The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

Being now possessed of the Capitoline, the Sabines were in an improved position; and the Romans, having tried in vain to recover the citadel, saw that they must either give in or give battle. Determining on the latter course, Romulus selected the valley between the Palatine and the Capitoline, where a general engagement began; but the Romans seemed to have special engagements elsewhere, for they were all running away, when their leader, with great tact, vowed a Temple to Jupiter Stator—the flight-stayer. This gave to the action a decided re-action; for the Romans, being rallied upon their cowardice, by their chief, began, in their turn, to rally. The contest grew fierce on both sides, when suddenly the Sabine ladies, who were the primary cause of the quarrel, threw themselves into the midst; and, though female interference has rarely the effect of making peace, the women were, on this occasion, the cause of a cessation of hostility. It was agreed that the two nations should be henceforth united under the name of Romans and Quirites, each having a distinct king, a distinction which, had it continued, must in time have led to a difference. In a few years, however, Tatius was slain at a sacrifice which he had attended without the remotest idea of being made a victim himself; and Romulus, finding nothing said about a successor, thought it politic to hush the matter up without even avenging his late colleague. Romulus is said to have reigned for seven-and-thirty years; but when we enquire into the exact time and manner of his death we learn nothing, beyond the fact that nobody knows what became of him. According to the statement of one set of authorities, he was attending a review in the Palus Capræ--a marsh near the Tiber--when a total eclipse of the sun took place, and on the return of light, Romulus was nowhere visible. If this was really the case, it is probable that he got into a perilous swamp, where he felt a rapid sinking; and all his attendants being in the dark as to his situation were unable to extricate him from the marsh in which, according to some authorities, he went down to posterity. It must, however, be confessed, that when we look for the cause of the death of Romulus in this fatal swamp, we have but very poor ground to go upon. It is, nevertheless, some consolation to us for the mystery that overhangs the place and manner of his decease, that his existence is, after all, quite apocryphal; and we are not expected to go into an elaborate inquiry when, where, and how he died, until the fact of his having ever lived at all has been satisfactorily settled. Before we have quite done with Romulus, it will be proper to state how he is said to have divided the people under his sovereignty. He is alleged to have separated them into three tribes--the Latin word tribus will here suggest itself to the acute student--namely the Ramnes, called after the Romans; the Tities, after Titus Tatius; and the Luceres, who derived their appellation either from one Lucumo, an Etruscan ally of Romulus, or Lucerus a king of Ardea; or lucus a grove, because there was no grove, and hence we get lucerus a non luco, on the same principle as lucus a non lucendo: or lastly, according to Niebuhr's opinion, from a place called Lucer or Lucerum, which the Luceres might have inhabited. Each tribe was divided into ten curiæ,[6] every one of which had a chapel for the performance of sacred rites, and was presided over by a curio; and the reader must have little curiosity, indeed, if he does not ask whether our modern word curate may not be referred to this remote origin. The curiæ were subdivided into gentes, or clans, and each gens consisted of several families, called gentiles; so that a man of family and a member of the gentes, became somewhat synonymous. In time, however, the gentiles got very much mixed by unsuitable marriages; and hence there arose among those who could claim to belong to a gens, a distinction similar to that between the gentes, or gents, of our own day, and the gentiles, or gentlemen. Romulus is said to have selected his body-guard from the three tribes, taking one hundred from each, and as Celer, the Etruscan, was their captain, the guards got the name of Celeres—the fast men of the period.

In addition to the tribes, there existed in those early times a separate body, consisting of slaves, and a somewhat higher class, called by the name of clients.[7] The latter belonged to the common people, each of whom was permitted to choose from among the patricians a patronus, or patron, who could claim the life and fortune of his client in exchange for the cheaper commodities of protection and patronage. The patron gave his countenance and advice when asked, the client giving his labour and his money when wanted—an arrangement which proves that clients, from the remotest times to the present hour, were liable to pecuniary mulcts, even to the extent of the entire sacrifice of the whole of their subsistence, for the benefit of those who had the privilege of advising them.

The Senate—a term derived from the Latin word Senes, old men—formed the chief council of the state, and its first institution is usually referred to the reign of Romulus. Three members were nominated by each tribe, and three by each of the thirty curiæ, making ninety-nine in all, to which Romulus himself is said to have added one, for the purpose of making up round numbers, and at the same time nominating a sort of president over the assembly, who also had to take care of the city, in the absence of the sovereign. There is a difference of opinion as to whether one hundred new members were added to the Senate at the time of the union with the Sabines, for Dionysius says there were; but Livy says there were not; and we are disposed to attach credit to the former, for he was an extremely particular man, while Livy was frequently oblivious of caution in giving credence and currency to mere tradition.

Before closing this portion of the narrative of the History of Rome, it is necessary to warn the reader against believing too much of it. The current legends are, indeed, Legenda, or things to be read, because every body is in the habit of repeating them; but the student must guard himself against placing credence in the old remark, that "what everybody says must be true," for here is a direct instance of what everybody says being decidedly otherwise. The life and reign of Romulus, are to be taken not simply cum grano salis—with a grain of salt—but with an entire cellar of that condiment, which is so useful in correcting the evil consequences of swallowing too much of anything.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Lares of the Romans are supposed to have been the Manes or shades of their ancestors, and consisted of little waxen figures—such as we should put under shades made of glass—which adorned the halls of houses. The Lares were sewn up in stout dog's-skin, durability being consulted more than elegance. The Penates were a superior order of deities, who were kept in the innermost parts of the establishment, and took their name from penitus, within, which caused the portion of the house they occupied to be afterwards called the penetralia.

[2] Troy destroyed, B.C. 1184. Rome founded, B.C. 753.

[3] From this circumstance the fig was considered figurative of the foundation of the city, and held sacred in Rome for many centuries.

[4] The Pomœrium was not the actual wall, but a boundary line, held very sacred by the Romans. It consisted of nothing but the clod turned inwards by the furrow, and, it is probable, that the offensive act of Remus was not his leaping over the wall, but his hopping over the clod, which would, naturally, excite indignation against him as an unmannerly clod-hopper.

[5] The word Feretrius will strike the merest tyro as being derived from fero, to strike, and meaning to designate Jupiter in his character of Striker, or Smiter.