Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four.

W >> William H. Elson and Christine Keck >> Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four.

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No murmur of business or of revelry arose from the city. The artisan had
forsaken his shop, the judge his tribunal, the priest the sanctuary, and
even the stern stoic had come forth from his retirement to mingle with the
crowd that, anxious and agitated, were rushing toward the senate-house,
startled by the report that Regulus had returned to Carthage.

Onward, still onward, trampling each other under foot, they rushed, furious
with anger, and eager for revenge. Fathers were there, whose sons were
groaning in fetters; maidens, whose lovers, weak and wounded, were dying in
the dungeons of Rome, and gray-haired men and matrons, whom the Roman sword
had left childless.

But when the stern features of Regulus were seen, and his colossal form
towering above the ambassadors who had returned with him from Rome; when
the news passed from lip to lip that the dreaded warrior, so far from
advising the Roman senate to consent to an exchange of prisoners, had urged
them to pursue, with exterminating vengeance, Carthage and
Carthaginians,--the multitude swayed to and fro like a forest beneath a
tempest, and the rage and hate of that tumultuous throng vented itself in
groans, and curses, and yells of vengeance.

But calm, cold, and immovable as the marble walls around him, stood the
Roman; and he stretched out his hand over that frenzied crowd, with gesture
as proudly commanding as though he still stood at the head of the gleaming
cohorts of Rome. The tumult ceased; the curse, half muttered, died upon the
lip; and so intense was the silence, that the clanking of the brazen
manacles upon the wrists of the captive fell sharp and full upon every ear
in that vast assembly, as he thus addressed them:--

"Ye doubtless thought--for ye judge of Roman virtue by your own--that I
would break my plighted oath, rather than, returning, brook your vengeance.
I might give reasons for this, in Punic comprehension, most foolish act of
mine. I might speak of those eternal principles which make death for one's
country a pleasure, not a pain. But, by great Jupiter! methinks I should
debase myself to talk of such high things to you; to you, expert in womanly
inventions; to you, well-skilled to drive a treacherous trade with simple
Africans for ivory and gold!

"If the bright blood that fills my veins, transmitted free from godlike
ancestry, were like that slimy ooze which stagnates in your arteries, I had
remained at home, and broke my plighted oath to save my life. I am a Roman
citizen; therefore have I returned, that ye might work your will upon this
mass of flesh and bones, that I esteem no higher than the rags that cover
them.

"Here, in your capital, do I defy you. Have I not conquered your armies,
fired your towns, and dragged your generals at my chariot wheels, since
first my youthful arms could wield a spear? And do you think to see me
crouch and cower before a tamed and shattered senate? The tearing of flesh
and rending of sinews is but pastime compared with the mental agony that
heaves my frame.

"The moon has scarce yet waned since the proudest of Rome's proud matrons,
the mother upon whose breast I slept, and whose fair brow so oft had bent
over me before the noise of battle had stirred my blood, or the fierce toil
of war nerved my sinews, did, with fondest memory of bygone hours, entreat
me to remain. I have seen her, who, when my country called me to the field,
did buckle on my harness with trembling hands, while the tears fell thick
and fast down the hard corselet scales--I have seen her tear her gray locks
and beat her aged breast, as on her knees she begged me not to return to
Carthage! and all the assembled senate of Rome, grave and reverend men,
proffered the same request. The puny torments which ye have in store to
welcome me withal, shall be, to what I have endured, even as the murmur of
a summer's brook to the fierce roar of angry surges on a rocky beach.

"Last night, as I lay fettered in my dungeon, I heard a strange, ominous
sound; it seemed like the distant march of some vast army, their harness
clanging as they marched, when suddenly there stood by me Xanthippus, the
Spartan general, by whose aid you conquered me, and, with a voice as low as
when the solemn wind moans through the leaflless forest, he thus addressed
me:--

"'Roman, I come to bid thee curse, with thy dying breath, this fated city:
know that in an evil moment, the Carthaginian generals, furious with rage
that I had conquered thee, their conqueror, did basely murder me. And then
they thought to stain my brightest honor. But, for this foul deed, the
wrath of Jove shall rest upon them here and hereafter.' And then he
vanished.

"And now, go bring your sharpest torments. The woes I see impending over
this guilty realm shall be enough to sweeten death, though every nerve and
artery were a shooting pang. I die! but my death shall prove a proud
triumph; and, for every drop of blood ye from my veins do draw, your own
shall flow in rivers.

"Woe to thee, Carthage! Woe to the proud city of the waters! I see thy
nobles wailing at the feet of Roman senators! thy citizens in terror! thy
ships in flames! I hear the victorious shouts of Rome! I see her eagles
glittering on thy ramparts. Proud city, thou art doomed! The curse of God
is on thee--a clinging, wasting curse. It shall not leave thy gates till
hungry flames shall lick the fretted gold from off thy proud palaces, and
every brook runs crimson to the sea."

* * * * *

SPARTACUS TO THE GLADIATORS

ELIJAH KELLOGG

It had been a day of triumph in Capua. Lentulus, returning with victorious
eagles, had amused the populace with the sports of the amphitheatre to an
extent hitherto unknown even in that luxurious city. The shouts of revelry
had died away; the roar of the lion had ceased; the last loiterer had
retired from the banquet, and the lights in the palace of the victor were
extinguished. The moon, piercing the tissue of fleecy clouds, silvered the
dewdrop on the corselet of the Roman sentinel, and tipped the dark waters
of Volturnus with wavy, tremulous light. It was a night of holy calm, when
the zephyr sways the young spring leaves, and whispers among the hollow
reeds its dreamy music. No sound was heard but the last sob of some weary
wave, telling its story to the smooth pebbles of the beach, and then all
was still as the breast when the spirit has departed.

In the deep recesses of the amphitheatre a band of gladiators were crowded
together,--their muscles still knotted with the agony of conflict, the foam
upon their lips, and the scowl of battle yet lingering upon their
brows,--when Spartacus, rising in the midst of that grim assemblage, thus
addressed them:--

"Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call him chief who, for twelve long
years, has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast that the broad
Empire of Rome could furnish, and yet never has lowered his arm. And if
there be one among you who can say that, ever, in public fight or private
brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him step forth and say it. If
there be three in all your throng dare face me on the bloody sand, let them
come on!

"Yet, I was not always thus, a hired butcher, a savage chief of savage men.
My father was a reverent man, who feared great Jupiter, and brought to the
rural deities his offerings of fruits and flowers. He dwelt among the
vineclad rocks and olive groves at the foot of Helicon. My early life ran
quiet as the brook by which I sported. I was taught to prune the vine, to
tend the flock; and then, at noon, I gathered my sheep beneath the shade,
and played upon the shepherd's flute. I had a friend, the son of our
neighbor; we led our flocks to the same pasture, and shared together our
rustic meal.

"One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath
the myrtle that shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling
of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of
Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, withstood a whole army. I did not
then know what war meant; but my cheeks burned. I knew not why; and I
clasped the knees of that venerable man, till my mother, parting the hair
from off my brow, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and
think no more of those old tales and savage wars.

"That very night the Romans landed on our shore, and the clash of steel was
heard within our quiet vale. I saw the breast that had nourished me
trampled by the iron hoof of the warhorse; the bleeding body of my father
flung amid the blazing rafters of our dwelling. To-day I killed a man in
the arena, and when I broke his helmet clasps, behold! he was my friend! He
knew me,--smiled faintly,--gasped,--and died; the same sweet smile that I
had marked upon his face when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled some lofty
cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish
triumph. I told the praetor he was my friend, noble and brave, and I begged
his body, that I might burn it upon the funeral-pile, and mourn over him.
Ay, on my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that boon,
while all the Roman maids and matrons, and those holy virgins they call
vestal, and the rabble, shouted in mockery, deeming it rare sport,
forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale, and tremble like a
very child, before that piece of bleeding clay; but the praetor drew back
as if I were pollution, and sternly said, 'Let the carrion rot! There are
no noble men but Romans!' And he, deprived of funeral rites, must wander, a
hapless ghost, beside the waters of that sluggish river, and look--and
look--and look in vain to the bright Elysian Fields where dwell his
ancestors and noble kindred. And so must you, and so must I, die like dogs!

"O Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me! Ay, thou hast given to
that poor, gentle, timid shepherd-lad, who never knew a harsher sound than
a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the
sword through rugged brass and plaited mail, and warm it in the marrow of
his foe! to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion,
even as a smooth-cheeked boy upon a laughing girl. And he shall pay thee
back till thy yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze
thy life-blood lies curdled!

"Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! the strength of brass is in your
toughened sinews; but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet odors
from his curly locks, shall come, and with his lily fingers pat your brawny
shoulders, and bet his sesterces upon your blood! Hark! Hear ye yon lion
roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he tasted meat; but to-morrow he
shall break his fast upon your flesh; and ye shall be a dainty meal for
him.

"If ye are brutes, then stand here like fat oxen waiting for the butcher's
knife; if ye are men, follow me! strike down yon sentinel, and gain the
mountain passes, and there do bloody work as did your sires at old
Thermopylae! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins,
that you do crouch and cower like base-born slaves beneath your master's
lash? O comrades! warriors! Thracians! if we must fight, let us fight for
ourselves; if we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors; if we
must die, let us die under the open sky, by the bright waters, in noble,
honorable battle."

Biographical and Historical: This is a supposed speech of Spartacus written
by Elijah Kellogg, a New England clergyman. Spartacus was a Thracian by
birth, who served in the Roman army. Having deserted, he was taken
prisoner, sold as a slave, and trained as a gladiator at Capua. He escaped
and gathered about him a large army of slaves and gladiators, with whom he
intended to push northward and allow them all to return to their homes.
They, however, after attacking many towns, were finally overcome. Spartacus
himself died in battle, and six thousand slaves were crucified on the road
from Capua to Rome.

Capua was a city of great luxury, containing an amphitheater nearly as
large as the Coliseum at Rome. The ancients attached great importance to
the rites of burial, and believed that the soul could not reach the Elysian
Fields unless the body had been buried.

* * * * *

MERIT BEFORE BIRTH

TRANSLATED FROM SALLUST

You have committed to my conduct, O Romans, the war against Jugurtha. The
patricians take offence. They say, "Why, he has no family statues. He can
point to no illustrious ancestors." What of that? Will dead ancestors or
motionless statues fight battles? Can your general appeal to them in the
hour of extremest danger? How wise it would be, surely, to intrust your
army to some untried person without a single scar, but with any number of
ancestral statues,--who knows not the simplest rudiments of military
service, but is very perfect in pedigree! I have known such holiday heroes,
raised, because of family, to positions for which they had no fitness. But,
then, in the moment of action they were obliged, in their ignorance and
trepidation, to intrust every movement, even the most simple, to some
subaltern, some despised plebeian.

What they have seen in books, I have seen written on battlefields, with
steel and blood. They sneer at my mean origin. Where,--and may the gods
bear witness,--where, but in the spirit of man, is nobility lodged? Tell
these despicable railers that their haughty lineage cannot make them noble,
nor will my humble birth make me base. I profess no indifference to noble
descent; but when a descendant is dwarfed in the comparison, it should be a
shame, and not a matter to boast of! I can show the standards, the armor,
and the spoils which I have in person wrested from the vanquished. I can
show the scars of many wounds received in combating the enemies of Rome.
These are my statues! These are my honors, to boast of; not inherited by
accident, but earned by toil, by abstinence, by valor, amid clouds of dust
and seas of blood. Their titles date from similar acts of their ancestors;
but these detractors did not even dare to appear on the field as
spectators. These are my credentials! These, O Romans, are my titles of
nobility! Tell me, are they not as deserving of your confidence and reward
as those of which any patrician of them all can boast?

Biographical and Historical: Sallust, the author of this selection, was a
famous Roman historian of the first century B. C. Caius Marius was the son
of a small farmer and worked his way up from this humble origin to the
highest position, that of consul, in spite of the determined opposition of
the senate, and the aristocracy. By the vote of the Roman people, he was
given command of the army in the campaign against Jugurtha, a prince who
had usurped the Numidian throne.

* * * * *

RIENZI'S ADDRESS TO THE ROMANS

MARY RUSSELL MITFORD

Friends!
I come not here to talk. You know too well
The story of our thralldom. We are slaves!
The bright sun rises to his course, and lights
A race of slaves! he sets, and his last beam
Falls on a slave!--not such as, swept along
By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads
To crimson glory and undying fame,
But base, ignoble slaves--slaves to a horde
Of petty tyrants; feudal despots; lords,
Rich in some dozen paltry villages,
Strong in some hundred spearmen; only great
In that strange spell--a name.

Each hour dark fraud,
Or open rapine, or protected murder,
Cry out against them. But this very day,
An honest man, my neighbor--there he stands--
Was struck--struck like a dog, by one who wore
The badge of Ursini, because, forsooth,
He tossed not high his ready cap in air,
Nor lifted up his voice in servile shouts
At sight of that great ruffian! Be we men,
And suffer such dishonor?--Men, and wash not
The stain away in blood?

Such shames are common.
I have known deeper wrongs. I that speak to you,
I had a brother once, a gracious boy,
Full of gentleness, of calmest hope,
Of sweet and quiet joy: there was the look
Of heaven upon his face, which limners give
To the beloved disciple. How I loved
That gracious boy! Younger by fifteen years,
Brother at once and son! He left my side,
A summer bloom on his fair cheek, a smile
Parting his innocent lips: in one short hour,
The pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw
The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried
For vengeance!

Rouse ye, Romans! rouse ye, slaves!
Have ye brave sons? Look in the next fierce brawl
To see them die. Have ye fair daughters? Look
To see them live, torn from your arms, distained,
Dishonored; and, if ye dare call for justice,
Be answered by the lash!

Yet this is Rome,
That sat on her seven hills, and from her throne
Of beauty ruled the world! Yet we are Romans!
Why, in that elder day, to be a Roman
Was greater than a king! And, once again,--
Hear me, ye walls, that echoed to the tread
Of either Brutus!--once again, I swear,
The Eternal City shall be free!

Biographical and Historical: Mary Russell Mitford, born in 1787, was an
English writer of miscellaneous works. Among her most noted productions is
the tragedy "Rienzi," which was presented in London in 1828. It is the
story of the Roman patriot, Rienzi, who led a revolution at Rome in 1347.
He overthrew the power of the aristocracy and introduced many reforms in
the government. After establishing himself in power, however, he is said to
have become in turn haughty and arbitrary.

* * * * *

EMMET'S VINDICATION

MY LORDS: What have I to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced
on me, according to law? I have nothing to say that can alter your
predetermination, nor that it will become me to say with any view to the
mitigation of that sentence which you are here to pronounce, and I must
abide by. But I have that to say which interests me more than life, and
which you have labored to destroy. I have much to say why my reputation
should be rescued from the load of false accusation and calumny which has
been heaped upon it.

Were I only to suffer death, after being adjudged guilty by _your_
tribunal, I should bow in silence, and meet the fate that awaits me without
a murmur; but the sentence of law which delivers my body to the executioner
will, through the ministry of that law, labor, in its own vindication, to
consign my character to obloquy; for there must be guilt somewhere--whether
in the sentence of the court, or in the catastrophe, posterity must
determine. The man dies, but his memory lives. That mine may not
perish--that it may live in the respect of my countrymen--I seize upon this
opportunity to vindicate myself from some of the charges alleged against
me.

When my spirit shall be wafted to a more friendly port; when my shade shall
have joined the bands of those martyred heroes who have shed their blood,
on the scaffold and in the field, in defense of their country and virtue;
this is my hope--I wish that my memory and name may animate those who
survive me, while I look down with complacency on the destruction of that
perfidious government which upholds its domination by blasphemy of the Most
High, which displays its powers over man as over the beasts of the forest,
which sets man upon his brother, and lifts his hand, in the name of God,
against the throat of his fellow who believes or doubts a little more or
less than the government standard--a government which is steeled to
barbarity by the cries of the orphans and the tears of the widows which its
cruelty has made.

I swear by the throne of Heaven, before which I must shortly appear--by the
blood of the murdered patriots who have gone before me--that my conduct has
been, through all this peril and all my purposes, governed only by the
convictions which I have uttered, and no other view than that of the
emancipation of my country from the superinhuman oppression under which she
has so long and too patiently travailed; and that I confidently and
assuredly hope, wild and chimerical as it may appear, that there is still
union and strength in Ireland to accomplish this noble enterprise.

My country was my idol. To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing
sentiment; and for it I now offer up my life! I acted as an Irishman,
determined on delivering my country from the yoke of a foreign and
unrelenting tyranny, and from the more galling yoke of a domestic faction,
its joint partner and perpetrator in the patricide, whose reward is the
ignominy of existing with an exterior of splendor and a consciousness of
depravity. It was the wish of my heart to extricate my country from this
doubly riveted despotism. I wished to place her independence beyond the
reach of any power on earth. I wished to exalt her to that proud station in
the world which Providence had fitted her to fill.

Let no man dare, when I am dead, to charge me with dishonor; let no man
attaint my memory by believing that I could have engaged in any cause but
that of my country's liberty and independence, or that I could have become
the pliant minion of power in the oppression or the miseries of my
countrymen. I would not have submitted to a foreign oppressor, for the same
reason that I would resist the domestic tyrant; in the dignity of freedom I
would have fought upon the threshold of my country, and her enemies should
enter only by passing over my lifeless corpse. Am I, who lived but for my
country, and who have subjected myself to the vengeance of the jealous and
wrathful oppressor, and to the bondage of the grave, only to give my
countrymen their rights and my country her independence--am I to be loaded
with calumny, and not to be suffered to resent or repel it? No! God forbid!

If the spirits of the illustrious dead participate in the concerns and
cares of those who are dear to them in this transitory life, O ever dear
and venerated shade of my departed father, look down with scrutiny on the
conduct of your suffering son, and see if I have even for a moment deviated
from those principles of morality and patriotism which it was your care to
instill into my youthful mind, and for an adherence to which I am now to
offer up my life!

My Lords, you are all impatient for the sacrifice. The blood which you seek
is not congealed by the artificial terrors which surround your victim; it
circulates warmly and unruffled through the channels which God created for
noble purposes, but which you are bent to destroy, for purposes so grievous
that they cry to Heaven!

Be ye patient; I have but a few words more to say. I am going to my silent
grave; my lamp of life is nearly extinguished; my race is run; the grave
opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to
ask at my departure from this world--it is the charity of its silence. Let
no man write my epitaph; for, as no one who knows my motives dare now
vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and
me repose in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until
other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country
shall take her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till
then, let my epitaph be written! I have done.

Biographical and Historical: During the latter part of the eighteenth
century and the beginning of the nineteenth, the spirit of independence was
abroad. The American Revolution was followed by the French Revolution, and
in 1803 Robert Emmet, an Irish patriot, headed a band to gain independence
for Ireland. After an unsuccessful attempt to take the arsenal and castle
at Dublin, he fled to the Wicklow mountains, whence he planned to escape to
the continent. Contrary to the advice of his friends, he determined to have
a last interview with his sweetheart, but the delay proved fatal to him. He
was seized and condemned to death. This extract is from the remarkably
eloquent speech with which he vainly defended himself.

* * * * *

KING PHILIP TO THE WHITE SETTLER

EDWARD EVERETT

Think of the country for which the Indians fought. Who can blame them? As
Philip looked down from his seat on Mount Hope, that glorious eminence,
that

"----throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,"--

as he looked down, and beheld the lovely scene which spread beneath, at a
summer sunset, the distant hill-tops glittering as with fire, the slanting
beams streaming across the waters, the broad plains, the island groups, the
majestic forest,--could he be blamed, if his heart burned within him, as he
beheld it all passing, by no tardy process, from beneath his control, into
the hands of the stranger?

As the river chieftains--the lords of the waterfalls and the
mountains--ranged this lovely valley, can it be wondered at, if they beheld
with bitterness the forest disappearing beneath the settler's ax--the
fishing-place disturbed by his saw-mills? Can we not fancy the feelings
with which some strong-minded savage, the chief of the Pocomtuck Indians,
who should have ascended the summit of the Sugar-loaf Mountain (rising as
it does before us, at this moment, in all its loveliness and grandeur),--in
company with a friendly settler,--contemplating the progress already made
by the white man, and marking the gigantic strides with which he was
advancing into the wilderness, should fold his arms and say, "White man,
there is eternal war between me and thee! I quit not the land of my
fathers, but with my life. In those woods, where I bent my youthful bow, I
will still hunt the deer; over yonder waters I will still glide,
unrestrained, in my bark canoe. By those dashing waterfalls I will still
lay up my winter's store of food; on these fertile meadows I will still
plant my corn.

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