"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.
The fallen warriors were honoured with tombs in the form of sugar-loaves, by which the unsatisfactory sweets of posthumous renown were symbolised. Fuffetius, who though not wounded in his person, was fearfully wounded in his pride by the result of the conflict, felt so jealous of Tullus, that the former, though afraid to burst into open revolt, determined on the really more revolting plan of treachery. The rival soldiers had now to combine their forces against the Veientines and the Fidenates, and, having set out together, they soon found the foe drawn up in battle array, when Tullus with his Romans faced the Veientines, and Mettius with his Albans formed a vis à vis to the Fidenates. When the conflict commenced, the Alban wing showed the white feather, and Fuffetius gradually withdrew his forces to an adjacent hill, which he lowered himself by ascending for the purpose of watching the turn of events, so that he might declare himself on the side of victory. Tullus saw the unmanly manœuvre, but winked at it, and rushed like winking upon the Fidenates, who ran so fast that their discretion completely out-ran their valour. The Roman leader then turned his eyes, arms, and legs towards the Veientines, who fled towards the Tiber, into which they desperately dived, but many of them, for divers reasons, never got out again. The perfidious Albans, headed by Mettius Fuffetius, now came down into the plain, and putting on a plain, straightforward manner, he congratulated Tullus on the victory. Pretending not to have noticed their treachery, he invited them all to a sacrifice on the following day, and having particularly requested them to come early, they were on the ground by sunrise, but were completely in the dark as to the intentions of T. Hostilius. The Romans at a given signal closed in upon the Albans, who were informed that their city should be razed, or rather, lowered to the ground, and, that their chief, who had pulled a different way from his new ally, should be fastened to horses who should be driven in opposite directions. This cruel sentence, upon which we have scarcely patience to bestow a sentence of our own, was barbarously carried into execution. Alba fell to the ground; which is all we have been able to pick up relating to the subject of this portion of our history.
The remainder of the reign of Hostilius was occupied with military successes; but he neglected the worship of the gods, who it is said evinced their anger by a tremendous shower of stones on the Alban Mount, in order to soften his flinty heart, by making him feel the weight of their displeasure. From the extreme of indifference he went to the opposite extreme of superstition, and called upon Jupiter to send him a sign – which was, in fact, a sign of the King's head being in a lamentable condition. The unhappy sovereign, imitating his predecessor Numa, attempted some experiments in the hope of drawing down some lightning, but it was not likely that one who had conducted himself so badly could be a better conductor of the electric fluid, and the result was, that though he learned the art of attracting the spark, it flashed upon him with such force that he instantly expired.
Such is the tradition with reference to the death of Tullus; but it is hard to say whether the accounts handed down to us have been overcharged, or whether the clouds were in that condition. Some speculators insinuate that the royal experimentalist owed his sad fate to some mismanagement of his electrical jar while attempting to produce an unnatural jarring of the elements. The good actions of Tullus were so few, that his fame will not afford the omission of one, and being desirous to put the best construction we can upon his works, we give him credit for the construction of the Curia Hostilia, whose site still meets the eye near the northern angle of the Palatine. Ambassadors are spoken of as existing in the reign of Tullus Hostilius, but whether they owe their origin to Numa, who went before, or to Ancus Martius, who came after him, is so much a matter of doubt, that some historians, in trying to meet the claims of both half-way, stop short of giving the merit to either. Tullus may, at all events, have the credit of employing, if he did not institute, the art of diplomacy in Rome; for he appointed ambassadors, as we have already seen, to negotiate with the Albans. These envoys were called Feciales, the chief of whom wore on his head a fillet of white wool, with a quantity of green herbs, formed into a turban, which must have had somewhat the appearance of a fillet of veal, with the ingredients for stuffing. His duty was to proceed to the offending country, and proclaim his wrongs upon the border, though there might be no one there to listen, and having crossed the boundary – if his indignation happened to know any bounds – he was to astonish the first native he met by a catalogue of grievances. On reaching a city, the ambassador went over the old story to the soldier at the gate, just as though, at Storey's gate, an irritated foreigner should pour out his country's real or imaginary wrongs to the sentinel on duty. To this recital the soldier would, of course, be as deaf as his post, and the Fecialis would then proceed to lay his complaint before the magistrates. In the event of his obtaining no redress, he returned home for a spear, and killing a pig with one end, he poked the fire with the other. The instrument being thus charred in the handle and blood-stained at the point, became an appropriate emblem of hostility, and the Fecialis declared war by stirring it up with the long pole, which he threw across the enemy's boundary.
After the death of Tullus Hostilius, the people lost no time in choosing Ancus Martius, a grandson of Numa, for their sovereign. The new king copied his grandfather, which he had a perfect right to do, but he imposed on the Pontifex Maximus the very severe task of copying on white tables the somewhat ponderous works of Pompilius, which were posted up for the perusal of the populace.
Though partial on the whole to peace, Ancus was not afraid of war, and, when his kingdom was threatened, he was quite ready to fight for it. He subdued the Latins, and having first settled them in the field, allowed them to settle themselves in the city. He enlarged Rome, but abridged the distance between different parts by throwing the first bridge across the Tiber, and his name has come down to posterity in the ditch of the Quirites which he caused to be dug for the defence of the city, against those who were unlikely to go through thick and thin for the purpose of invading it. He also built a prison in the heart of the city, and what might be truly termed a heart of stone, for the prison was formed of a quarry, and is still in existence as a monument of the hard lot of its inmates. Ancus Martius further signalised his reign by founding the city of Ostia at the Tiber's mouth, and thus gave its waters the benefit of that port which so much increased their value. On the spot may still be seen some ruins supposed to belong to a temple dedicated to the winds, among whom the greater part of the temple has long since been promiscuously scattered. Salt-works were also established in its neighbourhood, but the sal was of that volatile kind that none now remains from which buyers could fill their cellars. Ancus Martius reigned for a period of twenty-four years, and either in tranquillity or war – whether engaged in the works of peace, or embroiled in a piece of work – he proved himself thoroughly worthy of his predecessors, and, in fact, he left far behind him many who had gone before him in the task of government.
CHAPTER THE THIRD.
FROM THE ACCESSION OF TARQUINIUS PRISCUS TO THE DEATH OF SERVIUS TULLIUS
It is the opinion of the best authorities that the Muse of History has employed her skipping-rope in passing, or rather skipping, from the grave of Ancus Martius to the throne of Tarquinius Priscus; for there is a very visible gap yawning between the two; and as we have no wish to set the reader yawning in sympathy with the gap, we at once drag him away from it.
Plunging into the times of Tarquinius Priscus, we describe him
