The Story of Greece and Rome for boys and girls
- Автор: Macgregor Mary
- Год: 1914
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Зарубежная литература для детей
Электронная книга - «The Story of Greece and Rome for boys and girls». Краткое содержание книги:
The Story of Greece: Told to Boys and Girls от Mary Macgregor
The Story of Rome, From the Earliest Times to the Death of Augustus, Told to Boys and Girls от Mary Esther Miller MacGregor
Having thus strengthened the city, Servius divided it into four regions, while the people were arranged in numerous tribes.
Should a citizen be wanted to appear before the king or the Senate, it was then an easy task to find the tribe to which he belonged and the region in which he dwelt.
Servius also made a law which pleased the Romans well, called an ordinance of the king.
This ordinance forbade the nobles to oppress the poor. It also decreed that, however lowly the birth of a Roman citizen, if he became rich he might hold positions of power in the State. This encouraged the poor man to be industrious, for if he could but gain wealth there was no ambition which he might not be able to satisfy.
But while the ordinance pleased the common people, it displeased the nobles, who had no wish to see the plebeians raised to positions which until now had been sacred to them and to their sons. They bore Servius no good will for passing this new law.
Trouble, too, was threatening the king through his two daughters, both of whom, as the Roman custom was, were named Tullia.
But although their names were the same, their natures were as different as summer is different from winter.
Tullia, the elder, was wicked and ambitious; Tullia, the younger, good and gentle.
Servius determined to marry his daughters to the sons of King Tarquinius, whose kindness had placed him on the throne.
The princes, as the princesses, were of strangely different natures. Lucius was proud, his temper violent; while Aruns was humble and good-natured.
Now the king thought that if the gentle Tullia married Lucius, he would become a better man; while he hoped that if his ambitious daughter married Aruns she would learn from him the grace of humility.
But Servius made a great mistake when he married his daughters. For before long Lucius hated his quiet wife, and killed both her and his brother Aruns, so that he and Tullia the elder might be free to marry each other.
No sooner had Lucius Tarquinius married Tullia, than, encouraged by her, he joined the discontented nobles, who hated Servius.
Day by day Lucius grew more bold, more rude to Servius, and at length he put on the royal robes and sat on the king’s seat in the Senate house, unrebuked by the nobles.
Servius was now no longer young, but when he heard how Lucius had dared to behave he went at once to the door of the Senate house, and bade the prince come down from the throne, and lay aside the royal robes.
But Lucius paid no heed to the king’s command. Then, as the king repeated his words, Lucius seized the old man and flung him down the stone steps of the Senate house.
Servius, bruised and dazed by his fall, yet struggled to his feet, and slowly turned away toward the palace.
Lucius dared not let the king live now that he had defied him. So, sending his servants after Servius, he bade them kill the old man.
It was easy to overtake him, and the fellows soon slew their king, leaving his body lying in the middle of the street.
When Tullia heard what her husband had done, she had no grief to spare for her father’s cruel death. She ordered her chariot, and drove quickly to the Forum to greet her husband as king.
But Lucius did not wish the people to see the triumph of his wife, and he sternly bade her go home.
Tullia obeyed, heedless of his anger. She had room in her heart for only one thought. Lucius was king, and she, she was queen.
So full was her mind of the new honours that would now be hers, that her chariot had reached the street where the dead body of her father lay before she was aware. The driver drew up his horses sharply, seeing his murdered king lying across his path.
But Tullia angrily bade him drive on, and as he obeyed, her robe was stained with her father’s blood. The street was ever after called the Via Scelerata, or the Way of Crime.
Lucius showed no shame for the murder of the king, and haughtily refused to allow his body to be buried with the usual rites.
And because of his pride the new king was named Tarquinius Superbus or Tarquin the Proud.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FATE OF THE TOWN OF GABII
Tarquin, having killed Servius, seized the throne, and began his reign by condemning to death the chief senators who had supported the old king. He also ordered the tablets, on which Servius had written many wise and good laws, to be destroyed. Refusing to summon the Senate, Tarquin then attempted to rule alone.
His cruelty was so great that he was soon hated both by rich and poor. Before many months had passed he was forced to surround himself with a bodyguard, lest he should be slain by those whom he had ruined. For, in order to grow rich, he imposed heavy fines on the wealthy, sometimes driving the nobles into exile that he might take possession of their goods. If they ventured to remonstrate, Tarquin did not hesitate to put them to death that he might seize their money.
As for the poor people, he forced them to work so hard that they were more like slaves than freemen. Often in despair they escaped from the king’s cruelty by killing themselves.
After he had crushed the spirit of his subjects, Tarquin went to war with the Latins, conquering many of their cities, and even enrolling some of his prisoners in the Roman legions.
One ancient Latin town determined to resist the cruel king. Gabii, for this was the name of the brave little town, even opened its gates to the nobles who had been exiled from Rome.
In vain Tarquin sent legion after legion against the city. Its defenders still defied him, fighting with all their strength so as to protect their homes from the cruel hands of Tarquin the Proud.
Since he could not take the town by force, the king resolved to take it by treachery, and in this resolve he was aided by his son Sextus.
Sextus, pretending that he had been forced to leave Rome by his father’s cruelty, fled to Gabii. Telling the citizens a piteous tale, he showed them his back, bare and bleeding from stripes, and begged to be taken into the town that his father might not capture him.
The citizens did not find it difficult to believe that the tyrant had ill-used his son, and they willingly opened their gates to the prince. And not only did they give him shelter, but, so great was their trust, that before long they gave him command of a company of soldiers.
One day a Roman legion was seen marching toward the city. Sextus at once led his soldiers against it, and, instructed secretly by Tarquin, the Romans fled before the prince.
This made the men of Gabii still more sure that they could trust Sextus, so they foolishly gave to him the chief command of the defences of the town.
Then Sextus sent in triumph to his father to know what he should do.
Tarquin the Proud was walking in his garden when his son’s messenger arrived, and he listened in silence to his words. But he still walked up and down the garden paths, switching off with his stick the heads of the tallest poppies in the flower-beds. Then, still without a word, he sent the messenger back to Gabii.
But when Sextus heard of the fate of the poppies, he needed no words to explain his father’s silence. He knew as well as if the king had spoken that as the tallest poppies had been beheaded, so he was to behead the leading nobles in Gabii.
The citizens knew nothing of what had happened in the king’s flower garden, so they were startled and dismayed when, day after day, Sextus accused one and another of their nobles of crime or treason, and ordered them to be put to death. The prince then completed his treachery by delivering the town into the hands of the king.
Tarquin’s next victory was over the Volscians, a powerful tribe which dwelt south of Latium. After plundering one of their richest towns, he determined with his new-found wealth to finish the great temple on the Capitoline hill, which had been begun by his father Lucius Tarquinius.
He adorned Rome with many other beautiful buildings, and ordered the great sewers, also begun by his father, to be finished. He then completed the Forum, or market-place. In the Forum the people bought and sold, and here also were held the great assemblies of the people.