Chapter VI: Part 6

“Not thus my path has lain; too well I know the Roman’s iron strength; in times of truce and intervals of conflict I have seen his daily life and marked his customs well. Poverty, at Carthage a disgrace, he but rejoices in. The water of the brook to quench his thirst, the dry leaves for his bed, and bread of simplest preparation supply his wants. Then, as the fierce she-wolf whose dugs nourished his ancestors doth raven for her whelps, so goes he forth to plunder and to prey among the nations, and, for the sake of stealing that which stolen is not worth the keeping, will life and fortune set upon a cast. Show to a Roman senate some patch of sand within mid-Africa, some waste of Alpine rocks, white with eternal snows, where, famished peasants watch their starving flocks and wrestle with the avalanche for life; did Phlegethon with all his burning waves the wretched pittance guard, and fierce Eumenides beleaguer all the shore, yet would a Roman consul dare the flood, do battle with the lion for his sands, and slay the shivering goatherd for his rocks.

“The Romans turn their greedy eyes toward these fair realms; they seek to lay in ashes these ancestral towers, where whatsoever piety reveres, memory recalls, or old affection cherishes, is garnered and bestowed, nor will they pause till every wave of this encircling sea, crimsoned with the gore of matrons, of aged men, and even of the laughing and unconscious babe, shall roll its bloody burden to the shore.

“Most unequal is the conflict. The men who reared these towers and moistened with their blood these battlements are not; in their stead has come a race of petty shopkeepers and sycophants, having no inner life, no haughty purpose or generous resolve, no strength to keep what their forefathers won. The streets are thronged with youths whose dainty limbs are clad in flowing and embroidered robes, whose jewelled fingers are skilful to touch the lyre, but not to press the war-horse through ranks of thronging spearmen, to draw the Numidian arrow to the head, and dip its thirsty point in hostile blood. The rest are veterans gray with years, and most unfit for service, like the shepherd’s dog that, stiff with age and pampered with good living, erects his hair and shows his toothless jaws, making in vain a noble front before the gaunt and wiry wolf.

“Our only hope is in the legions I have drawn from Spain, and trained in foreign wars to conflict. But my step, once lighter than the brindled tigers on the Libyan sands, grows heavy with weight of years and hardships. Were I to fall, armies would lack a leader, my country one who loves her better than himself, or wife, or child. But the blood that mantles in this boy’s cheek is that of heroes; thine ancestors and mine were chieftains of the olden time; and when the lion shall breed sheep will I believe that any of our race and lineage can ever fail their country in her hour of need. Therefore, despite thy tears, mine own affection, and his tender age, from off thy bosom will I take this child and as the lion brings his whelps afield with claws half-grown and trains them on the hunters, so will I him. It is not what we choose, but what our country needs, and sacred liberty requires, that we must do, though in the conflict our own heartstrings break. He shall be the enemy of Rome in soul and body and in secret thought. He shall not feed on dainties and sleep on Tyrian purple till he becomes the object of men’s sneers. The panther’s shaggy hide, the forest leaves, the dry bed of some mountain brook, shall be his couch, while on my corselet scales his cheek shall rest,--the soldier’s iron pillow; and when with growing strength and hardihood his bones endure the harness, behind his father’s buckler he shall learn to fight and bathe his maiden sword in blood.”

At the altar of Mars, surrounded by a vast throng of citizens, soldiery, and chief estates of the realm, stands Hamilcar; his helmet down conceals his features from the crowd. On the opposite side of the altar are his wife and her maidens; at his side the child. Placing his little fingers on the yet quivering flesh of the victim, he said: “Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, swear, by this consecrated blood, and in the presence of that dread God of battles on whose altar it smokes, that you will neither love nor make peace with any of Roman blood; should fortune, friends, and weapons fail, you will still live and die the inexorable enemy of Rome.”

As he paused, the clear tones of that childish voice, answering, “I swear,” rose upon a stillness so deep that the low crackling of the flames that fed the altar-fires were distinctly audible.

It was broken by one wild shriek of agony, as the frantic mother fell fainting into the arms of her maidens.

The stern chieftain spake not, but, as he stooped to raise the child, a single tear, falling between the bars of his helmet upon the upturned face of the wondering boy, told of the agony within.

PERICLES TO THE PEOPLE

Imagine yourself at Athens, among that strange people of feverish blood, who deify to-day the man they slaughtered but yesterday. The voice of the herald proclaims that Pericles is to be arraigned before the tribunal of the people. Borne along by the crowd, you enter the hall of justice. Not a sword rattles in its scabbard; not a mailed foot rings on the marble floor; one deep, intense, ominous silence pervades that dangerous assembly, as Pericles, rising, thus addresses them:--

“Ye men of Athens, I come not here to plead for life, though it be spent in exile; to entreat for a breath, though it be drawn in the damps of a dungeon; but to refute a vile slander; to show that he who invents and propagates a falsehood, like Sisyphus, rolls a stone to return and crush him. Cratinus accuses me of having embezzled the money raised for the defence of Greece, and of having expended it in adorning the city of Athens, as a proud and vain woman decketh herself with jewels.

“Have I not defended Greece, while Sparta and the allies were reposing in comfort by their own firesides? He avers that I was often at the house of Phidias to admire his statues, but insinuates that I had a softer motive. Suppose I had; rather let him show in what I have betrayed my country, when I have oppressed the poor, polluted myself with bribes, or turned back in the hour of battle. He accuses me of sacrificing the lives of brave men to my vaulting ambition, and even affects to shed tears over those who fell, in the flower of their youth, at Samos.

“Sacrificing! Were they machines to move at my bidding? bullocks to be dragged up and offered at the altar of Mars? Were they Persian mercenaries, to be driven with whips to the conflict? or were they patriots defending their firesides, and I their elder brother? They were the descendants of those who fell at Marathon,--men whose youthful locks had been worn off by the helmet, and whose fingers grew to the sword-hilt.

“The parents of those brave men did not, with reddening cheeks, behold them lying on some feverish couch, like a sick girl, crying for cooling drinks; but they died with their wounds in front, the broken sword in their hand, and the shout of victory ringing in their ears. Oh, yes! one hour of glorious conflict--when the blood leaps and the muscles rally for the mastery, when the hero’s soul wings its way through gaping wounds to Elysium--is worth a whole eternity of sitting in senates and dull debates, and private bickerings, and tame, common life.

“One day, as we were making forced marches across the isthmus in pursuit of the Lacedæmonians, a woman, following the camp as a sutler, with a child at her breast, fell and expired from fatigue. A soldier raised a spear to despatch the infant. Moved with compassion, I struck down his weapon; for I thought of my own little ones at home, whose kisses were scarcely yet cold on my lips, and even in the confusion of pursuit, I provided him with a nurse.

“On my return, he accompanied me, grew up with my children, fed at my table, slept in my tent, and fought behind my shield. As a reward for life, education, and a thousand anxious cares incurred, he has now, by false accusation, summoned me to the tribunal of my country, to plead for that life which has ever been held cheap in her service. What shall be done with such a wretch? I hear you exclaim: ’Send for the executioner! burn him to ashes! fling him from the Acropolis!’

“Cratinus, thou art that wretch; and yet methinks thou hast not altogether the noble bearing of the patriot who rejoices that he has been able to bring to justice the betrayer of his country; but thou hast rather the look of some timid shepherd, who, in chasing the stag, and pursuing the goat, has, all unwittingly, stumbled upon the lair of the lion, and, too terrified to flee, stands shivering before the glaring eyeball of the tawny brute.

“Thou small thing, I will not hurt thee; for, in the proud consciousness of right, I could even pity thee. And, when again thou liest among the slain at Megara, thy helmet cleft, the lance of the enemy at thy throat, and thou with not strength enough to parry it, then call for Pericles, and he will _again_ come to thy rescue. Farewell, thou grateful child! thou faithful friend! thou manly enemy!”

ICILIUS

The intolerable oppression of the patricians, to which was now added the tyranny of the Decemvirs, had excited a spirit of rancor in the breasts of the Roman commons, which was gradually extending itself to the entire army that now lay encamped in a strong position within sight of the enemy. But so sullen was their temper that the generals feared to lead them from their intrenchments, and the only barrier to open mutiny seemed to be the absence of special provocation, or the lack of a leader.

Upon the slopes of Crustumeria hung the dark masses of the Roman legions, while the watch-fires of their enemy, gleaming through heavy masses of foliage, lit up the vales below. But the haughty joy with which these stern warriors were wont to hail the hour of conflict no longer thrilled the soldiers’ breasts. By the dim light of stars men spake in whispers; and murmurs, waxing louder as the night wore on, like the hollow moan of surf before the gathering tempest, rose on the midnight air.

Just as the red light, touching, tinged the mountain summits, a warrior, clad in gory mantle from which the blood, slow dripping, had stained his armor and clotted upon his horse’s mane, rode down the sentry, and, bursting into the midst of the camp, shouted, “Soldiers, protect a tribune of the people!” Those pregnant words, associated with all of liberty the commons had ever known, were to the chafed spirits of the soldiery as fire to flax. From every quarter of the camp trumpets sounded to arms, the clash of steel mingled with the tramp of hurrying feet, and, marshalled by self-elected commanders, the gleaming cohorts closed around him. But when the helmet, lifted, revealed a face of wondrous beauty, stained by the traces of recent grief, the eyes flashing with the light of incipient madness, and they recognized the features of that tribune most of all beloved by the people, tears trembled on the cheeks of that stern soldiery, and, “Icilius!” ran in a low wail through their ranks.

“Comrades,” he cried, “you behold no more that young Icilius who, foot to foot and shield to shield with you, has borne the brunt of many a bloody day, and whose life was like a summer’s morning, rich with the fragrance of the opening buds, while every morn gave promise of new joys, and twilight hours were in their lingering glories dressed,--but a man sore broken, made ruthless by oppression, and so beset with horrors that this reeling brain, just tottering on the verge of madness, is steadied only by the purpose of revenge.

“Yesterday, Virginia, my betrothed, was by her father slain, to thwart the lust of Appius Claudius, a guardian of the public virtue and a ruler of the State.

“As she crosses the forum, on her way to school, that she may take leave of her mates, and invite them to her bridal, some ruffians set on by Appius Claudius lay hold upon her, averring that she is not the daughter of Virginius, but of a slave-woman, the property of Marcus, his client. The matter is brought to public trial; Appius, failing to attain in this manner the custody of her, that he may gratify his evil passions, commands his soldiers to take her by force. Her friends, apprehending no violence at a legal tribunal, are without arms. Soldiers are tearing her from her father’s embrace, when the stern parent, preferring death to dishonor, catches a knife from the butcher’s stall, and, crying, ’Thus only can I restore thee untainted to thine ancestors,’ stabs her to the heart.

“The purple torrent gushing from her breast, she falls upon my neck,--her arms embrace me,--her lips close pressed to mine, murmuring in death my name, she dies.

“In childhood we were lovers; from her father’s door to mine was but a javelin’s cast. We sought the nests of birds,--played in the brooks,--chased butterflies--we clapped our hands in childish wonder when the great eagle from the Apennines plunged headlong to the vale, or skimmed with level wing along the flood,--and I, adventurous boy, risked life and limb upon the jutting crag, to pluck some wild flower that her fancy pleased.

“As generous wine by age becomes more potent, thus fared it with our loves. For her I kept myself unstained, rushed to the battle’s front, and honors gained, that I might lay them at her feet, and by her love inspired, press on to worthier deeds. Like flowers whose kindred roots intwine, whose perfume mingles on the morning air, did our affections blend. ’Twas but three nights ago that we sat hand in hand beside the Tiber, and listened to the song of nightingales among the elms. The purple twilight quivering through the leaves streamed o’er her brow, and bathed in heavenly hues her lovely form.

“There we talked of our approaching nuptials. Love ripened into rapture. I kissed her lips, and chid the slow-paced hours that kept us from our bliss. The marriage day was fixed. With curtains richly wrought, and coverings of finest linen, spun by her own hands and by her maidens’, my mother had adorned the couch.

“To that sweet home where I had hoped through happy years to cherish her a wife, I bore her mangled corpse, gashed by her father’s hand. Her blood bedewed the bed decked with those nuptial gifts.

“To you, mates of my boyhood, brethren in battle tried, I stretch my hands; not in the petty interest of private wrong, but in the sacred right of Roman liberty, of virgin purity, sweet household joys, and in the name of those whose fair forms mingle with your dreams, in the fierce shock of battle nerve your arms, the fragrance of whose parting kiss yet lingers on your lips.

“The blood of age creeps slowly, and in its timid counsels interest and fear bear sway. Shall youthful swords lie rusting in the scabbards, and young men count the odds, when slaughtered beauty from its bloody grave clamors for vengeance?

“Behold this mantle, drenched in the blood of her whose fingers wove it as a gift of love,--each precious drop a tongue to shame your lingering courage. Led by the father with his bloody knife, your comrades thunder at the gates of Rome, while you, unworthy sons of sires who banished Tarquin and expelled the kings, sit here deliberating whether the virgin’s sanctity, the wife’s fair virtue, and all that men and gods hold sacred, are worth the striking for. Consume your youth in hunger, cold, and vigils, with spoils of conquered realms to pamper tyrants, till, waxing wanton on your bounty, they desolate your homes; and ye, hedged in by mercenary spears, revile your misery.”

His words were drowned in the clash of steel and the cries of multitudes calling to arms. Tearing the bloody garments in pieces, he flung them among the thronging battalions. “Be these your eagles. Bind them to your helmets; and, in the spirit they inspire, strike down the oppressor, that sweet Virginia’s unquiet ghost no more may wander shrieking for vengeance on the midnight air, but to the silent shades appeased return.”

DECIUS

Patriotism in the Roman breast was something more than principle; it was a passion. The sacred fire, so far from being diminished by age, waxed purer through the decay of the flesh, and, partaking of the nature of a divine afflatus, expired only with life itself. After all reasonable allowances made for the enchantment which distance flings around the great of past ages, the instances of devotion to country, scattered here and there through the pages of their history, fill us with amazement. To extend its empire, contribute to its glory, repel its enemies, no sacrifice was deemed too great. In common with other ancient nations they believed that the blood of a human victim, smoking upon the altar, was a sacrifice most acceptable to the gods, and in great emergencies an argument of wondrous power. It was therefore resorted to only when the fate of armies and nations hung trembling in the balance.

The victims chosen were often aged, useless, or prisoners taken in war; but when a virgin in the purity of her innocence and the glory of her expanding charms, or a man of noble birth in the prime of manly vigor, with high hopes and great inducements to live, voluntarily devoted themselves to die for the State, victory was considered no longer doubtful.

The Roman army being engaged in desperate conflict, and hard pressed by a valiant foe, the left wing, under command of Decius, was forced to retire; their general, determined to devote himself, arrayed in a mantle broidered with purple, and standing with bare feet upon his spear, cried: “Ye gods and heroes who rule over us and our enemies, and ye infernal deities whose dwelling is in the shades beneath, I invoke your presence. I entreat you to give victory to the Roman armies, and strike their enemies with fear and death. I here devote myself to mother earth and the shades of my ancestors in behalf of the Roman republic, her legions and auxiliaries, and with myself I devote the legions and auxiliaries of the enemy. For every drop of my blood shed in holy sacrifice grant that theirs may flow in torrents; for my single life, may they atone by thousands.”

Putting on his armor and mounting his horse, he said: “It is well known to you, my countrymen, that our fathers have taught us both by their words and acts, that it is the duty of every citizen to devote himself to the welfare of his country. They have taught us during peace to cultivate the soil, to despise luxury and effeminate pursuits, and, by begetting and educating children, to strengthen the State; in war by valor to defend it; nor without sufficient reason to risk our lives, the property of our country, bestowed by the gods. This I have ever striven to do. I am indeed young to die; age hath not tamed my sinews, nor misfortune broken my spirits, that I should be weary of life; fortune thus far has been friendly to me, reasonable expectations have been gratified, and efforts crowned with success. I might justly hope for many years of usefulness to my country and honor to myself, but it is now in my power, by devoting myself, to secure the interposition of the gods in crowning with victory the banners of our country and destroying its foes.

“It would be a solace to me once more to embrace an affectionate wife and dutiful children, to look again upon the trees I have planted and watched in their growth till they have become a part of myself, and upon the fields from which for so many years I have raised my bread and that of my family. I should like to walk over them once more, but I leave them with all my other affairs to the care of the State, which I am assured I shall this day more benefit by death than by the longest and most prosperous life. To you, Valerius, I commit the care of interring my body, that, having received the sacred rites of burial, I may enter those happy fields, where dwell the shades of heroes and my warlike ancestors. I commission you to inform my wife of the manner of my death, charging her to educate my sons in a manner worthy of their father and their ancestors.

“I pray you, my friends, look not so mournfully upon me, as though some great misfortune were about to befall me; for, though I may no longer lead you to battle, my shade will be present with you and nerve your arms to strike for the safety and glory of the Republic. The spirits of our ancestors hover around us; I behold their shadowy forms. The immortal gods are present for our aid. Jove thunders from the sky and Apollo bends the bow.”

Followed by the frantic legions assured of victory, he rushed into the midst of the foe; they fled in terror before the terrible warrior armed with supernatural terrors and seeking only death. The contest ended, the victorious Romans drew the body of their general from beneath a heap of slain, contemplating with emotions of mingled pride and sorrow the wounds which had let out a spirit so noble. They cleansed that beloved form from the stains of battle, arrayed it in gorgeous robes perfumed with fragrant odors, and reverend senators bore it to the grave.

LEONIDAS

It was on the morn of the 7th of August, 480 B.C., that Leonidas, with three hundred kindred spirits, performed the deed that shall be transmitted from father to son, through the generations of men, while human hearts shall throb with the love of country and of the domestic hearth. Four days had the haughty invader lingered at the mountain pass to afford this desperate band time to reconsider their act and disperse. Summoned to lay down their arms, they replied, “Come and take them.” Vainly had he poured his thousands upon this devoted band till the defile was choked with Persian dead. At length the tidings came that ten thousand men guided by a traitor were threading the goat paths to attack their rear. With ample opportunity to retreat, in obedience to the laws of their country, which forbade its soldiers to retreat from the foe, the Spartans, dismissing their allies, remained to face the storm. Never before or since has law been thus voluntarily baptized in blood, or the sun looked down upon a scene like that.

On one side in solitary grandeur tower the massive cliffs of Œta, wreathed with the white foam of torrents, and shaggy with forests bathed in dew; before stretches the narrow path leading to a plain, where lie the hosts of Xerxes, two million men; and on the other, the sea.

In these rude ages of brawl and battle his life and liberty alone were safe whose hand could help his head; thus also in respect to communities, the nation unable to defend itself found no allies; to be weak was to be miserable. The institutions of Lycurgus aimed to produce the greatest physical strength, contempt of pain and death, and to inspire an absorbing love of country. They decreed that all puny and imperfect children should be put to death, thus leaving to grow up only the strongest of the race. All labor was performed by slaves, that the citizens might be left at leisure for the study and practice of arms. The fatigues of their daily life were greater than those of the camp, and to the Spartan alone war afforded a relaxation. Their cities disdained the protection of walls, while they boasted that the women had never seen the smoke of an enemy’s camp. From the breast they were taught that glory and happiness consisted in love for their country and obedience to its laws. They were early accustomed to cold, hunger, and scourgings, in order to teach them endurance and contempt of pain. No tender parent wrought with saddened brow their battle robes, or buckled on with tears their armor; but the Spartan mother’s farewell to her son was, “Bring back thy shield or be borne upon it.” Trained in the contests of the gymnasium and the free life of the hunter and the warrior, accustomed from childhood to the weight of harness graduated to their growing strength, their armor grew to their limbs, and was worn with a grace and their weapons wielded with a skill that was instinctive.

Such were the stern brotherhood, chosen from a thousand Spartans, all the fathers of living sons, that others might be left to fill their places, inherit their spirit, and follow their example. In those forms so replete with manly beauty dwelt a spirit more noble still, which, preferring the toils of liberty to the ease of servitude, caught from those frowning precipices and that matchless sky, ever flinging its shadow over sea and shore, a love for the soil enduring as life itself.

As the sun arose they bathed their bodies in water, anointed themselves with oil, and arranged their hair as for a banquet. “Let us,” said Leonidas, “breakfast heartily, for we shall all sup with Pluto to-night.”

“Comrades,” cried the heroic king, as the serried ranks gathered around him, “those whose laws do not forbid them to retreat from the foe have left us. I welcome you to death; had not treachery done its work, three hundred Spartans would have still held at bay two million slaves. Deem not because we, trained in all feats of arms, in the full strength of manhood, perish nor hold the pass, our country’s gate, we therefore die for naught. This day shall we do more for Sparta than could the longest life consumed in war or councils of the State. As trees that fall in lonely forests die but to live again, and with other trees incorporate, lift their proud tops to heaven, wave in the breeze, and fling their shadows over the murmuring streams, thus shall our blood, which ere high noon shall smoke upon these rocks and stain these fretting waves, beget defenders for the soil it consecrates. To-day you fight the battles of a thousand years and teach this vaunting foe that bodies are not men, that freedom’s laws are mightier than the knotted scourge or chains by despots forged. The savor of this holocaust, borne by the winds and journeying on the waves, shall nerve the patriot’s arm, while Pinda rears its awful front, and from its sacred caves the streams descend. Inspired by this your act, henceforth five hundred Spartan men shall count a thousand. Our countrymen with envy shall view the gaping wounds through which the hero’s soul flees to the silent shades, and mourn they were not privileged with us to die. Our children shall tread with prouder step their native hills, while men exclaim each to the other, ’Behold the sons of sires who slumber at Thermopylæ.’ These battered arms, gathered with jealous care, shall hallow every home; our little ones with awful reverence shall point to the shivered sword, the war-scarred shield, the bloody vesture or the helmet cleft, and say, ’My father bore these arms at old Thermopylæ.’ With noble ardor shall they yearn for the day when their young arms shall bear ancestral shields, the spear sustain, and, like their sires, strike home on bloody fields for liberty and law.”

Their courage needed to be attempered, not aroused by the clangor of trumpets, the stormy roll of drums, and the frantic shout of multitudes. To the sound of softest music, and decked with flowers as for a bridal, they marched upon their foe.

Now flute notes and the sweet music of the Spartan lyre floated upon the breath of morn as they encountered the foe. Persian arrows and javelins darkened the air, and discordant yells rose up to heaven, but before that terrible phalanx the multitudes went down like grass before the scythe of the mower. Their spears gave no second thrust, their swords no second blow; assailed at length by millions in front and rear, they were slain and not subdued. Yet does their influence live in all literature and all lands. To-day they teach the age that there are nobler employments for man than the acquisition of riches or the pursuit of pleasure. The patriot scholar goes from the contemplation of the relics of Roman and Grecian art, to pay a deeper devotion at their grass-grown sepulchre; listens to the dash of waves, breaking as they broke upon the ear of Leonidas and his heroes, when, on that proud morning, they marched forth to die; reads with awe that sublime epitaph and passes on a better patriot and a better man.

THE CENTURION

The Roman Senate, in high conclave assembled, deliberated respecting the raising of fresh levies of men and arms. Powerful and vindictive foes, with difficulty held at bay, were gathering for attack, while the commons were ripe for revolt. Meanwhile, a turbulent crowd thronged the forum, surging to and fro like forests tossed by conflicting winds. Exasperated by oppression, beggared by usury, they recounted their causes of discontent, and thus fanned the smouldering flame in each other’s breast. It was from their households the conscription now pending was to be made; their blood was to stain the fields of battle, and victory, bringing but empty honors, would leave them more under the power of their masters than before. To increase the confusion, some Latin horsemen came full speed to the city, announcing that the Volsci were on their march to attack it; upon which the people set up a shout of joy, willing to perish if so be their oppressors might perish with them.

Cries of agony now arose above the tumult, and an old man pursued by creditors ran into the midst imploring aid; but his pursuers catching hold of the chain which was fastened to his right foot, he fell upon his face, while the blood gushed from his nostrils. He had just escaped from the dungeon of a creditor; his clothes were in tatters; his body emaciated by hunger; while his face, hideous with matted hair and beard, resembled more that of a beast than of a man. Some soldiers at length recalled the face of a centurion under whom they had served, famed for military skill, and distinguished by honors received as the reward of valor in the field. It needed but this spark to ignite a train already prepared for explosion. With a roar, like that of surges upon a winter’s beach, they trampled his pursuers beneath their feet, bidding him without fear to tell his tale, for they would protect him though it were necessary to fling both senate and consuls into the Tiber. And now to that fearful uproar succeeded a silence like that of the sepulchre, permitting the feeble tones of the miserable man to reach every ear and touch every heart in that vast assembly, as thus he spake:--

“Ten years ago, my countrymen, I was the owner of a little farm, the fruit of my labor and that of my ancestors. It lay along the base of hills around whose roots wound a brook which, watering my fields, ran into the Tiber; on its banks grew the elms that sustained our vines; the hills were clothed with chestnut and olives, and there also was the pasture of my flocks. In the sheltered vale beneath, the almond mingled with the fig, the flax spread its azure flowers to the sun, apples bent the laden boughs, and grain rewarded the toil of the reaper. How dear to me was that humble cot with its straw-thatched roof from which the swallows sprang to greet the breaking day; where the stock-dove hung its nest in the beechen shade, and morning breezes brought perfume to its threshold. How sweet, when the weary bullocks were released from the yoke, to lie among the lengthening shadows and listen to the dying breeze steal through the soft acanthus leaves in wild, low music. Our wants were few and easily satisfied; my wife ground the corn, her hands spun and wove our clothing, my children were dutiful; we led a frugal, happy life, revering the immortal gods and cherishing the virtues of our fathers. These few acres, valued as the fruit of my own labor, the gift of my ancestors, consecrated by their toil and pregnant with their ashes, were to me inexpressibly dear. I, indeed, was most of the time in arms for my country, yet often in the midnight watches of the camp did memory picture those sunny fields, my family thinking and talking of the absent soldier; nor did I forget to thank the immortal gods, that, should my country require my life, my family possessed a heritage and a home. The sun was declining as I neared my native vale on my return from the Sabine war. Eagerly I pressed to the brow of the hill that I might look down upon that dear cot. It was a heap of ashes; the storm of war had swept over those pleasant fields; fire had consumed the standing corn; the cattle were driven off, and the beauty of the groves had departed. As nearer I drew, I descried the body of my wife and first-born lying dead at the threshold; the rest had fled, not a living thing, even a dog, was left to welcome me; and the tired soldier had not where to lay his head.

“To war succeeded famine, hostilities continued, taxes increased, the land lay untilled. I was compelled to borrow money at exorbitant usury; that loved heritage passed into the hands of strangers. The golden crown and silver chain, bestowed for being the first to enter the enemy’s camp, went next; they are in the coffers of a man who never saw the color of a foeman’s eye nor drew his sword in the State’s behalf. All this not sufficing, my creditor immured me in a foul dungeon beneath his palace; with fifteen pounds of iron, the utmost the law permits, was I loaded; a pound of corn and water was my daily food, and I, a Roman citizen and a centurion, was scourged like a dog. Had I not broken my chain and flung myself upon you for protection, this war-worn body would have been cut in pieces and apportioned among my creditors.

“Comrades on many a bloody field, behold this arm,--which in twenty-eight battles has fought for the liberty of Rome till the hand clave to the sword hilt,--worn by cruel fetters to the bone; this body, seamed with honorable scars, dripping blood from the knotted scourge. Milder tortures would have been reserved for me had I been the betrayer instead of the defender of my country. The laws which consume the poor man’s substance and drain his blood are by usurers enacted, by them are executed. Usurers rob the public chest and parcel out the conquered lands among themselves. Let us, rather than longer submit to such extortion, fling wide the gates to the approaching enemy, leave them to exercise their wisdom in making laws where there are none to govern, levying taxes where there are none to pay, and displaying their valor where there is nought to defend. By the ashes of that ruined home, those loved forms mangled by the Sabine sword and devoured by the vultures of the Apennines, by the sufferings of my remaining children whose young lives are consumed by the tortures from which I have fled, by him who on Olympus holds his awful seat and shakes the nations with his nod, I conjure you to assert the rights of the people and the ancient liberties of Rome.”

VIRGINIUS TO THE ROMAN ARMY

The night wind blew in fitful gusts, with occasional dashes of rain, where, grouped around their watch-fires, and sheltered by the dense foliage of a beechen grove, a Roman cohort held its leaguer. Some, their spears thrust into the ground beside them, sat upright against the trees; while others lay at full length, with their heads resting upon their shields.

As the flames threw their red light upon the war-scarred faces of the veterans, they revealed only sullen features. No song nor jest was heard,--no sound, save the low hiss of the raindrops on the embers, the bay of a wolf in the distant forest, and the low muttered words of a soldier who was telling to his comrade how that, the night before, as the sun fell over the hills, a centurion rode past his beat full speed to Rome, summoned there by some new outrage of the Patricians.

All that night, throughout the host, mysterious forebodings crept. Men around their watch-fires spake in low whispers; and many a silent grasp of the hand passed from man to man. As the night wore away, and the day dawned, Virginius, upon a foaming steed, his head bare, and in his right hand a bloody knife, dashed past the guard to where--beneath an oak which, withered and scorched by sacrificial fires, flung no shadow--great Jove was worshipped.

Mounting the altar-steps, he turned, and, with bloodshot eyes, glared upon the soldiers who thronged tumultuously around him. Holding aloft the bloody knife, he exclaimed, “With this weapon I have slain my only child, to preserve her from dishonor!” Yells of horror and bitter execrations rose from the whole army; and a thousand swords flashed in the sun’s bright beams.

“Soldiers!” he cried, “I am like this blasted tree. Two years ago the Ides of May three lusty sons went with me to the field. In one disastrous fight they perished. A daughter, beautiful as the day, yet remained; ’tis but a week ago you saw her here, bearing to her old sire home comforts prepared by her own hands, and sharing with him the evening meal, and you blessed her as you passed.

“You’ll never see her more, who weekly came, with the soft music of her voice, and spells of home, to cheer our hearts. As on her way to school she crossed the Forum, Appius Claudius, through his minion Marcus, claimed her as a slave. With desperate haste I rode to Rome. Holding my daughter by the hand, and by my side her uncle, her aged grandsire, and Icilius her betrothed, I claimed my child.

“The judge, that he may gain his end, decides that in his house and custody she must remain, till I, by legal process, prove my right! The guards approach. Trembling, she clings around my neck,--her hot tears on my cheek. Snatching this knife from a butcher’s stall, I plunged it in her breast, that her pure soul might go free and unstained to her mother and her ancestors.

“And this is the reward a grateful country gives her soldiery! Cursed be the day my mother bore me! Accursed my sire’s untimely joy! Accursed the twilight hour, when ’mid Etruscan groves I wooed and won Acestes’ beauteous child, while youth’s bright dreams were busy at my heart!

“Soldiers! the deadliest foes of our liberties are behind, not before us; they are not the Æqui, the Volsci, and the Sabines, who meet us in fair fight; but that pampered aristocracy, who chain you by the death-penalty to the camp, that in your absence they may work their will upon those you leave behind.

“But why do I seek to kindle a fire in ice? Why seek to arouse the vengeance of those who care for no miseries but their own, and are enamoured of their fetters? I, indeed, can lose no more. Misfortune hath emptied her quiver,--she hath no other shaft for this bleeding breast; but flatter not yourselves that the lust of Appius Claudius has expired with the defeat of his purpose.

“Your homes, likewise, invite the destroyer; into your fold the grim wolf will leap; among the lambs of your flock will he revel, his jaws dripping blood. For you, also, the bow is bent; the arrow drawn to the head; and the string impatient of its charge. By all that I have lost, and that you imperil by delay, avenge this accursed wrong!

“If you have arms, use them; liberties, vindicate them; patriotism, save the tottering State; natural affection, protect the domestic hearth; piety, appease the wrath of the gods by avenging the blood that cries to heaven. To arms! To arms! or your swords will leap from their scabbards, the trumpets sound the onset, and the standards of _themselves_ advance to rebuke your delay!”

GENERAL GAGE AND THE BOSTON BOYS

The year seventeen hundred and seventy-five dawned gloomily upon the inhabitants of Massachusetts Bay. Portentous clouds darkened the political horizon, while clear-sighted and forecasting men prepared themselves for a struggle they saw to be inevitable. The attempt to crush by force of arms the spirit of liberty in the colonies had already commenced. A hostile fleet, with guns double-shotted and trained upon the town, lay at anchor in Boston Harbor. The town was under martial law, the hills bristled with cannon, sentinels challenged the citizen going to his daily vocations, and the common was a camp.

On the wharves of this busy emporium of colonial trade that had been wont to send its thousand vessels each year to foreign and domestic ports, the sailor’s song was hushed, warehouses were closed, and no canvas fluttered to the breeze. But few shops, and those only which dealt in the necessaries of life, were opened, and the hammer of the artisan lay rusting on the anvil. In many streets the snow lying white and undisturbed before the doors of hospitable dwellings evinced that their occupants had fled from a tyranny they were unable to resist. Beneath this grinding oppression, so intolerable to the spirit of a free people, no weak complaints were uttered nor sounds of riot heard. The citizen pursuing his business brushed the sentinel with a calm brow and sealed lips, and the children went to and fro to their schools and plays.

When soldiers barracked and horses were stabled in their churches, when bayonets gleamed in their halls of legislation, they lifted up the voice to God in other places and the town meeting was held as heretofore. For the first time in the history of peoples, the flocks sported in the pasture or slept in the fold unconscious of the butcher’s knife; the inhabitants of Massachusetts had resolved to eat no mutton, that their resources might be increased. On the roofs of sheds and porticoes wool and flax were bleaching; from hundreds of dwellings were heard the hum of the wheel and the stroke of the loom, where the mothers of heroes were preparing their children for the forum or the field. Balls were run and cartridges made by the hands of women and children at the kitchen fire, and, deftly concealed in loads of offal, passed unchallenged the sentries to hiding-places in the neighboring towns. Men who pursued their usual labors during the day met at midnight in garrets and cellars, and after swearing upon the Scriptures to keep secret the purpose of the meeting, consulted and prayed together, enduring meanwhile as best they might the insults of the soldiery.

It was Wednesday afternoon and half-holiday. General Gage, commander of troops that held watch and ward over the rebels in Massachusetts Bay and the town of Boston in particular, was sitting in his quarters at the Province House. The general’s brow was clouded and he was evidently a prey to uneasy thoughts; the intelligent perversity of his opponents both perplexed and alarmed him. He liked not the unwonted calm, the utter absence of bluster and bravado, for he knew too well the temper of the people with whom he had to deal to mistake silence for submission. He had fought with Washington at Duquesne, aided to bear the dying Braddock from the field, and feared that the rifles that then saved the British army from utter destruction were only biding their time, and the drums that beat at Louisburg might at any moment wake the slumbering fires and the mine explode beneath his feet.

While thus uneasily balancing probabilities, his servant announced that some boys requested an interview. The general, who was exceedingly fond of children, ordered them to be admitted.

“Well, boys,” he inquired, “what is your business with me?”

“We have come, sir,” said the tallest boy, “to demand satisfaction.”

“What, have your fathers been teaching you rebellion and sent you to show it here?”

“No, sir, nobody sent us and nobody told us to come, but we’ve come of our own accord for our rights. The common belongs to the people of Boston and their children. We are town born, all of us, and so are the boys whom we represent, therefore we have a right to play on the common. We have asked many old people, and they tell us that boys always have had this right, that they played there and their fathers before them. We have never made faces at your soldiers, called them lobsters, thrown snowballs at them, or insulted them in any manner, but while we were minding our business, skating and building snow hills, just as we have always done every winter before even they were here, they came and trampled down our sliding hills, and broke the ice on our skating ground with the breech of their musket. We complained; they called us young rebels and told us to help ourselves if we could. We then went to the captain, and he laughed at us. We have come, sir, for our rights. We want only the rights which the law gives us and boys have always had. Yesterday your soldiers destroyed our works for the third time, and we won’t endure this oppression any longer. Your soldiers may shoot us if they wish, but if you will not give us satisfaction, we will get together all the boys and defend our works while there is a snowball, a stone, or a boy left in the town of Boston; for if we can’t play on our own common and skate on our own pond, what can we do?”

The general could not but admire the resolution of the boys and assured them that henceforth their rights should be respected.

THE WRECKED PIRATE

In the year 1813 a piratical schooner was wrecked upon one of the desolate Keys of the Bahamas. The captain alone, of a crew of ninety men, reached shore upon a broken spar. For several months he subsisted upon shell-fish and tropical fruits, with which the island abounded, eked out by some provisions saved from the wreck.

While in this solitude, feelings which had long slumbered were awakened in his breast, and his heart was melted to repentance.

After long months of waiting, he was rescued by a passing vessel bound for Spain. A pardon was at length obtained for him from the Spanish government, and he ever after lived a Christian life. But what thus wrought upon the heart of the savage, hardened in crime and blood? “Fear,” I hear you exclaim, “heightened by that terrible solitude; death groans and piteous entreaties for mercy that haunted each lonely ravine, and moaned in the winds of midnight!” Oh, no; it was but the evening song of the turtle-doves which built their nests among the mangrove bushes that fringed the borders of the creeks.

Behold him as he stands! that man of brawl and battle, his stern features unmoved as the cliffs beside him, gazing upon the bodies of the companions of many a bloody fray, tossed amid the fragments of broken timbers in the surf at his feet. What a mingling of the elements of agony and fear!--the abyss of ocean, the lonely wreck, the livid bodies of the dead, the desolate shore, himself cut off from all human fellowship, a stinging conscience within, and the eternal God above him, whose lightnings play around his head. All these move him not. But hark! As those bird-notes, so sweetly mournful, strike upon his ear, familiar through many an hour of careless boyhood in his early home, the blood flushes to his cheek and lip; the sweat bedews his brow. Those soft notes recall days of innocence, ere blood had stained his hand, and remorse was gnawing at his heartstrings. The low notes of a mother’s prayer thrill, like some forgotten melody, upon his ear. Again her lips are pressed to his as when she kissed him for the last time, upon his father’s threshold. Tears are streaming down those cheeks, bronzed by burning suns and furrowed by seafoam and tempest; and that voice, whose stern tones had risen above the roar of battle and roused the seaman from his slumbers like the trump of doom, grows all tremulous with emotion as he cries, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.”

SPEECHES

“AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION”

[Delivered at a meeting of the Temperance Society in Boston in 1861]

Were I called upon, Mr. Chairman, to define intemperance by its effects, I would say: “It is that which covers the fields of the husbandman with tares and thorns, and strews the ocean with wrecks. It is that which renders the clerk unfaithful to his employer, the public man to his constituents, the magistrate to his oath of office, the parent to his family, and all who are trusted to every trust. It is that which stirs to mutiny every corrupt passion, weakens every motive to virtue, adds strength to vicious allurements, and pushes the reluctant will over the verge of every damnable and desperate enterprise. So well is this understood by the doers of evil that it is in the armies of evil the regular weapon whose value is unquestioned after the experience of ages. Is a seaman to be enticed to desert his ship or a soldier his colors? Ply him with liquor. Is a ruffian steeped in crime to be urged to some deed of horror from which even his hardened nature revolts? Ply him with liquor. Is a young man with his curiosity awake, his passions pure and jubilant, and his heart throbbing with warm impulses of budding life to be put upon that same descending grade opening to a like abyss of utter loathsomeness, his fair face to be rendered shameless, and his lips to reek of the pit? Then go, thou familiar spirit, whose abode is in the sparkling cup, assume the form of beauty and youth, show him not at once thy craven features, but while his arm is linked in thine, accustom him by slow gradations to the festive and genial cup.”

The ways and methods of doing good are not intuitive. They are, as in the arts and crafts, the result of effort and experience. Good men by long practice into which they have flung their very hearts have learned more and more effective methods of grappling with intemperance. At first they began with cure; now they try prevention, not forgetting the other. Once they went alongside the old hulk stranded on the beach, her masts gone by the board, her rigging white and weather-worn hanging over her bulwarks, ochre hanging from her opening seams, and refitting and relaunching her, they obtained from the stranded hulk a few years of inferior service. Now they buoy the channel and light the beacon, and thus prevent the shipwreck. Noble men went to the inebriate crawling in the gutter; with kindly sympathy they raised him up and restored him to usefulness and power. But who, save the inebriate himself, can tell the bitterness of that struggle between the man, the husband, the father, struggling to rise, and the demon that strives to drag him back? How true it is that that accursed longing never dies! How true it is that we need never learn to drink but once! What temperance reformer is there who has not shed bitter tears over the final wreck of those whom he thought he had saved?

Thus noble efforts were made, multitudes partially, and many really reformed, but all the time behind there was a thronging army of young men treading the same paths. But, taught by experience, men have now begun to grapple with this evil on its strongest ground; that is, in its social aspect, that which is most alluring to the romantic and the young.