The Comic History of Rome. À Beckett Gilbert Abbott
see those who have denounced a system yesterday participating in the profits of the same system to-day, and declaring their own arguments to be thoroughly out of place, as applied to themselves when in office. Brutus, however, could not consistently exercise a power he had sworn to overthrow; and to carry out his anti-monarchical principles, he had either to go out himself, or to ask for a colleague. On the same principle that prefers the half quartern to utter loaflessness, Brutus proposed a partnership in the government; and Collatinus was taken into the firm, which proved to have no firmness at all, for it was dissolved very speedily. The difficulty of agreement between two of the same trade was severely felt by the two popular reformers, who were dividing the substance without the name of that power they had vowed to destroy; it was soon evident that if they had thought it too much for one, they considered it not enough for two; and they were accordingly always quarrelling. To prevent collision, they tried the experiment of taking the supreme authority by turns, each assuming the fasces for a month at a time; but this alternate chopping of the regal sticks, or fasces, which were the emblems of power, led to nothing satisfactory.
A question at length arose, upon which the duality of the ruling mind was so distinctly marked, that the two consuls, whose very name is derived from con, with, and salio, to leap, were trying to leap in two opposite ways; and an end of their own power was the only conclusion to which they were likely to jump together. Tarquin had retired to Caere, waiting the chances of a restoration of his line; but his line had fallen into such contempt, that he was fishing in vain for his recall, though he nevertheless sent ambassadors to demand the restoration of himself, or at all events of his private property.
The senate decreed that though Tarquin could not have the fasces, he was at liberty to make a bundle of all the other sticks that might belong to him. On this question Brutus and Collatinus were violently opposed, and both becoming hot, their excessive warmth led to a mutual coolness that ended in an open hostility, which shut out every hope of compromise. Collatinus gave in by going out, and was succeeded by P. Valerius, one of the party of four who had roused the popular spirit over the bier of Lucretia.
Tarquin's ambassadors, instead of being satisfied with the permission to remove his goods, had other objects in the back-ground; for they had a plan for his restoration in the rear, while they let nothing appear in the van, but the late king's furniture. The plot was being discussed after dinner, by a party of the conspirators, when one of the waiters, who had concealed himself behind the door, overheard the scheme, and ran to Valerius with the exclusive intelligence. The traitors were secured, and when they were brought up before the consuls, Brutus recognising among the offenders his two sons, subjected both them and himself to a very severe trial. Asking them what they had to say to the charge, and getting "nothing" in reply, he looked in the faces of his sons, and declaring that he must class all malefactors under one general head, which must be cut off, he called upon the lictors to do their duty. In leaving the other prisoners to be tried by Valerius, Brutus whispered to his colleague, "Now try them, and acquit them, if you can;" but he could only execute the law, and the law could only execute the criminals. The ambassadors were allowed to remain at large, though their plotting proved that they had been at something very little; and the government withdrew the permission that had been granted for the removal of Tarquin's goods, which were divided by means of a scramble among the populace.
Thus Tarquin, who had broken the twenty valuable tables of Servius, was doomed to have the tables turned upon him by the destruction of his own, while every leaf of the former was restored under the Consular government. The landed estates of the Tarquins were distributed among the plebeians, so that the banished family had no chance of recovering their lost ground, which was afterwards known as the Field of Mars, or Campus Martius. The corn on the confiscated property was ripe; but the people felt a conscientious objection to consuming the produce which no labour of their own had reared; and they did not allow the tyrant's grain to outweigh their honest scruple. Throwing all idea of profit overboard, they cast the corn into the Tiber, which, it is said, was so shallow, that the sheaves stuck in the mud, and formed the small island known as the Insula Tiberina. That a piece of land, however small, should be formed by a crop of corn, however plentiful, is difficult to believe: but the story of the wheat can only find reception from the very longest ears; for common sense will admit that in the effort to give credit to the tale, it must go thoroughly against the grain on a proper sifting of all the evidence.
Tarquin relinquishing his hopes of a restoration by stratagem, resolved on resorting to strategy, and brought into the field a large army, of which the Veii formed a considerable part, and his son Aruns headed the Etruscan cavalry. The Roman consuls commanded their own forces; Valerius being at the head of the foot, and Brutus mounted on a clever cob, with a strong sword, that might be called a useful hack, taking the lead of the equestrians. When Aruns entered the field, he recognised Brutus in Tarquin's cloak, and the young man felt the blood mantling with indignation into his cheek at the first sight of the mantle. He instantly made for Brutus, who with equal eagerness made for Aruns, and so violent was the collision, that the breath was knocked at one blow out of both their bodies.
The hostile leaders having fallen to the ground, the battle shared their fate, and both armies withdrew to their camps; but neither would allow the other the credit of a victory. The legend goes on to state that the god Silvanus – an alarmist among the classical deities, and synonymous with Pan – was heard shouting in the night that the Etruscans having lost one man more than the Romans, the latter had gained the battle. This announcement of the result of the contest, though only by a majority of one, so alarmed the Etruscans, who were always panic struck at the voice of Pan, that they took to flight, leaving the enemy to carry everything before them, including all the property that the fugitives had left behind them. The remains of Brutus were brought to the Forum, where they lay in state; but the state in which they lay was truly deplorable; for the deceased consul had been so knocked about, that had he been alive, he would scarcely have known himself, even by the aid of reflection. His colleague, Valerius, delivered an oration over his departed virtues, making a catalogue of the whole, and fixing the highest price to every one of them.
The question of "Shall Brutus have a statue?" was soon answered in the affirmative, and he was placed among the kings, though he had destroyed the monarchy. Where failure constitutes the traitor, success makes the patriot: and upon the merest accident may depend the question whether the originator of a design against a bad government shall go to the block of the sculptor, or to that of the executioner.
P. Valerius was in no hurry to ask the people for a colleague, and he for some time did the whole of the business of the chief magistracy himself; so that had it not been for the mere name of the office, Rome might just as well have remained a monarchy. This fact seems to have flashed at last on the public mind; and when it was found that P. Valerius was building himself a stone residence, in a strong position, a rumour was spread abroad that he was aiming at the foundation of his own house, or family, in the kingly power. On hearing the report he immediately stopped the works of his intended residence, and having called a meeting of the curiæ, he appeared before them with his fasces reversed; a sign that the bundles of rods were not intended to be used on the backs of the people alone, but that they were held, as it were, in trust, and in pickle for the punishment of delinquency in general. This treatment of the fasces so fascinated the people, that they acquitted P. Valerius of every charge, and acknowledging their suspicions of a plot to be groundless, they gave him a plot of ground to build his house upon. Pleased with the taste of popularity, he continued to court it with so much success, that he gained the name of Publicola, or one who honours the public; and he certainly introduced many very wholesome legal reforms, by dabbling in law, in a spirit truly lau-dable. He gave an appeal from the magistrate to the people, in cases where the punishment awarded had been a fine, a whipping, or a hanging; and in the last instance the provision was extremely salutary, for the suspending of a sentence might often avoid the necessity for suspending an alleged criminal. This right of appeal was, however, limited to within a mile from the city; an arrangement that would have justified the formation of a league to abolish the mile, as an unnecessary distinction, of which we can only expose the absurdity, by suggesting the possibility of an offence committed at Knightsbridge being punishable at Newgate with immediate death; while the culprit of Holborn Hill, though nearer the place of execution, would be further from the scaffold.
Having passed several salutary acts, and secured,