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Proud patrician as he was, he consented, for Gracchus was highly esteemed for probity, and had done him a personal service.

On his return home he told his wife that he had promised his daughter to a plebeian.

The good woman, who had higher aims, blamed him severely for his folly, as she deemed it.

But when she was told the name of her proposed son-in-law she changed her mind, saying that Gracchus was the only man worthy of the gift.

Of Cornelia’s children three became notable, a daughter, who became the wife of the younger Scipio, and two sons, Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, who are known in history as “The Gracchi.

” Their[Pg 166] father became famous in war and peace, taking important steps in the needed movement of reform.

He died, and after his death many sought the hand of the noble Cornelia in marriage, among them King Ptolemy of Egypt.

But she refused them all, devoting her life to the education of her children, for which she was admirably fitted by her lofty spirit and high attainments.

Concerning this lady, one of the greatest and noblest which Rome produced, there is an anecdote, often repeated, yet well worth repeating again.

A Campanian lady who called upon her, and boastfully spoke of her wealth in gold and precious stones, asked Cornelia for the pleasure of seeing her jewels.

Leading her visitor to another room, the noble matron pointed to her sleeping children, and said, “There are my jewels; the only ones of which I am proud.

” These children were born to troublous times.

Rome had grown in corruption and ostentation as she had grown in wealth and dominion.

When the first Punic War broke out Rome ruled only over Central and Southern Italy.

When the third Punic War ended Rome was lord of all Italy, Spain, and Greece, and had wide possessions in Asia Minor and Northern Africa.

Wealth had flowed abundantly into the imperial city, and with it pride, corruption, and oppression.

The great grew greater, the poor poorer, and the old simplicity and frugality of Rome were replaced by overweening luxury and greed of wealth.

The younger Tiberius Gracchus, who was nine[Pg 167] years older than his brother, after taking part in the siege of Carthage, went to Spain, where also was work for a soldier.

On his way thither he passed through Etruria, and saw that in the fields the old freeman farmers had disappeared, and been replaced by foreign slaves, who worked with chains upon their limbs.

No Cincinnatus now ploughed his own small fields, but the land was divided up into great estates, cultivated by the captives taken in war; while the poor Romans, by whose courage these lands had been won, had not a foot of soil to call their own.

This spectacle was a sore one to Tiberius, in whose mind the wise teachings of his mother had sunk deep.

Here were great spaces of fertile land lying untilled, broad parks for the ostentation of their proud possessors, while thousands of Romans languished in poverty, and Rome had begun to depend for food largely upon distant realms.

There was a law, more than two hundred years old, which forbade any man from holding such large tracts of land.

Tiberius thought that this law should be enforced.

On his return to Rome his indignant eloquence soon roused trouble in that city of rich and poor.

“The wild beasts of the waste have their caves and dens,” he said; “but you, the people of Rome, who have fought and bled for its growth and glory, have nothing left you but the air and the sunlight.

There are far too many Romans,” he continued, “who have no family altar nor ancestral tomb.

They have fought well for Rome, and are falsely called the masters of the world; but the results of[Pg 168] their fighting can only be seen in the luxury of the great, while not one of them has a clod of dirt to call his own.

” Cornelia urged her son to do some work to ennoble his name and benefit Rome.

“I am called the ‘daughter of Scipio,’” she said.

“I wish to be known as ‘the mother of the Gracchi.

‘” It was not personal glory, but the good of Rome, that the young reformer sought.

He presented himself for the office of tribune, and was elected by the people, who looked upon him as their friend and advocate.

And at his appeal they crowded from all quarters into the city to vote for the re-establishment of the Licinian laws,-those forbidding the rich to hold great estates.

These laws were re-enacted, and those lands which the aristocrats had occupied by fraud or force were taken from them by a commission and returned to the state.

All this stirred the proud land-holders to fury.

They hated Gracchus with a bitter hatred, and began to plot secretly for his overthrow.

About this time Attalus, king of Pergamus, moved by some erratic whim, left his estates by will to the city of Rome.

Those who had been deprived of their lands claimed these estates, to repay them for their outlays in improvement.

Gracchus opposed this, and proposed to divide this property among the plebeians, that they might buy cattle and tools for their new estates.

His opponents were still more infuriated by this action.

He had offered himself for re-election to the office of tribune, promising the people new and [Pg 169]important reforms.

His patrician foes took advantage of the opportunity.

As he stood in the Forum, surrounded by his partisans, an uproar arose, in the midst of which Gracchus happened to raise his hand to his head.

His enemies at once cried out that he wanted to make himself king, and that this was a sign that he sought a crown.

A fierce fight ensued.

The opposing senators attacked the crowd so furiously that those around Gracchus fled, leaving him unsupported.

He hastened for refuge towards the Temple of Jupiter, but the priests had closed the doors, and in his haste he stumbled over a bench.

Before he could rise one of his enemies struck him over the head with a stool.

A second repeated the blow.

Before the statues of the old kings, which graced the portals of the temple, the tribune fell dead.

Many of his supporters were slain before the tumult ceased.

Many were forced over the wall at the edge of the Tarpeian Rock, and were killed by their fall.

Three hundred in all were slain in the fray.

Thus was shed the first blood that flowed in civil strife at Rome.

It was a crimson prelude to the streams of blood that were to follow, in the long series of butcheries which were afterwards to disgrace the Roman name.

Tiberius Gracchus may well be called the Great, for the effect of his life upon the history of Rome was stupendous.

He held office for not more than seven months, yet in that short time the power of the senate was so shaken by him that it never fully[Pg 170] recovered its strength.

Had he been less gentle, or more resolute, in disposition his work might have been much greater still.

Fiery indignation led him on, but soldierly energy failed him at the end.

Caius Gracchus was in Spain at the time of his brother’s murder.

On his return to Rome he lived in quiet retirement for some years.

The senate thought he disapproved of his brother’s laws.

They did not know him.

At length he offered himself as a candidate for the tribuneship, and so convincing was his eloquence that the people supported him in numbers, and he was elected to the office.

He at once made himself an ardent advocate of his brother’s reforms, and with such impassioned oratory that he gained adherents on every side.

He made himself active in all measures of public progress, advocating the building of roads and bridges, the erection of mile-stones, the giving the right to vote to Italians in general, and the selling of grain at low rates to the deserving poor.

The laws passed for these purposes are known as the Sempronian laws, from the name of the family to which the Gracchi belonged.

By this time the rich senators had grown highly alarmed.

Here was a new Gracchus in the field, as eloquent and as eager for reform as his brother, and who was daily growing more and more in favor with the people.

Something must be done at once, or this new demagogue-as they called him-would do them more harm than that for which they had slain his brother.

They adopted the policy of fraud in place of that[Pg 171] of violence.

The people were gullible; they might be made to believe that the senators of Rome were their best friends.

A rich and eloquent politician, Drusus by name, proposed measures more democratic even than those which Gracchus had advocated.

This effort had the effect that was intended.

The influence of Gracchus over the popular mind was lessened.

The people had proved fully as gullible as the shrewd senators had expected.

Among other measures proposed by Gracchus was one for planting a colony and building a new city on the site of Carthage.

The senate appeared to approve this, and appointed him one of the commissioners for laying out the settlement.

He was forced to leave Rome, and during his absence his enemies worked more diligently than ever.

Gracchus was defeated in the election for tribune that followed.

And now the plans of his enemies matured.

It was said that the new colony at Carthage had been planted on the ground cursed by Scipio.

Wolves had torn down the boundary-posts, which signified the wrath of the gods.

The tribes were called to meet at the Capitol, and repeal the law for colonizing Carthage.

A tumult arose.

A man who insulted Gracchus was slain by an unknown hand.

The senate proclaimed Gracchus and his friends public enemies, and roused many of the people against him by parading the body of the slain man.

Gracchus and his friends took up a position on the Aventine Hill.

Here they were assailed by a strong armed force.

There was no resistance.

Gracchus sought refuge[Pg 172] at first in the Temple of Diana, and afterwards made his way to the Grove of the Furies, several of his friends dying in defence of his flight.

A single slave accompanied him.

When the grove was reached by his pursuers both were found dead.

The faithful slave had pierced his master’s heart, and then slain himself by the same sword.

Slaughter ruled in Rome.

The Tiber flowed thick with the corpses of the friends of Gracchus, who were slain by the fierce patricians.

The houses of the murdered reformers were plundered by the mob, for whose good they had lost their lives.

For the time none dared speak the name of Gracchus except in reprobation.

Yet he and his brother had done yeoman service for the ungrateful people of Rome.

Cornelia retired to Misenum, where she lived for many years.

But she lived not in grief for her sons, but in pride and triumph.

They had died the deaths of heroes and patriots, and she gloried in their fame, declaring that they had found worthy graves in the temples of the gods.

So came the people to think, in after-years, and they set up in the Forum a bronze statue to the great Roman matron, on which were inscribed only these words: To Cornelia, the Mother of the Gracchi.

[Pg 173] JUGURTHA, THE PURCHASER OF ROME.

Masinissa, the valiant old king of Numidia, who had ravaged Carthage in its declining days, left his kingdom to his three sons.

On the death of Micipsa, the last remaining of these, in 118 B.

C.

, he, in turn, left the kingdom to his two sons.

They were still young, and Jugurtha, their cousin, was appointed their guardian and the regent of the kingdom.

Shrewd, bold, ambitious, and unscrupulous, Jugurtha was the most dangerous man in Numidia to whose care the young princes could have been confided.

Scipio read his character rightly, and said to him, “Trust to your own good qualities, and power will come of itself.

Seek it by base arts, and you will lose all.

” Some of the young nobles in Scipio’s camp gave baser advice.

“At Rome,” they told him, “all things could be had for money.

” They advised him to buy the support of Rome, and seize the crown of Numidia.

Jugurtha took this base advice, instead of the wise counsel of Scipio.

He was destined to pay dearly for his ambition and lack of faith and honor.

One[Pg 174] of the young princes showed a high spirit, and Jugurtha had him assassinated.

The other fled to Rome and sought the support of the senate.

Jugurtha now, following the suggestions of his false friends, sent gold and promises to Rome, purchased the support of venal senators, and had voted to him the strongest half of the kingdom; Adherbal, the young prince, being given the weaker half.

But the young man was not left in peace, even in this reduced inheritance.

Jugurtha sent more presents to Rome, and, confident of his strength there, boldly invaded the dominions of Adherbal.

A Roman commission threatened him with Rome’s displeasure if he did not keep within his own dominions.

He affected to submit, but as soon as the commissioners turned their backs the daring adventurer renewed his efforts, got possession of his cousin through treachery, and at once ordered him to be put to death with torture.

Since Rome had become great and powerful no one had dared so openly to contemn its decrees.

But Jugurtha knew the Romans of that day, and trusted to his gold.

He bought a majority in the senate, defied the minority, and would have gained his aim but for one honest man.

This was the tribune Memmius, who, seeing that the senate was hopelessly corrupt, called the people together in the Forum, told them of the crimes of Jugurtha, and demanded justice and redress at their hands.

And now a struggle arose like that between the Gracchi and the rich senators.

Jugurtha sent more gold to Rome.

An army was despatched against[Pg 175] him, but he purchased it also.

He gave up his elephants in pledge of good faith, and then bought them back at a high price.

The officers divided the money, and the army failed to advance.

Jugurtha would have triumphed but for Memmius, who resolutely kept up his attacks.

In the end the usurper was ordered to come to Rome,-under a safe-conduct.

He came, and here by his gold purchased one of the tribunes, who protected him against the wrath of Memmius and the people.

But Memmius was resolute and determined.

Another Numidian prince was found and asked to demand the crown from the senate.

Jugurtha learned what was afoot, and sent an agent, Bomilcar by name, to assassinate the new prince.

An indictment was laid against Bomilcar, but Jugurtha, fearing to have his own share in the murder exposed, sent him off secretly to Africa.

This was too much, even for the purchased members of the senate.

Such open disdain of the majesty of Rome no man, however avaricious, dared support.

Jugurtha had a safe-conduct, and could not be seized, but he was ordered to quit Rome immediately.

He did so, and as he passed out of the gates he looked back and said, “A city for sale if she can find a purchaser.

” The remainder of Jugurtha’s history is one of war.

The time for winning power by bribery was past.

The people were so thoroughly aroused and incensed that none dared yield to cupidity.

The indignation grew.

The first army sent against Jugurtha was baffled by the wily African, caught in a[Pg 176] defile, and only escaped by passing under the yoke, and agreeing to evacuate Numidia.

This disgrace stirred Rome more deeply still.

A new consul was elected and a new army raised.

A commission was appointed to inquire into the conduct of the senate, and several of the leading members were found guilty of high treason and put to death without mercy.

Rome had begun to purge itself.

The new general, Metellus, was not one to be sent under the yoke.

He defeated Jugurtha in the field and pursued him so unrelentingly that soon the African usurper was a fugitive, without an army, and with only some fortresses under his control.

Metellus had with him as his principal officer a man who was to become famous in Roman history.

This man, Caius Marius, was then fifty years of age.

Yet he had years enough before him to play a mighty part.

He was a man of the people, rough and uneducated; scorned learning, but had a vigorous ambition and a striking military genius.

He claimed to be a New Man, knew no Greek, and boasted that he had no images but “prizes won by valor and scars upon his breast.

” This man made himself the favorite of the populace, was elected consul, and by undisguised trickery took the conduct of the war out of the hands of Metellus just as the latter was about to succeed.

With him to Africa went another man who was to become equally famous, L.

Cornelius Sulla, the future chief of Rome.

Sulla was not a New Man.

He was an aristocrat, knew Greek better than Marius knew Latin, was educated and dissipated,[Pg 177] and showed the marks of a dissolute life in his face.

When he rode into the camp of Marius at the head of the cavalry he had seen no service, and the rugged soldier looked with contempt on this effeminate pleasure-seeker who had been sent as his lieutenant.

He soon learned his mistake, and before the campaign ended Sulla was his most trusted officer and chief adviser.

In the subsequent conduct of the war there is an interesting story to tell.

There were two hill-forts in Numidia which still remained in Jugurtha’s control.

One of these was taken easily.

The other-which contained all that was left of the usurper’s treasures-was a formidable place, which long defied the Roman engineers.

It stood on a precipitous rock, with only a single narrow ascent; was well garrisoned and supplied with arms, food, and water; and so long defied all the efforts of Marius that he almost despaired of its capture.

In this dilemma a happy chance came to his aid.

A Ligurian soldier, a practised mountaineer, being in search of water, saw a number of snails crawling up the rock in the rear of the castle.

These were a favorite food with him, and he gathered what he saw, and climbed the cliff in search of more.

Higher and higher he went, till he had nearly reached the summit of the rock.

Here he found himself near a large oak, which had rooted itself in the rock crevices, and grew upward so as to overtop the castle hill.

The Ligurian, led by curiosity, climbed the tree, and gained a point from which he could see the[Pg 178] castle, undefended on this side, and without sentinels.

Having taken a close observation, he descended, carefully examining every point as he went.

He now hastened to the tent of Marius, recounted to him his exploit, and offered to guide a party up the perilous ascent.

Marius was quick to seize this hopeful chance.

Five trumpeters and four centurions were selected, who were placed under the leadership of the mountaineer.

Laying aside all clothing and arms that would obstruct them, they followed the Ligurian up the rock.

He, an alert and skilful climber, here and there tied ropes to projecting points, here lent them the aid of his hand, here sent them up ahead and carried their arms after them.

At length, with great toil and risk, they reached the summit, and found the castle at this point undefended and unwatched, the Numidians being all on the opposite side.

Marius, being apprised of their success, ordered a vigorous assault in front.

The garrison rushed to the defence of their outer works.

In the heat of the action a sudden clangor of trumpets was heard in their rear.

This unexpected sound spread instant alarm.

The women and children who had come out to watch the contest fled in terror.

The soldiers nearest the walls followed.

At length the whole body, stricken suddenly with panic, took to flight, followed in hot pursuit by their foes.

Over the deserted works the Romans clambered, into the castle they burst, all who opposed them were cut down, and in a short time the place which[Pg 179] had so long defied them was theirs, while the four trumpets to which their victory was due sounded loudly the war-peal of triumph.

Jugurtha was still at large.

He was supported by Bocchus, king of Mauritania, whose daughter he had married.

Sulla was sent to demand his surrender.

Bocchus refused at first, but at length, through fear of Rome, consented, and the bold usurper was betrayed into Sulla’s hands.

The end of Jugurtha was one in accordance with the brutal cruelty of Rome, yet it was one which he richly deserved.

It was in the month of January, 104 B.

C.

, three years after his capture, that Marius entered Rome in triumphal procession, displaying to the people the spoils of his victories, while before his car walked his captive in chains.

The African seemed sunk in stupor as he walked.

He was roused by the brutal mob, who tore off his clothes and plucked the gold rings from his ears.

Then he was thrust into the dungeon at the foot of the Capitoline Hill.

“Hercules, what a cold bath this is!” he exclaimed.

There he who had defied Rome and lorded it over Africa starved to death.

A prince of the line of Masinissa succeeded him on the throne.

[Pg 180] THE EXILE AND REVENGE OF MARIUS.

Marius and Sulla, the heroes of the Jugurthine War, in later years led in greater wars, in which they gained much fame.

They ended their careers in frightful massacres, in which they gained great infamy.

Rome, which had made the world its slaughter-house, was itself turned into a slaughter-house by these cruel and revengeful rivals.

There was rarely any lack of work for the swords of Rome.

While Marius was absent in Africa a frightful peril threatened the Roman state.

A vast horde of barbarians was sweeping downward from the north.

The Germans of Central Europe had ravaged Switzerland and invaded Gaul.

Every army sent against them had been defeated with great slaughter.

Italy was in immediate danger of invasion, Rome in imminent peril.

Marius was sadly needed, and on his return from Africa was hailed as the only man who could save the state.

Instantly he gathered an army and set out for Gaul, Sulla going with him as a subordinate officer.

Two years were spent in marches and counter-marches, and then (B.

C.

102) he met the enemy and defeated them with immense slaughter.

Reserving the richest of the spoils, he devoted the remainder[Pg 181] to the gods, and, as he stood in a purple robe, torch in hand, about to apply the flame to the costly funeral pile, horsemen dashed at full speed through the open lines of the troops, and announced that for a fifth time he had been elected consul of Rome.

In this war Sulla also showed valor and won fame.

But he had grown jealous of the glory of Marius, and left his army to join that of the consul Catulus, who was being driven backward by another great horde of barbarians.

Marius, having beaten his own foes, hastened to the relief of his associate; the flight was stopped, and a battle ensued in which the invading army was swept from the face of the earth, and Rome freed for centuries from danger of barbarian invasion.

Sulla and Catulus had their share in this victory, but the people gave Marius the whole honor, called him the third founder of their city (as Camillus had been the second), and gathered in rejoicing multitudes to witness his triumph.

While this war was going on there was dreadful work at home.

The slaves had, for the second time, broken into insurrection.

This servile war was mainly in Sicily, where thousands of slaves were slain.

Of the captives, many were taken to Rome to fight with wild beasts in the arena, but they disappointed the eager spectators by killing each other.

This outbreak only made slavery at Rome harder and harsher than before.

Years passed on, and then another war broke out.

The Italian allies, who had helped to make Rome great, claimed rights of citizenship and suffrage.

[Pg 182] These were denied, and what is known as the Social War began.

Sulla and Marius took part in this conflict, which ended in favor of Rome, though the franchise fought for was in large measure gained.

It was of little value, however, since all who held it were obliged to go to the city of Rome to vote.

During these various conflicts the rivalry between Marius and Sulla grew steadily more declared.

The old plebeian, now seventy years of age, was jealous of the honors which his aristocratic rival had gained in the Social War, and a spirit of bitter hatred, which was to bear dire results, arose in his heart.

Events to come were to blow this spark of hatred into a glowing flame.

A new war threatened Rome.

Mithridates the Great, king of Pontus, in Asia Minor, was pursuing a career of conquest, and the Roman provinces in Asia were in danger.

War was determined on, and Sulla, who had already held successful command in the East, claimed the command of the new army.

Marius, old as he was, wanted it, too, and by his influence with the new citizens of Rome succeeded in defeating Sulla and gaining the appointment of general in the war against Pontus.

This vote of the tribes precipitated a contest.

The Social War was not yet fully ended, and Sulla hastened to the camp where his soldiers were besieging a Samnite town.

It was his purpose to set sail for the East before he could be superseded.

He was too late.

Officials from Rome reached the camp almost as soon as he, bearing a commission from Marius to assume the command.

It was a critical moment.

Sulla must either yield or inaugurate a civil war.

[Pg 183] He chose the latter.

Calling the soldiers together, he told them that he had been insulted and injured, and that, unless they supported him, they would be left at home, and a new army raised by Marius would obtain the spoils of the Mithridatic war.

Stirred by this appeal to their avarice, the legions stoned to death the officers sent by Marius, and loudly demanded to be led to Rome.

Their coming took Marius by surprise, and threw the city into consternation.

No one had dreamed of such daring and audacity.

To lead a Roman army against Rome was unprecedented.

The senate sent an embassy asking Sulla to halt till the Fathers could come to some decision.

He promised to do so, but as soon as the envoys had gone he sent a force that seized the Colline Gate and entered the city streets.

Here their progress was stopped by the people, who hurled tiles and stones upon their heads from the house-tops.

The whole army soon followed, and Sulla entered the city with two legions at his back.

The people again opposed their march, but Sulla seized a torch and threatened to burn the city if any hostility were shown.

This ended all opposition, except that made by Marius, who retreated to the Capitol, where he proclaimed liberty to all slaves who would join his banner.

This did him much more harm than good; his adherents dispersed; he and his chief supporters were forced to seek safety in flight.

And now we have a story of striking interest to tell.

It would need the powers of invention of a[Pg 184] romancer to devise a series of adventures as remarkable as those which befell old Marius in his flight.

It is one of the strangest stories in all the annals of history, a marked illustration of the saying that fact is often stranger than fiction.

Marius fled to Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, in company with Granius, his son-in-law, and five slaves.

He proposed to take ship there for Africa, where his influence was great.

His son followed him by a different route, and arrived at Ostia to find that his father had put to sea.

There was another vessel about to sail, which the son took, and in which he succeeded in reaching Africa.

The older fugitive had no such good fortune.

The elements pronounced against him, and a storm drove the vessel ashore near Circeii.

Here the party wandered in distress along the desolate coast, in imminent danger of capture, for emissaries of Sulla were scouring the shores of Italy in his pursuit.

Fortunately for the old general, he was recognized by some herdsmen, who warned him that a troop of cavalry was approaching.

Not knowing who they were, and fearing their purpose, the fugitives hastily left the road and sought shelter in the forest that there came down near to the coast.

Here the night was miserably passed, the fugitives suffering for want of food and shelter.

When the dawn of the next day broke, their forlorn walk was resumed, there being no enemy in sight.

By this time the whole party, with the exception of Marius, was greatly depressed.

He alone kept up his spirits, telling his followers that he had been six times[Pg 185] consul of Rome, and that a seventh consulship would yet be his.

There seemed little hope of such a turn of fortune as the hungry fugitives dragged wearily onward.

For two days they kept on, making about forty miles of distance.

At the end of that time peril of capture came frightfully near.

A body of horsemen was visible at a distance, coming rapidly on.

No friendly forest here offered shelter.

The only hope of escape lay in two merchant vessels, which were moving slowly close in shore.

Calling loudly for aid, Marius and those with him plunged into the water and swam for these vessels.

Granius reached one of them.

Marius was so exhausted that he could not swim, and was supported with difficulty above the water by two slaves till the seamen of the other vessel drew him on board.

He had barely reached the deck when the troop of horsemen rode to the water’s edge, and their leader called to the captain of the vessel, telling him that it was the proscribed Marius he had rescued, and bidding him at once to deliver him up.

What to do the captain did not know.

The officer on shore threatened him with the vengeance of Sulla if he failed to yield the fugitive.

Marius, with tears in his eyes, earnestly begged for protection from the captain and crew.

The captain wavered in purpose, but finally yielded to Marius and sailed on.

But he did so in doubt and fear, and on reaching the mouth of the river Liris he persuaded Marius to go ashore, saying that the vessel must lie to till the land-wind rose.

The instant the boat returned[Pg 186] the faithless captain sailed away, leaving the aged fugitive absolutely alone on the beach.

Walking wearily to the sorry hut of an old peasant, which stood near, Marius told him who he was, and begged for shelter.

The old man hid him in a hole near the river, and covered him with reeds.

While he lay there the horsemen, who had followed the vessel along the shore, came up, and asked the tenant of the hut where Marius was.

The shivering fugitive, in fear of being betrayed, rose hastily from his hiding-place and dashed into the stream.

Some of the horsemen saw him, he was pursued, and, covered with mud and nearly naked, the old conqueror was dragged from the river, placed on a horse, and carried as a captive to the neighboring town of Miturnæ.

Here he was confined in the house of a woman named Fannia till his fate could be determined.

A circular letter had been received by the magistrates from the consuls at Rome, ordering them to put Marius to death if he should fall into their hands.

This was more than they cared to do on their own responsibility, and they called a meeting of the town council to decide the momentous question.

The council decided that Marius should die, and sent a Gaulish slave to put him to death.

It was dark when the executioner entered the house of Fannia.

The slave, little relishing the task committed to his hands, entered the room where Marius lay.

All the trembling wretch could see in the darkness were the glaring eyes of the old man fixed fiercely on him, while a deep voice came from[Pg 187] the couch, “Fellow, darest thou slay Caius Marius?” Throwing down his sword, the Gaul fled in terror from those accusing eyes, crying out, loudly, “I cannot slay Caius Marius!” The magistrates made no further effort to put their prisoner to death.

They managed that he should escape, and he made his way to the island of Ischia, which Granius had already reached.

Here a friendly ship took them on board, and they sailed for Africa.

But the perils of the fugitive were not yet at an end.

The ship was forced to stop at Erycina, in Sicily, for water.

Here a Roman official recognized Marius, fell upon the party with a company of soldiers, and slew sixteen of them.

Marius was nearly taken, but managed to escape, the vessel hastily setting sail.

He now reached Africa without further adventure.

His son and other friends had arrived earlier, and, encouraging news being told him, he landed near the site of ancient Carthage.

The prætor, learning of his presence, and advised of the revolution at Rome, sent him word to quit the province without delay.

As the messenger spoke Marius looked at him with silent indignation.

“What answer shall I take back to the prætor?” asked the man.

“Tell him,” said the old general, with impressive dignity, “that you have seen Caius Marius sitting among the ruins of Carthage.

” Meanwhile his son had reached Numidia, where he was outwardly well received by the king, yet[Pg 188] held in captivity.

He was at length enabled to escape by the aid of the king’s daughter, and joined his father.

Marius was not further molested.

Yet it would have been well for the fame of Caius Marius had his life ended here.

He would nave escaped the infamy of his later years, and the flood of blood and vengeance in which his career reached its end.

He had friends still in Rome.

Sulla had made many foes by his capture of the city.

Among the new consuls elected was Cornelius Cinna, who quickly made trouble for the ruler of Rome.

Sulla, finding his power abating, and fearing assassination by friends of Marius, concluded to let the senate fight its own battles, and shipped his troops for Greece, leaving Rome to its own devices, while he occupied himself with fighting its enemy in the East.

No sooner had he gone than civil war began.

Fighting took place in the streets of Rome.

Cinna moved in the senate that Marius should be restored to his rights.

Failing in this, he gathered an army and threatened his enemies in Rome.

News of all this soon reached old Marius in Africa.

At the head of a thousand desperate men he took ship and landed in Etruria.

Here he proclaimed liberty to all slaves who would join him, and soon had a large force.

He also gained a small fleet.

He and Cinna now joined forces and marched on Rome.

The senate, which stood for Sulla, had meanwhile been gathering an army for the defence of the city.

But few of those ordered from afar reached the gates, and of the principal force the greater part deserted to Marius.

The city was soon invested on[Pg 189] all sides.

The ships of Marius captured the corn-vessels from Sicily and Africa.

A plague broke out in the city, which decimated the army of the senate.

In the end beleaguered Rome was forced to open its gates to a new conqueror.

All the senate asked for was that Cinna would not permit a general massacre.

This he promised.

But behind his chair, in which he sat in state as consul, stood old Marius, whose face threatened disaster.

He was dressed in mean attire; his hair and beard hung down rough and long, for neither had been cut since the day he fled from Rome; on his brow was a sullen frown that boded only evil to his foes.

Evil it was, evil without stint.

Rome was treated as a conquered city.

The slaves and desperadoes who followed Marius were let loose to plunder at their will.

Octavius, the consul who had supported the senate, was slain in his consular chair.

A series of horrible butcheries followed.

Marius was bent on dire vengeance, and his enemies fell in multitudes.

Followed by a band of ruffians known as the Bardiæi, the remorseless old man roamed in search of victims through the city streets, and any man of rank whom he passed without a salute was at once struck dead.

The senators who had opposed his recall from exile fell first.

Others followed in multitudes.

Those who had private wrongs to revenge followed the example of their chief.

The slaves of the army killed at will all whom they wished to plunder.

So great became the licentious outrages of these slaves that in the end Cinna, who had taken no part in the[Pg 190] massacres, fell upon them with a body of troops and slew several thousands.

This reprisal in some measure restored order in Rome.

Sulla, meanwhile, was winning victories in the East, and the news of them somewhat disturbed the ruthless conquerors.

But for the present they were absolute, and the saturnalia of blood went on.

It ended at length in the death of Marius.

Since his return he had given himself to wine and riotous living.

This, after the privations and hardships he had recently suffered, sapped his iron constitution.

He was elected to the seventh consulship, which he had predicted while wandering as a fugitive on the south Italian shores.

But he fell now into an inflammatory fever, and in two weeks after his election he ceased to breathe.

Great and successful soldier as he had been, his late conduct had won him wide-spread detestation, and he died hated by his enemies and feared even by his friends.

[Pg 191] THE PROSCRIPTION OF SULLA.

While Marius and his friends were ruling and murdering in Rome, Sulla, their bitter enemy, was commanding and conquering in the East, biding his time for revenge.

He drove the Asiatic foe out of Greece, taking and pillaging Athens as an episode.

He carried the war into Asia, forced Mithridates to sue for peace, and exacted enormous sums (more than one hundred million dollars in our money) from the rich cities of the East.

Then, after giving his soldiers a winter’s rest in Asia, he turned his face towards Rome, writing to the senate that he was coming, and that he intended to take revenge on his enemies.

It was now the year 83 B.

C.

Three years had passed since the death of Marius.

During the interval the party of the plebeians had been at the head of affairs.

Now Sulla, the aristocrat, was coming to call them to a stern account, and they trembled in anticipation.

They remembered vividly the Marian carnival of blood.

What retribution would his merciless rival exact? Cinna, who had most to fear, proposed to meet the conqueror in the field.

But his soldiers were not in the mood to fight, and settled the question by murdering[Pg 192] their commander.

When spring was well advanced, Sulla left Asia, and in sixteen hundred ships transported his men to Italy, landing at the port of Brundusium.

On the 6th of July, shortly after his landing, an event occurred that threw all Rome into consternation.

The venerable buildings of the Capitol took fire and were burned to the ground, the cherished Sibylline books perishing in the flames.

Such a disaster seemed to many Romans a fatal prognostic.

The gods were surely against them, and all things were at risk.

Onward marched Sulla, opposed by a much greater army collected by his opponents.

But he led the veterans of the Mithridatic War, and in the ranks of his opponents no man of equal ability appeared.

Battle after battle was fought, Sulla steadily advancing.

At length an army of Samnites, raised to defend the Marian cause, marched on Rome.

Caius Pontius, their commander, was bent on terribly avenging the sufferings of his people on that great city.

“Rome’s last day,” he said to his soldiers, “is come.

The city must be annihilated.

The wolves that have so long preyed upon Italy will never cease from troubling till their lair is utterly destroyed.

” Rome was in despair, for all seemed at an end.

The Samnites had not forgotten a former Pontius, who had sent a Roman army under the Caudine Forks, and had been cruelly murdered in the Capitol They thundered on the Colline Gate.

But at that critical moment a large body of cavalry appeared[Pg 193] and charged the foe.

It was the vanguard of Sulla’s army, marching in haste to the relief of Rome.

A fierce battle ensued.

Sulla fought gallantly.

He rode a white horse, and was the mark of every javelin.

But despite his efforts his men were forced back against the wall, and when night came to their relief it looked as if nothing remained for them but to sell their lives as dearly as possible the next morning.

But during the night Sulla received favorable news.

Crassus, who commanded his right wing, had completely defeated a detachment of the Marian army.

With quick decision, Sulla marched during the night round the enemy’s camp, joined Crassus, and at day-break attacked the foe.

The battle that ensued was a terrible one.

Fifty thousand men fell on each side.

Pontius and other Marian leaders were slain.

In the end Sulla triumphed, taking eight thousand prisoners, of whom six thousand were Samnites.

The latter were, by order of the victor, ruthlessly butchered in cold blood.

This was but the prelude to an equally ruthless but more protracted butchery.

Sulla was at last lord of Rome, as absolute in power as any emperor of later days.

In fact, he had himself appointed dictator, an office which had vanished more than a century before, and which raised him above the law.

He announced that he would give a better government to Rome, but to do so he must first rid that city of its enemies.

Marius, whom Sulla hated with intense bitterness,[Pg 194] had escaped him by death.

By his orders the bones of the old general were torn from their tomb near the Anio and flung into that stream.

The son of Marius had slain himself to prevent being taken.

His head was brought to Sulla at Rome, who gazed on the youthful face with grim satisfaction, saying, “Those who take the helm must first serve at the oar.

” As for himself, his fortune was now accomplished, he said, and henceforth he should be known as Felix.

The cruel work which Sulla had promised immediately began.

Adherents of the popular party were slaughtered daily and hourly at Rome.

Some who had taken no part in the late war were slain.

No man knew if he was safe.

Some of the senators asked that the names of the guilty should be made known, that the innocent might be relieved from uncertainty.

The proposition hit with Sulla’s humor.

He ordered that a list of those doomed to death should be made out and published.

This was called a Proscription.

But the uncertainty continued as great as ever.

The list contained but eighty names.

It was quickly followed by another containing one hundred and twenty.

Day after day new lists of the doomed were issued.

To make death sure, a reward of two talents was promised any one who should kill a proscribed man,-even if the killer were his son or his slave.

Those who in any way aided the proscribed became themselves doomed to death.

Men who envied others their property managed to have their names put on the list.

A partisan of[Pg 195] Sulla was exulting over the doomed, when his eye fell on his own name in the list.

He hastily fled, and the bystanders, judging the cause, followed and cut him down.

Catiline, who afterwards became notorious in Roman history, murdered his own brother, and to legalize the murder had the name of his victim placed on the list.

How many were murdered we do not know.

Probably little less than three thousand in Rome.

The stream of murder flowed to other cities.

Several of these defied the conqueror, but were taken one by one and their defenders slain.

To all cities which had taken part with the Marians the proscription made its way.

Of the total number slain during this reign of terror no record exists, but the deliberate butchery of Sulla went far beyond the ferocious but temporary slaughter of Marius.

Murder was followed by confiscation.

Sulla ordered that the property of the slain should be sold at auction and the proceeds put in the treasury.

But the favorites of the dictator were the chief bidders, the property was sold at a tithe of its value, and the unworthy and dissolute obtained the lion’s share of the spoil.

During this period of murder and confiscation we first hear the names of a number of afterwards famous Romans.

Catiline we have named.

Pompey took part in the war on Sulla’s side, was victorious in Sicily and Africa, and on his return was hailed by his chief with the title of Pompey the Great.

Another still more famous personage was Julius Cæsar.

Sulla had ordered that all persons connected[Pg 196] by marriage with the Marian party should divorce their wives.

Pompey obeyed.

Cæsar, who was a nephew of Marius and had married the daughter of Cinna, boldly refused.

He was then a youth of nineteen.

His boldness would have brought him death had not powerful friends asked for his life.

“You know not what you ask,” said Sulla; “that profligate boy will be more dangerous than many Mariuses.

” Cæsar, not trusting Sulla’s doubtful humor, escaped from Rome, and hid in the depths of the Sabine mountains, awaiting a time when the streets of the capital city would be safer for those who dared speak their minds.

Another young man of rising fame showed little less boldness.

This was Cicero, who had just returned to Rome from his studies in Greece.

He ventured to defend Roscius of Ameria against an accusation of murder made by Chrysogonus, a prime favorite of Sulla.

Cicero lashed the favorite vigorously, and won a verdict for his client.

But he found it advisable to leave Rome immediately and resume his studies at Rhodes.

Sulla ended his work by organizing a new senate and making a new code of laws.

Three hundred new members were added to the senate, and the laws of Rome were brought largely back to the state in which they had been before the Gracchi.

This done, to the utter surprise of the people he laid down his power and retired from Rome, within whose streets he never again set foot.

He had no occasion for fear.

He had scattered his veterans[Pg 197] throughout Italy on confiscated estates, and knew that he could trust to their support.

Before his departure he gave a feast of costly meats and rich wines to the Roman commons, in such profusion that vast quantities that could not be eaten were cast into the Tiber.

Then he dismissed his armed attendants, and walked on foot to his house, through a multitude of whom many had ample reason to strike him down.

He now retired to his villa near Puteoli, on the Bay of Naples, with the purpose of enjoying that life of voluptuous ease which he craved more than power and distinction.

Here he spent the brief remainder of his life in nocturnal orgies and literary converse, completing his “Memoirs,” in which he told, in exaggerated phrase, the story of his life and exploits.

He lived but about a year.

His excesses brought on a complication of disorders, which ended, we are told, in a loathsome disease.

The senate voted him a gorgeous funeral, after which his body was burned on the Campus Martius, that no future tyrant could treat his remains as he had done those of his great rival Marius.

[Pg 198] THE REVOLT OF THE GLADIATORS.

At the beginning of the first Punic War, or war with Carthage, a new form of entertainment was introduced into Rome.

This was the gladiatorial show, the fights of armed men in the arena, the first of which was given in the year 264 B.

C.

, at the funeral of D.

Junius Brutus.

These exhibitions were long confined to funeral occasions, money being frequently left for this purpose in wills, but they gradually extended to other occasions, and finally became the choice amusement of the brutal Roman mob.

The gladiators were divided into several classes, in accordance with their particular weapons and modes of fighting, and great pains were taken to instruct them in the use of their special arms.

But in the period that followed the death of Sulla Rome was to have a gladiatorial exhibition of a different sort.

In the city of Capua was a school of gladiators, kept by a man named Lentulus.

It was his practice to hire out his trained pupils to nobles for battles in the arena during public festivals.

His school was a large one, and included in its numbers a Thracian named Spartacus, who had been taken prisoner while leading his countrymen against the Romans, and was[Pg 199] to be punished for his presumption by making sport for his conquerors.

But Spartacus had other and nobler aims.

He formed a plot of flight to freedom in which two hundred of his fellows joined, though only seventy-eight succeeded in making their escape.

These men, armed merely with the knives and spits which they had seized as they fled, made their way to the neighboring mountains, and sought a refuge in the crater of Mount Vesuvius.

It must be borne in mind that this mountain, in that year of 73 B.

C.

, was silent and seemingly extinct, though before another century passed it was to awake to vital activity.

It was only biding its time in slumber.

It was better to die on the open field than in the amphitheatre, argued Spartacus, and his followers agreed with him.

Their position in the crater was a strong one, and the news of their revolt soon brought them a multitude of allies,-slaves and outlaws of every kind.

These Spartacus organized and drilled, supplying them with officers from the gladiators, mostly old soldiers, and placing them under rigid discipline.

It was liberty he wanted, not rapine, and he did his utmost to restrain his lawless followers from acts of violence.

Pompey, the chief Roman general of that day, was then absent in Spain, fighting with a remnant of the Marian forces.

Two Roman prætors led their forces against the gladiators, but were driven back with loss, and the army of Spartacus swelled day by day.

The wild herdsmen of Apulia joined him in large numbers.

They were slaves to their lords,[Pg 200] whom they hated bitterly, and here was an opening for freedom and revenge.

It was soon evident that Rome had on its hands the greatest and most dangerous of its servile wars.

Spartacus was brave and prudent, and possessed the qualities of an able leader.

Unfortunately for him, he led an unmanageable host.

In the next year both the consuls took the field against him.

By this time his army had swelled to more than one hundred thousand men, and with these he pushed his way northward through the passes of the Apennines.

But now insubordination appeared.

Crixus, one of his lieutenants, ambitious of independent command, led off a large division of the army, chiefly Germans.

He was quickly punished for his temerity, being surprised and slain with the whole of his force.

Spartacus, wise enough to know that he could not long hold out against the whole power of Rome, kept on northward, hoping to pass the Alps and find a place of refuge remote from the stronghold of his foes.

Both the consuls attacked him in his march, and both were defeated, while he retaliated on Rome by forcing his prisoners to fight as gladiators in memory of the slain Crixus.

Reaching the provinces of the north, his diminished force was repulsed by Crassus, one of the richest men of Rome, who had taken the field as prætor.

Spartacus would still have fought his way towards the Alps but for his followers, whose impatient thirst for rapine forced him to march southward again.

Every Roman force that assailed him on this[Pg 201] march was hurled back in defeat.

He even meditated an attack on Rome itself, but relinquished this plan as too desperate, and instead employed his men in collecting arms and treasure from the cities of central and southern Italy.

Discipline was almost at an end.

The wild horde of slaves and outlaws were beyond any strict military control.

So great and general were their ravages that in a later day the poet Horace promised his friend a jar of wine made in the Social War, “if he could find one that had escaped the ravages of roaming Spartacus.

” In the year 71 B.

C.

the most vigorous efforts were made to put down this dangerous revolt.

Pompey was still in Spain.

The only man at home of any military reputation was the prætor Crassus, who had amassed an enormous fortune by buying up property at famine prices during the Proscription of Sulla, and in speculative measures since.

He was given full command, took the field with a large army, restored discipline to the beaten bands of the consuls by cruel and rigorous measures, and assailed Spartacus in Calabria, where he was seeking to rekindle the Servile War, or slave outbreak, in Sicily.

He had even engaged with pirate captains to transport a part of his force to Sicily, but the freebooters took the money and sailed away without the men.

And now began a struggle for life and death.

Spartacus was in the narrowest part of the foot of Southern Italy.

Crassus determined to keep him there by building strong lines of intrenchment across the neck of land.

Spartacus attacked his[Pg 202] works twice in one day, but each time was repulsed with great slaughter.

But he defended himself vigorously.

Pompey was now returning from Spain.

Crassus, not caring to be robbed of the results of his labors, determined to assault Spartacus in his camp.

But before he could do so the daring gladiator attacked his lines again, forced his way through, and marched for Brundusium, where he hoped to find ships that would convey him and his men from Italy.

As it happened, a large body of Roman veterans, returning from Macedonia, had just reached Brundusium, and undertook its defence.

Foiled in his purpose, Spartacus turned upon the pursuing army of Crassus, like a wolf at bay, and attacked it with the energy of desperation.

The battle that ensued was contested with the fiercest courage.

Spartacus and his men were fighting for their lives, and the result continued doubtful till the brave gladiator was wounded in the thigh by a javelin.

Falling on his knee, he fought with the courage of a hero until, overpowered by numbers, he fell dead.

His death decided the conflict.

Most of his followers were slain on the field.

A strong body escaped to the mountains, but these were pursued, and many fell.

Five thousand of them made their way to the north of Italy, where they were met by Pompey, on his return from Spain, and slaughtered to a man.

Crassus took six thousand prisoners, and these he disposed of in the cruel Roman way of dealing with revolted slaves, hanging or crucifying the[Pg 203] whole of them along the road between Rome and Capua.

Thus ended far the most important outbreak of Roman gladiators and slaves.

The south of Italy suffered horribly from its ravages, but not through any act of Spartacus, who throughout showed a moderation equal to his courage and military ability.

Had it not been for the lawless character of his followers his career might have had a very different ending, for he had shown himself a commander of rare ability and unconquerable courage.

[Pg 204] CÆSAR AND THE PIRATES.

We have spoken of the pirates who agreed to convey the forces of Spartacus from Italy to Sicily, but faithlessly sailed away with his money and without his men.

From times immemorial the Mediterranean had been ravaged by pirate fleets, which made the inlets of Asia Minor and the isles of the Archipelago their places of shelter, whence they dashed out on rapid raids, and within which they vanished when attacked.

This piracy reached its highest power during and after the Social and Civil Wars of Rome, the outlaws taking prompt advantage of the distractions of the times, and gaining a strength and audacity unknown before.

Their chief places of refuge were in the coast districts of Cilicia and Pisidia, in Asia Minor, while in the mountain valleys which led down from Taurus to that coast they had strongholds difficult of access, and enabling them to defy attack by land.

They were now aided by Mithridates, who supplied them with money and encouraged their raids.

So great became their audacity that they carried off important personages from the coast of Italy, among them two prætors, whom they held to ransom.

They ravaged all unguarded shores, and are said to have[Pg 205] captured in all four hundred important towns.

The riches gained in these raids were displayed with the ostentation of conquerors.

The sails of their ships were dyed with that costly Tyrian purple which at a later date was reserved for the robes of emperors; their oars were inlaid with silver, and their pennants glittered with gold.

As for the merchant fleets of Rome, they made their journeys under constant risk, and there was danger, if the pirates were not suppressed, that they would cut off the entire grain-supply from Africa and Sicily.

The most interesting story told in connection with these marauders is connected with the youthful days of Julius Cæsar, afterwards so great a man in Rome.

In the year 76 B.

C.

Cæsar, then a young man of twenty-four, and seemingly given over to mere enjoyment of life, with no indications of political aspiration, was on his way to the island of Rhodes, where he wished to perfect himself in oratory in the famous school of Apollonius Melo, in which Cicero, a few years before, had gained instruction in the art.

Cicero had taught Rome the full power of oratory, and Cæsar, who was no mean orator by nature, and recognized the usefulness of the art, naturally sought instruction from Cicero’s teacher.

He was travelling as a gentleman of rank, but on his way was taken prisoner by pirates, who, deeming him a person of great distinction, held him at a high ransom.

For six weeks Cæsar remained in their hands, waiting until his ransom should be paid.

He was in no respect downcast by his misfortune, but took part freely in the games and pastimes of the[Pg 206] pirates, and, according to Plutarch, treated them with such disdain that whenever their noise disturbed his sleep he sent orders to them to keep silence.

In his familiar conversations with the chiefs he plainly told them that he would one day crucify them all.

Doubtless they laughed heartily at this pleasantry, as they deemed it, but they were to find it a grim sort of jest.

Cæsar was released at last, the ransom paid amounting to about fifty thousand dollars.

He lost not a moment in carrying out his threat.

Obtaining a fleet of Milesian vessels, he sailed immediately to the island in which he had been held captive, and descended upon the pirates so suddenly that he took them prisoners while they were engaged in dividing their plunder.

Carrying them to Pergamus, he handed them over to the civil authorities, by whom his promise of crucifying them all was duly carried out.

Then he went to Rhodes, and spent two years in the study of elocution.

He had proved himself an awkward kind of prey for pirates.

These worthies continued their depredations, and became at length so annoying that extraordinary measures were taken for their suppression.

Pompey, then the most powerful man in Rome, was given absolute control over the Mediterranean.

This was not done without opposition, for it was feared that he aspired to kingly rule.

“You aspire to be Romulus; beware of the fate of Romulus,” said some of the opposing senators.

Despite opposition the power was given him, and he used it with remarkable results.

A large fleet[Pg 207] was at once got ready and put to sea, confining its operations at first to the west of the Mediterranean, and driving the piratical fleets towards their lurking-places in the east.

Land troops meanwhile guarded the coasts.

In the brief space of forty days he reported to the senate that the whole sea west of Greece was cleared of pirates.

Then he sailed for the Archipelago, swept its inlets, spread his ships everywhere, and drove the foe towards Cilicia.

Here they gathered their fleet and gave him battle, but suffered a total defeat.

A surrender followed, to which he won them over by lenient terms.

In three months from the day he began his work the war was ended, and the pirates who had so long troubled the republic of Rome had retired from business.

[Pg 208] CÆSAR AND POMPEY.

There were three leaders in Rome, Pompey, whom Sulla had named the Great, Crassus, the rich, and Cæsar, the shrewd and wise.

Two of these had reached their utmost height.

For Pompey there was to be no more greatness, for Crassus no more riches.

But Cæsar was the coming man of Rome.

After a youth given to profligate pleasures, in which he spent money as fast as Crassus collected it, and accumulated debt more rapidly than Pompey accumulated fame, the innate powers of the man began to declare themselves.

He studied oratory and made his mark in the Roman Forum; he studied the political situation, and step by step made himself a power among men.

He was shrewd enough to cultivate Pompey, then the Roman favorite, and brought himself into closer relations with him by marrying his relative.

Steadily he grew into public favor and respect, and laid his hands on the reins of control.

There was a fourth man of prominence, Cicero, the great scholar, philosopher, and orator.

He prosecuted Verres, who, as governor of Sicily, had committed frightful excesses, and drove him from Rome.

He prosecuted Catiline, who had made a conspiracy[Pg 209] to seize the government, and even to burn Rome.

The conspirators were foiled and Catiline killed.

But Cicero, earnest and eloquent as he was, lacked manliness and courage, and was driven into exile by his enemies.

There remained the three leaders, Pompey, Cæsar, and Crassus, and these three made a secret compact to control the government, forming what became known as a triumvirate, or three man power.

Pompey married Julia, the young and beautiful daughter of Cæsar, and the two seemed very closely united.

Cæsar was elected consul, and in this position won public favor by proposing some highly popular laws.

After his year as consul he was made governor of Gaul, and now began an extraordinary career.

The man who had by turns shown himself a dissolute spendthrift, an orator, and a political leader, suddenly developed a new power, and proved himself one of the greatest soldiers the world has ever known.

Gaul, as then known, had two divisions,-Cisalpine Gaul, or the Gaulish settlements in Northern Italy; and Transalpine Gaul, or Gaul beyond the Alps, including the present countries of France and Switzerland.

In the latter country Rome possessed only a narrow strip of land, then known as the Province, since then known as the country of Provence.

From this centre Cæsar, with the small army under his command, consisting of three legions, entered upon a career of conquest which astonished Rome and drew upon him the eyes of the civilized[Pg 210] world.

He had hardly been appointed when he received word that the Helvetian tribes of Switzerland were advancing on Geneva, the northern outpost of the Province, with a view of invading the West.

He hastened thither, met and defeated them, killed a vast multitude, and drove the remnant back to their own country.

Then, invited by some northern tribes, he attacked a great German band which had invaded Northern Gaul, and defeated them so utterly that few escaped across the Rhine.

From that point he made his way into and conquered Belgium.

In a year’s time he had vastly extended the Roman dominion in the West.

For nine years this career of conquest continued.

The barbarian Gauls proved fierce and valiant soldiers, but at the end of that time they had been completely subdued and made passive subjects of Rome.

Cæsar even crossed the sea into Britain, and look the first step towards the conquest of that island, of which Rome had barely heard before.

During this career of conquest many hundreds of thousands of men were slain.

But, then, Cæsar was victorious and Rome triumphant, and what mattered it if a million or two of barbarians were sacrificed to the demon of conquest? It mattered little to Rome, in which great city barbarian life was scarcely worth a second thought.

It mattered little to Cæsar, who, like all great conquerors, was quite willing to mount to power on a ladder of human lives.

Meanwhile what were Cæsar’s partners in the Triumvirate doing? When Cæsar was given the province of Gaul, Pompey was made governor of[Pg 211] Spain, and Crassus of Syria.

Crassus, who had gained some military fame by overcoming Spartacus the gladiator, wished to gain more, and sailed for Asia, where he stirred up a war with distant Parthia.

That was the end of Crassus.

He marched into the desert of Mesopotamia, and left his body on the sands.

His head was sent to Orodes, the Parthian king, who ordered molten gold to be poured into his mouth,-a ghastly commentary on his thirst for wealth.

Pompey left Spain to take care of itself, and remained in Rome, where he sought to add to his popularity by building a great stone theatre, large enough to hold forty thousand people, where for many days he amused the people with plays and games.

Here, for the first time, a rhinoceros was shown.

Eighteen elephants were killed by Libyan hunters, and five hundred lions were slain, while hosts of gladiators fought for life and honor.

While thus seeking popular favor, Pompey was secretly working against the interests of Cæsar, of whose fame he had grown jealous.

His wife Julia died, and he joined his strength with that of the aristocrats; while Cæsar, a nephew of old Marius, was looked upon as a leader of the party of the people.

Pompey’s power and influence over the senate increased until he was virtually dictator in Rome.

Cæsar’s ten years’ governorship in Gaul would expire on the 1st of January, 49 B.

C.

, and it was resolved by Pompey and the senate to deprive him of the command of the army.

But Cæsar was not the[Pg 212] man to be dealt with in this summary manner.

His career of conquest ended, he entered his province of Cisalpine Gaul, or Northern Italy, where he was received as a great hero and conqueror.

From here he sent secret agents to Rome, bribed with large sums a number of important persons, and took other steps to guard his interests.

Meanwhile the senate tried to disarm Cæsar by unfair means.

They had the power to shorten or lengthen the year as they pleased, and announced that that year would end on November 12, and that Cæsar must resign his authority on the 13th.

Curio, a tribune of Rome and Cæsar’s agent, said that it was only fair that Pompey also should give up the command of the army which he had near Rome.

This he refused to do, and Curio publicly declared that he was trying to make himself a tyrant.

Finally the senate decreed that each general should give up one legion, to be used in a war with the Parthians.

There was no such war, but it was pretended that there soon would be.

Pompey agreed, but he called upon Cæsar to send him back a legion which he had lent him three years before.

Cæsar did not hesitate to do so: he sent Pompey’s legion and his own; but he took care to win the soldiers by giving each a valuable present as he went away.

These legions were not sent to Asia, but to Capua.

The senate wanted them for use nearer than Parthia.

Cæsar was then at Ravenna, a sea-side city on the southern limit of his province.

South of it flowed a little stream called the Rubicon, which formed his border-line.

Here he took a bold step.

He sent a[Pg 213] letter to the senate, offering to give up his command if Pompey would do the same.

A violent debate followed in the senate, and a decree was passed that unless Cæsar laid down his command by a certain day he should be declared an outlaw and enemy of Rome.

At the same time the two consuls were made dictators, and the two tribunes who favored Cæsar-one of them the afterwards famous Marc Antony-fled for safety from Rome.

The decree of the senate was equivalent to a declaration of war.

On the one side was Pompey, proud, over-confident, and unprepared.

On the other was Cæsar, knowing his strength, satisfied in the power of the money he had so freely distributed, and sure of his men.

He called his soldiers together and asked if they would support him.

They answered that they would follow wherever he led.

At once he marched for the Rubicon, the limit of his province, to cross which stream meant an invasion of Italy and civil war.

Plutarch tells us that he halted here and deeply meditated, troubled by the thought that to cross that stream meant the death of thousands of his countrymen.

After a period of such meditation, he cried aloud, “The die is cast; let us go where the gods and the injustice of our foes direct!” and, spurring his horse forward, he plunged into the stream.

This story, which has been effectively used by a great epic poet of Rome, probably relates what never happened.

From all we know of Cæsar, the question of bloodshed in attaining the aims of his ambition did not greatly trouble his mind.

Yet the[Pg 214] story has taken hold, and “to cross the Rubicon” has become a proverb, signifying the taking of a step of momentous importance.

Cæsar, after the legions sent the senate, had but a single legion left with him.

He sent orders to others to join him with all haste, but they were distant.

As for Pompey, knowing and despising the weakness of his rival, he had made no preparations.

He had Cæsar’s two legions at Capua and one of his own at Rome, while thousands of Sulla’s veterans were settled in the country round.

“I have but to stamp my foot,” he said, “and armed men will start from the soil of Italy.

” He did not stamp, or, if he did, the armed men did not start.

Cæsar marched southward with his accustomed rapidity.

Town after town opened its gates to him.

Labienus, one of his principal officers, deserted to Pompey.

Cæsar showed his contempt by sending his baggage after him.

Two legions from Gaul having reached him, he pushed more boldly still to the south.

The cities taken were treated as friends; there was no pillage, no violence.

Everywhere Cæsar won golden opinions by his humanity.

Meanwhile Pompey’s armed men came not; his rival was rapidly approaching; he and his party of the senate fled from Rome.

They reached Brundusium, where Cæsar with six legions quickly appeared.

The town was strong, and Pompey took his time to embark his men and sail from Italy.

Disappointed of his prey, Cæsar turned back, and entered Rome on April 1, now full lord and master of[Pg 215] Italy and its capital city.

In the treasury of that city was a sacred hoard of money, which had been set aside since the invasion of the Gauls, centuries before.

The people voted this money for his use.

There was no more danger from the Gauls, it was said, for they had all become subjects of Rome.

Yet the keeper of the treasury refused to produce the keys, and when Cæsar ordered the doors to be broken open, tried to bar his passage into the sacred chamber.

“Stand aside, young man,” said Cæsar, with stern dignity; “it is easier for me to do than to say.

” Cæsar was not the man to rest while an enemy was at large.

Pompey had gone to the East.

There was no fleet with which to follow him; and in Spain Pompey had an army of veterans, who might enter Italy as soon as he left it.

These must first be dealt with.

This did not delay him long.

Before the year closed all Spain was his.

Most of the soldiers of Pompey joined his army.

Those who did not were dismissed unharmed.

Everywhere he showed the greatest leniency, and everywhere won friends.

On his return to Rome he gained new friends by passing laws relieving debtors and restoring their civil rights to the children of Sulla’s victims.

He remained in Rome only eleven days, and then sailed for Greece, where Pompey had gathered a large army.

It was January 4, 48 B.

C.

, when he sailed.

On June 6 of the same year was fought, at Pharsalia, in Thessaly, a great battle which decided the fate of the Roman world.

[Pg 216] Pompey’s army consisted of about forty-four thousand men.

Cæsar had but half as many.

But his men were all veterans; many of those of Pompey were new levies, collected in Asia and Macedonia.

The battle was fierce and desperate.

During its course the cavalry of Pompey attacked Cæsar’s weak troops and drove them back.

The infantry advanced to their support, and struck straight at the faces of the foe.

Plutarch tells us that this cavalry was made up of young Romans, of the aristocratic class and proud of their beauty, and that the order was given to Cæsar’s soldiers to spoil their beauty for them.

But this story, like many told by Plutarch, lacks proof.

Whatever was the cause, the cavalry were broken and fled in disorder.

Cæsar’s reserve force now attacked Pompey’s worn troops, who gave way everywhere.

Cæsar ordered that all Romans should be spared, and only the Asiatics pursued.

The legions, hearing of this, ceased to resist.

The foreign soldiers fled, after great slaughter.

Pompey rode hastily from the field.

The camp was taken.

The booty captured was immense.

But Cæsar would not let his soldiers rest or plunder till they had completed their work.

This proved easy; all the Romans submitted; the Asiatics fled.

Pompey put to sea, where he had still a powerful fleet.

Africa was his, and he determined to take refuge in Egypt.

It proved that he had enemies there.

A small boat was sent off to bring him ashore.

Among those on board was an officer named Septimius, who had served under Pompey in the war with the pirates.

[Pg 217] Pompey recognized his old officer, and entered the boat alone, his wife and friends watching from the vessel as he was rowed ashore.

On the beach a number of persons were collected, as if to receive him with honor.

The boat stopped.

Pompey took the hand of the person next him to assist him to rise.

As he did so Septimius, who stood behind, struck him with his sword.

Pompey, finding that he was among enemies, made no resistance, and the next blow laid him low in death.

His assassins cut off his head and left his body on the beach.

Here one of his freedmen and an old soldier of his army broke up a fishing-boat and made him a rude funeral pile.

Such were the obsequies of the one-time master of the world.

The battle of Pharsalia practically ended the struggle that made Cæsar lord of Rome.

Some more fighting was necessary.

Africa was still in arms.

But a few short campaigns sufficed to bring it to terms, while a campaign against a son of Mithridates ended in five days, Cæsar’s victory being announced to the senate in three short words, “Veni, vidi, vici” (I came, I saw, I conquered).

Then he returned to Rome, where he shed not a drop of the blood of his enemies, though that of gladiators and wild animals was freely spilled in the gorgeous games and festivals with which he amused the sovereign people.

[Pg 218] THE ASSASSINATION OF CÆSAR.

The republic of Rome was at an end.

The army had become the power, and the will of the head of the army was the law, of the state.

Cæsar celebrated his victories with grand triumphs; but he celebrated them more notably still by a clemency that signified his innate nobility of character.

Instead of dyeing the streets of Rome with blood, as Marius and Sulla had done before him, he proclaimed a general amnesty, and his rise to power was not signalized by the slaughter of one of his foes.

THE ASSASSINATION OF CÆSAR.

THE ASSASSINATION OF CÆSAR.

He signalized it, on the contrary, by an activity in civil reform as marked as had been his energy in war.

The title and privilege of Roman citizenship had so far been confined to Italians.

He extended it to many parts of Gaul and Spain.

He formed plans to drain the Pontine marshes, to make a survey and map of the empire, to form a code of laws, and other great works, which he did not live to fulfil.

Of all his reforms, the best known is the revision of the Calendar.

Before his time the Roman year was three hundred and fifty-five days long, an extra month being occasionally added, so as to regain the lost days.

But this was very irregularly done, and the civil year had got to be far away from the solar[Pg 219] year.

To correct this Cæsar was obliged to add ninety days to the year 46 B.

C.

, which was therefore given the unprecedented length of four hundred and forty-five days.

He ordered that the year in future should be three hundred and sixty-five and one-fourth days in length, a change which brought it very nearly, but not quite, to the true length.

A new reform was made in 1582, by Pope Gregory XIII.

, which made the civil and solar years almost exactly agree.

Cæsar did not live to see his reforms consummated.

He was murdered, perhaps because he had refused to murder.

In a few months after he had brought the civil war to an end he fell the victim of assassins.

The story of his death is famous in Roman history, and must here be told.

After his triumphs Cæsar, who had been dictator twice before, was named dictator for the term of ten years.

He was also made censor for three years.

These offices gave him such unlimited power that he was declared absolute master of the lives and fortunes of the citizens and subjects of Rome.

Imperator men called him, a term we translate emperor, and after his return from Spain, where he overthrew the last army of his foes, the senate named him dictator and imperator for life.

These high honors were not sufficient for Cæsar’s ambition.

He wished to be made king.

He had no son of his own, but desired to make his power hereditary, and chose his grandnephew Octavius as his heir.

But he was to find the people resolutely bent on having no king over Rome.

To try their temper some of his friends placed a[Pg 220] crown on his statue in the Forum.

Two of the tribunes tore it off, and the crowd loudly applauded.

Later, at the festival of the Alban Mount, some voices in the crowd hailed him as king.

But the mutterings of the multitude grew so loud, that he quickly cried, “I am no king, but Cæsar.

” At the feast of the Lupercalia, on February 15, he was approached by Marc Antony, as he sat in his golden chair, and offered an embroidered band, such as the sovereigns of Asia wore on their heads.

The crowd failed to applaud, and Cæsar pushed it aside.

Then the multitude broke out in a roar of applause.

Again and again he rejected the glittering bauble, and again the people broke into loud cries of approval.

It was evident that they would have no king.

At a later date it was moved in the senate that Cæsar should be king in the provinces; but he died before this decree could be put in effect.

There was discontent at Rome.

Even the clemency of Cæsar had made him enemies, for there were many who hoped to profit by proscription.

His justice made foes among those who wished to grow rich through extortion and oppression.

He secluded himself while engaged on his reforms, and this lost him popularity.

A conspiracy was organized against him by a soldier named Caius Cassius and others of the discontented.

For leader they selected Marcus Junius Brutus, who believed himself a descendant of the Brutus of old, and was won to their plot by being told that, while his great ancestor had expelled the last king of Rome, he was resting content under the rule of a new king.

[Pg 221] Brutus, at length convinced that Cæsar was seeking to overthrow the Roman republic, and that patriotism required him to emulate the famous Brutus of old, joined the conspiracy, which now included more than sixty persons, most of whom had received benefits and honors from the man they wished to kill.

But no considerations of gratitude prevailed; they determined on Cæsar’s death; and the meeting of the senate called for the Ides of March (March 15) was fixed for the time and place of the projected murder.

The morning of that day seemed full of omens and warnings.

The secret was oozing out.

Cæsar received more than one intimation of impending danger.

A soothsayer had even bidden him to “beware of the Ides of March.

” During the preceding night his wife was so disturbed by dreams that in the morning she begged him not to go that day to the senate, as she was sure some peril was at hand.

Her words failed to trouble Cæsar’s resolute mind, but to quiet her apprehensions he agreed not to go, and directed Marc Antony to preside over the senate in his stead.

When this word was brought to the assembled senate the conspirators were in despair.

Their secret was known to too many to remain a secret long.

Even a day’s delay might be fatal.

An hour might put Cæsar on his guard.

What was to be done? Unless their victim could be brought to the senate chamber all would be lost.

Decimus Brutus, one of the conspirators who had been favored by Cæsar’s bounty, went hastily to his[Pg 222] house, and, telling him that the senate proposed that day to make him king of the provinces, bade him not to yield to such idle matters as auguries and dreams, but show himself above any such superstitious weakness.

These cunning arguments induced Cæsar to change his mind, and he called for his litter and was carried forth.

On his way to the senate new intimations of danger came to him.

A slave had in some way discovered the conspiracy, and tried to force himself through the crowd to the dictator’s litter, but was driven back by the throng.

Another informant was more fortunate.

A Greek philosopher, Artemidorus by name, had also discovered the conspiracy, and succeeded in reaching Cæsar’s side.

He thrust into his hand a roll of paper containing a full account of the impending peril.

But the star of Cæsar that day was against him.

Thinking the roll to contain a petition of some sort, he laid it in the litter by his side, to examine at a more convenient time.

And thus he went on to his death, despite all the warnings sent him by the fates.

The conspirators meanwhile were far from easy in mind.

There were signs among them that their plot had leaked out.

Casca, one of their number, was accosted by a friend, “Ah, Casca, Brutus has told me your secret.

” The conspirator started in alarm, but was relieved by the next words, “Where will you find money for the expenses of the ædileship?” The man evidently referred to an expected office.

Another senator, Popillius Lænas, hit the mark[Pg 223] closer.

“You have my good wishes; but what you do, do quickly,” he said to Brutus and Cassius.

The alarm caused by his words was doubled when he stepped up to Cæsar, on his entrance to the chamber, and began to whisper in his ear.

Cassius was so terrified that he grasped his dagger with the thought of killing himself.

He was stopped by Brutus, who quietly said that Popillius seemed rather to be asking a favor than telling a secret.

Whatever his purpose, Cæsar was not checked, but moved quietly on and took his seat.

Immediately Cimber, one of the conspirators, approached with a petition, in which he begged for the recall of his brother from banishment.

The others pressed round, praying Cæsar to grant his request.

Displeased by their importunity, Cæsar attempted to rise, but was pulled down into his seat by Cimber, while Casca stabbed him in the side, but inflicted only a slight wound.

Then they all assailed him with drawn daggers.

Cæsar kept them off for a brief time by winding his gown as a shield round his left arm, and using his sharp writing style for a weapon.

But when he saw Brutus approach prepared to strike he exclaimed in deep sorrow and reproach, “Et tu, Brute!” (Thou too, Brutus!) and covering his face with his gown, he ceased to resist.

Their daggers pierced his body till he had received twenty-three wounds, when he fell dead at the base of the statue of Pompey, which looked silently down on the slaughter of his great and successful rival.

What followed this base and fruitless deed may be[Pg 224] briefly told.

The senators not in the plot rose in alarm and fled from the house.

When Brutus turned to seek to justify his deed only empty benches remained.

Then the assassins hurried to the Forum, to tell the people that they had freed Rome from a despot.

But the people were hostile, and the words of Brutus fell on unfriendly ears.

Marc Antony followed, and delivered a telling oration, which Shakespeare has magnificently paraphrased.

He showed the mob a waxen image of Cæsar’s body, pierced with wounds, and the garment rent by murderous blades.

His words wrought his hearers to fury.

They tore up benches, tables, and everything on which they could lay their hands, for a funeral pile, placed on it the corpse, and set it on fire.

Then, seizing blazing embers from the pile, they rushed in quest of vengeance to the houses of the conspirators.

They were too late; all had fled.

The will of the dictator, in which he had made a large donation to every citizen of Rome, added to the popular fury, and a frenzy of vengeance took possession of the people of Rome.

ANTONY’S ORATION OVER CÆSAR.

ANTONY’S ORATION OVER CÆSAR.

We must give the sequel of this murderous deed in a few words.

Marc Antony was now master of Rome.

He increased his power by pretending moderation, and having a law passed to abolish the dictatorship forever.

But there were other actors on the scene.

Octavius, whom Cæsar’s will had named as his heir, took quick steps to gain his heritage.

Antony had taken possession of Cæsar’s wealth, but Octavius managed to raise money enough to pay his uncle’s legacy to the citizens of Rome.

A third[Pg 225] man of power was Lepidus, who commanded an army near Rome, and was prepared to take part in the course of events.

Octavius was still only a boy, not yet twenty years of age.

But he was shrewd and ambitious, and soon succeeded in having himself elected consul and put at the head of a large army.

Cicero aided him with a series of orations directed against Antony, which were so keen and bitter, and had such an effect upon the people, that Antony was declared a public enemy.

Octavius marched to meet him and Lepidus, who were marching southward with another large army.

Instead of fighting, however, the three leaders met in secret conclave, and agreed to divide the power in Rome between them.

This compact is known as the Second Triumvirate.

Its members followed the example of Marius and Sulla, not that of Cæsar, and resolved to extirpate their enemies.

Each of them gave up personal friends to the vengeance of the others.

Of their victims the most famous was Cicero, who had delivered his orations against Antony in aid of Octavius.

The ambitious boy was base enough to yield his friend to the vengeance of the incensed Antony.

No less than three hundred senators and two thousand knights fell victims to this new proscription, which while it lasted made a reign of terror in Rome.

Brutus and Cassius had meanwhile made themselves masters of Greece and the eastern provinces of Rome, and were ready to meet the forces of the Triumvirate in the field.

The decisive battle was[Pg 226] fought on the field of Philippi in Northern Greece.

The division of Cassius was defeated, and he killed himself in despair.

Twenty days afterwards another battle was fought on the same field, in which Brutus was defeated, and likewise put an end to his life.

The triumvirs were undisputed lords of Rome.

The imperial rule of Cæsar had lasted but a few months, and ended with his life.

But with Octavius began an imperial era which lasted till the end of the dominion of Rome.

[Pg 227] ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.

The battles of Philippi and the death of Brutus and Cassius put an end to the republican party to whom Cæsar owed his death.

The whole realm was handed over to the imperial Triumvirate, who now made a new division of the vast Roman world.

Antony took as his share all the mighty realm of the East; Octavius all the West.

To Lepidus, whom his powerful confederates did not take the trouble to consult, only Africa was left.

The after-career of Antony was a curious and impressive one.

He loved a bewitching Egyptian queen, and for a false love lost the vast dominion he had won.

The story is one of the most romantic and popular of all that have come to us from the past.

It has been told in detail by Plutarch and richly dramatized by Shakespeare.

We give it here in brief epitome.

Fourteen years previously Antony had visited Alexandria, and had there seen the youthful Cleopatra, then a girl of fifteen, but already so beautiful and attractive that the susceptible Roman was deeply smitten with her charms.

Later she had charmed Cæsar, and now when the lord of the East set out on a tour of his new dominions, the love queen of Egypt left her capital for Cilicia with the purpose of making him her captive.

[Pg 228] It was midsummer of the year 41 B.

C.

when Antony arrived at Tarsus, on the river Cydnus.

Up this stream to visit him came, in more than Oriental pomp, the beautiful Egyptian queen.

The galley that bore her was gorgeous beyond comparison.

Its sails were of Tyrian purple; silver oars fretted the yielding wave, while music timed their rise and fall; the poop glittered with burnished gold; rich perfumes filled the air with fragrance.

Here, on a splendid couch, under a spangled canopy, reclined Cleopatra, attired as Venus, and surrounded by attendants dressed as Graces and Cupids.

Beautiful slaves moved oars and ropes, and the whole array was one of wondrous charm.

We cannot do better than quote Shakespeare’s vivid description of this unequalled spectacle: “The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne, Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water that they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes.

For her own person, It beggared all description; she did lie In her pavilion-cloth-of-gold of tissue- Outpicturing that Venus where we see The fancy outwork nature; on each side her Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids, With divers-colored fans, whose wind did seem To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool.

” The people of Tarsus ran in crowds to gaze on this wondrous spectacle, leaving Antony alone in the[Pg 229] Forum.

At the request of Cleopatra he came also, and was so captivated at sight that he became her slave.

He forgot Rome, forgot his wife Fulvia, forgot honor and dignity, through his wild passion for this Egyptian sorceress.

Following her to Alexandria, he laid aside his Roman garb for the Oriental costume of the Egyptian court, gave way to all Cleopatra’s pleasure-loving caprices, and lived in a perpetual round of orgies and festivities, heedless of honor and duty, and caring for naught but love and sensual enjoyment.

Intoxicated with pleasure, Antony did not know what risk he ran.

From this the delegates brought down and placed in the scales a sufficient quantity. But while they found the gold, the Gauls found the weights, and it was soon discovered that the wily barbarians were cheating. Their weights were too heavy. Complaint of this fraud was made by the Roman tribune of the soldiers. In reply Brennus drew his heavy broadsword and threw it into the scale with the weights. ”

What does this mean?”

asked the tribune. ”

It means,”

answered the barbarian, haughtily, ”

woe to the vanquished!”

”

Væ victis esse!”

While this was going on, says the legend, Camillus, the dictator, was marching to Rome with the legions he had organized at Veii. He appeared at the right minute for the dramatic interest of the story, entered the Forum while the gold was being weighed, bade the Romans take back their gold, threw the weights to the Gauls, and told Brennus[Pg 102]

proudly that it was the Roman custom to pay their debts in iron, not in gold. A fight ensued, as might be expected. The Gauls were driven from the city. The next day Camillus attacked them in their camp, eight miles from Rome, and defeated them so utterly that not a man was left alive to carry home the tale of the slaughter. This story of the coming of Camillus is too much like the last act of a stage-play, or the dénouement of a novel, to be true. Most likely the Gauls marched off with their gold, though they may have been attacked on their retreat, and most or all of the gold regained. Camillus, however, is said to have saved Rome in still another way. The old city was in ashes. Most of the citizens were at Veii, where they had found or built new homes. They were loath to come back to rebuild a ruined city. This Camillus induced them to do. Every appeal was made to the local pride and the religious sentiments of the people. A centurion, marching with his company, and being obliged to halt in front of the senate-house, called to the standard-bearer, ”

Pitch your standard here, for this is the best place to stop at.”

This casual remark was looked upon as an omen from heaven, and by this and the like means the people were induced to return. Then the rebuilding of Rome began. The sites of the temples were retraced as far as could be done in the ruins. The laws of the twelve tables and some other records were recovered, but the mass of the historical annals of Rome had been destroyed. Some[Pg 103]

relics were said to have been miraculously preserved, among them the shepherd’s crook of Romulus. But the bulk of the possessions of the Romans had vanished in the flames;

the streets were mere heaps of ashes;

the very walls had been in part pulled down;

rubbish and ruin lay everywhere. Rome, like the phœnix, had to be born again from its ashes. Men built wherever they could find a clear spot. Stones and roofing-material were brought from Veii, and one city was dismantled that another might be restored. Stones and timber were supplied to any man from the public lands. The city rapidly rose again. But it was an irregular city;

the streets ran anywhere;

no effort was made at rule or system in the making of the new Rome. As for Camillus, he came to be honored as the second founder of Rome. While the Romans were at work on their new homes they were harassed by their foes, and he was kept busy with the army in the field. He lived for twenty-five years longer, and in the year 367 B.C., when some eighty years of age, he marched again to meet the Gauls in a new assault upon Rome, and defeated them with such slaughter that they left Rome alone for many years afterwards. Marcus Manlius, the preserver of the Capitol, was not so fortunate. He came forward as the patron of the poor, who began to suffer again from the severe laws against debtors. Finally he began to use his large fortune to relieve suffering debtors, and is said to have paid the debts of four hundred debtors,[Pg 104]

thus saving them from bondage. This generosity won him the unbounded affection of the people, who called him the ”

Father of the Commons.”

But it aroused the suspicion of the patricians, and some of these, against whom he had used violent language, had him arrested on a charge of treason, perhaps with good reason. Though he showed the many honors he had received for services to his country, he was condemned to death and his house razed to the ground. Thus the patricians dealt with the benefactors of the poor. [Pg 105]

THE CURTIAN GULF. During three years-363 to 361 B.C.-Rome was ravaged by the plague, which was so violent and fatal as to carry off the citizens by hundreds. In its first year it found a noble victim in Camillus, the conqueror of Veii and the second founder of Rome, who four years before had a second time defeated the Gauls. He was the last of the old heroes of Rome, those whose glory belongs to romance rather than history. The Gauls had destroyed the records of old Rome, and left only legend and romance. With the new Rome history fairly began. But we have another romantic tale to tell before we bid adieu to the story of early Rome. In the second year of the pestilence a strange and portentous event occurred. The Tiber rose to an unusual height, overflowed with its waters the great circus (Circus Maximus), and put a stop to the games then going on, which were intended to propitiate the wrath of heaven, and induce the gods to relieve man from the evil of the plague. And now, in the midst of the Forum, there yawned open a fearful gulf, so wide and deep that the superstitious Romans viewed it with awe and affright. Whether it was due to an earthquake or the wrath of the gods is not for us to say. The Romans believed the latter;

those who prefer may believe the[Pg 106]

former. But, so we are told, it seemed bottomless. Throw what they would in it, it stood unfilled, and the feeling grew that no power of man could ever fill its yawning depths. Man being powerless, the oracles of the gods were consulted. Must this gaping wound always stand open in the soil of Rome? or could it in any way be filled and the offended deities who had caused it be propitiated? From the oracle came the reply that it must stand open till that which constituted the best and true strength of the Roman commonwealth was cast as an offering into the gulf. Then only would it close, and thereafter forever would the state live and flourish. RUINS OF THE ROMAN AQUEDUCTS. RUINS OF THE ROMAN AQUEDUCTS. The true strength of Rome! In what did this consist? This question men asked each other anxiously and none seemed able to answer. But there was one man in Rome who interpreted rightly the meaning of the oracle. This was a noble youth, M. Curtius by name, who had played his part valiantly in war, and gained great fame by brave and manly deeds. The true strength of Rome? he said to the people. In what else could it lie but in the arms and valor of her children? This was the sacrifice the gods demanded. Going home, he put on his armor and mounted his horse. Riding to the brink of the gulf, he, before the eyes of the trembling and awe-struck multitude, devoted himself to death for the safety and glory of Rome, and plunged, with his horse, headlong into the gaping void. The people rushed after him to the brink, flung in their offerings, and with a[Pg 107]

surge the lips of the gap came together, and the gulf was forever closed. The place was afterwards known by the name of the Curtian Lake, in honor of this sacrifice. There are two other stories of this date worth repeating, as giving rise to two great names in Rome. T. Manlius, the future conqueror of the Latins, fought with a gigantic Gaul on the bridge over the Anio on the Salarian road. Slaying his enemy, he took from his neck a chain of gold (torques), which he afterwards wore upon his own. From this the soldiers called him Torquatus, which name his descendants ever afterwards bore. In a later battle Marcus Valerius fought with a second gigantic Gaul. During the combat a wonderful thing happened. A crow perched on the helmet of the Roman, and continued there as the combatants fought. Occasionally it flew up into the air, and darted down upon the Gaul, striking at his eyes with its beak and claws. The Gaul, confounded by this attack, soon fell by the sword of his foe, and then the crow flew up again, and vanished towards the east. The name of Corvus (crow) was added to that of Valerius, and was long afterwards borne by his descendants. These stories are rather to be enjoyed than believed. They probably contain more poetry than history, particularly that of Curtius and the gulf. Yet they were accepted as history by the Romans, and are given in all their detail in the fine old work of Livy, the rarest and raciest of the story-tellers of Rome. [Pg 108]

ANECDOTES OF THE LATIN AND SAMNITE WARS. The conquest of Italy by Rome was attended by many interesting events, of which we propose to relate here some of the more striking. The capture and burning of Rome by the Gauls, and the dispersal of her army and people, ruinous as it seemed, was but an event in her career of conquest. The city was no sooner rebuilt than the old régime of war was resumed, and it was no longer a struggle between neighboring cities, but of Rome against powerful confederacies and peoples, such as the Volscians, the Etruscans, the Latins, the Campanians, and the Samnites, the final conquest of which gave her the dominion of Italy. The war with the Latins was attended with some circumstances showing strongly the stern and indomitable spirit of the Romans. This war was carried into Campania, in Southern Italy;

and here, on a celebrated occasion, when the two armies lay encamped in close vicinity on the plain of Capua, the Roman consuls issued a strict order against skirmishing or engaging in single encounters with the enemy. The two peoples were alike in arms and in language, and it was feared that such chance combats might lead to confusion and disaster. [Pg 109]

The only man to disobey this order was T. Manlius, the son of one of the consuls. A Latin warrior, Geminus Metius, of Tusculum, challenged young Manlius to meet him in single combat;

and the youthful warrior, fired by ambition and warlike zeal, and eager to sustain the honor of Rome, accepted the challenge, despite his father’s order. If killed, his fault would be atoned;

if successful, victory over a noted warrior must win him pardon and praise. The duel that ensued was a fierce and gallant one. It ended in the triumph of the young Roman, who laid his antagonist dead at his feet. Shouts of triumph from the Roman soldiers hailed his victory;

and when he had despoiled his slain foe of his arms, and borne them triumphantly from the field, the exultation of the Romans was as unbounded as the chagrin of the Latins was deep. Towards his father’s tent the young victor proudly went, through exulting lines of troops, and laid his spoils in triumph at the feet of the stern old man. The poor youth, the rejoicing soldiers, knew not the man with whom they had to deal. A military order had been disobeyed. To old Manlius the fact that the culprit was his son, and that he had added honor to the Roman arms, weighed nothing. Discipline stood above affection or victory. Turning coldly away, the iron-hearted old Roman ordered that the soldiers should be immediately summoned to the prætorium, or general’s tent, and that his son should be beheaded before them. This cruel and inhuman order filled the whole army with horror. Yet none dared interfere, and[Pg 110]

the unnatural mandate was obeyed, in full view of an army whose late exultation was turned to deepest woe and indignation. The youngest soldiers never forgave the consul for his inhuman act, but regarded him with abhorrence to the end of his life. But their hatred was mingled with fear and respect, and the stern lesson taught was doubtless felt for years in the discipline of the armies of Rome. The next event worthy of record took place in the vicinity of Mount Vesuvius, under whose very shadow a fierce battle was fought between the Latin and Roman armies, with the then silent volcano as witness. Two centuries more were to pass before Rome would learn what fearful power lay sleeping in this long voiceless mountain. Before the battle joined, the gods, as usual, were appealed to. During the night both consuls had dreamed the same dream. A figure of more than human stature and majesty had appeared to them, and told them that the earth and the gods of the dead claimed as their victims the general of one party and the army of the other. When the sacrifices were made, the signs given by the entrails of the victims signified the same thing. It was resolved, therefore, that if the army of Rome anywhere gave way, the general commanding on that side should devote himself, and the army of the enemy with him, to the gods of death and the grave. ”

Fate,”

said the augurs, ”

requires the sacrifice of a general from one party and an army from the other. Let it be our general and the Latin army that shall perish.”

[Pg 111]

It was the left wing of the Romans, commanded by the consul Publius Decius, that first gave way. The consul at once accepted his fate. By the direction of the chief priest, he wrapped his consular toga around his head, holding it to his face with his hand, and then set his feet upon a javelin, and repeated after the priest the words devoting him to the gods of death. Then, arming himself at all points, and wrapping his toga around his body in the manner usual in sacrifices, he sprang upon his horse, and spurred headlong into the ranks of the enemy, where he soon fell dead. This sacrifice filled the Romans with hope, and the Latins, who understood its meaning, with dismay. Yet the latter, after being driven back, soon recovered, and, despite the self-devotion of Decius, would probably have won the victory had not the remaining consul brought up his reserve troops just in time. In the end the Latins were utterly defeated, and Vesuvius looked down on the massacre of one army by the swords of another, scarcely a fourth of the Latins escaping. Thus the gods seemed to keep their word, though probably the Roman reserve force had more to do with the victory than all the gods of Rome. The next event which we have to relate took place during the second Samnite war. Its hero was L. Papirius Cursor, one of the favorite heroes of Roman tradition, and the avenger of the disgrace of the Caudine Forks, the story of which we have next to tell. This famous soldier is said to have possessed marvellous swiftness of foot and gigantic strength,[Pg 112]

with extraordinary capacity for food, while his iron strictness of discipline was at times relieved by a rough humor. All this made his memory popular with the Romans, who boasted that Alexander the Great would have found in him a worthy champion, had that conqueror invaded Italy. The event we have now to narrate occurred early in the war. One of the consuls, being taken ill, was ordered to name a dictator to replace him, and chose Papirius Cursor. This champion appointed Q. Fabius Rullianus, another famous soldier, his master of the horse, and marched out to attack the Samnites. As it happened, the auspices taken by the dictator at Rome before marching to the seat of war were of no particular significance. Not satisfied with them, he decided to take them again, and returned to Rome for this purpose, the auspices being of a kind which could only be taken within the city walls. He ordered the master of the horse to remain strictly on the defensive during his absence. Fabius did not obey this order. He attacked the enemy and gained some advantage. The annals say that he won a great victory, defeating the Samnites with a loss of twenty thousand men;

but the annals have a habit of magnifying small affairs into large ones where they have any object to gain. On hearing that his orders had been disobeyed, Papirius hurried back to the camp in a violent rage, and with the intention of making such an example of discipline as Manlius had made in the execution of his son. On reaching camp he ordered that Fabius should be immediately executed. His [Pg 113]

authority as dictator gave him power for this violent act;

but he failed to reckon on the spirit of the soldiers, who supported Fabius to a man, and broke into a violent demonstration that was almost mutiny. So strong was their feeling that the furious dictator found himself obliged to halt in his purpose. But Fabius knew too well the iron nature of his antagonist to trust his life in his hands. That night he fled from the camp to Rome, and immediately appealed to the senate for protection. Papirius followed in hot haste, and while the senators were still assembling arrived in Rome, where, under his authority as dictator, he gave order for the arrest of the culprit. In this critical situation the prisoner’s father, M. Fabius, appealed to the tribunes for the protection of his son, saying that he proposed to carry the case before the assembly of the people. The tribunes found themselves in a dilemma. Papirius warned them not to sanction so flagrant a breach of military discipline, nor to lessen the majesty of the office of dictator, and they found themselves hesitating between their duty to support the absolute power of the dictator and their abhorrence of an exercise of this power that must shock the feelings of the whole Roman people. The people themselves relieved their tribunes from this difficulty. They hastily met in assembly, and by a unanimous vote implored the dictator to be merciful, and for their sakes to forgive Fabius. His authority thus acknowledged, Papirius yielded, and declared that he pardoned the master of the horse.[Pg 114]

”

And the authority of the Roman generals,”

says Livy, ”

was established no less firmly by the peril of Q. Fabius than by the actual death of the young T. Manlius.”

It was well for Rome that Fabius was spared, for he afterwards proved one of their ablest generals. The time came, also, when he was able to confer a benefit upon Papirius Cursor. This was during a subsequent war with the Etruscans, in which he commanded as consul and gained great victories. Meanwhile a Roman army was defeated by the Samnites, and on the news of this defeat reaching Rome the senate at once resolved to appoint Papirius once more as dictator. But this appointment must be made by a consul. One consul was with the defeated army, perhaps dead. It was necessary to apply to Fabius, the other consul, and the declared enemy of the proposed dictator. To overcome his personal feelings, a deputation of the highest senators was sent him, who read him the senate’s decree and strongly urged him to support it. Fabius listened in dead silence, not answering by word or look. When they had ended, he abruptly withdrew from the room. But at dead of night he pronounced, in the usual form, the nomination of Papirius as dictator. When the deputies thanked him for his noble conquest over his feelings, he listened still in dead silence, and dismissed them without a word in answer. We must now pass over years of war, in which both Fabius and Papirius gained honor and fame, and come to an occasion in which the son of Fabius[Pg 115]

led a Roman army as consul, and met with a severe defeat by a Samnite army. He had been tricked by the Samnites, and great indignation was aroused against him in Rome. It was proposed to remove him from his office, a disgrace which no consul ever experienced in Roman history. It was also proposed that old Fabius should be appointed dictator. But the aged soldier, to preserve the honor of his son, offered to go with him as his lieutenant, and the offer was accepted by the senate. A second battle ensued, in the heat of which the consul became surrounded by the enemy, and his aged father led the charge to his rescue. His example animated the Romans, they followed him in a vigorous assault, and a complete victory was won. Twenty thousand Samnites were slain, four thousand taken prisoners, and with them their general, C. Pontius. After other victories the younger Fabius returned to Rome and was given a triumph, while behind him rode his old father on horseback, as one of his lieutenants, delighting in the honor conferred on his son. The Samnite general was made to walk in the procession, and at its end was taken to the prison under the Capitoline Hill and there beheaded. It was thus that Rome dealt with its captured foes. [Pg 116]

THE CAUDINE FORKS. Westward from Rome rise the Apennine Mountains, the backbone of Italy;

and amid their highest peaks, where the snow lies all the year long, and whence streams flow into the two seas, dwelt the Sabines, an important people, from whom came the mothers of the Roman state. There is a legend concerning this people which we have now to tell. For many years they had been at war with their neighbors, the Umbrians;

and at length, failing to conquer their enemies by their own strength, they sought to obtain the help of the divinities. They made a vow that if victory was given to them, all the living creatures born that year in their land should be held as sacred to the gods. The victory came, and they sacrificed all the lambs, calves, kids, and pigs of that year’s birth, while they redeemed from the gods such animals as were not suitable for sacrifice. But, as it appeared, the deities were not satisfied. The land refused to yield its fruits, and the Sabines were not long in deciding why their crops had failed. They had neither sacrificed nor redeemed the children born that year, and had thus failed in their duty to the gods. To atone for this fault, all their children of that[Pg 117]

year’s birth were devoted to the god Mamers, and when they had grown up they were sent away to make themselves a home in a new land. As the young men started on their pilgrimage a bull went before them, and, as they fancied that Mamers had sent this animal for their guide, they piously followed him. He first lay down to rest when he had come to the land of the Opicans. This the Sabines took for a sign, and they fell on the Opicans, who dwelt in villages without walls, and drove them out from their country, of which the new-comers took possession. They then sacrificed the bull to Mamers;

and in after-ages they bore the bull for their device. They also took a new name, and were afterwards known as Samnites. While the Romans were extending their dominion in Central Italy, the Samnites were conquering the peoples farther south. Their dominion became great, and at one time included the famous cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii and many others of the cities of the southern plains. In the centre of the Samnite country stood a remarkable mountain mass, an offshoot from the Apennines. This mountain, now called the Matese, is nearly eight miles in circumference, and rises abruptly in huge wall-like cliffs of limestone to the height of three thousand feet. Its surface is greatly varied in character, now sloping into deep valleys, now rising into elevated cliffs, of which the loftiest is six thousand feet high. It is rich in springs, which gush out in full flow, and disappear again in the caverns with which limestone rocks abound. Its valleys yield abundant pasture[Pg 118]

and magnificent beech forests, while on its highest summits the snow tarries till late summer, and in the hottest months of summer the upland pastures continue cool. This mountain fastness formed the citadel from which the Samnites issued in conquering excursions over the surrounding country, and enabled them in time to extend their dominion far and wide, and to rival Rome in the width and importance of their state. Thus Rome and Samnium approached each other step by step, and the time inevitably came when they were to join issue in war. Three wars took place between the Romans and the Samnites. In the first of these Valerius Corvus (the origin of whose name of Corvus we have already told) led the Roman army to victory. In honor of this victory Rome received from Carthage (with which city it was to engage in a desperate contest in later years) a golden crown, for the shrine of Jupiter in the Capitol. In 329 B.C. Rome finally overcame the Volscians, with whom they had been many years at war, and three years afterwards war with the Samnites was again declared. The latter were invading Campania, in which country lay the volcano of Vesuvius and the city of Naples. Rome came to the aid of the Campanians, and a war began which lasted for more than twenty years. Of this war we have but one event to tell, that in which Rome suffered the greatest humiliation it had met with in its entire career, the famous affair of the Caudine Forks. It was in the fifth campaign of the[Pg 119]

war that this event took place. Two Roman armies had marched into Campania and threatened the southern border of Samnium, which the Samnite general Pontius was prepared to defend. His force occupied the passes which led from the plain of Naples into the higher mountain valleys;

but he deceived the Romans by spreading the report that the whole Samnite army had gone to Apulia, where they were besieging the city of Luceria. His purpose was to lure the Romans into these difficult defiles under the impression that the Samnites were trusting to the natural strength of their country for its defence. The trick succeeded. The Roman consuls believed the story, and, in their haste to go to the aid of their allies in Apulia, chose the shortest route, that which led through the Samnian hills. The absence of the Samnite army would enable them, they thought, to force their way through Samnium without difficulty;

and, blinded by their false confidence, the consuls recklessly led their men into the fatal pass of Caudium. This pass was a narrow opening in the outer wall of the Apennines, which led from the plain of Campania to Maleventum. To-day it is traversed by the road from Naples to Benevento, and is called the valley of Arpaia. In the past it was famous as Caudium. Into this defile the Romans marched between the rugged mountain acclivities that bounded its sides, and through the deep silence that reigned around. The pass seemed utterly deserted, and they expected[Pg 120]

soon to emerge into a more open valley in the interior of the hills. But as they advanced the pass contracted, until it became but a narrow gorge, and this they found to be blocked up with great stones and felled trees. Brought to a halt, the troops stood gazing in dismay and dread on these obstacles, when suddenly the silence was broken, loud war-cries filled the air, and armed Samnites appeared as if by magic, covering the hills on both flanks, and crowding into the pass in the rear. The Romans were caught in such a trap as that from which Cincinnatus had rescued a Roman army many years before. But there was here no Cincinnatus with his stakes, and they were far from Rome. The entrapped army made a desperate effort to escape, attacking the Samnites in the rear, and seeking to force their way up the rugged surrounding hills. They fought in vain. Many of them fell. The Samnite foe pressed them still more closely into the rocky pass. Only the coming of night saved them from total destruction. But escape was impossible. The gorge in front was completely blocked up. The pass in the rear was held by the enemy in force. The flanking hills could hardly have been climbed by an army, even if they had not been occupied. No resource remained to the Romans but to encamp in the broader part of the narrow valley, and there wait in hopeless despair the outcome of their folly. The Samnites could well afford to let them wait. The rear was held by the bulk of their army. The[Pg 121]

obstacles in front were strongly guarded. Every possible track by which the Romans might try to scale the hills was held. Some desperate attempts to break out were made, but they were easily repulsed. Nothing remained but surrender, or death by famine. One or other of these alternatives had soon to be chosen. A large army, surprised on its march, and confined within a barren pass, could not have subsistence for any long period. Nothing was to be gained by delay, and they might as well yield themselves prisoners of war at once. So the Romans evidently thought, and without delay they put themselves at the mercy of their conquerors. ”

We yield ourselves your captives,”

they said, ”

to do with as you will. Put us all to the sword, if such be your decision;

sell us into slavery;

or hold us as prisoners until we are ransomed:

one thing only we ask, save our bodies, whether living or dead, from all unworthy insults.”

In this request they forgot the record that Rome had made;

forgot how often noble captives had been forced to walk in Roman triumphs and been afterwards slain in cold blood in the common prison;

forgot how they had recently refused the rites of burial to the body of a noble Samnite. But Pontius, the Samnite general, was much less of a barbarian than the Romans of that age. He was acquainted with Greek philosophy, had even held conversation, it is said, with Plato, and was not the man to indulge in cruel or insulting acts. ”

Restore to us,”

he said to the consuls, ”

the towns[Pg 122]

and territory you have taken from us, and withdraw the colonists whom you have unjustly placed on our soil. Conclude with us a treaty of peace, in which each nation shall be acknowledged to be independent of the other. Swear to do this, and I will grant you your lives and release you without ransom. Each man of you shall give up his arms, but may keep his clothes untouched;

and you shall pass before our army as prisoners who have been in our power and whom we have set free of our own will, when we might have killed or sold them, or held them for ransom.”

These terms the consuls were glad enough to accept. They were far better than they would have granted the Samnites under similar circumstances. Pontius now called for the Roman fecialis, whose duty it was to conclude all treaties and take all oaths for the Roman people. But there was no fecialis with the army. The senate had sent none, having resolved to make no terms with the Samnites, and to accept only their absolute submission. They had never dreamed of such a turn of the tide as this. In the absence of the proper officer, the consuls and all the surviving officers took the oath, while it was agreed that six hundred knights should be held as hostages until the Roman people had ratified the treaty. Why Pontius did not insist on treating with the senate and people of Rome at once, instead of trusting to them to ratify a treaty made with prisoners of war, we are not told. He was soon to learn how weak a reed to lean upon was the Roman faith. [Pg 123]

The treaty made, the humiliating part of the affair came. The Roman army was obliged to march under the yoke, which consisted of two spears set upright and a third fastened across their tops. Under this the soldiers of the legions without their arms, and wearing but a single article of clothing,-the campestre or kilt, which reached from the waist to the knees,-passed in gloomy succession. Even the consuls were obliged to appear in this humble plight, the six hundred hostage knights alone being spared. This was no peculiar insult, but a common usage on such occasions. The Romans had imposed it more than once on defeated enemies. They were now to endure it themselves, and the affair, under the name of the Caudine Forks, has become famous in history. Pontius proved, indeed, generous to his foes. He supplied carriages for the sick and wounded, and furnished provisions to last the army until it should arrive at Home. When that city was reached the senate and people came out and welcomed the soldiers with the greatest kindness. But the wounded pride of the legionaries could not be soothed. Those who had homes in the country stole from the ranks and sought their several dwellings. Those who lived in Rome lingered without the walls until after the sun had fallen, and then made their way home through the darkness. The consuls were obliged to enter in open day, but as soon as possible they sought their homes, and shut themselves up in privacy. As for the city, it went into mourning. All business[Pg 124]

was suspended;

the patricians laid aside their gold rings and took off the red border of their dresses which marked their rank;

the plebeians appeared in mourning garbs;

there was as much weeping for those who had returned in dishonor as for those left dead on the field;

all rejoicings, festivals, and marriages were set aside for a year of happier omen. The final result was such as might have been expected from the earlier record of Rome. The senate refused to recognize the treaty. The defeated consuls themselves sustained this bad faith, saying that they and all the officers should be given up to the Samnites, as having promised what they were unable to perform. This was done. Half stripped, as when they passed under the yoke, and their hands bound behind their backs, the officers were conducted by the fecialis to the Samnian frontier, and delivered to the Samnites as men who had forfeited their liberty by their breach of faith. The surrender completed, Postumius, one of the consuls, struck a fecialis violently with his knee,-his hands and feet being bound,-and cried out,- ”

I now belong to the Samnites, and I have done violence to the sacred person of a Roman fecialis and ambassador. You will rightfully wage war with us, Romans, to avenge this outrage.”

This transparent trick was wasted on Pontius. He refused the victims offered him. They were not the guilty ones, he said. The legions must be placed again in the Caudium Valley, or Rome keep the[Pg 125]

treaty. Anything else would be base and faithless. The treaty was not kept. The war went on. And nearly thirty years afterwards, as we have told in the preceding story, Pontius, who had behaved so generously to the Romans, was led as a prisoner in a Roman triumph, and then basely beheaded while the triumphal car of the victor ascended the Capitoline Hill. His death is one of the darkest blots on the Roman name. ”

Such a murder,”

we are told, ”

committed or sanctioned by such a man as Q. Fabius, is peculiarly a national crime, and proves but too clearly that in their dealings with foreigners the Romans had neither magnanimity, nor humanity, nor justice.”

[Pg 126]

THE FATE OF REGULUS. We have followed the growth of Rome from its seed in the cradle of Romulus and Remus to its early maturity in the conquest of Italy. Its triumph over the Latins, Samnites, and Etruscans had made it virtually master of that peninsula. In the year 280 B.C. it was first called upon to meet a great foreign soldier in the celebrated Pyrrhus of Epirus, who had invaded Italy. How this great soldier scared the Romans with his elephants and defeated them in the field, but was finally baffled and left the country in disgust, we have told in ”

Historical Tales of Greece.”

It was not many years after this that Rome herself went abroad in search of new foes, and her long and bitter struggle with Carthage began. The great city of Carthage lay on the African side of the Mediterranean, where it had won for itself a great empire, and had added to its dominion by important conquests in Spain and Sicily. Settled many centuries before by emigrants from the Phœnician city of Tyre, it had, like its mother city, grown rich through commerce, and was now lord of the Mediterranean and one of the great cities of the earth. With this city Rome was now to begin a mighty struggle, which would last for many years and end[Pg 127]

in the utter destruction of the great African city and state. Pyrrhus of Epirus, on leaving Sicily, had said, ”

What a grand arena this would be for Rome and Carthage to contend upon!”

And it was in the island of Sicily that the struggle between these two mighty powers began. In the year 264 B.C., nearly five centuries after the founding of Rome, that city first sent its armies beyond the borders of Italy, and the long contest between Rome and Carthage was inaugurated. Some soldiers of fortune, who had invaded Sicily and found themselves in trouble, called upon Rome for help. Carthage, which held much of the island, was also appealed to, and both sent armies. The result was a collision between these armies. In two years’ time most of Sicily belonged to Rome, and Carthage retained hardly a foothold upon that island. This rapid success of the Romans in foreign conquest encouraged them greatly. But they were soon to find themselves at a disadvantage. Being an inland power, they knew nothing of ocean warfare, and possessed none but small ships. Carthage, on the contrary, had a large and powerful fleet, and now began to use it with great effect. By its aid the Carthaginians took from Rome many towns on the coast of Sicily. They also landed on and ravaged the coasts of Italy. It was made evident to the Roman senate that if they looked for success they must meet the enemy on their own element, and dispute with Carthage the dominion of the sea. [Pg 128]

How was this to be done? The largest ships they knew of had only three banks of oars. Carthage possessed war vessels with five banks of oars, and built on a plan different from that of the smaller vessels. Rome had no model for these ships, and was at a loss what to do. Fortunately a Carthaginian quinquereme (a ship with five banks of oars) ran ashore on the coast of Italy, and was captured and sent to Rome. This served as a model for the shipwrights of that city, and so energetically did they set to work that in two months after the first cutting of the timber they had built and launched more than a hundred ships of this class. And while the ships were building the crews selected for the quinqueremes were practising. Most of them had never even seen an oar, and they were now placed on benches ashore, ranged like those in the ships, and carefully taught the movements of rowing, so that when the ships were launched they were quite ready to drive them through the waves. The Romans, who could fight best hand to hand, added a new and important device, providing their ships with wooden bridges attached to the masts, and ready to fall on an enemy’s vessel whenever one came near. A great spike at the end was driven into the deck of the enemy’s ship by the weight of the falling bridge, and held her while the Romans charged across the bridge. The new fleet was soon tried. It met a Carthaginian fleet on the north coast of Sicily. The Romans proved poor sailors, but the bridges gave them the victory. These could be wheeled round the mast[Pg 129]

and dropped in any direction, and, however the Carthaginians approached, they found themselves grappled and boarded by the Romans, whose formidable swords soon did the rest. In the end Carthage lost fifty ships and ten thousand men, and with them the dominion of the seas. This success was a great event in the history of Rome. The victory was celebrated by a great naval triumph, and a column was set up in the Forum, which was adorned with the ornamental prows of ships. Three years afterwards Rome resolved to carry the war into Africa, and for this purpose built a great fleet of three hundred and thirty ships, and manned by one hundred and forty thousand seamen, in addition to its soldiers or fighting men. These were largely made up of prisoners from Sardinia and Corsica, Carthaginian islands which had been attacked by the Roman fleets. The two consuls in command were L. Manlius Vulso and M. Atilius Regulus. The great fleet of Rome met a still greater Carthaginian one at Ecnomus, on the southern coast of Sicily, and here one of the greatest sea-fights of history took place. In the end the Romans lost twenty-four ships, while of those of the enemy thirty were sunk and sixty-four captured. The remainder of the enemy’s fleet fled in all haste to Carthage. The Romans now prepared to take one of the greatest steps in their history,-to cross the sea to the unknown African world. The soldiers murmured loudly at this. They were to be taken to a[Pg 130]

new and strange land, burnt by scorching heats and infested with noisome beasts and monstrous serpents;

and they were to be led into the very stronghold of the enemy, where they would be at their mercy. Even one of their tribunes supported the soldiers in this complaint. But Regulus was equal to the occasion:

he threatened the tribune with death, forced the soldiers on board, and sailed for the African coast. The event proved very different from what the soldiers had feared. The army of Carthage was so miserably commanded that the Romans landed without trouble and ravaged the country at their will;

and instead of the scorching heats and deadly animals they had feared, they found themselves in a fertile and thickly-settled country, where grew rich harvests of corn, and where were broad vineyards and fruitful orchards of figs and olives. Towns were numerous, and villas of wealthy citizens covered the hills. On this rich and undefended country the hungry Roman army was let loose. Villas were plundered and burnt, horses and cattle driven off in vast numbers, and twenty thousand persons, many of them doubtless of wealth and rank, were carried away to be sold as slaves. Meanwhile the army of Carthage lurked on the hills, and was defeated wherever encountered. Regulus, who had been left in sole command of the Roman army, overran the country without opposition, and boasted that he had taken and plundered more than three hundred walled towns or villages. [Pg 131]

The Carthaginians, who were also attacked by roving desert tribes, who proved even worse than the Romans, were in distress, and begged for peace. But the terms offered by Regulus were so intolerable that it was impossible to accept them. ”

Men who are good for anything should either conquer or submit to their betters,”

said Regulus, haughtily. He had not yet learned how unwise it is to drive a strong foe to desperation, and was to pay dearly for his arrogance and pride. The tide of war turned when Carthage obtained a general fit to command an army. An officer who had been sent to Greece for soldiers of fortune brought with him on his return a Spartan named Xanthippus, a man who had been trained in the rigid Spartan discipline and had played his part well in the wars of Greece. He openly and strongly condemned the conduct of the generals of Carthage;

and, on his words being reported to the government, he was sent for, and so clearly pointed out the causes of the late disasters that the direction of all the forces of Carthage was placed in his hands. And now a new spirit awakened in Carthage. Xanthippus reviewed the troops, taught them how they should meet the Roman charge, and filled them with such enthusiasm and hope that loud shouts broke from the ranks, and they eagerly demanded to be led at once to battle. The army numbered only twelve thousand foot, but had four thousand cavalry and a hundred elephants, in which much confidence was placed. The demand of the soldiers was complied with;

they[Pg 132]

boldly marched out, and now no longer to the hills, but to the lower ground, where the devastation of the enemy was at once checked. Regulus was forced to risk a battle, for his supply of food was in peril. He marched out and encamped within a mile of the foe. The Carthaginian generals, on seeing these hardy Roman legions, so long victorious, were stricken with something like panic. But the soldiers were eager to fight, and Xanthippus bade the wavering generals not to lose so precious an opportunity. They yielded, and bade him to draw up the army on his own plan. In the battle that ensued the victory was due to the cavalry and elephants. The cavalry drove that of Italy from the field, and attacked the Roman rear. The elephants broke through the Roman lines in front, furiously trampling the bravest underfoot. Those who penetrated the line of the elephants were cut to pieces by the Carthaginian infantry. Of the whole Roman army, two thousand of the left wing alone escaped;

Regulus, with five hundred others, fled, but was pursued and taken prisoner;

the remainder of the army was destroyed to a man. The defeat was total. Rome retained but a single African port, which was soon given up. Xanthippus, crowned with glory and richly rewarded, returned to Greece to enjoy the fame he had won. For five years Regulus remained a prisoner in Carthage, while the war went on in Sicily. Here, in the year 250 B.C., the Romans gained an important victory at Panormus (now Palermo), and [Pg 133]

Carthage, weary of the struggle, sent to Rome to ask for terms of peace. With the ambassadors came Regulus, who had promised to return to Carthage if the negotiations should fail, and whom the Carthaginians naturally expected to use his utmost influence in favor of peace. They did not know their man. Regulus proved himself one of those indomitable patriots of whom there are few examples in the ages. On reaching the walls of Rome he refused at first to enter, saying that he was no longer a citizen, and had lost his rights in that city. When the ambassadors of Carthage had offered their proposal to the senate, Regulus, who had remained silent, was ordered by the senate to give his opinion of the proposed treaty. Thus commanded, he astonished all who heard by strongly advising the senate not to make the treaty. He might die for his words, he might perish in torture, but the good of his country was dearer to him than his own life, and he would not counsel a treaty that might prove of advantage to the enemy. He even spoke against an exchange of prisoners, saying that he had not long to live, having, he believed, been given a secret poison by his captors, and would not make a fair exchange for a hale and hearty Carthaginian general. Such an instance of self-abnegation has rarely been heard of in history. It has made Regulus famous for all time. His advice was taken, the treaty was refused;

he, refusing to break his parole, or even to see his family, returned to Carthage with the ambassadors, knowing that he was going to his[Pg 134]

death. The rulers of that city, so it is said, furious that the treaty had been rejected through his advice, resolved to revenge themselves on him by horrible tortures. His eyelids were cut off, and he was exposed to the full glare of the African sun. He was then placed in a cask driven full of nails, and left there to die. It is fortunate to be able to say that there is no historical warrant for this story of torture, or for the companion story that the wife and son of Regulus treated two Carthaginian prisoners in the same manner. We have reason to believe that it is untrue, and that Regulus suffered no worse tortures than those of shame, exile, and imprisonment. [Pg 135]

HANNIBAL CROSSES THE ALPS. In the year 235 B.C. the gates of the Temple of Janus were closed, for the first time since the reign of Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, nearly five centuries before. During all that long period war had hardly ever ceased in Rome. And these gates were soon to be thrown open again, in consequence of the greatest war that the Roman state had ever known, a war which was to bring it to the very brink of destruction. The end of the first Punic War-as the war with Carthage was called-left Rome master of the large island of Sicily, the first province gained by that ambitious city outside of Italy. Advantage was also taken of some home troubles in Carthage to rob that city of the islands of Sardinia and Corsica,-a piece of open piracy which redoubled the hatred of the Carthaginians. Yet Rome just now was not anxious for war with her southern rival. There was enough to do in the north, for another great invasion of Gauls was threatened. And about this time the Capitol was struck by lightning, a prodigy which plunged all Rome into terror. The books of the Sibyl were hastily consulted, and were reported to say, ”

When[Pg 136]

the lightning shall strike the Capitol and the Temple of Apollo, then must thou, O Roman, beware of the Gauls.”

Another prophecy said that the time would come ”

when the race of the Greeks and the race of the Gauls should occupy the Forum of Rome.”

But Rome had its own way of dealing with prophecies and discounting the decrees of destiny. A man and woman alike of the Gaulish and of the Greek race were buried alive in the Forum Boarium, and in this cruel way the public fear was allayed. As for the invasion of the Gauls, Rome met and dealt with them in its usual fashion, defeating them in two battles, in the last of which the Gaulish army was annihilated. This ended this peril, and the dominion of Rome was extended northward to the Alps. It was fortunate for the Romans that they had just at this time rid themselves of the Gauls, for they were soon to have a greater enemy to meet. In the first Punic War, Carthage had been destitute of a commander, and had only saved herself by borrowing one from Greece. In the second war she had a general of her own, one who has hardly had his equal before or since, the far-famed Hannibal, one of the few soldiers of supreme ability which the world has produced. During the peace which followed the first Punic War Carthage sent an expedition to Spain, with the purpose of extending her dominions in that land. This was under the leadership of Hamilcar, a soldier of much ability. As he was about to set sail he offered a solemn sacrifice for the success of the enterprise.[Pg 137]

Having poured the libation on the victim, which was then duly offered on the altar, he requested all those present to step aside, and called up his son Hannibal, at that time a boy of but nine years of age. Hamilcar asked him if he would like to go to the war. With a child’s eagerness the boy implored his father to take him. Then Hamilcar, taking the boy by the hand, led him up to the altar, and bade him lay his hand on the sacrifice, and swear ”

that he would never be the friend of the Romans.”

Hannibal took the oath, and he never forgot it. His whole mature life was spent in warfare with Rome. From the city of New Carthage (or Carthagena), founded by Carthage in Spain, Hamilcar gradually won a wide dominion in that land. He was killed in battle after nine years of success, and was succeeded by Hasdrubal, another soldier of fine powers. On the death of Hasdrubal, Hannibal, then twenty-six years of age, was made commander-in-chief of the Carthaginian armies in Spain. Shortly afterwards his long struggle with Rome began. Hannibal had laid siege to and captured the city of Saguntum. The people of Saguntum were allies of Rome. That city, being once more ready for war with its rival, sent ambassadors to Carthage to demand that Hannibal and his officers should be surrendered as Roman prisoners, for a breach of the treaty of peace. After a long debate, Fabius, the Roman envoy, gathered up his toga as if something was wrapped in it, and said, ”

Look;

here are peace and war;

take which you choose.”

”

Give whichever you please,”

was the haughty Carthaginian[Pg 138]

reply. ”

Then we give you war,”

said Fabius, shaking out the folds of the toga. ”

With all our hearts we welcome it,”

cried the Carthaginians. The Romans left at once for Rome. Had they dreamed what a war it was they were inviting it is doubtful if they would have been so hasty in seeking it. War with Rome was what Hannibal most desired. He was pledged to hostility with that faithless city, and had assailed Saguntum for the purpose of bringing it about. On learning that war was declared, he immediately prepared to invade Italy itself, leading his army across the great mountain barrier of the Alps. He had already sent messengers to the Gauls, to invite their aid. They were found to be friendly, and eager for his coming. They had little reason to love Rome. A significant dream strengthened Hannibal’s purpose. In his vision he seemed to see the supreme god of his fathers, who called him into the presence of all the gods of Carthage, seated in council on their thrones. They solemnly bade him to invade Italy, and one of the council went with him into that land as guide. As they passed onward the divine guide warned, ”

See that you look not behind you.”

But at length, heedless of the command, the dreamer turned and looked back. He saw behind him a monstrous form, covered thickly with serpents, while as it moved houses, orchards, and woods fell crashing to the earth. ”

What mighty thing is this?”

he asked in wonder. ”

You see the desolation of Italy,”

replied the heavenly guide;

”

go on your way, straight forward, and cast no look[Pg 139]

behind.”

And thus, at the age of twenty-seven, Hannibal, at the command of his country’s gods, went forward to the accomplishment of his early vow. His route lay through northern Spain, where he conquered all before him. Then he marched through Gaul to the Rhone. This he crossed in the face of an army of hostile Gauls, who had gathered to oppose him. He had more difficulty with his elephants, of which he had thirty-seven. Rafts were built to convey these great beasts across the stream, but some of them, frightened, leaped overboard and drowned their drivers. They then swam across themselves, and all were safely landed. HANNIBAL CROSSING THE ALPS. HANNIBAL CROSSING THE ALPS. Other difficulties arose, but all were overcome, and at length the mountains were reached. Here Hannibal was to perform the most famous of his exploits, the crossing of the great chain of the Alps with an army, an exploit more remarkable than that which brought similar fame to Napoleon in our own days, for with Hannibal it was pioneer work, while Napoleon profited by his example. The mountaineers proved to be hostile, and gathered at all points that commanded the narrow pass. But they left their posts at night, and Hannibal, when nightfall came, set out with a body of light troops and occupied all these posts. When morning dawned the natives, to their dismay, found that they had been outgeneralled. Soon after the day began the head of the army entered a dangerous defile, and made its way in a long slender line along the terrace-like path which[Pg 140]

overhung the valley far below. The route proved comparatively easy for the foot-soldiers, but the cavalry and the baggage-animals only made their way with great difficulty, finding obstacles at almost every step. The sight of the struggling cavalcade was too much for the caution of the natives. Here was abundant plunder at their hands. From many points of the mountain above the road they rushed down upon the Carthaginians, arms in hand. A frightful disorder followed. So narrow was the path that the least confusion was likely to throw the heavily-laden baggage-animals down the precipitous steep. The cavalry horses, wounded by the arrows and javelins of the mountaineers, plunged wildly about and doubled the confusion. It was fortunate for Hannibal that he had taken the precaution of the night before. From the post he had taken with his light troops the whole scene of peril and disorder was visible to his eyes. Charging down the hill, he attacked the mountaineers and drove them from their prey. But it was a dearly bought victory, for the fight on the narrow road increased the confusion, and in seeking the relief of his army he caused the destruction of many of his own men. At length the perilous defile was safely passed, and the army reached a wide and rich valley beyond. Here was the town of Montmélian, the principal stronghold of the mountaineers. This Hannibal took by storm, and recovered there many of his own men, horses, and cattle which the natives had taken,[Pg 141]

while he found an abundant store of food for the use of his weary soldiers. After a day’s rest here the march was resumed. During the next three days the army moved up the valley of the river Isère without difficulty. The natives met them with wreaths on their heads and branches in their hands, promising peace, offering hostages, and supplying cattle. Hannibal mistrusted the sudden friendliness of his late foes, but they seemed so honest that he accepted some of them as guides through a difficult region which he was now approaching. He had reason for his mistrust, for they treacherously led him into a narrow and dangerous defile, which might have easily been avoided;

and while the army was involved in this straitened pass an attack was suddenly made by the whole force of the mountaineers. Climbing along the mountain-sides above the defile, they hurled down stones on the entangled foe, and loosened and rolled great rocks down upon their defenceless heads. Fortunately Hannibal, moved by his doubts, had sent his cavalry and baggage on first. The attack fell on the infantry, and with a body of these he forced his way to the summit of one of the cliffs above the defile, drove away the foe, and held it while the army made its way slowly on. As for the elephants, they were safe from attack. The very sight of these huge beasts filled the barbarians with such terror that they dared not even approach them. There was no further peril, and on the ninth day of its march the army reached the summit of the Alps.[Pg 142]

It was now the end of October. The grass and flowers which carpet that elevated spot in summer had become replaced by snow. In truth, the climate of the Alps was colder at that period than now, and snow lay on the higher passes all through the year. The soldiers were disheartened by cold and fatigue. The scene around them was desolate and dreary. New perils awaited their onward course. But no such feeling entered Hannibal’s courageous soul. Fired by hope and ambition, he sought to plant new courage in the hearts of his men. ”

The valley you see yonder is Italy,”

he said, pointing to the sunny slope which, from their elevated position, appeared not far away. ”

It leads to the country of our friends, the Gauls;

and yonder is our way to Rome.”

Their eyes followed the direction of his pointing hand, and their hearts grew hopeful again with the cheerfulness and enthusiasm of his words. Two days the army remained there, resting, and waiting for the stragglers to come up. Then the route was resumed. The mountaineers, severely punished, made no further attacks;

but the road proved more difficult than that by which the ascent had been made. Snow thickly covered the passes. Men and horses often lost their way, and plunged to their death down the precipitous steep. Onward struggled the distressed host, through appalling dangers and endless difficulties, losing men and animals at every step. But these troubles were trifling compared with those which they were now to endure. They suddenly[Pg 143]

found that the track before them had entirely disappeared. An avalanche had carried it bodily away for about three hundred yards, leaving only a steep and impassable slope covered with loose rocks and snow. A man of less resolution than Hannibal might well have succumbed before this supreme difficulty. The way forward had vanished. To go back was death. It was impossible to climb round the lost path, for the heights above were buried deep in snow. Nothing remained but to perish where they were, or to make a new road across the mountain’s flank. The energetic commander lost not an hour in deciding. Moving back to a space of somewhat greater breadth, the snow was removed and the army encamped. Then the difficult engineering work began. Hands were abundant, for every man was working for his life. Tools were improvised. So energetically did the soldiers work that the road rapidly grew before them. As it was cut into the rock it was supported by solid foundations below. Many ancient authors say that Hannibal used vinegar to soften the rocks, but this we have no sufficient reason to believe. So vigorously did the work go on, so many were the hands engaged, that in a single day a track was made over which the horses and baggage-animals could pass. These were sent over and reached the lower valley in safety, where pasture was found. The passage of the elephants was a more difficult task. The road for them must be solid and wide. It took three days of hard labor to make it. [Pg 144]

Meanwhile the great beasts suffered severely from hunger, for forage there was none, nor trees on whose leaves they might browse. At length the road was strong enough to bear them. They safely passed the perilous reach. After them came Hannibal with the rear of the army, soon reaching the cavalry and baggage. Three days more the wearied host struggled on, down the southward slopes of the Alps, until finally they reached the wide plain of Northern Italy, having safely accomplished the greatest military feat of ancient times. But Hannibal found himself here with a frightfully reduced army. The Alps had taken toll of their invader. He had reached Gaul from Spain with fifty thousand foot and nine thousand horse. He reached Italy with only twenty thousand foot and six thousand horse. No fewer than thirty-three thousand men had perished by the way. It was a puny force with which to invade a country that could oppose it with hundreds of thousands of men. But it had Hannibal at its head. [Pg 145]

HOW HANNIBAL FOUGHT AND DIED. The career of Hannibal was a remarkable one. For fifteen years he remained in Italy, frequently fighting, never losing a battle, keeping Rome in a state of terror, and dwelling with his army in comfort and plenty on the rich Italian plains. Yet he represented a commercial city against a warlike state. He was poorly supported by Carthage;

Rome was indomitable;

great generals rose to command her armies;

in the end the mighty effort of Hannibal failed, and he was forced to leave Rome unconquered and Italy unsubdued. The story of his deeds is a long one, a record of war and bloodshed which our readers would be little the wiser and none the better for hearing. We shall therefore only give it in the barest outline. Hannibal defeated the Romans on first meeting them, and the Gauls flocked to his army. But of the elephants, which he had brought with such difficulty over the Rhone and the Alps, the cold of December killed all but one. But without them he met a large Roman army at Lake Trasimenus, and defeated it so utterly that but six thousand escaped. Rome, in alarm, chose a dictator, Fabius Maximus by name. This leader adopted a new method of[Pg 146]

warfare, which has ever since been famous as the ”

Fabian policy.”

This was the policy of avoiding battle and seeking to wear the enemy out, while harassing him at every opportunity. Fabius kept to the hills, followed and annoyed his great antagonist, yet steadily avoided being drawn into battle. For more than a year this continued, during all which time Fabius grew more and more unpopular at Rome. The waiting policy was not that which the Romans had hitherto employed, and they became more impatient as days and months passed without an effort to drive this eating ulcer from their plains. In time the discontent grew too strong to be ignored. A man of business, who was said to have begun life as a butcher’s son, Varro by name, became the favorite leader of the populace, and was in time raised to the consulship. He enlisted a powerful army, ninety thousand strong, and marched away to the field of Cannæ, where Hannibal was encamped, with the purpose of driving this Carthaginian wasp from the Italian fields. It was a dwarf contending with a giant. The vainglorious Varro gave Hannibal the opportunity for which he had long waited. The Roman army met with such a crushing defeat that its equal is scarcely known in history. Baffled, beaten, and surrounded by Hannibal’s army, the Romans were cut down in thousands, no quarter being asked or given, till when the sun set scarce three thousand men were left alive and unhurt of Varro’s hopeful host. Of Hannibal’s army less than six thousand had fallen. Of the Roman forces more than eighty thousand[Pg 147]

paid the penalty of their leader’s incompetence. Hannibal did not advance to Rome, which seemed to lie helpless before him. He doubtless had good reasons for not attempting to capture it. Maharbal, his cavalry general, said, ”

Let me advance with the horse, and do you follow;

in four days from this time you shall sup in the Capitol.”

Hannibal, on the contrary, sent terms of peace to Rome. These the Romans, unconquerable in spirit despite their disaster, refused. He then marched to southern Italy and established his head-quarters in the rich city of Capua, which opened its gates to him, and which he promised to make the capital of all Italy. Hannibal won no more great victories in Italy, though he was victor in many small conflicts. The Romans had paid dearly for their impatience. Fabius was again called to the head of the army, and his old policy was restored. And thus years went on, Hannibal’s army gradually decreasing and receiving few reinforcements from home, while Rome in time regained Capua and other cities. At length, in the year 208 B.C., Hasdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, who commanded the Carthaginian armies in Spain, resolved to go to his brother’s aid. He crossed the Alps, as Hannibal had done, following the same pass, and making use of the bridges, rock cuttings, and mountain roads which his brother had made eleven years before. Had this movement been successful, it might have been the ruin of Rome. But the despatches of Hasdrubal were intercepted by the Romans. Perceiving[Pg 148]

their great danger, they raised an army in haste, marched against the invader, and met him before he could effect a junction with his brother. The Carthaginians were defeated with great slaughter. Hasdrubal fell on the field, and his head was cruelly sent to Hannibal, who, as he looked with bitter anguish on the gruesome spectacle, sadly remarked, ”

I recognize in this the doom of Carthage.”

Yet for four years more Hannibal remained in the mountains of Southern Italy, holding his own against Rome, though he had lost all hopes of conquering that city. But Rome had now a new general, with a new policy. This was the famous Scipio, and the policy was to carry the war into Carthage. Fabius had done his work, and new measures came with new men. Scipio led an army into Spain, which he conquered from Carthage. Then he invaded Africa, and Hannibal was recalled home, after his long and victorious career in Italy. Hannibal had never yet suffered a defeat. He was now to experience a crushing one. With a new army, largely made up of raw levies, he met the veteran troops of Scipio on the plains of Zama. Hannibal displayed here his usual ability, but fortune was against him, his army was routed, the veterans he had brought from Italy were cut down where they stood, and he escaped with difficulty from the field on which twenty thousand of his men had fallen. It was an earlier Waterloo. His flight was necessary, if Carthage was to be preserved. He was the only man capable of saving that great city from ruin. Terms of peace were[Pg 149]

offered by Scipio, severe ones, but Hannibal accepted them, knowing that nothing else could be done. Then he devoted himself to the restoration of his country’s power, and for seven years worked diligently to this end. His efforts were successful. Carthage again became prosperous. Rome trembled for fear of her old foe. Commissioners were sent to Carthage to demand the surrender of Hannibal, on the plea that he was secretly fomenting a new war. His reforms had made enemies in Carthage, his liberty was in danger, and nothing remained for him but to flee. Escaping secretly from the city, the fugitive made his way to Tyre, the mother-city of Carthage, where he was received as one who had shed untold glory on the Phœnician name. Thence he proceeded to Antioch, the capital of Antiochus, king of Syria, and one of the successors of Alexander the Great. During the period over which we have so rapidly passed the empire of Rome had been steadily extending. In addition to her conquests in Spain and Africa, Macedonia, the home-realm of Alexander the Great, had been successfully invaded, and the first great step taken by Rome towards the conquest of the East. The loss of Macedonia stirred up Antiochus, who resolved on war with Rome, and marched with his army towards Europe. Hannibal, who had failed to find him at Antioch, overtook him at Ephesus, and found him glad enough to secure the services of a warrior of such world-wide fame. Antiochus, unfortunately, was the reverse of a[Pg 150]

great warrior, and by no means the man to cope with Rome. Hannibal saw at a glance that his army was not fit to fight with a Roman force, and strongly advised him to equip a fleet and invade Southern Italy, saying that he himself would take the command. But nothing was to be done with Antiochus. He was filled with conceit of his own greatness, was ignorant of the power of Rome, and was jealous of the glory which Hannibal might attain. His guest then advised that an alliance should be made with Philip, king of Macedonia. This, too, was neglected, and the Romans hastened to ally themselves with Philip. Antiochus, puffed up with pride, pointed to his great army, and asked Hannibal if he did not think that these were enough for the Romans. ”

Yes,”

he replied, sarcastically, ”

enough for the Romans, however greedy they may be.”

THE BATHS OF CARACALLA. THE BATHS OF CARACALLA. It proved as he feared. The Romans triumphed. Hannibal was employed only in a subordinate naval command, in which field of warfare he had no experience. Peace was made, and Antiochus agreed to deliver him up to Rome. The greatest of Rome’s enemies was again forced to fly for his life. Hannibal now took refuge with Prusias, king of Bithynia. Here he remained for five years. But even here the implacable enmity of Rome followed him. Envoys were sent to the court of Prusias to demand his surrender. Prusias, who was a king on a small scale, could not, or would not, defend his guest, and promised to deliver him into the hands of his unrelenting foes. [Pg 151]

Only one course remained. Death was tenfold preferable to figuring in a Roman triumph. Finding the avenues to his house secured by the king’s guards, the great Carthaginian took poison, which he is said to have long carried with him in a ring, in readiness for such an emergency. He died at Libyssa, on the eastern shore of the sea of Marmora, in his sixty-fourth year, as closely as we know. In the same year, 183 B.C., died his great and successful antagonist, Scipio Africanus. Thus perished, in exile, one of the greatest warriors of any age, who, almost without aid from home, supported himself for fifteen years in Italy against all the power of Rome and the greatest generals she could supply. Had Carthage shown the military spirit of Rome, Hannibal might have stopped effectually the conquering career of that warlike city. [Pg 152]

ARCHIMEDES AT THE SIEGE OF SYRACUSE. The city of Syracuse, the capital of Sicily, rose to prominence in ancient history through its three famous sieges. The first of these was that long siege which ruined Athens and left Syracuse uncaptured. The second was the siege by Timoleon, who took the city almost without a blow. The third was the siege by the Romans, in which the genius of one man, the celebrated mathematician and engineer Archimedes, long set at naught all the efforts of the besieging army and fleet. This remarkable defence took place during the wars with Hannibal. Such was the warlike energy of the Romans, that, while their city itself was threatened by this great general, they sent armies abroad, one into Spain and another into Sicily. The latter, under a consul named Appius, besieged Syracuse by sea and land. Hoping to take the city by sudden assault, before it could be properly got ready for defence, Appius pushed forward his land force, fully provided with blinds and ladders, against the walls. At the same time a fleet of sixty quinqueremes under the consul Marcellus advanced to the assault from the side of the harbor. Among these vessels were eight which had been joined together[Pg 153]

two and two, and which carried machines called sackbuts. These consisted of immensely long ladders, projecting far beyond the bows, and so arranged that they could be raised by ropes and pulleys, and the end let fall upon the top of the wall. Four men, well protected by wooden blinds, occupied the top of each ladder, ready to attack the defenders of the walls while their comrades hastened up the ladder to their aid. There was only one thing on which the consuls had not counted, and that was that Syracuse possessed the greatest artificer of ancient times. They had to fight not Syracuse alone but Syracuse and Archimedes;

and they found the latter their most formidable foe. In short, the skill of this one man did more to baffle the Romans than the strength and courage of all the garrison. The historian Polybius has so well told the story of this famous defence, that we cannot do better than quote from his work. He remarks, after describing at length the Roman preparations,- ”

In this manner, then, when all things were ready, the Romans designed to attack the towers. But Archimedes had prepared machines that were fitted to every distance. While the vessels were yet far removed from the walls, he, employing catapults and balistæ that were of the largest size and worked by the strongest springs, wounded the enemy with his darts and stones, and threw them into great disorder. When the darts passed beyond them he then used other machines, of a smaller size, and proportioned to the distance. By these means the Romans were[Pg 154]

so effectually repulsed that it was not possible for them to approach. ”

Marcellus, therefore, perplexed with this resistance, was forced to advance silently with his vessels in the night. But when they came so near to the land as to be within the reach of darts, they were exposed to a new danger, which Archimedes had contrived. He had caused openings to be made in many parts of the wall, equal in height to the stature of a man, and to the palm of the hand in breadth. Then, having planted on the inside archers and little scorpions, he discharged a multitude of arrows through the openings, and disabled the soldiers that were on board. In this manner, whether the Romans were at a great distance or whether they were near, he not only rendered useless all their efforts, but destroyed also many of their men. ”

When they attempted also to raise the sackbuts, certain machines which he had erected along the whole wall inside, and which were before concealed from view, suddenly appeared above the wall and stretched their long beaks far beyond the battlements. Some of these machines carried masses of lead and stone not less than ten talents [about eight hundred pounds]

in weight. Accordingly, when the vessels with the sackbuts came near, the beaks, being first turned by ropes and pulleys to the proper point, let fall their stones, which broke not only the sackbuts but the vessels likewise, and threw all those who were on board into the greatest danger. ”

In the same manner also the rest of the machines, as often as the enemy approached under cover of[Pg 155]

their blinds, and had secured themselves by that protection against the darts that were discharged through the openings in the wall, let fall upon them stones of so large a size that all the combatants on the prow were forced to retire from their station. ”

He invented, likewise, a hand of iron, hanging by a chain from the beak of a machine, which was used in the following manner. The person who, like a pilot, guided the beak, having let fall the hand and caught hold of the prow of any vessel, drew down the opposite end of the machine, that was inside of the walls. When the vessel was thus raised erect upon its stern, the machine itself was held immovable;

but the chain being suddenly loosened from the beak by means of pulleys, some of the vessels were thrown upon their sides, others turned with their bottoms upward, and the greatest part, as the prows were plunged from a considerable height into the sea, were filled with water, and all that were on board thrown into tumult and disorder. ”

Marcellus was in no small degree embarrassed when he found himself encountered in every attempt by such resistance. He perceived that all his efforts were defeated with loss, and were even derided by the enemy. But, amidst all the anxiety that he suffered, he could not help jesting upon the inventions of Archimedes. ”

‘This man,’ said he, ‘employs our ships as buckets to draw water, and, boxing about our sackbuts, as if they were unworthy to be associated with him, drives them from his company with disgrace.’ Such was the success of the siege on the side of the sea. [Pg 156]

”

Appius also, on his part, having met with the same obstacles in his approaches, was in like manner forced to abandon his design. For while he was yet at a considerable distance, great number of his men were destroyed by the balistæ and the catapults, so wonderful was the quantity of stones and darts, and so astonishing the force with which they were thrown. The means, indeed, were worthy of Hiero, who had furnished the expense, and of Archimedes, who designed them, and by whose directions they were made. ”

If the troops advanced nearer to the city, they either were stopped in their advance by the arrows that were discharged through the openings in the walls, or, if they attempted to force their way under cover of their bucklers, they were destroyed by stones and beams that were let fall upon their heads. Great mischief also was occasioned by these hands of iron that have been mentioned;

for they lifted men with their armor into the air and dashed them upon the ground. Appius, therefore, was at last constrained to return back again into his camp.”

This ended the assault. For eight months the Romans remained, but never again had the courage to make a regular attack, depending rather on the hope of reducing the crowded city by famine. ”

So wonderful, and of such importance on some occasions, is the power of a single man, and the force of science properly employed. With so great armies both by sea and land the Romans could scarcely have failed to take the city, if one old man had been removed. But while he was present they did not even dare to[Pg 157]

make the attempt;

in the manner, at least, which Archimedes was able to oppose.”

The story was told in past times that the great scientist set the Roman ships on fire by means of powerful burning glasses, but this is not believed. The end of this story may be briefly told. The Romans finally took the city by surprise. Tradition tells that, as the assailants were rushing through the streets, with death in their hands, they found Archimedes sitting in the public square, with a number of geometrical figures drawn before him in the sand, which he was studying in oblivion of the tumult of war around. As a Roman soldier rushed upon him sword in hand, he called out to the rude warrior not to spoil the circle. But the soldier cut him down. Another story says that this took place in his room. When Cicero, years afterwards, came to Syracuse, he found the tomb of Archimedes overgrown with briers, and on it the figure of a sphere inscribed in a cylinder, to commemorate one of his most important mathematical discoveries. [Pg 158]

THE FATE OF CARTHAGE. In all the history of Rome there is no act of more flagrant treachery and cruelty than that of her dealings with the great rival city of Carthage. In the whole history of the world there is nothing more base and frightful than the utter destruction of that mighty mart of commerce. The jealousy of Rome would not permit a rival to exist. It was not enough to drive Hannibal into exile;

Carthage was recovering her trade and regaining her strength;

new Hannibals might be born;

the terror of the great invasion, the remembrance of the defeat at Cannæ, still remained in Roman memories. Cato the Censor, a famous old Roman, now eighty-four years of age, and who had served in the wars against Hannibal, hated Carthage with the hatred of a fanatic, and declared that Rome would never be safe while this rival was permitted to exist. Rising from his seat in the senate, the stern old man glowingly described the power and wealth of Carthage. He held up some great figs, and said, ”

These figs grow but three days’ sail from Rome.”

There could be no safety for Rome, he declared, while Carthage survived. ”

Every speech which I shall make in this house,”

he sternly declared, ”

shall finish with these words:

[Pg 159]

‘My opinion is that Carthage must be destroyed (delenda est Carthago.)’”

These words sealed the fate of Carthage. Men of moderate views spoke more mercifully, but Cato swayed the senate, and from that day the doom of Carthage was fixed. The Carthaginian territory was being assailed and ravaged by Masinissa, the king of Numidia. Rome was appealed to for aid, but delayed and temporized. Carthage raised an army, which was defeated by Masinissa, then over ninety years of age. The war went on, and Carthage was reduced to such straits that resistance became impossible, and in the end the city and all its possessions were placed at the absolute disposal of the senate of Rome, which, absolutely without provocation, had declared war. An army of eighty thousand foot and four thousand horse was sent to Africa. Before the consuls commanding it there appeared deputies from Carthage, stating what acts of submission had already been made, and humbly asking what more Rome could demand. ”

Carthage is now under the protection of Rome,”

answered Censorinus, the consul, ”

and can no longer have occasion to engage in war;

she must therefore deliver without reserve to Rome all her arms and engines of war.”

Hard as was this condition, the humiliated city accepted it. We may have some conception of the strength of the city when it is stated that the military stores given up included two hundred thousand stand of arms and two thousand catapults. It was[Pg 160]

a condition to which only despair could have yielded, seemingly the last act of humiliation to which any city could consent. But if Carthage thought that the end had been reached, she was destined to be rudely awakened from her dream. The consuls, thinking the city now to be wholly helpless, dropped the mask they had worn, and made known the senate’s treacherous decree. ”

The decision of the senate is this,”

said Censorinus, coldly, to the unhappy envoys of Carthage:

”

so long as you possess a fortified city near the sea, Rome can never feel sure of your submission. The senate therefore decrees that you must remove to some point ten miles distant from the coast. Carthage must be destroyed.”

The trembling Carthaginians heard these fatal words in stupefied amazement. On recovering their senses they broke out into passionate exclamations against the treachery of Rome, and declared that the freedom of Carthage had been guaranteed. ”

The guarantee refers to the people of Carthage, not to her houses,”

answered the consul. ”

You have heard the will of the senate;

it must be obeyed, and quickly.”

Carthage, meanwhile, waited in gloomy dread the return of the commissioners. When they gave in the council-chamber the ultimatum of Rome, a cry of horror broke from the councillors. The crowd in the street, on hearing this ominous sound, broke open the doors and demanded what fatal news had been received. [Pg 161]

On being told, they burst into a paroxysm of fury. The members of the government who had submitted to Rome were obliged to fly for their lives. Every Italian found in the city was killed. The party of the people seized the government, and resolved to defend themselves to the uttermost. An armistice of thirty days was asked from the consuls, that a deputation might be sent to Rome. This was refused. Despair gave courage and strength. The making of new arms was energetically begun. Temples and public buildings were converted into workshops;

men and women by thousands worked night and day;

every day there were produced one hundred shields, three hundred swords, five hundred pikes and javelins, and one thousand bolts for catapults. The women even cut off their hair to be twisted into strings for the catapults. Corn was gathered in all haste from every quarter. The consuls were astonished and disappointed. They had not counted on such energy as this. They did not know what it meant to drive a foe to desperation. They laid siege to Carthage, but found it too strong for all their efforts. They proceeded against the Carthaginian army in the field, but gained no success. Summer and winter passed, and Carthage still held out. Another year (148 B.C.) went by, and Rome still lost ground. Old Cato, the bitter foe of Carthage, had died, at the age of eighty-five. Masinissa, the warlike Numidian, had died at ninety-five. The hopes of the Carthaginians grew. Those of Rome began to fall. The rich booty that was looked for from the sack of[Pg 162]

Carthage was not to be handled so easily as had been expected. What Rome lacked was an able general. One was found in Scipio, the adopted son of Publius Scipio, son of the great Scipio Africanus. This young man had proved himself the only able soldier in the war. The army adored him. Though too young for the consulship, he was elected to that high office, and in 147 B.C. sailed for Carthage. The new commander found the army disorganized, and immediately restored strict discipline to its ranks. The suburb of Megara, from which the people of the city obtained their chief supply of fresh provisions, was quickly taken. Want of food began to be felt. The isthmus which connected the city with the mainland was strongly occupied, and land-supplies were thus cut off. The fleet blockaded the harbor, but, as vessels still made their way in, Scipio determined to build an embankment across the harbor’s mouth. This was a work of great labor, and slowly proceeded. By the time it was done the Carthaginians had cut a new channel from their harbor to the sea, and Scipio had the mortification to see a newly-built fleet of fifty ships sail out through this fresh passage. On the third day a naval battle took place, in which the greater part of the new fleet was destroyed. Another winter came and went. It was not until the spring of 146 B.C. that the Romans succeeded in forcing their way into the city, and their legions bivouacked in the Forum of Carthage. [Pg 163]

But Carthage was not yet taken. Its death-struggle was to be a desperate one. The streets leading from the Forum towards the Citadel were all strongly barricaded, and the houses, six stories in height, occupied by armed men. For three days a war of desperation was waged in the streets. The Romans had to take the first houses of each street by assault, and then force their way forward by breaking from house to house. The cross streets were passed on bridges of planks. Thus they slowly advanced till the wall of Bosra-the high ground of the Citadel-was reached. Behind them the city was in flames. For six days and nights it burned, destroying the wealth and works of years. When the fire declined passages were cleared through the ruins for the army to advance. Scipio, who had scarcely slept night or day during the assault, now lay down for a short repose, on an eminence from which could be seen the Temple of Esculapius, whose gilded roof glittered on the highest point of the hill of Bosra. He was aroused to receive an offer from the garrison to surrender if their lives were spared. Scipio consented to spare all but Roman deserters, and from the gates of the Citadel marched out fifty thousand men as prisoners of war. Hasdrubal, the Carthaginian commander, who had made so brave a defence against Rome, retired with his family and nine hundred deserters and others into the Temple of Esculapius, as if to make a final desperate defence. But his heart failed him at the last moment, and, slipping out alone, he cast himself[Pg 164]

at Scipio’s feet, and begged his pardon and mercy. His wife, who saw his dastardly act, reproached him bitterly for cowardice, and threw herself and her children into the flames which enveloped the Citadel. Most of the deserters perished in the same flames. ”

Assyria has fallen,”

said Scipio, as he looked with eyes of prevision on the devouring flames. ”

Persia and Macedonia have likewise fallen. Carthage is burning. The day of Rome’s fall may come next.”

For five days the soldiers plundered the city, yet enough of statues and other valuables remained to yield the consul a magnificent triumph on his return to Rome. Before doing so he celebrated the fall of Carthage with grand games, in which the spoil of that great city was shown the army. To Rome he sent the brief despatch, ”

Carthage is taken. The army waits for further orders.”

The orders sent were that the walls should be destroyed and every house levelled to the ground. A curse was pronounced by Scipio on any one who should seek to build a town on the site. The curse did not prove effective. Julius Cæsar afterwards projected a new Carthage, and Augustus built it. It grew to be a noble city, and in the third century A.D. became one of the principal cities of the Roman empire and an important seat of Western Christianity. It was finally destroyed by the Arabs. [Pg 165]

THE GRACCHI AND THEIR FALL. In the assault by the Roman forces on Megara, the suburb of Carthage, the first to mount the wall was a young man named Tiberius Gracchus, brother-in-law of Scipio, the commander, and grandson of the famous Scipio Africanus.