THE ROME OF FABIUS THE DELAYER
When the sun's first rays reddened the walls of the Capitol the life of Rome had been astir for more than an hour.
The Romans arose from their couches by the light of the morning stars. Carts from the Campagna rolled in the darkness through the tortuous streets, slaves awakened by the crowing of the cock trudged along carrying baskets and farm utensils, and by the hour of dawn all the houses had their doors thrown open, and the citizens not employed in the fields gathered in the Forum, that centre of traffic and of public business, that had begun to be adorned with the earlier temples, but still retained broad barren spaces upon which in later centuries were to rise the architectural glories of Rome, mistress of the world.
Actæon had been in the great city for two days, lodged in an extramural inn established by a Greek. He never ceased to marvel at this austere Republic, existing almost in poverty, a hardy nation of farmers and soldiers who filled the world with their fame while they endured greater privation than any hamlet on the outskirts of Athens.
Actæon expected to appear before the Senate that very day. The majority of the Fathers of the Republic lived in the country, in rustic villas with walls of unseasoned adobe roofed with branches, overseeing the work of their slaves, guiding the plow like Cincinnatus and Camillus; when affairs of state called them to the Senate they came into Rome in their carts, drawn by oxen, riding among baskets of vegetables and sacks of grain, and with their toil-calloused hands they arrayed themselves in the toga before entering the Forum, transfigured by the majesty lent by their flowing vestments.
The Greek arrived at the Forum by sunrise, encountering the customary crowd—venerable Romans wrapped in their togas discoursing before the young men and their clients on the art of prudently placing money upon good security, the chief attainment of every citizen; and hungry Greek pedagogues scheming ever, in search of a situation among that sombre people more apt in war than in culture; old legionaries, their gray military cloaks covered with patches, their thoughts yearning back to the by-gone wars against Pyrrhus and Carthage, persecuted by debts and threatened with slavery by their creditors, in spite of the cicatrices all over their bodies; and the plebe, with no other clothing than the lacerna—a short cape of coarse cloth finished with the cucullus or pointed hood—the multitudinous Roman plebe, exploited and oppressed by the patricians, ever dreaming, as a remedy for their ills, of new divisions of the public lands which, by means of usury, gradually fell into the hands of the rich.
On the steps of the Comitium the members of a tribe were gathered to probate the will of one of their people who had just died. Near the military tribune veteran centurions wearing greaves and helmets of bronze stood leaning on staves of vine-wood, the badge of their military rank, discussing the siege of Saguntum and the audacity of Hannibal, eager to march immediately against the Carthaginian.
On the huge blocks of blue stone which paved the Forum the vendors of hot drinks established their great craters, beating on them with ladles to attract the people, and at the foot of the steps of the temple of Concord some Etruscan buffoons, wearing hideous masks, began their grotesque pantomime, attracting the children and the idle from all sides of the quadrangle.
It was cold; a damp and icy wind was blowing off the Pontine marshes; the sky was gray; and from the crowd stirring about the Forum rose a continuous and melancholy buzzing. Actæon compared this square with the bright Agora of Athens, and even with the Forum of Saguntum in its days of peace. The Grecian joyousness was lacking in Rome, the sweet and gladsome lightness of an artistic people, careless of riches, and if engaging in commerce doing so only that it may live more expansively. This was a people cold and sad, devoted to lucre and to the laying up of money, disdainful of ideals, with no other industry than agriculture and war, squeezing the last grain of wheat from their lands, and robbing the enemy; methodical, lacking initiative and youthfulness.
"This people," said the Athenian to himself, "seems never to have been as young as twenty. Even the children seem to be born old."
Actæon with his Grecian sagacity thought over what he had seen within the two days; the cruel discipline of the family, of the religion, and of the State, which held the citizens in subjection; their absolute ignorance of poetry and art; that stern training, sad, based only on duty, which obliged every Roman to a long and painful obedience so that he might some day be able to command.
The father, who in Greece was a friend, in Rome was a tyrant. For the Latin city there existed no other member of the family than the father; the wife, the children, the clients, were almost on the level of slaves; they were instruments of toil, without rights and without name. The gods heard only him; in his house he was priest and judge; he could kill his wife, sell the children three times over, and his authority over the offspring persisted down the years; the conquering consul, the omnipotent senator, trembled when in his father's presence; and in this gloomy and despotic organization, more stern even than that of Sparta, Actæon divined a latent force cradled in mystery which some day should burst its bonds, clasping the world as in an embrace of iron. The Greek detested this gloomy nation, but it held his admiration.
Its stamina, the tough and bellicose spirit of the race, were revealed in the Forum. The Capitol on the summit of the sacred mount was a veritable fortress, with naked and gloomy walls, destitute of such decorations as made the citadel of Athens glow with an eternal smile. The temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, with its low roof and its row of flattened, tower-like columns, barely rose above the city ramparts. Below, in the Forum, prevailed a similar grave and gloomy ugliness. The buildings were low and heavy; they seemed rather constructions of war than temples of the gods and public buildings. The great network of highroads starting from the Forum was the only embellishment in which Rome interested herself, and that because of their usefulness in transporting her legions and in the hauling of farm products. From the Forum the Appian Way could be seen stretching in a straight line, paved with blue stone, with its two rows of tombs which loomed up in the suburbs of the city, fading in the distance through the Campagna in the direction of Capua; and at the opposite extreme led off the Flaminian Way, which ran by the coast, extending into Cisalpine Gaul. Upon the immense Campagna rose like fluttering red banners the first aqueducts constructed during the reign of Appius Claudius to supply the city with fresh water from the mountains, combating thus the malaria of the Pontine marshes.
But aside from these crude monuments, the extensive, gigantic city, which of itself could arm over a hundred and fifty thousand men, presented a savage and wretched aspect, almost like that of those tribes which Actæon had seen on his trip through Celtiberia.
There were few houses of more than a single story; the majority were great cabins of round walls of stone or clay, and conical roofs of boards and logs. After the Gauls burned Rome the city had been reconstructed in a year, haphazard, with precipitate celerity. In some wards the houses were huddled so closely together that they barely gave room for a man to pass between them, while in others they stood apart as if they were country villas surrounded by small fields inside the city walls. Streets did not exist; they were but tortuous prolongations of the roads which led to Rome; arteries formed at random, twisting hither and thither, following the sinuosities of a disorderly construction, and suddenly broadening into wide, untilled lands where the refuse of the houses was accumulating in piles, and where crows croaked by night, pecking at the carrion of dead dogs and asses.
The crude simplicity of this city of farmers, money lenders, and soldiers, was reflected in the appearance of its inhabitants. Patrician matrons spun wool and hemp at the doors of their houses, clad only in tunics of coarse weave, and wearing bronze ornaments on their breasts and in their ears. The first coinage of silver had taken place subsequent to the war with the Samnites; the clumsy and heavy copper as was the current money, and the rich Grecian objects of virtu brought by the legions after the war with Sicily almost received adoration in the homes of the patricians, but were viewed askance by many as amulets which might corrupt the old sturdy Roman customs. Senators who owned extensive territories and hundreds of slaves, paraded their togas covered with patches in civic pride through the Forum. In all Rome there existed but a single table-service of silver, the property of the Republic, which passed from the house of one patrician to that of another when an envoy arrived from Greece, an ambassador from Sicily, or an opulent merchant from Carthage, habituated to Asiatic refinements and in whose honor banquets had to be given.
Actæon, accustomed to philosophic arguments in the Athenian Agora, to dialogues on poetry or on the mysteries of the soul wherever two unoccupied Greeks chanced to meet, strolled through the Forum listening to the conversations carried on in that rude and inflexible Latin which wounded an Athenian's ears. In one group they were discussing the health of the flocks and the price of wool; in another they were closing the sale of an ox in the presence of five adult citizens who served as witnesses. The purchaser placed the bronze, the value of the purchase, in a balance, and touching the ox with his hand he said in solemn accent, as if reciting an oration:
"This is mine, according to the law of the Quirites. I have paid for it with this metal duly weighed."
Farther on, a legionary with hungry face was adjusting a loan with an old man, offering as security his helmet and his greaves, and pronouncing the formulas of the law in such a case:
"Dari spondes?" (Do you promise to give?) the soldier asked.
"Spondeo" (I promise), replied the lender.
The bargain was closed with these sober words, the alteration of a single syllable in which was sufficient to annul the operation, for the Romans professed a superstitious respect for the letter and formula of their laws.
In another group they were discussing the points which a slave must have in order to be useful to his master and to be maintained by him; and throughout the entire Forum this grave people, austere, and without ideals, talked only of possessions, and of the manner of increasing them.
The attention of the Greek was attracted by a youth who, although barely twenty years of age, displayed the gravity of an old man. His hair was red and close-cropped; his steady gaze gave him an expression of intelligence and penetration. He was walking slowly beside a boy who was listening to him attentively, as to his master.
"Although your father is consul," said the red-headed man, "you must not forget, Scipio, that in order to be a good citizen and to serve the Republic, it is necessary not only to know how to use the lance and to manage a horse, but to know how to till the soil, and to be familiar with the secrets of cultivation. Some day you may command our armies, and you will not only have to conquer lands for Rome, but cultivate them, so that they will produce abundantly. Do you realize that?"
"Yes, Cato," said the youth.
"Every day you should learn a month of the calendar which our forefathers made. With that well fixed in your memory it will be easier for you to command your slaves promptly and well in their work in the fields. Yesterday I taught you the month of May; repeat it, Scipio."
"Month of May," recited the boy wrinkling his brows in order to better concentrate his mind. "Thirty-one days. The nones fall on the seventh day. The day has fourteen and a half hours; the night nine hours and a half. The sun is in the sign of Taurus; the month is under the protection of Apollo. Wheat should be weeded. Sheep should be shorn. The wool should be washed. Young steers should be put under the yoke. The vetch should be mown in the meadows. The lustration of the crops should be performed. Sacrifices to Mercury and to Flora."
"You remember it well, Scipio. Our ancestors neither had nor desired any other science; they were satisfied with knowing what they should do in each month throughout the year, and with this, and with valor and audacity to hold their fields, and to take possession of the lands of their neighbors, they founded our city, which grows and will grow until it becomes the greatest in the world. We are not charlatans like the Greeks, who kneel in admiration before marble puppets and argue like buffoons about what comes after death. We are not madly ambitious like the Carthaginians, who base their life on commerce and risk all their wealth upon the sea. Our life is spent on the land; we are ruder but more solid than other people; we advance more slowly, but we shall go farther. On the soil which we tread for the first time we do not set up a tent as do others; we plunge in the plow, and that is why what Rome takes none wrests from her. Do not forget that, Scipio!"
The Athenian followed not far behind. The words of that man, old at twenty years, taught him more than his observations. Rome seemed to speak through his mouth in that lesson given to the son of one of her consuls.
"You should know also," continued Cato, "the domestic rules of every good citizen. When our fathers wished to eulogize a worthy man they called him 'a good husbandman.' This was the highest praise. At that time they lived on the land itself, in rustic tribes, the most honorable of all, and they only saw Rome on market days and on days of comitia. There are still good citizens who lead the sane life of Cincinnatus and Camillus, and only come when the Senate gathers; but war, with its expeditions to new countries, has corrupted many, who wish only to live in the city, and they have substituted for the old Roman home, with its roof of boards and its simple penates, houses crowded with columns as if they were temples, and adorned with gods and goddesses which they order from Greece."
The austere gesture of Cato displayed immense scorn for the imported refinements which had begun to break down the sturdiness of his native land.
"In the country the good citizen should not lose a day. If the weather prevent his going out he should entertain himself cleaning the stables and barnyards, fixing up the old utensils, and seeing that the women mend the clothing. Even on feast days something can be done; irrigate the young vineyards, wash the sheep, go to the city to sell oil or fruit. No time should be lost in consulting haruspices and augurs, nor in devotion to cults which oblige the citizen to abandon his house. The gods of the household or of the nearest cross-road are sufficient. The lares, the manes, and the silvani are sufficient to protect a good citizen. Our fathers had no others, but nevertheless they were great."
The youthful Scipio listened attentively, but his eyes were fixed on two young men from the Campagna, who with the cucullus fallen over their shoulders, were having a boxing match close to a vendor of mulled wine. The young man's cheeks flushed with emotion seeing the blows exchanged by the athletes with quivering muscles.
"If the citizen dwell in Rome," continued Cato, without noticing this incident which failed to disturb the gravity of the Forum, "he should open the door of his house at dawn of day to explain the law to his clients, and to place his money prudently, teaching the young men the art of increasing their savings and how to avoid ruinous follies. The father of the family should turn everything into money and waste nothing. If he give new garments to his slaves, he should recover the old ones for other uses. He should sell the oil and the wine and the wheat which are left over at the close of the year. Let him also sell the old oxen, the calves, lambs, the wool, the hides, the unserviceable carts, the rusty iron, the old, infirm, and sick slaves. Let him be ever selling. The father of the family should be the seller, not the buyer. Note that well, Scipio!"
But Scipio was restless and scarcely heard him.
The rustics had ceased boxing, and the youth, eager to be off, glanced far away toward the river.
"Cato, this is the time for athletics. I must go to the bank of the Tiber to train myself in running and in pugilism, and to take an hour for swimming afterward."
"Go when you will, and heed my advice. After the lesson, athletics and the cold bath, which harden the body, are excellent. The citizen who wishes to serve his country must not only be prudent but strong."
The boy walked away, and Cato retracing his steps met the Greek who was following him. Actæon's appearance attracted him, and he approached.
"Greek," he said, "what do you think of our city?"
"It is a gloomy town, but a great one. I have been in Rome only three days."
"Are you, perchance, the messenger from Saguntum, who will appear before the Senate to-day?"
Actæon replied in the affirmative, and the Roman leaned on his arm with grave familiarity, as if he were an old friend.
"You will accomplish very little," he said. "The Senate is suffering with a sickness just now—an excess of prudence! I detest mad deeds; I do not believe that Hannibal is a great captain, since I see him commit such an audacity as the siege of Saguntum; but I cannot tolerate in silence the faint-heartedness with which Rome proceeds in her affairs. She wishes to avail herself of all means to keep the peace. She fears war, while war with Carthage is inevitable. She and our city will not fit in the same sack. The world is too small for the two. I am always saying, 'Let us destroy Carthage!' and they laugh at me. Some years ago, when the war of the mercenaries broke out, we could have crushed her with ease. By sending to Africa a brace of legions the revolted Numidians and the mercenaries would have finished with Carthage; but we were afraid; after her victory Rome occupied herself only in healing her wounds. We feared the uprising of the soldiery of all countries, so we saved Carthage, helping her to destroy her revolted mercenaries."
"It is different now," said Actæon, with energy. "Saguntum is an ally, and if Hannibal makes war upon her it is on account of the love which the city professes for Rome."
"Yes; that is why we Romans are interested in her fate; but do not hope for much from the Senate. It is more anxious about the pirates of the Adriatic who harrow our coasts, that rebellion of Demetrius of Pharos in Illyria, against whom we are about to send an army under command of the consul Lucius Æmilius."
"But what of Saguntum? If you abandon her how will you resist the audacious Hannibal, who leads the most warlike tribes of Iberia? What will those unfortunates say of the seriousness with which Rome observes her alliances?"
"Try to convince the Senate with your arguments. I am convinced; I see in Carthage the sole enemy of Rome. Would that they were all of my mind! They would then accept the audacious challenge of the son of Hamilcar and would declare war against Carthage, going to meet her in her own territory! Happen what may, we are invincible. Italy is a compact mass, and as advance sentinels of our camp, we have in the Orient Illyria, on the side which looks into Africa we have Sicily, and in the Occident is Sardinia, while the lands which Carthage dominates form an extensive belt of nine hundred leagues which runs along a great part of the coasts of Africa and all those of Iberia; but so narrow, and peopled by so many different races, that it can easily be broken. Though Rome might lose a hundred battles, she will always be Rome, but one defeat for Carthage is enough to dissolve the nation."
"If only they all thought as you do, Cato!"
"If the Senate thought as I do it would scorn Demetrius of Pharos, and its legions would have been in Saguntum days ago. Perhaps by such means a danger would be avoided, because who knows where that young African will go, and what he may not dare if he succeed in conquering without hindrance a city allied to Rome! That is why I, a free citizen, give lessons as a pedagogue, as you have just witnessed. That boy is the son of the consul Publius Cornelius Scipio, and all the virtues of his family are revived in him. Perhaps he may be the one destined to bar Hannibal's way, to destroy the insolent power of that Carthage against whom we are ever clashing."
They continued strolling through the Forum discussing the customs of Rome, and arguing warmly as they contrasted them with those of Athens. Then the austere Roman, having to hold conference with various patricians in regard to private affairs, to which he attended with great scrupulousness, said farewell to the Greek.
On being left alone Actæon realized that he was hungry. It would be some time before the Senate would assemble, and wearied of the noisy stir in the Forum he passed on, walking around the base of the Capitoline, following a street broader than the others, lined with stone buildings, which displayed through their open doors the relative abundance of patrician families.
He entered a bakery and rapped on the stone of the deserted counter with an as. A plaintive voice answered from a kind of cavern. The Greek peered into the gloomy grotto and saw a mill for grinding wheat, and yoked to it a man, who was turning it with great effort.
The slave came out almost naked, wiping off the sweat which was streaming down his forehead, and taking the money offered by the Greek handed him a round loaf. Then he stood looking Actæon over with curiosity.
"Do you own the bakery?" Actæon asked.
"I am nothing but a slave," he replied sadly. "My master had to go to the Forum to see the dealers in wheat. You are a Greek, are you not?"
Before Actæon deigned to answer, he hastened to add with melancholy pride:
"I have not always been a slave. I have been in this condition but a short time, and before I lost my freedom my fervent desire was to visit your country. O Athens! The city where poets are gods!"
He recited in Greek some verses from the Prometheus of Æschylus, astonishing Actæon by the purity of his accent and by the expression which he communicated to his words.
"Can it be that here in Rome your masters dedicate you to poesy?" asked the Athenian, laughing.
"I was a poet before I became a slave. My name is Plautus."
Glancing around as if fearing to be surprised by some member of his master's family he continued talking, happy at being able to free himself from the torment of the mill.
"I have written comedies. I tried to establish the theatre in Rome, which is almost a cult among your people. The Romans have little sensibility to poetry. They love farces; a tragedy that would move the Hellenes to tears, leaves them cold; one of Aristophanes' comedies would put them to sleep. They, Athenian, enjoy only the Etruscan buffoons, those grotesque comedians of the farces which they call Atellanæ, and the hideous maskers with sharp teeth and deformed heads who stalk in the triumphal processions growling their obscenities. They would stone the heroes of your tragedies, while on the other hand, they howl with enthusiasm at the entry of a victorious consul when the soldiers pass disguised in rams' skins, wearing tufts of bristling horsehair, and they laugh at seeing them avenge themselves for their humble condition by insulting the conqueror behind his triumphal car. I wrote comedies for these people, and I write them still in moments when my master ceases beating me to make me turn the mill. The patricians, the free citizens, do not enjoy seeing themselves personated in the scene. Here they would rend Aristophanes to pieces, he who represented upon the stage the most prominent men of Athens. My heroes are slaves, foreigners, and mercenaries, and they make the audience laugh. I have finished a comedy there within that den, ridiculing the fanfare of the warriors. I would recite it if I did not fear that my master might return at any moment."
"But how have you fallen into such a wretched situation after having been the entertainer of your people?"
"I committed the madness of founding the first theatre in Rome, in imitation of those in Greece. It was a wooden enclosure on the outskirts of the city. I borrowed money; I contracted debts; the populace came to laugh, but they gave little. I was ruined, and the wise laws of Rome condemn him who cannot pay to become the slave of his creditor. This baker who used to laugh at my comedies, and who gladly loaned me sacks of copper, is now getting even for his former show of admiration by making me turn his mill, because I cost less than an ass. Every peal of laughter in the past is transformed into a blow with a stick dealt across my back. The fate of poets! You Greeks also thanked Æschylus for his verses by pelting him with stones, yet he was ever a freeman."
Plautus became silent, but after a melancholy smile he added:
"I trust in the future. I shall not always have to be a slave; perhaps I shall find someone who will give me back my liberty. The Romans who make war and see new countries return with milder customs and with a love of art. I shall be free, I will found a new theatre, and then,——then——"
Hope shone in his glance, as if he saw the realization of the dreams with which he embellished his gloomy den, while, panting like a beast, he turned the enormous cone of stone.
A noise was heard from within the house, and before his master's children could see him Plautus ran to yoke himself again to the mill-spindle, while the Greek left the place, astounded by this episode.
What a people this, which converted its debtors into slaves and turned its poets into beasts of burden!
The Greek sauntered back through the Forum munching his loaf of bread. He was waiting for the Senate to assemble, and to pass away the time he climbed to the crest of the Palatine Hill, the sacred ground which was the cradle of Rome. He visited the Lupercal Grotto where Romulus and Remus had been suckled by the she-wolf. At the entrance to the narrow cave, denuded by the winter, the Ruminal fig tree extended its naked branches, the famous tree in the shade of which the twin founders of the city had frolicked. Near it on a granite pedestal stood the wolf, in dark and lustrous bronze, the work of an Etruscan artist, with the hideous half-open fauces, and her belly bristling with a double row of gleaming teats to which two naked children clung, sprawling on the ground.
From this height Actæon looked down upon the broad city, a wave of roofs between the seven hills, invading the heights and dispersing through the deep valleys. Almost at the side of the Palatine rose the Capitolium, the great fortress of Rome, on the naked crags of the Tarpeian rock, and the Greek passed from the summit of one to that of the other to examine the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, more famous than beautiful.
He turned his back on the rude temple of Mars, which occupied the highest point of the Palatine, and following a path between abrupt rocks he crossed to the Capitoline. On his way he met the priests of Jupiter, walking with sacerdotal rigidity as if ever offering sacrifices to their god. He saw the vestals wrapped in their flowing white veils, marching with a sturdy tread. Some milites were climbing up to the temple of Mars, their broad breasts encased in overlapping bands of copper, their bare thighs covered by strips of wool hanging from the waist; one hand resting on the pommel of their short swords while they talked with enthusiasm of the coming Illyrian campaign, without thought of the situation of their allies in Iberia.
Actæon entered the sacred precincts of the Capitoline, surrounded by frowning ramparts. It was the ancient mount Tarpeius, with its two summits united by an extensive flat. The higher part which lay toward the north was occupied by the Arx or citadel of Rome; on the south was the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, surrounded by massive columns.
The Greek entered the citadel, famous for its resistance during the invasion of the Gauls. On the margin of a pool before the temples huddled within the strong enclosure he saw the sacred birds—the geese which with their cackling in the silence of the night had protected Rome from the surprise of the invaders. Then he crossed the depression which divides the hill into two parts, and approached the great fane of Rome.
A stairway of a hundred steps led to the temple, constructed in the time of the last Tarquin in honor of the three divinities of Rome—Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva. The building consisted of three cellæ or parallel sanctuaries, with three doors opening beneath the same pediment. The one in the centre was sacred to Jupiter, and the smaller ones on either side to the two goddesses. A triple row of columns sustained the pediment, which was decorated with prancing horses coarsely sculptured. Two rows of columns ran down the sides of the temple forming a portico, in the shade of which the eldest Roman citizens strolled, discussing the affairs of the city.
The temple had been built by artists called from Etruria, and under the colonnade were statues acquired by the expeditions to Sicily and as a result of the many wars carried on by Rome. This rude nation was incapable of producing artists, but it had soldiers to supply it with art by means of war and loot.
The Athenian entered the sanctuary in the centre dedicated to Jupiter, and he saw the image of the god in terra cotta, holding a golden lance in his right hand. Before him continually smoked the Altar of Sacrifices. On leaving the temple he glanced at the gnomon or sundial, which at that height marked the time for all Rome.
It was now the hour to go to the Senaculum, the ancient building at the foot of the Tarpeian peak between the Capitolium and the Forum, which many years later was converted into the temple of Concord. On the steps which gave access to the temple Actæon met the two legates sent by Saguntum before the siege began; two old farmers who had gone away from home for the first time, and who seemed to be dazed by their long months of waiting in Rome, with their audiences which never terminated, and with their interviews and resultless supplications. The two perturbed Saguntines, impotent before a city which never responded definitely to their words, followed like automata the self-confident Greek who went everywhere as if he were in his own house, and who spoke many languages as if the entire world were his country.
The senators began to arrive. Some came from their business in the city and presented themselves garbed in the white toga with purple border, followed by their clients who turned their gaze in all directions as if to attract public attention to their majestic protector. Others came from the country, drawing up their carts before the steps of the Senaculum, and, handing the reins to a slave, ascended to the temple with their togas flung over their arms, dressed in the short cloak of coarse wool worn by farmers, and emitting the odors of their stables and crops. They were mature men who displayed in the firmness of their strong muscles the activity of their life of continued struggle with the soil and with enemies; old men with long beards and wizened faces, tremulous with age, who still revealed in their unflinching eyes reliance on their departing strength. The crowd from the Forum, surging toward the steps of the Senaculum, watched them with admiration and respect. They were the fathers of the Republic, the heads of Rome.
The two legates from Saguntum walked up the temple steps. Under the columns which sustained the pediment were numberless piles of loot from the last wars, deposited by the conquerors as they paraded through the Forum before the multitude, which had hailed them, waving branches of laurel. Actæon saw shields pierced by iron swords, rusted by blood; war-chariots with broken tongues, the gilded wheels bespattered with the mud of battles. They were spoils from the war with the Samnites. Farther on, standing along the wall, a row of hideous wooden dwarfs, dyed red and blue, stripped from the prows of Carthaginian ships after the great victory at the Ægates Islands; iron bars which had closed the gates of many cities conquered by the Romans; the golden standards decorated with fantastic animals which led the troops of Pyrrhus; the enormous tusks of the elephants which this descendent of Achilles had marched against the legions of Rome; the horned or eagle-winged helmet of the Ligurians; the darts of Alpine tribes, and, beside the door, as a trophy of honor, the armor of the glorious Camillus, paraded in triumph by the city after this great Roman had driven the Gauls from the Capitol. Along the walls, as a strange decoration, hung a long dark tissue, crisp as parchment. It was the skin of the great serpent which for a whole day held back the army of Atilius Regulus, when on his expedition to Africa he was marching to the conquest of Carthage. The horrible monster, insensible to arrows, devoured many soldiers before it succumbed beneath a shower of stones, and Regulus sent the reptile's skin to Rome as a testimony of the adventure.
The envoys from Saguntum had a tedious wait before a centurion ushered them into the Senaculum.
The Greek, sweeping his glance over the semicircle, was perturbed by the majesty of the assemblage. He recalled the entrance of the Gauls into Rome; the stupefaction of the barbarians in the presence of those Elders, firm in their marble chairs, wrapped like phantoms in their snowy garments which left uncovered only their silvery beards; their ivory staves held with a divine majesty, revealed again in the gleam from their steady eyes. None but barbarians intoxicated with blood-lust would dare to assault men of such patriarchal dignity.
They numbered more than two hundred. Between them were vacant seats of senators unable to attend, and over the concentric rows of marble chairs the white togas spread out like newly fallen snow upon a crust of ice. Behind them stood a row of columns in a semicircle, sustaining the cupola through which filtered a crepuscular light which seemed to favor meditation and concentration of the mind. A low stone balustrade surrounded the semicircle, and beyond it were grouped important citizens who had not the investiture of senators. In the centre the barrier was broken by a square pedestal sustaining the bronze she-wolf with the twins hanging to her dugs, and on the base in great letters, the device of supreme authority in Rome: "S.P.Q.R." A tripod sustained a brazier before the pedestal, and over the embers floated a blue cloud of incense.
The three legates seated themselves in marble chairs near the image of the wolf, before the triple row of white and motionless men.
Some rested their chins in their hands as if to hear better.
They might speak; the Senate would hear them; and Actæon, moved by the supplicating glances of his two companions, arose. In his mind impressions did not linger long; he had recovered from the emotion produced at first by the majesty of the assemblage.
He spoke deliberately, taking care, after the manner of a true Greek, to avoid lapses of style in expressing himself in that rude tongue, endeavoring to give to his words the emotion which he wished to inspire in the representatives of Rome. He described the desperate resistance of Saguntum, and her confidence in the support of the Republic, that blind faith which had inspired her people to hurl themselves outside the walls and repulse the enemy at the mere announcement that the Roman fleet had appeared upon the horizon. When he left the city it still had supplies for subsistence and courage to defend itself. But much time had elapsed since then—nearly two whole months. The ambassador had been compelled to make his way amidst adventures and perils, sometimes by sea, taking advantage of the routes of the merchant ships, again on foot along the coasts, and at this moment the situation of the city must be desperate. Saguntum would fall if they did not go to her succor, and what a responsibility for Rome if she abandoned her protégé after the latter had drawn Hannibal's enmity upon her for wishing to be Roman! How could other nations rely on the friendship of Rome when they knew the sad end of Saguntum!
The Greek ceased speaking, and the painful silence which fell over the Senate revealed the profound impression his words had made.
Then Lentulus, an aged senator, arose to speak. The sharp voice of the old man penetrated the silence as he told of the origin of Saguntum, which if it were Grecian on account of the merchants of Zacynthus having established their factories there, was also Italian on account of the Rutulians from Ardea who had gone thither in remote times to found a colony. Moreover Saguntum was the friend of Rome. To be more faithful to her she had beheaded some of her citizens who had worked in the cause of Carthage. What audacity for that young man, a son of Hamilcar, to ignore the treaties of Rome with Hasdrubal, and to dare to raise his sword against a city friendly to the Romans! If Rome looked with indifference upon this offense Hamilcar's lion-cub would grow in temerity, for youth knows no bridle when it sees its imprudence crowned by success. Moreover, the great city could not tolerate such daring. Outside, at the door of the Senaculum were the glorious trophies of war as a demonstration that he who revolted against Rome should fall conquered at her feet. They must be inexorable with the enemy and faithful to the ally; they must carry the war into Iberia and destroy the reckless one who defied Rome.
All the choler of the gloomy city, warlike and severe, spoke through the mouth of the aged man, who extended his rigid arm above his companions' heads, threatening the invisible enemy. The soldierly vigor of the veteran of ancient wars against the Samnites and against Pyrrhus, was aroused for a moment in the weak old man, and thrilled his muscles and caused his eyes to flash.
Actæon's two companions, who did not understand the Latin tongue, nevertheless divined Lentulus' words, and they were filled with emotion by the eulogy of the self-abnegation of their city. Tears streamed from their eyes, they rent the dark mantles in which they were clad as solemn messengers, and throwing themselves to the floor to express the vehemence of their grief after the custom of the ancients, they shouted, sobbing:
"Save us! Save us!"
The desperation of the two old men, and the dignified attitude of the Greek, who, frowning and silent, seemed the personification of Saguntum awaiting the fulfillment of pledges, moved the Senate and the multitude that surged outside the balustrade of the she-wolf. All were agitated and were exchanging words of indignation. Beneath the cupola of the Senaculum resounded a disorderly buzzing, the echo of a thousand mingled voices. They clamored for the Senate to declare instant war against Carthage, to call out the legions, to make ready the ships, to embark an expedition in the port of Ostia, and to hurl Rome against the camp of Hannibal.
A senator called for silence that he might speak. It was Fabius, one of the most famous patricians of Rome, the descendent of those three hundred heroes of that famous gens destroyed in a single day fighting for Rome on the banks of the Cremera. Prudence spoke through his mouth; his counsels were ever followed as being wisest; on this account the Senate recovered its calmness as soon as it saw that he had arisen to his feet.
With reposeful language, after lamenting the situation of the allied city, he said that it was not known whether it were Carthage that had broken into hostilities against Saguntum, or whether Hannibal had done so on his own account. A war in Iberia would be a grave matter for Rome, now that she was going to begin a nearer struggle with the rebel Demetrius of Pharos. It would be advisable to send an embassy to Hannibal in his camp, and if the African refused to raise the siege, let it go to Carthage to ask if its rulers approved the chieftain's conduct, and to demand that the latter be turned over to Rome in punishment for his audacity.
This solution seemed to please the Senate. Those who a few moments before had shown themselves warlike and uncompromising bowed their heads as if approving the words of Fabius. The thought of the insurrection in Illyria counseled prudence to the most violent. They remembered the enemy who was rising almost at their doors across the Adriatic, and who, with their fleets given over to piracy, might attempt an invasion of Roman territory. Egoism caused them to look upon this enterprise as more important than any oath, and in order to deceive themselves and to hide their own weakness, they exaggerated the importance of the embassy to Hannibal's camp declaring that the African would raise the siege and ask pardon of Rome as soon as he saw the Senatorial legates arrive.
Actæon received this change on the part of the assemblage with visible signs of impatience.
"I know Hannibal well," he shouted. "He will not obey you; he will scoff at you! If you do not send an army the journey of your legates will be useless!"
But the senators, eager to conceal the weakness to which their egoism drove them, protested loudly against the words of Actæon. Who spoke of scoffing at the Republic of Rome? Who imagined that Hannibal would scorn the envoys of the Senate? Let the stranger maintain silence—he who was not even a son of the city in whose name he spoke.
Actæon bowed his head. Then, turning to his aged companions, who did not understand the resolution of the Senate, he murmured: "Our city is lost! Rome fears to declare war against Hannibal and delays the clash of arms. When they become ready to help us Saguntum will no longer exist!"
The three Saguntine legates received an order to retire. The senators were about to appoint two patricians who should go as envoys of Rome.
As they left the Senaculum the eldest of the senators addressed Actæon:
"Tell your companions to prepare for the journey. To-morrow at sunset you will embark with the legates of the Senate in the port of Ostia."