The Comic History of Rome. À Beckett Gilbert Abbott
our modern word curate may not be referred to this remote origin. The curiæ were subdivided into gentes, or clans, and each gens consisted of several families, called gentiles; so that a man of family and a member of the gentes, became somewhat synonymous. In time, however, the gentiles got very much mixed by unsuitable marriages; and hence there arose among those who could claim to belong to a gens, a distinction similar to that between the gentes, or gents, of our own day, and the gentiles, or gentlemen. Romulus is said to have selected his body-guard from the three tribes, taking one hundred from each, and as Celer, the Etruscan, was their captain, the guards got the name of Celeres – the fast men of the period.
In addition to the tribes, there existed in those early times a separate body, consisting of slaves, and a somewhat higher class, called by the name of clients.7 The latter belonged to the common people, each of whom was permitted to choose from among the patricians a patronus, or patron, who could claim the life and fortune of his client in exchange for the cheaper commodities of protection and patronage. The patron gave his countenance and advice when asked, the client giving his labour and his money when wanted – an arrangement which proves that clients, from the remotest times to the present hour, were liable to pecuniary mulcts, even to the extent of the entire sacrifice of the whole of their subsistence, for the benefit of those who had the privilege of advising them.
The Senate – a term derived from the Latin word Senes, old men – formed the chief council of the state, and its first institution is usually referred to the reign of Romulus. Three members were nominated by each tribe, and three by each of the thirty curiæ, making ninety-nine in all, to which Romulus himself is said to have added one, for the purpose of making up round numbers, and at the same time nominating a sort of president over the assembly, who also had to take care of the city, in the absence of the sovereign. There is a difference of opinion as to whether one hundred new members were added to the Senate at the time of the union with the Sabines, for Dionysius says there were; but Livy says there were not; and we are disposed to attach credit to the former, for he was an extremely particular man, while Livy was frequently oblivious of caution in giving credence and currency to mere tradition.
Before closing this portion of the narrative of the History of Rome, it is necessary to warn the reader against believing too much of it. The current legends are, indeed, Legenda, or things to be read, because every body is in the habit of repeating them; but the student must guard himself against placing credence in the old remark, that "what everybody says must be true," for here is a direct instance of what everybody says being decidedly otherwise. The life and reign of Romulus, are to be taken not simply cum grano salis– with a grain of salt – but with an entire cellar of that condiment, which is so useful in correcting the evil consequences of swallowing too much of anything.
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
FROM THE ACCESSION OF NUMA POMPILIUS TO THE DEATH OF ANCUS MARTIUS
Romulus having been swamped in the marsh of Capra, or having disappeared down one of those drains, which have carried away into the great sea of conjecture so many of the facts of former ages, the senate put off from week to week, and from this day se'nnight to that day se'nnight the choice of a successor. The honourable members agreed to try their hands at Government by turns, and they took the sceptre for five days each by a constant rotation, which any wheel, and more particularly a commonwheal, was sure to suffer from. The people growing tired of this unprofitable game of fives, which threw everything into a state of sixes and sevens, clamoured so loudly to be reduced under one head, that permission was given them to elect a sovereign. Their choice fell upon Numa Pompilius, because he was born on the day of the foundation of the city; so that he may be said to have succeeded by birth to the berth of chief magistrate. Numa Pompilius was a Sabine, who we are told had been instructed by Pythagoras, and we should be happy to believe what we are told, if we did not happen to know that the sage belonged to quite a different time, having lived two hundred years later than the alleged existence of the pupil.
Before entering on his duties, the newly chosen king consulted the augurs, with one of whom he walked up to the Temple on the Saturnian Hill, where Numa, seated on a stone, looked to the south as far as he could see, in order to ascertain whether there was any impediment to his views and prospects. In the earliest periods of the history of Rome no office was undertaken without a consultation of the augurs, or auspices; and the continued use of these words affords proof of the ancient custom to which they relate; though inauguration now takes place under auspices of a very different character. The recognised signs of those times were only two, consisting of the lightning, by means of which the truth was supposed to flash across the augur's mind; and, secondly, the birds, who, by being consulted for something singular in their singing, or eccentric in their flying, might, had they known it, have fairly plumed themselves on the honours done to them. A crow on the left betokened that things were looking black, but the same bird on the right imparted to everything a brighter colour; and as these birds are in the habit of wandering right and left, the augurs could always declare there was something to be said on both sides.
Numa Pompilius was, according to all accounts, a just ruler, and he began his career in a ruler-like manner by drawing several straight lines about Rome, to mark its boundaries. He placed these under a deity, termed Terminus, and he erected twelve stones within a stone's throw of each other, at regular intervals along the frontier. These were visited once a year by twelve officers, called Fratres Arvales, appointed for the purpose, and the custom originated, no doubt, the parochial practice of perambulating parishes with wands and staves, placed in the hands of beadles, who not unfrequently add the luxury of beating the boys to the ceremony of beating the boundaries.
Numa, though he had come to the throne, was fond of the retired walks of life, and frequently took a solitary stroll in the suburbs. During one of his rambles chance brought him to a grotto, and he was induced to remember the grotto by the surpassing loveliness of its fair inhabitant. Her name was Egeria, her profession that of a fortune-teller, which gave her such an influence over the superstitious mind of Numa, that she ruled him with her divining rod as completely as if it had been a rod of iron. He professed to act under the advice of this nymph, to whom tradition – an inveterate match-maker – has married him, and he instituted the Flamines, an order of priests, to give weight to the falsehoods or "flams" he thought fit to promulgate. The privileges of the Flamines were not altogether of the most comfortable kind, and consisted chiefly in the right of wearing the Apex – a cap made of olive wood – and the Laena, a sort of Roman wrap-rascal, shaggy on both sides, and worn above the toga, as an overcoat. The Flamen was prohibited from appearing in public without his Apex, which could not be kept on the head without strings; but such was the stringency of the regulations, that one Sulpicius8 was deprived of his priesthood, in consequence of his official hat, which was as light as a modern zephyr, having been blown off his head in the midst of a sacrifice.
Numa added, also, a sort of ballet company to the mythological arrangements of his day, by establishing twelve Salii, or dancing priests, whose duty it was to execute a grand pas de douze on certain occasions through the principal public thorough fares. The Salii, though a highly respectable, were not a very venerable order, for no one could remain in it whose father and mother were not both alive, the existence of the parents of the dancing priests being, no doubt, required as a guarantee that their dancing days were not yet over.
Several temples are dated from this reign, including that of Janus, the double-faced deity, who presided over peace and war – a most appropriate office to one capable of looking two ways at once, for there are always two sides to every quarrel. This temple must have been perfectly useless during the life of its founder, for it was never to be opened in the time of peace, and Numa preserved for Rome forty-three years of undisturbed tranquillity. He was emphatically the friend of order, and its usual consequences, prosperity to trade, with soundness of credit, and he encouraged commerce by giving a patron-saint or Lar to every industrial occupation. He marked also the value of good faith by building a temple to Bona Fides, and it may be presumed that the creditor, who, putting up with the loss of his little bill, sacrificed a bad debt in this Temple, was still in hope that he should eventually find his account in it.
If it cannot
The word "client" is probably derived from
Val. Maximùs, i. 1. § 4.