“Then, my son, remember this: the strong man is the man who can go without what he wants. If you cannot do without a thing you want, without being unhappy, you are like a boy who cannot walk without a crutch. If you can give up, without making a ridiculous ado about it, whatever it is not wise for you to have—if you can be happy in yourself and by yourself and stand on your own feet—then you are strong. In the end you will be strong enough to get what you really want. The gods hate a coward.”
Now in the long shadows of the fading day, as he heard the far sound of the peddler’s trumpet down the river, Marcus found a new meaning in his father’s words. He saw that those who wasted what they had earned by hard work on that rubbish would end by having nothing at all, because they were caught by the color and the shine of things made to tempt them. What was there in all that collection that was half as beautiful as a golden wheat field? What ornament that could be worn out or broken was equal to the land itself, with its treasure of fleecy flocks and sleek cattle, and roof trees under which happy [pg 183]children slept? The treasure of the world was theirs already, in this plain that was theirs to make fruitful and beautiful, and people with prosperous villages. That was the real estate; the other was a shadow and a sham.
XVI
THE GREAT DYKE
Although Toto did not find his first visit to the Seven Hills very profitable, he had much that was interesting to tell Mastarna when he returned. The two had a long talk in their strange rugged language with its few vowel sounds. Mastarna was most interested in the gods of these strangers. If he could find out what they did to bring good luck and ward off misfortune, he could have charms and lucky stones made to sell to them. If he knew what their gods were like, he could have images of these carved in wood or molded in clay or cast in metal. But Toto could tell him very little about these questions. The soldiers at the camp had no altars and no regular worship at all, and they moved from place to place and did not keep any place sacred. But these people on the Square Hill seemed very religious. They behaved as if they had settled down there to stay forever.
“What are they like?” asked the old man.
“They are like no other townspeople in this valley,” said Toto decidedly. “They are not like the herdsmen who wander from place to place and sleep in tents, or the hunters who live alone in huts, or the fishermen by the river or the sailors by the seashore. They are tall and straight and strong and very active, because they work all the time. They work mostly on their land. When they are not plowing, or digging, or cutting grain, or cutting wood, or making things, they are working to make themselves stronger. They run and leap and throw heavy weights; they hurl the spear and shoot arrows at a mark. They stand in rows and go through motions all together, and march to and fro, and play at ball. They do everything that is possible to make themselves good soldiers; even the boys begin when they are small to play at these games.
“And that is not all. The women work also, but not as slaves. The matrons go here and there as they choose, and see eye to eye with their husbands, and manage the household as the men manage the farm. The men sit in council, but each man speaks of his work in private to his wife, and she advises with him. They do not have slaves to wait on them; even their great men work with the others in the field. No one is [pg 186]ashamed to work with his hands. They build their own houses and their own walls; they breed their own cattle. If there should be a sheep gone from the flock, or a heifer strayed from the herd, they would know it and search until the thief was found.”