But the encounter, when it came, was a simple and one-sided affair, which might have been devised to encourage nervous recruits. Since Marcus had neither corselet nor greaves he had been placed in the third rank, where his spear could barely reach the foe; he had been told that his chief duty would be to push hard with his shield and perhaps get the hostile line moving backwards. But even in the third rank he had a good view of the famous deed of King Romulus.
It was a very pretty ambush. As more than three thousand Romans showed themselves on the crest of a hill the little column trudging down the floor of the valley halted and prepared to receive them. King Acron saw at first glance that his little band was in grave danger, and gallantly took the only chance that might save his men. Several lengths ahead of his tiny group of horse he charged against Romulus and the Roman cavalry. If he could kill their leader the Roman charge would falter. In his time he had killed many horsemen; but his time as a warchief was past. When the champions encountered the mighty King Romulus, the full-bearded burly young son of Mars, was more than a match for the elderly hero. With one hand he lifted the King of Caenina bodily out of the saddle, and with the other plunged his sword into his belly. At sight of this exploit the Romans broke into a headlong run. The foe was already fleeing when they crashed into their dissolving ranks.
Though the enemy fled right back to their little city Romulus halted the pursuit in the open. He could not tie down his army in a siege when so many other foes were preparing to attack them. Instead of finishing off Caenina he led his men back to the battlefield and set them to gathering the spoil. They found enough shields to prove that the enemy had fled shamefully, and Marcus picked up a leather helmet with a bronze knob for crest. But Romulus was intent on preserving the memory of his exploit. It was rare for a King to kill with his own hands another King, so rare that it proved once again that Romulus was under the special protection of Mars his father. Such a deed must be worthily commemorated. A tree was cut down, and the weapons and armour of King Acron were arrayed on it; the armour was of the finest Etruscan workmanship, and the corselet had been fashioned from wide sheets of gilded bronze. King Romulus fixed the trophy upright in a four-horse chariot, and rode beside it into his city of Rome. When everyone had seen it the pole, still erect in its chariot, was removed to the storehouse of sacred things.
Thus on the very evening of the battle the victorious army feasted at home. Marcus found his bride standing impassive in the doorway of his hut. But her dignity vanished when she recognised with delight the great joint of sacrificial beef he had brought home for supper.
‘Meat again, and we had it only three days ago, on our wedding night! You Romans live well! I shall be sorry when my kin sack the city and kill the lot of you. In my father’s village we eat barley-porridge and nothing else, nearly every day of the year.’
She smiled in childish greed, and there was a little of the grin left over for her husband. ‘That’s a new helmet. Is it any good? Did you kill anyone? Why do they make such a fuss about the armour of King Acron? He was an old man, and it was no great feat to kill him.’
‘On the contrary, it was a mighty feat,’ Marcus answered cheerfully. ‘King Romulus accomplished it, and anything the King does is a mighty feat. If you doubt it you have only to ask him. He will admit, with a modest blush, that he happens to be the greatest hero the world has seen.’
‘You don’t think much of your King, do you? Why do you stick to him? Are you his born subject?’
‘Indeed not, sweetheart. I came here of my own free will, I suppose because I wasn’t bright enough to know what was good for me. But it’s only an accident that I follow King Romulus. I came here in the train of his brother, King Remus. Romulus had him murdered on the day the city was founded.’
‘Then let’s both go away, now.’
‘What? Leave Rome, after all the work I have put into building the place? It was blood and sweat from my raw hands that made the palisade weather to such a fine colour. Besides, I have my own land, and my own oxen. You haven’t seen them yet, but they are fine beasts. When ploughing-time comes round you will help me to drive them.’
‘Certainly not. Roman husbands may not set their wives to work in the fields. King Romulus is a treacherous scoundrel and a pompous bully; I don’t think any more of him than you do. But he has sound ideas of the respect due to married women.’
‘I had forgotten that silly decree. The King would abolish it if he wanted his own wife to weed his onions. No, he wouldn’t, though. He would keep it in force for the rest of us, and break it himself. He never bothers to keep his own laws.’
‘Indeed he doesn’t,’ said Sabina more seriously. ‘The only decent thing about your Roman wife-stealing was that your King decreed that only unmarried girls should be seized. At least that gave us the chance of honourable marriage, instead of slavery. But one wife was kidnapped. She is called Hersilia and she’s married to Hostilius. Your King liked the look of her, and he told those ruffianly celeres of his to snatch her up and pop her in his bed.’
‘I didn’t know that, but I’m not surprised to hear it. All the same, he may be ashamed of what he has done. He has kept it pretty quiet.’
‘Every woman in Rome knows it. We talk together, by the spring and at the washing-place. Hersilia doesn’t mind. She didn’t like Hostilius, and I think she is fascinated by her Roman brute.’
‘If the women knew it, the men will know it in a few days,’ said Marcus reflectively. ‘What ought we to do? When my father threw me out I ran away to be a brigand. I planned to make a great fortune by robbing the Etruscans, and then go home and astonish the neighbours. Instead here I am, under a ruler wicked enough to be a robber chief, and yet he expects me to scratch a living from the land just as my brother does at home. Now that I have a wife I can’t join a more enterprising band of brigands, and anyway I should be sorry to leave Rome. The soil isn’t bad, and that palisade is something to be proud of. Besides, we have a storehouse full of sacred things; and they are truly very sacred, Romulus didn’t lie about them. Then there’s the bleeding head they dug up on the Capitol; that ought to mean something if it’s true. But the strongest tie of all is that I don’t want to admit that I have wasted four years of my youth. Perhaps it would be best to stay and see what will come of it.’
‘My dear husband, we already know what will come of it. My kin will break down your palisade, destroy your huts and your storehouse of sacred things, and sow salt all over this hilltop as a sign that it is forever accursed. Don’t you remember? On our wedding night we agreed that such would be the end of Rome.’
‘And you promised that when I am enslaved by the Sabines you will see me kindly treated. That was the most important part of the agreement, wasn’t it? Very well, we won’t think of the future. Anyway, so long as this war lasts I must stay by my leader. To leave Rome now would look like running away. Meanwhile, there is supper to be cooked, and after supper bed. By the way, the enemy ran away before I reached them, and I did not poke my spear into anyone, so I am not polluted with blood. This is a nice helmet, but I found it on the ground, where some fugitive had dropped it.’
‘Caenina is not my city, but I’m glad you didn’t kill anyone, Now you must chop some firewood, and then we’ll have supper.’
The only way to live happily in that kind of marriage was to treat the situation as a joke.
Within a few days King Romulus had defeated the levies of Crustumerium and Antemnae, catching each little force in isolation. These again were almost bloodless battles, the scattering of weak columns by the sudden attack of greatly superior numbers. Though he might be wicked and impious, there was no doubt that King Romulus was a worthy son of Mars.
There was still no move from the Sabines, the most powerful enemies of Rome. They were farmers who put the welfare of their fields above any other consideration. It seemed that they had postponed their revenge until after the autumn ploughing.
Now that the three little cities had been d
efeated the levy of Rome might stand down. At the next meeting of the assembly some young hotheads clamoured to be led to the sack of Caenina, whose citizens had lost so heavily in their defeat that they might be unable to hold their wall. But Romulus, dominating the meeting from the tribunal which no ordinary Roman might mount, would not agree.
‘Don’t take it for granted, comrades,’ he said, ‘that Sabines will move so slowly that you can capture a city while they are gathering their army. We should all look very silly if the Sabines were to sack Rome while we were busy sacking the miserable little town of Caenina. Let us stay at home and drill, to be ready for the great battle that must come when the Sabines attack us. But don’t think that our victories over the three cities will be wasted. I am in touch with their rulers. We may get a reward from them more valuable than any plunder we could win in a sack.’
His hearers were puzzled; surely the King was not suggesting that the defeated cities would pay tribute to Rome? Savages, and even some civilised villagers, occasionally paid tribute to a conqueror so that he should not ravage their crops; but it was not the sort of thing any independent city would do. Besides, if the enemy offered tribute, what would they get in return? Only a promise from Romulus that he would leave them in peace, and the promise of such a wicked man seemed hardly worth buying.
Yet, as usual, the assembly voted to carry out the policy proposed by the King. It was hard to vote in any other way, when Romulus never allowed his opponents to state their case properly.
When Marcus reached home he talked over the events of the day with his wife, and Sabina told him the rumour current among the women. She explained that, as often happened, Romulus was concealing his plans from his followers. He was not trying to get tribute from the beaten cities, but a negotiated peace. The intermediary was Hersilia, who had kin in Caenina; she had told the other Sabine wives all about it.
‘Between them Hersilia and Romulus have thought of a very strange proposal,’ said Sabina. ‘They suggest that the defeated cities should be reckoned as part of Rome, and that their spearmen should fight in the Roman levy.’
‘That’s absurd,’ answered Marcus. ‘A city can’t be in two places at once. How can two cities meet in one assembly? The men from one would face a long walk after the day’s ploughing. We can’t stop the war halfway. Either we sack Caenina and enslave its citizens, or the place remains an independent town.’
‘Must you always kill your enemies? Couldn’t you sometimes make peace with them instead? These people have been beaten, and so they must lose something. But there’s no need to take their lives, or their liberty, or even the whole of their wealth. If this scheme goes through they will be permitted to live in their own homes; but they will have to fight when Rome fights, and obey the decisions of the Roman assembly. I suppose if they feel strongly about some question they might walk all the way here and vote on it; as a rule they will do what you tell them. That’s better than having their throats cut, and they will be grateful for your mercy. They may even be loyal, after they have got used to Roman rule.’
‘Yes, it’s the mercy that surprises me. It isn’t like Romulus to be so merciful. His father is not a merciful god. And I didn’t think he had the brains to invent such a novel kind of peace.’
‘He didn’t think of it. Hersilia was anxious to find an excuse for sparing her kin. She devised it, and told Romulus.’
‘Well, I never heard of anything like this before. But I suppose it can be done.’
‘It will be done, you can be sure of that. Hersilia has told Romulus to get it done, and he will tell the Romans to do it.’
‘We must obey Romulus, I know. I didn’t know that he must obey Hersilia. But I believe you.’
Sabina was right. At the next assembly Romulus expounded his plan. He had to talk at great length before the novel idea sank into the minds of his hearers; to control the foreign policy of other free men seemed oddly bizarre. You might conclude an alliance with a foreign city, an alliance that usually failed when it was most needed; but spearmen must decide for themselves questions of peace and war, for if an unwilling army went out to fight it was sure to be beaten. Yet the men of the three cities (for Crustumerium and Antemnae were included in the scheme with Caenina) were to be bound by the decisions of the Roman assembly even though they lived too far off to vote in it.
‘But you must not think of these places as separate communities,’ Romulus continued. ‘Their walls and their holy places will remain unchanged, for a city is a good thing in itself. I founded a city, and I want to be remembered for it; I don’t want to be remembered as the man who destroyed half the cities in Italy. But though the towns will remain standing half their citizens will move to Rome, to be replaced by an equal number of Romans. In that way our new fellow-citizens will never form the majority, either in Rome itself or in our new colonies. You, the original settlers, will still control the assembly. Now are you all satisfied? Don’t forget that this arrangement will just about double our military strength. The whole levy of Rome and the colonies will amount to about eight thousand men; we shall need every one of them to meet the Sabine attack. In the end we shall beat the Sabines, we must beat them. Don’t forget the portents, and especially the bleeding head on the Capitol. Rome is destined to rule. Your destiny is to help in the accomplishment of the destiny of your city. If you neglect your plain duty the gods will punish you. That much I know, for a god was my father.’
The assembly ratified its King’s proposal. Citizens were chosen by lot to settle in the new colonies, and they went willingly enough for in the foreign towns they would be richer than at home. But Marcus was glad that he was not among them; he had come to be fond of his hut, with Sabina crouched over the cooking-fire; the stakes he had planted in the palisade were old friends who helped him to sleep secure at night. There were things in Rome that he would miss if he left it.
‘I wish,’ he grumbled to Sabina. ‘that the King would talk less about his divine ancestry. That’s always the clinching argument, when he wants to persuade us to do something we don’t like. “I know the will of the gods, because a god was my father,” it isn’t easy to believe, though now I think there is some truth in it. That’s why he can commit every kind of wickedness, and the gods don’t punish him. They are making allowances for a disreputable nephew. Certainly he’s as big and brave and ruthless as a son of Mars ought to be, and now he has rather oddly shown himself to be merciful as well. But I wish that he would sometimes try to persuade the assembly as he used to in the old days, instead of bullying us into agreement by boasting of his influence with the gods.’
During the midwinter feasting Sabina told Marcus that she was with child. ‘My kin have delayed their vengence too long,’ she added with a shrug. ‘When at last I see them breaking in through your palisade I shan’t know whether to tell them to spare a young Sabine, or to dash out the brains of a little Roman.’
‘Perhaps he will be a girl,’ answered her husband, ‘and in that case it won’t matter. Among the Sabines no one can tell the difference between a slave-girl and a free matron, since both work all day in the fields. Only here in Rome do we honour our wives, and spare them any toil more arduous than spinning.’
‘Spinning is hard enough, when you all insist on wearing those enormous cloaks to show you are citizens. You wrap up more warmly to go down to the assembly than a Sabine setting off in midwinter to look over his sheep. All the same, you know how to treat your wives. One day I shall visit the ruins on this hilltop and regret the pirate city where I lived with a kind husband and bore his children. This one will be a son, I can tell from his size. Already he is nearly as strong and rough as King Romulus.’
Of course they must talk continually of the terrible vengeance which one day her kin would exact. For her pride’s sake, Sabina could not admit that she was content with the life that had been forced on her. But Sabines were notoriously slow to move; there was still no sign of their great army when in April Sabina gave birth to a strapping
boy. On the same day he was enrolled in the Aemilian clan, and given the name of Marcus after his father. He was one of the first native-born citizens of Rome, but that was not a very rare distinction; for during that spring most of the women stolen from the Sabines produced their first babies.
As the days lengthened Marcus was busy in his ploughland for as long as the light lasted. He found it very pleasant to walk over his own land, seeing the sprouting of his own seed, weeding and draining his own furrows. Dislike of the monotony of an agricultural life had made him join a band of brigands after he had been driven out from his father’s village. Now, with Sabina as partner, he followed exactly the same life on the Palatine and found it enchanting. But now he was working his own land, which his own spear guarded from his enemies.
To make the barley grow was a tricky business. Emphatically there was a right and a wrong way to doing everything, from sowing the seed to cutting the last sheaf; but no one knew why the right way was effective, or indeed why seed grew better in ploughed land than on turf. Ultimately seed became barley because such was the will of the Cornmother; therefore the Cornmother must be kept in a good temper. There were many different methods of pleasing her.
The Romans, gathered from so many differing backgrounds, liked to compare one another’s spells. It was interesting to try out a new magic while you watched your neighbour, only a few furrows away, doing something else to encourage his barley to grow. Most of these rituals seemed to work. Without noticing the change, Marcus had settled down to the never-ending round of a hardworking farmer.
Only when the sun set did he put away his tools and stroll up the hill to the palisade. On the flat summit of the Palatine there was now a strong family atmosphere; the new wives, with their new babies, sat by the cooking-fires to welcome home the breadwinners. Rome was becoming a friendly place. Marcus felt that he would not mind very much if he stayed there for the rest of his life, working in his fields every day and never growing rich or famous; presently his son would be old enough to take over the plough, and he might pass his old age on a stool by the warm hearth. Such was the accepted pattern of Latin life, and there was no reason why it should not be reproduced in this new settlement of brigands.
Founding Fathers Page 5
