Streams of History: Ancient Rome (Yesterday's Classics) (2 page)

Overlooking this beautiful plain, about fifteen miles up the river Tiber, are the hills upon which Rome was built. In early times, the people who lived in Rome went out in the daytime and tilled the plain, and at night returned to Rome in order that they might be protected. From this it would seem that there were enemies near, would it not? Do you think they were wise in choosing such a place for their city? Indeed it was a very wise choice, because from the hills they could overlook their farms, see enemies coming, and protect themselves; and the river too was at hand, upon which they could sail thirty miles or so above Rome and get the products, and then float them out to sea, and work up a good trade with the people living on the Mediterranean.

At first in Rome all land and trade and wealth were owned by the rich people alone, but in time the poor people came to have little farms of their own, which they lived upon and cultivated. I say little farms, but you will be surprised when you know just how small they were. Could you imagine any one with a family living upon a farm of only three or four acres, or about three times the size of the usual school square? Well, the father of the little Roman boy Marius lived on just such a farm. It lay favorably on a gently sloping hillside facing the east, for there the early sun shone upon it. It had a sandy soil which was easily drained, and it was surrounded by a hedge of trees.

The little farm had its vineyard, and Marius enjoyed going about it with his father, trimming branches here and there, for he knew that the wine of the grape made a large part of their living. He watched the olive orchard as it grew, and in the proper season helped his father to press the oil from the olive. The Romans were very fond of olives, and the oil served them as butter.

Marius, of course, could merely help in the things that I have mentioned, but there was one thing that he and his little brother could do alone, and that was to tend the garden patch, which, to be sure, was not very large, but sufficient, if well tended, for the father, mother and four children,—for Marius had two sisters and a brother also. Do you think a family of six could have many luxuries, making a living on a four-acre farm?

While the father plowed the ground with a rude plow made from a forked sapling, and the mother and sisters looked after the broods of chickens and geese, Marius and his brother carefully tended the patches of lettuce, turnips, onions, cabbage, carrots and many other things which you see nowadays growing in the gardens in the United States. Marius was not yet old enough to follow the plow, but he had helped his father select the tree from which the plow was made, and watched his father make it, so I am sure he could tell you just how it was made. It was very simple, and yet it seems a little strange to us who never think of making our own plows. But the early Roman farmers, having no manufactories, had to make all their plows by hand; and no matter how poor they were, they could have as many plows as they wished, for all they had to do was to hunt a branched sapling, and sharpen the branch into a long point. This served as a share, to run in the ground, and about midway of the longest part a handle was fastened; to this longer part was hitched an ox to draw it. Do you think these plows were as good as those made in our own manufactories of today? No, they were nothing but sharpened wooden sticks, and besides being very poor for turning the soil, they were hard to sharpen and soon wore dull again.

The soil for the wheat, rye and millet was plowed with this plow, and when the grain was ripe, it was threshed by walking oxen over it; the chaff was separated from the grain by flinging it into the air and letting the wind blow it away. After grinding the grain between two stones, arranged much as our coffee mills are, it was mixed with water and was then ready to eat. We should hardly think we could eat it without baking, but the Romans did not learn to bake their bread until a good many years after Rome was settled.

The principal buildings on the farm were Marius' home, and, a little apart from it, the sheds, granaries and coops which surrounded the open court, and in which the hay, grain, wine, oil and broods were stored and kept. Bees had a home here, too. The Romans had no sugar, so Marius ate honey in the place of sugar.

It would not do to forget the flock of sheep which Marius helped drive down to the river and wash off, after which he watched his father cut the great fleece, which the mother and sisters wove by hand into clothing.

This was the time that Marius most enjoyed, for it was then that his father told him many things that his father had told to him. The story that Marius loved best was how Rome, the city on the hills a short distance away, was thought to have been founded. I must first tell you that nowadays scholars know that the Romans just imagined some of the things they told about early Rome; and while we do not believe every story they told, they did, and I will tell you the story of the founding of Rome just as Marius used to hear it from his father.

A wicked king, named Amulius, ruled in Alba Longa, a city a little southeast of where Rome was afterward built. He had robbed his elder brother of the kingdom and killed his brother's sons. But there was a daughter named Rhea Silvia left, and fearing lest she should marry and have sons, who would take back the kingdom of her father, he made her priestess of Vesta. A Vestal virgin or priestess of Vesta was a maiden who watched and kept the sacred fire always burning in the temple of Vesta. You see, the Romans, as well as the Egyptians, Phœnicians and other people we have studied, used fire in their worship. These Vestal maidens were not allowed to marry, but the god Mars married Rhea Silvia, and she gave birth to twins, Romu lus and Remus. When Amulius heard this, he ordered the babes to be thrown into the Tiber, and they floated down the stream until they were washed ashore near the place where Rome was afterward built. Here they were nursed by a wolf, and afterward were found and brought up by a shepherd. When they had grown up, they were made known to their grandfather, whom they restored to the throne by slaying the wicked Amulius. They then determined to build a city on the Tiber, near where they had been saved.

You see, the wild life they had lived made them fierce and strong, so they quarreled about whose city it should be, and Remus was killed in the quarrel. Then Romulus built the city, and called it Rome after his own name. He was its first king, and he made his city great in war. He selected old men called senators to advise and help him govern, and these made up the senate; only the sons of these first men, and then their sons, and so on down, could become senators and hold other offices in the state, and you will find later that this brought on a great deal of trouble.

After Romulus had reigned thirty-seven years, he was taken up to heaven by his father Mars, and the Romans worshiped him as a god.

As was said, Romulus made his city great in war. Now fighting makes people fierce and rough, so when wise and good Numa became the second King of Rome, he thought his people ought to be made peace-loving and taught lessons of religion; for this reason he turned their attention to the worship of the gods rather than to war.

Whenever there was war, the gates of the temple of Janus were open, so that the people could go in and pray. Janus, I must tell you, was the god of Beginnings, and I am sure you can guess where we got our name for January. He had a double face, and thus could look backward or forward; but in Numa's reign he was no longer seen, for during the thirty-nine years of Numa's rule Rome was without war, and moved along in perfect happiness.

Numa also appointed priests, who were to dance and sing through the street in a procession once a year, carrying the twelve sacred shields. During a famine in Rome the god Mars is said to have dropped a shield from heaven as a sign of protection to Rome. Numa then had eleven others made, which looked exactly like this one, so that if any one attempted to steal or destroy the sacred shield, he could not tell it from the others.

Because Numa was so wise and good, and taught the people how to worship the gods, they believed he talked with a goddess, Egeria, who told him what was best for his people and how they might please the gods. Egeria led him through the sacred groves, told him how to consult the gods by the lightning and the flight of birds; and so much did she come to love him, that when he died Egeria melted away in tears into a fountain.

There were five other kings, the last being Tarquin the Proud, who ruled very harshly; he was a warrior and made Rome more powerful among the surrounding people, but at last the Romans could endure him no longer, so they rose against him, and drove him and his family out. They then elected, to serve for a year at a time, in place of the king, two men, called consuls. The consuls were to preside over the senate, and lead the army in battle. If in war the state was in great danger and the consuls were likely to be defeated, they could elect a dictator who could rule Rome without asking consuls, senate or anybody else, but who could serve no longer than six months. When King Tarquin was driven out, he went to Porsena, the king of the country north of Rome, and persuaded him to lead an army against Rome, and place him—Tarquin—again on the throne. The news soon reached Rome that the enemy had captured Janiculum, a hill just across the Tiber from the city. A bridge had been built by the Romans from Rome to this hill, and so they feared that Porsena with his army would soon cross and take their city. Horatius, with two brave companions, crossed the bridge to the Janiculum side, and forced the enemy back until the people in Rome could cut down the bridge behind the brave boys. As the bridge tottered and was about to fall, Horatius' companions rushed back and reached Rome just as it fell; but brave Horatius stood until it went down, with thirty thousand foes before him and the great river behind. He then turned and said:—

      "Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber,

      To whom the Romans pray,

      A Roman's life, a Roman's arms,

      Take thou in charge this day,"

and then he plunged headlong into the stream. The enemy on one side, and his friends on the other, were silent with awe at such great bravery; and when he reached the shore, he was received with great rejoicing, and

      "They gave him of the corn-land,

      That was of public right,

      As much as two strong oxen

      Could plow from morn till night;

      And they made a molten image,

      And set it up on high,

      And there it stands unto this day,

      To witness if I lie."

Rome had many such brave men. Do you think such people were likely to be conquered? These stories the Romans believed and loved to tell, and I am glad they have come down to us, too. As I told you, they contain truth and fable and fancy, all mixed together, but the Romans believed them so firmly that they were influenced by them almost as much as if they had been entirely true. They made the Romans a brave, obedient, patriotic people,—in fact, I know of none who were ever more so.

At first Rome was only a few houses upon a hill, near the river; it grew in numbers, because men came to live within its mud walls, to be safe from their enemies and to trade; and as it grew in numbers it grew in power, until the mud wall, which at first surrounded only one hill, was changed to a stone wall surrounding six others lying near; and thus Rome became known as the City of Seven Hills.

Some of the men were merchants and went up and down the Tiber River in their boats, but the greater part of the people at this early time were farmers, who tilled the land which lay about the city, and from which their principal supply of food came. When you think of Rome, therefore, in early times, you must always understand it meant both the city and the land around it.

It was on one of these farms close to Rome, as I told you, that Marius lived. He not only hears these stories from his father, but he and his little neighbor Cato often talk about them. Only yesterday Cato told Marius that his oldest brother was one of the priests who carried the sacred shields, and that next year his sister would be eight years old and was to become a Vestal virgin, and that then he would hardly ever see her. Marius wondered why one of his sisters had never been a priestess of Vesta, for he thought it must be very delightful to be dressed in white robes and snowy linen in the great temple and keep the fire burning upon the altar, carry the sacred water from the fountain of Egeria and thus to serve the sacred goddess; he often hoped, too, when he became a man that he might be one of the priests. Other things about him often brought questions to his mind and longings to his little heart. The farm of Cato's father was much larger than their own, and Cato and his father had several slaves to do their work. One of the slaves often told Cato many stories, and taught him to write on a waxen tablet with a stilus; and thus he was being educated, and Marius was not. Cato's father sometimes took him to the senate, where he saw the senators in their white woolen togas, or cloaks with purple hems. Marius had been to Rome with his father and had been in the busy market place, or forum, a number of times; he had seen and worshiped in the temple of Mars, for Mars was the god who kept off sickness from the cattle and sheep and kept the grain from blight and disease; he had seen the temple of Minerva, and prayed to her often, for she was the goddess who gave wisdom to all; but Marius had never visited the senate, and he wondered why his father had not taken him there, too.

That night he asked his father why he did not have slaves as Cato's father had, and if he might, when he was a man, go to Rome and be one of the priests,—for Cato's elder brother was one,—and if he would take him to visit the senate. His father then told him that when Romulus chose the senators, there were only a few families in Rome, and that the senators were the heads of these old families. But as Rome grew, many new people came there to live and trade who had no place in the old families, and so had no share in the government. But that was not all: these old families, or patricians, as they were called, thought that because they were older they were better, and so looked down upon those who came later. "They have done this for years," said his father, "and still they expect us to fight when the rough plunderers come down from the mountain regions in search of booty, drive away our flocks and herds, take our grain, and burn and ruin our farms; and yet for all this fighting we receive no pay. The land we get by war the patricians alone use for pasturing their sheep and cattle: that is why our neighbor has wealth and luxury and a large farm, and slaves to do the work upon it.