The Comic History of Rome

The remainder of the reign of Hostilius was occupied with military successes; but he neglected the worship of the gods, who it is said evinced their anger by a tremendous shower of stones on the Alban Mount, in order to soften his flinty heart, by making him feel the weight of their displeasure. From the extreme of indifference he went to the opposite extreme of superstition, and called upon Jupiter to send him a sign – which was, in fact, a sign of the King's head being in a lamentable condition. The unhappy sovereign, imitating his predecessor Numa, attempted some experiments in the hope of drawing down some lightning, but it was not likely that one who had conducted himself so badly could be a better conductor of the electric fluid, and the result was, that though he learned the art of attracting the spark, it flashed upon him with such force that he instantly expired.

Such is the tradition with reference to the death of Tullus; but it is hard to say whether the accounts handed down to us have been overcharged, or whether the clouds were in that condition. Some speculators insinuate that the royal experimentalist owed his sad fate to some mismanagement of his electrical jar while attempting to produce an unnatural jarring of the elements. The good actions of Tullus were so few, that his fame will not afford the omission of one, and being desirous to put the best construction we can upon his works, we give him credit for the construction of the Curia Hostilia, whose site still meets the eye near the northern angle of the Palatine. Ambassadors are spoken of as existing in the reign of Tullus Hostilius, but whether they owe their origin to Numa, who went before, or to Ancus Martius, who came after him, is so much a matter of doubt, that some historians, in trying to meet the claims of both half-way, stop short of giving the merit to either. Tullus may, at all events, have the credit of employing, if he did not institute, the art of diplomacy in Rome; for he appointed ambassadors, as we have already seen, to negotiate with the Albans. These envoys were called Feciales, the chief of whom wore on his head a fillet of white wool, with a quantity of green herbs, formed into a turban, which must have had somewhat the appearance of a fillet of veal, with the ingredients for stuffing. His duty was to proceed to the offending country, and proclaim his wrongs upon the border, though there might be no one there to listen, and having crossed the boundary – if his indignation happened to know any bounds – he was to astonish the first native he met by a catalogue of grievances. On reaching a city, the ambassador went over the old story to the soldier at the gate, just as though, at Storey's gate, an irritated foreigner should pour out his country's real or imaginary wrongs to the sentinel on duty. To this recital the soldier would, of course, be as deaf as his post, and the Fecialis would then proceed to lay his complaint before the magistrates. In the event of his obtaining no redress, he returned home for a spear, and killing a pig with one end, he poked the fire with the other. The instrument being thus charred in the handle and blood-stained at the point, became an appropriate emblem of hostility, and the Fecialis declared war by stirring it up with the long pole, which he threw across the enemy's boundary.

After the death of Tullus Hostilius, the people lost no time in choosing Ancus Martius, a grandson of Numa, for their sovereign. The new king copied his grandfather, which he had a perfect right to do, but he imposed on the Pontifex Maximus the very severe task of copying on white tables the somewhat ponderous works of Pompilius, which were posted up for the perusal of the populace.

Though partial on the whole to peace, Ancus was not afraid of war, and, when his kingdom was threatened, he was quite ready to fight for it. He subdued the Latins, and having first settled them in the field, allowed them to settle themselves in the city. He enlarged Rome, but abridged the distance between different parts by throwing the first bridge across the Tiber, and his name has come down to posterity in the ditch of the Quirites which he caused to be dug for the defence of the city, against those who were unlikely to go through thick and thin for the purpose of invading it. He also built a prison in the heart of the city, and what might be truly termed a heart of stone, for the prison was formed of a quarry, and is still in existence as a monument of the hard lot of its inmates. Ancus Martius further signalised his reign by founding the city of Ostia at the Tiber's mouth, and thus gave its waters the benefit of that port which so much increased their value. On the spot may still be seen some ruins supposed to belong to a temple dedicated to the winds, among whom the greater part of the temple has long since been promiscuously scattered. Salt-works were also established in its neighbourhood, but the sal was of that volatile kind that none now remains from which buyers could fill their cellars. Ancus Martius reigned for a period of twenty-four years, and either in tranquillity or war – whether engaged in the works of peace, or embroiled in a piece of work – he proved himself thoroughly worthy of his predecessors, and, in fact, he left far behind him many who had gone before him in the task of government.

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

FROM THE ACCESSION OF TARQUINIUS PRISCUS TO THE DEATH OF SERVIUS TULLIUS

It is the opinion of the best authorities that the Muse of History has employed her skipping-rope in passing, or rather skipping, from the grave of Ancus Martius to the throne of Tarquinius Priscus; for there is a very visible gap yawning between the two; and as we have no wish to set the reader yawning in sympathy with the gap, we at once drag him away from it.

Plunging into the times of Tarquinius Priscus, we describe him as the son of a Corinthian merchant, who, being compelled to quit his country for political reasons, had withdrawn all his Corinthian capital, and settled at Tarquinii, an Etruscan city. Having fallen in love with a lady of the place, or, more poetically speaking, deposited his affections in an Etruscan vase, he became a husband to her, and the father of two children, named respectively Lucumo and Aruns. Poor Aruns had a very brief run, and soon met his death; but we cannot say how or where, for we have no report of the meeting. Lucumo married Tanaquil, an Etruscan lady, of great beauty and ambition, who professed to dive into futurity; and, guided by this diving belle, he threw himself into the stream of events, in the hope of being carried onwards by the tide of fortune. She persuaded him that Tarquinii was a poor place, where nothing was to be done; that his foreign extraction prevented him from being properly drawn out; and that Rome alone could afford him a field wide enough for his vast abilities. Driven by his wife, he jumped up into his chariot, which was an open one, and was just entering Rome, when his cap was suddenly removed from his head by a strange bird, which some allege was an eagle; though, had they said it was a lark, we should have believed them far more readily. Lucumo followed his hat as well as he could with his eyes; but his wife was so completely carried away with it, that she declared the circumstance told her he would gain a crown, though it really proved how nearly he had lost one; for until the bird replaced his hat upon his head, there was only a bare possibility of his getting it back again.

The wealth of his wife enabled Lucumo to live in the first style of fashion; and having been admitted to the rights of citizenship, he changed his name to Lucius Tarquinius: for the sake, perhaps, of the sound, in the absence of any sounder reason. He was introduced at Court, where he won the favour of Ancus, who was so much taken by his dashing exterior, that he gave him a commission in the army, as Tribunus Celerum, a sort of Captain of the Guards, who, from the title of Celeres, appear to have been, as we have before observed, the fast men, as opposed to the "slow coaches" of the period.

The Captain made himself so generally useful to Ancus, that when the latter died, his two sons were left to the guardianship of the former, who, on the day fixed for the election of a new king, sent his wards to the chase, that they might be pursuing other game, instead of looking after the Crown, which Tarquinius had set his own eye upon. In the absence of the youths, Tarquinius, who had got the name of Priscus, or the old hand, which he seems to have well deserved, proposed himself as a candidate; and, in a capital electioneering speech, put forth his own merits with such success, that he was voted on to the throne without opposition.

The commencement of his reign was not very peaceful, for he was attacked by the Latins; but he gave them a very severe Latin lesson, and, crushing them under his feet, sent them back to that part of Italy forming the lower part of the boot, with the loss of considerable booty. He, nevertheless, found time for all manner of games; and he instituted the Ludi Magni, which were great sport, in a space he marked out as the Circus Maximus.

The position of the Circus was between the Palatine and Aventine Hills, there being a slope on either side, so that the people followed the inclination of nature as well as their own in selecting the spot for spectacular purposes. In the earliest times a Circus was formed of materials brought by the spectators themselves, who raised temporary scaffolds, from which an unfortunate drop, causing fearful execution among the crowd, would frequently happen. Tarquinius Priscus, desirous of giving more permanent accommodation to the Roman sight seers, built a Circus capable of containing 150,000 persons, and, from its vast superiority in size over other similar buildings, it obtained the distinction of Maximus. The sports of the Circus were extremely attractive to the Romans, who looked to the libelli, containing the lists of the horses, and names and colours of the drivers, with all the eagerness of a "gentleman sportsman" seeking information from Dorling's correct card at Epsom. In the early days of Rome the amusements of the Circus were limited to the comparatively harmless contests of equestrian speed; and it was not until the city had reached a high state of refinement – cruelty having become refined like everything else – that animals were killed by thousands, and human beings by hundreds at a time, to glut the sanguinary appetites of the prince and the people. The ancient Circus was circular at one end only, and the line of seats was broken by a sort of outwork, supposed to have comprised the box and retiring-room of the sovereign; while, at the opposite side, was another deviation from the line of seats, to form a place for the editor spectaculorum– a box for the manager. Though Tarquinius is said to have founded the Circus Maximus in commemoration of his victory over the Latins, they were not the only foes whom he might have boasted of vanquishing.

Having fought and conquered the Sabines, he took from them Collatræ, as a collateral security for their good behaviour; and coming home with a great deal of money, he built the Temple of Jupiter on the capitol.

Tarquinius, being desirous of increasing the army, was opposed by a celebrated augur of the day, one Attus Navius, whose reputation seems to have been well deserved, if the annexed anecdote is to be believed; for it indicates that he could see further into a whetstone than any one who has either gone before or followed him. Navius declared that augury must determine whether the plan of Tarquinius could be carried out, which caused the latter to ask, sneeringly, whether he knew what he was thinking about. The question was ambiguous, but Navius boldly replied he did, and added, that what Tarquinius proposed to do was perfectly possible. "Is it indeed," said the King, "I was thinking of cutting through this whetstone with this razor." "It will be a close shave," was the reply of the augur, "but it can be done, so cut away;" and the bluntness of the observation was only equalled by the sharpness of the blade, which cut the article in two as easily as if it had been a pound of butter, instead of a stone of granite. This reproof was literally more cutting than any other that could have been possibly conveyed to the king, who ever afterwards paid the utmost respect to the augurs, of whom he was accustomed thenceforth to say, that the affair of the whetstone proved them to be much sharper blades than he had been willing to take them for.

Having been at war with the Tuscans, whom he vanquished, he was admitted into the ranks of the Kings of Etruria; a position which led him to indulge in the most extravagant desires. He must needs have a crown of gold, which often tears or encumbers the brow it adorns; a throne of ivory, on whose too highly polished surface the foot is apt to slip; and a sceptre, having on its top an eagle, which frequently gives wings to the power it is intended to typify. His robe was of purple, with so costly an edging, that the border exceeded all reasonable limits, and furnished an instance of extravagance carried to the extreme, while the rate at which he went on may be judged from the fact of his always driving four in hand in his chariot. He did not, however, wholly neglect the useful in his taste for the ornamental; and though his extravagance must have been a drain upon the public pocket, he devoted himself to the more honourable drainage of the lower portions of the city. He set an example to all future commissioners of sewers, by his great work of the Cloaca Maxima, some portion of which still exists, and which contains, in its spacious vault, a far more honourable monument than the most magnificent tomb that could have been raised to his memory.

Tarquinius had reigned about thirty-eight years, when the sons of Ancus Martius, who had been from the first brooding over their own ejection from the throne, carried their brooding so far as to hatch a conspiracy, which, though regarded by the best authorities as a mare's nest, forms one of those "lays" of ancient Rome which tradition gives as part of her history. The youths, expecting that Tarquinius would secure the succession to a favourite, named Servius Tullius, made an arrangement with a couple of shepherds, who, pretending to have a quarrel, went with hatchets in their hands to the king, and requested him to settle their little difference. Tarquinius seems to have been in a most accommodating humour, for he is said to have stepped to the door of the palace, to arbitrate between these most un-gentle shepherds, who, pretending that they only came with their hatchets to axe his advice, began to axe him about the head; and while he was endeavouring to act as an arbitrator, they, acting as still greater traitors, cruelly made away with him. The lictors who stood by must have had their faces and their fasces turned the wrong way, for they administered a beating to the shepherds when, too late, after the regal crown was already cracked beyond the possibility of repair, and the king was almost knocked to pieces before he had time to collect himself.

Tarquinius was a practical reformer, and rested his fame on the most durable foundations, among which the still-existing remains of the Cloaca Maxima, or largest common sewer, have already been noticed. Those who are over nice might feel repugnant to come down to posterity by such a channel; but that country is fortunate indeed in which genius seeks "the bubble reputation" at the mouth of the sewer, instead of in the mouth of the cannon.

It must be recorded, to the honour of Tarquinius, that he organised the plebeians, and elevated some of them to the rank of patricians, thus giving vigour to the aristocratic body, which runs the risk of becoming corrupt, and losing its vitality, unless a supply of plebeian life-blood is from time to time poured into it.

This measure would have been followed by other wholesome reforms, but for the short-sighted and selfish policy of the patricians themselves, who could not perceive the fact, full of apparent paradoxes, that if anything is to remain, it must not stand still; that no station can be stationary with safety to itself; and that nothing possessed of vitality can grow old without something new being continually added.

The sixth king of Rome was Servius Tullius, who is said to have been the son of a female in the establishment of Tanaquil. His mother's name was Ocrisia; but there is something vague about the paternity of the boy, which has been assigned sometimes to the Lar, or household god of the establishment, and sometimes to Vulcan. Whoever may have been the father, it was soon intimated that the child was to occupy a high position; and on one occasion, when sleeping in his cradle, his head was seen to be on fire; but no one was allowed to blow out the poor boy's brains, or otherwise extinguish the flame, which was rapidly consuming the hair on the head of the future heir to the monarchy. The nurses and attendants were ordered to sit down and see the fire burn out of its own accord, which, the tradition says, it did, though common sense says it couldn't; for the unfortunate infant must have died of consumption had he been suffered to blaze away in the cool manner spoken of. Though of common origin, at least on his mother's side, young Servius Tullius was supposed to have been completely purified by the fire, which warmed the hearts of all who came near him; and not only did the queen adopt him as her own son, but the partial baking had produced such an effect upon his very ordinary clay, that he was treated like a brick required for the foundations of the royal house into which Tarquinius cemented him, by giving him, as a wife, one of the daughters of the royal family.

Tanaquil having kept secret her husband's death, Servius Tullius continued for some time to carry on the business of government, just as if nothing had happened. When it was at length felt that the young favourite of fortune had got the reins fairly in his hands, the murder came out, and the barbarous assassination of Tarquinius was published to the multitude. Servius was the first instance of a king who mounted the throne without the aid of the customary pair of steps, consisting of an election by the Senate, and a confirmation by the Curiæ.

It might have been expected that Servius, when elevated above his own humble stock, might have held his head so high and become so stiff-necked as to prevent him from noticing the rank from which he had sprung; but, on the contrary, he exalted himself by endeavouring to raise others. His reign was not a continued round of fights, for he preferred the trowel to the sword, and, instead of cutting his name with the latter weapon, he wisely chose to build up his reputation with the former instrument. His first care was to complete the city, to which he added three hills, feeling, perhaps, that his fame would become as ancient as the hills themselves; and with a happy perception that if "walls have ears" they are just as likely to have tongues, he surrounded Rome with a wall, which might speak to future ages of his spirit and enterprise. He was a friend to insolvent debtors, to whom he gave the benefit of an act of unexampled liberality. Desiring them to make out schedules of their liabilities, he paid off the creditors in a double sense, for they were extremely reluctant to receive the cash, the payment of which cashiered their claim on the person and possessions of their debtors. He abolished imprisonment for debt, giving power to creditors over the goods and not the persons – or, as an ingenious scholar has phrased it, the bona and not the bones – of their debtors.

Servius found that while he was raising up buildings he was knocking down a great deal of money; but being nevertheless anxious to erect a temple to Diana on the Aventine Hill he persuaded the Latins, who had made the place a sort of quartier Latin, to subscribe to it. The Latins, the Romans, and the Sabines, were every year to celebrate a sort of union sacrifice on this spot, where the cutting up and cooking of oxen formed what may be termed a joint festival. It happened that a Sabine agriculturist had reared a prize heifer, which caused quite an effervescence among his neighbours, and taking the bull quietly by the horns, he asked the augur what it would be meet for him to do with it. The soothsayer looked at the bull, who turned his brilliant bull's eye upon the astonished sage, with a sort of supercilious stare that almost amounted to a glaring oversight. The augur, not liking the look of the animal, and anxious, no doubt, to put an end to the interview, declared that whoever sacrificed the beast to Diana, off-hand, would benefit his race, and cause his nation to rule over the other confederates. The animal was led away with a shambling gait to the sacred shambles, where the Roman priest was waiting to set his hand to any Bull that might be presented to him. Seeing the Sabine preparing to act as slaughterman, the pontiff became tiffy, and suggested, that if the other was going to do the job, he might as well do it with clean hands, upon which the Sabine rushed to the river to take a finger bath. While the owner was occupied about his hands the Roman priest took advantage of the pause to slaughter the animal, and, on his return, the Sabine found that he had unintentionally washed his hands of the business altogether. The oracle was thus fulfilled in favour of the Romans, who trumpeted the fact through the bull's horns, which were hung up in front of the temple in memory of this successful piece of priest-craft.

The growing popularity of Servius with the plebs made the patricians anxious to get rid of him, for they had not the sense to feel that if they aspired to be the pillars of the state, a close union with the class beneath, or, as they would have contemptuously termed it, the base, was indispensable. It happened that Servius, in the hope of propitiating the two sons of Tarquinius, had given them his two daughters as their wives, though it was a grievous mistake to suppose that family marriages are usually productive of family union. Jealousy and quarrelling ensued, which ended in the elder, Tullia, persuading her sister's husband Lucius Tarquinius to murder his own brother and his own wife, in order that he might make a match with the lump of female brimstone that had inflamed his brutal passions. Not satisfied with the double murder, which would have qualified her new husband to be struck in the hardest wax and to occupy chambers among the worst of horrors, Tullia was always whispering into his ear that she wished her father farther, and by this demoniac spell she worked on the weak and wicked mind of Lucius Tarquinius. It having been reported that Servius Tullus intended to crown his own reign by uncrowning himself, and exchanging, as it were, the royal stock for consuls, the patricians thought it would be a good opportunity to speculate for a fall, by attempting the king's overthrow. Tullia and her husband were asked to join in this conspiracy, when it was found that the wretched and corrupt pair would be quite ripe for any enormity. It was arranged, therefore, that Lucius Tarquinius, at a meeting of the Senate, should go down to the House with all the insignia of royalty, and, having seated himself upon the throne, the trumpeters in attendance were, by one vigorous blow, to proclaim him as the sovereign. When Servius heard the news he proceeded to the Assembly, where all things – including the trumpets – seemed to be flourishing in favour of the traitor. As the sound of the instruments fell upon the old king's ears, he seemed to tremble for a moment before the rude blast which threatened the blasting of all his benevolent views, but calling out from the doorway in which he stood, he rebuked the insolence and treachery of his son-in-law. A disgraceful scene ensued, in which other blows than those of the trumpeters were exchanged, and Servius, who had in vain desired the traitor to "come off the throne," was executing a threat to "pull him off" as well as the old man's strength, or rather, his feebleness, would allow him. The senators were watching the scene with the vulgar interest attaching to a prize fight, and were no doubt backing up the combatants with the ordinary expressions of encouragement, which we can only interpret by our own familiar phrases of, "Go it," "Now then young 'un," "Bravo old 'un," and "Give it him." Getting rather too near the edge of the throne, but holding each other firmly in their respective grasps, the two combatants rolled together down the steps of the throne – an incident not to be met with in the rolls of any other Parliament. Getting immediately on to their legs they again resumed their hostile footing, when Tarquinius being younger and fresher than his antagonist, seized up the old man, now as feeble as an infant in arms, and carried his brutality to such a pitch as to pitch him down the steps of the Senate House. Servius tried in vain to pick up his courage, and being picked up himself, he was on his road home when he was overtaken and murdered in a street, which got the name of Vicus Sceleratus, or Rascally Row, from the disgraceful row that occurred in it. Tullia was driving down to the House to hear the news when her coachman pulled up at the horrid sight of the king lying in the street, but the female fury only ordered the man to "drive on," and it is said that she enforced her directions by flinging a footstool at his head, though, on subjecting the story to the usual tests, we find the footstool without a leg to stand upon. Servius Tullus had reigned forty-four years, and his memory was cherished for centuries after his death, his birthday being celebrated on the Nones of every month, because he was known to have been born on some nones, but which particular nones were unknown to any one. We have already noticed the wall of Servius, but we must not forget the Agger, or mound, connected with it, the value of which was equal to that of the wall itself, and, indeed, those who give the preference to the Agger over the wall do not much ex-aggerate. There remains to this day a great portion of the mound, which was sixty feet high and fifty broad, skirted with flag stones towards the outer side, and the Romans no doubt would derive more security from laying down their flags on the outer wall than from hanging out their banners.