The night wind blew in fitful gusts, with occasional dashes of rain, where, grouped around their watch-fires, and sheltered by the dense foliage of a beechen grove, a Roman cohort held its leaguer. Some, their spears thrust into the ground beside them, sat upright against the trees; while others lay at full length, with their heads resting upon their shields.
As the flames threw their red light upon the war-scarred faces of the veterans, they revealed only sullen features. No song nor jest was heard,—no sound, save the low hiss of the raindrops on the embers, the bay of a wolf in the distant forest, and the low muttered words of a soldier who was telling to his comrade how that, the night before, as the sun fell over the hills, a centurion rode past his beat full speed to Rome, summoned there by some new outrage of the Patricians.
All that night, throughout the host, mysterious forebodings crept. Men around their watch-fires spake in low whispers; and many a silent grasp of the hand passed from man to man. As the night wore away, and the day dawned, Virginius, upon a foaming steed, his head bare, and in his right hand a bloody knife, dashed past the guard to where—beneath an oak which, withered and scorched by sacrificial fires, flung no shadow—great Jove was worshipped.
Mounting the altar-steps, he turned, and, with bloodshot eyes, glared upon the soldiers who thronged tumultuously around him. Holding aloft the bloody knife, he exclaimed, “With this weapon I have slain my only child, to preserve her from dishonor!” Yells of horror and bitter execrations rose from the whole army; and a thousand swords flashed in the sun’s bright beams.
“Soldiers!” he cried, “I am like this blasted tree. Two years ago the Ides of May three lusty sons went with me to the field. In one disastrous fight they perished. A daughter, beautiful as the day, yet remained; ’tis but a week ago you saw her here, bearing to her old sire home comforts prepared by her own hands, and sharing with him the evening meal, and you blessed her as you passed.
“You’ll never see her more, who weekly came, with the soft music of her voice, and spells of home, to cheer our hearts. As on her way to school she crossed the Forum, Appius Claudius, through his minion Marcus, claimed her as a slave. With desperate haste I rode to Rome. Holding my daughter by the hand, and by my side her uncle, her aged grandsire, and Icilius her betrothed, I claimed my child.
“The judge, that he may gain his end, decides that in his house and custody she must remain, till I, by legal process, prove my right! The guards approach. Trembling, she clings around my neck,—her hot tears on my cheek. Snatching this knife from a butcher’s stall, I plunged it in her breast, that her pure soul might go free and unstained to her mother and her ancestors.
“And this is the reward a grateful country gives her soldiery! Cursed be the day my mother bore me! Accursed my sire’s untimely joy! Accursed the twilight hour, when ’mid Etruscan groves I wooed and won Acestes’ beauteous child, while youth’s bright dreams were busy at my heart!
“Soldiers! the deadliest foes of our liberties are behind, not before us; they are not the Æqui, the Volsci, and the Sabines, who meet us in fair fight; but that pampered aristocracy, who chain you by the death-penalty to the camp, that in your absence they may work their will upon those you leave behind.