Pinnock's improved edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome Part 5

CHAPTER VI.

THE ROMAN RELIGION.

First to the G.o.ds 'tis fitting to prepare The due libation, and the solemn prayer; For all mankind alike require their grace, All born to want; a miserable race.--_Homer_.

1. We have shown that the Romans were, most probably, a people compounded of the Latins, the Sabines, and the Tuscans; and that the first and last of these component parts were themselves formed from Pelasgic and native tribes. The original deities[1] worshipped by the Romans were derived from the joint traditions of all these tribes; but the religious inst.i.tutions and ceremonies were almost wholly borrowed from the Tuscans. Unlike the Grecian mythology, with which, in later ages, it was united, the Roman system of religion had all the gloom and mystery of the eastern superst.i.tions; their G.o.ds were objects of fear rather than love, and were worshipped more to avert the consequences of their anger than to conciliate their favour. A consequence of this system was, the inst.i.tution of human sacrifices, which were not quite disused in Rome until a late period of the republic.

2. The religious inst.i.tutions of the Romans form an essential part of their civil government; every public act, whether of legislation or election, was connected with certain determined forms, and thus received the sanction of a higher power. Every public a.s.sembly was opened by the magistrate and augurs taking the auspices, or signs by which they believed that the will of the G.o.ds could be determined; and if any unfavourable omen was discovered, either then or at any subsequent time, the a.s.sembly was at once dismissed. 3. The right of taking auspices was long the peculiar privilege of the patricians, and frequently afforded them pretexts for evading the demands of the plebeians; when a popular law was to be proposed, it was easy to discover some unfavourable omen which prohibited discussion; when it was evident that the centuries were about to annul some patrician privilege, the augurs readily saw or heard some signal of divine wrath, which prevented the vote from being completed. It was on this account that the plebeians would not consent to place the comitia tributa under the sanction of the auspices.

4. The augurs were at first only three in number, but they were in later ages increased to fifteen, and formed into a college. Nothing of importance was transacted without their concurrence in the earlier ages of the republic, but after the second punic war, their influence was considerably diminished.[2] 5. They derived omens from five sources: 1, from celestial phenomena, such as thunder, lightning, comets, &c.; 2, from the flight of birds; 3, from the feeding of the sacred chickens; 4, from the appearance of a beast in any unusual place; 5, from any accident that occurred unexpectedly.

6. The usual form of taking an augury was very solemn; the augur ascended a tower, bearing in his hand a curved stick called a lituus.

He turned his face to the east, and marked out some distant objects as the limits within which he would make his observations, and divided mentally the enclosed s.p.a.ce into four divisions. He next, with covered head, offered sacrifices to the G.o.ds, and prayed that they would vouchsafe some manifestation of their will. After these preliminaries he made his observations in silence, and then announced the result to the expecting people.

7. The Arusp'ices were a Tuscan order of priests, who attempted to predict futurity by observing the beasts offered in sacrifice. They formed their opinions most commonly from inspecting the entrails, but there was no circ.u.mstance too trivial to escape their notice, and which they did not believe in some degree portentous. The arusp'ices were most commonly consulted by individuals; but their opinions, as well as those of the augurs, were taken on all important affairs of state. The arusp'ices seem not to have been appointed officially, nor are they recognised as a regular order of priesthood.

8. The pontiffs and fla'mens, as the superior priests were designated, enjoyed great privileges, and were generally men of rank. When the republic was abolished, the emperors a.s.sumed the office of pontifex maximus, or chief pontiff, deeming its powers too extensive to be entrusted to a subject.

9. The inst.i.tution of vestal virgins was older than the city itself, and was regarded by the Romans as the most sacred part of their religious system. In the time of Numa there were but four, but two more were added by Tarquin; probably the addition made by Tarquin was to give the tribe of the Lu'ceres a share in this important priesthood. The duty of the vestal virgins was to keep the sacred fire that burned on the altar of Vesta from being extinguished; and to preserve a certain sacred pledge on which the very existence of Rome was supposed to depend. What this pledge was we have no means of discovering; some suppose that it was the Trojan Palla'dium, others, with more probability, some traditional mystery brought by the Pelas'gi from Samothrace.

10. The privileges conceded to the vestals were very great; they had the most honourable seats at public games and festivals; they were attended by a lictor with fasces like the magistrates; they were provided with chariots when they required them; and they possessed the power of pardoning any criminal whom they met on the way to execution, if they declared that the meeting was accidental. The magistrates were obliged to salute them as they pa.s.sed, and the fasces of the consul were lowered to do them reverence. To withhold from them marks of respect subjected the offender to public odium; a personal insult was capitally punished. They possessed the exclusive privilege of being buried within the city; an honour which the Romans rarely extended to others.

11. The vestals were bound by a vow of perpetual virginity, and a violation of this oath was cruelly punished. The unfortunate offender was buried alive in a vault constructed beneath the Fo'rum by the elder Tarquin. The terror of such a dreadful fate had the desired effect; there were only eighteen instances of incontinence among the vestals, during the s.p.a.ce of a thousand years.

12. The mixture of religion with civil polity, gave permanence and stability to the Roman inst.i.tutions; notwithstanding all the changes and revolutions in the government the old forms were preserved; and thus, though the city was taken by Porsenna, and burned by the Gauls, the Roman const.i.tution survived the ruin, and was again restored to its pristine vigour.

13. The Romans always adopted the G.o.ds of the conquered nations, and, consequently, when their empire became very extensive, the number of deities was absurdly excessive, and the variety of religious worship perfectly ridiculous. The rulers of the world wanted the taste and ingenuity of the lively Greeks, who accommodated every religious system to their own, and from some real or fancied resemblance, identified the G.o.ds of Olym'pus with other nations. The Romans never used this process of a.s.similation, and, consequently, introduced so much confusion into their mythology, that philosophers rejected the entire system. This circ.u.mstance greatly facilitated the progress of Christianity, whose beautiful simplicity furnished a powerful contrast to the confused and c.u.mbrous ma.s.s of divinities, worshipped in the time of the emperors.

_Questions for Examination_.

1. How did the religion of the Romans differ from that of the Greeks?

2. Was the Roman religion connected with the government?

3. How was the right of taking the Auspices abused?

4. Who were the augurs?

5. From what did the augurs take omens?

6. What were the forms used in taking the auspices?

7. Who were the aruspices?

8. What other priests had the Romans?

9. What was the duty of the vestal virgins?

10. Did the vestals enjoy great privileges?

11. How were the vestals punished for a breach of their vows?

12. Why was the Roman const.i.tution very permanent?

13. Whence arose the confusion in the religious system of the Romans?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The reader will find an exceedingly interesting account of the deities peculiar to the Romans, in Mr. Keightley's very valuable work on Mythology.

2: The poet Ennius, who was of Grecian descent, ridiculed very successfully the Roman superst.i.tions; the following fragment, translated by Dunlop, would, probably, have been punished as blasphemous in the first ages of the republic:--

For no Marsian augur (whom fools view with awe,) Nor diviner, nor star-gazer, care I a straw; The Isis-taught quack, an expounder of dreams, Is neither in science nor art what he seems; Superst.i.tious and shameless they prowl through our streets, Some hungry, some crazy, but all of them cheats.

Impostors, who vaunt that to others they'll show A path which themselves neither travel nor know: Since they promise us wealth if we pay for their pains, Let them take from that wealth and bestow what remains

CHAPTER VII.

THE ROMAN ARMY AND NAVY.

Is the soldier found In the riot and waste which he spreads around?

The sharpness makes him--the dash, the tact, The cunning to plan, and the spirit to act.--_Lord L. Gower_.

1. It has been frequently remarked by ancient writers that the strength of a free state consists in its infantry; and, on the other hand, that when the infantry in a state become more valuable than the cavalry, the power of the aristocracy is diminished, and equal rights can no longer be withheld from the people. The employment of mercenary soldiers in modern times renders these observations no longer applicable; but in the military states of antiquity, where the citizens themselves served as soldiers, there are innumerable examples of this mutual connection between political and military systems. It is further ill.u.s.trated in the history of the middle ages; for we can unquestionably trace the origin of free inst.i.tutions in Europe to the time when the hardy infantry of the commons were first found able to resist the charges of the brilliant chivalry of the n.o.bles. 2. Rome was, from the very commencement, a military state; as with the Spartans, all their civil inst.i.tutions had a direct reference to warlike affairs; their public a.s.semblies were marshalled like armies; the order of their line of battle was regulated by the distinction of cla.s.ses in the state. It is, therefore, natural to conclude, that the tactics of the Roman armies underwent important changes when the revolutions mentioned in the preceding chapters were effected, though we cannot trace the alterations with precision, because no historians appeared until the military system of the Romans had been brought to perfection.

3. The strength of the Tuscans consisted princ.i.p.ally in their cavalry; and if we judge from the importance attributed to the equestrian rank in the earliest ages, we may suppose that the early Romans esteemed this force equally valuable. It was to Ser'vius Tul'lius, the great patron of the commonalty, that the Romans were indebted for the formation of a body of infantry, which, after the lapse of centuries, received so many improvements that it became invincible.

4. The ancient battle array of the Greeks was the phalanx; the troops were drawn up in close column, the best armed being in front. The improvements made in this system of tactics by Philip, are recorded in Grecian history; they chiefly consisted in making the evolutions of the entire body more manageable, and counteracting the difficulties which attended the motions of this c.u.mbrous ma.s.s.

5. The Romans originally used the phalanx; and the lines were formed according to the cla.s.ses determined by the centuries. Those who were sufficiently wealthy to purchase a full suit of armour, formed the front ranks; those who could only purchase a portion of the defensive weapons, filled the centre; and the rear was formed by the poorer cla.s.ses, who scarcely required any armour, being protected by the lines in front. From this explanation, it is easy to see why, in the const.i.tution of the centuries by Servius Tullius, the first cla.s.s were perfectly covered with mail, the second had helmets and breast-plates but no protection for the body, the third, neither a coat of mail, nor greaves. 6. The defects of this system are sufficiently obvious; an unexpected attack on the flanks, the breaking of the line by rugged and uneven ground, and a thousand similar accidents exposed the unprotected portions of the army to destruction besides, a line with files ten deep was necessarily slow in its movements and evolutions.

Another and not less important defect was, that the whole should act together; and consequently, there were few opportunities for the display of individual bravery.

7. It is not certainly known who was the great commander that subst.i.tuted the living body of the Roman legion for this inanimate ma.s.s; but there is some reason to believe that this wondrous improvement was effected by Camil'lus. Every legion was in itself an army, combining the advantages of every variety of weapon, with the absolute perfection of a military division.

8. The legion consisted of three lines or battalions; the _Hasta'ti_, the _Prin'cipes_, and the _Tria'rii_; there were besides two cla.s.ses, which we may likewise call battalions, the _Rora'rii_, or _Velites_, consisting of light armed troops, and the _Accen'si_, or supernumeraries, who were ready to supply the place of those that fell.

Each of the two first battalions contained fifteen manip'uli, consisting of sixty privates, commanded by two centurions, and having each a separate standard (_vexil'lum_) borne by one of the privates called Vexilla'rius; the manip'uli in the other battalions were fewer in number, but contained a greater portion of men; so that, in round numbers, nine hundred men may be allowed to each battalion, exclusive of officers. If the officers and the troop of three hundred cavalry be taken into account, we shall find that the legion, as originally const.i.tuted, contained about five thousand men. The Romans, however, did not always observe these exact proportions, and the number of soldiers in a legion varied at different times of their history.[1]

9. A cohort was formed by taking a manipulus from each of the battalions; more frequently two manipuli were taken, and the cohort then contained six hundred men. The cavalry were divided into tur'mae, consisting each of thirty men.

10. A battle was usually commenced by the light troops, who skirmished with missile weapons; the hasta'ti then advanced to the charge, and if defeated, fell back on the prin'cipes; if the enemy proved still superior, the two front lines retired to the ranks of the tria'rii, which being composed of veteran troops, generally turned the scale.

But this order was not always observed; the number of divisions in the legion made it extremely flexible, and the commander-in-chief could always adapt the form of his line to circ.u.mstances.