselves to glut the appetite of war, appear to have formed the 
 great piece de resistance of the period. The feast of carnage seems 
 never to have been complete in these days, without this very substantial 
 dish, which seems to have formed literally an instance of " cut and 
 come again," for we find a supply of Samnites always readj r for fate's 
 relentless carving-knife. The treasure taken by Fabricius, the Roman 
 general, was immense, and much of it was derived from the inexhaustible 
 Samnites, who, though constantly being cut up like the goose with the 
 golden eggs, possessed one extraordinary advantage over that auriferous 
 bird, for they could bear the operation as often as avarice itself could 
 require. The booty was wonderful in amount ; but the mode in which it 
 was disposed of, was more marvellous still ; for the general, instead of 
 following the general custom, by pocketing all he could, distributed 
 a large portion of it among the soldiers, reimbursed the amount of a 
 year's taxes to the citizens, and sent a handsome surplus to the treasury. 
 
 * Polyb., ii. 20. 
 
CHAP. XIV.] EMBASSY TO THE TARENTINES. 137 
 
 It is to be regretted that we have no such examples of justice and 
 generosity in the present age ; for if every man were to return as 
 conscience money to the Exchequer all that he did not fairly earn, tho 
 National Debt might soon figure — without any figures at all— as a 
 myth in our financial annals. 
 
 Thurii received a small Roman garrison, which not being strong 
 enough to defend itself, was a fortiori, or rather ab impotentiori, too 
 weak to protect those for whose safety it had been appointed. Home, 
 therefore, despatched ten ships to its aid, in defiance of a treaty with 
 Tarentum, that no armed vessel should proceed beyond a certain point. 
 The people of Tarentum, who happened to be at the theatre, which 
 commanded a view of the sea, and who were evidently looking at the 
 ocean as a much finer spectacle than the play, observed the approach of 
 the ships, and leaving the actors to finish their performance to empty 
 benches, they rushed out to meet the enemy. The commander of tho. 
 squadron was not prepared for an audience that would hear nothing ho 
 had to say, the sailors were alarmed at finding themselves suddenly 
 assailed, and the poor rowers were completely overawed at their unex- 
 pected position. Only five ships escaped, the remainder being sunk or 
 captured, with all their crews and cargoes. The Tarentines fell upon 
 Thurii, whose cause was now completely undefended ; but the Roman 
 garrison, instead of being despatched by the sword, was generously 
 despatched home by the earliest means of conveyance. 
 
 The Romans, having lost a considerable number of men, thought it 
 better to recruit themselves by peace, as they were unable to find 
 recruits for their array. It was accordingly determined to try the effect 
 of an embassy upon the Tarentines, and some Feciales were employed 
 to propose — what Rome considered — very moderate terms of arrange- 
 ment. L. Postumius is said to have been one of the envoys, and it is 
 added that upon his commencing a speech in bad Greek, there was a 
 burst of laughter at his mistakes in grammar, orthography, and accent. 
 He had been selected for the charm of his eloquence, but the spell was 
 broken by the spelling, and in the confusion of his nominatives and 
 datives, he was unable to make out a case of any kind. The Senators 
 gave way to bursts of laughter — those bursts of nature which it is 
 often difficult to control — and a buffoon, encouraged by the bad example 
 of his betters, played some practical joke upon L. Postumius. The 
 insulted emissary immediately held up his toga, which had been so ilea 
 by the jester, whose wit seems to have consisted in throwing dirt ; but 
 a shout of laughter was the only reply that the complaint of Postumius 
 elicited. Desiring them to laugh on, he made an allusion to the possi 
 bility of the operation being transferred to the other side of the Roman 
 mouth, and he added that a lavatory supplied by their blood was the only 
 wash to which he would send his toga. Returning to Rome, he pointed 
 out the stain that had been thrown upon him, and the Senate declared 
 war on the spot the moment the spot was exhibited. An army was 
 accordingly sent against Tarentum, but the leader, L. Aemilius Barbula, 
 
133 COMIC HISTOK? OF BOME [CHAP XIV. 
 
 —so called probably from his being the little-bearded or the downy one — 
 offered peace a second time. The Tarentines, thinking the Romans were 
 afraid of fighting, refused to come to terms ; but seeing that the latter 
 did not retire, it became necessary to seek assistance in meeting them. 
 
 It appears that in these early days there 'were a set of persons willing 
 to undertake butchery as a trade, by hiring themselves, or rather 
 lowering themselves, to fight for any one who would pay them. Among 
 these, one of the most respectable was Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, whom 
 we may almost regard as a professional spiller of blood, for he took care 
 to turn his labours to a profitable account, by bleeding those on whose 
 side he fought, as well as those he fought against. According to some 
 writers, Pyrrhus was no mercenary, because in agreeing to lend his 
 arms to the Tarentines, he had in view a kingdom, rather than cash, or, 
 in other words, he did not propose to be paid by those whom he assisted, 
 because he intended to appropriate to himself everything out of which 
 they would have the means of paying him. Pyrrhus, in fact, can only 
 be excluded from the order of mercenaries by transferring him to the 
 catalogue of thieves, and of this arrangement we have no objection to 
 give him the benefit. 
 
 Though he lived in an age when the education of sovereigns wa:D 
 sadly neglected, he possessed a fair amount of information, and he had 
 the fortunate habit of listening to good advice, so that he got credit for 
 being wise on the strength of the wisdom of his counsellors. His tongue 
 was no less polished than his sword, and his manners would have fully 
 justified their being charged as extras in the bill of any school in which 
 they may have been acquired. He was only thirty-seven years old when 
 he entered Italy with a stud, including no less than twenty elephants- 
 and two thousand horses, though he was, of course, the principal lion of 
 his great travelling menagerie. He was accompanied by a vast number 
 of slingers, whose arms were in their slings, and a large body of bowmen, 
 who could draw the longest bow with a truthfulness quite astonishing. 
 An incident connected with the invocation of the aid of Pyrrhus by the 
 Tarentines has come down to us by tradition, that common carrier who 
 lays much at the historian's door, that he is not always inclined to 
 answer for. It is said that a respectable young nobleman, of the name 
 of Meto, appeared one day in the Tarentine senate with a quantity of 
 faded flowers in his hair, as if he had just come home late from a dinner 
 party, and had passed on his way through one of the markets. Being 
 attended by a female with a pipe, the Tarentines were seized with a 
 sudden desire to cheer, a propensity still evinced by a modern mob in 
 the presence of any absurdity. 
 
 The excitement at length broke cut into a general demand for a 
 dance, and a shout arose similar to the unmeaning cry of " Hornpipe ! " 
 that is heard in a modern theatre on the first performance of a panto- 
 mime. The young noble, feeling that he might be involved in an 
 extraordinary caper, seems to have suddenly resumed his senses ; for he 
 exclaimed with a serious air, " Yes, we must dance and feast now, for 
 
CHAP. XIV. J PYRRHUS ENTERS ITALY. 139 
 
 Pyrrhus will soon put an eud to all our merriment." The words of 
 Meto seemed too prophetic ; for Pyrrhus had no sooner arrived, than, oj 
 
 Appearance in the Senate of a young Nobleman, named Meto. 
 
 the principle, perhaps, that where there is a great deal of work, there 
 should be no play, he shut up the theatre of the Tarentines. He stopped 
 everything in the shape of amusement, and the young noble's prediction 
 as to the city's dancing days being nearly over, was completely verified. 
 It would certainly have been better for Pyrrhus in the end had he 
 listened in the beginning to his counsellor, Cineas, who, according to 
 Plutarch, talked the matter over with his royal master, in the most 
 familiar manner possible. " Now, tell me," said Cineas, " supposing 
 our expedition to be successful, what will be the next step ? " a query 
 which elicited from Pyrrhus a whole catalogue of arduous exploits, 
 which he had in contemplation. "Very good," said the sage, '•and 
 when all is conquered, what then?" — "What then?" resp 
 Pyrrhus, "why, then, of course, we can take our ease, drink, ami be 
 merry." — " True enough," rejoined Cineas, " but why not take your 
 ease, drink, and be merry at once, without all the preliminary toils and 
 dangers you propose to undergo, and by which you only postpone, 
 instead of advancing, your ultimate object ? " Unfortunately Pyrrhus, 
 like many others, failed to see the force of this kind of reasoning, and 
 he continued to encounter immediate Derd and fatigue, with the remote 
 
140 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 prospect of future repose, which there was nothing to prevent his taking 
 at once if he had really set his head on it. 
 
 Though he would not acknowledge himself to be convinced by the 
 arguments of the philosopher, it is probable that Pyrrhus secretly 
 felt the value of the advice that had been given him ; for his 
 first step was a proposal to treat ; and he even offered a draft by 
 way of preliminary, but the Roman Consul rejected the proffered 
 measure. The armies accordingly met on the banks of the Siris, a 
 small rive? near Heraclea, and Pyrrhus sent a spy with a spy-glass, 
 to inspect the position of the enemy. The spy was immediately spied 
 out on the other side, and arrested forthwith, so that the look-out 
 of the spy appeared utterly deplorable. Having, however, been shown 
 everything there was to be seen in the Roman camp, as if he had been 
 a traveller in search of information, instead of a sneak traversing a 
 hostile area, the spy was sent back with care — right side upwards, which 
 he scarcely deserved— to his master. This incident elicited from Pyrrhus 
 the remark, that " the barbarians had an exceedingly gentlemanly way 
 of conducting a war ; " and the next day being fixed for the battle, he 
 felt that he should have the satisfaction of a gentleman in going out 
 with them. 
 
 The attack was commenced by the Romans ; and the Consul, resolving 
 either to sink or swim, sent a body of cavalry across the river. Pyrrhus, 
 putting himself at the head of his horse, proceeded to meet the charge, 
 but he soon perceived that his brilliant armour was rendering him 
 uncomfortably conspicuous, and he exchanged his dazzling coat of mail for 
 an old rusty suit worn by his friend Megacles. The latter was perhaps 
 proud to wear the trappings of royalty, but the emptiness of false glitter 
 was speedily exemplified, for Megacles being mistaken for the king, was 
 killed, and the shining armour was carried in triumph to the enemy's 
 camp before the hollow mockery was discovered. 
 
 The battle was fought with determined bravery on both sides, but 
 brute force decided it at last, for the elephants of Pyrrhus weighed 
 immensely in the scale of victory. The creatures coming down en 
 masse, were more effective than the heaviest of ordinary heavies, and 
 advancing with all their might upon the horses, the latter, though re- 
 sisting with all their mane, felt their animal spirits rapidly oozing out 
 of them. The carnage committed upon the Romans would have been 
 merciless and complete, had it not been for the humanity of one of the 
 elephants, who, taking a benevolent turn, pulled himself short round, 
 and prevented his own side from continuing the pursuit of the fugitives. 
 Pyrrhus, having laid his hands on everything he could take, proceeded 
 to take everything he could lay his hands upon. A rich harvest having 
 been collected, he, on the day following, went to glean what he could on 
 the field of battle. Perceiving that the Romans had all fallen with 
 their eyes towards the foe, he could not but acknowledge, with so much 
 bravery staring him in the face, the courage of his antagonists. " With 
 euch soldiers as these," he exclaimed, " the world would be mine, or, at 
 
CHAP. XIV.] AMBASSADORS SENT TO PYRRHUS. 14 1 
 
 all events, it would be theirs if I were their general." He had, how 
 ever, lost half his own men ; and as they lay prostrate before him, the} 
 seemed to offer a flat contradiction to the congratulations offered to him 
 on his victory. " Another such a triumph," he replied, " and I should 
 return to Epirus thoroughly unmanned, for there would not remain to 
 me a single soldier." He offered to the prisoners employment in his 
 own army, but they, without exception, refused ; and, considering their 
 conduct unexceptionable, he had their chains taken off, that they 
 might feel themselves quite unfettered in their future movements. He 
 burned the bodies of the dead, out of compliment to their remains, 
 whose combustion, could they have acted for themselves, would no 
 doubt have been spontaneous. He made a tolerably fair division of the 
 spoil, giving some to his allies, and devoted a considerable slice to Zeus 
 — a piece of devotion of which the priests of the temple got the chief 
 benefit. 
 
 The policy of Pyrrhus was to turn old foes into new friends ; and he 
 sent his trusty counsellor, Cineas, to Kome, with a suggestion that 
 all animosity should be buried in the graves of those who had fallen on 
 both sides. The Senators were beginning to waver, when Appius 
 Claudius the Blind — who had been carried down to the house by his 
 four sons — an arrangement that suggests the picture of a veteran 
 supported by a youth at each arm and at each leg — declared suddenly 
 that he could see through the whole affair, and called upon the 
 Romans to open their eyes to the designs of Pyrrhus. The veteran, 
 who, from infirmity, was unable to stir without assistance, could still 
 agitate with his tongue ; he urged that the proposals of Cineas should 
 be rejected ; and the assembly having first carried the motion, earned 
 home the mover in triumph. 
 
 Cineas, on returning to his master, described the city as a temple, 
 and the Senate as an assembly of kings ; for he could not get the 
 temples out of his head; and the magnificent curule chairs kept 
 reminding him of the dignified setting down he had received from the 
 Senators. 
 
 Pyrrhus, finding his friendly advances repulsed, resolved on advancing 
 upon Piome in a less amicable spirit. Proceeding towards Capua, he 
 encountered Laeviuius, the consul, whom he had on a previous occasion 
 beaten; but he was now not quite so fortunate; for, after a severe 
 contest, neither side could say exactly which had got the worst of it. 
 Pyrrhus, however, marched upon Praeneste, which fell into his hands, 
 in consequence of the Romans having let it slip through their fingers 
 From the acropolis of Praeneste he is said to have seen Rome, at a 
 distance of eighteen miles ; but he must have seen very little, if so far 
 off, unless he was accustomed to magnify what he saw in a very remark- 
 able manner. The sight was sufficiently imposing to cause him to 
 retreat; and he went into winter quarters at Tarentum, where he spent 
 his own time, and the money he had taken from the enemy. 
 
 While Pyrrhus was thus engaged, or rather disengaged, three ambas- 
 
.142 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 lcijap XIV 
 
 sadors, named C. Fabricius, Q. A. Papus, and P. Dolabella, were sent 
 to him from Rome, to negotiate for the release of prisoners. C. Fabricius 
 was a very superior man ; and Pyrrhus, thinking to gain over the 
 superior man, employed means by which none but a very inferior indi- 
 vidual was at all likely to be influenced. Bribery was the first expe- 
 dient attempted by Pyrrhus ; but C. Fabricius showed his contempt for 
 money by pursing his eyebrows. Having failed in his coarse appeal to 
 
 Self-possession of Fabricius, the Ambassador, under rather Trying Circumstances. 
 
 avarice, Pyrrhus tried what was to be done through fear ; and one day 
 a tete-a-tete between the king and the ambassador was disturbed by tho 
 sudden introduction of a third tete, in the shape of the head of an 
 
CHAP. .UV.J THE PHYSICIAN OF PYRKIIUS. 143 
 
 elephant. The sagacious brute stood concealed behind a curtain, and, 
 with a blow of the trunk on the cheek, he administered a smart box on 
 the ear to the startled ambassador. The animal accompanied the act 
 with a hideous roar, and threw his trunk over the head of C. Fabricius, 
 who remained for a moment unable to see the clumsy joke that was 
 being played upon him. He, nevertheless, retained his self-possession, 
 remarking simply that neither by throwing gold dust in his eyes, nor 
 by the still blacker job of the elephant's trunk, was he to be blinded 
 to his duty. 
 
 Though Pyrrhus would not accede to the terms proposed for ransom- 
 ing the Roman prisoners, he allowed them to go to Rome, for the 
 season, to be present at the celebration of the fetes of the Saturnalia. 
 These games appear to have included some rather melancholy mirth, 
 the principal fun of the affair consisting in the practice of shouting out 
 
 Io ! " — which is equivalent to " Go it ! " — in the public thoroughfare. 
 Presents were exchanged among friends ; and servants were in the 
 habit of offering wax candles to their masters, — a sort of composition, 
 perhaps, which the former came to with their consciences, in memory of 
 the enormities of the grease pot. The domestic was allowed to wear his 
 employer's clothes ; and this portion of the ceremonies of the Saturnalia 
 is still privately observed by the gentleman's gentleman of the family. 
 While t'he wardrobe of the master remained at the mercy of the valet, 
 the synthesis, or dressing-gown, was the fashionable attire ; and for a 
 period of general relaxation, this loose wrapper was perfectly appropriate. 
 
 Having done at Rome as Rome was doing, during the Saturnalia, the 
 prisoners returned to Pyrrhus, who opened the campaign in Apulia, 
 and met the two Roman consuls — P. Sulpicius, and P. Decius Mus — 
 at Asculum. This Mus is the third to which the labours of the histo- 
 rical muse have given birth ; and he is said to have shared the fate of 
 his grandfather and father — if at least that fate can be said to have been 
 " shared," of which each had to bear the whole inconvenience. The 
 battle fought at Asculum was severe, the Romans having lost 
 €000 men ; for tradition delights in round numbers, with which 
 probability often refuses to square; and no less than three thousand 
 live hundred and five — for in this case exactness is carried to a degree 
 of excess — are said to have fallen on the side of Pyrrhus. 
 
 "War was found to be doing its usual work, the sword was cutting both 
 ways at once ; the candle was burning away at both ends, and the 
 litigants were figuratively cutting their own throats, as well as those of 
 their enemies. Each party would have backed out, if he could have 
 seen his way, when an incident occurred that opened the door to a com- 
 promise. Pyrrhus had a medical attendant; who, perhaps, felt that 
 doctor's work might as well be done at first as at last, and offered to 
 poison by one dose, instead of by slow degrees, his illustrious patient. 
 The medical traitor accordingly prepared a draft, which he knew he 
 could persuade Pyrrhus to accept ; but the Romans rejected the idea 
 with scorn, and denounced the scoundrel, who when taken was severely 
 
144 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XIV 
 
 shaken by his indignant countrymen. The wretch at first denied having 
 written the prescription, and attempted to eat his own words ; but they 
 stuck in his throat, and he died from the physical impossibility of getting 
 them either one way or the other. 
 
 Pyrrhus was so pleased with the treatment of the empiric who 
 would have poisoned him, that he sent back all his prisoners to Rome 
 without ransom, togged* out in new togas, and attended by pages, 
 stitched in neat wrappers. After some negotiation, which was assisted 
 by the returned prisoners, who urged tneir own new suits in support of 
 that of Pyrrhus, now eager for peace, a truce for four years was agreed 
 upon. It was stipulated that he should leave Italy, and he took the 
 opportunity to cross to Sicily with the benevolent intention of freeing 
 the people from the Carthaginian yoke ; but, like most foreign liberators, 
 if he took off an old yoke with one hand, he had in the other a new 
 apparatus, which he was anxious to substitute. His object was to have 
 made himself master of the place ; but after remaining three years, he 
 began to lament the faithlessness of friends, and helping himself to as 
 much booty as he could lay his hands upon, he left the Sicilians to 
 deplore the loss of himself and the treasure he took away with him. 
 He had, in fact, been sent for by the Tarentines, and was on his way to 
 see what he could do for them, when he was met by a Carthaginian 
 fleet, which sank seventy of his ships — as we are told by the same 
 authority that represents him to have started with only sixty, — a fact 
 which leaves little doubt as to which party profited most by the friend- 
 ship between Pyrrhus and the people of Sicily. He suffered a further 
 loss in the mountain passes, where he had some very narrow escapes ; 
 but he nevertheless continued to keep a balance' of 20,000 foot, and 
 3000 horse for the purpose of meeting any future engagements. 
 
 On his arrival at Tarentum, there was such a panic among the 
 Romans that nobody would enlist, until Curius Dentatus announced his 
 intention of confiscating the property of the first who refused to enter 
 the rank that was open to him. Besides the panic caused by the name of 
 Pyrrhus, an alarm had sprung up in consequence of the head of the 
 god Summanus having been struck off his statue by lightning, and 
 nobody could ascertain what had become of it. Accident led to its 
 discovery in the bed of the Tiber, from which it had probably been 
 fished by one of those extraordinary hooks which so many of our 
 historical facts are found to hang upon. The augurs were consulted as 
 a matter of course, and on a case being submitted to their opinion, they 
 advised that the action against Pyrrhus should be carried on ; for, 
 according to the soothsayers, the loss and subsequent finding of the 
 head, proved that after hair-breadth escapes victory would crown the!? 
 labours. 
 
 Pyrrhus in the mean time marched to Beneventum to attack Curius, 
 
 * The ignorantly squeamish, who may object to the word " togged," will please to observe 
 that it is purely classical — the Latin toga being tho root of the participle " togged," a* 
 well as the substantive " toggery." 
 
CHAP. XIV. J 
 
 DEATH OF PTRRHU!>. 
 
 140 
 
 intending to surprise the latter by sending, through a mountain pass, 
 some troops and elephants. The idea of a short cut for these massive 
 brutes was absurd, and the unwieldy bulk of the elephants caused a suc- 
 cession of stoppages in the highways and bye ways through which tbey 
 were being driven. The Greek columns got occasionally into a fearful 
 fix, and it was with difficulty they could lug through the mountain pass 
 
 Discovery of the Head of Summanus. 
 
 their extremely bulky luggage. Instead of completing their journey by 
 night, it was daylight before they had commenced their descent on 
 Curius, who saw them at a distance, and prepared a warm reception for 
 the elephants. He attacked them with burning arrows, and lighted 
 barrels of tar, which were pitched among the poor brutes, who fell back 
 upon their own camp, and every tent was turned into a crush-room. 
 Several elephants were killed, and four, being taken alive, were made 
 to march as prisoners in the Consul's triumph. Pyrrhus reached 
 Tarentum with a handful of horse, and a pocket-full of bread ; but, 
 being unable to pay the salaries of his adherents, they soon fell away in 
 the absence of the usual golden rivets. He retired to Greece, where 
 he engaged in all sorts of adventures, till the want of money prevented 
 him from carrying on the war in any shape ; and it is said that he had 
 come down, at last, to such very petty disputes, that he died of a blow 
 on the head, from a stone aimed at him in a street-row by an angry 
 woman. On the death of Pyrrhus, those whom he had assisted 
 relinquished all hope of maintaining themselves against such a 
 formidable enemy as Rome, and the Lucanians, Bruttians, and Samnites- 
 proceeded to do homage to a power they had been in the habit of 
 
J46 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OP ROME. 
 
 [CHAP. XTV 
 
 defying as long as they had any one on their side strong enough to 
 assist them in fighting their hattles. The Samnite ambassadors, who 
 were entrusted with the humiliating duty of conveying the submission 
 of their countrymen to Curius Dentatus, found him at his Sabine farm, 
 engaged in the discussion of a large dish of turnips. He received the 
 envoys with no other form than a wooden one, upon which he was 
 seated, and he continued his vegetarian meal, as he listened to their 
 overtures. They offered to bribe him with gold; but, taking up a 
 spoonful of the mashed turnips, he declared that, as long as he could 
 make sure of his daily bunch of his favourite luxury, wealth had no 
 charms for him. 
 
 Curius Dentatus refusing the Magnificent Gift offered by the Samnite Ambassadors. 
 
 The Samnites made one more desperate effort against Rome, and 
 Lollius, a runaway hostage, who had escaped to his native mountains, 
 found life such thoroughly up-hill work, that he resolved to change it, or 
 part with it. Having got round him a band of robbers, who were just 
 the sort of persons to do everything by stealth, he secretly prepared to 
 attack the Romans ; but they, hearing of the approach of the marauders, 
 were early in the field, and, securing the leaders of the insurrection, 
 struck off their heads in order to break the neck of it. 
 
 Rome was now mistress of Italy, but her ambition, which, though 
 always vaulting, knew no bounds, would not allow her to keep her 
 empire witbin its natural limits. In the management of her conquered 
 possessions she affected much generosity, in professing to admit the 
 
CHAP. XIV 
 
 ,] MILITARY ORGANISATION 147 
 
 vanquished to a share of her own advantages, — an operation she effected 
 by taking all the advantages to herself in the first instance, and then 
 conveying a small moiety back to those from whom they had been 
 wrested. 
 
 The Colonial system pursued by Rome was peculiar, for instead of 
 selecting uninhabited places, she preferred a population ready made, 
 possessing wealth already acquired, of which she usually helped herself 
 to a full third in exchange for a Government, which she supplied from 
 her own large stock of persons in want of places. The relationship 
 between Rome and her colonies has been compared to that of parent 
 and child ; but considering the stripping process to which Rome had 
 recourse, she seems to have acted less as a mother than a kidnapper. 
 The Roman Constitution, like the Roman cement, was an excellent 
 compound, of which it is impossible to describe the ingredients ; and, 
 indeed, it is found that the best Constitutions — like our own British — 
 are those which cannot be defined by a written prescription, or made 
 the subject of a perfect analysis. There was a judicious spreading of 
 political power over a considerable surface, and thus — to use a figure 
 from the chemist's shop — a plaster was always ready to be applied 
 to the sores, or even the trifling eruptions that might make their 
 appearance on any portion of the great body of the nation. 
 
 As in our own admirable form of government, there were three 
 estates, comprising the people, the senate, and the executive; but the 
 want of a permanent and universally recognised head of the state, 
 kept the country continually exposed to agitation on the part of 
 designing demagogues. 
 
 As the sword, unfortunately, cuts the most prominent figure in 
 the early history of Rome, we must not omit to speak of its military 
 organisation, which was very complete ; for in early times there seemed 
 to be an impression that neighbours ought to be approached with the 
 arm of war, rather than with the hand of friendship. Every Roman 
 citizen was a soldier, and was liable at any moment to be called upon 
 to turn his ploughshare into a sword, though when his special service 
 was over he was at liberty to turn his sword back again into a plough- 
 share. This transformation was not effected without damage to the 
 instrument, and the ordinary operations of agriculture were frequently 
 interrupted by calling the labourer from the garden to the field, and 
 forcing him to drill when engaged in sowing broad-cast. We have in a 
 single chapter of Livy* an account of what a Roman army consisted 
 of during the great Latin war, and though learned writers! have snarled 
 and quarrelled over the materials, like dogs over a dry and meatless 
 bone, we quietly walk into the midst of them, and deliberately extract 
 the marrow. An army may be described in half-a-dozen lines, though 
 it consisted of five, which were termed respectively, Hastati, Principes, 
 Triarii, Rorarii, and Accensi. 
 
 * Livy, viii. — 8. f Lipsius and others. 
 
 l2 
 
148 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XIV. 
 
 The Hastati, so called from their carrying the hasta or spear, con- 
 sisted of youth in the bloom of early manhood, and who went in front, 
 that then- early bloom might encounter the first blow of the enemy. 
 The next row was formed of the Principes, or men in the vigour of 
 life, distinguished by the abundance and splendour of their shields, 
 arms, and accoutrements, and comprising what may be termed the 
 heavy swells of the army. Next in order came the Triarii, a body of 
 veterans, selected for their past experience — a quality which, however 
 valuable in council, may be often useless in war ; for though experience 
 might have told a veteran that he ought to run for his life, his heels, 
 being as old as his head, might have refused to do the latter's bidding. 
 The fourth rank was composed of Rorarii, from the word Rora, dew, 
 who sprinkled the enemy with various missiles, and who standing 
 behind the Triarii, must occasionally, by aiming short of the foe, have 
 given more than their due to the veterans immediately in front of them. 
 Last in order came the Accensi, or supernumeraries, whose courage and 
 fidelity were not of the highest class, and who either brought up the 
 rear or left it behind, as their resolution urged them on, or their want 
 of it kept them back, while there was always an opening left in case 
 their fears should run away with them. It was frequently the practice 
 of the Accensi to reserve the vacant back ground as a sort of race-course, 
 in which races between their valour and their discretion were being 
 continually run, and in the majority of cases the latter got by far the 
 best of it. 
 
 The habits of the early Romans were exfremely simple ; agriculture 
 was their most honoured employment ; and it was thought high praise 
 to say of any man, that he was a good husband, and a good husbandman. 
 Their food was chiefly corn ; and many a happy family afforded an 
 illustration of the fact that love, notwithstanding the assertion of the 
 song writer to the contrary, can sometimes live on flour. Wine was so 
 precious, that, in libations to the gods, it was poured out drop by drop, 
 to prevent their getting a drop too much ; and, indeed, so scarce was it 
 in the early days of Rome, that Romulus is said to have used milk in 
 his sacrifices ; while Papirius, at a later period, vowed, in the event cf 
 his victory over the Samnites, a small glass — or petit verre — to Jupiter. 
 
 Long beards were worn by the Romans until the arrival of a Greek 
 barber from Sicily ; and he is said to have plucked out, with a pair of 
 tweezers, the beard which had grown for four centuries and a half into 
 a rooted habit. On some he employed the razor, and he was able to 
 reap an abundant harvest from the chins of a people who had never yet 
 worn a smooth-faced aspeet. 
 
 The invasion of Pyrrhus caused the adoption at Rome of many 
 Grecian luxuries, and among others was the luxury of substituting 
 a silver coinage for copper, which had been found so inconvenient that 
 a rich man had been obliged to use a wagon instead of a purse, if he 
 wished to take his money about with him. Silver was, however, so 
 scarce, that one Cornelius Rufinus was turned out of the Senate for 
 
CHAP. XIV.] MUSIC AMONG THE ROMANS. 149 
 
 having on his sideboard more than ten pounds of plate ; for it was 
 believed that he could not have come honestly by so much of it, and he 
 was regarded as either a thief, or at least as a receiver of stolen 
 property. 
 
 So humble were the pretensions to display in those early days, that a 
 silver cup and a salt-cellar formed, usually, the entire contents of a 
 Roman noble's plate-basket. Music, among the early Romans, was at 
 the lowest possible pitch, and the only professors were flute-players, of 
 scarcely any note, from Etruria Their strains were so dismal as to 
 be employed only at a sacrifice or a funeral, when extreme melancholy 
 was required. On one occasion the band is said to have struck, and 
 retired to Tibur, when the musicians were only brought back by being 
 made helplessly drunk, — a weakness to which some of those hirelings 
 who assist at the performance of funerals are in our day liable. 
 
150 COK1C HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH. 
 
 THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. 
 
 ll Italy now belonged to Rome, 
 but the thirst for conquest wa9 
 not quenched even by the sea 
 itself, beyond which the Romans 
 prepared to extend their power. 
 Among those who made a busi- 
 ness of bloodshed, by lending 
 themselves out as soldiers to any 
 one who paid them, the Campa- 
 nians enjoyed — if there could 
 have been any real enjoyment 
 in the matter — a bad eminence. 
 Tbey had followed the trade of human butchers for about fifty years ; 
 and, among other sanguinary engagements, tbey had accepted a job 
 from the tyrant * of Syracuse. 
 
 The Campanians had done their work of devastation ; and there being 
 no further use for them, they had received notice to quit ; but instead 
 of returning home, they resolved to stay, and perpetrate a little plunder 
 for their own exclusive benefit. They accordingly surprised the town 
 of Messana — if any enormity may be considered surprising, when com- 
 mitted by such a set — and calling themselves the Sons of Mamers, or 
 Mars, they established themselves under the title of the Republic of the 
 Mamertines. From this point they carried on their trade of robbery 
 and murder, which they put in practice right and left, upon most of 
 their neighbours. On the unerring principle, that wrong never comes 
 right, the rulers of Syracuse, who had, for their own bad purposes, 
 introduced the Campanians into the place, became, in turn, the victims 
 of that lawless band of freebooters. At length, Hiero, a king of Syra- 
 cuse, determined on getting rid of the nuisance which his predecessors 
 had established, and fell upon the Mamertines with such effect, that 
 they were on the point of being crushed, when they were saved by the 
 interference of a Carthaginian Admiral. The Mamertines being them- 
 selves faithless, were suspicious of every one else, and were as false to 
 each other as they were untrue to all besides ; so that they looked 
 distrustingly on the offer made, and were unable to agree as to the 
 
 * The word " tyrant " meant, originally, nothing more thai;, a sovereign who had arrived 
 at supreme power by rather irregular means ; but, as power thus obtained was most 
 commonly abused, the words " tyrant" and " tyranny" became universally odious. 
 
C11AF. XV. J COMMENCEMENT OF PUNIC WAR. 151 
 
 policy of accepting it. They were speedily in the position of a house 
 divided, for some were ready to receive the protection of Carthage, 
 while others sent for help to the Romans, who, to their utter disgrace, 
 passed a decree, pledging themselves to an alliance with the Mamertine 
 miscreants. It must be stated, to the honour of the Senate, that a 
 majority of that body rejected the humiliating proposal with scorn ; but 
 the Consuls, desirous of giving eclat to their term of office — an evil 
 incidental to the system of having a temporary, instead of a permanent, 
 head to the state — did all they could to plunge the country into a war, 
 and brought the question before the assembly of the people. 
 
 The lower passions of pride and avarice are soon aroused among the 
 mass by specious promises of glory and conquest ; and though each man 
 might, for himself, have spurned an alliance with the Mamertine 
 mercenaries, the result proved the truth of the saying, that " a corpora- 
 tion will do what an individual will shrink from with shame ;" for the 
 Comitia Tributa voted that the disgraceful compact should be formed. 
 
 Appius Claudius, the son of the blind Consul, was sent to Messana 
 with a fleet of triremes, or vessels with three ranks of oars, which had 
 been borrowed from the Greek towns of Italy ; for the Roman Admi- 
 ralty, in the true spirit of a board, though continually building ships, 
 was unable to produce an effective navy. Appius Claudius was not 
 seaman enough to carry his triremes to Sicily, and his rowers were not 
 so expert as they should have been in the management of the oars, 
 which were placed in ranks, one above the other, to a considerable 
 height, so that a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether was 
 extremely difficult. 
 
 Having at last got near enough for a parley, he invited Hanno, the 
 Carthaginian general, to a conference ; and, finding him a weak and 
 nervous person, he seized him by the neck, and fairly shook the whole 
 of his resolution out of him. 
 
 Hanno was frightened into delivering up the citadel, and returning 
 to Carthage, he was hurried off to speedy execution, for having failed in 
 the execution of his duty. King Hiero, being deprived of his Cartha 
 ginian aid, was completely beaten, and was glad to offer peace, or 
 rather he was glad to get it, on any conditions, for his own condition 
 was truly deplorable. He paid down 200 talents in ready money, 
 which was equivalent to about fifty thousand pounds of our modern 
 coin, to prevent the sacking of Syracuse, and by sacrificing all his cash in 
 hand, he was able to save his capital. From this period may be dated 
 the commencement of the first Punic War ; and as a feeble-minded 
 reader may be dwelling on the word Punic, in the silly expectation of a 
 pun, we, by explaining that it is derived from Phoenicia, whence 
 Phoenic or Punic, at once check the morbid appetite. The city of 
 Carthage is said to have been about one hundred years older than 
 Rome ; but cities, like ladies beyond a certain date, baffle all attempts 
 to reduce their age to a matter of certainty. Tradition assigns the 
 foundation of Carthage to Dido, who, having been converted into an 
 
152 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XV 
 
 unprotected female by the murder of her husband, fled from Tyre, 
 and when completely tired out, sat down to rest on the coast of Africa. 
 Here she agreed to take, on a building lease, as much land as could be 
 covered with a bull's hide, when, to the astonishment of the lessor, she 
 produced a skin cut up into thongs, and acting as her own surveyor, 
 she claimed to be monarch of all she surveyed, by putting this new 
 species of leathern girdle round as much earth as possible. There 
 was certainly less of the princess than of the tradeswoman in this 
 transaction, which, however, was characteristic of the future city, for it 
 became famous for its business and its bargains, as well as infamous for 
 its bad faith ; the term Punica fides having become a by- word to 
 express the grossest dishonesty. Her devotion to commerce led to 
 the establishment of a powerful navy, and her citizens having something 
 more profitable to do than to fight, her army was always hired from 
 abroad when occasion required. Koine, on the other hand, had made 
 war her chief pursuit, and the consequence was, that she had plenty of 
 soldiers, but no ships, except a few she had taken from her foes ; and 
 her occupations being mostly of a military or destructive kind, she had 
 no resources but her valour to rely upon. 
 
 The Romans remained in Sicily, where several powers claimed their 
 protection ; but Hannibal Gisco, anxious to preserve Agrigentum, threw 
 himself and sixty elephants into it. Here he was besieged for seven 
 months with an army of 50,000 men, who, of course, consumed daily 
 a large quantity of food ; but there was something utterly irrational in 
 providing daily rations for sixty elephants. It was arranged, therefore, 
 that Hanno should proceed to the relief of Agrigentum, but he was 
 defeated with the loss of thirty elephants, left dead on the field — a 
 field which must have been necessarily a very wide one for conjecture 
 Hannibal Gisco 's army consisted of a medley of mercenaries, including 
 some Gauls, who, having much money owing to them, refused to strike, 
 except for their pay, and who intimated that they would not draw their 
 swords until they had drawn their salaries. Their general, unable to 
 settle with them in cash, chose a more treacherous way of paying 
 them off; for, getting them into an ambush, he caused a volley of 
 missiles to be aimed at them, and the discharge was in full of all 
 demands, for it effectually stopped all further clamour. 
 
 Agrigentum was plundered by the Romans, who sold 25,000 of the 
 inhabitants for slaves — at least, according to tradition, who usually deals 
 in round numbers, amounting often in value to the sum which a 
 perfectly round number or figure indicates. 
 
 Though the Carthaginians had failed on land, their fleet gave them 
 advantages at sea, for there the Romans were completely out of their 
 element. The latter, however, resolved to have a navy of their own, 
 and the Board of Admiralty set to work in good earnest, with the co- 
 operation of the Woods and Forests, which supplied the requisite timber. 
 The difficulty now felt, was to obtain a design upon which to build, and 
 instead of trusting to official surveyors, who might have shown plenty 
 
CHAP XV.] 
 
 ROMANS EQUIP A FLEET. 
 
 168 
 
 of cunning, without producing any craft, the Romans took for a model 
 a Carthaginian quinquereme that had come ashore on the coast 0/ 
 
 Roman Man-of-War. from a scarce Medal. 
 
 Bruttiua.. Being relieved from the supervision of the professional 
 architects, the ship-building progressed rapidly, and within sixty days 
 after the trees had been felled, one hundred and thirty ships were built; 
 though the builders must have been as green as the wood, and as crazy 
 as the craft, to have imagined that such a fleet could have any but the 
 most fleeting existence. While the vessels were being got ready, it 
 occurred to the authorities that crews would be required, and as 
 the Romans had as yet neither ships nor sailors, a few scaffolds 
 were erected on land, that the intended tars might try their hands 
 at naval tactics. 
 
L54 OOMTC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XV 
 
 Matters went smoothly enough on shore, till the would-be seamen, 
 having ventured out to sea, found themselves as ignorant as babies, when 
 rocked in the cradle of the deep ; and as the waves washed over them, 
 they perceived they had learnt nothing of their new art but its driest 
 details. With seventeen of these queer quinqueremes, each with 300 
 rowers, who by their misunderstandings kept up a continual but useless 
 row, the Consul, Cn. Cornelius Scipio, sailed for Messana, when the Punic; 
 Captain Bugud, a regular Carthaginian tar, sent him flying, with half 
 his timbers shivered, into a port of the Lipari. The crews, most of 
 them half dead with sea sickness, scrambled as well as they could on 
 shore. Their commander, Cn. Scipio, was taken prisoner, and so 
 ridiculous had been the figure he cut, that his countrymen conferred 
 upon him the name of Asina — or the donkey — a character that 
 might in these days have qualified him for an appointment to a 
 jackass frigate. 
 
 After this ludicrous defeat, the command of the Roman navy was 
 taken by the other Consul, C. Duilius, who determined to wash out in 
 the ocean, as well as he could, the stain thrown upon his countrymen. 
 He felt that naval tactics were out of the question among those who 
 were, in one sense, sailors of the first water, for they had never been on 
 the water before ; and as to rowing, he knew it to be so impracticable that 
 he resolved to throw the oars overboard. He hit on an expedient for 
 making a naval engagement resemble as much as possible a fight on 
 shore ; and by overcoming in some respect the inequalities of the 
 waves, he put his own men on nearly the same footing with the enemy. 
 He constructed boarding bridges, capable of holding two or three persons 
 abreast, and these bridges being thrown on to the enemy's ships, enabled 
 the Romans to walk into them. 
 
 The Carthaginians who were not prepared for such close quarters, and 
 had trusted rather to the roughness of the sea, to deprive their oppo- 
 nents of an even chance of success, were so thoroughly taken by surprise, 
 that they suffered their ships to be taken one after the other. C. Duilius 
 was handsomely rewarded for his victory ; he was hailed as the first naval 
 hero that Rome had introduced, and as if the festive propensities of a 
 sailor on shore had been foreseen, he was allowed the curious privilege 
 of being accompanied home at night from banquets by an attendan* 
 with a torch — in which we see a foreshadowing of the policeman and 
 the bull's-eye. He was further honoured by a columna rostrata, a sort of 
 Nelson Column, adorned with the beaks of ships — a short stumpy look- 
 ing affair, of which the museum at Rome contains an imitation from the 
 hand of Michael Angelo,* — who has afforded us a fair copy of one 
 of the columns of the Times, in which the deeds of great men were 
 advertised. 
 
 This nautical exploit of Rome was followed up by minor successes, 
 
 * The curious reader, who is disposed to go over to Rome, will find the work of art 
 alluded to in the text at the southern extremity of the vestibule, just at the foot of the 
 staircase leading t» the upper apartments, and close to a marble statue of Augustus. 
 
CHAP. XV.] ROMANS VICTORIOUS AT SEA. 1 55 
 
 and L. Scipio made an attack upon Corsica, where he was opposed by a 
 Carthaginian fleet, under the command of Hannibal Gisco, who was 
 killed by his own men, but honourably entombed by the Romans, who 
 nobly buried their former animosity. 
 
 Carthage and Rome were mutually suffering by their hostilities, and 
 each nation lost its thousands alternately, according to what is called 
 the fortune of war ; but which, like the fortune of the gaming-table, 
 must end in the ruin of both sides, for the sole profit of the grim 
 enemy. While the forces of Rome were being diminished nearly every 
 day, her enemies were multiplying ; and that inextinguishable race, 
 the Samnites — the increase of whose population would present a most 
 startling series of returns — appeared to the number of upwards of 
 4000, who had been enlisted into the Roman navy. Their intention 
 was to set the city on fire, but their own leader threw cold water on it 
 before it was even lighted, by making himself an engine of communica- 
 tion with the Roman Government. 
 
 In Sicily the Romans were continually in motion, but they took little 
 by their motion beyond a few small towns. At length they determined 
 on one grand naval effort, and they prepared 330 quinqueremes, which 
 were placed under the Consuls, L. Manlius and M. Atilius Regulus, who 
 were probably selected as the most likely to be able to command a fleet 
 because they had never tried. The Carthaginians went to meet them 
 with 350 quinqueremes, in which were — according to tradition — 
 150,000 men; an instance of overcrowding which would have qualified 
 the commander, Hamilcar, for the captainship of a Thames steam-boat. 
 The collision between the two fleets was as destructive as might be 
 anticipated. Thirty ships of the Carthaginians went to the bottom ; and, 
 considering their cargo, we can only wonder how they remained at the 
 top. The Romans lost comparatively little, for with them matters 
 went on pretty swimmingly. Regulus was so elated that he sailed for 
 Africa, and, having taken Clupea, the neighbourhood of which was 
 cultivated like a garden, he sat down to enjoy the fruits of success. 
 He took the pick of everything he could lay his hands upon, and he 
 pounced upon the cattle wherever a herd was to be seen. At the end 
 of the year his colleague, L. Manlius, returned to Rome, with a portion 
 of the fleet, and 27,000 prisoners — an arrangement that savours of an 
 enormous cram — and left Regulus alone in his glory, which was destined 
 to become his shame. 
 
 Early in the year of the city 498, Regulus, having the field to him- 
 self, went into it with great confidence. He laid siege to the town of 
 Adis, which the Carthaginians tried to relieve ; but getting among the 
 mountains with their elephants, they were unable to turn round, and 
 found themselves encumbered by the trunks as well as the bodies of 
 these ponderous animals. Regulus took Tunis, and several other places, 
 though in the course of the campaign he is said to have encountered an 
 unexpected enemy in the form of a snake in the grass — a species of 
 serpent one hundred and twenty feet long, which swallowed up his 
 
156 COMIC HISTOKY. OF EOMB. [CHAP. XV 
 
 soldiers by hundreds — swords and all — though the reptile ran the risk 
 of cutting its own throat by such extreme voracity.* 
 
 The Carthaginians were anxious for peace, and sent ambassadors to 
 the Roman camp to negotiate, but Regulus, in bis proposal of terms, 
 exceeded all reasonable limits. He pretended to act on the principle 
 of give and take, but the giving was to be all on one side, and the taking 
 all on the other. The Carthaginians returned no answer to these in- 
 solent demands ; but it is probable their silence must soon have been 
 construed into consent, had it not been for the valour of a Spartan 
 of the name of Xanthippus. This individual was a mere mercenary, 
 who put other people to death for his own living; but he was, at 
 all events, a working man, and infused his own spirit of energy into the 
 Carthaginian army. He personally superintended the training, not 
 only of the men, but of the elephants, and taught the soldiers how 
 to wield as a power those hitherto unwieldy animals. Taking a hundred 
 under his immediate tuition, he brought them into such a state of 
 docility, that when turned out for exercise, they formed a stud worthy 
 of the zoologist's attentive study. 
 
 With these sagacious brutes, and a large number of troops, he went 
 forth against Regulus, whose army amounted to 30,000 men ; but the 
 soldiers of Xanthippus fought with the courage of lions, which, backed 
 up as it was by the firmness of the elephants, gave them a decisive 
 victory. More than 30,000 Romans perished, if the accounts handed 
 down to us are to be believed, and 500 were taken prisoners, though, if 
 the same accounts are to be believed, the Roman army was only 30,000 
 strong; so that the 500 captives must have been supplied from some of 
 those exclusive sources which are open to none but the historian. 2000 
 more are alleged to have escaped, but we must leave the reader to solve 
 the difficulty as he can ; for as two into one will not go, so 33,500 out 
 of 30,000 will not come by any process we are acquainted with 
 Xanthippus, the mercenary, had made it worth his while, for he was 
 highly paid, and received rich presents, with which, as he dreaded the 
 envy of the nobles, he thought he had better make himself absent as 
 speedily as possible. He returned, therefore, to Sparta, to astonish the 
 tiatives of his own city with the wealth he had acquired. 
 
 The Consuls of the year, Ser. Fulvius and M. Aemilius, were now 
 despatched with the whole of the Roman fleet, amounting to about 300 
 ships, to Africa, where, after destroying the whole of the Carthaginian 
 fleet, it went ashore on the southern coast; and this fleet of 300 ships 
 lost, according to the authorities,! 340 vessels. The Carthaginians, 
 whose army on land amounted to about 18,000, managed to lose about 
 30,000 at sea ; but an abundant population was still left for the histo- 
 rian to deal, or rather to cut and shuffle, with. We must confess 
 ourselves wholly incompetent to grapple with the arithmetical problems 
 
 * The talc of this serpent has come down to us from Livy, and would, no doubt, form 
 a very suitable companion to the sea serpent, if the latter could be found. 
 + Piodorus. 
 
CHAP. XV.] CARTHAGINIANS SUE FOB PEACE 157 
 
 that continually present themselves to us in the course of our re- 
 searches, and we therefore postpone all attempt at a solution of the 
 difficulty until the universal solvent shall be discovered. 
 
 The Romans and Carthaginians, instead of being overwhelmed by 
 their own misfortunes, were in high spirits at the disasters of each other, 
 and both parties proceeded to repair the damage done to themselves, in 
 order to qualify them for doing further injury. At Rome the Senate 
 ordered a new fleet to be built, which took several Carthaginian towns, 
 and Carthage ordered a fresh army to be levied, which took nearly all 
 the Roman vessels. 
 
 Shortly afterwards another naval force was despatched under the 
 Consuls, Cn,- Serulius Csepio and C. Sempronius Blaesus, who had got 
 together 260 ships, with which sundry ravages had been committed on 
 the African coast, when the sea, with its insatiable appetite, swallowed 
 up at a few gulps the greater part of the squadron. 
 
 Rome was now thoroughly sea-sick, and determined to have nothing 
 more to do with the water, but to wash her hands of it. She was, 
 however, still powerful by land, and encountered the Carthaginians at 
 Panormus, where the pro-consul, L. C. Metellus, gained a decisive 
 victory, by turning the elephants against their owners, and fighting the 
 latter as it were with their own weapons. This defeat led to a desire 
 on the part of Carthage for peace, and an embassy was sent to Rome, 
 accompanied by Regulus, who had been a prisoner five years, and who 
 agreed to consider himself morally in pawn, pledging himself to 
 return, if the terms proposed by Carthage should not be acceded to by 
 his countrymen. The conduct of Regulus seems to have been dictated 
 by a strong love of histrionic display, for he appears to have been 
 acting a part in which he sought to make as many effective points as 
 possible. In the first act we find him at the gates of Rome, refusing 
 to come in, although he had left Carthage for the purpose of doing so. 
 His wife and two children having gone to meet him, he looked at 
 them as strangers ; but this piece of dramatic effect may be accounted 
 for as springing from various other motives than those affecting the 
 patriot. 
 
 Having been invited to take his seat in the Senate, he at first refused, 
 but he yielded after a considerable amount of pressing ; a proof that his 
 refusal was founded on no fixed principle. When asked for his 
 opinion on the Carthaginian question, he spoke against the arrangement 
 he had been sent home to further, and the noble Romans strongly 
 urged him to stay behind, though he had pledged his honour to return, 
 and the Pontifex Maximus, the head of the religion of the nation, devised 
 a dodge by which Regulus might have evaded his promise. It must, 
 however, be stated, to his credit, that he kept his word to the Carthagi- 
 nians, and returned among them ; but instead of being hailed as a hero, 
 he was denounced as an impostor, and put to death in the most cruel 
 manner. The stories told of his being corked up in a cask filled with 
 vails and serpents, are altogether false ; for, after carefully looking into 
 
158 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME [CHAP. XV 
 
 the matter, we are glad to be enabled to knock the cask to pieces by the 
 gentlest tap possible. 
 
 Rome, having refused to make peace, was compelled, in self-defence, 
 to go to war, and ordered 200 new ships with the recklessness of tbe spend- 
 thrift who, calling on his coachmaker, desired that " some more gigs " 
 should be immediately sent home to him. The Carthaginian fleet was 
 in the harbour of Drepana, when P. Claudius Pulcher — son of Appius 
 the blind, and who seems to have wilfully shut his eyes to the danger 
 he ought to have seen — determined to surprise the enemy. Every 
 attempt to dissuade him from his rash purpose was vain, and he per- 
 severed in spite of the auspices, which were declared to be unfavourable ; 
 for the sacred chickens were completely off their feed — a fact he set at 
 defiance, by observing that, if the birds would not eat, he would at least 
 make them drink ; and he threw them all neck and crop into the water. 
 The fate of the chickens went to the hearts of the Roman soldiers, who 
 became thoroughly chicken-hearted, and fought so languidly, that they 
 allowed themselves to fall by hundreds into the hands of the enemy. 
 The Senate recalled Claudius to Rome, where a charge of high treason 
 was preferred against him ; but a thunder-storm interrupted the pro- 
 ceedings, which were never resumed, for the thunder seems to have 
 cleared the air of all the clouds impending over him. As he must have 
 ultimately died in some way or other, and as there are no records 
 of his having been put to death, history has returned an open verdict, 
 which is equally adapted to the suspicion that he came to his death by 
 his own hands, or that it was brought to him by the hands of his fellow 
 countrymen. 
 
 The reverses of Rome by sea were a second time the cause of her 
 giving up her naval establishments, and she sold her marine equipments 
 to the dealers in marine stores, at a ruinous sacrifice. Carthage, there- 
 fore, became mistress of the seas ; but the mistress being unable to pay 
 the wages she owed, began borrowing money of her neighbours. Ptolemy 
 of Egypt was applied to. but he civilly laid his hand on his heart, 
 declaring he had nothing to lend, and kept his money — if he had any — 
 in his pocket. In this dilemma, the command of the Carthaginians 
 fell upon Hamilcar, surnamed Barca, or the lightning, from his beiug 
 one of the fastest men of the day; and though any general, equal 
 to the general run, might head a force with plenty of money to pay the 
 troops, a genius was required to keep an army going, or rather to keep 
 up a standing army, with empty pockets. He found the mercenaries 
 in a state of insubordination for want of their customary emolument ; 
 but, having no money of his own, he made Bruttium and Locri his 
 bankers, and gave his soldiers a general authority to draw, with their 
 swords, for whatever they required. Taking his position on Mount 
 Hercte, now the Monte Pelegrino, he maintained himself and his army 
 for three years, enabling his troops to carry out the principle of spending 
 half-a-crown out of sixpence a day — the eixpence being their own, and 
 the half crown being anybody else's, from whom it could be most con 
 
CHAP. XV.] END OF FIRST PDNIC WAR. 159 
 
 veniently taken. After remaining three years at Hercte, he lenioved to 
 the town of Eryx, intending to tire the Romans out ; hut like many 
 others who attempt to exhaust the patience of others, he found his own 
 stock rapidly diminishing. He was drawn into an engagement, in 
 which he lost so many of his soldiers, that he was obliged to ask for a 
 truce to bury the dead ; but the Roman general would give him no un- 
 dertaking not to proceed during the funerals. A short time afterwards, 
 when the fortune of war had changed, Hamilcar was asked to give a 
 similar permission, and, by allowing the burials to proceed, he has raised 
 a monument to his own magnanimity. 
 
 The Romans, who were as fickle on the subject of a fleet as the 
 element to which it was destined, resolved a third time to have a 
 naval force ; but ships were out of the question, when raising the wind 
 was quite impossible. The state being without funds, appealed to the 
 merchants, who consented to sink a large sum in an entirely new 
 navy, with the understanding that if the tide of fortune should turn in 
 their favour, they were to receive their money back again. The 
 Romans had by this time become better sailors thau before, while the 
 Carthaginian tars had greatly deteriorated for want of practice. The 
 ships of the latter were so heavily laden with corn that they could not 
 proceed like chaff before the wind ; and the sailors, encumbered by the 
 cargo, found themselves going continually against the grain in attempting 
 to work the vessels. The Romans obtained an easy victory, but it 
 could not have been so easy to dispose of its results ; for, after killing 
 14,000 men, they found themselves still saddled with 34,000 prisoners. 
 A peace was concluded ; one of the conditions being, that Carthage 
 should pay to Rome 200 talents by instalments extending over twenty 
 years — an arrangement equivalent to the discharge of a liability at the 
 rate of one shilling per annum in the pound, and the extinction of the 
 whole debt by simply paying the interest. 
 
 The first Punic War was now at an end, and it was high time it 
 should be, for the losses sustained on both sides were enough to have 
 exhausted the Roman as well as the Carthaginian population ; and our 
 history would then have come to an abrupt termination, like the tragedy 
 of the j'outh, who was obliged to drop his curtain in the second act, in 
 consequence of his having killed all his characters. It is fortunate, 
 therefore, that the classical authorities, after " cutting to pieces " their 
 thousands and drowning their hundreds, in a day, should have paused 
 in their career of devastation just in time to leave something to go on 
 with, to the conscientious historian. 
 
 While, however, war killed everything else, it kept itself alive in the 
 most extraordinary manner ; for though brought to a temporary pause 
 by having swallowed up all its usual articles of consumption, fresh food 
 .vas speedily found, and the jaws of destruction were again on active 
 service. 
 
 The Romans having subdued Sicily, proceeded to prepare a consti 
 tution, or, in other words, having rendered the place subservient to 
 
160 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XV. 
 
 themselves, they took measures for supplying a livery. Being tired of 
 the old pattern, they devised something new, and produced an article 
 of the following fashion : — They made Sicily a province ; but those 
 whose province it is to say what a province was, have left us in some 
 doubt as to its precise meaning. The best definition is that which 
 derives the word from Providentia, a duty, or a thing that ought to be 
 done, and the provinces of the Eomans were sometimes done indeed, 
 though in a sense more modem and familiar than classical. A province, 
 instead of becoming a part of Rome, retained its national existence, 
 though such existence was scarcely worth having, for it was accompanied 
 by a loss of sovereignty, — a condition that may be compared to that of a 
 body living after its head was off. 
 
 A governor was sent annually from Rome with a long tram of officials, 
 and the appointment being only for a year, leaves no doubt that the 
 holder for the time being made the most he could of it. His staff 
 included two Quaestors or tax-collectors, and a number of Preecones or 
 auctioneers, who were always ready to sell off, in the event of a seizure. 
 Sicily was, in fact, in a state of complete servitude to Rome, the only 
 anomaly in the relationship consisting in the fact that the master, or 
 rather the mistress, received the wages, instead of paying them. The 
 amount was fixed at one-tenth of the wine, the oil, the olives, and 
 other products of the soil ; so that much of the fat of the land became 
 the perquisite of the mistress of Sicily. These tenths were called 
 decimce, and so ruinous was their effect on the place whence they were 
 drawn, that the words decimation and destruction have become nearly 
 synonymous. 
 
 The constitution of Rome had remained much the same during the 
 period to which the present chapter refers, though the aristocracy of 
 birth was beginning to give way to the far more objectionable aristocracy 
 of money. Such was the influence of wealth, that the Quaestors or tax- 
 eollec^ors became members of the Senate as vacancies occurred, and 
 the enormous riches of these persons proved how much of the public 
 money, of which they had the entire handling, stuck to their fingers 
 
CHAr. XVI.] 
 
 CARTHAGE AND HER MERCENARIES. 
 
 361 
 
 CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH. 
 
 SOME MISCELLANEOUS WARS OF ROME. 
 
 rostrate greatness always 
 offers an inviting 
 mark to upstart little- 
 ness ; and the story 
 of the Lion couchant 
 kicked by the Jackass 
 rampant, is as old, 
 at least, as the days 
 when Rome, exhaust- 
 ed by her wars with 
 Carthage, was attack 
 ed by the imbecile 
 inhabitants of the 
 feeble city of Falerii. 
 Had the Faliscans dashed their heads deliberately against a brick 
 wall, they could not more effectually have shown how few brains they 
 possessed ; and, to carry out the figure of the Lion and the Ass, a 
 switch of the former's tail soon told the latter's story. A few days 
 sufficed to lay the Faliscans in the dust they had so foolishly kicked up, 
 and in the clouds of which we very rapidly lose sight of them. 
 
 The Carthaginians had been compelled to evacuate Sicily, and the 
 mercenaries were of course to be paid off in one way or the other. On 
 a former occasion, some of the hired soldiers who had demanded their 
 money were taken to a bank — which proved to be a sand-bank in the 
 sea- -where, at the rising of the tide, they, instead of their claims, were 
 subjected to immediate liquidation.* The army from Sicily took, however, 
 a firmer stand, and proceeded to Carthage with a determination to do 
 business in the city. It contained, as they knew, the spices and 
 luxuries of India on which they loved to live ; the purple of Tyre, which 
 taught them how to dye ; and the ebony and ivory which proclaim in 
 black and white the wealth of Ethiopia. The persons who poured into 
 the place formed an assemblage less pleasing than picturesque, for the 
 group comprised all sorts — except the right sort — of characters. 
 Among the mass might be seen the almost naked Gaul, who was 
 outstripped in barbarity by some of the other tribes ; the light cavalry 
 of dark N 1 umidians, and men who had their arms in slings ; for such 
 were the weapons of the Balearic slingers. The mercenaries, immediately 
 
 * Diod. 5. 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 COMIC H1STOE* Ojf KOAIE. 
 
 [chap. XVI. 
 
 on their arrival in Carthage, proceeded to the Treasury, -where they found 
 nobody but Hanno, who in an appropriately hollow speech, announced the 
 emptiness of the public coffers. He regretted the necessity for appearing 
 before them in the character of an apologist ; but while admitting bow 
 much Carthage owed to the troops, he announced the impossibility of 
 paying them. The State, he said, was heavily taxed, and, he added, with a 
 
 Ilanno announcing to the Mercenaries the emptiness of the Public Coffers. 
 
 feeble attempt to be facetious, that he must lay a small tax upon their 
 patience, by getting them to wait for their money. The speaker was 
 nt once assailed with imprecations in ten different languages ; but he 
 stood firm under the polyglot uproar The cry of " Down with him ! " 
 reached his ears in nearly a dozen different tongues ; and when he tried 
 to remonstrate, through the medium of interpreters the worst inter- 
 
CHAP. XVI.] SARDINIA BECOMES A ROMAN PROVINCE. 1 G3 
 
 pretation was put on all that was said, and a good understanding seemed 
 quite impossible. 
 
 An attempt was then made to stop the mouths of the mercenaries 
 with food ; and provisions were sent in abundance ; but the only reply 
 was, an unprovisional demand for the money owing. At length the 
 pay had been got together, and was about to be distributed, when an 
 Italian slave, named Spendius, who had probably spent by anticipation 
 all he had to receive, advised his companions to decline the offer, on the 
 ground that if they refused what was due, their policy might obtain for 
 them a large additional bonus. The suggestion was popular with the 
 mercenaries, who held a meeting to discuss the point, and who, to save 
 the time of the meeting, overwhelmed with a shower of stones anybody 
 who rose to speak on either side. The resolution was soon carried ; 
 but it was by the aid of what may be termed the casting votes of those 
 who sent up. in the impressive form of a plumper, the first missile they 
 could lay their hands upon. For three years these intestine disturbances 
 raged in Africa, and reduced it to the lowest point of exhaustion, till at 
 length the malady wore itself out, though Hamilcar Barca, by intercept- 
 ing the supplies of the rebels, assisted greatly in depriving treachery 
 of the food it lived upon. 
 
 The pecuniary panic of Carthage spread in nearly every direction, 
 and the mercenaries at Sardinia, affected by the tightness of money, 
 called upon the African colonists to pay with their lives the debt 
 they could not discharge with their pockets. While the Sardinians and 
 Carthaginians were reducing each other to a state of such weakness that 
 neither could make any further effort, Rome stepped in, and like the 
 lawyer between the exhausted litigants, carried off the whole of what 
 they had been fighting for. Sardinia became a Roman province ; 
 when Carthage, whose bad faith has passed into a proverb, complained 
 bitterly of the treachery of Rome : for we find the story of the kettle 
 accused of blackness by the pot, is as old as the earliest pothooks 
 employed in the writing of history. Hamilcar, who was the patriotic 
 mouthpiece of the day, declared that he would raise his country ; and 
 it must be admitted, to his honour, that he did not take the means 
 employed by self-styled patriots, who pretend to raise a country by 
 stirring it up from the lowest dregs, but he tried to elevate it by all the 
 honourable means in his power. 
 
 Rome had at this time her hands tolerably full, and found employ- 
 ment for her arms in all directions ; when, to add to her embarrassment, 
 the Cisalpine Gauls were set in a flame by one of the many irons 
 that she had in the fire. An Agrarian law, proposed by the tribune, 
 C. Flaminius — whose name savours of the firebrand — was the cause of 
 the outbreak. The measure enacted, that the land taken from the 
 Gauls should be distributed among the Romans ; and accordingly some 
 settlers were sent out, who unsettled everything. The Cisalpines com- 
 menced negotiations with their Transalpine allies ; but though the nego- 
 tiations were carried a very long way, they eventually came to nothing. 
 
 m2 
 
164 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME "CHAP XYT. 
 
 Rome was so occupied with foes, that she had scarcely time to turn 
 rouud ; but -when she did turn round, she discovered that some very 
 objectionable proceedings were being carried on behind her back by a 
 set of people called the Illyrians. These persons picked up a dishonest 
 living as pirates, and had plundered, among others, some Italian 
 merchants who supplied the Italian warehouses of Rome and its neigh- 
 bourhood. The Illyrians were ruled over by a woman, named Teuta, 
 who, when applied to for reparation, observed that she was sorry for 
 what had occurred, but that piracy was what her subjects got their living 
 by, and she did not see how she could interfere with the manners and 
 customs of her people. The Roman ambassadors answered, that the 
 custom of their country was to protect the injured ; but on this occa- 
 sion, at least, the country failed in its Protectionist principles, for the 
 ambassadors were slain before they could get home again. When their 
 death was known at Rome, every exertion was made to afford them that 
 protection which came too late to be of any use, and a large army was 
 sent into the country of the Illyrians. The Roman arms were perfectly 
 successful, and Teuta was glad to obtain peace by promising to put 
 down piracy, and by actually putting down a very large sum of money 
 r jj way of tribute. Rome had done considerable service to the Isles of 
 Greece by checking the disreputable trade of piracy ; and as the 
 Romans took evident pride in being noticed by the Greeks, the latter 
 paid the former for their military aid, by some of those civil attentions 
 which cost nothing. At Athens, as well as at Corinth, Roman embassies 
 were received ; and though the ambassadors might be considered rather 
 too venerable for sport, they were allowed to take part in the Isthmian 
 Games, as well as in the Eleusinian ]\Iysteries. 
 
 The Isthmian Games were the same as those at Olympia, of which 
 we furnish a brief outline for the information of those who feel an 
 interest in the sporting annals of antiquity. 
 
 During the first thirteen Olympiads, the only game was the foot-race, 
 of which the spectators and the competitors, but especially the latter, if 
 they selected it as their walk of life, must have been at last thoroughly 
 tired. Wrestling was next introduced under the name of ttclKj], or Lucta; 
 and though wrestlers have for centuries been endeavouring to throw 
 each other, they have not yet fallen to the ground, for they still main- 
 tain a footing in the sports and pastimes of our own people. Next 
 came the Pentathlon, a sort of five-in-one, which comprised, in addition 
 to the foot-race and wrestling, the practice of leaping, in which nrich 
 vaulting ambition was displayed ; and throwing of the discus, as 
 well as of the spear— an exercise that required the utmost pitch of 
 strength and dexterity. Subsequently boxing was introduced, under 
 the name of Pugilatus, and it seems to have resembled pretty 
 closely our own pugilistic encounters ; for in ancient works of art 
 we find the boxers represented with faces whose indentures witness 
 their apprenticeship to the degrading trade they followed. The 
 physicians of the period are said to have recommended boxing as a 
 
cnAr. xvi. 
 
 ELEUSINIAN MVSTERTES. 
 
 165 
 
 Early Roman Gladiator and bis Patron. 
 
 remedy for headache : * but this application of the theory of counter 
 irritation is not adopted in modern practice. Another feature of the- 
 Olympian and Isthmian Games was 
 the Pancratium, a contest calling 
 for all the powers of the com- 
 batant. In this exercise biting 
 and scratching were allowed — a dis- 
 graceful license which leaves us in 
 no doubt as to the classical source 
 whence the vulgar phrase of " going 
 at it tooth and nail " is derivable. 
 Horse and chariot races were also 
 introduced, as well as contests of 
 trumpeters, who dealt out blows 
 of the most harmless description 
 against each other. 
 
 Such were the games in which 
 the Roman visitors to Corinth were 
 allowed to take part ; and we will 
 now proceed to confer on the reader 
 the privilege once peculiar to the 
 inhabitants of Athens, by initiating 
 
 him into the Eleusinian Mysteries. Their celebration lasted several 
 days, the first of which was occupied in getting together the mystse, or 
 initiated, whose qualification consisted in their having sacrificed a sow 
 — an act less worthy of a priest than of a pork-butcher. On the second 
 day the mystse went in solemn procession to the sea-coast, where they 
 took a bath, by way of wetting the public curiosity. On the third day 
 they went through the interesting ceremony of a fast, which, to the 
 looker-on, must have been a somewhat slow process. The fourth day 
 was devoted to the carrying about of a basket containing poppy seeds ; 
 and this literally seedy procession was closed by a number of women, 
 each holding in her hand a mystic case, the contents of which were in 
 no case allowed to be visible. On the fifth day the mystaB went, with 
 lighted torches, to the temple of Demeter, at Eleusis, where they spent 
 the night ; but the torches throw no light upon what they were looking 
 for. The sixth was the grandest day of all, and was employed in 
 carrying about a statue of the son of Demeter ; in whose honour the 
 mysteries were held ; because, when wandering about in search of her 
 daughter, she had supplied corn — though nobody can say how she 
 carried it about with her — to the inhabitants of Athens. During the 
 night of this important day the mystas were taken, in the dark, to see 
 what nobody appears to have seen at all ; and we are therefore spared 
 the trouble of describing it. On the seventh day the initiated returned 
 to Athens, and stopped on their way at a bridge over the Cephisus, 
 
 Arctaeus dc Movh. diut. Cur. i. 
 
166 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP XVI 
 
 from which they indulged in jests at the passers-by ; and the obscurity 
 of the jokes would, no doubt, if they had come down to us, have been 
 thoroughly in keeping with the mysteries they were intended to 
 celebrate. 
 
 Such were the games and mysteries to which the Romans were 
 admitted in Athens and Corinth, though they had, at about this time, 
 established among themselves a sport exceeding in ferocity the 
 scratchings and bitings of the Greek Pancratiastse, or the ear-flattening 
 and nose breaking efforts of the Corinthian pugilists. 
 
 Until the Punic War commenced, the state had found money for the 
 public games at Rome; but war having exhausted the treasury, the expense 
 of amusing the people was thrown upon the iEdiles, who made the matter 
 a medium of corruption, for they vied with each other in their outlays, 
 in order to catch the votes of the people. The iEdile who had carried 
 on the most extravagant games was the most likely to get elected to 
 higher dignities ; for popularity has ever been, and it is to be feared ever 
 will be, the prize of those who possess the art of dazzling, rather than 
 permanently enlightening the people. That their taste was degraded 
 by those who sought their suffrages, we learn from the fact, that at about 
 this time the sanguinary conflicts of the gladiators * were first added to 
 the amusements of the populace. 
 
 There seems to have existed in almost all ages and countries a morbid 
 appetite, similar to that which formerly gorged itself on the spectacle of 
 human beings " butchered to make a Roman holiday." "When the 
 brute-tamer promises to thrust his head into the mouth of the lion, or 
 the " intrepid aeronaut " is about to risk the dashing to pieces which 
 some previous aeronauts have experienced, and from which others 
 have narrowly escaped, the crowds who flock to be present are actuated 
 by the same sanguinary thirst for brutal excitement which filled the 
 Roman amphitheatre when an encounter of gladiators was advertised. 
 The attraction was great enough on ordinary occasions, but an overflow 
 could always be secured by announcing an entertainment sine missione, 
 which implied that the lives of the conquered were not to be spared. 
 It is to be feared that many of those who have never been at Rome 
 are nevertheless prepared to do as Rome did on the occasions alluded 
 to ; and if the certainty, instead of the mere chance, of a sacrifice of 
 human life were to be announced as an entertainment, the largest place 
 of amusement in the metropolis would, in all probability, be thronged, 
 though the ordinary charge for admission should be doubled. 
 
 The early Roman gladiators were either captives or malefactors, and 
 were fed on a particular kind of diet, as brutes in the present day are 
 fattened for the prize-show and the shambles. To give as much 
 variety as possible to the sport, the gladiators were divided into 
 
 * The first public exhibition of the kind at Rome took place b.c. 244, at the funeral 
 of the father of Marcus and Decius Brutus ; but the iEdiles carried out the idea 
 on what they considered a grand scale, and immense numbers of gladiators were 
 Bacrificed for the " amusement " of the people. 
 
CIIAP. XVI. | THE SAtfUNTTNE WAR 107 
 
 different classes, and, with an excess of ferocity almost incredible, 
 measures were adopted to give a dash of mirth to the frightful 
 encounters. Some of the combatants, called Andabatae, wore helmets 
 without any apertures for tbe eyes, so that " roars of laughter " might 
 be excited at an occasional display of blind fury. Others, called Retiarii, 
 carried nets to throw over the heads of their antagonists, and when 
 caught in these nets, their lives hung upon a thread ; for, if the net 
 did not break, their defeat was unavoidable.* 
 
 The foes of Rome were just about this time so numerous, that which- 
 ever way sbe looked, she had in her eye the sword of an enemy. The 
 Boians, the Tauriscans, and the Insubrians, with a number of miscel- 
 laneous tribes, entered into an alliance, and threatened to enter into 
 Rome itself, where a prophecy was current, that the Gauls and Greeks 
 would take the city. Having consulted the book of fate, the Roman3 
 found instructions for burying alive in the forum two Gauls and two 
 Greeks ; a proceeding which, but for its connection with the grave, 
 would border on the ludicrous. An army, under the Consul L. /Emilius 
 Papus, was sent to Ariminum ; but the Gauls, ignoring the movement, 
 advanced within three days' march of Rome, and ultimately found 
 themselves between the army just mentioned and another army that 
 had been stationed in Etruria. Flight was their only resource ; and 
 though the cavalry took to their horses' heels, and the infantry took to 
 their own, forty thousand are said to have fallen on the field ; but 
 even imagination, which is accustomed to wander in very wide fields, 
 can scarcely find one sufficiently extensive for such an incident. 
 
 It would seem that population in those days partook of tbe nature of 
 corn ; for however thoroughly a people might be cut down and thrashed 
 in one year, there was always an abundant supply for the sword of an 
 enemy to go to work upon in the year following. The Gauls were 
 accordingly to be found in full force within twelve months after their 
 having been destro}'ed, and the consul, C. Flaminius, killed them all 
 over again ; but they still were numerous enough in body, and suffi 
 ciently poor in spirit, to acknowledge the sovereignty of their conquerors 
 
 While the attention of Rome had been divided among her numerous 
 foes, the remnant of the Carthaginians had been expanding with the 
 usual rapidity, and had extended to Spain, where, under Hamilcar 
 Larca, a Carthaginian empire was in the course of being established 
 Hamilcar's policy towards the Spaniards was bold and rather original, 
 for he determined to win their affections by thoroughly beating them. 
 Every blow he aimed produced a favourable impression, and the 
 Spaniards were as ready as so many spaniels to lick the hands that 
 were continually smiting them. 
 
 The system of Hamilcar was followed after his death by his son-in- 
 
 * It may be hinted to the student that the Dying Gladiator in the Museum at Romo 
 is no gladiator, but a Gaul; and the collar round his neck, supposed to be a mark of 
 disgrace, is, in fact, the Torques, a symbol of honour. The sculpture is Greek, and 
 belongs to a period of Art long previous to the introduction of gladiatorial iiaplays. 
 
168 COMIC HISTCKf OF HOME. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 law, Hasdrubal, who ruled in Spain for eight years, and who proved so 
 good a ruler, that matters were kept as straight as could be desired. 
 He was, however, assassinated at last by some culprit, who has eluded 
 the vigilance of the historical detectives, for not even Niebuhr, who 
 stands acknowledged as A 1, has been able to lay his finger on the 
 criminal 
 
 Hasdrubal was succeeded by the son of Hamilcar Barca, a young 
 man, named Hannibal, whose precocity as a lad was exemplified by an 
 awful oath, which he took at nine years old, under the direction of his 
 father. Whether it was judicious of a parent to teach his son to swear, 
 is a question for the moralist ; but whether a child of nine could have 
 understood the nature of an oath, is usually a question for a judge; and 
 any intelligent reader may safely act as a judge in the matter 
 alluded to. 
 
 The biographers of Hannibal have endeavoured to prove that he was 
 that precocious nuisance, an infant prodigy, because, at the age of nine, 
 he expressed a desire to accompany his father to the wars ; though there 
 is scarcely an infant of those tender years who, if asked " whether he 
 would like to go with his papa," would not answer "yes," as a matter of 
 course, without having the slightest notion where he might be going to 
 Young Hannibal is said to have learned the art of war in the camp, and 
 to have gone into arms before he could be considered fairly out of them. 
 Before leaving Carthage, his father administered to him a soldier's oath, 
 and the boy swore like a trooper that he would be Bome's implacable 
 enemy. 
 
 On succeeding to the command in Spain, he was twenty-six years old 
 — a proof that promotion had been very rapid in his case ; and, although 
 merit may have had something to do with his rise, there can be little 
 doubt that he owed much to interest. Adopting the policy of his pre- 
 decessor, he attempted to engrave his name in the hearts of the 
 Spaniards by the agency of the sword ; and he may be said to have 
 literally thrust himself upon them, though they were often bored to 
 death by his too pointed attentions. All the South of Spain was under 
 his thumb, with the exception of Saguntum, which had hitherto slipped 
 through his fingers. He proceeded, therefore, to take it immediately in 
 hand, when the Saguntines sent for assistance to Bome, whose Senate 
 resolved unanimously that Hannibal could not attack the place ; but 
 when a copy of the resolution reached him, he had already begun 
 besieging the city. He sent word to the ambassadors who brought the 
 intelligence out, that they would display a sad want of intelligence if 
 they ventured to come too near to him ; and, as he had no time to go to 
 them, they had better retire. Acting upon his suggestion, they repaired 
 to Carthage, where they demanded that Hannibal should be given up ; 
 and there being some hesitation among the Carthaginian Senate, 
 Q. Fabius, one of the Boman ambassadors, made a fold in his toga as 
 if he had some mystery wrapped up in it. " Here," he exclainisd, " is 
 either peace or war, whichever you prefer; " to which the Senate, in a 
 

 
CHAP. XVI.] 
 
 FALL OF SAGTJNTUM 
 
 169 
 
 6pirit rather military than civil, replied, "Whichever you think proper." 
 Fabius, throwing back his toga, and assuming an imposing attitude, 
 
 His Excellency Q. Fabius offering Peace or War to the Carthaginian Senate. 
 
 exclaimed, " Then I offer you war ;" when the Punic Senators, taking 
 up his last word, raised through the seuate-house a shout of " War," 
 which, vibrating through every pillar, was conveyed by every post, and 
 echo sent back an immediate answer. 
 
 This was a declaration of that Second Punic War, for which Hannibal 
 began to prepare when Saguntum, after having held out for eight 
 months, was starved into submission. Though rich in the precious 
 metals, and particularly in silver, the Saguntines experienced the bitter 
 
J 70 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XVI. 
 
 truth, that to be born with a silver spoon in one's mouth, is but an 
 empty gratification, after all, when the spoon has nothing in it. Hannibal 
 sacked the city, and converted into baggage all the loose silver he could 
 find, which he kept in hand for the purpose of glutting the avarice of 
 his troops, whose valour depended materially on other people's metal. 
 
 The battle of Saguntum was signalised by the introduction of a 
 weapon called the Falarica, which was in one respect a species of fire- 
 arm, — for its point was covered with flaming pitch and tow, that, when 
 pitched with effect, carried fire into the ranks of an enemy. It was, 
 perhaps, fortunate, that inventive ingenuity had not gone very far 
 among a people who seemed only disposed to throw away the little they 
 possessed of it, in the form of destructive missiles 
 
CHAP. XVII.] HANNIBAL PHEPARES TO INVADE ITALY. 171 
 
 CHAPTER THE SEVENTEENTH. 
 
 THE SECOND PUNIC WAK. 
 
 We have now arrived at the great historical drama of the Second 
 Punic War, which some authorities have divided into five acts ; the 
 principal part being undertaken by Hannibal, and the scenery being 
 laid in Italy, Spain, Sicily, and Africa. The first act opens with tha 
 passage of Hannibal over the Alps, which forms one of the mcst remark- 
 able passages in the life of that renowned soldier. In the second act; 
 we arrive at the taking of Capua ; and in the third, we see Hannibal on 
 the look-out for reinforcements, which never arrive from his brother 
 Hasdrubal. The fourth act brings us to Italy, from which the 
 Carthaginian commander makes a forced exit ; and for the last act 
 of all, the scene is changed to Africa, when the curtain and 20,000 
 Carthaginians fall together. 
 
 Hannibal having resolved on the part he was about to play, called 
 together those who were to act with him in the stirring scenes in which 
 he intended to figure. His company consisted of 90,000 foot, 12,000 
 norse, and an unrivalled stud of 37 elephants. With this troop he 
 crossed the Pyrenees, by means of slopes, which nature had kindly pro- 
 vided, instead of platforms. The first incident of importance which 
 happened on the way, was a mutiny among those, who, when they 
 arrived at the foot of the mountain, protested against being brought to 
 such a pass ; and Hannibal wisely sent the discontented back, that the 
 insubordination might go no further. Forty thousand foot retraced their 
 steps, and 3000 horse backed out, on the opportunity being offered 
 them. With the rest of his army, he reached the banks of the " arrowy 
 Rhone," which he found particularly arrowy when he made an effort to 
 cross ; for he did so under a shower of darts from the Gauls, who thus 
 pointedly objected to his progress. The hostility manifested towards 
 the invaders was not simply on account of their appetite for conquest, 
 but their appetite for food was productive of a most inconvenient 
 scarcity. To provide every day for 00,000 soldiers was difficult enough, 
 but there was something awful in the idea of the daily dinner-party 
 being increased by 9000 hungry horses, and nearly 40 healthy 
 elephants. The passage of the Rhone was a matter of considerable 
 difficulty ; for the horses stood plunging on the banks of the river, 
 instead of plunging boldly into it. The elephants were still less 
 tractable, and were, after much trouble, pushed or persuaded on to a 
 raft, covered with earth and bushes, to make it resemble dry land ; but 
 it no sooner began to move, than the unwieldy animals felt themselves 
 and their confidence seriously shaken This caused them to crowd 
 
172 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 together to the edge ; and, while taking this one-sided view of their 
 position, they turned the matter over so completely, that they all 
 fell in with one another, and most of them came to the same con- 
 clusion. Continuing his journey, Hannibal arrived at the bottom of 
 the Alps, and, coming to the foot of St. Bernard, he extracted from the 
 foot all the corn he could lay his hands upon. The weather was, 
 unfortunately, so severe that the cold nearly broke his army up into 
 shivers ; while provisions were so scarce that at one time there seemed 
 to be no chance of anything to eat but ice, and though the ah' was 
 thoroughly gelid, it was impossible to live on it. Tradition tells us, that 
 when Hannibal came to this point of his journey he found two brothers 
 in the middle of a fight for a crown ; but what was the country to 
 which the crown belonged, or whether the article was a mere bauble 
 that had been picked up in the road, or whether the crown was a sum 
 of money representing the stake for which the brothers fought, we have 
 no means of determining. The combatants, at all events, agreed 
 that Hannibal should arbitrate between them ; when, adopting the 
 principle of " Age before honesty," he adjudged the article in dispute 
 to the elder of the litigants. The decision did not involve any 
 very remarkable acuteness on the part of the umpire, who seems simply 
 to have sided with the big brother against the little one. The successful 
 claimant was so delighted with the judgment delivered in his favour, 
 that he placed a large stock of clothes, for the army, at the disposal of 
 Hannibal. Some fearful misfits arose from this neglect of the whole- 
 some maxim, " Measures, not men," for there was not a man whose 
 measure could have been properly taken 
 
 It was now time to undertake the ascent of the Alps, and to 
 commence operations on a scale so grand, that all former experience in 
 scaling a height, was little better than useless Many of the soldiers 
 at the sight of the mountains, instead of rising with the occasion, sunk 
 with it into a fainting state ; and others objected to venture into the 
 enow, on the ground that they did not understand the drift of it. 
 Hannibal represented the whole affair as a mere nothing ; and added, 
 that the passage over the Alps was not such very up-hill work after all, 
 for that men, women, and even children, had often been quite up to the 
 work he now proposed to cut out for his army. " Soldiers ! " he 
 exclaimed, "you have no choice, except between certain famine on one 
 side of the Alps, or fertile plains, which you may see plainly enough in 
 your mind's eye, on tho other." Hannibal having made this brief 
 speech, was rewarded with loud cheers ; the army followed him, and 
 proceeding to the passes, he found them lined with Gauls ; but he tore 
 the lining out in the most merciless fashion 
 
 On reaching the Valley of the Tarentaise, Hannibal was offered 
 guides, whom, however, he distrusted ; and refusing, therefore, to be 
 Led away by specious promises, he sent his baggage by way of experi- 
 ment ; intending, when he heard of the safe arrival of his soldiers' 
 minks, to despatch by the same route their entire body. When the 
 
3HAP. XVII.] 
 
 HANNIBAL CROSSES THE ALPS. 
 
 173 
 
 elephants came within a stone's throw of the Gauls, the latter hurled 
 down rocks in vast masses on the affrighted beasts, and snowballed 
 them with the snow from the loftiest part of the mountains. The 
 assailants, however, completely missed their aim, for Hannibal threw 
 himself upon them, and succeeded in completely crushing them. 
 
 It was a fine October morning when the Carthaginian general set out 
 to cross the Alps by the road over the Little St. Bernard, and after a nine 
 days' march, which was at that time a nine days' wonder, he reached 
 
 Hannibal crossing.the Alps. 
 
 the top of the mountain. The fatigue endured by Hannibal and his 
 army cannot be described, and the toils of the journey were aggravated 
 
174 COMIC HISTORY OF EOilE. [CHAP. XVI L 
 
 by the chance of their falling into the toils and snares of the enemy. 
 Little passed their lips in the shape of food, and very little passed their 
 lips in a contrary direction, for they were afraid to speak, lest their 
 words should disturb the impending avalanche. The way was rugged, 
 save where it was carpeted by the snow ; but even where it was trodden 
 hard enough to serve as a sort of track or guide, they could scarcely 
 trust to it, for it gave them the slip every now and then in the most 
 unsatisfactory manner. On the tenth day they began their descent; 
 and they, perhaps, little thought at the moment that in quitting the top 
 of the Alps they were coming down to posterity. The two first days 
 slid away merrily enough over the ice and snow, but on the third they 
 arrived at a point where the ground had slipped out of its place, and 
 left to the enterprising travellers a far from eligible opening. 
 
 The shifting of the earth had, in fact, put them to the most perplex- 
 ing shifts, for the old road had perversely gone out of its way to baffle 
 the travellers, and lay at the distance of 1000 feet below them. As 
 Hannibal looked down upon the chasm, his spirits fell for a moment ; 
 but he speedily rallied, and determined, rather than allow his army to 
 perish with cold, that he would make a way with them. Nature, how- 
 ever, opposed him by means of a mass of rock ; and as he and Nature 
 were at variance, he began to think how he could best split the difference. 
 How he made his way cannot be confidently stated, though several of 
 the learned*, who have gone deeply into the subject, have come out of 
 it in opposite directions ; and the authorities cannot be said to clash, 
 for they are as wide apart as possible. Tradition, who never fails te 
 take a trenchant way of getting through a difficulty, settles the point at 
 once, by attributing to vinegar the success of Hannibal's scheme; but 
 the vinegar must have been sharp indeed to have cut asunder the rocks 
 which barred the progress of the illustrious traveller. 
 
 It is difficult, also, to conceive how he could have carried with him 
 the liquid in sufficient abundance to enable him to accomplish the object 
 he had in view, and we are inclined to the belief that it was by continued 
 assiduity, rather than by a mere acid, that the wondrous task was 
 effected. A good-sized cruet full of vinegar would produce no im- 
 pression on a common pebble, and when we imagine how many hogs- 
 heads after hogsheads must have been necessary to moisten the rocks 
 through which Hannibal passed, it can only be the sheerest pig-headed- 
 ness that would still obstinately adhere to the supposition we have 
 stated. 
 
 The passage of Hannibal over the Alps may be regarded literally as 
 one of the grandest passages in history. Though subsequent generals 
 have, in some degree, generalised the achievement, the special merit of 
 it belongs to the Carthaginian leader, whose superiority over his 
 followers consists in the fact that they did but find the way, while he 
 
 * Sec the " Course of Hannibal over the Alps ascertained," by Whittakcr, London, 
 1704, 2 vols. 8vo. ; and "A Dissertation on the Passage of Hannibal over the Alps," br 
 Walsham and Cramer, Oxford. 
 
CHAP. XVn.] HANNIBAL DEFEATS THE ROMANS 175 
 
 might have claimed the credit of making it. The exploit of Napoleon 
 has been compared to that of Hannibal, though the former, after all, 
 did but follow what had been, for two thousand years, a beaten track ; 
 the latter being the individual who beat originally a track for himself, 
 and thoroughly vanquished every obstacle. 
 
 At length, after having nearly lost himself in the Alps, Hannibal 
 found himself, at the end of a journey of fifteen days, in the plain 
 of Turin. On mustering his army, he discovered that consider- 
 able reductions had taken place in it; for the foot, which had stood 
 •at 50,000 when he crossed the Khone, had now dwindled to less 
 than half the number. He had lost 3000 horse, and his stock of 
 elephants had materially diminished — the few that remained having 
 become so thin, that there was a striking falling off in the material 
 as well as the numbers of the body. So little had his visit been 
 expected, that the Romans were not prepared for it; and Scipio, who 
 ought to have been waiting at the foot of the Alps, did not arrive at 
 Pavia until Hannibal had had time to recruit himself after his late 
 fatigue. Here both armies met, and Scipio gave battle ; but Hannibal's 
 cavalry gave it to him in a sense more familiar than satisfactory. In 
 the course of the engagement, the Roman general received a wound, 
 which wound him up to the highest pitch of rage ; and he would have 
 exposed himself to certain death, if his son had not valiantly rushed 
 between him and the enemy 
 
 The Romans now began to rate each other for having underrated the 
 strength of the foe ; and Tib. Sempronius was recalled from Africa, 
 where he was wasting his time by wasting the coast in the most unpro- 
 fitable manner. Hannibal pitched his camp on the banks of the Trebia, 
 where, among the bushes, he found for his army a convenient ambush. 
 Sempronius had by this time joined Scipio, who was still a great invalid, 
 and being generally indisposed, was not at all disposed for battle. 
 Sempronius, on the other hand, thinking he should obtain all the glory 
 that was to be acquired, felt eager for the fight ; and Haunibal, from the 
 other side of the river, assumed the most provoking attitude, in order to 
 tempt the Romans to come after him. 
 
 At length, some of the guards became so irritated, that they volun- 
 teered into the cold-stream, and plunged into the icy river. There 
 •happened to be at the moment a fall of snow, which was taken by the 
 wind into the faces of the soldiers, who, nevertheless, fought with 
 bravery, though in appearance they seemed to exhibit a mass of white 
 feathers. The Romans, though nearly frozen to death, were not ouly 
 cool and collected, but eagerly sought, in the hope of warming them- 
 selves, the heat of the battle. They were, however, completely 
 beaten, and retired to Placentia, from which the Consuls, with much 
 self-complacency, sent to Rome an account of the battle, in which they 
 attributed to the wind the blow they had sustained, and, plausibly 
 suggesting the ice as the cause of their failure, they endeavoured to slip 
 out of it. 
 
176 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [chap. XVII 
 
 Hannibai determined to pass the winter as quietly as he could, but he 
 appears, according to the authorities,* to have indulged in a little 
 masquerading, for the purpose of deceiving the Cisalpine Gauls, ■who 
 more than once conspired to kill him. He would frequently change his 
 dress • and he appears to have had a large assortment of wigs, in one or 
 
 Hannibal disguising himself. 
 
 other of which he was accustomed to disguise himself. Sometimes he 
 would appear in hair of the richest brown, and at other times it was of 
 the reddest dye ; so that the people were puzzled to understand how the 
 same head could, on one day, appear covered with the luxuriant chestnut, 
 and on another day, disfigured with an untidy bunch of carrots. On 
 one occasion, when a conspiracy against him was ripe, he came to the 
 council with a limping gait, and thus saved himself from a much more 
 serious hobble. 
 
 In the spring of the next year, the Consul, C. Flaminius, was sent to 
 Ariminum with an army, and Hannibal started for Etruria. This 
 expedition — if expedition is the proper term for an affair so extremely 
 slow — lasted three days and three nights ; the soldiers proceeding 
 through marsh and morass, through thick and thin, to the end of their 
 journey. The Spaniards went first, who picked their way, followed by 
 the Gauls, who stuck in the mud, and were spurred on by the swords of 
 the Numidians, who followed. All the horses were knocked up, and 
 
 Polybius, 3. Appian, c. 316. Livy, 22. 
 
AP. XVU.j BATTLE OF LAKE TKASIMENUS. 177 
 
 Hannibal, to whom all the glory of the march has been given, endured 
 the least of the fatigue, for, while the common soldiers were wading 
 through tha mud, their chief was elevated on the back of the only 
 surviving elephant. 
 
 The advantages of a high position were, in this instance, strikingly 
 exemplified, for if Hannibal had moved in the humbler walks on this 
 occasion, the probability is, that he could not have walked at all ; but 
 that, sinking in the marshes, he would have gone down — in a swamp — 
 to posterity. He, himself, lost the use of one of his eyes, though, 
 indeed, he exhibited throughout this disastrous affair an unusual amount 
 of shortsightedness. After reaching Faesuke, now Fiesole, near 
 Florence, he made for Rome, and Flaminius made after him as far 
 as Cortona; but Hannibal, turning sharp round the corner of the Lake 
 Trasimenus, ran unperceived up the heights, getting round to the rear 
 of the Roman general, who thought the foe was still in front of him. 
 While Flaminius was pressing forward, Hannibal and his forces fell 
 upon him right and left, as well as behind, and a fog coming on at the 
 time added to the perplexity of the Consul, by preventing him from 
 seeing his danger. A fight in a fog is one of the most dismal pictures 
 that can be described, if, indeed, it can be called a picture at all, when 
 nothing can be seen, and the whole is a mere daub, caused by a fearful 
 brush between two conflicting armies. Such was the fury of the fight, 
 that it is said an earthquake, which happened at the time, was 
 unperceived by the combatants ; and, indeed, so shocking was the 
 carnage, that a shock of nature might have sunk by its side into 
 comparative insignificance. 15,000 Romans were slain, and those who 
 are always ready to prophecy after an event, began to see clearly in 
 certain omens that had happened some time before, the cause of all 
 that had lately happened. 
 
 A shower of stones had fallen at Picenum, but it does not appear 
 whether those who told the story of the stones had a hand in throwing 
 them. In Gaul a wolf had swallowed the sword of a sentinel ; and in 
 Coere the answers of the oracle were suddenly written in smaller 
 characters — a proof only that the oracle had got from text into round- 
 hand — the ordinary result of improved penmanship. 
 
 The battle had undoubtedly been fearful in its results, for Flaminius 
 himself was slain; and 15,000 Romans having been cut to pieces, were 
 thrown into a brook, which still bears the name of Sanguinetta, from 
 its being turned into the colour of blood, though the statement is too 
 extravagant to have the colour of probability. The horrors of the war 
 were great enough without the aid of exaggeration, and though the 
 instances of suffering were no doubt great, we are inclined to doubt the 
 story, that the Numidians went without their allowance of wine, in 
 order to wash the feet of their horses ; for, though the animals might 
 have been unable to do without their hock, they could surely have 
 dispensed with their Falernian. 
 
 On the news of Hannibal's victory reaching Rome, the praetor 
 
 N 
 
178 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 announced the distressing circumstance to a numerous meeting of the 
 people, who, in the absence of the Consul, took upon themselves to 
 appoint a dictator. Q. Fabius Maximus was chosen, and the master- 
 ship of the horse was conferred on M. Minucius. Hannibal was 
 expected at Rome, but, like a wise general, he defeated general 
 expectation, and proceeded to Spoletum, a Roman colony, which he 
 hoped would have held out great advantages ; but it held out with 
 great spirit against him. Wishing to avoid the inconvenience of a 
 siege, and of sitting down before the city with nothing but a marsh to 
 sit down upon, he marched into Picenum, which contained abundance 
 of everything necessary for the support of his army. His soldiers were 
 afflicted at this time with a cutaneous disease, and, though this 
 annoyance was only skin-deep, he feared a general breaking-out, if he 
 had detained them against their will in an unhealthy country. From 
 Picenum he passed into Apulia ; and though he was disappointed in 
 the hope that the inhabitants would join him, they were too weak to 
 resist, and he turned every Italian city into an Italian warehouse for 
 the supply of the comestibles he required. The dictator Fabius 
 followed at a short distance, but always taking the high ground, by 
 hovering about the hills and keeping the upper hand of Hannibal. 
 
 His intention was to proceed to Casinum, but by some stupid mis- 
 understanding, the general led the way to Casilinum, and the result 
 was, that Fabius got ahead of him. On the mistake being discovered 
 by Hannibal, he got 2000 oxen — but where he got them from does not 
 exactly appear — and, having procured several thousand bundles of 
 wood, he tied them to the horns of the animals. Having set the wood 
 on fire, he turned the oxen out among the Romans, whose quarters 
 soon were thrown into the sort of confusion prevalent in a London 
 thoroughfare on a Smithfield market-day. In order to inflame the oxen, 
 their horns had been covered over with pitch, which gave them an 
 inclination to toss, and the poor creatures were running about in all 
 directions, under the influence of fear and fury. Fabius is said to have 
 mistaken the cattle for the Carthaginians, and to have rushed forwards, 
 sword in hand, resolved on butchery. The Romans were thus drawn 
 out of their favourable position, and Hannibal slipped into it, leaving 
 the bulls to decide by a toss-up, if they pleased, the chances of victory 
 ever their aggressors. On the mistake being discovered by Fabius, he 
 backed out as well as he could, and ventured on a few skirmishes, in 
 which he met with some success, but he continued his policy of trying 
 to tire out the enemy. 
 
 The plan he adopted was to continue always in an imposing attitude 
 but to be ready to slip away, so that, when his antagonist gathered up 
 his strength to make a hit, the force was always expended on vacancy. 
 The Romans grew extremely impatient of a series of tactics which 
 showed no immediate result ; and Fabius, having occasion to return to 
 Rome, was insulted by having the epithet of Cunctator, the dawdler, 
 or the slow-coach, applied to him. One of the tribunes even went so 
 
CHAP XVII.] 
 
 Q. FABIUS RESIGNS HIS COMMAND 
 
 17'J 
 
 far as to charge him with treachery ; to which he made, what is usually 
 called, the " nohle " reply, " Fabius cannot be suspected." 
 
 It seems to have been extremely easy to get a reputation for " noble " 
 replies among the Romans, since the mere denial of a charge, amount- 
 ing to the commonplace plea of " not guilty," is frequently cited by the 
 historians as a noble reply, because an individual in a toga happeus to 
 have uttered it. For the purpose of annoying Fabius, or the " slow 
 coach," the people conferred on Minucius, who, for the sake of dis- 
 tinction, may be appro- 
 priately termed the "fast /f ,l i ut 
 man," an equal share of 
 power with the dictator 
 himself, and half the 
 command of the army. 
 On the return of Fabius 
 to the camp, Minucius 
 proposed that they should 
 command on alternate 
 days, a course that would 
 have been extremely in 
 convenient ; for if Minu- 
 cius had ordered the army to take a week's march, it is possible 
 that on the day ensuing, Fabius would have ordered the army back 
 again. The latter, therefore, proposed that each should take a separate 
 half; but an army, like a house, cannot be divided without weakness 
 being the inevitable consequence. The ill effects of the separation 
 were soon shown ; for Minucius, who was hot and hasty, was soon 
 provoked by Hannibal to make an attack, and the Carthaginian general, 
 who had been accustomed to talk of the Romans hanging over 
 him like a cloud, declared that they had now come down upon him 
 in a weak and watery shower. Minucius and his army would certainly 
 have been absorbed, or, to use a more powerful figure, they would 
 have been effectually wiped out, but for the generous intervention 
 of Fabius. The latter saved the former from destruction, when 
 Minucius, who was no less mawkish than rash, followed up the allegory 
 of the rain by bursting into tears, and throwing himself on the neck, as 
 well as on the generosity, of Fabius. Minucius resigned the dictatorship 
 into the hands of his colleague, who leisurely wound up the campaign ; 
 and having resigned his power, has to this day reigned supreme as the 
 example of the slow-and-sure principle in the theme of every schoolboy. 
 
 Hannibal was now beginning to feel the effects of the policy of delay, 
 for he was getting out of heart, and was terribly out of pocket. The 
 harvest had been all gathered in before he could lay his hands upon it ; 
 and he felt it would be idle to take the field, unless he could take the 
 cora that had grown in it. His army was clamorous for food ; and 
 complaint is never so open-mouthed as when hunger is at the bottom of 
 it. The Romans began to think the time had arrived for a decisive 
 
 v 9 
 
18U 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME 
 
 [CHAP. XVII, 
 
 blow, and had chosen as one of the Consuls of the year an individual 
 named C. T. Varro, whom Livy has described as an eloquent meat 
 salesman.* He had been in the habit of going from door to door in the 
 service of his father, collecting , orders for meat in the morning, and 
 taking it round in the afternoon ; but he was determined that his voice 
 
 Young Varro. 
 
 should be heard in something more impressive than aery of "butcher," 
 at the door-ways of the citizens. His first flights of eloquence were 
 in the market-place, where he interlarded his ordinary exclamations of 
 " Buy, buy," with sarcastic inquiries how long the people would consent 
 to be sold by those who professed to be their friends and rulers. By 
 degrees, he quitted the shambles for the platform, and he began attending 
 public meetings as a professional demagogue. Like those who pursue 
 patriotism as a trade, he accepted the first offer of a place that was 
 made to him ; and he became in succession a quaestor, an aedile, and a 
 praetor. At length he was elevated to the consulship, or rather the 
 consulship was lowered to him ; for though the name of Varro became 
 afterwards truly illustrious, we cannot allow to C. T. the title of 
 respectable. His colleague, as Consul, was L. iErnilius Paulas, a 
 patrician, who is said to have cherished a profound hatred of the people ; 
 
 * Polybius says uothing about the origin of Varro ; and as there was no directory in 
 those days, we arc unable to decide whether the omission of Polybius, or thy assertion ot 
 Livy, is more to be relied upon. 
 
CHAP. XVII. j BATTLE OF CANN.E 181 
 
 but why he is said to have done anything of the sort — except it is in 
 slavish subjection to the old prejudice, according to which all the 
 patricians are supposed to hate all the people — we are at a loss to 
 discover. The two Consuls were at daggers drawn between themselves, 
 which prevented them from agreeing as to the proper time for drawing 
 the sword against the enemy. C. T. Varro, the ex-butcher, was for 
 cutting and slashing at the Carthaginians off-hand; but iEmilius Paulus, 
 having consulted a poulterer, declared the sacred chickens to have lost 
 their appetites, which some considered a foul pretext, and- others a fair 
 excuse, for avoiding a battle. The Consuls had, however, set out with 
 80,000 foot, and 0000 horse, which were encamped on the river Aufidus , 
 their stores being packed up in baskets and cans at the little town of 
 Cannae. Hannibal, who was completely out of elephants — there being 
 not even one left for the saddle for his own especial use — was compelled 
 to ride the high horse — the highest he could find among his cavalry — 
 as a substitute. He took Cannae under the very eyes and Koman 
 noses of the consuls, one of whom, Varro, would have fought, but 
 iEmilius Paulus, the other, had taken the sacred chickens so much to 
 heart, that he had not courage for anything. 
 
 At length, on the 2nd of August, Hannibal, whose pockets were 
 empty of cash, and whose baggage was bare of provisions, determined to 
 provoke the Romans to a battle. Had the policy of Fabius Cunctator y 
 " slow coach," been pursued at this stage, the defeat of the Carthaginians 
 was certain, for they were an army of mercenaries without pay, and in 
 ten days there would not have been a bone for ihe dogs of war to feed 
 upon. Hannibal, who had always much tact in discovering which way 
 the wind blew, was taking a walk in the morning, when his eyes getting 
 suddenly filled with dust, caused him to see a point that had hitherto 
 escaped him. It occurred to him at once that, by placing his army 
 with its back to the wind, the Romans who faced him would have to face 
 a blow which might prove very embarrassing. He knew that the dust 
 would set the Romans rubbing their eyes, or even if they did not raise 
 a hand against the inconvenience, they would, at all events, be compelled 
 to wink at it. In order to increase the annoyance, he ordered the ground 
 to be thoroughly well ploughed, and though he had not the advantage of 
 shot, he found the dust a very good substitute for powder. He had 
 placed the Gauls in the middle, supported by Africans on each side, and 
 the Romans having first attacked the centre, which gave way, were 
 enclosed between the two wings ; a position in which they were so hard 
 pressed, that they could not get out of the claws of the enemy. 
 
 The slaughter was, as usual, tremendous, 45,000 being left dead on 
 the field, or rather, in conformity with the excess of caution used in 
 those days to prevent the return of an adversary to life, being " cut to 
 pieces." iEmilius Paulus, the patrician, who had been reluctant to 
 fight, was killed while boldly combating with his sword in his hand, 
 but Varro, the patriotic butcher, who had been all ardour and 
 enthusiasm to strike the decisive blow, ran off as fast as his horse's 
 heels could carry him. He reached Rome in safety, and such a perfect 
 
ISZ COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XVII. 
 
 master was he of the demagogue's art, that he succeeded in obtaining the 
 thanks of the Senate for his services. It -was true that he had shown 
 boldness, amounting to rashness, when the security of the army was at 
 stake, and he had exhibited caution amounting to cowardice, hi taking 
 care of himself, by running away when the battle was lost ; but he had 
 got the character of the " people's friend," and the people are often a 
 long time in finding out, and casting off, those who are in the habit of 
 duping them. 
 
 Among other instances of gross popular delusion which occurred about 
 this time, was the sending of Fabius Pictor as ambassador to Delphi, to 
 consult the Oracle. Fabius was the historian of his age, and was sup- 
 posed, therefore, qualified to record all sorts of falsehood ; for historv in 
 those early days had not been dignified by that conscientious accuracy 
 which is in our own time indispensable. His second name of Pictor 
 was acquired rather by his industry as a house-painter, than by his 
 talent as an artist, for he had done the whole of the painting of the 
 Temple of the Goddess of Health ; and he probably devoted himself 
 rather to the pound-brush than the pencil. As a writer of history, there 
 was something of the painter in his labours ; but he was unfortunately in 
 the habit of employing very false colours. On his return from Delphi, 
 the public seemed to have derived very little instruction from his 
 journey; for the sacrifice of two pairs of human beings, a male and 
 female Greek, and a male and female Gaul, was the principal result of 
 the information he brought home with him. 
 
 As it may be interesting to the student to be told how the Oracle 
 was worked in those days, we furnish a few particulars. The office for 
 making inquiries of the Delphic Oracle was in the Temple — dedicated to 
 Apollo — where a fire was continually burning, fed with the wood of 
 laurels, which typifies the ever-greenness that deception lives upon. 
 In the centre of the Temple was a small opening which emitted 
 intoxicating smoke, and, as the Pythia sat immediately above it, she 
 was rapidly reduced to a state in which she fell on the floor and 
 uttered incoherent sounds, which were said to be inspired. A prophet 
 was in attendance to write down the pith of what the Pythia was 
 supposed to say, and the purport of these drunken ravings was accepted 
 by nations and individuals as a guide to their conduct in cases of the 
 most serious interest. 
 
 Originally the Pythia was always a young girl, but, subsequently, a 
 law was passed, limiting the office to those who had passed their fiftieth 
 year; and there is no doubt that intoxication being the chief duty, 
 rendered the place peculiarly eligible to the old women. At first there 
 had been only one female employed, but when the business increased, 
 a second, and subsequently a third, was appointed, so that there might 
 always be one at hand to perform the duty, while the other was drunk 
 and incapable. Of course, a fee was exacted from all who came to consult 
 the Oracle, which was entirely in the hands of a few aristocratic families 
 of the place, who made a double profit, by taking money, and giving 
 only such advice as was calculated to promote their own class interests 
 
CHAP. XVIII.] CArUA REVOLTS TO HANNIBAL 183 
 
 CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH 
 
 CONCLUSION OF THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. 
 
 Hannibal was now strongly urged by one Maharbal, the commander 
 of the cavalry, to march against Eome, and the gallant general went so 
 far as to promise that if he had permission, he would go and take it 
 so easy, that in five days they might sleep in the Capitol. " The 
 idea is indeed a good one," said Hannibal, with an incredulous smile, 
 " but the only objection to its being carried out, is that it 's utterly 
 impossible." Maharbal persevered in his recommendation ; but finding 
 his advice rejected, he grew sententious and sentimental, which is often 
 the effect of a snubbing. " Alas ! " he exclaimed, with that anti-colloquial 
 style of expression, which characters in history — but not in real life — 
 are so fond of assuming, — " Alas ! thou knowest how to gain a victory, 
 but thou knowest not how thou oughtest to use thy victory when thou 
 hast gained it." If this was the ordinary mode in which Maharbal 
 expressed himself, it is not surprising that Hannibal preferred his 
 deeds to his words, the use of his sword to the abuse of his tongue, and 
 his hand in war to his advice in council. 
 
 The object of Hannibal had been to attach to himself the Italian 
 towns, but they naturally repudiated an attachment, which consisted in 
 his fastening himself on to them with an army which they were made to 
 support at a ruinous sacrifice. He had, however, succeeded in winning 
 over Capua to his designs, for it was inhabited by a contemptible race, 
 who lay continually in the lap of luxury, where the lapse of all the 
 better qualities would seem to be unavoidable. Not satisfied with 
 treachery to the parent state, the Capuans added cruelty to their other 
 vices, and stifled in their hot baths all the Romans who were living 
 among them — an enormity which sends the blood immediately to boiling 
 heat, to contemplate. The faithless inhabitants stipulated that they 
 should be allowed to break all their engagements with Rome, on entering 
 into new engagements with Carthage, — an arrangement like that of a 
 dishonest servant, who, having robbed a former master, stipulates for 
 impunity for past roguery as the condition of future fidelity. Hannibal 
 was weak or politic enough to enter into terms with this contemptible 
 set ; but he incurred the unfailing penalty of wrong, for his own army 
 became corrupted by contact with the Capuan crew, and his fortunes 
 began to decline from the time of his alliance with this degraded 
 people. 
 
 The exertions of Rome to repair her reverses were extreme after the 
 battle of Canna3 ; and though nearly every family had lost a relative, 
 the period of mourning was limited to thirty days, while a law was 
 
184 COMIC HISTORY OF HOME. [CHAF. XVIII. 
 
 passed prohibiting all women from weeping in the streets, for they had 
 been found a crying evil. Sparing no expense, the state performed an 
 operation of a rather curious kind, for 8000 slaves were bought on credit 
 — the Government thus making a large purchase without any money at 
 all — and freeing these slaves, made them fight ; thus retaining them 
 actually in bondage, while nominally giving them their liberty. Even 
 gladiators were allowed the valuable privilege of fighting the foe instead 
 of each other, and of falling in the field instead of falling in the circus. 
 
 Hannibal having used up nearly all his men and materials, was com- 
 pelled to send to Carthage for fresh supplies, when his old rival Hanno 
 exclaimed in the senate, that if the Carthaginian general had been 
 unsuccessful, he deserved no help, and if he had been victorious, he 
 could not possibly need any. The speech of Hanno on this occasion 
 would have done credit — or discredit — to a political partisan of the 
 present day; for it was essentially the language of a disappointed 
 leader of the opposition. " If," said the honourable — or dis-honourable 
 — member (for in mere party dissensions it is difficult to distinguish 
 one from the other), " if Hannibal has conquered all our enemies, why 
 does he send to us for soldiers ? If he has reduced Italy — the most 
 fertile country in Europe — why does he ask us for corn ? And if he 
 has obtained such rich booty, what on earth can he want with money ? 
 The truth, I suspect, to be, that his victories are sham — his territorial 
 acquisitions sham — the riches (of which he has sent us specimens, in 
 the shape of a few rings,) sham, — while his necessities, and the burden 
 thrown upon us in supplying them, are the only things that are real." 
 
 This argument, though specious, did not altogether prevail, for the 
 senate decreed him four thousand Numidians and forty elephants, the 
 men and the brutes being looked upon as equally articles of consump- 
 tion in the game of war that had been so long playing. The Romans 
 began to act with increased determination, and blockaded Capua, which 
 was left to its fate by Hannibal, though an attempt to relieve it was 
 made by a detachment which received a severe beating at the hands of 
 Tib. S. Gracchus. 
 
 This period is rendered additionally remarkable by the siege of 
 Syracuse, which eventually fell into the hands of M. Claudius Marcellus, 
 whose efforts had long been thwarted by the genius of Archimedes. 
 This illustrious inventor lived to the good old age of seventy-five ; but 
 how he lived so long is a matter of almost as much wonder as some of 
 his inventions, for his biographers tell us that he always forgot to eat 
 and drink ; nor could he ever be persuaded to take a bath, except when 
 his friends pushed him into one. Even when this was accomplished, 
 he was sure to be found under the ashes of the fire-places, writing 
 problems among the cinders, and endeavouring to sift some important 
 point ; so that a bath was really thrown away upon the great phi- 
 losopher. In a visit to Egypt, he became anxious to elevate the Nile 
 to a certain point ; but he remained in Egypt until all his money was 
 spent, for the philosopher had never thought of raising the wind while 
 
CHAT. XVIII. j INVENTIONS OF AKCHIMEDES. 18') 
 
 intent on raising the water. He invented a screw, which still bears his 
 name ; but he is said to have amused himself, during the siege of 
 Syracuse, by sitting at the window and inventing all sorts of missiles to 
 hurl at the ships of the enemy. One day he might be seen throwing 
 stones from a newly-invented sling, and a few days after he was found 
 casting out chains, to pull — -with a tremendous hook — the ships of the 
 foe completely out of the water. He was so intent upon everything he 
 came near, that he gave a lift to enemies occasionally as well as to 
 friends, as in the instance just recorded, and he declared his ability to 
 give the whole world a lift if he could only find a convenient spot in the 
 neighbourhood for himself and his lever to rest upon. That in one 
 sense he carried out his boast, we are willing to admit; for he undoubtedly 
 elevated the world by raising the standard of science, and he exalted 
 the whole of civilised humanity by his great discoveries. The part he 
 took in the siege of Syracuse has been underrated by some, and 
 exaggerated by others ; for though the story of his pulling the ships 
 out of the sea requires a length of rope, and other apparatus, which 
 none but the greatest stretch of imagination can supply, his destroying 
 the vessels by burning-glasses is perfectly credible. He is supposed to 
 have used very powerful reflectors, capable of taking effect within the 
 distance of bow-shot ; and though for some time the moderns insisted 
 that the long-bow had been pulled for the purpose of increasing the 
 space, the powers of the burning-glass are now familiar to every 
 scboolboy. 
 
 On the fall of Syracuse, orders were given by Marcellus, the Roman 
 general, that the philosopher should be respected ; but he was so 
 absorbed in a problem, that the soldier who was sent after him not 
 being able to solve the problem of who he was, or what he was about, 
 fell upon and slew him. 
 
 It is of the great man we have been noticing that a story is told, 
 which proves that the pursuit of the laws of gravity may sometimes be 
 associated with the ludicrous. King Hiero, of Syracuse, had handed 
 over a good lump of pure gold to a working jeweller to be converted 
 into a crown, with the distinct understanding that the true metal only 
 should be used, and that there might be no alloy to the pleasure his 
 Majesty would feel in wearing it. The goldsmith brought back an 
 article of the proper weight ; but the king, after trying it on his head, 
 turning it over in his mind, and revolving it beneath his eyes in the 
 sun, declared his suspicion that the metal had been tampered with, and 
 a base imposition had been practised. He consulted Archimedes as to 
 the means of detecting the imposture ; and on one of those days when 
 the friends of the philosopher had forced him to take a bath, he became 
 immersed as deeply in speculation as in the water. 
 
 The bath into which he plunged having been full to the brim, the 
 apartment was soon flooded by the water he displaced ; and looking at 
 the wet floor, he thought only of the dry facts of science. It occurred 
 to him that any body of equal bulk would have done exactly the same 
 
186 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OK ROME. 
 
 [chap. 
 
 thing ; and he immediately thought of his royal master's crown, which, 
 if all the gold sent for its construction had been fairly used up, should 
 displace as much water as a piece of pure metal equal in weight to that 
 which the crown ought to contain. The moment the idea struck him 
 he jumped out of the bath, and thinking of nothing but the bare facts, 
 
 Archimedes taking a Warm Bath. 
 
 he ran through the streets, perfectly unconscious of the naked truth of 
 his own condition. His shout was evpr/Ka * — I have found it ; but 
 everybody thought, when they saw him, that whatever he might have 
 found, he had certainly lost his senses. 
 
 There is, no doubt, much exaggeration in the absurd stories told of 
 Archimedes ; but we may excuse a little oddness in a great man whom 
 none was even with. He ran so far in advance of his age, that eighteen 
 centuries had nearly elapsed before any one came up to him, and ther 
 it was chiefly by following the track marked out by his footsteps.f 
 
 * The term (vpr]Ka has lately heen applied to a newly-invented shirt; but the term ig 
 extremely inappropriate, for the philosopher had no shirt on when he proclaimed his great 
 discovery. 
 
 + Stevinus, the Flemish mathematician, and Galileo, both of whom were born about 
 the middle of the sixteenth century, were the first who came after Archimedes in any great 
 mechanical discoveries. 
 
 .. * 
 
CHAP. XVIII.] THE WAR IN SPAIN. 187 
 
 We must now leave the nobler instruments of science, to return to 
 the engines of war, which were as usual in full play, and had been 
 employed in the total dissolution of the already too dissolute city of 
 Capua. The dissipated nobles, palsied by their excesses, and paralysed 
 by their fears, fell by their own hands ; for they had neither the courage 
 to fight for the chance of success, nor the nerve to meet the conse- 
 quences of failure. 
 
 It is stated that one Vibius Vim us, the chief of the Senate, on the 
 eve of the opening of the gates, gave a sort of legislative supper to 
 twenty-eight of the members, and, at the conclusion of a hearty meal, 
 lie produced a cup, with the contents of which he proposed that every 
 one present should poison the remainder of his own existence. The 
 deadly potion was poured out into twenty-nine different vessels, and, 
 with faces more or less wry, the Senators swallowed the fatal mixture. 
 On the surrender of the place, the citizens were sold for slaves ; and it 
 must be admitted that they had shown themselves fit for little better 
 than the fate assigned to them. 
 
 In the year previous to the fall of Capua, Hannibal had taken 
 Tarentum; but, three years later, the stupidity or treachery of the 
 general in charge, or man in possession, had allowed Q. Fabius 
 Maximus to take it back again. Hannibal was thus daily losing terri- 
 tory, and his cause was consequently losing ground. Many small states 
 which had adhered to him because they believed him to be strong 
 enough to assist them, withdrew from him directly he appeared as if he 
 could not help himself. 
 
 Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, had been harassed in Spain by 
 the two Scipios — Cn. C. and P. — when fortune cleared the stage for 
 him, by killing both within a month, and annihilating both their armies. 
 The fate of the two leaders had such an effect in Rome, that when those 
 eligible to command had heard the particulars, they had no inclination 
 to act as generals. Every one seemed to fear that if he went to head 
 the army in Spain, he should be simply going to his own funeral, and 
 every one naturally shrunk from such an undertaking. At length young 
 P. C. S. A. M. — or, to give his name at full length, Publius Cornelius 
 Scipio Africanus Major — who was only twenty-four years of age, though 
 he had entered the army at seventeen, and had been present, or rather 
 absent, at the battle of Cannae, where the only survivors were those 
 who ran away — volunteered to supply the places of his deceased 
 relatives. An objection was, at first, made to his age — or rather to his 
 want of age — but, as there was no older candidate for the post of 
 honour and of danger, he was permitted to step into it. His popularity 
 was, in some measure, owing to his having acquired the character of a 
 serious young man ; for ever since he had assumed the toga virilis — an 
 assumption something like the modern practice of going into stick-ups 
 — he had been in the habit of passing his mornings in the Temple of 
 Jupiter. He proceeded to Spain, with the title of Pro-consul, and an 
 army of about 11,000 men, at the head of whom he proceeded to 
 
188 
 
 COMIC H1ST011Y Of ROME. 
 
 [CHAP. XV1I1. 
 
 Oarthagena ; where he knew the enemy kept the greater portion of 
 their cash, their corn, and their captives He was accompanied by his 
 friend Lselius, who commanded the fleet, and who was sent to make an 
 unexpected attack from the sea ; for Scipio, who was very deep, had 
 ascertained that the water was very shallow The defenders of New 
 Carthage had relied upon the ocean as a defence ; but they had, in 
 reality, built their hopes on sand, which, during the prevalence of a 
 particular wind and tide, afforded easy access to the city. The place 
 speedily fell into his hands ; and his gallantry — in a double sense — 
 made him with the brave and the fair an equal favourite. Towards the 
 ladies he was particularly amiable ; and he not only sent back to her 
 lover an interesting young girl, but he returned to her husband a 
 
 Considerate Conduct of Scipio Afrlcanus. 
 
CHAP. XVIII, J FALL OF HASDROBAL. 189 
 
 maudlin old woman. The latter was the aged wife of the chief 
 Mardonius, who weepingly implored that her sex might he treated with 
 respect ; when the young soldier, hiding his face in his sleeve, either 
 cried or laughed in it. 
 
 Hasdrubal now turned his attention to Italy, while Scipio continued 
 his conquests in Spain, and, among other places, took Astapa, which, if 
 tradition tells the truth, he must have found without a single inhabitant. 
 It is said that the place was defended with such valour that only fifty 
 men remained alive, and these became impressed with the feeling that 
 when a thing must be done, it is better to do it oneself than to leave it 
 to be done by others. They came to the resolution that they were sure 
 not to be spared, and they had, therefore, better get rid of one another. 
 They accordingly proceeded to the sanguinary task of mutual destruction; 
 though, as one must have remained to the last, and there would have 
 been some difficulty in disposing of him, it is probable that he survived 
 for the purpose of acting as his own reporter of the dreadful incident. 
 The graver historians insist that not one was left alive in the city ; that 
 the last fifty soldiers, having first killed all their women, and all their 
 children, made away with all of themselves ; a state of things which 
 induces us to ask how the particulars have come down to us. If, 
 however, we were to indulge this spirit of inquiry to any extent, we 
 should, we fear, be compelled to throw a doubt upon many of those 
 interesting particulars which form the most agreeable portions of 
 history. 
 
 Hasdrubal resolved to make a grand effort, and assembled an army, 
 which including some Iberians, under his brother Mago, as well as 
 some Numidians, headed by Masinissa, their king, numbered 75,000 
 men, and six-and-thirty elephants. Scipio, though objecting to attack 
 a power more than twice his size, was compelled to do so, by a want 
 of provisions, for he had so little food that his army could not even have 
 grubbed on for a month or two. He was again victorious, and Hasdrubal 
 proceeded to join his brother Hannibal ; but the letters written by the 
 former to apprise the latter of his coming, instead of going regularly 
 through all the military posts, fell, by some misdirection or indirection, 
 into the hands of the enemy. The Consul Livius Salinator went into 
 the neighbourhood of Sena Gallica — now Senigaglia — and was joined 
 by his colleague, C. Claudius Nero, who came, under cover of the night, 
 with a large army ; and it would appear that the forces of Hasdrubal 
 kept such very early hours, that they had all gone to bed, and knew 
 nothing of the reinforcements that had been sent against them. 
 Hasdrubal, however, saw among the Romans, on the following morning, 
 some soldiers, whose faces were so sun-burnt, as to give a strange com- 
 plexion to a part of the troops, and he concluded that they had recently 
 been on a journey. After having indulged in an inquiring look, he com- 
 menced a patient listen, and he fancied he heard two trumpet calls in 
 the hostile camp, when, without considering whether the second might 
 have been the mere echo of the first, he resolved, in his own mind, that 
 
[90 COitTC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XVIII 
 
 the armies of the two Consuls had joined together. He accordingly 
 determined to fly, and began by trying to swim across the river Metaurus, 
 which is usually shallow enough ; but the rains had swelled it to such a 
 torrent that he was soon plunged into the depths of misery. His guides, 
 following tbe impulse of their own cowardice, ran away as fast as they 
 could, and he, in perfect ignorance of the country, found the river rising 
 and his spirits sinking in about an equal ratio. The Romans came up 
 with him in time to find his army completely damped, and his troops 
 were, according to the military practice of the period, cut, at once, to 
 pieces. 
 
 Hasbrubal, who had lost heart early in the battle, seems ultimately to 
 have lost his head, for rushing into the midst of a cohort, he was decapi 
 tated by a Roman soldier. It is said that the head of Hasdrubal was 
 afterwards brutally thrown into the camp of his brother Hannibal ; but 
 happily for the credit of humanity, this story of the head is absurd on 
 the very face of it. 
 
 Spain was now subject to Rome ; and Scipio, after quelling an 
 insurrection in his army, paid a visit to Syphax, who was king of a 
 portion of Numidia, and who was desperately in love with a young 
 lady, named Sophonisba, the daughter of Hasdrubal Gisco, a Cartha- 
 ginian general. Sophonisba was one of those troublesome persons, 
 known as fascinating creatures, who, by attracting the eyes of mankind, 
 set them very often by the ears, and lead to much calamity. This too 
 interesting individual had also won the admiration of Masinissa, 
 another king of another part of Numidia, when her father, irrespective 
 of any attachment she might have formed, gave her hand to Syphax, 
 by way of attaching the latter to his interests. Masinissa, in a fit of 
 jealousy, went over to Rome, leaving Syphax and Hasdrubal to fight it 
 out with Scipio. 
 
 The Africans and Carthaginians were, to a certain extent, people of 
 straw, which was the material they used in constructing their tents, 
 and Scipio, basely pretending that he desired to negotiate a peace, 
 sent a set of firebrands, under the garb of envoys, into the camp of the 
 enemy. These hypocritical incendiaries carried fire among the foe ; 
 and, though the elephants fought like lions, the Carthaginians behaved 
 like lambs, for the poor creatures, thinking the burning of their tents 
 was accidental, looked on with simple bewilderment. 40,000 Africans 
 were cut to pieces on the spot ; and Syphax, who had managed to 
 escape, was ready immediately with 30,000 more, to engage Scipio in 
 the neighbourhood of Utica. Syphax was urged on by his wife, who is 
 described as a woman of remarkable spirit — a character equivalent to 
 that of a very troublesome body. Poor Syphax did all he could against 
 a very superior force, but he was ultimately taken prisoner, and sent to 
 Scipio, while Sophonisba remained at home to receive Masinissa — like 
 a woman of spirit — at the gates of her husband's palace. 
 
 The lovely creature, admitting that she was vanquished, and declaring 
 that further opposition would be vain, appealed, in the character of an 
 
CHAP. XVIII.] CARTHAGE MAKES PEACE WITH POME. 191 
 
 unprotected female, to the generosity of Masinissa. Expressing the 
 utmost horror at being placed as a captive behind the car of Scipio, she 
 entreated the protection of her husband's conqueror ; and Masinissa, 
 not knowing exactly what to do, politely offered to marry her. She at once 
 consented ; and, after a widowhood of a few hours, she was presented to 
 Lffilins. the Roman Consul, in her new character. 
 
 Syphax, not being dead, was of course rather painfully alive to the 
 conduct of his wife, and having hinted to Scipio that she might be the 
 cause of further mischief, an order was immediately sent to Masinissa 
 to send her back by the bearer. This her new husband was unwilling 
 to do, but. he forwarded her a cup of poison, which she drank off with the 
 air of a tragedy queen, and died with a clap-trap in her mouth, which 
 was almost as nauseous as the stuff that she was called upon to swallow 
 
 The Carthaginians now began to feel that every thing went wrong in 
 the absence of Hannibal, whom they invited home, and on his arrival 
 he was really anxious for peace and quietness. Scipio felt much the 
 same, and the two generals, having met, looked at each other for some 
 time in silent admiration. It may be doubted whether they got any 
 further than this point, for even if they had a few words, it did not 
 prevent them from ultimately coming to blows at the great and decisive 
 battle of Zama. Hannibal brought into the field 50,000 men, and 
 about 80 real elephants ; but his soldiers were most of them raw, and 
 liable to be roasted on the ground of extreme awkwardness. He put 
 the Moors, the Gauls, and Libyans in front, the Carthaginian cowards 
 in the centre, for they were but a middling set, and he brought up the 
 rear, with a few of his best soldiers. Scipio exhibited some very skilful 
 generalship on this momentous occasion, and by a clever arrangement of 
 his forces, he left room for the elephants to run through the ranks 
 without coming into contact with any of his soldiers. 
 
 The success of Scipio was complete ; and Hannibal returned to 
 Carthage after an absence of thirty-six years ; having so far forgotten 
 the manners and customs of his country, that, during a debate in the 
 Senate, he dragged a noble— whose sentiments did not exactly coincide 
 with his own — by force from the tribune. On being called to order, he 
 explained that he had forgotten the forms of the house ; and the discus- 
 sion proceeded as if nothing particular had happened. Carthage made 
 peace with Rome, on very advantageous terms to the latter ; and Scipio, 
 who took the name of Africanus, enjoyed the honours of a triumph, at 
 which poor Syphax — who appears to have been everybody's victim — was 
 sbliged to figure in fetters. 
 
 The terms imposed upon Carthage were very severe ; for she was to 
 deliver up, without ransom, all the Roman prisoners : to surrender 
 nearly all her ships ; and to part with all her elephants. She was also to 
 pay over a considerable sum in cash, — a stipulation which set the Senate 
 off into a roar of anguish, and caused Hannibal sneeringly to exclaim 
 that " the only thing to draw tears from their eyes was to draw money 
 from their pockets."* 
 
 * Livy, xsx. 44. 
 
192 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XVIJI 
 
 Though Rome had been victorious; so fatal is war to all who engage 
 in it, that her successes had brought her almost to the verge of 
 ruin. Scenes of cruelty had dyed the country with blood, and left a 
 stain upon it which could not easily be effaced ; and wherever the 
 sword of war had been brandished, nothing else had flourished. Troops 
 had been raised merely to be cut down ; the country had been wasted 
 on all sides ; and there had been a still more terrible waste of human 
 existence. While life was being made so cheap, the means of support 
 ing it were getting dearer every day ; for provisions rose to an enormous 
 price under the influence of a system which converted the ploughshare 
 into the sword, and turned what should have been fields of corn into 
 fields of battle. To meet the expenses of the war, the public had been 
 obliged to run into debt ; and there is no process to which the term 
 running is more properly applied, though the opposite movement is 
 always slow, and often impossible. 
 
 The Carthaginian fleet having been destroyed, Rome became 
 nominally mistress of the seas ; but, for want of means, she made a 
 very bad mistress, and the sea might be said to maintain a mastery 
 over her. 
 
 War, however, had been in some degree productive of good ; for it 
 had led to the recognition of the great principle that the public service 
 was not to be monopolised by the privileged few, inasmuch as where 
 there is real work to be done, there is scope for the talents and energies 
 to be met with among the many. Wealth, however, had become a 
 passport to public employment ; and the door could be opened by a 
 golden key, which has, in modern times, served most appropriately as 
 the emblem of office. 
 
 The drain upon the resources of the nation was so considerable, in 
 consequence of the frequent wars, that the Senators sent their plate to 
 the treasury, and received bank bills instead, — an arrangement as 
 satisfactory as exchanging silver dishes for silver paper. The merchants 
 supplied dresses for the troops on the same terms, and accepted 
 printed rags for comfortable clothing. 
 
 Superstition also sensibly' — or rather foolishly — increased during the 
 wars against Carthage ; and the Sibylline books were consulted from 
 time to time, though usually with no other result than the recommenda- 
 tion of a job, to be performed by Government Commissioners. On one 
 occasion the books were declared to require that Cybele should be 
 brought to Rome ; and ambassadors were appointed, at a considerable 
 expense, to go to Phrygia, for the purpose of fetching her. They pro- 
 fessed to find her, and bring her home ; but upon their arrival, they 
 produced nothing but a large black stone, which the people welcomed 
 as a most precious stone, and which they were contented to receive as 
 the goddess they required 
 
diur. XLX 
 
 MACEDONIAN WAB. 
 
 19S 
 
 CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH. 
 
 WAR WITFI THE MACEDONIANS. PROCLAMATION OF THE FREEDOM OF 
 GREECE BY FLAMINIUS. WAR WITH ANTIOCHOS DEATH OF HANNIBAL, 
 AND OF SCIPIO AFRICANUS 
 
 ar being still 
 the theme of 
 our history, we 
 are obliged to 
 ask the reader 
 to accompany 
 us into the 
 field, though 
 we are awaro 
 that battles, 
 and their 
 deadly details, 
 cannot inspire 
 a very lively 
 interest 
 
 Philip of 
 Macedonia 
 had become 
 jealous of the 
 power of 
 Rome, which 
 had now got a 
 footing in the 
 boot of Italy; 
 and, as Greece lay nearly under the heel, it was natural that the 
 Grecians should prepare to resist being trampled on. Philip, therefore, 
 concluded a treaty with Hannibal, and sent ambassadors with the 
 document ; but, instead of delivering it into the hands for which it was 
 designed, they themselves fell into the hands of the Romans. 
 
 Rome at once despatched to Illyricum a fleet of 50 sail, when Philip, 
 observing that the vessels were being wafted over by a favourable 
 breeze, saw there was something in the wind, and resolved — whatever 
 the blow — to be prepared for it. This was the commencement of the 
 Macedonian War, which became extremely unpopular with the Romans ; 
 for the people at large regarded it as a bitter cup, though the nobles 
 desired it for the sake of the " bubble reputation " that the few might 
 find in it. In vain did the tribes protest against the proposed war. 
 
194 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAT XIX. 
 
 declaring they were no enemies to Philip, for the Senate insisted h« 
 was an enemy of theirs, and that it was accordingly their duty to fight 
 with him. 
 
 The campaign was opened hy P. Sulpicius Galba, who crossed the 
 Adriatic, but did little, and was succeeded by Villius Tappulus, who 
 did nothing. Fortune had hitherto observed a sort of stiffness towards 
 both sides, leaning neither to the right nor to the left, when she 
 suddenly took a turn under the consulship of T. Quinctius Flaminius. 
 This individual was, comparatively, young in years, but superlatively 
 old in cunning ; and he possessed in an eminent degree the low arts of 
 deceit which are usually held to constitute the high art of statesmanship. 
 He could electrotype falsehood with the external appearance of truth, 
 and he had no lack of that lacquer which brazens out a fraud with the 
 brass of impudence. Everything in the shape of rust had been rubbed 
 off his manners, which had become smooth in the extreme, and had 
 acquired that high state of polish which is frequently associated with 
 a very slippery character. He slid, as it were, into the confidence of all, 
 with the easy lubricity of the serpent, and with not a little of its 
 wiliness. His smile won, or rather lost, those whom he wished to 
 deceive, and he tried its fascination with such effect on some of the 
 Greek chiefs, that they permitted him to enter Thebes, and either did 
 not see what he had in his eye, or were induced to wink at it. He 
 pretended that he wished to parley with the authorities ; but, when the 
 citizens were waiting to see what would take place, they found the 
 place itself quietly taken by Flaminius. 
 
 Thessaly now became the scene of war, and the Romans met the 
 Greeks near a line of small hills, called, from their shape, the Dogs' 
 Heads, or Cynocephalae. Here both parties fought with a dogged 
 obstinacy, which was quite in character with the place, until the Greek 
 phalanx, or Macedonian heavies, gave way before the Roman legions. 
 The principle of the phalanx was to pack the soldiers so closely together 
 that their shields touched, and their spears being upwards of twenty 
 feet long, the arms of the rear ranks leaned on the shoulders of those 
 in advance, so that they went forth arm in arm, as it were, to meet the 
 enemy. The Romans, on the contrary, preserved a sort of open order, 
 in which there was room for the exercise of their limbs ; while the 
 Greeks, if they were able to raise their arms at all, were very likely to 
 lift them against each other. If the Romans were in need of assistance, 
 there was space left in their ranks for reinforcements to come up. But, 
 amidst the density of a Greek phalanx, nothing could make its way 
 except a panic, which will always find room to run through an entire 
 army. Though presenting, by these means, a formidable front, their 
 line was no sooner broken than they offered a most unprotected rear to 
 an active foe, and the Greek files on the occasion in question bore 
 marks of a special endorsement at the hands of the Romans. Having 
 oeen packed as closely as cards, 8000 Macedonians fell upon the field, 
 or rather upon one another, and Philip fled to Tempe, as if he was 
 

 
 
CHAP. XIX.] FREEDOM OF GREECE PROCLAIMED. 195 
 
 desirous to hide his face in its well-known vale after his discomfiture. 
 Here lie negotiated an arrangement, which may be termed the peace of 
 the valley, though it was a kind of peace with which he could scarcely 
 be contented, for it stipulated that he should give up all his ships 
 except five; but he was, nevertheless, permitted to retain 500 men 
 :u" war in the shape of that number of heavy-armed soldiers. 
 
 He was also to pay 1000 talents, which would have taken every 
 talent he possessed, and put him to his wit's end at once, if he had not 
 been allowed ten years, within which to find the money. He was 
 furthermore compelled to send his son Demetrius to Rome for his 
 education — a stipulation, of which the object is not particularly clear, 
 unless it was thought that while the offspring was being schooled, a 
 lesson was also being given to the father. Flaminius, laying aside the 
 character of the warrior, proceeded to Greece as a tourist ; and, though 
 in private life he was as gentle as a lamb, he was everywhere received 
 as a lion. Having visited the Isthmian games, he interrupted the 
 herald who was about to open the proceedings with the usual pro- 
 clamation, and putting into the hands of the officer a scroll, desired 
 him to " read it out " before proceeding with the programme. The 
 document was an announcement of the freedom of the Greek cities over 
 which Macedonia had domineered ; and the people, finding that 
 Flaminius had made them free, resolved on making him welcome. 
 Frantic with joy, they nearly deafened him with cheers, and almost 
 buried him in flowers ; nor could he keep at bay those who pressed 
 forward to crown him with laurel. So dense was the throng, that he 
 must have felt a smothered satisfaction, if he felt any at all ; and 
 even if he could have found words to return thanks, he could find 
 no breath to give them utterance. 
 
 In order that the Greeks might be shown the use of their new 
 freedom, Flaminius remained behind, to give an illustration of the 
 method of taking a liberty. Calling to his aid ten commissioners from 
 Piome, he proceeded to apportion the free cities of Greece in the manner 
 most agreeable to his own views ; for it is a peculiarity of all freedom 
 imported from abroad, that it must be a freedom in conformity with the 
 taste of the importers, and not of those for whose use the article is 
 required. It thus frequently happens that what is recommended as a 
 luxury from abroad proves far from palatable to a people not accustomed 
 to the new commodity ; and, though efforts may be made to force it 
 down their throats, at the point of the sword, the morsel is not easy of 
 digestion, and is only revolting to those whom it may have been intended 
 to satisfy. 
 
 After completing the independence of Greece, by forcing republics on 
 some of its cities, taking possession of some others, and establishing 
 internal discord in nearly all, Flaminius returned to Rome in the year 
 of the City 559, and enjoyed the honours of a triumph. 
 
 As no one is at times louder in his denunciations of dishonesty than the 
 practised rogue, so the Romans, who were for enslaving and plundering 
 
 o 2 
 
196 COMIC HISTOEr OF ROME [CHAP. XIX 
 
 all the world, found it convenient, occasionally, to protest against the ra- 
 pacity of such as were rivals in the game of conquest. Philip had already 
 been dealt with on the principle that it is impossible for two of a trade to 
 agree ; and a quarrel was now picked with Antiochus, who was doing a 
 somewhat extensive business as a wholesale appropriator of what did 
 not rightly belong to him. Flaminius, therefore, while declaring, after 
 his own fashion, the independence of Greece, stipulated that freedom 
 should be restored by Antiochus to all the Greek cities in Asia, — an 
 arrangement that would have left the cities at liberty to be made free 
 with by Eome in her usual manner. Antiochus justified his own wrong 
 by denying the right of any one else to interfere, and continued appropri- 
 ating to himself other places to winch he had no legal or equitable title. 
 He seized on the Thracian Chersonesus, on the ground that one of his 
 ancestors had seized it once before, — a principle about as just as if the 
 grandson of a thief, who had been transported for stealing a watch, 
 should, on the strength of his ancestral crime, rob the owner anew of 
 the same property. 
 
 Finding Lysimachia deserted, he took it as his own desert ; when the 
 Romans, growing jealous of his success in the predatory line, declared 
 that they should regard, as a direct opposition to Eome, any further acts 
 of plunder. 
 
 While matters were in this state, Hannibal was living in scarcely any 
 state at all, as an ordinary member of the Carthaginian Senate. He 
 had taken the opposition side of the house ; and though he was a pro- 
 poser of many useful reforms, he was frequently coughed down, and in 
 a minority always. Finding little sympathy amongst his own country- 
 men, who were all for peace and quietness, he entered into a negotia- 
 tion with Antiochus, for the purpose of ascertaining whether they could 
 arrange to create a joint disturbance, and thus weaken the Roman 
 power. Treachery was, however, going on in all directions ; for, while 
 Hannibal was plotting with Antiochus against Rome, some of the 
 Carthaginians were plotting with Rome against Hannibal ; and a 
 further breach of trust in some other quarter made him acquainted with 
 his danger. He accordingly resolved to escape ; and having a small 
 tower — or marine residence — on the coast, he sent orders that a ship 
 should be ready to sail, and a berth secured for him. He walked about 
 the streets of Carthage all day, as if nothing had happened, and nothing 
 was likely to occur; for the Roman ambassadors were continually 
 dogging his footsteps; and he led them about so perseveringly all day, 
 that when the evening arrived they had scarcely a leg to stand upon. 
 Hannibal had, however, ordered his horse, which flew with him across 
 the country to the spot where the ship was in waiting ; and, after 
 a difficult passage, by land as well as by sea, he arrived at the Court 
 of Antiochus. 
 
 True to his infantine oath, Hannibal did his utmost to excite hostility 
 against the Romans ; and asked Antiochus to lend him a trifle, in the 
 shape of 10,000 men, as if they were so many counters, that the 
 
CHAP. XIX.] 
 
 ANTIOCHUS. 
 
 197 
 
 game of war required. Antiochus, however, like a boy jealous of his 
 toys, refused to hand over the 10,000 men, whose lives might be 
 
 Hannibal leads the Ambassadors rather a fatiguing Walk round Carthage. 
 
 required as playthings for himself ; and he was not long in making use 
 of them. 
 
 The Greeks, being unable to appreciate the sort of independence 
 they had received at the hands of Home, sent an invitation to Antiochus ; 
 for it is the characteristic of slavery, as a moral disease, to seek relief 
 from the existing cause of oppression by the introduction of some 
 more violent form of the same malady.* 
 
 * This is, in fact, the homeopathic principle applied to politics ; the counteracting of 
 like by like, similia similibas. 
 
198 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 As the interference of strangers will usually lead to family quarrels, 
 so the effect of foreign influence on Greece was to keep the people 
 continually involved in disputes with each other. Part of the popula- 
 tion would have welcomed Antiochus warmly, while others received him 
 coldly ; and the king, who had penetrated into Thessaly, had sufficient 
 penetration to see that he had better go a considerable part of the way 
 back again. 
 
 By way of narrowing the ground of dispute, he took his position in 
 the Pass of Thermopylae, and had, for some time, maintained an advan- 
 tage over the Romans, when M. Porcius Cato, ascending the heights, 
 ran round to the rear, and, by a decisive blow on the enemy's back, 
 changed the whole face of the engagement Antiochus fled in dismay, 
 and never stopped to look behind him, until he reached Asia Minor, 
 when he sat down, and took a gloomy retrospect of all that had 
 happened. While he met with reverses on land, he heard of the 
 reverse, or rather the same thing, that had happened to his fleet at sea ; 
 and he fairly gave up, not only his cause, but the Chersonesus, Lysima- 
 chia, Sestos, and Abydos, with all their contents and non-contents ; the 
 latter of which included the inhabitants. 
 
 Antiochus, though subdued in spirit, was not quite beaten in form ; 
 and a large army was sent to Asia, under the command of the two 
 consuls, L. Cornelius Scipio and C. Laelius. L. C. Scipio, though 
 without any acknowledged merit of his own, had the good fortune to be 
 the brother of the celebrated Scipio Africanus, who got him the place ; 
 but it is manifest that such an illegitimate step to an appointment will 
 often end in a grievous disappointment of one kind or another. To 
 provide against the ill consequences of this flagrant job, the celebrated 
 Scipio went out in the capacity of legate, to counteract the consequences 
 of his brother's general incapacity in the capacity of general. The 
 Komans bad 20,000 men, who, having arrived in Asia, met 70,000 
 soldiers of Antiochus, at Magnesia, where the latter received a dose 
 from which they never recovered. Peace was granted to them on very 
 humiliating terms ; but, however bitter the cup prescribed for Antiochus, 
 so disagreeable was the recollection of Magnesia, that he was obliged to 
 swallow almost anything that came after it. 
 
 Rome continued her system of giving independence to various places 
 and people, many of whom seemed so little to appreciate the proffered 
 boon, that in some cases money was tendered and accepted as the price 
 of exemption from the proposed advantages. The Cappadocians were 
 so alarmed at the prospect of their new freedom, that, being still free 
 to confess their dislike to it, they sent 200 talents to the Romans, who, 
 no doubt, mentally impressed with the proverbial baseness of the "slave 
 who pays," quietly pocketed the money. 
 
 While the principles of independence were being promulgated in the 
 East, the Romans were mso employed in carrying their notions of 
 emancipation into the North, where several tribes were cut to pieces, in 
 order that they might feel the interest which Rome condescended to 
 
CHAP. XIX. j SUBJUGATION OF SPAIX. 19'J 
 
 take in them. Tn some places the old inhabitants were rooted up like 
 old trees, while the younger branches were transplanted to other soils ; 
 and a large quantity of Ligurian offshoots were carried off from their 
 parent stems to fill some vacant ground at Samnium. Many places 
 were thoroughly destroyed ; and among others, Cremona was so unmer- 
 cifully played upon, that it was utterly broken up, and the lamentations 
 of its inhabitants were regarded no more than the moauings of a set of 
 eld fiddle-strings. 
 
 Not satisfied with being the masters of Italy and the tyrants of 
 Greece, the Romans aimed at establishing their dominion in Spain, 
 which was partly achieved by the treachery of some of the inhabitants, 
 and the cowardice of others. Some of its most powerful men entered 
 into an alliance with Rome, and were treated as insurgents or rebels, 
 when they dared to revolt against the foreign authority that had either 
 cowed or corrupted them. 
 
 The subjugation of Spain was mainly effected by M. Porcius Cato, 
 who took a rather remarkable way of reducing the country to submission ; 
 for he induced several places to commit a sort of moral suicide ; and 
 after condemning them in his own mind, he arranged that they should 
 become, as it were, their own executioners. He sent circulars to a 
 large number of fortified towns in Spain, with instructions that the 
 communications were not to be looked into before a certain day ; and 
 the inhabitants of every town experienced the agony of suspense, in the 
 fear that their doom was sealed in a letter they were not allowed to open. 
 At length, when the day arrived for penetrating the envelope in which 
 the mystery was enclosed, every circular was found to contain a command 
 that the walls of the town to which it was addressed should be razed to 
 the ground, or, in case of disobedience, that the heaviest punishment 
 should light on its inhabitants. The authorities not being able to com- 
 municate with each other, fancied their own town the only one that was 
 doomed, and proceeded to pull the place about their own ears, until it 
 was reduced to a heap of dry rubbish. 
 
 When the mischief was done, it was too late to discover that it need 
 not have been done at all ; and though unity is in ordinary cases 
 strength, the unity with which the Spaniards had acted in demolishing 
 their own towns, had reduced them to a condition of utter feebleness. 
 
 For some time they lived in peace, though their homes were knocked 
 to pieces; but a war broke out again, in the year of the City 572 
 (b. c. 181). The Spaniards, however, were not thoroughly reduced until 
 four years after, though they were being continually killed, beaten, cut 
 to pieces, and otherwise dealt with, in a manner from which their reduc- 
 tion would seem to flow as a natural consequence. It was Tib. Sempro- 
 nius Gracchus — the father of the two great Gracchi, of whom we shall 
 have something to say hereafter — that concluded peace with several of 
 the Spanish tribes, who were brought down so low, that their being 
 otherwise than peaceable was almost impossible. 
 
 The Romans continued to intrude themselves and their system on 
 
200 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [CHAP. XIX, 
 
 different parts of Europe, and planted a colony at Aquileia, in Istria, 
 which caused the Istrians to try and put a full stop to the disposition 
 which Rome had shown to colon-ise. A war ensued, which resulted in 
 the loss of three towns and one king, when the Istrians came to the 
 conclusion that they had had enough of it, and immediately submitted 
 to the Roman authority. 
 
 Having, for a time, lost sight of the illustrious Hannibal, we begin to 
 look about for him once more, and find him living in a Court, kept by 
 one Prusias, the greedy and needy king of Bithynia. After the treaty 
 made by Antiochus and the Romans, Hannibal had fled to Crete, where 
 he could not long remain ; and, though history is silent as to the cause, 
 we may conjecture something from the fact, that he effected a clandes- 
 tine removal of all his wealth, though he pretended to leave behind him 
 a vast amount of treasure. Tradition states that, having procured e 
 number of earthen jars, he filled them with lead, and, strewing a little 
 gold, or loose silver, over the top, he carried them to the temple of 
 Diana, and requested the Cretan priests to become his bankers, for th<? 
 purpose of his entrusting to them this valuable deposit. The priest* 
 
 Hannibal requesting the Cretan Priests to bocome bis Bankers. 
 
 assured him, with many protestations, that he would find it all right 
 on his return ; and Hannibal, having previously packed all his real 
 gold into the hollow insides of some statues of brass, which he pretended 
 to carry with him, in his character of an admirer of the arts, got 
 clear off with all his money. 
 
CHAP. XIX.] 
 
 DEATH OF HANNIBAL. 
 
 :oi 
 
 He continued to travel from place to place, and had spent the con 
 tents of nearly all his statues, except a small one. so that his means had 
 literally come down to the lowest figure. In this dilemma he found 
 himself at Bithynia, where Prusias gave him house-room for a short 
 time ; taking advantage of the visit, to render his guest useful in tx 
 war that was being carried on against Eumenes, king of Pergamus. 
 Hannibal, however, could not persuade the parsimonious Prusias to go 
 to the expense of conducting hostilities in an effective style ; and, 
 indeed, there being no money to carry on the war, it was impossible to 
 do so with credit ; for nobody would make any advance on the security 
 of a bad sovereign. The Romans regarding Hannibal as a dangerous 
 agitator, which he had indeed proved himself to be, required that he 
 should be given up ; but Prusias, declining to be at the expense of 
 carriage, intimated that whoever wanted Hannibal had better come for 
 him. The Carthaginian general, foreseeing his fate, endeavoured to 
 make his escape by one of seven secret passages leading from his 
 house ; but his enemies had found them out, and were therefore certain 
 of finding him at home ; for they had taken care to bar his egress. 
 
 Though possessing all the courage of a soldier, he was miserably 
 destitute of a superior kind of fortitude, and he always carried a 
 bottle of poison about with him. Finding escape impossible, he drew 
 the fatal phial from his pocket, and, as he shook it up, he indulged in 
 
 Hannibal makes the usual neat and appropriate Speech previous to killing himself. 
 
k(KZ COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XIX. 
 
 one of those speeches which are usually attributed by classical historians 
 to men on the point of suicide " I will," he said — or is said to have- 
 said, for nobody could have heard him, as he was quite alone, and nobody 
 could have been listening, or the bottle would have been snatched out of 
 his hand ; " I will deliver the Koinans from the dread which has so 
 long tormented them, since they think it too long to wait for the decease 
 of a worn-out old man." Here he may be supposed to have paused ; 
 and, after giving the bottle another final shake, to have continued as 
 follows : " Flaminius^s victory over a foe, unarmed and betrayed, will 
 not redound much to his honour ; " and, with a mental once, twice r 
 thrice, and away, the wretched Hannibal may be imagined to have 
 raised the nauseous draught to his lips, and to have tossed it off with 
 desperate energy. 
 
 Hannibal had certainly, in his lifetime, shown proofs of greatness, 
 though, in the manner of his death, he gave evidence of lamentable 
 littleness. On the admirable principle of " look to the end," we are 
 unable to agree with those classical enthusiasts who regard Hannibal 
 as one of the most illustrious of mankind, because he was more daring 
 and more skilful in the art of exterminating his fellow-creatures than 
 many of his competitors. His personal ambition brought misery on his 
 own, as well as other countries, and his obstinate hatred to Rome was 
 not justified by his juvenile oath, for the taking of which he deserved 
 rather the birch than the laurel. The first public act of his life was 
 to swear when he was too young to have known what he was about, 
 and the last act was to poison himself at the age of sixty-two, when he was 
 quite old enough to have known better. He made a bad beginning, but 
 a worse ending, and he proved that, though aspiring to rule over others,, 
 he was unable to command himself, and was in nearly every respect a 
 melancholy specimen of ill-regulated humanity. 
 
 Within about a year of Hannibal's death, Scipio Africanus also died 
 in exile. This great man, as it has been customary to call him, because 
 he was a large destroyer of the human race, was taken up before the 
 Senate on a charge of embezzlement. The case happened to be 
 appointed for hearing on the anniversary of some battle he had won r 
 when he declared the day was ill-suited for litigation, and the people, 
 who are always ready for an excuse for a holiday, immediately agreed 
 with him. His brother Licius was involved in the same accusation,, 
 which he met by producing his accounts ; but, the popular idol seizing 
 the books, declared it was shabby for a nation to be too particular with 
 those who had served it so well, and tore up the whole of the financial 
 statement. Lucius Scipio remained in Fxune ; but Africanus ran away to 
 a villa in Campania, leaving his brother to undergo the confiscation of the 
 whole of his property. The innocence of Lucius was subsequently estab- 
 lished, and, though no " money returned," is generally the motto of the 
 law, he succeeded in getting back a part of what he had been unjustly 
 deprived of. He, however, having lived without his income, had no 
 sooner got the means restored to him of living within it, than he died, 
 
CHAP. XIX.] SCIPIO AFRICANUS. 203 
 
 with the melancholy satisfaction of having had justice done when it was 
 too late to be of the smallest earthly use to him. 
 
 The merits and demerits of Scipio Africanus have been differently 
 estimated by different authorities ; and though it is charitable to give to 
 any man the benefit of a doubt, no one would be thankful for the 
 admission that his was a doubtful character. Scipio Africanus was a 
 great patron of letters ; but he seems to have been a despiser of figures, 
 if the story relating to his contempt for the accuracy of his accounts is 
 to be relied upon. Cicero has spoken eloquently of the simple habits of 
 Scipio Africanus, in his marine retirement, throwing stones into the 
 sea, and skimming with them the surface of the water ; but this innocent 
 pastime does not relieve him from the accusation of making " ducks 
 and drakes " of the public money, which was the charge that Cato 
 had endeavoured to bring home to him. 
 
 He is said to have been generous to his relatives ; but to help them, 
 after freely helping himself, may have been nothing more than nepo- 
 tism, under the disguise of a domestic virtue. It is stated that he 
 showed his disregard for wealth by relinquishing to his brother his own 
 share of his patrimony ; but there is little merit in his having despised 
 the comparatively mean contents of his family purse, if he was unscru- 
 pulous during the time that he had the public pocket to dip irto. 
 
204 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF HOME. 
 
 fCHAP. XX. 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH. 
 
 PUBLIC AMUSEMENTS. MORALS, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND STATE OP THE 
 DRAMA AND LITERATURE AMONG THE ROMANS. 
 
 T is customary with the grandiloquent to declare that 
 the page of history is stained with gore ; but we limit 
 ourselves to ink, which perhaps, after all, furnishes a 
 decent type of mourning over the deeds we are com- 
 pelled to chronicle. It is true that history has too 
 often wars for her principal facts, and the numbers of 
 dead for her figures ; but she is apt to speak rather 
 figuratively in estimating the thousands upon thousands 
 who are said to have fallen, sword in hand, or to have 
 been terribly put to it. 
 
 The weapon of war cuts, however, both ways ; and 
 a nation cannot play with edged tools more safely than 
 an individual can indulge in such dangerous pastime. 
 
 Tbe state of war in which Rome habitually lived, 
 had encouraged the worst passions of tbe people ; and 
 nearty every vice had taken an iron hold of them. By 
 continually figbting, they had become familiar with 
 murder and violence, while the practice of plunder 
 had accustomed them to robbery. Military stratagem 
 — which was the very essence of strategy — had taught 
 them to regard cunning as a virtue ; and he was a hero, in their 
 opinion, who would face the swords and spears of a foe, but sought in 
 poison a cowardly refuge from the " slings and arrows " of his own 
 conscience. The wealth taken by force was often appropriated by 
 fraud ; and a successful leader thought nothing of putting into his 
 own pocket an enormous sum, declaring that it was unreasonable to 
 expect a general to be particular.* The few became enormously rich, 
 while the many were miserably poor. The higher orders grasped 
 everything, leaving nothing to those beneath, aud the consequence was 
 a state of top-heaviness, which, when existing in the social column, 
 exposes base and capital — but especially the latter — to extreme danger. 
 Money had been acquired by some, who did not know its use ; and its 
 abuse was the inevitable result ; for the improper employment of gold 
 leads to every kind of guilt on the part of those who are possessed of it. 
 With the wealth of other nations, foreign fashions were imported, 
 and Roman simplicity was superseded by the art and cunning of the 
 
 * P. Cornelius Scipio gave no better answer than tbis to a charge of having embezzled 
 a sum amounting to 36,000?. sterling. 
 
CHAP. XX. j 
 
 STATE OF MANNERS. 
 
 205 
 
 Grecian craftsmen. The pleasures of the table were carried to a 
 gluttonous excess ; and a slave who, in the capacity of a cook, could set 
 before his master an agreeable kind of sauce, was often allowed impunity 
 for insolence. 
 
 Extravagance began to prevail to such an extent among the Roman 
 women, that those females whose wardrobe was of a gaudy hue, were 
 virtually condemned to dye, for a law was passed by the tribune Appius, 
 prohibiting them from wearing dresses of a gay colour. The same 
 law limited them to half-an-ounce of gold; but this was unnecessary; 
 for the extravagantly-disposed would spend all they had ; and they 
 were further restricted from riding at or near Rome, or any other city, 
 in a carriage drawn by two horses ; for it was considered that with one 
 the road to ruin could be quite rapidly enough travelled. This law occa- 
 
 Ko;uan Ludy " Shopping." 
 
 sioued some violent agitation among the Roman women, who manifested 
 the force of female influence so effectually, that in a few years the law 
 was repealed. 
 
 The stern necessities of historical truth compel us to attribute to 
 what is termed the gentler sex, the introduction, among the Romans> 
 of some vices so foul, as to be at variance with all our notions of the 
 fair. One of the worst of these enormities was the celebration of the 
 Bacchanalia, introduced from Etruria ; and recent discoveries* in that 
 locality have initiated us into the secret of what are usually termed the 
 
 • Vide " The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria/' by Dennis. 
 
:206 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 Bacchic mysteries. The mystification of the votaries was accomplished 
 by drink ; under the influence of which they wound up their festivities 
 with a reel, such as may be traced in ancient paintings ; and round 
 every such reel there is twined some important thread of history. 
 
 Imitation is seldom respectable in any case ; for even merit loses 
 half its value when it is not original; but nothing can be more con- 
 temptible than a people putting on bad habits at second-hand. Such, 
 however, was the practice of the Romans, who borrowed nearly all 
 their iniquities from Athens or other cities, and who wilfully brought 
 upon themselves the moral stain of Greece. Cruelty, which goes hand 
 in hand with depravity, had reached such an infamous excess, that it 
 was practised openly by those whom the people delighted to honour 
 Among other instances, may be cited the example of the Consul 
 L. Quinctius Flaminius, who, while encamped in Gaul, happened to be 
 •feasting with one of his degraded creatures, when the latter lamented 
 he had never seen a gladiator killed. A noble Boian entering at the 
 moment, to ask for shelter, Flaminius observed that, though unable to 
 treat his friend to the sight of a dying gladiator, he might satisfy his 
 .appetite for cruelty by the exhibition of a dying Gaul. The " creature " 
 had no sooner expressed his readiness to accept the lighter relish as a 
 substitute for the more substantial meal, than Flaminius, drawing his 
 sword, smote the unfortunate Boian on the head, and ran him through 
 the body. So brutalised had the people become by continual war, that 
 •no notice was taken of this occurrence until eight years afterwards, when 
 Cato, the Censor, brought up the charge, with a variety of others, more 
 or less weighty, against Flaminius, and caused his expulsion from the 
 Senate. 
 
 The name of Cato the Censor, naturally induces a few observations 
 on the character of this ancient specimen of the 
 
 " Fine old Roman gentleman all of the olden time." 
 
 He was the son of a respectable Sabine farmer, and passed his earliest 
 years in the country, where he followed the plough — a peaceful pursuit, 
 which imprints no early furrows on the forehead, but leaves many on 
 the earth it at once improves and lacerates. At seventeen, every Roman 
 became, of necessity, a soldier ; and though in the game of life fortune 
 had dealt him a spade, he was obliged to throw it out of his hand. 
 Such was the lot of young Marcus Porcius Priscus ; for that was in 
 reality his name, though he afterwards had the title of Cato, or the 
 " knowing one," bestowed on him. His military duties were performed 
 with credit, though he preferred cultivating any other seeds than the 
 seeds of dissension ; and he was more at home in a trench dug for 
 celery, than in one designed for undermining a fort. 
 
 After returning from the wars, he took some ground adjoining that 
 which had been occupied by Dentatus ; and regarding that individual 
 as a model farmer, Cato tried to make his own a model farm. So 
 thoroughly did he throw himself into his agrarian occupation, that h*» 
 
CHAr. XX.] CATO THE CENSOR. 2Q"i 
 
 may be said to have buried himself in his land. He wrote a work on 
 Agriculture,* which included much miscellaneous information, from 
 the mode of buying an estate to the art of making a cheesecake, the 
 curing of a side of bacon, and the setting of a dislocated bone. While- 
 attending to his own business, he found leisure to attend to that of his 
 neighbours ; and in all their petty disputes before the local tribunals, he 
 was in the habit of attending the hearing of summonses for and against 
 his friends. He had a word of advice or a maxim to meet every 
 circumstance in which his advice was asked or offered ; and he could 
 always cut through a difficulty with one of his wise saws. Some might 
 i>e disposed to term him a busybody and a meddler ; but at all events 
 a young patrician, named Valerius Flaccus, considered him to be a 
 meddler well worth transplanting, and persuaded him to go to Rome, 
 "' as," in the language of Plutarch, " a plant that deserved a better soil." 
 Here he " put up " for various places in the public service, and we 
 find him climbing successively to several very high posts, where the 
 example he set by his externally virtuous mode of living, formed a 
 ■decent contrast to the undisguised vices of the age. 
 
 Such was Cato in his earlier years ; but the melancholy fact must be 
 stated, that, though flattery paints only one side of every picture, there 
 is none to which truth may not be called upon to add a reverse. In his 
 youthful days Cato had worked with his labourers ; had partaken of the 
 same fare with them at the same board, and drank nothing stronger 
 than water ; but, in after-life, he contracted a disreputable marriage, 
 and, giving himself up to the dissipations of the table, might have 
 found himself occasionally under it. So thoroughly utilitarian was he 
 in his political philosophy, that he looked upon a labourer as a mere 
 machine, which, when worn out, he contended ought to be got rid of as 
 ■speedily as possible. Cato the Censor owes much of his reputation for 
 -morality to the fact of his having set himself up as a professional 
 •moralist. Though he was useful as a castigator of the vices of his age, 
 there was nothing very amiable in the rancorous and uncharitable spirit 
 in which he performed his office. He had a keen appetite for an abuse 
 or a piece of scandal, but, while crime or error excited his hatred, virtue 
 .and generosity seemed to rouse less of his admiration than his jealousy. 
 If he had lived in modern times, he would, probably, have been a 
 common informer, a rigid observer of all the outward appearances of 
 virtue, and a discounter of bills ; for it is said of Cato, that he advanced 
 money at exorbitant interest to those whose necessities or recklessness 
 induced them to comply with his terms. 
 
 Religion had, at about this period, sunk to a very low ebb in the 
 hands of a crafty priesthood, who used the influence of their position 
 for their own temporal purposes. Prodigies were declared to have 
 happened ; such as the talking of a cow, which was alleged to have 
 " whispered low " in a priest's ear ; statues were said to have wept ; and 
 
 • De Re rustica. 
 
20S COMIC niSTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 the tale was listened to by those who believed that their augurs could, 
 if they pleased, get blood out of a stone. 
 
 In literature, though it is customary to speak of Koman characters as 
 an original form of letters. Rome had nothing new, but trusted to what 
 was already known ; for sne not only copied the vices of the Greeks, 
 but took a leaf out of their books in a more literal manner She had 
 no writers of her own ; but what literary food she possessed was 
 supplied by those translating cooks who make a hash of nearly every- 
 thing they lay their hands upon. 
 
 The earliest Roman dramatist is supposed to have been one Lucius 
 Andronicus, who had formerly been a slave, and who continued his 
 slavish propensities by a servile adaptation of Greek plays, instead of 
 boldly attempting an original production. Like many of the modern 
 translators, he was himself an actor in his own pieces ; and it is 
 declared by Livy the historian, that he lost his voice by the frequency 
 with which he was encored by the audience. This statement seems to 
 show that puffs were not unknown when the Roman dr.ama was in its 
 very earliest stage ; for the assertion in question could scarcely have 
 been true, since Cicero * has told us that there was nothing worthy of 
 being read or listened to twice, in the plays of Lucius Andronicus. 
 
 The greatest comic writer of the period at which our history has- 
 arrived, was Marcus Accius Plautus, of whose origin little is known ; 
 for the Romans held their wits and humorists in such little respect, 
 that as long as they could raise a laugh, it mattered little who they 
 were, whence they sprung, or what became of them. It was not until 
 after a writer's death that any interest was felt in his life, and such was 
 the case with regard to Plautus, who has been the subject of more 
 invention than is to be found in all his comedies. Conjecture — the 
 author of half the history, and three-fourths of the biography, which the 
 world possesses — describes Plautus as a low-born fellow, made of the 
 very commonest clay, moulded by one of Nature's awkwardest journey- 
 men into a misshapen lump, and whose angular deformities constituted 
 his chief points of humour. Having made a little money as a dramatist, 
 he is said to have embarked it in the baking business ; some would say 
 that he might make his own puffs ; but his shop failed, and as the 
 public would not, he of course could not, get his bread at it. He next 
 entered the service of a miller and master baker, where he attempted, 
 in grinding corn, to turn at once the handle of a mill and an honest 
 penny. Even in the bakehouse he was unable to forget the flowery 
 path of literature ; and while watching the bread, he managed to 
 inscribe on different rolls no less than three comedies. Of these he 
 made sufficient to enable him to quit the oven, which was incapable of 
 warming his imagination ; and taking lodgings in Rome, he resumed 
 the life of a dramatist. 
 
 What Plautus may have wanted in originality, he made up for by 
 
 * Brut., c. 18. 
 
OHAP. XX.] PLAUTUS AND TERENCE. 20 'J 
 
 industry, there being still extant twenty of his plays, and he was, 
 according to some, the author of one hundred pieces. 
 
 The mantle of Plautus — supposing the dramatist to have died with a 
 coat to his back — may be said to have fallen on Terentius Afer, or 
 Terence. He is believed to have been born at Carthage, and to have 
 been the slave of a Roman senator; for his biographers — who, by 
 the way, were writers themselves — will not hazard the supposition 
 that one of their own order could have been the son of a gentleman. 
 Terentius, however, got into what is usually termed the best society, 
 which had the usual effect of the " best society " on a literary man ; for 
 it took what it could never compensate him for — his time ; it led him 
 into idle and extravagant habits, and thus brought him, where it 
 will inevitably leave him, if it once gets him there — to ruin. His 
 ashionable friends carried their patronage so far, as to tax his reputa- 
 tion as well as his means, and even claimed a share in the credit of his 
 writings, declaring the best part of them to be their own, though they 
 suffered Terentius to affix his name to them. 
 
 Scipio Africanus, who stands convicted of fraud and embezzlement in 
 a former chapter,* had the effrontery to say, or allow it to be said, that 
 he had written portions of the plays in question, or, at least, contributed 
 some of the jokes ; but we have nothing to support the claim, except 
 the fact that he might, perhaps, have made a pun, as he is known to 
 have picked the public pocket. The following anecdote, related by his 
 biographer, Donatus, or Suetonius — for the learned are at issue, and 
 have long been stumbling over the two styles — may afford some idea of 
 the treatment to which authors were submitted in the age we are 
 writing of. Having completed his play of " Andria," Terence was desirous 
 of getting it licensed, and applied to the iEdiles, who referred him to 
 Csecilius, for an opinion on the manuscript. The critic being at dinner, 
 desired the dramatist to take a seat on a low stool, and read his piece, 
 so that Csecilius might, at the same time, swallow his meal, and digest 
 the new comedy. Terence had read but a few verses, when the critic 
 declared he could not continue selfishly putting good things into his 
 own mouth, while so many good things were coming from the mouth of 
 his visitor. He was requested to put the comedy away until after the 
 dinner, which he was invited to share ; and, having done so, the play 
 was finished over a glass or two of wine, winch increased the enthusiasm 
 with which the author read, and the critic listened. Both were 
 delighted with each other. Their better acquaintance was drunk ; 
 success to the comedy was drunk ; their healths were drunk together ; 
 and, ultimately, Cscilius and Terence were drunk separately as well as 
 jointly, before the termination of the evening. 
 
 The plays of Terence, though of Greek origin, were moulded after a 
 fashion of his own, and what little of the material he borrowed was 
 almost immaterial to the value of his productions. He received for one- 
 
 * Chapter xix., p. 202. 
 
aio 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 ,CHAP. XX. 
 
 of them " The Eunuchus," no less than 8000 sesterces (ahout £64), 
 which was, in those days, the largest sum that had ever been paid for a 
 five act comedy. After having been successful for some years, he 
 
 Terence reading bis Play to Csecilius. 
 
 embarked, according to some authorities, for Greece — as our dramatists 
 embark occasionally for Boulogne — to lay in a new stock of pieces for 
 future translation. Other authorities assert that he went to Asia, 
 taking a number of translations with him, and was never heard of 
 again, the ship having been sunk, perhaps, by the weight of his too 
 heavy manuscripts. 
 
 Among the writers of the period, we must not forget to mention 
 Ennius, a Calabrian, who gave lessons in Greek to the patrician youths, 
 at a small lodging on the Aventine. He is regarded as the father of 
 Latin poetry ; but Latin poetry could profit little from the paternal 
 care of one whose devotion to the bottle rendered his own care of 
 himself frequently impossible. His productions are of a very fragment- 
 ary kind ; and, indeed, his habits of intemperance prevented him from 
 making any sustained effort. He was the boon companion of several 
 patricians, who helped him to ruin when alive, and gave him a monu 
 ment at his death ; — one of them (Scipio Africanus) accommodating 
 the poet with a place in his tomb, so that the patron might literally go 
 down to posterity with the man of genius. 
 
OHAP. XX.J MASKS WORN TIY ACTORS. 211 
 
 While on the subject of the drama, as represented at Rome in the 
 days of Plautus and Terence, we may refer to the fact that masks were 
 worn by the actors, which gave to a theatrical performance some absurd 
 and not very interesting features. There were several sets of masks 
 among the properties of a regular theatre, beginning with that of the 
 iirst tragic old man, which had a quantity of venerable white worsted 
 attached to it for hair, with cheeks as chalky as grief and tears, strong 
 enough to have washed out the fastest colour, might be supposed to 
 have rendered them. The mask of the second tragic old man was less 
 pale than that of the first, for he was not supposed to have attained to 
 that universal privilege of aged heroism, — a countenance sicklied o'er 
 with a pale coat of whitewash. The mask of the tragic young man, or 
 youthful hero, was remarkable for its luxuriant head of hair, which, 
 from the earliest days of the drama to the present hour, seems to be 
 accepted as the stage indication of a noble character. The tragic 
 masks for slaves embraced some interesting varieties, including a sharp 
 nose, intended to be indicative of many a blow from fortune's hand, — a 
 sunken eye, to bespeak a sorry look-out, — and, occasionally, long white 
 hair, quite straight, which was supposed to convey the idea of the party 
 having seen better days, though the analogy is difficult, unless the 
 lankiness of the locks may be held to show that a favourable turn has 
 in vain been waited for. The mask of a tragic lady had all those 
 signs of a genuine female in distress which are even to this day required 
 on the stage, where long black hair, in terribly straightened circum- 
 stances, is the emblem of an anxious mind, which has long been a 
 stranger to curl-papers. When insanity, as well as anguish, had to be 
 represented by the mask, the hair was undivided in the centre, but floated 
 in wild profusion, as if the wearer had gone through a great deal, and as 
 if, whatever she had gone through, her hair had caught in the middle of. 
 
 The classical mask of the first comic old man was drawn excessively 
 mild and benevolent, to indicate that propensity for scattering purses 
 among the poor, and bestowing his daughter, with some millions of ses- 
 terces, on young Lucius, which were the probable attributes of the Greek 
 and Latin stage veteran. There was also the mask of the testy old 
 man, who was represented perfectly bald, as if he was always taking 
 something or other into his head which had torn all the hair out of it. 
 The masks for comic young men had the ordinary characteristics of stage 
 humour, including red hair, pug noses, broad lips, and raised eyebrows, 
 which are in these days supplied from those recognised sources of 
 dramatic drollery, the burnt cork, the gum-pot, and the paint-box. 
 
 We might enumerate a long list of different masks, without intro- 
 ducing any variety, for they were very nearly the same ; but we have 
 shown enough to prove that the classical taste for which so many 
 clamour without knowing what they talk about, was very little, if 
 at all, above the modern standard. Some authorities * assert that 
 
 * Diomedcs, iii., p. 486, ed. Putsch. 
 
212 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 TCHAP. XX. 
 
 masks were not worn in the earliest representations of the Roman 
 drama ; hut some of the oldest MS. of Terence contain figures of the 
 
 Light Comedy Man of the Period. 
 
 required masks, just as a play of the present day has prefixed to it a 
 list of the costumes of the characters. The admirers of the classical 
 may be grieved and astonished to hear that the taste, for the restoration 
 of which they so much pine, took greater delight in the deadly games 
 of the Circus, than in the lively representations of men and manners. 
 
 Historical literature was in a very humble condition, and had much, or 
 indeed all, the prolixity, with little of the accuracy, of a modern report for 
 a newspaper. It is, however, hardly fair to judge the authors severely for 
 writings which we have never seen, and are never likely to see ; for they 
 have never come down to us, except in scraps — the result of the various 
 cuttings-up they have encountered at the hands of Polybius and other 
 critics. For the same reason, we are unable to praise conscientiously 
 the " Origines " of Cato, which has long ago been lost, and we are 
 unwilling to adopt the " opinions of the press," which have too often been 
 at the disposal of the member of a clique, or of the purchaser of a puffing 
 paragraph. Oratory always was, and always will be, an important art, 
 except in those countries which are so excessively republican and free, 
 that the people are free for every imaginable or imaginary purpose, 
 except to do as they please, and to say what they think proper. The ■ 
 Romans took the art of rhetoric from the Greeks, but even a good thing 
 
CHAP. XX.] SCIENCE AND COMMERCE. 213 
 
 is distasteful if forced where it is not asked ; and, when the Athenian? 
 sent three professed orators as propagandists of their art to Rome, the 
 foreign agitators were ordered — very properly — to quit the city. 
 
 As lawyers, the early Romans are entitled to high praise, and they' 
 evinced their prudence hy making juris-prudence an essential part of 
 their ordinary studies. The Roman youth were required to get the 
 Twelve Tables by heart, or rather, by head, which was supposed to be 
 sufficiently furnished when the whole of the Twelve Tables alluded to 
 were crammed into it. 
 
 The science of Medicine was not in very high repute among the early 
 Romans, and physic was, commercially speaking, in very little demand, 
 so that it would have been a mere drug if brought into the market. The 
 aristocratic families generally expected one of their slaves to know some- 
 thing of the healing process, as they usually did of other arts or trades ; 
 and a surgical operation, like a gardening operation, or any piece of merely 
 manual labour, was frequently entrusted to the hands of a simple bonds- 
 man. Physic was scarcely known in Rome as a distinct pursuit, until the 
 year of the City 5o4 (b. c. 219), when the Greek physiciau Archagathus 
 opened a shop with an extensive stock, and an establishment of baths ; 
 the expense of which would have plunged him into hot water, had not 
 the public come forward to make him a present of his premises. The 
 shops of the doctors were lounging places for the idle, who are always 
 the most profitable patients ; for there is no ailing so troublesome as 
 that of having nothing to do, and abundance of time to do it in. The 
 Remans had made little advance in art, though they professed to show 
 their love for it by robbing other nations of their treasures. On the 
 same principle, the pickpocket, who pilfers a handkerchief, might ask 
 credit for being attracted by the beauty of its design ; and the knave 
 who walks away with a set of silver spoons might pretend to be actuated 
 by a desire to patronise their pattern or their workmanship. Rome, 
 indeed, can scai'cely be said to have introduced the arts from Greece, 
 but merely to have introduced a few of the articles on which the arts 
 had employed themselves. 
 
 Commerce was looked down upon for a long period as a degrading 
 pursuit ; but from the time of the Second Punic War, the equites, with 
 a total disregard of equity, began lending out money at exorbitant 
 interest. Though they would not condescend to trade for gain, they 
 were prepared to pocket the profits of usury. They would also purchase 
 corn at a low price abroad, and sell it at a dear rate at home ; for they 
 understood and practised all the tricks of the tradesman, though they 
 sneered at and repudiated his position. The slave trade was also 
 carried on to a vast extent by the higher classes, and even Cato is said 
 to have done a little in that way himself, notwithstanding the stiffness 
 of his notions, and the alleged purity of his morals. The patrician 
 principle seemed to be, that the same thing which would be blamable 
 on a small scale, was excusable when practised on a broad basis — that to 
 sell a little was degrading, but to sell a great deal was no disgrace at 
 
214 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XX. 
 
 all ; and by a parity of reasoning, they must have held, that so far from 
 its being the same thing whether to be hanged for a sheep or a lamb, 
 it -would only be the smaller depredator who would deserve any punish- 
 ment whatever. 
 
 Robbery had greatly augmented the public wealth ; but individuals 
 were wretchedly poor, with the exception of the few who had had a 
 hand in the pockets of the conquered nations. Slaves were brought in 
 such numbers to Home, that at length they would hardly fetch a price ; 
 and so many were brought from Sardinia, who were constantly being 
 put up, knocked down at nothing, bought in, and left on hand, that 
 " Sardians to sell ! " passed into a proverb to express an unsaleable 
 article. In vain were the poor creatures prepared to do as they were 
 bid, for no one would give them a bidding. The Greek captives 
 fetched a higher price, for they were many of them accomplished men, 
 and became tutors, music-masters, or teachers of painting, in the 
 families of their purchasers. Among the hostages brought to Rome, 
 was Polybius the historian, who got so good a living by giving lessons, 
 that though he had been brought to Rome against his will, he solicited 
 the privilege of remaining there. His "Universal History," in forty books, 
 was a work that ought to be, and would have been, in every gentleman's 
 library, but for the unfortunate fact of its having been nearly all lost : 
 and we may judge of the excellence of the whole, from the knowledge 
 that though what remains of the work is very good, by far the best 
 part of it is missing. 
 
CHAP. XXI.] WARS AGAINST PERSEUS. 215 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRSr 
 
 WARS AGAINST PERSEUS. THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. SIEGE AND DESTRUC- 
 TION OF CARTHAGE, AND DITTO DITTO OF CORINTH. 
 
 Philip of Macedon had been from time to time waging war with 
 Rome ; but the wages of the troops were so exhausting to his means, 
 that he was driven to a hollow peace by his empty pockets. He had 
 agreed to confine his dominion within a certain space ; but, as his 
 ambition had no bounds, he would not be content that his territory 
 should have any limits. He accordingly fought with and thrashed the 
 Thracians, who sent ambassadors to Rome for the purpose of showing 
 him up, as it were, to their common master. Rome punished him by 
 ordering him to keep within bounds ; and threatened, that if he should 
 be found venturing out of bounds, he should be severely punished. 
 Philip muttered something about seeking justice elsewhere — a threat 
 of paulo-post-future revenge which is common with those who, being 
 engaged in a dispute, have got decidedly the worst of it. 
 
 His prospects of ulterior measures were, however, sufficiently remote 
 to induce him to attempt an arrangement through the intervention of 
 his son Demetrius. The latter had been educated in Rome, and of 
 course had a thorough understanding of the Roman character. He 
 succeeded in his mission, but he obtained his end in a les3 agreeable 
 sense ; for his existence was brought to a close by treachery. Some 
 designing persons fomented a feeling of jealousy between himself and 
 his elder brother, Perseus, who poisoned the mind of Philip with such 
 fatal effect, that he caused the poisoning — not merely mental, but 
 physical — of his son Demetrius. When the wretched parent dis- 
 covered that he had been duped, he became so uneasy in his mind, that 
 he went quite out of it, and died at the age of three-score, unable to 
 meet the heavy score that he had run up against himself in the court of 
 his own conscience. 
 
 Perseus was hailed by the Romans as king ; but all their hailing 
 could not render his reign prosperous. He endeavoured to cement his 
 power by a marriage with the daughter of Antiochus Epiphanes, 
 for Perseus thought that the aid he would derive from the match, 
 would render him more than a match for his enemies. He gave his 
 sister to Prusias of Bithynia, in the hope that the latter, having married 
 into the family, would feel himself wedded to its interests. Avarice was., 
 however, the ruin of Perseus ; for he did not understand the true use 
 of the purse, which he used his utmost exertions to fill, and then held 
 its strings with parsimonious stringency. He had promised to pay 
 his allies, but their zeal in his cause subsided when they were left 
 without their subsidies. 
 
21 G COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. ["CHAP. XXI. 
 
 Euraenes of Pergamus being among others seized with a panic, went 
 to Rome to ask advice, and on his return nearly lost his life on the 
 highway, by some persons who attacked him in a very low manner. He 
 was passing a narrow footpath near Delphi — from which it would appear 
 that he had walked at least a portion of the way — when some persons 
 concealed in the rocks, hurled down several large blocks of granite, 
 which though not causing his death, brought him within a stone's 
 throw of it. Several huge pieces having fallen upon him, something 
 struck him that all was not right ; and he was revolving the affair in 
 his mind, when he found himself rolling down the precipice. He was 
 picked up nearly lifeless, but though very much jammed, he was 
 preserved ; and though almost dashed to pieces, he was sufficiently col- 
 lected, in a few days, to be enabled to go home, by another road, to Asia. 
 It was said that Perseus had had a hand in this disgraceful affair ; but 
 he declared that even if he had wished for the death of Eumenes, he 
 would not have been guilty of making such a desperate push for it. 
 
 This circumstance gave an impetus to the hostilities between Rome 
 and Perseus, who was driven by the Consul Paulus iEmilius to a place 
 called Pydna, where the two armies came to such very close quarters, 
 that their cavalry were compelled to go halves in the same stream of 
 water. A Roman horse happened to be drinking, when, startled by his 
 own shadow, and not giving himself time for reflection, which would 
 have shown him the cause of his alarm, he ran away into the camp of 
 the enemy. The animal, though goaded on by nothing but the spur of 
 the moment, continued his flight; and some Roman soldiers running 
 after him into the enemy's camp, were speedily followed by so many 
 more, that, though they had come after their own horse, they began 
 attacking the foot of the enemy. 
 
 The battle was commenced under such unfavourable circumstances, 
 that iEmilius, the Roman leader, thinking it all lost, declared that it 
 was all one to him what became of him. He manifested his grief by 
 tearing his robe to show how much he was cut up ; and beating his 
 foot impatiently on the ground, he stamped himself for ever as a man 
 without strength of mind, in a case where fortitude was required. The 
 Roman cavalry beginning to bear down successfully, the Consul began 
 to bear up ; and the tide of fortune being turned, the Macedonians 
 were, according to those grave authorities — which never mince matters, 
 though always mincing men — cut, as usual, to pieces. Perseus flew to 
 Pella ; but having omitted to close the gates after him, he was shut out 
 from all chance of escape had he remained in the place, and he went on, 
 therefore, to Amphipolis. There he attempted to address the inhabit- 
 ants on his own behalf; but he shed so many tears, that he drowned 
 his own voice, and choked his own utterance. He had hoped to rouse 
 the inhabitants by going to the country with a cry; but lie damped their 
 enthusiasm with a flood of tears, when they had been looking for a flow 
 of eloquence. 
 
 After flying from place to place, like a hunted hare, he felt the game 
 
CHAP. XXI.] P. ^MILIUS CONQUERS PERSEUS. 217 
 
 was up, and, retreating to Samothrace, he consigned bis weary head tc 
 the shelter of Castor, in whose temple he hid himself. He had 
 managed to carry about with him a large supply of treasure, which he 
 was anxious to save, and had hired a mariner to take him to Crete ; 
 but the money having been first sent on board, the crafty seaman, out 
 of curiosity, weighed the gold, and immediately weighed anchor 
 Perseus having gone down to the beach, to embark, saw the ship in the 
 offing, and, having watched it, he perceived that it was fairly, or rather 
 unfairly off, with all his treasure. As he paced the shore, he felt 
 himself quite aground, and, having no lodging for the night, or the 
 means of obtaining one, he returned to the solitary chambers of the 
 temple. Having a wife and family to provide for, he threw himself on 
 the generosity of iEmilius, who gave him a subsistence, but loaded him 
 with chains, that he might feel the weight of his obligations. The 
 unhappy Perseus was made to walk in a triumph before the car of his 
 conqueror ; and though he had entreated that he might not be so 
 lowered, he was still further let down, by cruel confinement in a subter- 
 ranean dungeon. His fellow-prisoners are said to have offered him a 
 sword, to end his clays, but, on looking at the weapon, he very properly 
 declined to bring his sufferings to a point, by an act of folly and wicked- 
 ness. He eventually found his way to Alba, where he died in about 
 two years ; his son, Alexander, having adopted the trade of a turner, 
 with the laudable view of turning an honest penny. 
 
 Paulus iEmilius exercised the usual privilege of a conqueror, by 
 robbing the vanquished of all they had possessed ; and Macedonia was 
 declared free, in the customary manner, by placiug it entirely under the 
 government of its foreign victors. 
 
 The triumph of Paulus iEmilius was one of the most magnificent 
 shows that had ever been seen, and lasted three days, during which u 
 perpetual fair was kept up ; for, among the Bomans, " None but the brave 
 deserve the fair " was a maxim literally followed. On the first day there 
 was a procession of pictures, showing the exploits of iEmilius in the 
 brightest colours. The second day was devoted to the carrying of the 
 trophies and the silver coin ; but, on the third, which was the grandest 
 day of all, the gold was paraded, followed by 120 bulls, which seem to 
 be suggestive of nothing belonging to war but its butchery. After 
 these came the unhappy Perseus, loaded with fetters, and having about 
 him some other links of a far more affecting kind, in the shape of his 
 three children. ' 
 
 The fame spread by the fate of Perseus was general among the kings 
 of the earth, who flocked like sheep, or rather, crawled like curs, to do 
 homage to the Pioinan Senate. Perseus arrived with his head shaved. 
 as if to show that he owed not only his crown, but his hair and all, to 
 Rome ; and he wore the tattered garments of a freed slave, as if to 
 prove that he had not a rag to his back, but what he held at the 
 pleasure of his masters. 
 
 All who had shown any sympathy with the cause of Perseus were 
 
218 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 cruelly persecuted, and the unfortunate Rhodians were so terrified with 
 the bare anticipation of their fate, that they began to anticipate it iiv 
 reality, by making away with themselves and with one another. On 
 the few who remained the hardest conditions were imposed, which 
 made their own condition the more deplorable. Carthage and the 
 Achaian League were the only two powers that seemed to stand in the 
 way of Rome, and of these the latter was thought so contemptible, that 
 some Achaians who had been detained in Italy were saved by a sarcasm 
 of Cato on their feebleness and decrepitude. " We have only to decide," 
 said he, " whether these poor creatures shall be buried by their own 
 grave-diggers, or by ours ; " a cruel pleasantry, which, however, had a 
 humane result, for it was decided that they should be at liberty to go 
 home and yield to their native undertakers the profit — or loss — 
 attendant on their funerals. 
 
 The Carthaginians had been for some years at peace with Rome, but 
 had been much harassed by some of her allies, and particularly by 
 Massinissa, their neighbour, in Numidia. It was annoying enough to 
 be subjected to attack, but it was still more provoking to be unable to 
 return the blow, which was the case with Carthage, whose hands were 
 tied by a bond prohibiting her from going to war without Rome's 
 permission. An appeal was addressed to Rome, which sent ambassadors, 
 who were instructed to hear the Carthaginians, but to decide in favour 
 of Massinissa. Carthage at length grew tired of allowing Rome to hold 
 the scales of justice ; for, though the scales might have been true, a 
 false weight was always attached to one side, which gave it a vast 
 preponderance. 
 
 The Carthaginians, therefore, took up arms against Massinissa, who, 
 though ninety years of age, fought with great determination ; for he felt, 
 probably, that he was too old to fly, and that his only chance was to 
 make that determined stand so well adapted to a time of life when 
 progress is somewhat difficult. The Carthaginians were worsted, but 
 they were not yet quite at their worst, until Rome was seized with the 
 idea of destroying their city. Cato was especially bent upon this 
 design, or rather he pursued it with unbending obstinacy, for he 
 finished every speech with the words " Delenda est Carthago" which 
 may be freely rendered into " Carthage must be smashed." Whatever 
 might have been the commencement of his oration, he always ended 
 with the same words, and whether he spoke in the Senate, the market- 
 place, or his own house, though the premises might be different, ho 
 always came to the same conclusion. He went about as a man with 
 one idea, and his conduct was almost that of a monomaniac ; for, if he 
 met a friend in the street, and conversed on different or indifferent 
 subjects, he would take his farewell with the accustomed words, " Valete ; 
 delenda est Carthago," — " Good-bye ; we must smash Carthage." During 
 a debate in the Senate he pulled some figs out of his pocket, which he 
 exhibited to some of his brother members as being " remarkably fine." 
 As the fruit was being examined, he observed, that he had " picked 
 
CIlAr. XXI.] THIRD PUNIC WAR. 219 
 
 them up in Africa; " that " they were capital ; " that " there were plenty 
 more where those came from," and, in a word, he added, " Delenda est 
 Carthago " — " We really must smasli Carthage." 
 
 Rome agreed with Cato, more especially when he pointed out that the 
 place was exceedingly rich ; for the Romans, whenever there was anything 
 to be got by robbery, were quite prepared for violence. The Consuls, 
 M. Manilius and L. Marcius Censorinus, assembled with a large force 
 in Sicily, where some ambassadors appeared from Carthage ; but the 
 only result of negotiation was an order that 300 members of the best 
 Carthaginian families should be sent over by way of hostages. The 
 Romans then passed over into Utica, where the Carthaginian ambas- 
 sadors again tried to treat, but the treatment they experienced was a 
 demand for the instant giving up of all their arms and ammunition. 
 Commissioners were sent into the city to see the orders carried out, 
 which comprised the carrying out of 200,000 suits of armour, and 3000 
 catapults."* The Carthaginians appear to have lost the use of their 
 heads when they so quietly resigned their arms ; but when they were 
 told that they must, in the next place, abandon Carthage, and build 
 another city ten miles off, they began to feel — somewhat too late — that 
 it was time to defend themselves. 
 
 The Carthaginian ambassadors proceeded to the usual expression of 
 anguish by tearing their hair out by the roots, instead of trying to pluck 
 up a little courage. Some, who were already bald, rolled themselves in 
 the dust ; and only a few went, like sensible men, to communicate to 
 the Carthaginians the doom with which their city was threatened. 
 
 The receipt of the news seems to have deprived the Carthaginians of 
 all their natural intelligence ; for their first step was to maltreat the 
 envoys. An effort was then made to save the city, by shutting the 
 gates ; and the citizens armed themselves with stones, having deter- 
 mined to set their lives upon the cast of these unwarlike missiles. It 
 is impossible not to respect and admire the heroism displayed under the 
 very trying circumstances ; but, unfortunately, trying was of little use, 
 for the chances were all against the Carthaginians. Hasdrubal, who 
 had been living in exile, at the head of 20,000 men — a somewhat large 
 party to remain in banishment — was sent for to take the command, and 
 occupied a post outside the city. The inhabitants, having given up all 
 their ordinary arms to the enemy, supplied fresh ammunition by devoting 
 all their gold and silver to the furnace ; and it was a melting sight to 
 see their treasure sacrificed for this patriotic object. The women cut 
 off their hair, to devote it to the making of crossbows, and the sex took 
 a characteristic pride in furnishing as many strings to a bow as possible 
 They worked so energetically, that they are said to have fabricated as 
 many as 500 javelins, 140 bucklers, and 300 swords each day ; but this 
 
 * A catapult woa an instrument for throwing arrows to a considerable distance. The 
 arrows were called Tormcnta, not from the torment they inflicted, but from torqueo, to 
 twist, because they were made of twisted hair, and perhaps the sight of them was 
 calculated to give a turn to the cuerny. 
 
220 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXl. 
 
 statement, seems to involve so much of fabrication, that we find difficulty 
 in believing it. 
 
 The resistance of Carthage was obstinate; and the confidence of 
 Rome led to a sort of indolence on the part of tbe latter, winch pro- 
 tracted the siege, until a new life was put into the affair, by the 
 appointment of young P. C. Scipio, the son of Paulus iEuiilius, to the 
 Consulship. The Carthaginians also were urged to fresh exertion, and 
 a party of 300 waded through the harbour, with torches in their bands, 
 to burn some engines ; but the water damped their efforts, which might 
 be compared to an attempt to set the Thames on fire ; and all who were 
 not drowned were glad to make their way back again. The suggestion of 
 the use of flame was an unfortunate one for Carthage, since it seemed 
 to cause the breaking in of a new light upon the Romans, who had 
 recourse to incendiarism in their turn for the accomplishment of their 
 object. Having got within the walls, they ignited several houses, and, 
 carrying fire from street to street, they invested their cause with a glare 
 which is none the less hateful for having been the glare of victory. 
 
 After nearly everybody had been killed, 50,000 men and women came 
 forth with olive branches to meet the conqueror ; and 900 Roman 
 deserters were still stowed away in the citadel. Hasdrubal yielded ; but 
 his wife, who was a strong-minded woman, reviled him in a speech from 
 the ramparts, and, parading her poor helpless children up and down for 
 a few minutes, she threw them before her, and ultimately flung 1 herself 
 into the burning ruins. Preceding historians have expressed their 
 admiration of this frantic female, for the act of murder and suicide which 
 we have described ; but we must confess our total inability to appreciate 
 the heroism of a piece of cruelty and cowardice, involving a large 
 amount of brutal daring, but wholly destitute of moral fortitude. 
 
 Carthage was now utterly destroyed, and Scipio, who had been the 
 main instrument of its having been set on fire, is said to have shed tears 
 over its smouldering ashes ; but we should be inclined to attribute the 
 fact to the smoke having got into his eyes, rather than to any feeling of 
 humanity. Even those who give him credit for sensibility, accuse him of 
 selfishness, for they say that he alluded to the possibility that the same 
 fate would befal his own country ; and they add that, while thinking of 
 his home, he quoted Homer, who had foretold the doom of Troy through 
 the mouth of Hector.* The Romans having possession of the place, 
 razed to the ground every part that had escaped the flames ; but they 
 lowered themselves even still more completely than they levelled the 
 city. Thus fell a place which had maintained a noble rivalry with 
 Rome, and which, in many respects, surpassed her proud competitor. 
 
 The greatness of Carthage had been, undoubtedly, the cause of thai 
 littleness of feeling which had been manifested towards it by Cato, who 
 could not bear the idea that there should exist a city rivalling in 
 
 * " The day shall come when Ilium's self shall fall, 
 
 With Priam and his stiong-spear'd people all." — Iliad, vi. 446. 
 
CUAP. XXI. J SUBJUGATION OF CARTHAGE. 221 
 
 grandeur the place he inhabited. The avails, which were triple, were 
 divided into two stories, the upper for men, and the lower for brutes ; 
 the former comprising barracks for soldiers, and the latter being fitted 
 up as stables for elephants. 
 
 The chief glory of the place was, however, to be found in its aqueducts, 
 which ran in a long line of seventy miles, and of which the people had 
 more reason to be proud than of even a still longer line of ancestors. 
 That a place surrounded almost by aqueducts should have been destroyed 
 by fire, is an extraordinary fact, though it is possible that turncocks may 
 have been neglectful, and if called upon to turn the water on, they may 
 have turned it off in favour of some more agreeable engagement. 
 
 There were not so many spoils as had been expected, for everything 
 was spoilt by the mischief that had been done, and though there had 
 been plenty of gold, the fearful amount of violent change had so 
 scattered the gold, that there was not so much remaining as there 
 otherwise would have been. With a touch of that honour which the 
 proverb says is to be found among thieves, Scipio called upon the 
 places formerly plundered by Carthage to reclaim their goods ; and 
 the people of Agrigentum demanded a brazen Bull they had once used 
 as an instrument of torture, though the invention was so discreditable 
 to humanity, that its inventors ought to have been ashamed to ask for it 
 back again. Among the prizes secured by the Eomans, was a very 
 small parcel of books, including a little work on agriculture, by Mago, 
 which had taught the Carthaginians to till the earth, though not how 
 to keep their ground, for they had lost every foot of it. 
 
 Carthage became a province of Rome, under the name of Africa, and 
 Scipio, who subsequently styled himself Africanus, enjoyed one of those 
 triumphs, which were in fact disgraces to the object they were designed 
 to honour. Part of the " triumph " consisted in the barbarity of throw- 
 ing as food to lions the fugitives that had fallen into his hands, and 
 games were celebrated, in which death to the conquered was the chief 
 sport to the conqueror. 
 
 Macedonia, which was groaning under the freedom forced upon it by 
 Rome, was glad to become the slave of everybody who offered to ease it 
 of the obnoxious burden. The Macedonians, therefore, became the 
 dupes of three impostors in succession, who, with all their imposition, 
 were less objectionable than the hardships imposed by Rome in her 
 character of liberator to the world in general. The impostors — one of 
 whom was a runaway gladiator — were in turn subdued, and Macedonia 
 was swallowed up by Rome's insatiable appetite for conquest. 
 
 Of the three pretenders just alluded to, the only one who had been 
 able to maintain his ground — though, by the way, the ground was 
 never his to maintain — was a young man, who declared himself to be 
 Philip, the son of Perseus. The youth was certainly very like his 
 alleged father ; and, upon the strength of the resemblance in features, 
 he put upon his claim such a bold face, that the Macedonians favoured 
 it. They put their crown upon his head, and the kingly name seemed 
 
222 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXI. 
 
 to have invested the young adventurer with a tower of strength ; for he 
 was successful in an attack upon the Romans, under the consul 
 Juventius. The impostor, however, soon lost control over himself, 
 and there was at once an end to his influence over his new subjects. 
 They threw him off, and he was compelled to take refuge in a Court 
 inhabited by one Bysas, a petty Thracian prince, who gave up, or, more 
 probably, sold, the fugitive, who had sought his hospitality. The pre 
 tender, who had led away so many others, was eventually led away 
 himself, and made to march as a "frightful example " in the triumph 
 of Metellus. 
 
 About this time the Achaians, who had entered into a league, began 
 to quarrel among themselves ; for Sparta, like a spoiled child, wanted 
 to have its own way, and sulked, as it were, alone in a corner, apart 
 from the rest of the confederacy. Rome was appealed to for advice, 
 and Roman ambassadors came to Corinth ; but they were so unpopular, 
 that on a visit to the theatre, where they had gone, expecting fair play, 
 they were insulted and pelted by the audience. This irritated the 
 Romans, and an army was sent, under Mummius, to encounter the 
 Greek general Diseus, who made so certain of victory, that he had 
 seats erected for the women and children to see him win a battle. He 
 had prepared everything in the neighbourhood of Corinth, and appro- 
 priating the privilege of the brave who are said to deserve the fair, he 
 clustered a large bevy of female beauty round the spot of his intended 
 achievement. The ladies were all expectation, and Diasus was all 
 confidence, until Mummius made his appearance, and in a very few 
 minutes sent Diaeus flying towards Megalopolis. Here he entered his 
 own abode, and setting fire to the premises, celebrated, with the most 
 dismal of house-warmings, the defeat that took the place of his intended 
 victory. 
 
 Mummius, thinking it idle to pursue the fugitive, preferred following 
 up his advantage, and arrived at the gates of Corinth, which had been 
 left wide open by the citizens. The place was deserted ; and Mummius 
 not only sacked its palaces, but ransacked its private houses, and, 
 looking into its magazines, extracted from them some very valuable 
 articles. So little, however, did he understand or appreciate art, that 
 when sending valuable pictures or pieces of sculpture to Rome, he told 
 the sailors, that if any damage was done on the voyage, he would make 
 them execute objects precisely similar to those with which he entrusted 
 them. Among the pictures was the celebrated " Bacchus " of Aristides, 
 — which was so perfect as to be looked upon as one of the wonders of 
 the world — and, when consigning it as part of a cargo of curiosities, he 
 declared that, if any injury was done to it, the ship "s painter should 
 immediately paint another. Such was the barbarism of the destroyers 
 of Corinth, that this picture was only rescued by Polybius from the 
 hands of the soldiers, who were gambling on its face, and who, with 
 every throw of the die, took off a portion of its colour. 
 
 The scenes enacted during the pillage of Corinth were barbarous in 
 
CHAP. XXI.] GREECE BECOMES A ROMAN PROVINCE. 
 
 223 
 
 the extreme, and involved the total destruction of what may have been 
 termed one of the chief pillars of civilisation — or, at all events, its 
 Corinthian capital. Many of the Roman soldiers, intoxicated with 
 success and something more, perished in the flames, to which the city 
 was doomed by the barbarous oi-der of Mummius. When the conflagration 
 
 Bacchanalian Group, from a very old Vise. 
 
 first commenced, it is said that a liquid metal was seen to flow through 
 the streets, which induced the invaders to rush forward in the hope 
 of profiting by such a strange metallic currency. Those, however, 
 who laid their hands upon the tempting issue, as it ran from the banks 
 on either side of the thoroughfare, found it a mass of floating fire, with 
 which they terribly burned their fingers. On cooler examination the 
 material proved to be a fusion of beautiful ores, to which the name of 
 Corinthian brass has since been given. 
 
 Greece was now at the feet of Rome, which trampled not only on her 
 fallen foe, but upon all the obligations of honour and morality. The 
 population and wealth of Corinth were disposed of — the former by 
 murder, and the latter by robbery. Greece was formed into a Roman 
 province under the title of Achaia, and Mummius, glorying in, rather 
 
224 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXI 
 
 than being ashamed of, his share of the work, took the surname of 
 Achaicus. We may instance as a redeeming feature of the period, the 
 erection at Rome of a clock, -which was in some degree at variance with 
 the time ; for the useful arts were neglected amid the pursuits of war 
 and rapine. The clock consisted of a bottle with a narrow neck, filled 
 with water, divided into twelve measm-es, to mark the hours ; but it 
 was only a minute observer that could ascertain the minutes. The only 
 mode of telling the time at Rome, had been previously by means of 
 the sun-dial, which was, of course, useless in the absence of sun, and 
 those who were particular to a shade, could derive from it no assistance 
 in their evening arrangements. 
 
 We dwell with some satisfaction on the introduction of the apparatus 
 we have described ; for the mere manifestation of a desire to note the 
 progress of time is indicative of a wish to make an improved use of it. 
 The application of the bottle to a wholesome purpose must also be a 
 cheering symptom, when it is met with among those who had previously 
 looked at the bottle as the means of killing time, rather than as an 
 instrument for making its flight perceptible. 
 
CHAP. XXII. 1 VIRIATIICS. -'. •"> 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND. 
 
 WAKS IN SPAIN. V1RIATHUS. DESTRUCTION OF NUMANTIA. THE SERVILK 
 WAR IN SICILY APPROPRIATION OF PERGAMUS. 
 
 War had become so familiar to the Romans, that they never felt at 
 home unless they were fighting abroad, and the sword was the only 
 thing they took in hand with real earnestness. The intoxication of 
 success, like other habits of intoxication, cannot be easily got rid of, and 
 the Romans sought to indulge their thirst for conquest in a manner 
 wholly at variance with sober judgment. Their design was to conquer 
 Spain, and in the execution of this design they cruelly executed large 
 numbers of the Lusitanians, who, had laid down their arms, in con- 
 sequence of a promise that if they quitted the field of battle, they 
 should be allowed quiet possession of the fields of peaceful industry. 
 On this assurance, they divided themselves into three parts, and were 
 then — as we are gravely assured by the chroniclers — treacherously cut 
 into several thousand pieces. One of the few that escaped was 
 Viriathus, who combined the qualities of the wolf and the lamb, for 
 he had turned a desperate robber, after having been employed as a 
 gentle shepherd. Abandoning the honest hook of a pastoral life, he had 
 adopted the more crooked ways of the common thief; and he seems 
 to have gradually stolen upon the confidence of his countrymen, until 
 they made him a general. He had passed his early days among the 
 mountains, and was prepared for the ups and downs of life, which he 
 afterwards experienced. His predatory properties had taught him how 
 to attack, and his practice as a robber — which rendered it necessary foi 
 him frequently to keep out of the way — had familiarised him with th* 
 art of avoiding an enemy. He would appear suddenly from the thick of 
 a thicket, and after doing considerable mischief, he would find conceal- 
 ment in the hollow of some rock which his companions would never 
 split upon. Though he had commenced his career as a poor country 
 clown, he had trained himself to perform feats of activity worthy of the 
 most experienced Harlequin. Life, which is a drama in the case of 
 most men, was, in his case, a series of scenes in a pantomime. He was 
 here, there, and everywhere, when he was not expected, and he was 
 immediately nowhere when his opponents were in pursuit of him. His 
 policy was first to scatter, and then to destroy ; to divide an enemy en <jros, 
 and cut it to pieces en detail. He had encountered Vitellius, the Roman 
 Praetor, near a place called Tribula, where the latter got into the utmost 
 tribulation by being led through briers and bushes into an ambush, 
 where he lost half his army. The other half lost him, for he was 
 killed by the sword of some one who did not know him, though, had he 
 
 Q 
 
*20 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF EOME. 
 
 [chap. XXII. 
 
 been known, the acquaintance would, most probably, have been cut in 
 the same barbarous manner. 
 
 Viriathus for some time baffled the enemy by cunning and address, 
 or rather by having no address at all, for he had no fixed residence ; 
 and there was, consequently, much difficulty in finding bim. At length 
 he fought a battle, in which he was so far successful that a peace was 
 concluded, in which ho was acknowledged as the friend and. ally of 
 Borne ; but having no one to save him from his friends, he was basely 
 murdered in his sleep by some Lusitanian assassins that the Roman 
 
 Assassination of Viriatlms. 
 
 general had hired. The instigators of this barbarous act refused to pay 
 when the sanguinary work was done ; and the murderers, in making a 
 
CHAT. XXII.] SIEGE OF NUMANTIA. 227 
 
 demand on account of their crime, may be said to have, figuratively, cut 
 their own throats, for they were threatened with punishment for the 
 iniquity they confessed themselves guilty of. After the death of 
 Viriathus, the Lusitanians having lost their head, were without the 
 brains necessary to defend themselves, and fell an easy prey into the 
 hands of Q. Pompeius. This individual was the son of a musician ; but 
 instead of following his father's profession, he had become the leader of 
 a warlike band, and he found the soldiers willing instruments to play 
 into his hands, or act in concert with him, for the gratification of his 
 personal ambition. He attacked Numantia, though with so little success, 
 that he was compelled to conclude a peace ; but treacherously declaring 
 that the conclusion of a peace meant the beginning of a war, he renewed 
 hostilities at the first convenient opportunity. Subsequently, C. Hostilius 
 Mancinus commenced an attack, but 10,000 of his men having been 
 killed, and 20,000 more being blocked up in a ravine, he could not 
 exactly see his way out of it without a surrender. The Numantines 
 refused to treat with him, until young Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, 
 whom they trusted, came forward to pledge his honour that Numantia 
 should be fairly treated. The Senate, however, repudiated the arrange- 
 ment, and the honour of young Tib. remains among the enormous stock 
 of unredeemed pledges which history has handed down to us. 
 
 The Romans began to feel that none but the best man was likely to 
 win, and they accordingly looked out for the best man, whom they found 
 in Scipio Africanus, the destroyer of Carthage. He was sent against 
 Numantia, which he surrounded by fortifications, in order that he might 
 starve out the inhabitants by keeping them in, and he did his utmost to 
 restore the discipline of the Roman army. He hardened the soldiers by 
 makiug them cany loads of wood, a novel plan of providing them with a 
 billet ; he forced them to sleep on the ground, which they complaiued 
 of as hard ; and he allowed them no other cooking utensils than a 
 saucepan, which caused the indignation of many to boil over. 
 
 Numantia stood upon a lofty rock, and its inhabitants displayed a 
 courage worthy of its high position. The river Durius (now the Douro) 
 washed its feet ; there were forests on either hand ; while the mounds 
 and ditches abounding in the vale before it, rendered any attempt to 
 approach it in the front almost unavailable. Scipio Africanus soon 
 perceived the hopelessness of succeeding by a direct attack, and he pro- 
 ceeded, therefore, to raise round the place a double stockade, to prevent 
 any aid in the form of a stock of provisions being carried into it. He 
 impeded the navigation of the river by throwing across it large beams, 
 perforated with swords, which, revolving with the tide, cut off all com- 
 munication by means of water. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the precautions that had been taken, a party of 
 -about half-a-dozen young men, having slipped through the lines — and 
 very hard lines they were — succeeded in reaching the town of Lutia. 
 The head of the party, holding an olive-branch, begged for assistance 
 •with such effect, that the Lutians offered to lend him a baud in his 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAI\ XS.I1. 
 
 terrible emergency. Scipio, who had been in pursuit, no sooner heard 
 of the Lutians having offered to lend a hand, than he savagely declared 
 that thfiv should have no hands to spare, and he barbarously ordered the 
 cutting off of the hands of four hundred citizens. 
 
 The Nurnantines being completely hemmed in, were unable to obtain 
 provisions ; but though reduced at last to eat cats, they became only the 
 more dogged in their resistance to the enemy. Eventually, they begged 
 for a *rise of three days, which they employed in destroying their wives 
 and children — a species of heroism not easily understood ; for to kill 
 those who are dear, by way of protecting them, is a mode of insurance of 
 which we must dispute the policy. The men were so sadly dispirited, 
 and so fearfully cut up by their own or each other's swords, tbat the 
 conquerors had only a remnant to take, in the shape of population, when 
 they entered the city. 
 
 In conformity with the custom of the period, Scipio Afrieanus Minor, 
 whose atrocities, in connexion with the siege of Numantia, have branded 
 his name for ever with disgrace, proceeded to make arrangements for a 
 triumph. Instead of feeling a decent shame, he manifested a most 
 unbecoming pride in what he had done ; and to identify himself more 
 completely with the horrors of the siege, he took the name of Numan- 
 tinus. So thoroughly had starvation done its work, that of the few 
 citizens who were found alive, only fifty were in sufficiently good con- 
 dition to appear in the show got up in celebration of his dishonourable 
 victory. 
 
 While Rome was thus extending her arms, she may be said to have 
 been painfully on the stretch ; and Scipio, during his consulship, seeing 
 the republic was likely to outgrow its strength, caused prayers to be 
 said for its safety. Rome was certainly in danger, though from a 
 lifferent cause than that which had beeu apprehended ; for the free 
 population had been greatly reduced by war, and the captives, or slaves 
 to circumstances, had been vastly multiplied. The office of the latter 
 was to tend flocks ; and they were so thoroughly regarded as a portion 
 of the stock, that they were treated like brutes by their masters. 
 
 The system of slavery which existed at Rome, had so much influence 
 upon her fate, and is calculated to afford such an insight into her morals, 
 that the fetters she placed upon others may be regarded as so many 
 links in her history. We will, therefore, break for a moment the chain 
 of narrative, and proceed to a brief consideration of the Roman system 
 of slavery and chains, to which we cannot hope that the attention of the 
 reader can remain long riveted. 
 
 According to the strict letter of the Roman law, a master could treat, 
 or maltreat, his slave in any way he pleased, either by death, sale, or 
 punishment. Though the slave could hold no property, he had the 
 power of taking anything he could get, but simply as a medium for con- 
 veying it to his master. So thoroughly were the slaves looked upon as 
 articles of traffic, that they were liable to be pledged or put into pawn — 
 a position in which they were the subjects of a melancholy sort of interest. 
 
CHAP. XXII.] SERVILE WAR IN SICILY 22U 
 
 The demand for slave labour in Rome was caused by the annual 
 consumption of the free population in war, at whose bidding many who 
 6hould have remained to cultivate the land, were sent forth to plough 
 the ocean. The result was a redundancy of slave population, accustomed 
 to agricultural labour of every kind, and which, having been already 
 brought under the yoke, had become sufficiently brutalised to do the 
 work of oxen. The chief supply of slaves was drawn from the prisoners 
 taken in war, and an army was generally attended by dealers, who, in 
 case of a glut, could frequently buy a lot cheap ; and at the camp of 
 Lucullus they were being picked up for about three shillings and three- 
 pence of our money — or four drachmas. In Rome it was usual to sell 
 slaves by auction, and, as if the poor wretches were not already low 
 enough, they were knocked down by the hammer. The dealers were in 
 the habit of practising the same sort of tricks to conceal the defects of a 
 slave, as are, in these days, employed to hide the faults of a horse, and 
 it was customary therefore, in purchasing, to require a warranty. The 
 character was often suspended on a scroll round the neck, and their 
 chief recommendation consisted in a guarantee that they would neither 
 commit suicide, nor steal — having no tendency to make away with 
 either themselves or their master's property. There was a con- 
 siderable variation in the value of slaves, and fancy prices have been 
 known to be given for some curious specimens of captive humanity. 
 A fool has been known to fetch 20,000 sesterces — about one hundred 
 and seventy pounds — a sum that would seem to show that folly was 
 scarce ; but when we remember how wise a man is required to make a 
 fool, we may take it for granted that the wisdom comprised in the 
 subject of the bargain was the rare and costly part of it. Literary men 
 were often exposed for sale like cattle when they happened to be slaves, 
 and the useful hack, or occasionally the literary lion, might be seen 
 chained to a pen in the public market-place. Slaves had no distinctive 
 dress ; and when it was once proposed to give them one, the measure 
 was rejected, on the ground that it might show them their numerical 
 strength, and that if they once saw their power by obtaining their livery, 
 they might attempt to take up their freedom. It was deemed better to 
 keep them in the dark, by clothing them in sombre colours, and their 
 numbers not being manifested to them by any peculiar dress, it was 
 not likely they would unite in order to redress their grievances. 
 
 There is, however, something elastic in human nature, which causes it to 
 rise after being trodden on. Such was the case with the slaves, who began 
 to swell with indignation, which was rendered particularly tumid by the 
 inflated and inflating eloquence of one Eunus, a Syrian, who was a 
 member of their own body. This individual possessed the art of 
 oratory in a high degree, and there is nothing more stimulating to the 
 breeze of discontent than the breath of an enthusiastic demagogue. 
 He persuaded the slaves to revolt, and while preaching to them the 
 doctrine of equality, he claimed to be not only their leader, but their 
 prince and ruler — a species of practice which is not uncommon with the 
 
230 COMIC HISIORY OF KOME. [CHAP. XXII. 
 
 propounders of the most levelling theories. Pretending to possess the 
 gift of prophecy, he predicted that he would be a king one day ; and 
 the rich, putting a mimic crown on his head for a few hours, jeeringly 
 told him that he had been a king one day — or at least half a day, and 
 that his prediction had been therefore verified. The slaves, however, 
 put faith in him, and shouldering their spades, axes, poles, and hatchets, 
 made themselves, as well as their implements, the tools of Eunus. No 
 less than 70,000 slaves acknowledged as their head the man who taught 
 them that they ought to have no head at all, and he urged them to a 
 merciless massacre of their vanquished foes, while inculcating the 
 doctrines of humanity. Eage without restraint, and revenge without 
 reason, were, however, of no permanent avail, and the slaves under 
 Eunus were soon routed by the disciplined forces of the Consul, Rupilius. 
 He besieged Tauromenium ; and the slaves, by being completely shut 
 in, were altogether shut out from the chance of obtaining provisions. 
 Their condition from day to day was so desperate and monotonous, that, 
 with nothing to eat, they furnish but sorry food to the historian. 
 Having swallowed their last morsel, the inhabitants could not satisfy 
 their hunger by bolting the gates, and Rupilius was admitted within the 
 city. Eunus escaped into a cutting in the rocks; but when he relied 
 on the friendly shelter of the cave, he found it a hollow mockery. His 
 retreat was discovered, and he was taken into custody with his cook, his 
 confectioner, his butler, and his buffoon, who, with the exception of the 
 last, must have held sinecures in their master's limited establishment. 
 The buffoon must have been worked the hardest of the party, for the 
 pursuit of mirth under difficulties is one of the most melancholy tasks 
 that can be imposed on the professed humorist. Eunus himself was 
 transferred from his subterranean cellar to an underground cell, where 
 it is said he was devoured by rats ; but happily this horrid tale receives 
 no authentic ratification at the hands of history. 
 
 The Servile War had not yet ceased, when Attalus, the King of 
 Pergamus, died, and left no sign; for there was no succeeding king's 
 head for the crown of Pergamus to rest upon. It was fortunate, 
 perhaps, that Attalus left no heir ; for had there been any inheritor of 
 his qualities as well as his title, the perpetuation of a nuisance would 
 have been the deplorable consequence. The man was so thoroughly 
 wicked that it is charity to pronounce him mad, and we accordingly 
 6et him down as a lunatic, though we feel scarcely justified in acquitting 
 him of his many crimes on the single ground of insanity He is said 
 to have been so much addicted to the practice of poisoning his relations, 
 that he found it cheaper to grow his own plants ; and he cultivated the 
 hemlock, or the night-shade, as others grew their own faba or cicer, their 
 beans and duckweed. Death lurked at the root of everything his 
 garden contained, and it is probable that he sent many a present of 
 putative mushrooms to his unsuspecting kindred. So odious had he 
 become, that it is said he would have been murdered, if he had not died 
 a littb too soon for the arrangements of the assassins to be completed. 
 
CHAP. XXII.] BEQUEST OF THE KING OF PERGAMUS. 
 
 a.3i 
 
 Having been in the habit of expressing his will very briefly in his 
 lifetime, it is not surprising that he should have left at his death a 
 
 Arrest of Eunus. 
 
 will, so short, that it purported to say in four letters all he desired 
 His last testament was comprised in the characters P R. H. E. ; 
 and all his property was supposed to he represented in this small 
 collection of capitals. The Romans affecting to be initiated in the 
 meaning of these initials, declared them to signify, Populus Romamis 
 hares est, Let the Roman people be the heirs of my property. Regard- 
 ing these letters as letters of administration, the Romans possessed 
 themselves of all the effects of Attalus ; but the will was disputed by 
 the next of kin, one Aristonicus, a natural brother, whose claim to 
 succeed, as a member of the testator's line, was stifled by a rope, with 
 which the unfortunate claimant was cruelly strangled. 
 
232 COHIC HISTORY OF KOME. [CHAP. XXII 
 
 Pergamus became a Roman province under the name of Asia 
 Proper — a species of appropriation which there was nothing to justify 
 
 Rome was now in the position of a man who had outgrown his 
 strength, or rather of an adult still wearing the clothes of its infancy. 
 Its measures had been adapted to a social body which had since spread 
 itself in all directions, while the constitution, with which it was 
 clothed, had not been extended to the new growth ; and the extreme 
 points of the Republic were therefore reduced to all sorts of extremities. 
 The people at large had become so miserably poor, that they were 
 easily bribed to become the tools of their own further abasement ; and 
 they were not only ready to sell themselves for a mere nothing, but to 
 lend themselves to almost anything. 
 
 The tribuneship, which had been originally a purely popular institu- 
 tion, had changed, or rather lost, its character Instead of being 
 stationed outside the entrance of the Senate House, to prevent the door 
 from being opened to abuse, the Tribunes were, by a law of C. Atinius, 
 constituted ex-officio members of that aristocratic body. The design of 
 the tribuneship was to insure to the people a certain number of friends 
 invested with high authority ; but the people were eventually anxious 
 to be saved from their friends — a result that is by no means rare in 
 ancient or modern history. As the bitterest vinegar can be made from 
 the most generous wine, the sharpest of despots is often created out of 
 the blandest of demagogues. 
 
 So great had the power of the Tribunes become, and so much had it 
 been abused, that even the Senate grew jealous of it; and a law waa 
 enacted to bring the tribuneship under the operation of signs and 
 omens. These were interpreted by the Augurs, who of course had the 
 power of reading in the lightning, and hearing in the reports of the 
 thunder, whatever it suited their purpose to circulate. 
 
 Aristocracy had lost its exclusive privileges ; but these had only 
 become more objectionable by being spread over a larger surface ; for 
 they were now extended to a certain portion of the plebeians, who went 
 by the name of novi homines, or upstarts These were distinguished 
 from the Nobiles, or, to speak shortly, the nobs, who enjoyed the right 
 of having the images of their ancestors in wax ; but this jus imaginum, 
 as it was termed, conferred only an imaginary dignity. There was no 
 legal privilege attached to the sort of nobility above described ; but 
 those persons who were qualified by the possession of the waxen forms 
 of their fathers, were looked upon as men making in society a highly 
 respectable figure. 
 
 Notwithstanding the liberty which is declared by republicans to be 
 inseparable from the Republican form of Government, laws were passed 
 to restrain the liberty of private action in the days of the Roman 
 Commonwealth. By the Orchian law, made in the year of the city 
 572 (b.c. 181), the number of guests that might sit down to dinner 
 was limited ; and as a further illustration of republican freedom, it may 
 be mentioned that the entertainer was obliged to keep open his doors, 
 
«.HAP. XXII. ] SUMPTUARY LAWS. US'3 
 
 60 that all who were freely-and-easily inclined might enter his house to 
 see that the law was complied with. Twenty years later, it was 
 decreed hy the law of Fannius, that no entertainment should cost more 
 than one hundred asses, or six shillings and five-pence farthing, on high 
 days and holidays ; on ten other days in the month, the meal was not 
 to exceed thirty asses, or one and eleven-pence farthing ; but ou ordinary 
 occasions seven-pence farthing was the figure to which even the richest 
 man was to limit the cost of his dinner. The law not only interfered 
 with the bill of expenses, but with the bill of fare ; and, under the 
 Consulship of M. Scaurus, the dormouse was excluded from the dinner- 
 table as an enervating luxury. Vegetables were allowed to any extent, 
 and bread might be eaten at — or even beyond — discretion. 
 
 To such a ridiculous extent did the Romaus carry their interference 
 with the private expenditure of each other, that when Crassus and Cn. 
 Demetrius were Censors, they endeavoured in the most absurd manner 
 to damage each other's popularity. Demetrius publicly charged 
 Crassus with having been guilty of extravagance for going into mourning 
 on the death of a favourite fish ; and Crassus retorted by declaring that 
 Demetriua had lost three wives without exhibiting signs of mourning 
 for any one of them.* 
 
 * Macrobius, P:>tumai., lib. ii., c. 1. 
 
234 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. | CHAP. 2 XIII 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD. 
 
 THE GRACCHI AND THEIR MOTHER. RISE AND FALL OF TIBERIUS 
 AND CAIUS GRACCHUS. 
 
 A people trained to live chiefly on spoils taken from others must be 
 continually spoiling itself for any peaceful occupation ; and those whose 
 chief support is the sword, must be always destroying the food they live 
 upon. When foreign means are exhausted, it becomes necessary to 
 look at home, and those who have existed by robbing strangers, are no 
 sooner deprived of their external sources of support, than they begin to 
 rob each other. Such was the order — or rather the disorder — of things 
 in Rome, where wealth had got into the hands of the few, and the social 
 fabric, like a building too heavy at the top, was in immediate danger of 
 a downfall. There were large classes of persons who were assured that, 
 they were perfectly free ; but, though enjoying the freedom of air itself, 
 they found in it no element of comfort, when they had nothing more 
 substantial than the air to live upon. Deprived of every inch of land, there 
 was but a flatulent sort of satisfaction in the enjoyment of the atmos- 
 phere, nor could the most long-winded of orators impress the people with 
 the idea that life could be maintained by simply imbibing the breath of 
 liberty. They were informed that they were the lords of the earth ; * 
 but this mockery of respect was simply insulting the emptiness of their 
 mouths by a scarcely less empty title. The plebeians were like a 
 number of ciphers without a preliminary figure, and, though possessing 
 all the materials of strength in their vast body, were powerless until a 
 head could be found for them. This at length appeared in the person 
 of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, the grandson of the elder Scipio, and as 
 two heads are said to be better than one, Tib. united his brother Caius 
 with him in the office of leader to the great plebeian movement. 
 
 The elder Gracchus had been tutored by his mother Cornelia — one 
 of the earliest members of the ancient and honourable order of blue- 
 stockings. She had superintended the education of her children, and 
 had personally tutored them in eloquence ; an art of which the female 
 tongue is peculiarly capable. Her own house was the resort of some of 
 the first philosophers of the day, who, like many modern philosophers, 
 were thoroughly impressed with the idea that the way to penetrate the 
 youthful mind, is to continue for ever boring it. In this manner the 
 understandings of the young Gracchi had been thoroughly drilled, and 
 the treasures of science had been admitted at so many apertures, that 
 the only fear was lest the treasures, through some of the numeroiu 
 
 « Pint., Tib. Gr.iech. 
 

CHAP. XXIII.] TIBERIUS S. GRACCHUS. 235 
 
 openings by which they had got into the mind, might find their way 
 out again. 
 
 Tib. had already won some reputation in Spain, and was returning 
 home, when he saw the Etrurian estates of the wealthy being cultivated 
 by foreign slaves in chains, whose bonds not only bore the seal of 
 degradation for themselves, but were the means of fettering native 
 industry. These slaves were housed and huddled together in places- 
 called Ergastula, which were literally workhouses, but practically, 
 prisons. They are said to have been built under-ground in the shape 
 of vaults ; but, in giving this account of their construction, there has 
 perhaps been some misconstruction on the part of Columella, who is the 
 chief authority for the statement. 
 
 We must now return to Tib. Gracchus, who had, by this time, 
 returned to Rome, and had formed the noble resolution of remedying 
 abuses, though he knew that loud abuse of himself would be the 
 inevitable consequence. He had seen that the aristocracy had got 
 possession of nearly all the land, allowing the plebeians to have no share 
 in it, except the ploughshare, and even this was often denied them by 
 the employment of slaves instead of the free agricultural labourer 
 Tib. was learned in the law, and recollected the existence in the books 
 of the old statute of Licinius, which had fallen into disuse, and the 
 renewal of which he thought might put new life into the plebeian body 
 By this law, no one was allowed to occupy more than 500 jugera — 
 about 330 English acres — of the land of the state ; but the state of the 
 land exhibited a very different distribution of the public property. 
 
 The poorer occupants of the soil had been compelled by their neces- 
 sities to sell to the richer, and Tiberius made the popular but scarcely 
 honest proposal, that those who had bought should give back to those 
 who had sold — a suggestion which was hailed by the masses as the 
 happy inspiration of a patriot. The idea was simple enough, and if 
 simplicity is an element of grandeur, the notion was so far a great one ; 
 though, as it is based on the principle, that when a man has sold 
 everything he possesses, the purchaser or the possessor should hand 
 the property back to the original vendor, the project is not well 
 adapted to business purposes. The suggestion was, however, one which 
 enabled a patriot to go to the country with a " cry," and though the end 
 proposed was laudable enough, the means, which involved an interference 
 with the means of the wealthy, could not command the general 
 approval. It is true that much of the property had been unfairly 
 obtained, and that much more was held in illegal quantities ; but some 
 had been the subject of regular sale, and the general confiscation 
 proposed was but a Procrustean measure of justice. 
 
 The plan was of course opposed, and the term of " selfish aristocrat " 
 was liberally, or illiberally — for they are unfortunately too much alike, 
 sometimes, in their political sense — bestowed on every one who did his 
 utmost to protect what the law had allowed him to regard for years as 
 his own property. Common sense, however, began so far to prevail over 
 
Q36 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 clamour, that the proposal of Tib. Gracchus was modified to some 
 extent, and the distribution of the surplus land was confided to a 
 permanent commission of three men, who were called the Triumviri. In 
 order to give something like consistency to the measure, it provided, 
 that the land which had been taken away from its old possessors should 
 not be sold by the new ; and thus a sort of uniformity was observed 
 by robbing the former, and restricting the latter ; so that the principle 
 of not being able to do what one likes with one's own, was affirmed in 
 each instance. The injustice of the whole proceeding was so palpable, 
 notwithstanding the "popularity" of the scheme, that a compensation 
 clause was introduced to indemnify those who had built houses at their 
 own expense upon the ground; but nothing was awarded to those who 
 had only built upon it their hopes of being allowed to continue in quiet 
 possession of the property 
 
 Party feeling ran, of course, exceedingly high, or, in other words, its 
 proceedings were extremely low on both sides. Tib. Gracchus was 
 lauded by the people as the essence of everything noble, and denounced 
 by the patricians as the incarnation of everything contemptible. On 
 one side he was hailed as a patriot, and on the other side he was hooted 
 as a fraudulent demagogue ; so that '.f everything that went in at one ear 
 went out at the other, his head must have been a thoroughfare for every 
 kind of vehicle of abuse and flattery. The Senate took the meanest 
 means of revenge, and reduced his official salary to one denarius and a 
 half, or about a shilling a day in English money. Tiberius, thus 
 curtailed of the means on which he lived, declared there was a con- 
 spiracy against his life, and rather prematurely went into mourning for 
 himself, to excite the public sympathy Putting his children into 
 black, he took them with him from house to house, requesting that they 
 might be taken in as orphans ; but the public refused to be taken in by 
 a trick so obvious. False accusations were, however, brought against 
 him ; and a next-door neighbour stood up in the Senate, declaring that 
 he had that morning observed a diadem and a scarlet robe delivered at 
 the back door, which proved that Tiberius intended to usurp the regal 
 authority. In order to obtain the weight of an official position for his 
 reforms, Tiberius got himself elected tribune of the people, and the appa- 
 rently inevitable effects of taking office were at once shown in his introduc- 
 tion of a modified edtion of the measure he had previously clamoured for. 
 
 The aristocratic party set every engine and every old pump at work 
 to throw cold water on his project, and they at length persuaded one of 
 his colleagues, named Octavius, who was played upon as easily as an 
 octave flute, to take part against him. The mode of opposition resorted 
 to by Gracchus was rather more effective than constitutional, for he 
 called upon the people to dismiss his colleague — an arrangement almost 
 as equitable as it would be for one judge to insist upon the dismissal of 
 another, who might refuse to announce himself submissively as "of the 
 same opinion " with his learned brother. When, however, the people 
 are once fairly off, in a certain or uncertain eourse, they seldom think 
 
CHAP. XXIII. ] TIEER1US G GRACCHUS. 237 
 
 bow unfairly their precipitancy may operate. They had set their hearts 
 on a particular measure, and they refused to be guided hy their heads ; 
 but without deliberation, drove away eveiy obstacle that impeded the 
 accomplishment of their wishes. As Octavius still held his position, 
 Gracchus gave notice that he had a resolution to propose; and, on the 
 following day, he moved the removal of his colleague. Octavius, 
 however, met the proposed resolution by a remarkable display of 
 resolution on his own part, and he declared that he should stick to 
 his office, notwithstanding the other's unfriendly offices. These means 
 having failed, Tiberius made a personal appeal to his colleague, and 
 pointed out to him the gracefulness of a voluntary resignation ; but 
 Octavius, who rated himself very highly, objected altogether to 
 the voluntary principle. Tiberius next attempted to starve his col- 
 league out by sealing up the treasury ; but the sealing made no im- 
 pression on Octavius, who retained his official seat until it was drawn 
 from under him by the mob, and he fell to the ground, between the 
 two stools of himself and his unscrupulous colleague. A client or 
 creature of the Gracchi was elected in the place of the deposed Tribune, 
 who had been got rid of by upsetting one of the most important forms 
 of the constitution — that form being no other than the bench occupied 
 by one of the highest officers of the government. Octavius was hurried 
 out among the mob, who thrust him about in every direction ; but, 
 when it came to the push, Tiberius Gracchus endeavoured to pull him 
 through his difficulties. The effort was almost vain ; and Octavius owed 
 his life to a faithful slave, who lost an eye in seeing his master through 
 the dangers that surrounded him. After this manifestation of the popular 
 opinion, no Tribune ventured to have an opinion of his own — or, if he had, 
 he kept it to himself, with a prudent regard to his personal safety. 
 
 The new bill for distributing the soil became at once the law of the 
 land, and the two Gracchi — Tib. and Caius — with Appius Claudius, 
 the father-in-law of the former, became a permanent triumvirate. This 
 desire of the temporary holders of power to change their tenancy at will 
 to a life estate, has been in all ages conspicuous. The stability of 
 authority is so desirable, that a fixed executive seems to be everywhere 
 a natural want ; but the mushroom might as well seek to substitute 
 itself for the oak, whose roots have struck deep into the soil, as the 
 mere chief of a revolution might hope, without any hold on the affec- 
 tions of a nation, to become the founder of a dynasty. 
 
 Tib. Gracchus, in the true spirit of a patriot by profession, proposed 
 limiting every power but his own, which he sought to render as exten- 
 sive as possible. When his term of office had legally expired, he 
 declared that the safety of the republic required his re-election, and he 
 accordingly forced himself on the attention of the electors as the only 
 desirable candidate. On the day previous to the election, he spent all the 
 afternoon in the mourning he had already bought, and leading his children 
 by the hand, he exhibited himself and them as the " un-happy family,' 
 in the public thoroughfares. The election had already commenced, on th« 
 
.238 
 
 COMIC HISTORY. OF ROME 
 
 [CHAP. XXIIL 
 
 following day, when the Conservative party objected to it on the ground 
 of illegality. The proceedings were already opened, when Tib. Gracchus 
 set out on a canvass, expecting that his canvass would enable him to 
 reach the desired point with a wet sail and flying colours. Not content 
 
 
 § • 
 
 Tib. Gracchus canvassing. 
 
 with going alone to solicit the electors, he took one of his own boys in 
 his hand, and he got all the mothers on his side, by introducing what 
 may be termed child's play into his electioneering movements. In the 
 afternoon, the candidate doubted whether he would go personally to the 
 poll, when his friends — some of them from whom he would have been 
 glad to have been saved — assured him that he had better go, for there 
 was no danger. Taking their advice, he had got as far as the area in 
 
CHAP. XXIII.] 
 
 DEATH OF TIB S. GHACCHCS. 
 
 SOD 
 
 front of the Capitol, when he was seized with the irresolution of an area- 
 sneak, and hanging about the spot, he refused to go further. A debate 
 was in progress among the senators, when one of them, P. Scipio Nasica, 
 •called upon the house to come to the door, and save the republic by 
 sacrificing Tiberius. The whole assembly rushed upon its legs and its 
 crutches ; some of the members seized hold of sticks, others snatched 
 up their clubs, and declared that the vengeance of the clubs should fall 
 on Tiberius. In this spirit they sallied forth, and looking for Gracchus, 
 they soon knocked dissension on tbe head, by one of those blows which 
 
 Melancholy End of Tib. Gracchus. 
 
 disposed of any pretensions he might have had to a crown when they 
 first encountered him. His brother, Caius Gracchus, fell politically with 
 his relative; but without resigning his office, lie abandoned his post, 
 
240 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF HOME. 
 
 CHAP. XXlli. 
 
 and he withdrew to a little place he had in the country, though neglect- 
 ing to give up his place in the triumvirate. 
 
 Scipio JEniilianus was on his return from Spain to Eome when he 
 heard of the death of his brother-in-law; and, quoting a line from 
 Homer, to the effect that 
 
 " All thus perish who such deeds perform," 
 
 he declared that his relative Tib. had met with such a fate as his ante- 
 cedents warranted. Scipio at once assumed the leadership of the 
 Conservatives, or rather of the destructives ; for their Conservatism 
 consisted merely in a desire to keep all they had unfairly got, while 
 their policy tended to break all the bonds of mutual interest and good- 
 will, which can alone permanently bind society. 
 
 The plebeian party became quite as unreasonable on one side of the 
 question, as the patricians had been on the other ; and C. Papirius 
 Carbo, a demagogue, who had got the place of tribune, proposed that 
 the people should have the right of re-electing the same person to the 
 tribuneship over and over again, — a suggestion designed to render his 
 own position permanent. Scipio JEmilianus opposed the measure to 
 the utmost; and after going home one night, he had no sooner finished 
 his supper, than he began to cram himself for a speech, with which he 
 contemplated coming out on the day following. He was, however, 
 
 t>:ipio .iEmiliimus cramming himself for a Speech after a henrty Supj^r. 
 
CHAP. XXIII.] CAIUS S. GUACCHUS. 24L 
 
 found dead in his bed ; and, though probability points to apoplexy as 
 the cause, the historians have — without much, indeed, of evidence — 
 returned a verdict of Wilful Murder against C. P. Carbo. We have 
 no hesitation in acquitting him of this dreadful crime ; but we cannot 
 say that we shall be able to allow him to quit these pages without a 
 stain on his character. It is to be regretted that the Senate had not 
 the courage to institute an inquiry at the time when the occurrence 
 took place, and when only the real facts could have been ascertained ; 
 for such a course would have saved considerable trouble to those 
 chroniclers who are always ready to frame an entirely new set of 
 circumstances of their own, to replace those which contemporaneous 
 investigation has omitted to supply us with. 
 
 Caius Sempronius Gracchus was getting daily more tired of his 
 thoroughly retired life ; and, being an excellent spokesman, he began to 
 flatter himself that the commonweal might profit by his services. He 
 is said to have been urged on by his brother's ghost; but there is 
 reason to believe that he was impelled by a more commendable spirit. 
 This fraternal shade is stated to have appeared to him in his dreams • 
 but the matters he now began to take in hand were not those which he 
 could afford to go to sleep over. 
 
 In republics, where he who is the humble servant of the people 
 to-day, may be, to-morrow, the people's master, talent is looked upon 
 with jealousy by the governing power, which, while ostensibly employing 
 an able instrument, may be, in fact, promoting a dangerous rival. 
 Thus, when the head of a nation is removable, it is reluctant to employ 
 the best men, lest they prove better than the head itself, and aspire to 
 the very highest position. 
 
 Where the form of government is monarchical, it is to the interest of 
 the ruler to avail himself of the ablest assistance he can obtain ; for, 
 being himself irremovable, he becomes the fixed centre towards which 
 the glories and successes of his ministers and servants continually 
 gravitate. 
 
 It was on the principle of getting rid of a dangerous rival, that the 
 republican government had sent away Caius Gracchus from Rome, — 
 where he might have been everything — to Sardinia, where he would 
 almost inevitably sink to nothing. He was himself apprehensive of 
 this result, and he consequently returned to Rome, leaving Sardinia 
 without the leave of any one. His duty should have kept him abroad, 
 but ambition urged him home ; and, in a republic, there is little to 
 insure the fidelity of one who, though the servant of the Government 
 to-day, may be its master to-morrow. Leaving the interests of his 
 country in Sardinia to take care of themselves, this professed patriot 
 came to look after his own interests in Rome, and took his talents 
 into the political market. He immediately stood for the tribune- 
 ship ; and though he had abandoned one post — that of Quaestor in 
 Sardinia — he was elected to the more important post, which might, 
 indeed, be termed the chief pillar of popular liberty. 
 
242 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 Though he had, of course, solicited and obtained his high office on 
 purely public grounds, he at once endeavoured to use it for the gratifi- 
 cation of personal animosities. His first two measures were proposed 
 with a view to avenging bis brother's death ; and he sought to give 
 the intended new laws a retrospective effect, for the purpose of grati 
 fying his private enmity. He introduced a law to prevent a person 
 deprived by the people of any office, from being appointed to the public 
 service again ; but this exalted patriot withdrew the bill to please his 
 mother. He carried various measures of more or less value, and 
 among them was a law for the establishment of granaries for supplying 
 the poor with corn at a very low price ; but though this might have 
 been very attractive to buyers, and insured a brisk demand, it does not. 
 seem calculated to encourage growers and sellers to such an extent that 
 a supply could always be relied upon. Of course, the deficiency had to 
 be made good from the pockets of the public ; and therefore the process 
 amounted to little more than receiving with one hand what had been 
 paid by the other. 
 
 The privilege of purchasing cheap corn was not limited, as some * 
 have supposed, to the poor ; but every citizen could claim his share ; 
 and even Piso, a Consul — though perhaps he was one of the greatly 
 reduced Consuls — had been shabby enough to demand the privilege. 
 Piso had been an opponent of the law ; and Gracchus, seeing him among 
 the crowd receiving a bushel of the cheap grain, taunted him with his 
 inconsistency in taking advantage of acorn measure which he had set his 
 face against. The answer of Piso was sensible and just; for, said he, 
 " though I had a strong objection to your giving away my property, 
 I think I have a right to try to get my share of it." Another 
 of his enactments vested the right of putting a Roman citizen to death, 
 in the people themselves, a measure that was no doubt theoretically 
 attractive, though practically inconvenient. To vest in the public at 
 iarge the privilege of applying the sentences to the highest offences, 
 would really be giving a nation so much rope, that business would be 
 suspended very often, instead of the criminals. 
 
 Caius Gracchus next applied himself to Law Reform with consider- 
 able zeal ; but it was not so much the law itself, as those who 
 administered it, that required amendment. Those who held the scales of 
 justice, used to weigh only the gold of the suitors ; and the judges were 
 so far impartial, that they had no bias towards any particular side, but 
 favoured that which was the most liberal in bribing them. Many of 
 the defendants had been guilty of extortion, which was a common 
 practice with the judges themselves ; and therefore a rude sort of 
 honour, commonly known as honour among thieves, was not altogether 
 banished from the judgment-seat. Caius Gracchus, however, caused 
 a law to be passed, in which we trace the origin of that glorious 
 institution, familiarly known as " twelve men in a box," so dear to the 
 
 * Plutarch implies that it was so ; but Cicero relates anecdotes showing the fact to 
 have been otherwise. 
 
CHAP. XXIII. ] CAIUS S. GRACCHUS. 943 
 
 hearts, and sometimes, also, to the pockets of Englishmen. The law 
 alluded to, provided for the trial of causes by a middle class of equity 
 or knights, who were, literally speaking, men who could keep a horse, 
 and who, on the same principle adopted in modern times as to the 
 keepers of gigs,* were considered to be respectable. 
 
 The Senators had made a practice of acquitting all criminals of their 
 own class, and, by acquitting themselves thus shamefully, they had 
 become guilty of the grossest corruption ; but the equites were 
 frequently regardless of equity, and were found leaning with undue 
 leniency towards offenders of their own order. Gracchus had now 
 become the popular idol, but he never had an idle hour, and was 
 always busy in building up a reputation for himself by the construction 
 of works of permanent utility. He knew that general occupation is 
 necessary to public content, and he felt that as long as he could keep 
 the hands of the multitude employed on bricks and mortar, he was, in 
 reality, cementing his own power. This policy placed considerable 
 patronage at his command, and he rallied round him a crowd of con 
 tractors and artificers, who, but for his power of giving them something 
 better to do, would, perhaps, have been contracting the bad habit of 
 political agitation, or resorting to every kind of revolutionary artifice. 
 
 The greatest political work of Caius was that in which he did the 
 least ; and his legislative successes sink into insignificance by the side 
 of the real grandeur of his extensive failure. This was his attempt to 
 extend the franchise to all the Italians, and the other allies ; but Rome 
 refused to aid him in the grand design, and determined to rivet upon 
 Italy those Italian irons with which Rome at a future period was 
 destined to bum her fingers. So popular was Caius Gracchus, that, 
 upon his re-election to office, the people, who could not get near 
 enough to the Campus Martius on account of the crowd, voted for him 
 from the tops of houses or unfinished buildings ; and many came up 
 to the poll by climbing an adjacent scaffold. 
 
 He who would keep himself constantly sailing before the wind raised 
 by the breath of public applause, must be for ever on some new tack ; 
 for no airs are more variable than those which the people are apt to 
 give themselves. Caius Gracchus was soon destined to discover the 
 fact that, amid the storms of political life, the highest point can be 
 safely occupied by none but the political weathercock. He had too 
 much rigid inflexibility to turn with every breeze ; and instead of being 
 moved by each passing gust, he was simply dis-gusted by the vacillation 
 exhibited. 
 
 The aristocratic party, perceiving this, resolved to beat him with his own 
 weapons ; and they prevailed upon M. Livius Drusus, his colleague in* 
 the tribuneship, to outbid him by all sorts of extravagances for the prize 
 
 * The following question and answer, uttered in a Court of Law on a modern trial, are 
 Well known : — 
 
 Counsel. " What do you mean by respectable ? " 
 Witness. " He keeps a eig." 
 
 B 9 
 
»44 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF HOME. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 of popularity. When Gracchus proposed to distribute land among the 
 poor at a small fixed rental, Drusus moved, by way of amendment, that 
 they should have it for nothing at all ; and as to the corn in the public 
 granaries, if Gracchus said the people ought to have it at half price, 
 Drusus would insist upon their right to be paid for the trouble of walking 
 away with it. The people, as a matter of course, followed the man who 
 was most profuse in his promises, rather than him who had been the 
 most liberal in his performances. Caius Gracchus was, in the mean 
 time, induced to go to Africa to mark out the ground for a new city. 
 
 1 J r i 
 
 Rash Act of Caius Gracchus. 
 
 Tiie reporters of the period — who were, no doubt, in the pay of hi3 
 opponents — circulated all kinds of ill-natured stories, in which it waa 
 alleged that the omens had been unfavourable ; that the flags had been 
 blown down, or the pavement blown up ; and that the wolves had 
 
CHAP. XXIII.'; DEATH OF CA1US S. GRACCHUS. 245 
 
 eaten up every flag-Staff — a thing not very easy to swallow. On his 
 return to Home, from which he had been absent only seventy days, 
 ne found Drusus amazingly popular, and every nose turned up at 
 himself, which induced him to recognise a general snub in the faces 
 of many of his old followers. He offered himself a third time for 
 the tribuneship, but he was at the bottom of the poll, and an election 
 row commenced, when an officious lictor lost, first, his fasces ; secondly, 
 his securis — which he had done his utmost to secure ; and ultimately 
 his life, in the scuffle. Caius Gracchus, who had mainly endea- 
 voured to keep the peace, knew he would be accused of breaking 
 it, and he accordingly ran as fast as he could; but in scaling a wall to 
 get into another street, he unfortunately sprained his ankle. His 
 friends continued to carry him until, moved by a sudden instinct of 
 self-preservation, they dropped an acquaintance it would have been no 
 longer safe to keep up, and poor Caius was left alone with a single man- 
 servant. His pursuers being at his heels, the ex-tribune desired the 
 faithful attendant to stab him, and the man was too much in the habit 
 of obeying his master's orders to hesitate. Having respectfully run his 
 employer through, he found himself so terribly out of place in the world, 
 that, apologising for the liberty, he finished himself off with the same 
 da^^er. 
 
 A reward of its weight in gold had already been offered for the head 
 of Caius Gracchus, when one Septimuleius, having picked it up, carried 
 it home, and plumbed it with lead before he took it to the authorities. 
 Opimius, the Consul, weighed it, and exclaiming, " Bless me ! seven 
 pounds and a half! " threw down in exchange for the head, the same 
 quantity of the precious metal. His customer having gone away, 
 Opimius proceeded at his leisure to examine his bargain. " Well ! " 
 said he, " I don't know that it 's worth its weight in gold, but the offer 
 was my own, and I must make the best of it." On a minuter inspection, 
 he detected the trick that had been played, and though he had looked 
 upon Caius as somewhat leaden-headed, he at once perceived that nature 
 had not been the only plumber employed in this disgraceful transaction. 
 
 All the friends of Gracchus were cast into prison and slain ; but it 
 was astonishing to observe how contracted his circle became when it was 
 known that ruin awaited every member of it. They who had been his 
 intimates made the sudden discovery that they had never known him at 
 all, and others, who had been too frequently in his company to 
 repudiate the acquaintance, declared that they had been grievously 
 mistaken in his character. Several of his radical associates joined the 
 aristocratic party, and his friend Carbo was so severely bantered on his 
 having gone over to the other side, that after trying both sides, he took 
 refuge in suicide as the only side left for him. 
 
 Rome owed much to the Gracchi ; but it paid them both off in a 
 most unsatisfactory manner. Tiberius was an orator of such power, 
 that, to prevent his voice from being too loud, he took with him a 
 piper — paying the piper out of his own pocket — to prevent him from 
 
246 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 pitching it too strong when he was addressing the multitude. Tiberius 
 Gracchus was the first orator who introduced the graces of action into 
 the art of public speaking ; and he was in the habit of rolling, as it were, 
 from side to side, which gave him great sway with his audience. 
 
 Caius Gracchus was a man of action, rather than of words, and was 
 the first to divide distance into portions of one thousand paces, each of 
 which he called a mile, and which was one of his really useful measures. 
 He was also the inventor of milestones, and of those stations for 
 awkward equestrians, which enabled many to ride the high horse, who 
 would otherwise have been placed on their own humble footing. 
 
 The two Gracchi owed, no doubt, to the teaching of their mother, 
 much of their success — if, at least, that can be called success which ended 
 in the violent death of both of them. Cornelia was, however, a little 
 too much addicted to making prodigies of her sons ; and it is said of her, 
 that, on one occasion, when receiving a visit from a Campanian lady, 
 who came to display her jewels, the mother of the Gracchi, having 
 privately sent for the children, exclaimed, as they stole gently in with 
 their nurse, " These are my jewels : what do you think of them ? " So 
 maudlin was her maternal sensibility, that she never spoke of her sons 
 without tears, which were always responded to by the infants them- 
 selves, with sympathetic, but uncomfortable, moisture. Nothing, how- 
 ever, can damp parental love ; and, to a fond mother's feelings, 
 childhood has no unpleasant features ; though it is different to him who, 
 if approaching them at all, prefers looking at them in a drier aspect 
 
CHAP. XXIV.l THE JUGURTHINE WAR. 247 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH. 
 
 THE JUGURTHINE WAR. WAR AGAINST THE CIMBRI AND TEUTONI. 
 
 While Rome had been making the numerous conquests already 
 described, self-conquest — the most important conquest of all — had been 
 altogether lost sight of, and she had failed in obtaining the victory 
 over her own vices. Though she possessed, nominally, a constituted 
 body of rulers, money was actually the governing power; and so 
 debasing is its influence, that it is more fatal to the liberty of a people 
 to be ruled with a rod of gold, than with a rod of iron. No considera- 
 tion but pecuniary consideration had any weight, corruption presided 
 in the courts of law, the people were bought by the Senate, and the 
 Senate sold the people. In the army there was a system of shameless 
 plunder on the part of the commanders, and the soldiers followed their 
 leaders with avidity. 
 
 Numidia had, since the death of Masinissa, been ruled over by his 
 son Micipsa, who, by his will, put his kingdom, as it were, into com- 
 mission, by giving it to his two sons, Hiempsal and Adherbal, conjointly 
 with a lad whom he had adopted, and whose name was Jugurtha 
 Jugurtha was a person of excellent manners and genteel address, an 
 excellent horseman, the first to strike the lion* in the field, and himself 
 a lion much run after in society. 
 
 On the death of Micipsa, when the three rulers came to the throne 
 of Numidia, they found the accommodation rather insufficient, and 
 Jugurtha insolently threw himself down in the middle of it. By this 
 act the two sons of Micipsa were practically set aside, and Jugurtha 
 assumed that in himself alone the monarchy was centered. His next 
 act was to propose the abolition of tbe acts of the last five years of 
 Micipsa's reign, declaring that they ought all to be dotted out, on the 
 ground of the old man's dotage. Hiempsal, with a touch of sarcasm, 
 assented to the proposal, observing — " We shall then get rid of you, as 
 your adoption was an act performed within the prescribed period." 
 This attempt to be funny was a serious matter to Hiempsal, for Jugurtha 
 caused the would-be wag to be murdered in the palace. 
 
 After this instance of sharp practice, on the part of Jugurtha, 
 Adherbal began to tremble in his shoes lest he might be made to walk 
 in his brother's footsteps. This fear was so nearly on the point of 
 being realised, that Adherbal took to flight, and ran all the way to 
 Rome, to ask for aid ; upon which a commission of inquiry, consisting 
 of ten members, was despatched to Numidia. 
 
 To refer any matter to a commission, has always been considered 
 
 * Sallust, Jucurthine War, z. vi. 
 
248 COMIC HISTORY OF HOME. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 equivalent U laying it permanently on the shelf; and such might have 
 been the result of the quarrel of the Numidian princes, had it not been 
 for the fact that Jugurtha had settled the dispute in his own way, 
 before the commissioners had even opened their inquiry. By the time 
 they had arrived on the spot to which they had been sent, they found 
 one of the parties dead, and the other in possession of all that he 
 desired. Jugurtha was, of course, the survivor in this affair; and when 
 the ambassadors, on their arrival, expressed their astonishment at their 
 services having been dispensed with, he, by offering them something for 
 their trouble, sent them home fully and shame-fully satisfied. 
 
 Every spark of honour was not, however, extinct in Rome ; for the 
 tribune, C. Memmius, who had not received, or, indeed, had not been 
 offered, any of Jugurtha's gold, became virtuously indignant at the dis- 
 graceful harvest made by the ten commissioners. His agitation was so far 
 successful, that war was declared, and the Consul, L. Calpurnius Bestia, 
 with his legate, M. iEmilius Scaurus, were sent to invade Africa. 
 Bestia immediately made the best bargain he could for himself, by con- 
 cluding a peace with Jugurtha, on certain terms, for which the Roman 
 Consul's own terms were most exorbitant. He and his legate, Scaurus, 
 accepted a nominal surrender of all Jugurtha's tents, horses, and 
 elephants ; but he was allowed to reserve nearly the whole of his canvas 
 booths and his menagerie. 
 
 When the tribune Memmius heard of the venality of the ambassadors, 
 and of the money they had corruptly made by their services abroad, 
 lie, whose duties kept him at home, became more indignant than ever. 
 He denounced, in abusive language, the abuse of which they had been 
 guilty, and succeeded at last in carrying a motion that Jugurtha should 
 appear to answer for his offences of bribery and corruption before the 
 Senate. The summons was carried to Africa, by the stern and incor- 
 ruptible Cassius, who refused every offer of cash, and insisted on the 
 personal appearance of Jugurtha at the time and place appointed. The 
 artful Numidian came with a very small retinue and a very long purse ; 
 for he knew that in meeting such an antagonist as Rome, he should not 
 have to draw the steel from the scabbard, but the gold from the 
 treasury. He threw purses in all directions ; and so extensive was his 
 bribery, that the criminals who had accepted his money were a strong 
 majority over the few who were qualified, by not having participated in 
 the offence, to sit in judgment over it. Memmius, who had seen none of 
 Jugurtha's gold, insisted on his giving up the names of those who had 
 received it ; but there was such a vehement and general shout of " No, ' 
 that any further inquiry as to who were the culprits, would have been 
 quite superfluous. 
 
 The only punishment the Senate ventured to inflict upon Jugurtha, 
 was a sentence of banishment : and it was indeed quite natural that the 
 dishonourable members should have been glad to send speedily out of 
 the way the principal witness to their own turpitude. As Jugurtha 
 quitted Rome, he expressed his disgust at her venality, in a sentiment 
 
CHAP. XXIV.] Q. C. METELLUS. 24'J 
 
 which came with but an ill grace from an accomplice in her infamy. 
 "Oh!" he exclaimed, with an air of affected horror, "Oh! thou 
 venal city ; thou wouldst sell thyself to perdition, if thou couldst only 
 find a pnrchas-er! " The exact point at which this claptrap was uttered, 
 who was at hand to hear it, and supposing the reporters to have been 
 present, whether they proceeded to take it down, are points which the 
 historians have not shown any disposition to look into. 
 
 After the retirement of the only witness, the inquiry into the 
 bribery cases was prosecuted with considerable vigour. Scaurus, who 
 had been one of the chief delinquents, attempted to expiate his own 
 faults by getting himself appointed a member of the committee, and 
 passing as severe sentences as he could upon his fellow criminals. 
 
 War with Jugurtha was again declared ; for it was one of the 
 most prolific sources of a profitable job to those in power. The Consul, 
 Spurius Posthumius Albinus, was despatched with an army to Africa ; 
 but he soon came home, like his predecessors, with a large fortune, 
 which seemed to be the kind of fortune of war that attended all who 
 went to fight against Numidia. He left the army under the guidance 
 of his brother Aulus, who, with his officers, were easily bribed into 
 accepting any terms, provided they were of a pecuniary nature, that 
 Jugurtha proposed to them. The Senate, however, refused to ratify 
 the dishonourable peace concluded by Aulus ; and thus, by the some- 
 what dishonest process of repudiating the acts of an authorised agent, 
 Rome was again free to make a further property of the Numidian 
 sovereign. At last, however, the affair was placed in honourable hands, 
 by the appointment of Metellus (Q. C.) to the command of the army. 
 His probity placed him far above any bribe that Jugurtha could offer ; 
 and though it is a maxim with many, that every man has his price, it 
 may bo said of Metellus that his moral standard was too high for any 
 pecuniary standard to be applied to it. 
 
 With the generosity of true genius, Metellus selected as his legate 
 a man capable of sharing with himself any of the honours that might 
 be gained in the wars about to be undertaken. This man was Caius 
 Marius, who had been, in early life, a labourer ; but, while working 
 with the spade, he felt sure that something would eventually turn up 
 in his favour. He had served as a common soldier, but proved himself 
 no common man ; and he rose, step by step, to a highly respectable 
 position Vanity, however, was one of his weak points, and he fell into 
 the hands of an old Syrian fortune-teller, who resorted to all sorts of 
 tricks to persuade him that he was destined for the highest honours. 
 He mentioned his aspirations to Metellus, and hinted at the possibility 
 of his obtaining the Consulship ; but his superior officer burst into a 
 loud laugh, which, instead of putting Marius out of conceit, put him 
 further into it. He proceeded to Rome, and, by a series of popular 
 speeches, in which he promised everything to the people, he, of course, 
 gained their suffrages. Having obtained the Consulship, he was de 
 spatched to finish the war against Jugurtha ; but Metellus, having first 
 
250 COMIC IIISTOUY OF KOME. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 pretended that there was nothing more to be done, for that he had 
 settled the whole business himself, resigned his post to Marius. 
 
 Peace had indeed been already concluded with Jugurtha ; but Rome, 
 with its habitual want of faith, re-opened the war, which terminated at 
 last in Jugurtha's being taken prisoner. He was drawn behind the 
 chariot of Marius — a situation little less exalted than being tied to a 
 cart's tail, and in that position received the pelting of a pitiless storm of 
 mud from the congenial hands of a cowardly populace. Being thrown 
 into a damp dungeon, he — as we are told by the grave historians — still 
 preserved his wit ; for he exclaimed, as he entered his prison, " By 
 Hercules, what a cold bath ! " — a touch of humour which seems to us 
 remarkable for neither breadth, point, nor neatness. When, however, 
 we consider the moisture of the circumstances under which he was 
 placed, we cannot be surprised that he should have failed in an attempt 
 at dry humour. 
 
 The war with Jugurtha was no sooner at an end, than Rome found 
 herself threatened by the swords of half-a-dozen different foes ; and, in 
 default of being able to cut herself into six, for the purpose of dividing 
 her strength, she seemed in danger of such a cutting-up at the hands 
 of her enemies. It would be a tedious task to unravel the excessive 
 tangle into which the threads of history are thrown by the windings of 
 those numerous lines of barbarians who kept themselves suspended 
 over Rome at about this period. The Cimbri, a Celtic race, entered 
 into an alliance with the Teutoni — a German band — and threw them- 
 selves upon Gaul ; which was unable to throw them off again. They 
 encountered the Consul, M. Junius Silanus, to whom they applied for a 
 country to be assigned to them ; but, as this modest request could not 
 be attended to, they set upon Silanus, and gave him a sound beating. 
 At length the Consul, Q. Servilius Ccepio, offered to meet the difficulty, 
 and approached the Rhone, but the Cimbri cut to pieces 80,000 soldiers 
 and 40,000 camp followers ; at least, if we are to believe the authorities, 
 who are always ready to mince men, though never mincing matters. 
 Ccepio — according to the same authentic accounts — was glad to mako 
 his escape across the Rhone with a handful of men, and the term, 
 "handful" is in this instance not misapplied ; for as the number is said 
 to have been exactly ten, he might have easily told them off on his fingers 
 As if to show that they had not been actuated by mercenary motives, 
 the Cimbri threw into the river the whole of their booty ; and, not 
 satisfied with spoiling the foe, they proceeded to spoil the property taken 
 in battle. 
 
 It says little to the credit of Rome that her dingers seemed to 
 damp the ambition of her citizens, and no one evinced an anxiety for 
 the perilous honours of the Consulship. Those among the aristocracy 
 who claimed a sort of prescriptive right to the government in times 
 when there was everything to be got, now that there was a prospect of 
 everything being lost, shrunk from the responsibility of a high position. 
 The plebeian, Marius. was declared to be the only man for the 
 
CHAP. XXIV.] CAIUS MARIOS. 2*1 
 
 situation ; and, instead of being obliged to solicit tbe Consulsbip, it 
 was thrust upon him even before he had returned from Africa. 
 
 His first care was to get together an army capable of bearing the 
 fatigues of a military life, in preference to those who were only fit to 
 support its gaudy trappings. He enlisted large numbers of working 
 men, and tested their strength by putting into their hands a spade 
 before he entrusted them with a sword, subjecting them to all sorts of 
 privations, and putting them even upon reduced rations — an experiment 
 that was by no means rational. Many of the soldiers, who, ander a 
 generous diet, would have become strong healthy men, dwindled to 
 mere skeletons, and many of the recruits were reduced so low that their 
 strength was past recruiting. Those who were able to stand against 
 the fatigue, were hardy enough to stand against anything; and, in 
 order to give them the benefit of a lengthy training, he refused to 
 accept battle until a convenient opportunity. He allowed the Teutoni 
 to pass his camp, and, as they did so, they inquired tauntingly if there 
 were any messages or parcels for Rome, as they — the Teutoni — were 
 on their journey thither. Marias pursued them to Aquas Sextiae — now 
 Aix — and purposely pitched his camp in such a place, that water could 
 not be obtained without a fight for it. Every soldier who went down 
 to the river was obliged to draw his sword as he drew the water he 
 required, and, while he fought with one hand, defended himself as well 
 as he could with a bucket in the other. The Teutoni were completely 
 defeated, and rushed, for safety, to their wagons ; but all who remained 
 in the rear, together with many who had got into the van, were cut 
 to pieces. 
 
 Marius had no sooner disposed of the Teutoni, than he heard that 
 the Cimbri were pouring themselves all over the plains of Lombardy ; 
 and, proceeding to meet them, he threatened to " turn their bones into 
 whitening for the fields," a menace that proves the practice of bone manur- 
 ing to be an agricultural process of great antiquity. He drew up his 
 army near Verona, at a place called the Campi Eaudii, and found the 
 front ranks of the Cimbri linked together by chains, — an arrangement 
 adopted, probably, to prevent their running away, and making them 
 feel bound to stand against the enemy. Marius, with considerable 
 tact, got into such a position that the sun got into their eyes, and the 
 wind blew their noses. Unable to look their danger in the face, they 
 were sent winking and sneezing to destruction. 
 
 Marius celebrated the success of the day in a magnificent triumph, 
 and paraded, among his trophies, a Cimbric king of such a gigantic 
 height, that, notwithstanding his humiliating position, everybody looked 
 up to him. 
 
 For the sixth time the consulship was bestowed on Marius, though not 
 without a vast amount of bribery on the part of the successful candidate, 
 who, while he corrupted the electors with one hand, raised a temple to 
 Virtue and Honour with the other. He had now become so inflated with 
 vanity, that he came swelling into the Senate in his triumphal robes ; but 
 
yo2 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXI v. 
 
 he was so coldly received, that he pretended he had forgotten to change 
 his dress, though his astonishment was as clearly put on as his objec- 
 tionable attire. He caused to be engraved upon his buckler the imago 
 of a Gaul pulling out his tongue ; an allegory rather difficult to compre- 
 hend, except by adopting the somewhat vulgar reading, that the design 
 was emblematical of the fact that, after the victory of Marius, the Gaul 
 might as well pull out his tongue at once, as there could be no chance 
 of his giving a licking to the Romans. 
 
 Marius was so popular, that he was acknowledged as the third 
 founder of Rome ; Romulus, Camillus, and himself being figuratively 
 regarded as so many bricks that the city had been built upon. 
 
 Success had rendered Marius so arrogant, that he committed many 
 illegal acts, declaring that, amid the clashing of the swords of war, the 
 silent motion of the sword of justice could neither be heard nor attended 
 to. His morbid appetite for mob popularity caused him to enter 
 into a disgraceful alliance with an unprincipled demagogue, named 
 L. Appuleius Saturninus, whose performances equalled his promises ; 
 but he always promised one thing, and performed another. He adopted 
 the extremely liberal side in politics, and proposed, among other liberal 
 measures, that every member of the Senate should bind himself by an 
 oath to support some very liberal law for dealing with property, by 
 taking it from those who had it, and giving it to those who were ready 
 to take it. This friend of freedom suggested, further, that every senator 
 attempting to exercise a free will, should pay a heavy penalty. One of 
 the aristocratic party having ventured on proposing an amendment, was 
 driven from the Senate by a shower of missiles. Another having 
 suggested that he heard thunder — a sign at which the Assembly should 
 have broken up — was told that there would probably be some hail, with 
 hail-stones of real stone, if he opposed the project of Saturninus. Marius 
 had the courage to declai'e that he would never take the degrading oath ; 
 Metellus seconded his resolution ; and the whole Senate, with one 
 voice — which turned out, ultimately, to be vox el pmterea nihil — swore 
 that they would never swear to what the people had dared to demand 
 of them. Notwithstanding this spirited proposition, Marius had not 
 sufficient bravery to brave the popular clamour, and his courage had 
 died away before five days had expired. Having called a special 
 meeting of the Senate, he intimated that second thoughts were some- 
 times best, and that, after his first thought, there had occurred to him a 
 second, which he proposed that they should place upon their minutes 
 He concluded by intimating that he had been pelted in public for the part 
 lie had taken, and, as the people were determined, apparently, on having 
 their fling, there was little use in opposing them. He declared his attach- 
 ment to his native soil ; and, though he had always kept it in his eye, 
 he objected to its being thrown in his face by his own countrymen 
 He finished by proposing that the oath should be taken, with a mental 
 reservation that it should not be kept — a disgraceful compromise 
 between cowardice and conscience, which the Senate without hesitation 
 
CHAP. XXIV.] 11. LIVIUS DRUSUS. 2i>3 
 
 assented to There was, after this, so little disposition to freedom 
 among the rncnihers, that Mctellus Numidicus was the only one who 
 held out ; and he, instead of remaining to hattle with the ahuse, pre- 
 ferred sneaking away from it into voluntary exile. 
 
 Saturninus not only put himself up for the trihuneship a third time, 
 hut endeavoured to get the Consulship for one Scrvilius Glaucia ; and 
 these noisy demagogues — by way of guiding the people in their choico 
 — coolly murdered C. Memmius, who had started as an opposition 
 candidate. 
 
 Marius now began to perceive that he had connected himself with a 
 disreputable set, and finding his popularity on the wane, he repudiated 
 his new political allies as suddenly as he had joined with them. He 
 drove Saturninus to the Capitol, where, being without provisions, the 
 demagogue found himself at last driven to an unprovisional surrender. 
 Saturninus, Glaucia, and others were put to death by the command of 
 Marius, who thus regained the good opinion of the people, though he 
 had, in fact, simply trampled under foot, when down, those whom he 
 had taken by the hand when they were uppermost. Having so far 
 reinstated himself in the favour of the puhlic, Marias retired into 
 private life ; and it was time that he should do so, while he had yet 
 a certain amount of popularity left to fall back upon. 
 
 Law lleform, and the extension of the franchise, had now become 
 the two great questions of the day ; for the tribunals were courts of 
 in-justice, and the Italians thought that as much weight ought to be 
 allowed to the Italic as to the Roman character. It was the policy of 
 the Senate to purchase popularity at almost any price, and the members 
 were ready to outbid each other by the most extravagant offers, for the 
 object of their ignoble competition. Among the boldest of the bidders 
 was M. Livius Drusus, the son of old Drusus — the colleague of Gracchus 
 — who seems to have inherited his father's propensity for sacrificing all 
 his principle, in order to convert it into political capital. Young Drusus 
 is said to have been a remarkable man, because, when Quaestor in Asia, 
 he dispensed with the insignia of office, preferring to depend upon his 
 own personal bearing, and, perhaps, wishing to save the cost of those 
 externals which, sometimes, take from the public functionary quite as 
 much in the way of emolument,, as they bring him in the way of dignity. 
 He had been elected to the Trihuneship, and in that capacity he did 
 everything he could to catch the breath of popular applause, which often 
 sullies the brightness of the object that seeks to reflect the evanescent 
 vapour 
 
 One of the principal propositions of M. Livius Drusus was, that the 
 judges should be liable to be brought to trial themselves, for their mode 
 of conducting the trials of others This attempt to undermine the 
 independence of the judicial order, was shown to be so fatal to the 
 administration of justice, that the people, who, after all, require only to 
 be convinced of what is right in order to take the right direction, repu- 
 diated the proposal which Drusus had intended to be the means of mis- 
 
254 
 
 COMIC HTSTORY OF ROME 
 
 [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 leading them, and obtaining for himself — under false pretences — a little 
 additional popularity. It was pointed out to them, that a judge who felt 
 every trial at which he was presiding to be his own, and who would be 
 always divided between the calm demands of justice on one hand, and 
 tbe unreasoning voice of public clamour on the other, would feel himself 
 exposed to a pressure that would prevent him from maintaining an up- 
 right position. Notwithstanding his failure in this instance, M. Livius 
 Drusus made himself the champion of the movement, and opened his 
 house every evening, to give political advice gratis to all who were 
 desirous of consulting him. He was engaged in this manner during 
 one of his evenings at home, when he was suddenly stabbed by a shoe- 
 maker's knife ; and though the assassin was never discovered, the blow 
 was supposed to have been connived at by some persons who had 
 persuaded the cobbler to risk his awl in the dangerous effort. As a 
 Koman could never die without a claptrap in his mouth, Drusus was of 
 course prepared with a neat speech on the melancholy occasion. 
 Having ejaculated, " Oh ! thou ungrateful Republic, thou hast never 
 
 Drusus is stabbed, and expires gracefully. 
 
 lost a more devoted son ! " he arranged his toga in becoming folds, and 
 bowing to circumstances — bowing, perhaps, to the audience as well — he 
 gracefully expired. 
 
CHAP. XXIV.] THK FRANCHISE OF TlIK ITALIANS. 255 
 
 The Italians, being deprived of the support of Drusus, were more 
 than ever oppressed, and the multitude, whom it is customary lo 
 regard as synonymous with the liberal party, became vehement in 
 denouncing the idea of allowing an equality of rights to all classes of 
 Roinan subjects. The Italians, therefore, came to the resolution, that if 
 Rome was not to exist for them, it should not exist at all ; but that they 
 would either bring the city to the ground, or raise themselves from th« 
 dust to which injustice had lowered them. Several of the Italian 
 nations formed themselves into a league, but never did a league go to 
 such lengths as the one in question ; for some of its members murdered 
 the praetor, Servilius Ccepio, and his legate, who attended a meeting in 
 the hope of conciliation at the Theatre of Asculum. 
 
 The next step of the Italians was to start a republic of their own, 
 under the name of Italica; and by way of giving it an imposing appear- 
 ance, it was to have a senate five hundred strong — though in a delibe- 
 rative assembly numbers are not so much an element of strength as of 
 weakness. It was to have two annual consuls, and no less than twelve 
 praetors ; it being perhaps the policy of the framers of the constitution 
 to have plenty of patronage to tempt adherents to the new government 
 The two consuls first appointed were Silo Popsedius, a Marsian, and 
 C. Papius Mutilus, a Samnite, who took the field with great vigour, 
 but took little else in the first instance ; for Silo fell in the fight, though 
 Mutilus, whose army was terribly mutilated, obtained some success in 
 Campania. 
 
 Though the Italians had commenced their operations as fast friends, 
 they loosened considerably in their friendship as the war advanced, and 
 made separate treaties of peace, by which Rome was enabled to deal 
 with them piecemeal, instead of being compelled to stand against their 
 united efforts. The Samnites evinced their old obstinacy, and waited, 
 as usual, to be cut to pieces, before they abandoned the hope of holding 
 together. When the sword had been busy among them for three years, 
 there remained still a mass of sufficient importance to induce the 
 Romans to offer the franchise to all who would lay down their arms ; 
 and of this proposal the Samnites at last reluctantly availed them- 
 selves. 
 
 Rome having acquired a large accession of new citizens, was puzzled 
 to determine what to do with them. Had they been distributed amongst 
 the thirty-five country tribes, the old members would have been 
 swamped by the new, and the latter were, therefore, formed into — some 
 say six, some say eight, and some say fifteen separate bodies. Such is 
 the disagreement of the learned doctors on this head, that we cannot pur, 
 confidence in one without discrediting two ; and we consequently take 
 the more impartial course of believing none of them. So great is the 
 discrepancy of the authorities on nearly every point, that, for the 
 sake of history, we can only hope they do not go for their facts to 
 the same sources which have supplied their figures. It is true that 
 they usually profess to deal with round numbers alone ; and perhaps if 
 
.253 COMIC HISTORY OF HOME. [CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 every number employed were literally round, it would represent the 
 sum of what is known with certainty on the subjects that are spoken of. 
 
 The fact, however, is indisputable, that, in the times to which our 
 history relates, the weaker states were the prey of the stronger, — might 
 overcame right ; and the only mode by which a small society could save 
 itself from destruction by one power, was by the sale of its independence 
 to another. Those places which were incompetent to practise the noble 
 art of self-defence, could only obtain protection against violence on the 
 right hand, by submitting to robbery on the left ; and the Romans, 
 who were usually appealed to for aid, always plentifully helped them- 
 selves at the cost of those by whom their help was required. 
 
 By the foreign policy of Rome, ambassadors were always planted in 
 all places of importance, to interfere in the quarrels between nations 
 and their kings ; and the ambassadors took care, by fomenting quarrels, 
 that there should be no lack of material for their diplomacy. The cost 
 of intervention fell heavily on those upon whom it was bestowed, but it 
 eventually helped to ruin Rome itself; for neglect of one's own affairs 
 is the inevitable consequence of interfering with the affairs of one's 
 neighbours. The professed object of this meddling on the part of the 
 great republic, was to give to other states the benefit of freedom. 
 There is, however, no slavery more abject than that which induces a 
 nation to accept a foreign, instead of a domestic, tyranny. Those who 
 are willing to import their independence from abroad, will never find it 
 flourish at home; and there is not a more melancholy object — as 
 recent events hav-^ proved — than a tnuisj'Ianted tree of liberty. 
 
CHAf. XXV. j 
 
 M1T1IR1 DATES. 
 
 257 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIFTH. 
 
 MITHRIDATES, SULLA, MARTUS, CIN'NA, ET CETERA. 
 
 cllowing the order of dates, 
 we come to Mithridates, the 
 son of old Mithridates the 
 Fifth, surnamed Eupator, who 
 had been a fast ally of Rome ; 
 but his son, who was much 
 faster in another sense, soon 
 came to hostilities. 
 
 The birth of young Mith- 
 ridates had been, according 
 to Justin,* signalised by the 
 appearance of a wondrous 
 comet, which was, probably, an 
 idle tale ; but those whose eyes 
 are always strained 
 towards a rising 
 sun, are liable to 
 be dazzled by all 
 sorts of illusory 
 visions. 
 
 If the comet was 
 to have brought 
 prosperity to Mith- 
 ridates, the consign- 
 ment must have 
 been dropped on the 
 way, inasmuch as 
 none of it reached the young prince, whose early years were passed in hot 
 water ; for he was in one continual perspiration, caused by the constant 
 discovery that his life was in danger. His grandmother, Laodice, had 
 killed five of her children, when young Mithridates, fearing that infan- 
 ticide might run in the family, resorted to matricide, as an alternative 
 for checking the fearful disease, and, according to Appian, f murdered 
 his mother. It is said that his guardians did their utmost to get rid 
 of him, by encouraging him in all sorts of dangerous games ; — that they 
 
 * Some say that Just-in was just-out, on this occasion, for that no comet appeared at 
 the time stated. See Justin, xxxvii. 2, et seq. 
 
 t " De rebus Mithridaticis." 
 
Ji5S OOMIC HISTORY CF EOME. [cHAP. XXV 
 
 gave him weapons for playthings, and that one of his toys was a real 
 sword, with which the child might have accidentally cut the slender 
 thread of his own existence. 
 
 They mounted him, also, upon the highest horses that could be 
 found, which was the height of cruelty ; but though the animals often 
 kicked and hurled the youngster from his seat, fortune always decided 
 the throw in his favour. He soon acquired such skill, that he was deep 
 enough to meet the most fearful amount of plunging ; and when placed 
 upon a determined jibber, he could always back out of his danger. 
 Though the horses given him to ride were quite unbroken, his neck 
 remained entire ; and he at length became such an excellent horseman, 
 that he could travel on horseback — according to Polybius — 125 miles a 
 day, a length to which we are not prepared to go with the ancient 
 historian. Young Mithridates, going at full gallop, for several successive 
 hours, presents a spirited picture to the mind's eye, but duty compels us 
 to pull him up at the turnpike of truth ; for we can allow no evasion 
 of the important trust of history 
 
 Among his other accomplishments, it is said that he could hurl the 
 javelin to such a distance, that the enthusiasm of the spectators would 
 be roused to the utmost pitch ; but we are obliged to add, that his power 
 in throwing the spear was not equal to that of the chroniclers in 
 throwing the hatchet. 
 
 His guardians having failed to kill him by physical force, attempted 
 to do so by the force of physic, and were continually giving him poison 
 ous drugs, which, though exceedingly unpleasant, he was not nice 
 enough to reject, for he had the bad taste to swallow them. They put 
 him through a course of hen-bane, but he was now no chicken, and had 
 learnt to neutralise the effects of the bane by a powerful antidote. So 
 admirably did the latter answer its object, that he could swallow arsenic 
 by the drachm without a scruple, and his inside was rendered thoroughly 
 poison-proof, though there is an utter absence of historical proof to 
 support the statement. 
 
 In order to harden himself externally, as well as internally, we are 
 informed that he would lie at night in the open air ; but we do not 
 believe he was any more hardened by lying than those who make 
 the statement. He would trust to the chase for a dinner, and he was 
 often very hard run for a meal, which he sometimes sought by a contest 
 with a wild beast ; and the question then was, whether the latter was to 
 be cooked, or Mithridates himself done for. 
 
 The excitement of an encounter with some ferocious animal furnished 
 ihe continual source of a sauce piquante to what he took to eat, which 
 formed food for his courage as well as for his appetite. He was well 
 versed in physics, which he was continually imbibing at the hands of his 
 enemies, and, in accordance with the saying fas est ab hoste doceri, ho 
 turned the dosing to good account by studying the power of antidotes. 
 He became a master of languages, and taught himself; so that he was, 
 
CHAI'. XXV.] BULLA '-^50 
 
 in fact, his own master and his own pupil. His object appears to have 
 been to save the trouble and expense of diplomatic agents, by qualifying 
 himself to talk with all foreign ambassadors, and to prevent the 
 chance of matters being misinterpreted through the mouth of an 
 interpreter. 
 
 Those historians who have built up a considerable fabric on incon 
 siderable grounds, do not hesitate to add to their fabrications another 
 6tory, by describing Mithridates as a giant in growth, and as a lad so 
 tall that he might have overlooked an ordinary ladder. 
 
 Such had been the education and pursuits of the young man whom 
 we find occupying the throne of Pontus, and interfering in the affairs of 
 Cappadocia, to which he undertook to supply a king, from his own 
 family, whenever a vacancy happened. Rome, also, began to take an 
 interest in Cappadocia, and the only party without a voice in the affair, 
 consisted of the Cappadocians. They were assailed with the offer of free- 
 dom and a republic at the point of the sword, on one side, — while, on 
 the other, they were asked to pin their faith to a monarchy which would 
 otherwise be pinned to them by the blades of a foreign army. The 
 Cappadocians had a wholesome horror of republican freedom, especially 
 when imported from abroad ; and Eome, therefore, sent them a king, 
 who was accepted until his throne was overthrown by Mithridates — 
 the Cappadocians having to pay a heavy fine on each change of 
 government. 
 
 The king, who was thoroughly put out by Mithridates, applied to 
 Rome, which raised an army in three divisions ; but the Romans were 
 so hated in Asia Minor, that they encountered every opposition from the 
 inhabitants. Appius and Aquilinus, who were leaders of two of the 
 divisions, soon fell into the hands of Mithridates, and it is said that he 
 punished their avarice by pouring melted gold down their throats ; but 
 this is more than any one could swallow. 
 
 The Roman Senate, irritated by defeat, called upon L. Cornelius Sulla 
 — or Sylla, as, by an alteration of the first syllable, he is sometimes 
 called — to take the command of the army. The family boasted of its 
 nntiquity, though one family must be quite as old as another, if every- 
 body's pedigree could be traced ; and the real wonder would be to find a 
 man whose ancestors had a beginning, instead of the ordinary case of one 
 with an apparently endless line of progenitors. The family of Cornelius 
 Sulla claimed connection with that of Cornelius Rufinus, who, in the year 
 of Rome 540, instituted the Ludi Apollinares, in honour of Apollo, and in 
 conformity with the directions of the Sibylline books, from which he 
 had taken the name of Sibylla. This had, according to the interpreta- 
 tion put upon it by family pride, been corrupted into Sulla ; and such 
 is the empty boast of ancestry, that even corruption is eagerly acknow- 
 ledged as a proof of ancient lineage. The father of L. Cornelius Sulla 
 had left little — not even an unsullied name — to his son, but had been 
 equally wasteful of fortune ami character. The boy was clever and 
 
$60 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXV. 
 
 quick, but his speediness speedily degenerated into fastness. Having 
 neither morality nor means, he took a cheap apartment, where he enter- 
 tained a low set, and there was nothing to be envied either in his room 
 or his company. 
 
 In early life he had distinguished himself as a soldier in the Jugur- 
 thine War ; and he subsequently obtained the office of Praetor, in which 
 he won the affections of the people, by introducing into the entertain- 
 ments of the amphitheatre tho extraordinary attraction of 100 real 
 lions. 
 
 These noble animals had been the gift of a Mauritanian king, and as 
 Sulla might have wished the present absent, if he had been saddled 
 with the cost of the keep of no less than one hundred monarchs of the 
 forest, the donor forwarded a band of Moors, who were to serve as food 
 for the lions, by being turned into the arena with them when occasion 
 required. 
 
 Sulla had excited the jealousy of Marius during the Jugurthine War. 
 and the latter, though now a man of seventy, still cherished his old 
 animosity with all the obstinacy of a most inveterate veteran. He was 
 still ambitious of the laurel, though he should have been thinking only 
 of the cypress ; and with one foot in the grave, he was anxious to march 
 with the other at the head of an army. Limping into the Campus 
 Martius, where the soldiers were being drilled, he placed himself by 
 the side of the youngest, and hobbled through the exercise with an 
 air of ill-assumed juvenility. His feeble evolutions excited a mixed 
 feeling of ridicule and disgust among the lookers-on, instead of obtain- 
 ing for him the command to which he aspired. Having been dis- 
 appointed of producing the effect he had anticipated, he had recourse to 
 his friend, the tribune P. Sulpicius, who exercised a sort of reign of 
 terror by means of 3000 gladiators, whom he always had about him. 
 This formidable band of armed ruffians went by the name of the 
 Anti-Senate of Sulpicius, who employed them to carry any measure he 
 proposed, by showing the point of the sword to those who did not see 
 the point of his argument. In order to gain time, the Senate appointed 
 a series of holidays, or Feriae, during which all business was suspended 
 for the celebration of public sports, which often enabled the authorities 
 to play a game of their own, by delaying any measure that was opposed 
 to their interests. After a brief interval, the Senate appointed Sulla, 
 to the chief command, whereupon the Anti-Senate appointed Marius ; 
 and the former had no sooner heard the news, than he marched upon 
 Rome with the whole of his army. The utmost consternation ensued; 
 *br no army having been expected at Rome, there had been no prepa- 
 rations for defence; and though the gates were closed, they were 
 almost as crazy and unhinged as the terrified inhabitants. 
 
 A feeble attempt was made to bolt the doors against Sulla and his 
 soldiers, but it was impossible to bar their entrance. As they marched 
 through the streets, they were assailed from the houses with showers of 
 
C1IA1' XXV.J 
 
 MARIOS. 
 
 261 
 
 brick, which, though very destructive, could not have been so damaging 
 as the modem mortar. Some of the inhabitants were armed with 
 slings, and now and then an arrow was discharged from a bow window. 
 Orders were immediately given to set fire to the quarters whence 
 the annoyance proceeded, and the directions were acted upon with 
 that indiscriminate ferocity which is too often displayed by an in- 
 censed soldiery against an unarmed populace. The anger excited 
 by the few was vented on the unoffending many, and the troops per- 
 formed, with savage alacrity, the most humiliating service on which 
 they could have been employed — the butchery of their defenceless 
 fellow-citizens. 
 
 The leaders, or, rather, the mis-leaders of the people in this miserable 
 couspiracy, were the first to seek their own safety in flight, and the 
 tribune P. Sulpicius, who had set the example of employing brute force, 
 evinced the most cowardly haste in running away from it, when he 
 seemed likely to become one of its victims. Marius made for the 
 marshes near Minturnae, where he stuck in the mud, and covered his 
 reputation with a number of stains that are quite indelible. On being 
 discovered in his ignoble retreat, by those who had pursued him through 
 thick and thin, he was dragged to the town and lodged in the nearest 
 station. A price had been put upon his head, but the article does not 
 seem to have been worth much, for he had shown very little sense in 
 the part he had been playing. His gray hairs, or, perhaps, rather, his 
 
 '.VIM dares Kill Menus' 
 
262 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME [CHAP. XXV. 
 
 total baldness, still commanded so much of sympathy, that nobody 
 evinced a disposition to become his executioner, until a Cimbric soldier 
 undertook the discreditable office. He approached the veteran with a 
 drawn sword, but Marius had got into a dark corner, and succeeded in 
 frightening the man-at-arms by putting on a voice of the most dismal 
 character. The soldier fancying himself in the presence of a ghost, 
 failed in plucking up a sufficient spirit ; and when a moan was heard — 
 inquiring, " Who dares kill Caius Marius ? " the would-be assassin, 
 having flung down his sword, ran away, exclaiming — " Not I, for 
 one, at any rate ! " The soldier, of course, exaggerated the cause of 
 his fears, and declared that the eyes of Marius had appeared to him 
 like two candles burning in their sockets. The inhabitants of Minturna? 
 became as nervous as the panic-stricken soldier, and put Marius on 
 board a ship, which, after being tossed about for several days, came to 
 an anchor, or ran aground, high and dry, on the fine old crusted port of 
 Carthage. Here he rambled about the ruins, and rested his aching 
 head upon its broken temples. The Roman Governor, Sextilius, not 
 knowing what to do with such an embarrassing visitor, sent a messenger 
 to request him to " move on ; " but the exile, with a dignified air. 
 claimed his right to repose upon the dry rubbish. " Tell thy master," 
 he observed to the officer on duty, who had respectfully told him he 
 must " come out of that," in compliance with the orders of the authori- 
 ties, — " Tell thy master that thou hast seen Marius, sitting on the 
 ruins of Carthage." The intelligence was not new, but it seems to have 
 been rather startling, for it had the effect of causing Marius to be 
 allowed to remain ; and we will, therefore, leave him there, while we 
 proceed with the march of our history. 
 
 Sulla having reduced the city to the most complete subjection, made 
 a merit of not pursuing his vengeance farther against the defenceless 
 inhabitants ; and so great was his confidence in the efficacy of his 
 work, that he acquiesced in the appointment of L. Cornelius Cinna, a 
 partisan of Marius, to the consulship. Sulla proceeded to Greece, 
 where he blockaded Athens, whose inhabitants he plundered, as a prac- 
 tical acknowledgment of their worth ; and he spared their lives, to show 
 how he valued their ancestors. He manifested his respect for their arts 
 by robbing their city of its chief ornaments ; and he paid their learning 
 the compliment of stealing their principal libraries. 
 
 In the meantime Cinna had entered on the duties of the consulship 
 at Rome, but there the truth of the maxim, that two heads are better 
 than one, was rendered extremely doubtful by the constant dissensions 
 between himself and his colleague. The latter was Cn. Octavius, who 
 opposed whatever the former recommended ; and while one tried to 
 carry his measures by brute force, the other endeavoured to defeat them 
 by armed violence. Cinna appealed to the mob, and Octavius trusted 
 to the army, both forces being the principal movers under a republican 
 rule or misrule, and both being equally repugnant to the spirit of 
 
CHAP. XXV. ] 
 
 263 
 
 constitutional government The arms of such a republic might have for 
 its supporters the bludgeon and the sword, with the figure of Liberty 
 
 Marius in the Ruins of Cartlmge. 
 
 battered, and bleeding, slashed and sabred, gagged and fettered, in the 
 middle. Octavius and the sword had, on this occasion, got the upper 
 hand ; and Cinna, the clubbist, was glad to break his bludgeon or cut 
 his stick, in flying from the city. 
 
 The Senate decreed that he had forfeited the consulship, and Cinna, 
 having been well received in the Italian towns, decreed that the Senate 
 
201 COMIC HISTORY OF KOME. [CHAP. XXV. 
 
 had forfeited their authority The Government was thus reduced to 
 two negatives, which could not make an affirmative ; and in the midst 
 of a theoretical perfection of republican forms, there existed only the 
 substance of practical anarchy. The inhabitants of the Capitol, with the 
 sword at their throats, elected a Consul, who was, of course, declared by 
 the executive to be their free choice ; while the people in the provinces 
 protested, as loudly as they dared, against the violence that had 
 been done to all the principles of law and liberty. Cinna, who had 
 possessed himself of large sums of public money, employed bribes and 
 promises to get himself acknowledged as the lawful Consul, for it is cus- 
 tomary with despotism, acting under the name of freedom, to rob the 
 people with one hand, in order to corrupt them with the other. 
 
 The veteran Marius, who, after making his bed on the ruins of 
 Carthage, was not too anxious to lie there, had been wanted to join the 
 party of Cinna, and the great captain of the age was received with 
 enthusiasm, in consideration of the great age of the captain. Papirius 
 Carbo and Q. Sertorius also gave in their adhesion ; but Cn. Pompeius, 
 who was stationed with an army at Umbria, waited to see which side 
 would pay him best, and of those who would bid the highest, he was 
 prepared to do the bidding. Marius, in the meanwhile, landed in 
 Tuscany with a few friends ; but to excite commiseration, he dressed 
 nimself in rags, which was, indeed, putting on the garb of poverty. 
 He spoke so repeatedly of his reverses, and touched so frequently on his 
 old clothes, that the subject was completely threadbare. Rags are seldom 
 attractive, but in this instance, they were successful in obtaining for the 
 wearer a large crowd of followers. 
 
 Cn. Pompeius had at length consented to espouse the cause of the 
 Senate, but the alliance was one of interest on his side, for he would not 
 espouse anything without a very large pecuniary settlement having been 
 made in his favour. He met the army of Cinna under the walls of 
 Rome, but both forces were enfeebled by sickness. Each party pro- 
 ceeded to do its best, but the soldiers on both sides were so wretchedly 
 ill, that none of them could, for one moment, stand at ease; and all 
 were much fitter to be in bed than in battle. A storm did sad havoc 
 among the defenders of Rome, and a flash of lightning falling naturally 
 upon the conductor of the army, caused the death of Cn. Pompeius. 
 The gates of the city were thrown open, Cinna was restored to the 
 Consulship, and though there had been an understanding that no blood 
 should be shed, Marius set a band of slaves and mercenaries upon the 
 defenceless people. 
 
 Under the pretence that he would only act according to law, this 
 sanguinary impostor, declaring himself an exile, pi-etended that he 
 would not enter the city until the sentence should be repealed ; and with 
 a sword at every throat, he demanded an expression of the voice of tho 
 people. The decision need scarcely be told, and Marius entered the 
 city, where, standing behind China's consular chair, he made a series of 
 
CHAP. XXV.] MARC ANTONY. 265 
 
 savage grimaces at his intended victims Among tliese was the Consul, 
 Octavius, who, soothed by the soothsayers into the belief that he had 
 nothing to fear, boldly refused to fly, until some hired assassins exe- 
 cuted their task, by executing the unhappy officer. He met his death 
 while still maintaining his seat, and expired in the arms of his arm- 
 chair of office. 
 
 Marius being now master of the situation, did all he could to mako 
 the situation vacant by a system of indiscriminate murder. The heads of 
 the nation were not only imprisoned, but struck off. The two Caesars 
 were savagely seized and killed, while Marc Antony — an orator of con- 
 siderable mark — had concealed himself in a place that was made known 
 to Marius. The tyrant was at supper when he heard the news, and as 
 if determined to sup full of horrors, he started up with a determination 
 to witness the murder, which he desired should immediately take place ; 
 but his friends pacified him with the assurance that the head should be 
 brought in to him. 
 
 If the chroniclers are to be credited, Marc Antony owed his detection 
 to his fastidiousness as to the sort of wine that was placed before him. 
 While in concealment, his daily supply was procured from a neighbour- 
 ing tavern, by a messenger who was in the habit of tasting several 
 bottles before he was satisfied This excited the curiosity of the land- 
 lord, who became anxious to know the name of his very particular 
 customer. The messenger, on one occasion, had taken so much of 
 the wine in, that he let the truth out, when the wine-merchant 
 treacherously proceeded to betray the hiding-place of Marc Antony. 
 Soldiers were sent to his lodgings ; but he grew so eloquent over his 
 generous wine, that he excited among the guards a generous spirit 
 His life would probably have been spared, had not the tribune Annius 
 rushed up-stairs, and himself struck off the head of the unhappy 
 Anton} 7 . 
 
 Several men of consideration, in the most inconsiderate manner, 
 killed themselves, to avoid the fate which was intended for them by 
 China, and that still greater sinner, Marius. Q. Lutatius Catulus 
 pi-oceeded to the temple, and getting into a corner among the statues of 
 the gods, placing himself opposite Pan, perished by the fumes of charcoal. 
 Merula, the Flamen of Jupiter, may be said to have snuffed himself 
 out, or extinguished his own vital spark ; for, seating himself in the 
 portico of the Capitoline, he calmly made preparations for suicide, 
 and took off his flame-coloured cap, in which it was not lawful for 
 him to expire. Producing some surgical instruments from his pocket, 
 he sat ruminating over his case, and taking out a lancet, he showed 
 that he was no longer in the vein to live, but quite in the vein to die. 
 for he opened an artery. The tyrant himself took to drinking in his 
 old age, and frequently rolled about in a state of frenzy, under the 
 impression that he was commanding an army against Mithridates 
 He ultimately drove himself to delirium tremens, and he contracted a 
 
866 
 
 CCMIC HISTORY OF HOME. 
 
 [CHAP. XXV. 
 
 constant shake of the hands by his frequent use of cordials. He died 
 after a short illness, on the 15th of January, B.C. 86, without having 
 devoted himself to that sober reflection, which would have induced him 
 to repent of his numerous enormities. Such was the end of a man, 
 whose faults have been sometimes glossed over with the varnish of 
 flattery, though at the hands of truth they can only receive an appro- 
 priate coat of blacking. 
 
 Miuius in bis Old Axe. 
 
CriAP. XXVI.] SULLA RETURNS TO ROME. Q.6T 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH 
 
 DEATH OF CINNA. RETURN OF SULLA TO ROME C. TAPIRIUS CARRO 
 DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA. 
 
 Liberty being now established on a republican basis, by the massacre 
 of all who had a word to say against the military usurper Cinna, that 
 individual began the task of consolidating his power. He nominated 
 L. Valerius Flaccus to the consulship; and those of the aristocracy who 
 wished for freedom, were free to leave Rome if they did not like living 
 under a tyrannical government. To speak openly in the forum or the 
 courts of justice, was prohibited; and the scantiness of the reports that 
 have come down to us of the events of the times, can be no matter of 
 surprise, when we consider that the reporters were not permitted to give 
 an account of actual occurrences. 
 
 It was necessary to amuse the masses by what are termed liberal 
 measures, and as an excess of liberality, it was proposed that every 
 debtor, paying one fourth of his debt, should be released from all further 
 liability to his creditor. This was sure to be a popular act in a country 
 already ruined by political agitation, and the despotism to which it 
 frequently leads ; and, as the debtors were by far the most numerous 
 class, a sort of general Insolvent Act was hailed with acclamations by a 
 bankrupt community. 
 
 Sulla, who was still in Greece, refused his allegiance to the despot at 
 home, and L Valerius Flaccus was sent to supersede him in the 
 command of the army. Flaccus was not popular with his soldiers, and 
 as the head of the Government had set the example of setting aside all 
 law by a coup d'etat, an imitator was soon found in the person of one 
 Flavius Fimbria, a lieutenant, who, by a coup de tete, got rid of his 
 obnoxious general. Flaccus being thus disposed of, Fimbria promoted 
 himself to the chief command ; but, cowardice and cruelty going hand 
 in hand, he took his own life on hearing that Sulla was setting out 
 against him. The soldiers of Fimbria, with the most revolting faithless- 
 ness, revolted to Sulla, who was now master of Asia. He called upon 
 the conquered nation for 20,000 talents, and as the subdued people had 
 not so large a sum by them, they were obliged to borrow it with one 
 hand at enormous interest, in order to pay it with the other The 
 Roman capitalists lent the cash, and the Roman soldiers assisted them 
 with their swords to draw a ruinous per-centage from the unfortunate 
 borrowers. Sulla now prepared to march upon Rome, where Cinna had 
 re-elected himself as Consul, in conjunction with one Papirius Carbo, a 
 political incendiary, who acted like so much touch-paper and coal upon 
 the flame of discord. Intending to meet their rival, they proceeded with 
 
£6$ COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXVI. 
 
 an army into Italy ; but the soldiers no sooner found themselves on the 
 Italian soil, than they declared their determination to remain there. 
 China called them together, and endeavoured to persuade them to go 
 forward, but even when he gave the word of command there was no 
 advance on his bidding. From passive resistance they proceeded to 
 active insubordination, and, denouncing him as a tyrant whom it was 
 high time to see through, they perforated him with their swords in 
 several places. 
 
 On the death of Cinna, legal authority began to raise its humbled 
 head, and Carbo was summoned to hold a Comitia at Home ; but on 
 the day appointed, the attendance of voters not promising a satisfactory 
 •result, the augurs declared the auspices unfavourable, and dissolved the 
 meeting. 
 
 A deputation had been sent to Sulla to endeavour to make terms, but 
 the members of the deputation were forced to return without any terms 
 having been agreed upon. Sulla did not march immediately upon Italy, 
 but went to iEdepsus, in Euboea, for the benefit of the hot baths, though 
 he did not limit himself to the waters, for he addicted himself to the 
 spirits abounding in the neighbourhood. He amused himself in the 
 society of those who are sometimes said to live upon their wits, though 
 their existence is really derived from the want of wit in others. Sulla, 
 however, had a counterpoise to any demerits of his own, in the still 
 greater demerits of those who were opposed to him. 
 
 The new Consuls were L. Cornelius Scipio, a highly respectable man, 
 and C. Julius Norbanus, a mere creature of Carbo. Against these 
 leaders Sulla marched from Greece in the rudest health and the most 
 exuberant spirits. His pockets, however, were as light as his heart ; 
 ■but this signified little, for the troops were so devoted to him that there 
 was not an officer unattached ; and so far from making any difficulty 
 about their pay, they undertook to raise money among themselves, if 
 necessary, for the use of their leader. 
 
 The expedition landed at Brundusium, where the inhabitants received 
 Sulla with open arms, or rather without any arms at all, for they per- 
 mitted him to occupy the place without opposition Passing through 
 ■Calabria and Apulia, he approached the encampment of Norbanus, in the 
 neighbourhood of Capua, and sent ambassadors to treat ; but their treat- 
 ment was anything but courteous. They were insulted by all kinds of 
 abuse, and it is said that they had a great deal more thrown in their face 
 than mere reproaches. When Sulla heard of their reception, or rather 
 their rejection at the enemy's camp, he fell upon it with such force that 
 ■everything fell under him. 
 
 Ho next turned his attention to L. Scipio, whose army went over in 
 a body to the side of Sulla, while Scipio and his son were sitting 
 together, talking over general matters in the tent of the general 
 L. Scipio had despatched his son with directions for the right division, 
 when the youth returned to say, that of the right division, there was not 
 one man left ; and when Scipio himself went to look after his men, he 
 
CHAP. XXVI.] VICTOUV Off BULLA. 269 
 
 found there was not one remaining, even for the look of the thing, to 
 mount guard at the tent of their commander. lie, of course, proposed 
 a series of strong resolutions, seconded by his son, that all those who 
 had joined Sulla were enemies to the state ; but the state in which he 
 then was, rendered his denunciations idle, if not ridiculous. The 
 position of Sulla was becoming rather alarming to the party of Carbo, 
 who caused himself to be appointed Consul, for the year B. c. 82, in 
 conjunction with young C. Marius, who, as the heir of his father, had 
 inherited a large stock of wickedness. Cn. Pompeius had already sent 
 in his adhesion to Sulla, who had received him as a very promising 
 young man, for he had a fair share of popularity, and a good amount of 
 property. Young Pompey was opposed to old Carbo, and the former so- 
 harassed the latter, that his temper, always sour, became equal to car 
 bonic acid in its inflammable tendency. 
 
 Sulla took young Marius in hand, and followed him up to a place 
 called Sacriportus, where, in consequence of a dream — for the ancients 
 were addicted to taking advice with their eyes shut — an attack by the 
 former on the latter was resolved upon. Sulla ordered his soldiers to 
 advance, but they were so fatigued that they fell asleep on the road, and 
 caused their leader to wonder what they could possibly be dreaming of. 
 Instead of their being equipped in the arms of the warrior, they were 
 stretched in the arms of Somnus, and Sulla, though reluctant to go 
 counter to his dream, perceived the folly of marching to battle with a 
 somnambulist army. He gave orders, therefore, to halt, and the men 
 had commenced digging the foundations for a camp, when the cavalry 
 of Marius rode up for the purpose of annoying them. Irritated by the 
 conduct of the enemy's horse, the soldiers of Sulla kicked against it, and 
 even while engaged in their work, picked out, with their pickaxes, a few 
 of the foremost of the Marian army. This led to a general engage- 
 ment, in which Sulla's forces forgot their fatigue, and pursued the 
 enemy to the neighbouring town of Prseneste, the gates of which were 
 shut in such haste, that all the fugitives had not time to get in, and 
 Marius himself was pulled up by a rope over the wall, together with a few 
 immediate hangers-on, who had tied themselves to his fortunes. Sulla 
 is said to have slain 20,000 men, and to have taken 8000 prisoners, 
 while he lost only twenty-three ; but as he is his own authority for the 
 statement,* we must take in a purely figurative sense many of his figures 
 
 The Marian party, fearing that the successes of Sulla might encourage 
 resistance to the despotism still prevailing at Rome, determined on 
 getting rid of the principal politicians of the day, the heads of the 
 National Assembly of the period. The modern practice might have 
 been to have shut up the place of meeting, and prevent the members, 
 by armed force, from going in — slaughtering them, of course, in case of 
 their perseverance ; but the Marian policy was to summon them to the 
 Curia Hostilia, and having got them in, to butcher those who attempted 
 to go out again. 
 
 • As quoted by Plutarch, in Sulla, c. 28. 
 
270 COMIC HISTORY OF HOME. [CHAr XXVI. 
 
 The praetor, L. Damasippus, was entrusted with this sanguinary 
 husiness ; and every eminent politician, who was suspected of having an 
 independent opinion of his own, was at once massacred. This step was 
 declared to be necessary to give strength to the Government, and to 
 insure the unanimity of the nation, by cutting the throats of all who 
 ventured to be of a way of thinking contrary to that of the ruling power. 
 Unfortunately, some of the best and wisest men of the day were blind 
 to the virtues of the chief of the republic ; and the whole of these, 
 including Q. Mucius Scsevola, the eminent jurist, were unceremoniously 
 sacrificed. 
 
 The news of the success of Sulla at Sacriportus, caused a panic 
 among those who had been combining the butcher's business with that 
 of government at Rome, and the perpetrators tried to fly when they 
 heard the enemy was approaching the city. Sulla, leaving Lucretius 
 Ofella to keep watch at the gates of Praeneste, lest Marius should attempt 
 to creep out, marched in person on the capital. Directing his steps 
 towards the Colline gate, he found there an army of those same Sam 
 nites, who had been previously cut into so many pieces, and who were 
 ready to be cut into so many more, should occasion require the alarming 
 sacrifice. Their general, Pontius Telesinus, rode in front of them, 
 •entreating them to come and be killed for positively the last time ; and 
 the dux had sufficient influence to induce them to rush like a flock of 
 geese on their own destruction. The victory of Sulla was complete ; 
 and Pontius Telesinus having been overlooked by the foe in the heat of 
 battle, supplied the omission in the business of the day by making away 
 with himself — after the usual cowardly fashion of the heroes of antiquity 
 
 Sulla's success seemed only to have effected a change of tyrants ; and 
 his conduct proved that the monster grievance of Rome was the series 
 of inhuman monsters who had got hold of the government. The 
 atrocities attributed to Sulla are, however, so enormous, as almost to 
 border on the burlesque ; and it is comfortable to feel in the exaggera- 
 tion a ground for hope that in the account furnished by the historians, 
 much may fall under the head of " Errors excepted." 
 
 It is said that 3000 of the enemy at Antennae implored his mercy, 
 which he granted, on the understanding that they were to assas- 
 sinate their associates — a service that was performed with brutal 
 eagerness. When the 3000 claimed their own pardon as a reward, 
 they were, according to Plutarch, conveyed to Rome, and butchered 
 with a few thousand others, who had the misfortune to differ in opinion 
 with the chief of a republican government. 
 
 It was found so extremely embarrassing to heads of families and 
 others who were liable every day or hour to be cut off, that it was at 
 length proposed, as a matter of convenience, that Sulla should save 
 time by publishing a short list, containing the few names of those 
 whom he did not intend to sacrifice. lie replied, by bringing out a 
 very long list of those he did, which he stated to be merely the first 
 tiumber of a serial work, which he did not pledge himself to complete 
 
CHAP XXVI.J DICTATORSHIP OF SULLA. 27 i 
 
 within any particular period. As every copyright is liable to be 
 infringed, the work of Sulla was the subject of numerous imitations ; 
 and there were many who made lists of their own, containing names dis- 
 agreeable to themselves ; so that no man could walk the streets without 
 the chance of reading his own death-warrant on the walls of the capital. 
 Sulla, in many instances, offered rewards for the heads of his victims, 
 and his doors were beset from morning till night with the cry of, 
 " Butcher ! " by those who called for the sums they had earned as 
 slaughtermen. Assassinations proceeded to such a fearful degree, that 
 <}. Catulus asked Sulla, in confidence, whether it was the intention of 
 the latter to spare any human being at all? for there seemed a chance 
 of his having no one left to rule over but himself; and such a man was 
 likely to find self-government exceedingly difficult. 
 
 While these things were going on at Rome, Marios was besieged in 
 Praeneste, from which he tried to make his escape through the common 
 sewer ; a mode of insuring his life that was far from dignified. He, 
 however, was espied through an iron aperture, which was so grating to 
 his feelings, that he called upon his slave to run him through ; when 
 the faithful fellow immediately bored him to death with a trusty and 
 4 - usty weapon. 
 
 Sulla, the perpetrator of all the acts of despotism and cruelty which 
 are above described, was without any legal authority, and had no more 
 right than the meanest subject of the republic to the power which he 
 exercised. His reign was a reign of terror, supported by the swords of 
 a sordid soldiery. Of the two Consuls, Marios was already dead ; and 
 Carbo, being taken prisoner, was condemned to death ; so that Carbo — 
 the blackness of whose conduct justified his title of the coal — was soon 
 reduced to ashes. 
 
 The senate, which had been cut down by assassination to suit the 
 views of Sulla, elected L. Valerius Flaccus as interrex, who imme- 
 diately caused Sulla to be invested with the power of doing whatever he 
 liked, as long as he liked ; or, to use the official phraseology, made 
 him dictator for an unlimited period. 
 
 On receiving his appointment, the first measure of Sulla was 
 to reward the tools who had assisted him, and L. Valerius Flaccus 
 was immediately made master of the horse, while the military 
 murderers, who had acted as executioners in the execution of his plans, 
 received grants of land in the places which had been unfavourable to the 
 tyrant. He courted a certain sort of popularity by extending the suffrage 
 to some 10,000 emancipated slaves, who retained enough of their 
 slavishness to cause them to vote as their master desired. He affected 
 to reconstitute the legislative body which he had illegally destroyed, and 
 he sent into it a quantity of that noxious scum which, in the troubled 
 waters of revolution, is frequently cast up to the surface of society. 
 
 Having established his position through the brutality of one part of 
 the people, and the cowardice of the other, he set about the busiuess of 
 a reformer; and, though he did much harm, the little good that W 
 
2~2 COMIC HISTORY OF BOME. [CHAF. XXVI 
 
 accomplished must not be denied to him. Being a despot by nature, 
 he limited, as far as he could, the popular element in the constitution, 
 by curtailing the power of the tribunes ; and he increased the govern- 
 ment patronage by adding to the number of pontiffs and augurs, so thai 
 he might have the privilege of appointment to lucrative, but useless, 
 offices. His changes in the criminal code were, however, really bene- 
 ficial, for he made murder, whether committed by poison or violence, a 
 crime by law ; and, indeed, it was necessary that tbe point should be 
 clearly defined, for military murders at the hands of the executive had 
 been so numerous that it was reasonably doubted whether human life 
 was henceforth to be protected at all by the government. Many old 
 laws were re-enacted, though they had never been repealed ; but the 
 usurpers of power had so thoroughly trampled on every legal form, that 
 it was impossible to know which of the laws were to be regarded as 
 imperative on the people. 
 
 Sulla, and his friends, boasted that his firmness had given tranquillity 
 to Rome ; but tranquillity can scarcely be a desirable condition to one 
 whose quietude is the result of a gag in the mouth, a sword suspended 
 over the head, and chains on every part of the body. The repose, or 
 rather, the stillness thus obtained, was no less costly than inconvenient, 
 for there was a wholesale confiscation of the property of all who were 
 supposed to entertain views different from those of the government 
 The iniquities of the master will often be followed by the man, and, 
 in conformity with this rule, a fellow, named Chrysogonus, one of 
 Sulla's creatures, caused the murder of Roscius of Armenia, in order to 
 get the opportunity of robbing him. The property of Roscius was 
 knocked down at a mock auction to a bad lot of ruffians, who were 
 there to intimidate the auctioneer into doing their smallest bidding. 
 Everything went for positively nothing, and Chrysogonus was understood 
 to have got nearly the whole of it at a ludicrously low figure. 
 
 The laws made by Sulla, though perhaps plain enough in their 
 purport, had an ambiguity in their application which was extremely 
 inconvenient. Though binding at some times, in some places, upon 
 some persons, they were not so at other times, in other places, upon 
 others. He had laid it down as a rule that no one could be elected 
 consul until he had been praetor ; though, in the case of his own 
 adherents, Sulla was not at all particular. When, however, L. Ofella, 
 the commander at Praeneste, who had never been praetor, put up for the 
 consulship, Sulla declared such conduct was not to be put up with at all, 
 and had him killed in the middle of a morning's canvass. The people 
 were rather angry at the outrage, when Sulla, walking among a group 
 with a sword in his hand, " demanded silence for an anecdote." * A 
 circle drew round him, tremblingly alive to what he was about to say, 
 when the despot proceeded as follows : " A labourer," said he, " was at 
 work at the plough, when ho was annoyed by insects, which caused him 
 to stop and beat them off by dusting his own jacket. Finding himself 
 
 • Vide the account given by Appian, c. 102. 
 
i;HAI\ XXVI.] DEATH OF SULLA. 273 
 
 annoyed a second time he took off his jacket and threw it into the fire. 
 Now, I advise those whom I have twice conquered not to oblige me to 
 try the fire." The people, who knew something of Sulla's threatened 
 fire, dreaded it with all the horror of a burned child, and he was left to 
 pursue his career of unchecked atrocity. 
 
 A man who has the cruelty of a brute has, generally, the other 
 debasing appetites of the lower order of animals ; and Sulla had as 
 much of the sensualist as of the tyrant in his character. To a thirst 
 for blood he added the appetite of a glutton ; and, having amassed 
 enormous wealth by murder and rapine, he longed for the opportunity 
 to expend his ill-gotten means in idleness and debauchery. He 
 accordingly called the people together in the forum, and, having 
 walked up and down for some time asking if anybody dared to make a 
 charge against him, he "resigned the dictatorship. This abdication has 
 been lauded by some as a proof of magnanimity and disinterestedness ; 
 but, to sum up the truth in a few words, he had practised human 
 butchery as a trade, and, having realised an enormous fortune, he 
 retired from business. Having secured all the profits that were likely 
 to accrue from his unprincipled career, he left to others the difficult 
 work of sustaining the results of his policy. He retired to Puteoli, 
 where he passed much of his time in the company of actors, and became 
 the intimate associate of one or two popular low comedians. In his sober 
 moments — which were very few during the latter part of his life — he 
 wrote his own memoirs, and was employed upon the work until within 
 a few days of his death, which happened b. c. 78, when he had reached 
 the age of sixty. Seldom had a man, who had reached but three- 
 score, left so many scores unsatisfied. Such was his cruelty, that he 
 delighted in loading prisoners with fetters, and then shedding their 
 blood, which caused it to be said of him that he was no less fond of 
 mangling than of ironing. He had so little regard for old associa- 
 tions, that when one of his acquaintances reminded him of the days 
 when they lived in the same house — Sulla paying 2000 sesterces 
 for the basement, and his former friend 3000 for the first floor — 
 the Dictator refused to spare his fellow-lodger's life, but brutally 
 remarked, that the story, whether upper or lower, was an old one, and 
 had long ago lost its interest. It is said that dungeons or cellars 
 were attached to Sulla's house for the purpose of keeping a supply of 
 human beings always on hand for occasional sacrifice The manner 
 of his death rendered him an object as repulsive as he had become by 
 his mode of life ; for, his licentiousness led to a disease which developed 
 itself in the generation of vermin in his skin ; and he may be said to 
 have been almost eaten up with corruption before he expired. By his 
 own desire his body was burned ; as if he had thought that fire might 
 act in some sort as a purifier of his memory. The ladies of the nobility 
 threw perfume on the funeral pile,* but it was too late to bring hin> 
 
 • Plutarch iu Sulla, c. 3& 
 
271 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF HOME. 
 
 [CHAP. XXVI. 
 
 into good odour. Numerous attendants carried spices of every kind ," 
 and, in addition to the ordinary mace-bearers, there were several officers 
 laden with cinnamon. The fact of incense having been offered at the 
 funeral pile of such a monster, is enough to incense anv one who reads 
 a statement so humiliating to humanity. 
 
 Funeral File of Sella. 
 
 In personal appearance Sulla was by no means attractive ; for he 
 had a quantity of green in his eye, an abundance of red in his hair, 
 and a profusion of purple in his countenance. His face was, like his 
 character, full of spots ; and those who accused him of aspiring to the 
 purple, said the fact might be read in his look, for his cheeks were of 
 blue, and caused himself, as well as his acts, to wear a very dark com- 
 plexion. He was coarse in his manners, and had no appreciation of 
 any kind of delicacy but the delicacies of the table. Notwithstanding 
 the unpleasant features of Sulla's person and character, he was married 
 five times ; for divorce had become so easy, that a man could always 
 put his old wife away when he wished for a new one. 
 
OHAP. XXVII. 
 
 REACTION" AGAINST SULLA S POLICY. 
 
 275 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SEVENTH 
 
 Cresar and Porapey very much alike, 
 especially Pompey. 
 
 BEACTION AGAINST THE POLICY OF SULLA. SERVICES OF Q. SERTORIUS. 
 METELLUS. CN. POMPEY. SPIRITED STEPS OF SPARTACUS. THE 
 IRATE PIRATE. 
 
 he tyrannical acts of Sulla had 
 smothered, but not extinguished, the 
 flame of liberty, and every piece 
 of injustice had been so much fuel 
 heaped upon a smoulderiug fire. At 
 the death of Sulla, the population 
 consisted of little else than those 
 who had been beggared by a rapa- 
 cious soldiery, and the military des- 
 peradoes who had done the tyrant's 
 work ; a melancholy combination of 
 the victimisers and the victimised. 
 : The Consuls were M. iEmilius Le- 
 pidus and Q. Lutatius Catulus ; the 
 former having enriched himself by 
 connexion with the dictator's party, 
 but the tide havingturned,he turned 
 with it, in the hope that it might again lead on to fortune. Catulus, on 
 the other hand, adhered to the policy of Sulla ; and there being rea- 
 son to fear that the two Consuls would get up a quarrel — in the course 
 of which the lookers-on would be robbed — the Senate made the Con- 
 suls swear that they would not take up arms against each other. The 
 oath was readily taken, and no less readily broken by those republican 
 chiefs, who came into violent collision near the very gates of Rome ; 
 and Lepidus, having got the worst of it, fled to Sardinia, where, having 
 laid down his plans for the future, he laid down himself, and died 
 rather unexpectedly. 
 
 Several of the laws of Sulla were so manifestly unjust as to be inde- 
 fensible even by his own partisans ; and many of them were repealed 
 under various consulships. Cn. Pompey, who had been a warm 
 adherent of the dictator, had a much warmer feeling for himself, and he 
 courted popular favour by the promise of many reforms which involved 
 a compromise of his former principles. The republic was, in fact, the 
 sport of a set of unprincipled men, who were trying, by every artifice 
 and crime, to get to the head of it. They cared nothing for the public 
 interests, but thought only of their own ; which will be too often the 
 case when the chief power in the state is open to any who will make the 
 
276 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXVII. 
 
 highest bid for it. Pompey had gone into the market with his abili- 
 ties -when tyranny required tools ; but perceiving that demagogues were 
 now in demand, he endeavoured to make a profit of popular principles. 
 Others had embarked on the same voyage, shifting their course with the 
 breath of public opinion, and having no rudder but self-interest. One 
 of these was L. Licinius Lucullus, a man of excessive wealth, which he 
 used, or rather abused, in excessive luxury. He employed art for the 
 purpose of opposing nature ; and, among other pieces of prodigality, he 
 endeavoured to convert a portion of the sea into a private fish-pond. 
 This he attempted at his winter residence near Naples ; where, by a 
 cutting through the rocks he formed an opening into the bay, and kept 
 upon his own premises a continual supply of fresh fish in a reservoir of 
 salt water. His tastes were not, however, limited to the pleasures of 
 the dinner-table ; for he had not only studied the law, and had the 
 Twelve Tables at his fingers' ends, but he had collected a library of such 
 vast extent, that it comprehended a store of information far beyond the 
 comprehension of its owner. 
 
 M. Licinius Crassus was another candidate for power, which he sought 
 rather by means of his wealth, than his talents ; for he had far more 
 money than wit ; and Crassus often evinced signs of crass ignorance. 
 
 Almost the only illustrious man of the period was C. Julius Caesar 
 who could turn his hand, no matter what was in it, to anything. He 
 was as ready with the pen as with the sword ; but the latter was not 
 sharper than his tongue ; while his mind was so capacious and elastic, 
 that it could adapt itself to small or great things with equal facility. A 
 very little subject is often lost in the vast expanse of a very great 
 intellect ; and a diminutive understanding cannot afford space for the 
 admission of a grand idea ; but there was suitable accommodation for 
 either one or the other, or both at once, in the self-adapting mind of 
 Caesar. He was an author without jealousy, a scholar without pedantry, 
 and a politician without quackery. 
 
 These, and other illustrious men, flourished in Rome about this 
 time ; but Pompey, who had a natural love of pomp, possessed the art 
 of concentrating upon himself the rays reflected from the brilliant 
 personages who surrounded him ; so that it was difficult to distinguish 
 at all times between him and the other men of distinction of the period. 
 
 During the lifetime of Sulla, Q. Sertorius had been serving, or rather 
 commanding, in Spain, where he held the post of praetor, and was engaged 
 iu keeping the interests of his party — that of Marius — alive, by killing 
 all who were opposed to them. His professed object was to unite 
 Spaniards and Piomans as one people ; but his mode of reconciling any 
 differences was to put to the sword those who, after he had put their 
 opinions to the test, were found to disagree with him. Sulla had sent 
 an army, under C. Annius, to attack Sertorius in Spain, when Sertorius, 
 looking upon C. Annius as a mere deputy, with whom a deputy on his 
 Bide rnight deal, despatched Julius Saliuator to meet the envoy Ths 
 result proved that the praetor had done wisely in acting on his discre- 
 
CHAP XXVII.] Q SERTORIUS. 277 
 
 tion, rather than giving way to any sudden impulse of valour; for Sali- 
 nator, whom he had sent as a substitute for himself, was killed, when, 
 in his capacity of proxy, he approximated too closely to the enemy. 
 
 Sertorius, who had sent out Salinator as a sort of feeler — not exactly 
 expecting that the latter would have to feel his death-blow — perceived 
 there was little prospect of his own success ; and he made his escape to 
 Africa. While in Mauritania, having no quarrel of his own, he inter- 
 fered in the quarrels of other people ; and there being two claimants to 
 the Mauritanian crown, he supported one, and — by way of keeping his 
 hand in — picked the pocket of the other. His meddling having paid 
 him extremely well, he made up his mind and his luggage to retire 
 into private life, and an account he had heard of the Canary Islands 
 tempted him to deposit his well-feathered nest in that congenial locality. 
 
 The Lusitanians, however, who had been robbed by the Romans 
 belonging to Sulla's party, having a vague idea of the propriety of 
 setting a thief to catch a thief, entreated Sertorius to defend them 
 against their enemies. The engagement was entered into after some 
 little delay as to the terms ; when Sertorius set to work with so much 
 ardour, that he was soon fighting four Roman generals at once ; and, 
 what was still more remarkable, he was getting decidedly the best of it. 
 His mode of warfare was to pour down from one fastness to another 
 with such speed, that his foes never knew where to have him, until he 
 had them in the most unexpected manner. If they began to march, 
 says Plutarch, he was upon their heels, — if they sat still, he was upon 
 their back, — and if they invested a town, he turned the investment to 
 his own profit by intercepting all their convoys. The enemy had no 
 resource against his arms but their own legs, for flight was their sole 
 safeguard. 
 
 Not satisfied with fighting the battles of the Spaniards, he began 
 regulating their civil domestic affairs, and endeavoured to translate the 
 Spanish into the Roman character. His object was to establish a 
 Roman republic in Spain ; but it is difficult to manufacture a foreign 
 article of native materials. He appointed 300 persons as a senate ; 
 and, though the greater part were Spaniards, he took as many pro- 
 scribed Romans as he could find, in the hope that they would serve as 
 a sort of Roman cement, to make it hold together. He established a 
 school — a classical academy — where Latin and Greek were taught, and 
 where the pupils wore boys' tunics, after the Roman fashion. 
 
 Sertorius was a general favourite with all classes, besides the classes 
 of the school ; and happening to have a favourite fawn, which followed 
 him wherever he went, flattery declared the fawn was sent him by the 
 gods, as a mark of favour. 
 
 Fortune appeared to favour him in all he undertook ; and even 
 Q. Metellus, with a large army, could produce no effect, — a failure that 
 was attributed to the age and imbecility of that illustrious veteran. 
 Sertorious was joined by Perperna, who, on the strength of the forces he 
 brought, expected to share in the command ; but such is the influence 
 
273 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF EOME. 
 
 [CHAP. XXYI1. 
 
 of success, that Perperna's men repudiated their own leader, and 
 insisted on having Sertorius as their general. 
 
 Sertorius and his young Friends. 
 
 The constant arrival of unfavourable news at Eome, at length induced 
 Poinpey to exclaim — " This will never do ; I must go and settle the 
 matter myself;" for Pompey's conceit induced him to conceive that 
 he should easily conquer Sertorius. The latter was besieging Lauro, 
 the modern Liria, to which the former advanced for the purpose of 
 relieving it. There was, near the walls, a hill that it was important to 
 possess, and both parties tried for it ; but Sertorius, setting his eye on 
 the top, was the first to get up to it. Pompey, with consummate vanity, 
 expressed his determination to dislodge the fellow forthwith, and sent 3 
 message to the town, desiring the inhabitants to sit upon the walls, 
 that they might see how cleverly he would dispose of then enemy 
 Sertorius, on hearing the boast, observed, smilingly, that "a general 
 should watch behind as well as before," — an observation that Pompey, 
 who did not see behind him at the time, would often afterwards look 
 back upon. Sertorius had, in fact, a very considerable reserve, with 
 which he hemmed the besiegers in while he burned the inhabitants out. 
 to the utter astonishment of Pompey, who, though near enough to the 
 flames to warm his hands, could not interfere without burning his 
 fingers. 
 
 Pompey was, nevertheless, impatient to measure swords with Sertorius ; 
 an operation which, though it seems indicative of coming to close quarters, 
 
CHAP. XXVI1.J THE SERVILE WAR. 279 
 
 must always keep a soldier at arm's length, at least, from his antagonist. 
 Desirous of all the glory that might be obtained, Pompey, hearing that 
 Metellus was coming up with assistance, resolved on precipitating a 
 battle, and he accordingly commenced one rather late in the afternoon, 
 though he knew he might be quite in the dark as to the issue, 
 Sertorius and Pompey each advanced at the head of a division, but by 
 some accident they did not happen to meet ; and each of them came 
 back to the main body of his army with the conviction that he had 
 been victorious. On the renewal of the conflict the generals met, the 
 armies knocked their two heads together, when Pompey, being stunned 
 by the blow, and having no one to advise him what to do, took to flight 
 for the purpose of consulting his own safety. 
 
 Though apparently invincible by his enemies, Sertorius was not 
 safe from his friends, for he was murdered at a dinner-party given to 
 him by Perperna. The cloth had not been removed, when Sertorius 
 was startled by a singular entree, hi the shape of a band of assassins, 
 who set upon him and slew him So much was he respected by the 
 Spaniards, that it is said his death brought dying suddenly into fashion, 
 and many killed themselves at his funeral, for the purpose of taking 
 Sertorius as their pattern. Perperna immediately declared himself 
 commander-in-chief, but he was quite unfit for the place, and in his very 
 first engagement he was cut to pieces, with the whole of his army 
 Whether they were literally cut to pieces, is a matter of doubt to us, 
 though the account is placidly adopted by the graver historians ; but 
 when we consider the quantity of cutting and coming again of the same 
 parties — as exemplified particularly in the case of the Samnites — 
 which we are continually called upon to place faith in, we find belief 
 rather difficult. 
 
 While these things were proceeding in Spain, the slaves were going 
 on in the most perplexing manner in Italy and its neighbourhood. 
 Some of the ablest of them had been trained in gladiatorial schools to 
 afford amusement in the Circus ; but this outrage to humanity brought 
 much misery in its train to those who were the cause of it. The slaves 
 were exercised in the use of all sorts of weapons, and humanity was 
 lowered by hiring them out for shows on public occasions. Being 
 skilled in the employment of the sword, they began to think of wielding 
 it against their oppressors, instead of trying it upon each other, and 
 about seventy of them escaped under the leadership of a Thracian of 
 their body, named Spartacus. Being unprovided with arms, they 
 plundered the cook-shops, where they seized spits fer spears, skewers 
 for daggers, carving knives for swords, dripping-pans for shields, and 
 basting-spoons for general purposes. They next entered the shops 
 of the carpenters, and seized the tools of the workmen, many of 
 whom concealed the implements of their industry ; but, if a saw 
 happened to show its teeth, it was immediately captured. Their 
 party, though at first small, was increased by all the runaway debtors 
 of the district; for it is a remarkable fact, that those who owo 
 
■Xi) 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [chap. xxvn. 
 
 privately more than they can pay, are often foremost among those 
 
 who talk the loudest about what they owe to the public interests 
 
 They took up their position on Mount 
 
 Vesuvius — an appropriate place for 
 
 a breaking out — and their numbers 
 
 having swelled to 10,000, they poured 
 
 themselves down, like a devastating 
 
 stream of lava, on many neighbouring 
 
 towns, which were speedily laid in 
 
 ashes. Spartacus pushed forward as 
 
 far as the foot of the Alps ; but his 
 
 followers were intent on returning to 
 
 Rome, in order to sack it, and add 
 
 J ts contents to their baggage. M. 
 
 Licinius Crassus was sent after him ; 
 
 and having undertaken to overtake 
 
 him, came up with him id Lucania. 
 
 The slaves fought like lions, or, 
 
 rather, with the ferocity of the brutes 
 
 with whom they had been taught 
 
 to contend, and were, in some instances, victorious. 
 
 Crassus had sent Mummius to keep the army in check, but the latter 
 had received particular directions not to fight ; for the object of the 
 republican general was to take all the glory for himself, irrespective of 
 his country's interests. Mummius, however, had the same feeling, and 
 was desirous of winning a reputation, regardless of the orders of his 
 superior ; for he knew that a military success, in the unstable con- 
 dition of the executive, would, however irregular, be passed over by the 
 people, and perhaps made a stepping-stone for himself to supi-eme 
 power. His men, who were not actuated by the same personal motives 
 as himself, saw the insufficiency of their force, and, being seized with a 
 panic, ran away, without stopping to draw their swords from their 
 scabbards. Spartacus formed the idea of passing into Sicily, and pro- 
 ceeded to Rhegium, where he bargained with some pirates to supply 
 him with vessels ; but after pretending much friend-ship, they never 
 furnished him with any ship at all, though he had paid the knaves the 
 price of a small navy. 
 
 Spartacus found himself blockaded in Rhegium ; and Crassus, cutting 
 a trench all round, thought to prevent all egress from the place ; but 
 neither Crassus nor his trench proved deep enough to answer the 
 purpose proposed, for Spartacus filled up a portion of the ditch, and 
 walked over it. Crassus, now fearing that his cause was lost, sent tc 
 Rome for the assistance of Pompey, who, priding himself on his previous 
 victories, and mentally ejaculating, " I 'm the only man ; they 're always 
 obliged to send for me," proceeded to meet Spartacus. No sooner had 
 Crassus sent for help, than he recovered from his panic, and sent to say 
 he should require no aid ; but he had calculated in the absence of the 
 
CHAP. XXVII.] 
 
 SPARTACUS. 
 
 281 
 
 host, for when the host of Spartacus appeared, Crassus found it no easy 
 matter to contend with them. The latter, however, grown too confident 
 of success, determined on running the chance of striking or receiving a 
 decisive blow, notwithstanding the misgivings of their leader. 
 
 Spartacus commenced the day by sending for his horse, and killing 
 it, to the utter astonishment of the spectators, and the intense bewilder- 
 ment of the unfortunate animal. " If I win the day," said he, " I shall 
 have many better horses ; but if I lose it, the poor creature would be 
 useless to me in my very humble walk of life, or my more probable 
 walk out of it." Such was his only mode of accounting for an act. 
 wbich none who pitied the suffering of an equine animal could regard 
 with equanimity. On the day of the battle, Spartacus was soon 
 wounded, but falling on his knees, he continued to fight in that uneasy 
 position. Being at last overpowered, he fell, with 40,000 of his 
 men, who, according to the authorities, were sent to destruction ; but 
 
 
 Spartacus. 
 
fc82 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP XXTC1 
 
 though there is no hesitation in saying where they went, the question 
 where they came from, is one which the grave historians have paid no 
 attention to. Of the whole 40,000 who are said to have been found 
 dead upon the field, it is asserted that two only had their backs 
 to the foe ; but we suspect that if there had been time for the defeated 
 to have turned themselves round, there would have been many more in 
 the same position. 
 
 Crassus marched towards Rome, expecting to be received with 
 enthusiasm ; but Pompey who had met and exterminated 3000 
 Thracians, sent a letter home, declaring that " what Crassus had done 
 was all very well, but that he (Pompey) had really put an end to the 
 war by his act of determined butchery." Knowing the value attached 
 by a military republic to a sanguinary act, he was sanguine enough to 
 expect the office of Consul. This he obtained in conjunction with his 
 rival Crassus, who laid himself out, and laid out a considerable sum of 
 money as well, for the purchase of mob popularity He gave the 
 people corn for nothing, and invited them to dinner-parties of 
 10,000 at a time; but his prodigality only proves the extent of his 
 plunder, for nothing could have gone into the public mouth, but that 
 which had in some shape or other come out of the public pocket. 
 Pompey, on the other hand, practised the profession of humility, which 
 perhaps answered better in a double sense ; for it was certainly cheaper, 
 and possibly somewhat more effective, than ostentatious prodigality. He 
 used to lead his own horse in a procession, to show that he was a 
 simple eques, on a footing of equality with other citizens. When his 
 consulship was at an end, he retired into a private station, where he 
 lived like a prince — a style that seems to be much in favour with those 
 who preach the doctrine of perfect equality. 
 
 It was impossible for such an active participator in public affairs to 
 remain wholly idle ; and the alarming spread of piracy soon gave him 
 an opportunity for really honourable distinction. The pirates were 
 becoming a scourge to Rome, but Rome had richly deserved it, for it 
 had been her own injustice that had called into existence these 
 dangerous enemies to humanity. They consisted, in the first instance, 
 of men ruined by Roman extortion, who took to the mountains and the 
 sea, where the true excitement of the ups and downs of life may be 
 most vividly experienced. These men had in time been joined by the 
 once rich and noble, some of whom, having sold the wives and families 
 they could no longer keep, began to plough the ocean as the only field 
 of enterprise. Piracy thus became a regular business of man, just as 
 in more civilised times it has become a regular part of the business of 
 bookselling. Towns were plundered, the cattle were carried off, and 
 the inhabitants walked off to captivity The rich were frequently kid- 
 napped on the roads, and nothing but a handsome ransom would obtain 
 their liberty. 
 
 The pirates had been often reduced, but had never been rooted out ; 
 and the tribune, A Gabinius, proposed, therefore, that Pompey should 
 
CHAP. XXVII.] POMPEY AND THE PIRATES. 283 
 
 be called upon to do extraordinary things with extraordinary powers. 
 He was to have supreme command for three years, during which period 
 he was to have whatever was asked, and to order everybody or every- 
 thing that he required. He took his own measures extremely well, 
 and took the measure of the pirates also with such effect, that he soon 
 drove them from all their fastnesses, with a speed quite marvellous. 
 
 Though his extraordinary powers had been conferred upon him for 
 three years, he had such still more extraordinary power over himself, that 
 he made a voluntary surrender of the former, when the object for which 
 they had been entrusted to him was accomplished. Everything was 
 achieved in three months, during which period he had taken several 
 towns, none of which he had kept to himself, though one of them, in 
 Cilicia, called Soli, he made a solitary exception of, by giving it the 
 name of Pompeiopolis. The people of Soli talked a mixed dialect of 
 Asiatic and Greek, which caused such a confusion of speech, that a great 
 deal of confounded nonsense was the result ; and it is said that the 
 word solecism, as applied to an inaccuracy of speech, is derived from 
 1 he name of the place alluded to. 
 
 That the Romans should have been hostile to piracy is somewhat 
 inconsistent with the principle, or rather the want of principle, on which 
 they acted themselves, for they pirated almost everything. Their 
 literature was mere piracy from the Greeks ; and according to some 
 authorities, the Romans pirated even from the pirates themselves ; for 
 the former are said to have pirated from the latter the idea of the 
 system of the Zodiac. 
 
 The pirates carried on their lawless trade with such success, that 
 they had a fleet of more than 1000 galleys, many of them being hand 
 soinely gilded — a fact that glossed over in the eyes of many the iniquity 
 of the means by which such wealth had been acquired. A dash of gaiety 
 is said to have pervaded the enormities of these lawless depredators ; 
 and when among their prisoners they captured a Roman of high rank, 
 they would politely request him to walk into the sea ; for " to enslave 
 one of the lords of the earth was an act they could not think of being 
 guilty of." Young Julius Caesar, who fell into their hands when a mere 
 boy, on his voyage to Rhodes, appears to have met them more than 
 half way in their sallies of humour. They asked twenty talents for 
 his ransom, when he offered them fifty ; and even then was so little 
 anxious to leave them, that he remained thirty-eight days after having 
 paid his money and become entitled to his quittance. During his stay 
 among them he wrote satirical verses on their barbarous mode of life, 
 and parried off their swords by the still keener weapons of ridicule 
 The pirates were amused by the sallies of their prisoner, who conveyed 
 to them all the bluntness of truth in all the sharpness of epigram. 
 They were sorry enough to part with him, when the money for his 
 ransom arrived ; but they had reason to be still more sorry when they 
 met him agani ; for when he did so, it was only to capture them and 
 carry them to Pergamus. 
 
984 COHIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXVIII. 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH. 
 
 THE THIRD MITHRIDATTC WAR. DEPOSITION AND DEATH OF 
 MITHRIDATES. 
 
 While Pompey had been busy in punishing tbe pirates, Rome had 
 something to fear from another quarter; for Mithridates had been 
 everywhere beating up for recruits to beat down the Commonwealth. 
 He was extremely rich, and had an army of 150,000 men; for the 
 trade of war is unhappily one of those in which there is never any lack 
 of hands ready to wage war, when their wages can be relied upon. 
 
 Bithynia was one of the first objects of the attack of Mithridates, 
 who was opposed by the Consul, M. Cotta ; but the place was burned to 
 the ground, and the ashes of poor Cotta were found in the condition of 
 terra cotta among the ruins. Lucullus, the colleague of Cotta, was 
 sent into Asia with a great army, which attacked Mithridates with such 
 effect, that the king only saved his own life by emptying his pockets of 
 ill the money he had about him, and making a scramble of it among 
 the hostile soldiers. The mercenaries, in fighting with each other for 
 the loose silver, forgot to make sure of the sovereign. Mithridates fled 
 to his son-in-law Tigranes, who, having named the metropolis Tigrano- 
 certa, after himself, had established himself as King of Armenia. 
 Lucullus proceeded across the Tigris, and required that Mithridates 
 should be given up ; but Tigranes, looking at his venerable though 
 determined father-in-law, referred the legate for an answer to the old 
 gentleman. The King of Pontus answered by requesting that the 
 enemy would come and take him, which the Romans were actually 
 about to do, when Mithridates and Tigranes thought it safer to run for 
 their lives ; Tigranes ingloriously taking his crown from his head, and 
 putting it in his pocket, to avoid being recognised. 
 
 The treasuiy r of Tigranocerta, with a surplus of two millions sterling, 
 fell into the hands of the Romans, who seized on the spoil, and who had 
 become so independent by their temporary wealth, that they criticised, 
 approved, and abused or disobeyed, when and why they pleased, the 
 orders of their general. 
 
 Mithridates, taking advantage of this state of things, collected a 
 numerous army, and fell wherever he could upon the Roman garrisons. 
 On one occasion he approached so near the enemy as to be within a 
 stone's throw, and as they happened to be throwing stones, he received 
 one on the knee ; while an arrow, fixing itself under the eye, at once 
 opened it to the full extent of his danger. He soon recovered from the 
 effect of his wounds, and was ready by the ensuing spring to attack 
 C. Triarius, when a Roman soldier, disguised as a native, pretended to 
 
CHAP. XXVIII.] DEPOSITION OP MITHRIDATES. 2^5 
 
 whisper something in the ear of Mithridates, at the same time giving 
 him a most uufriendly poke in the ribs with a concealed weapon. The 
 King was so unprepared for the wound that he fainted right away, and 
 his troops were so taken up in catching him, that they forgot to catch 
 the foe, who were suffered to escape, though they might otherwise have 
 been easily seized upon. Mithridates, having come to, expressed his 
 anger at the carelessness of his officers, and, notwithstanding his wound 
 and his age, he would have attempted the pursuit — under difficulties — 
 of the enemy. The next morning he renewed the attack on Triarius, 
 and icut to pieces 7000 men ; an operation, however, which seems 
 almost too extensive for even the scissors of Fate, and we cannot help 
 regarding it, therefore, as a sheer invention of the graver historians. 
 
 Pompey was now sent to supersede Lucullus in the command ; a 
 measure that had become doubly necessary, for Lucullus had not only 
 failed as a leader, but his soldiers were daily refusing to follow him. 
 When his troops approached within a short distance of Mithridates, they 
 seemed more inclined to engage with him in a friendly than in a hostile 
 sense, for many of them joined his forces. Soon after the arrival of 
 "Pompey, a battle was fought by night on the banks of the Euphrates. 
 The moon, being near its setting, had lengthened the reflection cast by 
 the Roman troops, and the soldiers of Mithridates, mistaking the 
 reflection for the substance, began fighting most energetically with 
 mere shadows. Every missile, thrown apparently into the midst of 
 the Romans, was as ineffective as a miss, and the soldiers of Mithri- 
 dates believing the foe to be invulnerable, fled in a state of panic. 
 The King himself fought valiantly at the head of his body-guard ; a 
 corps which counted among its members his own wife, who, in the arms 
 of a man, committed fearful havoc upon the Roman soldiery. Notwith- 
 standing the powerful assistance of this strong-minded and able-bodied 
 woman, Mithridates was compelled to fly, though he made extensive 
 arrangements for renewing the war on the first favourable opportunity. 
 This opportunity seems never to have arrived, or, if it came, it was 
 lost by the treachery and cowardice of his son Pharnaces, who per- 
 suaded the soldiers that his father was an old fool to think of fighting 
 with the Romans. Several of the principal officers took the same 
 view of the subject, and joined in a conspiracy to depose the King, for 
 the purpose of setting up Pharnaces as his substitute. 
 
 Mithridates was in bed one morning, when, woke by a considerable 
 ■rhouting under his window, he heard the words, " Pharnaces is king ! " 
 and sent to know the meaning of such an outcry. The answer was 
 unsatisfactory, when the veteran, mounting his charger, made a speech 
 on horseback, which nobody listened to. His son gave orders that he 
 should be seized, when the old man, putting spurs to his horse, 
 galloped up a hill, which for a man in the decline of life, who had been 
 going down hill rather rapidly, was a bold and hazardous experiment. 
 From the eminence he had gained, he saw the depth to which he had 
 fallen : for he witnessed the coronation of his son Pharnaces, amidst 
 
COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [CHAP. XXVIII. 
 
 the acclamations of the army. The poor old man was so affected at the 
 sight, that he took from a fold in his dress a deadly drug, which, in 
 anticipation of an alarming self-sacrifice, he always carried about with 
 him. He was about to take off the mixture, when his two daughters, 
 who were standing at his side, entreated the privilege of a drink at the 
 deadly decoction. For some time he hesitated ; but he was at length 
 touched by their looks of mute entreaty at the fatal liquid. Dividing 
 the contents of the bottle into three parts, he gave a dose to each of his 
 daughters, reserving a dose for himself; and on a signal from the old 
 
 Mithridates, bis rash act. 
 
 gentleman, the two young ladies swallowed the nauseous stuff they had 
 so earnestly solicited. 
 
 The poison took effect at once upon the females : but their father 
 experienced only a disagreeable taste, without the deadly result he had 
 looked for. Though too much for two, it was not enough for three, and 
 the poor old man tottered about in a state of nausea, unattended with 
 danger. Having been previously tired of existence, he was now 
 thoroughly sick of it, and turning to a loyal servant at his side, he 
 requested that he might immediately bt put out of his misery. The 
 faithful fellow, making a compromise between his morality and his duty, 
 turned away his eyes, and held out the point of his sword, when 
 Mithridates, coming speedily to the point, fell on the outstretched 
 weapon. 
 
 Thus ended the Mithridatic War, as well as Mithridates himself ; 
 
CHAP. XXVIII.] 
 
 CHARACTER OF MITHRIDATES. 
 
 287 
 
 and his cowardly son Pharnaces sent in his adhesion to Pompey, 
 acknowledging, in a spirit of humility and subservience to Rome, that 
 he only held his kingdom at the pleasure of the Senate. 
 
 The character of Mithridatea has been drawn by so many different 
 delineators, that his portrait, as taken by the historians, presents a 
 daub in which it is difficult to recognise the true features. So many 
 skilful artists have been employed upon the task, that we hesitate in 
 submitting Mithridates to a fresh canvassing at our hands ; nor are we 
 desirous of using the pencil, as some have done, for the purpose of 
 imparting additional blackness. Some of those who have taken the 
 sketch in hand, have thrown in the shadows with a ten-pound brush, 
 while others have clothed him in several coats and overcoats o? varnish, 
 
 Mithridates. 
 
28 S COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XX VIII 
 
 for the purpose of glossing over the defects of his character. All are 
 ready to admit that he was an ahle ruler ; but he had not that perfect 
 uprightness and straightness which give to a ruler the qualities most to 
 be desired. He could speak twenty-five different languages ; and thus 
 he was often able to talk over those with whom he might not have been 
 able to come to an understanding, had his conversation been less 
 versatile. He was of gigantic stature, which caused him to be looked 
 up to by those who were placed under his authority Notwithstanding 
 his excessive height, he was not at all ungainly in his appearance, but 
 his well-moulded frame was a perfect picture. 
 
 His fondness for the fine arts was exhibited in the rapacity with 
 which he seized upon the choicest efforts of human genius, which were 
 in turn stolen from him by other amateurs, whose patronage of talent 
 was evinced in the ardour with which they appropriated the result of 
 its labours. In Sinope, one of his cities, was found an astronomical 
 sphere, which seems to show that the science of the stars was within 
 tbe circle of his knowledge. In one of his fortresses was discovered a 
 statue of himself no less than twelve feet high, in pure gold, which 
 proved not only the value he set upon himself, but showed how com- 
 pletely he was wrapped up in the precious metal. 
 
 Credit has been given him for the possession of many domestic 
 virtues ; because, though he was cruel to one half of his numerous 
 wives, he treated the other half with considerate tenderness. He 
 excited the terror of his foes, but enjoyed the affection of his servants ; 
 and though hated in the field, he was beloved in the kitchen. 
 According to Paterculus, Mithridates was a man of whom it is difficult 
 to speak, and still more difficult to say nothing.* The same authority 
 confers upon him a character for greatness of mind during the whole of 
 his life ; but when, having a great mind to kill himself, he prevailed 
 on a slave to put him to death, he evinced — to use a contradictory 
 expression — a vast amount of mental littleness. 
 
 * Mithridates, Ponticus Rex, vir neque silemlus, neque dicendus sine cura. VelL 
 Pat-ire., lib. ii., c. 18. 
 
CHAP. XXIX.j 
 
 CATILINE. 
 
 2W 
 
 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-NINTH. 
 
 CONSPIRACY OF CATILINE. INTRODUCTION OF CICERO. 
 POMPEY, CRASSDS, AND CO. 
 
 CESAR, 
 
 f * AT **V/TK5 
 
 LIOEU ' !\S7Vc.pUM,\TA S ^ EPUBLIC without republicans may 
 be an exceptional state of things ; 
 but ancient as well as modern his- 
 tory furnishes proof that the exist- 
 ence of a republic is not incompa- 
 tible with the absence of anything 
 for which such a form of govern- 
 ment is usually desired. It is 
 now an ascertained fact, that the 
 people have no greater enemies to 
 liberty than themselves ; and that 
 universal suffrage is the surest 
 instrument to effect the objects of 
 a despot. Equality, in a repub- 
 lican sense, seems to imply a con- 
 dition in which all are equally debased ; and a nation appears to ba 
 never so thoroughly slavish as when it is free to choose its own ruler. 
 
 Tbe Romans had for some time been in the habit of placing them- 
 selves in the hands of a succession of tyrants and knaves, who obtained 
 popularity by the display of the worst attributes. One would win the 
 public voice by his boldness as a thief ; another would render himself 
 the elect of the people by his sanguinary successes as a wholesale 
 murderer. It is unfortunate for what is termed the liberal cause, that 
 the vulgarest qualities often attract the largest share of applause ; and 
 that those who are entrusted most freely with the confidence of the 
 people are almost always the most unscrupulous in betraying it. 
 
 Rome had now sunk to the lowest condition ; and society, under the 
 republic, had become so dissolute, that its dissolution might be looked 
 for as a natural consequence. Among the nobles of the period was a 
 certain mass of cruelty and corruption, under the name of Sergius 
 Catiline. He boasted of a long line in connection with his family tree ; 
 but a much shorter line, in connection with any ordinary tree, would 
 have been more appropriate to his merits. Having spent all his own 
 money, he spent as much as he could of other people's, by running into 
 debt as deeply as possible. In order to meet some of his old engage 
 ments sufficiently to enable him to contract new, he murdered his 
 orother, with a few more of his family connections, and, in fact, justified 
 the opinion formed of him on account of his antecedents, by killing his 
 
290 COMIC IIISTOKY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXIX. 
 
 relatives. Having obtained a Propraotorship in Africa, he followed vp 
 his career of private swindling, by the wholesale practice of public 
 robbery. He used his office for the purposes of extortion ; and the 
 only proof he gave of exactness was in the exactions to which he sub- 
 mitted all who were under his authority. 
 
 On his return to Rome he hoped to have a wider scope for his 
 dishonesty in the office of Consul, to which he aspired ; and he formed 
 a party of ruined spendthrifts, whose only chance of supporting them 
 selves was by supporting him as a candidate for power. These despe- 
 radoes had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, — all that they had 
 to lose being their own, and all that they had to gain being the property 
 of others. Catiline had attracted the sympathies of these adventurers 
 by promising to divide among them all the official salaries ; and he had 
 rallied round him a considerable number of adherents by offering to the 
 " million " an opportunity of helping themselves to that which did not 
 belong to them. He professed to be able to relieve all classes at once, 
 by relieving the poor of their burdens, and the rich of their property. 
 The dregs of the populace were easily stirred up, and even some of the 
 nominal nobles were base enough to join in a conspiracy against their 
 own order. The object of the conspiracy was to murder the whole of 
 the senate by a massacre en masse ; but the scheme was frustrated by 
 that treachery which is almost sure to be found among a set of men 
 who are banded together for a bad purpose. One Curius was induced 
 to gratify the curiosity of a woman, named Fulvia, with whom he was 
 in love ; and the secret having reached female ears, flew to the tip of a 
 female tongue, when the secret oozed out as naturally as water finding 
 its level. 
 
 Cicero, who had been the competitor of Catiline for the Consulship, 
 soon became aware of the facts ; and the former resolved to try and 
 talk the conspiracy down, by making it the subject of several bursts of 
 indignant eloquence. 
 
 On the entrance of so illustrious a person as Cicero on the historical 
 scene, it is fit that we should act the part of cicerone, for the purpose 
 of introducing him. This celebrated character was born on the 3rd of 
 January, in the year of the City 647, at Arpinum, where his father had 
 a seat before the future orator was capable of standing. His grand- 
 father was a man of some consideration, pecuniary as well as moral ; for 
 he was possessed of some property, and looked up to as an authority in 
 questions of local politics. He had two sons, the eldest of whom, 
 Marcus, was the father of the celebrated Marcus Tullius, from whom 
 the family has derived that indelible mark which time is not likely to 
 obliterate. After receiving the rudiments of his education at his native 
 place, he was sent to Rome, where he studied Greek ; and the flame of 
 oratory was first kindled in his mind by contact with the Greek poetic 
 fire. As soon as he had assumed the toga, he became wrapped up in 
 manly pursuits, and was placed under the care of Mucius Scaevola, the 
 augur, who augured extremely well of his pupil. The young Cicero 
 
CHAP. XXIX.] 
 
 CICERO. 
 
 291 
 
 soon evinced a turn for poetry, which caused his head to be constantly 
 running upon poetical feet; and he came out rather strong in numbers 
 
 at a very early period. At the appointed age he joined the army; for 
 the laws of his country required that on his entrance into life he should 
 incur the risk of being sent out of it. He was present in the Marsic 
 War, at the taking of the Samnite camp ; but being in-tent on another 
 part of the field, he saw little of the battle. At the end of the war he 
 devoted himself to literary pursuits, and wrote his work De Inventione, 
 which, in accordance with the maxim that necessity is the mother of 
 invention, no doubt derived its existence from the author's necessities. 
 
 He next studied the art of reasoning, under Diodorus, who came to- 
 live under Cicero's roof, so that the latter probably found, or rather 
 provided, lodging, while the Stoic "stood" the logic, which was 
 undoubtedly a reasonable consideration for the accommodation afforded 
 
 u2 
 
292 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [c&4?. XXIX. 
 
 him. In his twenty-sixth year Cicero came out regularly a* a professed 
 orator ; and the public voice soon accorded to his own a rr^utation of 
 the highest character. 
 
 After talking incessantly for nearly two years, he found it necessary 
 to take breath in retirement ; and proceeded to Athens and to Rhodes, 
 where he cultivated a more 6ubdued style of oratory, getting rid of a 
 disagreeable redundancy of action, and avoiding that motion, of course, 
 of the arms, which is the common defect of the youthful advocate. 
 
 On his return to Rome, after an absence of two years, he appeared 
 in the courts of law with distinguished success, and had the next best 
 business to those popular leaders, Cotta and Hortensius. The three 
 learned brethren were all of them successful candidates for the offices of 
 Consul and Quaestor, in the last of which capacity Cicero was sent to 
 Sicily. There his chief employment was to keep up a good supply of 
 wheat for the capital, and, by the production of large crops of corn, he 
 cultivated his growing popularity. During his Quaestorship he visited 
 Syracuse, and discovered the tomb of Archimedes, which was thoroughly 
 overgrown with briers, presenting an apt monument to one who had 
 trodden, during life, the thorny paths of science. Cicero left the 
 island with the pleasing idea that all Rome had been resounding with 
 the praises of his administration ; but, on landing at Puteoli, he was 
 not a little disgusted at meeting a friend who asked him " where he had 
 been, and what was the latest news in the city ? " Cicero, at once per 
 ceiving that out of sight and out of mind were the same thing, deter- 
 mined to keep himself henceforth in the public eye to prevent its being 
 6hut to his merits. 
 
 It was not long after this period of his history that he came into 
 collision with the conspirator, Catiline, whom he denounced before the 
 assembled Senate, in an oration which has been preserved to this day, 
 by the pungency of its sarcastic reasoning. Every sentence smacked of 
 Attic salt, and every word was so much pepper to the guilty Catiline 
 The latter attempted a reply ; but the senators were seized simultane- 
 ously with one of those coughs which spread like an influenza over an 
 unwilling audience. The mask was now fairly torn off; and Catiline 
 stood revealed in all his naturally atrocious features. He fled from 
 Rome ; but Cicero continued to show that though his hostility was all 
 talk, it was of the most effective kind ; for he sent forth speech after 
 speech, and every sentence involved a sentence of " guilty" against Cati- 
 line. All those conspirators who had remained in Rome were seized, and 
 strangled by the executioner, who, when they cried for pity, abruptly 
 choked their utterance. 
 
 The conspiracy, though in great part stifled, was not wholly extin- 
 guished ; for Catiline did his utmost to keep it alive, by assembling an 
 army in Etruria. There I13 was to have been opposed by the Consul, 
 C. Antonius ; but that individual pleaded illness, and declared that a 
 severe headache would preclude him from encountering the din of war, 
 while a hoarseness, which he said had seized him by the throat, iucapa- 
 
CHAP XXIX.} POMPEY. 293 
 
 citated him, as he alleged, for giving the word of command on trw 
 field of battle. His troops were, however, so determined on action, 
 that they no sooner heard of their general being an invalid, than they 
 insisted that his appointment was invalidated, and they proceeded to 
 business under the command of his legate, M. Petreius. A fierce 
 battle ensued, at Pistoria, and both sides fought like lions ; though, to 
 say he fought like a tiger would have been more appropriate to one of 
 the race of Cati-line. Nobody fled, if the accounts are to be believed ; 
 but 3000 conspirators fell with their swords in their hands, causing 
 a perfect mountain of slain ; and, to crown the whole, their leader 
 is alleged to have formed the summit of this cadaverous pyramid. 
 Those of the conspirators who were not killed by the sword were suffo- 
 cated under the heaps of their companions ; and the conspiracy itself 
 was effectually smothered. 
 
 Cicero having saved his country, went out of office, — a course exactly 
 opposite to that followed by modern statesmen, who sometimes quit the 
 service of their country when they have placed it in danger. He 
 received the thanks of the Senate ; was hailed as Pater Patrice, the 
 father of his country, and was invested with a civic crown, — a head- 
 dress of oak-leaves ; the material being a fitting type of that popularity 
 which falls away and is scattered to the winds with such fatal facility. 
 
 The fickleness of public favour was speedily shown in the case of 
 Cicero ; for it was proposed that Pompey should be recalled from Asia, 
 to restore the Constitution ; it being one of the inconveniences of a 
 republic, that though the constitution is said to be always the best in 
 the world, it is always in need of a succession of restoratives. Pompey 
 landed at Brundusium, where he disbanded all his army, in order to 
 show his attachment to republican simplicity, — a term which is often 
 misapplied ; for the simplicity of republicans consists chiefly in their 
 aptitude for being imposed upon. 
 
 Though Pompey arrived at Rome without his soldiers, he took care 
 to show his grateful sense of services to come, by causing every man of 
 them to receive a sum equal to about forty-five pounds sterling from the 
 public treasury. He devoted a portion of his gains to building a temple, 
 ostensibly to Minerva, but, in reality, dedicated to himself; for it was 
 inscribed with an account of his victories. 
 
 Having sought in vain the support of the Senate, he abandoned the 
 aristocratic party, and threw himself upon the people, who received him 
 with open arms ; but the arms that are open to admit a candidate for 
 popularity are often equally open to let him fall from his position. 
 
 As Pompey is destined to lose his life before the end of the chapter, 
 it may be as well to give some account of his birth, that the reader ma} 
 be able to estimate the loss at its true value. 
 
 Pompeius Cneius was born on the 30th of September, B.C. 106, a few 
 months later than Cicero, and breathed his first at about the time when 
 Jugurtha breathed his last, in a Roman prison. The family of Pompey 
 belonged to the plebs; and one of his ancestors may be said lo have 
 
294 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXIX 
 
 lived upon air, for he was by profession a flute-player. His father, 
 Pompeius Strabo, had imbibed aristocratic ideas, and fought in the 
 Marsic War ; but he seems to have despised the laurel of fame for the 
 more profitable branch of plunder. His wealth had been considerable ; 
 and after his death his son was accused of having participated in the 
 J 1- gotten gains, when young Pompey, knowing the corruption of the 
 tribunals, married the daughter of the judge, as a sure mode of getting 
 a decision in his favour. 
 
 His acquittal followed as a matter of course ; for when public officials 
 were immersed in every kind of selfishness and degradation, the sinking 
 of the judge in the father-in-law was comparatively venial. By dishonest 
 means the elder Pompey had come to a great estate, from a low condi- 
 tion ; and the son sought to hide, in the abundance of his means, the 
 meanness of his origin. He became proud and upstart, evincing a pre- 
 dilection for aristocracy, which often animates those of lofty talent and 
 low birth ; who frequently affect the littlenesses of the nominally great, 
 instead of showing that true greatness can exist among the so-called 
 little. Self-aggrandisement was his grand, or rather his petty, object ; 
 and he owes to his ignoble attempts to elevate himself, the low place he 
 occupies in the opinion of the impartial historian. 
 
 Soon after his return from Asia to Rome, he celebrated a triumph, 
 which had all the attributes of a vulgar puff ; for there were carried 
 before him long lists of his achievements, followed by several wagon- 
 loads of goods, the produce of much pillage. Finding his political 
 designs opposed by Cato and others, he was anxious to form a party of 
 his own ; and C. J Caesar, who saw the necessities of Pompey, deter- 
 mined on turning them to his own advantage. He made overtures, to 
 which the other listened, and effected a reconciliation between Pompey 
 and Crassus, who having both met, were capable of contributing in more 
 senses than one to the success of the plans of Caesar. These three 
 men entered into a sort of political union, which is usually distinguished 
 by the name of The First Triumvirate. 
 
 Caesar had become Consul in the year of the City 694, (b.c. 59) when 
 the party of the Senate, wishing to have a check upon him, practised 
 every sort of bribery to obtain the election of one Bibulus as his 
 colleague. This individual was a mere nobody, with a remarkable 
 deficiency of head ; and the small wits of the day were accustomed to 
 date their notes " in the Consulship of Julius and Caesar," instead of in 
 the Consulship of Caesar and Bibulus. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that despotism always looks for its tools 
 among those whom it designs for its victims ; and there are no instru- 
 ments so ready as the people themselves to put an end to popular liberty. 
 It is the policy of a tyrant to destroy all power but his own ; and the 
 destruction of legal authority is always favourable to those who are 
 playing the game of unprincipled ambition Caesar began by flattering 
 the people at the expense of the Senate ; and he enacted that records 
 of the proceedings of the latter should be published under the title of 
 
CHAP. XXIX.] CI.ODICS. 299 
 
 Acta Diurna, which may be regarded as the origin of our journals of the 
 House of Commons, and our daily newspapers. A second measure was 
 a sort of Insolvent Act, for the benefit of the farmers of the public 
 revenue, who, in their anxiety to obtain the contract, had offered more 
 than they could pay for the privilege of collecting the taxes. His third 
 great project was an agrarian law, in conformity with which any pauper 
 citizen who could show at least three children — whether genuine, or 
 borrowed for the occasion, it might have been difficult to ascertain — 
 were entitled to a grant of land in Campania. This premium on 
 improvident marriages called forth such an overwhelming demonstra- 
 tion of paternity, that the ground in Campania fell far short of the 
 quantity of fatherland that was required ; and it was necessary to pur 
 chase several thousands of acres, in order to widen the field for the 
 operations of Caesar. Bibulus opposed the measure ; but bis opposition, 
 though for the moment busy, proved idle in the end ; when, disgusted 
 with failure, he shut himself up in his house for the rest of the year ; 
 and every one said that he had been completely shut up by his more 
 powerful colleague. 
 
 Caesar was now more desirous than ever of a near alliance with 
 Pompey ; and, in order to draw the bands closer, the former gave his 
 daughter in marriage to the latter, though the gentleman was obliged to 
 put away his old wife, Mucia, to make room for the new ; and the lady, 
 Julia, was under the necessity of breaking off an engagement with an 
 intended husband. In order to constitute a strong family party for 
 carrying on the government, Caesar himself married Calpurnia, the 
 daughter of L. Calpurnius Piso, who, by means of private influence, was 
 made consul for the ensuing year with A. Gabinus. 
 
 It was customary for a retiring Consul to have a province assigned to 
 him for a single year ; but Caesar having worked all the principal public 
 departments with tools of his own, obtained, by a flagrant violation of the 
 Constitution, a prolonged lease of his own power. The rich provinces 
 of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyrium were assigned to him for five years ; 
 and Transalpine Gaul was afterwards added by the Senate, because 
 they saw the people were so completely under his influence, that they 
 would either have given him all he asked, or he would have taken all 
 he wanted without asking it. 
 
 Among the members of the aristocracy of this degenerate age of the 
 Eoman republic was one Clodius, whose name, like himself, was a cor- 
 ruption of Claudius, for he belonged to the family of the Claudii. 
 This disreputable profligate had obtained an infamous notoriety during 
 the festival of the Bona Dea, whose rites were celebrated on the first of 
 May ; and being conducted exclusively by women, the ceremony was no 
 doubt one of a most confused and tedious character. Clodius having dis- 
 guised himself in a female dress, passed unnoticed amid the din of many 
 tongues, till female curiosity detected him in a flirtation with the wife 
 of Caesar, whose house was the scene of the festival. Clodius was 
 brought to trial for the offence, aud sent a retainer to Cicero, with 
 
296 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 I CHAP. XXIX. 
 
 instructions to the orator to prove an alibi. Instead of following the 
 modern professional course of adopting any falsehood, however gross, 
 for the sake of a client, Cicero hurried into the opposite extreme, and, 
 indignantly throwing up his brief, not only rushed into the witness-box 
 
 Cicero throws up his Brief, like a Gentleman. 
 
 to give evidence against the accused, but threw up his cause in an 
 explosive burst of eloquence. Notwithstanding this remarkable instance 
 of honesty at the bar, there was so much corruption on the bench, that 
 Clodius bribed the judge by throwing into the scales of justice a sum of 
 gold which turned the balance in his favour. Clodius threatened 
 revenge, and promised to stick to Cicero through life, for having cast 
 him off, and refused to stick to him at such a momentous crisis. 
 
 Csesar, who was the person most interested in the subject of the law- 
 suit, allowed it to give him very little uneasiness ; for having divorced 
 his wife, he continued on terms of friendship with Clodius. The latter 
 became a candidate for the tribuneship ; but being disqualified by his 
 high birth, he got himself adopted into that for which nature had best 
 adapted him — a very low family. By a bargain with the Consuls he 
 obtained their support ; for he promised that if they helped him to the 
 tribuneship, he would assist them in helping themselves to a rich 
 province at the close of their year of office. The disgraceful arrange- 
 ment was completed, — the plunderers paying each other at the cost of 
 the public welfare. 
 
 Clodius immediately began to exercise his public authority for the 
 gratification of his private feelings ; and got a law passed for the sole 
 purpose of destroying Cicero. The orator looked to the triumvirate 
 for protection ; but Pompey went out of town ; Crassus remembered an 
 old grudge ; and Csosar sided with his friend Clodius. Cicero, without 
 
CHAP XXIX. J CICERO RETURNS FROM BANISHMENT. 297 
 
 waiting to take his trial, left the city, amid the lamentations of all tho 
 good, who formed a mourning party, far more select than numerous. 
 After his departure, sentence of outlawry was passed upon him ; his 
 house on the Palatine, and his two villas, were by the hand of demoli- 
 tion brought to the ground, while the rest of his property was brought 
 to the hammer at a public auction. 
 
 Clodius having been successful in the gratification of one of his 
 personal animosities, began to look about for other victims against 
 whom ho could put in force the power with which " the people " had 
 entrusted him. Recollecting that he had once been in the hands of 
 pirates, and that Ptolemy, King of Cyprus, had declined to rescue him, 
 he passed a law that Ptolemy should be at once deposed ; and he, in 
 order to kill two unfortunate birds with one stone, got rid of Cato, 
 by sending him to take possession of Cyprus as a Roman province. 
 Ptolemy, instead of meeting the matter with spirit, met it with a dose 
 of laudanum, and so far forgot himself as to seek in suicide forgetfulness 
 of his sorrows. 
 
 Cicero employed his exile in lamenting his fate ; and though by 
 profession a dealer in philosophy, he had no stock on hand for his own 
 use, when its consolation was required. He sent whining letters to his 
 wife ; and his signature was so bedewed with tears, that he left a blot 
 upon his name, through his unmanly weakness. 
 
 Clodius being no longer Consul, a portion of the incubus which 
 ttifled the breath of freedom was removed, and the public voice ventured 
 so make itself heard in demanding the recall of Cicero. The orator 
 returned in triumph ; and he showed his gratitude by supporting any 
 measure that was proposed by any of those who had been influential in 
 bringing him home again. His advocacy was demanded, and freely 
 given, in favour of many a disgraceful proceeding on the part of his 
 friends ; and he undertook the defence of Gabinius, who had carried on 
 a system of extortion in Syria. 
 
 Rome was now completely in the hands of an ambitious party, which,, 
 by means of armed mercenaries, disposed of the lives, the liberties, and 
 even the opinions of the citizens. Pompey and Crassus, at the instiga- 
 tion of Csesar, put up for the Consulship a second time, when an oppo- 
 sition candidate, L. Domitius, having come forward, his servant was cut 
 down by the soldiers before his face, as a hint to those who should 
 presume to hold an opinion adverse to the existing authority. The 
 candidate having seen the skull of his domestic split, feared an equally 
 decisive plumper for his own poll, and retired into private life, leaving 
 the executive to be re-elected without any attempt at opposition. The 
 temporary powers of each member of the triumvirate were, by treachery 
 and violence, prolonged for five years ; and Cato, who ventured on an 
 opinion that the step was not quite in accordance with the constitution 
 or the law, was unceremoniously thrown into prison. Right was in all 
 cases made completely subservient to might ; and the competitors for 
 power kept armed ruffians in their pay, whose collisions with each 
 
298 «OMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXIX. 
 
 other were often of the most desperate character. In one of these 
 encounters between the creatures of Clodius and the mercenaries of 
 Milo, the former was killed, which caused the latter to be put upon his 
 trial. Cicero was engaged to defend the accused ; but Pompey, who 
 hated Milo, had taken care to surround the former with an armed 
 force, which so intimidated Cicero, that his tongue stuck to his mouth, 
 when he himself ought to have stuck to his client. The orator had not 
 a word to say for himself, or rather for Milo ; and as not a sentence 
 was said in his favour, a sentence was pronounced against him. He 
 <vent into exile at Marseilles; and Cicero, with tardy zeal, wrote a 
 defence when the trial was over. He sent a copy of it to Milo, who 
 pronounced it excellent in its way, but a little too late ; and he added, 
 in writing to Cicero, " If you had only delivered it in time, you would 
 have delivered me from the dilemma I was placed in." 
 
CBAP. XXX. J 
 
 OVERTHROW OF CRASSUS. 
 
 299 
 
 CHAPTER THE THIRTIETH. 
 
 OVERTHROW OF CRASSUS. DEFEAT OF POMPEY. DICTATORSHIP AND DEATH 
 OF CESAR. END OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC. 
 
 .esar's proceedings in Gaul are sufficiently 
 familiar to enable us to treat them with 
 a sort of contempt, by omitting even the 
 heads of the oft-repeated tale from our 
 history. Though his arms were abroad, 
 his eye was at home, and he watched the 
 affairs of Rome with a jealous interest 
 His confederates, Pompey and Crassus, 
 had quarrelled ; and the former fell out 
 with Caesar ; so that there, was a differ- 
 ence between the triumvirate, though 
 they were all three alike in their un- 
 scrupulous designs upon the common- 
 wealth. 
 
 Crassus was busy in his province of 
 Syria, laying his hands on every thing 
 of any value, until somebody laid hands upon him, notwithstand- 
 ing his worthlessness. His engagement with the Parthians was a short 
 passage in his life, which led to his death ; for he had been induced by 
 treachery to plunge into the mess of the Mesopotamian deserts. There 
 he encountered an army which endeavoured to strike terror into the 
 Romans, by brayings, bellowings, the beating of drums, and every kind 
 of hollow artifice. The Parthians, who were skilful in the use of the 
 bow, sent forth such a shower of arrows, that fury darted into many an 
 eye, and on many a lip there was a quiver. Crassus began to faint, 
 and went into a sort of hysterics, highly incompatible with historic 
 dignity. The enemy, however, tried a feint of a different kind, and 
 pretended to run away ; but when pursued, turned suddenly round, 
 galloped upon the Romans through a sand-hill, thus raising so much 
 dust, that the latter were obliged to lick it, as their mouths were full of 
 it. In this position they were assailed with arrows, which having been 
 6hot . at their feet, pinned many of them to the ground ; and their 
 hands being skewered in the same manner to their breasts, they could 
 neither fly nor defend themselves.* The horses might still have 
 charged ; but when the poor creatures arrived at the Parthian pikes, 
 they were obliged to pull up rather suddenly. The cavalry being cut 
 
 * Those who doubt the accuracy of this description, may consult Plutarch's " Life 
 *f Crassus." 
 
300 COMIC R-tS'."9RY OF ROME. [CHAP. XXX 
 
 to pieces, Crassus and some of his footmen retired to a sand-hill for 
 safety ; hut they soon found the error of building their hopes on such a 
 foundation. Crassus himself hid his head in the sand, and would see- 
 nobody ; but ultimately he was induced to enter into a negotiation with 
 the Parthian general. In the course of the parley a little misunder- 
 standing arose, when some of the parties present began to push each 
 other about, first with their hands, then with their clenched fists, and 
 ultimately with their weapons. At length Octavius, who had accom- 
 panied Crassus, drew his sword, and killed a groom, when somebody 
 else killed Octavius ; and the assassination having once fairly — or 
 unfairly — set in, Crassus himself was soon disposed of. The King of 
 the Parthians caused the head of Crassus to be filled with gold, as in 
 his lifetime he had devoted all his faculties to the accumulation oi 
 the metal. 
 
 By the death of Crassus, the triumvirate was reduced to a duumvirate, 
 and jealousies arose between Pompey and Csesar; but as the people 
 seemed to think that two heads at loggerheads were better than one 
 having everything its own way, the opposing tyrants were left by the 
 public to fight their own battles. The great prize for which they were 
 now contending was the army, which is too often exposed to the degra- 
 dation of being reckoned upon as the sure means of crushing everything 
 in the shape of law and liberty. 
 
 Csesar had certainly obtained the attachment of his soldiers ; for he 
 had shared their dangers ; but the vain upstart, Pompey, had no more 
 claim upon the army than he could establish by corrupting them. 
 Caesar held them by their affections, but Pompey hoped to unite them' 
 to him by those golden links which never fix themselves to the heart,, 
 though effecting a sort of temporary hanging-on to the pocket. Csesar 
 stood on the bank of the Rubicon, which divided his province of Gaui 
 from Italy, and, looking at the surface of the river, he was soon 
 absorbed in his own reflections. He knew it was against the law to 
 cross the stream with an army ; but after looking at both sides, and 
 feeling his position to be that of sink or swim, he made a bold plunge, 
 with one of his legions after him. The Rubicon was now passed ; and 
 Pompey, hearing of Caesar's approach, was struck with such a panic 
 before he had received any real blow, that he had at once quitted the 
 city. So great was his haste, that he omitted even to follow his natural 
 bent, and went away without robbing the treasury. The tyrant is so 
 frequently associated in the same person with the coward, that the 
 ignoble retreat of Pompey was the natural sequel to his previous des- 
 potism ; for that which passes for boldness of action may be prompted 
 by the fears of the knave, instead of by the courage of the hero. 
 
 Caesar arrived at Rome, which had become freed from the presence of 
 one tyrant, to receive another ; and the people certainly deserved all 
 they got, or rather all they lost; for they conferred upon the despot 
 many marks of popularity. When he wanted money, he burst open tho 
 treasury-door like a thief; and when opposed in the name of the law, ho 
 cut down everything in the shape of objection, like a butcher. 
 
<HAP. XXX. J 
 
 CESAR PURSUES POMPEY. 
 
 30i 
 
 Caesar next proceeded to Spain, but only to be recalled as Dictator, t« 
 which office he had been illegally nominated by one of his creatures, 
 the Praetor, M. Lepidus. Having laid down the dictatorship in eleven 
 days, during which period he laid down the law on some very important 
 questions, including that of debtor and creditor, Caesar abandoned his 
 legislative pursuits, and started in pursuit of Pompey. The latter had 
 proceeded to Greece, where the former suffered much inconvenience in 
 trying to manage the movements of his army. Only a portion of his 
 troops having got across the water, he became so impatient at the non- 
 arrival of the rest, that he went to see after them by going to sea 
 himself in disguise, on board a small fishing-boat. The winds were 
 extremely contrary, and were blowing the vessel back, with a force 
 threatening to dismast her, and to the utmost dismay of the master, 
 when Caesar, who was sitting at the stern, put on a stern look, ex- 
 claiming, " Quid times ? Casarem vekis." " What are you afraid 
 of? You carry Caesar as a passenger." At this moment the vessel 
 gave a lurch, and the heels of Caesar were suddenly brought to 
 
 uuid times? Cn'.sarem velii 
 
302 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. [CHAP. XX K 
 
 the level at -which his head had the moment before been visible. 
 The mariner was about to ask for further explanation, and had got 
 " Quid ? " in his mouth, when a wave completely washed him up, and 
 he remained in soak for the rest of the voyage. The vessel was driven 
 back, and Caesar, who was wet through, as well as in despair, sat 
 wringing alternately his hands and his toga. 
 
 At length, soon after his return to his camp, his army was brought 
 to him by Antony ; but provisions were so scarce, that the soldiers had 
 to live upon bark, which proves that the unlucky " dogs of war " were 
 exposed to the most biting necessities. There, however, they continued, 
 without being subdued; and, indeed, the bark seems to have made 
 them more than usually snappish ; for they threw some of it into the 
 hostile camp, and declared they would live upon grass ; nor would they 
 lay down their swords while there was a single blade remaining. 
 
 Caesar encountered some slight reverses, and took up bis quarters at 
 Pharsalia, where he might have been blocked in and starved out, had 
 not Pompey been taunted into attacking him. Caesar was delighted at 
 that imprudence, the fruits of which were speedily shown ; for Pompey 's 
 army was utterly routed ; and Pompey himself, retreating to his tent, 
 was literally sick at the disgusting result of his enterprise. " The 
 way in which my soldiers turned their backs," exclaimed Pompey to an 
 intimate friend, "has positively turned my stomach ;" and he was only 
 sufficiently recovered on the following day to start via Lesbos for 
 Egypt. There ill-fortune still awaited him ; for Ptolemy, the young 
 king, instead of receiving the outcast with hospitality, was advised to 
 put him to death, as a little compliment to Caesar. Septimius, a Roman, 
 who had served under Pompey, was sent to meet him, with instructions 
 to stab him in the back ; and the victim had no sooner felt the blow, 
 than, according to the custom of the period, he arranged the folds of his 
 robe across his face, so that although very disgracefully killed, he might 
 very gracefully expire. His wife, Cornelia, who witnessed the scene, 
 sailed away as fast as she could from the melancholy sight, leaving no 
 one but an old servant, named Philip, to perform not only the funeral, 
 but all the characters that the performance required. He was, in fact, 
 the undertaker of the whole of the sad ceremony, and attended as sole 
 mourner at the melancholy undertaking. 
 
 On the arrival of Caesar in Egypt, he was welcomed by having the 
 head of Pompey put into his hand ; but the former turned away in 
 disgust, and at once dropped his old animosity. 
 
 Being detained by contrary winds at Alexandria, Caesar entered into 
 the disputes between Cleopatra and her elder brother Ptolemy ; when 
 the young lady, relying on her powers of fascination, caused herself to 
 be brought, concealed in a mattress,* into the presence of the Roman 
 general. Having emerged from under the bed, she pleaded her cause 
 so earnestly, that he went to war on her account with her brother, who 
 
 * This story of the mattress, though gravely told, is somewhat doubtful, and is hardly 
 worth the straw involved in it. 
 
CHAP. XXX.] CATO. 303 
 
 ultimately fell into the water ; thus causing the drowning of himself 
 and all his enmity. Cleopatra reigned in Egypt ; and Caesar was so 
 enslaved by her charms, that he remained nine months on a visit ; nor 
 would he have torn himself away, but for the intelligence that 
 Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, was endeavouring to recover his 
 father's lost possessions. Hurrying to Pontus, he looked out for the 
 enemy, drew his sword, struck one decisive blow, and in the memorable 
 words, " Veni, vidi, vici," he set an example of the laconic style, which 
 no writer of military despatches has since followed. 
 
 Disturbances had by this time broken out at Rome ; and in order to 
 repair the evil, Caesar was obliged to repair himself to the capital. So 
 much enthusiasm had been excited by the battle of Pharsalia — for the 
 people are always too ready to lick the hand which seems capable of 
 striking them — that Caesar had been elected Dictator for one year, 
 Consul for five, and Tribune for his whole lifetime. 
 
 The fact is, that Rome had become so thoroughly tired of the con 
 tinual contests for the chief power, which a republican form of 
 government necessarily invites, that the nation yearned for a permanent 
 head, and eagerly adopted the very first that offered. It was thought 
 better to be the slaves of one despotic adventurer, than the victims of 
 half-a-dozen; and even absolutism was preferred to the republican 
 system, which had kept the country so long exposed to laceration at the 
 hands of those who were trying to snatch it from each other, without 
 being able to govern it. 
 
 After a short stay in Rome, during which he exhibited his power by 
 making various arbitrary changes in the Law and Constitution — for it is 
 the tendency of a republic to place a whole nation at the will of one man 
 — Caesar proceeded to Africa, with the view of quelling there the party 
 opposed to him. He marched against Utica, which was governed by 
 Cato, who, when he ought to have been preparing to fight, was standing 
 upon ceremony, and politely insisting that Scipio ought to take the 
 command, as being the man of the highest rank present. Scipio, who 
 was not ambitious of the foremost place in the field, declared that 
 the pretended deference to his rank was rank nonsense, and that Cato 
 must assume his proper position. The Governor, however, persisted ; 
 and Scipio went forth to fight ; but he seems to have killed nobody 
 except himself, while Juba and the legate Petreius, two other bravo 
 fellows on the same side, slew each other. 
 
 Cato, trembling for the fate of Utica, called a meeting of the Senate, 
 which resolved unanimously to run away ; and the Governor went home 
 to supper. On retiring to his chamber he called for his sword, which 
 was nowhere to be found ; and he became so irritated, that he savagely 
 struck the domestic who returned without the missing weapon. At 
 length it turned out that " one of the young gentlemen had got it ;" 
 for the sword was brought to Cato by his eldest son, and it was quietly 
 put away for the night under the old gentleman's pillow. Cato went to 
 bed, and fell asleep while reading one of Plato's dialogues. Waking 
 
304 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME [CHAP. XXX. 
 
 again at dawn, he rose, and having methodically finished the perusal oi 
 the dialogue he had commenced over-night, he ran himself through the 
 body. His attendants rushed in, and sewed up the wound ; but they 
 had no sooner turned their backs, than — if we are to believe the autho- 
 rities, which we confess we cannot at all times — he either undid 
 the numerous stitches in his side, or ran himself through the body 
 again ; and, with a compliment in his mouth to the excellence of the 
 reasoning of Plato, expired. 
 
 Cato was only eight-and-forty at the time of his death ; and therefore, 
 though in the course of nature too young to die, he was quite old 
 enough to have known better than to kill himself. The graver histo- 
 rians inform us, that " he died the death of a hero and a philosopher;" 
 but being unable to appreciate the heroism of running away from mis- 
 fortune, instead of meeting it, or the philosophy of refusing to endure 
 what one cannot cure, we must beg to be allowed to differ from the 
 serious writers, who generally hold up suicide as a subject for respect 
 and admiration. Caesar was, of course, deeply affected on hearing of 
 Cato's decease ; but such affectation was common in those days ; and 
 there was nothing extraordinary in Caesar's having gone into mourning 
 for the man whose death he had long been compassing 
 
 The victorious general now returned to Rome, where he might have 
 obtained as long a lease as he pleased of almost unlimited power. He 
 was named Dictator for ten years ; and, instead of pursuing the ordi- 
 nary practice of tyranny, which abuses the greatest power to gratify the 
 pettiest spite, Caesar not only made no proscriptions, but declared a 
 general amnesty. He celebrated four triumphs, and gave a succession 
 of banquets ; for he knew that there is no more portentous grumbling 
 than that which proceeds from an empty stomach. 
 
 Being entrusted with supreme power, he turned it, in many instances, 
 to good account ; and introduced, among other wholesome regulations, the 
 very valuable reform of the Roman Calendar. This was an improvement, 
 not merely for the day, but for all time, and has handed down the name 
 of its author to every age, and every civilised country, in every almanack. 
 
 In these and similar salutary occupations he was disturbed by an 
 insurrection in Spain, headed by the two sons of Pompey, Cneius and 
 Sextus, whom he encountered, on Saturday, the 17th of March, 
 B. c. 45, on the field of Munda. The battle, though ultimately decisive, 
 was at first doubtful ; for Caesar's troops had commenced retreating, when 
 their want of spirit so dispirited him, that, as they ran away, he was 
 near making away with himself, by the mere force of sympathy. By a 
 last effort, however, he succeeded in stopping the fugitives, and asked 
 them if they were mad, to display such fligktiness. His appeal was 
 successful ; and, having first come to themselves, they fell upon th» 
 enemy. Cneius made for the shore, and was getting into a 6hip, when 
 a rope caught his foot, and he remained tied by the leg in a most 
 perilous position. Having endeavoured for some time to effect his own 
 axtrication from the cable, which proved utterly impracti-cable, he called 
 
CHAP. XXX.] cdbSAR BECOMES DICTATOR. 305 
 
 to one of his companions, who endeavoured to cut the rope, and in 
 doing so, wounded Cneius. The unhappy sufferer attempted to fly, 
 but being pursued to within an inch of his life, he naturally had not a 
 foot to spare; and finding himself deprived of the use of one of his legs ; 
 he was, of course, in a sad hobble. He had got on shore, and had just 
 placed his foot in a doctor's hands, when he was overtaken and killed 
 by the enemy. His brother Sextus made his escape ; and his hopes of 
 rulership being at an end, he commenced the trade of a robber, which is 
 not a very different kind of business from that of government in the 
 days of military despotism. 
 
 On Coesar's return to Rome he was received with increased adulation, 
 though his victory had been over the Romans themselves ; who, by 
 acquiescing in their own degradation, became fully deserving of all the 
 acts of tyranny they were made the victims of. Success, however, is 
 the idol to which the multitude will bow, let the object of adoration be 
 either good or evil ; and it is only when the latter encounters the fall, 
 which, sooner or later, must be its inevitable fate, that the Vox Del is 
 really echoed by the Vox Pojmli. 
 
 We must, however, accept with caution the accounts of the rejoicings 
 that are described as attending the dictatorship of one who had so com- 
 pletely subjugated his country, that murder or banishment, without trial, 
 had become the certain fate of every one who should venture to express 
 the smallest disapprobation of any of his measures. Nothing is easier 
 than for one who ha3 a drawn sword ready for every hostile throat, to 
 style himself the " father of his country," and to exercise the ancient 
 privilege of paternity by taking the lives of such of his children as 
 might rebel against his parental authority. It was easy to decree a 
 thanksgiving of fifty days, and to obtain its outward observance, when 
 instant death at the hands of a mercenary might be the fate of any one 
 expressing a doubt as to having much to be grateful for. The statues of 
 the usurper were placed in all the temples ; but this was no test of true 
 popularity ; for if an armed band should break into our house, take 
 forcible possession of all its contents, rob us of all we possess, and spend 
 a portion of the proceeds in placing a bust of the head of the banditti in 
 our principal apartments, it would be no proof of his being a favourite 
 of ours. He decreed himself imperator, or Emperor, for life, — a pro- 
 ceeding no less impudent than that of a burglar, who, having broken 
 into our premises, calls himself the landlord of the property. He 
 declared his own person sacred — a poor consolation for a tyrant who 
 knows that there is a curse which must eventually be brought terribly 
 down upon all injustice and iniquity. He seized upon half the 
 magistracies, as his own private property, to be given away by himself; 
 and he virtually seized upon the other half, by claiming ihe nomination 
 of the candidates. He was, in fact, supreme and sole master of the 
 Republic ; and without any one of the conditions which are absolutely 
 essential to the permanency of power. His usurpation had neicner 
 law, morality, justice, nor reason — nor even that hollowest of ali 
 mockeries, expediency — to rest upoD The first utterance of tho 
 
 x 
 
i^G COMIC HISTORY OF HOME. [CHAP. XXX 
 
 public voice, -when free to speak, must have overwhelmed him with oue 
 shout of indignant execration ; and the first movement of the popular 
 arm, when freed from its ignoble paralysis, must have hurled him from 
 power. 
 
 Some supporters of the miserable and unprincipled fallacy, that the 
 end justifies the means, have pointed to some of Caesar's salutary acts, 
 as an excuse for his usurpation ; but that right can never result from 
 wrong, is shown in the fate which the Dictator soon met with. His 
 aim was evidently the monarchy ; and his adherent, Antony, caused a 
 statue of Caesar to be crowned ; when two Tribunes seeing the diadem, 
 and perceiving that there was an intention of trying it on, ordered it to 
 be taken off again. The Dictator of the republic was so offended at 
 this outrage on the symbols of monarchy, that he was on the point of 
 putting the Tribunes to death, when it was suggested to him that 
 exile might do as well, and he accordingly sent them into banishment. 
 
 It is one of the numerous penalties of iniquity, that its own 
 example may be followed in opposition to itself; and that he who uses 
 lawlessness and violence to attain his fends, may find them conducing to 
 his own, in a sense he had not expected. The sentiments which, in 
 contact with the open air of freedom, form the wholesome breath of 
 public opinion, can never be stifled and pent up, without generating the 
 foul and dangerous vapours of conspiracy. This noxious poison speedily 
 forms itself among an enslaved people, and an explosion eventually 
 takes place, which removes a load of oppression, and clears the political 
 atmosphere. 
 
 A conspiracy had been for some time forming against Caesar's life ; 
 and a band of about sixty, headed by M. Brutus and C. Cassius, had 
 resolved on his downfall. The Dictator kept continually aiming at the 
 crown, which he might perhaps have worn in dignity and safety, had he 
 i ought to gain it by honest means ; for the nation had become so 
 heartily sick of the alternate farce and tragedy cf a Eepublic, that the 
 necessity for some permaneut authority baecd on law was on all hands 
 admitted. He had, however, tried to effect his object by the cunning 
 of a knave, the audacity of a thief, and the inhumanity of a butcher. 
 
 When a sovereign is really wanted, much may be done for a candidate 
 who has circumstances, seconded by prudence, honour, and ability, 'on 
 his side ; but that crown is not worth an hour's purchase which is 
 soized by force, fraud, and cruelty. The last trick of Caesar, in trying 
 to turn his usurpation into a right, was a pi*etence that the Sibylline 
 books, having declared the Parthians could be conquered by none but a 
 king, it was necessary to make him one. The Senate was to meet to 
 consider the matter, on the 15th of March, in Pompey's Curia, where 
 now stands the Palazzo Massimi. The professional augurs had already 
 begun to prophesy, on the strength of those shadows which precede 
 coming events ; and Caesar was so puffed up with self-conceit, and the 
 people had been so long his abject slaves, that he had almost learned 
 to believe the world would never throw off the atom that had got to the 
 top of it His wife bad, it is said, an unfavourable dream, on the day 
 
OHAP. XXX. j DFATH OF CiESAB. 307 
 
 previous to the meeting ; but Caesar smiled at her warnings, and told 
 her that her night-mare proceeded from some ridiculous mare's nest 
 Caesar walked down to the house of assembly, chatting arm-in-arm with 
 the Consul, Decimus Brutus. Seeing in the crowd an augur, who had 
 told him to beware of the Ides of March, Caesar observed, smiling, 
 " Well, here they are ; and here am I ;" to which, " Wait till they are 
 gone, and then where are you ? " was the only reply of the soothsayer. 
 
 The secret of the conspiracy, which had been hitherto well kept, now 
 began to ooze out in all directions ; and nearly everybody that Caesar 
 met thrust a paper into his hand, or dropped a whisper into his ear ; 
 but he would read and listen to nothing. 
 
 The Senators rose on his entrance ; and when he took his seat the 
 conspirators got round about him, until one of them, Metellus 
 Cimber, came rather intrusively to close quarters, with a petition 
 Caesar gave him a slight push, as a hint to him to keep his distance ; 
 and Cimber, as if to catch himself, took hold of the Dictator's toga, 
 which was the signal agreed upon. Casca instantly stabbed him in the 
 neck, when Cassius followed up the blow with a poke in the ribs ; and 
 Brutus had raised his hand with a dagger in it, when Caesar exclaiming, 
 " Et tu, Brute ! "— And you! — you, Brute! — staggered to the foot of 
 Pompey's statue, that he might form a tableau as he expired. 
 
 The republic was now virtually, if not nominally, at an end, though 
 a faint struggle was still made by the murderers of Caesar, who ran 
 through the streets, proclaiming that they had killed a king, but 
 obtained no praise for the achievement. Antony, on the other hand, 
 created an immense sensation, by exhibiting the identical toga in 
 which Cajsar had fallen, and thrusting his ten fingers through twice as 
 many large holes, which he declared had been made by the assassins' 
 daggers. Not satisfied with making the most of Caesar's wardrobe, 
 Antony appropriated the money of the deceased ; and while the widow 
 was wrapped in grief, with her face buried in her hands, her lute 
 husband's friend was carrying off all he could lay his hands upon. 
 Antony had been at once grasping and prodigal, giving away with one 
 hand what he had snatched with the other ; and buying at a liberal 
 price what he had no means of paying for. 
 
 His rival in the contest for the supreme power was Octavius, the 
 sou of a daughter of Caesar's sister, and who, with no other qualification 
 than that of nephew to his uncle, had the impudence to claim absolute 
 dominion over a great but broken-spirited nation. This individual was 
 without character or courage ; and though afraid to be left in the dark, 
 he was still more afraid of the light ; for he felt that his own actions 
 would not bear looking at. His cowardice had the usual effect upon 
 him, for it made him cruel ; and though there was nothing but his 
 name to make him a favourite with the army, he had betrayed the 
 soldiers into the disgrace of turning their arms on their feilow-citizens. 
 By a constant use of the name of his uncle, he succeeded in opening a 
 people who sought only permanence in their institutions ; and Antor.y 
 being ultimately subdued, more by his own feebleness a-s a voluptuary. 
 
308 
 
 COMIC HISTORY OF ROME. 
 
 [CHAP XXX. 
 
 than by the strength of his opponent, an empire fell into the hands of 
 Octavius. He was invested with the title of Imperator for life ; and 
 he retained his position till his death — a circumstance to be attributed 
 to the conviction that had been brought home to the popular mind, tha 
 the constant changing of the head of a State is a source of constan 
 danger to the peace and happiness of the whole community. 
 
 rri« w 
 
 UM 
 
 ir . 
 
 The End of Julius Caasar. 
 
 BRADBCRY, AGNEW, &, CO., PRINTERS, wniTEFRtARS. 
 
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