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the most recently conquered and their conquerors will be found so widened as to have become impassable.

In endeavouring to gain some sort of insight into the domestic character of the Romans, in order to complete this scanty sketch of their early warfare in its influence as well as its extent, we need not undertake to get behind the scenes, because we have but little to see upon the stage. The great drama of life is of an Author who allows the actors in the later parts to recall their predecessors, even when words fail and visions cease, by reading His Will as it is revealed to the simplest minds. It is beyond our power to open the door of a single dwelling in Rome, and learn, by any familiarity, the manner in which the household was affected by what happened in the Forum, or with the absent army. But this we can believe, because it coincides with the military and the political destinies appointed on high to the Romans, that the incessant battles in which they engaged, whether with a hostile nation abroad, or between hostile estates at home, would result in excitability, clamor, and crime, as well within as without the walls of every habitation. Such a scene as that in which Virginia was murdered will, if imaged vividly, show more through common reflections than could be gained from any individual conjectures. The lust and the power of the Patrician, the easy subornation of the client, the unprotectedness of the maiden, the mute amazement of the multitude, and, above all, the dreadful expedient to which the father

thought himself compelled, are as characteristic of the private as of the public life of the Roman people.

There is little to add concerning the cultivation of the nation, even of the upper and the richer classes. The civilization of Tarquin, or the later kings in general, had not, in all likelihood, been abandoned; but there appears to have been little exercise of any other tastes than those for conflicts, or of other powers than those required by the passage of a law or the gain of a victory. The rich relied upon their landed possessions, rather than upon any trading enterprises, to keep or to increase their wealth; and the poor were either simple husbandmen or quite unoccupied, if they were free, or else, if clients and slaves, employed in the mechanical toils then universally despised. There could have been little attention to any of the higher arts, little knowledge, indeed, of their existence, until they and their teachers were found in foreign lands. Nevertheless, the conclusion is not to be made too hastily, that the Romans were without objects of serious interest and continued labor. The richest men toiled on their own fields, and were glad to count their harvests when they were weary of trophies and campaigns. The poorest were daily anxious to earn their bread and fill their children's mouths; a matter, indeed, of no common concern, where honorable occupations were few in number, and even those were often ended by death in battle, or the more cruel fate of bondage. In public, the victory gained, the conflict lost, the trial

approaching, or the law proposed, were subjects to keep men busy, without much thought of higher desires or nobler liberties. It was thus that war excluded better things, and filled their places, directly or indirectly, with its dangerous tolls.14

14" It may be said," says Dr. Channing, and the remark will be found continually applicable to Rome," that society, through its

whole extent, is deformed by war." Discourse on War, Works, Vol. IV. p. 237.

VOL. I.

62

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THE old biographer, to whose fondness for a good story and a brave example we largely owe our knowledge of many men in ancient Rome, once interrupted himself with the reflection, that he was telling things "much like poets' tales." But his consolation soon came with the thought, that it was "as dangerous to discredit as to credit such matters too heartily." His judgment is worthy our attention, as we begin upon the lives of Camillus and Manlius, in times uncertain as almost any we have heretofore passed, in order to carry on under their names our account of the liberty of Rome, so far as it was contemporary with them.

Marcus Furius Camillus, the elder of the two,. was earliest in renown. Of lofty birth and commanding temper, he rose through "other honors," as Plutarch calls them, to the censorship; next, and

1 Plut., Cam., 5. 2 Ibid., 6.

3 A. C. 402. Plut., Cam., 2; where his doings in the office are described, especially his compelling unmarried men, "partly by per

3

suasion and partly by threat," to espouse the widows of those who had recently fallen in conflict. This does not sound like domestic liberty. See Val. Max., II. 9. 1.

twice, to the consular tribunate; being, a little later, appointed Dictator to conduct the armies against Veii, of whose conquest he obtained the glory. Up to this time, apparently, Camillus had possessed the favor and the admiration of all classes, alike impressed with his heroism and dazzling exploits; but it seems, from the uncertain traditions of his life, that the moment of peace was like the thaw of the wintry fame he had won in war. The people thought his demeanour conceited and ambitious; the poor considered his opposition to their claims for land at Veii unkind; the men who had served under him were indignant at being obliged to restore a part of their spoils, because he pleaded a vow of dedicating a tithe of the plunder to the gods: and as one complaint in similar circumstances leads to another, the popularity of Camillus once touched would be soon dissolved. He became the champion of the severer Patricians, as stern as any amongst them to govern the Plebeians; and when, some few years subsequently,1 he was accused by a Tribune of having secreted the spoils of Falerii, a city he had subdued, he did not stay to meet his trial, but, conscious of the bitterness aroused against him, he went into exile at Ardea. The Tribes confirmed his banishment, and added a heavy fine.

Marcus Manlius Capitolinus, a soldier and even a hero from his youth, was one of the Consuls in the

5

4 A. C. 390. Liv., V. 32. of his gallantry. Nat. Hist., VII. Plut., Cam., 11, 12.

5 Pliny enumerates the rewards

29, sect. 3.

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