repeatedly defeated by the Roman legions, and the people of Véii were finally compelled to shut themselves up in their city, which was taken by the Roman dictator, Camillus, after a blockade and siege of nearly ten years. (396 B. C.) The spoil taken from the conquered city was given to the army, the captives were sold for the benefit of the State, and the ornaments and images of the gods were transferred to Rome. The conquerors also wreaked their vengeance on the towns which had aided Véii in the war, and the Roman territory was extended farther north of the Tiber than at any previous period. 26. But while the Romans were enjoying the imaginary security which these successful wars had given them, they were suddenly assailed by a new enemy, which threatened the extinction of the Roman name. During the recent Etruscan wars, a vast horde of barbarians of the Gallic or Celtic race had crossed the Alps x. GALLIO from the unknown regions of the north, and had sat down INVASION. in the plains of Northern Italy, in the country known as Cisalpine Gaul.' Tradition relates that an injured citizen of Clusium, an Etruscan city, went over the mountains to these Gauls, taking with him a quantity of the fruits and wines of Italy, and promised these rude people that if they would leave their own inhospitable country and follow him, the land which produced all these good things should be theirs, for it was inhabited by an unwarlike race; whereupon the whole Gallic people, with their women and children, crossed the Alps, and marched direct to Clusium. (391 B. C.) 27. Certain it is that the people of Clusium sought aid from the Romans, who sent three of the nobility to remonstrate with the Brennus, or chieftain of the Gauls, but as the latter treated them with derision, they forgot their sacred character as ambassadors, and joined the Clusians in a sally against the besiegers. Immediately Brennus ordered a retreat, that he might not be guilty of shedding the blood of ambassadors, and forthwith demanded satisfaction of the Roman senate; and when this was refused he broke up his camp before Clusium and took up his march for Rome at the head of seventy thousand of his people. 28. Eleven miles from the city, on the banks of the Al' ia,' a battle 1. Cisalpine Gaul, meaning "Gaul this side of the Alps," to distinguish it from "Gaul be yond the Alps," embraced all that portion of Northern Italy that was watered by the river Po and its numerous tributaries, extending south on the Adriatic coast to the river Rubicon, and on the Tuscan coast to the river Macra. (Map No. IX.) 2. The Al' ia, now the Aia, was a small stream that flowed into the Tiber from the eas about ter miles north-east from Rome. (Map No. X.) was fought, and the Romans, forty thousand in number, were defeated. (390 B. C.) Brennus meditated a sudden march to Rome to consummate his victory, but his troops, abandoning themselves to pillage, rioting, and drunkenness, refused to obey the voice of their leader, and thus, the attack being delayed, the existence of the Roman nation was saved. The defeat on the Al' ia had rendered it impossible to defend the city, but a thousand armed Romans took possession of the capitol and the citadel, and laying in a store of provisions determined to maintain their post to the last extremity, while the mass of the population sought refuge in the neighboring towns, bearing with them their riches, and the principal objects of their religious veneration. But while the rest of the people quitted their homes, eighty priests and patricians of the highest rank, deeming it intolerable to survive the republic and the worship of the gods, sat down in the Forum,' in their festal robes, awaiting death. 29. Onward came the Gauls in battle array, with horns and trumpets blowing, but finding the walls deserted, they burst open the gates and entered the city, which they found desolate and death-like. They marched cautiously on till they came to the Forum, where, in solemn stillness, sat the aged priests, and chiefs of the senate, looking like beings of another world. The wild barbarians, seized with awe at such a spectacle, doubted whether the gods had not come down to save the city or to avenge it. At length a Gaul went up to one of the priests and gently stroked his white beard, but the old man indignantly repelled the insolence by a stroke of his ivory sceptre. He was cut down on the spot, and his death was the signal of a general massacre. Then the plundering commenced: fires broke out in several quarters; and in a few days the whole city, with the exception of a few houses on the Pal' atine, was burnt to the ground.a (390 B. C.) 30. The Gauls made repeated attempts to storm the citadel, but in vain. They attempted to climb up the rocks in the night, but the cackling of the sacred geese in the temple of Júno awoke Marcus Man' lius, who hurled the foremost Gaul headlong down the 1. The Roman Forum was a large open space between the Capitoline and Pal' atine hills, surrounded by porticos, shops, &c., where assemblies of the people were generally held, justice administered, and public business transacted. It is now a mere open space strewed for the most part with ruins, which, in the course of centuries, have accumulated to such an extent as to raise the surface from fifteen to twenty feet above its ancient level. See p. 582. a. Different writers have given the date of the taking of Rome by the Gauls, f 388 to 398 B. C. precipice, and prevented the ascent of those who were mounting after him. At length famine began to be felt by the garrison. But the host of the besiegers was gradually melting away by sickness and want, and Brennus agreed, for a thousand pounds of gold, to quit Rome and its territory. According to the old Roman legend, Ca mil'lus entered the city with an army while the gold was being weighed, and rudely accosting Brennus, and saying, "It is the custom of us Romans to ransom our country, not with gold, but with iron," ordered the gold to be carried back to the temple, whereupon a battle ensued, and the Gauls were driven from the city. A more probable account, however, relates that the Gauls were suddenly called home to protect their own country from an invasion of the Venetians.' According to Polybius this great Gallic invasion took place in the same year that the "peace of Antalcidas" was concluded between the Greeks and Persians. (See p. 89.) 31. The walls and houses of Rome had now to be built anew, and so great did the task appear that the citizens clamored for a removal to Véii; but the persuasion of Camil' lus, and a lucky omen, induced them to remain in their ancient situation. Yet they were not allowed to rebuild their dwellings in peace, for the surrounding nations, the Sábines only excepted, made war upon them; but their attacks were repelled, and one after another they were made to yield to the sway of Rome, which ultimately became the sovereign city of Italy. AND PATRI CIAN CON TESTS. 32. Soon after the rebuilding of the city the old contests between the patricians and plebeians were renewed, with all their former vio lence. The cruelties exercised towards helpless credit- XI. PLEBEIAN ors appear to have aroused the sympathies of the patrician Man' lius, the brave defender of the capitol, for he sold the most valuable part of his inheritance, and declared that so long as a single pound remained no Roman should be carried into bondage for debt. Henceforward he was regarded as the patron of the poor but for some hasty words was thrown into prison for slandering the government, and for sedition. Released by the clamors of the mul titude, he was afterwards accused of aspiring to kingly authority; and the more common account states that he was convicted of reason, and sentenced to be thrown headlong from the Tarpéian rock, the scene of his former glory. But another account states that, being 1. The Venetians were a people of ancient Italy who dwelt north of the mouths of the Po around the head-waters of the Adriatic. (Map No. VIII.) in insurrection, and in possession of the capitol, a treacherous slave hurled him down the precipice.a (384 B. C.) 33. The plebeians mourned the fate of Man' lius, but his death was a patrician triumph. The oppression of the plebeians now increased, until universal distress prevailed: debtors were every day consigned to slavery, and dragged to private dungeons; the number of free citizens was visibly decreasing; those who remained were reduced to a state of dependence by their debts, and Rome was on the point of degenerating into a miserable oligarchy, when her decline. was arrested by the appearance of two men who changed the fate of their country and of the world. 34. The authors of the great reform in the constitution were Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius. Confining themselves strictly to the paths permitted by the laws, they succeeded, after a struggle of five years against every species of fraud and violence, in obtaining for the plebeians an acknowledgment of their rights, and all possible guarantees for their preservation. (376 to 371 B. C.) The history of the struggle would be too long for insertion here. As on a former occasion, it was only in the last extremity, when the people had taken up arms, and gathered together upon the Aventine, that the patrician senate yielded its sanction to the three bills brought forward by Licinius. The first abolished the military tribuneship, and gained for the plebeians a share in the consulship: the second regulated the shares, divisions, and rents, of the public lands: the third regulated the rate of interest, gave present relief to unfortunate debtors, and secured personal freedom against the rapacity of creditors. To save XIL OFFICE Something from the general wreck of their power, the OF PRÆTOR. patricians stipulated that the judicial functions of the consul should be exercised by a new officer with the title of Prætor, chosen from the patrician order; yet within thirty-five years after the passage of the laws of Licinius, not only the prætorship, but the dictatorship also, was opened to the plebeians. 35. The legislation of Licinius freed Rome from internal dissen sions, and gave new development to her strength and warlike ener 1. The prætors were judicial magistrates,-officers answering to the modern chief-justice o chancellor. The modern English forms of judicial proceedings in the trial of causes are mostly taken from those observed by the Roman prætors. At first but one prætor was chosen; after wards, when foreigners became numerous at Rome, another prætor was added to administe justice to them, or between them and the citizens. In later times subordinate judges, callos provincial prætors, were appointed to administer justice in the provinces. a. See Niebuhr, 1. 275. XIII. FIRST WAR. gies. Occasionally the Gauls came down from the north and made inroads upon the Roman territories, but they were invariably driven back with loss; while the Etrus' cans, almost constantly at war with Rome, grew less and less formidable, from repeated defeats. On the south, however, a new and dangerous enemy appeared in the Samnite' confederacy, now in the fulness of its strength, and in extent of territory and population far superior to Rome and her allies. 36. Cap' ua, a wealthy city of Campánia, having obtained from Rome the promise of protection against the Samnites, the latter haughtily engaged in the war, and with a larger army than Rome could muster invaded the territory of Campánia, but in two desperate battles were defeated by the Ro mans. Two years later the Samnites proffered terms of peace, which were accepted. (341 B. C.) A league with the Samnites ap. pears to have broken the connection that had long existed between Rome and Látium, and although the latter was willing to submit to a common government, and a complete union as one nation, yet the Romans, rejecting all compromise, haughtily determined either that their city must be a Latin town, or the Latins be subject to Rome. The result of the Latin war was the annexation of all Látium, and of Campánia also, to the territory of the Republic. (338 B. C.) 37. The Samnites were alarmed at these successes, and Roman encroachments soon involved the two people in another war. The Samnites lost several battles, but under their able general Pontius they effectually humbled the pride of Rome. The armies of the two Roman consuls, amounting to twenty thousand men, XIV. SECOND while passing through a narrow defile call the Caudine 3 Forks, were surrounded by the enemy, and in this situa SAMNITE WAR. tion, unable either to fight or to retreat, were obliged to surrender. (321 B. C.) The terms of Pontius were that the Roman soldiers should be allowed to return to their homes, after passing under the 1. The Samnites dwelt at the distance of about ninety miles south-east from Rome, their territory lying between Apulia on the east and Campánia and Látium on the west. (Maps Nos. VIII. and X.) 2. Cap' za, the capital of Campánia, was about three miles from the left bank of the river Vultur nus, (now Vulturno,) about one hundred and five miles south-east from Rome. The remains of its ancient amphitheatre, said to have been capable of containing one hundred thousand spectators, and some of its tombs, &c., attest its ancient splendor and magnificence. Two and a half miles from the site of the ancient city, is the modern city of Cap' ua, on the 'eft bank of the Vulturno. (Map No. VIII.) 3. The Caudine Forks were a narrow pass in the Samnite territory, about thirty-five miles north-east from the Cap ua. The present valley of Arpaia, (or Forchia di Arpaia,) not far from Benevento, is thought to answer to this pass. |