His words went to the souls of his hearers. An assembly of the people being quickly called, it was voted that the Tarquins should be banished, and the office of king should be forever abolished in Rome. Tullia, learning of the cause of the tumult, hastily left the palace, and fled from Rome in her chariot through throngs that followed her with threats and curses. Brutus, perhaps with the crimsoned knife still in his hand, bade the young men to follow him, and set off in haste to Ardea, to spread through the army the story of the deed of crime and blood.
Meanwhile, Tarquin had been told of the revolt, and was hurrying to Rome to put it down. Brutus turned aside from the road that he might not meet him, and hastened on to the camp, where the story of the revolt and its cause was told the soldiers. On hearing the story the whole army broke into a tumult of indignation, drove the king's sons from the camp, and demanded to be led to Rome. The siege of Ardea was at once abandoned and the backward march began.
Meanwhile, Tarquin had reached the city, but only to find the gates closed against him and stern men on the walls. "You cannot enter here," they cried. "You are banished from Rome, you and all of yours, and shall never set foot within its walls again. And you are the last of our kings. No man after you shall ever call himself king of Rome."
Just in what threats, promises, and persuasions Tarquin indulged we do not know. But the men on the walls were not to be moved by threats or promises, and he was obliged to take himself away, a crownless wanderer. As for Sextus, to whom all the trouble was due, some say that he was killed in a town whose people he had betrayed, while others say that he was slain in battle while his father was fighting to regain his throne.
But this is certain, no king ever reigned in Rome again. The people, talking among each other, said, "Let us follow the wise laws of good King Servius. He bade us to meet in our centuries (or hundreds) and to choose two men year by year to govern us, instead of a king. This let us do, as Servius would have done himself had he not been basely murdered."
So the centuries of the people met in the Campus Martius (Field of Mars), and there chose two men,—Brutus, the leader in the revolution, and Lucius Tarquin, the husband of the fated Lucretia. These officials were afterwards called Consuls, and were given ruling power in Rome. But they had to lay down their office at the end of the year and be succeeded by two others elected in their stead. The people, however, were afraid of the very name of Tarquin, and in electing Lucius to the consulate it seemed as if they had put a new Tarquin on the throne. So they prayed him to leave the city; and, taking all his goods, he went away and settled at Lavinium, a new consul being elected in his place. A law was now passed that all the house of the Tarquins should be banished, whether they were of the king's family or not.
Thus ended the kingly period in Rome, after six kings had followed Romulus. With the consuls many of the laws of King Servius, which Tarquin had set aside, were restored, and a much greater degree of freedom came to the people of Rome. But that there might not now seem to be two kings instead of one, it was decreed that only one of the consuls should rule at a time, each of them acting as ruler for a month, and then giving over the power to his associate.
The banished King Tarquin did not lightly yield his realm. He roused the neighboring cities against Rome and fought fiercely for his throne. Soon after he was exiled from Rome he sent messengers there for his goods. These the senate decreed should be given him. But his messengers had more secret work to do. They formed a plot with many of the young nobles to bring back the king, and among these traitors were Titus and Tiberius, the sons of Brutus.
A slave overheard the conspirators and betrayed them to the consuls, and they were seized and brought to the judgment-seat in the Forum. Here Brutus, sitting in judgment, beheld his two sons among the culprits. He loved them, but he loved justice more, and though he grieved deeply inwardly, his face was grave and stern as he gave judgment that the law must take its course. So the sons of this stern old Roman were scourged with rods before his eyes, and then, with the other conspirators, were beheaded by the lictors, while he looked steadily on, never turning his eyes from the dreadful sight. But men could see that his heart bled for his sons.
Soon afterwards Tarquin led an army of Etruscans against Rome, and the two consuls marched against them at the head of the Roman army. In the battle that followed Brutus met Aruns, the king's son, in advance of the lines of battle. Aruns, seeing Brutus dressed in royal robes and attended by the lictors of a king, was filled with anger, and levelled his spear and spurred his horse against him. Brutus met him in mid-career with levelled spear. Both were run through, and together fell dead upon the field.
The day ended with neither party victors. But during the night a woodland deity was heard speaking from a forest near by. "One man more has fallen of the Etruscans than of the Romans," it said; "the Romans are to conquer." This strange oracle ended the war. It was a reason, surely, for which war was never ended before or since. The Etruscans, affrighted, marched hastily home; while the Romans carried home their slain patriot, for whom their women mourned a whole year, in honor of his noble service in avenging Lucretia.
The banished king still craved his lost kingdom, and made other efforts to regain it. Having failed in his first attempt, he went to another city, named Clusium, in the distant part of Etruria, and here besought Lars Porsenna, the king of that city, to aid him recover his throne. Lars Porsenna, with a fellow-feeling for his dethroned brother king, raised a large army and marched with Tarquin and his fellow-exiles against defiant Rome.
The Romans now awaited him at home, and the two armies met on the hill called Janiculum, beyond the river from the city. Here came the crash of battle, but the men of Clusium proved the stronger, and after a sharp struggle the Romans gave way and were driven pell-mell down the hill and across the bridge which spanned the Tiber at this point. This was a wooden bridge on which the Romans set great store, as it was their only means of crossing the stream. But it now was likely to serve as a means of the loss of their city. Their flying army was pouring in panic across it, with the Etruscans in hot pursuit, seeking strenuously to win the bridge.
The bridge must be speedily destroyed or the city would be lost, but it seemed too late for this; unless the enemy could in some way be kept back till the bridge was cut down, Tarquin and his allies would be in the streets of Rome.
At this juncture a brave and stalwart son of Rome, Horatius Cocles by name, stepped forward and offered his life in his city's defence. "Cut away with all haste," he said; "I will keep the bridge until it falls." Two others, Spurius Lartius and Titus Herminius, sprang to his side, and the three, fully armed and stout of heart, ranged themselves across the narrow causeway, while behind them the axes of the Romans played ringingly upon the supports of the bridge.
On came the Etruscans in force. But the bridge was so narrow that only a few could advance at once, and these found in the way the sharp spears and keen-edged blades of the patriot three. Down went the leading Etruscans, and others pressed on, only to fall, till the defenders of the bridge had a bulwark of the slain in their front.
And now the bridge creaked and groaned as the axes kept up their lively play, the ring of steel finding its chorus in the cheering shouts of the Romans on the bank.
"Back! back!" cried the axemen. "It will be down in a minute more; back for your lives!"
"Back!" cried Horatius to his comrades, and they hastily retreated; but he stood unmoving, still boldly facing the foe.
"Fly! It is about to fall!" was the shout.
"Let it," cried Horatius, without yielding a step.
And there he stood alone, defying the whole army of the Etruscans. From a distance they showered their javelins on him, but he caught them on his shield and stood unhurt. Furious that they should be kept from their prey by a single man, they gathered to rush upon him and drive him from his post by main force; but just then the creaking beams gave way, and the half of the bridge behind him fell with a mighty crash into the stream below.
The Etruscans paused in their course at this crashing fall, and gazed, not without admiration, at the stalwart champion who had stayed an army in its victorious career. He was theirs now; he could not escape; his life should pay the penalty for their failure.
But Horatius had no such thought. He looked down on the stream, and prayed to the god of the river, "O Father Tiber, I pray thee to receive these arms and me who bear them, and to let thy waters befriend and save me."
Then, with a quick spring, he plunged, heavy with armor, into the swift-flowing stream, and struck out boldly for the shore. The foemen rushed upon the bridge and poured their darts thick about him; yet none struck him, and he swam safely to the shore, where his waiting friends drew him in triumph from the stream.
For this grand deed of heroism the Romans set up a statue to Horatius in the comitium, and gave him in reward as much land as he could drive his plough round in the space of a whole day. Such deeds cannot be fitly told in halting prose, and Lord Macaulay, in his "Lays of Ancient Rome," has most ably and picturesquely told
"How well Horatius kept the bridge
In the brave days of old."
But though Rome was saved from capture by assault, the war was not ended, and other deeds of Roman heroism were to be done. Porsenna pressed the siege of the city so closely that hunger became his ally, and the Romans suffered greatly. Then another patriot devoted his life to his city's good. This man, a young noble named Caius Mucius, went to the senate and offered to go to the Etruscan camp and slay Lars Porsenna in the midst of his men.
His proposal acceded to, he crossed the stream by stealth and slipped covertly into the camp, through which he made his way, seeking the king. At length he saw a man dressed in a scarlet robe and seated on a lofty seat, while many were about him, coming and going. "This must be King Porsenna," he said to himself, and he glided stealthily through the crowd until he came near by, when, drawing a concealed dagger from beneath his cloak, he sprang upon the man and stabbed him to the heart.
But the bold assassin had made a sad mistake. The man he had slain was not the king, but his scribe, the king's chief officer. Being instantly seized, he was brought before Porsenna, where the guards threatened him with sharp torments unless he would truly answer all their questions.
"Torments!" he said. "You shall see how little I care for them."
And he thrust his right hand into the fire that was burning on the altar, and held it there till it was completely consumed.
King Porsenna looked at him with an admiration that subdued all anger. Never had he seen a man of such fortitude.
"Go your way," he cried, "for you have harmed yourself more than me. You are a brave man, and I send you back to Rome free and unhurt."
"And you are a generous king," said Caius, "and shall learn more from me for your kindness than tortures could have wrung from my lips. Know, then, that three hundred noble youths of Rome have bound themselves by oath to take your life. I am but the first; the others will in turn lie in wait for you. I warn you to look well to yourself."
He was then set free, and went back to the city, where he was afterwards known as Scævola, the left-handed.
The warning of Caius moved King Porsenna to offer the Romans terms of peace, which they gladly accepted. They were forced to give up all the land they had conquered on the west bank of the Tiber, and to agree not to use iron except to cultivate the earth. They were also to give as hostages ten noble youths and as many maidens. These were sent; but one of the maidens, Clœlia by name, escaped from the Etruscan camp, and, bidding the other maidens to follow, fled to the river, into which they all plunged and swam safely across to Rome.
They were sent back by the Romans, whose way it was to keep their pledges; but King Porsenna, admiring the courage of Clœlia, set her free, and bade her choose such of the youths as she wished to go with her. She chose those of tenderest age, and the king set them free.
The Romans rewarded Caius by a gift of land, and had a statue made of Clœlia, which was set up in the highest part of the Sacred Way. And King Porsenna led his army home, with Tarquin still dethroned.
A third time Tarquin the Proud marched against Rome, this time in alliance with the Latins, whose thirty cities had joined together and declared war against the Romans. But as many of the Romans had married Latin wives, and many of the Latins had got their wives from Rome, it was resolved that the women on both sides, who preferred their native land to their husbands, might leave their new homes and take with them their virgin daughters. And, as the legend tells, all the Latin women but two remained in Rome, while all the Roman women returned with their daughters to their fathers' homes.
The two armies met by the side of Lake Regillus, and there was fought a battle the story of which reads like a tale from the Iliad of Homer; for we are told not of how the armies fought, but of how their champions met and fought in single combats upon the field. King Tarquin was there, now hoary with years, yet sitting his horse and bearing his lance with the grace and strength of a young man. And there was Titus his son, leading into battle all the banished band of the Tarquins. And with them was Octavius Mamilius, the leader of the Latins, who swore to seat Tarquin again on his throne and to make the Romans subjects of the Latins.
On the Roman side were many true and tried warriors, among them Titus Herminius, one of those who fought on the bridge by the side of Horatius Cocles, when that champion fought so well for Rome.
It is too long to tell how warrior rode against warrior with levelled lances, and how this one was struck through the breast and that one through the arm, and so on in true Homeric style. The battle was a series of duels, like those fought on the plain of Troy. But at length the Tarquin band, under the lead of Titus, charged so fiercely that the Romans began to give way, many of their bravest having been slain.
At this juncture Aulus, the leader of the Romans, rode up with his own chosen band, and bade them level their lances and slay all, friend or foe, whose faces were turned towards them. There was to be no mercy for a Roman whose face was turned from the field. This onset stopped the flight, and Aulus charged fiercely upon the Tarquins, praying, as he did so, to the divine warriors Castor and Pollux, to whom he vowed to dedicate a temple if they would aid him in the fight. And he promised the soldiers that the two who should first break into the camp of the enemy should receive a rich reward.
Then suddenly, at the head of the chosen band, appeared two unknown horsemen, in the first bloom of youth and taller and fairer than mortal men, while the horses they rode were white as the driven snow. On went the charge, led by these two noble strangers, before whom the enemy fled in mortal terror, while Titus, the last of the sons of King Tarquin, fell dead from his steed. The camp of the Latins being reached, these two horsemen were the first to break into it, and soon the whole army of the enemy was in disorderly flight and the battle won.
Aulus now sought the two strange horsemen, to give them the reward he had promised; but he sought in vain; they were not to be found, among either the living or the dead, and no man had set eyes upon them since the camp was won. They had vanished as suddenly as they had appeared. But on the hard black rock which surrounds the lake was visible the mark of a horse's hoof, such as no earthly steed could ever have made. For ages afterwards this mark remained.
But the strangers appeared once again. It was known in Rome that the armies were joined in battle, and the longing for tidings from the field grew intense. Suddenly, as the sun went down behind the city walls, there were seen in the Forum two horsemen on milk-white steeds, taller and fairer than the tallest and fairest of men. Their horses were bathed in foam, and they looked like men fresh from battle.
Alighting near the Temple of Vesta, where a spring of water bubbles from the ground, these men, whom no Romans had ever seen before, washed from their persons the battle-stains. As they did so men crowded round and eagerly questioned them. In reply, they told them how the battle had been fought and won,—though in truth the battle ended only as the sun went down over Lake Regillus. They then mounted their horses and rode from the Forum, and were seen no more. Men sought them far and wide, but no one set eyes on them again.
Then Aulus told the Romans how he had prayed to Castor and Pollux, the divine twins, and said that it could be none but they who had broken so fiercely into the enemy's camp, and had borne the news of victory with more than mortal speed to Rome. So he built the temple he had vowed to the hero gods, and gave there rich offerings as the rewards he had promised to the two who should first enter the camp of the foe.
Thus ended the hopes of King Tarquin, against whom the gods had taken arms. His sons and all his family slain, he was left ruined and hopeless, and retired to the city of Cumæ, whence formerly the Sibyl had come to his court. Here he died, and thus passed away the last of the Roman kings.
The overthrow of the kings of Rome did not relieve the people from all their oppression. The inhabitants of that city had long been divided into two great classes, the Patricians, or nobles, and the Plebeians, or common people, and the former held in their hand nearly all the wealth and power of the state. The senate, the law-making body, were all Patricians; the consuls, the executors of the law, were chosen from their ranks; and the Plebeians were left with few rights and little protection.
It was through the avarice of money-lending nobles that the people were chiefly oppressed. There were no laws limiting the rate of interest, and the rich lent to the poor at extravagant rates of usury. The interest, when not paid, was added to the debt, so that in time it became impossible for many debtors to pay.
And the laws against debtors had become terribly severe. They might, with all their families, be held as slaves. Or if the debtor refused to sell himself to his creditor, and still could not pay his debt, he might be imprisoned in fetters for sixty days. At the end of that time, if no friend had paid his debt, he could be put to death, or sold as a slave into a foreign state. If there were several creditors, they could actually cut his body to pieces, each taking a piece proportional in size to his claim.
This cruel severity was more than any people could long endure. It led to a revolution in Rome. In the year 495 B.C., fifteen years after the Tarquins had been expelled, a poor debtor, who had fought valiantly in the wars, broke from his prison, and—with his clothes in tatters and chains clanking upon his limbs—appealed eloquently to the people in the Forum, and showed them on his emaciated body the scars of the many battles in which he had fought.
His tale was a sad one. While he served in the Sabine war, the enemy had pillaged and burned his house; and when he returned home, it was to find his cattle stolen and his farm heavily taxed. Forced to borrow money, the interest had brought him deeply into debt. Finally he had been attacked by pestilence, and being unable to work for his creditor, he had been thrown into prison and cruelly scourged, the marks of the lash being still evident upon his bleeding back.
This piteous story roused its hearers to fury. The whole city broke into tumult, as the woful tale passed from lip to lip. Many debtors escaped from their prisons and begged protection from the incensed multitude. The consuls found themselves powerless to restore order; and in the midst of the uproar horsemen came riding hotly through the gates, crying out that a hostile army was near at hand, marching to besiege the city.
Here was a splendid opportunity for the Plebeians. When called upon to enroll their names and take arms for the city's defence, they refused. The Patricians, they said, might fight their own battles. As for them, they had rather die together at home than perish separate upon the battle-field.
This refusal left the Patricians in a quandary. With riot in the streets and war beyond the walls they were at the mercy of the commons. They were forced to promise a mitigation of the laws, declaring that no one should henceforth seize the goods of a soldier while he was in camp, or hinder a citizen from enlisting by keeping him in prison. This promise satisfied the people. The debtors' prisons were emptied, and their late tenants crowded with enthusiasm into the ranks. Through the gates the army marched, met the foe, and drove him in defeat from the soil of the Roman state.
Victory gained, the Plebeians looked for laws to sustain the promises under which they had fought. They looked in vain; the senate took no action for their redress. But they had learned their power, and were not again to be enslaved. Their action was deliberate but decided. Taking measures to protect their homes on the Aventine Hill, they left the city the next year in a body, and sought a hill beyond the Anio, about three miles beyond the walls of Rome. Here they encamped, built fortifications, and sent word to their lordly rulers that they were done with empty promises, and would fight no more for the state until the state kept its faith. All the good of their fighting came to the Patricians, they said, and these might now defend themselves and their wealth.
The senate was thrown into a panic by this decided action. When the hostile cities without should learn of it, they might send armies in haste to undefended Rome. The people left in the city feared the Patricians, and the Patricians feared them. All was doubt and anxiety. At length the senate, driven to desperation, sent an embassy to the rebels to treat for peace, being in deadly fear that some enemy might assail and capture the city in the absence of the bulk of its inhabitants.
The messenger sent, Menenius Agrippa Lanatus, was a man famed for eloquence, and a popular favorite. In his address to the people in their camp he repeated to them the following significant fable:
"At a time when all the parts of the body did not agree together, as they do now, but each had its own method and language, the other parts rebelled against the belly. They said that it lay quietly enjoying itself in the centre, while they, by care, labor, and service, kept it in luxury. They therefore conspired that the hands should not convey food to the mouth, the mouth receive it, nor the teeth chew it. They thus hoped to subdue the belly by famine; but they found that they and all the other parts of the body suffered as much. Then they saw that the belly by no means rested in sloth; that it supplied instead of receiving nourishment, sending to all parts of the body the blood that gave life and strength to the whole system."
It was the same, he said, with the body of the state. All must work in unity, if all would prosper. This homely argument hit the popular fancy. The people consented to treat for their return if their liberties could be properly secured. But they must now have deeds instead of words. It was not political power they sought, but protection, and protection they would have.
Their demands were as follows: All debts should be cancelled, and all debtors held by their creditors should be released. And hereafter the Plebeians should have as their protectors two officials, who should have power to veto all oppressive laws, while their persons should be held as sacred and inviolable as those of the messengers of the gods. These officials were to be called Tribunes, and to be the chief officers of the commons as the consuls were of the nobles.
This proposition was accepted by the senate, and a treaty signed between the contesting parties, as solemnly as if they had been two separate nations. It was an occasion as important to the liberties of Romans as the treaty signed many centuries afterwards on the field of Runnymede, between King John and his barons, was to the liberties of Englishmen, and was held by the Romans in like high regard. The hill on which the treaty had been made was ever after known as the Sacred Mount. Its top was consecrated and an altar built upon it, on which sacrifices were made to Jupiter, the god who strikes men with terror and then delivers them from fear; for the people had fled thither in dread, and were now to return home in safety.
Thus ended the great revolt of the people, who had gained in the Tribunes defenders of more power and importance than they or the senate knew. They were never again to suffer from the bitter oppression to which they had been subjected in preceding years. As for Lanatus, to whose pleadings they had yielded, he died before the year ended, and was found to have not left enough to pay for his funeral. Therefore the Plebeians collected funds to give him a splendid burial; but the senate having decreed that the state should bear this expense, the money raised by the grateful people was formed into a fund for the benefit of his children.
Caius Marcius, a noble Roman youth, descended from the worthy king Ancus Marcius, fought valiantly when but seventeen years of age in the battle of Lake Regillus, and was there crowned with an oaken wreath, the Roman reward for saving the life of a fellow-soldier. This he showed with the greatest joy to his mother, Volumnia, whom he loved exceedingly, it being his greatest pleasure to receive praise from her lips for his exploits. He afterwards won many more crowns in battle, and became one of the most famous of Roman soldiers.
One of his memorable exploits took place during a war with the Volscians, in which the Romans attacked the city of Corioli. The citizens made a sally, and drove the Romans back to their camp. But Caius, with a few followers, stopped them and turned the tide of battle, driving the Volscians back. As they fled into the city through the open gates, he cried, "Those gates are set open for us rather than for the Volscians. Why are we afraid to rush in?" And suiting his act to his words, the daring soldier pursued the enemy into the town.
Here he found himself almost alone, for very few had followed him. The enemy turned on the bold invaders, but Caius proved so strong of hand and stout of heart that he drove them all before him, keeping a way clear for the Romans, who soon thronged in through the open gate and took the city. The army gave Caius the sole credit for the victory, saying that he alone had taken Corioli; and the general said, "Let him be called after the name of the city." He was, therefore, afterwards known by the name of Caius Marcius Coriolanus.
Courage was not the only marked quality of Coriolanus. His pride was equally great. He was a noble of the nobles, so haughty in demeanor and so disdainful of the commons that they grew to hate him bitterly. At length came a time of great scarcity of food. The people were on the verge of famine, to relieve which shiploads of corn were sent from Sicily to Rome. The senate resolved to distribute this corn among the suffering people, but Coriolanus opposed this, saying, "If they want corn let them show their obedience to the Patricians, as their fathers did, and give up their tribunes. If they do this we will let them have corn, and take care of them."
When the people heard of what the proud noble had said they broke into such fury that a mob gathered around the doors of the senate house, prepared to seize and tear him to pieces when he came out. They were checked in this by the tribunes, who said, "Let us not have violence. We will accuse him of treason before the assembly, and you shall be his judges."
The tribunes, therefore, as the law gave them the right, summoned Coriolanus to appear before the popular tribunal and answer to the charges against him. But he, knowing how deeply he had offended them, and that they would show him no mercy, stayed not for the trial, but fled from Rome, exiled from his native land by his pride and disdain of the people.
The exile made his way to the land of the Volscians, and seating himself by the hearth-fire of Attius Tullius, their chief, waited there with covered head till his late bitter foe should come in. How Attius would receive him he knew not; but he was homeless, and had now only his enemies to trust. But when the chieftain entered, and learned that the man who sat crouched beside his hearth, subject to his will, was the great warrior who by his own hands had taken a Volscian city, but was now banished and a fugitive, he was filled with compassion. He greeted him kindly and offered him a home, saying to himself, "Caius, our worst foe, is now our friend and a foe to Rome; we will make war against that proud city, and by his aid will conquer it."
But the Volscians were not eager for war. They were afraid of the Romans, who had so often defeated them, and Attius sought in vain to stir them to hostility. Failing to rouse them by eloquence, he practised craft. There was a great festival at Rome, to which had come the people of various cities, among them many of the Volscians. Attius now went privately to the Roman consuls and bade them beware of the Volscians, lest they should stir up a riot and make trouble in the city, hinting that mischief was intended. In consequence of this warning proclamation was made that every Volscian should leave Rome before the setting of the sun.
This produced the effect which Attius had hoped. He met the Volscians on their way home, and found them fired with indignation against Rome. He pretended similar indignation. "You have been made a show of before all the nations," he cried. "You and your wives and children have been basely insulted. They have made war on us while their guests; if you are men you will make them rue this deed."
His words inflamed his countrymen. The story of the insult spread widely through the country, all the tribes of the Volscians took up the quarrel, and a great army was raised and set in march towards Rome, with Attius and Coriolanus at its head.
The Volscian force was greater than the Romans were prepared to meet, and the army marched victoriously onward, taking city after city, and finally encamping within five miles of Rome. When the Volscians entered Roman territory they laid waste, by order of Coriolanus, the lands of the commons, but spared those of the nobles, the exiled patrician deeming the former his foes and the latter his friends. The approach of this powerful army threw the Romans into dismay. They had been assailed so suddenly that they had made no preparations for defence, and the city seemed to lie at the mercy of its foes. The women ran to the temples to pray for the favor of the gods. The people demanded that the senate should send deputies to the invading army to treat for peace. The senate, apparently no less frightened than the people, obeyed, sending five leading Patricians to the Volscian camp.
These deputies were haughtily received by Coriolanus, who offered them the following severe terms: "We will give you no peace till you restore to the Volscians all the land and cities which Rome has ever taken from them, and till you make them citizens of Rome, and give them all the rights in your city which you have yourselves."
These conditions the deputies had no power to accept, and they threw the senate into dismay. The deputies were sent again, instructed to ask for gentler terms, but now, Coriolanus refused even to let them enter his camp.
This harsh repulse plunged Rome into mortal terror. The senate, helpless to resist, now sent the priests of the gods and the augurs, all clothed in their sacred garments, and bearing the sacred emblems from the temples. But even this solemn delegation Coriolanus refused to receive, and sent them back to Rome unheard.
Where all this time was the Roman army, which always before and after made itself heard and felt? This we are not told. We are in the land of legend, and cannot look for too much consistency. For once in its history Rome seems to have forgotten that its mission was not to plead, but to fight. Perhaps its armies had been beaten and demoralized in previous battles. At any rate we can but tell the story as it is told to us.
The help of delegates, priests, and augurs having proved unavailing, that of women was next sought. A noble lady, Valeria by name, who with other suppliants had sought the Temple of Jupiter, was inspired by a sudden thought, which seemed sent by the god himself. Rising, and bidding the other noble ladies to accompany her, she proceeded to the house of Volumnia, the mother of Coriolanus, whom she found with Virgilia, his wife, and his little children.
"We have come to ask you to join us," she said, "in order that we women, without aid from man, may deliver our country, and win for ourselves a name more glorious even than that of the Sabine wives of old, who stopped the battle between their husbands and fathers. Come with us to the camp of Caius, and let us pray him to show us mercy."
"It is well thought of; we shall go with you," said Volumnia, and, with Virgilia and her children, the noble matron prepared to seek the camp and tent of her exiled son.
It was a sad and solemn spectacle, as this train of noble ladies, clad in their habiliments of woe, and with bent heads and sorrowful faces, wound through the hostile camp, from which they were not excluded, like the men. Even the Volscian soldiers watched them with pitying eyes, and spoke no word as they moved slowly past. On reaching the midst of the camp, they saw Coriolanus on the general's seat, with the Volscian chiefs gathered around him.
At first he wondered who these women could be. But when they came near, and he saw his mother at the head of the train, his deep love for her welled up so strongly in his heart that he could not restrain himself, but sprang up and ran to meet and kiss her. The Roman matron stopped him with a dignified gesture, saying,—
"Ere you kiss me, let me know whether I am speaking to an enemy or to my son; whether I stand here as your prisoner or your mother."
He stood before her in silence, with bent head, and unable to speak.
"Must it then be that if I had never borne a son, Rome would have never seen the camp of an enemy?" said Volumnia, in sorrowful tones. "But I am too old to bear much longer your shame and my misery. Think not of me, but of your wife and children, whom you would doom to death or to life in bondage."
Then Virgilia and the children came up and kissed him, and all the noble ladies in the train burst into tears and bemoaned the peril of their country. Coriolanus still stood silent, his face working with contending thoughts. At length he cried out, in heart-rending accents, "O mother, what have you done to me?"
Clasping her hand, he wrung it vehemently, saying, "Mother, the victory is yours! A happy victory for you and Rome, but shame and ruin to your son."
Then he embraced her with yearning heart, and afterwards clasped his wife and children to his breast, bidding them return with their tale of conquest to Rome. As for himself, he said, only exile and shame remained.
Before the women reached home the army of the Volscians was on its homeward march. Coriolanus never led them against Rome again. He lived and died in exile, far from his wife and children. When very old, he sadly remarked, "That now in his old age he knew the full bitterness of banishment."
The Romans, to honor Volumnia and those who had gone with her to the Volscian camp, built a temple to "Woman's Fortune" on the spot where Coriolanus had yielded to his mother's entreaties; and the first priestess of this temple was Valeria, who had been inspired in the temple of Jupiter with the thought that saved Rome.
In the old days of Rome, not far from the time when Coriolanus yielded up his revenge at his mother's entreaty, the Roman state possessed a citizen as patriotic as Coriolanus was proud, and who did as much good as the other did evil to his native land. This citizen, Lucius Quinctius by name, was usually called Cincinnatus, or the "crisp-haired," from the fact that he let his hair grow long, and curled and crisped it so carefully as to gain as much fame for his hair as for his wisdom and valor.
Cincinnatus was the simplest and least ambitious of men. He cared nothing for wealth, and had no craving for city life, but dwelt on his small farm beyond the Tiber, which he worked with his own hands, content, so his crops grew well, to let the lovers of power and wealth pursue their own devices within the city walls. But he was soon to be drawn from the plough to the sword.
While Cincinnatus was busy ploughing his land, Rome kept at its old work of ploughing the nations. War at this time broke out with the Æquians, a neighboring people; but for this war the Æquians were to blame. They had plundered the lands of some of the allies of Rome, and when deputies were sent to complain of this wrong, Gracchus, their chief, received them with insulting mockery.
He was sitting in his tent, which was pitched in the shade of a great evergreen oak, when the deputies arrived.
"I am busy with other matters," he answered them; "I cannot hear you; you had better tell your message to the oak yonder."
"Yes," said one of the deputies, "let this sacred oak hear, and let all the gods hear also, how treacherously you have broken the peace. They shall hear it now, and shall soon avenge it; for you have scorned alike the laws of the gods and of men."
The deputies returned to Rome, and reported how they had been insulted. The senate at once declared war, and an army was sent towards Algidus, where the enemy lay. But Gracchus, who was a skilled soldier, cunningly pretended to be afraid of the Romans, and retreated before them, drawing them gradually into a narrow valley, on each side of which rose high, steep, and barren hills.
When he had lured them fairly into this trap, he sent a force to close up the entrance of the valley. The Romans suddenly found that they had been entrapped into a cul-de-sac, with impassable hills in front and on each side, and a strong body of Æquians guarding the entrance to the ravine. There was neither grass for the horses nor food for the men. Gracchus held not only the entrance, but the hill-tops all round, so that escape in any direction was impossible. But before the road in the rear was quite closed up five horsemen had managed to break out; and these rode with all speed to Rome, where they told the senate of the imminent danger of the consul and his army.
These tidings threw the senate into dismay. What was to be done? The other consul was with his army in the country of the Sabines. He was at once sent for, and hastened with all speed to Rome. Here a consultation took place, which ended in the leading senators saying, "There is only one man who can deliver us. We must make Lucius Quinctius Master of the People." Master of the People meant in Rome what we now mean by Dictator,—that is, a man above the law, an autocrat supreme. What service this unambitious tiller of the ground had previously done for Rome to make him worthy of this distinction we are not told, but it is evident that he was looked upon as the man of highest wisdom and soldiership in Rome.
Caius Nautius, the consul, appointed Cincinnatus to this high office, as he alone was privileged to do, and then hastened back to his army. Early the next morning deputies from the senate sought the farm of the new dictator, to apprise him of the honor conferred on him. Early as it was, Cincinnatus was already at work in his fields. He was without his toga, or cloak, and vigorously digging in the ground with his spade, never dreaming that he, a simple husbandman, had been chosen to save a state.
"We bring you a message from the senate," said the deputies. "You must put on your cloak to receive it with the fitting respect."
"Has evil befallen the state?" asked the farmer, as he bade his wife to bring him his cloak. When he had put it on he returned to the deputies.
"Hail to you, Lucius Quinctius!" they now said. "The senate has declared you Master of the People, and have sent us to call you to the city; for the consul and the army in the country of the Æquians are in imminent danger."
Without further words, Cincinnatus accompanied them to the boat in which they had crossed the Tiber, and was rowed in it to the city. As he left the boat he was met by a deputation consisting of his three sons, his kinsmen and friends, and many of the senators of Rome. They received him with the highest honor, and led him in great state to his city residence, the twenty-four lictors walking before him, with their rods and axes, while a great multitude of the people crowded round with shouts of welcome. The presence of the lictors signified that this plain farmer had been invested with all the power of the former kings.
The new dictator quickly proved himself worthy of the trust that had been placed in him. He chose at once as his Master of the Horse Lucius Tarquinius, a brave man, of noble descent, but so poor that he had been forced to serve among the foot-soldiers instead of the horse. Then the two entered the Forum, where orders were given that all booths should be closed and all lawsuits stopped. All men were forbidden to look after their own affairs while a Roman army lay in peril of destruction.
Orders were next given that every man old enough to go to battle should appear before sunset with his arms and with five days' food in the Field of Mars, and should bring with him twelve stakes. These they were to cut where they chose, without hinderance from any person. While the soldiers occupied themselves in cutting these stakes, the women and older men dressed their food. Such haste was made, under the energetic orders of the dictator, that an army was ready, equipped as commanded, in the Field of Mars before the sun had set. The march was at once begun, and was continued with such rapidity that by midnight the vicinity of Algidus was reached. On the enemy being perceived, a halt was called.
Cincinnatus now rode forward and inspected the camp of the enemy, so far as it could be seen by night. He then ordered the soldiers to throw down their baggage, and to keep only their arms and stakes. Marching stealthily forward, they now extended their lines until they had completely surrounded the hostile camp. Then, upon a given signal, a simultaneous shout was raised, and each soldier began to dig a ditch where he stood and to plant his stakes in the ground.
The shout rang like a thunder-clap through the camp of the Æquians, waking them suddenly and filling them with dismay. It also reached the ears of the Romans who lay in the valley, and inspired them with hope, for they recognized the Roman war-cry. They raised their own battle-shout in response, and, seizing their arms, sallied out and made a fierce attack upon the foe, fighting so desperately that the Æquians were prevented from interrupting the work of the outer army. All the remainder of the night the battle went on, and when day broke the Æquians found that a ditch and a palisade of stakes had been made around their entire camp.
This work accomplished, Cincinnatus ordered his men to attack the foe, and thus aid their entrapped countrymen. The Æquians, finding themselves between two armies, and as closely walled in as the Romans in the valley had before been, fell into a panic of hopelessness, threw down their arms, and begged their foes for mercy. Cincinnatus now signalled for the fighting to cease, and, meeting those who came to ask on what terms he would spare their lives, said,—
"Give me Gracchus and your other chiefs bound. As for you, you can have your lives on one condition. I will set two spears upright in the ground, and put a third spear across, and every man of you, giving up your arms and your cloaks, shall pass under this yoke, and may then go away free."
To go under the yoke was accounted the greatest dishonor to a soldier. But the Æquians had no alternative and were obliged to submit. They delivered up to the Romans their king and their chiefs, left their camp with all its spoil to the foe, and passed without cloaks or arms under the crossed spears, their heads bowed with shame. They then went home, leaving their chiefs as Roman prisoners. Thus was Gracchus punished for his pride.
In less than a day's time Cincinnatus had saved a Roman army and humiliated the Æquian foe. As for the battle-spoils, he distributed them among his own men, giving none to the consul's army, and degraded the consul, making him his under-officer. He then marched the two armies back to Rome, which he reached that same evening, and where he was received with as much astonishment as joy. The rescued army were too full of thankfulness at their escape to feel chagrin at their loss of spoil, and voted to give Cincinnatus a golden crown, calling him their protector and father.
The senate decreed that Cincinnatus should enter the city in triumph. He rode in his chariot through the gates, Gracchus and the chiefs of the Æquians being led in fetters before him. In front of all the standards were borne, while in the rear marched the soldiers, laden with their spoil. At the door of every house tables were set, with meat and drink for the soldiers, while the people, singing and rejoicing, danced with joy as they followed the conqueror's chariot, and all Rome was given up to feasting and merry-making.
As for Cincinnatus, he laid down his power and returned to his farm, glad to have rescued a Roman army, but caring nothing for the pomp and authority he might have gained. And for all we know, he lived and died thereafter a simple tiller of the ground.
In the year 504 B.C. a citizen of Regillum, of much wealth and importance, finding himself at odds with his fellow-citizens, left that city and proceeded to Rome, with a long train of followers, much as the elder Tarquin had come from Tarquinii. His name was Atta Clausus, but in Rome he became known as Appius Claudius. He was received as a patrician, was given ample lands, and he and his descendants in later years became among the chief of those who hated and oppressed the plebeians.