The greatest story in the world, period 1 (of 3)

by Horace G. Hutchinson

CHAPTER XIII
ROME AT HOME AND IN THE EAST

As we have seen, there was a moment in the Second Punic War, just after the Battle of Cannæ, when it seems marvellous that Rome escaped destruction. What is almost more marvellous still is that it was just during the same time that she was fighting so hard, and in the end so victoriously, against the Carthaginians that she was able to fight and to extend her power towards the East, over Macedon, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. It is an extent of conquest which must seem most marvellous of all when we consider how quickly it was all done. It is only a few pages back that we have seen her coming into the great story at all, as an actor of any importance, and now she begins to take such a masterful part in it that all the rest become of little account when compared with her.

How did that happen? We may be very sure that it could never have happened unless those Romans had been very uncommon people, unless they had possessed great courage and determination, and unless they had devised a very excellent form of government, both for themselves and also for the nations over whom their armies and their fleet got the mastery. The fighting forces had to be of splendid qualities in order to win that mastery, but the government had to be wonderfully wise in order to keep it.

It is a point that you should notice particularly, that all through the story of Rome, even from those days when the story is really so little known that you need not believe much more of it than you like—from the days of Romulus and Remus and of the mother-wolf—we are told that Romulus himself appointed a body of men called the Senate to manage the affairs of the city. What I want you to notice is that the name Senate comes from the Latin word "senex," meaning an old man. This governing assembly was an assembly of the old men, and they were thought likely to be the best rulers because they had lived long in the world and had been learning the lessons that it had to teach them longer than younger men.

The Senate

All through their story, down to a later date than that to which we have followed it, they paid very much reverence to old age. The power of the father was very great over his children, and the authority of the mother was looked up to only a little less than his. The children were thus brought up in the habit of obedience to their parents, and there is not the least doubt that this habit must have helped them to be obedient to military discipline when they had to go out and fight.

Even after their fathers had died they had a great reverence for their memory, and this reverence made them try to be worthy sons of their fathers and to rival them in fine actions, in showing courage and so on. And this same feeling made them very respectful of all the customs that their fathers had followed. The custom of their ancestors was the custom that they thought they ought to follow. Religion, in the sense of expecting a reward or punishment from the gods, whether for good or for bad deeds, does not seem to have counted for much in their lives, but this idea, of living in a manner of which their ancestors would have approved, to some extent took the place of religion. It made fine men and women of them, ready to fight their best for the state and to die for it.

I do not mean that the Senate was chosen by Romulus really of the hundred oldest men in his city—a hundred is said to have been its number at first, but it increased to many times a hundred as time went on—but it would have been made up of men of age and experience chosen from the most important citizens. Thus it continued right on to the time when the Tarquins, the Etruscan kings, were driven out; and after they were driven out the Senators chose, each year, two of their own number to be the rulers of the state for that year. As these rulers, called consuls, ruled for a year only, it is probable that the Senate knew pretty well what they were likely to do during that year. The Senate would not elect consuls who would go against the will of the Senate. So probably it was the Senate that really had the power.