HOW MARS LOST A BATTLE
Terminus was the god of boundaries, and a kind of picnic was being held in his honor one day in the long-ago myth time on the edge of a little Roman town.
No one had ever really seen Terminus but every farmer who owned a few acres of land, and the men who governed the cities were quite sure as to how he looked. It was likely that he wore such garb as did Pan, they had decided, and carried instruments for measuring similar to those that a surveyor uses to-day. His chariot was loaded with large stones and finely chiselled posts for marking the limits of a man's farm, or that of a town. There were no fences in those days, but the gods had appointed Terminus to protect land holders and to safeguard citizens by keeping all boundaries sacred from invasion by an enemy.
No wonder the Terminalia, as they called this holiday, was a joyous time. All through the neighboring vineyards and fields and on the edge of the village stones had been placed to mark the boundaries, and there were stone pillars, also, having carved heads to make them beautiful. Everyone who came to the picnic brought an offering for the god Terminus, a wreath of bright roses, a garland of green laurel, or a basket of grapes and pomegranates which they placed on one of these boundary stones or posts. The law of the gods that prevented invasion was the greatest blessing these people had, for it made them free to till the earth and build homes and keep their hearth fires burning.
Suddenly the merrymaking was interrupted. The children who had been gathering wild flowers ran, crying, to their fathers and mothers, for the sky was darkened in an instant as if a hurricane was approaching. The young men who had been playing games and the maidens who had been dancing huddled together in frightened groups, for they saw between rifts in the clouds the tracks of dark chariot wheels making their swift way down to earth from the sky. And the older folk, who knew the meaning of the rumblings and dull roar and occasional darts of fire that parted the clouds, shuddered.
"See who stands in our midst in his black cloak, scattering hoar frost that blights the fields and freezes us!" they exclaimed. "It is Dread, the courier of Mars, the god of war, who is approaching in his chariot."
There came dreadful sounds soon that almost drowned the voices of the people, the crashing of swords and shields, and the cries of women and little children as a chariot plunged through their midst, its wheels dripping with blood. It was driven by two other attendants of war, Alarm and Terror, the face of one as dark as a thunder cloud, and the other with a countenance as pale as death.
"What shall we do; we are unarmed and will perish?" one man cried. And another answered him.
"Look to yourself and your own safety. Why did you leave your sword at home, and what care is it of mine that you have no means of protecting yourself?"