We dwell with some satisfaction on the introduction of the apparatus we have described; for the mere manifestation of a desire to note the progress of time is indicative of a wish to make an improved use of it. The application of the bottle to a wholesome purpose must also be a cheering symptom, when it is met with among those who had previously looked at the bottle as the means of killing time, rather than as an instrument for making its flight perceptible.
FOOTNOTES:
[62] A catapult was an instrument for throwing arrows to a considerable distance. The arrows were called Tormenta, not from the torment they inflicted, but from torqueo, to twist, because they were made of twisted hair, and perhaps the sight of them was calculated to give a turn to the enemy.
"The day shall come when Ilium's self shall fall,
With Priam and his strong-spear'd people all."—Iliad, vi. 446.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND.
WARS IN SPAIN. VIRIATHUS. DESTRUCTION OF NUMANTIA. THE SERVILE
WAR IN SICILY. APPROPRIATION OF PERGAMUS.
War had become so familiar to the Romans, that they never felt at home unless they were fighting abroad, and the sword was the only thing they took in hand with real earnestness. The intoxication of success, like other habits of intoxication, cannot be easily got rid of, and the Romans sought to indulge their thirst for conquest in a manner wholly at variance with sober judgment. Their design was to conquer Spain, and in the execution of this design they cruelly executed large numbers of the Lusitanians, who had laid down their arms, in consequence of a promise that if they quitted the field of battle, they should be allowed quiet possession of the fields of peaceful industry. On this assurance, they divided themselves into three parts, and were then—as we are gravely assured by the chroniclers—treacherously cut into several thousand pieces. One of the few that escaped was Viriathus, who combined the qualities of the wolf and the lamb, for he had turned a desperate robber, after having been employed as a gentle shepherd. Abandoning the honest hook of a pastoral life, he had adopted the more crooked ways of the common thief; and he seems to have gradually stolen upon the confidence of his countrymen, until they made him a general. He had passed his early days among the mountains, and was prepared for the ups and downs of life, which he afterwards experienced. His predatory properties had taught him how to attack, and his practice as a robber—which rendered it necessary for him frequently to keep out of the way—had familiarised him with the art of avoiding an enemy. He would appear suddenly from the thick of a thicket, and after doing considerable mischief, he would find concealment in the hollow of some rock which his companions would never split upon. Though he had commenced his career as a poor country clown, he had trained himself to perform feats of activity worthy of the most experienced Harlequin. Life, which is a drama in the case of most men, was, in his case, a series of scenes in a pantomime. He was here, there, and everywhere, when he was not expected, and he was immediately nowhere when his opponents were in pursuit of him. His policy was first to scatter, and then to destroy; to divide an enemy en gros, and cut it to pieces en detail. He had encountered Vitellius, the Roman Prætor, near a place called Tribula, where the latter got into the utmost tribulation by being led through briers and bushes into an ambush, where he lost half his army. The other half lost him, for he was killed by the sword of some one who did not know him, though, had he been known, the acquaintance would, most probably, have been cut in the same barbarous manner.