the whole machine of government. No curule | truth, naturally from the constitution of the magistrates could be chosen; no military mus- Roman government and from the spirit of the ter could be held. We know too little of the Roman people; and, though it submitted to state of Rome in those days to be able to con- metrical rules derived from Greece, it retained jecture how, during that long anarchy, the to the last its essentially Roman character. Lupeace was kept, and ordinary justice adminis- cilius was the earliest satirist whose works tered between man and man. The animosity were held in esteem under the Cæsars. But, of both parties rose to the greatest height. The many years before Lucilius was born, Nævius excitement, we may well suppose, would have had been flung into a dungeon, and guarded Deen peculiarly intense at the annual election there with circumstances of unusual rigour of Tribunes. On such occasions there can be till the Tribunes interfered in his behalf, on little doubt that the great families did all that account of the bitter lines in which he had at could be done, by threats and caresses, to tacked the great Cæcilian family. The ge break the union of the Plebeians. That union, nius and spirit of the Roman satirists survived however, proved indissoluble. At length the the liberties of their country, and were not exgood cause triumphed. The Licinian laws tinguished by the cruel despotism of the Julian were carried. Lucius Sextius was the first and Flavian emperors. The great poet who Plebeian Consul, Caius Licinius the third. told the story of Domitian's turbot was the legitimate successor of those forgotten minstrels whose songs animated the factions of the infant Republic. Those minstrels, as Niebuhr has remarked, appear to have generally taken the popular side. We can hardly be mistaken in supposing that, at the great crisis of the civil conflict, they employed themselves in versifying all the most powerful and virulent speeches of the Tribunes, and in heaping abuse on the chiefs of the aristocracy. Every personal defect, every domestic scandal, every tradition dishonourable to a noble house, would be sought The results of this great change were singularly happy and glorious. Two centuries of prosperity, harmony, and victory followed the reconciliation of the orders. Men who remembered Rome engaged in waging petty wars almost within sight of the Capitol lived to see her the mistress of Italy. While the disabilities of the Plebeians continued, she was scarcely able to maintain her ground against the Volscians and Hernicans. When those disabilities were removed, she rapidly became more than a match for Carthage and Macedon. During the great Licinian contest the Fie-out, brought into notice, and exaggerated. The beian poets were, doubtless, not silent. Even in modern times songs have been by no means without influence on public affairs; and we may therefore infer, that, in a society where printing was unknown, and where books were rare, a pathetic or humorous party-ballad must have produced effects such as we can but faintly conceive. It is certain that satirical poems were common at Rome from a very early period. The rustics who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little part in the strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local animosities in coarse Fescennine verse. The lampoons of the city were doubtless of a higher order; and their sting was early felt by the nobility. For in the Twelve Tables, long before the time of the Licinian laws, a severe punishment was denounced against the citizen who should compose or recite verses reflecting on another. Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition in which the Latin poets, whose works have come down to us, were not mere imitators of foreign models; and it is therefore the only sort of composition in which they had never been rivalled. It was not, like their tragedy, their comedy, their epic and lyric poetry, a hot-house plant which, in return for assiduous and skilful culture, yielded only scanty and sickly fruits. It was hardy, and full of sap; and in all the various juices which it yielded might be distinguished the flavour of the Ausonian soil. "Satire," said Quintilian, with just pride, "is all our own." It sprang, in Cicero Justly infers from this law that there had been early Latin poets whose works had been lost before his time. "Quamquam id quidem etiam xii tabulæ declarant; condi jam tum solitum esse carmen, quod ne liceret fleri ad alterius injuriam lege sanxerunt."--Tuse. iv. 2. illustrious head of the aristocratical party, * Plautus, Miles Gloriosus. Anlus Gellius fit-3 great agitators. He would naturally, there-Tribuneship was re-established; and Appius fore, be the favourite mark of the Plebeian escaped the hands of the executioner only by satirists; nor would they have been at a loss a voluntary death. to find a point on which he was open to attack. It can hardly be doubted that a story so admirably adapted to the purposes both of the poet and of the demagogue would be eagerly seized upon by minstrels burning with hatred against the Patrician order, against the Claudian house, and especially against the grandson and namesake of the infamous Decemvir. His grandfather, named like himself, Appius Claudius, had left a name as much detested as that of Sextus Tarquinius. He had been Consul more than seventy years before the introduction of the Licinian laws. By availing himself of a singular crisis in public feeling, In order that the reader may judge fairly of he had obtained the consent of the Commons these fragments of the lay of Virginia, he must to the abolition of the Tribuneship, and had imagine himself a Plebeian who has just voted been the chief of that Council of Ten to which for the re-election of Sextius and Licinius. All the whole direction of the State had been com- the power of the Patricians has been exerted mitted. In a few months his administration to throw out the two great champions of the had become universally odious. It was swept Commons. Every Posthumius, Æmilius, and away by an irresistible outbreak of popular Cornelius has used his influence to the utmost. fury; and its memory was still held in abhor- Debtors have been let out of the workhouses rence by the whole city. The immediate on condition of voting against the men of the cause of the downfall of this execrable govern- people; clients have been posted to hiss and ment was said to have been an attempt made interrupt the favourite candidates; Appius by Appius Claudius on the chastity of a beau- Claudius Crassus has spoken with more than tiful young girl of humble birth. The story his usual eloquence and asperity; all has been ran, that the Decemvir, unable to succeed by in vain; Licinius and Sextus have a fifth time bribes and solicitations, resorted to an outrage- carried all the tribes; work is suspended; the ous act of tyranny. A vile dependant of the booths are closed; the Plebeians bear on their Claudian house laid claim to the damsel as his shoulders the two champions of liberty through slave. The cause was brought before the tri- the Forum. Just at this moment it is an bunal. of Appius. The wicked magistrate, in nounced that a popular poet, a zealous adherent defiance of the clearest proofs, gave judgment of the Tribunes, has made a new song which for the claimant; but the girl's father, a brave will cut the Claudian family to the heart. The soldier, saved her from servitude and disho-crowd gathers round him, and calls on him to nour by stabbing her to the heart in the sight recite it. He takes his stand on the spot of the whole Forum. That blow was the sig-where, according to tradition, Virginia, more nal for a general explosion. Camp and city than seventy years ago, was seized by the rose at once; the Ten were pulled down; the pander of Appius, and he begins his story. VIRGINIA. OF THE FRAGMENTS OF A LAY SUNG IN THE FORUM ON THE DAY WHEREON LUCIUS SEXTIUS SEXTI- YE good men of the Commons, with loving hearts and true, A tale of what Rome once hath borne; of what Rome yet may bear. Of maids with snaky tresses, or sailors turned to swine. Here, in this very Forum, under the noonday sun, In sight of all the people, the bloody deed was done. Old men still creep among us who saw that fearful day, Just seventy years and seven ago, when the wicked Ten bare sway. Of all the wicked Ten still the names are held accursed, The townsmen shrank to right and left, and eyed askance with fear With outstretched chin and crouching pace, the client Marcus steals, His loins girt up to run with speed, be the errand what it may, Just then, as through one cloudless chink in a black stormy sky Shines out the dewy morning-star, a fair young girl came by. With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on her arm, Home she went bounding from the school, nor dreamed of shame or harm And past those dreaded axes she innocently ran, With bright, frank brow that had not learned to blush at gaze of man; She warbled gayly to herself lines of the good old song, And found Lucrece, combing the fleece, under the midnight lamp. From his nest in the green April corn, to meet the morning light; And Appius heard her sweet young voice, and saw her sweet young face, And loved her with the accursed love of his accursed race, And all along the Forum, and up the Sacred Street, His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small glancing feet. Over the Alban mountains the light of morning broke; From all the roofs of the Seven Hills curled the thin wreaths of smoke: The city gates were opened; the Forum, all alive, With buyers and with sellers was humming like a hive. Blithely on brass and timber the craftsman's stroke was ringing, And blithely o'er her panniers the market-girl was singing, And blithely young Virginia came smiling from her home: Ah! wo for young Virginia, the sweetest maid in Rome! With her small tablets in her hand, and her satchel on her arm, All came in wrath and wonder; for all knew that fair child; The caitiff reeled three paces back, and let the maiden go. Yet glared he fiercely round him, and growled in harsh, fell tone, She is my slave, born in my house, and stolen away and sold, Let him who works the client wrong, beware the patron's ire!" So spake the varlet Marcus; and dread and silence came On all the people at the sound of the great Claudian name. Which makes the rich man tremble, and guards the poor man's right But all the city, in great fear, obeyed the wicked Ten. Yet ere the valet Marcus again might seize the maid, Who clung tight to Murena's skirt, and sobbed, and shrieked for aid, Forth through the throng of gazers the young Icilius pressed, Whereon three mouldering helmets, three rustling swords are hung, Poured thick and fast the burning words which tyrants quake to hear "Now, by your children's cradles, now, by your father's graves, Be men to-day, Quirites, or be forever slaves! For this did Servius give us laws? For this did Lucrece bleed? No Tribune breathes the word of might that guards the weak from wrong Riches, and lands, and power, and state-ye have them :-keep them sill Still keep the holy fillets; still keep the purple gown, The axes, and the curule chair, the car, and laurel crown: Still press us for your cohorts, and, when the fight is done, Still fill your garners from the soil which our good swords have won. Still, like a spreading ulcer, which leech-craft may not cure, Let your foul usance eat away the substance of the poor Still let your haggard debtors bear all their fathers bore; And store of rods for freeborn backs, and holes for freeborn feet. That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to flame. And learn by proof, in some wild hour, how much the wretched dare.” Straightway Virginius led the maid a little space aside, To where the reeking shambles stood, piled up with horn and hide, Virginius caught the whittle up, and hid it in his gown. And then his eyes grew very dim, and his throat began to swell, And in a hoarse, changed voice he spake, "Farewell, sweet child! Farewell Oh! how I loved my darling! Though stern I sometimes be, To thee, thou know'st, I was not so. Who could be so to thee? And how my darling loved me! How glad she was to hear And took my sword, and hung it up, and brought me forth my gown! Thy needlework, thy prattle, thy snatches of old lays; And none will grieve when I go forth, or smile when I return, He little deems that in this hand I clutch what still can save Foul outrage which thou know'st not, which thou shalt never know. Then, for a little moment, all people held their breath; Some ran to call a leech; and some ran to lift the slain : Some felt her lips and little wrist, if life might there be found; And some tore up their garments fast, and strove to stanch the wound. When Appius Claudius saw that deed, he shuddered and sank down, And writhed, and groaned a fearful groan; and then, with steadfast fee Then up sprang Appius Claudius: "Stop him; alive or dead! And he hath passed in safety unto his woful home, And there ta'en horse to tell the camp what deeds are done in Rome By this the flood of people was swollen from every side, And streets and porches round were filled with that o'erflowing tide Of them that were the nearest and dearest to the slain. They brought a bier, and hung it with many a cypress crown, And gently they uplifted her, and gently laid her down. The face of Appius Claudius wore the Claudian scowl and sneer, But a deep sullen murmur wandered among the crowd |