The Comic History of Rome. À Beckett Gilbert Abbott
Numa never lost a day, it must be admitted that he made the most of his time; for he added two whole months to the year of Romulus. January and February were the names given to the time thus gained; but as the year did not then correspond with the course of the sun, it was usual to introduce, every other year, a supplementary month, so that if one year was too short, the next, by being too long, made it as broad as it was long in the aggregate.
Numa Pompilius lived to be eighty-two; when he had the beatitude of dying as peacefully as he had lived; and so gently had Nature dealt with him, that she had suffered him to run up more than four scores, before her debt was satisfied. Certain stories are told of the funeral ceremonies that followed Numa's death; and it is said that the Senators acted as porters to his bier, in token of their appreciation of the imperial measures which Numa had himself carried. It has been stated, also, that he caused to be placed, within his tomb, a copy, on papyrus, or palm leaves,9 of his own works, in twenty-four books; and it is certainly a happy idea to bury an author with his writings, when, if they have been provocative of sleep in others, he may eventually reap the benefit of their somniferous properties.
On the death of Numa, the country having been taught, by past experience, the danger of allowing the crown to go from head to head, without the slightest regard to a fit, determined that the interregnum should be short, and the election of a new king was at once proceeded with. The choice fell upon Tullus Hostilius, who was of a decidedly warlike turn, and was ever on the look-out for a pretext to commence hostilities. The Albans, our old friends of Alba Longa, or White's Row, were the nearest, and consequently the most conveniently situated, for the indulgence of his pugnacious propensities; and tradition relates that on one occasion some Alban peasants, having been attacked and stripped by the Romans, the former, who had lost even their clothes, sought redress at the hands of their rulers. In the course of an attempt to settle the dispute between Alba and Rome, each place sent ambassadors, who crossed each other on the road, as if the two states were determined to be in every way at cross purposes. The Alban envoys were beguiled of all ideas of business by invitations to banquets and feasts, so that whenever they attempted to ask for explanations, their mouths were stopped with a dinner or a supper, given in honour of their visit. The Roman messengers were prohibited, on the contrary, from accepting invitations, or giving up to parties what was meant for Romankind; and had received peremptory instructions to demand an immediate settlement of their long-standing account from the Albans. The parties could not understand each other, or, rather, they understood each other too well; for war was the object of both, though neither of them liked the responsibility of beginning it. The Albans, however, prepared to march on Rome, and encamped themselves within the confines of a ditch, into which ditch their King, Cluilius, tumbled, one night, very mysteriously, and died, which caused them to dignify the ditch with the name of fossa Cluilia.
The Albans appointed one Mettius Fuffetius, a fussy and nervous personage, as Dictator, in the place of the late King; and Fuffetius requested an interview with Tullus, who agreed to the proposition, with a determination, before meeting the Dictator, not to be dictated to. Mettius represented the inconvenience of wasting whole rivers of blood, when a few pints might answer all the purpose; and it was finally agreed to settle the matter by a grand combat of six, sustained on either side by three champions, chosen from each army. The Alban and the Roman forces were graced, respectively, with a trio of brothers, whose strength and activity rendered them worthy to be ranked with the small family parties who attach the epithet of Herculean, Acrobatic, Indian rubber, or Incredible, to the fraternal character in which they come forward to astonish and amuse the enlightened age we live in.
These six young men were known as the Horatii and Curiatii, – the former being on the Roman, the latter on the Alban side; and to them it was agreed, by mutual consent, to trust the fate of the battle. The story-tellers have done their utmost to render everything Roman as romantic as possible; and the legend of the Horatii and Curiatii has been heightened by making one of the latter batch of brothers the accepted lover of the sister of the Horatii.
All the arrangements for the sanguinary sestetto having been completed, the six champions came forward, looking fresh and confident, not one of them displaying nervousness by a shaking of the hand, though they shook each other's hands very heartily. Having taken their positions, the men presented a picture which we regret has not been preserved for us by some sporting annalist of the period. Imagination, who is "our own reporter" on this occasion, and, perhaps, as accurate a reporter as many who profess to chronicle passing events, must fill up the outlines of the sketch that has been handed down to us.
The contest commenced with a great deal of that harmless, but violent exercise, which goes on between Shakspeare's celebrated pair of Macs – the well known 'Beth and 'Duff – when the former requests the latter to "lay on" to him, and there ensues a clashing of their swords, as vigorous as the clashing of their claims to the crown of Scotland. At length one of the Curiatii, feeling that they had all met for the despatch of business, despatched one of the Horatii, upon which the combatants, being set going, they continued to go one by one with great rapidity. A few seconds had scarcely elapsed when a second of the Horatii fell, and the survivor of the trio, thinking that he must eventually become number three if he did not speedily take care of number one, resolved to stop short this run of ill-luck against his race, by attempting a run of good luck for his life; or, in other words, having a race for it. The excellence of his wind saved him from drawing his last breath, for the Curiatii, starting off in pursuit, soon proved unequal in their speed, and one shot far in advance of the other two, who, though stout of heart, were somewhat too stout of body to be as forward as their nimbler brother in giving chase to their antagonist. The survivor of the Horatii perceiving this, turned suddenly round upon the nearest of his foes, and having at once disposed of him, waited patiently for the other two, who were coming at unequal speed, puffing and panting after him. A single blow did for the second of the Curiatii, who was already blown by the effort of running, and it was unnecessary to do more with the third, who came up completely out of breath, than to render him incapable of taking in a further supply of that vitally important article. The last of the Horatii had consequently become the conqueror, and though when he began to run his life seemed to hang on a thread, which an unlucky stitch in his side would have finished off, his flight was the cause of his coming off in the end with flying colours. After the first of the Curiatii fell, fatness proved fatal to the other two, for Horatius, by dealing with them en gros, as well as en detail, settled all accounts with both of them.
Seeing the result of the contest, Fuffetius, on the part of the Albans, gave out that they gave in, and the Romans returned home with Horatius at their head, carrying – in a huge bundle – the spoils of the Curiatii. At the entrance of the city he met his sister, who, perceiving among the spoils, a garment of her late lover, embroidered with a piece of work from her own hands, commenced another piece of work of a most frantic and desperate character. Maddened at the sight of the yarn she had spun for the lost object of her affections, she began spinning another yarn that threatened to be interminable, if her brother had not soon cut the thread of it. She called him by all kinds of names but his own, and was, in fact, as noisy and abusive as a conventional "female in distress," or, as that alarming and dangerous nuisance, "an injured woman." Horatius, who had found the blades of three assailants less cutting than a sister's tongue, interrupted her as she ran through her wrongs, by running her through with his sword, accompanying the act with the exclamation, "Thus perish all the enemies of Rome." Notwithstanding the excitement and éclat attending the triumphant entry of Horatius into Rome, the proper officer of the period, whoever he may have been, was evidently not only on duty, but prepared to do it, for the victorious fratricide, or sororicide, was at once hurried off to the nearest Roman station. Having been taken before the king, his majesty saw great difficulties in the case, and was puzzled how to dispose of it. Taking out the scales of justice, he threw the heavy crime of Horatius into one; but the services performed for his country, when cast into the other scale, seemed to balance the matter pretty evenly. Tullus, therefore, referred the case to another tribunal, which sentenced the culprit to be hanged, but he was allowed to have so capitally acquitted himself in the fight, that he was acquitted of the capital punishment. This was commuted for the penalty of passing under the yoke, which consisted of the ceremony of walking under a pike raised upright on two others, and at these three pikes the only toll placed upon his crime was levied.
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There exist, in the British Museum, books older than the time of Numa, written by the Egyptians, on these palm leaves, which show, in one sense, the palmy state of literature at that early period.