The Historians' History of the World 06

The son of Manlius has fought against his father’s orders. He appears with his spoil. Without saying a word to him, the father turns away and orders the army to be assembled, and at once the following sentence, “Since without respect for consular authority or paternal majesty, T. Manlius, thou hast against orders, outside the ranks, fought the enemy, and destroyed, as far as was in thy power, military discipline, upon which until to-day Roman deeds have always stood; since thou hast forced me to forget either the republic or myself and mine, let us rather bear the penalty of the crime ourselves than that the republic pay so heavily for our fault. We shall be a sad but salutary example to coming generations. Without doubt, a father’s natural love and that proof of courage deceived by empty glory move me in thy favour. But since it is necessary by thy death to sanction the orders of the consuls or by thy pardon forever to nullify them, I do not think if there runs a drop of our blood in thy veins, that thou willst refuse to restore by thy punishment military discipline, which has been overthrown by thy error. Go, lictor, tie him to the stake.”

This argument, which ends like a thunderbolt, is terrible because it is so sudden. Judge by this example to what an extent Roman zeal was carried. In the soul of the magistrate there seemed to exist a permanent tribunal which was ever ready to deliver judgment. They had no need to raise themselves above their own level in order to attain self-denial; it came naturally to them. In the same way the savages of America tranquilly offered up their limbs for torture and by education, temperament, habit, and nature mocked at what the martyrs with all their exaltation dared hardly face.

The soothsayer having declared that the victorious army must lose its general, Manlius and his brother general without any signs of emotion, summon their officers on the eve of battle and agree that there, where they saw the army give way, one or the other should sacrifice himself.

By pride of citizenship, Livy brings out the fine sides of this character; by precision of oratory, he reveals the characteristic features, for he is obliged to arrange his subject to suit his audience and to touch Roman passions by Roman arguments. Consider in Camillus’ discourse, that religion which is really but a doctrine, so minutely and carefully following the consecrated form, so attached to outward rites, observing not the spirit but the letter which alone prevents the people from emigrating to Veii. As it is political and local it attaches the government and the citizen to the soil. “We have a town founded according to omens and augurs in which there is not a corner where the gods and their worship are not to be found. Our solemn sacrifices take place on certain days. Will you forsake, Romans, all these private and public gods? How little your actions resemble that of the young M. C. Fabius whom the enemy watched with as much admiration as you, when, amongst the Gallic javelins, coming down from the citadel he offered up on the Quirinal the solemn sacrifice of the house of Fabia. The vestals can only have one abode, one from which nothing can eject them except the surrender of the town. Jupiter’s flamen cannot spend one night outside Rome without crime. Would you make these Roman priests Veientine priests, and would you abandon vestal virgins? Oh, Vesta! And the flamen living in another country, shall he every night commit an impious act which the republic must atone for with him? Here is the Capitol, where a human head was once found, when the soothsayers said that here would be the head of the world and the seat of the empire. Here are Vesta’s sacred fire, the shields fallen from heaven, and, if you stay here, the gods all-merciful.”

One sees that the love of country is as much religious as it is political; the gods live on the soil and are Romans; what must be the strength of this sentiment which unites all others! In our days they are separate. The town we live in, the religion we follow, and the country to which we belong make up three distinct worlds, often unfriendly to each other. Amongst the ancients, there was but one, the city. The family was sacrificed to it; it made one with religion; the soul and thought of man were absorbed in his country; and from every point of view, the citizen alone was visible.

THE SPIRIT OF THE TIMES