A Book of Golden Deeds

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> A Book of Golden Deeds

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Dionysius, much astonished, consented to let Pythias go, marveling what
would be the issue of the affair. Time went on and Pythias did not
appear. The Syracusans watched Damon, but he showed no uneasiness. He
said he was secure of his friend's truth and honor, and that if any
accident had cause the delay of his return, he should rejoice in dying
to save the life of one so dear to him.

Even to the last day Damon continued serene and content, however it
might fall out; nay even when the very hour drew nigh and still no
Pythias. His trust was so perfect, that he did not even grieve at having
to die for a faithless friend who had left him to the fate to which he
had unwarily pledged himself. It was not Pythias' own will, but the
winds and waves, so he still declared, when the decree was brought and
the instruments of death made ready. The hour had come, and a few
moments more would have ended Damon's life, when Pythias duly presented
himself, embraced his friend, and stood forward himself to receive his
sentence, calm, resolute, and rejoiced that he had come in time.

Even the dim hope they owned of a future state was enough to make these
two brave men keep their word, and confront death for one another
without quailing. Dionysius looked on more struck than ever. He felt
that neither of such men must die. He reversed the sentence of Pythias,
and calling the two to his judgment seat, he entreated them to admit him
as a third in their friendship. Yet all the time he must have known it
was a mockery that he should ever be such as they were to each other--he
who had lost the very power of trusting, and constantly sacrificed
others to secure his own life, whilst they counted not their lives dear
to them in comparison with their truth to their word, and love to one
another. No wonder that Damon and Pythias have become such a byword that
they seem too well known to have their story told here, except that a
name in everyone's mouth sometimes seems to be mentioned by those who
have forgotten or never heard the tale attached to it.

THE DEVOTION OF THE DECII

B.C. 339

The spirit of self-devotion is so beautiful and noble, that even when
the act is performed in obedience to the dictates of a false religion,
it is impossible not to be struck with admiration and almost reverence
for the unconscious type of the one great act that has hallowed every
other sacrifice. Thus it was that Codrus, the Athenian king, has ever
since been honored for the tradition that he gave his own life to secure
the safety of his people; and there is a touching story, with neither
name nor place, of a heathen monarch who was bidden by his priests to
appease the supposed wrath of his gods by the sacrifice of the being
dearest to him. His young son had been seized on as his most beloved,
when his wife rushed between and declared that her son must live, and
not by his death rob her of her right to fall, as her husband's dearest.
The priest looked at the father; the face that had been sternly composed
before was full of uncontrolled anguish as he sprang forward to save the
wife rather than the child. That impulse was an answer, like the
entreaty of the mother before Solomon; the priest struck the fatal blow
ere the king's hand could withhold him, and the mother died with a last
look of exceeding joy at her husband's love and her son's safety. Human
sacrifices are of course accursed, and even the better sort of heathens
viewed them with horror; but the voluntary confronting of death, even at
the call of a distorted presage of future atonement, required qualities
that were perhaps the highest that could be exercised among those who
were devoid of the light of truth.

In the year 339 there was a remarkable instance of such devotion. The
Romans were at war with the Latins, a nation dwelling to the south of
them, and almost exactly resembling themselves in language, habits,
government, and fashions of fighting. Indeed the city of Rome itself was
but an offshoot from the old Latin kingdom; and there was not much
difference between the two nations even in courage and perseverance. The
two consuls of the year were Titus Manlius Torquatus and Publius Decius
Mus. They were both very distinguished men. Manlius was a patrician, or
one of the high ancient nobles of Rome, and had in early youth fought a
single combat with a gigantic Gaul, who offered himself, like Goliath,
as a champion of his tribe; had slain him, and taken from him a gold
torque, or collar, whence his surname Torquatus. Decius was a plebeian;
one of the free though not noble citizens who had votes, but only within
a few years had been capable of being chosen to the higher offices of
state, and who looked upon every election to the consulship as a
victory. Three years previously, when a tribune in command of a legion,
Decius had saved the consul, Cornelius Cossus, from a dangerous
situation, and enabled him to gain a great victory; and this exploit was
remembered, and led to the choice of this well-experienced soldier as
the colleague of Manlius.

The two consuls both went out together in command of the forces, each
having a separate army, and intending to act in concert. They marched to
the beautiful country at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, which was then a
harmless mountain clothed with chestnut woods, with spaces opening
between, where farms and vineyards rejoiced in the sunshine and the
fresh breezes of the lovely blue bay that lay stretched beneath. Those
who climbed to the summit might indeed find beds of ashes and the jagged
edge of a huge basin or gulf; the houses and walls were built of dark-
red and black material that once had flowed from the crater in boiling
torrents: but these had long since cooled, and so long was it since a
column of smoke had been seen to rise from the mountain top, that it
only remained as a matter of tradition that this region was one of
mysterious fire, and that the dark cool lake Avernus, near the mountain
skirts, was the very entrance to the shadowy realms beneath, that were
supposed to be inhabited by the spirits of the dead.

It might be that the neighborhood of this lake, with the dread
imaginations connected with it by pagan fancy, influenced even the stout
hearts of the consuls; for, the night after they came in sight of the
enemy, each dreamt the same dream, namely, that he beheld a mighty form
of gigantic height and stature, who told him 'that the victory was
decreed to that army of the two whose leader should devote himself to
the Dii Manes,' that is, to the deities who watched over the shades of
the dead. Probably these older Romans held the old Etruscan belief,
which took these 'gods beneath' to be winged beings, who bore away the
departing soul, weighted its merits and demerits, and placed it in a
region of peace or of woe, according to its deserts. This was part of
the grave and earnest faith that gave the earlier Romans such truth and
resolution; but latterly they so corrupted it with the Greek myths,
that, in after times, they did not even know who the gods of Decius
were.

At daybreak the two consuls sought one another out, and told their
dreams; and they agreed that they would join their armies in one, Decius
leading the right and Manlius the left wing; and that whichever found
his troops giving way, should at once rush into the enemy's columns and
die, to secure the victory to his colleague. At the same time strict
commands were given that no Roman should come out of his rank to fight
in single combat with the enemy; a necessary regulation, as the Latins
were so like, in every respect, to the Romans, that there would have
been fatal confusion had there been any mingling together before the
battle. Just as this command had been given out, young Titus Manlius,
the son of the consul, met a Latin leader, who called him by name and
challenged him to fight hand to hand. The youth was emulous of the honor
his father had gained by his own combat at the same age with the Gaul,
but forgot both the present edict and that his father had scrupulously
asked permission before accepting the challenge. He at once came
forward, and after a brave conflict, slew his adversary, and taking his
armor, presented himself at his father's tent and laid the spoils at his
feet.

But old Manlius turned aside sadly, and collected his troops to hear his
address to his son: 'You have transgressed,' he said, 'the discipline
which has been the support of the Roman people, and reduced me to the
hard necessity of either forgetting myself and mine, or else the regard
I owe to the general safety. Rome must not suffer by one fault. We must
expiate it ourselves. A sad example shall we be, but a wholesome one to
the Roman youth. For me, both the natural love of a father, and that
specimen thou hast given of thy valor move me exceedingly; but since
either the consular authority must be established by thy death, or
destroyed by thy impunity, I cannot think, if thou be a true Manlius,
that thou wilt be backward to repair the breach thou hast made in
military discipline by undergoing the just meed of thine offence. He
then placed the wreath of leaves, the reward of a victor, upon his son's
head, and gave the command to the lictor to bind the young man to a
stake, and strike off his head. The troops stood round as men stunned,
no one durst utter a word; the son submitted without one complaint,
since his death was for the good of Rome: and the father, trusting that
the doom of the Dii Manes was about to overtake him, beheld the brave
but rash young head fall, then watched the corpse covered with the
trophies won from the Latins, and made no hindrance to the glorious
obsequies with which the whole army honored this untimely death. Strict
discipline was indeed established, and no one again durst break his
rank; but the younger men greatly hated Manlius for his severity, and
gave him no credit for the agony he had concealed while giving up his
gallant son to the wellbeing of Rome.

A few days after, the expected battle took place, and after some little
time the front rank of Decius' men began to fall back upon the line in
their rear. This was the token he had waited for. He called to Valerius,
the chief priest of Rome, to consecrate him, and was directed to put on
his chief robe of office, the beautiful toga proetexta, to cover his
head, and standing on his javelin, call aloud to the 'nine gods' to
accept his devotion, to save the Roman legions, and strike terror into
his enemies. This done, he commanded his lictors to carry word to his
colleague that the sacrifice was accomplished, and then girding his robe
round him in the manner adopted in sacrificing to the gods, he mounted
his white horse, and rushed like lightning into the thickest of the
Latins. At first they fell away on all sides as if some heavenly
apparition had come down on them; then, as some recognized him, they
closed in on him, and pierced his breast with their weapons; but even as
he fell the superstition that a devoted leader was sure to win the
field, came full on their minds, they broke and fled. Meanwhile the
message came to Manlius, and drew from him a burst of tears--tears that
he had not shed for his son--his hope of himself meeting the doom and
ending his sorrow was gone; but none the less he nerved himself to
complete the advantage gained by Decius' death. Only one wing of the
Latins had fled, the other fought long and bravely, and when at last it
was defeated, and cut down on the field of battle, both conqueror and
conquered declared that, if Manlius had been the leader of the Latins,
they would have had the victory. Manlius afterwards completely subdued
the Latins, who became incorporated with the Romans; but bravely as he
had borne up, his health gave way under his sorrow, and before the end
of the year he was unable to take the field.

Forty-five years later, in the year 294, another Decius was consul. He
was the son of the first devoted Decius, and had shown himself worthy of
his name, both as a citizen and soldier. His first consulate had been in
conjunction with one of the most high-spirited and famous Roman nobles,
Quintus Fabius, surnamed Maximus, or the Greatest, and at three years'
end they were again chosen together, when the Romans had been brought
into considerable peril by an alliance between the Gauls and the
Samnites, their chief enemies in Italy.

One being a patrician and the other a plebeian, there was every attempt
made at Rome to stir up jealousies and dissensions between them; but
both were much too noble and generous to be thus set one against the
other; and when Fabius found how serious was the state of affairs in
Etruria, he sent to Rome to entreat that Decius would come and act with
him. 'With him I shall never want forces, nor have too many enemies to
deal with.'

The Gauls, since the time of Brennus, had so entirely settled in
northern Italy, that it had acquired the name of Cisalpine Gaul, and
they were as warlike as ever, while better armed and trained. The united
armies of Gauls, Samnites, and their allies, together, are said to have
amounted to 143,330 foot and 46,000 horse, and the Roman army consisted
of four legions, 24,000 in all, with an unspecified number of horse. The
place of battle was at Sentinum, and here for the first time the Gauls
brought armed chariots into use,--probably the wicker chariots, with
scythes in the midst of the clumsy wooden wheels, which were used by the
Kelts in Britain two centuries later. It was the first time the Romans
had encountered these barbarous vehicles; they were taken by surprise,
the horses started, and could not be brought back to the charge, and the
legions were mowed down like corn where the furious Gaul impelled his
scythe. Decius shouted in vain, and tried to gather his men and lead
them back; but the terror at this new mode of warfare had so mastered
them, that they paid no attention to his call. Then, half in policy,
half in superstition, he resolved to follow his father in his death. He
called the chief priest, Marcus Livius, and standing on his javelin,
went through the same formula of self-dedication, and in the like manner
threw himself, alone and unarmed, in the midst of the enemy, among whom
he soon fell, under many a savage stroke. The priest, himself a gallant
soldier, called to the troops that their victory was now secured, and
thoroughly believing him, they let him lead them back to the charge, and
routed the Gauls; whilst Fabius so well did his part against the other
nations, that the victory was complete, and 25,000 enemies were slain.
So covered was the body of Decius by the corpses of his enemies, that
all that day it could not be found; but on the next it was discovered,
and Fabius, with a full heart, pronounced the funeral oration of the
second Decius, who had willingly offered himself to turn the tide of
battle in favor of his country. It was the last of such acts of
dedication--the Romans became more learned and philosophical, and
perhaps more reasonable; and yet, mistaken as was the object, it seems a
falling off that, 200 years later, Cicero should not know who were the
'nine gods' of the Decii, and should regard their sacrifice as 'heroic
indeed, but unworthy of men of understanding'.

REGULUS

B.C. 249

The first wars that the Romans engaged in beyond the bounds of Italy,
were with the Carthaginians. This race came from Tyre and Zidon; and
were descended from some of the Phoenicians, or Zidonians, who were such
dangerous foes, or more dangerous friends, to the Israelites. Carthage
had, as some say, been first founded by some of the Canaanites who fled
when Joshua conquered the Promised Land; and whether this were so or
not, the inhabitants were in all their ways the same as the Tyrians and
Zidonians, of whom so much is said in the prophecies of Isaiah and
Ezekiel. Like them, they worshipped Baal and Ashtoreth, and the
frightful Moloch, with foul and cruel rites; and, like them, they were
excellent sailors and great merchants trading with every known country,
and living in great riches and splendor at their grand city on the
southern shore of the Mediterranean. That they were a wicked and cruel
race is also certain; the Romans used to call deceit Punic faith, that
is, Phoenician faith, and though no doubt Roman writers show them up in
their worst colours, yet, after the time of Hiram, Solomon's ally at
Tyre, it is plain from Holy Scripture that their crimes were great.

The first dispute between Rome and Carthage was about their possession
in the island of Sicily; and the war thus begun had lasted eight years
when it was resolved to send an army to fight the Carthaginians on their
own shores. The army and fleet were placed under the command of the two
consuls, Lucius Manlius and Marcus Attilius Regulus. On the way, there
was a great sea fight with the Carthaginian fleet, and this was the
first naval battle that the Romans ever gained. It made the way to
Africa free; but the soldiers, who had never been so far from home
before, murmured, for they expected to meet not only human enemies, but
monstrous serpents, lions, elephants, asses with horns, and dog-headed
monsters, to have a scorching sun overhead, and a noisome marsh under
their feet. However, Regulus sternly put a stop to all murmurs, by
making it known that disaffection would be punished by death, and the
army safely landed, and set up a fortification at Clypea, and plundered
the whole country round. Orders here came from Rome that Manlius should
return thither, but that Regulus should remain to carry on the war. This
was a great grief to him. He was a very poor man, with nothing of his
own but a little farm of seven acres, and the person whom he had
employed to cultivate it had died in his absence; a hired laborer had
undertaken the care of it, but had been unfaithful, and had run away
with his tools and his cattle; so that he was afraid that, unless he
could return quickly, his wife and children would starve. However, the
Senate engaged to provide for his family, and he remained, making
expeditions into the country round, in the course of which the Romans
really did fall in with a serpent as monstrous as their imagination had
depicted. It was said to be 120 feet long, and dwelt upon the banks of
the River Bagrada, where it used to devour the Roman soldiers as they
went to fetch water. It had such tough scales that they were obliged to
attack it with their engines meant for battering city walls, and only
succeeded with much difficulty in destroying it.

The country was most beautiful, covered with fertile cornfields and full
of rich fruit trees, and all the rich Carthaginians had country houses
and gardens, which were made delicious with fountains, trees, and
flowers. The Roman soldiers, plain, hardy, fierce, and pitiless, did, it
must be feared, cruel damage among these peaceful scenes; they boasted
of having sacked 300 villages, and mercy was not yet known to them. The
Carthaginian army, though strong in horsemen and in elephants, kept upon
the hills and did nothing to save the country, and the wild desert
tribes of Numidians came rushing in to plunder what the Romans had left.
The Carthaginians sent to offer terms of peace; but Regulus, who had
become uplifted by his conquests, made such demands that the messengers
remonstrated. He answered, 'Men who are good for anything should either
conquer or submit to their betters;' and he sent them rudely away, like
a stern old Roman as he was. His merit was that he had no more mercy on
himself than on others.

The Carthaginians were driven to extremity, and made horrible offerings
to Moloch, giving the little children of the noblest families to be
dropped into the fire between the brazen hands of his statue, and grown-
up people of the noblest families rushed in of their own accord, hoping
thus to propitiate their gods, and obtain safety for their country.
Their time was not yet fully come, and a respite was granted to them.
They had sent, in their distress, to hire soldiers in Greece, and among
these came a Spartan, named Xanthippus, who at once took the command,
and led the army out to battle, with a long line of elephants ranged in
front of them, and with clouds of horsemen hovering on the wings. The
Romans had not yet learnt the best mode of fighting with elephants,
namely, to leave lanes in their columns where these huge beasts might
advance harmlessly; instead of which, the ranks were thrust and trampled
down by the creatures' bulk, and they suffered a terrible defeat;
Regulus himself was seized by the horsemen, and dragged into Carthage,
where the victors feasted and rejoiced through half the night, and
testified their thanks to Moloch by offering in his fires the bravest of
their captives.

Regulus himself was not, however, one of these victims. He was kept a
close prisoner for two years, pining and sickening in his loneliness,
while in the meantime the war continued, and at last a victory so
decisive was gained by the Romans, that the people of Carthage were
discouraged, and resolved to ask terms of peace. They thought that no
one would be so readily listened to at Rome as Regulus, and they
therefore sent him there with their envoys, having first made him swear
that he would come back to his prison if there should neither be peace
nor an exchange of prisoners. They little knew how much more a true-
hearted Roman cared for his city than for himself--for his word than for
his life.

Worn and dejected, the captive warrior came to the outside of the gates
of his own city, and there paused, refusing to enter. 'I am no longer a
Roman citizen,' he said; 'I am but the barbarian's slave, and the Senate
may not give audience to strangers within the walls.'

His wife Marcia ran out to greet him, with his two sons, but he did not
look up, and received their caresses as one beneath their notice, as a
mere slave, and he continued, in spite of all entreaty, to remain
outside the city, and would not even go to the little farm he had loved
so well.

The Roman Senate, as he would not come in to them, came out to hold
their meeting in the Campagna.

The ambassadors spoke first, then Regulus, standing up, said, as one
repeating a task, 'Conscript fathers, being a slave to the
Carthaginians, I come on the part of my masters to treat with you
concerning peace, and an exchange of prisoners.' He then turned to go
away with the ambassadors, as a stranger might not be present at the
deliberations of the Senate. His old friends pressed him to stay and
give his opinion as a senator who had twice been consul; but he refused
to degrade that dignity by claiming it, slave as he was. But, at the
command of his Carthaginian masters, he remained, though not taking his
seat.

Then he spoke. He told the senators to persevere in the war. He said he
had seen the distress of Carthage, and that a peace would only be to her
advantage, not to that of Rome, and therefore he strongly advised that
the war should continue. Then, as to the exchange of prisoners, the
Carthaginian generals, who were in the hands of the Romans, were in full
health and strength, whilst he himself was too much broken down to be
fit for service again, and indeed he believed that his enemies had given
him a slow poison, and that he could not live long. Thus he insisted
that no exchange of prisoners should be made.

It was wonderful, even to Romans, to hear a man thus pleading against
himself, and their chief priest came forward, and declared that, as his
oath had been wrested from him by force, he was not bound to return to
his captivity. But Regulus was too noble to listen to this for a moment.
'Have you resolved to dishonor me?' he said. 'I am not ignorant that
death and the extremest tortures are preparing for me; but what are
these to the shame of an infamous action, or the wounds of a guilty
mind? Slave as I am to Carthage, I have still the spirit of a Roman. I
have sworn to return. It is my duty to go; let the gods take care of the
rest.'

The Senate decided to follow the advice of Regulus, though they bitterly
regretted his sacrifice. His wife wept and entreated in vain that they
would detain him; they could merely repeat their permission to him to
remain; but nothing could prevail with him to break his word, and he
turned back to the chains and death he expected so calmly as if he had
been returning to his home. This was in the year B.C. 249.

'Let the gods take care of the rest,' said the Roman; the gods whom
alone he knew, and through whom he ignorantly worshipped the true God,
whose Light was shining out even in this heathen's truth and constancy.
How his trust was fulfilled is not known. The Senate, after the next
victory, gave two Carthaginian generals to his wife and sons to hold as
pledges for his good treatment; but when tidings arrived that Regulus
was dead, Marcia began to treat them both with savage cruelty, though
one of them assured her that he had been careful to have her husband
well used. Horrible stories were told that Regulus had been put out in
the sun with his eyelids cut off, rolled down a hill in a barrel with
spikes, killed by being constantly kept awake, or else crucified. Marcia
seems to have set about, and perhaps believed in these horrors, and
avenged them on her unhappy captives till one had died, and the Senate
sent for her sons and severely reprimanded them. They declared it was
their mother's doing, not theirs, and thenceforth were careful of the
comfort of the remaining prisoner.

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