The Childhood of Rome

by Louise Lamprey

In a society where people have to depend upon each other in this way, there is no room for a person who will not fit in, and who expects to be taken care of without doing his share of the work. Here and there, in one village and another, a boy grew up who shirked his work, took more good things than his share and made trouble generally. Sometimes he got over it as he grew older, but sometimes he did not; and if he could not live peaceably at home, he had to be driven out to get his living where he could. There was no place in a village ruled by the gods for any one who did not respect and obey the laws.

These outlaws did not starve, for they could get a kind of living by fishing and hunting, and they stole from the ignorant country people and from travelers. They were known after awhile as banditti, the banished men, the men who had been driven out of civilized society. Some of them left their own country altogether and went down to the seashore, or into the strange land across the yellow river. The people in the villages did not know much about them. They were very busy with their own concerns.

There were two great festivals in the year, to [pg 44]do honor to the gods of the land. One was in the shortest days of the year, early in winter. This was the feast of Saturn. He was the god who filled the storehouses, who sent water to drench the earth and feed the crops, who looked after the silent world of the roots and underground growing things generally. When his feast was held, the harvest was all in, the wine was made, and it was time to choose the animals to be killed for food and not kept through the winter. For four or five days there was a general jollification. No work was done except what was necessary. There was feasting and singing and story telling, and some of the wilder youths usually dressed up in fantastic costumes like earth spirits, and wound up the holiday with dancing and songs and shouting and all sorts of antics. Sometimes a clever singer made new songs to the old tunes, with jokes and puns about well-known people of the place. These songs were always done in a certain style, and this style of verse came to be known later as Saturnian poetry, and the sly personal fun in them was called satirical. It was part of the joke that the singer should keep a perfectly grave face.

The people gathered in the public square.

The other festival came in the spring, when the grass was green and the leaves were fresh and bright, and flowers were wreathing shrubs [pg 47]and hillsides like dropped garlands. It was in honor of the beautiful open-handed goddess called Dea Dia, or sometimes Maia. One spring morning the children of the village could hear the blowing of the horn in the public square, and then they all understood that the priest was about to give out the announcement of the festival of Maia. They crowded up to hear, even more excited and joyous than the older people.

There were no books or written records; not even a written language was known to the villagers. The priest of the village, who kept account of the days when ceremonies were due, and the changes of the moon, gave out the news, each month, of the things which were to happen. The months were not all the same length, and no two villages had just the same calendar. The year was counted from the founding of the city, whenever that was, and naturally it was not the same in different places. The people gathered in the public square, waiting to hear what Emilius the priest had to tell them.

He was a tall and noble-looking man, generally beloved because he always tried to deal justly and kindly with his neighbors, and was so wise that he usually succeeded. The person who paid him the deepest and most reverent attention was little Emilia, his daughter, who believed [pg 48]him to be the wisest and best of men. She stood with her mother in a little group directly in front of him, looking up at him with her deep, serious blue eyes, in happy pride.

Emilia was six and a half years old. This would be her first May festival, to remember, for she had been ill the year before when it came, and one’s memory is not very good before one is five years old. Her bright gold-brown hair curled a little and looked like waves of sunshine all over her graceful small head. It was tied with a white fillet to keep it out of her eyes, and in the fillet, like a great purple jewel, was thrust an anemone from a wreath her mother had been making. Her mother dressed her in the finest and softest of undyed wool, bleached white as snow. She wore a little tunic with a braided girdle, and over her shoulders a square of the same soft cloth as a mantle; it looked like the wings of a white bird as it shone in the morning sun. On her feet were sandals of kidskin, and around her neck was a necklace of red beads that had come from far away. A trader brought them from the place by the seashore where such things were made. From this necklace hung a round ball of hammered copper, made to open in two halves, and inside it was a little charm to keep off bad spirits. The charm was made [pg 49]of the same red stone and looked like the head of a little goat.

Emilia had never in her life known what it was to be afraid of any one, or to see any one’s eyes rest upon her unkindly. The world was very interesting to her. It was filled with wonderful and beautiful things, especially just now. Each day she saw some new flower or bird or plant or animal she had never seen before. Spring in those mountains was very lovely. It hardly seemed as if it could be the real world.