The Comic History of Rome Part 2

The wealth of his wife enabled Luc.u.mo 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 dashing exterior, that he gave him a commission in the army, as Tribunus Celerum, a sort of Captain of the Guards, who, from the t.i.tle of Celeres, appear to have been, as we have before observed, the fast men, as opposed to the "slow coaches" of the period.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Celeres.]

The Captain made himself so generally useful to Ancus, that when 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, proposed 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 was 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 inst.i.tuted the Ludi Magni, which were great sport, in a s.p.a.ce he marked out as the Circus Maximus.

The position of the Circus was between the Palatine and Aventine 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 of 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 Roman 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 _libelli_, containing the lists of the horses, and names and colours of the drivers, with all the eagerness of a "gentleman sportsman" seeking information from Dorling's correct card at Epsom. In the early days of Rome the amus.e.m.e.nts 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 appet.i.tes 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 sharpness of the blade, which cut the article in two as easily as if it had been a pound of b.u.t.ter, 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 the augurs, of whom he was accustomed thenceforth to say, that the affair of the whetstone proved them to be much sharper blades than he had been 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 enc.u.mbers 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 s.p.a.cious 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 throne, 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 endeavouring 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 posterity by such a channel; but that country is fortunate indeed in which genius seeks "the bubble reputation" at the mouth of the sewer, instead of in the mouth of the cannon.

It must be recorded, to the honour of Tarquinius, that he organised the plebeians, and elevated some of them to the rank of patricians, 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 anything 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 a.s.signed sometimes to the Lar, or household G.o.d of the establishment, and sometimes to Vulcan. Whoever 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 a.s.sa.s.sination of Tarquinius was published to the mult.i.tude. 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 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, to which he added three hills, feeling, perhaps, that his fame would become 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 Rome 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Debtor and Creditor.--Seizure of Goods for a Debt.]

Servius found that while he was raising up buildings he was knocking down a great deal of money; but being nevertheless anxious to erect a temple to Diana on the Aventine Hill he persuaded the Latins, who had made the place a sort of _quartier 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 effervescence 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sions. 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 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 a.s.sembly, 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 his memory was cherished for centuries after his death, his birthday being celebrated on the Nones of every month, because he 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 ex-aggerate. There remains to this day a great portion of the mound, which was sixty feet high and fifty broad, skirted with flag stones towards the outer side, and the Romans no doubt 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 Const.i.tution, 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 n.o.bodies. 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 a.s.suredly deserve to be whipped "if he didn't." 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 _equites_, 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 cla.s.ses, according to the amount of their possessions, which determined their position in the army; but even the sixth cla.s.s, or those who had no other possession than their self-possession, were not excluded from the service. Each cla.s.s 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 a.s.semblies of the curiae (the _comitia curiata_) and the tribes (the _comitia tributa_), there was inst.i.tuted by Servius a great national a.s.sembly 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 cla.s.ses according to their wealth or the number of a.s.ses they possessed, a principle which the opponent of a mere property qualification 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 cla.s.ses, such as the _Fabri_--the very extensive family of the Smiths and the 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 cla.s.s, 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 a.s.sembly 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 cla.s.s to get into a higher, and thus an inducement to self-advancement 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 a.s.ses. To the poorer cla.s.ses these coins could have been of little service, and by way of small change they were permitted to use sh.e.l.ls, from which we no doubt get the phrase of "sh.e.l.ling out," a quaint expression sometimes used to describe the process of paying. In some parts of the world sh.e.l.ls 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, sh.e.l.ls 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 subst.i.tute.

The Roman As was of bronze and stamped on one side with a portrait of Ja.n.u.s, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Tarquinus Superbus makes himself King._]

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

FROM THE ACCESSION OF TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS TO THE BANISHMENT OF THE ROYAL FAMILY, AND THE ABOLITION OF THE KINGLY DIGNITY.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Tarquinius 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, Tarquinius refused to bury his animosity, or to grant his victim a funeral. 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, a.s.serted 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 a.s.sumed 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 submit to the a.s.sembly 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 hara.s.sing the Volscians, whom he robbed of a sufficient sum to enable him to commence 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 the best face he could, he declared it to be a sign that Rome was destined to be the head of the world--an obvious piece of fulsome adulation, worthy of being offered to the flattest of flats, by one disposed to flatter. The temple itself was a great fact, notwithstanding the numerous 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tarquinius Superbus has the Sibylline Books valued.]

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 willing to do business, asked three hundred pieces of gold for the entire set of volumes. The King pooh-poohed the proposition, 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, a.s.suming, 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 sort of second edition of Burns, by throwing three more of her books into the fire. To the surprise of Tarquin, she appeared a third 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, who declared them to be well worth the money. They contained a variety of remedies for diseases, directions for preparing sacrifices, and other interesting matter, with a collection of the oracles of c.u.mae, 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[10] became the purchaser 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 inconsistently 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, s.e.xtus, 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 s.e.xtus 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 accidents. On his return, he mentioned the circ.u.mstances to s.e.xtus, 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.

s.e.xtus, 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 Roman stock; and thus cultivated the only really valuable fruits of victory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Evil Conscience of Tarquin.]

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 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 superst.i.tious, 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 t.i.tus, 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 a.s.sumed 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 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." t.i.tus and Aruns 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 amba.s.sadors 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, endeavouring 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 a.s.sault 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 compelled 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, surnamed 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 praiseworthy way, when thus unceremoniously popped in upon. They first visited the wife of s.e.xtus, 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_,"[11]--any one who dances must be either very drunk, or stark mad,--we may guess the state of the company that s.e.xtus 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 cla.s.sical than the origin of some of those sports which form 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 navem_--the "heads or tails" of antiquity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mrs. s.e.xtus 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. s.e.xtus 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 her husband, s.e.xtus 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 s.e.xtus, 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, s.n.a.t.c.hing 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, t.i.tus and Aruns, at Caere, in Etruria.

There history loses sight of the old king, but s.e.xtus has been traced to Gabii, a princ.i.p.ality 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 stock 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 of 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 than certain annals, compiled more than 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 cla.s.s, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 gla.s.ses 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.