In the dark ages, when a ferocious faith had destroyed the remnants of Latin learning and culture, together with the last rites of the old religion, the people invented legend as a substitute for the folklore of all the little gods condemned by the Church; so that the fairy tale is in all Europe the link between Christianity and paganism, and to the weakness of vanquished Rome her departed empire seemed only explicable as the result of magic. The Capitol, in the imagination of such tales, became a tower of wizards. High above all, a golden sphere reflected the sun's rays far out across the distant sea by day, and at night a huge lamp took its place as a beacon for the sailors of the Mediterranean, even to Spain and Africa. In the tower, too, was preserved the mystic mirror of the world, which instantly reflected all that passed in the empire, even to its furthest limits. Below the towers, also, and surmounting the golden palace, there were as many statues as Rome had provinces, and each statue wore a bell at its neck, that rang of itself in warning whenever there was trouble in the part of the world to which it belonged, while the figure itself turned on its base to look in the direction of the danger. Such tales Irving tells of the Alhambra, not more wonderful than those believed of Rome, and far less numerous.
There were stories of hidden treasure, too, without end. For, in those days of plundering, men laid their hands on what they saw, and hid what they took as best they might; and later, when the men of the Middle Age and of the Renascence believed that Rome had been destroyed by the Goths, they told strange stories of Gothmen who appeared suddenly in disguise from the north, bringing with them ancient parchments in which were preserved sure instructions for unearthing the gold hastily hidden by their ancestors, because there had been too much of it to carry away. Even in our own time such things have been done. In the latter days of the reign of Pius the Ninth, some one discovered an old book or manuscript, wherein it was pointed out that a vast treasure lay buried on the northward side of the Colosseum within a few feet of the walls, and it was told that if any man would dig there he should find, as he dug deeper, certain signs, fragments of statues, and hewn tablets, and a spring of water. So the Pope gave his permission, and the work began. Every one who lived in Rome thirty years ago can remember it, and the excited curiosity of the whole city while the digging went on. And, strange to say, though the earth had evidently not been disturbed for centuries, each object was found in succession, exactly as described, to a great depth; but not the treasure, though the well was sunk down to the primeval soil. It was all filled in again, and the mystery has never been solved. Yet the mere fact that everything was found except the gold, lends some possibility to the other stories of hidden wealth, told and repeated from generation to generation.
The legend of the Capitol is too vast, too varied, too full of tremendous contrasts to be briefly told or carelessly sketched. Archæologists have reconstructed it on paper, scholars have written out its history, poets have said great things of it; yet if one goes up the steps today and stands by the bronze statue in the middle of the square, seeing nothing but a paved space enclosed on three sides by palaces of the late Renascence, it is utterly impossible to call up the past. Perhaps no point of ancient Rome seems less Roman and less individual than that spot where Rienzi stood, silent and terrified, for a whole hour before the old stone lion, waiting for the curious, pitiless rabble to kill him. The big buildings shut out history, hide the Forum, the Gemonian steps, and the Tarpeian rock, and in the very inmost centre of the old city's heart they surround a man with the artificialities of an uninteresting architecture. For though Michelangelo planned the reconstruction he did not live to see his designs carried out, and they fell into the hands of little men who tried to improve upon what they could not understand, and ruined it.
The truth is that half a dozen capitols have been built on the hill, destroyed, forgotten, and replaced, each one in turn, during successive ages. It is said that certain Indian jugglers allow themselves to be buried alive in a state of trance, and are taken from the tomb after many months not dead; and it is said that the body, before it is brought to life again, is quite cold, as though the man were dead, excepting that there is a very little warmth just where the back of the skull joins the neck. Yet there is enough left to reanimate the whole being in a little time, so that life goes on as before. So in Rome's darkest and most dead days, the Capitol has always held within it a spark of vitality, ready to break out with little warning and violent effect.
THE CAPITOL
For the Capitol, not yet the Capitol, but already the sacred fortress of Rome, was made strong in the days of Romulus, and it was in his time, when he and his men had carried off the Sabine girls and were at war with their fathers and brothers, that Tarpeia came down the narrow path, her earthen jar balanced on her graceful head, to fetch spring water for a household sacrifice. Her father kept the castle. She came down, a straight brown girl with eager eyes and red lips, clad in the grey woollen tunic that left her strong round arms bare to the shoulder. Often she had seen the golden bracelets which the Sabine men wore on their left wrists, and some of them had a jewel or two set in the gold; but the Roman men wore none, and the Roman women had none to wear, and Tarpeia's eyes were eager. Because she came to get water for holy things she was safe, and she went down to the spring, and there was Tatius, of the Sabines, drinking. When he saw how her eyes were gold-struck by his bracelet, he asked her if she should like to wear it, and the blood came to her brown face, as she looked back quickly to the castle where her father was. 'If you Sabines will give me what you wear on your left arms,' she said—for she did not know the name of gold—'you shall have the fortress tonight, for I will open the gate for you.' The Sabine looked at her, and then he smiled quickly, and promised for himself and all his companions. So that night they went up stealthily, for there was no moon, and the gate was open, and Tarpeia was standing there. Tatius could see her greedy eyes in the starlight; but instead of his bracelet, he took his shield from his left arm and struck her down with it for a betrayer, and all the Sabine men threw their shields upon her as they passed. So she died, but her name remains to the rock, to this day.
It was long before the temple planned by the first Tarquin was solemnly dedicated by the first consuls of the Republic, and the earthen image of Jupiter, splendidly dressed and painted red, was set up between Juno and Minerva. Many hundred years later, in the terrible times of Marius and Sylla, the ancient sanctuary took fire and was burned, and Sylla rebuilt it. That temple was destroyed also, and another, built by Vespasian, was burned too, and from the last building Genseric stole the gilt bronze tiles in the year 455, when Christianity was the fact and Jupiter the myth, one and twenty years before the final end of Rome's empire; and the last of what remained was perhaps burned by Robert Guiscard after serving as a fortress for the enemies of Gregory the Seventh.
