The Childhood of Rome Part 14

Without intending to do it, Romulus aroused a great deal of ill feeling by these two things that he did. The patricians formed a sort of senate-a body of elders-for the government of Rome, and it seemed to them that they should have been consulted about the hostages and the division of land. No one knew but the Tuscans might rise up again against Rome, and in that case these men ought to be here to serve as a pledge. Moreover, the land belonged not to Romulus personally but to the city, and the senate ought to have had the dividing of it. It was time to settle whether Rome was to be governed by one man, or by the elders of the people, as in the days of old. It was not fit that men should hold land who were not descended from land-holders.

Not all the elders, or senators, took this view. It really never had been decided how far a general who took command in a war had a right to dictate in the outcome of it. Generally speaking, in a war, the men who fought took whatever they could lay their hands on. They plundered a city when they took it, and each man had what he could carry away. In this case the city of the Veientines had not been plundered, because the rulers surrendered and asked for peace before Romulus had a chance to take it.

The land which had been given up was a kind of plunder, and the general had a right to divide it. This was the view of Caius Cossus and Marcus Colonus and his brother, and some of the others in the senate. But Naso-who never had enough land-and some of his friends, who never were satisfied unless they had their own way, had a great deal to say about the high-handed methods of the veteran general, the founder of the city. They said that he treated them all as if they were under the yoke, and that this was insulting to free-born Romans. In short, the time had come when all of the men who wished for more power than they had were ready to declare that Romulus was a tyrant. It was quite true that he was the only man strong enough to stand in their way if he chose. It was also true that he was the only man who was disposed to consider the rights of the _plebs_ and the outsiders who were not citizens, and had according to ancient custom no right to share in the governing of the city at all.

XXII

THE GOAT'S MARSH

Public opinion in Rome was like a whirlpool. The currents that battled in it circled round and round, but got nowhere. Calvo, the last of the older men who had been fathers of the people when Romulus founded the city, began to wonder if at last the downfall of the chief was near. He could not see how one man could make peace between the factions, or how he could dominate them by his single will. But it was never the way of the veteran pontiff to talk, when talk would do no good, and he waited to learn what Romulus would do.

What Romulus did was to visit him one night at his villa, alone and in secret. He had sent his servant beforehand to ask that Calvo would arrange this, and when some hours later a tall man in the dress of a shepherd appeared at the gate, the old porter admitted him without question, and there was no one in the way. The two sat and talked in the solar chamber, with no witnesses but the stars.

"They do not understand," Romulus said thoughtfully, when they had been all over the struggle between the two parties, from beginning to end.

"They do not see that the thing which must be done is the thing which is right, whether it be by my will or another's."

"They are ready, some of them, to declare that a thing is wrong because you saw it before they did," said Calvo dryly.

"The people are with me-I believe," said Romulus, "the soldiers, and the common folk-but they have no voice in the government. Yet are they men, Tertius Calvo,-many of them children of Mars as we are. Am I not bound to do what is right for them, as well as for the dwellers within the palaces?"

"I have always believed so," nodded Calvo. "When a man makes a road or a bridge, he does not make it for the strong and powerful alone; it is even more for the weak, the ignorant and those who cannot work for themselves.

If the G.o.ds meant not this to be so, they would arrange it so that the sun should s.h.i.+ne only on a few, and the rest should dwell in twilight; they would give rain only to those whom they favor, and good water only to the chosen of the G.o.ds. But the world is not made in that way. Therefore we who are the chosen of the G.o.ds to do their will on earth should be of equal mind toward all-men, women and children."

Calvo paused, as if he were thinking how he should say what he thought, and then went on.

"Whether men are high or low, Romulus, founder of the city, they have minds and they think, and the G.o.ds, who know all men's souls, hear their unspoken thoughts as well as ours. Therefore it is not a small thing when many believe in a man, for their belief, like a river, will grow and grow until it makes itself felt by those who hold themselves as greater. I have seen this happen when a good man whom all men loved came to die. He was greater after his death than when he was alive, for the grief and the love of the poor encompa.s.sed his spirit and made it strong."

Romulus smiled in the way he did when he was thinking more than he meant to say. "I shall be very strong when I am dead," was his only comment. And Calvo knew that it was the truth.

Romulus was now fifty-eight years old, and Calvo was seventy-two. Both of them were thinking that it would not be many years when they would both, perhaps, be talking together in the world of shadows as they were talking now. Then Romulus told Calvo what he was going to do.

This talk took place a little after the beginning of the fifth month, which the Romans called Quintilis, but which we call July. In this month the sun is hot and the air is sluggish and damp, and in the year when these things happened it was more so than usual. The heralds announced in the market place, one sultry morning, that there would be a meeting of all the people at a place called the Goat's Marsh some miles outside the city.

Romulus would there tell publicly why he sent back their hostages to the Tuscans and how the lands were to be divided among the soldiers. No longer would the people have to depend on what was said by one and another, he would tell them himself. Partly out of curiosity, partly with the determination that they too would speak, the greater part of the patricians also went to hear.

The Goat's Marsh was no longer a marsh, but it had kept its name partly because of the fig orchards, which bore the little fruits called the goat figs. There was a plain at the foot of a little hill, which made it a good place for any public meeting, and the country people for miles around crowded in to see Romulus and to hear him speak.

They raised a shout as his tall figure appeared but he waved them to silence.

"I have not much to say," he began, and in the still air the intense interest of his listeners seemed to tingle like lightning before a storm, "but much has been said which was not true. I will not waste time in repeating lies.

"Ye know that the Tuscan cities were here before we came, and that their people are many. We cannot kill them or drive them away, if we would. They are our neighbors.

"We made war against them and we beat them, and took their city Fidenae and their city Veii. Before we made peace they had to pay us certain lands.

Before peace was made and the price paid, there were sons of their blood in our power, whom we kept as a pledge that they were willing to pay the price. That was all. They were not guilty of any crime against us. They were here to show that their people meant to keep faith. When peace was made I sent them back.

"If we had kept them, if we had slain them, if harm had come to them, then the wrong would have been on our side, and we should have had another war.

Why should there be war between neighbors? Is not friends.h.i.+p better than hatred?

"Some are angry because I divided the lands, which they gave us as a price, among the soldiers. Yet who has better right than the men who fight the battles? This is all of my story. Ye believe?" Then a shout arose to the very skies,-"Romulus! Romulus! Romulus!"

Suddenly the clouds grew black, and lightnings flashed through them. Just as Naso was rising to speak, a tremendous clap of thunder shook the earth, or so it seemed. Winds swept suddenly down from the mountains and howled across the plains, carrying away mantles and curtains and boughs of trees in their flight. The crowd broke up in confusion, and the patricians were heard calling in distress, "Marcus!" "Caius!" "Aulus!" for in the darkness they could not see their friends a rod away. They hastened to whatever shelter they could find, and sheets of rain poured from the clouds. It was one of the most terrific tempests any one there present had ever known. It did not last long-perhaps an hour-but when it was over Romulus was nowhere to be seen.

The people had scattered in all directions, but the patricians had managed to keep together. When the storm was over, they did not know at first that Romulus had disappeared, but presently one after another of the common people was heard asking where he was, and no one could be found who knew.

The people searched everywhere without finding so much as the hem of his mantle. It began to be whispered that he had been killed and his body hidden away, and black looks were cast upon the public men in their white robes.

They themselves were perhaps more perplexed and worried than any one else, for they saw what the people thought. It began to dawn upon them that the united opinion of hundreds of men, even though of the despised _plebs_, or peasants, was not exactly a thing to be overlooked. That night was a black and anxious one.

On the following morning, Naso, Caius Cossus, and some other leaders came to see Calvo and ask his opinion of the mystery. He had not been at the Goat's Marsh the day before, nor had Cossus and others of the friends of the vanished chief. All the men who had been there, of the upper cla.s.s, were enemies of Romulus. It was a most unpleasant position for them.

Calvo heard the story gravely, without making any comment.

The storm had not been nearly so severe in Rome; in fact it was not much more than an ordinary summer storm. But when Naso told of it he described it as something beyond anything that could be natural.

"Do you think," asked Calvo coolly at last, "that the G.o.ds had anything to do with these strange appearances?" Naso could not say.

"There have always been strange happenings about this man," said Calvo thoughtfully. "His very birth was strange; his appearance among us was sudden and unexpected. What the G.o.ds send they can also take away."

"Do you think then," asked Cossus, "that he was taken by the G.o.ds to heaven?"

"I do not know," said Calvo. "You say you found no trace of him? But even a man struck by lightning is not destroyed."

The frightened men looked at each other.

Fabius the priest was the first to speak.

"It is at any rate not true that we have murdered him," he said boldly, "and that is what men are saying in the streets."

"And it may be true that he has been taken by the G.o.ds," said Naso eagerly. They went out, still talking, and Calvo smiled to himself. He did not know just what had happened, but Romulus had told him that after this last appearance to the people he was going away, never to come back.

Apparently that was what he had done. It did not surprise the old pontiff at all when he heard, an hour or two after, that Fabius had made a speech and told the people that Romulus had been taken bodily to the skies, in the midst of the cras.h.i.+ng and flaring of the thunder and lightning, and that he would no more be seen on earth. There were some unbelievers, but after a time this was quite generally thought to be true.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Far away, in a cavern on a mountain height, there lived for many years an old shepherd]

It had the effect of settling all quarrels at once. When they had time to think it over, both factions agreed that Romulus was right. They could see it themselves. Within a few years his memory was better loved, more powerful, and more closely followed in all his ways and sayings than ever he had been in life.

He never returned to Rome, but far away, in a cavern on a mountain height, there lived for many years an old shepherd who became very dear to the simple people around him. He had a servant named Peppo who loved him well and whom he treated more as a son than as a slave. He had a little plot of ground which he cultivated, with nine bean-rows and various kinds of herbs, and a row of beehives stood near the entrance to his cave. There was nothing he could not do with animals, and the birds used to come and perch on his fingers and his shoulders and head, and sing. Even the wolves would not harm him, and one year a mother fox brought up a litter of four cubs within a few yards of his door. The young people used to come to him to get him to tell their fortunes, and if he advised against a thing they never went contrary to what he said. When he died and was buried, his servant returned to the place from which he came, and then Tertius Calvo, who was by that time a very old man, learned certainly where Romulus the founder of Rome had gone. But he kept the story to himself.

A ROMAN ROAD