The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858

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Here Mrs. Jaynes made a period, and watched the effect of her words.
After a pause she resumed by alluding to Laura's offer to remain
with her always, without marrying; and while poor Laura listened
with a feeling as if the very earth was sinking beneath her feet,
Mrs. Jaynes reminded her that she was a penniless orphan, who had
been maintained for years by the bounty of one upon whom she had no
claim, except that she was the sister of his wife.

"I have no right, you know, my dear," continued Mrs. Jaynes,
"to tell you that you may stay here longer. Jabez, doubtless, would
bid you remain and welcome, as he told you to come and welcome. But
young women are usually expected to marry, at or near your age. It
is probable, indeed I know, that, at the time you came, this event
was thought of, and taken into account. Mr. Jaynes is Mr. Hunt's
warm friend and admirer. He expects that you are going to marry this
good friend. What will be his reflections when he learns that you
prefer to remain here, a pensioner upon his income, rather than to
marry such a man as Mr. Hunt, whose only demerits are his blue
spectacles and pale complexion?"

Here Laura turned so white, and looked so woful, that her tormentor
paused, in apprehension that the poor girl was going to swoon.

"Oh, my God! what shall I do?" cried Laura, beating her palms
together, in sore distress.

"You know," resumed Mrs. Jaynes, watching her sister carefully, and
speaking softly, "you know that Mr. Jaynes's salary is not large. It
used to be more than sufficient for our wants, but the children are
getting to be more expensive every year. Their clothes cost more,
and the boys, at least, ought soon to go away to school, and Jabez
has set his heart upon sending Newton to college. If--well, never
mind, dear, I'll say no more; but when I think of this offer of
Mr. Hunt,--such a good offer, especially to one in your circumstances,
from such a worthy, talented, pious young clergyman, whose
preference Julia Bramhall or Cornelia Bugbee, with their thousands,
would be glad to win,--who is going to be settled in a good old
parish, like Walbury, and receive at once a salary almost as large,
I dare say, as Mr. Jaynes's,--I _do_ say, Laura, that you ought to
give better reasons for refusing him, nay, for jilting him, after a
two-years' engagement, than that his cheeks are pale and his
spectacles blue. We love you, Laura, and are willing to give you a
home and the best we can afford to eat and drink and wear, but
Mr. Hunt loves you as well, or better, and offers you more than we
have it in our power to bestow. Take the day for reflection.
To-morrow Mr. Hunt will be here. Think, my child, whether you will
be justified in rejecting this offer. Your refusal, bear in mind,
imposes upon others a sacrifice of something more than childish
whims and silly prejudices. In order that you may have time and
opportunity to give this important matter due consideration, you had
better remain in your chamber. But don't fancy yourself a prisoner.
If you choose to see any one that calls, you can do so. But, my dear,
I cannot permit you to go and seek those who, from spite and malice
against me, would take delight in giving you evil counsel."

With this sharp innuendo against Tira Blake, in which she thought
she might now safely indulge, Mrs. Jaynes concluded her speech and
went out softly, leaving poor Laura in a stupor of despair, sitting
with her hands clasped in her lap and her head drooping on her bosom.

At last, looking up with a glance so woful that one would scarcely
have known her, Laura perceived she was alone. She rose, went to the
door and locked it, standing for a moment trembling, until of a
sudden she fell a-crying piteously, and began to walk to and fro
across her chamber, wringing her hands like one distraught, and
sometimes throwing herself upon the bed, wailing and moaning all the
while as if her heart would break indeed. And, truly, she had some
reason for the violence of her grief. Not being a thoughtful person,
nor given to meditation, she had never before duly considered that
her maintenance was a matter of cost and calculation to those who
provided it, nor reflected that she had no rightful claim upon those
who gave her shelter, food, and clothing. She had been thankful to
her protectors for their kindness, but the sentiment she entertained
for them was more like filial love than gratitude. For the first
time she realized that she was a pensioner on another's bounty, and
felt the sharp sting of conscious dependence.

At length, growing more calm after the first passionate outbreak of
frantic sorrow had subsided, she dried her eyes and sat down on
purpose to think. Poor child! Serious deliberation was a new
exercise to her mind. Besides, her head ached, her brain seemed in a
whirl, and her heart was so full and heavy she wanted to do nothing
but cry with all her might till the burden was gone. But think she
must, and knitting her brows and stilling her sobs, she tried to
think. What could she do? Oh, if she could but ask Tira! But what
good could Tira do? What could she tell her? It was not her sister
that was forcing her, but Fate itself! All that her sister had told
her was true, every word. The tone of her voice, her manner, had
been unusually kind and gentle. There was nothing she had said that
she could be blamed for saying. Tira herself must admit that it was
all true and reasonable,--but, oh, how very dreadful! Then she
conjured up to view the image of Elam Hunt,--his lank, slim figure,
arrayed in sombre black,--his pale, cadaverous visage, spotted with
pimples and blue blotches of close-shaven beard,--his spectral
glance of admiration through those detestable blue spectacles. She
imagined that she felt the clammy touch of his long, skinny fingers,
and cold, flabby palm. She reflected upon the probability, nay, the
certainty, that she must marry this man, for whom she felt such an
invincible repugnance, and in a frenzy of dismay and terror she
screamed aloud and started up as if to fly. Then, recollecting
herself, she sank down moaning.--Oh, heavens! she thought, there was
no escape, no help! How wretched she was! how utterly miserable! all
alone, alone, in such a dreary, lonesome world, with no home, nor
father, nor mother, nor brother,--with only a sister who had a
husband and children, whom she loved, as she ought, far better than
she did her. There was nobody to whom she was the dearest of all,--
nobody, except Elam Hunt, whom she hated and loathed with all her
heart, and the very thought of whose love made her shudder. What
could she do? To stay and be a burden for her friends to support was
worse than anything. That, at least, she was resolved to do no longer.
If she were only strong enough, she would go where nobody knew her
and work at housework, or in a factory, or anywhere. Oh, if she only
knew enough to teach school! She should like that. It would be so
pleasant to have the children love her, and bring her flowers to put
upon her desk! But, oh, dear! she didn't know enough, she feared.
For all that she had graduated at the Academy, she never dared to
write a letter without looking up all the hard words of it in the
dictionary, to see how they were spelt;--and parsing! and doing sums!--
oh, gracious! she never could teach school,--that was out of the
question!

At last, after a long fit of silent musing, during which she had bit
her lips, and frowned, and gazed abstractedly at the wall, a gleam
of hope lit up her face, soon brightening into a smile. She had hit
upon a plan! She could learn the milliner's trade! She had always
been handy with her needle, and liked nothing better than to arrange
laces and ribbons and flowers. She could easily learn to make and
trim a bonnet, she thought; at least, she could try. At first it
would come hard to sit cooped up in those little back shops, sewing
and stitching from morning till night; but it was better than
marrying Elam Hunt, or than eating other people's bread. Then she
began to build castles in the air, as her custom was. She fancied
herself a milliner's apprentice, working away at bonnets and caps,
among a group of other girls,--sometimes rising to attend upon a
customer, or peeping out between the folds of a curtain at people in
the front shop. She wondered whether Cornelia and Helen would be
ashamed of knowing a milliner's apprentice, if they should chance to
see her in Hartford.

What would her schoolmates say? and would her hero despise a girl
that worked for a livelihood? Then she whimpered a little, thinking
how lonesome she would be, for a while, among strangers; but it was
a kind of lamentation that differed widely from the frantic weeping
of the morning. Then, all at once, a doubt began to depress her
new-born hopes. Could she get a place? She was a stranger in Hartford,
and beyond that city she dared not send her thoughts. Could Tira get
a place for her? She feared not, for Tira herself seldom went to the
city. But there was Doctor Bugbee, who knew a great many people there,
and who was so rich and powerful, that even in Hartford, though it
was a city, his word must have great influence. Besides, the firm of
Bugbee Brothers purchased large quantities of goods at some of the
great millinery shops. The Doctor's own private custom was not small,
for Cornelia dressed as became her condition, and even little Helen
scorned to wear a bonnet unless it came from Hartford. Doctor Bugbee
could help her to find a place. Doubtless he would be willing, nay,
even glad, to assist her in her trouble. At any rate, she would ask
him. But how was she to see him? He was not likely to call upon her,
unless she feigned sickness, and sent for him; for her sister would
not permit her to go to his house, where she would be sure to see
Tira. Besides, the Doctor's manner had of late grown so distant and
forbidding, that she was a little fearful of obtruding herself upon
his notice. Though sorry for this change, she had never laid it so
much to heart as to be grieved or affronted; for even his children
complained of his altered behavior, and all his friends had noticed
the gloomy expression which his face sometimes wore. But now she
troubled herself with wondering whether she had given him any cause
to be offended with her. Perhaps her giddy nonsense and thoughtless
gayety, which when he himself was cheerful and happy he had listened
to without displeasure, had vexed and annoyed him in his moods of
sadness and dejection. But what else could she do than solicit his
aid? The favor, though small for him to grant, would be of immense
benefit to her, and the good-hearted Doctor would not be likely to
refuse. She would tell him how friendless she was, and beg him to
help the fatherless in her distress. She knew that he would not turn
her away. At all events, she could try.

Coming at last to this conclusion, and wonderfully cheered and
strengthened by the purpose she had formed, she washed her face,
arranged her dishevelled hair, and smoothed her rumpled dress. Then
sitting down behind the window-curtain, she began to watch for
Cornelia, hoping her friend would not long delay her accustomed
visit to the parsonage. But it happened that Cornelia had that very
day begun a novel, in three volumes, the heroine of which was
represented to be a young lady whose extreme beauty and amiable
temper made her deserving of better treatment than she received at
the hands of the hard-hearted author, who suffered her to be cheated
and bullied by a scheming and brutal guardian, to be slandered by
his envious daughter, persecuted by a dissolute nobleman, haunted by
a spectre, shut up in a tower, exposed to manifold dangers, beset by
robbers, abducted, assaulted, barely rescued, and, finally, even
teased and tormented by the chosen lover of her heart, a
jealous-pated fellow, who was always making her miserable and
himself ridiculous by his absurd suspicions and fractious behavior.

Sympathizing deeply with this distressed young woman, whose
unexampled misfortunes and troubles would have touched the heart of
even a marble statue, Cornelia was weeping dolefully over a page
near the end of the second volume, where the lady's lover, in a fit
of senseless jealousy, tears her miniature from his bosom, renounces
her affection, and leaves her swooning upon the floor. Just then
Helen rushed into her chamber, with a summons from Laura to hasten
at once to her side. For Laura, after long watching, had caught
sight of Helen jumping the rope on the grassplot, and by means of
coughing and waving her handkerchief from the window had attracted
the notice of the child, who, coming to the paling, had received the
message she forthwith bore to Cornelia, adding to it the information
that Laura's eyes appeared to be almost as red as Cornelia's own.

Staying only to finish the volume, Cornelia repaired to comfort and
console her friend, to whose chamber she found ready access in spite
of some vague misgivings in Mrs. Jaynes's mind. But, shrewd as this
lady was by nature, and apprehensive as she felt that some untoward
accident would prevent the accomplishment of her cherished plans, she
never dreamed of the momentous results that were to follow this
interview, apparently so harmless, between Laura and her friend; nor
would it be fitting to suffer an account of so important a conference
to appear at the end of a chapter.

[To be continued in the next Number.]

* * * * *

SPARTACUS.

The Romans had many virtues, and conspicuous amongst these was the
virtue of impartiality. They treated everybody with equal inhumanity.
They were as pitiless towards the humble as towards the proud. The
quality of mercy was utterly unknown to them. Their motto,

"Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos,"

Powell Buxton has happily translated, "They murdered all who
resisted them, and enslaved the rest."

But it was as slaveholders that the Romans most clearly exhibited
their impartiality. They were above those miserable subterfuges that
are so common with Americans. They made slaves of all, of the high
as well as the low,--of Thracians as well as Sardinians, of Greeks
and Syrians as readily as of Scythians and Cappadocians.

The consequence of the modes by which the Romans obtained their
bondmen,--by war, by purchase, and by kidnapping,--affecting as they
did the most cultivated and the bravest races, necessarily made
slavery a very dangerous institution. Greeks and Gauls, Thracians
and Syrians, Germans and Spaniards were not likely to submit their
necks readily to the yoke. They rose several times in great masses,
and contended for years on equal terms with the legions. Some of
their number exhibited the talents of statesmen and soldiers, at the
head of armies more numerous than both those which fought at Cannae.
One of them showed himself to be a born soldier, and caused the
greatest terror to be felt at Rome that had been known there since
that day on which Hannibal rode up to the Colline Gate, and cast his
javelin defiantly into that city which he himself never could enter.

The treatment of their slaves by the Romans was not unlike that
which slaves now experience. Some masters were kind, and there are
many facts which show that the relations between master and slave
were occasionally of the most amiable nature. But these were
exceptional cases, the general rule being cruelty, as it must be
where so much power is lodged in the hands of one class of men, and
the other has only a nominal protection from the law. Even where
cruelty takes no other form than that involved in hard labor, the
slave must experience intolerable oppression. Now the Romans were
the most avaricious people that ever lived. They had a hearty love
of money for money's sake. They would do anything for gold. Such men
were not likely to let their slaves grow fat from light tasks and
abundant food; their food was light, and their tasks were heavy. So
ill-fed were they that they were compelled to rob on the highway,
and were encouraged to do so by their owners. Indeed, much of the
private economy of the Romans was founded on cruelty to their slaves.
Some, who have come down to us as model men, were infamous for their
maltreatment of their bondmen. The life of any foreigner was of but
little account with any Roman, but enslaved foreigners were regarded
as on a level with brutes. Many anecdotes are related of the
ferocious disregard of all humanity which the world's masters
manifested towards the servile classes. There is a story told by
Cicero, in one of the Verrine Orations, which peculiarly illustrates
this feature of the Roman character. The praetorian edicts forbade
slaves to carry arms. There were no exceptions. A boar of great size
was once given to Lucius Domitius, who was a Sicilian Praetor. Its
size caused him to ask by whom it was slain; and on being informed
that the hunter was a shepherd and slave, he sent for him. The slave,
not doubting that he should be rewarded for his bravery, hastened to
present himself before the Praetor, who asked him what he killed the
animal with. "With a spear," was the answer; whereupon the Praetor
ordered that he should be immediately crucified. This was but one of
thousands of similar acts that were perpetrated by Romans through
many generations.

The slaves, as we have remarked, occasionally revolted, and the
efforts that were found necessary to subdue them rose sometimes to
the dignity of wars. The first Servile War of the Romans occurred in
Sicily. There were various reasons why this fine island should
become the scene of servile wars sooner than other portions of the
Roman dominions. Upon the final expulsion of the Carthaginians,
about the middle of the second Punic War, great changes of property
ensued. Speculators from Italy rushed into the island, "who," says
Arnold, "in the general distress of the Sicilians, bought up large
tracts of land at a low price, or became the occupiers of estates
which had belonged to Sicilians of the Carthaginian party, and had
been forfeited to Rome after the execution or flight of their owners.
The Sicilians of the Roman party followed the example, and became
rich out of the distress of their countrymen. Slaves were to be had
cheap; and corn was likely to find a sure market whilst Italy was
suffering from the ravages of war. Accordingly, Sicily was crowded
with slaves, employed to grow corn for the great landed proprietors,
whether Sicilian or Italian, and so ill-fed by their masters that
they soon began to provide for themselves by robbery. The poorer
Sicilians were the sufferers from this evil; and as the masters were
well content that their slaves should be maintained at the expense of
others, they were at no pains to restrain their outrages. Thus,
although nominally at peace, though full of wealthy proprietors, and
though exporting corn largely every year, yet Sicily was teeming with
evils, which, seventy or eighty years after, broke out in the
horrible atrocities of the Servile War." [2]

[Footnote 2: Arnold, _History of Rome_, Vol. III. pp. 317-318,
London edition.]

The Sicilian Servile War began B.C. 133, only a few years after the
destruction of Carthage and Corinth, and when the military power of
the republic was probably at its height, though military discipline
may have been somewhat relaxed from the old standard. It lasted two
or three years. The chief of the slaves had at one time two hundred
thousand followers, inclusive, probably, of women and children. He
was a Syrian of Apamea, named Eunus, and had been a prophet and
conjurer among the slaves. To his prophecies and tricks he owed his
elevation when the rebellion broke out. According to some accounts,
he was rather a cunning than an able man; but it should be
recollected that his enemies only have drawn his portrait. The
victories he so often won over the Roman forces are placed to the
credit of his lieutenant, a Cilician of the name of Cleon; but he
must have been a man of considerable ability to have maintained his
position so long, and to have commanded the services of those said
to have been his superiors. Cleon's superiority was probably only
that of the soldier. He fell in battle, and Eunus was made prisoner,
but died before he could be brought to punishment,--no doubt, to the
vast regret of his savage captors.

In the year B.C. 103, another Servile War broke out in Sicily, and
was not brought to an end until after four years of hard fighting.
The leaders were Salvius, or Tryphon, an Italian, and Athenion, a
Cilician, or Greek. Both showed considerable talent, but owed their
leadership, Salvius to his knowledge of divination, and Athenion to
his pretensions to astrology. They were often successful, and it was
not until a Consul had taken the field against them that the slaves
were subdued, the chiefs having successively fallen, and no one
arising to make their place good.

The next great Servile War was on a grander scale, though briefer,
than either of the Sicilian contests. Its scene was Italy, and it
was conducted, on the part of the rebels, by the profoundest military
genius ever encountered by the Romans, with the exception, perhaps,
of Hannibal. We speak of SPARTACUS, who defeated many Roman armies,
and disputed with the all-conquering republic the dominion of the
Italian Peninsula, and with it that of the civilized world. This war
took place B.C. 73-71, while Rome was engaged in hostilities with
Sertorius and Mithridates; and it was brought to an end only by the
exertions of the ablest generals the republic then had,--the great
Pompeius having been summoned from Spain, and it being in
contemplation to order home Lucullus from the East. In the war with
Hannibal the Romans showed their fearlessness by sending troops to
Spain while the Carthaginian with his army was lying under their
walls; but they called troops and generals from Spain to their
assistance against the Thracian gladiator. He must have been a man
of extraordinary powers to have accomplished so much with the means
at his disposal. It has been regarded as a proof of the astonishing
powers of Hannibal as a commander, that he could keep together, and
in effective condition, an army composed of the outcasts, as it were,
of many nations, and win with it great victories, scattered over a
long period of time; yet this was less than was done by Spartacus.
The Carthaginian, like Alexander, succeeded to an army formed by his
father, next after himself the ablest man of the age. The Thracian,
without country or home, and an outlaw from the beginning of his
enterprise, had to create an army, and that out of the most
heterogeneous and apparently the most unpromising materials. The
palm must be aligned to the latter.

To what race did Spartacus belong? We are told that he was a
Thracian, his family being shepherds. The Thracians were a brave
people, but by no means remarkable for the highest intellectual
superiority; yet Spartacus was eminently a man of mind, with large
views, and an original genius for organization and war. Plutarch
pays him the highest compliment in his power, by admitting that he
deserved to be regarded as belonging to the Hellenic race. He was,
says the old Lifemaker, "a man not only of great courage and strength,
but, in judgment and mildness of character, superior to his condition,
and more like a Greek than one would expect from his nation."
It is not impossible that he had Greek blood in his veins. Thrace
was hard by Greece, had many Greek cities, and its full proportion
of those Greek adventurers, military and civil, who were to be found
in every country and city, from Spain to Persia, from Gades to
Ecbatana. What more probable than that among his ancestors were
Greeks? At the same time it must be admitted that the Thracians
themselves were capable of producing eminent men, being a superior
physical race, and prevented only by the force of circumstances from
attaining to a respectable position. They were renowned for
soldierlike qualities, which caused the Romans to give them the
preference as gladiators,--a dubious honor, to say the best of it.

How, and under what circumstances, Spartacus became a gladiator, is
a point by no means clear. We cannot trust the Roman accounts, as it
was a meritorious thing, in the opinion of a Roman, for a man to lie
for his country, as well as to die for it. Florus states, that he was
first a Thracian mercenary, then a Roman soldier, then a deserter
and robber, and then, because of his strength, a gladiator from
choice. But, to say nothing of the national prejudices of Florus, he
writes like a man who felt it to be a particular grievance that
Romans should have been compelled to fight slaves, and particularly
gladiators. This is in striking contrast with Plutarch, who was a
contemporary of Florus, but whose patriotic pride was not wounded by
the victories which the Thracian gladiator won over Roman generals.
Indeed, as he was willing to admit that Spartacus ought to have been
a Greek, we may suppose that he was pleased to read of his victories,--
a not unnatural thing in a provincial, and particularly in a Greek,
who knew so well what his country had once been. Plutarch says not a
word about the Thracian having been a soldier and a thief, but
introduces him with one of his good stories. "They say," he tells us,
"that when Spartacus was first taken to Rome to be sold, a snake was
seen folded over his face while he was sleeping, and a woman, of the
same tribe with Spartacus, who was skilled in divination, and
possessed by the mysterious rites of Dionysus, declared that this
was a sign of a great and formidable power, which would attend him
to a happy termination." She was the Thracian's wife, or mistress,
being connected with him by some tender tie, and was with him when
he subsequently escaped from Capua. In the bloody drama of the War
of Spartacus hers is the sole relieving figure, and we would fain
know more of her, for it could have been no ordinary woman who was
loved by such a man.

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