The Childhood of Rome Part 1

The Childhood of Rome.

by Louise Lamprey.

INTRODUCTION

It is scarcely necessary to say that these stories are not meant to be taken as history, even legendary history. The tales of the founding of Rome and of the early life of the Italian races are many and contradictory. It is quite possible that future discoveries may disprove half the theories now held on these subjects. There must have been, however, heroic semi-savage figures like the Romulus of the legends, and the aim of the author has been to re-create in some degree the atmosphere and the surroundings in which they may have lived.

The various customs and events introduced here were not, probably, part of the history of one generation. It is possible, however, that as a tree grows from a seed, the laws of the future city were foreshadowed and suggested in the relations between the Romans as individuals and between the town on the Palatine and its neighbors.

It will be observed that the forms of Latin and Italian names used in these stories do not follow the usual cla.s.sic Latin style and end in "us."

It is said by some authors that the original immigrants from whose customs and traditions Roman civilization developed came from Greece, and in that case such Greek forms as "Vitalos" might have been preserved long after such clipped forms as "Marcus" and "Marcs" became current. Inasmuch as Italian peasant names hardly ever end in anything but a vowel it seems illogical to take it for granted that in a colony of farmers, such as the men who founded Rome, the names would all have taken the cla.s.sical Latin form at first. They would have been much more likely to vary according to the ancestry, dialect and intelligence of the family. Later they would tend to a conventional form as certain families of distinction set a standard for others to follow and took pride in keeping their own speech correct.

In short, the period described here is a transition stage, and like any age of the founding of a new civilization, contains incongruous elements.

It has been stated that even in the great days of the Roman Empire the number of people who actually spoke correct cla.s.sical Latin was extremely small in proportion to the whole population of any city.

THE LIVING LANGUAGE

Sing a song of little words, homely parts of speech, Phrases children use at play, songs that mothers teach,- Who would think when Rome was new, they used that language then- Table, chair and family, map and chart and pen?

Sing a song of stately ways, camp and square and street, Consuls, tribunes, governors, the legion's myriad feet, If those wise men so long ago had not known what to say, All they gave us readymade we should not have to-day.

Clear and straight and brief their talk in country or in town.

Lucid, vivid, accurate the thoughts that they set down.

Still the world is using words that bear the Roman stamp- Coined in forum, villa, temple, market place or camp.

Still our thoughts take day by day those shapes of long ago- If you read the dictionary you will find it's so.

THE CHILDHOOD OF ROME

I

THE MOUNTAIN OF FIRE

Marcia, the little daughter of Marcus Vitalos the farmer, sat on a sheltered corner of a stone wall, making a willow basket. Basket weaving was one of the first things that all children of her people learned, and she was very clever at it. Her strong, brown fingers wove the osiers in and out swiftly and deftly, as a bird builds its nest. The boys and girls cut willow shoots, and reeds, and gra.s.ses that were good for this work, at the proper time, and bound them together in bundles tidily, for use later on. The straw, too, could be used for making baskets and mats after the grain was threshed out of it.

A great many baskets were needed, for they were used to hold the grain, and the beans, and the onions, and the dried fruit, and the various other things that a thrifty family kept stored away for provisions. They were also used to gather things in and to carry them in, and sometimes they took the place of dishes in serving fruit or nuts. Almost every size and shape and kind could be made use of somewhere. The one Marcia was making was round and squat and quite large, and it was to have an opening at the top large enough to put one's hand into easily, and a cover to fit.

The house in which she lived was one of the oldest in the village on the slopes of the Mountain of Fire. It was so old that there was no knowing how many children had grown up in it, but they were all of the same family,-the family of the Marcus Vitalos Colonus who built it in the first place. This long-ago settler was called Colonus, the farmer, not because he was the only farmer in the neighborhood, for everybody worked on the land, but because he was an unusually good one, a leader among them in the understanding of the good brown earth and all its ways.

His sons after him took the name Colonus, for among their people it was considered very important to belong to a good family. As soon as a man's name was mentioned his ancestry was known, if he had any worth the naming.

The ancestor of all this people was said to have been Mars, the G.o.d of manhood and all manly deeds. Their names showed this, for the common ones were Marcus, Mamurius, Mavor, Mamertius and so on, with some other name added to describe their occupations, or the place where they lived, or some peculiar thing about them. Plautus meant the splay-footed man; Sylvius, the man of the forest; Marinus, the seaman,-and there had been a Marcus Vitalos Colonus in this family, ever since the first one. Marcia's elder brother, two years older than she was, had this name, but he was usually called Marcs, for in their language the last syllable was apt to be slurred over.

It was very quiet in the village just now, for all the men were off getting in the harvest. The grain lands and the pastures were some distance away, wherever the land was suitable for crops or grazing. Every morning, directly after breakfast, every one who had anything to do away from the village went out, and usually did not come back until supper time. It was said that the first Marcus Vitalos was the leader who had persuaded the people to settle down in one place instead of moving about, driving their herds here and there. It was said also that he began the custom of a common meal in the middle of the day for all the men who were working on the land. This not only saved time and trouble, but made them better acquainted and gave them time to talk over and plan the work during the hottest part of the day. When the day's toil was finished, each man returned to his own house and had supper with his family. The houses were built, not too near together, around an open square. The wall around the house enclosed the sheepfold and the cattle sheds besides. The people worked and played together for much of the time, but there was a certain plot of ground that came down from father to son in each family and belonged to that family alone. n.o.body else had any rights there at all.

The people were very careful to do everything according to custom. Almost everything they did had been worked out long ago into a sort of system, which was considered the best possible way to do it. Certain customs were always observed because the G.o.ds of the land were said to be pleased with them. Whether the G.o.ds had anything to do with it or not, these children of Mars were certainly more prosperous than most of their neighbors, and had many things which they might not have had if it had not been for their careful ways. The soil of the suns.h.i.+ny mountain slopes was rich and fruitful and easy to work; the clear mountain waters were pleasant and wholesome, and in certain places there were hot springs which had been found good to cure disease. It was not strange that they believed the G.o.ds took especial care of them and would go on being kind to them so long as proper respect was shown.

Marcia wove her basket, putting a band of red around the curve before she began to draw it in, and her thoughts went far and near, as thoughts do.

The family spent very little time indoors when it was possible to be in the open air. The mother sat spinning in the doorway, and the baby played at her feet. The father was harvesting, and Marcs was out with the sheep.

The next younger brother, Bruno they called him, had gone fis.h.i.+ng. Supper was in an earthen pot comfortably bubbling over the fire. It would be ready by the time they all came home. Marcia had had her dinner and helped clear away before she came out here. Although the people had some vegetables and herbs, their main crop was grain. It was a kind of cereal a little like wheat and a little like barley, with a small hard kernel, and they called it "corn," which meant something that is crushed or ground into meal. When it was pounded in a mortar and then boiled soft, it made good porridge. Boiled until it was very thick, and poured out on a flat stone or board to cool, it could be cut into pieces and eaten from the hand. The children had all they wanted, with some goat's-milk cheese and some figs. Marcia could hear them laughing and shouting as they played with the pet kid. He was old enough now to b.u.t.t the smaller ones right over on their backs, and he did it whenever they gave him a chance.

Marcia was rather a silent girl, with a great deal of long black hair in heavy braids, level black brows over thoughtful eyes, and a square little chin. As she began to draw in her basket at the top, she was thinking of the stories the old people sometimes told about a long-ago time when their ancestors lived in another and far more beautiful place. There the rivers ran over sands that gleamed like suns.h.i.+ne, and all the land was like a garden. The houses were larger than any here and built of a white stone.

There were stone statues like those she and Marcs sometimes made in clay for the children to play with, but as large as men and women and painted to look like life. The G.o.ds came and went among the children of men and taught them all that they have ever known, but much had since been forgotten. So ran the story.

Sometimes in the heart of this mountain there were rumblings underground, as if the thunder had gone to earth like a badger. The old people said then that the smith of the G.o.ds was working at his forge. The noises were made by his hammer, beating out weapons for the G.o.ds. The plume of smoke that drifted lazily up from the deep bowl-shaped hollow in the mountain top came from his fires. To these people the mountain was like a great still creature, maybe a G.o.d in disguise. The forest hung on the slopes above like a bearskin on the shoulders of a giant. Up higher were barren rocks and cliffs, where nothing grew.

Marcia looked up at the mighty crest so far above, and then down across the valley, where the stubble of the grain fields shone golden in the westering sun. The river, winding away beyond it, was bluer than the sky.

She wondered whether, if her people should ever go away, they would tell their children how beautiful this land was. But of course they never would go. They had lived too long where they were ever to be willing to leave their home on the mountain. No other place could be like it. The floods that sometimes ruined the lowlands never rose as high as this; the wandering, warlike tribes that sometimes attacked their neighbors did not trouble them here. They belonged to the mountain, as the chestnut trees and the squirrels did.

"Me make basket," announced her little sister, pulling at the withes, her rag doll tumbling to the ground as she tried to scramble up on the wall.

"Up! up!"

"O Felic'la (Kitty), don't; you'll spoil sister's work! I'll begin one for you."

The Kitten had got her name from her disposition, which was to insist on doing whatever she saw any one else doing, just long enough to make confusion wherever she went. What with showing the little fingers how to manage the spidery ribs of the little basket she began, and working out the braided border of her own basket, Marcia's attention was fully taken up.

She did not even see that Marcs was driving in the sheep until they began crowding into the sheepfold. The walls of this, like the walls of the house itself, were of stone, laid by that long-ago Colonus, and as solid and firm as if they were built yesterday. The stones were not squared or shaped, and there was no mortar, but they were fitted together so cleverly that they seemed as solid as the mountain itself. They hardly ever needed repair. The roofs, of seasoned chestnut boughs woven in and out, seemed almost as firm as the stonework. This place had been settled when the farmers had to fight wolves every year. Even now, if the wolves had a hard winter and got very hungry, they sometimes came around and tried to get at the sheep. Then the men would take their spears and long knives and go on a wolf-hunt. But that had not happened now for several years.

Why were the sheep coming in so early?

Marcs looked rather disturbed, and he was in a hurry. Bruno too was coming home without any fish, an unusual thing for him; and he looked both scared and puzzled. The mother was standing in the door, shading her eyes with her hand and looking at the sky. Marcs caught sight of the girls in their corner.

"You had better pick up all that and go in," he called to them. "Pater sent us home as quick as we could scamper. See how strange the sky is."

They all looked. Little Felic'la, with round eyes, dropped her basket and pointed.

"Giants," said she.

It did not take much imagination to see, in the dark clouds spreading over the heavens, huge misty figures like gigantic men, or like G.o.ds about to descend upon the earth.

"Mater," said Bruno, "the spring and the stream have dried up."

The father was hurrying up from the grain fields, and the boys ran to help him manage the frightened cattle and get the load under cover. Other flocks of sheep and other men with oxen were hastening to shelter. The sky was growing darker and darker. Blue lights were wavering in the marshy lands by the river. The fowls, croaking and squawking in frightened haste, huddled on to their roosts, all but Felic'la's pet white chicken, which scuttled for the house. Birds were flying overhead, uttering some sort of warnings in bird language, but there was no understanding what they said.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Other flocks of sheep and other men with oxen were hurrying to shelter]