XIII

[pg 152]XIIITHE SOOTHSAYERSAfter the founding of the city and the tragic ending of the day, Romulus went away, no one knew exactly where. He was gone for some time, He told Marcus Colonus that he was going to Alba Longa, where some of his men still were as a garrison for Numa. But he did not stay there many days.Although he was the founder and in one way the ruler of his city, this did not mean that he was obliged to stay there to settle all its problems. Most of them were solved by the common law and common sense of the colonists. Their ruler had no authority over them contrary to custom, and custom would apply in one way or another to almost everything they did. Hence the young man was free to go wherever he saw fit.The fancy took him to cross the river and see the old woman who had told him when he was a boy that he was to be the ruler of a great people. He found her still alive, though so old that her[pg 153]brown face looked like an old withered nutshell. She glanced up at him keenly.“Welcome, king,”she said.Just how much she had heard of his life from traveling traders and vagabonds, no one can say, but she seemed to know a great deal about it. She told him that when he returned to his own country, if he followed certain landmarks and dug in the ground at a certain point near the river bank some distance from Rome, he would find an altar and a shield of gold. The shield, she said, had fallen from heaven, and was intended for him, because he was the especial favorite of Mars, the god of war. He did not take this very seriously, but he found himself much interested in the ways of this strange people. Their priests knew how to measure distances, and mark out squares, and consult the stars. Their metal workers, dyers and potters knew how to make curious and precious things. The fortune tellers had a great reputation all over the country. Their name, soothsayers, meant“those who tell the truth.”The old woman told him that it was a great mistake for those who were born under a certain star to try to get away from their fate. If a man were born to be a ruler and a commander of men, it was useless for him to try to make himself a[pg 154]farmer or a trader. It would be far better for him to keep to what he could do well, and buy of others what he needed. This struck Romulus as directly opposed to the ways of the villagers as he had seen them. They made for themselves everything they possibly could, and all of them were farmers. He began to wonder where their future would lead them. A man like Colonus, or Tullius, or Muraena, or Calvo knew enough to direct other men. There was not one of the ten who came out from the Mountain of Fire who was not far superior to most of the people in the country round about. They were quite as fit to be rulers of a tribe as he was; in fact, they were more so, in many ways. But if they had stayed where they were born, they would have gone on to the end of their days, working with their hands, and owning only their share of the common crop and the flocks and herds of the village. Here in the land beyond the river it was different. The powerful nobles and the priesthood ruled, and other men served.In talking with the soothsayers, he heard a great deal about the influence of the stars. The priests also put great faith in this. They divided the sky into twelve parts, or houses, as they called them, and each of these was ruled by some star named after a god. In the course of the year[pg 155]the sun passed through each house, or sign, in turn. If a man were born in the house of the Ram, which was ruled by Mars the red planet, he would be like Mars,—a warrior, bold and fearless, and not afraid to venture into new fields and to do things that other men had not done before. If he were born in that sign when the planet was in it with the sun, he would be more a son of Mars in every way. If Venus, the planet which ruled love, were also in the sign, he would be ruled by reason even in his love affairs, and his marriage and his wars would be more or less connected. All these things, according to the soothsayers, were true of Romulus.Romulus was acute enough to see that these people knew him for a chief, and that some of what they told him was flattery; but he was not sure how much of it was. He had not wandered about his world for twenty-odd years without seeing the difference in people. He knew that the great art of ruling men successfully lies in understanding their different characters and not expecting of any person what that person cannot do. The rules of the villages were very well for a small place, where all of the people were related. But how would they fit such a miscellaneous collection of people as seemed likely to gather in the town by the river? His mind was gradually[pg 156]getting at the problem of governing such a town in such a way that instead of being a little island of civilization in a sea of wilderness, it would be a center of civilization in a country inhabited by all sorts of people who would look up to it and be ruled and influenced by it. Such an idea, to Colonus, to Emilius in the Sabine village, or even to the old chief Numa on Alba Longa would have seemed wildly impossible. It seemed to Romulus that if a band of outlaws had been welded into an effective fighting troop as he had welded them, a country might be made up of a great many different sorts of persons living peaceably together. He grinned as he thought of such a man as his old captain, Ruffo, obeying all the customs of the colony and giving his whole mind to the tilling of the soil and the raising of cattle. It would be like trying to harness a wolf, or stocking a poultry yard with eagles. The thing could not be done. And yet, when it came to keeping order, Ruffo was wise and just and kind.One thing he could see very clearly, and that was that for a long time yet the colonists would have to give especial attention to disciplined warfare. He wished that there were more of them. If they ever had a quarrel with the dark Etruscans beyond the river, it would be a fight for[pg 157]life, for the Etruscans outnumbered them ten to one. It would be well to trade with them so far as they could, but there again the customs of the colonists were against him. There was not much that they wished to buy.When he left the land beyond the river, he paid a farewell visit to the old witch, and she told him again that he was born to rule. He hoped that he was.When he came back to the Square Hill, he found the fathers of the colony confronting a new problem, which they had no tradition to help them settle. The problem was what to do with the new settlers who were coming in for protection and in the hope of getting a living, but who were not of their own people. Often they had not intelligence enough to understand what the colonists meant by their customs. This was something that Romulus had expected. He had his answer ready. He said that there was a god of whom he had heard, called Asylos, who protected homeless persons and serfs who had escaped from cruel masters, and that they might set apart a space outside the walls and dedicate it to this god. There his own soldiers could live, and there would be a place for any one who came who would work for a living. And this was done. The people who came in from various[pg 158]places seeking protection, and were useful in various ways even if they could only hew wood and draw water, were called after awhile theplebs, the men who helped to fill the town. There was so much to do, and so little time to do it, that every pair of hands was of value. It would not do to let every one who came become a citizen, an inhabitant of the city, because that might destroy all comfort and order within the walls. But the town grew much faster when it became known that any man not a criminal could get a living there.Another circumstance that made it grow was that the country people and the villagers from farther up the river began to bring down what they had to sell. Sometimes the Etruscans bought of them, and sometimes the Romans did. It was the last riverside settlement before the boats went down to the sea, and it began to be a trading as well as a farming place not many years after the colonists settled there.Trading was favored because farming did not altogether supply the needs of the people. Now and then the river rose and flooded their land. The only part of the country they could absolutely depend on as yet was the group of seven hills, where they kept their herds and flocks. One year, when their grain was ruined, they had[pg 159]to send across the river and buy some of the Etruscans, in exchange for wool and leather and weapons. Within the first ten years every one of the colonists had discovered that men who make their home in a new land must change their ways more or less if they are to live. While they are changing the land, the land changes them. The children of these people would not be exactly the same when they grew up as they would have been if they had stayed in their old home. Their children’s children would be still more different. It is possible that a ruler who had not grown up as Romulus had, making his own laws and habits and managing men more or less by instinct, might have been bewildered and frightened. Whatever came up, he always had some expedient ready, and whatever strange specimen of human nature cropped out in the soldiers, or the traders, or the pagans, he had always seen something like it before.At the end of ten years the town on the Square Hill had spread out into a collection of villages and huts in which almost every kind of human being to be found in that region might have been seen, somewhere. On the Palatine Hill lived the original ten families and some of their kindred who had joined them. On the Aventine were barracks for the soldiers, and also on the steep[pg 160]narrow hill near the river. Clusters of huts here and there on the plain showed where hunters and fishermen lived, who came up the hill sometimes with what they had to sell, or came to buy weapons of the smiths. In the hollow called the Asylum lived the runaway serfs from Alba Longa, fishermen from the river bank, pagans and foresters from a dozen places. When there was a feast, all of these various kinds of families learned something of the worship of Mars, or Maia Dia, or Saturn, or Pales, or Lupercus. They all knew something about the laws of the colony, because the rulers took care that any offense against public order was punished. It was not a good place for thieves or brawlers or idlers. There was the beginning of a common law.[pg 161]XIVBREAD AND SALTIllustration: They sat together that night and watched the moon sail grandly over the floodThe children who had come to the Square Hill learned to know one another very well in those first years of the colony. There were about a dozen of the older ones who were nearly the same age, and they shared more responsibility than children do in a more settled community. When the river rose suddenly, and[pg 162]all the animals had to be hustled at a minute’s notice to the highest part of the hills out of the way of the waters, Marcs the son of Colonus, and Mamurius the son of the metal worker Muraena were old enough to be treated almost as if they were men. They sat together that night and watched the moon sail grandly over the flood, and talked of all the things that boys do talk of when they begin to look forward into the future.It was a wild and lonely scene. The rising of the flood had covered the plain for miles, although in many places the waters were not deep. The seven hills stood up like seven islands in an ocean, and although neither of the boys had ever seen an ocean, they knew that it must be something like this. The hill where they had driven their scrambling goats was high and steep and rocky and had been partly fortified. It was a natural stronghold, standing up above the group as the head of a crouching animal rises above the body. All the hills were crowned with circles of twinkling fires, and on the highest point of each was a beacon fire which was used for signals. Each had signaled to the others that all was right, and now there was nothing to do but wait for the morning.The smaller boys who had helped were very[pg 163]much excited at first, and danced around the fires gleefully, and ate their supper with a great appetite; but they went to sleep quite soon afterward. The two older lads were the only ones awake when the moon rose, and it seemed as if they were the only people awake in the whole world. In the safe and orderly and protected life of their childhood they had never seen anything like this, or been given so much responsibility. For some hours no one had known how much farther the waters would rise, and all the boats had been kept ready, and the men had made rafts, to save what they could if the river should sweep over the last refuge. But evidently it was not going to do anything like that. It had stopped rising already. Faustulus the old shepherd, who had lived among these hills ever since he was a boy, said that once in a few years they had a flood like this, but that it never in all his recollection had gone more than a few inches higher.These two boys had always been good friends, for they were just unlike enough for each to do some things the other admired. Marcs was like his father, square-set and strong and rather silent. Mamurius was a little taller and slenderer, and very clever with his hands. He could invent new ways to do things when it was necessary and when the old ways were impossible. He had[pg 164]never built a boat before he and Marcs made theirs the summer before, but he had shaped a steering oar that was better than the one he copied. On this night they found themselves somehow closer together than they had ever been before, and they promised each other always to be friends, to work and fight for each other as for themselves as long as they lived.The girls also had their responsibilities, which made them rather more capable and sure of themselves than they might have been if they were not the children of colonists. After the flood went down it left things wet and unwholesome for some weeks, and a fever broke out, of which some of the people died. Mamurius’ mother, and Marcia’s two little brothers, and two girls in the family of Cossus died of it, and at one time hardly a family had more than one or two well persons. Marcia was watching over her mother, who was very ill, when Mamurius came to the door with a basket of herbs and gave her a handful. He said that he had asked Faustulus whether he did not know of some medicine for the fever. Faustulus told him that there were certain herbs in his hut which his wife used to prepare in a drink, and this drink helped the fever. Mamurius had brewed the drink and given it to his father, and taken some himself,[pg 165]and it had done them both good. The old shepherd stood in considerable awe of the colonists, who knew so many things that he did not, and he would never have thought of suggesting anything to them himself.One night Muraena the metal worker came to the house of Colonus, and sat down with the head of the house under a fig tree by the door and talked with him. The two had been friends for many years, and now, he said, the time had come to make the friendship even closer by an alliance between the two houses. He had long observed the goodness and dutiful kindness of Colonus’s daughter Marcia, and it was his wish that now she was come to an age to be married, she might be his own daughter. He had reason to believe that his son would be glad to marry her. What did Colonus think about it?Colonus had no objection whatever. That night he went in and called Marcia to him, and told her kindly that Mamurius the metal worker’s son had been proposed for her husband, and that it would be most pleasing to both families if the marriage could be arranged. It was a surprise to Marcia, but not at all an unpleasant one, and she went to sleep that night a very happy girl.This was the first wedding in the colony, and as the preparations went forward, everybody, old[pg 166]and young, took a great deal of interest in it. Marcia never knew she had so many friends. Everybody seemed to wish her well and approve of the marriage. The wooden chest Marcs had made for her, and Bruno had carved and painted, began to fill with webs of linen and wool, the gifts of her mother and the other matrons, and some that had been spun and woven by Marcia herself. She could see from the door the house that was to be her home, as its fresh, new walls arose day by day. And at last the day arrived for theconfarreatio; as it was called, the wedding ceremony, the eating of bread. Like the other ceremonies in the religion of the people, this was very old, so old that the beginning of it was not known. The reason of some of the things that were done had been forgotten. Marcia could just remember going to one wedding when she was a little girl before they left the Mountain of Fire. All the colonists who went out were already married and had children, and until now none of the children were old enough to begin a new home.There was always a certain meaning in the eating of salt together; it is so in all the ancient races. Salt was not like food that any two men might eat together, like animals, where they found it. It was part of the household stores;[pg 167]it was eaten by families living in houses. In some places it was not easy to come by, and it was the one thing necessary to a really good meal, whatever else there was to eat. When a man was invited to share a meal with salt in it, it meant that he was invited to the table and was more or less an equal. People who were simply fed from the stores of the farmer prepared their own food in their own way, often without salt. It was said that the wood spirits, the gods of the wilderness, of whom nobody knew much except that they were mischievous and tricky, could always be known by the fact that salt to them was like poison; they could not eat it at all.When a bride left her own home to go to that of her husband, it was a very solemn proceeding, because she said farewell to her own family, the spirits of her ancestors, and the gods of her father’s hearth, and became one of her husband’s family, a daughter of his father. All that was done was based more or less on this idea. A girl who ran away from home without her father’s knowledge could not expect to be blessed by her ancestors, the unseen dwellers by the fireside. A woman who came into another home without the permission of the spirits who dwelt there could not hope to be happy; bad luck would certainly follow. The wedding ceremonies were[pg 168]meant to make it perfectly clear that all was done in the right and proper and fortunate way.The day was chosen by Tullius the priest, and was a bright and beautiful day, not long after the feast of Maia. The ceremonies began at dawn. Before sunrise Tullius was scanning the sky to make sure that the day would be fair and that no evil omen was in sight. Felic’la, who hovered around her sister with adoring eyes, thought she had never seen Marcia look so beautiful. She was in white, with a flame-colored veil over her head, and her hair had been, according to the old custom, parted with a spear point into six locks, arranged with ribbons tied in a certain way to keep it in place. Her tall and graceful figure was even more stately than usual in the white robe she wore, and her great dark eyes were like stars.When the guests were all at the house, Marcus Colonus offered a sacrifice at the family altar and pronounced certain ancient words, explaining that he now gave his daughter to the young Mamurius and set her free from every obligation that kept her at home. When the sacrifice was over, the guests wished the young couple happiness, and the marriage feast began. There was no one in the whole village who did not have reason to remember the rejoicings on the day[pg 169]when the daughter of Colonus was married, for it was the richest feast that had ever been given in the colony. The house was decorated with wreaths and the best of the wine was served, and all the dainties the Roman women knew how to make were to be found upon the table. Marcia sat among her maidens like a young goddess among priestesses; they were all eager to show her how dear she was to them and how glad they were that she was happy. There was not a child in the village who did not think of her as a kind elder sister. Now she herself was to be served and made happy, and for that day she was the most important person in the eyes of all those who had been her playmates.At last the rejoicings at the home of Colonus were over, and it was time for the wedding procession. Attended by the young girls near her own age, the bride was taken from her mother’s arms by the bridegroom, and the whole party moved in procession toward the new home. In advance went torch bearers, and the children scattered flowers for her feet to tread upon as she passed. Every one was singing or shouting“Talassio! Talassio!”The flute players were making music, and the bridegroom scattered handfuls of nuts for which the boys scrambled. When they reached the door of the new house[pg 170]Marcia poured a little oil upon the doorposts, and wound them with wool which her own hands had spun. Then Mamurius lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the door.Illustration: Mamurius lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the doorExactly why this was part of the marriage ceremony is not known. Some think it was because a bride must not be allowed to stumble on the threshold, for that would be unlucky. But it was more likely to mean that she was brought by her husband into the house to join in the worship of the spirits of the home, and so did not come in without an invitation. As she stood in theatrium, the middle room where the altar and[pg 171]the family table were, she received the fire and water of the family worship and reverently lighted the first fire ever kindled on that hearth. She and Mamurius repeated together the prayers that thousands of young couples had repeated since first their people had homes. Then they ate together a flat cake made with the corn blessed by the priest, and Marcia poured a little of the marriage wine upon the fire as a sacrifice of“libation”to the gods of her new home. This was theconfarreatio. They felt as if the silent, burning fire that lighted the dusky little room were trying to tell them that their simple meal was shared by the gods themselves, and that the blessing of all Mamurius’ forefathers was on the bride that he had brought home to be the joy of his house.On the next day there was another feast, to celebrate the beginning of the new home, and the wedding was over.“I am glad,”said Marcia’s mother to her husband when they went home that night, leaving their daughter and young Mamurius standing together at their own door,“that everything went so well, without a single unlucky or unhappy thing to spoil the good fortune. Marcia well deserves to be happy,—but I shall miss her every day I live.”[pg 172]She sighed, and Felic’la looked rather sober. She knew very well that they would all miss Marcia, but she determined in her careless little heart to be a better girl and do so much for her mother and brothers that when her turn came, they would all be sorry to see her go.“I am glad,”said Colonus,“for more than one reason. I have been rather anxious for fear that in this new place our young people would not remember the old ways as they might if they had grown up in our old home. It was important to have the first wedding one that they would all remember with pleasure, and wish to follow as an example. I am very glad Marcia has so good a husband. Mamurius is a youth who will go far and be a leader among the young men. I suppose that now they will all be thinking of marriage.”There were, in fact, several other marriages in the colony within a year or two, but nobody who was at that first wedding ever forgot it. Marcia was often called upon to tell how the garlands were made, and just how much honey they put in the cakes for the feast, and how the other little matters were arranged that all seemed to be managed exactly right. In fact, that wedding set a fashion and a standard, and as Marcia’s father was shrewd enough to see, it is a good thing[pg 173]in a new community to have the standards rather high. There was nothing in what Marcia and Mamurius did that other people could not follow if they chose, but the simple comfort and grace of their way of living did mean that they cared enough for their home to take it seriously. Girls who might not have thought much about cleanliness, thrift, cheerfulness and beauty began to see, when they visited Marcia, how pleasant it was to have a home like hers. She did not tell them so; she was herself, and that was enough.[pg 174]XVTHE TRUMPERY MANOne autumn day a little while after the harvest, a squat, brown man with large black eyes under great arched eyebrows set in a large head, and with unusually muscular shoulders and arms, was paddling slowly in a small boat across the yellow river. As he crossed he looked up attentively at the range of hills near the riverside, now partly covered with wooden huts. It was his experience that villages were good places to trade. They were especially so when, as now, pipes were sounding and the people were keeping holiday in honor of some god. He had gone to many places with his wares, but he had not as yet visited the town by the river. He was not even quite sure of its name. Some called it Rumon and some Roma. The people of his race were not very quick of ear, and often pronounced letters alike or confused them when they sounded alike,—as o and u, or b and p, or t and d. He himself was called Utuze, Otuz, or[pg 175]Odisuze, or Toto, according to the place where he happened to be. He came from Caere, the Etruscan seaport near the mouth of the river.He had landed on this bank when he went up the river and approached the men from the settlement when they were working on their lands outside the walls, but they did not pay much attention to him. He could not tell whether they did not want his wares, or were suspicious, or simply did not understand what he was talking about. Now he was going to find out,—for he was of a persistent nature. Perhaps there would be some one at the festival who could speak both his language and theirs and tell them what he wanted to say. Then it would be easy.On a glittering chain around his neck he carried a metal whistle, or trumpet, that could be heard a long distance and would pierce through most other noises as a needle pierces wool. On his back he carried in a sack a great variety of small things likely to please women and girls and children. He had learned a very long time ago that however shrewd a man may be, he will buy very silly things and pay any price you like for them when he is persuaded that they will please a girl. He also knew that men will buy things for their wives that no sensible woman ever buys for herself, and that if children cry for a toy long[pg 176]enough, they often get it. But the most important thing was, he knew, that a man who can attract attention to himself, no matter how he does it, generally sells more goods than one who depends only on the usefulness of what he has to sell. Therefore, when he set out on these trading journeys, he put on the most gorgeous and gay-colored clothes he could find, decorated with bright-colored figures, embroidered, and fringed or fastened with little glittering beads and ornaments such as he carried in his pack. Shining things were easier to sell than other things, as they were easier to look at. The peddler had given careful attention to selecting his stores, and Mastarna, the fat merchant from whom he got them, helped him. He wished to know more of these people in the town by the river.The squealing of the peddler’s trumpet reached the ears of the soldiers, who were having a good time in their own way. They had their own games and frolics and feats of strength, and some of the young men from the town were there to look on and perhaps to join. Urso the hunter’s son, and Marcus and Bruno the sons of Colonus, and little Pollio the son of the sandal maker, were all there, and when they heard the trumpet they sprang to their feet. But Ruffo the captain of the guard laughed, and the others[pg 177]shouted, and Ruffo said,“By Jove, there’s Toto!”“Diovi”was the general name for“the gods,”and when it is pronounced quickly it sounds like“Jove.”The father of the gods was“Diovis-Pater”—which in course of time became“Jupiter.”The peddler had been in their camp in the days before the town by the river was thought of, and when he saw them, he came up the path grinning broadly, and they grinned back. They explained to the boys of the colony that he came from across the river and dealt in all sorts of things that were not made at all on this side, and some that were brought from the seashore. Toto spread out his gay cloth on the ground and began to lay out his wares.Through long practice he knew just how to place them so that they would show most effectively, and many a customer wondered why the trinket did not look as well when he got it home as it had before he bought it. The colors in the painted cloth were combined in old, old patterns worked out according to laws as certain as the laws of music, and everywhere was the gilding that set off the colors and seemed to make them brighter and richer.Illustration: Toto spread out his gay cloth upon the groundThere were scarfs such as women wore on their[pg 178]heads, and fillets for the hair, and girdles and veils. There were necklaces and bracelets and rings and brooches and pins. There were boxes of sweetmeats, and metal cups and spoons, and curious little images of men and animals, and strings of beads, and charm strings, and hollow metal cases for charms, that could be hung around the neck, and pottery toys, and trinkets of all kinds. It seemed impossible that so much merchandise of so many different kinds could have been packed in that bag, or that a man could have carried it, after it was packed. If the things[pg 179]had been as heavy as they looked, it would have been too great a load even for Toto’s broad shoulders.The Roman boys had never seen anything like this before, but they did not show any great curiosity. One of the things that the people of Mars taught their children, without ever saying it in so many words, was not to be in a hurry to talk too much in strange company. They were brought up to feel that they were the equals of any one they were likely to meet and need not be in haste to make new friends. This feeling gave them a certain dignity not easily upset. In fact, dignity is merely the result of respecting yourself as a person quite worthy of respect, and not feeling obliged to insist on it from other people. The colonists had it.Pollio picked up one of the sandals and smiled.“My father would not think this leather fit to use,”he said in a low tone to Bruno.Marcus was looking at a pin of a rather pretty design and wondering how Flavia, his betrothed, would like it, when it bent in his fingers. That pin had not been made for the handling of young men with hands so muscular as his. Marcus paid for the pin and tossed it into the river. He had no intention of making a gift like that to any one.[pg 180]When they handled the charm necklaces they saw from the lightness that what looked like gold was not gold. It was so with all the peddler’s stock. The soldiers, seeing that the boys from the colony did not think the stuff worth buying, did not buy much themselves, nor did they drink much of his wine.Ruffo said after Toto had gone that he did not always carry such a collection of trash as he had to-day. Sometimes he sold excellent fish-hooks and small tools. Marcus said that if he bought anything, he wanted a thing that was worth buying, and they began to throw quoits at a mark.Marcus had seen traders before and dealt with them, but for some reason this peddler’s pack set him thinking. In their way of living a farmer made most of his own tools, and wishing them to last as long as possible, he made them well. It was the same with the baskets, the linen, the wool and the leather work, and the other things made at home. It was the same with the work done in the smithy of Muraena. He wished to have a reputation among his neighbors for making fine weapons. The men always put the greater part of their time on their farms, and since they had been in this new country, their planning and contriving how to make the soil produce more and[pg 181]more had been far more exciting than ever before. Each year a little more of the marsh or the waste land would be drained and cleared; each year the flocks and herds would be larger and more huts would be built. They were founding a new people.In view of these great thoughts of the future, the glittering trinkets of the man with the trumpet looked small and worthless. Marcus began to see what was meant by the elders when they spoke of“gravity”as a virtue and“levity”as a rather foolish vice. Life depended very much on the way one took things; to take important things lightly, or give valuable time and thought to worthless objects left a man with the chaff on his hands instead of the good grain.Something his father had told him a long time ago, when he was a little boy, came into Marcus’s mind. It was when he wanted something very much, and being little, cried because he could not have it and made himself quite miserable. His father came in just then and watched him for a minute or two. Then he said,“My son, do you wish to be a strong man, when you grow big?”“Y-yes,”sniffed the little fellow dolefully.“You wish to be strong of soul and heart as you are in your body, so that no one can make[pg 182]you do anything you are not willing to do?”“Yes, Father,”said the boy, with his puzzled dark eyes searching his father’s face.“Then, my son, remember this: the strong man is the man who can go without what he wants. If you cannot do without a thing you want, without being unhappy, you are like a boy who cannot walk without a crutch. If you can give up, without making a ridiculous ado about it, whatever it is not wise for you to have—if you can be happy in yourself and by yourself and stand on your own feet—then you are strong. In the end you will be strong enough to get what you really want. The gods hate a coward.”Now in the long shadows of the fading day, as he heard the far sound of the peddler’s trumpet down the river, Marcus found a new meaning in his father’s words. He saw that those who wasted what they had earned by hard work on that rubbish would end by having nothing at all, because they were caught by the color and the shine of things made to tempt them. What was there in all that collection that was half as beautiful as a golden wheat field? What ornament that could be worn out or broken was equal to the land itself, with its treasure of fleecy flocks and sleek cattle, and roof trees under which happy[pg 183]children slept? The treasure of the world was theirs already, in this plain that was theirs to make fruitful and beautiful, and people with prosperous villages. That was the real estate; the other was a shadow and a sham.[pg 184]XVITHE GREAT DYKEAlthough Toto did not find his first visit to the Seven Hills very profitable, he had much that was interesting to tell Mastarna when he returned. The two had a long talk in their strange rugged language with its few vowel sounds. Mastarna was most interested in the gods of these strangers. If he could find out what they did to bring good luck and ward off misfortune, he could have charms and lucky stones made to sell to them. If he knew what their gods were like, he could have images of these carved in wood or molded in clay or cast in metal. But Toto could tell him very little about these questions. The soldiers at the camp had no altars and no regular worship at all, and they moved from place to place and did not keep any place sacred. But these people on the Square Hill seemed very religious. They behaved as if they had settled down there to stay forever.[pg 185]“What are they like?”asked the old man.“They are like no other townspeople in this valley,”said Toto decidedly.“They are not like the herdsmen who wander from place to place and sleep in tents, or the hunters who live alone in huts, or the fishermen by the river or the sailors by the seashore. They are tall and straight and strong and very active, because they work all the time. They work mostly on their land. When they are not plowing, or digging, or cutting grain, or cutting wood, or making things, they are working to make themselves stronger. They run and leap and throw heavy weights; they hurl the spear and shoot arrows at a mark. They stand in rows and go through motions all together, and march to and fro, and play at ball. They do everything that is possible to make themselves good soldiers; even the boys begin when they are small to play at these games.“And that is not all. The women work also, but not as slaves. The matrons go here and there as they choose, and see eye to eye with their husbands, and manage the household as the men manage the farm. The men sit in council, but each man speaks of his work in private to his wife, and she advises with him. They do not have slaves to wait on them; even their great men work with the others in the field. No one is[pg 186]ashamed to work with his hands. They build their own houses and their own walls; they breed their own cattle. If there should be a sheep gone from the flock, or a heifer strayed from the herd, they would know it and search until the thief was found.”“Hum,”said the old man thoughtfully. He was thinking that this must be a strong and valiant people, and that if they increased in the valley of the yellow river they might become very powerful.“And what are their priests?”“They have no priesthood dwelling in the temples,”said Toto.“Their elders are their priests and pretend to no magical powers. They are chosen for their wisdom. Their gods are invisible.”“Hum,”said Mastarna again.The people to whom he and Toto belonged were called at one time and another Tuscans or Etruscans by others, but they called themselves the Ras, or Rasennae. They had some towns in the mountains beyond the plain where these strangers were. They held most of the country on their side of the rivers, as far north as the river Arno, and they had always lived there, so far as they knew themselves or any one else could say. They were different in almost every way from these strangers of the hills. He wondered[pg 187]if his people had anything whatever that the strangers wanted.“You say that they build walls,”he said to Toto.“Do they build good ones?”Toto grinned. He was nothing of a builder himself, but even he could see the difference between the rude stone laying and fencing of the strangers, and the scientific, massive masonry and arched drains of his own country.“They will find out how good they are,”he said,“after twenty years of flood and drought.”In fact, the worst enemy the colonists had met thus far was water. They were used to mountain slopes with good drainage. They knew how to keep a field from being gutted by mountain freshets, and how to repair roadways and build drains that would carry off the water. They were strong and clever at fitting stones into the right place for walls, and they could dam up a stream for a fishpool or a bathing place. But this sort of country was all new to them. It was not exactly a marsh and not so swampy as it became in later centuries, but at any time it might become a marsh full of ponds and stagnant streams, and remain so for weeks at a time. This was bad for the grain and worse for sheep, and unhealthy for human beings. During the next rainy season after Toto’s visit, the farmers[pg 188]had a very unhappy time. They discovered that too much water is almost if not quite as much a nuisance as too little. In a dry time it is sometimes possible to carry water from a distance, but in a wet time there is nowhere to put the water that is not wanted, and many of their ditches were choked up with débris, and their grain was washed away.Mastarna was full of patience. He let them toil and soak and chill and sweat until he thought they would welcome a suggestion from almost any quarter. Then he and a man he knew, a stone worker called Canial, took a boat and went across the river to a point where three or four of the colonists were prying an unhappy ox out of the mire. The strength, determination and skill with which they conducted the work were worthy of all admiration. But it would have been far better if the land could have been drained and protected by a solid dyke.Canial looked the bank over with a shrewd, experienced eye, and said that if he had the work to do, he would dig a ditch there, and there, and there; here he would build a covered drain lined with tilework; and in a certain hollow under the hill he would have an arched waterway, so that flood water would run through instead of tearing at the foundation of the terrace below the vine[pg 189]yards. But he saw no signs that these men in their building made any use of arches. He jumped ashore and splashed through the pools, which were almost waist-deep in some places, up to where the ox was standing panting, wild-eyed and nearly exhausted with fright and struggle. Canial squatted down by a rivulet. He did not know the language of the colonists and they did not know his, but no words were needed for what he wanted to explain. He made a miniature drain rudely arched over with mud-plastered stones while they stood there watching. That could be done, as well with, a six-inch brook as with a river. It did not take the Romans ten minutes to see that he knew more about such matters than they did.“Caius,”said Colonus to young Cossus,“go over to the camp and find Ruffo, and ask him to come and talk to this fellow.”He knew that Ruffo understood several languages and dialects, and whatever it was that this man had come for, he wished to know it.Ruffo knew enough of the language Canial spoke to be able to make out his meaning, and he told Colonus that the stone worker wished to come and live in Rome. He would show them how to drain their land and bridge their streams. Mastarna would tell them that he was a man of[pg 190]honesty and ability. His reason for leaving his own country was a personal one; he had had a quarrel with the head priest of his village because the priest wished to interfere in his family affairs and make Canial’s daughter the wife of his nephew, against her will. There was no safety or comfort in his part of the country when the priesthood had a grudge against a man.There were others in the Roman settlement who had fled there for reasons of much the same kind as Canial’s—men who had been robbed of their inheritance, slaves escaped from cruel masters, homeless men, and men who for one reason or another had found themselves unsafe where they lived before. But this was the first family which had wished to come from beyond the river. The others all came from places where the public worship was not entirely unlike that of the Romans themselves and the people were of the same race in the beginning. This was a departure from that rule.If it had not been for the dyke-building problem, Colonus would probably have said no at once. But that would have to be settled before the town grew much larger than it was, or they would have to change their way of life altogether. They were a people who hated to be crowded. They would need land, and land, and more land,[pg 191]if they continued to live on the Seven Hills. They must have grain for the cattle and themselves, and pasturage for the beasts, room for orchards and gardens, room for the villages of those who tilled their fields. Canial seemed to think that it would be quite possible to prevent the plain from being flooded, with proper stonework and drains, but it would need a man thoroughly used to the work to direct it. Colonus could see that Canial was probably that man. Every suggestion he made was practical and good, and he knew things about masonry that it had taken his ancestors generations to learn. Colonus finally said that he would talk it over with the other men of the city and give him an answer on a certain day.Ruffo did not know anything of the gods the people of Canial worshiped, except that they were unlike the Roman gods and seemed to be very much feared. They had a god Turms, who was rather like the Roman Terminus, who protected traders and kept boundaries. They had a smith of the gods, called Sethlans, and a god of wine and drunkenness called Fuffluns.No person, of course, could be allowed to bring the worship of strange gods into the sacred city. The very reason of the founding of the city was to make a home for their own gods, and[pg 192]to let in strange ceremonies would be to defile that home.It was finally decided that Canial and some of his countrymen who wished to come with him should have a place of their own, which was afterward known as the Street of the Tuscans. It was a place which no one had wished to occupy before, because it was so wet, but Canial and his friends had no difficulty in draining it. The only condition he made was that traders should be allowed to come and go and supply his family and friends with whatever they needed. Women, he said, did not like a strange place much as it was, and he should have no peace at home if his wife were obliged to learn new methods of housekeeping.The only condition that Marcus Colonus and his friends made was that the strangers should do nothing against the law of the settlement, or against the Roman gods, and this they readily agreed to. Canial said that the priests in his country demanded so much in offerings that a man was no better than a slave, working for them.All this happened while Romulus was away, but when he returned he said that the decision was a wise one. It privately rather amused him to see how in this new country the colonists were led to allow the beginning of new customs which[pg 193]they regarded with great horror when they first came.Before another rainy season, the Etruscans and the Romans, working together, had made a very fair beginning on the dyking and draining of the worst of the marshes and the bridging of bad places. Canial understood how to mix burned lumps of clay containing lime and iron, and lime and sand, and water, in such a way that when the muddy paste hardened it was like stone itself. Tertius Calvo, who happened to be there when this was done, tried it by himself. Although what he made was not entirely a failure, it did not behave as it did under the hands of Canial. Without saying anything—indeed, he could say nothing, for he knew not a word of the strangers’ language—Tertius watched and measured and experimented with small quantities until he found out the exact proportions and methods Canial used. The bit of wall he built finally was very nearly as good as Canial’s own work. Calvo was good at laying stones, and had very little to learn in that line from any stranger. This mortar, as they found in course of time, would stand heat and cold and water and seemed to become harder with exposure. By using the best quality of material the work was improved. There was no secret about it; indeed, Canial did[pg 194]not object to teaching any man who wished to learn all he could.The greatest debt they owed to their new settlers was the low round arch, built with stones set in mortar in such a way that the greater the weight, the firmer the arch would be. Another Etruscan trick was plastering over the side of a drain or a bank with a mixture of small stones stirred thickly into mortar like plums in a pudding. The best of this new way of working was that it could be done so quickly. A great deal of the work could be done by stupid and ignorant laborers under the direction of those who knew how to direct. Men whom they could not employ in any sort of skilled labor could help here. Such men were glad enough to come for an allowance of food and drink. A certain task was set them, and they had their living for that; if they did more, they had an extra allowance. The task was calledmoenia, and since it was the lowest and least skilled labor, work of that kind later came to be known asmenial, the work of slaves and servants.The change in the face of the plain in the following years was almost like magic. The colonists built dykes to keep the river from overflowing; they built drains to carry off the heavy rains; they built culverts; they built bridges rest[pg 195]ing on solid arches; and they made one great drain which carried off so much of the overflow water that it made the Square Hill and most of the land around it safe. In fact, a part of every year thereafter was given to the improvement and protection of newly cleared farmlands by stonework. People came from a great distance to see the dyke they built, for nothing like it had been done on that side of the river. The people in the lowlands villages, relieved from the fear of floods, were proud to call themselves the servants of the Romans. In those early years a beginning was made of the great engineering work that was to endure for centuries. The people of the Square Hill were doing on a very small scale what nobody had done before them in that part of the world. In their masonry and their farming they gave all their poorer neighbors reason to be glad they were located where they were. It was a peaceful conquering of village after village.

[pg 152]XIIITHE SOOTHSAYERSAfter the founding of the city and the tragic ending of the day, Romulus went away, no one knew exactly where. He was gone for some time, He told Marcus Colonus that he was going to Alba Longa, where some of his men still were as a garrison for Numa. But he did not stay there many days.Although he was the founder and in one way the ruler of his city, this did not mean that he was obliged to stay there to settle all its problems. Most of them were solved by the common law and common sense of the colonists. Their ruler had no authority over them contrary to custom, and custom would apply in one way or another to almost everything they did. Hence the young man was free to go wherever he saw fit.The fancy took him to cross the river and see the old woman who had told him when he was a boy that he was to be the ruler of a great people. He found her still alive, though so old that her[pg 153]brown face looked like an old withered nutshell. She glanced up at him keenly.“Welcome, king,”she said.Just how much she had heard of his life from traveling traders and vagabonds, no one can say, but she seemed to know a great deal about it. She told him that when he returned to his own country, if he followed certain landmarks and dug in the ground at a certain point near the river bank some distance from Rome, he would find an altar and a shield of gold. The shield, she said, had fallen from heaven, and was intended for him, because he was the especial favorite of Mars, the god of war. He did not take this very seriously, but he found himself much interested in the ways of this strange people. Their priests knew how to measure distances, and mark out squares, and consult the stars. Their metal workers, dyers and potters knew how to make curious and precious things. The fortune tellers had a great reputation all over the country. Their name, soothsayers, meant“those who tell the truth.”The old woman told him that it was a great mistake for those who were born under a certain star to try to get away from their fate. If a man were born to be a ruler and a commander of men, it was useless for him to try to make himself a[pg 154]farmer or a trader. It would be far better for him to keep to what he could do well, and buy of others what he needed. This struck Romulus as directly opposed to the ways of the villagers as he had seen them. They made for themselves everything they possibly could, and all of them were farmers. He began to wonder where their future would lead them. A man like Colonus, or Tullius, or Muraena, or Calvo knew enough to direct other men. There was not one of the ten who came out from the Mountain of Fire who was not far superior to most of the people in the country round about. They were quite as fit to be rulers of a tribe as he was; in fact, they were more so, in many ways. But if they had stayed where they were born, they would have gone on to the end of their days, working with their hands, and owning only their share of the common crop and the flocks and herds of the village. Here in the land beyond the river it was different. The powerful nobles and the priesthood ruled, and other men served.In talking with the soothsayers, he heard a great deal about the influence of the stars. The priests also put great faith in this. They divided the sky into twelve parts, or houses, as they called them, and each of these was ruled by some star named after a god. In the course of the year[pg 155]the sun passed through each house, or sign, in turn. If a man were born in the house of the Ram, which was ruled by Mars the red planet, he would be like Mars,—a warrior, bold and fearless, and not afraid to venture into new fields and to do things that other men had not done before. If he were born in that sign when the planet was in it with the sun, he would be more a son of Mars in every way. If Venus, the planet which ruled love, were also in the sign, he would be ruled by reason even in his love affairs, and his marriage and his wars would be more or less connected. All these things, according to the soothsayers, were true of Romulus.Romulus was acute enough to see that these people knew him for a chief, and that some of what they told him was flattery; but he was not sure how much of it was. He had not wandered about his world for twenty-odd years without seeing the difference in people. He knew that the great art of ruling men successfully lies in understanding their different characters and not expecting of any person what that person cannot do. The rules of the villages were very well for a small place, where all of the people were related. But how would they fit such a miscellaneous collection of people as seemed likely to gather in the town by the river? His mind was gradually[pg 156]getting at the problem of governing such a town in such a way that instead of being a little island of civilization in a sea of wilderness, it would be a center of civilization in a country inhabited by all sorts of people who would look up to it and be ruled and influenced by it. Such an idea, to Colonus, to Emilius in the Sabine village, or even to the old chief Numa on Alba Longa would have seemed wildly impossible. It seemed to Romulus that if a band of outlaws had been welded into an effective fighting troop as he had welded them, a country might be made up of a great many different sorts of persons living peaceably together. He grinned as he thought of such a man as his old captain, Ruffo, obeying all the customs of the colony and giving his whole mind to the tilling of the soil and the raising of cattle. It would be like trying to harness a wolf, or stocking a poultry yard with eagles. The thing could not be done. And yet, when it came to keeping order, Ruffo was wise and just and kind.One thing he could see very clearly, and that was that for a long time yet the colonists would have to give especial attention to disciplined warfare. He wished that there were more of them. If they ever had a quarrel with the dark Etruscans beyond the river, it would be a fight for[pg 157]life, for the Etruscans outnumbered them ten to one. It would be well to trade with them so far as they could, but there again the customs of the colonists were against him. There was not much that they wished to buy.When he left the land beyond the river, he paid a farewell visit to the old witch, and she told him again that he was born to rule. He hoped that he was.When he came back to the Square Hill, he found the fathers of the colony confronting a new problem, which they had no tradition to help them settle. The problem was what to do with the new settlers who were coming in for protection and in the hope of getting a living, but who were not of their own people. Often they had not intelligence enough to understand what the colonists meant by their customs. This was something that Romulus had expected. He had his answer ready. He said that there was a god of whom he had heard, called Asylos, who protected homeless persons and serfs who had escaped from cruel masters, and that they might set apart a space outside the walls and dedicate it to this god. There his own soldiers could live, and there would be a place for any one who came who would work for a living. And this was done. The people who came in from various[pg 158]places seeking protection, and were useful in various ways even if they could only hew wood and draw water, were called after awhile theplebs, the men who helped to fill the town. There was so much to do, and so little time to do it, that every pair of hands was of value. It would not do to let every one who came become a citizen, an inhabitant of the city, because that might destroy all comfort and order within the walls. But the town grew much faster when it became known that any man not a criminal could get a living there.Another circumstance that made it grow was that the country people and the villagers from farther up the river began to bring down what they had to sell. Sometimes the Etruscans bought of them, and sometimes the Romans did. It was the last riverside settlement before the boats went down to the sea, and it began to be a trading as well as a farming place not many years after the colonists settled there.Trading was favored because farming did not altogether supply the needs of the people. Now and then the river rose and flooded their land. The only part of the country they could absolutely depend on as yet was the group of seven hills, where they kept their herds and flocks. One year, when their grain was ruined, they had[pg 159]to send across the river and buy some of the Etruscans, in exchange for wool and leather and weapons. Within the first ten years every one of the colonists had discovered that men who make their home in a new land must change their ways more or less if they are to live. While they are changing the land, the land changes them. The children of these people would not be exactly the same when they grew up as they would have been if they had stayed in their old home. Their children’s children would be still more different. It is possible that a ruler who had not grown up as Romulus had, making his own laws and habits and managing men more or less by instinct, might have been bewildered and frightened. Whatever came up, he always had some expedient ready, and whatever strange specimen of human nature cropped out in the soldiers, or the traders, or the pagans, he had always seen something like it before.At the end of ten years the town on the Square Hill had spread out into a collection of villages and huts in which almost every kind of human being to be found in that region might have been seen, somewhere. On the Palatine Hill lived the original ten families and some of their kindred who had joined them. On the Aventine were barracks for the soldiers, and also on the steep[pg 160]narrow hill near the river. Clusters of huts here and there on the plain showed where hunters and fishermen lived, who came up the hill sometimes with what they had to sell, or came to buy weapons of the smiths. In the hollow called the Asylum lived the runaway serfs from Alba Longa, fishermen from the river bank, pagans and foresters from a dozen places. When there was a feast, all of these various kinds of families learned something of the worship of Mars, or Maia Dia, or Saturn, or Pales, or Lupercus. They all knew something about the laws of the colony, because the rulers took care that any offense against public order was punished. It was not a good place for thieves or brawlers or idlers. There was the beginning of a common law.[pg 161]XIVBREAD AND SALTIllustration: They sat together that night and watched the moon sail grandly over the floodThe children who had come to the Square Hill learned to know one another very well in those first years of the colony. There were about a dozen of the older ones who were nearly the same age, and they shared more responsibility than children do in a more settled community. When the river rose suddenly, and[pg 162]all the animals had to be hustled at a minute’s notice to the highest part of the hills out of the way of the waters, Marcs the son of Colonus, and Mamurius the son of the metal worker Muraena were old enough to be treated almost as if they were men. They sat together that night and watched the moon sail grandly over the flood, and talked of all the things that boys do talk of when they begin to look forward into the future.It was a wild and lonely scene. The rising of the flood had covered the plain for miles, although in many places the waters were not deep. The seven hills stood up like seven islands in an ocean, and although neither of the boys had ever seen an ocean, they knew that it must be something like this. The hill where they had driven their scrambling goats was high and steep and rocky and had been partly fortified. It was a natural stronghold, standing up above the group as the head of a crouching animal rises above the body. All the hills were crowned with circles of twinkling fires, and on the highest point of each was a beacon fire which was used for signals. Each had signaled to the others that all was right, and now there was nothing to do but wait for the morning.The smaller boys who had helped were very[pg 163]much excited at first, and danced around the fires gleefully, and ate their supper with a great appetite; but they went to sleep quite soon afterward. The two older lads were the only ones awake when the moon rose, and it seemed as if they were the only people awake in the whole world. In the safe and orderly and protected life of their childhood they had never seen anything like this, or been given so much responsibility. For some hours no one had known how much farther the waters would rise, and all the boats had been kept ready, and the men had made rafts, to save what they could if the river should sweep over the last refuge. But evidently it was not going to do anything like that. It had stopped rising already. Faustulus the old shepherd, who had lived among these hills ever since he was a boy, said that once in a few years they had a flood like this, but that it never in all his recollection had gone more than a few inches higher.These two boys had always been good friends, for they were just unlike enough for each to do some things the other admired. Marcs was like his father, square-set and strong and rather silent. Mamurius was a little taller and slenderer, and very clever with his hands. He could invent new ways to do things when it was necessary and when the old ways were impossible. He had[pg 164]never built a boat before he and Marcs made theirs the summer before, but he had shaped a steering oar that was better than the one he copied. On this night they found themselves somehow closer together than they had ever been before, and they promised each other always to be friends, to work and fight for each other as for themselves as long as they lived.The girls also had their responsibilities, which made them rather more capable and sure of themselves than they might have been if they were not the children of colonists. After the flood went down it left things wet and unwholesome for some weeks, and a fever broke out, of which some of the people died. Mamurius’ mother, and Marcia’s two little brothers, and two girls in the family of Cossus died of it, and at one time hardly a family had more than one or two well persons. Marcia was watching over her mother, who was very ill, when Mamurius came to the door with a basket of herbs and gave her a handful. He said that he had asked Faustulus whether he did not know of some medicine for the fever. Faustulus told him that there were certain herbs in his hut which his wife used to prepare in a drink, and this drink helped the fever. Mamurius had brewed the drink and given it to his father, and taken some himself,[pg 165]and it had done them both good. The old shepherd stood in considerable awe of the colonists, who knew so many things that he did not, and he would never have thought of suggesting anything to them himself.One night Muraena the metal worker came to the house of Colonus, and sat down with the head of the house under a fig tree by the door and talked with him. The two had been friends for many years, and now, he said, the time had come to make the friendship even closer by an alliance between the two houses. He had long observed the goodness and dutiful kindness of Colonus’s daughter Marcia, and it was his wish that now she was come to an age to be married, she might be his own daughter. He had reason to believe that his son would be glad to marry her. What did Colonus think about it?Colonus had no objection whatever. That night he went in and called Marcia to him, and told her kindly that Mamurius the metal worker’s son had been proposed for her husband, and that it would be most pleasing to both families if the marriage could be arranged. It was a surprise to Marcia, but not at all an unpleasant one, and she went to sleep that night a very happy girl.This was the first wedding in the colony, and as the preparations went forward, everybody, old[pg 166]and young, took a great deal of interest in it. Marcia never knew she had so many friends. Everybody seemed to wish her well and approve of the marriage. The wooden chest Marcs had made for her, and Bruno had carved and painted, began to fill with webs of linen and wool, the gifts of her mother and the other matrons, and some that had been spun and woven by Marcia herself. She could see from the door the house that was to be her home, as its fresh, new walls arose day by day. And at last the day arrived for theconfarreatio; as it was called, the wedding ceremony, the eating of bread. Like the other ceremonies in the religion of the people, this was very old, so old that the beginning of it was not known. The reason of some of the things that were done had been forgotten. Marcia could just remember going to one wedding when she was a little girl before they left the Mountain of Fire. All the colonists who went out were already married and had children, and until now none of the children were old enough to begin a new home.There was always a certain meaning in the eating of salt together; it is so in all the ancient races. Salt was not like food that any two men might eat together, like animals, where they found it. It was part of the household stores;[pg 167]it was eaten by families living in houses. In some places it was not easy to come by, and it was the one thing necessary to a really good meal, whatever else there was to eat. When a man was invited to share a meal with salt in it, it meant that he was invited to the table and was more or less an equal. People who were simply fed from the stores of the farmer prepared their own food in their own way, often without salt. It was said that the wood spirits, the gods of the wilderness, of whom nobody knew much except that they were mischievous and tricky, could always be known by the fact that salt to them was like poison; they could not eat it at all.When a bride left her own home to go to that of her husband, it was a very solemn proceeding, because she said farewell to her own family, the spirits of her ancestors, and the gods of her father’s hearth, and became one of her husband’s family, a daughter of his father. All that was done was based more or less on this idea. A girl who ran away from home without her father’s knowledge could not expect to be blessed by her ancestors, the unseen dwellers by the fireside. A woman who came into another home without the permission of the spirits who dwelt there could not hope to be happy; bad luck would certainly follow. The wedding ceremonies were[pg 168]meant to make it perfectly clear that all was done in the right and proper and fortunate way.The day was chosen by Tullius the priest, and was a bright and beautiful day, not long after the feast of Maia. The ceremonies began at dawn. Before sunrise Tullius was scanning the sky to make sure that the day would be fair and that no evil omen was in sight. Felic’la, who hovered around her sister with adoring eyes, thought she had never seen Marcia look so beautiful. She was in white, with a flame-colored veil over her head, and her hair had been, according to the old custom, parted with a spear point into six locks, arranged with ribbons tied in a certain way to keep it in place. Her tall and graceful figure was even more stately than usual in the white robe she wore, and her great dark eyes were like stars.When the guests were all at the house, Marcus Colonus offered a sacrifice at the family altar and pronounced certain ancient words, explaining that he now gave his daughter to the young Mamurius and set her free from every obligation that kept her at home. When the sacrifice was over, the guests wished the young couple happiness, and the marriage feast began. There was no one in the whole village who did not have reason to remember the rejoicings on the day[pg 169]when the daughter of Colonus was married, for it was the richest feast that had ever been given in the colony. The house was decorated with wreaths and the best of the wine was served, and all the dainties the Roman women knew how to make were to be found upon the table. Marcia sat among her maidens like a young goddess among priestesses; they were all eager to show her how dear she was to them and how glad they were that she was happy. There was not a child in the village who did not think of her as a kind elder sister. Now she herself was to be served and made happy, and for that day she was the most important person in the eyes of all those who had been her playmates.At last the rejoicings at the home of Colonus were over, and it was time for the wedding procession. Attended by the young girls near her own age, the bride was taken from her mother’s arms by the bridegroom, and the whole party moved in procession toward the new home. In advance went torch bearers, and the children scattered flowers for her feet to tread upon as she passed. Every one was singing or shouting“Talassio! Talassio!”The flute players were making music, and the bridegroom scattered handfuls of nuts for which the boys scrambled. When they reached the door of the new house[pg 170]Marcia poured a little oil upon the doorposts, and wound them with wool which her own hands had spun. Then Mamurius lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the door.Illustration: Mamurius lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the doorExactly why this was part of the marriage ceremony is not known. Some think it was because a bride must not be allowed to stumble on the threshold, for that would be unlucky. But it was more likely to mean that she was brought by her husband into the house to join in the worship of the spirits of the home, and so did not come in without an invitation. As she stood in theatrium, the middle room where the altar and[pg 171]the family table were, she received the fire and water of the family worship and reverently lighted the first fire ever kindled on that hearth. She and Mamurius repeated together the prayers that thousands of young couples had repeated since first their people had homes. Then they ate together a flat cake made with the corn blessed by the priest, and Marcia poured a little of the marriage wine upon the fire as a sacrifice of“libation”to the gods of her new home. This was theconfarreatio. They felt as if the silent, burning fire that lighted the dusky little room were trying to tell them that their simple meal was shared by the gods themselves, and that the blessing of all Mamurius’ forefathers was on the bride that he had brought home to be the joy of his house.On the next day there was another feast, to celebrate the beginning of the new home, and the wedding was over.“I am glad,”said Marcia’s mother to her husband when they went home that night, leaving their daughter and young Mamurius standing together at their own door,“that everything went so well, without a single unlucky or unhappy thing to spoil the good fortune. Marcia well deserves to be happy,—but I shall miss her every day I live.”[pg 172]She sighed, and Felic’la looked rather sober. She knew very well that they would all miss Marcia, but she determined in her careless little heart to be a better girl and do so much for her mother and brothers that when her turn came, they would all be sorry to see her go.“I am glad,”said Colonus,“for more than one reason. I have been rather anxious for fear that in this new place our young people would not remember the old ways as they might if they had grown up in our old home. It was important to have the first wedding one that they would all remember with pleasure, and wish to follow as an example. I am very glad Marcia has so good a husband. Mamurius is a youth who will go far and be a leader among the young men. I suppose that now they will all be thinking of marriage.”There were, in fact, several other marriages in the colony within a year or two, but nobody who was at that first wedding ever forgot it. Marcia was often called upon to tell how the garlands were made, and just how much honey they put in the cakes for the feast, and how the other little matters were arranged that all seemed to be managed exactly right. In fact, that wedding set a fashion and a standard, and as Marcia’s father was shrewd enough to see, it is a good thing[pg 173]in a new community to have the standards rather high. There was nothing in what Marcia and Mamurius did that other people could not follow if they chose, but the simple comfort and grace of their way of living did mean that they cared enough for their home to take it seriously. Girls who might not have thought much about cleanliness, thrift, cheerfulness and beauty began to see, when they visited Marcia, how pleasant it was to have a home like hers. She did not tell them so; she was herself, and that was enough.[pg 174]XVTHE TRUMPERY MANOne autumn day a little while after the harvest, a squat, brown man with large black eyes under great arched eyebrows set in a large head, and with unusually muscular shoulders and arms, was paddling slowly in a small boat across the yellow river. As he crossed he looked up attentively at the range of hills near the riverside, now partly covered with wooden huts. It was his experience that villages were good places to trade. They were especially so when, as now, pipes were sounding and the people were keeping holiday in honor of some god. He had gone to many places with his wares, but he had not as yet visited the town by the river. He was not even quite sure of its name. Some called it Rumon and some Roma. The people of his race were not very quick of ear, and often pronounced letters alike or confused them when they sounded alike,—as o and u, or b and p, or t and d. He himself was called Utuze, Otuz, or[pg 175]Odisuze, or Toto, according to the place where he happened to be. He came from Caere, the Etruscan seaport near the mouth of the river.He had landed on this bank when he went up the river and approached the men from the settlement when they were working on their lands outside the walls, but they did not pay much attention to him. He could not tell whether they did not want his wares, or were suspicious, or simply did not understand what he was talking about. Now he was going to find out,—for he was of a persistent nature. Perhaps there would be some one at the festival who could speak both his language and theirs and tell them what he wanted to say. Then it would be easy.On a glittering chain around his neck he carried a metal whistle, or trumpet, that could be heard a long distance and would pierce through most other noises as a needle pierces wool. On his back he carried in a sack a great variety of small things likely to please women and girls and children. He had learned a very long time ago that however shrewd a man may be, he will buy very silly things and pay any price you like for them when he is persuaded that they will please a girl. He also knew that men will buy things for their wives that no sensible woman ever buys for herself, and that if children cry for a toy long[pg 176]enough, they often get it. But the most important thing was, he knew, that a man who can attract attention to himself, no matter how he does it, generally sells more goods than one who depends only on the usefulness of what he has to sell. Therefore, when he set out on these trading journeys, he put on the most gorgeous and gay-colored clothes he could find, decorated with bright-colored figures, embroidered, and fringed or fastened with little glittering beads and ornaments such as he carried in his pack. Shining things were easier to sell than other things, as they were easier to look at. The peddler had given careful attention to selecting his stores, and Mastarna, the fat merchant from whom he got them, helped him. He wished to know more of these people in the town by the river.The squealing of the peddler’s trumpet reached the ears of the soldiers, who were having a good time in their own way. They had their own games and frolics and feats of strength, and some of the young men from the town were there to look on and perhaps to join. Urso the hunter’s son, and Marcus and Bruno the sons of Colonus, and little Pollio the son of the sandal maker, were all there, and when they heard the trumpet they sprang to their feet. But Ruffo the captain of the guard laughed, and the others[pg 177]shouted, and Ruffo said,“By Jove, there’s Toto!”“Diovi”was the general name for“the gods,”and when it is pronounced quickly it sounds like“Jove.”The father of the gods was“Diovis-Pater”—which in course of time became“Jupiter.”The peddler had been in their camp in the days before the town by the river was thought of, and when he saw them, he came up the path grinning broadly, and they grinned back. They explained to the boys of the colony that he came from across the river and dealt in all sorts of things that were not made at all on this side, and some that were brought from the seashore. Toto spread out his gay cloth on the ground and began to lay out his wares.Through long practice he knew just how to place them so that they would show most effectively, and many a customer wondered why the trinket did not look as well when he got it home as it had before he bought it. The colors in the painted cloth were combined in old, old patterns worked out according to laws as certain as the laws of music, and everywhere was the gilding that set off the colors and seemed to make them brighter and richer.Illustration: Toto spread out his gay cloth upon the groundThere were scarfs such as women wore on their[pg 178]heads, and fillets for the hair, and girdles and veils. There were necklaces and bracelets and rings and brooches and pins. There were boxes of sweetmeats, and metal cups and spoons, and curious little images of men and animals, and strings of beads, and charm strings, and hollow metal cases for charms, that could be hung around the neck, and pottery toys, and trinkets of all kinds. It seemed impossible that so much merchandise of so many different kinds could have been packed in that bag, or that a man could have carried it, after it was packed. If the things[pg 179]had been as heavy as they looked, it would have been too great a load even for Toto’s broad shoulders.The Roman boys had never seen anything like this before, but they did not show any great curiosity. One of the things that the people of Mars taught their children, without ever saying it in so many words, was not to be in a hurry to talk too much in strange company. They were brought up to feel that they were the equals of any one they were likely to meet and need not be in haste to make new friends. This feeling gave them a certain dignity not easily upset. In fact, dignity is merely the result of respecting yourself as a person quite worthy of respect, and not feeling obliged to insist on it from other people. The colonists had it.Pollio picked up one of the sandals and smiled.“My father would not think this leather fit to use,”he said in a low tone to Bruno.Marcus was looking at a pin of a rather pretty design and wondering how Flavia, his betrothed, would like it, when it bent in his fingers. That pin had not been made for the handling of young men with hands so muscular as his. Marcus paid for the pin and tossed it into the river. He had no intention of making a gift like that to any one.[pg 180]When they handled the charm necklaces they saw from the lightness that what looked like gold was not gold. It was so with all the peddler’s stock. The soldiers, seeing that the boys from the colony did not think the stuff worth buying, did not buy much themselves, nor did they drink much of his wine.Ruffo said after Toto had gone that he did not always carry such a collection of trash as he had to-day. Sometimes he sold excellent fish-hooks and small tools. Marcus said that if he bought anything, he wanted a thing that was worth buying, and they began to throw quoits at a mark.Marcus had seen traders before and dealt with them, but for some reason this peddler’s pack set him thinking. In their way of living a farmer made most of his own tools, and wishing them to last as long as possible, he made them well. It was the same with the baskets, the linen, the wool and the leather work, and the other things made at home. It was the same with the work done in the smithy of Muraena. He wished to have a reputation among his neighbors for making fine weapons. The men always put the greater part of their time on their farms, and since they had been in this new country, their planning and contriving how to make the soil produce more and[pg 181]more had been far more exciting than ever before. Each year a little more of the marsh or the waste land would be drained and cleared; each year the flocks and herds would be larger and more huts would be built. They were founding a new people.In view of these great thoughts of the future, the glittering trinkets of the man with the trumpet looked small and worthless. Marcus began to see what was meant by the elders when they spoke of“gravity”as a virtue and“levity”as a rather foolish vice. Life depended very much on the way one took things; to take important things lightly, or give valuable time and thought to worthless objects left a man with the chaff on his hands instead of the good grain.Something his father had told him a long time ago, when he was a little boy, came into Marcus’s mind. It was when he wanted something very much, and being little, cried because he could not have it and made himself quite miserable. His father came in just then and watched him for a minute or two. Then he said,“My son, do you wish to be a strong man, when you grow big?”“Y-yes,”sniffed the little fellow dolefully.“You wish to be strong of soul and heart as you are in your body, so that no one can make[pg 182]you do anything you are not willing to do?”“Yes, Father,”said the boy, with his puzzled dark eyes searching his father’s face.“Then, my son, remember this: the strong man is the man who can go without what he wants. If you cannot do without a thing you want, without being unhappy, you are like a boy who cannot walk without a crutch. If you can give up, without making a ridiculous ado about it, whatever it is not wise for you to have—if you can be happy in yourself and by yourself and stand on your own feet—then you are strong. In the end you will be strong enough to get what you really want. The gods hate a coward.”Now in the long shadows of the fading day, as he heard the far sound of the peddler’s trumpet down the river, Marcus found a new meaning in his father’s words. He saw that those who wasted what they had earned by hard work on that rubbish would end by having nothing at all, because they were caught by the color and the shine of things made to tempt them. What was there in all that collection that was half as beautiful as a golden wheat field? What ornament that could be worn out or broken was equal to the land itself, with its treasure of fleecy flocks and sleek cattle, and roof trees under which happy[pg 183]children slept? The treasure of the world was theirs already, in this plain that was theirs to make fruitful and beautiful, and people with prosperous villages. That was the real estate; the other was a shadow and a sham.[pg 184]XVITHE GREAT DYKEAlthough Toto did not find his first visit to the Seven Hills very profitable, he had much that was interesting to tell Mastarna when he returned. The two had a long talk in their strange rugged language with its few vowel sounds. Mastarna was most interested in the gods of these strangers. If he could find out what they did to bring good luck and ward off misfortune, he could have charms and lucky stones made to sell to them. If he knew what their gods were like, he could have images of these carved in wood or molded in clay or cast in metal. But Toto could tell him very little about these questions. The soldiers at the camp had no altars and no regular worship at all, and they moved from place to place and did not keep any place sacred. But these people on the Square Hill seemed very religious. They behaved as if they had settled down there to stay forever.[pg 185]“What are they like?”asked the old man.“They are like no other townspeople in this valley,”said Toto decidedly.“They are not like the herdsmen who wander from place to place and sleep in tents, or the hunters who live alone in huts, or the fishermen by the river or the sailors by the seashore. They are tall and straight and strong and very active, because they work all the time. They work mostly on their land. When they are not plowing, or digging, or cutting grain, or cutting wood, or making things, they are working to make themselves stronger. They run and leap and throw heavy weights; they hurl the spear and shoot arrows at a mark. They stand in rows and go through motions all together, and march to and fro, and play at ball. They do everything that is possible to make themselves good soldiers; even the boys begin when they are small to play at these games.“And that is not all. The women work also, but not as slaves. The matrons go here and there as they choose, and see eye to eye with their husbands, and manage the household as the men manage the farm. The men sit in council, but each man speaks of his work in private to his wife, and she advises with him. They do not have slaves to wait on them; even their great men work with the others in the field. No one is[pg 186]ashamed to work with his hands. They build their own houses and their own walls; they breed their own cattle. If there should be a sheep gone from the flock, or a heifer strayed from the herd, they would know it and search until the thief was found.”“Hum,”said the old man thoughtfully. He was thinking that this must be a strong and valiant people, and that if they increased in the valley of the yellow river they might become very powerful.“And what are their priests?”“They have no priesthood dwelling in the temples,”said Toto.“Their elders are their priests and pretend to no magical powers. They are chosen for their wisdom. Their gods are invisible.”“Hum,”said Mastarna again.The people to whom he and Toto belonged were called at one time and another Tuscans or Etruscans by others, but they called themselves the Ras, or Rasennae. They had some towns in the mountains beyond the plain where these strangers were. They held most of the country on their side of the rivers, as far north as the river Arno, and they had always lived there, so far as they knew themselves or any one else could say. They were different in almost every way from these strangers of the hills. He wondered[pg 187]if his people had anything whatever that the strangers wanted.“You say that they build walls,”he said to Toto.“Do they build good ones?”Toto grinned. He was nothing of a builder himself, but even he could see the difference between the rude stone laying and fencing of the strangers, and the scientific, massive masonry and arched drains of his own country.“They will find out how good they are,”he said,“after twenty years of flood and drought.”In fact, the worst enemy the colonists had met thus far was water. They were used to mountain slopes with good drainage. They knew how to keep a field from being gutted by mountain freshets, and how to repair roadways and build drains that would carry off the water. They were strong and clever at fitting stones into the right place for walls, and they could dam up a stream for a fishpool or a bathing place. But this sort of country was all new to them. It was not exactly a marsh and not so swampy as it became in later centuries, but at any time it might become a marsh full of ponds and stagnant streams, and remain so for weeks at a time. This was bad for the grain and worse for sheep, and unhealthy for human beings. During the next rainy season after Toto’s visit, the farmers[pg 188]had a very unhappy time. They discovered that too much water is almost if not quite as much a nuisance as too little. In a dry time it is sometimes possible to carry water from a distance, but in a wet time there is nowhere to put the water that is not wanted, and many of their ditches were choked up with débris, and their grain was washed away.Mastarna was full of patience. He let them toil and soak and chill and sweat until he thought they would welcome a suggestion from almost any quarter. Then he and a man he knew, a stone worker called Canial, took a boat and went across the river to a point where three or four of the colonists were prying an unhappy ox out of the mire. The strength, determination and skill with which they conducted the work were worthy of all admiration. But it would have been far better if the land could have been drained and protected by a solid dyke.Canial looked the bank over with a shrewd, experienced eye, and said that if he had the work to do, he would dig a ditch there, and there, and there; here he would build a covered drain lined with tilework; and in a certain hollow under the hill he would have an arched waterway, so that flood water would run through instead of tearing at the foundation of the terrace below the vine[pg 189]yards. But he saw no signs that these men in their building made any use of arches. He jumped ashore and splashed through the pools, which were almost waist-deep in some places, up to where the ox was standing panting, wild-eyed and nearly exhausted with fright and struggle. Canial squatted down by a rivulet. He did not know the language of the colonists and they did not know his, but no words were needed for what he wanted to explain. He made a miniature drain rudely arched over with mud-plastered stones while they stood there watching. That could be done, as well with, a six-inch brook as with a river. It did not take the Romans ten minutes to see that he knew more about such matters than they did.“Caius,”said Colonus to young Cossus,“go over to the camp and find Ruffo, and ask him to come and talk to this fellow.”He knew that Ruffo understood several languages and dialects, and whatever it was that this man had come for, he wished to know it.Ruffo knew enough of the language Canial spoke to be able to make out his meaning, and he told Colonus that the stone worker wished to come and live in Rome. He would show them how to drain their land and bridge their streams. Mastarna would tell them that he was a man of[pg 190]honesty and ability. His reason for leaving his own country was a personal one; he had had a quarrel with the head priest of his village because the priest wished to interfere in his family affairs and make Canial’s daughter the wife of his nephew, against her will. There was no safety or comfort in his part of the country when the priesthood had a grudge against a man.There were others in the Roman settlement who had fled there for reasons of much the same kind as Canial’s—men who had been robbed of their inheritance, slaves escaped from cruel masters, homeless men, and men who for one reason or another had found themselves unsafe where they lived before. But this was the first family which had wished to come from beyond the river. The others all came from places where the public worship was not entirely unlike that of the Romans themselves and the people were of the same race in the beginning. This was a departure from that rule.If it had not been for the dyke-building problem, Colonus would probably have said no at once. But that would have to be settled before the town grew much larger than it was, or they would have to change their way of life altogether. They were a people who hated to be crowded. They would need land, and land, and more land,[pg 191]if they continued to live on the Seven Hills. They must have grain for the cattle and themselves, and pasturage for the beasts, room for orchards and gardens, room for the villages of those who tilled their fields. Canial seemed to think that it would be quite possible to prevent the plain from being flooded, with proper stonework and drains, but it would need a man thoroughly used to the work to direct it. Colonus could see that Canial was probably that man. Every suggestion he made was practical and good, and he knew things about masonry that it had taken his ancestors generations to learn. Colonus finally said that he would talk it over with the other men of the city and give him an answer on a certain day.Ruffo did not know anything of the gods the people of Canial worshiped, except that they were unlike the Roman gods and seemed to be very much feared. They had a god Turms, who was rather like the Roman Terminus, who protected traders and kept boundaries. They had a smith of the gods, called Sethlans, and a god of wine and drunkenness called Fuffluns.No person, of course, could be allowed to bring the worship of strange gods into the sacred city. The very reason of the founding of the city was to make a home for their own gods, and[pg 192]to let in strange ceremonies would be to defile that home.It was finally decided that Canial and some of his countrymen who wished to come with him should have a place of their own, which was afterward known as the Street of the Tuscans. It was a place which no one had wished to occupy before, because it was so wet, but Canial and his friends had no difficulty in draining it. The only condition he made was that traders should be allowed to come and go and supply his family and friends with whatever they needed. Women, he said, did not like a strange place much as it was, and he should have no peace at home if his wife were obliged to learn new methods of housekeeping.The only condition that Marcus Colonus and his friends made was that the strangers should do nothing against the law of the settlement, or against the Roman gods, and this they readily agreed to. Canial said that the priests in his country demanded so much in offerings that a man was no better than a slave, working for them.All this happened while Romulus was away, but when he returned he said that the decision was a wise one. It privately rather amused him to see how in this new country the colonists were led to allow the beginning of new customs which[pg 193]they regarded with great horror when they first came.Before another rainy season, the Etruscans and the Romans, working together, had made a very fair beginning on the dyking and draining of the worst of the marshes and the bridging of bad places. Canial understood how to mix burned lumps of clay containing lime and iron, and lime and sand, and water, in such a way that when the muddy paste hardened it was like stone itself. Tertius Calvo, who happened to be there when this was done, tried it by himself. Although what he made was not entirely a failure, it did not behave as it did under the hands of Canial. Without saying anything—indeed, he could say nothing, for he knew not a word of the strangers’ language—Tertius watched and measured and experimented with small quantities until he found out the exact proportions and methods Canial used. The bit of wall he built finally was very nearly as good as Canial’s own work. Calvo was good at laying stones, and had very little to learn in that line from any stranger. This mortar, as they found in course of time, would stand heat and cold and water and seemed to become harder with exposure. By using the best quality of material the work was improved. There was no secret about it; indeed, Canial did[pg 194]not object to teaching any man who wished to learn all he could.The greatest debt they owed to their new settlers was the low round arch, built with stones set in mortar in such a way that the greater the weight, the firmer the arch would be. Another Etruscan trick was plastering over the side of a drain or a bank with a mixture of small stones stirred thickly into mortar like plums in a pudding. The best of this new way of working was that it could be done so quickly. A great deal of the work could be done by stupid and ignorant laborers under the direction of those who knew how to direct. Men whom they could not employ in any sort of skilled labor could help here. Such men were glad enough to come for an allowance of food and drink. A certain task was set them, and they had their living for that; if they did more, they had an extra allowance. The task was calledmoenia, and since it was the lowest and least skilled labor, work of that kind later came to be known asmenial, the work of slaves and servants.The change in the face of the plain in the following years was almost like magic. The colonists built dykes to keep the river from overflowing; they built drains to carry off the heavy rains; they built culverts; they built bridges rest[pg 195]ing on solid arches; and they made one great drain which carried off so much of the overflow water that it made the Square Hill and most of the land around it safe. In fact, a part of every year thereafter was given to the improvement and protection of newly cleared farmlands by stonework. People came from a great distance to see the dyke they built, for nothing like it had been done on that side of the river. The people in the lowlands villages, relieved from the fear of floods, were proud to call themselves the servants of the Romans. In those early years a beginning was made of the great engineering work that was to endure for centuries. The people of the Square Hill were doing on a very small scale what nobody had done before them in that part of the world. In their masonry and their farming they gave all their poorer neighbors reason to be glad they were located where they were. It was a peaceful conquering of village after village.

[pg 152]XIIITHE SOOTHSAYERSAfter the founding of the city and the tragic ending of the day, Romulus went away, no one knew exactly where. He was gone for some time, He told Marcus Colonus that he was going to Alba Longa, where some of his men still were as a garrison for Numa. But he did not stay there many days.Although he was the founder and in one way the ruler of his city, this did not mean that he was obliged to stay there to settle all its problems. Most of them were solved by the common law and common sense of the colonists. Their ruler had no authority over them contrary to custom, and custom would apply in one way or another to almost everything they did. Hence the young man was free to go wherever he saw fit.The fancy took him to cross the river and see the old woman who had told him when he was a boy that he was to be the ruler of a great people. He found her still alive, though so old that her[pg 153]brown face looked like an old withered nutshell. She glanced up at him keenly.“Welcome, king,”she said.Just how much she had heard of his life from traveling traders and vagabonds, no one can say, but she seemed to know a great deal about it. She told him that when he returned to his own country, if he followed certain landmarks and dug in the ground at a certain point near the river bank some distance from Rome, he would find an altar and a shield of gold. The shield, she said, had fallen from heaven, and was intended for him, because he was the especial favorite of Mars, the god of war. He did not take this very seriously, but he found himself much interested in the ways of this strange people. Their priests knew how to measure distances, and mark out squares, and consult the stars. Their metal workers, dyers and potters knew how to make curious and precious things. The fortune tellers had a great reputation all over the country. Their name, soothsayers, meant“those who tell the truth.”The old woman told him that it was a great mistake for those who were born under a certain star to try to get away from their fate. If a man were born to be a ruler and a commander of men, it was useless for him to try to make himself a[pg 154]farmer or a trader. It would be far better for him to keep to what he could do well, and buy of others what he needed. This struck Romulus as directly opposed to the ways of the villagers as he had seen them. They made for themselves everything they possibly could, and all of them were farmers. He began to wonder where their future would lead them. A man like Colonus, or Tullius, or Muraena, or Calvo knew enough to direct other men. There was not one of the ten who came out from the Mountain of Fire who was not far superior to most of the people in the country round about. They were quite as fit to be rulers of a tribe as he was; in fact, they were more so, in many ways. But if they had stayed where they were born, they would have gone on to the end of their days, working with their hands, and owning only their share of the common crop and the flocks and herds of the village. Here in the land beyond the river it was different. The powerful nobles and the priesthood ruled, and other men served.In talking with the soothsayers, he heard a great deal about the influence of the stars. The priests also put great faith in this. They divided the sky into twelve parts, or houses, as they called them, and each of these was ruled by some star named after a god. In the course of the year[pg 155]the sun passed through each house, or sign, in turn. If a man were born in the house of the Ram, which was ruled by Mars the red planet, he would be like Mars,—a warrior, bold and fearless, and not afraid to venture into new fields and to do things that other men had not done before. If he were born in that sign when the planet was in it with the sun, he would be more a son of Mars in every way. If Venus, the planet which ruled love, were also in the sign, he would be ruled by reason even in his love affairs, and his marriage and his wars would be more or less connected. All these things, according to the soothsayers, were true of Romulus.Romulus was acute enough to see that these people knew him for a chief, and that some of what they told him was flattery; but he was not sure how much of it was. He had not wandered about his world for twenty-odd years without seeing the difference in people. He knew that the great art of ruling men successfully lies in understanding their different characters and not expecting of any person what that person cannot do. The rules of the villages were very well for a small place, where all of the people were related. But how would they fit such a miscellaneous collection of people as seemed likely to gather in the town by the river? His mind was gradually[pg 156]getting at the problem of governing such a town in such a way that instead of being a little island of civilization in a sea of wilderness, it would be a center of civilization in a country inhabited by all sorts of people who would look up to it and be ruled and influenced by it. Such an idea, to Colonus, to Emilius in the Sabine village, or even to the old chief Numa on Alba Longa would have seemed wildly impossible. It seemed to Romulus that if a band of outlaws had been welded into an effective fighting troop as he had welded them, a country might be made up of a great many different sorts of persons living peaceably together. He grinned as he thought of such a man as his old captain, Ruffo, obeying all the customs of the colony and giving his whole mind to the tilling of the soil and the raising of cattle. It would be like trying to harness a wolf, or stocking a poultry yard with eagles. The thing could not be done. And yet, when it came to keeping order, Ruffo was wise and just and kind.One thing he could see very clearly, and that was that for a long time yet the colonists would have to give especial attention to disciplined warfare. He wished that there were more of them. If they ever had a quarrel with the dark Etruscans beyond the river, it would be a fight for[pg 157]life, for the Etruscans outnumbered them ten to one. It would be well to trade with them so far as they could, but there again the customs of the colonists were against him. There was not much that they wished to buy.When he left the land beyond the river, he paid a farewell visit to the old witch, and she told him again that he was born to rule. He hoped that he was.When he came back to the Square Hill, he found the fathers of the colony confronting a new problem, which they had no tradition to help them settle. The problem was what to do with the new settlers who were coming in for protection and in the hope of getting a living, but who were not of their own people. Often they had not intelligence enough to understand what the colonists meant by their customs. This was something that Romulus had expected. He had his answer ready. He said that there was a god of whom he had heard, called Asylos, who protected homeless persons and serfs who had escaped from cruel masters, and that they might set apart a space outside the walls and dedicate it to this god. There his own soldiers could live, and there would be a place for any one who came who would work for a living. And this was done. The people who came in from various[pg 158]places seeking protection, and were useful in various ways even if they could only hew wood and draw water, were called after awhile theplebs, the men who helped to fill the town. There was so much to do, and so little time to do it, that every pair of hands was of value. It would not do to let every one who came become a citizen, an inhabitant of the city, because that might destroy all comfort and order within the walls. But the town grew much faster when it became known that any man not a criminal could get a living there.Another circumstance that made it grow was that the country people and the villagers from farther up the river began to bring down what they had to sell. Sometimes the Etruscans bought of them, and sometimes the Romans did. It was the last riverside settlement before the boats went down to the sea, and it began to be a trading as well as a farming place not many years after the colonists settled there.Trading was favored because farming did not altogether supply the needs of the people. Now and then the river rose and flooded their land. The only part of the country they could absolutely depend on as yet was the group of seven hills, where they kept their herds and flocks. One year, when their grain was ruined, they had[pg 159]to send across the river and buy some of the Etruscans, in exchange for wool and leather and weapons. Within the first ten years every one of the colonists had discovered that men who make their home in a new land must change their ways more or less if they are to live. While they are changing the land, the land changes them. The children of these people would not be exactly the same when they grew up as they would have been if they had stayed in their old home. Their children’s children would be still more different. It is possible that a ruler who had not grown up as Romulus had, making his own laws and habits and managing men more or less by instinct, might have been bewildered and frightened. Whatever came up, he always had some expedient ready, and whatever strange specimen of human nature cropped out in the soldiers, or the traders, or the pagans, he had always seen something like it before.At the end of ten years the town on the Square Hill had spread out into a collection of villages and huts in which almost every kind of human being to be found in that region might have been seen, somewhere. On the Palatine Hill lived the original ten families and some of their kindred who had joined them. On the Aventine were barracks for the soldiers, and also on the steep[pg 160]narrow hill near the river. Clusters of huts here and there on the plain showed where hunters and fishermen lived, who came up the hill sometimes with what they had to sell, or came to buy weapons of the smiths. In the hollow called the Asylum lived the runaway serfs from Alba Longa, fishermen from the river bank, pagans and foresters from a dozen places. When there was a feast, all of these various kinds of families learned something of the worship of Mars, or Maia Dia, or Saturn, or Pales, or Lupercus. They all knew something about the laws of the colony, because the rulers took care that any offense against public order was punished. It was not a good place for thieves or brawlers or idlers. There was the beginning of a common law.

After the founding of the city and the tragic ending of the day, Romulus went away, no one knew exactly where. He was gone for some time, He told Marcus Colonus that he was going to Alba Longa, where some of his men still were as a garrison for Numa. But he did not stay there many days.

Although he was the founder and in one way the ruler of his city, this did not mean that he was obliged to stay there to settle all its problems. Most of them were solved by the common law and common sense of the colonists. Their ruler had no authority over them contrary to custom, and custom would apply in one way or another to almost everything they did. Hence the young man was free to go wherever he saw fit.

The fancy took him to cross the river and see the old woman who had told him when he was a boy that he was to be the ruler of a great people. He found her still alive, though so old that her[pg 153]brown face looked like an old withered nutshell. She glanced up at him keenly.

“Welcome, king,”she said.

Just how much she had heard of his life from traveling traders and vagabonds, no one can say, but she seemed to know a great deal about it. She told him that when he returned to his own country, if he followed certain landmarks and dug in the ground at a certain point near the river bank some distance from Rome, he would find an altar and a shield of gold. The shield, she said, had fallen from heaven, and was intended for him, because he was the especial favorite of Mars, the god of war. He did not take this very seriously, but he found himself much interested in the ways of this strange people. Their priests knew how to measure distances, and mark out squares, and consult the stars. Their metal workers, dyers and potters knew how to make curious and precious things. The fortune tellers had a great reputation all over the country. Their name, soothsayers, meant“those who tell the truth.”

The old woman told him that it was a great mistake for those who were born under a certain star to try to get away from their fate. If a man were born to be a ruler and a commander of men, it was useless for him to try to make himself a[pg 154]farmer or a trader. It would be far better for him to keep to what he could do well, and buy of others what he needed. This struck Romulus as directly opposed to the ways of the villagers as he had seen them. They made for themselves everything they possibly could, and all of them were farmers. He began to wonder where their future would lead them. A man like Colonus, or Tullius, or Muraena, or Calvo knew enough to direct other men. There was not one of the ten who came out from the Mountain of Fire who was not far superior to most of the people in the country round about. They were quite as fit to be rulers of a tribe as he was; in fact, they were more so, in many ways. But if they had stayed where they were born, they would have gone on to the end of their days, working with their hands, and owning only their share of the common crop and the flocks and herds of the village. Here in the land beyond the river it was different. The powerful nobles and the priesthood ruled, and other men served.

In talking with the soothsayers, he heard a great deal about the influence of the stars. The priests also put great faith in this. They divided the sky into twelve parts, or houses, as they called them, and each of these was ruled by some star named after a god. In the course of the year[pg 155]the sun passed through each house, or sign, in turn. If a man were born in the house of the Ram, which was ruled by Mars the red planet, he would be like Mars,—a warrior, bold and fearless, and not afraid to venture into new fields and to do things that other men had not done before. If he were born in that sign when the planet was in it with the sun, he would be more a son of Mars in every way. If Venus, the planet which ruled love, were also in the sign, he would be ruled by reason even in his love affairs, and his marriage and his wars would be more or less connected. All these things, according to the soothsayers, were true of Romulus.

Romulus was acute enough to see that these people knew him for a chief, and that some of what they told him was flattery; but he was not sure how much of it was. He had not wandered about his world for twenty-odd years without seeing the difference in people. He knew that the great art of ruling men successfully lies in understanding their different characters and not expecting of any person what that person cannot do. The rules of the villages were very well for a small place, where all of the people were related. But how would they fit such a miscellaneous collection of people as seemed likely to gather in the town by the river? His mind was gradually[pg 156]getting at the problem of governing such a town in such a way that instead of being a little island of civilization in a sea of wilderness, it would be a center of civilization in a country inhabited by all sorts of people who would look up to it and be ruled and influenced by it. Such an idea, to Colonus, to Emilius in the Sabine village, or even to the old chief Numa on Alba Longa would have seemed wildly impossible. It seemed to Romulus that if a band of outlaws had been welded into an effective fighting troop as he had welded them, a country might be made up of a great many different sorts of persons living peaceably together. He grinned as he thought of such a man as his old captain, Ruffo, obeying all the customs of the colony and giving his whole mind to the tilling of the soil and the raising of cattle. It would be like trying to harness a wolf, or stocking a poultry yard with eagles. The thing could not be done. And yet, when it came to keeping order, Ruffo was wise and just and kind.

One thing he could see very clearly, and that was that for a long time yet the colonists would have to give especial attention to disciplined warfare. He wished that there were more of them. If they ever had a quarrel with the dark Etruscans beyond the river, it would be a fight for[pg 157]life, for the Etruscans outnumbered them ten to one. It would be well to trade with them so far as they could, but there again the customs of the colonists were against him. There was not much that they wished to buy.

When he left the land beyond the river, he paid a farewell visit to the old witch, and she told him again that he was born to rule. He hoped that he was.

When he came back to the Square Hill, he found the fathers of the colony confronting a new problem, which they had no tradition to help them settle. The problem was what to do with the new settlers who were coming in for protection and in the hope of getting a living, but who were not of their own people. Often they had not intelligence enough to understand what the colonists meant by their customs. This was something that Romulus had expected. He had his answer ready. He said that there was a god of whom he had heard, called Asylos, who protected homeless persons and serfs who had escaped from cruel masters, and that they might set apart a space outside the walls and dedicate it to this god. There his own soldiers could live, and there would be a place for any one who came who would work for a living. And this was done. The people who came in from various[pg 158]places seeking protection, and were useful in various ways even if they could only hew wood and draw water, were called after awhile theplebs, the men who helped to fill the town. There was so much to do, and so little time to do it, that every pair of hands was of value. It would not do to let every one who came become a citizen, an inhabitant of the city, because that might destroy all comfort and order within the walls. But the town grew much faster when it became known that any man not a criminal could get a living there.

Another circumstance that made it grow was that the country people and the villagers from farther up the river began to bring down what they had to sell. Sometimes the Etruscans bought of them, and sometimes the Romans did. It was the last riverside settlement before the boats went down to the sea, and it began to be a trading as well as a farming place not many years after the colonists settled there.

Trading was favored because farming did not altogether supply the needs of the people. Now and then the river rose and flooded their land. The only part of the country they could absolutely depend on as yet was the group of seven hills, where they kept their herds and flocks. One year, when their grain was ruined, they had[pg 159]to send across the river and buy some of the Etruscans, in exchange for wool and leather and weapons. Within the first ten years every one of the colonists had discovered that men who make their home in a new land must change their ways more or less if they are to live. While they are changing the land, the land changes them. The children of these people would not be exactly the same when they grew up as they would have been if they had stayed in their old home. Their children’s children would be still more different. It is possible that a ruler who had not grown up as Romulus had, making his own laws and habits and managing men more or less by instinct, might have been bewildered and frightened. Whatever came up, he always had some expedient ready, and whatever strange specimen of human nature cropped out in the soldiers, or the traders, or the pagans, he had always seen something like it before.

At the end of ten years the town on the Square Hill had spread out into a collection of villages and huts in which almost every kind of human being to be found in that region might have been seen, somewhere. On the Palatine Hill lived the original ten families and some of their kindred who had joined them. On the Aventine were barracks for the soldiers, and also on the steep[pg 160]narrow hill near the river. Clusters of huts here and there on the plain showed where hunters and fishermen lived, who came up the hill sometimes with what they had to sell, or came to buy weapons of the smiths. In the hollow called the Asylum lived the runaway serfs from Alba Longa, fishermen from the river bank, pagans and foresters from a dozen places. When there was a feast, all of these various kinds of families learned something of the worship of Mars, or Maia Dia, or Saturn, or Pales, or Lupercus. They all knew something about the laws of the colony, because the rulers took care that any offense against public order was punished. It was not a good place for thieves or brawlers or idlers. There was the beginning of a common law.

[pg 161]XIVBREAD AND SALTIllustration: They sat together that night and watched the moon sail grandly over the floodThe children who had come to the Square Hill learned to know one another very well in those first years of the colony. There were about a dozen of the older ones who were nearly the same age, and they shared more responsibility than children do in a more settled community. When the river rose suddenly, and[pg 162]all the animals had to be hustled at a minute’s notice to the highest part of the hills out of the way of the waters, Marcs the son of Colonus, and Mamurius the son of the metal worker Muraena were old enough to be treated almost as if they were men. They sat together that night and watched the moon sail grandly over the flood, and talked of all the things that boys do talk of when they begin to look forward into the future.It was a wild and lonely scene. The rising of the flood had covered the plain for miles, although in many places the waters were not deep. The seven hills stood up like seven islands in an ocean, and although neither of the boys had ever seen an ocean, they knew that it must be something like this. The hill where they had driven their scrambling goats was high and steep and rocky and had been partly fortified. It was a natural stronghold, standing up above the group as the head of a crouching animal rises above the body. All the hills were crowned with circles of twinkling fires, and on the highest point of each was a beacon fire which was used for signals. Each had signaled to the others that all was right, and now there was nothing to do but wait for the morning.The smaller boys who had helped were very[pg 163]much excited at first, and danced around the fires gleefully, and ate their supper with a great appetite; but they went to sleep quite soon afterward. The two older lads were the only ones awake when the moon rose, and it seemed as if they were the only people awake in the whole world. In the safe and orderly and protected life of their childhood they had never seen anything like this, or been given so much responsibility. For some hours no one had known how much farther the waters would rise, and all the boats had been kept ready, and the men had made rafts, to save what they could if the river should sweep over the last refuge. But evidently it was not going to do anything like that. It had stopped rising already. Faustulus the old shepherd, who had lived among these hills ever since he was a boy, said that once in a few years they had a flood like this, but that it never in all his recollection had gone more than a few inches higher.These two boys had always been good friends, for they were just unlike enough for each to do some things the other admired. Marcs was like his father, square-set and strong and rather silent. Mamurius was a little taller and slenderer, and very clever with his hands. He could invent new ways to do things when it was necessary and when the old ways were impossible. He had[pg 164]never built a boat before he and Marcs made theirs the summer before, but he had shaped a steering oar that was better than the one he copied. On this night they found themselves somehow closer together than they had ever been before, and they promised each other always to be friends, to work and fight for each other as for themselves as long as they lived.The girls also had their responsibilities, which made them rather more capable and sure of themselves than they might have been if they were not the children of colonists. After the flood went down it left things wet and unwholesome for some weeks, and a fever broke out, of which some of the people died. Mamurius’ mother, and Marcia’s two little brothers, and two girls in the family of Cossus died of it, and at one time hardly a family had more than one or two well persons. Marcia was watching over her mother, who was very ill, when Mamurius came to the door with a basket of herbs and gave her a handful. He said that he had asked Faustulus whether he did not know of some medicine for the fever. Faustulus told him that there were certain herbs in his hut which his wife used to prepare in a drink, and this drink helped the fever. Mamurius had brewed the drink and given it to his father, and taken some himself,[pg 165]and it had done them both good. The old shepherd stood in considerable awe of the colonists, who knew so many things that he did not, and he would never have thought of suggesting anything to them himself.One night Muraena the metal worker came to the house of Colonus, and sat down with the head of the house under a fig tree by the door and talked with him. The two had been friends for many years, and now, he said, the time had come to make the friendship even closer by an alliance between the two houses. He had long observed the goodness and dutiful kindness of Colonus’s daughter Marcia, and it was his wish that now she was come to an age to be married, she might be his own daughter. He had reason to believe that his son would be glad to marry her. What did Colonus think about it?Colonus had no objection whatever. That night he went in and called Marcia to him, and told her kindly that Mamurius the metal worker’s son had been proposed for her husband, and that it would be most pleasing to both families if the marriage could be arranged. It was a surprise to Marcia, but not at all an unpleasant one, and she went to sleep that night a very happy girl.This was the first wedding in the colony, and as the preparations went forward, everybody, old[pg 166]and young, took a great deal of interest in it. Marcia never knew she had so many friends. Everybody seemed to wish her well and approve of the marriage. The wooden chest Marcs had made for her, and Bruno had carved and painted, began to fill with webs of linen and wool, the gifts of her mother and the other matrons, and some that had been spun and woven by Marcia herself. She could see from the door the house that was to be her home, as its fresh, new walls arose day by day. And at last the day arrived for theconfarreatio; as it was called, the wedding ceremony, the eating of bread. Like the other ceremonies in the religion of the people, this was very old, so old that the beginning of it was not known. The reason of some of the things that were done had been forgotten. Marcia could just remember going to one wedding when she was a little girl before they left the Mountain of Fire. All the colonists who went out were already married and had children, and until now none of the children were old enough to begin a new home.There was always a certain meaning in the eating of salt together; it is so in all the ancient races. Salt was not like food that any two men might eat together, like animals, where they found it. It was part of the household stores;[pg 167]it was eaten by families living in houses. In some places it was not easy to come by, and it was the one thing necessary to a really good meal, whatever else there was to eat. When a man was invited to share a meal with salt in it, it meant that he was invited to the table and was more or less an equal. People who were simply fed from the stores of the farmer prepared their own food in their own way, often without salt. It was said that the wood spirits, the gods of the wilderness, of whom nobody knew much except that they were mischievous and tricky, could always be known by the fact that salt to them was like poison; they could not eat it at all.When a bride left her own home to go to that of her husband, it was a very solemn proceeding, because she said farewell to her own family, the spirits of her ancestors, and the gods of her father’s hearth, and became one of her husband’s family, a daughter of his father. All that was done was based more or less on this idea. A girl who ran away from home without her father’s knowledge could not expect to be blessed by her ancestors, the unseen dwellers by the fireside. A woman who came into another home without the permission of the spirits who dwelt there could not hope to be happy; bad luck would certainly follow. The wedding ceremonies were[pg 168]meant to make it perfectly clear that all was done in the right and proper and fortunate way.The day was chosen by Tullius the priest, and was a bright and beautiful day, not long after the feast of Maia. The ceremonies began at dawn. Before sunrise Tullius was scanning the sky to make sure that the day would be fair and that no evil omen was in sight. Felic’la, who hovered around her sister with adoring eyes, thought she had never seen Marcia look so beautiful. She was in white, with a flame-colored veil over her head, and her hair had been, according to the old custom, parted with a spear point into six locks, arranged with ribbons tied in a certain way to keep it in place. Her tall and graceful figure was even more stately than usual in the white robe she wore, and her great dark eyes were like stars.When the guests were all at the house, Marcus Colonus offered a sacrifice at the family altar and pronounced certain ancient words, explaining that he now gave his daughter to the young Mamurius and set her free from every obligation that kept her at home. When the sacrifice was over, the guests wished the young couple happiness, and the marriage feast began. There was no one in the whole village who did not have reason to remember the rejoicings on the day[pg 169]when the daughter of Colonus was married, for it was the richest feast that had ever been given in the colony. The house was decorated with wreaths and the best of the wine was served, and all the dainties the Roman women knew how to make were to be found upon the table. Marcia sat among her maidens like a young goddess among priestesses; they were all eager to show her how dear she was to them and how glad they were that she was happy. There was not a child in the village who did not think of her as a kind elder sister. Now she herself was to be served and made happy, and for that day she was the most important person in the eyes of all those who had been her playmates.At last the rejoicings at the home of Colonus were over, and it was time for the wedding procession. Attended by the young girls near her own age, the bride was taken from her mother’s arms by the bridegroom, and the whole party moved in procession toward the new home. In advance went torch bearers, and the children scattered flowers for her feet to tread upon as she passed. Every one was singing or shouting“Talassio! Talassio!”The flute players were making music, and the bridegroom scattered handfuls of nuts for which the boys scrambled. When they reached the door of the new house[pg 170]Marcia poured a little oil upon the doorposts, and wound them with wool which her own hands had spun. Then Mamurius lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the door.Illustration: Mamurius lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the doorExactly why this was part of the marriage ceremony is not known. Some think it was because a bride must not be allowed to stumble on the threshold, for that would be unlucky. But it was more likely to mean that she was brought by her husband into the house to join in the worship of the spirits of the home, and so did not come in without an invitation. As she stood in theatrium, the middle room where the altar and[pg 171]the family table were, she received the fire and water of the family worship and reverently lighted the first fire ever kindled on that hearth. She and Mamurius repeated together the prayers that thousands of young couples had repeated since first their people had homes. Then they ate together a flat cake made with the corn blessed by the priest, and Marcia poured a little of the marriage wine upon the fire as a sacrifice of“libation”to the gods of her new home. This was theconfarreatio. They felt as if the silent, burning fire that lighted the dusky little room were trying to tell them that their simple meal was shared by the gods themselves, and that the blessing of all Mamurius’ forefathers was on the bride that he had brought home to be the joy of his house.On the next day there was another feast, to celebrate the beginning of the new home, and the wedding was over.“I am glad,”said Marcia’s mother to her husband when they went home that night, leaving their daughter and young Mamurius standing together at their own door,“that everything went so well, without a single unlucky or unhappy thing to spoil the good fortune. Marcia well deserves to be happy,—but I shall miss her every day I live.”[pg 172]She sighed, and Felic’la looked rather sober. She knew very well that they would all miss Marcia, but she determined in her careless little heart to be a better girl and do so much for her mother and brothers that when her turn came, they would all be sorry to see her go.“I am glad,”said Colonus,“for more than one reason. I have been rather anxious for fear that in this new place our young people would not remember the old ways as they might if they had grown up in our old home. It was important to have the first wedding one that they would all remember with pleasure, and wish to follow as an example. I am very glad Marcia has so good a husband. Mamurius is a youth who will go far and be a leader among the young men. I suppose that now they will all be thinking of marriage.”There were, in fact, several other marriages in the colony within a year or two, but nobody who was at that first wedding ever forgot it. Marcia was often called upon to tell how the garlands were made, and just how much honey they put in the cakes for the feast, and how the other little matters were arranged that all seemed to be managed exactly right. In fact, that wedding set a fashion and a standard, and as Marcia’s father was shrewd enough to see, it is a good thing[pg 173]in a new community to have the standards rather high. There was nothing in what Marcia and Mamurius did that other people could not follow if they chose, but the simple comfort and grace of their way of living did mean that they cared enough for their home to take it seriously. Girls who might not have thought much about cleanliness, thrift, cheerfulness and beauty began to see, when they visited Marcia, how pleasant it was to have a home like hers. She did not tell them so; she was herself, and that was enough.

Illustration: They sat together that night and watched the moon sail grandly over the flood

The children who had come to the Square Hill learned to know one another very well in those first years of the colony. There were about a dozen of the older ones who were nearly the same age, and they shared more responsibility than children do in a more settled community. When the river rose suddenly, and[pg 162]all the animals had to be hustled at a minute’s notice to the highest part of the hills out of the way of the waters, Marcs the son of Colonus, and Mamurius the son of the metal worker Muraena were old enough to be treated almost as if they were men. They sat together that night and watched the moon sail grandly over the flood, and talked of all the things that boys do talk of when they begin to look forward into the future.

It was a wild and lonely scene. The rising of the flood had covered the plain for miles, although in many places the waters were not deep. The seven hills stood up like seven islands in an ocean, and although neither of the boys had ever seen an ocean, they knew that it must be something like this. The hill where they had driven their scrambling goats was high and steep and rocky and had been partly fortified. It was a natural stronghold, standing up above the group as the head of a crouching animal rises above the body. All the hills were crowned with circles of twinkling fires, and on the highest point of each was a beacon fire which was used for signals. Each had signaled to the others that all was right, and now there was nothing to do but wait for the morning.

The smaller boys who had helped were very[pg 163]much excited at first, and danced around the fires gleefully, and ate their supper with a great appetite; but they went to sleep quite soon afterward. The two older lads were the only ones awake when the moon rose, and it seemed as if they were the only people awake in the whole world. In the safe and orderly and protected life of their childhood they had never seen anything like this, or been given so much responsibility. For some hours no one had known how much farther the waters would rise, and all the boats had been kept ready, and the men had made rafts, to save what they could if the river should sweep over the last refuge. But evidently it was not going to do anything like that. It had stopped rising already. Faustulus the old shepherd, who had lived among these hills ever since he was a boy, said that once in a few years they had a flood like this, but that it never in all his recollection had gone more than a few inches higher.

These two boys had always been good friends, for they were just unlike enough for each to do some things the other admired. Marcs was like his father, square-set and strong and rather silent. Mamurius was a little taller and slenderer, and very clever with his hands. He could invent new ways to do things when it was necessary and when the old ways were impossible. He had[pg 164]never built a boat before he and Marcs made theirs the summer before, but he had shaped a steering oar that was better than the one he copied. On this night they found themselves somehow closer together than they had ever been before, and they promised each other always to be friends, to work and fight for each other as for themselves as long as they lived.

The girls also had their responsibilities, which made them rather more capable and sure of themselves than they might have been if they were not the children of colonists. After the flood went down it left things wet and unwholesome for some weeks, and a fever broke out, of which some of the people died. Mamurius’ mother, and Marcia’s two little brothers, and two girls in the family of Cossus died of it, and at one time hardly a family had more than one or two well persons. Marcia was watching over her mother, who was very ill, when Mamurius came to the door with a basket of herbs and gave her a handful. He said that he had asked Faustulus whether he did not know of some medicine for the fever. Faustulus told him that there were certain herbs in his hut which his wife used to prepare in a drink, and this drink helped the fever. Mamurius had brewed the drink and given it to his father, and taken some himself,[pg 165]and it had done them both good. The old shepherd stood in considerable awe of the colonists, who knew so many things that he did not, and he would never have thought of suggesting anything to them himself.

One night Muraena the metal worker came to the house of Colonus, and sat down with the head of the house under a fig tree by the door and talked with him. The two had been friends for many years, and now, he said, the time had come to make the friendship even closer by an alliance between the two houses. He had long observed the goodness and dutiful kindness of Colonus’s daughter Marcia, and it was his wish that now she was come to an age to be married, she might be his own daughter. He had reason to believe that his son would be glad to marry her. What did Colonus think about it?

Colonus had no objection whatever. That night he went in and called Marcia to him, and told her kindly that Mamurius the metal worker’s son had been proposed for her husband, and that it would be most pleasing to both families if the marriage could be arranged. It was a surprise to Marcia, but not at all an unpleasant one, and she went to sleep that night a very happy girl.

This was the first wedding in the colony, and as the preparations went forward, everybody, old[pg 166]and young, took a great deal of interest in it. Marcia never knew she had so many friends. Everybody seemed to wish her well and approve of the marriage. The wooden chest Marcs had made for her, and Bruno had carved and painted, began to fill with webs of linen and wool, the gifts of her mother and the other matrons, and some that had been spun and woven by Marcia herself. She could see from the door the house that was to be her home, as its fresh, new walls arose day by day. And at last the day arrived for theconfarreatio; as it was called, the wedding ceremony, the eating of bread. Like the other ceremonies in the religion of the people, this was very old, so old that the beginning of it was not known. The reason of some of the things that were done had been forgotten. Marcia could just remember going to one wedding when she was a little girl before they left the Mountain of Fire. All the colonists who went out were already married and had children, and until now none of the children were old enough to begin a new home.

There was always a certain meaning in the eating of salt together; it is so in all the ancient races. Salt was not like food that any two men might eat together, like animals, where they found it. It was part of the household stores;[pg 167]it was eaten by families living in houses. In some places it was not easy to come by, and it was the one thing necessary to a really good meal, whatever else there was to eat. When a man was invited to share a meal with salt in it, it meant that he was invited to the table and was more or less an equal. People who were simply fed from the stores of the farmer prepared their own food in their own way, often without salt. It was said that the wood spirits, the gods of the wilderness, of whom nobody knew much except that they were mischievous and tricky, could always be known by the fact that salt to them was like poison; they could not eat it at all.

When a bride left her own home to go to that of her husband, it was a very solemn proceeding, because she said farewell to her own family, the spirits of her ancestors, and the gods of her father’s hearth, and became one of her husband’s family, a daughter of his father. All that was done was based more or less on this idea. A girl who ran away from home without her father’s knowledge could not expect to be blessed by her ancestors, the unseen dwellers by the fireside. A woman who came into another home without the permission of the spirits who dwelt there could not hope to be happy; bad luck would certainly follow. The wedding ceremonies were[pg 168]meant to make it perfectly clear that all was done in the right and proper and fortunate way.

The day was chosen by Tullius the priest, and was a bright and beautiful day, not long after the feast of Maia. The ceremonies began at dawn. Before sunrise Tullius was scanning the sky to make sure that the day would be fair and that no evil omen was in sight. Felic’la, who hovered around her sister with adoring eyes, thought she had never seen Marcia look so beautiful. She was in white, with a flame-colored veil over her head, and her hair had been, according to the old custom, parted with a spear point into six locks, arranged with ribbons tied in a certain way to keep it in place. Her tall and graceful figure was even more stately than usual in the white robe she wore, and her great dark eyes were like stars.

When the guests were all at the house, Marcus Colonus offered a sacrifice at the family altar and pronounced certain ancient words, explaining that he now gave his daughter to the young Mamurius and set her free from every obligation that kept her at home. When the sacrifice was over, the guests wished the young couple happiness, and the marriage feast began. There was no one in the whole village who did not have reason to remember the rejoicings on the day[pg 169]when the daughter of Colonus was married, for it was the richest feast that had ever been given in the colony. The house was decorated with wreaths and the best of the wine was served, and all the dainties the Roman women knew how to make were to be found upon the table. Marcia sat among her maidens like a young goddess among priestesses; they were all eager to show her how dear she was to them and how glad they were that she was happy. There was not a child in the village who did not think of her as a kind elder sister. Now she herself was to be served and made happy, and for that day she was the most important person in the eyes of all those who had been her playmates.

At last the rejoicings at the home of Colonus were over, and it was time for the wedding procession. Attended by the young girls near her own age, the bride was taken from her mother’s arms by the bridegroom, and the whole party moved in procession toward the new home. In advance went torch bearers, and the children scattered flowers for her feet to tread upon as she passed. Every one was singing or shouting“Talassio! Talassio!”The flute players were making music, and the bridegroom scattered handfuls of nuts for which the boys scrambled. When they reached the door of the new house[pg 170]Marcia poured a little oil upon the doorposts, and wound them with wool which her own hands had spun. Then Mamurius lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the door.

Illustration: Mamurius lifted her in his strong arms and carried her through the door

Exactly why this was part of the marriage ceremony is not known. Some think it was because a bride must not be allowed to stumble on the threshold, for that would be unlucky. But it was more likely to mean that she was brought by her husband into the house to join in the worship of the spirits of the home, and so did not come in without an invitation. As she stood in theatrium, the middle room where the altar and[pg 171]the family table were, she received the fire and water of the family worship and reverently lighted the first fire ever kindled on that hearth. She and Mamurius repeated together the prayers that thousands of young couples had repeated since first their people had homes. Then they ate together a flat cake made with the corn blessed by the priest, and Marcia poured a little of the marriage wine upon the fire as a sacrifice of“libation”to the gods of her new home. This was theconfarreatio. They felt as if the silent, burning fire that lighted the dusky little room were trying to tell them that their simple meal was shared by the gods themselves, and that the blessing of all Mamurius’ forefathers was on the bride that he had brought home to be the joy of his house.

On the next day there was another feast, to celebrate the beginning of the new home, and the wedding was over.

“I am glad,”said Marcia’s mother to her husband when they went home that night, leaving their daughter and young Mamurius standing together at their own door,“that everything went so well, without a single unlucky or unhappy thing to spoil the good fortune. Marcia well deserves to be happy,—but I shall miss her every day I live.”

She sighed, and Felic’la looked rather sober. She knew very well that they would all miss Marcia, but she determined in her careless little heart to be a better girl and do so much for her mother and brothers that when her turn came, they would all be sorry to see her go.

“I am glad,”said Colonus,“for more than one reason. I have been rather anxious for fear that in this new place our young people would not remember the old ways as they might if they had grown up in our old home. It was important to have the first wedding one that they would all remember with pleasure, and wish to follow as an example. I am very glad Marcia has so good a husband. Mamurius is a youth who will go far and be a leader among the young men. I suppose that now they will all be thinking of marriage.”

There were, in fact, several other marriages in the colony within a year or two, but nobody who was at that first wedding ever forgot it. Marcia was often called upon to tell how the garlands were made, and just how much honey they put in the cakes for the feast, and how the other little matters were arranged that all seemed to be managed exactly right. In fact, that wedding set a fashion and a standard, and as Marcia’s father was shrewd enough to see, it is a good thing[pg 173]in a new community to have the standards rather high. There was nothing in what Marcia and Mamurius did that other people could not follow if they chose, but the simple comfort and grace of their way of living did mean that they cared enough for their home to take it seriously. Girls who might not have thought much about cleanliness, thrift, cheerfulness and beauty began to see, when they visited Marcia, how pleasant it was to have a home like hers. She did not tell them so; she was herself, and that was enough.

[pg 174]XVTHE TRUMPERY MANOne autumn day a little while after the harvest, a squat, brown man with large black eyes under great arched eyebrows set in a large head, and with unusually muscular shoulders and arms, was paddling slowly in a small boat across the yellow river. As he crossed he looked up attentively at the range of hills near the riverside, now partly covered with wooden huts. It was his experience that villages were good places to trade. They were especially so when, as now, pipes were sounding and the people were keeping holiday in honor of some god. He had gone to many places with his wares, but he had not as yet visited the town by the river. He was not even quite sure of its name. Some called it Rumon and some Roma. The people of his race were not very quick of ear, and often pronounced letters alike or confused them when they sounded alike,—as o and u, or b and p, or t and d. He himself was called Utuze, Otuz, or[pg 175]Odisuze, or Toto, according to the place where he happened to be. He came from Caere, the Etruscan seaport near the mouth of the river.He had landed on this bank when he went up the river and approached the men from the settlement when they were working on their lands outside the walls, but they did not pay much attention to him. He could not tell whether they did not want his wares, or were suspicious, or simply did not understand what he was talking about. Now he was going to find out,—for he was of a persistent nature. Perhaps there would be some one at the festival who could speak both his language and theirs and tell them what he wanted to say. Then it would be easy.On a glittering chain around his neck he carried a metal whistle, or trumpet, that could be heard a long distance and would pierce through most other noises as a needle pierces wool. On his back he carried in a sack a great variety of small things likely to please women and girls and children. He had learned a very long time ago that however shrewd a man may be, he will buy very silly things and pay any price you like for them when he is persuaded that they will please a girl. He also knew that men will buy things for their wives that no sensible woman ever buys for herself, and that if children cry for a toy long[pg 176]enough, they often get it. But the most important thing was, he knew, that a man who can attract attention to himself, no matter how he does it, generally sells more goods than one who depends only on the usefulness of what he has to sell. Therefore, when he set out on these trading journeys, he put on the most gorgeous and gay-colored clothes he could find, decorated with bright-colored figures, embroidered, and fringed or fastened with little glittering beads and ornaments such as he carried in his pack. Shining things were easier to sell than other things, as they were easier to look at. The peddler had given careful attention to selecting his stores, and Mastarna, the fat merchant from whom he got them, helped him. He wished to know more of these people in the town by the river.The squealing of the peddler’s trumpet reached the ears of the soldiers, who were having a good time in their own way. They had their own games and frolics and feats of strength, and some of the young men from the town were there to look on and perhaps to join. Urso the hunter’s son, and Marcus and Bruno the sons of Colonus, and little Pollio the son of the sandal maker, were all there, and when they heard the trumpet they sprang to their feet. But Ruffo the captain of the guard laughed, and the others[pg 177]shouted, and Ruffo said,“By Jove, there’s Toto!”“Diovi”was the general name for“the gods,”and when it is pronounced quickly it sounds like“Jove.”The father of the gods was“Diovis-Pater”—which in course of time became“Jupiter.”The peddler had been in their camp in the days before the town by the river was thought of, and when he saw them, he came up the path grinning broadly, and they grinned back. They explained to the boys of the colony that he came from across the river and dealt in all sorts of things that were not made at all on this side, and some that were brought from the seashore. Toto spread out his gay cloth on the ground and began to lay out his wares.Through long practice he knew just how to place them so that they would show most effectively, and many a customer wondered why the trinket did not look as well when he got it home as it had before he bought it. The colors in the painted cloth were combined in old, old patterns worked out according to laws as certain as the laws of music, and everywhere was the gilding that set off the colors and seemed to make them brighter and richer.Illustration: Toto spread out his gay cloth upon the groundThere were scarfs such as women wore on their[pg 178]heads, and fillets for the hair, and girdles and veils. There were necklaces and bracelets and rings and brooches and pins. There were boxes of sweetmeats, and metal cups and spoons, and curious little images of men and animals, and strings of beads, and charm strings, and hollow metal cases for charms, that could be hung around the neck, and pottery toys, and trinkets of all kinds. It seemed impossible that so much merchandise of so many different kinds could have been packed in that bag, or that a man could have carried it, after it was packed. If the things[pg 179]had been as heavy as they looked, it would have been too great a load even for Toto’s broad shoulders.The Roman boys had never seen anything like this before, but they did not show any great curiosity. One of the things that the people of Mars taught their children, without ever saying it in so many words, was not to be in a hurry to talk too much in strange company. They were brought up to feel that they were the equals of any one they were likely to meet and need not be in haste to make new friends. This feeling gave them a certain dignity not easily upset. In fact, dignity is merely the result of respecting yourself as a person quite worthy of respect, and not feeling obliged to insist on it from other people. The colonists had it.Pollio picked up one of the sandals and smiled.“My father would not think this leather fit to use,”he said in a low tone to Bruno.Marcus was looking at a pin of a rather pretty design and wondering how Flavia, his betrothed, would like it, when it bent in his fingers. That pin had not been made for the handling of young men with hands so muscular as his. Marcus paid for the pin and tossed it into the river. He had no intention of making a gift like that to any one.[pg 180]When they handled the charm necklaces they saw from the lightness that what looked like gold was not gold. It was so with all the peddler’s stock. The soldiers, seeing that the boys from the colony did not think the stuff worth buying, did not buy much themselves, nor did they drink much of his wine.Ruffo said after Toto had gone that he did not always carry such a collection of trash as he had to-day. Sometimes he sold excellent fish-hooks and small tools. Marcus said that if he bought anything, he wanted a thing that was worth buying, and they began to throw quoits at a mark.Marcus had seen traders before and dealt with them, but for some reason this peddler’s pack set him thinking. In their way of living a farmer made most of his own tools, and wishing them to last as long as possible, he made them well. It was the same with the baskets, the linen, the wool and the leather work, and the other things made at home. It was the same with the work done in the smithy of Muraena. He wished to have a reputation among his neighbors for making fine weapons. The men always put the greater part of their time on their farms, and since they had been in this new country, their planning and contriving how to make the soil produce more and[pg 181]more had been far more exciting than ever before. Each year a little more of the marsh or the waste land would be drained and cleared; each year the flocks and herds would be larger and more huts would be built. They were founding a new people.In view of these great thoughts of the future, the glittering trinkets of the man with the trumpet looked small and worthless. Marcus began to see what was meant by the elders when they spoke of“gravity”as a virtue and“levity”as a rather foolish vice. Life depended very much on the way one took things; to take important things lightly, or give valuable time and thought to worthless objects left a man with the chaff on his hands instead of the good grain.Something his father had told him a long time ago, when he was a little boy, came into Marcus’s mind. It was when he wanted something very much, and being little, cried because he could not have it and made himself quite miserable. His father came in just then and watched him for a minute or two. Then he said,“My son, do you wish to be a strong man, when you grow big?”“Y-yes,”sniffed the little fellow dolefully.“You wish to be strong of soul and heart as you are in your body, so that no one can make[pg 182]you do anything you are not willing to do?”“Yes, Father,”said the boy, with his puzzled dark eyes searching his father’s face.“Then, my son, remember this: the strong man is the man who can go without what he wants. If you cannot do without a thing you want, without being unhappy, you are like a boy who cannot walk without a crutch. If you can give up, without making a ridiculous ado about it, whatever it is not wise for you to have—if you can be happy in yourself and by yourself and stand on your own feet—then you are strong. In the end you will be strong enough to get what you really want. The gods hate a coward.”Now in the long shadows of the fading day, as he heard the far sound of the peddler’s trumpet down the river, Marcus found a new meaning in his father’s words. He saw that those who wasted what they had earned by hard work on that rubbish would end by having nothing at all, because they were caught by the color and the shine of things made to tempt them. What was there in all that collection that was half as beautiful as a golden wheat field? What ornament that could be worn out or broken was equal to the land itself, with its treasure of fleecy flocks and sleek cattle, and roof trees under which happy[pg 183]children slept? The treasure of the world was theirs already, in this plain that was theirs to make fruitful and beautiful, and people with prosperous villages. That was the real estate; the other was a shadow and a sham.

One autumn day a little while after the harvest, a squat, brown man with large black eyes under great arched eyebrows set in a large head, and with unusually muscular shoulders and arms, was paddling slowly in a small boat across the yellow river. As he crossed he looked up attentively at the range of hills near the riverside, now partly covered with wooden huts. It was his experience that villages were good places to trade. They were especially so when, as now, pipes were sounding and the people were keeping holiday in honor of some god. He had gone to many places with his wares, but he had not as yet visited the town by the river. He was not even quite sure of its name. Some called it Rumon and some Roma. The people of his race were not very quick of ear, and often pronounced letters alike or confused them when they sounded alike,—as o and u, or b and p, or t and d. He himself was called Utuze, Otuz, or[pg 175]Odisuze, or Toto, according to the place where he happened to be. He came from Caere, the Etruscan seaport near the mouth of the river.

He had landed on this bank when he went up the river and approached the men from the settlement when they were working on their lands outside the walls, but they did not pay much attention to him. He could not tell whether they did not want his wares, or were suspicious, or simply did not understand what he was talking about. Now he was going to find out,—for he was of a persistent nature. Perhaps there would be some one at the festival who could speak both his language and theirs and tell them what he wanted to say. Then it would be easy.

On a glittering chain around his neck he carried a metal whistle, or trumpet, that could be heard a long distance and would pierce through most other noises as a needle pierces wool. On his back he carried in a sack a great variety of small things likely to please women and girls and children. He had learned a very long time ago that however shrewd a man may be, he will buy very silly things and pay any price you like for them when he is persuaded that they will please a girl. He also knew that men will buy things for their wives that no sensible woman ever buys for herself, and that if children cry for a toy long[pg 176]enough, they often get it. But the most important thing was, he knew, that a man who can attract attention to himself, no matter how he does it, generally sells more goods than one who depends only on the usefulness of what he has to sell. Therefore, when he set out on these trading journeys, he put on the most gorgeous and gay-colored clothes he could find, decorated with bright-colored figures, embroidered, and fringed or fastened with little glittering beads and ornaments such as he carried in his pack. Shining things were easier to sell than other things, as they were easier to look at. The peddler had given careful attention to selecting his stores, and Mastarna, the fat merchant from whom he got them, helped him. He wished to know more of these people in the town by the river.

The squealing of the peddler’s trumpet reached the ears of the soldiers, who were having a good time in their own way. They had their own games and frolics and feats of strength, and some of the young men from the town were there to look on and perhaps to join. Urso the hunter’s son, and Marcus and Bruno the sons of Colonus, and little Pollio the son of the sandal maker, were all there, and when they heard the trumpet they sprang to their feet. But Ruffo the captain of the guard laughed, and the others[pg 177]shouted, and Ruffo said,“By Jove, there’s Toto!”

“Diovi”was the general name for“the gods,”and when it is pronounced quickly it sounds like“Jove.”The father of the gods was“Diovis-Pater”—which in course of time became“Jupiter.”

The peddler had been in their camp in the days before the town by the river was thought of, and when he saw them, he came up the path grinning broadly, and they grinned back. They explained to the boys of the colony that he came from across the river and dealt in all sorts of things that were not made at all on this side, and some that were brought from the seashore. Toto spread out his gay cloth on the ground and began to lay out his wares.

Through long practice he knew just how to place them so that they would show most effectively, and many a customer wondered why the trinket did not look as well when he got it home as it had before he bought it. The colors in the painted cloth were combined in old, old patterns worked out according to laws as certain as the laws of music, and everywhere was the gilding that set off the colors and seemed to make them brighter and richer.

Illustration: Toto spread out his gay cloth upon the ground

There were scarfs such as women wore on their[pg 178]heads, and fillets for the hair, and girdles and veils. There were necklaces and bracelets and rings and brooches and pins. There were boxes of sweetmeats, and metal cups and spoons, and curious little images of men and animals, and strings of beads, and charm strings, and hollow metal cases for charms, that could be hung around the neck, and pottery toys, and trinkets of all kinds. It seemed impossible that so much merchandise of so many different kinds could have been packed in that bag, or that a man could have carried it, after it was packed. If the things[pg 179]had been as heavy as they looked, it would have been too great a load even for Toto’s broad shoulders.

The Roman boys had never seen anything like this before, but they did not show any great curiosity. One of the things that the people of Mars taught their children, without ever saying it in so many words, was not to be in a hurry to talk too much in strange company. They were brought up to feel that they were the equals of any one they were likely to meet and need not be in haste to make new friends. This feeling gave them a certain dignity not easily upset. In fact, dignity is merely the result of respecting yourself as a person quite worthy of respect, and not feeling obliged to insist on it from other people. The colonists had it.

Pollio picked up one of the sandals and smiled.

“My father would not think this leather fit to use,”he said in a low tone to Bruno.

Marcus was looking at a pin of a rather pretty design and wondering how Flavia, his betrothed, would like it, when it bent in his fingers. That pin had not been made for the handling of young men with hands so muscular as his. Marcus paid for the pin and tossed it into the river. He had no intention of making a gift like that to any one.

When they handled the charm necklaces they saw from the lightness that what looked like gold was not gold. It was so with all the peddler’s stock. The soldiers, seeing that the boys from the colony did not think the stuff worth buying, did not buy much themselves, nor did they drink much of his wine.

Ruffo said after Toto had gone that he did not always carry such a collection of trash as he had to-day. Sometimes he sold excellent fish-hooks and small tools. Marcus said that if he bought anything, he wanted a thing that was worth buying, and they began to throw quoits at a mark.

Marcus had seen traders before and dealt with them, but for some reason this peddler’s pack set him thinking. In their way of living a farmer made most of his own tools, and wishing them to last as long as possible, he made them well. It was the same with the baskets, the linen, the wool and the leather work, and the other things made at home. It was the same with the work done in the smithy of Muraena. He wished to have a reputation among his neighbors for making fine weapons. The men always put the greater part of their time on their farms, and since they had been in this new country, their planning and contriving how to make the soil produce more and[pg 181]more had been far more exciting than ever before. Each year a little more of the marsh or the waste land would be drained and cleared; each year the flocks and herds would be larger and more huts would be built. They were founding a new people.

In view of these great thoughts of the future, the glittering trinkets of the man with the trumpet looked small and worthless. Marcus began to see what was meant by the elders when they spoke of“gravity”as a virtue and“levity”as a rather foolish vice. Life depended very much on the way one took things; to take important things lightly, or give valuable time and thought to worthless objects left a man with the chaff on his hands instead of the good grain.

Something his father had told him a long time ago, when he was a little boy, came into Marcus’s mind. It was when he wanted something very much, and being little, cried because he could not have it and made himself quite miserable. His father came in just then and watched him for a minute or two. Then he said,

“My son, do you wish to be a strong man, when you grow big?”

“Y-yes,”sniffed the little fellow dolefully.

“You wish to be strong of soul and heart as you are in your body, so that no one can make[pg 182]you do anything you are not willing to do?”

“Yes, Father,”said the boy, with his puzzled dark eyes searching his father’s face.

“Then, my son, remember this: the strong man is the man who can go without what he wants. If you cannot do without a thing you want, without being unhappy, you are like a boy who cannot walk without a crutch. If you can give up, without making a ridiculous ado about it, whatever it is not wise for you to have—if you can be happy in yourself and by yourself and stand on your own feet—then you are strong. In the end you will be strong enough to get what you really want. The gods hate a coward.”

Now in the long shadows of the fading day, as he heard the far sound of the peddler’s trumpet down the river, Marcus found a new meaning in his father’s words. He saw that those who wasted what they had earned by hard work on that rubbish would end by having nothing at all, because they were caught by the color and the shine of things made to tempt them. What was there in all that collection that was half as beautiful as a golden wheat field? What ornament that could be worn out or broken was equal to the land itself, with its treasure of fleecy flocks and sleek cattle, and roof trees under which happy[pg 183]children slept? The treasure of the world was theirs already, in this plain that was theirs to make fruitful and beautiful, and people with prosperous villages. That was the real estate; the other was a shadow and a sham.

[pg 184]XVITHE GREAT DYKEAlthough Toto did not find his first visit to the Seven Hills very profitable, he had much that was interesting to tell Mastarna when he returned. The two had a long talk in their strange rugged language with its few vowel sounds. Mastarna was most interested in the gods of these strangers. If he could find out what they did to bring good luck and ward off misfortune, he could have charms and lucky stones made to sell to them. If he knew what their gods were like, he could have images of these carved in wood or molded in clay or cast in metal. But Toto could tell him very little about these questions. The soldiers at the camp had no altars and no regular worship at all, and they moved from place to place and did not keep any place sacred. But these people on the Square Hill seemed very religious. They behaved as if they had settled down there to stay forever.[pg 185]“What are they like?”asked the old man.“They are like no other townspeople in this valley,”said Toto decidedly.“They are not like the herdsmen who wander from place to place and sleep in tents, or the hunters who live alone in huts, or the fishermen by the river or the sailors by the seashore. They are tall and straight and strong and very active, because they work all the time. They work mostly on their land. When they are not plowing, or digging, or cutting grain, or cutting wood, or making things, they are working to make themselves stronger. They run and leap and throw heavy weights; they hurl the spear and shoot arrows at a mark. They stand in rows and go through motions all together, and march to and fro, and play at ball. They do everything that is possible to make themselves good soldiers; even the boys begin when they are small to play at these games.“And that is not all. The women work also, but not as slaves. The matrons go here and there as they choose, and see eye to eye with their husbands, and manage the household as the men manage the farm. The men sit in council, but each man speaks of his work in private to his wife, and she advises with him. They do not have slaves to wait on them; even their great men work with the others in the field. No one is[pg 186]ashamed to work with his hands. They build their own houses and their own walls; they breed their own cattle. If there should be a sheep gone from the flock, or a heifer strayed from the herd, they would know it and search until the thief was found.”“Hum,”said the old man thoughtfully. He was thinking that this must be a strong and valiant people, and that if they increased in the valley of the yellow river they might become very powerful.“And what are their priests?”“They have no priesthood dwelling in the temples,”said Toto.“Their elders are their priests and pretend to no magical powers. They are chosen for their wisdom. Their gods are invisible.”“Hum,”said Mastarna again.The people to whom he and Toto belonged were called at one time and another Tuscans or Etruscans by others, but they called themselves the Ras, or Rasennae. They had some towns in the mountains beyond the plain where these strangers were. They held most of the country on their side of the rivers, as far north as the river Arno, and they had always lived there, so far as they knew themselves or any one else could say. They were different in almost every way from these strangers of the hills. He wondered[pg 187]if his people had anything whatever that the strangers wanted.“You say that they build walls,”he said to Toto.“Do they build good ones?”Toto grinned. He was nothing of a builder himself, but even he could see the difference between the rude stone laying and fencing of the strangers, and the scientific, massive masonry and arched drains of his own country.“They will find out how good they are,”he said,“after twenty years of flood and drought.”In fact, the worst enemy the colonists had met thus far was water. They were used to mountain slopes with good drainage. They knew how to keep a field from being gutted by mountain freshets, and how to repair roadways and build drains that would carry off the water. They were strong and clever at fitting stones into the right place for walls, and they could dam up a stream for a fishpool or a bathing place. But this sort of country was all new to them. It was not exactly a marsh and not so swampy as it became in later centuries, but at any time it might become a marsh full of ponds and stagnant streams, and remain so for weeks at a time. This was bad for the grain and worse for sheep, and unhealthy for human beings. During the next rainy season after Toto’s visit, the farmers[pg 188]had a very unhappy time. They discovered that too much water is almost if not quite as much a nuisance as too little. In a dry time it is sometimes possible to carry water from a distance, but in a wet time there is nowhere to put the water that is not wanted, and many of their ditches were choked up with débris, and their grain was washed away.Mastarna was full of patience. He let them toil and soak and chill and sweat until he thought they would welcome a suggestion from almost any quarter. Then he and a man he knew, a stone worker called Canial, took a boat and went across the river to a point where three or four of the colonists were prying an unhappy ox out of the mire. The strength, determination and skill with which they conducted the work were worthy of all admiration. But it would have been far better if the land could have been drained and protected by a solid dyke.Canial looked the bank over with a shrewd, experienced eye, and said that if he had the work to do, he would dig a ditch there, and there, and there; here he would build a covered drain lined with tilework; and in a certain hollow under the hill he would have an arched waterway, so that flood water would run through instead of tearing at the foundation of the terrace below the vine[pg 189]yards. But he saw no signs that these men in their building made any use of arches. He jumped ashore and splashed through the pools, which were almost waist-deep in some places, up to where the ox was standing panting, wild-eyed and nearly exhausted with fright and struggle. Canial squatted down by a rivulet. He did not know the language of the colonists and they did not know his, but no words were needed for what he wanted to explain. He made a miniature drain rudely arched over with mud-plastered stones while they stood there watching. That could be done, as well with, a six-inch brook as with a river. It did not take the Romans ten minutes to see that he knew more about such matters than they did.“Caius,”said Colonus to young Cossus,“go over to the camp and find Ruffo, and ask him to come and talk to this fellow.”He knew that Ruffo understood several languages and dialects, and whatever it was that this man had come for, he wished to know it.Ruffo knew enough of the language Canial spoke to be able to make out his meaning, and he told Colonus that the stone worker wished to come and live in Rome. He would show them how to drain their land and bridge their streams. Mastarna would tell them that he was a man of[pg 190]honesty and ability. His reason for leaving his own country was a personal one; he had had a quarrel with the head priest of his village because the priest wished to interfere in his family affairs and make Canial’s daughter the wife of his nephew, against her will. There was no safety or comfort in his part of the country when the priesthood had a grudge against a man.There were others in the Roman settlement who had fled there for reasons of much the same kind as Canial’s—men who had been robbed of their inheritance, slaves escaped from cruel masters, homeless men, and men who for one reason or another had found themselves unsafe where they lived before. But this was the first family which had wished to come from beyond the river. The others all came from places where the public worship was not entirely unlike that of the Romans themselves and the people were of the same race in the beginning. This was a departure from that rule.If it had not been for the dyke-building problem, Colonus would probably have said no at once. But that would have to be settled before the town grew much larger than it was, or they would have to change their way of life altogether. They were a people who hated to be crowded. They would need land, and land, and more land,[pg 191]if they continued to live on the Seven Hills. They must have grain for the cattle and themselves, and pasturage for the beasts, room for orchards and gardens, room for the villages of those who tilled their fields. Canial seemed to think that it would be quite possible to prevent the plain from being flooded, with proper stonework and drains, but it would need a man thoroughly used to the work to direct it. Colonus could see that Canial was probably that man. Every suggestion he made was practical and good, and he knew things about masonry that it had taken his ancestors generations to learn. Colonus finally said that he would talk it over with the other men of the city and give him an answer on a certain day.Ruffo did not know anything of the gods the people of Canial worshiped, except that they were unlike the Roman gods and seemed to be very much feared. They had a god Turms, who was rather like the Roman Terminus, who protected traders and kept boundaries. They had a smith of the gods, called Sethlans, and a god of wine and drunkenness called Fuffluns.No person, of course, could be allowed to bring the worship of strange gods into the sacred city. The very reason of the founding of the city was to make a home for their own gods, and[pg 192]to let in strange ceremonies would be to defile that home.It was finally decided that Canial and some of his countrymen who wished to come with him should have a place of their own, which was afterward known as the Street of the Tuscans. It was a place which no one had wished to occupy before, because it was so wet, but Canial and his friends had no difficulty in draining it. The only condition he made was that traders should be allowed to come and go and supply his family and friends with whatever they needed. Women, he said, did not like a strange place much as it was, and he should have no peace at home if his wife were obliged to learn new methods of housekeeping.The only condition that Marcus Colonus and his friends made was that the strangers should do nothing against the law of the settlement, or against the Roman gods, and this they readily agreed to. Canial said that the priests in his country demanded so much in offerings that a man was no better than a slave, working for them.All this happened while Romulus was away, but when he returned he said that the decision was a wise one. It privately rather amused him to see how in this new country the colonists were led to allow the beginning of new customs which[pg 193]they regarded with great horror when they first came.Before another rainy season, the Etruscans and the Romans, working together, had made a very fair beginning on the dyking and draining of the worst of the marshes and the bridging of bad places. Canial understood how to mix burned lumps of clay containing lime and iron, and lime and sand, and water, in such a way that when the muddy paste hardened it was like stone itself. Tertius Calvo, who happened to be there when this was done, tried it by himself. Although what he made was not entirely a failure, it did not behave as it did under the hands of Canial. Without saying anything—indeed, he could say nothing, for he knew not a word of the strangers’ language—Tertius watched and measured and experimented with small quantities until he found out the exact proportions and methods Canial used. The bit of wall he built finally was very nearly as good as Canial’s own work. Calvo was good at laying stones, and had very little to learn in that line from any stranger. This mortar, as they found in course of time, would stand heat and cold and water and seemed to become harder with exposure. By using the best quality of material the work was improved. There was no secret about it; indeed, Canial did[pg 194]not object to teaching any man who wished to learn all he could.The greatest debt they owed to their new settlers was the low round arch, built with stones set in mortar in such a way that the greater the weight, the firmer the arch would be. Another Etruscan trick was plastering over the side of a drain or a bank with a mixture of small stones stirred thickly into mortar like plums in a pudding. The best of this new way of working was that it could be done so quickly. A great deal of the work could be done by stupid and ignorant laborers under the direction of those who knew how to direct. Men whom they could not employ in any sort of skilled labor could help here. Such men were glad enough to come for an allowance of food and drink. A certain task was set them, and they had their living for that; if they did more, they had an extra allowance. The task was calledmoenia, and since it was the lowest and least skilled labor, work of that kind later came to be known asmenial, the work of slaves and servants.The change in the face of the plain in the following years was almost like magic. The colonists built dykes to keep the river from overflowing; they built drains to carry off the heavy rains; they built culverts; they built bridges rest[pg 195]ing on solid arches; and they made one great drain which carried off so much of the overflow water that it made the Square Hill and most of the land around it safe. In fact, a part of every year thereafter was given to the improvement and protection of newly cleared farmlands by stonework. People came from a great distance to see the dyke they built, for nothing like it had been done on that side of the river. The people in the lowlands villages, relieved from the fear of floods, were proud to call themselves the servants of the Romans. In those early years a beginning was made of the great engineering work that was to endure for centuries. The people of the Square Hill were doing on a very small scale what nobody had done before them in that part of the world. In their masonry and their farming they gave all their poorer neighbors reason to be glad they were located where they were. It was a peaceful conquering of village after village.

Although Toto did not find his first visit to the Seven Hills very profitable, he had much that was interesting to tell Mastarna when he returned. The two had a long talk in their strange rugged language with its few vowel sounds. Mastarna was most interested in the gods of these strangers. If he could find out what they did to bring good luck and ward off misfortune, he could have charms and lucky stones made to sell to them. If he knew what their gods were like, he could have images of these carved in wood or molded in clay or cast in metal. But Toto could tell him very little about these questions. The soldiers at the camp had no altars and no regular worship at all, and they moved from place to place and did not keep any place sacred. But these people on the Square Hill seemed very religious. They behaved as if they had settled down there to stay forever.

“What are they like?”asked the old man.

“They are like no other townspeople in this valley,”said Toto decidedly.“They are not like the herdsmen who wander from place to place and sleep in tents, or the hunters who live alone in huts, or the fishermen by the river or the sailors by the seashore. They are tall and straight and strong and very active, because they work all the time. They work mostly on their land. When they are not plowing, or digging, or cutting grain, or cutting wood, or making things, they are working to make themselves stronger. They run and leap and throw heavy weights; they hurl the spear and shoot arrows at a mark. They stand in rows and go through motions all together, and march to and fro, and play at ball. They do everything that is possible to make themselves good soldiers; even the boys begin when they are small to play at these games.

“And that is not all. The women work also, but not as slaves. The matrons go here and there as they choose, and see eye to eye with their husbands, and manage the household as the men manage the farm. The men sit in council, but each man speaks of his work in private to his wife, and she advises with him. They do not have slaves to wait on them; even their great men work with the others in the field. No one is[pg 186]ashamed to work with his hands. They build their own houses and their own walls; they breed their own cattle. If there should be a sheep gone from the flock, or a heifer strayed from the herd, they would know it and search until the thief was found.”

“Hum,”said the old man thoughtfully. He was thinking that this must be a strong and valiant people, and that if they increased in the valley of the yellow river they might become very powerful.“And what are their priests?”

“They have no priesthood dwelling in the temples,”said Toto.“Their elders are their priests and pretend to no magical powers. They are chosen for their wisdom. Their gods are invisible.”

“Hum,”said Mastarna again.

The people to whom he and Toto belonged were called at one time and another Tuscans or Etruscans by others, but they called themselves the Ras, or Rasennae. They had some towns in the mountains beyond the plain where these strangers were. They held most of the country on their side of the rivers, as far north as the river Arno, and they had always lived there, so far as they knew themselves or any one else could say. They were different in almost every way from these strangers of the hills. He wondered[pg 187]if his people had anything whatever that the strangers wanted.

“You say that they build walls,”he said to Toto.“Do they build good ones?”

Toto grinned. He was nothing of a builder himself, but even he could see the difference between the rude stone laying and fencing of the strangers, and the scientific, massive masonry and arched drains of his own country.“They will find out how good they are,”he said,“after twenty years of flood and drought.”

In fact, the worst enemy the colonists had met thus far was water. They were used to mountain slopes with good drainage. They knew how to keep a field from being gutted by mountain freshets, and how to repair roadways and build drains that would carry off the water. They were strong and clever at fitting stones into the right place for walls, and they could dam up a stream for a fishpool or a bathing place. But this sort of country was all new to them. It was not exactly a marsh and not so swampy as it became in later centuries, but at any time it might become a marsh full of ponds and stagnant streams, and remain so for weeks at a time. This was bad for the grain and worse for sheep, and unhealthy for human beings. During the next rainy season after Toto’s visit, the farmers[pg 188]had a very unhappy time. They discovered that too much water is almost if not quite as much a nuisance as too little. In a dry time it is sometimes possible to carry water from a distance, but in a wet time there is nowhere to put the water that is not wanted, and many of their ditches were choked up with débris, and their grain was washed away.

Mastarna was full of patience. He let them toil and soak and chill and sweat until he thought they would welcome a suggestion from almost any quarter. Then he and a man he knew, a stone worker called Canial, took a boat and went across the river to a point where three or four of the colonists were prying an unhappy ox out of the mire. The strength, determination and skill with which they conducted the work were worthy of all admiration. But it would have been far better if the land could have been drained and protected by a solid dyke.

Canial looked the bank over with a shrewd, experienced eye, and said that if he had the work to do, he would dig a ditch there, and there, and there; here he would build a covered drain lined with tilework; and in a certain hollow under the hill he would have an arched waterway, so that flood water would run through instead of tearing at the foundation of the terrace below the vine[pg 189]yards. But he saw no signs that these men in their building made any use of arches. He jumped ashore and splashed through the pools, which were almost waist-deep in some places, up to where the ox was standing panting, wild-eyed and nearly exhausted with fright and struggle. Canial squatted down by a rivulet. He did not know the language of the colonists and they did not know his, but no words were needed for what he wanted to explain. He made a miniature drain rudely arched over with mud-plastered stones while they stood there watching. That could be done, as well with, a six-inch brook as with a river. It did not take the Romans ten minutes to see that he knew more about such matters than they did.

“Caius,”said Colonus to young Cossus,“go over to the camp and find Ruffo, and ask him to come and talk to this fellow.”

He knew that Ruffo understood several languages and dialects, and whatever it was that this man had come for, he wished to know it.

Ruffo knew enough of the language Canial spoke to be able to make out his meaning, and he told Colonus that the stone worker wished to come and live in Rome. He would show them how to drain their land and bridge their streams. Mastarna would tell them that he was a man of[pg 190]honesty and ability. His reason for leaving his own country was a personal one; he had had a quarrel with the head priest of his village because the priest wished to interfere in his family affairs and make Canial’s daughter the wife of his nephew, against her will. There was no safety or comfort in his part of the country when the priesthood had a grudge against a man.

There were others in the Roman settlement who had fled there for reasons of much the same kind as Canial’s—men who had been robbed of their inheritance, slaves escaped from cruel masters, homeless men, and men who for one reason or another had found themselves unsafe where they lived before. But this was the first family which had wished to come from beyond the river. The others all came from places where the public worship was not entirely unlike that of the Romans themselves and the people were of the same race in the beginning. This was a departure from that rule.

If it had not been for the dyke-building problem, Colonus would probably have said no at once. But that would have to be settled before the town grew much larger than it was, or they would have to change their way of life altogether. They were a people who hated to be crowded. They would need land, and land, and more land,[pg 191]if they continued to live on the Seven Hills. They must have grain for the cattle and themselves, and pasturage for the beasts, room for orchards and gardens, room for the villages of those who tilled their fields. Canial seemed to think that it would be quite possible to prevent the plain from being flooded, with proper stonework and drains, but it would need a man thoroughly used to the work to direct it. Colonus could see that Canial was probably that man. Every suggestion he made was practical and good, and he knew things about masonry that it had taken his ancestors generations to learn. Colonus finally said that he would talk it over with the other men of the city and give him an answer on a certain day.

Ruffo did not know anything of the gods the people of Canial worshiped, except that they were unlike the Roman gods and seemed to be very much feared. They had a god Turms, who was rather like the Roman Terminus, who protected traders and kept boundaries. They had a smith of the gods, called Sethlans, and a god of wine and drunkenness called Fuffluns.

No person, of course, could be allowed to bring the worship of strange gods into the sacred city. The very reason of the founding of the city was to make a home for their own gods, and[pg 192]to let in strange ceremonies would be to defile that home.

It was finally decided that Canial and some of his countrymen who wished to come with him should have a place of their own, which was afterward known as the Street of the Tuscans. It was a place which no one had wished to occupy before, because it was so wet, but Canial and his friends had no difficulty in draining it. The only condition he made was that traders should be allowed to come and go and supply his family and friends with whatever they needed. Women, he said, did not like a strange place much as it was, and he should have no peace at home if his wife were obliged to learn new methods of housekeeping.

The only condition that Marcus Colonus and his friends made was that the strangers should do nothing against the law of the settlement, or against the Roman gods, and this they readily agreed to. Canial said that the priests in his country demanded so much in offerings that a man was no better than a slave, working for them.

All this happened while Romulus was away, but when he returned he said that the decision was a wise one. It privately rather amused him to see how in this new country the colonists were led to allow the beginning of new customs which[pg 193]they regarded with great horror when they first came.

Before another rainy season, the Etruscans and the Romans, working together, had made a very fair beginning on the dyking and draining of the worst of the marshes and the bridging of bad places. Canial understood how to mix burned lumps of clay containing lime and iron, and lime and sand, and water, in such a way that when the muddy paste hardened it was like stone itself. Tertius Calvo, who happened to be there when this was done, tried it by himself. Although what he made was not entirely a failure, it did not behave as it did under the hands of Canial. Without saying anything—indeed, he could say nothing, for he knew not a word of the strangers’ language—Tertius watched and measured and experimented with small quantities until he found out the exact proportions and methods Canial used. The bit of wall he built finally was very nearly as good as Canial’s own work. Calvo was good at laying stones, and had very little to learn in that line from any stranger. This mortar, as they found in course of time, would stand heat and cold and water and seemed to become harder with exposure. By using the best quality of material the work was improved. There was no secret about it; indeed, Canial did[pg 194]not object to teaching any man who wished to learn all he could.

The greatest debt they owed to their new settlers was the low round arch, built with stones set in mortar in such a way that the greater the weight, the firmer the arch would be. Another Etruscan trick was plastering over the side of a drain or a bank with a mixture of small stones stirred thickly into mortar like plums in a pudding. The best of this new way of working was that it could be done so quickly. A great deal of the work could be done by stupid and ignorant laborers under the direction of those who knew how to direct. Men whom they could not employ in any sort of skilled labor could help here. Such men were glad enough to come for an allowance of food and drink. A certain task was set them, and they had their living for that; if they did more, they had an extra allowance. The task was calledmoenia, and since it was the lowest and least skilled labor, work of that kind later came to be known asmenial, the work of slaves and servants.

The change in the face of the plain in the following years was almost like magic. The colonists built dykes to keep the river from overflowing; they built drains to carry off the heavy rains; they built culverts; they built bridges rest[pg 195]ing on solid arches; and they made one great drain which carried off so much of the overflow water that it made the Square Hill and most of the land around it safe. In fact, a part of every year thereafter was given to the improvement and protection of newly cleared farmlands by stonework. People came from a great distance to see the dyke they built, for nothing like it had been done on that side of the river. The people in the lowlands villages, relieved from the fear of floods, were proud to call themselves the servants of the Romans. In those early years a beginning was made of the great engineering work that was to endure for centuries. The people of the Square Hill were doing on a very small scale what nobody had done before them in that part of the world. In their masonry and their farming they gave all their poorer neighbors reason to be glad they were located where they were. It was a peaceful conquering of village after village.

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