XVII

[pg 196]XVIITHE WAR DANCEWhen the country had grown peaceful, and there was no more need, for the time, of sending out warlike expeditions, it began to be seen that the soldiers who had come in with Romulus or had joined the troops later must have something to do. Romulus talked the matter over seriously with the fathers of the colony. If these men were to settle down as citizens, taking part in the life of the city—and some of them wished to do so—they ought to have homes; they needed wives. The family life of this people was the very heart of their religion and their society. The father was high priest in his family. The public worship was only a greater family worship, in which all had a part, old and young, living and dead. The gods themselves were often present unseen to receive prayers and offerings,—so the people believed.The question of wives for these men was a serious one. Girls were growing up within the[pg 197]palisade on the Square Hill, but so were young men. There would be hardly enough brides for all the youths of their own generation, even if every girl found a husband. Aside from the fact that the parents would not like to see their daughters married to strangers of whom they knew nothing, the young folk themselves would be likely to object. Although theoretically, marriages were made by the elders without the girls having anything to say about it, human nature was much the same there as anywhere. In practice, the bride had some choice and the groom some independence. Any woman married against her will can make life so unpleasant for her husband and her husband’s relatives that common sense would lead a parent to avoid such a result. Care was taken to keep a young girl from knowing any men who would be unsuitable. A man did not ask any youth into his house to meet his daughters, on the spur of the moment. He met a great many men at the midday meal which the men ate together, whom he would not think of asking to a family supper. He knew a great many with whom he would not eat at all.Here and there a soldier found a wife among the country people, but this did not usually turn out very well. The daughters of herdsmen and hut dwellers were not trained in the arts which[pg 198]made a woman dear to a civilized husband. Colonus and his friends wished the wives of the growing settlement to be women who would add to the wealth of their homes and not spoil it,—who would love their homes and their husbands, and bring up their children wisely, and live in peace and friendliness with the other women. The question which had come up was more important now than it might be later. A great deal depended on beginning with the right families. The men now coming in would be the fathers of the future Rome, and on the way in which their sons were brought up the prosperity and godliness of the people might rest.Another possibility was in sight, and it was too nearly a probability to look very pleasant. The soldiers could get wives across the river among the Rasennae. But that would be a dangerous plan—dangerous perhaps to the men themselves and certainly to the colony. Women of a strange land, of a race so old and strong as the dark people seemed to be—a country where there was a secret council of priests who knew all sorts of things that the people did not—such women, married to settlers in the colony, would be a constant danger. They would learn from their husbands all that went on; they might persuade them to worship the strange gods; they[pg 199]might help to break down defences against the unknown power of the foreign priesthood. That was a plan not to be thought of for a minute.Romulus sat listening and thinking, with his chin on his strong, brown hand, and his bright dark eyes gazing straight at the altar fire. When the others had said what they thought, he spoke. That was his way. He had perhaps begun in that way because he was not sure he knew all the proper forms of speech or all the matters that ought to be considered in ruling the affairs of this people. Now that he was well acquainted with all these, he still wanted to hear what every one else had to say, before speaking himself. This was becoming in a man still so young, and it was also wise.“There is a plan, my fathers,”he said,“but I do not know whether you will think that it is the right one. Very long ago, I have heard, our people used to take their wives by capture. In those days a man never went openly to ask for his bride. He stole into the village by night with an armed guard, choosing his closest friends to go with him. Then suddenly seizing upon the maid he carried her off, and she became dead to her own family, and one of his people.“Now this I do not commend, since it is not our wish to war with the people around us. To[pg 200]raid their towns as did the men of old time, and steal their maidens, would lead to never-ending war. The custom is an old one and long given up, and I do not like to return upon a road that I have traveled, or dig up old bones.“In the villages on the heights—in the lower valleys of the mountain range that liesthere—”he waved a brown arm toward the far blue hills,“the people who dwell there are worshippers of our gods, and their ways are as the ways of this colony, O my fathers. Their women spin, they weave, they grind grain, they tend bees, they keep the household fire alive and bright, they are fair and pure. These are fit wives for our soldiers—or for any man.“In some of these villages were we known, for we were there in the old days. They are not walled villages, they are scattered among the valleys, and they have little to do with one another or with strangers. It is in my mind that if their women were married here, we and they might be one people. Then all the Seven Hills would be ours, and we and they together would be a strong nation. But well I know that they would never consent to give their daughters to strangers.“This therefore is my thought. I have seen,”the young chief’s dark face was lighted by a[pg 201]fleeting smile,“that sometimes the will of a young maid is not wholly that of the old men and women of her people. Forgive me, O ye elders, if I speak foolishly, but I think that some of these Sabine girls might not themselves be unwilling to mate with my men. Would it be so great a crime to take wives from those villages despite the will of the priests and elders, if the maidens themselves became in time content? Suppose now that I send my men as messengers, to invite these people to a festival on the day when the Salii, the Leapers, have their games and their feast. They also have fraternities like ours; there is a fraternity of the Luperci, and the Salii, and others, among the Sabines. Let their young men contend with ours in the games, and their people join with ours for the day. They are not compelled to come. If they dislike and distrust us, they will stay in their villages. But if it is as I think, many will come.“Then when all are gathered together, and weapons are laid for the games, let our young men, at a given signal, seize each his chosen maiden and bring her back within our walls to be his wife. In token that they are not to be slaves but honorable wives, whose work is to spin, let our young men shout as they go,‘Talassa! Talassa!’[pg 202]“Have I spoken well, my father?”He looked straight at Colonus.“If ye have a better plan, let no more be said of this.”But there was no better plan; in fact, there seemed to be no other plan at all. Romulus knew this very well. There was nothing in this idea that was offensive to the general opinion in those days. It was not so very long since marriage by capture was the usual way of getting wives. If the Sabine girls were brought into the colony the soldiers would be sure of having wives with the customs and the same gods of the other matrons. If they were brought in a company and lived in the same quarter of the town, they would form a little society of their own. It would not be a life entirely new and strange.It was decided that the plan should be tried. If any of the messengers did a little courting in the villages, nothing was said of it.The place chosen for the festival was a plain where there would be room for all the games and the feasting and the ceremonies. Romulus and some of the young men went out there a few days before the appointed date to level off the ground, arrange seats for the public men, and make ready. In removing a bowlder which would be in the way of racers, and smoothing the ground, Tertius Calvo found his pick striking[pg 203]on something strange. He dug down a little way and unearthed a flat stone which seemed to be the top of an altar. He called the others to look, and Romulus caught his breath with a queer gasp. He remembered something.Illustration: There was a gleam of bright metal in the hole they were digging“Jove!”said Mamurius, a few minutes later,“Here’s something else!”There was a gleam of bright metal in the hole they were digging. The altar, a small square one of a whitish stone, was lifted out, and then something struck with a muffled clang against Mamurius’ spade. They were all excitedly gazing by that time, and when the round metal thing was lifted out, and the[pg 204]earth cleaned off it with grass, and it was rubbed with a piece of leather, it almost blinded them. It was a golden shield.Where it had come from, no human creature knew. Nothing else like it was ever found in that neighborhood. It may have belonged to some Etruscan nobleman in far-off days, when a battle was fought on that plain; it may have been part of the plunder of some city; but there it was, and the decoration showed that it was made by a smith who worshiped Mars. Reverently the young men carried it back to Rome, after they had set up the altar on the field where they found it. It seemed like a sign that the gods approved what they were doing. It was hung up in the temple, and was considered the especial property of the Salii, or Leapers, the young men who danced the war dance, for it was they who had found it. But Romulus told none of them of the witch’s prophecy that he would find an altar and a shield in just this place.The day appointed for the feast was fair, and early in the morning the mountain people could be seen coming across the plain or camped near the field.The soldiers who were to take part in the festival in this unexpected and startling way were[pg 205]very far from being the same rude outlaws who had followed their young leader to the Long White Mountain. They had been living within the bounds of a civilized settlement, and the life had had its effect on them. They had seen men handle the spade and the plough as if they were weapons, and treat the earth as if it were the most interesting thing in the world to study. They had seen how interesting it was to change the face of the land, to make a wild and dreary waste into a rich farming country, to fight flood and fire and other mighty natural enemies,—and win. They had seen, though at a distance, the gracious manners and gentle ways of the matrons, the sweetness and dignity of the young girls. They had fought and worked side by side with the young men who were proud to be the sons of such fathers. Many of the outlaws had had ancestors who were strong and brave and intelligent. They had the sense to see that if they joined this new settlement they would have a place and a power. And last but not least there was a great deal of wholesome comfort in the life of this place. To men who had slept unsheltered in cold and rain, who had worn sheepskins and wolfskins, who had gone without food, often for days, and never had a really good meal unless they had unusual luck, the life of the colonists[pg 206]was a revelation. Good beds, fresh vegetables, well-cooked meats, cakes made with honey, were luxuries they appreciated. The dress of the people was simple enough; a tunic for working, and over that for warmth or holiday dignity the large square of undyed wool called a toga; a pair of sandals for the feet, a cap or helmet for the head, a leather girdle and pouch. But it was a long way better than rawhide. In short, these young fellows had discovered that they liked a civilized life. They were a very fine looking company as they marched down the hill from their barracks and went with their long, swinging stride over the plain to the place where the strange, little old altar stood.The games went on, and at the height of the gayety and excitement there was a sudden trumpet call, and all was in confusion. Each soldier seized a Sabine maiden and carried her off as if she were a child. The men who were not so burdened formed a rear guard. The older people were already on their way home. Some of them did not know what had happened. Before anything could be done by the startled and angry Sabine men, the soldiers were inside the walls of the city and the shout of“Talassa! Talassa!”revealed that this was a revival of the ancient custom of marriage by capture.[pg 207]The Sabines were angry enough to go to war, But they could do nothing that night, for a successful war would need preparations. There was a parley, and Romulus himself informed the commissioners that the weddings would take place with all due ceremony, and that in the meantime the girls were in the city, under the care of matrons of the best families, and would be given the best of care and provided with all things necessary for a bride. Let there be no mistake about this: if any attempt were made to recapture the Sabine girls the soldiers would fight. They had got their brides, and they meant to keep them. It was a sleepless night in the town by the riverside, but in the morning the Sabines were seen returning to their mountains.[pg 208]XVIIITHE PEACE OF THE WOMENIt is not to be understood that all the people on the Square Hill approved of the capture of the Sabine girls. It did not seem to them, of course, as it would to the society of to-day, because they considered that a girl ought to marry, in any case, as her elders thought best that she should. But Tullius the priest, and three or four of the other older men, were very doubtful about the wisdom of angering the Sabine men by such a proceeding. Naso and his brother objected to the capture because they had never heard of such a thing. They were men whose minds never took kindly to any sort of new idea. When they made their great move and left their old home, they seemed to have exhausted all the ability to change that they had. They held to every old custom they had ever heard of, as a limpet holds to a rock. But the thing was done, and there was nothing they could[pg 209]do now except to prophesy that it could not possibly turn out well.The women of the colony were curious to know how far the Sabine marriage customs were like their own, and whether the wedding would mean to these girls what it would to a Roman wife. Marcia asked her husband about it on the night of the festival, when the confusion had quieted somewhat. The watch-fires of the Sabines could be seen far away on the plain, and in the stronghold on the Capitoline Hill the sentinels were keeping watch against any sudden attack.“Ruffo says,”answered Mamurius,“that they have the same customs as ours, in the main. The girls are taking it very quietly. I think they stopped being frightened when they found they were to be in the care of your mother and the other matrons in the guest house. You know Romulus has ordered that no maiden shall be married against her will. If she remains here until after the Saturnalia without making any choice, she shall be sent back in all honor to her own people. There are none among the girls who are betrothed to men of their villages.”Marcia was glad to hear that. During the following days she and the other young matrons of the colony visited the captive girls and took care that they lacked nothing in clothing and[pg 210]little comforts. The matrons and the older men had stood firm in insisting that all possible respect should be shown these maidens, just as if they were daughters of the colony. If they were to defend the soldiers’ action as a necessary and wise measure and not a mere savage raid, this was necessary. Otherwise the Sabine men would have a right to feel that they could revenge themselves by carrying off Roman women as slaves, and nobody would be safe. It was much better to delay the weddings for a few days, see what the mountain people were going to do, and give the girls a chance to become a little accustomed to their new surroundings. Naso and some of the other men thought Romulus had gone rather far in promising that the girls should be sent home if they wished to go after a certain time, but he would not move an inch from that position. He had his reasons.After two or three days the scouts came in to report that the Sabines had gone back to their villages to gather their forces. It would take time to do this, and meanwhile the wedding preparations went forward.The town on the Square Hill was larger and finer than any of the mountain villages, and after the first shock and fright of their capture passed, many of the girls began to think that what had[pg 211]happened was not so bad, after all. They all knew something about Romulus and his mountain troop, and many of his soldiers had been in the villages at one time and another on some errand. Apparently these half-outlawed fighters had become great men in the new settlement. They had a quarter of their own, in which they had built houses for their brides, shaded by some of the forest trees that were left when the land was cleared, and furnished with many things not known in the mountain villages. It was also true, and Romulus had known all along that it was, that many of his men had known something of the Sabine maidens, and would have married in the villages before, if they could. Considering that the elders of the villages would never have consented to such a thing, this was the only way it could possibly be brought about. It had seemed to him better to make it a sort of state affair than to encourage among the soldiers the idea that they could individually raid the villages and carry off the wives they chose without any religious authority at all. Romulus heard a great many confidential secrets from his men, one by one, that would have surprised those who did not know them. He believed that if it could be managed so that they could settle down in the quarter which was their own, and have homes of[pg 212]their own, they would be as good citizens as any in Rome. But he did not waste time in trying, by argument, to make Tullius and Naso and the other colonists believe this.The public square was swept and made clean, and the walls of all the houses hung with garlands. The Roman matrons, old and young, had taken from their thrifty stores of home-woven linen and wool, robes and veils and mantles for the strangers, and provided the wedding feast with as much care as if each one of them had a daughter who was going to be married. In fact, according to Roman faith and law, these girls were daughters of Rome as soon as they became wives of Roman men, and had as much right in all public worship and festivals as if they had been born on the Palatine Hill. Since they could not be given away by their own fathers, it had been decided that they should be treated as daughters of the city, and the ten original fathers of the colony should be as their fathers.The procession came out into the square a little after daybreak, and here the wedding feast was set forth. The maidens were veiled and dressed in white, and attended by the young Roman girls as bridesmaids, and the soldiers were drawn up in military order. The feasting and singing and dancing went on in the usual way, and toward[pg 213]the end of the day the procession formed again and went down the slope toward the huts of the soldiers. At the door of each hut the man to whom it belonged claimed his bride; she lighted the hearth fire, and poured out the libation, and ate of the bride cake with her husband. It was a strange wedding day, but it seemed to have ended happily, after all.There was only one girl who refused to have any part in the ceremonies. When the rest of the Sabine maidens left the guest house, she remained. She was still there when a little before sunset Romulus came back to the square and entered the room where she sat.She was a tall and lovely creature, the daughter of the priest Emilius, and Ruffo the captain had carried her off, but she would have nothing to say to him. He had consoled himself with the daughter of one of his old comrades. Her great eyes blazed as she met the look of the young chief, and she held her head high, but she did not speak.“You are the daughter of a great man,”said Romulus.“You are Emilia.”It was surprising that he should know her name, but his knowing who she was made it all the greater insult that she should have been carried off by force.[pg 214]“Long ago,”he went on,“I saw you, a little maid, when I was a poor shepherd boy. Your mother was kind to me and gave me meat and wine. Your father reproved me when I in my ignorance would have offended the gods. As you were then, so you are now,—beautiful as a flower, fierce as a wolf, Herpilia, the wolf-maiden. You are the mate for me, and when I saw you at the festival, I knew it.”“You! An outcast!”the girl cried, her eyes flashing in scorn.“I am of good blood, and now I rule this city. You shall rule it with me when you will,”said the chief coolly.“I would rather be a slave and grind at the mill!”Romulus smiled. What did this girl know of a slave’s life?“You had better not,”he said.“But you need not do either. If after the Saturnalia you wish to go back to your father’s house, you shall go. But you cannot know much about us until you have seen how we live.”And he turned and went out.Emilia did not know exactly what to make of this behavior. She had made up her mind that if they tried to make her the wife of one of these strangers, she would stab herself with the knife[pg 215]she carried in her bosom, or throw herself into the river. But as the days went on and she saw no more of Romulus, or any other youth, she was still more puzzled. She never connected him with the lad in the wolfskin tunic who had rescued her from the banditti many years before. Many stray shepherd boys had been fed in their village at one time or another. The Sabines themselves had never known that the strange rescuer of the child and the leader of the mountain patrol were one and the same. In fact, they had come to believe that the little Emilia had been saved by Mars himself, in human guise. Romulus had never told of the matter, even to his own men or to his brother.The young girls who tended the sacred fire now formed a kind of society by themselves, like the fraternities of the men. Emilia was allowed to sit with them and spin and sew, and she lived in the house of Marcus Colonus, all of whose children were now married. She heard a great deal about Romulus from time to time, but he never came near her. Sometimes she saw him marching at the head of his men, or sitting with the elders of the people on some public occasion. But he never looked her way, or sent her any word beyond what he had already said.At first she hoped fiercely that her people[pg 216]would gather an army and come against the insolent invaders and destroy them, but as time went on, she began to hope that they would not. A war with this race would be long and bitter, for they were not the kind to yield. This town would never be taken but by killing all the men who could fight, and burning the houses, and enslaving the women and children,—and the women were kind to her.Illustration: Emilia was allowed to sit with them and spin and sewThe settlement was now so large that it covered several of the hills, and the high steep hill that stood up like the head of a crouching animal, the Capitoline, had been strongly fortified. On one side it descended almost straight like a precipice,[pg 217]and from the brink one could see for miles across the plain.The captain of the guard there was one of Romulus’s old comrades, Tarpeius by name. He had a daughter who often spent some hours with the other maidens, on the Palatine, spinning and gossiping, and singing old songs. She was very curious about Emilia’s people and said that her mother had been a Sabine girl. She expressed great admiration for everything about Emilia—her bright abundant hair, her beautiful eyes, her clear white skin, her graceful hands and feet, and her clothes. Especially she admired the band of gold Emilia wore on her left wrist. She was like an inquisitive and rather impertinent child.The bracelet was a gift from Emilia’s father; he had ordered it from an Etruscan trader; it had been made especially for her. Whenever she looked at it, she felt as if it were a pledge that some day she should see him again and visit her old home.One day late in the autumn there was a commotion in the town, and the sound of many marching feet. From the plain below came shouting, and the far-off sound of drums and pipes. Emilia’s heart jumped. The Sabine army was on the way![pg 218]Villagers came flying from a distance, wild with fright, and begging to be protected within the walls. Some had taken time, scared as they were, to drive in their beasts and bring the grain they had just finished threshing. Their men joined the defenders, and the women and children were sheltered among the townspeople, many of whom were relatives.The Sabines spread their army all around the Roman settlement. They took possession of a hill near by, almost as great as the Palatine.It began to seem after a time as if the siege might last indefinitely. The Roman fortifications were strong and well manned, and they had plenty of provision. Now that the marsh was drained, only a most unusual flood would drive away the enemy, and they did not seem inclined to storm the hills, even if they could. Matters might have gone on so much longer but for the thoughts in the head of a girl.Tarpeia, the daughter of the captain of the guard, watched eagerly the Sabine captains, and saw the gleam of the ornaments they wore. One night she slipped out by a way she knew and crept past the Roman guards into the Sabine camp. She had learned something of their talk from Emilia and easily made herself understood. She told Tatius the Sabine general, when they[pg 219]brought her to him, that she would open the gates of the stronghold to his men for a reward. She would do it if they would give herwhat they wore on their left arms.Tatius looked at the willowy figure and the common, rather pretty face with its greedy eyes and eager smile, and agreed, with a laugh. Tarpeia returned to the stronghold, and that night, when the darkness was thickest, she slid past the sleepy guard and unbarred the gates, and waited.Tatius had no respect for traitors, though he was willing to make use of them when they came and offered him the chance. He reasoned that a girl clever and wicked enough for this would betray him and his own men just as quickly as she betrayed her father and his people. He told his men to give her exactly what he had promised her—what they wore on their left arms, andall of it! As they rushed past her and she drew back a little toward a hollow in the hill, Tatius first and the others after him flung at her not only their bracelets, but the heavy oval shields they carried on their left arms, beating her down as if she had been struck by a shower of stones. The garrison, taken by surprise, had no chance. Brave old Tarpeius died fighting, without knowing what had become of his treacherous daughter.[pg 220]At dawn the stronghold was in Sabine hands. They had won the first move.Now indeed the two armies must join battle, with the odds against the Romans. They met in a level place between the two hills but not so low as the plain, and the fighting was fierce enough. The Sabine and Roman women watched from the walls of the Palatine, and the Sabine girls, some of them with babies in their arms, were crying as if their hearts would break. Whichever army won, they would mourn men who loved them, for their fathers and brothers were fighting against their husbands.The line of fighting surged to and fro. A stone from a sling struck Romulus on the head, and stunned him. The Romans gave back, fighting every inch of the way. Romulus came to himself and tried to rally them, but in vain. He flung up his arms to heaven and uttered a desperate prayer to Jupiter, Father of the Gods, to save Rome.Emilia could not bear it any longer. She stood up among the other Sabine women, her eyes bright and her face as white as a lily, and spoke to them quickly.“Come with me!”she called, moving swiftly toward the door of the temple of Vesta where they were gathered.“We will end this war—[pg 221]or die with our men! Come to the battle field!”The women guessed what she meant to do, and with a soft rush like a flock of birds, they went past the guards and out of the gates, down over the hillside, between the armies, which had halted an instant for breath. With tears and soft little outcries they flung themselves into the arms of their fathers and brothers in the Sabine army, and some sought out their husbands begging them to stop the fighting, and not to make them twice captives by taking them away from their homes. A more astonished battle line was probably never seen than the Sabine front. The Romans on the other side of the field were nearly as much taken aback.There is no denying that most of the men felt rather silly. There could be no more fighting without leading the women and babies back to the town, and they probably would not stay there. It dawned on the Sabines all at once that if the women who were now wives of the Romans were contented where they were, and loved their husbands, it would be cruel as well as senseless to force them back to their mountain villages. The war stopped as soon as the generals on both sides could frame words of some dignity to express their feelings. Emilia’s father, when he found that his daughter was unharmed, and had been[pg 222]treated during the past year like an honored guest, declared that there should be peace without delay. The conclusion of the whole matter was an agreement to form an alliance. The Sabines and the Romans were to share the Seven Hills and rule together. All the customs common to both should be continued, and each settlement should have freedom to govern itself in the customs peculiar to itself.Romulus came toward Emilia and her father about sunset, after the wounded had been made comfortable and the treaty agreed upon. They were in the doorway of the priest’s tent. The Roman general looked very tall and handsome and full of authority. His shining helmet and shield, short sword, and light body armor of metal plates overlapping like plumage were as full of proud and warlike strength as the wings of an eagle. He bowed before the two; then he looked at the maiden.“It is nearly a year. The time has not gone quickly.”“He told me,”explained Emilia,“that if after the Saturnalia I wished to return, he would send me home.”“And do you wish to go home, my daughter?”asked the priest.Emilia looked up at Romulus.[pg 223]“I will go home,”she said,“with my husband.”And the news ran through the camps that Romulus had taken a Sabine bride.[pg 224]XIXTHE PRIEST OF THE BRIDGEIn the customs of the people who founded the town by the river, there was no act of life which did not have some ancient rule or tradition connected with it. There was a right way and a wrong way to do everything. In all the important work of life, such as the care of the sheep and cattle, the sowing of the fields and the making of wine, certain elders among the men were chosen to take charge of the management, decide on what day the work was to commence and take care that all was done as it ought to be. In this new life in a strange place the colonists found that some kinds of work that used not to be very important became so because things were changed. This was the case with the priest who had charge of the public ways,—the gates, the roads and the walls. In their old home this was not a very important office, because the walls almost never needed anything done to them, and[pg 225]the roads were all made long ago. Tertius Calvo, who was the pontifex or roadmaker, was a quiet man and never had much to say, but in this place he had more to do than almost any other public officer in the city.Calvo was a good mason and understood something of what we should call now civil engineering. He had judgment about the best place to lay out a road and the proper stone to choose for masonry. As the town grew, and the farming lands about it were cleared, and more and more persons became interested in the town by the river, Calvo, in his quiet way, was one of the busiest of men.He got on very well with the miscellaneous laboring force that he could command, and partly by signs, partly in a mixture of the two languages, he learned to talk with the stonemason Canial quite comfortably. Gradually, as they were needed, roads were made in different directions over the plain, and always in much the same way. They were as straight as they could be without taking altogether more time and labor than could be given, and they were usually carried across streams and bogs instead of going around. Calvo enjoyed working out ways to do this. If the plain had been really boggy he might not have been able to do as much as he did,[pg 226]but it was not really a marsh. It was a more or less level area lying so little above the bed of the river that the rise of a foot or two in the waters changed its aspect until the Romans began draining it. The people were astonished to see how much more quickly they could reach the river over one of Calvo’s roads than they could over the old, winding, up-and-down paths. The road was built with a track in the middle higher than the edges, to let the water drain off, and this track was more solid than the edges and far more solid usually than the land on each side the road. There was no need for the highway to be very wide, for most of the travel was on foot. After a time people began to call the new roads the“laid”roads, because they were made by laying, or spreading, new material on the line of travel.The new road was a“street”built up ofstrata.There was never much trouble in getting men to work on these highways after they saw the convenience of them. They could not have built them for themselves, because they had not Calvo’s eye for the right place or his knowledge of every kind of stone and other road material. The roads led out from Rome like the spokes of a wheel, but Calvo did not build any roads from town to town. He said it was better not to.[pg 227]There came to be a proverb that all roads lead to Rome. Calvo’s object in roadmaking was to make it easy for outsiders to reach the city and return. He was not concerned about their visiting one another. The natural result was that Rome got all the trade of a growing country.Another consequence of Calvo’s road-making system was that it would have been very difficult for the outlying settlements to join in any attack against Rome itself, because they could not reach their neighbors half as easily as they could reach Rome. Calvo saw—what most generals have to see if they are to have any success in fighting—that wars are won by the feet as well as the weapons of an army. The quicker they march and the less strength they have to expend on getting from one place to another, the better the soldiers will fight. It came to be almost second nature for any Roman to look out that the roads were in good condition, and a general on the march took care that he did not go too far into an unknown country without leaving a good road over which to come back.In the course of their wandering about, before they found a place for their home, the colonists had not only learned the importance of good water but had found out where some of the springs and wells were. Here and there, as he[pg 228]discovered a good place for a camp, Calvo caused a rude shelter to be built, where any Roman could find a place to sleep and make a fire. On some of the roads he and Romulus took counsel together and planned the erection of a kind of barrack, so that if they sent a company of troops out that way there would be a place which they could occupy as a shelter, and if necessary hold against an enemy. They were not exactly houses, or forts; they were known asmansiones,—places where one might remain for a night or two. The practical use of these places proved so great that the plan was never given up, andmansioneswere built at the end of each day’s march, in later ages, wherever the Roman army went. But in the beginning there was only a rough shelter like the khans of Eastern countries,—walls and roofs, to which men brought their own provisions and bedding, if they had any. People had these places of refuge long before there was any such thing as a tavern or hotel known in the world.It began to be seen in course of time that the Priesthood of the Highways, or the bridges—for about half Calvo’s work here was bridge building—was one of the most necessary of all. Before he died he had four others to assist him, and was called the Pontifex Maximus, the high pontiff, and greatly revered for his wisdom. He[pg 229]had met and talked with and commanded so many different sorts of people, both intelligent and ignorant, and had solved so many different problems, for no two places where a highway is built are alike, that there were very few questions on which he did not have something worth saying. The standard he set was kept up. A road, when built, was built to last, and so was a bridge.But the greatest work of Tertius Calvo, and the one which perhaps made more difference in the history of his people than any other, was an undertaking which he put through when he and most of the other fathers of the colony were quite old men. It was the bridge across the river.At the point where the Seven Hills are situated, the river is about three hundred feet wide, but there is an island in it which makes a natural pier. Here Calvo suggested a bridge, to take the traffic from the other side of the river and bring it directly to Rome instead of letting it come across anywhere in boats. Such a bridge, moreover, would make it easier to hold the river, in case of war, against an enemy coming either up stream or down.It seemed like a stupendous enterprise, and even those who had seen most of Calvo’s work did not see how he was going to do it. The river was twenty feet deep, and that was too deep for any[pg 230]pier building in those days. It would be a timber bridge.More or less all the city took part in building that bridge. There were large trees to be cut down and their logs hauled from distant places, and shaped to fit into one another. There was stonework to be done at each end of the span, and on each side of the island. By the time this work was planned, the people were using iron more or less, and found it very convenient for many things; but Calvo set his foot down; not a bit of iron was to be used in his bridge. It was to be all wood, resting on stone foundations. Some of those who had worked with him remembered then that he never did use iron in such work. The younger men thought he must have reason to suppose that the gods were not pleased with iron.Romulus had known Calvo for a great many years, although they had never been exactly intimate. As they stood together, watching the work go on, Romulus said in a tone that no one but Calvo could hear.“There is no iron in this work?”“None,”said Calvo.“The gods do not approve it?”“Apparently not,”said Calvo.“The fires of Jove burned two bridges for me before I found it out.[pg 231]“Also I have found that iron and water are bad friends, and in a bridge, which hangs above water, the bolts would rust. Finally, a thing which is all timber, put together without the use of anything else, does not grow shaky with time, but settles together and is firmer. There are some things a man does not learn until he has watched the ways of building for fifty years, and I have done that.”If Calvo had been like some men of his day, he would have thought, when his bridges were burned, that the gods were angry with him for omitting some ceremony. But he was a man who noticed all that he saw and put two and two together; and he noticed in the course of time that lightning was much more likely to strike where iron was. He observed the path of it once when it did strike, and saw that it ripped the wood all to splinters and set it on fire trying to get at the iron, which it melted.It is of course true that iron expands and shrinks with heat and cold, and when iron bolts are used in wood, the iron and the wood do not fit as well together after a few seasons, on this account. So Calvo planned his bridges without iron, and they were all made of dovetailed wooden timbers, as many old wooden bridges were which remain to this day. Calvo’s observa[pg 232]tions about his bridges tended to make others think as he did. No iron was ever used in any of the temples or sacred buildings of Rome, even long after it was in common use for weapons, tools and other things.The way in which the bridge over the Tiber was built was much like the way in which Cæsar built bridges, hundreds of years later. It was so constructed that if necessary it could be removed at short notice. It was never struck by lightning or burned, and it remained until—long after Calvo was dead—another pontiff built a new and greater bridge, using all his knowledge and all else that had been learned in five generations.

[pg 196]XVIITHE WAR DANCEWhen the country had grown peaceful, and there was no more need, for the time, of sending out warlike expeditions, it began to be seen that the soldiers who had come in with Romulus or had joined the troops later must have something to do. Romulus talked the matter over seriously with the fathers of the colony. If these men were to settle down as citizens, taking part in the life of the city—and some of them wished to do so—they ought to have homes; they needed wives. The family life of this people was the very heart of their religion and their society. The father was high priest in his family. The public worship was only a greater family worship, in which all had a part, old and young, living and dead. The gods themselves were often present unseen to receive prayers and offerings,—so the people believed.The question of wives for these men was a serious one. Girls were growing up within the[pg 197]palisade on the Square Hill, but so were young men. There would be hardly enough brides for all the youths of their own generation, even if every girl found a husband. Aside from the fact that the parents would not like to see their daughters married to strangers of whom they knew nothing, the young folk themselves would be likely to object. Although theoretically, marriages were made by the elders without the girls having anything to say about it, human nature was much the same there as anywhere. In practice, the bride had some choice and the groom some independence. Any woman married against her will can make life so unpleasant for her husband and her husband’s relatives that common sense would lead a parent to avoid such a result. Care was taken to keep a young girl from knowing any men who would be unsuitable. A man did not ask any youth into his house to meet his daughters, on the spur of the moment. He met a great many men at the midday meal which the men ate together, whom he would not think of asking to a family supper. He knew a great many with whom he would not eat at all.Here and there a soldier found a wife among the country people, but this did not usually turn out very well. The daughters of herdsmen and hut dwellers were not trained in the arts which[pg 198]made a woman dear to a civilized husband. Colonus and his friends wished the wives of the growing settlement to be women who would add to the wealth of their homes and not spoil it,—who would love their homes and their husbands, and bring up their children wisely, and live in peace and friendliness with the other women. The question which had come up was more important now than it might be later. A great deal depended on beginning with the right families. The men now coming in would be the fathers of the future Rome, and on the way in which their sons were brought up the prosperity and godliness of the people might rest.Another possibility was in sight, and it was too nearly a probability to look very pleasant. The soldiers could get wives across the river among the Rasennae. But that would be a dangerous plan—dangerous perhaps to the men themselves and certainly to the colony. Women of a strange land, of a race so old and strong as the dark people seemed to be—a country where there was a secret council of priests who knew all sorts of things that the people did not—such women, married to settlers in the colony, would be a constant danger. They would learn from their husbands all that went on; they might persuade them to worship the strange gods; they[pg 199]might help to break down defences against the unknown power of the foreign priesthood. That was a plan not to be thought of for a minute.Romulus sat listening and thinking, with his chin on his strong, brown hand, and his bright dark eyes gazing straight at the altar fire. When the others had said what they thought, he spoke. That was his way. He had perhaps begun in that way because he was not sure he knew all the proper forms of speech or all the matters that ought to be considered in ruling the affairs of this people. Now that he was well acquainted with all these, he still wanted to hear what every one else had to say, before speaking himself. This was becoming in a man still so young, and it was also wise.“There is a plan, my fathers,”he said,“but I do not know whether you will think that it is the right one. Very long ago, I have heard, our people used to take their wives by capture. In those days a man never went openly to ask for his bride. He stole into the village by night with an armed guard, choosing his closest friends to go with him. Then suddenly seizing upon the maid he carried her off, and she became dead to her own family, and one of his people.“Now this I do not commend, since it is not our wish to war with the people around us. To[pg 200]raid their towns as did the men of old time, and steal their maidens, would lead to never-ending war. The custom is an old one and long given up, and I do not like to return upon a road that I have traveled, or dig up old bones.“In the villages on the heights—in the lower valleys of the mountain range that liesthere—”he waved a brown arm toward the far blue hills,“the people who dwell there are worshippers of our gods, and their ways are as the ways of this colony, O my fathers. Their women spin, they weave, they grind grain, they tend bees, they keep the household fire alive and bright, they are fair and pure. These are fit wives for our soldiers—or for any man.“In some of these villages were we known, for we were there in the old days. They are not walled villages, they are scattered among the valleys, and they have little to do with one another or with strangers. It is in my mind that if their women were married here, we and they might be one people. Then all the Seven Hills would be ours, and we and they together would be a strong nation. But well I know that they would never consent to give their daughters to strangers.“This therefore is my thought. I have seen,”the young chief’s dark face was lighted by a[pg 201]fleeting smile,“that sometimes the will of a young maid is not wholly that of the old men and women of her people. Forgive me, O ye elders, if I speak foolishly, but I think that some of these Sabine girls might not themselves be unwilling to mate with my men. Would it be so great a crime to take wives from those villages despite the will of the priests and elders, if the maidens themselves became in time content? Suppose now that I send my men as messengers, to invite these people to a festival on the day when the Salii, the Leapers, have their games and their feast. They also have fraternities like ours; there is a fraternity of the Luperci, and the Salii, and others, among the Sabines. Let their young men contend with ours in the games, and their people join with ours for the day. They are not compelled to come. If they dislike and distrust us, they will stay in their villages. But if it is as I think, many will come.“Then when all are gathered together, and weapons are laid for the games, let our young men, at a given signal, seize each his chosen maiden and bring her back within our walls to be his wife. In token that they are not to be slaves but honorable wives, whose work is to spin, let our young men shout as they go,‘Talassa! Talassa!’[pg 202]“Have I spoken well, my father?”He looked straight at Colonus.“If ye have a better plan, let no more be said of this.”But there was no better plan; in fact, there seemed to be no other plan at all. Romulus knew this very well. There was nothing in this idea that was offensive to the general opinion in those days. It was not so very long since marriage by capture was the usual way of getting wives. If the Sabine girls were brought into the colony the soldiers would be sure of having wives with the customs and the same gods of the other matrons. If they were brought in a company and lived in the same quarter of the town, they would form a little society of their own. It would not be a life entirely new and strange.It was decided that the plan should be tried. If any of the messengers did a little courting in the villages, nothing was said of it.The place chosen for the festival was a plain where there would be room for all the games and the feasting and the ceremonies. Romulus and some of the young men went out there a few days before the appointed date to level off the ground, arrange seats for the public men, and make ready. In removing a bowlder which would be in the way of racers, and smoothing the ground, Tertius Calvo found his pick striking[pg 203]on something strange. He dug down a little way and unearthed a flat stone which seemed to be the top of an altar. He called the others to look, and Romulus caught his breath with a queer gasp. He remembered something.Illustration: There was a gleam of bright metal in the hole they were digging“Jove!”said Mamurius, a few minutes later,“Here’s something else!”There was a gleam of bright metal in the hole they were digging. The altar, a small square one of a whitish stone, was lifted out, and then something struck with a muffled clang against Mamurius’ spade. They were all excitedly gazing by that time, and when the round metal thing was lifted out, and the[pg 204]earth cleaned off it with grass, and it was rubbed with a piece of leather, it almost blinded them. It was a golden shield.Where it had come from, no human creature knew. Nothing else like it was ever found in that neighborhood. It may have belonged to some Etruscan nobleman in far-off days, when a battle was fought on that plain; it may have been part of the plunder of some city; but there it was, and the decoration showed that it was made by a smith who worshiped Mars. Reverently the young men carried it back to Rome, after they had set up the altar on the field where they found it. It seemed like a sign that the gods approved what they were doing. It was hung up in the temple, and was considered the especial property of the Salii, or Leapers, the young men who danced the war dance, for it was they who had found it. But Romulus told none of them of the witch’s prophecy that he would find an altar and a shield in just this place.The day appointed for the feast was fair, and early in the morning the mountain people could be seen coming across the plain or camped near the field.The soldiers who were to take part in the festival in this unexpected and startling way were[pg 205]very far from being the same rude outlaws who had followed their young leader to the Long White Mountain. They had been living within the bounds of a civilized settlement, and the life had had its effect on them. They had seen men handle the spade and the plough as if they were weapons, and treat the earth as if it were the most interesting thing in the world to study. They had seen how interesting it was to change the face of the land, to make a wild and dreary waste into a rich farming country, to fight flood and fire and other mighty natural enemies,—and win. They had seen, though at a distance, the gracious manners and gentle ways of the matrons, the sweetness and dignity of the young girls. They had fought and worked side by side with the young men who were proud to be the sons of such fathers. Many of the outlaws had had ancestors who were strong and brave and intelligent. They had the sense to see that if they joined this new settlement they would have a place and a power. And last but not least there was a great deal of wholesome comfort in the life of this place. To men who had slept unsheltered in cold and rain, who had worn sheepskins and wolfskins, who had gone without food, often for days, and never had a really good meal unless they had unusual luck, the life of the colonists[pg 206]was a revelation. Good beds, fresh vegetables, well-cooked meats, cakes made with honey, were luxuries they appreciated. The dress of the people was simple enough; a tunic for working, and over that for warmth or holiday dignity the large square of undyed wool called a toga; a pair of sandals for the feet, a cap or helmet for the head, a leather girdle and pouch. But it was a long way better than rawhide. In short, these young fellows had discovered that they liked a civilized life. They were a very fine looking company as they marched down the hill from their barracks and went with their long, swinging stride over the plain to the place where the strange, little old altar stood.The games went on, and at the height of the gayety and excitement there was a sudden trumpet call, and all was in confusion. Each soldier seized a Sabine maiden and carried her off as if she were a child. The men who were not so burdened formed a rear guard. The older people were already on their way home. Some of them did not know what had happened. Before anything could be done by the startled and angry Sabine men, the soldiers were inside the walls of the city and the shout of“Talassa! Talassa!”revealed that this was a revival of the ancient custom of marriage by capture.[pg 207]The Sabines were angry enough to go to war, But they could do nothing that night, for a successful war would need preparations. There was a parley, and Romulus himself informed the commissioners that the weddings would take place with all due ceremony, and that in the meantime the girls were in the city, under the care of matrons of the best families, and would be given the best of care and provided with all things necessary for a bride. Let there be no mistake about this: if any attempt were made to recapture the Sabine girls the soldiers would fight. They had got their brides, and they meant to keep them. It was a sleepless night in the town by the riverside, but in the morning the Sabines were seen returning to their mountains.[pg 208]XVIIITHE PEACE OF THE WOMENIt is not to be understood that all the people on the Square Hill approved of the capture of the Sabine girls. It did not seem to them, of course, as it would to the society of to-day, because they considered that a girl ought to marry, in any case, as her elders thought best that she should. But Tullius the priest, and three or four of the other older men, were very doubtful about the wisdom of angering the Sabine men by such a proceeding. Naso and his brother objected to the capture because they had never heard of such a thing. They were men whose minds never took kindly to any sort of new idea. When they made their great move and left their old home, they seemed to have exhausted all the ability to change that they had. They held to every old custom they had ever heard of, as a limpet holds to a rock. But the thing was done, and there was nothing they could[pg 209]do now except to prophesy that it could not possibly turn out well.The women of the colony were curious to know how far the Sabine marriage customs were like their own, and whether the wedding would mean to these girls what it would to a Roman wife. Marcia asked her husband about it on the night of the festival, when the confusion had quieted somewhat. The watch-fires of the Sabines could be seen far away on the plain, and in the stronghold on the Capitoline Hill the sentinels were keeping watch against any sudden attack.“Ruffo says,”answered Mamurius,“that they have the same customs as ours, in the main. The girls are taking it very quietly. I think they stopped being frightened when they found they were to be in the care of your mother and the other matrons in the guest house. You know Romulus has ordered that no maiden shall be married against her will. If she remains here until after the Saturnalia without making any choice, she shall be sent back in all honor to her own people. There are none among the girls who are betrothed to men of their villages.”Marcia was glad to hear that. During the following days she and the other young matrons of the colony visited the captive girls and took care that they lacked nothing in clothing and[pg 210]little comforts. The matrons and the older men had stood firm in insisting that all possible respect should be shown these maidens, just as if they were daughters of the colony. If they were to defend the soldiers’ action as a necessary and wise measure and not a mere savage raid, this was necessary. Otherwise the Sabine men would have a right to feel that they could revenge themselves by carrying off Roman women as slaves, and nobody would be safe. It was much better to delay the weddings for a few days, see what the mountain people were going to do, and give the girls a chance to become a little accustomed to their new surroundings. Naso and some of the other men thought Romulus had gone rather far in promising that the girls should be sent home if they wished to go after a certain time, but he would not move an inch from that position. He had his reasons.After two or three days the scouts came in to report that the Sabines had gone back to their villages to gather their forces. It would take time to do this, and meanwhile the wedding preparations went forward.The town on the Square Hill was larger and finer than any of the mountain villages, and after the first shock and fright of their capture passed, many of the girls began to think that what had[pg 211]happened was not so bad, after all. They all knew something about Romulus and his mountain troop, and many of his soldiers had been in the villages at one time and another on some errand. Apparently these half-outlawed fighters had become great men in the new settlement. They had a quarter of their own, in which they had built houses for their brides, shaded by some of the forest trees that were left when the land was cleared, and furnished with many things not known in the mountain villages. It was also true, and Romulus had known all along that it was, that many of his men had known something of the Sabine maidens, and would have married in the villages before, if they could. Considering that the elders of the villages would never have consented to such a thing, this was the only way it could possibly be brought about. It had seemed to him better to make it a sort of state affair than to encourage among the soldiers the idea that they could individually raid the villages and carry off the wives they chose without any religious authority at all. Romulus heard a great many confidential secrets from his men, one by one, that would have surprised those who did not know them. He believed that if it could be managed so that they could settle down in the quarter which was their own, and have homes of[pg 212]their own, they would be as good citizens as any in Rome. But he did not waste time in trying, by argument, to make Tullius and Naso and the other colonists believe this.The public square was swept and made clean, and the walls of all the houses hung with garlands. The Roman matrons, old and young, had taken from their thrifty stores of home-woven linen and wool, robes and veils and mantles for the strangers, and provided the wedding feast with as much care as if each one of them had a daughter who was going to be married. In fact, according to Roman faith and law, these girls were daughters of Rome as soon as they became wives of Roman men, and had as much right in all public worship and festivals as if they had been born on the Palatine Hill. Since they could not be given away by their own fathers, it had been decided that they should be treated as daughters of the city, and the ten original fathers of the colony should be as their fathers.The procession came out into the square a little after daybreak, and here the wedding feast was set forth. The maidens were veiled and dressed in white, and attended by the young Roman girls as bridesmaids, and the soldiers were drawn up in military order. The feasting and singing and dancing went on in the usual way, and toward[pg 213]the end of the day the procession formed again and went down the slope toward the huts of the soldiers. At the door of each hut the man to whom it belonged claimed his bride; she lighted the hearth fire, and poured out the libation, and ate of the bride cake with her husband. It was a strange wedding day, but it seemed to have ended happily, after all.There was only one girl who refused to have any part in the ceremonies. When the rest of the Sabine maidens left the guest house, she remained. She was still there when a little before sunset Romulus came back to the square and entered the room where she sat.She was a tall and lovely creature, the daughter of the priest Emilius, and Ruffo the captain had carried her off, but she would have nothing to say to him. He had consoled himself with the daughter of one of his old comrades. Her great eyes blazed as she met the look of the young chief, and she held her head high, but she did not speak.“You are the daughter of a great man,”said Romulus.“You are Emilia.”It was surprising that he should know her name, but his knowing who she was made it all the greater insult that she should have been carried off by force.[pg 214]“Long ago,”he went on,“I saw you, a little maid, when I was a poor shepherd boy. Your mother was kind to me and gave me meat and wine. Your father reproved me when I in my ignorance would have offended the gods. As you were then, so you are now,—beautiful as a flower, fierce as a wolf, Herpilia, the wolf-maiden. You are the mate for me, and when I saw you at the festival, I knew it.”“You! An outcast!”the girl cried, her eyes flashing in scorn.“I am of good blood, and now I rule this city. You shall rule it with me when you will,”said the chief coolly.“I would rather be a slave and grind at the mill!”Romulus smiled. What did this girl know of a slave’s life?“You had better not,”he said.“But you need not do either. If after the Saturnalia you wish to go back to your father’s house, you shall go. But you cannot know much about us until you have seen how we live.”And he turned and went out.Emilia did not know exactly what to make of this behavior. She had made up her mind that if they tried to make her the wife of one of these strangers, she would stab herself with the knife[pg 215]she carried in her bosom, or throw herself into the river. But as the days went on and she saw no more of Romulus, or any other youth, she was still more puzzled. She never connected him with the lad in the wolfskin tunic who had rescued her from the banditti many years before. Many stray shepherd boys had been fed in their village at one time or another. The Sabines themselves had never known that the strange rescuer of the child and the leader of the mountain patrol were one and the same. In fact, they had come to believe that the little Emilia had been saved by Mars himself, in human guise. Romulus had never told of the matter, even to his own men or to his brother.The young girls who tended the sacred fire now formed a kind of society by themselves, like the fraternities of the men. Emilia was allowed to sit with them and spin and sew, and she lived in the house of Marcus Colonus, all of whose children were now married. She heard a great deal about Romulus from time to time, but he never came near her. Sometimes she saw him marching at the head of his men, or sitting with the elders of the people on some public occasion. But he never looked her way, or sent her any word beyond what he had already said.At first she hoped fiercely that her people[pg 216]would gather an army and come against the insolent invaders and destroy them, but as time went on, she began to hope that they would not. A war with this race would be long and bitter, for they were not the kind to yield. This town would never be taken but by killing all the men who could fight, and burning the houses, and enslaving the women and children,—and the women were kind to her.Illustration: Emilia was allowed to sit with them and spin and sewThe settlement was now so large that it covered several of the hills, and the high steep hill that stood up like the head of a crouching animal, the Capitoline, had been strongly fortified. On one side it descended almost straight like a precipice,[pg 217]and from the brink one could see for miles across the plain.The captain of the guard there was one of Romulus’s old comrades, Tarpeius by name. He had a daughter who often spent some hours with the other maidens, on the Palatine, spinning and gossiping, and singing old songs. She was very curious about Emilia’s people and said that her mother had been a Sabine girl. She expressed great admiration for everything about Emilia—her bright abundant hair, her beautiful eyes, her clear white skin, her graceful hands and feet, and her clothes. Especially she admired the band of gold Emilia wore on her left wrist. She was like an inquisitive and rather impertinent child.The bracelet was a gift from Emilia’s father; he had ordered it from an Etruscan trader; it had been made especially for her. Whenever she looked at it, she felt as if it were a pledge that some day she should see him again and visit her old home.One day late in the autumn there was a commotion in the town, and the sound of many marching feet. From the plain below came shouting, and the far-off sound of drums and pipes. Emilia’s heart jumped. The Sabine army was on the way![pg 218]Villagers came flying from a distance, wild with fright, and begging to be protected within the walls. Some had taken time, scared as they were, to drive in their beasts and bring the grain they had just finished threshing. Their men joined the defenders, and the women and children were sheltered among the townspeople, many of whom were relatives.The Sabines spread their army all around the Roman settlement. They took possession of a hill near by, almost as great as the Palatine.It began to seem after a time as if the siege might last indefinitely. The Roman fortifications were strong and well manned, and they had plenty of provision. Now that the marsh was drained, only a most unusual flood would drive away the enemy, and they did not seem inclined to storm the hills, even if they could. Matters might have gone on so much longer but for the thoughts in the head of a girl.Tarpeia, the daughter of the captain of the guard, watched eagerly the Sabine captains, and saw the gleam of the ornaments they wore. One night she slipped out by a way she knew and crept past the Roman guards into the Sabine camp. She had learned something of their talk from Emilia and easily made herself understood. She told Tatius the Sabine general, when they[pg 219]brought her to him, that she would open the gates of the stronghold to his men for a reward. She would do it if they would give herwhat they wore on their left arms.Tatius looked at the willowy figure and the common, rather pretty face with its greedy eyes and eager smile, and agreed, with a laugh. Tarpeia returned to the stronghold, and that night, when the darkness was thickest, she slid past the sleepy guard and unbarred the gates, and waited.Tatius had no respect for traitors, though he was willing to make use of them when they came and offered him the chance. He reasoned that a girl clever and wicked enough for this would betray him and his own men just as quickly as she betrayed her father and his people. He told his men to give her exactly what he had promised her—what they wore on their left arms, andall of it! As they rushed past her and she drew back a little toward a hollow in the hill, Tatius first and the others after him flung at her not only their bracelets, but the heavy oval shields they carried on their left arms, beating her down as if she had been struck by a shower of stones. The garrison, taken by surprise, had no chance. Brave old Tarpeius died fighting, without knowing what had become of his treacherous daughter.[pg 220]At dawn the stronghold was in Sabine hands. They had won the first move.Now indeed the two armies must join battle, with the odds against the Romans. They met in a level place between the two hills but not so low as the plain, and the fighting was fierce enough. The Sabine and Roman women watched from the walls of the Palatine, and the Sabine girls, some of them with babies in their arms, were crying as if their hearts would break. Whichever army won, they would mourn men who loved them, for their fathers and brothers were fighting against their husbands.The line of fighting surged to and fro. A stone from a sling struck Romulus on the head, and stunned him. The Romans gave back, fighting every inch of the way. Romulus came to himself and tried to rally them, but in vain. He flung up his arms to heaven and uttered a desperate prayer to Jupiter, Father of the Gods, to save Rome.Emilia could not bear it any longer. She stood up among the other Sabine women, her eyes bright and her face as white as a lily, and spoke to them quickly.“Come with me!”she called, moving swiftly toward the door of the temple of Vesta where they were gathered.“We will end this war—[pg 221]or die with our men! Come to the battle field!”The women guessed what she meant to do, and with a soft rush like a flock of birds, they went past the guards and out of the gates, down over the hillside, between the armies, which had halted an instant for breath. With tears and soft little outcries they flung themselves into the arms of their fathers and brothers in the Sabine army, and some sought out their husbands begging them to stop the fighting, and not to make them twice captives by taking them away from their homes. A more astonished battle line was probably never seen than the Sabine front. The Romans on the other side of the field were nearly as much taken aback.There is no denying that most of the men felt rather silly. There could be no more fighting without leading the women and babies back to the town, and they probably would not stay there. It dawned on the Sabines all at once that if the women who were now wives of the Romans were contented where they were, and loved their husbands, it would be cruel as well as senseless to force them back to their mountain villages. The war stopped as soon as the generals on both sides could frame words of some dignity to express their feelings. Emilia’s father, when he found that his daughter was unharmed, and had been[pg 222]treated during the past year like an honored guest, declared that there should be peace without delay. The conclusion of the whole matter was an agreement to form an alliance. The Sabines and the Romans were to share the Seven Hills and rule together. All the customs common to both should be continued, and each settlement should have freedom to govern itself in the customs peculiar to itself.Romulus came toward Emilia and her father about sunset, after the wounded had been made comfortable and the treaty agreed upon. They were in the doorway of the priest’s tent. The Roman general looked very tall and handsome and full of authority. His shining helmet and shield, short sword, and light body armor of metal plates overlapping like plumage were as full of proud and warlike strength as the wings of an eagle. He bowed before the two; then he looked at the maiden.“It is nearly a year. The time has not gone quickly.”“He told me,”explained Emilia,“that if after the Saturnalia I wished to return, he would send me home.”“And do you wish to go home, my daughter?”asked the priest.Emilia looked up at Romulus.[pg 223]“I will go home,”she said,“with my husband.”And the news ran through the camps that Romulus had taken a Sabine bride.[pg 224]XIXTHE PRIEST OF THE BRIDGEIn the customs of the people who founded the town by the river, there was no act of life which did not have some ancient rule or tradition connected with it. There was a right way and a wrong way to do everything. In all the important work of life, such as the care of the sheep and cattle, the sowing of the fields and the making of wine, certain elders among the men were chosen to take charge of the management, decide on what day the work was to commence and take care that all was done as it ought to be. In this new life in a strange place the colonists found that some kinds of work that used not to be very important became so because things were changed. This was the case with the priest who had charge of the public ways,—the gates, the roads and the walls. In their old home this was not a very important office, because the walls almost never needed anything done to them, and[pg 225]the roads were all made long ago. Tertius Calvo, who was the pontifex or roadmaker, was a quiet man and never had much to say, but in this place he had more to do than almost any other public officer in the city.Calvo was a good mason and understood something of what we should call now civil engineering. He had judgment about the best place to lay out a road and the proper stone to choose for masonry. As the town grew, and the farming lands about it were cleared, and more and more persons became interested in the town by the river, Calvo, in his quiet way, was one of the busiest of men.He got on very well with the miscellaneous laboring force that he could command, and partly by signs, partly in a mixture of the two languages, he learned to talk with the stonemason Canial quite comfortably. Gradually, as they were needed, roads were made in different directions over the plain, and always in much the same way. They were as straight as they could be without taking altogether more time and labor than could be given, and they were usually carried across streams and bogs instead of going around. Calvo enjoyed working out ways to do this. If the plain had been really boggy he might not have been able to do as much as he did,[pg 226]but it was not really a marsh. It was a more or less level area lying so little above the bed of the river that the rise of a foot or two in the waters changed its aspect until the Romans began draining it. The people were astonished to see how much more quickly they could reach the river over one of Calvo’s roads than they could over the old, winding, up-and-down paths. The road was built with a track in the middle higher than the edges, to let the water drain off, and this track was more solid than the edges and far more solid usually than the land on each side the road. There was no need for the highway to be very wide, for most of the travel was on foot. After a time people began to call the new roads the“laid”roads, because they were made by laying, or spreading, new material on the line of travel.The new road was a“street”built up ofstrata.There was never much trouble in getting men to work on these highways after they saw the convenience of them. They could not have built them for themselves, because they had not Calvo’s eye for the right place or his knowledge of every kind of stone and other road material. The roads led out from Rome like the spokes of a wheel, but Calvo did not build any roads from town to town. He said it was better not to.[pg 227]There came to be a proverb that all roads lead to Rome. Calvo’s object in roadmaking was to make it easy for outsiders to reach the city and return. He was not concerned about their visiting one another. The natural result was that Rome got all the trade of a growing country.Another consequence of Calvo’s road-making system was that it would have been very difficult for the outlying settlements to join in any attack against Rome itself, because they could not reach their neighbors half as easily as they could reach Rome. Calvo saw—what most generals have to see if they are to have any success in fighting—that wars are won by the feet as well as the weapons of an army. The quicker they march and the less strength they have to expend on getting from one place to another, the better the soldiers will fight. It came to be almost second nature for any Roman to look out that the roads were in good condition, and a general on the march took care that he did not go too far into an unknown country without leaving a good road over which to come back.In the course of their wandering about, before they found a place for their home, the colonists had not only learned the importance of good water but had found out where some of the springs and wells were. Here and there, as he[pg 228]discovered a good place for a camp, Calvo caused a rude shelter to be built, where any Roman could find a place to sleep and make a fire. On some of the roads he and Romulus took counsel together and planned the erection of a kind of barrack, so that if they sent a company of troops out that way there would be a place which they could occupy as a shelter, and if necessary hold against an enemy. They were not exactly houses, or forts; they were known asmansiones,—places where one might remain for a night or two. The practical use of these places proved so great that the plan was never given up, andmansioneswere built at the end of each day’s march, in later ages, wherever the Roman army went. But in the beginning there was only a rough shelter like the khans of Eastern countries,—walls and roofs, to which men brought their own provisions and bedding, if they had any. People had these places of refuge long before there was any such thing as a tavern or hotel known in the world.It began to be seen in course of time that the Priesthood of the Highways, or the bridges—for about half Calvo’s work here was bridge building—was one of the most necessary of all. Before he died he had four others to assist him, and was called the Pontifex Maximus, the high pontiff, and greatly revered for his wisdom. He[pg 229]had met and talked with and commanded so many different sorts of people, both intelligent and ignorant, and had solved so many different problems, for no two places where a highway is built are alike, that there were very few questions on which he did not have something worth saying. The standard he set was kept up. A road, when built, was built to last, and so was a bridge.But the greatest work of Tertius Calvo, and the one which perhaps made more difference in the history of his people than any other, was an undertaking which he put through when he and most of the other fathers of the colony were quite old men. It was the bridge across the river.At the point where the Seven Hills are situated, the river is about three hundred feet wide, but there is an island in it which makes a natural pier. Here Calvo suggested a bridge, to take the traffic from the other side of the river and bring it directly to Rome instead of letting it come across anywhere in boats. Such a bridge, moreover, would make it easier to hold the river, in case of war, against an enemy coming either up stream or down.It seemed like a stupendous enterprise, and even those who had seen most of Calvo’s work did not see how he was going to do it. The river was twenty feet deep, and that was too deep for any[pg 230]pier building in those days. It would be a timber bridge.More or less all the city took part in building that bridge. There were large trees to be cut down and their logs hauled from distant places, and shaped to fit into one another. There was stonework to be done at each end of the span, and on each side of the island. By the time this work was planned, the people were using iron more or less, and found it very convenient for many things; but Calvo set his foot down; not a bit of iron was to be used in his bridge. It was to be all wood, resting on stone foundations. Some of those who had worked with him remembered then that he never did use iron in such work. The younger men thought he must have reason to suppose that the gods were not pleased with iron.Romulus had known Calvo for a great many years, although they had never been exactly intimate. As they stood together, watching the work go on, Romulus said in a tone that no one but Calvo could hear.“There is no iron in this work?”“None,”said Calvo.“The gods do not approve it?”“Apparently not,”said Calvo.“The fires of Jove burned two bridges for me before I found it out.[pg 231]“Also I have found that iron and water are bad friends, and in a bridge, which hangs above water, the bolts would rust. Finally, a thing which is all timber, put together without the use of anything else, does not grow shaky with time, but settles together and is firmer. There are some things a man does not learn until he has watched the ways of building for fifty years, and I have done that.”If Calvo had been like some men of his day, he would have thought, when his bridges were burned, that the gods were angry with him for omitting some ceremony. But he was a man who noticed all that he saw and put two and two together; and he noticed in the course of time that lightning was much more likely to strike where iron was. He observed the path of it once when it did strike, and saw that it ripped the wood all to splinters and set it on fire trying to get at the iron, which it melted.It is of course true that iron expands and shrinks with heat and cold, and when iron bolts are used in wood, the iron and the wood do not fit as well together after a few seasons, on this account. So Calvo planned his bridges without iron, and they were all made of dovetailed wooden timbers, as many old wooden bridges were which remain to this day. Calvo’s observa[pg 232]tions about his bridges tended to make others think as he did. No iron was ever used in any of the temples or sacred buildings of Rome, even long after it was in common use for weapons, tools and other things.The way in which the bridge over the Tiber was built was much like the way in which Cæsar built bridges, hundreds of years later. It was so constructed that if necessary it could be removed at short notice. It was never struck by lightning or burned, and it remained until—long after Calvo was dead—another pontiff built a new and greater bridge, using all his knowledge and all else that had been learned in five generations.

[pg 196]XVIITHE WAR DANCEWhen the country had grown peaceful, and there was no more need, for the time, of sending out warlike expeditions, it began to be seen that the soldiers who had come in with Romulus or had joined the troops later must have something to do. Romulus talked the matter over seriously with the fathers of the colony. If these men were to settle down as citizens, taking part in the life of the city—and some of them wished to do so—they ought to have homes; they needed wives. The family life of this people was the very heart of their religion and their society. The father was high priest in his family. The public worship was only a greater family worship, in which all had a part, old and young, living and dead. The gods themselves were often present unseen to receive prayers and offerings,—so the people believed.The question of wives for these men was a serious one. Girls were growing up within the[pg 197]palisade on the Square Hill, but so were young men. There would be hardly enough brides for all the youths of their own generation, even if every girl found a husband. Aside from the fact that the parents would not like to see their daughters married to strangers of whom they knew nothing, the young folk themselves would be likely to object. Although theoretically, marriages were made by the elders without the girls having anything to say about it, human nature was much the same there as anywhere. In practice, the bride had some choice and the groom some independence. Any woman married against her will can make life so unpleasant for her husband and her husband’s relatives that common sense would lead a parent to avoid such a result. Care was taken to keep a young girl from knowing any men who would be unsuitable. A man did not ask any youth into his house to meet his daughters, on the spur of the moment. He met a great many men at the midday meal which the men ate together, whom he would not think of asking to a family supper. He knew a great many with whom he would not eat at all.Here and there a soldier found a wife among the country people, but this did not usually turn out very well. The daughters of herdsmen and hut dwellers were not trained in the arts which[pg 198]made a woman dear to a civilized husband. Colonus and his friends wished the wives of the growing settlement to be women who would add to the wealth of their homes and not spoil it,—who would love their homes and their husbands, and bring up their children wisely, and live in peace and friendliness with the other women. The question which had come up was more important now than it might be later. A great deal depended on beginning with the right families. The men now coming in would be the fathers of the future Rome, and on the way in which their sons were brought up the prosperity and godliness of the people might rest.Another possibility was in sight, and it was too nearly a probability to look very pleasant. The soldiers could get wives across the river among the Rasennae. But that would be a dangerous plan—dangerous perhaps to the men themselves and certainly to the colony. Women of a strange land, of a race so old and strong as the dark people seemed to be—a country where there was a secret council of priests who knew all sorts of things that the people did not—such women, married to settlers in the colony, would be a constant danger. They would learn from their husbands all that went on; they might persuade them to worship the strange gods; they[pg 199]might help to break down defences against the unknown power of the foreign priesthood. That was a plan not to be thought of for a minute.Romulus sat listening and thinking, with his chin on his strong, brown hand, and his bright dark eyes gazing straight at the altar fire. When the others had said what they thought, he spoke. That was his way. He had perhaps begun in that way because he was not sure he knew all the proper forms of speech or all the matters that ought to be considered in ruling the affairs of this people. Now that he was well acquainted with all these, he still wanted to hear what every one else had to say, before speaking himself. This was becoming in a man still so young, and it was also wise.“There is a plan, my fathers,”he said,“but I do not know whether you will think that it is the right one. Very long ago, I have heard, our people used to take their wives by capture. In those days a man never went openly to ask for his bride. He stole into the village by night with an armed guard, choosing his closest friends to go with him. Then suddenly seizing upon the maid he carried her off, and she became dead to her own family, and one of his people.“Now this I do not commend, since it is not our wish to war with the people around us. To[pg 200]raid their towns as did the men of old time, and steal their maidens, would lead to never-ending war. The custom is an old one and long given up, and I do not like to return upon a road that I have traveled, or dig up old bones.“In the villages on the heights—in the lower valleys of the mountain range that liesthere—”he waved a brown arm toward the far blue hills,“the people who dwell there are worshippers of our gods, and their ways are as the ways of this colony, O my fathers. Their women spin, they weave, they grind grain, they tend bees, they keep the household fire alive and bright, they are fair and pure. These are fit wives for our soldiers—or for any man.“In some of these villages were we known, for we were there in the old days. They are not walled villages, they are scattered among the valleys, and they have little to do with one another or with strangers. It is in my mind that if their women were married here, we and they might be one people. Then all the Seven Hills would be ours, and we and they together would be a strong nation. But well I know that they would never consent to give their daughters to strangers.“This therefore is my thought. I have seen,”the young chief’s dark face was lighted by a[pg 201]fleeting smile,“that sometimes the will of a young maid is not wholly that of the old men and women of her people. Forgive me, O ye elders, if I speak foolishly, but I think that some of these Sabine girls might not themselves be unwilling to mate with my men. Would it be so great a crime to take wives from those villages despite the will of the priests and elders, if the maidens themselves became in time content? Suppose now that I send my men as messengers, to invite these people to a festival on the day when the Salii, the Leapers, have their games and their feast. They also have fraternities like ours; there is a fraternity of the Luperci, and the Salii, and others, among the Sabines. Let their young men contend with ours in the games, and their people join with ours for the day. They are not compelled to come. If they dislike and distrust us, they will stay in their villages. But if it is as I think, many will come.“Then when all are gathered together, and weapons are laid for the games, let our young men, at a given signal, seize each his chosen maiden and bring her back within our walls to be his wife. In token that they are not to be slaves but honorable wives, whose work is to spin, let our young men shout as they go,‘Talassa! Talassa!’[pg 202]“Have I spoken well, my father?”He looked straight at Colonus.“If ye have a better plan, let no more be said of this.”But there was no better plan; in fact, there seemed to be no other plan at all. Romulus knew this very well. There was nothing in this idea that was offensive to the general opinion in those days. It was not so very long since marriage by capture was the usual way of getting wives. If the Sabine girls were brought into the colony the soldiers would be sure of having wives with the customs and the same gods of the other matrons. If they were brought in a company and lived in the same quarter of the town, they would form a little society of their own. It would not be a life entirely new and strange.It was decided that the plan should be tried. If any of the messengers did a little courting in the villages, nothing was said of it.The place chosen for the festival was a plain where there would be room for all the games and the feasting and the ceremonies. Romulus and some of the young men went out there a few days before the appointed date to level off the ground, arrange seats for the public men, and make ready. In removing a bowlder which would be in the way of racers, and smoothing the ground, Tertius Calvo found his pick striking[pg 203]on something strange. He dug down a little way and unearthed a flat stone which seemed to be the top of an altar. He called the others to look, and Romulus caught his breath with a queer gasp. He remembered something.Illustration: There was a gleam of bright metal in the hole they were digging“Jove!”said Mamurius, a few minutes later,“Here’s something else!”There was a gleam of bright metal in the hole they were digging. The altar, a small square one of a whitish stone, was lifted out, and then something struck with a muffled clang against Mamurius’ spade. They were all excitedly gazing by that time, and when the round metal thing was lifted out, and the[pg 204]earth cleaned off it with grass, and it was rubbed with a piece of leather, it almost blinded them. It was a golden shield.Where it had come from, no human creature knew. Nothing else like it was ever found in that neighborhood. It may have belonged to some Etruscan nobleman in far-off days, when a battle was fought on that plain; it may have been part of the plunder of some city; but there it was, and the decoration showed that it was made by a smith who worshiped Mars. Reverently the young men carried it back to Rome, after they had set up the altar on the field where they found it. It seemed like a sign that the gods approved what they were doing. It was hung up in the temple, and was considered the especial property of the Salii, or Leapers, the young men who danced the war dance, for it was they who had found it. But Romulus told none of them of the witch’s prophecy that he would find an altar and a shield in just this place.The day appointed for the feast was fair, and early in the morning the mountain people could be seen coming across the plain or camped near the field.The soldiers who were to take part in the festival in this unexpected and startling way were[pg 205]very far from being the same rude outlaws who had followed their young leader to the Long White Mountain. They had been living within the bounds of a civilized settlement, and the life had had its effect on them. They had seen men handle the spade and the plough as if they were weapons, and treat the earth as if it were the most interesting thing in the world to study. They had seen how interesting it was to change the face of the land, to make a wild and dreary waste into a rich farming country, to fight flood and fire and other mighty natural enemies,—and win. They had seen, though at a distance, the gracious manners and gentle ways of the matrons, the sweetness and dignity of the young girls. They had fought and worked side by side with the young men who were proud to be the sons of such fathers. Many of the outlaws had had ancestors who were strong and brave and intelligent. They had the sense to see that if they joined this new settlement they would have a place and a power. And last but not least there was a great deal of wholesome comfort in the life of this place. To men who had slept unsheltered in cold and rain, who had worn sheepskins and wolfskins, who had gone without food, often for days, and never had a really good meal unless they had unusual luck, the life of the colonists[pg 206]was a revelation. Good beds, fresh vegetables, well-cooked meats, cakes made with honey, were luxuries they appreciated. The dress of the people was simple enough; a tunic for working, and over that for warmth or holiday dignity the large square of undyed wool called a toga; a pair of sandals for the feet, a cap or helmet for the head, a leather girdle and pouch. But it was a long way better than rawhide. In short, these young fellows had discovered that they liked a civilized life. They were a very fine looking company as they marched down the hill from their barracks and went with their long, swinging stride over the plain to the place where the strange, little old altar stood.The games went on, and at the height of the gayety and excitement there was a sudden trumpet call, and all was in confusion. Each soldier seized a Sabine maiden and carried her off as if she were a child. The men who were not so burdened formed a rear guard. The older people were already on their way home. Some of them did not know what had happened. Before anything could be done by the startled and angry Sabine men, the soldiers were inside the walls of the city and the shout of“Talassa! Talassa!”revealed that this was a revival of the ancient custom of marriage by capture.[pg 207]The Sabines were angry enough to go to war, But they could do nothing that night, for a successful war would need preparations. There was a parley, and Romulus himself informed the commissioners that the weddings would take place with all due ceremony, and that in the meantime the girls were in the city, under the care of matrons of the best families, and would be given the best of care and provided with all things necessary for a bride. Let there be no mistake about this: if any attempt were made to recapture the Sabine girls the soldiers would fight. They had got their brides, and they meant to keep them. It was a sleepless night in the town by the riverside, but in the morning the Sabines were seen returning to their mountains.

When the country had grown peaceful, and there was no more need, for the time, of sending out warlike expeditions, it began to be seen that the soldiers who had come in with Romulus or had joined the troops later must have something to do. Romulus talked the matter over seriously with the fathers of the colony. If these men were to settle down as citizens, taking part in the life of the city—and some of them wished to do so—they ought to have homes; they needed wives. The family life of this people was the very heart of their religion and their society. The father was high priest in his family. The public worship was only a greater family worship, in which all had a part, old and young, living and dead. The gods themselves were often present unseen to receive prayers and offerings,—so the people believed.

The question of wives for these men was a serious one. Girls were growing up within the[pg 197]palisade on the Square Hill, but so were young men. There would be hardly enough brides for all the youths of their own generation, even if every girl found a husband. Aside from the fact that the parents would not like to see their daughters married to strangers of whom they knew nothing, the young folk themselves would be likely to object. Although theoretically, marriages were made by the elders without the girls having anything to say about it, human nature was much the same there as anywhere. In practice, the bride had some choice and the groom some independence. Any woman married against her will can make life so unpleasant for her husband and her husband’s relatives that common sense would lead a parent to avoid such a result. Care was taken to keep a young girl from knowing any men who would be unsuitable. A man did not ask any youth into his house to meet his daughters, on the spur of the moment. He met a great many men at the midday meal which the men ate together, whom he would not think of asking to a family supper. He knew a great many with whom he would not eat at all.

Here and there a soldier found a wife among the country people, but this did not usually turn out very well. The daughters of herdsmen and hut dwellers were not trained in the arts which[pg 198]made a woman dear to a civilized husband. Colonus and his friends wished the wives of the growing settlement to be women who would add to the wealth of their homes and not spoil it,—who would love their homes and their husbands, and bring up their children wisely, and live in peace and friendliness with the other women. The question which had come up was more important now than it might be later. A great deal depended on beginning with the right families. The men now coming in would be the fathers of the future Rome, and on the way in which their sons were brought up the prosperity and godliness of the people might rest.

Another possibility was in sight, and it was too nearly a probability to look very pleasant. The soldiers could get wives across the river among the Rasennae. But that would be a dangerous plan—dangerous perhaps to the men themselves and certainly to the colony. Women of a strange land, of a race so old and strong as the dark people seemed to be—a country where there was a secret council of priests who knew all sorts of things that the people did not—such women, married to settlers in the colony, would be a constant danger. They would learn from their husbands all that went on; they might persuade them to worship the strange gods; they[pg 199]might help to break down defences against the unknown power of the foreign priesthood. That was a plan not to be thought of for a minute.

Romulus sat listening and thinking, with his chin on his strong, brown hand, and his bright dark eyes gazing straight at the altar fire. When the others had said what they thought, he spoke. That was his way. He had perhaps begun in that way because he was not sure he knew all the proper forms of speech or all the matters that ought to be considered in ruling the affairs of this people. Now that he was well acquainted with all these, he still wanted to hear what every one else had to say, before speaking himself. This was becoming in a man still so young, and it was also wise.

“There is a plan, my fathers,”he said,“but I do not know whether you will think that it is the right one. Very long ago, I have heard, our people used to take their wives by capture. In those days a man never went openly to ask for his bride. He stole into the village by night with an armed guard, choosing his closest friends to go with him. Then suddenly seizing upon the maid he carried her off, and she became dead to her own family, and one of his people.

“Now this I do not commend, since it is not our wish to war with the people around us. To[pg 200]raid their towns as did the men of old time, and steal their maidens, would lead to never-ending war. The custom is an old one and long given up, and I do not like to return upon a road that I have traveled, or dig up old bones.

“In the villages on the heights—in the lower valleys of the mountain range that liesthere—”he waved a brown arm toward the far blue hills,“the people who dwell there are worshippers of our gods, and their ways are as the ways of this colony, O my fathers. Their women spin, they weave, they grind grain, they tend bees, they keep the household fire alive and bright, they are fair and pure. These are fit wives for our soldiers—or for any man.

“In some of these villages were we known, for we were there in the old days. They are not walled villages, they are scattered among the valleys, and they have little to do with one another or with strangers. It is in my mind that if their women were married here, we and they might be one people. Then all the Seven Hills would be ours, and we and they together would be a strong nation. But well I know that they would never consent to give their daughters to strangers.

“This therefore is my thought. I have seen,”the young chief’s dark face was lighted by a[pg 201]fleeting smile,“that sometimes the will of a young maid is not wholly that of the old men and women of her people. Forgive me, O ye elders, if I speak foolishly, but I think that some of these Sabine girls might not themselves be unwilling to mate with my men. Would it be so great a crime to take wives from those villages despite the will of the priests and elders, if the maidens themselves became in time content? Suppose now that I send my men as messengers, to invite these people to a festival on the day when the Salii, the Leapers, have their games and their feast. They also have fraternities like ours; there is a fraternity of the Luperci, and the Salii, and others, among the Sabines. Let their young men contend with ours in the games, and their people join with ours for the day. They are not compelled to come. If they dislike and distrust us, they will stay in their villages. But if it is as I think, many will come.

“Then when all are gathered together, and weapons are laid for the games, let our young men, at a given signal, seize each his chosen maiden and bring her back within our walls to be his wife. In token that they are not to be slaves but honorable wives, whose work is to spin, let our young men shout as they go,‘Talassa! Talassa!’

“Have I spoken well, my father?”He looked straight at Colonus.“If ye have a better plan, let no more be said of this.”

But there was no better plan; in fact, there seemed to be no other plan at all. Romulus knew this very well. There was nothing in this idea that was offensive to the general opinion in those days. It was not so very long since marriage by capture was the usual way of getting wives. If the Sabine girls were brought into the colony the soldiers would be sure of having wives with the customs and the same gods of the other matrons. If they were brought in a company and lived in the same quarter of the town, they would form a little society of their own. It would not be a life entirely new and strange.

It was decided that the plan should be tried. If any of the messengers did a little courting in the villages, nothing was said of it.

The place chosen for the festival was a plain where there would be room for all the games and the feasting and the ceremonies. Romulus and some of the young men went out there a few days before the appointed date to level off the ground, arrange seats for the public men, and make ready. In removing a bowlder which would be in the way of racers, and smoothing the ground, Tertius Calvo found his pick striking[pg 203]on something strange. He dug down a little way and unearthed a flat stone which seemed to be the top of an altar. He called the others to look, and Romulus caught his breath with a queer gasp. He remembered something.

Illustration: There was a gleam of bright metal in the hole they were digging

“Jove!”said Mamurius, a few minutes later,“Here’s something else!”There was a gleam of bright metal in the hole they were digging. The altar, a small square one of a whitish stone, was lifted out, and then something struck with a muffled clang against Mamurius’ spade. They were all excitedly gazing by that time, and when the round metal thing was lifted out, and the[pg 204]earth cleaned off it with grass, and it was rubbed with a piece of leather, it almost blinded them. It was a golden shield.

Where it had come from, no human creature knew. Nothing else like it was ever found in that neighborhood. It may have belonged to some Etruscan nobleman in far-off days, when a battle was fought on that plain; it may have been part of the plunder of some city; but there it was, and the decoration showed that it was made by a smith who worshiped Mars. Reverently the young men carried it back to Rome, after they had set up the altar on the field where they found it. It seemed like a sign that the gods approved what they were doing. It was hung up in the temple, and was considered the especial property of the Salii, or Leapers, the young men who danced the war dance, for it was they who had found it. But Romulus told none of them of the witch’s prophecy that he would find an altar and a shield in just this place.

The day appointed for the feast was fair, and early in the morning the mountain people could be seen coming across the plain or camped near the field.

The soldiers who were to take part in the festival in this unexpected and startling way were[pg 205]very far from being the same rude outlaws who had followed their young leader to the Long White Mountain. They had been living within the bounds of a civilized settlement, and the life had had its effect on them. They had seen men handle the spade and the plough as if they were weapons, and treat the earth as if it were the most interesting thing in the world to study. They had seen how interesting it was to change the face of the land, to make a wild and dreary waste into a rich farming country, to fight flood and fire and other mighty natural enemies,—and win. They had seen, though at a distance, the gracious manners and gentle ways of the matrons, the sweetness and dignity of the young girls. They had fought and worked side by side with the young men who were proud to be the sons of such fathers. Many of the outlaws had had ancestors who were strong and brave and intelligent. They had the sense to see that if they joined this new settlement they would have a place and a power. And last but not least there was a great deal of wholesome comfort in the life of this place. To men who had slept unsheltered in cold and rain, who had worn sheepskins and wolfskins, who had gone without food, often for days, and never had a really good meal unless they had unusual luck, the life of the colonists[pg 206]was a revelation. Good beds, fresh vegetables, well-cooked meats, cakes made with honey, were luxuries they appreciated. The dress of the people was simple enough; a tunic for working, and over that for warmth or holiday dignity the large square of undyed wool called a toga; a pair of sandals for the feet, a cap or helmet for the head, a leather girdle and pouch. But it was a long way better than rawhide. In short, these young fellows had discovered that they liked a civilized life. They were a very fine looking company as they marched down the hill from their barracks and went with their long, swinging stride over the plain to the place where the strange, little old altar stood.

The games went on, and at the height of the gayety and excitement there was a sudden trumpet call, and all was in confusion. Each soldier seized a Sabine maiden and carried her off as if she were a child. The men who were not so burdened formed a rear guard. The older people were already on their way home. Some of them did not know what had happened. Before anything could be done by the startled and angry Sabine men, the soldiers were inside the walls of the city and the shout of“Talassa! Talassa!”revealed that this was a revival of the ancient custom of marriage by capture.

The Sabines were angry enough to go to war, But they could do nothing that night, for a successful war would need preparations. There was a parley, and Romulus himself informed the commissioners that the weddings would take place with all due ceremony, and that in the meantime the girls were in the city, under the care of matrons of the best families, and would be given the best of care and provided with all things necessary for a bride. Let there be no mistake about this: if any attempt were made to recapture the Sabine girls the soldiers would fight. They had got their brides, and they meant to keep them. It was a sleepless night in the town by the riverside, but in the morning the Sabines were seen returning to their mountains.

[pg 208]XVIIITHE PEACE OF THE WOMENIt is not to be understood that all the people on the Square Hill approved of the capture of the Sabine girls. It did not seem to them, of course, as it would to the society of to-day, because they considered that a girl ought to marry, in any case, as her elders thought best that she should. But Tullius the priest, and three or four of the other older men, were very doubtful about the wisdom of angering the Sabine men by such a proceeding. Naso and his brother objected to the capture because they had never heard of such a thing. They were men whose minds never took kindly to any sort of new idea. When they made their great move and left their old home, they seemed to have exhausted all the ability to change that they had. They held to every old custom they had ever heard of, as a limpet holds to a rock. But the thing was done, and there was nothing they could[pg 209]do now except to prophesy that it could not possibly turn out well.The women of the colony were curious to know how far the Sabine marriage customs were like their own, and whether the wedding would mean to these girls what it would to a Roman wife. Marcia asked her husband about it on the night of the festival, when the confusion had quieted somewhat. The watch-fires of the Sabines could be seen far away on the plain, and in the stronghold on the Capitoline Hill the sentinels were keeping watch against any sudden attack.“Ruffo says,”answered Mamurius,“that they have the same customs as ours, in the main. The girls are taking it very quietly. I think they stopped being frightened when they found they were to be in the care of your mother and the other matrons in the guest house. You know Romulus has ordered that no maiden shall be married against her will. If she remains here until after the Saturnalia without making any choice, she shall be sent back in all honor to her own people. There are none among the girls who are betrothed to men of their villages.”Marcia was glad to hear that. During the following days she and the other young matrons of the colony visited the captive girls and took care that they lacked nothing in clothing and[pg 210]little comforts. The matrons and the older men had stood firm in insisting that all possible respect should be shown these maidens, just as if they were daughters of the colony. If they were to defend the soldiers’ action as a necessary and wise measure and not a mere savage raid, this was necessary. Otherwise the Sabine men would have a right to feel that they could revenge themselves by carrying off Roman women as slaves, and nobody would be safe. It was much better to delay the weddings for a few days, see what the mountain people were going to do, and give the girls a chance to become a little accustomed to their new surroundings. Naso and some of the other men thought Romulus had gone rather far in promising that the girls should be sent home if they wished to go after a certain time, but he would not move an inch from that position. He had his reasons.After two or three days the scouts came in to report that the Sabines had gone back to their villages to gather their forces. It would take time to do this, and meanwhile the wedding preparations went forward.The town on the Square Hill was larger and finer than any of the mountain villages, and after the first shock and fright of their capture passed, many of the girls began to think that what had[pg 211]happened was not so bad, after all. They all knew something about Romulus and his mountain troop, and many of his soldiers had been in the villages at one time and another on some errand. Apparently these half-outlawed fighters had become great men in the new settlement. They had a quarter of their own, in which they had built houses for their brides, shaded by some of the forest trees that were left when the land was cleared, and furnished with many things not known in the mountain villages. It was also true, and Romulus had known all along that it was, that many of his men had known something of the Sabine maidens, and would have married in the villages before, if they could. Considering that the elders of the villages would never have consented to such a thing, this was the only way it could possibly be brought about. It had seemed to him better to make it a sort of state affair than to encourage among the soldiers the idea that they could individually raid the villages and carry off the wives they chose without any religious authority at all. Romulus heard a great many confidential secrets from his men, one by one, that would have surprised those who did not know them. He believed that if it could be managed so that they could settle down in the quarter which was their own, and have homes of[pg 212]their own, they would be as good citizens as any in Rome. But he did not waste time in trying, by argument, to make Tullius and Naso and the other colonists believe this.The public square was swept and made clean, and the walls of all the houses hung with garlands. The Roman matrons, old and young, had taken from their thrifty stores of home-woven linen and wool, robes and veils and mantles for the strangers, and provided the wedding feast with as much care as if each one of them had a daughter who was going to be married. In fact, according to Roman faith and law, these girls were daughters of Rome as soon as they became wives of Roman men, and had as much right in all public worship and festivals as if they had been born on the Palatine Hill. Since they could not be given away by their own fathers, it had been decided that they should be treated as daughters of the city, and the ten original fathers of the colony should be as their fathers.The procession came out into the square a little after daybreak, and here the wedding feast was set forth. The maidens were veiled and dressed in white, and attended by the young Roman girls as bridesmaids, and the soldiers were drawn up in military order. The feasting and singing and dancing went on in the usual way, and toward[pg 213]the end of the day the procession formed again and went down the slope toward the huts of the soldiers. At the door of each hut the man to whom it belonged claimed his bride; she lighted the hearth fire, and poured out the libation, and ate of the bride cake with her husband. It was a strange wedding day, but it seemed to have ended happily, after all.There was only one girl who refused to have any part in the ceremonies. When the rest of the Sabine maidens left the guest house, she remained. She was still there when a little before sunset Romulus came back to the square and entered the room where she sat.She was a tall and lovely creature, the daughter of the priest Emilius, and Ruffo the captain had carried her off, but she would have nothing to say to him. He had consoled himself with the daughter of one of his old comrades. Her great eyes blazed as she met the look of the young chief, and she held her head high, but she did not speak.“You are the daughter of a great man,”said Romulus.“You are Emilia.”It was surprising that he should know her name, but his knowing who she was made it all the greater insult that she should have been carried off by force.[pg 214]“Long ago,”he went on,“I saw you, a little maid, when I was a poor shepherd boy. Your mother was kind to me and gave me meat and wine. Your father reproved me when I in my ignorance would have offended the gods. As you were then, so you are now,—beautiful as a flower, fierce as a wolf, Herpilia, the wolf-maiden. You are the mate for me, and when I saw you at the festival, I knew it.”“You! An outcast!”the girl cried, her eyes flashing in scorn.“I am of good blood, and now I rule this city. You shall rule it with me when you will,”said the chief coolly.“I would rather be a slave and grind at the mill!”Romulus smiled. What did this girl know of a slave’s life?“You had better not,”he said.“But you need not do either. If after the Saturnalia you wish to go back to your father’s house, you shall go. But you cannot know much about us until you have seen how we live.”And he turned and went out.Emilia did not know exactly what to make of this behavior. She had made up her mind that if they tried to make her the wife of one of these strangers, she would stab herself with the knife[pg 215]she carried in her bosom, or throw herself into the river. But as the days went on and she saw no more of Romulus, or any other youth, she was still more puzzled. She never connected him with the lad in the wolfskin tunic who had rescued her from the banditti many years before. Many stray shepherd boys had been fed in their village at one time or another. The Sabines themselves had never known that the strange rescuer of the child and the leader of the mountain patrol were one and the same. In fact, they had come to believe that the little Emilia had been saved by Mars himself, in human guise. Romulus had never told of the matter, even to his own men or to his brother.The young girls who tended the sacred fire now formed a kind of society by themselves, like the fraternities of the men. Emilia was allowed to sit with them and spin and sew, and she lived in the house of Marcus Colonus, all of whose children were now married. She heard a great deal about Romulus from time to time, but he never came near her. Sometimes she saw him marching at the head of his men, or sitting with the elders of the people on some public occasion. But he never looked her way, or sent her any word beyond what he had already said.At first she hoped fiercely that her people[pg 216]would gather an army and come against the insolent invaders and destroy them, but as time went on, she began to hope that they would not. A war with this race would be long and bitter, for they were not the kind to yield. This town would never be taken but by killing all the men who could fight, and burning the houses, and enslaving the women and children,—and the women were kind to her.Illustration: Emilia was allowed to sit with them and spin and sewThe settlement was now so large that it covered several of the hills, and the high steep hill that stood up like the head of a crouching animal, the Capitoline, had been strongly fortified. On one side it descended almost straight like a precipice,[pg 217]and from the brink one could see for miles across the plain.The captain of the guard there was one of Romulus’s old comrades, Tarpeius by name. He had a daughter who often spent some hours with the other maidens, on the Palatine, spinning and gossiping, and singing old songs. She was very curious about Emilia’s people and said that her mother had been a Sabine girl. She expressed great admiration for everything about Emilia—her bright abundant hair, her beautiful eyes, her clear white skin, her graceful hands and feet, and her clothes. Especially she admired the band of gold Emilia wore on her left wrist. She was like an inquisitive and rather impertinent child.The bracelet was a gift from Emilia’s father; he had ordered it from an Etruscan trader; it had been made especially for her. Whenever she looked at it, she felt as if it were a pledge that some day she should see him again and visit her old home.One day late in the autumn there was a commotion in the town, and the sound of many marching feet. From the plain below came shouting, and the far-off sound of drums and pipes. Emilia’s heart jumped. The Sabine army was on the way![pg 218]Villagers came flying from a distance, wild with fright, and begging to be protected within the walls. Some had taken time, scared as they were, to drive in their beasts and bring the grain they had just finished threshing. Their men joined the defenders, and the women and children were sheltered among the townspeople, many of whom were relatives.The Sabines spread their army all around the Roman settlement. They took possession of a hill near by, almost as great as the Palatine.It began to seem after a time as if the siege might last indefinitely. The Roman fortifications were strong and well manned, and they had plenty of provision. Now that the marsh was drained, only a most unusual flood would drive away the enemy, and they did not seem inclined to storm the hills, even if they could. Matters might have gone on so much longer but for the thoughts in the head of a girl.Tarpeia, the daughter of the captain of the guard, watched eagerly the Sabine captains, and saw the gleam of the ornaments they wore. One night she slipped out by a way she knew and crept past the Roman guards into the Sabine camp. She had learned something of their talk from Emilia and easily made herself understood. She told Tatius the Sabine general, when they[pg 219]brought her to him, that she would open the gates of the stronghold to his men for a reward. She would do it if they would give herwhat they wore on their left arms.Tatius looked at the willowy figure and the common, rather pretty face with its greedy eyes and eager smile, and agreed, with a laugh. Tarpeia returned to the stronghold, and that night, when the darkness was thickest, she slid past the sleepy guard and unbarred the gates, and waited.Tatius had no respect for traitors, though he was willing to make use of them when they came and offered him the chance. He reasoned that a girl clever and wicked enough for this would betray him and his own men just as quickly as she betrayed her father and his people. He told his men to give her exactly what he had promised her—what they wore on their left arms, andall of it! As they rushed past her and she drew back a little toward a hollow in the hill, Tatius first and the others after him flung at her not only their bracelets, but the heavy oval shields they carried on their left arms, beating her down as if she had been struck by a shower of stones. The garrison, taken by surprise, had no chance. Brave old Tarpeius died fighting, without knowing what had become of his treacherous daughter.[pg 220]At dawn the stronghold was in Sabine hands. They had won the first move.Now indeed the two armies must join battle, with the odds against the Romans. They met in a level place between the two hills but not so low as the plain, and the fighting was fierce enough. The Sabine and Roman women watched from the walls of the Palatine, and the Sabine girls, some of them with babies in their arms, were crying as if their hearts would break. Whichever army won, they would mourn men who loved them, for their fathers and brothers were fighting against their husbands.The line of fighting surged to and fro. A stone from a sling struck Romulus on the head, and stunned him. The Romans gave back, fighting every inch of the way. Romulus came to himself and tried to rally them, but in vain. He flung up his arms to heaven and uttered a desperate prayer to Jupiter, Father of the Gods, to save Rome.Emilia could not bear it any longer. She stood up among the other Sabine women, her eyes bright and her face as white as a lily, and spoke to them quickly.“Come with me!”she called, moving swiftly toward the door of the temple of Vesta where they were gathered.“We will end this war—[pg 221]or die with our men! Come to the battle field!”The women guessed what she meant to do, and with a soft rush like a flock of birds, they went past the guards and out of the gates, down over the hillside, between the armies, which had halted an instant for breath. With tears and soft little outcries they flung themselves into the arms of their fathers and brothers in the Sabine army, and some sought out their husbands begging them to stop the fighting, and not to make them twice captives by taking them away from their homes. A more astonished battle line was probably never seen than the Sabine front. The Romans on the other side of the field were nearly as much taken aback.There is no denying that most of the men felt rather silly. There could be no more fighting without leading the women and babies back to the town, and they probably would not stay there. It dawned on the Sabines all at once that if the women who were now wives of the Romans were contented where they were, and loved their husbands, it would be cruel as well as senseless to force them back to their mountain villages. The war stopped as soon as the generals on both sides could frame words of some dignity to express their feelings. Emilia’s father, when he found that his daughter was unharmed, and had been[pg 222]treated during the past year like an honored guest, declared that there should be peace without delay. The conclusion of the whole matter was an agreement to form an alliance. The Sabines and the Romans were to share the Seven Hills and rule together. All the customs common to both should be continued, and each settlement should have freedom to govern itself in the customs peculiar to itself.Romulus came toward Emilia and her father about sunset, after the wounded had been made comfortable and the treaty agreed upon. They were in the doorway of the priest’s tent. The Roman general looked very tall and handsome and full of authority. His shining helmet and shield, short sword, and light body armor of metal plates overlapping like plumage were as full of proud and warlike strength as the wings of an eagle. He bowed before the two; then he looked at the maiden.“It is nearly a year. The time has not gone quickly.”“He told me,”explained Emilia,“that if after the Saturnalia I wished to return, he would send me home.”“And do you wish to go home, my daughter?”asked the priest.Emilia looked up at Romulus.[pg 223]“I will go home,”she said,“with my husband.”And the news ran through the camps that Romulus had taken a Sabine bride.

It is not to be understood that all the people on the Square Hill approved of the capture of the Sabine girls. It did not seem to them, of course, as it would to the society of to-day, because they considered that a girl ought to marry, in any case, as her elders thought best that she should. But Tullius the priest, and three or four of the other older men, were very doubtful about the wisdom of angering the Sabine men by such a proceeding. Naso and his brother objected to the capture because they had never heard of such a thing. They were men whose minds never took kindly to any sort of new idea. When they made their great move and left their old home, they seemed to have exhausted all the ability to change that they had. They held to every old custom they had ever heard of, as a limpet holds to a rock. But the thing was done, and there was nothing they could[pg 209]do now except to prophesy that it could not possibly turn out well.

The women of the colony were curious to know how far the Sabine marriage customs were like their own, and whether the wedding would mean to these girls what it would to a Roman wife. Marcia asked her husband about it on the night of the festival, when the confusion had quieted somewhat. The watch-fires of the Sabines could be seen far away on the plain, and in the stronghold on the Capitoline Hill the sentinels were keeping watch against any sudden attack.

“Ruffo says,”answered Mamurius,“that they have the same customs as ours, in the main. The girls are taking it very quietly. I think they stopped being frightened when they found they were to be in the care of your mother and the other matrons in the guest house. You know Romulus has ordered that no maiden shall be married against her will. If she remains here until after the Saturnalia without making any choice, she shall be sent back in all honor to her own people. There are none among the girls who are betrothed to men of their villages.”

Marcia was glad to hear that. During the following days she and the other young matrons of the colony visited the captive girls and took care that they lacked nothing in clothing and[pg 210]little comforts. The matrons and the older men had stood firm in insisting that all possible respect should be shown these maidens, just as if they were daughters of the colony. If they were to defend the soldiers’ action as a necessary and wise measure and not a mere savage raid, this was necessary. Otherwise the Sabine men would have a right to feel that they could revenge themselves by carrying off Roman women as slaves, and nobody would be safe. It was much better to delay the weddings for a few days, see what the mountain people were going to do, and give the girls a chance to become a little accustomed to their new surroundings. Naso and some of the other men thought Romulus had gone rather far in promising that the girls should be sent home if they wished to go after a certain time, but he would not move an inch from that position. He had his reasons.

After two or three days the scouts came in to report that the Sabines had gone back to their villages to gather their forces. It would take time to do this, and meanwhile the wedding preparations went forward.

The town on the Square Hill was larger and finer than any of the mountain villages, and after the first shock and fright of their capture passed, many of the girls began to think that what had[pg 211]happened was not so bad, after all. They all knew something about Romulus and his mountain troop, and many of his soldiers had been in the villages at one time and another on some errand. Apparently these half-outlawed fighters had become great men in the new settlement. They had a quarter of their own, in which they had built houses for their brides, shaded by some of the forest trees that were left when the land was cleared, and furnished with many things not known in the mountain villages. It was also true, and Romulus had known all along that it was, that many of his men had known something of the Sabine maidens, and would have married in the villages before, if they could. Considering that the elders of the villages would never have consented to such a thing, this was the only way it could possibly be brought about. It had seemed to him better to make it a sort of state affair than to encourage among the soldiers the idea that they could individually raid the villages and carry off the wives they chose without any religious authority at all. Romulus heard a great many confidential secrets from his men, one by one, that would have surprised those who did not know them. He believed that if it could be managed so that they could settle down in the quarter which was their own, and have homes of[pg 212]their own, they would be as good citizens as any in Rome. But he did not waste time in trying, by argument, to make Tullius and Naso and the other colonists believe this.

The public square was swept and made clean, and the walls of all the houses hung with garlands. The Roman matrons, old and young, had taken from their thrifty stores of home-woven linen and wool, robes and veils and mantles for the strangers, and provided the wedding feast with as much care as if each one of them had a daughter who was going to be married. In fact, according to Roman faith and law, these girls were daughters of Rome as soon as they became wives of Roman men, and had as much right in all public worship and festivals as if they had been born on the Palatine Hill. Since they could not be given away by their own fathers, it had been decided that they should be treated as daughters of the city, and the ten original fathers of the colony should be as their fathers.

The procession came out into the square a little after daybreak, and here the wedding feast was set forth. The maidens were veiled and dressed in white, and attended by the young Roman girls as bridesmaids, and the soldiers were drawn up in military order. The feasting and singing and dancing went on in the usual way, and toward[pg 213]the end of the day the procession formed again and went down the slope toward the huts of the soldiers. At the door of each hut the man to whom it belonged claimed his bride; she lighted the hearth fire, and poured out the libation, and ate of the bride cake with her husband. It was a strange wedding day, but it seemed to have ended happily, after all.

There was only one girl who refused to have any part in the ceremonies. When the rest of the Sabine maidens left the guest house, she remained. She was still there when a little before sunset Romulus came back to the square and entered the room where she sat.

She was a tall and lovely creature, the daughter of the priest Emilius, and Ruffo the captain had carried her off, but she would have nothing to say to him. He had consoled himself with the daughter of one of his old comrades. Her great eyes blazed as she met the look of the young chief, and she held her head high, but she did not speak.

“You are the daughter of a great man,”said Romulus.“You are Emilia.”

It was surprising that he should know her name, but his knowing who she was made it all the greater insult that she should have been carried off by force.

“Long ago,”he went on,“I saw you, a little maid, when I was a poor shepherd boy. Your mother was kind to me and gave me meat and wine. Your father reproved me when I in my ignorance would have offended the gods. As you were then, so you are now,—beautiful as a flower, fierce as a wolf, Herpilia, the wolf-maiden. You are the mate for me, and when I saw you at the festival, I knew it.”

“You! An outcast!”the girl cried, her eyes flashing in scorn.

“I am of good blood, and now I rule this city. You shall rule it with me when you will,”said the chief coolly.

“I would rather be a slave and grind at the mill!”

Romulus smiled. What did this girl know of a slave’s life?

“You had better not,”he said.“But you need not do either. If after the Saturnalia you wish to go back to your father’s house, you shall go. But you cannot know much about us until you have seen how we live.”And he turned and went out.

Emilia did not know exactly what to make of this behavior. She had made up her mind that if they tried to make her the wife of one of these strangers, she would stab herself with the knife[pg 215]she carried in her bosom, or throw herself into the river. But as the days went on and she saw no more of Romulus, or any other youth, she was still more puzzled. She never connected him with the lad in the wolfskin tunic who had rescued her from the banditti many years before. Many stray shepherd boys had been fed in their village at one time or another. The Sabines themselves had never known that the strange rescuer of the child and the leader of the mountain patrol were one and the same. In fact, they had come to believe that the little Emilia had been saved by Mars himself, in human guise. Romulus had never told of the matter, even to his own men or to his brother.

The young girls who tended the sacred fire now formed a kind of society by themselves, like the fraternities of the men. Emilia was allowed to sit with them and spin and sew, and she lived in the house of Marcus Colonus, all of whose children were now married. She heard a great deal about Romulus from time to time, but he never came near her. Sometimes she saw him marching at the head of his men, or sitting with the elders of the people on some public occasion. But he never looked her way, or sent her any word beyond what he had already said.

At first she hoped fiercely that her people[pg 216]would gather an army and come against the insolent invaders and destroy them, but as time went on, she began to hope that they would not. A war with this race would be long and bitter, for they were not the kind to yield. This town would never be taken but by killing all the men who could fight, and burning the houses, and enslaving the women and children,—and the women were kind to her.

Illustration: Emilia was allowed to sit with them and spin and sew

The settlement was now so large that it covered several of the hills, and the high steep hill that stood up like the head of a crouching animal, the Capitoline, had been strongly fortified. On one side it descended almost straight like a precipice,[pg 217]and from the brink one could see for miles across the plain.

The captain of the guard there was one of Romulus’s old comrades, Tarpeius by name. He had a daughter who often spent some hours with the other maidens, on the Palatine, spinning and gossiping, and singing old songs. She was very curious about Emilia’s people and said that her mother had been a Sabine girl. She expressed great admiration for everything about Emilia—her bright abundant hair, her beautiful eyes, her clear white skin, her graceful hands and feet, and her clothes. Especially she admired the band of gold Emilia wore on her left wrist. She was like an inquisitive and rather impertinent child.

The bracelet was a gift from Emilia’s father; he had ordered it from an Etruscan trader; it had been made especially for her. Whenever she looked at it, she felt as if it were a pledge that some day she should see him again and visit her old home.

One day late in the autumn there was a commotion in the town, and the sound of many marching feet. From the plain below came shouting, and the far-off sound of drums and pipes. Emilia’s heart jumped. The Sabine army was on the way!

Villagers came flying from a distance, wild with fright, and begging to be protected within the walls. Some had taken time, scared as they were, to drive in their beasts and bring the grain they had just finished threshing. Their men joined the defenders, and the women and children were sheltered among the townspeople, many of whom were relatives.

The Sabines spread their army all around the Roman settlement. They took possession of a hill near by, almost as great as the Palatine.

It began to seem after a time as if the siege might last indefinitely. The Roman fortifications were strong and well manned, and they had plenty of provision. Now that the marsh was drained, only a most unusual flood would drive away the enemy, and they did not seem inclined to storm the hills, even if they could. Matters might have gone on so much longer but for the thoughts in the head of a girl.

Tarpeia, the daughter of the captain of the guard, watched eagerly the Sabine captains, and saw the gleam of the ornaments they wore. One night she slipped out by a way she knew and crept past the Roman guards into the Sabine camp. She had learned something of their talk from Emilia and easily made herself understood. She told Tatius the Sabine general, when they[pg 219]brought her to him, that she would open the gates of the stronghold to his men for a reward. She would do it if they would give herwhat they wore on their left arms.

Tatius looked at the willowy figure and the common, rather pretty face with its greedy eyes and eager smile, and agreed, with a laugh. Tarpeia returned to the stronghold, and that night, when the darkness was thickest, she slid past the sleepy guard and unbarred the gates, and waited.

Tatius had no respect for traitors, though he was willing to make use of them when they came and offered him the chance. He reasoned that a girl clever and wicked enough for this would betray him and his own men just as quickly as she betrayed her father and his people. He told his men to give her exactly what he had promised her—what they wore on their left arms, andall of it! As they rushed past her and she drew back a little toward a hollow in the hill, Tatius first and the others after him flung at her not only their bracelets, but the heavy oval shields they carried on their left arms, beating her down as if she had been struck by a shower of stones. The garrison, taken by surprise, had no chance. Brave old Tarpeius died fighting, without knowing what had become of his treacherous daughter.[pg 220]At dawn the stronghold was in Sabine hands. They had won the first move.

Now indeed the two armies must join battle, with the odds against the Romans. They met in a level place between the two hills but not so low as the plain, and the fighting was fierce enough. The Sabine and Roman women watched from the walls of the Palatine, and the Sabine girls, some of them with babies in their arms, were crying as if their hearts would break. Whichever army won, they would mourn men who loved them, for their fathers and brothers were fighting against their husbands.

The line of fighting surged to and fro. A stone from a sling struck Romulus on the head, and stunned him. The Romans gave back, fighting every inch of the way. Romulus came to himself and tried to rally them, but in vain. He flung up his arms to heaven and uttered a desperate prayer to Jupiter, Father of the Gods, to save Rome.

Emilia could not bear it any longer. She stood up among the other Sabine women, her eyes bright and her face as white as a lily, and spoke to them quickly.

“Come with me!”she called, moving swiftly toward the door of the temple of Vesta where they were gathered.“We will end this war—[pg 221]or die with our men! Come to the battle field!”

The women guessed what she meant to do, and with a soft rush like a flock of birds, they went past the guards and out of the gates, down over the hillside, between the armies, which had halted an instant for breath. With tears and soft little outcries they flung themselves into the arms of their fathers and brothers in the Sabine army, and some sought out their husbands begging them to stop the fighting, and not to make them twice captives by taking them away from their homes. A more astonished battle line was probably never seen than the Sabine front. The Romans on the other side of the field were nearly as much taken aback.

There is no denying that most of the men felt rather silly. There could be no more fighting without leading the women and babies back to the town, and they probably would not stay there. It dawned on the Sabines all at once that if the women who were now wives of the Romans were contented where they were, and loved their husbands, it would be cruel as well as senseless to force them back to their mountain villages. The war stopped as soon as the generals on both sides could frame words of some dignity to express their feelings. Emilia’s father, when he found that his daughter was unharmed, and had been[pg 222]treated during the past year like an honored guest, declared that there should be peace without delay. The conclusion of the whole matter was an agreement to form an alliance. The Sabines and the Romans were to share the Seven Hills and rule together. All the customs common to both should be continued, and each settlement should have freedom to govern itself in the customs peculiar to itself.

Romulus came toward Emilia and her father about sunset, after the wounded had been made comfortable and the treaty agreed upon. They were in the doorway of the priest’s tent. The Roman general looked very tall and handsome and full of authority. His shining helmet and shield, short sword, and light body armor of metal plates overlapping like plumage were as full of proud and warlike strength as the wings of an eagle. He bowed before the two; then he looked at the maiden.

“It is nearly a year. The time has not gone quickly.”

“He told me,”explained Emilia,“that if after the Saturnalia I wished to return, he would send me home.”

“And do you wish to go home, my daughter?”asked the priest.

Emilia looked up at Romulus.

“I will go home,”she said,“with my husband.”

And the news ran through the camps that Romulus had taken a Sabine bride.

[pg 224]XIXTHE PRIEST OF THE BRIDGEIn the customs of the people who founded the town by the river, there was no act of life which did not have some ancient rule or tradition connected with it. There was a right way and a wrong way to do everything. In all the important work of life, such as the care of the sheep and cattle, the sowing of the fields and the making of wine, certain elders among the men were chosen to take charge of the management, decide on what day the work was to commence and take care that all was done as it ought to be. In this new life in a strange place the colonists found that some kinds of work that used not to be very important became so because things were changed. This was the case with the priest who had charge of the public ways,—the gates, the roads and the walls. In their old home this was not a very important office, because the walls almost never needed anything done to them, and[pg 225]the roads were all made long ago. Tertius Calvo, who was the pontifex or roadmaker, was a quiet man and never had much to say, but in this place he had more to do than almost any other public officer in the city.Calvo was a good mason and understood something of what we should call now civil engineering. He had judgment about the best place to lay out a road and the proper stone to choose for masonry. As the town grew, and the farming lands about it were cleared, and more and more persons became interested in the town by the river, Calvo, in his quiet way, was one of the busiest of men.He got on very well with the miscellaneous laboring force that he could command, and partly by signs, partly in a mixture of the two languages, he learned to talk with the stonemason Canial quite comfortably. Gradually, as they were needed, roads were made in different directions over the plain, and always in much the same way. They were as straight as they could be without taking altogether more time and labor than could be given, and they were usually carried across streams and bogs instead of going around. Calvo enjoyed working out ways to do this. If the plain had been really boggy he might not have been able to do as much as he did,[pg 226]but it was not really a marsh. It was a more or less level area lying so little above the bed of the river that the rise of a foot or two in the waters changed its aspect until the Romans began draining it. The people were astonished to see how much more quickly they could reach the river over one of Calvo’s roads than they could over the old, winding, up-and-down paths. The road was built with a track in the middle higher than the edges, to let the water drain off, and this track was more solid than the edges and far more solid usually than the land on each side the road. There was no need for the highway to be very wide, for most of the travel was on foot. After a time people began to call the new roads the“laid”roads, because they were made by laying, or spreading, new material on the line of travel.The new road was a“street”built up ofstrata.There was never much trouble in getting men to work on these highways after they saw the convenience of them. They could not have built them for themselves, because they had not Calvo’s eye for the right place or his knowledge of every kind of stone and other road material. The roads led out from Rome like the spokes of a wheel, but Calvo did not build any roads from town to town. He said it was better not to.[pg 227]There came to be a proverb that all roads lead to Rome. Calvo’s object in roadmaking was to make it easy for outsiders to reach the city and return. He was not concerned about their visiting one another. The natural result was that Rome got all the trade of a growing country.Another consequence of Calvo’s road-making system was that it would have been very difficult for the outlying settlements to join in any attack against Rome itself, because they could not reach their neighbors half as easily as they could reach Rome. Calvo saw—what most generals have to see if they are to have any success in fighting—that wars are won by the feet as well as the weapons of an army. The quicker they march and the less strength they have to expend on getting from one place to another, the better the soldiers will fight. It came to be almost second nature for any Roman to look out that the roads were in good condition, and a general on the march took care that he did not go too far into an unknown country without leaving a good road over which to come back.In the course of their wandering about, before they found a place for their home, the colonists had not only learned the importance of good water but had found out where some of the springs and wells were. Here and there, as he[pg 228]discovered a good place for a camp, Calvo caused a rude shelter to be built, where any Roman could find a place to sleep and make a fire. On some of the roads he and Romulus took counsel together and planned the erection of a kind of barrack, so that if they sent a company of troops out that way there would be a place which they could occupy as a shelter, and if necessary hold against an enemy. They were not exactly houses, or forts; they were known asmansiones,—places where one might remain for a night or two. The practical use of these places proved so great that the plan was never given up, andmansioneswere built at the end of each day’s march, in later ages, wherever the Roman army went. But in the beginning there was only a rough shelter like the khans of Eastern countries,—walls and roofs, to which men brought their own provisions and bedding, if they had any. People had these places of refuge long before there was any such thing as a tavern or hotel known in the world.It began to be seen in course of time that the Priesthood of the Highways, or the bridges—for about half Calvo’s work here was bridge building—was one of the most necessary of all. Before he died he had four others to assist him, and was called the Pontifex Maximus, the high pontiff, and greatly revered for his wisdom. He[pg 229]had met and talked with and commanded so many different sorts of people, both intelligent and ignorant, and had solved so many different problems, for no two places where a highway is built are alike, that there were very few questions on which he did not have something worth saying. The standard he set was kept up. A road, when built, was built to last, and so was a bridge.But the greatest work of Tertius Calvo, and the one which perhaps made more difference in the history of his people than any other, was an undertaking which he put through when he and most of the other fathers of the colony were quite old men. It was the bridge across the river.At the point where the Seven Hills are situated, the river is about three hundred feet wide, but there is an island in it which makes a natural pier. Here Calvo suggested a bridge, to take the traffic from the other side of the river and bring it directly to Rome instead of letting it come across anywhere in boats. Such a bridge, moreover, would make it easier to hold the river, in case of war, against an enemy coming either up stream or down.It seemed like a stupendous enterprise, and even those who had seen most of Calvo’s work did not see how he was going to do it. The river was twenty feet deep, and that was too deep for any[pg 230]pier building in those days. It would be a timber bridge.More or less all the city took part in building that bridge. There were large trees to be cut down and their logs hauled from distant places, and shaped to fit into one another. There was stonework to be done at each end of the span, and on each side of the island. By the time this work was planned, the people were using iron more or less, and found it very convenient for many things; but Calvo set his foot down; not a bit of iron was to be used in his bridge. It was to be all wood, resting on stone foundations. Some of those who had worked with him remembered then that he never did use iron in such work. The younger men thought he must have reason to suppose that the gods were not pleased with iron.Romulus had known Calvo for a great many years, although they had never been exactly intimate. As they stood together, watching the work go on, Romulus said in a tone that no one but Calvo could hear.“There is no iron in this work?”“None,”said Calvo.“The gods do not approve it?”“Apparently not,”said Calvo.“The fires of Jove burned two bridges for me before I found it out.[pg 231]“Also I have found that iron and water are bad friends, and in a bridge, which hangs above water, the bolts would rust. Finally, a thing which is all timber, put together without the use of anything else, does not grow shaky with time, but settles together and is firmer. There are some things a man does not learn until he has watched the ways of building for fifty years, and I have done that.”If Calvo had been like some men of his day, he would have thought, when his bridges were burned, that the gods were angry with him for omitting some ceremony. But he was a man who noticed all that he saw and put two and two together; and he noticed in the course of time that lightning was much more likely to strike where iron was. He observed the path of it once when it did strike, and saw that it ripped the wood all to splinters and set it on fire trying to get at the iron, which it melted.It is of course true that iron expands and shrinks with heat and cold, and when iron bolts are used in wood, the iron and the wood do not fit as well together after a few seasons, on this account. So Calvo planned his bridges without iron, and they were all made of dovetailed wooden timbers, as many old wooden bridges were which remain to this day. Calvo’s observa[pg 232]tions about his bridges tended to make others think as he did. No iron was ever used in any of the temples or sacred buildings of Rome, even long after it was in common use for weapons, tools and other things.The way in which the bridge over the Tiber was built was much like the way in which Cæsar built bridges, hundreds of years later. It was so constructed that if necessary it could be removed at short notice. It was never struck by lightning or burned, and it remained until—long after Calvo was dead—another pontiff built a new and greater bridge, using all his knowledge and all else that had been learned in five generations.

In the customs of the people who founded the town by the river, there was no act of life which did not have some ancient rule or tradition connected with it. There was a right way and a wrong way to do everything. In all the important work of life, such as the care of the sheep and cattle, the sowing of the fields and the making of wine, certain elders among the men were chosen to take charge of the management, decide on what day the work was to commence and take care that all was done as it ought to be. In this new life in a strange place the colonists found that some kinds of work that used not to be very important became so because things were changed. This was the case with the priest who had charge of the public ways,—the gates, the roads and the walls. In their old home this was not a very important office, because the walls almost never needed anything done to them, and[pg 225]the roads were all made long ago. Tertius Calvo, who was the pontifex or roadmaker, was a quiet man and never had much to say, but in this place he had more to do than almost any other public officer in the city.

Calvo was a good mason and understood something of what we should call now civil engineering. He had judgment about the best place to lay out a road and the proper stone to choose for masonry. As the town grew, and the farming lands about it were cleared, and more and more persons became interested in the town by the river, Calvo, in his quiet way, was one of the busiest of men.

He got on very well with the miscellaneous laboring force that he could command, and partly by signs, partly in a mixture of the two languages, he learned to talk with the stonemason Canial quite comfortably. Gradually, as they were needed, roads were made in different directions over the plain, and always in much the same way. They were as straight as they could be without taking altogether more time and labor than could be given, and they were usually carried across streams and bogs instead of going around. Calvo enjoyed working out ways to do this. If the plain had been really boggy he might not have been able to do as much as he did,[pg 226]but it was not really a marsh. It was a more or less level area lying so little above the bed of the river that the rise of a foot or two in the waters changed its aspect until the Romans began draining it. The people were astonished to see how much more quickly they could reach the river over one of Calvo’s roads than they could over the old, winding, up-and-down paths. The road was built with a track in the middle higher than the edges, to let the water drain off, and this track was more solid than the edges and far more solid usually than the land on each side the road. There was no need for the highway to be very wide, for most of the travel was on foot. After a time people began to call the new roads the“laid”roads, because they were made by laying, or spreading, new material on the line of travel.

The new road was a“street”built up ofstrata.

There was never much trouble in getting men to work on these highways after they saw the convenience of them. They could not have built them for themselves, because they had not Calvo’s eye for the right place or his knowledge of every kind of stone and other road material. The roads led out from Rome like the spokes of a wheel, but Calvo did not build any roads from town to town. He said it was better not to.

There came to be a proverb that all roads lead to Rome. Calvo’s object in roadmaking was to make it easy for outsiders to reach the city and return. He was not concerned about their visiting one another. The natural result was that Rome got all the trade of a growing country.

Another consequence of Calvo’s road-making system was that it would have been very difficult for the outlying settlements to join in any attack against Rome itself, because they could not reach their neighbors half as easily as they could reach Rome. Calvo saw—what most generals have to see if they are to have any success in fighting—that wars are won by the feet as well as the weapons of an army. The quicker they march and the less strength they have to expend on getting from one place to another, the better the soldiers will fight. It came to be almost second nature for any Roman to look out that the roads were in good condition, and a general on the march took care that he did not go too far into an unknown country without leaving a good road over which to come back.

In the course of their wandering about, before they found a place for their home, the colonists had not only learned the importance of good water but had found out where some of the springs and wells were. Here and there, as he[pg 228]discovered a good place for a camp, Calvo caused a rude shelter to be built, where any Roman could find a place to sleep and make a fire. On some of the roads he and Romulus took counsel together and planned the erection of a kind of barrack, so that if they sent a company of troops out that way there would be a place which they could occupy as a shelter, and if necessary hold against an enemy. They were not exactly houses, or forts; they were known asmansiones,—places where one might remain for a night or two. The practical use of these places proved so great that the plan was never given up, andmansioneswere built at the end of each day’s march, in later ages, wherever the Roman army went. But in the beginning there was only a rough shelter like the khans of Eastern countries,—walls and roofs, to which men brought their own provisions and bedding, if they had any. People had these places of refuge long before there was any such thing as a tavern or hotel known in the world.

It began to be seen in course of time that the Priesthood of the Highways, or the bridges—for about half Calvo’s work here was bridge building—was one of the most necessary of all. Before he died he had four others to assist him, and was called the Pontifex Maximus, the high pontiff, and greatly revered for his wisdom. He[pg 229]had met and talked with and commanded so many different sorts of people, both intelligent and ignorant, and had solved so many different problems, for no two places where a highway is built are alike, that there were very few questions on which he did not have something worth saying. The standard he set was kept up. A road, when built, was built to last, and so was a bridge.

But the greatest work of Tertius Calvo, and the one which perhaps made more difference in the history of his people than any other, was an undertaking which he put through when he and most of the other fathers of the colony were quite old men. It was the bridge across the river.

At the point where the Seven Hills are situated, the river is about three hundred feet wide, but there is an island in it which makes a natural pier. Here Calvo suggested a bridge, to take the traffic from the other side of the river and bring it directly to Rome instead of letting it come across anywhere in boats. Such a bridge, moreover, would make it easier to hold the river, in case of war, against an enemy coming either up stream or down.

It seemed like a stupendous enterprise, and even those who had seen most of Calvo’s work did not see how he was going to do it. The river was twenty feet deep, and that was too deep for any[pg 230]pier building in those days. It would be a timber bridge.

More or less all the city took part in building that bridge. There were large trees to be cut down and their logs hauled from distant places, and shaped to fit into one another. There was stonework to be done at each end of the span, and on each side of the island. By the time this work was planned, the people were using iron more or less, and found it very convenient for many things; but Calvo set his foot down; not a bit of iron was to be used in his bridge. It was to be all wood, resting on stone foundations. Some of those who had worked with him remembered then that he never did use iron in such work. The younger men thought he must have reason to suppose that the gods were not pleased with iron.

Romulus had known Calvo for a great many years, although they had never been exactly intimate. As they stood together, watching the work go on, Romulus said in a tone that no one but Calvo could hear.

“There is no iron in this work?”

“None,”said Calvo.

“The gods do not approve it?”

“Apparently not,”said Calvo.“The fires of Jove burned two bridges for me before I found it out.

“Also I have found that iron and water are bad friends, and in a bridge, which hangs above water, the bolts would rust. Finally, a thing which is all timber, put together without the use of anything else, does not grow shaky with time, but settles together and is firmer. There are some things a man does not learn until he has watched the ways of building for fifty years, and I have done that.”

If Calvo had been like some men of his day, he would have thought, when his bridges were burned, that the gods were angry with him for omitting some ceremony. But he was a man who noticed all that he saw and put two and two together; and he noticed in the course of time that lightning was much more likely to strike where iron was. He observed the path of it once when it did strike, and saw that it ripped the wood all to splinters and set it on fire trying to get at the iron, which it melted.

It is of course true that iron expands and shrinks with heat and cold, and when iron bolts are used in wood, the iron and the wood do not fit as well together after a few seasons, on this account. So Calvo planned his bridges without iron, and they were all made of dovetailed wooden timbers, as many old wooden bridges were which remain to this day. Calvo’s observa[pg 232]tions about his bridges tended to make others think as he did. No iron was ever used in any of the temples or sacred buildings of Rome, even long after it was in common use for weapons, tools and other things.

The way in which the bridge over the Tiber was built was much like the way in which Cæsar built bridges, hundreds of years later. It was so constructed that if necessary it could be removed at short notice. It was never struck by lightning or burned, and it remained until—long after Calvo was dead—another pontiff built a new and greater bridge, using all his knowledge and all else that had been learned in five generations.

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