The multitude swayed to and fro like a forest beneath a tempest, and the rage and hate of that tumultuous throng vented itself in groans, and curses, and yells of vengeance. But calm, cold and immovable as the marble walls around him stood the Roman.—Ibid.
If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet I was not always thus, a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men! My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella. My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when at noon I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd’s flute, there was a friend to join me in the pastime.... One evening, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. That very night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the war-horse, and the bleeding body of my father flung amidst the blazing rafters of our dwelling!—Spartacus. Kellogg.
O Rome, Rome, thou hast been a tender nurse to me! Ay, thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl.—Ibid.
The shouts of revelry had died away.-Ibid.
The roar of the lion had ceased.—Ibid.
You all do know this mantle: I remember
The first time ever Caesar put it on;
’Twas on a summer’s evening in his tent,
That day he overcame the Nervii.
Look! in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through.