The central theme of his great History is the Persian wars, the struggle between Asia and Greece. Around this he groups the several stories of the nations of antiquity. In the pictures which the artist-historian draws, we see vividly contrasted, as in no other writings, the East and the West, Persia and Hellas.

THUCYDIDES.—Thucydides (about 471-400 B.C.), though not so popular an historian as Herodotus, was a much more philosophical one. He was born near Athens. A pretty story is told of his youth, which must be repeated, though critics have pronounced it fabulous. The tale is that Thucydides, when only fifteen, was taken by his father to hear Herodotus recite his history at the Olympian games, and that the reading and the accompanying applause caused the boy to shed tears, and to resolve to become an historian.



Thucydides was engaged in military service during the first years of the Peloponnesian War; but, on account of his being unfortunate, possibly through his own neglect, the Athenians deprived him of his command, and he went into an exile of twenty years. It is to this circumstance that we are indebted for his invaluable History of the War between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians.

Through the closest observation and study, he qualified himself to become the historian of what he from the first foresaw would prove a memorable war. "I lived," he says, "through its whole extent, in the very flower of my understanding and strength, and with a close application of my thoughts, to gain an exact insight into all its occurrences." He died before his task was completed. The work is considered a model of historical writing. Demosthenes read and re-read his writings to improve his own style; and the greatest orators and historians of modern times have been equally diligent students of the work of the great Athenian.

XENOPHON.—Xenophon (about 445-355 B.C.) was an Athenian, and is known both as a general and a writer. The works that render his name so familiar are his Anabasis, a simple yet thrilling narrative of the Expedition of the Ten Thousand Greeks; and his Memorabilia, or Recollections of Socrates. This work by his devoted pupil is the most faithful portraiture that we possess of that philosopher.

4. ORATORY.

INFLUENCE OF THE PUBLIC ASSEMBLY.—The art of oratory among the Greeks was fostered and developed by the democratic character of their institutions. The public assemblies of the democratic cities were great debating clubs, open to all. The gift of eloquence secured for its possessor a sure pre- eminence. The law-courts, too, especially the great jury-courts of Athens, were schools of oratory; for every citizen was obliged to be his own advocate and to defend his own case. Hence the attention bestowed upon public speaking, and the high degree of perfection attained by the Greeks in the difficult art of persuasion. Almost all the prominent Athenian statesmen were masters of oratory.

THEMISTOCLES AND PERICLES.—We have already become acquainted with Themistocles and Pericles as statesmen and leaders of Athenian affairs during the most stirring period of the history of Athens. They both were also great orators, and to that fact were largely indebted for their power and influence. Thucydides has preserved the oration delivered by Pericles in commemoration of those who fell in the first year of the Peloponnesian War. It is an incomparable picture of the beauty and glory of Athens at the zenith of her power, and has been pronounced one of the finest productions of antiquity. The language of the address, as we have it, is the historian's, but the sentiments are doubtless those of the great statesman. It was the habit of Thucydides to put speeches into the mouths of his characters.

DEMOSTHENES AND AESCHINES.—It has been the fortune of Demosthenes (385-322 B.C.) to have his name become throughout the world the synonym of eloquence. The labors and struggles by which, according to tradition, he achieved excellence in his art are held up anew to each generation of youth as guides of the path to success. His first address before the public assembly was a complete failure, owing to defects of voice and manner. With indomitable will he set himself to the task of correcting these. He shut himself up in a cave, and gave himself to the diligent study of Thucydides. That he might not be tempted to spend his time in society, he rendered his appearance ridiculous by shaving one side of his head. To correct a stammering utterance, he spoke with pebbles in his mouth, and broke himself of an ungainly habit of shrugging his shoulders by speaking beneath a suspended sword. To accustom himself to the tumult and interruptions of a public assembly, he declaimed upon the noisiest seashore.



These are some of the many stories told of the world's greatest orator. There is doubtless this much truth in them at least—that Demosthenes attained success, in spite of great discouragements, by persevering and laborious effort. It is certain that he was a most diligent student of Thucydides, whose great history he is said to have known by heart. More than sixty of his orations have been preserved. "Of all human productions they present to us the models which approach the nearest to perfection."

The latter part of the life of Demosthenes is intertwined with that of another and rival Athenian orator, AEschines. For his services to the state, the Athenians proposed to award to Demosthenes a golden crown. AEschines opposed this. All Athens and strangers from far and near gathered to hear the rival orators; for every matter at Athens was decided by a great debate. Demosthenes made the grandest effort of his life. His address, known as the "Oration on the Crown," has been declared to be "the most polished and powerful effort of human oratory." AEschines was completely crushed, and was sent into exile, and became a teacher of oratory at Rhodes.

He is said to have once gathered his disciples about him and to have read to them the oration of Demosthenes that had proved so fatal to himself. Carried away by the torrent of its eloquence, his pupils, unable to restrain their enthusiasm, burst into applause. "Ah!" said AEschines, who seemed to find solace in the fact that his defeat had been at the hands of so worthy an antagonist, "you should have heard the wild beast himself!"

Respecting the orations of Demosthenes against Philip of Macedon, and the death of the eloquent patriot, we have already spoken (see pp. 160, 174).

5. THE ALEXANDRIAN AGE.

The Alexandrian period of Greek literature embraces the time between the break-up of Alexander's empire and the conquest of Greece by Rome (300-146 B.C.). During this period Alexandria in Egypt was the centre of literary activity, hence the term Alexandrian, applied to the literature of the age. The great Museum and Library of the Ptolemies afforded in that capital such facilities for students and authors as existed in no other city in the world.



But the creative age of Greek literature was over. With the loss of political liberty, literature was cut off from its sources of inspiration. Consequently the Alexandrian literature lacked freshness and originality. The writers of the period were grammarians, commentators, and translators,—in a word, book-worms.

One of the most important literary undertakings of the age was the translation of the Old Testament into Greek. From the traditional number of translators (seventy) the version is known as the Septuagint (Latin for seventy.) The work was probably begun by Ptolemy Philadelphus, and was completed under his successors.

Among the poets of the period one name, and only one, stands out clear and pre-eminent. This is that of Theocritus, a Sicilian idyllist, who wrote at Alexandria under Ptolemy Philadelphus. His idyls are beautiful pictures of Sicilian pastoral life.

CONCLUSION: GRAECO-ROMAN WRITERS.—After the Roman conquest of Greece, the centre of Greek literary activity shifted from Alexandria to Rome. Hence Greek literature now passes into what is known as its Graeco-Roman period (146 B.C.-527 A.D.).

The most noted historical writer of the first part of this period was Polybius (about 203-121 B.C.), who wrote a history of the Roman conquests from 264 to 146 B.C. His work, though the larger part of it has reached us in a very mutilated state, is of great worth; for Polybius wrote of matters that had become history in his own day. He had lived to see the larger part of the world he knew absorbed by the ever-growing power of the Imperial City.

Plutarch (b. about 40 A.D.), "the prince of ancient biographers," will always live in literature as the author of the Parallel Lives, in which, with great wealth of illustrative anecdotes, he compares or contrasts Greek and Roman statesmen and soldiers.



CHAPTER XX.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE.

THE SEVEN SAGES; THE FORERUNNERS.—About the sixth century B.C. there lived and taught in different parts of Hellas many philosophers of real or reputed originality and wisdom. Among these were seven men, called the "Seven Sages," who held the place of pre-eminence. [Footnote: As in the case of the Seven Wonders of the World, ancient writers were not always agreed as to what names should be accorded the honor of enrolment in the sacred number. Thales, Solon, Periander, Cleobulus, Chilo, Bias, and Pittacus are, however, usually reckoned as the Seven Wise Men.] To them belongs the distinction of having first aroused the Greek intellect to philosophical thought. The wise sayings—such as "Know thyself" and "Nothing in excess"—attributed to them, are beyond number.

The ethical maxims and practical proverbs ascribed to the sages, while, like the so-called proverbs of Solomon, they contain a vast amount of practical wisdom, still do not constitute philosophy proper, which is a systematic search for the reason and causes of things. They form simply the introduction or prelude to Greek philosophy.

THE IONIC PHILOSOPHERS.—The first Greek school of philosophy grew up in the cities of Ionia, in Asia Minor, where almost all forms of Hellenic culture seem to have had their beginning. The founder of the system was Thales of Miletus (about 640-550 B.C.), who was followed by Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus.

One tenet held in common by all these philosophers was that matter and mind are inseparable; or, in other words, that all matter is animate. They never thought of the soul as something distinct and separable from matter as we do. Even the soul in Hades was conceived as having a body in every respect like that the soul possessed in the earthly life, only it was composed of a subtler substance. This conception of matter as being alive will help us to understand Greek mythology, which, it will be remembered, endowed trees, rivers, springs, clouds, the planets, all physical objects indeed, with intelligence and will.

PYTHAGORAS.—Pythagoras (about 580-500 B.C.) was born on the island of Samos, whence his title of "Samian Sage." Probable tradition says that he spent many years of his early life in Egypt, where he became versed in all the mysteries of the Egyptians. He returned to Greece with a great reputation, and finally settled at Crotona, in Italy.

Like many another ancient philosopher, Pythagoras sought to increase the reverence of his disciples for himself by peculiarities of dress and manner. His uncut hair and beard flowed down upon his shoulders and over his breast. He never smiled. His dress was a white robe, with a golden crown. For the first years of their novitiate, his pupils were not allowed to look upon their master. They listened to his lectures from behind a curtain. Ipse dixit, "he himself said so," was the only argument they must employ in debate. It is to Pythagoras, according to legend, that we are indebted for the word philosopher. Being asked of what he was master, he replied that he was simply a "philosopher," that is, a "lover of wisdom."

Pythagoras held views of the solar system that anticipated by two thousand years those of Copernicus and his school. He taught, only to his most select pupils however, that the earth is a sphere; and that, like the other planets, it revolves about a central globe of fire. From him comes the pretty conceit of the "music of the spheres." He imagined that the heavenly spheres, by their swift, rolling motions, produced musical notes, which united in a celestial melody, too refined, however, for human ears.

He taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, an idea he had doubtless brought from Egypt. Because of this belief the Pythagoreans were strict vegetarians, abstaining religiously from the use of all animal food.

ANAXAGORAS.—Anaxagoras (499-427 B.C.) was the first Greek philosopher who made mind, instead of necessity or chance, the arranging and harmonizing force of the universe. "Reason rules the world" was his first maxim.

Anaxagoras was the teacher in philosophy of Pericles, and it is certain that that statesman was greatly influenced by the liberal views of the philosopher; for in his general conceptions of the universe, Anaxagoras was far in advance of his age. He ventured to believe that the moon was somewhat like the earth, and inhabited; and taught that the sun was not a god, but a glowing rock, as large, probably, as the Peloponnesus.

But for his audacity, the philosopher suffered the fate of Galileo in a later age; he was charged with impiety and exiled. Yet this did not disturb the serenity of his mind. In banishment he said, "It is not I who have lost the Athenians, but the Athenians who have lost me."

EMPEDOCLES AND DEMOCRITUS.—In the teachings of Empedocles (about 492-432 B.C.) and Democritus (about 460-370 B.C.) we meet with many speculations respecting the constitution of matter and the origin of things which are startlingly similar to some of the doctrines held by modern scientists. Empedocles, with the evolutionists of to-day, taught that the higher forms of life arise out of the lower; Democritus conceived all things to be composed of invisible atoms, all alike in quality, but differing in form and combination.

THE SOPHISTS.—The Sophists, of whom the most noted were Protagoras, Gorgias, and Prodicus, were a class of philosophers or teachers who gave instruction in rhetoric and the art of disputation. They travelled about from city to city, and contrary to the usual custom of the Greek philosophers, took fees from their pupils. They were shallow but brilliant men, caring more for the dress in which the thought was arrayed than for the thought itself, more for victory than for truth; and some of them inculcated a selfish morality. The better philosophers of the time despised them, and applied to them many harsh epithets, taunting them with selling wisdom, and accusing them of boasting that they could "make the worse appear the better reason."

SOCRATES.—Volumes would not contain what would be both instructive and interesting respecting the lives and works of the three great philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. We can, however, accord to each only a few words. Of these three eminent thinkers, Socrates (469-399 B.C.), though surpassed in grasp and power of intellect by both Plato and Aristotle, has the firmest hold upon the affections of the world.

Nature, while generous to the philosopher in the gifts of soul, was unkind to him in the matter of his person. His face was ugly as a satyr's, and he had an awkward, shambling walk, so that he invited the shafts of the comic poets of his time. He loved to gather a little circle about him in the Agora or in the streets, and then to draw out his listeners by a series of ingenious questions. His method was so peculiar to himself that it has received the designation of the "Socratic dialogue." He has very happily been called an educator, as opposed to an instructor. In the young men of his time Socrates found many devoted pupils. The youthful Alcibiades declared that "he was forced to stop his ears and flee away, that he might not sit down by the side of Socrates and grow old in listening."



Socrates was unfortunate in his domestic relations. Xanthippe, his wife, seems to have been of a practical turn of mind, and unable to sympathize with the abstracted ways of her husband.

This great philosopher believed that the proper study of mankind is man, his favorite maxim being "Know Thyself"; hence he is said to have brought philosophy from the heavens and introduced it to the homes of men.

Socrates held the Sophists in aversion, and in opposition to their selfish expediency taught the purest system of morals that the world had yet known, and which has been surpassed only by the precepts of the Great Teacher. He thought himself to be restrained from entering upon what was inexpedient or wrong by a tutelary spirit. He believed in the immortality of the soul and in a Supreme Ruler of the universe, but sometimes spoke slightingly of the temples and the popular deities. This led to his prosecution on the double charge of blasphemy and of corrupting the Athenian youth. The fact that Alcibiades had been his pupil was used to prove the demoralizing tendency of his teachings. He was condemned to drink the fatal hemlock. The night before his death he spent with his disciples, discoursing on the immortality of the soul.

PLATO.—Plato (429-348 B.C.), "the broad-browed," was a philosopher of noble birth, before whom in youth a brilliant career in the world of Greek affairs opened; but, coming under the influence of Socrates, he resolved to give up all his prospects in politics and devote himself to philosophy. Upon the condemnation and death of his master he went into voluntary exile. In many lands he gathered knowledge and met with varied experiences. He visited Sicily, where he was so unfortunate as to call upon himself the resentment of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, through having worsted him in an argument, and also by an uncourtly plainness of speech. The king caused him to be sold into slavery as a prisoner of war. Being ransomed by a friend, he found his way to his native Athens, and established a school of philosophy in the Academy, a public garden close to Athens. Here amid the disciples that thronged to his lectures, he passed the greater part of his long life,—he died 348 B.C., at the age of eighty-one years,—laboring incessantly upon the great works that bear his name.



Plato imitated in his writings the method of Socrates in conversation. The discourse is carried on by questions and answers, hence the term Dialogues that attaches to his works. He attributes to his master, Socrates, much of the philosophy that he teaches: yet his Dialogues are all deeply tinged with his own genius and thought. In the Republic Plato portrays his conception of an ideal state. He was opposed to the republic of Athens, and his system, in some of its main features, was singularly like the Feudal System of Mediaeval Europe.

The Phaedo is a record of the last conversation of Socrates with his disciples—an immortal argument for the immortality of the soul.

Plato believed not only in a future life (post-existence), but also in pre-existence; teaching that the ideas of reason, or our intuitions, are reminiscences of a past experience. [Footnote: In the following lines from Wordsworth we catch a glimpse of Plato's doctrine of pre-existence:— "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, Nor yet in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we come From God, who is our home."—Ode on Immortality.] Plato's doctrines have exerted a profound influence upon all schools of thought and philosophies since his day. In some of his precepts he made a close approach to the teachings of Christianity. "We ought to become like God," he said, "as far as this is possible; and to become like Him is to become holy and just and wise."

ARISTOTLE.—As Socrates was surpassed by his pupil Plato, so in turn was Plato excelled in certain respects by his disciple Aristotle, "the master of those who know." In him the philosophical genius of the Hellenic intellect reached its culmination. He was born in the Macedonian city of Stagira (384 B.C.), and hence is frequently called the "Stagirite." As in the case of Socrates, his personal appearance gave no promise of the philosopher. His teacher, Plato, however, recognized the genius of his pupil, and called him the "Mind of the school."

After studying for twenty years in the school of Plato, Aristotle became the preceptor of Alexander the Great. When Philip invited him to become the tutor of his son, he gracefully complimented the philosopher by saying in his letter that he was grateful to the gods that the prince was born in the same age with him. Alexander became the liberal patron of his tutor, and aided him in his scientific studies by sending him large collections of plants and animals, gathered on his distant expeditions.

At Athens the great philosopher delivered his lectures while walking about beneath the trees and porticoes of the Lyceum; hence the term peripatetic (from the Greek peripatein, "to walk about") applied to his philosophy.



Among the productions of his fertile intellect are works on rhetoric, logic, poetry, morals and politics, physics and metaphysics. For centuries his works were studied and copied and commented upon by both European and Asiatic scholars, in the schools of Athens and Rome, of Alexandria and Constantinople. Until the time of Bacon in England, for nearly two thousand years, Aristotle ruled over the realm of mind with a despotic sway. All teachers and philosophers acknowledged him as their guide and master.

ZENO AND THE STOICS.—We are now approaching the period when the political life of Hellas was failing, and was being fast overshadowed by the greatness of Rome. But the intellectual life of the Greek race was by no means eclipsed by the calamity that ended its political existence. For centuries after that event the poets, scholars, and philosophers of this intellectual people led a brilliant career in the schools and universities of the Roman world.

From among all the philosophers of this long period, we can select for brief mention only a few. And first we shall speak of Zeno and Epicurus, who are noted as founders of schools of philosophy that exerted a vast influence upon both the thought and the conduct of many centuries.

Zeno, founder of the celebrated school of the Stoics, lived in the third century before our era (about 362-264). He taught at Athens in a public porch (in Greek, stoa), from which circumstance comes the name applied to his disciples.

The Stoical philosophy was the outgrowth, in part at least, of that of the Cynics, a sect of most rigid and austere morals. The typical representative of this sect is found in Diogenes, who lived, so the story goes, in a tub, and went about Athens by daylight with a lantern, in search, as he said, of a man. The Cynics were simply a race of pagan hermits.

The Stoics inculcated virtue for the sake of itself. They believed—and it would be very difficult to frame a better creed—that "man's chief business here is to do his duty." They schooled themselves to bear with perfect composure any lot that destiny might appoint. Any sign of emotion on account of calamity was considered unmanly and unphilosophical. Thus, when told of the sudden death of his son, the Stoic replied, "Well, I never imagined that I had given life to an immortal."

Stoicism became a favorite system of thought with certain classes of the Romans, and under its teachings and doctrines were nourished some of the purest and loftiest characters produced by the pagan world. It numbered among its representatives, in later times, the illustrious Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and the scarcely less renowned and equally virtuous slave Epictetus. In many of its teachings it anticipated Christian doctrines, and was, in the philosophical world, a very important preparation for Christianity.



EPICURUS AND THE EPICUREANS.—Epicurus (342-270 B.C.), who was a contemporary of Zeno, taught, in opposition to the Stoics, that pleasure is the highest good. He recommended virtue, indeed, but only as a means for the attainment of pleasure; whereas the Stoics made virtue an end in itself. In other words, Epicurus said, "Be virtuous, because virtue will bring you the greatest amount of happiness"; Zeno said, "Be virtuous, because you ought to be."

Epicurus had many followers in Greece, and his doctrines were eagerly embraced by many among the Romans during the corrupt period of the Roman empire. Many of these disciples carried the doctrines of their master to an excess that he himself would have been the first to condemn. Allowing full indulgence to every appetite and passion, their whole philosophy was expressed in the proverb, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." No pure or exalted life could be nourished in the unwholesome atmosphere of such a philosophy. Epicureanism never produced a single great character.

THE SKEPTICS; PYRRHO.—About the beginning of the third century B.C. skepticism became widespread in Greece. It seemed as though men were losing faith in everything. Many circumstances had worked together in bringing about this state of universal unbelief. A wider knowledge of the world had caused many to lose their faith in the myths and legends of the old mythologies. The existence of so many opposing systems of philosophy caused men to doubt the truth of any of them. Many thoughtful minds were hopelessly asking, "What is truth?"

Pyrrho (about 360-270 B.C.) was the doubting Thomas of the Greeks. He questioned everything, and declared that the great problems of the universe could not be solved. He asserted that it was the duty of man, and the part of wisdom, to entertain no positive judgment on any matter, and thus to ensure serenity and peace of mind.

The disciples of Pyrrho went to absurd lengths in their skepticism, some of them even saying that they asserted nothing, not even that they asserted nothing. They doubted whether they doubted.

THE NEO-PLATONISTS.—Neo-Platonism was a blending of Greek philosophy and Oriental mysticism. It has been well called the "despair of reason," because it abandoned all hope of man's ever being able to attain the highest knowledge through reason alone, and looked for a Revelation. The centre of this last movement in Greek philosophical thought was Alexandria in Egypt, the meeting-place, in the closing centuries of the ancient world, of the East and the West.

Philo the Jew (b. about 30 B.C.), who labored to harmonize Hebrew doctrines with the teachings of Plato, was the forerunner of the Neo- Platonists. But the greatest of the school was Plotinus (A.D. 204-269), who spent the last years of his life at Rome, where he was a great favorite.

CONFLICT BETWEEN NEO-PLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY.—While the Neo-Platonists were laboring to restore, in modified form, the ancient Greek philosophy and worship, the teachers of Christianity were fast winning the world over to a new faith. The two systems came into deadly antagonism. Christianity triumphed. The gifted and beautiful Hypatia, almost the last representative of the old system of speculation and belief, was torn to pieces in the streets of Alexandria by a mob of fanatic Christian monks (A.D. 415). Finally the Roman emperor Justinian forbade the pagan philosophers to teach their doctrines (A.D. 529). This imperial edict closed forever the Greek schools, in which for more than a thousand years the world had received instruction upon the loftiest themes that can engage the human mind. The Greek philosophers, as living, personal teachers, had finished their work; but their systems of thought will never cease to attract and influence the best minds of the race.

SCIENCE AMONG THE GREEKS.

The contributions of the Greek observers to the physical sciences have laid us under no small obligation to them. Some of those whom we have classed as philosophers, were careful students of nature, and might be called scientists. The great philosopher Aristotle wrote some valuable works on anatomy and natural history. From his time onward the sciences were pursued with much zeal and success. Especially did the later Greeks do much good and lasting work in the mathematical sciences.

MATHEMATICS: EUCLID AND ARCHIMEDES.—Alexandria, in Egypt, became the seat of the most celebrated school of mathematics of antiquity. Here, under Ptolemy Lagus, flourished Euclid, the great geometer, whose work forms the basis of the science of geometry as taught in our schools at the present time. Ptolemy himself was his pupil. The royal student, however, seems to have disliked the severe application required to master the problems of Euclid, and asked his teacher if there was not some easier way. Euclid replied, "There is no royal road to geometry."

In the third century B.C., Syracuse, in Sicily, was the home of Archimedes, the greatest mathematician that the Grecian world produced.

ASTRONOMY.—Among ancient Greek astronomers, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Claudius Ptolemy are distinguished.

Aristarchus of Samos, who lived in the third century B.C., held that the earth revolves about the sun as a fixed centre, and rotates on its own axis. He was the Greek Copernicus. But his theory was rejected by his contemporaries and successors.

Hipparchus, who flourished about the middle of the second century B.C., was, through his careful observations, the real founder of scientific astronomy. He calculated eclipses, catalogued the stars, and wrote several astronomical works of a really scientific character.

Claudius Ptolemy lived in Egypt about the middle of the second century after Christ. His great reputation is due not so much to his superior genius as to the fortunate circumstance that a vast work compiled by him, preserved and transmitted to later times almost all the knowledge of the ancients on astronomical and geographical subjects. In this way it has happened that his name has become attached to various doctrines and views respecting the universe, though these probably were not originated by him. The phrase Ptolemaic system, however, links his name inseparably with that conception of the solar system set forth in his works, which continued to be the received theory from his time until Copernicus— fourteen centuries later.

Ptolemy combated the theory of Aristarchus in regard to the rotation and revolution of the earth; yet he believed the earth to be a globe, and supported this view by exactly the same arguments that we to-day use to prove the doctrine.



CHAPTER XXI.

SOCIAL LIFE OF THE GREEKS.

EDUCATION.—Education at Sparta, where it was chiefly gymnastic, as we have seen (p. 115), was a state affair; but at Athens and throughout Greece generally, the youth were trained in private schools. These schools were of all grades, ranging from those kept by the most obscure teachers, who gathered their pupils in some recess of the street, to those established in the Athenian Academy and Lyceum by such philosophers as Plato and Aristotle.



It was only the boys who received education. These Grecian boys, Professor Mahaffy imagines, were "the most attractive the world has ever seen." At all events, we may believe that they were trained more carefully and delicately than the youth among any other people before or since the days of Hellenic culture.

In the nursery, the boy was taught the beautiful myths and stories of the national mythology. At about seven he entered school, being led to and from the place of training by an old slave, who bore the name of pedagogue, which in Greek means a guide or leader of boys—not a teacher. His studies were grammar, music, and gymnastics, the aim of the course being to secure a symmetrical development of mind and body alike.

Grammar included reading, writing, and arithmetic; music, which embraced a wide range of mental accomplishments, trained the boy to appreciate the masterpieces of the great poets, to contribute his part to the musical diversions of private entertainments, and to join in the sacred choruses and in the paean of the battlefield. The exercises of the palestrae and the gymnasia trained him for the Olympic contests, or for those sterner hand- to-hand battle-struggles, in which so much depended upon personal strength and dexterity.

Upon reaching maturity, the youth was enrolled in the list of citizens. But his graduation from school was his "commencement" in a much more real sense than with the average modern graduate. Never was there a people besides the Greeks whose daily life was so emphatically a discipline in liberal culture. The schools of the philosophers, the debates of the popular assembly, the practice of the law-courts, the religious processions, the representations of an unrivalled stage, the Panhellenic games—all these were splendid and efficient educational agencies, which produced and maintained a standard of average intelligence and culture among the citizens of the Greek cities that probably has never been attained among any other people on the earth. Freeman, quoted approvingly by Mahaffy, says that "the average intelligence of the assembled Athenian citizens was higher than that of our [the English] House of Commons."

SOCIAL POSITION OF WOMAN.—Woman's social position in ancient Greece may be defined in general as being about half-way between Oriental seclusion and Western freedom. Her main duties were to cook and spin, and to oversee the domestic slaves, of whom she herself was practically one. In the fashionable society of Ionian cities, she was seldom allowed to appear in public, or to meet, even in her own house, the male friends of her husband. In Sparta, however, and in Dorian states generally, she was accorded much greater freedom, and was a really important factor in society.

The low position generally assigned the wife in the home had a most disastrous effect upon Greek morals. She could exert no such elevating or refining influence as she casts over the modern home. The men were led to seek social and intellectual sympathy and companionship outside the family circle, among a class of women known as Hetairae, who were esteemed chiefly for their brilliancy of intellect. As the most noted representative of this class stands Aspasia, the friend of Pericles. The influence of the Hetairae was most harmful to social morality.

THEATRICAL ENTERTAINMENTS.—Among the ancient Greeks the theatre was a state establishment, "a part of the constitution." This arose from the religious origin and character of the drama (see p. 193), all matters pertaining to the popular worship being the care and concern of the state. Theatrical performances, being religious acts, were presented only during religious festivals, and were attended by all classes, rich and poor, men, women, and children. The women, however, except the Hetairae, were, it would seem, permitted to witness tragedies only; the comic stage was too gross to allow of their presence. The spectators sat under the open sky; and the pieces followed one after the other in close succession from early morning till nightfall.



There were companies of players who strolled about the country, just as the English actors of Shakespeare's time were wont to do. While the better class of actors were highly honored, ordinary players were held in very low esteem. The tragic actor increased his height and size by wearing thick-soled buskins, an enormous mask, and padded garments. The actor in comedy wore thin-soled slippers, or socks. The sock being thus a characteristic part of the make-up of the ancient comic actor, and the buskin that of the tragic actor, these foot coverings have come to be used as the symbols respectively of comedy and tragedy, as in the familiar lines of Dryden:—

"Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here, Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear."

The theatre exerted a great influence upon Greek life. It performed for ancient Greek society somewhat the same service as that rendered to modern society by the pulpit and the press. During the best days of Hellas the frequent rehearsal upon the stage of the chief incidents in the lives of the gods and the heroes served to deepen and strengthen the religious faith of the people; and later, in the Macedonian period, the theatre was one of the chief agents in the diffusion of Greek literary culture over the world.

BANQUETS AND SYMPOSIA.—Banquets and drinking-parties among the Greeks possessed some features which set them apart from similar entertainments among other peoples.

The banquet proper was partaken, in later times, by the guest in a reclining position, upon couches or divans, arranged about the table in the Oriental manner. After the usual courses, a libation was poured out and a hymn sung in honor of the gods, and then followed that characteristic part of the entertainment known as the symposium.

The symposium was "the intellectual side of the feast." It consisted of general conversation, riddles, and convivial songs rendered to the accompaniment of the lyre passed from hand to hand. Generally, professional singers and musicians, dancing-girls, jugglers, and jesters were called in to contribute to the merrymaking. All the while the wine- bowl circulated freely, the rule being that a man might drink "as much as he could carry home without a guide,—unless he were far gone in years." Here also the Greeks applied their maxim, "Never too much."

The banqueters usually consumed the night in merry-making, sometimes being broken in upon from the street by other bands of revellers, who made themselves self-invited guests.

OCCUPATION.—The enormous body of slaves in ancient Greece relieved the free population from most of those forms of labor classed as drudgery. The aesthetic Greek regarded as degrading any kind of manual labor that marred the symmetry or beauty of the body.

At Sparta, and in other states where oligarchical institutions prevailed, the citizens formed a sort of military class, strikingly similar to the military aristocracy of Feudal Europe. Their chief occupation was martial and gymnastic exercises and the administration of public affairs. The Spartans, it will be recalled, were forbidden by law to engage in trade. In other aristocratic states, as at Thebes, a man by engaging in trade disqualified himself for full citizenship.

In the democratic states, however, speaking generally, labor and trade were regarded with less contempt. A considerable portion of the citizens were traders, artisans, and farmers.

Life at Athens presented some peculiar features. All Attica being included in what we should term the corporate limits of the city, the roll of Athenian citizens included a large body of well-to-do farmers, whose residence was outside the city walls. The Attic plains, and the slopes of the half-encircling hills, were dotted with beautiful villas and inviting farmhouses.

And then Athens being the head of a great empire of subject cities, a large number of Athenian citizens were necessarily employed as salaried officials in the minor positions of the public service, and thus politics became a profession. In any event, the meetings of the popular assembly and the discussion of matters of state engrossed more or less of the time and attention of every citizen.

Again, the great Athenian jury-courts, which were busied with cases from all parts of the empire, gave constant employment to nearly one fourth of the citizens, the fee that the juryman received enabling him to live without other business. It is said that, in the early morning, when the jurymen were passing through the streets to the different courts, Athens appeared like a city wholly given up to the single business of law. Furthermore, the great public works, such as temples and commemorative monuments, which were in constant process of erection, afforded employment for a vast number of artists and skilled workmen of every class.

In the Agora, again, at any time of the day, a numerous class might have been found whose sole occupation, as in the case of Socrates, was to talk. The writer of the "Acts of the Apostles" was so impressed with this feature of life at Athens that he summarized the habits of the people by saying, "All the Athenians, and strangers which were there, spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing." (Chap. xvii. 21.)

SLAVERY.—There was a dark side to Greek life. Hellenic art, culture, refinement—"these good things were planted, like exquisite exotic flowers, upon the black, rank soil of slavery."

The proportion of slaves to the free population in many of the states was astonishingly large. In Corinth and AEgina there were ten slaves to every freeman. In Attica the proportion was four to one; that is to say, out of a population of about 500,000, 400,000 were slaves. [Footnote: The population of Attica in 317 B.C. is reckoned at about 527,000. That of Athens in its best days was probably not far from 150,000.] Almost every freeman was a slave owner. It was accounted a real hardship to have to get along with less than half a dozen slaves.

This large class of slaves was formed in various ways. In the prehistoric period, the fortunes of war had brought the entire population of whole provinces into a servile condition, as in certain parts of the Peloponnesus. During later times, the ordinary captives of war still further augmented the ranks of these unfortunates. Their number was also largely added to by the slave traffic carried on with the barbarian peoples of Asia Minor. Criminals and debtors, too, were often condemned to servitude; while foundlings were usually brought up as slaves.

The relation of master and slave was regarded by the Greek as being, not only a legal, but a natural one. A free community, in his view, could not exist without slavery. It formed the natural basis of both the family and the state,—the relation of master and slave being regarded as "strictly analogous to the relation of soul and body." Even Aristotle and other Greek philosophers approved the maxim that "slaves are simply domestic animals possessed of intelligence." They were regarded as just as necessary in the economy of the family as cooking utensils.

In general, Greek slaves were not treated harshly—judging their treatment by the standard of humanity that prevailed in antiquity. Some held places of honor in the family, and enjoyed the confidence and even the friendship of their master. Yet at Sparta, where slavery assumed the form of serfdom, the lot of the slave was peculiarly hard and unendurable.

If slavery was ever justified by its fruits, it was in Greece. The brilliant civilization of the Greeks was its product, and could never have existed without it. As one truthfully says, "Without the slaves the Attic democracy would have been an impossibility, for they alone enabled the poor, as well as the rich, to take a part in public affairs." Relieving the citizen of all drudgery, the system created a class characterized by elegant leisure, refinement, and culture.

We find an almost exact historical parallel to all this in the feudal aristocracy of mediaeval Europe. Such a society has been well likened to a great pyramid, whose top may be gilded with light, while the base lies in dark shadows. The civilization of ancient Hellas was splendid and attractive, but it rested with a crushing weight upon all the lower orders of Greek society.



SECTION III. ROMAN HISTORY.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE ROMAN KINGDOM. (Legendary Date, 753-509 B.C.)

DIVISIONS OF ITALY.—The peninsula of Italy, like that of Greece, divides itself into three parts—Northern, Central, and Southern Italy. The first comprises the great basin of the Po, lying between the Alps and the Apennines. In ancient times this part of Italy included three districts— Liguria, Gallia Cisalpina, which means "Gaul on this (the Italian) side of the Alps," and Venetia.

The countries of Central Italy were Etruria, Latium, and Campania, facing the Western, or Tuscan Sea; Umbria and Picenum, looking out over the Eastern, or Adriatic Sea; and Samnium and the country of the Sabines, occupying the rough mountain districts of the Apennines.

Southern Italy comprised the countries of Apulia, Lucania, Calabria, and Bruttium. Calabria occupied the "heel," and Bruttium formed the "toe," of the peninsula. This part of Italy, as we have already learned, was called Magna Graecia, or "Great Greece," on account of the number and importance of the Greek cities that during the period of Hellenic supremacy were established in these regions.

The large island of Sicily, lying just off the mainland on the south, may be regarded simply as a detached fragment of Italy, so intimately has its history been interwoven with that of the peninsula. In ancient times it was the meeting-place and battleground of the Carthaginians, Greeks, and Romans.

EARLY INHABITANTS OF ITALY.—There were, in early times, three chief races in Italy—the Italians, the Etruscans, and the Greeks. The Italians, a branch of the Aryan family, embraced many tribes (Latins, Umbrians, Sabines, Samnites, etc.), that occupied nearly all Central Italy. The Etruscans, a wealthy, cultured, and maritime people of uncertain race, dwelt in Etruria, now Tuscany. Before the rise of the Romans they were the leading race in the peninsula. Of the establishment of the Greek cities in Southern Italy, we have already learned in connection with Grecian History (p. 111).

Some five hundred years B.C., the Gauls, a Celtic race, came over the Alps, and settling in Northern Italy, became formidable enemies of the infant republic of Rome.

THE LATINS.—Most important of all the Italian peoples were the Latins, who dwelt in Latium, between the Tiber and the Liris. These people, like all the Italians, were near kindred of the Greeks, and brought with them into Italy those same customs, manners, beliefs, and institutions which we have seen to have been the common possession of the various branches of the Aryan household (see p. 5). There are said to have been in all Latium thirty towns, and these formed an alliance known as the Latin League. The city which first assumed importance and leadership among the towns of this confederation was Alba Longa, the "Long White City," so called because its buildings stretched for a great distance along the summit of a whitish ridge.

THE BEGINNINGS OF ROME.—The place of preeminence among the Latin towns was soon lost by Alba Longa, and gained by another city. This was Rome, the stronghold of the Ramnes, or Romans, located upon a low hill on the south bank of the Tiber, about fifteen miles from the sea.

The traditions of the Romans place the founding of their city in the year 753 B.C. The town was established, it would seem, as an outpost to guard the northern frontier of Latium against the Etruscans.

Recent excavations have revealed the foundations of the old walls and two of the ancient gates. We thus learn that the city at first covered only the top of the Palatine Hill, one of a cluster of low eminences close to the Tiber, which, finally embraced within the limits of the growing city, became the famed "Seven Hills of Rome." From the shape of its enclosing walls, the original city was called Roma Quadrata, "Square Rome."

THE EARLY ROMAN STATE: KING, SENATE, AND POPULAR ASSEMBLY.—The early Roman state seems to have been formed by the union of three communities. These constituted three tribes, known as Ramnes (the Romans proper, who gave name to the mixed people), Tities, and Luceres. Each of these tribes was divided into ten wards, or districts (curiae); each ward was made up of gentes, or clans, and each clan was composed of a number of families. The heads of these families were called patres, or "fathers," and all the members patricians, that is, "children of the fathers."

At the head of the nation stood the King, who was the father of the state. He was at once ruler of the people, commander of the army, judge and high priest of the nation, with absolute power as to life and death.

Next to the king stood the Senate, or "council of the old men," composed of the "fathers," or heads of the families. This council had no power to enact laws: the duty of its members was simply to advise with the king, who was free to follow or to disregard their suggestions.

The Popular Assembly (comitia curiata) comprised all the citizens of Rome, that is, all the members of the patrician families, old enough to bear arms. It was this body that enacted the laws of the state, determined upon peace or war, and also elected the king.

CLASSES OF SOCIETY.—The two important classes of the population of Rome under the kingdom and the early republic, were the patricians and the plebeians. The former were the members of the three original tribes that made up the Roman people, and at first alone possessed political rights. They were proud, exclusive, and tenacious of their inherited privileges. The latter were made up chiefly of the inhabitants of subjected cities, and of refugees from various quarters that had sought an asylum at Rome. They were free to acquire property, and enjoyed personal freedom, but at first had no political rights whatever. The greater number were petty land-owners, who held and cultivated the soil about the city. A large part of the early history of Rome is simply the narration of the struggles of this class to secure social and political equality with the patricians.

Besides these two principal orders, there were two other classes—clients and slaves. The former were attached to the families of patricians, who became their patrons, or protectors. The condition of the client was somewhat like that of the serf in the feudal system of the Middle Ages. A large clientage was considered the crown and glory of a patrician house.

The slaves were, in the main, captives in war. Their number, small at first, gradually increased as the Romans extended their conquests, till they outnumbered all the other classes taken together, and more than once turned upon their masters in formidable revolts that threatened the very existence of the Roman state.

THE LEGENDARY KINGS.—For nearly two and a half centuries after the founding of Rome (from 753 to 509 B.C., according to tradition), the government was a monarchy. To span this period, the legends of the Romans tell of the reigns of seven kings—Romulus, the founder of Rome; Numa, the lawgiver; Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius, conquerors both; Tarquinius Priscus, the great builder; Servius Tullius, the reorganizer of the government and second founder of the state; and Tarquinius Superbus, the haughty tyrant, whose oppressions led to the abolition by the people of the office of king.

The traditions of the doings of these monarchs and of what happened to them, blend hopelessly fact and fable. We cannot be quite sure even as to the names. Respecting Roman affairs, however, under the last three rulers (the Tarquins), who were of Etruscan origin, some important things are related, the substantial truth of which we may rely upon with a fair degree of certainty; and these matters we shall notice in the following paragraphs.

GROWTH OF ROME UNDER THE TARQUINS.—The Tarquins extended their authority over the whole of Latium. The position of supremacy thus given Rome was naturally attended by the rapid growth in population and importance of the little Palatine city. The original walls soon became too strait for the increasing multitudes; new ramparts were built—tradition says under the direction of the king Servius Tullius—which, with a great circuit of seven miles, swept around the entire cluster of the Seven Hills. A large tract of marshy ground between the Palatine and Capitoline hills was drained by means of the Cloaca Maxima, the "Great Sewer," which was so admirably constructed that it has been preserved to the present day. It still discharges its waters through a great arch into the Tiber. The land thus reclaimed became the Forum, the assembling-place of the people. Upon the summit of the Capitoline Hill, overlooking the Forum, was built the famous sanctuary called the Capitol, or the Capitoline temple, where beneath the same roof were the shrines of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, the three great national deities. Upon the level ground between the Aventine and the Palatine was laid out the Circus Maximus, the "Great Circus," where were celebrated the Roman games.



NEW CONSTITUTION OF SERVIUS TULLIUS.—The second king of the Etruscan house, Servius Tullius by name, effected a most important change in the constitution of the Roman state. He did here at Rome just what Solon at about this time did at Athens (see p. 120). He made property instead of birth the basis of the constitution. The entire population was divided into five classes, the first of which included all citizens, whether patricians or plebeians, who owned twenty jugera (about twelve acres) of land; the fifth and lowest embraced all that could show title to even two jugera. The army was made up of the members of the five classes; as it was thought right and proper that the public defence should be the care of those who, on account of their possessions, were most interested in the maintenance of order and in the protection of the boundaries of the state.

The assembling-place of the military classes thus organized was on a large plain just outside the city walls, called the Campus Martius, or "Field of Mars." The meeting of these military orders was called the comitia centuriata, or the "assembly of hundreds." [Footnote: This assembly was not organized by Servius Tullius, but it grew out of the military organization he created.] This body, which of course was made up of patricians and plebeians, gradually absorbed the powers of the earlier patrician assembly (comitia curiata).

THE EXPULSION OF THE KINGS.—The legends make Tarquinius Superbus, or Tarquin the Proud, the last king of Rome. He is represented as a monstrous tyrant, whose arbitrary acts caused both patricians and plebeians to unite and drive him and all his house into exile. This event, according to tradition, occurred in the year 509 B.C., only one year later than the expulsion of the tyrants from Athens (see p. 122).

So bitterly did the people hate the tyranny they had abolished that it is said they all, the nobles as well as the commons, bound themselves by most solemn oaths never again to tolerate a king. We shall hereafter see how well this vow was kept for nearly five hundred years.

THE ROMAN RELIGION.

THE CHIEF ROMAN DEITIES.—The basis of the Roman religious system was the same as that of the Grecian: the germs of its institutions were brought from the same early Aryan home. At the head of the Pantheon stood Jupiter, identical in all essential attributes with the Hellenic Zeus. He was the special protector of the Roman people. To him, together with Juno and Minerva, was consecrated, as we have already noticed, a magnificent temple upon the summit of the Capitoline Hill, overlooking the Forum and the city. Mars, the god of war, standing next in rank, was the favorite deity and the fabled father of the Roman race, who were fond of calling themselves the "children of Mars." They proved themselves worthy offspring of the war-god. Martial games and festivals were celebrated in his honor during the first month of the Roman year, which bore, and still bears, in his honor, the name of March. Janus was a double-faced deity, "the god of the beginning and the end of everything." The month of January was sacred to him, as were also all gates and doors. The gates of his temple were always kept open in time of war and shut in time of peace.

The fire upon the household hearth was regarded as the symbol of the goddess Vesta. Her worship was a favorite one with the Romans. The nation, too, as a single great family, had a common national hearth in the Temple of Vesta, where the sacred fires were kept burning from generation to generation by six virgins, daughters of the Roman state. The Lares and Penates were household gods. Their images were set in the entrance of the dwelling. The Lares were the spirits of ancestors, which were thought to linger about the home as its guardians.

ORACLES AND DIVINATION.—The Romans, like the Greeks, thought that the will of the gods was communicated to men by means of oracles, and by strange sights, unusual events, or singular coincidences. There were no true oracles at Rome. The Romans, therefore, often had recourse to those in Magna Graecia, even sending for advice, in great emergencies, to the Delphian shrine. From Etruria was introduced the art of the haruspices, or soothsayers, which consisted in discovering the divine mind by the appearance of victims slain for the sacrifices.

THE SACRED COLLEGES.—The four chief sacred colleges, or societies, were the Keepers of the Sibylline Books, the College of Augurs, the College of Pontiffs, and the College of the Heralds.



A curious legend is told of the Sibylline Books. An old woman came to Tarquinius Superbus and offered to sell him, for an extravagant price, nine volumes. As the king declined to pay the sum demanded, the woman departed, destroyed three of the books, and then, returning, offered the remainder at the very same sum that she had wanted for the complete number. The king still refused to purchase; so the sibyl went away and destroyed three more of the volumes, and bringing back the remaining three, asked the same price as before. Tarquin was by this time so curious respecting the contents of the mysterious books that he purchased the remaining volumes. It was found upon examination that they were filled with prophecies respecting the future of the Roman people. The books were placed in a stone chest, which was kept in a vault beneath the Capitoline temple; and special custodians were appointed to take charge of them and interpret them. The number of keepers, throughout the most important period of Roman history, was fifteen. The books were consulted only in times of extreme danger.

The duty of the members of the College of Augurs was to interpret the omens, or auspices, which were casual sights or appearances, by which means it was believed that Jupiter made known his will. Great skill was required in the "taking of the auspices," as it was called. No business of importance, public or private, was entered upon without first consulting the auspices, to ascertain whether they were favorable. The public assembly, for illustration, must not convene, to elect officers or to enact laws, unless the auspices had been taken and found propitious. Should a peal of thunder occur while the people were holding a meeting, that was considered an unfavorable omen, and the assembly must instantly disperse.

The College of Pontiffs was so called because one of the duties of its members was to keep in repair the bridges (pontes) over which the religious processions were accustomed to pass. This was the most important of all the religious institutions of the Romans; for to the pontiffs belonged the superintendence of all religious matters. In their keeping, too, was the calendar, and they could lengthen or shorten the year, which power they sometimes used to extend the office of a favorite or to cut short that of one who had incurred their displeasure. The head of the college was called Pontifex Maximus, or the Chief Bridge-builder, which title was assumed by the Roman emperors, and after them by the Christian bishops of Rome; and thus the name has come down to our own times. The College of Heralds had the care of all public matters pertaining to foreign nations. If the Roman people had suffered any wrong from another state, it was the duty of the heralds to demand satisfaction. If this was denied, and war determined upon, then a herald proceeded to the frontier of the enemy's country and hurled over the boundary a spear dipped in blood. This was a declaration of war. The Romans were very careful in the observance of this ceremony.

SACRED GAMES.—The Romans had many religious games and festivals. Prominent among these were the so-called Circensian Games, or Games of the Circus, which were very similar to the sacred games of the Greeks (see p. 106). They consisted, in the main, of chariot-racing, wrestling, foot- racing, and various other athletic contests.

These festivals, as in the case of those of the Greeks, had their origin in the belief that the gods delighted in the exhibition of feats of skill, strength, or endurance; that their anger might be appeased by such spectacles; or that they might be persuaded by the promise of games to lend aid to mortals in great emergencies. At the opening of the year it was customary for the Roman magistrate, in behalf of the people, to promise to the gods games and festivals, provided good crops, protection from pestilence, and victory were granted the Romans during the year. So, too, a general in great straits in the field might, in the name of the state, vow plays to the gods, and the people were sacredly bound by his act to fulfil the promise. Plays given in fulfilment of vows thus made were called votive games.

Towards the close of the republic these games lost much of their religious character, and at last became degraded into mere brutal shows given by ambitious leaders for the purpose of winning popularity.



CHAPTER XXIII.

THE EARLY ROMAN REPUBLIC: CONQUEST OF ITALY, (509-264 B.C.)

THE FIRST CONSULS.—With the monarchy overthrown and the last king and his house banished from Rome, the people set to work to reorganize the government. In place of the king, there were elected (by the comitia centuriata, in which assembly the plebeians had a place) two patrician magistrates, called consuls, [Footnote: That is, colleagues. Each consul had the power of obstructing the acts or vetoing the commands of the other. In times of great public danger the consuls were superseded by a special officer called a dictator, whose term of office was limited to six months, but whose power during this time was as unlimited as that of the kings had been.] who were chosen for one year, and were invested with all the powers, save some priestly functions, that had been held by the monarch during the regal period.

In public each consul was attended by twelve servants, called lictors, each of whom bore an axe bound in a bundle of rods (fasces), the symbols of the authority of the consul to flog and to put to death. Within the limits of the city, however, the axe must be removed from the fasces, by which was indicated that no Roman citizen could be put to death by the consuls without the consent of the public assembly.

Lucius Junius Brutus and Tarquinius Collatinus were the first consuls under the new constitution. But it is said that the very name of Tarquinius was so intolerable to the people that he was forced to resign the consulship, and that he and all his house were driven out of Rome. [Footnote: The truth is, he was related to the exiled royal family, and the people were distrustful of his loyalty to the republic.] Another consul, Publius Valerius, was chosen in his stead.

SECESSION OF THE PLEBEIANS.

FIRST SECESSION OF THE PLEBEIANS (494 B.C.).—Taking advantage of the disorders that followed the political revolution, the Latin towns which had been forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome rose in revolt, and the result was that almost all the conquests that had been made under the kings were lost. For a long time the little republic had to struggle hard for bare existence.



Troubles without brought troubles within. The poor plebeians, during this period of disorder and war, fell in debt to the wealthy class,—for the Roman soldier went to war at his own charge, equipping and feeding himself,—and payment was exacted with heartless severity. A debtor became the absolute property of his creditor, who might sell him as a slave to pay the debt, and in some cases even put him to death. All this was intolerable. The plebeians determined to secede from Rome and build a new city for themselves on a neighboring eminence, called afterwards the Sacred Hill. They marched away in a body from Rome to the chosen spot, and began making preparations for erecting new homes (494 B.C.).

THE COVENANT AND THE TRIBUNES.—The patricians saw clearly that such a division must prove ruinous to the state, and that the plebeians must be persuaded to give up their enterprise and come back to Rome. The consul Valerius was sent to treat with the insurgents. The plebeians were at first obstinate, but at last were persuaded to yield to the entreaties of the embassy to return, being won to this mind, so it is said, by one of the wise senators, Menenius, who made use of the well-known fable of the Body and the Members.

The following covenant was entered into, and bound by the most solemn oaths and vows before the gods: The debts of the poor plebeians were to be cancelled and those held in slavery set free; and two magistrates (the number was soon increased to ten), called tribunes, whose duty it should be to watch over the plebeians, and protect them against the injustice, harshness, and partiality of the patrician magistrates, were to be chosen from the commons. The persons of these officers were made sacred. Any one interrupting a tribune in the discharge of his duties, or doing him any violence, was declared an outlaw, whom any one might kill. That the tribunes might be always easily found, they were not allowed to go more than one mile beyond the city walls. Their houses were to be open night as well as day, that any plebeian unjustly dealt with might flee thither for protection and refuge.

We cannot overestimate the importance of the change effected in the Roman constitution by the creation of this office of the tribunate. Under the protection and leadership of the tribunes, who were themselves protected by oaths of inviolable sanctity, the plebeians carried on a struggle for a share in the offices and dignities of the state which never ceased until the Roman government, as yet only republican in name, became in fact a real democracy, in which patrician and plebeian shared equally in all emoluments and privileges.

CORIOLANUS.—The tradition of Coriolanus illustrates in what manner the tribunes cared for the rights of the common people and protected them from the oppression of the nobles. During a severe famine at Rome, Gelon, the King of Syracuse, sent large quantities of grain to the capital for distribution among the suffering poor. A certain patrician, Coriolanus by name, made a proposal that none of the grain should be given to the plebeians save on condition that they give up their tribunes. These officials straightway summoned him before the plebeian assembly, [Footnote: This was the Concilium Tributum Plebis, an assembly which came into existence about this time. It was made up wholly of plebeians, and was presided over by the tribunes. Later, there came into existence another tribal assembly, which was composed of patricians and plebeians, and presided over by consuls or praetors. Some authorities are inclined to regard these two assemblies as one and the same body; but others, among whom is Mommsen, with probably better reason, look upon them as two distinct organizations.] on the charge of having broken the solemn covenant of the Sacred Mount, and so bitter was the feeling against him that he was obliged to flee from Rome.

He now allied himself with the Volscians, enemies of Rome, and even led their armies against his native city. An embassy from the Senate was sent to him, to sue for peace. But the spirit of Coriolanus was bitter and revengeful, and he would listen to none of their proposals. Nothing availed to move him until his mother, at the head of a train of Roman matrons, came to his tent, and with tears pleaded with him to spare the city. Her entreaties and the "soft prayers" of his own wife and children prevailed, and with the words "Mother, thou hast saved Rome, but lost thy son," he led away the Volscian army.

CINCINNATUS MADE DICTATOR.—The enemies of Rome, taking advantage of the dissensions of the nobles and commons, pressed upon the frontiers of the republic on all sides. In 458 B.C., the AEquians, while one of the consuls was away fighting the Sabines, defeated the forces of the other, and shut them up in a narrow valley, whence escape seemed impossible. There was great terror in Rome when news of the situation of the army was brought to the city.

The Senate immediately appointed Cincinnatus, a noble patrician, dictator. The ambassadors that carried to him the message from the Senate found him upon his little farm near the Tiber, at work behind the plough. Accepting the office at once, he hastily gathered an army, marched to the relief of the consul, captured the entire army of the AEquians, and sent them beneath the yoke. [Footnote: This was formed of two spears thrust firmly into the ground and crossed a few feet from the earth by a third. Prisoners of war were forced to pass beneath this yoke as a symbol of submission.] Cincinnatus then led his army back to Rome in triumph, laid down his office, and sought again the retirement of his farm.

THE DECEMVIRS AND THE TABLES OF LAWS.—Written laws are always a great safeguard against oppression. Until what shall constitute a crime and what shall be its penalty are clearly written down and well known and understood by all, judges may render unfair decisions, or inflict unjust punishment, and yet run little risk—unless they go altogether too far—of being called to an account; for no one but themselves knows what the law or the penalty really is. Hence in all struggles of the people against the tyranny of the ruling class, the demand for written laws is one of the first measures taken by the people for the protection of their persons and property. Thus we have seen the people of Athens, early in their struggle with the nobles, demanding and obtaining a code of written laws (see p. 119). The same thing now took place at Rome. The plebeians demanded that a code of laws be drawn up, in accordance with which the consuls, who exercised judicial powers, should render their decisions. The patricians offered a stubborn resistance to their wishes, but finally were forced to yield to the popular clamor.

A commission was sent to the Greek cities of Southern Italy and to Athens to study the Grecian laws and customs. Upon the return of this embassy, a commission of ten magistrates, who were known as decemvirs, was appointed to frame a code of laws (451 B.C.). These officers, while engaged in this work, were also to administer the entire government, and so were invested with the supreme power of the state. The patricians gave up their consuls and the plebeians their tribunes. At the end of the first year, the task of the board was quite far from being finished, so a new decemvirate was elected to complete the work. Appius Claudius was the only member of the old board that was returned to the new.

The code was soon finished, and the laws were written on twelve tablets of brass, which were fastened to the rostrum, or orator's platform in the Forum, where they might be seen and read by all. These "Laws of the Twelve Tables" were to Roman jurisprudence what the good laws of Solon (see p. 120) were to the Athenian constitution. They formed the basis of all new legislation for many centuries, and constituted a part of the education of the Roman youth—every school-boy being required to learn them by heart.

MISRULE AND OVERTHROW OF THE DECEMVIRS.—The first decemvirs used the great power lodged in their hands with justice and prudence; but the second board, under the leadership of Appius Claudius, instituted a most infamous and tyrannical rule. The result was a second secession of the plebeians to the Sacred Hill. This procedure, which once before had proved so effectual in securing justice to the oppressed, had a similar issue now. The situation was so critical that the decemvirs were forced to resign. The consulate and the tribunate were restored. Eight of the decemvirs were forced to go into exile; Appius Claudius and one other, having been imprisoned, committed suicide.

CONSULAR, OR MILITARY TRIBUNES.—The overthrow of the decemvirate was followed by a long struggle between the nobles and the commons, which was an effort on the part of the latter to gain admission to the consulship; for up to this time only a patrician could hold that office. The contention resulted in a compromise. It was agreed that, in place of the two consuls, the people might elect from either order magistrates, who should be known as "military tribunes with consular powers." These officers, whose numbers varied, differed from consuls more in name than in functions or authority. In fact, the plebeians had gained the office, but not the name (444 B.C.).

THE CENSORS.—No sooner had the plebeians virtually secured admission to the consulship, than the jealous and exclusive patricians commenced scheming to rob them of the fruit of the victory they had gained. They effected this by taking from the consulate some of its most distinctive duties and powers, and conferring them upon two new patrician officers called censors. The functions of these magistrates were many and important. They took the census, and thus assigned to every man his position in the different classes of the citizens; and they could, for immorality or any improper conduct, not only degrade a man from his rank, but deprive him of his vote. It was their duty to watch the public morals and in case of necessity to administer wholesome advice. Thus we are told of their reproving the young Romans for wearing tunics with long sleeves— an Oriental and effeminate custom—and for neglecting to marry upon arriving at a proper age. From the name of these Roman officers comes our word censorious, meaning fault-finding.

The first censors were elected probably in the year 444 B.C.; about one hundred years afterwards, in 351 B.C., the plebeians secured the right of holding this office also.

SIEGE AND CAPTURE OF VEII.—We must now turn to notice the fortunes of Rome in war. Almost from the founding of the city, we find its warlike citizens carrying on a fierce contest with their powerful Etruscan neighbors on the north. Veii was one of the largest and richest of the cities of Etruria. Around this the war gathered. The Romans, like the Grecians at Troy, attacked its walls for ten years. The length of the siege, and the necessity of maintaining a force permanently in the field, led to the establishment of a paid standing army; for hitherto the soldier had not only equipped himself, but had served without pay. Thus was laid the basis of that military power which was destined to effect the conquest of the world, and then, in the hands of ambitious and favorite generals, to overthrow the republic itself.



The capture of Veii by the dictator Camillus (396 B.C.) was followed by that of many other Etruscan towns. Rome was enriched by their spoils, and became the centre of a large and lucrative trade. The frontiers of the republic were pushed out even beyond the utmost limits of the kingdom before its overthrow. All that was lost by the revolution had been now regained, and much besides had been won. At this moment there broke upon the city a storm from the north, which all but cut short the story we are narrating.

SACK OF ROME BY THE GAULS (390 B.C.).—We have already mentioned how, in very remote times, the tribes of Gaul crossed the Alps and established themselves in Northern Italy (see p. 223). While the Romans were conquering the towns of Etruria, these barbarian hordes were moving southward, and overrunning and devastating the countries of Central Italy.



News was brought to Rome that they were advancing upon that city. A Roman army met them on the banks of the river Allia, eleven miles from the capital. The Romans were driven in great panic from the field. It would be impossible to picture the consternation and despair that reigned at Rome when the fugitives brought to the city intelligence of the terrible disaster. It was never forgotten, and the day of the battle of Allia was ever after a black day in the Roman calendar. The sacred vessels of the temples were buried; the eternal fires of Vesta were hurriedly borne by their virgin keepers to a place of safety in Etruria; and a large part of the population fled in dismay across the Tiber. No attempt was made to defend any portion of the city save the citadel. This stronghold was kept by a little garrison, under the command of the hero Marius Manlius. A tradition tells how, when the barbarians, under cover of the darkness of night, had climbed the steep rock and had almost effected an entrance to the citadel, the defenders were awakened by the cackling of some geese, which the piety of the famishing soldiers had spared, because these birds were sacred to Juno.

News was now brought the Gauls that the Venetians were overrunning their possessions in Northern Italy. This led them to open negotiations with the Romans. For one thousand pounds of gold, according to the historian Livy, the Gauls agreed to retire from the city. As the story runs, while the gold was being weighed out in the Forum, the Romans complained that the weights were false, when Brennus, the Gallic leader, threw his sword also into the scales, exclaiming, "Vae, victis!" "Woe to the vanquished." Just at this moment, so the tale continues, Camillus, a brave patrician general, appeared upon the scene with a Roman army that had been gathered from the fugitives; and, as he scattered the barbarians with heavy blows, he exclaimed, "Rome is ransomed with steel and not with gold." According to one account Brennus himself was taken prisoner; but another tradition says that he escaped, carrying with him not only the ransom, but a vast booty besides.

THE REBUILDING OF ROME.—When the fugitives returned to Rome after the withdrawal of the Gauls, they found the city a heap of ruins. Some of the poorer classes, shrinking from the labor of rebuilding their old homes, proposed to abandon the site and make Veii their new capital. But love for the old spot at last prevailed over all the persuasions of indolence, and the people, with admirable courage, set themselves to the task of rebuilding their homes. It was a repetition of the scene at Athens after the retreat of the Persians (see p. 136). The city was speedily restored, and was soon enjoying her old position of supremacy among the surrounding states. There were some things, however, which even Roman resolution and perseverance could not restore. These were the ancient records and documents, through whose irreparable loss the early history of Rome is involved in great obscurity and uncertainty.

TREASON AND DEATH OF MANLIUS.—The ravages of the Gauls left the poor plebeians in a most pitiable condition. In order to rebuild their dwellings and restock their farms, they were obliged to borrow money of the rich patricians, and consequently soon began again to experience the insult and oppression that were ever incident to the condition of the debtor class at Rome.

The patrician Manlius, the hero of the brave defence of the Capitol, now came forward as the champion of the plebeians. He sold the larger part of his estates, and devoted the proceeds to the relief of the debtor class. It seems evident that in thus undertaking the cause of the commons he had personal aims and ambitions. The patricians determined to crush him. He was finally brought to trial before the popular assembly, on the charge of conspiring to restore the office of king. From the Forum, where the people were gathered, the Capitol, which Manlius had so bravely defended against the barbarians, was in full sight. Pointing to the temples he had saved, he appealed to the gods and to the gratitude of the Roman people. The people responded to the appeal in a way altogether natural. They refused to condemn him. But brought to trial a second time, and now in a grove whence the citadel could not be seen, he was sentenced to death, and was thrown from the Tarpeian Rock. [Footnote: The Tarpeian Rock was the name given to the cliff which the Capitoline Hill formed on the side towards the Tiber (or towards the Palatine, according to some). It received its name from Tarpeia, daughter of one of the legendary keepers of the citadel. State criminals were frequently executed by being thrown from this rock.] This event occurred 384 B.C.

PLEBEIANS ADMITTED TO THE CONSULSHIP.—For nearly half a century after the death of Manlius the most important events in the history of Rome centre about the struggle of the plebeians, for admission to those offices of the government whence the jealousy of the patricians still excluded them. The Licinian laws, so called from one of their proposers, the tribune C. Licinius, besides relieving the poor of usurious interest, and effecting a more just division of the public lands, also provided that consuls should be chosen yearly, as at first (see p. 238), and that one of the consuls should be a plebeian. This last provision opened to any one of the plebeian class the highest office in the state. The nobles, when they saw that it would be impossible to resist the popular demand, had recourse to the old device. They effected a compromise, whereby the judicial powers of the consuls were taken from them and conferred upon a new magistrate, who bore the name of praetor. Only patricians, of course, were to be eligible to this new office. They then permitted the Licinian laws to pass (367 B.C.).

During the latter half of the fourth century B.C. (between the years 356- 300) the plebeians gained admittance to the dictatorship, the censorship, the praetorship, and to the College of Augurs and the College of Pontiffs. They had been admitted to the College of Priests having charge of the Sibylline books, at the time of the passing of the Licinian laws. With plebeians in all these positions, the rights of the lower order were fairly secured against oppressive and partisan decisions on the part of the magistrates, and against party fraud in the taking of the auspices and in the regulation of the calendar. There was now political equality between the nobility and the commonalty.

WARS FOR THE MASTERY OF ITALY.

THE FIRST SAMNITE WAR (343-341 B.C.).—The union of the two orders in the state allowed the Romans now to employ their undivided strength in subjugating the different states of the peninsula. The most formidable competitors of the Romans for supremacy in Italy were the Samnites, rough and warlike mountaineers who held the Apennines to the east of Latium. They were worthy rivals of the "children of Mars." The successive struggles between these martial races are known as the First, Second, and Third Samnite wars. They extended over a period of half a century, and in their course involved almost all the states of Italy.

Of the first of this series of wars we know very little, although Livy wrote a long, but unfortunately very unreliable, narration of it. In the midst of the struggle, Rome was confronted by a dangerous revolt of her Latin allies, and, leaving the war unfinished, turned her forces upon the insurgents.

REVOLT OF THE LATIN CITIES (340-338 B.C.).—The strife between the Romans and their Latin allies was simply the old contest within the walls of the capital between the patricians and the plebeians transferred to a larger arena. As the nobles had oppressed the commons, so now both these orders united in the oppression of the Latins—the plebeians in their bettered circumstances forgetting the lessons of adversity. The Latin allies demanded a share in the government, and that the lands acquired by conquest should be distributed among them as well as among Roman citizens. The Romans refused. All Latium rose in revolt against the injustice and tyranny of the oppressor.

After about three years' hard fighting, the rebellion was subdued. The Latin League was now broken up. Some of the towns retained their independence (Tibur, Praeneste, and Cora); some received full Roman citizenship (Aricia, Lanuvium, and Nomentum); while others received only the private rights of Roman citizens, the right of suffrage being withheld.

SECOND AND THIRD SAMNITE WARS (326-290 B.C.).—In a few years after the close of the Latin contest, the Romans were at war again with their old rivals, the Samnites. Notwithstanding the latter were thoroughly defeated in this second contest, still it was not long before they were again in arms and engaged in their third struggle with Rome. This time they had formed a powerful coalition which embraced the Etruscans, the Umbrians, the Gauls, and other nations.

Roman courage rose with the danger. The united armies of the league met with a most disastrous defeat (at Sentinum, 295 B.C.), and the power of the coalition was broken. One after another the states that had joined the alliance were chastised, and the Samnites were forced to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome. A few years later, almost all of the Greek cities of Southern Italy, save Tarentum, also came under the growing power of the imperial city.

WAR WITH PYRRHUS (282-272 B.C.).—Tarentum was one of the most noted of the Hellenic cities of Magna Graecia. It was a seaport on the Calabrian coast, and had grown opulent through the extended trade of its merchants. The capture of some Roman vessels, and an insult offered to an envoy of the republic by the Tarentines, led to a declaration of war against them by the Roman Senate. The Tarentines turned to Greece for aid. Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, a cousin of Alexander the Great, who had an ambition to build up such an empire in the West as his renowned kinsman had established in the East, responded to their entreaties, and crossed over into Italy with a small army of Greek mercenaries and twenty war- elephants. He organized and drilled the effeminate Tarentines, and soon felt prepared to face the Romans.

The hostile armies met at Heraclea (280 B.C.). It is said that when Pyrrhus, who had underestimated his foe, observed the skill which the Romans evinced in forming their line of battle, he exclaimed, in admiration, "In war, at least, these men are not barbarians." The battle was won for Pyrrhus by his war-elephants, the sight of which, being new to the Romans, caused them to flee from the field in dismay. But Pyrrhus had lost thousands of his bravest troops. Victories gained by such losses in a country where he could not recruit his army, he saw clearly, meant final defeat. As he looked over the battle-field, he is said to have turned to his companions and remarked, "Another such victory, and I must return to Epirus alone." He noticed also, and not without appreciating its significance, that the wounds of the Roman soldiers killed in the action were all in front. "Had I such soldiers," said he, "I should soon be master of the world."

The prudence of the victorious Pyrrhus led him to send to the Romans an embassy with proposals of peace. When the Senate hesitated, its resolution was fixed by the eloquence of the aged Appius: "Rome," exclaimed he, "shall never treat with a victorious foe." The ambassadors were obliged to return to Pyrrhus unsuccessful in their mission.

Pyrrhus, according to the Roman story-tellers, who most lavishly embellished this chapter of their history, was not more successful in attempts at bribery than in the arts of negotiation. Upon his attempting by large offers of gold to win Fabricius, who had been intrusted by the Senate with an important embassy, the sturdy old Roman replied, "Poverty, with an honest name, is more to be desired than wealth."

After a second victory, as disastrous as his first, Pyrrhus crossed over into Sicily, to aid the Grecians there in their struggle with the Carthaginians. At first he was everywhere successful; but finally fortune turned against him, and he was glad to escape from the island. Recrossing the straits into Italy, he once more engaged the Romans, but at the battle of Beneventum suffered a disastrous and final defeat at the hands of the consul Curius Dentatus (274 B.C.). Leaving a sufficient force to garrison Tarentum, the baffled and disappointed king set sail for Epirus. He had scarcely embarked before Tarentum surrendered to the Romans (272 B.C.). This ended the struggles for the mastery of Italy. Rome was now mistress of all the peninsula south of the Arnus and the Rubicon. It was now her care to consolidate these possessions, and to fasten her hold upon them, by means of a perfect network of colonies and military roads. [Footnote: "Colonies were not all of the same character. They must be distinguished into two classes—the colonies of Roman citizens and the Latin colonies. The colonies of Roman citizens consisted usually of three hundred men of approved military experience, who went forth with their families to occupy conquered cities of no great magnitude, but which were important as military positions, being usually on the sea-coast. These three hundred families formed a sort of patrician caste, while the old inhabitants sank into the condition formerly occupied by the plebeians at Rome. The heads of these families retained all their rights as Roman citizens, and might repair to Rome to vote in the popular assemblies."—Liddell's History of Rome.

The Latin colonies numbered about thirty at the time of the Second Punic War. A few of these were colonies that had been founded by the old Latin Confederacy; but the most were towns that had been established by Rome subsequent to the dissolution of the League (see p. 244). The term Latin was applied to these later colonies of purely Roman origin, for the reason that they enjoyed the same rights as the Latin towns that had retained their independence. Thus the inhabitants of a Latin colony possessed some of the most valuable of the private rights of Roman citizens, but they had no political rights at the capital.]



CHAPTER XXIV.

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR. (264-241 B.C.)

CARTHAGE AND THE CARTHAGINIAN EMPIRE.—Foremost among the cities founded by the Phoenicians upon the different shores of the Mediterranean was Carthage, upon the northern coast of Africa. The city is thought to have had its beginnings in a small trading-post, established late in the ninth century B.C., about one hundred years before the founding of Rome. Carthage was simply another Tyre. She was mistress and queen of the Western Mediterranean. At the period we have now reached, she held sway, through peaceful colonization or by force of arms, over all the northern coast of Africa from the Greater Syrtis to the Pillars of Hercules, and possessed the larger part of Sicily, as well as Sardinia, Corsica, the Balearic Isles, Southern Spain, and scores of little islands scattered here and there in the neighboring seas. With all its shores dotted with her colonies and fortresses, and swept in every direction by the Carthaginian war-galleys, the Western Mediterranean had become a "Phoenician lake," in which, as the Carthaginians boasted, no one dared wash his hands without their permission.

CARTHAGINIAN GOVERNMENT AND RELIGION.—The government of Carthage, like that of Rome, was republican in form. Corresponding to the Roman consuls, two magistrates, called Suffetes, stood at the head of the state. The Senate was composed of the heads of the leading families; its duties and powers were very like those of the Roman Senate. So well-balanced was the constitution, and so prudent was its administration, that six hundred years of Carthaginian history exhibited not a single revolution.

The religion of the Carthaginians was the old Canaanitish worship of Baal, or the Sun. To Moloch,—another name for the fire-god,—"who rejoiced in human victims and in parents' tears," they offered human sacrifices.

ROME AND CARTHAGE COMPARED.—These two great republics, which for more than five centuries had been slowly extending their limits and maturing their powers upon the opposite shores of the Mediterranean, were now about to begin one of the most memorable struggles of all antiquity—a duel that was to last, with every vicissitude of fortune, for over one hundred years.

As was the case in the contest between Athens and Sparta, so now the two rival cities, with their allies and dependencies, were very nearly matched in strength and resources. The Romans, it is true, were almost destitute of a navy; while the Carthaginians had the largest and most splendidly equipped fleet that ever patrolled the waters of the Mediterranean. But although the Carthaginians were superior to the Romans in naval warfare, they were greatly their inferiors in land encounters. The Carthaginian territory, moreover, was widely scattered, embracing extended coasts and isolated islands; while the Roman possessions were compact, and confined to a single and easily defended peninsula. Again, the Carthaginian armies were formed chiefly of mercenaries, while those of Rome were recruited very largely from the ranks of the Roman people. And then the subject states of Carthage were mostly of another race, language, and religion from their Phoenician conquerors, and were ready, upon the first disaster to the ruling city, to drop away from their allegiance; while the Latin allies and Italian dependencies of Rome were close kindred to her in race and religion, and so, through natural impulse, for the most part remained loyal to her during even the darkest periods of her struggle with her rival.

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR.—Lying between Italy and the coast of Africa is the large island of Sicily. It is in easy sight of the former, and its southernmost point is only ninety miles from the latter. At the commencement of the First Punic War, the Carthaginians held possession of all the island save a strip of the eastern coast, which was under the sway of the Greek city of Syracuse. The Greeks and Carthaginians had carried on an almost uninterrupted struggle through two centuries for the control of the island. The Romans had not yet set foot upon it. But it was destined to become the scene of the most terrible encounters between the armaments of the two rivals. Pyrrhus had foreseen it all. As he withdrew from the island, he said, "What a fine battlefield we are leaving for the Romans and Carthaginians."

In the year 264 B.C., on a flimsy pretext of giving protection to some friends, the Romans crossed over to the island. That act committed them to a career of foreign conquest destined to continue till their arms had made the circuit of the Mediterranean.

The Syracusans and Carthaginians, old enemies and rivals though they had been, joined their forces against the insolent newcomers. The allies were completely defeated in the first battle, and the Roman army obtained a sure foothold upon the island.

In the following year both consuls were placed at the head of formidable armies for the conquest of Sicily. A large portion of the island was quickly overrun, arid many of the cities threw off their allegiance to Syracuse and Carthage, and became allies of Rome. Hiero, king of Syracuse, seeing that he was upon the losing side, deserted the cause of the Carthaginians, and formed an alliance with the Romans, and ever after remained their firm friend.

THE ROMANS GAIN THEIR FIRST NAVAL VICTORY (260 B.C.).—Their experience during the past campaigns had shown the Romans that if they were to cope successfully with the Carthaginians, they must be able to meet them upon the sea as well as upon the land. So they determined to build a fleet. A Carthaginian galley that had been wrecked upon the shores of Italy, served as a pattern. It is affirmed that, within the almost incredibly short space of sixty days, a growing forest was converted into a fleet of one hundred and twenty war galleys.

The consul C. Duillius was entrusted with the command of the fleet. He met the Carthaginian squadron near the city and promontory of Mylae, on the northern coast of Sicily. Now, distrusting their ability to match the skill of their enemy in naval tactics, the Romans had provided each of their vessels with a drawbridge. As soon as a Carthaginian ship came near enough to a Roman vessel, this gangway was allowed to fall upon the approaching galley; and the Roman soldiers, rushing along the bridge, were soon engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with their enemies, in which species of encounter the former were unequalled. The result was a complete victory for the Romans.