A LEGEND OF THE COMMONWEALTH.
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BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE BROTHERS,” “CROMWELL,” “RINGWOOD THE ROVER,” ETC.
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It was a glorious day in Rome; the unclouded sun was blazing in the clear azure of a deep Italian sky, filling the universal air with life and lustre; the summer winds were all abroad, crisping the bosom of the yellow Tiber into ten thousand tiny rivulets, tossing ten thousand dewy odors from their wings, and bearing with them, far and near, the myriad harmonies of nature. It was a day of revelry, of loud exulting mirth, of gratified ambition to the one, of haughty triumph to the million.
It was in truth a day of triumph. Marius, the people’s idol, the great plebeian conqueror, had brought the army home—the army, long foiled and often beaten on the parched sands of the Zahara, or by the scanty streams of the Bagradas and Mulucha—had brought the army home, scar-seamed and wearied and war-worn, but glorious and elated and triumphant; for with them came a chained, indignant captive, the bravest, fiercest, wisest of all the kings who yet had dared to strive against the unconquered majesty of the Republic: the murderer, the fratricide Jugurtha; he who had mocked the justice, and with success defied the brazen legions and the superb commanders of Rome’s resistless warfare; he who had driven out from his Numidian confines, whether by force or fraud, two several consular armies, sent one, degraded and debased forever, beneath the ignominious yoke, and for long years possessed his blood-bought throne in spite of all the efforts of his tremendous rival.
Now, therefore, was the day of retribution, and all the fiery passions of the Italian heart were at work hotly in the crowd that thronged the thoroughfares of the great city on that auspicious morning. Well might they throng the streets, for never, from that day to this, has aught of pomp or pageant been invented that could sustain comparison one moment with the unequalled splendors of a Roman triumph. The whole line of proud streets, up from the field of Mars to the Capitoline, was strewn with carpets of the rich Tyrian crimson; cartloads of flowers—rose, violet, narcissus, hyacinth—were scattered everywhere, to send their perfumes forth beneath the trampling feet of the triumphant legions. The walls of every house and palace were hung with glowing tapestries, with waving flags, and laurel-woven garlands. From every shrine and chapel, hundreds of which were there sacred to one or other of Rome’s hundred deities, sang forth the melody of sacrificial hymns, and streamed the breath of incense. The sun had reached the summit of his ascending course, when from the distant campus arose at once the din, piercing the ears and thrilling as it were to the very soul, of the great sacred trumpets, and the earth-shaking shout of Rome’s vast population; then on they came—a long and dazzling line of splendor—three hundred snow-white steers, unblemished and majestic, the far-famed breed of the Clitunnus, led the van, with gilded horns, and fluttering fillets of bright hues about their ample fronts, led by as many youths in sacrificial tunics of pure white; then came the bands of music, trumpet and horn and clarion, and the quick clashing cymbal blent with the deep bass of the Phrygian drum; and then the Flamens of the gods, in the appropriate and gorgeous dresses; the great Dialis, with his red tuft and snow-white robes; the Salian priests of Mars, with brazen helms and corselets and flowery tunics girded up, and on their arms the sacred shields of Numa; the vestals, stoled and veiled and silent, and the mad ministers of Cybele, with their strange instruments of music, leaping and dancing with strange gestures, and waking all the echoes with their barbaric hymnings. After these stately and revered, and almost divine personages, trooped on—strange contrast—a band of mimics and jesters, buffoons with scurrilous songs and obscene gestures, calling forth from the mob of Rome many a plaudit by their licentious wit. Then, with perfumes and steaming censers, scattering bunches of the choicest flowers, all in their purple bordered tunics, with golden balls about their necks, barefooted and bareheaded, the sons of the Patricians passed, the prime of Rome’s young aristocracy. Other musicians followed, and then, caparisoned for war, with castles on their backs and gorgeous housings on their unwieldy carcasses, each driven by a coal-black Ethiopian astride on his huge neck, the captured elephants—an hundred mighty monsters, the like of which had never before gladdened the eyes of the amazed and wonder-stricken populace. Next rolled the wains, slow dragged by snow-white oxen, groaning beneath the weight of the rich spoils of the Numidian empire—armor of gold and silver, weapons thick set with emeralds and diamonds, statues and jars and vases of pure gold—dazzling the eyes and bewildering the senses with their unequalled splendor.
Hark! what a roar, a thunder of applause! It is—it is—Io triumphe, Io pæan, it is the mighty Marius! Aloft he stood—aloft in more than regal pomp, in more than mortal glory. The car was ivory and gold, embossed and carved with rare device, drawn by six steeds abreast, white as the driven snow, with manes and tails that literally swept the ground, housed with rich crimson trappings, harnessed and reined with gold. But what were ivory or gold, or what the choicest specimens of mere brute beauty, to the sublime and glorious figure of the triumphant general? Tall, powerful, broad shouldered and strong limbed, as he stood there clad in the tunic and toga of fine crimson, all woven over with palm branches of gold, wearing the laurel crown upon his coal-black locks, and holding in his right hand the ivory sceptre, and in his left a branch of green triumphal bay, he looked the emblem, the very incarnation and ideal of Rome’s undaunted energy. His hair, black as the raven’s wing, was curled in short crisp locks close to his finely formed head and expansive temples; his nose was high, keen, aquiline; his eyes bright as the eagle’s, and, like his, formed as it were to gaze into the very focus of the sun’s beams, and pierce the dunnest war clouds with all-pervading vision; his lips were thin, firm and compressed, with that set iron curve which gives the strongest token of indomitable resolution. Swarthy almost to negro blackness, gloomy and lowering was his brow, and furrowed by deep lines of care and passion—yet was there naught that savored in the least of cruelty or even of suspicion in the bold, daring features—pride there was evident in every glance, in every gesture, and fiery courage, and stern constancy; but nothing jealous or tyrannical, much less bloodthirsty or vindictive. Yet this was he who in after years let slip the dogs of Hell against the sons of his own mother Rome, who deluged her fair streets with oceans of Patrician gore, and made her shrines and palaces, her stateliest temples and her lowliest dwellings, one mighty human shambles. But now he was all gratified ambition, proud courtesy and high anticipation; yet he bowed not nor smiled at the reiterated clamors of the mighty concourse, nor waved his laurelled sceptre to and fro, but held his proud head high and heavenward, and kept his dark eye fixed on vacancy, as though he would pierce onward—onward—through space and time, far off into the secrets of futurity, with consulships and censorships and triumphs, provinces, armies, honors, Fame, thronging before his footsteps, and still beckoning him forward. Behind him stood a slave, such was the order, the immemorial order, of the triumphal rite, who ever and anon, as louder pealed the acclamations of the mob, and wilder waxed the din of gratulation, leaned forward, whispering in his ear, “Remember, Marius, remember that thou art a man!” for so sublime, so godlike, was that station deemed, that the stern fathers of the young Republic had judged such warning needful to curb the vaultings of that pride which might believe itself immortal.
Behind the chariot wheels stalked one, alas! how far removed from the haught victor, the royal Moor, Rome’s deadliest foe, Jugurtha. He, as his conqueror, was tall, and of a bearing that had been soldierly at once and royal—yet he was not, though vigorously strong and very active, of a frame nearly so superb or massive as the great Roman—lithe, sinewy and muscular, he showed all the distinctive marks characteristic of his race; his face was handsome—the features at least eminently so—of a clear, sunny olive hue, through which the blood would gleam at times, when passion drove its currents, boiling like molten lava, through every vein and artery: but now it was as cold and pallid as though he had already passed the portals of the grave. His eyes, like those of Marius, glared forward into the vacant air; but not like his was his mind bent forward. Back! back!—long years of retrospection—to the bright, happy days of youth, when he and his two murdered cousins sported together, before the fell and fiendish lust of empire had turned their blood to gall; to the young promise of his glorious manhood, when, side by side with Scipio, he strove before the bulwarks of Numantia: when he was praised and honored of that great commander in the full presence of a Roman host; and, later still, to his proud aspirations after thrones, to his triumphant usurpation, his undoubted sway over the glowing hearts and tameless energies of the free, wild Numidians; and, later yet, to fields of furious warfare, to midnight marches over the lone sands of the desert, dark ambuscades near to some long sought river, skirmishes, onslaughts, victories—aye! victories won from the Roman. His scarlet turban, decked with the tall tiara peculiar to the royal race, still gleamed as if in mockery above his ashy brow; his caftan, gleaming with fringes and embroideries of gold, girded with costly shawls, from which still hung his gold sheathed and gold hilted scimetar; his wide and flowing robe of fine white woollen stuff, so fine and gauze-like in its texture that all the gorgeous hues of his under-dress were visible, though mellowed in their tints, beneath it; his necklace of the richest gems, armlets and bracelets, and long pendants in his ears of the most precious rubies, all spoke the Prince—the King! But lo! beside the bracelets upon those swarthy arms, the galling manacles of steel, and on the sinewy ancles, clasping the jewelled sandals with their stern circles, the fetters of the captive—of the slave! They clanked—they clanked at every stride, those fearful emblems, and still, as every ringing clash announced the fallen state of their late dreaded foe, the savage mob sent forth loud yells of mirth, mingled with groans of execration! But he felt not the fetters, nor marked the clanging din that harbingered his footsteps, nor heard the hootings of the rabble; he knew not that his sons, his two beloved ones, were beside him, fettered and manacled as he, their guilty sire; he saw not the procession nor the pomp, nor knew that they but marshalled him to death.
Behind this lamentable group stalked, two and two, with their dread implements (the rod-bound axes,) ready and glittering coldly in the sun, the lictors; and behind these, on foot, and in his toga all unadorned and simple, the consul colleague of the triumphant chief; and after him the senate, renowned, grave and wise—stately, sublime assemblage! Then, with the din of martial music, and the loud clash of brazen armor, their helmets all enwreathed with branches of the bay tree, their banners and their eagles entwined and over-canopied with laurel, on swept the conquering army; each legion, with its horse, its skirmishers, its engines, its legate and his tribunes on their proud chargers, and its centurions marching at the head each of his manipule, rolled on—row after row of brass, solid, compact, immovable—a vast machine of men, with but one voice, one stride, one motion for ten thousand human beings. “Io Triumphe! Io Pæan! Ho! for the godlike General! Ho! for the conquering army!” Such was the pomp of Marius, but so closed not the line of the procession, for every soul of Rome’s vast population swelled it for miles in length; old tottering grandsires, men in the prime of manhood, youths in the flush of spring-time, boys, children, infants at the breast, matrons and brides and maidens—all ranks, all classes, all conditions—the proud, luxurious patrician, the turbulent democracy, mechanics from the suburbs and farmers from the colonies, and slaves and freedmen, all thronged exultingly the via Sacra, all swelled the shout for Marius.