The Childhood of Rome :: THE RING WALL

THE RING WALL

In the weeks that followed the slaying of Amulius, Romulus sat many hours each day with the older men, consulting and planning. He was very quick to understand all that he heard and saw, and very anxious not to leave out the least ceremony proper to the founding of the city. Each one of these ceremonies had a meaning. The founder of the city was to the community what the father of a family was to his household; he was a sort of high priest. It was a strange experience for the wild young chief of a band of men of no family,—outlaws and almost banditti. From a forest lair with no temple and no altar he had come to a town where the altar was the heart of everything. From expeditions planned and directed by himself, in which his will was the only law, he was now to be the head of a life in which everything was guided, more or less, by customs so old that no one could say where they came from. He was no man’s [pg 141]servant or subject, but he was the chosen man of the gods, to do their will in the city.

The fathers of the city saw more and more clearly the difference between the two brothers. Remus did not, apparently, take any interest in the traditions and the ceremonies so strange to him and so familiar to the colonists. Romulus had been leader in all their expeditions, not because he tried to make himself first and crowd his brother down into second place, but because his men would follow him anywhere, and they did not seem to have the same faith in Remus. Moreover, Remus did not seem to care to be a leader. He never sat, silent, planning and working out a way to do what seemed impossible, as Romulus did. Romulus was not a great talker unless at some especial time when he had something it was necessary to say. He was in the habit of thinking a matter over very thoroughly before he said anything at all about it. People wondered at his lightning-like decisions in an emergency, but the men who knew him best knew that he had often come to them privately beforehand, and talked the whole thing over, without their knowing what he was after until the time came.

Remus did most of the talking, in fact. He was fond of raising objections and expressing [pg 142]doubts, and Romulus once said with a smile that this made him very useful, because if Remus could not pick a hole in his plans no one could. It was better to know all the weak points beforehand, instead of finding them out by making a failure. This dream of founding a city, in any case, was none of Remus’; it was the dream of Romulus, and his doing.

Therefore the Romans were surprised when Remus objected to the choice of the Square Hill for the sacred city. In his opinion the one next to it, which had been named the Aventine, the hill of defense, because that was where the soldiers had encamped, would be the place. There was no sign that the Square Hill was favored by the gods. If Romulus considered signs and omens so important, how could he be so sure that he had the right to choose the place himself?

Romulus’ black brows drew together. He had not thought of it in that way. He had intended to choose, so far as he could be certain of it, the very place where he and his brother were found by the shepherd, for the sacred enclosure which would be the heart of the city. He had talked with Tullius, who thought this entirely right; the almost miraculous rescue of the two children was a sign, if any were needed. But Remus recalled the custom that the priesthood beyond the [pg 143]river had, and that was also found among the Sabines, of watching the flight of birds for a sign. He challenged Romulus to make sure in this way. Let each of the brothers take his position at sunrise on the site selected by himself and remain there through the day. Whichever saw an omen in the flight of birds should have the right to choose the place for the city. To this Romulus agreed. It might have been partly for the sake of peace, for he knew of old that when Remus became possessed of an idea he could be very eloquent about it. In addition to this, if the omens did favor the Square Hill, there could be no question then,—and he believed they would.

It was a still day, late in spring, and most of the birds had already flown northward on their usual migration. For a long time none appeared. Then Remus gave a shout. He saw winging their way slowly but steadily a flock of vultures,—six in all. If that were the only flight observed during the day, it would seem that the Aventine was the right hill, after all. The sun began to sink and cloud over. Then from the mountains where Romulus had gathered his troop, and on which his eyes were resting, arose a dark moving spot that spread into a cloud of outspread wings,—vultures again, and many of them. There were twelve altogether. The [pg 144]huge birds came sailing on wide-stretched, dusky pinions directly over the village of huts, noiselessly as the clouds. When they had passed, the sun came out again and shot rays of dazzling splendor across the hill, so that the people’s eyes, following the strange flock, could not bear the light. The gods had spoken, and the Square Hill was the chosen place.

Illustration: A plan of Rome in classical times, showing the seven hills

A PLAN OF ROME IN CLASSICAL TIMES, SHOWING THE SEVEN HILLS.

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On what would now be called the twenty-first of April, the day when the sun passes from the sign of the Ram into the sign of the Bull, in the beginning of the month sacred to Dia Maia, the goddess of growth, the city was founded.

The first rite was one of purification. Fire, which cleanses all things, was called upon to make pure every one who was to take part in the ceremonies of the day. The father of the city stood with Romulus near a long heap of brushwood. With a coal from the altar fire Romulus lighted the pile and leaped across the flame, followed by the others in turn.

Then around the spot where Faustulus had always said he found the children, Romulus dug a small circular trench. The space inside this was called the mundus, the home of the spirits. Here the ancestors of all these people who had left their old homes might find a new home, a place where they would still be remembered and honored, a sort of sacred guest chamber in the life of the new city. These invisible dwellers by the altar would see their children’s children and all their descendants keeping the good old customs and the ancient wisdom from dying out, just as they showed their ancestry in their eyes and hair and gait and way of speaking.

The things that were put in this trench, in a [pg 146]hollow called the “outfit vault,” were all symbols of the life of the people. First Romulus himself threw into it a little square of sod that he had brought from the courtyard of the house where he was born, on Alba Longa. Each of the fathers of the colony in turn threw in a piece of sod they had brought from their old homes on the Mountain of Fire. This, like so many things in old ceremonies, was a bit of homely poetry. When a man was obliged to leave the place where he was born he took with him a little of the sod. Even to-day we find people taking from their old homes a root of sweetbriar, or a pot of shamrock or heather, a cutting of southernwood or of lilac. The look and the smell of it waken in them a love that is older than they are, that goes back to some unknown forefather who brought it from a still older place, perhaps, centuries ago. To the people of long ago this feeling was part of religion.

Together with the earth there were placed in the circle some of the grain, the fruit, the wine, and all the other things that made a part of the life of the people. Finally an altar was built in the center of it, and a fire was lighted there from coals brought by the young girls. This was the hearth fire of the spirits and was never to be allowed to go out except once a year. Then [pg 147]it was kindled afresh by the use of the terebra and tabula, and all the other hearth fires would be lighted from it.

Illustration: The copper plow was drawn by a white bull and a white cow

Now came the last and most important ceremony, the tracing of the line of the wall around the city itself,—the urbs, the home of the people. This of course had all been decided upon beforehand, and the places for the gates had been fixed. Romulus wore the robes of a priest, and his head was veiled by a kind of mantle, in order that during the ceremony he might not see anything that would bring bad fortune. The copper plow was drawn by a white bull and a white cow, the finest of all the herd. As he turned the furrow [pg 148]he chanted the prayers which he had learned from Tullius, and the others, following in silence, picked up such clods of earth as dropped outside the furrow and threw them within, so that these, having been blessed by this ceremony, should not be trodden by the feet of any stranger. One of the strictest rules of ancient religions was that whatever was sacred, or made so by having been blessed, should be treated with as much reverence as if it were alive. It should never, of course, be trodden upon or defiled.

When he came to the places where the gates were to be, Romulus lifted the plow and carried it over. These openings in the furrow were called the portae,—the carrying places. Of course, where there was a gate, the soil must be trodden by many feet, and there the furrow was interrupted. It is not known where all of these gates were, but the one called Porta Mugionis, the Gate of the Cattle, out of which the herds were driven to pasture, was where the Arch of Titus stands in the Rome of to-day. The Porta Romana was the river gate and there were others leading to the common land to the other hills. This first enclosure was afterwards sometimes called Roma Quadrata,—the square city by the river.

When the wall was built, a little inside this [pg 149]furrow, the wall also would be sacred. Nobody would be allowed to touch it, even to repair it, without the leave of the priest in whose charge it was. On both sides of it, within and without, a space would be left where no plow was used and no building allowed. There was a good practical reason for these rules about the wall, though they were so time-honored that no one gave any thought to that. The danger of a city being taken was considerably lessened, when it was an unheard-of thing for any one to be near the wall for any reason. No spy could get over it without attracting attention. The foundations also would be much less likely to be undermined if the land next them were not used at all.

No human being among the lookers-on who reverently followed the procession around this city that was to be, could have told what thoughts and feelings filled the soul of Romulus. Perhaps he felt the solemnity of it even more than he would if he had been accustomed to all these beliefs from childhood. Things that he had dreamed of, things that he had seen from a distance as an outlaw and a vagabond, were part of the scene in which he was now the central figure. He had the sensitive understanding of others’ feelings and thoughts which a man gains when he has had to depend on his instincts in [pg 150]matters of life and death. The intense reverence and solemn joy of all these grave fathers of families, these gentle and kindly women, these children with their wide, wondering eyes, and the youths and maidens in all their springtime gladness were like wine of the spirit to him. He felt as they felt, and all the more because it was so new and strange a thing in his life. The very words of the chant, the smell of the earth as the plowshare turned it, had a sort of magic for him. It was exciting enough for those who looked on, but their feeling was gathered in his, like light in a burning glass.

When the circle was all but completed something happened which no one could have foreseen. Remus had followed all that was done with a rather mocking light in his eye. He did not believe in the least what these people believed. Suddenly he stepped past the others, and with a jeering laugh leaped across the furrow. If he had stabbed his brother to the heart, it could not have made more of a sensation. It was a deliberate, wilful insult to everything that religion meant to these people. All Romulus’ hot temper and his new reverence for the ways of his forefathers blazed up in an instant, and he struck his brother to the earth with a blow. Even one single blow from his hard fist was not an expe[pg 151]rience to be coveted, but Remus would not have been more than stunned if his head had not struck on the copper plowshare. He lay quite still. He was dead. Whether the gods themselves had willed that he should die, or whether it was chance, the blow killed him.

There were places where such an act as that of Remus would have been punished with death, but Romulus did not know that. He had struck out as instinctively as a man might knock down a ruffian who insulted his wife. Such an insult might not be a physical injury, but the intention would be enough to warrant punishment. The older men of the colony were inclined to think that the gods had done the thing. Romulus himself did not. He never got over it, though he never spoke of it. That day took the boyish carelessness out of his eyes and set a hard line about his mouth. It was the proudest and most sacred day of his life, and now it was the saddest.

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