A Book of Golden Deeds
by
Charlotte M. Yonge
Part 1 out of 6
by Charlotte M Yonge was prepared by HanhVu capriccio_vn@yahoo.com
and Sandra Laythorpe menorot@menorot.com.
A BOOK OF GOLDEN DEEDS
BY
CHARLOTTE M YONGE
CONTENTS
What is a Golden Deed?
The Stories of Alcestis and Antigone
The Cup of Water
How One Man has saved a Host
The Pass of Thermopylae
The Rock of the Capitol
The Two Friends of Syracuse
The Devotion of the Decii
Regulus
The brave Brethren of Judah
The Chief of the Arverni
Withstanding the Monarch in his Wrath
The last Fight in the Coliseum
The Shepherd Girl of Nanterre
Leo the Slave
The Battle of the Blackwater
Guzman el Bueno
Faithful till Death
What is better than Slaying a Dragon
The Keys of Calais
The Battle of Sempach
The Constant Prince
The Carnival of Perth
The Crown of St. Stephen
George the Triller
Sir Thomas More's Daughter
Under Ivan the Terrible
Fort St. Elmo
The Voluntary Convict
The Housewives of Lowenburg
Fathers and Sons
The Soldiers in the Snow
Gunpowder Perils
Heroes of the Plague
The Second of September
The Vendeans
PREFACE
As the most striking lines of poetry are the most hackneyed, because
they have grown to be the common inheritance of all the world, so many
of the most noble deeds that earth can show have become the best known,
and enjoyed their full meed of fame. Therefore it may be feared that
many of the events here detailed, or alluded to, may seem trite to those
in search of novelty; but it is not for such that the collection has
been made. It is rather intended as a treasury for young people, where
they may find minuter particulars than their abridged histories usually
afford of the soul-stirring deeds that give life and glory to the record
of events; and where also other like actions, out of their ordinary
course of reading, may be placed before them, in the trust that example
may inspire the spirit of heroism and self-devotion. For surely it must
be a wholesome contemplation to look on actions, the very essence of
which is such entire absorption in others that self is forgotten; the
object of which is not to win promotion, wealth, or success, but simple
duty, mercy, and loving-kindness. These are the actions wrought, 'hoping
for nothing again', but which most surely have their reward.
The authorities have not been given, as for the most [Page] part the
narratives lie on the surface of history. For the description of the
Coliseum, I have, however, been indebted to the Abbé Gerbet's Rome
Chrétienne; for the Housewives of Lowenburg, and St. Stephen's Crown, to
Freytag's Sketches of German Life; and for the story of George the
Triller, to Mr. Mayhew's Germany. The Escape of Attalus is narrated
(from Gregory of Tours) in Thierry's 'Lettres sur l'Histoire de France;'
the Russian officer's adventures, and those of Prascovia Lopouloff
, the
true Elisabeth of Siberia, are from M. le Maistre; the shipwrecks
chiefly from Gilly's 'Shipwrecks of the British Navy;' the Jersey Powder
Magazine from the Annual Registrer, and that at Ciudad Rodrigo, from the
traditions of the 52nd Regiment.
There is a cloud of doubt resting on a few of the tales, which it may be
honest to mention, though they were far too beautiful not to tell. These
are the details of the Gallic occupation of Rome, the Legend of St.
Genevieve, the Letter of Gertrude von der Wart, the stories of the Keys
of Calais, of the Dragon of Rhodes, and we fear we must add, both
Nelson's plan of the Battle of the Nile, and likewise the exact form of
the heroism of young Casabianca, of which no two accounts agree. But it
was not possible to give up such stories as these, and the thread of
truth there must be in them has developed into such a beautiful tissue,
that even if unsubstantial when tested, it is surely delightful to
contemplate.
Some stories have been passed over as too devoid of foundation, in
especial that of young Henri, Duke of Nemours, who, at ten years old,
was said to have been hung up with his little brother of eight in one of
Louis XI's cages at Loches, with orders that two of the children's teeth
should daily be pulled out and brought to the king. The elder child was
said to have insisted on giving the whole supply of teeth, so as to save
his brother; but though they were certainly imprisoned after their
father's execution, they were released after Louis's death in a
condition which disproves this atrocity.
The Indian mutiny might likewise have supplied glorious instances of
Christian self-devotion, but want of materials has compelled us to stop
short of recording those noble deeds by which delicate women and light-
hearted young soldiers showed, that in the hour of need there was not
wanting to them the highest and deepest 'spirit of self-sacrifice.'
At some risk of prolixity, enough of the surrounding events has in
general been given to make the situation comprehensible, even without
knowledge of the general history. This has been done in the hope that
these extracts may serve as a mother's storehouse for reading aloud to
her boys, or that they may be found useful for short readings to the
intelligent, though uneducated classes.
NOVEMBER 17, 1864.
WHAT IS A GOLDEN DEED?
We all of us enjoy a story of battle and adventure. Some of us delight
in the anxiety and excitement with which we watch the various strange
predicaments, hairbreadth escapes, and ingenious contrivances that are
presented to us; and the mere imaginary dread of the dangers thus
depicted, stirs our feelings and makes us feel eager and full of
suspense.
This taste, though it is the first step above the dullness that cannot
be interested in anything beyond its own immediate world, nor care for
what it neither sees, touches, tastes, nor puts to any present use, is
still the lowest form that such a liking can take. It may be no better
than a love of reading about murders in the newspaper, just for the sake
of a sort of startled sensation; and it is a taste that becomes
unwholesome when it absolutely delights in dwelling on horrors and
cruelties for their own sake; or upon shifty, cunning, dishonest
stratagems and devices. To learn to take interest in what is evil is
always mischievous.
But there is an element in many of such scenes of woe and violence that
may well account for our interest in them. It is that which makes the
eye gleam and the heart throb, and bears us through the details of
suffering, bloodshed, and even barbarity--feeling our spirits moved and
elevated by contemplating the courage and endurance that they have
called forth. Nay, such is the charm of brilliant valor, that we often
are tempted to forget the injustice of the cause that may have called
forth the actions that delight us. And this enthusiasm is often united
with the utmost tenderness of heart, the very appreciation of suffering
only quickening the sense of the heroism that risked the utmost, till
the young and ardent learn absolutely to look upon danger as an occasion
for evincing the highest qualities.
'O Life, without thy chequer'd scene
Of right and wrong, of weal and woe,
Success and failure, could a ground
For magnanimity be found?'
The true cause of such enjoyment is perhaps an inherent consciousness
that there is nothing so noble as forgetfulness of self. Therefore it is
that we are struck by hearing of the exposure of life and limb to the
utmost peril, in oblivion, or recklessness of personal safety, in
comparison with a higher object.
That object is sometimes unworthy. In the lowest form of courage it is
only avoidance of disgrace; but even fear of shame is better than mere
love of bodily ease, and from that lowest motive the scale rises to the
most noble and precious actions of which human nature is capable--the
truly golden and priceless deeds that are the jewels of history, the
salt of life.
And it is a chain of Golden Deeds that we seek to lay before our
readers; but, ere entering upon them, perhaps we had better clearly
understand what it is that to our mind constitutes a Golden Deed.
It is not mere hardihood. There was plenty of hardihood in Pizarro when
he led his men through terrible hardships to attack the empire of Peru,
but he was actuated by mere greediness for gain, and all the perils he
so resolutely endured could not make his courage admirable. It was
nothing but insensibility to danger, when set against the wealth and
power that he coveted, and to which he sacrificed thousands of helpless
Peruvians. Daring for the sake of plunder has been found in every
robber, every pirate, and too often in all the lower grade of warriors,
from the savage plunderer of a besieged town up to the reckless monarch
making war to feed his own ambition.
There is a courage that breaks out in bravado, the exuberance of high
spirits, delighting in defying peril for its own sake, not indeed
producing deeds which deserve to be called golden, but which, from their
heedless grace, their desperation, and absence of all base motives--
except perhaps vanity have an undeniable charm about them, even when we
doubt the right of exposing a life in mere gaiety of heart.
Such was the gallantry of the Spanish knight who, while Fernando and
Isabel lay before the Moorish city of Granada, galloped out of the camp,
in full view of besiegers and besieged, and fastened to the gate of the
city with his dagger a copy of the Ave Maria. It was a wildly brave
action, and yet not without service in showing the dauntless spirit of
the Christian army. But the same can hardly be said of the daring shown
by the Emperor Maximilian when he displayed himself to the citizens of
Ulm upon the topmost pinnacle of their cathedral spire; or of Alonso de
Ojeda, who figured in like manner upon the tower of the Spanish
cathedral. The same daring afterwards carried him in the track of
Columbus, and there he stained his name with the usual blots of rapacity
and cruelty. These deeds, if not tinsel, were little better than gold
leaf.
A Golden Deed must be something more than mere display of fearlessness.
Grave and resolute fulfillment of duty is required to give it the true
weight. Such duty kept the sentinel at his post at the gate of Pompeii,
even when the stifling dust of ashes came thicker and thicker from the
volcano, and the liquid mud streamed down, and the people fled and
struggled on, and still the sentry stood at his post, unflinching, till
death had stiffened his limbs; and his bones, in their helmet and
breastplate, with the hand still raised to keep the suffocating dust
from mouth and nose, have remained even till our own times to show how a
Roman soldier did his duty. In like manner the last of the old Spanish
infantry originally formed by the Great Captain, Gonzalo de Cordova,
were all cut off, standing fast to a man, at the battle of Rocroy, in
1643, not one man breaking his rank. The whole regiment was found lying
in regular order upon the field of battle, with their colonel, the old
Count de Fuentes, at their head, expiring in a chair, in which he had
been carried, because he was too infirm to walk, to this his twentieth
battle. The conqueror, the high-spirited young Duke d'Enghien,
afterwards Prince of Condé, exclaimed, 'Were I not a victor, I should
have wished thus to die!' and preserved the chair among the relics of
the bravest of his own fellow countrymen.
Such obedience at all costs and all risks is, however, the very essence
of a soldier's life. An army could not exist without it, a ship could
not sail without it, and millions upon millions of those whose 'bones
are dust and good swords are rust' have shown such resolution. It is the
solid material, but it has hardly the exceptional brightness, of a
Golden Deed.
And yet perhaps it is one of the most remarkable characteristics of a
Golden Deed that the doer of it is certain to feel it merely a duty; 'I
have done that which it was my duty to do' is the natural answer of
those capable of such actions. They have been constrained to them by
duty, or by pity; have never even deemed it possible to act otherwise,
and did not once think of themselves in the matter at all.
For the true metal of a Golden Deed is self-devotion. Selfishness is the
dross and alloy that gives the unsound ring to many an act that has been
called glorious. And, on the other hand, it is not only the valor, which
meets a thousand enemies upon the battlefield, or scales the walls in a
forlorn hope, that is of true gold. It may be, but often it is a mere
greed of fame, fear of shame, or lust of plunder. No, it is the spirit
that gives itself for others--the temper that for the sake of religion,
of country, of duty, of kindred, nay, of pity even to a stranger, will
dare all things, risk all things, endure all things, meet death in one
moment, or wear life away in slow, persevering tendance and suffering.
Such a spirit was shown by Leaena, the Athenian woman at whose house the
overthrow of the tyranny of the Pisistratids was concerted, and who,
when seized and put to the torture that she might disclose the secrets
of the conspirators, fearing that the weakness of her frame might
overpower her resolution, actually bit off her tongue, that she might be
unable to betray the trust placed in her. The Athenians commemorated her
truly golden silence by raising in her honor the statue of a lioness
without a tongue, in allusion to her name, which signifies a lioness.
Again, Rome had a tradition of a lady whose mother was in prison under
sentence of death by hunger, but who, at the peril of her own life,
visited her daily, and fed her from her own bosom, until even the stern
senate were moved with pity, and granted a pardon. The same story is
told of a Greek lady, called Euphrasia, who thus nourished her father;
and in Scotland, in 1401, when the unhappy heir of the kingdom, David,
Duke of Rothesay, had been thrown into the dungeon of Falkland Castle by
his barbarous uncle, the Duke of Albany, there to be starved to death,
his only helper was one poor peasant woman, who, undeterred by fear of
the savage men that guarded the castle, crept, at every safe
opportunity, to the grated window on a level with the ground, and
dropped cakes through it to the prisoner, while she allayed his thirst
from her own breast through a pipe. Alas! the visits were detected, and
the Christian prince had less mercy than the heathen senate. Another
woman, in 1450, when Sir Gilles of Brittany was savagely imprisoned and
starved in much the same manner by his brother, Duke François, sustained
him for several days by bringing wheat in her veil, and dropping it
through the grated window, and when poison had been used to hasten his
death, she brought a priest to the grating to enable him to make his
peace with Heaven. Tender pity made these women venture all things; and
surely their doings were full of the gold of love.
So again two Swiss lads, whose father was dangerously ill, found that
they could by no means procure the needful medicine, except at a price
far beyond their means, and heard that an English traveler had offered a
large price for a pair of eaglets. The only eyrie was on a crag supposed
to be so inacessible, that no one ventured to attempt it, till these
boys, in their intense anxiety for their father, dared the fearful
danger, scaled the precipice, captured the birds, and safely conveyed
them to the traveler. Truly this was a deed of gold.
Such was the action of the Russian servant whose master's carriage was
pursued by wolves, and who sprang out among the beasts, sacrificing his
own life willingly to slake their fury for a few minutes in order that
the horses might be untouched, and convey his master to a place of
safety. But his act of self-devotion has been so beautifully expanded in
the story of 'Eric's Grave', in 'Tales of Christian Heroism', that we
can only hint at it, as at that of the 'Helmsman of Lake Erie', who,
with the steamer on fire around him, held fast by the wheel in the very
jaws of the flame, so as to guide the vessel into harbour, and save the
many lives within her, at the cost of his own fearful agony, while
slowly scorched by the flames.
Memorable, too, was the compassion that kept Dr. Thompson upon the
battlefield of the Alma, all alone throughout the night, striving to
alleviate the sufferings and attend to the wants, not of our own
wounded, but of the enemy, some of whom, if they were not sorely belied,
had been known to requite a friendly act of assistance with a pistol
shot. Thus to remain in the darkness, on a battlefield in an enemy's
country, among the enemy themselves, all for pity and mercy's sake, was
one of the noblest acts that history can show. Yet, it was paralleled in
the time of the Indian Mutiny, when every English man and woman was
flying from the rage of the Sepoys at Benares, and Dr. Hay alone
remained because he would not desert the patients in the hospital, whose
life depended on his care--many of them of those very native corps who
were advancing to massacre him. This was the Roman sentry's firmness,
more voluntary and more glorious. Nor may we pass by her to whom our
title page points as our living type of Golden Deeds--to her who first
showed how woman's ministrations of mercy may be carried on, not only
within the city, but on the borders of the camp itself--'the lady with
the lamp', whose health and strength were freely devoted to the holy
work of softening the after sufferings that render war so hideous; whose
very step and shadow carried gladness and healing to the sick soldier,
and who has opened a path of like shining light to many another woman
who only needed to be shown the way. Fitly, indeed, may the figure of
Florence Nightingale be shadowed forth at the opening of our roll of
Golden Deeds.
Thanks be to God, there is enough of His own spirit of love abroad in
the earth to make Golden Deeds of no such rare occurrence, but that they
are of 'all time'. Even heathen days were not without them, and how much
more should they not abound after the words have been spoken, 'Greater
love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend',
and after the one Great Deed has been wrought that has consecrated all
other deeds of self-sacrifice. Of martyrdoms we have scarcely spoken.
They were truly deeds of the purest gold; but they are too numerous to
be dwelt on here: and even as soldiers deem it each man's simple duty to
face death unhesitatingly, so the 'glorious army of martyrs' had, for
the most part, joined the Church with the expectation that they should
have to confess the faith, and confront the extremity of death and
torture for it.
What have been here brought together are chiefly cases of self-devotion
that stand out remarkably, either from their hopelessness, their
courage, or their patience, varying with the character of their age; but
with that one essential distinction in all, that the dross of self was
cast away.
Among these we cannot forbear mentioning the poor American soldier, who,
grievously wounded, had just been laid in the middle bed, by far the
most comfortable of the three tiers of berths in the ship's cabin in
which the wounded were to be conveyed to New York. Still thrilling with
the suffering of being carried from the field, and lifted to his place,
he saw a comrade in even worse plight brought in, and thinking of the
pain it must cost his fellow soldier to be raised to the bed above him,
he surprised his kind lady nurses (daily scatterers of Golden Deeds) by
saying, 'Put me up there, I reckon I'll bear hoisting better than he
will'.
And, even as we write, we hear of an American Railway collision that
befell a train on the way to Elmira with prisoners. The engineer, whose
name was William Ingram, might have leapt off and saved himself before
the shock; but he remained in order to reverse the engine, though with
certain death staring him in the face. He was buried in the wreck of the
meeting train, and when found, his back was against the boiler he was
jammed in, unable to move, and actually being burnt to death; but even
in that extremity of anguish he called out to those who came round to
help him to keep away, as he expected the boiler would burst. They
disregarded the generous cry, and used every effort to extricate him,
but could not succeed until after his sufferings had ended in death.
While men and women still exist who will thus suffer and thus die,
losing themselves in the thought of others, surely the many forms of woe
and misery with which this earth is spread do but give occasions of
working out some of the highest and best qualities of which mankind are
capable. And oh, young readers, if your hearts burn within you as you
read of these various forms of the truest and deepest glory, and you
long for time and place to act in the like devoted way, bethink
yourselves that the alloy of such actions is to be constantly worked
away in daily life; and that if ever it be your lot to do a Golden Deed,
it will probably be in unconsciousness that you are doing anything
extraordinary, and that the whole impulse will consist in the having
absolutely forgotten self.
THE STORIES OF ALCESTIS AND ANTIGONE
It has been said, that even the heathens saw and knew the glory of self-
devotion; and the Greeks had two early instances so very beautiful that,
though they cannot in all particulars be true, they must not be passed
over. There must have been some foundation for them, though we cannot
now disentangle them from the fable that has adhered to them; and, at
any rate, the ancient Greeks believed them, and gathered strength and
nobleness from dwelling on such examples; since, as it has been truly
said, 'Every word, look or thought of sympathy with heroic action, helps
to make heroism'. Both tales were presented before them in their solemn
religious tragedies, and the noble poetry in which they were recounted
by the great Greek dramatists has been preserved to our time.
Alcestis was the wife of Admetus, King of Pherae, who, according to the
legend, was assured that his life might be prolonged, provided father,
mother, or wife would die in his stead. It was Alcestis alone who was
willing freely to give her life to save that of her husband; and her
devotion is thus exquisitely described in the following translation, by
Professor Anstice, from the choric song in the tragedy by Euripides:
'Be patient, for thy tears are vain
They may not wake the dead again:
E'en heroes, of immortal sire
And mortal mother born, expire.
Oh, she was dear
While she linger'd here;
She is dear now she rests below,
And thou mayst boast
That the bride thou hast lost
Was the noblest earth can show.
'We will not look on her burial sod
As the cell of sepulchral sleep,
It shall be as the shrine of a radiant god,
And the pilgrim shall visit that blest abode
To worship, and not to weep;
And as he turns his steps aside,
Thus shall he breathe his vow:
'Here sleeps a self-devoted bride,
Of old to save her lord she died.
She is a spirit now.
Hail, bright and blest one! grant to me
The smiles of glad prosperity.'
Thus shall he own her name divine,
Thus bend him at Alcestis' shrine.'
The story, however, bore that Hercules, descending in the course of one
of his labors into the realms of the dead, rescued Alcestis, and brought
her back; and Euripides gives a scene in which the rough, jovial
Hercules insists on the sorrowful Admetus marrying again a lady of his
own choice, and gives the veiled Alcestis back to him as the new bride.
Later Greeks tried to explain the story by saying that Alcestis nursed
her husband through an infectious fever, caught it herself, and had been
supposed to be dead, when a skilful physician restored her; but this is
probably only one of the many reasonable versions they tried to give of
the old tales that were founded on the decay and revival of nature in
winter and spring, and with a presage running through them of sacrifice,
death, and resurrection. Our own poet Chaucer was a great admirer of
Alcestis, and improved upon the legend by turning her into his favorite
flower---
'The daisie or els the eye of the daie,
The emprise and the floure of flouris all'.
Another Greek legend told of the maiden of Thebes, one of the most self-
devoted beings that could be conceived by a fancy untrained in the
knowledge of Divine Perfection. It cannot be known how much of her story
is true, but it was one that went deep into the hearts of Grecian men
and women, and encouraged them in some of their best feelings; and
assuredly the deeds imputed to her were golden.
Antigone was the daughter of the old King Oedipus of Thebes. After a
time heavy troubles, the consequence of the sins of his youth, came upon
him, and he was driven away from his kingdom, and sent to wander forth a
blind old man, scorned and pointed at by all. Then it was that his
faithful daughter showed true affection for him. She might have remained
at Thebes with her brother Eteocles, who had been made king in her
father's room, but she chose instead to wander forth with the forlorn
old man, fallen from his kingly state, and absolutely begging his bread.
The great Athenian poet Sophocles began his tragedy of 'Oedipus
Coloneus' with showing the blind old king leaning on Antigone's arm, and
asking--
'Tell me, thou daughter of a blind old man,
Antigone, to what land are we come,
Or to what city? Who the inhabitants
Who with a slender pittance will relieve
Even for a day the wandering Oedipus?'
POTTER.
The place to which they had come was in Attica, hear the city of
Colonus. It was a lovely grove--
'All the haunts of Attic ground,
Where the matchless coursers bound,
Boast not, through their realms of bliss,
Other spot so fair as this.
Frequent down this greenwood dale
Mourns the warbling nightingale,
Nestling 'mid the thickest screen
Of the ivy's darksome green,
Or where each empurpled shoot
Drooping with its myriad fruit,
Curl'd in many a mazy twine,
Droops the never-trodden vine.'
ANSTICE.
This beautiful grove was sacred to the Eumenides, or avenging goddesses,
and it was therefore a sanctuary where no foot might tread; but near it
the exiled king was allowed to take up his abode, and was protected by
the great Athenian King, Theseus. There his other daughter, Ismene,
joined him, and, after a time, his elder son Polynices, arrived.
Polynices had been expelled from Thebes by his brother Eteocles, and had
been wandering through Greece seeking aid to recover his rights. He had
collected an army, and was come to take leave of his father and sisters;
and at the same time to entreat his sisters to take care that, if he
should fall in the battle, they would prevent his corpse from being left
unburied; for the Greeks believed that till the funeral rites were
performed, the spirit went wandering restlessly up and down upon the
banks of a dark stream, unable to enter the home of the dead. Antigone
solemnly promised to him that he should not be left without these last
rites. Before long, old Oedipus was killed by lightning, and the two
sisters returned to Thebes.
The united armies of the seven chiefs against Thebes came on, led by
Polynices. Eteocles sallied out to meet them, and there was a terrible
battle, ending in all the seven chiefs being slain, and the two
brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, were killed by one another in single
combat. Creon, the uncle, who thus became king, had always been on the
side of Eteocles, and therefore commanded that whilst this younger
brother was entombed with all due solemnities, the body of the elder
should be left upon the battlefield to be torn by dogs and vultures, and
that whosoever durst bury it should be treated as a rebel and a traitor
to the state.
This was the time for the sister to remember her oath to her dead
brother. The more timid Ismene would have dissuaded her, but she
answered,
'To me no sufferings have that hideous form
Which can affright me from a glorious death'.
And she crept forth by night, amid all the horrors of the deserted field
of battles, and herself covered with loose earth the corpse of
Polynices. The barbarous uncle caused it to be taken up and again
exposed, and a watch was set at some little distance. Again Antigone
'Was seen, lamenting shrill with plaintive notes,
Like the poor bird that sees her lonely nest
Spoil'd of her young'.
Again she heaped dry dust with her own hands over the body, and poured
forth the libations of wine that formed an essential part of the
ceremony. She was seized by the guard, and led before Creon. She boldly
avowed her deed, and, in spite of the supplications of Ismene, she was
put to death, a sufferer for her noble and pious deeds; and with this
only comfort:
'Glowing at my heart
I feel this hope, that to my father, dear
And dear to thee, my mother, dear to thee,
My brother, I shall go.'
POTTER.
Dim and beautiful indeed was the hope that upbore the grave and
beautiful Theban maiden; and we shall see her resolution equaled, though
hardly surpassed, by Christian Antigones of equal love and surer faith.
THE CUP OF WATER
No touch in the history of the minstrel king David gives us a more warm
and personal feeling towards him than his longing for the water of the
well of Bethlehem. Standing as the incident does in the summary of the
characters of his mighty men, it is apt to appear to us as if it had
taken place in his latter days; but such is not the case, it befell
while he was still under thirty, in the time of his persecution by Saul.
It was when the last attempt at reconciliation with the king had been
made, when the affectionate parting with the generous and faithful
Jonathan had taken place, when Saul was hunting him like a partridge on
the mountains on the one side, and the Philistines had nearly taken his
life on the other, that David, outlawed, yet loyal at the heart, sent
his aged parents to the land of Moab for refuge, and himself took up his
abode in the caves of the wild limestone hills that had become familiar
to him when he was a shepherd. Brave captain and Heaven-destined king as
he was, his name attracted around him a motley group of those that were
in distress, or in debt, or discontented, and among them were the
'mighty men' whose brave deeds won them the foremost parts in that army
with which David was to fulfill the ancient promises to his people.
There were his three nephews, Joab, the ferocious and imperious, the
chivalrous Abishai, and Asahel the fleet of foot; there was the warlike
Levite Benaiah, who slew lions and lionlike men, and others who, like
David himself, had done battle with the gigantic sons of Anak. Yet even
these valiant men, so wild and lawless, could be kept in check by the
voice of their young captain; and, outlaws as they were, they spoiled no
peaceful villages, they lifted not their hands against the persecuting
monarch, and the neighboring farms lost not one lamb through their
violence. Some at least listened to the song of their warlike minstrel:
'Come, ye children, and hearken to me,
I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
What man is he that lusteth to live,
And would fain see good days?
Let him refrain his tongue from evil
And his lips that they speak no guile,
Let him eschew evil and do good,
Let him seek peace and ensue it.'
With such strains as these, sung to his harp, the warrior gained the
hearts of his men to enthusiastic love, and gathered followers on all
sides, among them eleven fierce men of Gad, with faces like lions and
feet swift as roes, who swam the Jordan in time of flood, and fought
their way to him, putting all enemies in the valleys to flight.
But the Eastern sun burnt on the bare rocks. A huge fissure, opening in
the mountain ridge, encumbered at the bottom with broken rocks, with
precipitous banks, scarcely affording a foothold for the wild goats---
such is the spot where, upon a cleft on the steep precipice, still
remain the foundations of the 'hold', or tower, believed to have been
the David's retreat, and near at hand is the low-browed entrance of the
galleried cave alternating between narrow passages and spacious halls,
but all oppressively hot and close. Waste and wild, without a bush or a
tree, in the feverish atmosphere of Palestine, it was a desolate region,
and at length the wanderer's heart fainted in him, as he thought of his
own home, with its rich and lovely terraced slopes, green with wheat,
trellised with vines, and clouded with grey olive, and of the cool
cisterns of living water by the gate of which he loved to sing--
'He shall feed me in a green pasture,
And lead me forth beside the waters of comfort'.
His parched longing lips gave utterance to the sigh, 'Oh that one would
give me to drink of the water of the well of Bethlehem that is by the
gate?'
Three of his brave men, apparently Abishai, Benaiah, and Eleazar, heard
the wish. Between their mountain fastness and the dearly loved spring
lay the host of the Philistines; but their love for their leader feared
no enemies. It was not only water that he longed for, but the water from
the fountain which he had loved in his childhood. They descended from
their chasm, broke through the midst of the enemy's army, and drew the
water from the favorite spring, bearing it back, once again through the
foe, to the tower upon the rock! Deeply moved was their chief at this
act of self-devotion--so much moved that the water seemed to him to be
too sacred to be put to his own use. 'May God forbid it me that I should
do this thing. Shall I drink the blood of these men that have put their
lives in jeopardy, for with the jeopardy of their lives they brought
it?' And as a hallowed and precious gift, he poured out unto the Lord
the water obtained at the price of such peril to his followers.
In later times we meet with another hero, who by his personal qualities
inspired something of the same enthusiastic attachment as did David, and
who met with an adventure somewhat similar, showing the like nobleness
of mind on the part of both leader and followers.
It was Alexander of Macedon, whose character as a man, with all its dark
shades of violence, rage, and profanity, has a nobleness and sweetness
that win our hearts, while his greatness rests on a far broader basis
than that of his conquests, though they are unrivalled. No one else so
gained the love of the conquered, had such wide and comprehensive views
for the amelioration of the world, or rose so superior to the prejudice
of race; nor have any ten years left so lasting a trace upon the history
of the world as those of his career.
It is not, however, of his victories that we are here to speak, but of
his return march from the banks of the Indus, in BC 326, when he had
newly recovered from the severe wound which he had received under the
fig tree, within the mud wall of the city of the Malli. This expedition
was as much the expedition of a discoverer as the journey of a
conqueror: and, at the mouth of the Indus, he sent his ships to survey
the coasts of the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, while he himself
marched along the shore of the province, then called Gedrosia, and now
Mekhran. It was a most dismal tract. Above towered mountains of reddish-
brown bare stone, treeless and without verdure, the scanty grass
produced in the summer being burnt up long before September, the month
of his march; and all the slope below was equally desolate slopes of
gravel. The few inhabitants were called by the Greeks fish-eaters and
turtle-eaters, because there was apparently, nothing else to eat; and
their huts were built of turtle shells.
The recollections connected with the region were dismal. Semiramis and
Cyrus were each said to have lost an army there through hunger and
thirst; and these foes, the most fatal foes of the invader, began to
attack the Greek host. Nothing but the discipline and all-pervading
influence of Alexander could have borne his army through. Speed was
their sole chance; and through the burning sun, over the arid rock, he
stimulated their steps with his own high spirit of unshrinking
endurance, till he had dragged them through one of the most rapid and
extraordinary marches of his wonderful career. His own share in their
privations was fully and freely taken; and once when, like the rest, he
was faint with heat and deadly thirst, a small quantity of water, won
with great fatigue and difficulty, was brought to him, he esteemed it
too precious to be applied to his own refreshment, but poured it forth
as a libation, lest, he said, his warriors should thirst the more when
they saw him drink alone; and, no doubt, too, because he felt the
exceeding value of that which was purchased by loyal love.
A like story is told of Rodolf of Hapsburgh, the founder of the
greatness of Austria, and one of the most open-hearted of men. A flagon
of water was brought to him when his army was suffering from severe
drought. 'I cannot,' he said, 'drink alone, nor can all share so small a
quantity. I do not thirst for myself, but for my whole army.'
Yet there have been thirsty lips that have made a still more trying
renunciation. Our own Sir Philip Sidney, riding back, with the mortal
hurt in his broken thigh, from the fight at Zutphen, and giving the
draught from his own lips to the dying man whose necessities were
greater than his own, has long been our proverb for the giver of that
self-denying cup of water that shall by no means lose its reward.
A tradition of an act of somewhat the same character survived in a
Slesvig family, now extinct. It was during the wars that ranged from
1652 to 1660, between Frederick III of Denmark and Charles Gustavus of
Sweden, that, after a battle, in which the victory had remained with the
Danes, a stout burgher of Flensborg was about to refresh himself, ere
retiring to have his wounds dressed, with a draught of beer from a
wooden bottle, when an imploring cry from a wounded Swede, lying on the
field, made him turn, and, with the very words of Sidney, 'Thy need is
greater than mine,' he knelt down by the fallen enemy, to pour the
liquor into his mouth. His requital was a pistol shot in the shoulder
from the treacherous Swede. 'Rascal,' he cried, 'I would have befriended
you, and you would murder me in return! Now I will punish you. I would
have given you the whole bottle; but now you shall have only half.' And
drinking off half himself, he gave the rest to the Swede. The king,
hearing the story, sent for the burgher, and asked him how he came to
spare the life of such a rascal.
'Sire,' said the honest burgher, 'I could never kill a wounded enemy.'
'Thou meritest to be a noble,' the king said, and created him one
immediately, giving him as armorial bearings a wooden bottle pierced
with an arrow! The family only lately became extinct in the person of an
old maiden lady.
HOW ONE MAN HAS SAVED A HOST
B.C. 507
There have been times when the devotion of one man has been the saving
of an army. Such, according to old Roman story, was the feat of Horatius
Cocles. It was in the year B.C. 507, not long after the kings had been
expelled from Rome, when they were endeavoring to return by the aid of
the Etruscans. Lars Porsena, one of the great Etruscan chieftains, had
taken up the cause of the banished Tarquinius Superbus and his son
Sextus, and gathered all his forces together, to advance upon the city
of Rome. The great walls, of old Etrurian architecture, had probably
already risen round the growing town, and all the people came flocking
in from the country for shelter there; but the Tiber was the best
defense, and it was only crossed by one wooden bridge, and the farther
side of that was guarded by a fort, called the Janiculum. But the
vanguards of the overwhelming Etruscan army soon took the fort, and
then, in the gallant words of Lord Macaulay's ballad,--
'Thus in all the Senate
There was no heart so bold
But sore it ached, and fast it beat,
When that ill news was told.
Forthwith uprose the Consul,
Up rose the Fathers all,
In haste they girded up their gowns,
And hied them to the wall.
'They held a council standing
Before the River Gate:
Short time was there, ye well may guess,
For musing or debate.
Out spoke the Consul roundly,
'The bridge must straight go down,
For, since Janiculum is lost,
Nought else can save the town.'
'Just then a scout came flying,
All wild with haste and fear:
'To arms! To arms! Sir Consul,
Lars Porsena is here.'
On the low hills to westward
The Consul fixed his eye,
And saw the swarthy storm of dust
Rise fast along the sky.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
'But the Consul's brow was sad,
And the Consul's speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall,
And darkly at the foe.
'Their van will be upon us
Before the bridge goes down;
And if they once may win the bridge
What hope to save the town?'
'Then out spoke brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate,
'To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods?
'And for the tender mother
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast?
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus,
That wrought the deed of shame?
'Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul,
With all the speed ye may,
I, with two more to help me,
Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand
May well be stopp'd by three:
Now who will stand on either hand,
And keep the bridge with me?'
'Then out spake Spurius Lartius,
A Ramnian proud was he,
'Lo, I will stand at thy right hand,
And keep the bridge with thee.'
And out spake strong Herminius,
Of Titian blood was he,
'I will abide on thy left side,
And keep the bridge with thee.'
So forth went these three brave men, Horatius, the Consul's nephew,
Spurius Lartius, and Titus Herminius, to guard the bridge at the farther
end, while all the rest of the warriors were breaking down the timbers
behind them.
'And Fathers mixed with commons,
Seized hatchet, bar, and crow,
And smote upon the planks above,
And loosen'd them below.
'Meanwhile the Tuscan army,
Right glorious to behold,
Came flashing back the noonday light,
Rank behind rank, like surges bright,
Of a broad sea of gold.
Four hundred trumpets sounded
A peal of warlike glee,
As that great host, with measured tread,
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,
Roll'd slowly towards the bridge's head,
Where stood the dauntless three.
'The three stood calm and silent,
And look'd upon the foes,
And a great shout of laughter
From all the vanguard rose.'
They laughed to see three men standing to meet the whole army; but it
was so narrow a space, that no more than three enemies could attack them
at once, and it was not easy to match them. Foe after foe came forth
against them, and went down before their swords and spears, till at
last--
'Was none that would be foremost
To lead such dire attack;
But those behind cried 'Forward!'
And those before cried 'Back!'
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
However, the supports of the bridge had been destroyed.
'But meanwhile axe and lever
Have manfully been plied,
And now the bridge hangs tottering
Above the boiling tide.
'Come back, come back, Horatius!'
Loud cried the Fathers all;
'Back, Lartius! Back, Herminius!
Back, ere the ruin fall!'
'Back darted Spurius Lartius,
Herminius darted back;
And as they passed, beneath their feet
They felt the timbers crack;
But when they turn'd their faces,
And on the farther shore
Saw brave Horatius stand alone,
They would have cross'd once more.
'But with a crash like thunder
Fell every loosen'd beam,
And, like a dam, the mighty wreck
Lay right athwart the stream;
And a long shout of triumph
Rose from the walls of Rome,
As to the highest turret-tops
Was splashed the yellow foam.'
The one last champion, behind a rampart of dead enemies, remained till
the destruction was complete.
'Alone stood brave Horatius,
But constant still in mind,
Thrice thirty thousand foes before
And the broad flood behind.'
A dart had put out one eye, he was wounded in the thigh, and his work
was done. He turned round, and--
'Saw on Palatinus,
The white porch of his home,
And he spake to the noble river
That rolls by the walls of Rome:
'O Tiber! father Tiber!
To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms
Take thou in charge this day.'
And with this brief prayer he leapt into the foaming stream. Polybius
was told that he was there drowned; but Livy gives the version which the
ballad follows:--
'But fiercely ran the current,
Swollen high by months of rain,
And fast his blood was flowing,
And he was sore in pain,
And heavy with his armor,
And spent with changing blows,
And oft they thought him sinking,
But still again he rose.
'Never, I ween, did swimmer,
In such an evil case,
Struggle through such a raging flood
Safe to the landing place.
But his limbs were borne up bravely
By the brave heart within,
And our good father Tiber
Bare bravely up his chin.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
'And now he feels the bottom,
Now on dry earth he stands,
Now round him throng the Fathers,
To press his gory hands.
And now with shouts and clapping,
And noise of weeping loud,
He enters through the River Gate,
Borne by the joyous crowd.
'They gave him of the corn land,
That was of public right,
As much as two strong oxen
Could plough from morn to night.
And they made a molten image,
And set it up on high,
And there it stands unto this day,
To witness if I lie.
'It stands in the Comitium,
Plain for all folk to see,
Horatius in his harness,
Halting upon his knee:
And underneath is written,
In letters all of gold,
How valiantly he kept the bridge
In the brave days of old.'
Never was more honorable surname than his, of Cocles, or the one-eyed;
and though his lameness prevented him from ever being a Consul, or
leading an army, he was so much beloved and honored by his fellow
citizens, that in the time of a famine each Roman, to the number of
300,000, brought him a day's food, lest he should suffer want. The
statue was shown even in the time of Pliny, 600 years afterwards, and
was probably only destroyed when Rome was sacked by the barbarians.
Nor was the Roman bridge the only one that has been defended by one man
against a host. In our own country, Stamford Bridge was, in like manner,
guarded by a single brave Northman, after the battle fought A.D. 1066,
when Earl Tostig, the son of Godwin, had persuaded the gallant sea king,
Harald Hardrada, to come and invade England. The chosen English king,
Harold, had marched at full speed from Sussex to Yorkshire, and met the
invaders marching at their ease, without expecting any enemy, and
wearing no defensive armor, as they went forth to receive the keys of
the city of York. The battle was fought by the Norsemen in the full
certainty that it must be lost. The banner, 'Landwaster', was planted in
the midst; and the king, chanting his last song, like the minstrel
warrior he had always been, stood, with his bravest men, in a death ring
around it. There he died, and his choicest warriors with him; but many
more fled back towards the ships, rushing over the few planks that were
the only way across the River Ouse. And here stood their defender, alone
upon the bridge, keeping back the whole pursuing English army, who could
only attack him one at a time; until, with shame be it spoken, he died
by a cowardly blow by an enemy, who had crept down the bank of the
river, and under the bridge, through the openings between the timbers of
which he thrust up his spear, and thus was able to hurl the brave
Northman into the river, mortally wounded, but not till great numbers of
his countrymen had reached their ships, their lives saved by his
gallantry.
In like manner, Robert Bruce, in the time of his wanderings, during the
year 1306, saved his whole band by his sole exertions. He had been
defeated by the forces of Edward I. at Methven, and had lost many of his
friends. His little army went wandering among the hills, sometimes
encamping in the woods, sometimes crossing the lakes in small boats.
Many ladies were among them, and their summer life had some wild charms
of romance; as the knightly huntsmen brought in the salmon, the roe, and
the deer that formed their food, and the ladies gathered the flowering
heather, over which soft skins were laid for their bedding. Sir James
Douglas was the most courtly and graceful knight of all the party, and
ever kept them enlivened by his gay temper and ready wit; and the king
himself cherished a few precious romances, which he used to read aloud
to his followers as they rested in their mountain home.
But their bitter foe, the Lord of Lorn, was always in pursuit of them,
and, near the head of the Tay, he came upon the small army of 300 men
with 1000 Highlanders, armed with Lochaber axes, at a place which is
still called Dalry, or the King's Field. Many of the horses were killed
by the axes; and James Douglas and Gilbert de la Haye were both wounded.
All would have been slain or fallen into the hand of the enemy, if
Robert Bruce had not sent them all on before him, up a narrow, steep
path, and placed himself, with his armor and heavy horse, full in the
path, protecting the retreat with his single arm. It was true, that so
tall and powerful a man, sheathed in armor and on horseback, had a great
advantage against the wild Highlanders, who only wore a shirt and a
plaid, with a round target upon the arm; but they were lithe, active,
light-footed men, able to climb like goats on the crags around him, and
holding their lives as cheaply as he did.
Lorn, watching him from a distance, was struck with amazement, and
exclaimed, 'Methinks, Marthokson, he resembles Gol Mak Morn protecting
his followers from Fingal;' thus comparing him to one the most brilliant
champions a Highland imagination could conceive. At last, three men,
named M'Androsser, rushed forward, resolved to free their chief from
this formidable enemy. There was a lake on one side, and a precipice on
the other, and the king had hardly space to manage his horse, when all
three sprang on him at once. One snatched his bridle, one caught him by
the stirrup and leg, and a third leaped from a rising ground and seated
himself behind him on his horse. The first lost his arm by one sweep of
the king's sword; the second was overthrown and trampled on; and the
last, by a desperate struggle, was dashed down, and his skull cleft by
the king's sword; but his dying grasp was so tight upon the plaid that
Bruce was forced to unclasp the brooch that secured it, and leave both
in the dead man's hold. It was long preserved by the Macdougals of Lorn,
as a trophy of the narrow escape of their enemy.
Nor must we leave Robert the Bruce without mentioning that other Golden
Deed, more truly noble because more full of mercy; namely, his halting
his little army in full retreat in Ireland in the face of the English
host under Roger Mortimer, that proper care and attendance might be
given to one sick and suffering washerwoman and her new-born babe. Well
may his old Scotch rhyming chronicler remark:--
'This was a full great courtesy
That swilk a king and so mighty,
Gert his men dwell on this manner,
But for a poor lavender.'
We have seen how the sturdy Roman fought for his city, the fierce
Northman died to guard his comrades' rush to their ships after the lost
battle, and how the mail-clad knightly Bruce periled himself to secure
the retreat of his friends. Here is one more instance, from far more
modern times, of a soldier, whose willing sacrifice of his own life was
the safety of a whole army. It was in the course of the long dismal
conflict between Frederick the Great of Prussia and Maria Theresa of
Austria, which was called the Seven Years' War. Louis XV. of France had
taken the part of Austria, and had sent an army into Germany in the
autumn of 1760. From this the Marquis de Castries had been dispatched,
with 25,000 men, towards Rheinberg, and had taken up a strong position
at Klostercamp. On the night of the 15th of October, a young officer,
called the Chevalier d'Assas, of the Auvergne regiment, was sent out to
reconnoitre, and advanced alone into a wood, at some little distance
from his men. Suddenly he found himself surrounded by a number of
soldiers, whose bayonets pricked his breast, and a voice whispered in
his ear, 'Make the slightest noise, and you are a dead man!' In one
moment he understood it all. The enemy were advancing, to surprise the
French army, and would be upon them when night was further advanced.
That moment decided his fate. He shouted, as loud as his voice would
carry the words, 'Here, Auvergne! Here are the enemy!' By the time the
cry reached the ears of his men, their captain was a senseless corpse;
but his death had saved the army; the surprise had failed, and the enemy
retreated.
Louis XV was too mean-spirited and selfish to feel the beauty of this
brave action; but when, fourteen years later, Louis XVI came to the
throne, he decreed that a pension should be given to the family as long
as a male representative remained to bear the name of D'Assas. Poor
Louis XVI had not long the control of the treasure of France; but a
century of changes, wars, and revolutions has not blotted out the memory
of the self-devotion of the chevalier; for, among the new war-steamers
of the French fleet, there is one that bears the ever-honored name of
D'Assas.
THE PASS OF THERMOPYLAE
B.C. 430
There was trembling in Greece. 'The Great King', as the Greeks called
the chief potentate of the East, whose domains stretched from the Indian
Caucasus to the Aegaeus, from the Caspian to the Red Sea, was
marshalling his forces against the little free states that nestled amid
the rocks and gulfs of the Eastern Mediterranean. Already had his might
devoured the cherished colonies of the Greeks on the eastern shore of
the Archipelago, and every traitor to home institutions found a ready
asylum at that despotic court, and tried to revenge his own wrongs by
whispering incitements to invasion. 'All people, nations, and
languages,' was the commencement of the decrees of that monarch's court;
and it was scarcely a vain boast, for his satraps ruled over subject
kingdoms, and among his tributary nations he counted the Chaldean, with
his learning and old civilization, the wise and steadfast Jew, the
skilful Phoenician, the learned Egyptian, the wild, free-booting Arab of
the desert, the dark-skinned Ethiopian, and over all these ruled the
keen-witted, active native Persian race, the conquerors of all the rest,
and led by a chosen band proudly called the Immortal. His many capitals--
Babylon the great, Susa, Persepolis, and the like--were names of dreamy
splendor to the Greeks, described now and then by Ionians from Asia
Minor who had carried their tribute to the king's own feet, or by
courtier slaves who had escaped with difficulty from being all too
serviceable at the tyrannic court. And the lord of this enormous empire
was about to launch his countless host against the little cluster of
states, the whole of which together would hardly equal one province of
the huge Asiatic realm! Moreover, it was a war not only on the men but
on their gods. The Persians were zealous adorers of the sun and of fire,
they abhorred the idol worship of the Greeks, and defiled and plundered
every temple that fell in their way. Death and desolation were almost
the best that could be looked for at such hands--slavery and torture
from cruelly barbarous masters would only too surely be the lot of
numbers, should their land fall a prey to the conquerors.
True it was that ten years back the former Great King had sent his best
troops to be signally defeated upon the coast of Attica; but the losses
at Marathon had but stimulated the Persian lust of conquest, and the new
King Xerxes was gathering together such myriads of men as should crush
down the Greeks and overrun their country by mere force of numbers.
The muster place was at Sardis, and there Greek spies had seen the
multitudes assembling and the state and magnificence of the king's
attendants. Envoys had come from him to demand earth and water from each
state in Greece, as emblems that land and sea were his, but each state
was resolved to be free, and only Thessaly, that which lay first in his
path, consented to yield the token of subjugation. A council was held at
the Isthmus of Corinth, and attended by deputies from all the states of
Greece to consider of the best means of defense. The ships of the enemy
would coast round the shores of the Aegean sea, the land army would
cross the Hellespont on a bridge of boats lashed together, and march
southwards into Greece. The only hope of averting the danger lay in
defending such passages as, from the nature of the ground, were so
narrow that only a few persons could fight hand to hand at once, so that
courage would be of more avail than numbers.
The first of all these passes was called Tempe, and a body of troops was
sent to guard it; but they found that this was useless and impossible,
and came back again. The next was at Thermopylae. Look in your map of
the Archipelago, or Aegean Sea, as it was then called, for the great
island of Negropont, or by its old name, Euboea. It looks like a piece
broken off from the coast, and to the north is shaped like the head of a
bird, with the beak running into a gulf, that would fit over it, upon
the main land, and between the island and the coast is an exceedingly
narrow strait. The Persian army would have to march round the edge of
the gulf. They could not cut straight across the country, because the
ridge of mountains called Ceta rose up and barred their way. Indeed, the
woods, rocks, and precipices came down so near the seashore, that in two
places there was only room for one single wheel track between the steeps
and the impassable morass that formed the border of the gulf on its
south side. These two very narrow places were called the gates of the
pass, and were about a mile apart. There was a little more width left in
the intervening space; but in this there were a number of springs of
warm mineral water, salt and sulphurous, which were used for the sick to
bathe in, and thus the place was called Thermopylae, or the Hot Gates. A
wall had once been built across the western-most of these narrow places,
when the Thessalians and Phocians, who lived on either side of it, had
been at war with one another; but it had been allowed to go to decay,
since the Phocians had found out that there was a very steep narrow
mountain path along the bed of a torrent, by which it was possible to
cross from one territory to the other without going round this marshy
coast road.
This was, therefore, an excellent place to defend. The Greek ships were
all drawn up on the farther side of Euboea to prevent the Persian
vessels from getting into the strait and landing men beyond the pass,
and a division of the army was sent off to guard the Hot Gates. The
council at the Isthmus did not know of the mountain pathway, and thought
that all would be safe as long as the Persians were kept out of the
coast path.
The troops sent for this purpose were from different cities, and
amounted to about 4,000, who were to keep the pass against two millions.
The leader of them was Leonidas, who had newly become one of the two
kings of Sparta, the city that above all in Greece trained its sons to
be hardy soldiers, dreading death infinitely less than shame. Leonidas
had already made up his mind that the expedition would probably be his
death, perhaps because a prophecy had been given at the Temple of Delphi
that Sparta should be saved by the death of one of her kings of the race
of Hercules. He was allowed by law to take with him 300 men, and these
he chose most carefully, not merely for their strength and courage, but
selecting those who had sons, so that no family might be altogether
destroyed. These Spartans, with their helots or slaves, made up his own
share of the numbers, but all the army was under his generalship. It is
even said that the 300 celebrated their own funeral rites before they
set out, lest they should be deprived of them by the enemy, since, as we
have already seen, it was the Greek belief that the spirits of the dead
found no rest till their obsequies had been performed. Such preparations
did not daunt the spirits of Leonidas and his men, and his wife, Gorgo,
who was not a woman to be faint-hearted or hold him back. Long before,
when she was a very little girl, a word of hers had saved her father
from listening to a traitorous message from the King of Persia; and
every Spartan lady was bred up to be able to say to those she best loved
that they must come home from battle 'with the shield or on it'--either
carrying it victoriously or borne upon it as a corpse.
When Leonidas came to Thermopylae, the Phocians told him of the mountain
path through the chestnut woods of Mount Ceta, and begged to have the
privilege of guarding it on a spot high up on the mountain side,
assuring him that it was very hard to find at the other end, and that
there was every probability that the enemy would never discover it. He
consented, and encamping around the warm springs, caused the broken wall
to be repaired, and made ready to meet the foe.
The Persian army were seen covering the whole country like locusts, and
the hearts of some of the southern Greeks in the pass began to sink.
Their homes in the Peloponnesus were comparatively secure--had they not
better fall back and reserve themselves to defend the Isthmus of
Corinth? But Leonidas, though Sparta was safe below the Isthmus, had no
intention of abandoning his northern allies, and kept the other
Peloponnesians to their posts, only sending messengers for further help.
Presently a Persian on horseback rode up to reconnoitre the pass. He
could not see over the wall, but in front of it, and on the ramparts, he
saw the Spartans, some of them engaged in active sports, and others in
combing their long hair. He rode back to the king, and told him what he
had seen. Now, Xerxes had in his camp an exiled Spartan Prince, named
Demaratus, who had become a traitor to his country, and was serving as
counsellor to the enemy. Xerxes sent for him, and asked whether his
countrymen were mad to be thus employed instead of fleeing away; but
Demaratus made answer that a hard fight was no doubt in preparation, and
that it was the custom of the Spartans to array their hair with special
care when they were about to enter upon any great peril. Xerxes would,
however, not believe that so petty a force could intend to resist him,
and waited four days, probably expecting his fleet to assist him, but as
it did not appear, the attack was made.
The Greeks, stronger men and more heavily armed, were far better able to
fight to advantage than the Persians, with their short spears and wicker
shields, and beat them off with great ease. It is said that Xerxes three
times leapt off his throne in despair at the sight of his troops being
driven backwards; and thus for two days it seemed as easy to force a way
through the Spartans as through the rocks themselves. Nay, how could
slavish troops, dragged from home to spread the victories of an
ambitious king, fight like freemen who felt that their strokes were to
defend their homes and children!
But on that evening a wretched man, named Ephialtes, crept into the
Persian camp, and offered, for a great sum of money, to show the
mountain path that would enable the enemy to take the brave defenders in
the rear! A Persian general, named Hydarnes, was sent off at nightfall
with a detachment to secure this passage, and was guided through the
thick forests that clothed the hillside. In the stillness of the air, at
daybreak, the Phocian guards of the path were startled by the crackling
of the chestnut leaves under the tread of many feet. They started up,
but a shower of arrows was discharged on them, and forgetting all save
the present alarm, they fled to a higher part of the mountain, and the
enemy, without waiting to pursue them, began to descend.
As day dawned, morning light showed the watchers of the Grecian camp
below a glittering and shimmering in the torrent bed where the shaggy
forests opened; but it was not the sparkle of water, but the shine of
gilded helmets and the gleaming of silvered spears! Moreover, a
Cimmerian crept over to the wall from the Persian camp with tidings that
the path had been betrayed, that the enemy were climbing it, and would
come down beyond the Eastern Gate. Still, the way was rugged and
circuitous, the Persians would hardly descend before midday, and there
was ample time for the Greeks to escape before they could be shut in by
the enemy.
There was a short council held over the morning sacrifice. Megistias,
the seer, on inspecting the entrails of the slain victim, declared, as
well he might, that their appearance boded disaster. Him Leonidas
ordered to retire, but he refused, though he sent home his only son.
There was no disgrace to an ordinary tone of mind in leaving a post that
could not be held, and Leonidas recommended all the allied troops under
his command to march away while yet the way was open. As to himself and
his Spartans, they had made up their minds to die at their post, and
there could be no doubt that the example of such a resolution would do
more to save Greece than their best efforts could ever do if they were
careful to reserve themselves for another occasion.
All the allies consented to retreat, except the eighty men who came from
Mycenae and the 700 Thespians, who declared that they would not desert
Leonidas. There were also 400 Thebans who remained; and thus the whole
number that stayed with Leonidas to confront two million of enemies were
fourteen hundred warriors, besides the helots or attendants on the 300
Spartans, whose number is not known, but there was probably at least one
to each. Leonidas had two kinsmen in the camp, like himself, claiming
the blood of Hercules, and he tried to save them by giving them letters
and messages to Sparta; but one answered that 'he had come to fight, not
to carry letters'; and the other, that 'his deeds would tell all that
Sparta wished to know'. Another Spartan, named Dienices, when told that
the enemy's archers were so numerous that their arrows darkened the sun,
replied, 'So much the better, we shall fight in the shade.' Two of the
300 had been sent to a neighboring village, suffering severely from a
complaint in the eyes. One of them, called Eurytus, put on his armor,
and commanded his helot to lead him to his place in the ranks; the
other, called Aristodemus, was so overpowered with illness that he
allowed himself to be carried away with the retreating allies. It was
still early in the day when all were gone, and Leonidas gave the word to
his men to take their last meal. 'To-night,' he said, 'we shall sup with
Pluto.'
Hitherto, he had stood on the defensive, and had husbanded the lives of
his men; but he now desired to make as great a slaughter as possible, so
as to inspire the enemy with dread of the Grecian name. He therefore
marched out beyond the wall, without waiting to be attacked, and the
battle began. The Persian captains went behind their wretched troops and
scourged them on to the fight with whips! Poor wretches, they were
driven on to be slaughtered, pierced with the Greek spears, hurled into
the sea, or trampled into the mud of the morass; but their inexhaustible
numbers told at length. The spears of the Greeks broke under hard
service, and their swords alone remained; they began to fall, and
Leonidas himself was among the first of the slain. Hotter than ever was
the fight over his corpse, and two Persian princes, brothers of Xerxes,
were there killed; but at length word was brought that Hydarnes was over
the pass, and that the few remaining men were thus enclosed on all
sides. The Spartans and Thespians made their way to a little hillock
within the wall, resolved to let this be the place of their last stand;
but the hearts of the Thebans failed them, and they came towards the
Persians holding out their hands in entreaty for mercy. Quarter was
given to them, but they were all branded with the king's mark as
untrustworthy deserters. The helots probably at this time escaped into
the mountains; while the small desperate band stood side by side on the
hill still fighting to the last, some with swords, others with daggers,
others even with their hands and teeth, till not one living man remained
amongst them when the sun went down. There was only a mound of slain,
bristled over with arrows.
Twenty thousand Persians had died before that handful of men! Xerxes
asked Demaratus if there were many more at Sparta like these, and was
told there were 8,000. It must have been with a somewhat failing heart
that he invited his courtiers from the fleet to see what he had done to
the men who dared to oppose him! and showed them the head and arm of
Leonidas set up upon a cross; but he took care that all his own slain,
except 1,000, should first be put out of sight. The body of the brave
king was buried where he fell, as were those of the other dead. Much
envied were they by the unhappy Aristodemus, who found himself called by
no name but the 'Coward', and was shunned by all his fellow-citizens. No
one would give him fire or water, and after a year of misery, he
redeemed his honor by perishing in the forefront of the battle of
Plataea, which was the last blow that drove the Persians ingloriously
from Greece.
The Greeks then united in doing honor to the brave warriors who, had
they been better supported, might have saved the whole country from
invasion. The poet Simonides wrote the inscriptions that were engraved
upon the pillars that were set up in the pass to commemorate this great
action. One was outside the wall, where most of the fighting had been.
It seems to have been in honor of the whole number who had for two days
resisted--
'Here did four thousand men from Pelops' land
Against three hundred myriads bravely stand'.
In honor of the Spartans was another column--
'Go, traveler, to Sparta tell
That here, obeying her, we fell'.
On the little hillock of the last resistance was placed the figure of a
stone lion, in memory of Leonidas, so fitly named the lion-like, and
Simonides, at his own expense, erected a pillar to his friend, the seer
Megistias--
'The great Megistias' tomb you here may view,
Who slew the Medes, fresh from Spercheius fords;
Well the wise seer the coming death foreknew,
Yet scorn'd he to forsake his Spartan lords'.
The names of the 300 were likewise engraven on a pillar at Sparta.
Lions, pillars, and inscriptions have all long since passed away, even
the very spot itself has changed; new soil has been formed, and there
are miles of solid ground between Mount Ceta and the gulf, so that the
Hot Gates no longer exist. But more enduring than stone or brass--nay,
than the very battlefield itself--has been the name of Leonidas. Two
thousand three hundred years have sped since he braced himself to perish
for his country's sake in that narrow, marshy coast road, under the brow
of the wooded crags, with the sea by his side. Since that time how many
hearts have glowed, how many arms have been nerved at the remembrance of
the Pass of Thermopylae, and the defeat that was worth so much more than
a victory!
THE ROCK OF THE CAPITOL
B.C. 389
The city of Rome was gradually rising on the banks of the Tiber, and
every year was adding to its temples and public buildings.
Every citizen loved his city and her greatness above all else. There was
as yet little wealth among them; the richest owned little more than a
few acres, which they cultivated themselves by the help of their
families, and sometimes of a few slaves, and the beautiful Campagna di
Roma, girt in by hills looking like amethysts in the distance, had not
then become almost uninhabitable from pestilential air, but was rich and
fertile, full of highly cultivated small farms, where corn was raised in
furrows made by a small hand plough, and herds of sheep, goats, and oxen
browsed in the pasture lands. The owners of these lands would on public
days take off their rude working dress and broad-brimmed straw hat, and
putting on the white toga with a purple hem, would enter the city, and
go to the valley called the Forum or Marketplace to give their votes for
the officers of state who were elected every year; especially the two
consuls, who were like kings all but the crown, wore purple togas richly
embroidered, sat on ivory chairs, and were followed by lictors carrying
an axe in a bundle of rods for the execution of justice. In their own
chamber sat the Senate, the great council composed of the patricians, or
citizens of highest birth, and of those who had formerly been consuls.
They decided on peace or war, and made the laws, and were the real
governors of the State, and their grave dignity made a great impression
on all who came near them. Above the buildings of the city rose steep
and high the Capitoline Hill, with the Temple of Jupiter on its summit,
and the strong wall in which was the chief stronghold and citadel of
Rome, the Capitol, the very centre of her strength and resolution. When
a war was decided on, every citizen capable of bearing arms was called
into the Forum, bringing his helmet, breast plate, short sword, and
heavy spear, and the officers called tribunes, chose out a sufficient
number, who were formed into bodies called legions, and marched to
battle under the command of one of the consuls. Many little States or
Italian tribes, who had nearly the same customs as Rome, surrounded the
Campagna, and so many disputes arose that every year, as soon as the
crops were saved, the armies marched out, the flocks were driven to
folds on the hills, the women and children were placed in the walled
cities, and a battle was fought, sometimes followed up by the siege of
the city of the defeated. The Romans did not always obtain the victory,
but there was a staunchness about them that was sure to prevail in the
long run; if beaten one year, they came back to the charge the next, and
thus they gradually mastered one of their neighbors after another, and
spread their dominion over the central part of Italy.
They were well used to Italian and Etruscan ways of making war, but
after nearly 400 years of this kind of fighting, a stranger and wilder
enemy came upon them. These were the Gauls, a tall strong, brave people,
long limbed and red-haired, of the same race as the highlanders of
Scotland. They had gradually spread themselves over the middle of
Europe, and had for some generations past lived among the Alpine
mountains, whence they used to come down upon the rich plans of northern
Italy for forays, in which they slew and burnt, and drove off cattle,
and now and then, when a country was quite depopulated, would settle
themselves in it. And thus, the Gauls conquering from the north and the
Romans from the south, these two fierce nations at length came against
one another.
The old Roman story is that it happened thus: The Gauls had an unusually
able leader, whom Latin historians call Brennus, but whose real name was
most likely Bran, and who is said to have come out of Britain. He had
brought a great host of Gauls to attack Clusium, a Tuscan city, and the
inhabitants sent to Rome to entreat succor. Three ambassadors, brothers
of the noble old family of Fabius, were sent from Rome to intercede for
the Clusians. They asked Brennus what harm the men of Clusium had done
the Gauls, that they thus made war on them, and, according to Plutarch's
account, Brennus made answer that the injury was that the Clusians
possessed land that the Gauls wanted, remarking that it was exactly the
way in which the Romans themselves treated their neighbors, adding,
however, that this was neither cruel nor unjust, but according--
'To the good old plan
That they should take who have the power
And they should keep who can.'
[Footnote: These lines of Wordsworth on Rob Roy's grave almost literally
translate the speech Plutarch gives the first Kelt of history, Brennus.]
The Fabii, on receiving this answer, were so foolish as to transgress
the rule, owned by the savage Gauls, that an ambassador should neither
fight nor be fought with; they joined the Clusians, and one brother,
named Quintus, killed a remarkably large and tall Gallic chief in single
combat. Brennus was justly enraged, and sent messengers to Rome to
demand that the brothers should be given up to him for punishment. The
priests and many of the Senate held that the rash young men had deserved
death as covenant-breakers; but their father made strong interest for
them, and prevailed not only to have them spared, but even chosen as
tribunes to lead the legions in the war that was expected. [Footnote:
These events happened during an experiment made by the Romans of having
six military tribunes instead of two consuls.] Thus he persuaded the
whole nation to take on itself the guilt of his sons, a want of true
self-devotion uncommon among the old Romans, and which was severely
punished.
The Gauls were much enraged, and hurried southwards, not waiting for
plunder by the way, but declaring that they were friends to every State
save Rome. The Romans on their side collected their troops in haste, but
with a lurking sense of having transgressed; and since they had gainsaid
the counsel of their priests, they durst not have recourse to the
sacrifices and ceremonies by which they usually sought to gain the favor
of their gods. Even among heathens, the saying has often been verified,
'a sinful heart makes failing hand', and the battle on the banks of the
River Allia, about eleven miles from Rome, was not so much a fight as a
rout. The Roman soldiers were ill drawn up, and were at once broken.
Some fled to Veii and other towns, many were drowned in crossing the
Tiber, and it was but a few who showed in Rome their shame-stricken
faces, and brought word that the Gauls were upon them.
Had the Gauls been really in pursuit, the Roman name and nation would
have perished under their swords; but they spent three day in feasting
and sharing their plunder, and thus gave the Romans time to take
measures for the safety of such as could yet escape. There seems to have
been no notion of defending the city, the soldiers had been too much
dispersed; but all who still remained and could call up something of
their ordinary courage, carried all the provisions they could collect
into the stronghold of the Capitol, and resolved to hold out there till
the last, in hopes that the scattered army might muster again, or that
the Gauls might retreat, after having revenged themselves on the city.
Everyone who could not fight, took flight, taking with them all they
could carry, and among them went the white-clad troop of vestal virgins,
carrying with them their censer of fire, which was esteemed sacred, and
never allowed to be extinguished. A man named Albinus, who saw these
sacred women footsore, weary, and weighted down with the treasures of
their temple, removed his own family and goods from his cart and seated
them in it--an act of reverence for which he was much esteemed--and thus
they reached the city of Cumae. The only persons left in Rome outside
the Capitol were eighty of the oldest senators and some of the priests.
Some were too feeble to fly, and would not come into the Capitol to
consume the food that might maintain fighting men; but most of them were
filled with a deep, solemn thought that, by offering themselves to the
weapons of the barbarians, they might atone for the sin sanctioned by
the Republic, and that their death might be the saving of the nation.
This notion that the death of a ruler would expiate a country's guilt
was one of the strange presages abroad in the heathen world of that
which alone takes away the sin of all mankind.
On came the Gauls at last. The gates stood open, the streets were
silent, the houses' low-browed doors showed no one in the paved courts.
No living man was to be seen, till at last, hurrying down the steep
empty streets, they reached the great open space of the Forum, and there
they stood still in amazement, for ranged along a gallery were a row of
ivory chairs, and in each chair sat the figure of a white-haired, white-
bearded man, with arms and legs bare, and robes either of snowy white,
white bordered with purple, or purple richly embroidered, ivory staves
in their hands, and majestic, unmoved countenances. So motionless were
they, that the Gauls stood still, not knowing whether they beheld men or
statues. A wondrous scene it must have been, as the brawny, red-haired
Gauls, with freckled visage, keen little eyes, long broad sword, and
wide plaid garment, fashioned into loose trousers, came curiously down
into the marketplace, one after another; and each stood silent and
transfixed at the spectacle of those grand figures, still unmoving, save
that their large full liquid dark eyes showed them to be living beings.
Surely these Gauls deemed themselves in the presence of that council of
kings who were sometimes supposed to govern Rome, nay, if they were not
before the gods themselves. At last, one Gaul, ruder, or more curious
than the rest, came up to one of the venerable figures, and, to make
proof whether he were flesh and blood, stroked his beard. Such an insult
from an uncouth barbarian was more than Roman blood could brook, and the
Gaul soon had his doubt satisfied by a sharp blow on the head from the
ivory staff. All reverence was dispelled by that stroke; it was at once
returned by a death thrust, and the fury of the savages wakening in
proportion to the awe that had at first struck them, they rushed on the
old senators, and slew each one in his curule chair.
Then they dispersed through the city, burning, plundering, and
destroying. To take the Capitol they soon found to be beyond their
power, but they hoped to starve the defenders out; and in the meantime
they spent their time in pulling down the outer walls, and such houses
and temples as had resisted the fire, till the defenders of the Capitol
looked down from their height on nothing but desolate black burnt
ground, with a few heaps of ruins in the midst, and the barbarians
roaming about in it, and driving in the cattle that their foraging
parties collected from the country round. There was much earnest faith
in their own religion among the Romans: they took all this ruin as the
just reward of their shelter of the Fabii, and even in their extremity
were resolved not to transgress any sacred rule. Though food daily
became more scarce and starvation was fast approaching, not one of the
sacred geese that were kept in Juno's Temple was touched; and one Fabius
Dorso, who believed that the household gods of his family required
yearly a sacrifice on their own festival day on the Quirinal Hill,
arrayed himself in the white robes of a sacrificer, took his sacred
images in his arms, and went out of the Capitol, through the midst of
the enemy, through the ruins to the accustomed alter, and there
preformed the regular rites. The Gauls, seeing that it was a religious
ceremony, let him pass through them untouched, and he returned in
safety; but Brennus was resolved on completing his conquest, and while
half his forces went out to plunder, he remained with the other half,
watching the moment to effect an entrance into the Capitol; and how were
the defenders, worn out with hunger, to resist without relief from
without? And who was there to bring relief to them, who were themselves
the Roman State and government?
Now there was a citizen, named Marcus Furius Camillus, who was, without
question, at that time, the first soldier of Rome, and had taken several
of the chief Italian cities, especially that of Veii, which had long
been a most dangerous enemy. But he was a proud, haughty man, and had
brought on himself much dislike; until, at last, a false accusation was
brought against him, that he had taken an unfair share of the plunder of
Veii. He was too proud to stand a trial; and leaving the city, was
immediately fined a considerable sum. He had taken up his abode at the
city of Ardea, and was there living when the plundering half of Brennus'
army was reported to be coming thither. Camillus immediately offered the
magistrates to undertake their defense; and getting together all the men
who could bear arms, he led them out, fell upon the Gauls as they all
lay asleep and unguarded in the dead of night, made a great slaughter of
them, and saved Ardea. All this was heard by the many Romans who had
been living dispersed since the rout of Allia; and they began to recover
heart and spirit, and to think that if Camillus would be their leader,
they might yet do something to redeem the honor of Rome, and save their
friends in the Capitol. An entreaty was sent to him to take the command
of them; but, like a proud, stern man as he was, he made answer, that he
was a mere exile, and could not take upon himself to lead Romans without
a decree from the Senate giving him authority. The Senate was--all that
remained of it--shut up in the Capitol; the Gauls were spread all round;
how was that decree to be obtained?
A young man, named Pontius Cominius, undertook the desperate mission. He
put on a peasant dress, and hid some corks under it, supposing that he
should find no passage by the bridge over the Tiber. Traveling all day
on foot, he came at night to the bank, and saw the guard at the bridge;
then, having waited for darkness, he rolled his one thin light garment,
with the corks wrapped up in it, round his head, and trusted himself to
the stream of Father Tiber, like 'good Horatius' before him; and he was
safely borne along to the foot of the Capitoline Hill. He crept along,
avoiding every place where he saw lights or heard noise, till he came to
a rugged precipice, which he suspected would not be watched by the
enemy, who would suppose it too steep to be climbed from above or below.
But the resolute man did not fear the giddy dangerous ascent, even in
the darkness; he swung himself up by the stems and boughs of the vines
and climbing plants, his naked feet clung to the rocks and tufts of
grass, and at length he stood on the top of the rampart, calling out his
name to the soldiers who came in haste around him, not knowing whether
he were friend or foe. A joyful sound must his Latin speech have been to
the long-tried, half starved garrison, who had not seen a fresh face for
six long months! The few who represented the Senate and people of Rome
were hastily awakened from their sleep, and gathered together to hear
the tidings brought them at so much risk. Pontius told them of the
victory at Ardea, and that Camillus and the Romans collected at Veii
were only waiting to march to their succor till they should give him
lawful power to take the command. There was little debate. The vote was
passed at once to make Camillus Dictator, an office to which Romans were
elected upon great emergencies, and which gave them, for the time,
absolute kingly control; and then Pontius, bearing the appointment, set
off once again upon his mission, still under shelter of night, clambered
down the rock, and crossed the Gallic camp before the barbarians were
yet awake.
There was hope in the little garrison; but danger was not over. The
sharp-eyed Gauls observed that the shrubs and creepers were broken, the
moss frayed, and fresh stones and earth rolled down at the crag of the
Capitol: they were sure that the rock had been climbed, and, therefore,
that it might be climbed again. Should they, who were used to the snowy
peaks, dark abysses, and huge glaciers of the Alps, be afraid to climb
where a soft dweller in a tame Italian town could venture a passage?
Brennus chose out the hardiest of his mountaineers, and directed them to
climb up in the dead of night, one by one, in perfect silence, and thus
to surprise the Romans, and complete the slaughter and victory, before
the forces assembling at Veii would come to their rescue.
Silently the Gauls climbed, so stilly that not even a dog heard them;
and the sentinel nearest to the post, who had fallen into a dead sleep
of exhaustion from hunger, never awoke. But the fatal stillness was
suddenly broken by loud gabbling, cackling, and flapping of heavy wings.
The sacred geese of Juno, which had been so religiously spared in the
famine, were frightened by the rustling beneath, and proclaimed their
terror in their own noisy fashion. The first to take the alarm was
Marcus Manlius, who started forward just in time to meet the foremost
climbers as they set foot on the rampart. One, who raised an axe to
strike, lost his arm by one stroke of Manlius' short Roman sword; the
next was by main strength hurled backwards over the precipice, and
Manlius stood along on the top, for a few moments, ready to strike the
next who should struggle up. The whole of the garrison were in a few
moments on the alert, and the attack was entirely repulsed; the sleeping
sentry was cast headlong down the rock; and Manlius was brought, by each
grateful soldier, that which was then most valuable to all, a little
meal and a small measure of wine. Still, the condition of the Capitol
was lamentable; there was no certainty that Pontius had ever reached
Camillus in safety; and, indeed, the discovery of his path by the enemy
would rather have led to the supposition that he had been seized and
detected. The best hope lay in wearying out the besiegers; and there
seemed to be more chance of this since the Gauls often could be seen
from the heights, burying the corpses of their dead; their tall, bony
forms looked gaunt and drooping, and, here and there, unburied carcasses
lay amongst the ruins. Nor were the flocks and herds any longer driven
in from the country. Either all must have been exhausted, or else
Camillus and his friends must be near, and preventing their raids. At
any rate, it appeared as if the enemy was quite as ill off as to
provisions as the garrison, and in worse condition as to health. In
effect, this was the first example of the famous saying, that Rome
destroys her conquerors. In this state of things one of the Romans had a
dream that Jupiter, the special god of the Capitol, appeared to him, and
gave the strange advice that all the remaining flour should be baked,
and the loaves thrown down into the enemy's camp. Telling the dream,
which may, perhaps, have been the shaping of his own thoughts, that this
apparent waste would persuade the barbarians that the garrison could not
soon be starved out, this person obtained the consent of the rest of the
besieged. Some approved the stratagem, and no one chose to act contrary
to Jupiter's supposed advice; so the bread was baked, and tossed down by
the hungry men.
After a time, there was a report from the outer guards that the Gallic
watch had been telling them that their leader would be willing to speak
with some of the Roman chiefs. Accordingly, Sulpitius, one of the
tribunes, went out, and had a conference with Brennus, who declared that
he would depart, provided the Romans would lay down a ransom, for their
Capital and their own lives, of a thousand pounds' weight of gold. To
this Sulpitius agreed, and returning to the Capitol, the gold was
collected from the treasury, and carried down to meet the Gauls, who
brought their own weights. The weights did not meet the amount of gold
ornaments that had been contributed for the purpose, and no doubt the
Gauls were resolved to have all that they beheld; for when Sulpitius was
about to try to arrange the balance, Brennus insultingly threw his sword
into his own scale, exclaiming, Voe victis! 'Woe to the conquered!' The
Roman was not yet fallen so low as not to remonstrate, and the dispute
was waxing sharp, when there was a confused outcry in the Gallic camp, a
shout from the heights of the Capitol, and into the midst of the open
space rode a band of Roman patricians and knights in armor, with the
Dictator Camillus at their head.
He no sooner saw what was passing, than he commanded the treasure to be
taken back, and, turning to Brennus, said, 'It is with iron, not gold,
that the Romans guard their country.'
Brennus declared that the treaty had been sworn to, and that it would be
a breach of faith to deprive him of the ransom; to which Camillus
replied, that he himself was Dictator, and no one had the power to make
a treaty in his absence. The dispute was so hot, that they drew their
swords against one another, and there was a skirmish among the ruins;
but the Gauls soon fell back, and retreated to their camp, when they saw
the main body of Camillus' army marching upon them. It was no less than
40,000 in number; and Brennus knew he could not withstand them with his
broken, sickly army. He drew off early the next morning: but was
followed by Camillus, and routed, with great slaughter, about eight
miles from Rome; and very few of the Gauls lived to return home, for
those who were not slain in battle were cut off in their flight by the
country people, whom they had plundered.
In reward for their conduct on this occasion, Camillus was termed
Romulus, Father of his Country, and Second Founder of Rome; Marcus
Manlius received the honorable surname of Capitolinus; and even the
geese were honored by having a golden image raised to their honor in
Juno's temple, and a live goose was yearly carried in triumph, upon a
soft litter, in a golden cage, as long as any heathen festivals lasted.
The reward of Pontius Cominius does not appear; but surely he, and the
old senators who died for their country's sake, deserved to be for ever
remembered for their brave contempt of life when a service could be done
to the State.
The truth of the whole narrative is greatly doubted, and it is suspected
that the Gallic conquest was more complete than the Romans ever chose to
avow. Their history is far from clear up to this very epoch, when it is
said that all their records were destroyed; but even when place and
period are misty, great names and the main outline of their actions loom
through the cloud, perhaps exaggerated, but still with some reality; and
if the magnificent romance of the sack of Rome be not fact, yet it is
certainly history, and well worthy of note and remembrance, as one of
the finest extant traditions of a whole chain of Golden Deeds.
THE TWO FRIENDS OF SYRACUSE
B.C. 380 (CIRCA)
Most of the best and noblest of the Greeks held what was called the
Pythagorean philosophy. This was one of the many systems framed by the
great men of heathenism, when by the feeble light of nature they were,
as St. Paul says, 'seeking after God, if haply they might feel after
Him', like men groping in the darkness. Pythagoras lived before the time
of history, and almost nothing is known about him, though his teaching
and his name were never lost. There is a belief that he had traveled in
the East, and in Egypt, and as he lived about the time of the dispersion
of the Israelites, it is possible that some of his purest and best
teaching might have been crumbs gathered from their fuller instruction
through the Law and the Prophets. One thing is plain, that even in
dealing with heathenism the Divine rule holds good, 'By their fruits ye
shall know them'. Golden Deeds are only to be found among men whose
belief is earnest and sincere, and in something really high and noble.
Where there was nothing worshiped but savage or impure power, and the
very form of adoration was cruel and unclean, as among the Canaanites
and Carthaginians, there we find no true self-devotion. The great deeds
of the heathen world were all done by early Greeks and Romans before yet
the last gleams of purer light had faded out of their belief, and while
their moral sense still nerved them to energy; or else by such later
Greeks as had embraced the deeper and more earnest yearnings of the
minds that had become a 'law unto themselves'.
The Pythagoreans were bound together in a brotherhood, the members of
which had rules that are not now understood, but which linked them so as
to form a sort of club, with common religious observances and pursuits
of science, especially mathematics and music. And they were taught to
restrain their passions, especially that of anger, and to endure with
patience all kinds of suffering; believing that such self-restraint
brought them nearer to the gods, and that death would set them free from
the prison of the body. The souls of evil-doers would, they thought,
pass into the lower and more degraded animals, while those of good men
would be gradually purified, and rise to a higher existence. This,
though lamentably deficient, and false in some points, was a real
religion, inasmuch as it gave a rule of life, with a motive for striving
for wisdom and virtue. Two friends of this Pythagorean sect lived at
Syracuse, in the end of the fourth century before the Christian era.
Syracuse was a great Greek city, built in Sicily, and full of all kinds
of Greek art and learning; but it was a place of danger in their time,
for it had fallen under the tyranny of a man of strange and capricious
temper, though of great abilities, namely Dionysius. He is said to have
been originally only a clerk in a public office, but his talents raised
him to continually higher situations, and at length, in a great war with
the Carthaginians, who had many settlements in Sicily, he became general
of the army, and then found it easy to establish his power over the
city.
This power was not according to the laws, for Syracuse, like most other
cities, ought to have been governed by a council of magistrates; but
Dionysius was an exceedingly able man, and made the city much more rich
and powerful, he defeated the Carthaginians, and rendered Syracuse by
far the chief city in the island, and he contrived to make everyone so
much afraid of him that no one durst attempt to overthrow his power. He
was a good scholar, and very fond of philosophy and poetry, and he
delighted to have learned men around him, and he had naturally a
generous spirit; but the sense that he was in a position that did not
belong to him, and that everyone hated him for assuming it, made him
very harsh and suspicious. It is of him that the story is told, that he
had a chamber hollowed in the rock near his state prison, and
constructed with galleries to conduct sounds like an ear, so that he
might overhear the conversation of his captives; and of him, too, is
told that famous anecdote which has become a proverb, that on hearing a
friend, named Damocles, express a wish to be in his situation for a
single day, he took him at his word, and Damocles found himself at a
banquet with everything that could delight his senses, delicious food,
costly wine, flowers, perfumes, music; but with a sword with the point
almost touching his head, and hanging by a single horsehair! This was to
show the condition in which a usurper lived!
Thus Dionysius was in constant dread. He had a wide trench round his
bedroom, with a drawbridge that he drew up and put down with his own
hands; and he put one barber to death for boasting that he held a razor
to the tyrant's throat every morning. After this he made his young
daughters shave him; but by and by he would not trust them with a razor,
and caused them to singe of his beard with hot nutshells! He was said to
have put a man named Antiphon to death for answering him, when he asked
what was the best kind of brass, 'That of which the statues of Harmodius
and Aristogeiton were made.' These were the two Athenians who had killed
the sons of Pisistratus the tyrant, so that the jest was most offensive,
but its boldness might have gained forgiveness for it. One philosopher,
named Philoxenus, he sent to a dungeon for finding fault with his
poetry, but he afterwards composed another piece, which he thought so
superior, that he could not be content without sending for this adverse
critic to hear it. When he had finished reading it, he looked to
Philoxenus for a compliment; but the philosopher only turned round to
the guards, and said dryly, 'Carry me back to prison.' This time
Dionysius had the sense to laugh, and forgive his honesty.
All these stories may not be true; but that they should have been
current in the ancient world shows what was the character of the man of
whom they were told, how stern and terrible was his anger, and how
easily it was incurred. Among those who came under it was a Pythagorean
called Pythias, who was sentenced to death, according to the usual fate
of those who fell under his suspicion.
Pythias had lands and relations in Greece, and he entreated as a favor
to be allowed to return thither and arrange his affairs, engaging to
return within a specified time to suffer death. The tyrant laughed his
request to scorn. Once safe out of Sicily, who would answer for his
return? Pythias made reply that he had a friend, who would become
security for his return; and while Dionysius, the miserable man who
trusted nobody, was ready to scoff at his simplicity, another
Pythagorean, by name of Damon, came forward, and offered to become
surety for his friend, engaging, if Pythias did not return according to
promise, to suffer death in his stead.
Dionysius, much astonished, consented to let Pythias go, marveling what
would be the issue of the affair. Time went on and Pythias did not
appear. The Syracusans watched Damon, but he showed no uneasiness. He
said he was secure of his friend's truth and honor, and that if any
accident had cause the delay of his return, he should rejoice in dying
to save the life of one so dear to him.
Even to the last day Damon continued serene and content, however it
might fall out; nay even when the very hour drew nigh and still no
Pythias. His trust was so perfect, that he did not even grieve at having
to die for a faithless friend who had left him to the fate to which he
had unwarily pledged himself. It was not Pythias' own will, but the
winds and waves, so he still declared, when the decree was brought and
the instruments of death made ready. The hour had come, and a few
moments more would have ended Damon's life, when Pythias duly presented
himself, embraced his friend, and stood forward himself to receive his
sentence, calm, resolute, and rejoiced that he had come in time.
Even the dim hope they owned of a future state was enough to make these
two brave men keep their word, and confront death for one another
without quailing. Dionysius looked on more struck than ever. He felt
that neither of such men must die. He reversed the sentence of Pythias,
and calling the two to his judgment seat, he entreated them to admit him
as a third in their friendship. Yet all the time he must have known it
was a mockery that he should ever be such as they were to each other--he
who had lost the very power of trusting, and constantly sacrificed
others to secure his own life, whilst they counted not their lives dear
to them in comparison with their truth to their word, and love to one
another. No wonder that Damon and Pythias have become such a byword that
they seem too well known to have their story told here, except that a
name in everyone's mouth sometimes seems to be mentioned by those who
have forgotten or never heard the tale attached to it.
THE DEVOTION OF THE DECII
B.C. 339
The spirit of self-devotion is so beautiful and noble, that even when
the act is performed in obedience to the dictates of a false religion,
it is impossible not to be struck with admiration and almost reverence
for the unconscious type of the one great act that has hallowed every
other sacrifice. Thus it was that Codrus, the Athenian king, has ever
since been honored for the tradition that he gave his own life to secure
the safety of his people; and there is a touching story, with neither
name nor place, of a heathen monarch who was bidden by his priests to
appease the supposed wrath of his gods by the sacrifice of the being
dearest to him. His young son had been seized on as his most beloved,
when his wife rushed between and declared that her son must live, and
not by his death rob her of her right to fall, as her husband's dearest.
The priest looked at the father; the face that had been sternly composed
before was full of uncontrolled anguish as he sprang forward to save the
wife rather than the child. That impulse was an answer, like the
entreaty of the mother before Solomon; the priest struck the fatal blow
ere the king's hand could withhold him, and the mother died with a last
look of exceeding joy at her husband's love and her son's safety. Human
Back to Full Books
|