The Childhood of Rome Part 9

The old woman told him that it was a great mistake for those who were born under a certain star to try to get away from their fate. If a man were born to be a ruler and a commander of men, it was useless for him to try to make himself a farmer or a trader. It would be far better for him to keep to what he could do well, and buy of others what he needed. This struck Romulus as directly opposed to the ways of the villagers as he had seen them. They made for themselves everything they possibly could, and all of them were farmers. He began to wonder where their future would lead them. A man like Colonus, or Tullius, or Muraena, or Calvo knew enough to direct other men. There was not one of the ten who came out from the Mountain of Fire who was not far superior to most of the people in the country round about. They were quite as fit to be rulers of a tribe as he was; in fact, they were more so, in many ways. But if they had stayed where they were born, they would have gone on to the end of their days, working with their hands, and owning only their share of the common crop and the flocks and herds of the village. Here in the land beyond the river it was different. The powerful n.o.bles and the priesthood ruled, and other men served.

In talking with the soothsayers, he heard a great deal about the influence of the stars. The priests also put great faith in this. They divided the sky into twelve parts, or houses, as they called them, and each of these was ruled by some star named after a G.o.d. In the course of the year the sun pa.s.sed through each house, or sign, in turn. If a man were born in the house of the Ram, which was ruled by Mars the red planet, he would be like Mars,-a warrior, bold and fearless, and not afraid to venture into new fields and to do things that other men had not done before. If he were born in that sign when the planet was in it with the sun, he would be more a son of Mars in every way. If Venus, the planet which ruled love, were also in the sign, he would be ruled by reason even in his love affairs, and his marriage and his wars would be more or less connected. All these things, according to the soothsayers, were true of Romulus.

Romulus was acute enough to see that these people knew him for a chief, and that some of what they told him was flattery; but he was not sure how much of it was. He had not wandered about his world for twenty-odd years without seeing the difference in people. He knew that the great art of ruling men successfully lies in understanding their different characters and not expecting of any person what that person cannot do. The rules of the villages were very well for a small place, where all of the people were related. But how would they fit such a miscellaneous collection of people as seemed likely to gather in the town by the river? His mind was gradually getting at the problem of governing such a town in such a way that instead of being a little island of civilization in a sea of wilderness, it would be a center of civilization in a country inhabited by all sorts of people who would look up to it and be ruled and influenced by it. Such an idea, to Colonus, to Emilius in the Sabine village, or even to the old chief Numa on Alba Longa would have seemed wildly impossible. It seemed to Romulus that if a band of outlaws had been welded into an effective fighting troop as he had welded them, a country might be made up of a great many different sorts of persons living peaceably together. He grinned as he thought of such a man as his old captain, Ruffo, obeying all the customs of the colony and giving his whole mind to the tilling of the soil and the raising of cattle. It would be like trying to harness a wolf, or stocking a poultry yard with eagles. The thing could not be done. And yet, when it came to keeping order, Ruffo was wise and just and kind.

One thing he could see very clearly, and that was that for a long time yet the colonists would have to give especial attention to disciplined warfare. He wished that there were more of them. If they ever had a quarrel with the dark Etruscans beyond the river, it would be a fight for life, for the Etruscans outnumbered them ten to one. It would be well to trade with them so far as they could, but there again the customs of the colonists were against him. There was not much that they wished to buy.

When he left the land beyond the river, he paid a farewell visit to the old witch, and she told him again that he was born to rule. He hoped that he was.

When he came back to the Square Hill, he found the fathers of the colony confronting a new problem, which they had no tradition to help them settle. The problem was what to do with the new settlers who were coming in for protection and in the hope of getting a living, but who were not of their own people. Often they had not intelligence enough to understand what the colonists meant by their customs. This was something that Romulus had expected. He had his answer ready. He said that there was a G.o.d of whom he had heard, called Asylos, who protected homeless persons and serfs who had escaped from cruel masters, and that they might set apart a s.p.a.ce outside the walls and dedicate it to this G.o.d. There his own soldiers could live, and there would be a place for any one who came who would work for a living. And this was done. The people who came in from various places seeking protection, and were useful in various ways even if they could only hew wood and draw water, were called after awhile the _plebs_, the men who helped to fill the town. There was so much to do, and so little time to do it, that every pair of hands was of value. It would not do to let every one who came become a citizen, an inhabitant of the city, because that might destroy all comfort and order within the walls. But the town grew much faster when it became known that any man not a criminal could get a living there.

Another circ.u.mstance that made it grow was that the country people and the villagers from farther up the river began to bring down what they had to sell. Sometimes the Etruscans bought of them, and sometimes the Romans did. It was the last riverside settlement before the boats went down to the sea, and it began to be a trading as well as a farming place not many years after the colonists settled there.

Trading was favored because farming did not altogether supply the needs of the people. Now and then the river rose and flooded their land. The only part of the country they could absolutely depend on as yet was the group of seven hills, where they kept their herds and flocks. One year, when their grain was ruined, they had to send across the river and buy some of the Etruscans, in exchange for wool and leather and weapons. Within the first ten years every one of the colonists had discovered that men who make their home in a new land must change their ways more or less if they are to live. While they are changing the land, the land changes them. The children of these people would not be exactly the same when they grew up as they would have been if they had stayed in their old home. Their children's children would be still more different. It is possible that a ruler who had not grown up as Romulus had, making his own laws and habits and managing men more or less by instinct, might have been bewildered and frightened. Whatever came up, he always had some expedient ready, and whatever strange specimen of human nature cropped out in the soldiers, or the traders, or the pagans, he had always seen something like it before.

At the end of ten years the town on the Square Hill had spread out into a collection of villages and huts in which almost every kind of human being to be found in that region might have been seen, somewhere. On the Palatine Hill lived the original ten families and some of their kindred who had joined them. On the Aventine were barracks for the soldiers, and also on the steep narrow hill near the river. Cl.u.s.ters of huts here and there on the plain showed where hunters and fishermen lived, who came up the hill sometimes with what they had to sell, or came to buy weapons of the smiths. In the hollow called the Asylum lived the runaway serfs from Alba Longa, fishermen from the river bank, pagans and foresters from a dozen places. When there was a feast, all of these various kinds of families learned something of the wors.h.i.+p of Mars, or Maia Dia, or Saturn, or Pales, or Lupercus. They all knew something about the laws of the colony, because the rulers took care that any offense against public order was punished. It was not a good place for thieves or brawlers or idlers.

There was the beginning of a common law.

XIV

BREAD AND SALT

[Ill.u.s.tration: They sat together that night and watched the moon sail grandly over the flood]

The children who had come to the Square Hill learned to know one another very well in those first years of the colony. There were about a dozen of the older ones who were nearly the same age, and they shared more responsibility than children do in a more settled community. When the river rose suddenly, and all the animals had to be hustled at a minute's notice to the highest part of the hills out of the way of the waters, Marcs the son of Colonus, and Mamurius the son of the metal worker Muraena were old enough to be treated almost as if they were men. They sat together that night and watched the moon sail grandly over the flood, and talked of all the things that boys do talk of when they begin to look forward into the future.

It was a wild and lonely scene. The rising of the flood had covered the plain for miles, although in many places the waters were not deep. The seven hills stood up like seven islands in an ocean, and although neither of the boys had ever seen an ocean, they knew that it must be something like this. The hill where they had driven their scrambling goats was high and steep and rocky and had been partly fortified. It was a natural stronghold, standing up above the group as the head of a crouching animal rises above the body. All the hills were crowned with circles of twinkling fires, and on the highest point of each was a beacon fire which was used for signals. Each had signaled to the others that all was right, and now there was nothing to do but wait for the morning.

The smaller boys who had helped were very much excited at first, and danced around the fires gleefully, and ate their supper with a great appet.i.te; but they went to sleep quite soon afterward. The two older lads were the only ones awake when the moon rose, and it seemed as if they were the only people awake in the whole world. In the safe and orderly and protected life of their childhood they had never seen anything like this, or been given so much responsibility. For some hours no one had known how much farther the waters would rise, and all the boats had been kept ready, and the men had made rafts, to save what they could if the river should sweep over the last refuge. But evidently it was not going to do anything like that. It had stopped rising already. Faustulus the old shepherd, who had lived among these hills ever since he was a boy, said that once in a few years they had a flood like this, but that it never in all his recollection had gone more than a few inches higher.

These two boys had always been good friends, for they were just unlike enough for each to do some things the other admired. Marcs was like his father, square-set and strong and rather silent. Mamurius was a little taller and slenderer, and very clever with his hands. He could invent new ways to do things when it was necessary and when the old ways were impossible. He had never built a boat before he and Marcs made theirs the summer before, but he had shaped a steering oar that was better than the one he copied. On this night they found themselves somehow closer together than they had ever been before, and they promised each other always to be friends, to work and fight for each other as for themselves as long as they lived.

The girls also had their responsibilities, which made them rather more capable and sure of themselves than they might have been if they were not the children of colonists. After the flood went down it left things wet and unwholesome for some weeks, and a fever broke out, of which some of the people died. Mamurius' mother, and Marcia's two little brothers, and two girls in the family of Cossus died of it, and at one time hardly a family had more than one or two well persons. Marcia was watching over her mother, who was very ill, when Mamurius came to the door with a basket of herbs and gave her a handful. He said that he had asked Faustulus whether he did not know of some medicine for the fever. Faustulus told him that there were certain herbs in his hut which his wife used to prepare in a drink, and this drink helped the fever. Mamurius had brewed the drink and given it to his father, and taken some himself, and it had done them both good. The old shepherd stood in considerable awe of the colonists, who knew so many things that he did not, and he would never have thought of suggesting anything to them himself.

One night Muraena the metal worker came to the house of Colonus, and sat down with the head of the house under a fig tree by the door and talked with him. The two had been friends for many years, and now, he said, the time had come to make the friends.h.i.+p even closer by an alliance between the two houses. He had long observed the goodness and dutiful kindness of Colonus's daughter Marcia, and it was his wish that now she was come to an age to be married, she might be his own daughter. He had reason to believe that his son would be glad to marry her. What did Colonus think about it?

Colonus had no objection whatever. That night he went in and called Marcia to him, and told her kindly that Mamurius the metal worker's son had been proposed for her husband, and that it would be most pleasing to both families if the marriage could be arranged. It was a surprise to Marcia, but not at all an unpleasant one, and she went to sleep that night a very happy girl.

This was the first wedding in the colony, and as the preparations went forward, everybody, old and young, took a great deal of interest in it.

Marcia never knew she had so many friends. Everybody seemed to wish her well and approve of the marriage. The wooden chest Marcs had made for her, and Bruno had carved and painted, began to fill with webs of linen and wool, the gifts of her mother and the other matrons, and some that had been spun and woven by Marcia herself. She could see from the door the house that was to be her home, as its fresh, new walls arose day by day.

And at last the day arrived for the _confarreatio_; as it was called, the wedding ceremony, the eating of bread. Like the other ceremonies in the religion of the people, this was very old, so old that the beginning of it was not known. The reason of some of the things that were done had been forgotten. Marcia could just remember going to one wedding when she was a little girl before they left the Mountain of Fire. All the colonists who went out were already married and had children, and until now none of the children were old enough to begin a new home.

There was always a certain meaning in the eating of salt together; it is so in all the ancient races. Salt was not like food that any two men might eat together, like animals, where they found it. It was part of the household stores; it was eaten by families living in houses. In some places it was not easy to come by, and it was the one thing necessary to a really good meal, whatever else there was to eat. When a man was invited to share a meal with salt in it, it meant that he was invited to the table and was more or less an equal. People who were simply fed from the stores of the farmer prepared their own food in their own way, often without salt. It was said that the wood spirits, the G.o.ds of the wilderness, of whom n.o.body knew much except that they were mischievous and tricky, could always be known by the fact that salt to them was like poison; they could not eat it at all.

When a bride left her own home to go to that of her husband, it was a very solemn proceeding, because she said farewell to her own family, the spirits of her ancestors, and the G.o.ds of her father's hearth, and became one of her husband's family, a daughter of his father. All that was done was based more or less on this idea. A girl who ran away from home without her father's knowledge could not expect to be blessed by her ancestors, the unseen dwellers by the fireside. A woman who came into another home without the permission of the spirits who dwelt there could not hope to be happy; bad luck would certainly follow. The wedding ceremonies were meant to make it perfectly clear that all was done in the right and proper and fortunate way.

The day was chosen by Tullius the priest, and was a bright and beautiful day, not long after the feast of Maia. The ceremonies began at dawn.

Before sunrise Tullius was scanning the sky to make sure that the day would be fair and that no evil omen was in sight. Felic'la, who hovered around her sister with adoring eyes, thought she had never seen Marcia look so beautiful. She was in white, with a flame-colored veil over her head, and her hair had been, according to the old custom, parted with a spear point into six locks, arranged with ribbons tied in a certain way to keep it in place. Her tall and graceful figure was even more stately than usual in the white robe she wore, and her great dark eyes were like stars.

When the guests were all at the house, Marcus Colonus offered a sacrifice at the family altar and p.r.o.nounced certain ancient words, explaining that he now gave his daughter to the young Mamurius and set her free from every obligation that kept her at home. When the sacrifice was over, the guests wished the young couple happiness, and the marriage feast began. There was no one in the whole village who did not have reason to remember the rejoicings on the day when the daughter of Colonus was married, for it was the richest feast that had ever been given in the colony. The house was decorated with wreaths and the best of the wine was served, and all the dainties the Roman women knew how to make were to be found upon the table.

Marcia sat among her maidens like a young G.o.ddess among priestesses; they were all eager to show her how dear she was to them and how glad they were that she was happy. There was not a child in the village who did not think of her as a kind elder sister. Now she herself was to be served and made happy, and for that day she was the most important person in the eyes of all those who had been her playmates.

At last the rejoicings at the home of Colonus were over, and it was time for the wedding procession. Attended by the young girls near her own age, the bride was taken from her mother's arms by the bridegroom, and the whole party moved in procession toward the new home. In advance went torch bearers, and the children scattered flowers for her feet to tread upon as she pa.s.sed. Every one was singing or shouting "Tala.s.sio! Tala.s.sio!" The flute players were making music, and the bridegroom scattered handfuls of nuts for which the boys scrambled. When they reached the door of the new house Marcia poured a little oil upon the doorposts, and wound them with wool which her own hands had spun. Then Mamurius lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the door.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mamurius lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the door]

Exactly why this was part of the marriage ceremony is not known. Some think it was because a bride must not be allowed to stumble on the threshold, for that would be unlucky. But it was more likely to mean that she was brought by her husband into the house to join in the wors.h.i.+p of the spirits of the home, and so did not come in without an invitation. As she stood in the _atrium_, the middle room where the altar and the family table were, she received the fire and water of the family wors.h.i.+p and reverently lighted the first fire ever kindled on that hearth. She and Mamurius repeated together the prayers that thousands of young couples had repeated since first their people had homes. Then they ate together a flat cake made with the corn blessed by the priest, and Marcia poured a little of the marriage wine upon the fire as a sacrifice of "libation" to the G.o.ds of her new home. This was the _confarreatio_. They felt as if the silent, burning fire that lighted the dusky little room were trying to tell them that their simple meal was shared by the G.o.ds themselves, and that the blessing of all Mamurius' forefathers was on the bride that he had brought home to be the joy of his house.

On the next day there was another feast, to celebrate the beginning of the new home, and the wedding was over.

"I am glad," said Marcia's mother to her husband when they went home that night, leaving their daughter and young Mamurius standing together at their own door, "that everything went so well, without a single unlucky or unhappy thing to spoil the good fortune. Marcia well deserves to be happy,-but I shall miss her every day I live."

She sighed, and Felic'la looked rather sober. She knew very well that they would all miss Marcia, but she determined in her careless little heart to be a better girl and do so much for her mother and brothers that when her turn came, they would all be sorry to see her go.

"I am glad," said Colonus, "for more than one reason. I have been rather anxious for fear that in this new place our young people would not remember the old ways as they might if they had grown up in our old home.

It was important to have the first wedding one that they would all remember with pleasure, and wish to follow as an example. I am very glad Marcia has so good a husband. Mamurius is a youth who will go far and be a leader among the young men. I suppose that now they will all be thinking of marriage."

There were, in fact, several other marriages in the colony within a year or two, but n.o.body who was at that first wedding ever forgot it. Marcia was often called upon to tell how the garlands were made, and just how much honey they put in the cakes for the feast, and how the other little matters were arranged that all seemed to be managed exactly right. In fact, that wedding set a fas.h.i.+on and a standard, and as Marcia's father was shrewd enough to see, it is a good thing in a new community to have the standards rather high. There was nothing in what Marcia and Mamurius did that other people could not follow if they chose, but the simple comfort and grace of their way of living did mean that they cared enough for their home to take it seriously. Girls who might not have thought much about cleanliness, thrift, cheerfulness and beauty began to see, when they visited Marcia, how pleasant it was to have a home like hers. She did not tell them so; she was herself, and that was enough.

XV

THE TRUMPERY MAN

One autumn day a little while after the harvest, a squat, brown man with large black eyes under great arched eyebrows set in a large head, and with unusually muscular shoulders and arms, was paddling slowly in a small boat across the yellow river. As he crossed he looked up attentively at the range of hills near the riverside, now partly covered with wooden huts. It was his experience that villages were good places to trade. They were especially so when, as now, pipes were sounding and the people were keeping holiday in honor of some G.o.d. He had gone to many places with his wares, but he had not as yet visited the town by the river. He was not even quite sure of its name. Some called it Rumon and some Roma. The people of his race were not very quick of ear, and often p.r.o.nounced letters alike or confused them when they sounded alike,-as o and u, or b and p, or t and d. He himself was called Utuze, Otuz, or Odisuze, or Toto, according to the place where he happened to be. He came from Caere, the Etruscan seaport near the mouth of the river.

He had landed on this bank when he went up the river and approached the men from the settlement when they were working on their lands outside the walls, but they did not pay much attention to him. He could not tell whether they did not want his wares, or were suspicious, or simply did not understand what he was talking about. Now he was going to find out,-for he was of a persistent nature. Perhaps there would be some one at the festival who could speak both his language and theirs and tell them what he wanted to say. Then it would be easy.

On a glittering chain around his neck he carried a metal whistle, or trumpet, that could be heard a long distance and would pierce through most other noises as a needle pierces wool. On his back he carried in a sack a great variety of small things likely to please women and girls and children. He had learned a very long time ago that however shrewd a man may be, he will buy very silly things and pay any price you like for them when he is persuaded that they will please a girl. He also knew that men will buy things for their wives that no sensible woman ever buys for herself, and that if children cry for a toy long enough, they often get it. But the most important thing was, he knew, that a man who can attract attention to himself, no matter how he does it, generally sells more goods than one who depends only on the usefulness of what he has to sell.

Therefore, when he set out on these trading journeys, he put on the most gorgeous and gay-colored clothes he could find, decorated with bright-colored figures, embroidered, and fringed or fastened with little glittering beads and ornaments such as he carried in his pack. s.h.i.+ning things were easier to sell than other things, as they were easier to look at. The peddler had given careful attention to selecting his stores, and Mastarna, the fat merchant from whom he got them, helped him. He wished to know more of these people in the town by the river.

The squealing of the peddler's trumpet reached the ears of the soldiers, who were having a good time in their own way. They had their own games and frolics and feats of strength, and some of the young men from the town were there to look on and perhaps to join. Urso the hunter's son, and Marcus and Bruno the sons of Colonus, and little Pollio the son of the sandal maker, were all there, and when they heard the trumpet they sprang to their feet. But Ruffo the captain of the guard laughed, and the others shouted, and Ruffo said, "By Jove, there's Toto!"

"_Diovi_" was the general name for "the G.o.ds," and when it is p.r.o.nounced quickly it sounds like "Jove." The father of the G.o.ds was "Diovis-Pater"-which in course of time became "Jupiter."

The peddler had been in their camp in the days before the town by the river was thought of, and when he saw them, he came up the path grinning broadly, and they grinned back. They explained to the boys of the colony that he came from across the river and dealt in all sorts of things that were not made at all on this side, and some that were brought from the seash.o.r.e. Toto spread out his gay cloth on the ground and began to lay out his wares.