Lays of Ancient Rome Part 9

With all his wit, he little deems, that, spurned, betrayed, bereft, Thy father hath in his despair one fearful refuge left.

He little deems that in this hand I clutch what still can save Thy gentle youth from taunts and blows, the portion of the slave; Yea, and from nameless evil, that pa.s.seth taunt and blow-- Foul outrage which thou knowest not, which thou shalt never know.

Then clasp me round the neck once more, and give me one more kiss; And now mine own dear little girl, there is no way but this."

With that he lifted high the steel, and smote her in the side, And in her blood she sank to earth, and with one sob she died.

Then, for a little moment, all people held their breath; And through the crowded Forum was stillness as of death; And in another moment brake forth from one and all A cry as if the Volscians were coming o'er the wall.

Some with averted faces shrieking fled home amain; Some ran to call a leech; and some ran to lift the slain; Some felt her lips and little wrist, if life might there be found; And some tore up their garments fast, and strove to stanch the wound.

In vain they ran, and felt, and stanched; for never truer blow That good right arm had dealt in fight agains a Volscian foe.

When Appius Claudius saw that deed, he shuddered and sank down, And hid his face some little s.p.a.ce with the corner of his gown, Till, with white lips and bloodshot eyes, Virginius tottered nigh, And stood before the judgment-seat, and held the knife on high.

"Oh! dwellers in the nether gloom, avengers of the slain, By this dear blood I cry to you, do right between us twain; And even as Appius Claudius hath dealt by me and mine, Deal you by Appius Claudius and all the Claudian line!"

So spake the slayer of his child, and turned, and went his way; But first he cast one haggard glance to where the body lay, And writhed, and groaned a fearful groan, an then, with steadfast feet, Strode right across the market-place unto the Sacred Street.

Then up sprang Appius Claudius: "Stop him; alive or dead!

Ten thousand pounds of copper to the man who brings his head."

He looked upon his clients; but none would work his will.

He looked upon his lictors, but they trembled, and stood still.

And, as Virginius through the press his way in silence cleft, Ever the mighty mult.i.tude fell back to right and left.

And he hath pa.s.sed in safety unto his woeful home, And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds are done in Rome.

By this the flood of people was swollen from every side, And streets and porches round were filled with that o'erflowing tide; And close around the body gathered a little train Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain.

They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cypress crown, And gently they uplifted her, and gently laid her down.

The face of Appius Claudius wore the Claudian scowl and sneer, And in the Claudian note he cried, "What doth this rabble here?

Have they no crafts to mind at home, that hitherward they stray?

Ho! lictors, clear the market-place, and fetch the corpse away!"

The voice of grief and fury till then had not been loud; But a deep sullen murmur wandered among the crowd, Like the moaning noise that goes before the whirlwind on the deep, Or the growl of a fierce watch-dog but half aroused from sleep.

But when the lictors at that word, tall yeomen all and strong, Each with his axe and sheaf of twigs, went down into the throng, Those old men say, who saw that day of sorrow and of sin, That in the Roman Forum was never such a din.

The wailing, hooting, cursing, the howls of grief and hate, Were heard beyond the Pincian Hill, beyond the Latin Gate.

But close around the body, where stood the little train Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain, No cries were there, but teeth set fast, low whispers and black frowns, And breaking up of benches, and girding up of gowns.

'Twas well the lictors might not pierce to where the maiden lay, Else surely had they been all twelve torn limb from limb that day.

Right glad they were to struggle back, blood streaming from their heads, With axes all in splinters, and raiment all in shreads.

Then Appius Claudius gnawed his lip, and the blood left his cheek, And thrice he beckoned with his hand, and thrice he strove to speak; And thrice the tossing Forum set up a frightful yell: "See, see, thou dog! what thou hast done; and hide thy shame in h.e.l.l!

Thou that wouldst make our maidens slaves must first make slaves of men.

Tribunes! Hurrah for Trubunes! Down with the wicked Ten!"

And straightway, thick as hailstones, came whizzing through the air, Pebbles, and bricks, and potsherds, all round the curule chair: And upon Appius Claudius great fear and trembling came, For never was a Claudius yet brave against aught but shame.

Though the great houses love us not, we own, to do them right, That the great houses, all save one, have borne them well in fight.

Still Caius of Corioli, his triumphs and his wrongs, His vengeance and his mercy, live in our camp-fire songs.

Beneath the yoke of Furius oft have Gaul and Tuscan bowed: And Rome may bear the pride of him of whom herself is proud.

But evermore a Claudius shrinks from a stricken field, And changes color like a maid at sight of sword and shield.

The Claudian triumphs all were won within the city towers; The Claudian yoke was never pressed on any necks but ours.

A Cossus, like a wild cat, springs ever at the face; A Fabius rushes like a boar against the shouting chase; But the vile Claudian litter, raging with currish spite, Still yelps and snaps at those who run, still runs from those who smite.

So now 'twas seen of Appius. When stones began to fly, He shook, and crouched, and wrung his hands, and smote upon his thigh.

"Kind clients, honest lictors, stand by me in this fray!

Must I be torn in pieces? Home, home the nearest way!"

While yet he spake, and looked around with a bewildered stare, Four st.u.r.dy lictors put their necks beneath the curule chair; And fourscore clients on the left, and fourscore on the right, Arrayed themselves with swords and staves, and loins girt up to fight.

But, though without or staff or sword, so furious was the throng, That scarce the train with might and main could bring their lord along.

Twelve times the crowd made at him; five times they seized his gown; Small chance was his to rise again, if once they got him down: And sharper came the pelting; and evermore the yell,-- "Tribunes! we will have Tribunes!"-- rose with a louder swell: And the chair tossed as tosses a bark with tattered sail When raves the Adriatic beneath an eastern gale, When Calabrian sea-marks are lost in clouds of spume, And the great Thunder-Cape has donned his veil of inky gloom.

One stone hit Appius in the mouth, and one beneath the ear; And ere he reached Mount Palatine, he swooned with pain and fear.

His cursed head, that he 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.

As Appius Claudius was that day, so may his grandson be!

G.o.d send Rome one such other sight, and send me there to see!

The Prophecy of Capys

It can hardly be necessary to remind any reader that according to the popular tradition, Romulus, after he had slain his granduncle Amulius, and restored his grandfather Numitor, determined to quit Alba, the hereditary domain of the Sylvian princes, and to found a new city. The G.o.ds, it was added, vouchsafed the clearest signs of the favor with which they regarded the enterprise, and of the high destinies reserved for the young colony.

This event was likely to be a favorite theme of the old Latin minstrels. They would naturally attribute the project of Romulus to some divine intimation of the power and prosperity which it was decreed that his city should attain. They would probably introduce seers foretelling the victories of unborn Consuls and Dictators, and the last great victory would generally occupy the most conspicuous place in the prediction. There is nothing strange in the supposition that the poet who was employed to celebrate the first great triumph of the Romans over the Greeks might throw his song of exultation into this form.

The occasion was one likely to excite the strongest feelings of national pride. A great outrage had been followed by a great retribution. Seven years before this time, Lucius Posthumius Megellus, who sprang from one of the n.o.blest houses of Rome, and had been thrice Consul, was sent amba.s.sador to Tarentum, with charge to demand reparation for grievous injuries. The Tarentines gave him audience in their theatre, where he addressed them in such Greek as he could command, which, we may well believe, was not exactly such as Cineas would have spoken. An exquisite sense of the ridiculous belonged to the Greek character; and closely connected with this faculty was a strong propensity to flippancy and impertinence. When Posthumius placed an accent wrong, his hearers burst into a laugh. When he remonstrated, they hooted him, and called him barbarian; and at length hissed him off the stage as if he had been a bad actor. As the grave Roman retired, a buffoon, who, from his constant drunkenness, was nicknamed the Pint-pot, came up with gestures of the grossest indecency, and bespattered the senatorial gown with filth. Posthumius turned round to the mult.i.tude, and held up the gown, as if appealing to the universal law of nations. The sight only increased the insolence of the Tarentines. They clapped their hands, and set up a shout of laughter which shook the theatre. "Men of Tarentum,"

said Posthumius, "it will take not a little blood to wash this gown."

Rome, in consequence of this insult, declared war against the Tarentines. The Tarentines sought for allies beyond the Ionian Sea. Phyrrhus, king of Epirus, came to their help with a large army; and, for the first time, the two great nations of antiquity were fairly matched against each other.

The fame of Greece in arms, as well as in arts, was then at the height. Half a century earlier, the career of Alexander had excited the admiration and terror of all nations from the Ganges to the Pillars of Hercules. Royal houses, founded by Macedonian captains, still reigned at Antioch and Alexandria. That barbarian warriors, led by barbarian chiefs, should win a pitched battle against Greek valor guided by Greek science, seemed as incredible as it would now seem that the Burmese or the Siamese should, in the open plain, put to flight an equal number of the best English troops. The Tarentines were convinced that their countrymen were irresistible in war; and this conviction had emboldened them to treat with the grossest indignity one whom they regarded as the representative of an inferior race. Of the Greek generals then living Pyrrhus was indisputably the first. Among the troops who were trained in the Greek discipline his Epirotes ranked high.

His expedition to Italy was a turning-point in the history of the world. He found there a people who, far inferior to the Athenians and Corinthians in the fine arts, in the speculative sciences, and in all the refinements of life, were the best soldiers on the face of the earth. Their arms, their gradations of rank, their order of battle, their method of intrenchment, were all of Latin origin, and had all been gradually brought near to perfection, not by the study of foreign models, but by the genius and experience of many generations of great native commanders. The first words which broke from the king, when his practised eye had surveyed the Roman encampment, were full of meaning: "These barbarians," he said, "have nothing barbarous in their military arrangements." He was at first victorious; for his own talents were superior to those of the captains who were opposed to him; and the Romans were not prepared for the onset of the elephants of the East, which were then for the first time seen in Italy--moving mountains, with long snakes for hands. But the victories of the Epirotes were fiercely disputed, dearly purchased, and altogether unprofitable. At length, Manius Curius Dentatus, who had in his first Consulship won two triumphs, was again placed at the head of the Roman Commonwealth, and sent to conquer the invaders. A great battle was fought near Beneventum.

Pyrrhus was completely defeated. He repa.s.sed the sea; and the world learned, with amazement, that a people had been discovered who, in fair fighting, were superior to the best troops that had been drilled on the system of Parmenio and Antigonus.

The conquerors had a good right to exult in their success; for their glory was all their own. They had not learned from their enemy how to conquer him. It was with their own national arms, and in their own national battle array, that they had overcome weapons and tactics long believed to be invincible. The pilum and the broadsword had vanquished the Macedonian spear. The legion had broken the Macedonian phalanx. Even the elephants, when the surprise produced by their first appearance was over, could cause no disorder in the steady yet flexible battalions of Rome.

It is said by Florus, and may easily be believed, that the triumph far surpa.s.sed in magnificence any that Rome had previously seen. The only spoils which Papirius Cursor and Fabius Maximus could exhibit were flocks and herds, wagons of rude structure, and heaps of spears and helmets. But now, for the first time, the riches of Asia and the arts of Greece adorned a Roman pageant. Plate, fine stuffs, costly furniture, rare animals, exquisite paintings and sculptures, formed part of the procession. At the banquet would be a.s.sembled a crowd of warriors and statesmen, among whom Manius Curius Dentatus would take the highest room. Caius Fabricius Luscinus, then, after two Consulships and two triumphs, Censor of the Commonwealth, would doubtless occupy a place of honor at the board. In situations less conspicuous probably lay some of those who were, a few years later, the terror of Carthage: Caius Duilius, the founder of the maritime greatness of his country; Marcus Atilius Regulus, who owed to defeat a renown far higher than that which he had derived from his victories; and Caius Lutatius Catalus, who, while suffering from a grievous wound, fought the great battle of the aeates, and brought the First Punic War to a triumphant close. It is impossible to recount the names of these eminent citizens, without reflecting that they were, without exception, Plebeians, and would, but for the ever memorable struggle maintained by Caius Licinius and Lucius s.e.xtius, have been doomed to hide in obscurity, or to waste in civil broils, the capacity and energy which prevailed against Pyrrhus and Hamilcar.

On such a day we may suppose that the patriotic enthusiasm of a Latin poet would vent itself in reiterated shouts of "Io triumphe," such as were uttered by Horace on a far less exciting occasion, and in boasts resembling those which Virgil put into the mouth of Anchises. The superiority of some foreign nations, and especially of the Greeks, in the lazy arts of peace, would be admitted with disdainful candor; but preeminence in all the qualities which fit a people to subdue and govern mankind would be claimed for the Romans.

The following lay belongs to the latest age of Latin ballad-poetry. Naevis and Livius Andronicus were probably among the children whose mothers held them up to see the chariot of Curius go by. The minstrel who sang on that day might possibly have lived to read the first hexameters of Ennius, and to see the first comedies of Plautus. His poem, as might be expected, shows a much wider acquaintance with the geography, manners, and productions of remote nations, than would have been found in compositions of the age of Camillus. But he troubles himself little about dates, and having heard travellers talk with admiration of the Colossus of Rhodes, and of the structures and gardens with which the Macedonian king of Syria had embellished their residence on the banks of the Orontes, he has never thought of inquiring whether these things existed in the age of Romulus.

The Prophecy of Capys

A Lay Sung at the Banquet in the Capitol, on the Day Whereon Manius Curius Dentatus, a Second Time Consul, Triumphed Over King Pyrrhus and the Tarentines, in the Year of the City CCCCLXXIX.

I

Now slain is King Amulius, Of the great Sylvian line, Who reigned in Alba Longa, On the throne of Aventine.

Slain is the Ponfiff Camers, Who spake the words of doom: "The children to the Tiber, The mother to the tomb."

II

In Alba's lake no fisher His net to-day is flinging; On the dark rind of Alba's oaks To-day no axe is ringing; The yoke hangs o'er the manger; The scythe lies in the hay: Through all the Alban villages No work is done to-day.

III

And every Alban burgher Hath donned his whitest gown; And every head in Alba Weareth a poplar crown; And every Alban door-post With boughs and flowers is gay, For to-day the dead are living, The lost are found to-day.