Plutarch's Lives, trans by A. H. Clough
by Plutarch
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
Go to Part 2 of 8

Edited by A.H. Clough

Contents

THESEUS
ROMULUS
COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH THESEUS
LYCURGUS
NUMA POMPILIUS
COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUS
SOLON
POPLICOLA
COMPARISON OF POPLICOLA WITH SOLON
THEMISTOCLES
CAMILLUS
PERICLES
FABIUS
COMPARISON OF PERICLES WITH FABIUS
ALCIBIADES
CORIOLANUS
COMPARISON OF ALCIBIADES WITH CORIOLANUS
TIMOLEON
AEMILIUS PAULUS
COMPARISON OF TIMOLEON WITH AEMILIUS PAULUS
PELOPIDAS
MARCELLUS
COMPARISION OF PELOPIDAS WITH MARCELLUS
ARISTIDES
MARCUS CATO
COMPARISON OF ARISTIDES WITH MARCUS CATO.
PHILOPOEMEN
FLAMININUS
COMPARISON OF PHILOPOEMEN WITH FLAMININUS
PYRRHUS
CAIUS MARIUS
LYSANDER
SYLLA
COMPARISON OF LYSANDER WITH SYLLA
CIMON
LUCULLUS
COMPARISON OF LUCULLUS WITH CIMON
NICIAS
CRASSUS
COMPARISON OF CRASSUS WITH NICIAS
SERTORIUS
EUMENES
COMPARISON OF SERTORIUS WITH EUMENES
AGESILAUS
POMPEY
COMPARISON OF POMPEY AND AGESILAUS
ALEXANDER
CAESAR
PHOCION
CATO THE YOUNGER
AGIS
CLEOMENES
TIBERIUS GRACCHUS
CAIUS GRACCHUS
COMPARISON OF TIBERIUS AND CAIUS GRACCHUS WITH AGIS AND CLEOMENES
DEMOSTHENES
CICERO
COMPARISON OF DEMOSTHENES AND CICERO
DEMETRIUS
ANTONY
COMPARISON OF DEMETRIUS AND ANTONY
DION
MARCUS BRUTUS
COMPARISON OF DION AND BRUTUS
ARATUS
ARTAXERXES
GALBA
OTHO

THESEUS

As geographers, Sosius, crowd into the edges of their maps parts of the
world which they do not know about, adding notes in the margin to the
effect, that beyond this lies nothing but sandy deserts full of wild
beasts, unapproachable bogs, Scythian ice, or a frozen sea, so, in this
work of mine, in which I have compared the lives of the greatest men
with one another, after passing through those periods which probable
reasoning can reach to and real history find a footing in, I might very
well say of those that are farther off, Beyond this there is nothing but
prodigies and fictions, the only inhabitants are the poets and inventors
of fables; there is no credit, or certainty any farther. Yet, after
publishing an account of Lycurgus the lawgiver and Numa the king, I
thought I might, not without reason, ascend as high as to Romulus, being
brought by my history so near to his time.
Considering therefore with myself

Whom shall I set so great a man to face?
Or whom oppose? who's equal to the place?

(as Aeschylus expresses it), I found none so fit as him that peopled the
beautiful and far-famed city of Athens, to be set in opposition with the
father of the invincible and renowned city of Rome. Let us hope that
Fable may, in what shall follow, so submit to the purifying processes of
Reason as to take the character of exact history. In any case, however,
where it shall be found contumaciously slighting credibility, and
refusing to be reduced to anything like probable fact, we shall beg
that we may meet with candid readers, and such as will receive with
indulgence the stories of antiquity.

Theseus seemed to me to resemble Romulus in many particulars. Both of
them, born out of wedlock and of uncertain parentage, had the repute of
being sprung from the gods.

Both warriors; that by all the world's allowed.

Both of them united with strength of body an equal vigor mind; and of
the two most famous cities of the world the one built Rome, and the
other made Athens be inhabited. Both stand charged with the rape of
women; neither of them could avoid domestic misfortunes nor jealousy at
home; but towards the close of their lives are both of them said to have
incurred great odium with their countrymen, if, that is, we may take the
stories least like poetry as our guide to the truth.

The lineage of Theseus, by his father's side, ascends as high as to
Erechtheus and the first inhabitants of Attica. By his mother's side he
was descended of Pelops. For Pelops was the most powerful of all the
kings of Peloponnesus, not so much by the greatness of his riches as the
multitude of his children, having married many daughters to chief men,
and put many sons in places of command in the towns round about him.
One of whom named Pittheus, grandfather to Theseus, was governor of the
small city of the Troezenians, and had the repute of a man of the
greatest knowledge and wisdom of his time; which then, it seems,
consisted chiefly in grave maxims, such as the poet Hesiod got his great
fame by, in his book of Works and Days. And, indeed, among these is one
that they ascribe to Pittheus,--

Unto a friend suffice
A stipulated price;

which, also, Aristotle mentions. And Euripides, by calling Hippolytus "
scholar of the holy Pittheus," shows the opinion that the world had of
him.

Aegeus, being desirous of children, and consulting the oracle of Delphi,
received the celebrated answer which forbade him the company of any
woman before his return to Athens. But the oracle being so obscure as
not to satisfy him that he was clearly forbid this, he went to Troezen,
and communicated to Pittheus the voice of the god,
which was in this manner,--

Loose not the wine-skin foot, thou chief of men,
Until to Athens thou art come again.

Pittheus, therefore, taking advantage from the obscurity of the oracle,
prevailed upon him, it is uncertain whether by persuasion or deceit, to
lie with his daughter Aethra. Aegeus afterwards, knowing her whom he
had lain with to be Pittheus's daughter, and suspecting her to be with
child by him, left a sword and a pair of shoes, hiding them under a
great stone that had a hollow in it exactly fitting them; and went away
making her only privy to it, and commanding her, if she brought forth a
son who, when he came to man's estate, should be able to lift up the
stone and take away what he had left there, she should send him away to
him with those things with all secrecy, and with injunctions to him as
much as possible to conceal his journey from every one; for he greatly
feared the Pallantidae, who were continually mutinying against him, and
despised him for his want of children, they themselves being fifty
brothers, all sons of Pallas.

When Aethra was delivered of a son, some say that he was immediately
named Theseus, from the tokens which his father had put @ under the
stone; others that he received his name afterwards at Athens, when
Aegeus acknowledged him for his son. He was brought up under his
grandfather Pittheus, and had a tutor and attendant set over him named
Connidas, to whom the Athenians, even to this time, the day before the
feast that is dedicated to Theseus, sacrifice a ram, giving this honor
to his memory upon much juster grounds than to Silanio and Parrhasius,
for making pictures and statues of Theseus. There being then a custom
for the Grecian youth, upon their first coming to man's estate, to go to
Delphi and offer first-fruits of their hair to the god, Theseus also
went thither, and a place there to this day is yet named Thesea, as it
is said, from him. He clipped only the fore part of his head, as Homer
says the Abantes did.%  And this sort of tonsure was from him named
Theseis. The Abantes first used it, not in imitation of the Arabians,
as some imagine, nor of the Mysians, but because they were a warlike
people, and used to close fighting, and above all other nations
accustomed to engage hand to hand; as Archilochus testifies
in these verses: --

Slings shall not whirl, nor many arrows fly,
When on the plain the battle joins; but swords,
Man against man, the deadly conflict try,
As is the practice of Euboea's lords
Skilled with the spear.--

Therefore that they might not give their enemies a hold by their hair,
they cut it in this manner. They write also that this was the reason
why Alexander gave command to his captains that all the beards of the
Macedonians should be shaved, as being the readiest hold for an enemy.

Aethra for some time concealed the true parentage of Theseus, and a
report was given out by Pittheus that he was begotten by Neptune; for
the Troezenians pay Neptune the highest veneration. He is their tutelar
god, to him they offer all their first-fruits, and in his honor stamp
their money with a trident.

Theseus displaying not only great strength of body, but equal bravery,
and a quickness alike and force of understanding, his mother Aethra,
conducting him to the stone, and informing him who was his true father,
commanded him to take from thence the tokens that Aegeus had left, and
to sail to Athens. He without any difficulty set himself to the stone
and lifted it up; but refused to take his journey by sea, though it was
much the safer way, and though his mother and grandfather begged him to
do so. For it was at that time very dangerous to go by land on the road
to Athens, no part of it being free from robbers and murderers. That
age produced a sort of men, in force of hand, and swiftness of foot, and
strength of body, excelling the ordinary rate, and wholly incapable of
fatigue; making use, however, of these gifts of nature to no good or
profitable purpose for mankind, but rejoicing and priding themselves in
insolence, and taking the benefit of their superior strength in the
exercise of inhumanity and cruelty, and in seizing, forcing, and
committing all manner of outrages upon every thing that fell into their
hands; all respect for others, all justice, they thought, all equity and
humanity, though naturally lauded by common people, either out of want
of courage to commit injuries or fear to receive them, yet no way
concerned those who were strong enough to win for themselves. Some of
these, Hercules destroyed and cut off in his passage through these
countries, but some, escaping his notice while he was passing by, fled
and hid themselves, or else were spared by him in contempt of their
abject submission; and after that Hercules fell into misfortune, and,
having slain Iphitus, retired to Lydia, and for a long time was there
slave to Omphale, a punishment which he had imposed upon himself for the
murder, then, indeed, Lydia enjoyed high peace and security, but in
Greece and the countries about it the like villanies again revived and
broke out, there being none to repress or chastise them. It was
therefore a very hazardous journey to travel by land from Athens to
Peloponnesus; and Pittheus, giving him an exact account of each of these
robbers and villains, their strength, and the cruelty they used to all
strangers, tried to persuade Theseus to go by sea. But he, it seems,
had long since been secretly fired by the glory of Hercules, held him in
the highest estimation, and was never more satisfied than in listening
to any that gave an account of him; especially those that had seen him,
or had been present at any action or saying of his. So that he was
altogether in the same state of feeling as, in after ages, Themistocles
was, when he said that he could not sleep for the trophy of Miltiades;
entertaining such admiration for the virtue of Hercules, that in the
night his dreams were all of that hero's actions. and in the day a
continual emulation stirred him up to perform the like. Besides, they
were related, being born of cousins-german. For Aethra was daughter of
Pittheus, and Alcmena of Lysidice; and Lysidice and Pittheus were brother
and sister, children of Hippodamia and Pelops. He thought it therefore a
dishonorable thing, and not to be endured, that Hercules should go out
everywhere, and purge both land and sea from wicked men, and he himself
should fly from the like adventures that actually came in his way;
disgracing his reputed father by a mean flight by sea, and not showing
his true one as good evidence of the greatness of his birth by noble and
worthy actions, as by the tokens that he brought with him,
the shoes and the sword.

With this mind and these thoughts, he set forward with a design to do
injury to nobody, but to repel and revenge himself of all those that
should offer any. And first of all, in a set combat, he slew
Periphetes, in the neighborhood of Epidaurus, who used a club for his
arms, and from thence had the name of Corynetes, or the club-bearer; who
seized upon him, and forbade him to go forward in his journey. Being
pleased with the club, he took it, and made it his weapon, continuing to
use it as Hercules did the lion's skin, on whose shoulders that served
to prove how huge a beast he had killed; and to the same end Theseus
carried about him this club; overcome indeed by him,
but now, in his hands, invincible.

Passing on further towards the Isthmus of Peloponnesus, he slew Sinnis,
often surnamed the Bender of Pines, after the same manner in which he
himself had destroyed many others before. And this he did without
having either practiced or ever learnt the art of bending these trees,
to show that natural strength is above all art. This Sinnis had a
daughter of remarkable beauty and stature, called Perigune, who, when
her father was killed, fled, and was sought after everywhere by Theseus;
and coming into a place overgrown with brushwood shrubs, and asparagus-
thorn, there, in a childlike, innocent manner, prayed and begged them,
as if they understood her, to give her shelter, with vows that if she
escaped she would never cut them down nor burn them. But Theseus
calling upon her, and giving her his promise that he would use her with
respect, and offer her no injury, she came forth, and in due time bore
him a son, named Melanippus; but afterwards was married to Deioneus, the
son of Eurytus, the Oechalian, Theseus himself giving her to him.
Ioxus, the son of this Melanippus who was born to Theseus, accompanied
Ornytus in the colony that he carried with him into Caria, whence it is
a family usage amongst the people called Ioxids, both male and female,
never to burn either shrubs or asparagus-thorn,
but to respect and honor them.

The Crommyonian sow, which they called Phaea, was a savage and
formidable wild beast, by no means an enemy to be despised. Theseus
killed her, going out of his way on purpose to meet and engage her, so
that he might not seem to perform all his great exploits out of mere
necessity ; being also of opinion that it was the part of a brave man to
chastise villainous and wicked men when attacked by them, but to seek
out and overcome the more noble wild beasts. Others relate that Phaea
was a woman, a robber full of cruelty and lust, that lived in Crommyon,
and had the name of Sow given her from the foulness of her life and
manners, and afterwards was killed by Theseus. He slew also Sciron,
upon the borders of Megara, casting him down from the rocks, being, as
most report, a notorious robber of all passengers, and, as others add,
accustomed, out of insolence and wantonness, to stretch forth his feet
to strangers, commanding them to wash them, and then while they did it,
with a kick to send them down the rock into the sea. The writers of
Megara, however, in contradiction to the received report, and, as
Simonides expresses it, "fighting with all antiquity," contend that
Sciron was neither a robber nor doer of violence, but a punisher of all
such, and the relative and friend of good and just men; for Aeacus, they
say, was ever esteemed a man of the greatest sanctity of all the Greeks;
and Cychreus, the Salaminian, was honored at Athens with divine worship;
and the virtues of Peleus and Telamon were not unknown to any one. Now
Sciron was son-in-law to Cychreus, father-in-law to Aeacus, and
grandfather to Peleus and Telamon, who were both of them sons of Endeis,
the daughter of Sciron and Chariclo; it was not probable, therefore,
that the best of men should make these alliances with one who was worst,
giving and receiving mutually what was of greatest value and most dear
to them. Theseus, by their account, did not slay Sciron in his first
journey to Athens, but afterwards, when he took Eleusis, a city of the
Megarians, having circumvented Diocles, the governor. Such are the
contradictions in this story. In Eleusis he killed Cercyon, the
Arcadian, in a wrestling match. And going on a little farther, in
Erineus, he slew Damastes, otherwise called Procrustes, forcing his body
to the size of his own bed, as he himself was used to do with all
strangers; this he did in imitation of Hercules, who always returned
upon his assailants the same sort of violence that they offered to him;
sacrificed Busiris, killed Antaeus in wrestling, and Cycnus in single
combat, and Termerus by breaking his skull in pieces (whence, they say,
comes the proverb of "a Termerian mischief"), for it seems Termerus
killed passengers that he met, by running with his head against them.
And so also Theseus proceeded in the punishment of evil men, who
underwent the same violence from him which they had inflicted upon
others, justly suffering after the manner of their own injustice.

As he went forward on his journey, and was come as far as the river
Cephisus, some of the race of the Phytalidae met him and saluted him,
and, upon his desire to use the purifications, then in custom, they
performed them with all the usual ceremonies, and, having offered
propitiatory sacrifices to the gods, invited him and entertained him at
their house, a kindness which, in all his journey hitherto,
he had not met.

On the eighth day of Cronius, now called Hecatombaeon, he arrived at
Athens, where he found the public affairs full of all confusion, and
divided into parties and factions, Aegeus also, and his whole private
family, laboring under the same distemper; for Medea, having fled from
Corinth, and promised Aegeus to make him, by her art, capable of having
children, was living with him. She first was aware of Theseus, whom as
yet Aegeus did not know, and he being in years, full of jealousies and
suspicions, and fearing every thing by reason of the faction that was
then in the city, she easily persuaded him to kill him by poison at a
banquet, to which he was to be invited as a stranger. He, coming to the
entertainment, thought it not fit to discover himself at once, but,
willing to give his father the occasion of first finding him out, the
meat being on the table, he drew his sword as if he designed to cut with
it; Aegeus, at once recognizing the token, threw down the cup of poison,
and, questioning his son, embraced him, and, having gathered together
all his citizens, owned him publicly before them, who, on their part,
received him gladly for the fame of his greatness and bravery; and it is
said, that when the cup fell, the poison was spilt there where now is
the enclosed space in the Delphinium; for in that place stood Aegeus's
house, and the figure of Mercury on the east side of the temple is
called the Mercury of Aegeus's gate.

The sons of Pallas, who before were quiet, upon expectation of
recovering the kingdom after Aegeus's death, who was without issue, as
soon as Theseus appeared and was acknowledged the successor, highly
resenting that Aegeus first, an adopted son only of Pandion, and not at
all related to the family of Erechtheus, should be holding the kingdom,
and that after him, Theseus, a visitor and stranger, should be destined
to succeed to it, broke out into open war. And, dividing themselves
into two companies, one part of them marched openly from Sphettus, with
their father, against the city, the other, hiding themselves in the
village of Gargettus, lay in ambush, with a design to set upon the enemy
on both sides. They had with them a crier of the township of Agnus,
named Leos, who discovered to Theseus all the designs of the Pallantidae
He immediately fell upon those that lay in ambuscade, and cut them all
off; upon tidings of which Pallas and his company fled
and were dispersed.

From hence they say is derived the custom among the people of the
township of Pallene to have no marriages or any alliance with the people
of Agnus, nor to suffer the criers to pronounce in their proclamations
the words used in all other parts of the country, Acouete Leoi (Hear ye
people), hating the very sound of Leo, because of the treason of Leos.

Theseus, longing to be in action, and desirous also to make himself
popular, left Athens to fight with the bull of Marathon, which did no
small mischief to the inhabitants of Tetrapolis. And having overcome
it, he brought it alive in triumph through the city, and afterwards
sacrificed it to the Delphinian Apollo. The story of Hecale, also, of
her receiving and entertaining Theseus in this expedition, seems to be
not altogether void of truth; for the townships round about, meeting
upon a certain day, used to offer a sacrifice, which they called
Hecalesia, to Jupiter Hecaleius, and to pay honor to Hecale, whom, by a
diminutive name, they called Hecalene, because she, while entertaining
Theseus, who was quite a youth, addressed him, as old people do, with
similar endearing diminutives; and having made a vow to Jupiter for him
as he was going to the fight, that, if he returned in safety, she would
offer sacrifices in thanks of it, and dying before he came back, she had
these honors given her by way of return for her hospitality, by the
command of Theseus, as Philochorus tells us.

Not long after arrived the third time from Crete the collectors of the
tribute which the Athenians paid them upon the following occasion.
Androgeus having been treacherously murdered in the confines of Attica,
not only Minos, his father, put the Athenians to extreme distress by a
perpetual war, but the gods also laid waste their country both famine
and pestilence lay heavy upon them, and even their rivers were dried up.
Being told by the oracle that, if they appeased and reconciled Minos,
the anger of the gods would cease and they should enjoy rest from the
miseries they labored under, they sent heralds, and with much
supplication were at last reconciled, entering into an agreement to send
to Crete every nine years a tribute of seven young men and as many
virgins, as most writers agree in stating; and the most poetical story
adds, that the Minotaur destroyed them, or that, wandering in the
labyrinth, and finding no possible means of getting out, they miserably
ended their lives there; and that this Minotaur was
(as Euripides hath it)

A mingled form, where two strange shapes combined,
And different natures, bull and man, were joined.

But Philochorus says that the Cretans will by no means allow the truth
of this, but say that the labyrinth was only an ordinary prison, having
no other bad quality but that it secured the prisoners from escaping,
and that Minos, having instituted games in honor of Androgeus, gave, as
a reward to the victors, these youths, who in the mean time were kept in
the labyrinth; and that the first that overcame in those games was one
of the greatest power and command among them, named Taurus, a man of no
merciful or gentle disposition, who treated the Athenians that were made
his prize in a proud and cruel manner. Also Aristotle himself, in the
account that he gives of the form of government of the Bottiaeans, is
manifestly of opinion that the youths were not slain by Minos, but spent
the remainder of their days in slavery in Crete; that the Cretans, in
former times, to acquit themselves of an ancient vow which they had
made, were used to send an offering of the first-fruits of their men to
Delphi, and that some descendants of these Athenian slaves were mingled
with them and sent amongst them, and, unable to get their living there,
removed from thence, first into Italy, and settled about Japygia; from
thence again, that they removed to Thrace, and were named Bottiaeans
and that this is the reason why, in a certain sacrifice, the Bottiaean
girls sing a hymn beginning Let us go to Athens. This may show us how
dangerous a thing it is to incur the hostility of a city that is
mistress of eloquence and song. For Minos was always ill spoken of, and
represented ever as a very wicked man, in the Athenian theaters; neither
did Hesiod avail him by calling him "the most royal Minos," nor Homer,
who styles him "Jupiter's familiar friend;" the tragedians got the
better, and from the vantage ground of the stage showered down obloquy
upon him, as a man of cruelty and violence; whereas, in fact, he appears
to have been a king and a lawgiver, and Rhadamanthus a judge under him,
administering the statutes that he ordained.

Now when the time of the third tribute was come, and the fathers who had
any young men for their sons were to proceed by lot to the choice of
those that were to be sent, there arose fresh discontents and
accusations against Aegeus among the people, who were full of grief and
indignation that he, who was the cause of all their miseries, was the
only person exempt from the punishment; adopting and settling his
kingdom upon a bastard and foreign son, he took no thought, they said,
of their destitution and loss, not of bastards, but lawful children.
These things sensibly affected Theseus, who, thinking it but just not to
disregard, but rather partake of, the sufferings of his fellow citizens,
offered himself for one without any lot. All else were struck with
admiration for the nobleness and with love for the goodness of the act;
and Aegeus, after prayers and entreaties, finding him inflexible and not
to be persuaded, proceeded to the choosing of the rest by lot.
Hellanicus, however, tells us that the Athenians did not send the young
men and virgins by lot, but that Minos himself used to come and make his
own choice, and pitched upon Theseus before all others; according to the
conditions agreed upon between them, namely, that the Athenians should
furnish them with a ship, and that the young men that were to sail with
him should carry no weapon of war; but that if the Minotaur was
destroyed, the tribute should cease.

On the two former occasions of the payment of the tribute, entertaining
no hopes of safety or return, they sent out the ship with a black sail,
as to unavoidable destruction; but now, Theseus encouraging his father
and speaking greatly of himself, as confident that he should kill the
Minotaur, he gave the pilot another sail, which was white, commanding
him, as he returned, if Theseus were safe, to make use of that; but if
not, to sail with the black one, and to hang out that sign of his
misfortune. Simonides says that the sail which Aegeus delivered to the
pilot was not white, but

Scarlet, in the juicy bloom
Of the living oak-tree steeped,

and that this was to be the sign of their escape. Phereclus, son of
Amarsyas, according to Simonides, was pilot of the ship. But
Philochorus says Theseus had sent him by Scirus, from Salamis,
Nausithous to be his steersman, and Phaeax his look-out-man in the prow,
the Athenians having as yet not applied themselves to navigation; and
that Scirus did this because one of the young men, Menesthes, was his
daughter's son; and this the chapels of Nausithous and Phaeax, built by
Theseus near the temple of Scirus, confirm. He adds, also, that the
feast named Cybernesia was in honor of them. The lot
being cast, and Theseus having received out of the Prytaneum those upon
whom it fell, he went to the Delphinium, and made an offering for them
to Apollo of his suppliant's badge, which was a bough of a consecrated
olive tree, with white wool tied about it.

Having thus performed his devotion, he went to sea, the sixth day of
Munychion, on which day even to this time the Athenians send their
virgins to the same temple to make supplication to the gods. It is
farther reported that he was commanded by the oracle at Delphi to make
Venus his guide, and to invoke her as the companion and conductress of
his voyage, and that, as he was sacrificing a she goat to her by the
seaside, it was suddenly changed into a he, and for this cause that
goddess had the name of Epitrapia.

When he arrived at Crete, as most of the ancient historians as well as
poets tell us, having a clue of thread given him by Ariadne, who had
fallen in love with him, and being instructed by her how to use it so as
to conduct him through the windings of the labyrinth, he escaped out of
it and slew the Minotaur, and sailed back, taking along with him Ariadne
and the young Athenian captives. Pherecydes adds that he bored holes in
the bottoms of the Cretan ships to hinder their pursuit. Demon writes
that Taurus, the chief captain of Minos, was slain by Theseus at the
mouth of the port, in a naval combat, as he was sailing out for Athens.
But Philochorus gives us the story thus: That at the setting forth of
the yearly games by king Minos, Taurus was expected to carry away the
prize, as he had done before; and was much grudged the honor. His
character and manners made his power hateful, and he was accused
moreover of too near familiarity with Pasiphae, for which reason, when
Theseus desired the combat, Minos readily complied. And as it was a
custom in Crete that the women also should be admitted to the sight of
these games, Ariadne, being present, was struck with admiration of the
manly beauty of Theseus, and the vigor and address which he showed in
the combat, overcoming all that encountered with him. Minos, too, being
extremely pleased with him, especially because he had overthrown and
disgraced Taurus, voluntarily gave up the young captives to Theseus, and
remitted the tribute to the Athenians. Clidemus gives an account
peculiar to himself, very ambitiously, and beginning a great way back:
That it was a decree consented to by all Greece, that no vessel from any
place, containing above five persons, should be permitted to sail, Jason
only excepted, who was made captain of the great ship Argo, to sail
about and scour the sea of pirates. But Daedalus having escaped from
Crete, and flying by sea to Athens, Minos, contrary to this decree,
pursued him with his ships of war, was forced by a storm upon Sicily,
and there ended his life. After his decease, Deucalion, his son,
desiring a quarrel with the Athenians, sent to them, demanding that they
should deliver up Daedalus to him, threatening, upon their refusal, to
put to death all the young Athenians whom his father had received as
hostages from the city. To this angry message Theseus returned a very
gentle answer, excusing himself that he could not deliver up Daedalus,
who was nearly related to him, being his cousin-german, his mother being
Merope, the daughter of Erechtheus. In the meanwhile he secretly
prepared a navy, part of it at home near the village of the Thymoetadae,
a place of no resort, and far from any common roads, the other part by
his grandfather Pittheus's means at Troezen, that so his design might be
carried on with the greatest secrecy. As soon as ever his fleet was in
readiness, he set sail, having with him Daedalus and other exiles from
Crete for his guides; and none of the Cretans having any knowledge of
his coming, but imagining, when they saw his fleet, that they were
friends and vessels of their own, he soon made himself master of the
port, and, immediately making a descent, reached Gnossus before any
notice of his coming, and, in a battle before the gates of the
labyrinth, put Deucalion and all his guards to the sword. The
government by this means falling to Ariadne, he made a league with her,
and received the captives of her, and ratified a perpetual friendship
between the Athenians and the Cretans, whom he engaged under an oath
never again to commence any war with Athens.

There are yet many other traditions about these things, and as many
concerning Ariadne, all inconsistent with each other. Some relate that
she hung herself, being deserted by Theseus. Others that she was
carried away by his sailors to the isle of Naxos, and married to
Oenarus, priest of Bacchus; and that Theseus left her
because he fell in love with another,

For Aegle's love was burning in his breast;

a verse which Hereas, the Megarian, says, was formerly in the poet
Hesiod's works, but put out by Pisistratus, in like manner as he added
in Homer's Raising of the Dead, to gratify the Athenians, the line

Theseus, Pirithous, mighty sons of gods.

Others say Ariadne had sons also by Theseus, Oenopion and Staphylus; and
among these is the poet Ion of Chios, who writes of his own native city

Which once Oenopion, son of Theseus, built.

But the more famous of the legendary stories everybody (as I may say)
has in his mouth. In Paeon, however, the Amathusian, there is a story
given, differing from the rest. For he writes that Theseus, being
driven by a storm upon the isle of Cyprus, and having aboard with him
Ariadne, big with child, and extremely discomposed with the rolling of
the sea, set her on shore, and left her there alone, to return himself
and help the ship, when, on a sudden, a violent wind carried him again
out to sea. That the women of the island received Ariadne very kindly,
and did all they could to console and alleviate her distress at being
left behind. That they counterfeited kind letters, and delivered them
to her, as sent from Theseus, and, when she fell in labor, were diligent
in performing to her every needful service; but that she died before she
could be delivered, and was honorably interred. That soon after Theseus
returned, and was greatly afflicted for her loss, and at his departure
left a sum of money among the people of the island, ordering them to do
sacrifice to Ariadne; and caused two little images to be made and
dedicated to her, one of silver and the other of brass. Moreover, that
on the second day of Gorpiaeus,  which is sacred to
Ariadne, they have this ceremony among their sacrifices, to have a youth
lie down and with his voice and gesture represent the pains of a woman
in travail; and that the Amathusians call the grove in which they show
her tomb, the grove of Venus Ariadne.

Differing yet from this account, some of the Naxians write that there
were two Minoses and two Ariadnes, one of whom, they say, was married to
Bacchus, in the isle of Naxos, and bore the children Staphylus and his
brother; but that the other, of a later age, was carried off by Theseus,
and, being afterwards deserted by him, retired to Naxos with her nurse
Corcyna, whose grave they yet show. That this Ariadne also died there,
and was worshiped by the island, but in a different manner from the
former; for her day is celebrated with general joy and revelling, but
all the sacrifices performed to the latter are attended
with mourning and gloom.

Now Theseus, in his return from Crete, put in at Delos, and, having
sacrificed to the god of the island, dedicated to the temple the image
of Venus which Ariadne had given him, and danced with the young
Athenians a dance that, in memory of him, they say is still preserved
among the inhabitants of Delos, consisting in certain measured turnings
and returnings, imitative of the windings and twistings of the
labyrinth. And this dance, as Dicaearchus writes, is called among the
Delians, the Crane. This he danced round the Ceratonian Altar,  so
called from its consisting of horns taken from the left side of the
head. They say also that he instituted games in Delos where he was the
first that began the custom of giving a palm to the victors.

When they were come near the coast of Attica, so great was the joy for
the happy success of their voyage, that neither Theseus himself nor the
pilot remembered to hang out the sail which should have been the token
of their safety to Aegeus, who, in despair at the sight, threw himself
headlong from a rock, and perished in the sea. But Theseus, being
arrived at the port of Phalerum, paid there the sacrifices which he had
vowed to the gods at his setting out to sea, and sent a herald to the
city to carry the news of his safe return. At his entrance, the herald
found the people for the most part full of grief for the loss of their
king, others, as may well be believed, as full of joy for the tidings
that he brought, and eager to welcome him and crown him with garlands for
his good news, which he indeed accepted of, but hung them upon his
herald's staff; and thus returning to the seaside before Theseus had
finished his libation to the gods, he stayed apart for fear of disturbing
the holy rites, but, as soon as the libation was ended, went up and
related the king's death, upon the hearing of which, with great
lamentations and a confused tumult of grief, they ran with all haste to
the city. And from hence, they say, it comes that at this day, in the
feast of Oschophoria, the herald is not crowned, but his staff, and all
who are present at the libation cry out eleleu iou iou, the first of
which confused sounds is commonly used by men in haste, or at a triumph,
the other is proper to people in consternation or disorder of mind.

Theseus, after the funeral of his father, paid his vows to Apollo the
seventh day of Pyanepsion; for on that day the youth that returned with
him safe from Crete made their entry into the city. They say, also,
that the custom of boiling pulse at this feast is derived from hence;
because the young men that escaped put all that was left of their
provision together, and, boiling it in one common pot, feasted
themselves with it, and ate it all up together. Hence, also, they carry
in procession an olive branch bound about with wool (such as they then
made use of in their supplications), which they call Eiresione, crowned
with all sorts of fruits, to signify that scarcity and barrenness was
ceased, singing in their procession this song:

Eiresione bring figs, and Eiresione bring loaves;
Bring us honey in pints, and oil to rub on our bodies,
And a strong flagon of wine, for all to go mellow to bed on.

Although some hold opinion that this ceremony is retained in memory of
the Heraclidae, who were thus entertained and brought up by the
Athenians. But most are of the opinion which we have given above.

The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty
oars, and was preserved by the Athenians down even to the time of
Demetrius Phalereus, for they took away the old planks as they decayed,
putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this
ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical
question as to things that grow; one side holding that the ship
remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.

The feast called Oschophoria, or the feast of boughs, which to this day
the Athenians celebrate, was then first instituted by Theseus. For he
took not with him the full number of virgins which by lot were to be
carried away, but selected two youths of his acquaintance, of fair and
womanish faces, but of a manly and forward spirit, and having, by
frequent baths, and avoiding the heat and scorching of the sun, with a
constant use of all the ointments and washes and dresses that serve to
the adorning of the head or smoothing the skin or improving the
complexion, in a manner changed them from what they were before, and
having taught them farther to counterfeit the very voice and carriage
and gait of virgins, so that there could not be the least difference
perceived; he, undiscovered by any, put them into the number of the
Athenian maids designed for Crete. At his return, he and these two
youths led up a solemn procession, in the same habit that is now worn by
those who carry the vine-branches. These branches they carry in honor
of Bacchus and Ariadne, for the sake of their story before related; or
rather because they happened to return in autumn, the time of gathering
the grapes. The women whom they call Deipnopherae, or supper-carriers,
are taken into these ceremonies, and assist at the sacrifice, in
remembrance and imitation of the mothers of the young men and virgins
upon whom the lot fell, for thus they ran about bringing bread and meat
to their children; and because the women then told their sons and
daughters many tales and stories, to comfort and encourage them under
the danger they were going upon, it has still continued a custom that at
this feast old fables and tales should be told. For these
particularities we are indebted to the history of Demon. There was then
a place chosen out, and a temple erected in it to Theseus, and those
families out of whom the tribute of the youth was gathered were
appointed to pay a tax to the temple for sacrifices to him. And the
house of the Phytalidae had the overseeing of these sacrifices, Theseus
doing them that honor in recompense of their former hospitality.

Now, after the death of his father Aegeus, forming in his mind a great
and wonderful design, he gathered together all the inhabitants of Attica
into one town, and made them one people of one city, whereas before they
lived dispersed, and were not easy to assemble upon any affair for the
common interest. Nay, differences and even wars often occurred between
them, which he by his persuasions appeased, going from township to
township, and from tribe to tribe. And those of a more private and mean
condition readily embracing such good advice, to those of greater power
he promised a commonwealth without monarchy, a democracy, or people's
government in which he should only be continued as their commander in
war and the protector of their laws, all things else being equally
distributed among them; and by this means brought a part of them over to
his proposal. The rest, fearing his power, which was already grown very
formidable, and knowing his courage and resolution, chose rather to be
persuaded than forced into a compliance. He then dissolved all the
distinct state-houses, council halls, and magistracies, and built one
common state-house and council hall on the site of the
present upper town, and gave the name of Athens to the whole state,
ordaining a common feast and sacrifice, which he called Panathenaea, or
the sacrifice of all the united Athenians. He instituted also another
sacrifice, called Metoecia, or Feast of Migration, which is yet
celebrated on the sixteenth day of Hecatombaeon. Then, as he had
promised, he laid down his regal power and proceeded to order a
commonwealth, entering upon this great work not without advice from the
gods. For having sent to consult the oracle of Delphi concerning the
fortune of his new government and city, he received this answer:

Son of the Pitthean maid,
To your town the terms and fates,
My father gives of many states.
Be not anxious nor afraid;
The bladder will not fail so swim
On the waves that compass him.

Which oracle, they say, one of the sibyls long after did in a manner
repeat to the Athenians, in this verse,

The bladder may be dipt, but not be drowned.

Farther yet designing to enlarge his city, he invited all strangers to
come and enjoy equal privileges with the natives, and it is said that
the common form, Come hither all ye people, was the words that Theseus
proclaimed when he thus set up a commonwealth, in a manner, for all
nations. Yet he did not suffer his state, by the promiscuous multitude
that flowed in, to be turned into confusion and be left without any
order or degree, but was the first that divided the Commonwealth into
three distinct ranks, the noblemen, the husbandmen, and artificers.%
To the nobility he committed the care of
religion, the choice of magistrates, the teaching and dispensing of the
laws, and interpretation and direction in all sacred matters; the whole
city being, as it were, reduced to an exact equality, the nobles
excelling the rest in honor, the husbandmen in profit, and the
artificers in number. And that Theseus was the first, who, as Aristotle
says, out of an inclination to popular government, parted with the regal
power, Homer also seems to testify, in his catalogue of the ships, where
he gives the name of People to the Athenians only.

He also coined money, and stamped it with the image of an ox, either in
memory of the Marathonian bull, or of Taurus, whom he vanquished, or
else to put his people in mind to follow husbandry; and from this coin
came the expression so frequent among the Greeks, of a thing being worth
ten or a hundred oxen. After this he joined Megara to Attica, and
erected that famous pillar on the Isthmus, which bears an inscription of
two lines, showing the bounds of the two countries that meet there. On
the east side the inscription is,--

Peloponnesus there, Ionia here,

and on the west side,--

Peloponnesus here, Ionia there.

He also instituted the games, in emulation of Hercules, being ambitious
that as the Greeks, by that hero's appointment, celebrated the Olympian
games to the honor of Jupiter, so, by his institution, they should
celebrate the Isthmian to the honor of Neptune. For those that were
there before observed, dedicated to Melicerta, were performed privately
in the night, and had the form rather of a religious rite than of an
open spectacle or public feast. There are some who say that the
Isthmian games were first instituted in memory of Sciron, Theseus thus
making expiation for his death, upon account of the nearness of kindred
between them, Sciron being the son of Canethus and Heniocha, the
daughter of Pittheus; though others write that Sinnis, not Sciron, was
their son, and that to his honor, and not to the other's, these games
were ordained by Theseus. At the same time he made an agreement with
the Corinthians, that they should allow those that came from Athens to
the celebration of the Isthmian games as much space of honor before the
rest to behold the spectacle in, as the sail of the ship that brought
them thither, stretched to its full extent, could cover; so Hellanicus
and Andro of Halicarnassus have established.

Concerning his voyage into the Euxine Sea, Philochorus and some others
write that he made it with Hercules, offering him his service in the war
against the Amazons, and had Antiope given him for the reward of his
valor; but the greater number, of whom are Pherecydes, Hellanicus, and
Herodorus, write that he made this voyage many years after Hercules,
with a navy under his own command, and took the Amazon prisoner, the
more probable story, for we do not read that any other, of all those
that accompanied him in this action, took any Amazon prisoner. Bion
adds, that, to take her, he had to use deceit and fly away; for the
Amazons, he says, being naturally lovers of men, were so far from
avoiding Theseus when he touched upon their coasts, that they sent him
presents to his ship; but he, having invited Antiope, who brought them,
to come aboard, immediately set sail and carried her away. An author
named Menecrates, that wrote the History of Nicaea in Bithynia, adds,
that Theseus, having Antiope aboard his vessel, cruised for some time
about those coasts, and that there were in the same ship three young men
of Athens, that accompanied him in this voyage, all brothers, whose
names were Euneos, Thoas, and Soloon. The last of these fell
desperately in love with Antiope; and, escaping the notice of the rest,
revealed the secret only to one of his most intimate acquaintance, and
employed him to disclose his passion to Antiope, she rejected his
pretenses with a very positive denial, yet treated the matter with much
gentleness and discretion, and made no complaint to Theseus of any thing
that had happened; but Soloon, the thing being desperate, leaped into a
river near the seaside and drowned himself. As soon as Theseus was
acquainted with his death, and his unhappy love that was the cause of
it, he was extremely distressed, and, in the height of his grief, an
oracle which he had formerly received at Delphi came into his mind, for
he had been commanded by the priestess of Apollo Pythius, that, wherever
in a strange land he was most sorrowful and under the greatest
affliction, he should build a city there, and leave some of his
followers to be governors of the place. For this cause he there founded
a city, which he called, from the name of Apollo, Pythopolis, and, in
honor of the unfortunate youth, he named the river that runs by it
Soloon, and left the two surviving brothers entrusted with the care of
the government and laws, joining with them Hermus, one of the nobility
of Athens, from whom a place in the city is called the House of Hermus;
though by an error in the accent  it has been taken for the House of
Hermes, or Mercury, and the honor that was designed to the hero
transferred to the god.

This was the origin and cause of the Amazonian invasion of Attica, which
would seem to have been no slight or womanish enterprise. For it is
impossible that they should have placed their camp in the very city, and
joined battle close by the Pnyx and the hill called Museum, unless,
having first conquered the country round about, they had thus with
impunity advanced to the city. That they made so long a journey by
land, and passed the Cimmerian Bosphorus when frozen, as Hellanicus
writes, is difficult to be believed. That they encamped all but in the
city is certain, and may be sufficiently confirmed by the names that the
places thereabout yet retain, and the graves and monuments of those that
fell in the battle. Both armies being in sight, there was a long pause
and doubt on each side which should give the first onset; at last
Theseus, having sacrificed to Fear, in obedience to the command of an
oracle he had received, gave them battle; and this happened in the month
of Boedromion, in which to this very day the Athenians celebrate the
Feast Boedromia. Clidemus, desirous to be very circumstantial,writes
that the left wing of the Amazons moved towards the place which is yet
called Amazonium and the right towards the Pnyx, near Chrysa,  that
with this wing the Athenians, issuing from behind the Museum, engaged,
and that the graves of those that were slain are to be seen in the
street that leads to the gate called the Piraic, by the chapel of the
hero Chalcodon; and that here the Athenians were routed, and gave way
before the women, as far as to the temple of the Furies, but, fresh
supplies coming in from the Palladium, Ardettus, and the Lyceum, they
charged their right wing, and beat them back into their tents, in which
action a great number of the Amazons were slain. At length, after four
months, a peace was concluded between them by the mediation of Hippolyta
(for so this historian calls the Amazon whom Theseus married, and not
Antiope), though others write that she was slain with a dart by
Molpadia, while fighting by Theseus's side, and that the pillar which
stands by the temple of Olympian Earth was erected to her honor. Nor is
it to be wondered at, that in events of such antiquity, history should
be in disorder. For indeed we are also told that those of the Amazons
that were wounded were privately sent away by Antiope to Chalcis, where
many by her care recovered, but some that died were buried there in the
place that is to this time called Amazonium. That this war, however,
was ended by a treaty is evident, both from the name of the place
adjoining to the temple of Theseus, called, from the solemn oath there
taken, Horcomosium; @ and also from the ancient sacrifice which used to
be celebrated to the Amazons the day before the Feast of Theseus. The
Megarians also show a spot in their city where some Amazons were buried,
on the way from the market to a place called Rhus, where the building in
the shape of a lozenge stands. It is said, likewise, that others of
them were slain near Chaeronea, and buried near the little rivulet,
formerly called Thermodon, but now Haemon, of which an account is given
in the life of Demosthenes. It appears further that the passage of the
Amazons through Thessaly was not without opposition, for there are yet
shown many tombs of them near Scotussa and Cynoscephalae.

This is as much as is worth telling concerning the Amazons. For the
account which the author of the poem called the Theseid gives of this
rising of the Amazons, how Antiope, to revenge herself upon Theseus for
refusing her and marrying Phaedra, came down upon the city with her
train of Amazons, whom Hercules slew, is manifestly nothing else but
fable and invention. It is true, indeed, that Theseus married Phaedra,
but that was after the death of Antiope, by whom he had a son called
Hippolytus, or, as Pindar writes, Demophon. The calamities which befell
Phaedra and this son, since none of the historians have contradicted the
tragic poets that have written of them, we must suppose happened as
represented uniformly by them.

There are also other traditions of the marriages of Theseus, neither
honorable in their occasions nor fortunate in their events, which yet
were never represented in the Greek plays. For he is said to have
carried off Anaxo, a Troezenian, and, having slain Sinnis and Cercyon,
to have ravished their daughters; to have married Periboea, the mother
of Ajax, and then Phereboea, and then Iope, the daughter of Iphicles.
And further, he is accused of deserting Ariadne (as is before related),
being in love with Aegle the daughter of Panopeus, neither justly nor
honorably; and lastly, of the rape of Helen, which filled all Attica
with war and blood, and was in the end the occasion of his banishment
and death, as will presently be related.

Herodorus is of opinion, that though there were many famous expeditions
undertaken by the bravest men of his time, yet Theseus never joined in
any of them, once only excepted, with the Lapithae, in their war against
the Centaurs; but others say that he accompanied Jason to Colchis and
Meleager to the slaying of the Calydonian boar, and that hence it came
to be a proverb, Not without Theseus; that he himself, however, without
aid of any one, performed many glorious exploits, and that from him
began the saying, He is a second Hercules. He also joined Adrastus in
recovering the bodies of those that were slain before Thebes, but not as
Euripides in his tragedy says, by force of arms, but by persuasion and
mutual agreement and composition, for so the greater part of the
historians write; Philochorus adds further that this was the first
treaty that ever was made for the recovering the bodies of the dead, but
in the history of Hercules it is shown that it was he who first gave
leave to his enemies to carry off their slain. The burying-places of
the most part are yet to be seen in the village called Eleutherae; those
of the commanders, at Eleusis, where Theseus allotted them a place, to
oblige Adrastus. The story of Euripides in his Suppliants is disproved
by Aeschylus in his Eleusinians, where Theseus himself relates the facts
as here told.

The celebrated friendship between Theseus and Pirithous is said to have
been thus begun: the fame of the strength and valor of Theseus being
spread through Greece, Pirithous was desirous to make a trial and proof.
of it himself, and to this end seized a herd of oxen which belonged to
Theseus, and was driving them away from Marathon, and, when news was
brought that Theseus pursued him in arms, he did not fly, but turned
back and went to meet him. But as soon as they had viewed one another,
each so admired the gracefulness and beauty, and was seized with such a
respect for the courage, of the other, that they forgot all thoughts of
fighting; and Pirithous, first stretching out his hand to Theseus, bade
him be judge in this case himself, and promised to submit willingly to
any penalty he should impose. But Theseus not only forgave him all, but
entreated him to be his friend and brother in arms; and they ratified
their friendship by oaths. After this Pirithous married Deidamia, and
invited Theseus to the wedding, entreating him to come and see his
country, and make acquaintance with the Lapithae; he had at the same
time invited the Centaurs to the feast, who growing hot with wine and
beginning to be insolent and wild, and offering violence to the women,
the Lapithae took immediate revenge upon them, slaying many of them upon
the place, and afterwards, having overcome them in battle, drove the
whole race of them out of their country, Theseus all along taking their
part and fighting on their side. But Herodorus gives a different
relation of these things: that Theseus came not to the assistance of the
Lapithae till the war was already begun; and that it was in this journey
that he had the first sight of Hercules, having made it his business to
find him out at Trachis, where he had chosen to rest himself after all
his wanderings and his labors; and that this interview was honorably
performed on each part, with extreme respect, good-will, and admiration
of each other. Yet it is more credible, as others write, that there
were, before, frequent interviews between them, and that it was by the
means of Theseus that Hercules was initiated at Eleusis, and purified
before initiation, upon account of several rash actions
of his former life.

Theseus was now fifty years old, as Hellanicus states, when he carried
off Helen, who was yet too young to be married. Some writers, to take
away this accusation of one of the greatest crimes laid to his charge,
say, that he did not steal away Helen himself, but that Idas and Lynceus
were the ravishers, who brought her to him, and committed her to his
charge, and that, therefore, he refused to restore her at the demand of
Castor and Pollux; or, indeed, they say her own father, Tyndarus, had
sent her to be kept by him, for fear of Enarophorus, the son of
Hippocoon, who would have carried her away by force when she was yet a
child. But the most probable account, and that which has most witnesses
on its side, is this: Theseus and Pirithous went both together to
Sparta, and, having seized the young lady as she was dancing in the
temple of Diana Orthia, fled away with her. There were presently men in
arms sent to pursue, but they followed no further than to Tegea; and
Theseus and Pirithous, being now out of danger, having passed through
Peloponnesus, made an agreement between themselves, that he to whom the
lot should fall should have Helen to his wife, but should be obliged to
assist in procuring another for his friend. The lot fell upon Theseus,
who conveyed her to Aphidnae, not being yet marriageable, and delivered
her to one of his allies, called Aphidnus, and, having sent his mother
Aethra after to take care of her, desired him to keep them so secretly,
that none might know where they were; which done, to return the same
service to his friend Pirithous, he accompanied him in his journey to
Epirus, in order to steal away the king of the Molossians' daughter.
The king, his own name being Aidoneus, or Pluto, called his wife
Proserpina, and his daughter Cora, and a great dog which he kept
Cerberus, with whom he ordered all that came as suitors to his daughter
to fight, and promised her to him that should overcome the beast. But
having been informed that the design of Pirithous and his companion was
not to court his daughter, but to force her away, he caused them both to
be seized, and threw Pirithous to be torn in pieces by his dog, and put
Theseus into prison, and kept him.

About this time, Menestheus, the son of Peteus, grandson of Orneus, and
great-grandson to Erechtheus, the first man that is recorded to have
affected popularity and ingratiated himself with the multitude, stirred
up and exasperated the most eminent men of the city, who had long borne
a secret grudge to Theseus, conceiving that he had robbed them of their
several little kingdoms and lordships, and, having pent them all up in
one city, was using them as his subjects and slaves. He put also the
meaner people into commotion, telling them, that, deluded with a mere
dream of liberty, though indeed they were deprived both of that and of
their proper homes and religious usages, instead of many good and
gracious kings of their own, they had given themselves up to be lorded
over by a new-comer and a stranger. Whilst he was thus busied in
infecting the minds of the citizens, the war that Castor and Pollux
brought against Athens came very opportunely to further the sedition he
had been promoting, and some say that he by his persuasions was wholly
the cause of their invading the city. At their first approach, they
committed no acts of hostility, but peaceably demanded their sister
Helen; but the Athenians returning answer that they neither had her
there nor knew where she was disposed of, they prepared to assault the
city, when Academus, having, by whatever means, found it out, disclosed
to them that she was secretly kept at Aphidnae. For which reason he was
both highly honored during his life by Castor and Pollux, and the
Lacedaemonians, when often in aftertimes they made incursions into
Attica, and destroyed all the country round about, spared the Academy
for the sake of Academus. But Dicaearchus writes that there were two
Arcadians in the army of Castor and Pollux, the one called Echedemus and
the other Marathus; from the first that which is now called Academia was
then named Echedemia, and the village Marathon had its name from the
other, who, to fulfill some oracle, voluntarily offered himself to be
made a sacrifice before battle. As soon as they were arrived at
Aphidnae, they overcame their enemies in a set battle, and then
assaulted and took the town. And here, they say, Alycus, the son of
Sciron, was slain, of the party of the Dioscuri (Castor and Pollux),
from whom a place in Megara, where he was buried, is called Alycus to
this day. And Hereas writes that it was Theseus himself that killed
him, in witness of which he cites these verses concerning Alycus

And Alycus, upon Aphidna's plain
By Theseus in the cause of Helen slain.

Though it is not at all probable that Theseus himself was there when
both the city and his mother were taken.

Aphidnae being won by Castor and Pollux, and the city of Athens being in
consternation, Menestheus persuaded the people to open their gates, and
receive them with all manner of friendship, for they were, he told them,
at enmity with none but Theseus, who had first injured them, and were
benefactors and saviors to all mankind beside. And their behavior gave
credit to those promises; for, having made themselves absolute masters
of the place, they demanded no more than to be initiated, since they
were as nearly related to the city as Hercules was, who had received the
same honor. This their desire they easily obtained, and were adopted by
Aphidnus, as Hercules had been by Pylius. They were honored also like
gods, and were called by a new name, Anaces, either from the cessation
(Anokhe) of the war, or from the care they took that none should suffer
any injury, though there was so great an army within the walls; for the
phrase anakos ekhein is used of those who look to or care for any thing;
kings for this reason, perhaps, are called anactes. Others say, that
from the appearance of their star in the heavens, they were thus called,
for in the Attic dialect this name comes very near the words
that signify above.

Some say that Aethra, Theseus's mother, was here taken prisoner, and
carried to Lacedaemon, and from thence went away with Helen to Troy,
alleging this verse of Homer, to prove that she waited upon Helen,

Aethra of Pittheus born, and large-eyed Clymene.

Others reject this verse as none of Homer's, as they do likewise the
whole fable of Munychus, who, the story says, was the son of Demophon
and Laodice, born secretly, and brought up by Aethra at Troy. But
Ister, in the thirteenth book of his Attic History, gives us an account
of Aethra, different yet from all the rest: that Achilles and Patroclus
overcame Paris in Thessaly, near the river Sperchius, but that Hector
took and plundered the city of the Troezenians, and made Aethra prisoner
there. But this seems a groundless tale.

Now Hercules, passing by the Molossians, was entertained in his way by
Aidoneus the king, who, in conversation, accidentally spoke of the
journey of Theseus and Pirithous into his country, of what they had
designed to do, and what they were forced to suffer. Hercules was much
grieved for the inglorious death of the one and the miserable condition
of the other. As for Pirithous, he thought it useless to complain; but
begged to have Theseus released for his sake, and obtained that favor
from the king. Theseus, being thus set at liberty, returned to Athens,
where his friends were not yet wholly suppressed, and dedicated to
Hercules all the sacred places which the city had set apart for himself,
changing their names from Thesea to Heraclea, four only excepted, as
Philochorus writes. And wishing immediately to resume the first place
in the commonwealth, and manage the state as before, he soon found
himself involved in factions and troubles; those who long had hated him
had now added to their hatred contempt; and the minds of the people were
so generally corrupted, that, instead of obeying commands with silence,
they expected to be flattered into their duty. He had some thoughts to
have reduced them by force, but was overpowered by demagogues and
factions. And at last, despairing of any good success of his affairs in
Athens, he sent away his children privately to Euboea, commending them
to the care of Elephenor, the son of Chalcodon; and he himself, having
solemnly cursed the people of Athens in the village of Gargettus, in
which there yet remains the place called Araterion, or the place of
cursing, sailed to Scyros, where he had lands left him by his father,
and friendship, as he thought, with those of the island. Lycomedes was
then king of Scyros. Theseus, therefore, addressed himself to him, and
desired to have his lands put into his possession, as designing to
settle and to dwell there, though others say that he came to beg his
assistance against the Athenians. But Lycomedes, either jealous of the
glory of so great a man, or to gratify Menestheus, having led him up to
the highest cliff of the island, on pretense of showing him from thence
the lands that he desired, threw him headlong down from the rock, and
killed him. Others say he fell down of himself by a slip of his foot,
as he was walking there, according to his custom, after supper. At that
time there was no notice taken, nor were any concerned for his death,
but Menestheus quietly possessed the kingdom of Athens. His sons were
brought up in a private condition, and accompanied Elephenor to the
Trojan war, but, after the decease of Menestheus in that expedition,
returned to Athens, and recovered the government. But in succeeding
ages, beside several other circumstances that moved the Athenians to
honor Theseus as a demigod, in the battle which was fought at Marathon
against the Medes, many of the soldiers believed they saw an apparition
of Theseus in arms, rushing on at the head of them against the
barbarians. And after the Median war, Phaedo being archon of Athens,
the Athenians, consulting the oracle at Delphi, were commanded to gather
together the bones of Theseus, and, laying them in some honorable place,
keep them as sacred in the city. But it was very difficult to recover
these relics, or so much as to find out the place where they lay, on
account of the inhospitable and savage temper of the barbarous people
that inhabited the island. Nevertheless, afterwards, when Cimon took
the island (as is related in his life), and had a great ambition to find
out the place where Theseus was buried, he, by chance, spied an eagle
upon a rising ground pecking with her beak and tearing up the earth with
her talons, when on the sudden it came into his mind, as it were by some
divine inspiration, to dig there, and search for the bones of Theseus.
There were found in that place a coffin of a man of more than ordinary
size, and a brazen spear-head, and a sword lying by it, all which he
took aboard his galley and brought with him to Athens. Upon which the
Athenians, greatly delighted, went out to meet and receive the relics
with splendid processions and with sacrifices, as if it were Theseus
himself returning alive to the city. He lies interred in the middle of
the city, near the present gymnasium. His tomb is a sanctuary and
refuge for slaves, and all those of mean condition that fly from the
persecution of men in power, in memory that Theseus while he lived was
an assister and protector of the distressed, and never refused the
petitions of the afflicted that fled to him. The chief and most solemn
sacrifice which they celebrate to him is kept on the eighth day of
Pyanepsion, on which he returned with the Athenian young men from Crete.
Besides which, they sacrifice to him on the eighth day of every month,
either because he returned from Troezen the eighth day of Hecatombaeon,
as Diodorus the geographer writes, or else thinking that number to be
proper to him, because he was reputed to be born of Neptune, because
they sacrifice to Neptune on the eighth day of every month. The number
eight being the first cube of an even number, and the double of the
first square, seemed to be an emblem of the steadfast and immovable
power of this god, who from thence has the names of Asphalius and
Gaeiochus, that is, the establisher and stayer of the earth.

ROMULUS

From whom, and for what reason, the city of Rome, a name so great in
glory, and famous in the mouths of all men, was so first called, authors
do not agree. Some are of opinion that the Pelasgians, wandering over
the greater part of the habitable world, and subduing numerous nations,
fixed themselves here, and, from their own great strength  in war,
called the city Rome. Others, that at the taking of Troy, some few that
escaped and met with shipping, put to sea, and, driven by winds, were
carried upon the coasts of Tuscany, and came to anchor off the mouth of
the river Tiber, where their women, out of heart and weary with the sea,
on its being proposed by one of the highest birth and best understanding
amongst them, whose name was Roma, burnt the ships. With which act the
men at first were angry, but afterwards, of necessity, seating
themselves near Palatium, where things in a short while succeeded far
better than they could hope, in that they found the country very good,
and the people courteous, they not only did the lady Roma other honors,
but added also this, of calling after her name the city which she had
been the occasion of their founding. From this, they say, has come down
that custom at Rome for women to salute their kinsmen and husbands with
kisses; because these women, after they had burnt the ships, made use of
such endearments when entreating and pacifying their husbands.

Some again say that Roma, from whom this city was so called, was
daughter of Italus and Leucaria; or, by another account, of Telephus,
Hercules's son, and that she was married to Aeneas, or, according to
others again, to Ascanius, Aeneas's son. Some tell us that Romanus, the
son of Ulysses and Circe, built it; some, Romus the son of Emathion,
Diomede having sent him from Troy; and others, Romus, king of the
Latins, after driving out the Tyrrhenians, who had come from Thessaly
into Lydia, and from thence into Italy. Those very authors, too, who,
in accordance with the safest account, make Romulus give the name to the
city, yet differ concerning his birth and family. For some say, he was
son to Aeneas and Dexithea, daughter of Phorbas, and was, with his
brother Remus, in their infancy, carried into Italy, and being on the
river when the waters came down in a flood, all the vessels were cast
away except only that where the young children were, which being gently
landed on a level bank of the river, they were both unexpectedly saved,
and from them the place was called Rome. Some say, Roma, daughter of
the Trojan lady above mentioned, was married to Latinus, Telemachus's
son, and became mother to Romulus; others, that Aemilia, daughter of
Aeneas and Lavinia, had him by the god Mars; and others give you mere
fables of his origin. For to Tarchetius, they say, king of Alba, who
was a most wicked and cruel man, there appeared in his own house a
strange vision, a male figure that rose out of a hearth, and stayed
there for many days. There was an oracle of Tethys in Tuscany which
Tarchetius consulted, and received an answer that a virgin should give
herself to the apparition, and that a son should be born of her, highly
renowned, eminent for valor, good fortune, and strength of body.
Tarchetius told the prophecy to one of his own daughters, and commanded
her to do this thing; which she avoiding as an indignity, sent her
handmaid. Tarchetius, hearing this, in great anger imprisoned them
both, purposing to put them to death; but being deterred from murder by
the goddess Vesta in a dream, enjoined them for their punishment the
working a web of cloth, in their chains as they were, which when they
finished, they should be suffered to marry; but whatever they worked by
day, Tarchetius commanded others to unravel in the night. In the
meantime, the waiting-woman was delivered of two boys, whom Tarchetius
gave into the hands of one Teratius, with command to destroy them; he,
however, carried and laid them by the river side, where a wolf came and
continued to suckle them, while birds of various sorts brought little
morsels of food, which they put into their mouths; till a cow-herd,
spying them, was first strangely surprised, but, venturing to draw
nearer, took the children up in his arms. Thus they were saved, and,
when they grew up, set upon Tarchetius and overcame him. This one
Promathion says, who compiled a history of Italy.

But the story which is most believed and has the greatest number of
vouchers was first published, in its chief particulars, amongst the
Greeks by Diocles of Peparethus, whom Fabius Pictor also follows in most
points. Here again there are variations, but in general outline it runs
thus: the kings of Alba reigned in lineal descent from Aeneas and the
succession devolved at length upon two brothers, Numitor and Amulius.
Amulius proposed to divide things into two equal shares, and set as
equivalent to the kingdom the treasure and gold that were brought from
Troy. Numitor chose the kingdom; but Amulius, having the money, and
being able to do more with that than Numitor, took his kingdom from him
with great ease, and, fearing lest his daughter might have children,
made her a Vestal, bound in that condition forever to live a single and
maiden life. This lady some call Ilia, others Rhea, and others Silvia;
however, not long after, she was, contrary to the established laws of
the Vestals, discovered to be with child, and should have suffered the
most cruel punishment, had not Antho, the king's daughter, mediated with
her father for her; nevertheless, she was confined, and debarred all
company, that she might not be delivered without the king's knowledge.
In time she brought forth two boys, of more than human size and beauty,
whom Amulius, becoming yet more alarmed, commanded a servant to take and
cast away; this man some call Faustulus, others say Faustulus was the
man who brought them up. He put the children, however, in a small
trough, and went towards the river with a design to cast them in; but,
seeing the waters much swollen and coming violently down, was afraid to
go nearer, and, dropping the children near the bank, went away. The
river overflowing, the flood at last bore up the trough, and, gently
wafting it, landed them on a smooth piece of ground, which they now call
Cermanes, formerly Germanus, perhaps from Germani,
which signifies brothers.

Near this place grew a wild fig-tree, which they called Ruminalis,
either from Romulus (as it is vulgarly thought), or from ruminating,
because cattle did usually in the heat of the day seek cover under it,
and there chew the cud; or, better, from the suckling of these children
there, for the ancients called the dug or teat of any creature ruma, and
there is a tutelar goddess of the rearing of children whom they still
call Rumilia, in sacrificing to whom they use no wine, but make
libations of milk. While the infants lay here, history tells us, a she-
wolf nursed them, and a woodpecker constantly fed and watched them;
these creatures are esteemed holy to the god Mars, the woodpecker the
Latins still especially worship and honor. Which things, as much as
any, gave credit to what the mother of the children said, that their
father was the god Mars: though some say that it was a mistake put upon
her by Amulius, who himself had come to her dressed up in armor.

Others think that the first rise of this fable came from the children's
nurse, through the ambiguity of her name; for the Latins not only called
wolves lupae, but also women of loose life; and such an one was the wife
of Faustulus, who nurtured these children, Acca Larentia by name. To
her the Romans offer sacrifices, and in the month of April the priest of
Mars makes libations there; it is called the Larentian Feast. They
honor also another Larentia, for the following reason: the keeper of
Hercules's temple having, it seems, little else to do, proposed to his
deity a game at dice, laying down that, if he himself won, he would have
something valuable of the god; but if he were beaten, he would spread
him a noble table, and procure him a fair lady's company. Upon these
terms, throwing first for the god and then for himself, he found himself
beaten. Wishing to pay his stakes honorably, and holding himself bound
by what he had said, he both provided the deity a good supper, and,
giving money to Larentia, then in her beauty, though not publicly known,
gave her a feast in the temple, where he had also laid a bed, and after
supper locked her in, as if the god were really to come to her. And
indeed, it is said, the deity did truly visit her, and commanded her in
the morning to walk to the market-place, and, whatever man see met
first, to salute him, and make him her friend. She met one named
Tarrutius, who was a man advanced in years, fairly rich without
children, and had always lived a single life. He received Larentia, and
loved her well, and at his death left her sole heir of all his large and
fair possessions, most of which she, in her last will and testament,
bequeathed to the people. It was reported of her, being now celebrated
and esteemed the mistress of a god, that she suddenly disappeared near
the place where the first Larentia lay buried; the spot is at this day
called Velabrum, because, the river frequently overflowing, they went
over in ferry-boats somewhere hereabouts to the forum, the Latin word
for ferrying being velatura. Others derive the name from velum, a sail;
because the exhibitors of public shows used to hang the road that leads
from the forum to the Circus Maximus with sails, beginning at this spot.
Upon these accounts the second Larentia is honored at Rome.

Meantime Faustulus, Amulius's swineherd, brought up the children without
any man's knowledge; or, as those say who wish to keep closer to
probabilities, with the knowledge and secret assistance of Numitor; for
it is said, they went to school at Gabii, and were well instructed in
letters, and other accomplishments befitting their birth. And they were
called Romulus and Remus, (from ruma, the dug,) as we had before,
because they were found sucking the wolf. In their very infancy, the size
and beauty of their bodies intimated their natural superiority; and when
they grew up, they both proved brave and manly, attempting all
enterprises that seemed hazardous, and showing in them a courage
altogether undaunted. But Romulus seemed rather to act by counsel, and
to show the sagacity of a statesman, and in all his dealings with their
neighbors, whether relating to feeding of flocks or to hunting, gave the
idea of being born rather to rule than to obey. To their comrades and
inferiors they were therefore dear; but the king's servants, his
bailiffs and overseers, as being in nothing better men than themselves,
they despised and slighted, nor were the least concerned at their
commands and menaces. They used honest pastimes and liberal studies,
not esteeming sloth and idleness honest and liberal, but rather such
exercises as hunting and running, repelling robbers, taking of thieves,
and delivering the wronged and oppressed from injury. For doing such
things they became famous.

A quarrel occurring between Numitor's and Amulius's cowherds, the
latter, not enduring the driving away of their cattle by the others,
fell upon them and put them to flight, and rescued the greatest part of
the prey. At which Numitor being highly incensed, they little regarded
it, but collected and took into their company a number of needy men and
runaway slaves,--acts which looked like the first stages of rebellion.
It so happened, that when Romulus was attending a sacrifice, being fond
of sacred rites and divination, Numitor's herdsmen, meeting with Remus
on a journey with few companions, fell upon him, and, after some
fighting, took him prisoner, carried him before Numitor, and there
accused him. Numitor would not punish him himself, fearing his
brother's anger, but went to Amulius, and desired justice, as he was
Amulius's brother and was affronted by Amulius's servants. The men of
Alba likewise resenting the thing, and thinking he had been dishonorably
used, Amulius was induced to deliver Remus up into Numitor's hands, to
use him as he thought fit. He therefore took and carried him home, and,
being struck with admiration of the youth's person, in stature and
strength of body exceeding all men, and perceiving in his very
countenance the courage and force of his mind, which stood unsubdued and
unmoved by his present circumstances, and hearing further that all the
enterprises and actions of his life were answerable to what he saw of
him, but chiefly, as it seemed, a divine influence aiding and directing
the first steps that were to lead to great results, out of the mere
thought of his mind, and casually, as it were, he put his hand upon the
fact, and, in gentle terms and with a kind aspect, to inspire him with
confidence and hope, asked him who he was, and whence he was derived.
He, taking heart, spoke thus: " I will hide nothing from you, for you
seem to be of a more princely temper than Amulius, in that you give a
hearing and examine before you punish, while he condemns before the
cause is heard. Formerly, then, we (for we are twins) thought ourselves
the sons of Faustulus and Larentia, the king's servants; but since we
have been accused and aspersed with calumnies, and brought in peril of
our lives here before you, we hear great things of ourselves, the truth
of which my present danger is likely to bring to the test. Our birth is
said to have been secret, our fostering and nurture in our infancy still
more strange; by birds and beasts, to whom we were cast out, we were
fed, by the milk of a wolf, and the morsels of a woodpecker, as we lay
in a little trough by the side of the river. The trough is still in
being, and is preserved, with brass plates round it, and an inscription
in letters almost effaced; which may prove hereafter unavailing tokens
to our parents when we are dead and gone." Numitor, upon these words,
and computing the dates by the young man's looks, slighted not the hope
that flattered him, but considered how to come at his daughter privately
(for she was still kept under restraint), to talk with her concerning
these matters.

Faustulus, hearing Remus was taken and delivered up, called on Romulus
to assist in his rescue, informing him then plainly of the particulars
of his birth, not but he had before given hints of it, and told as much
as an attentive man might make no small conclusions from; he himself,
full of concern and fear of not coming in time, took the trough, and ran
instantly to Numitor; but giving a suspicion to some of the king's
sentry at his gate, and being gazed upon by them and perplexed with
their questions, he let it be seen that he was hiding the trough under
his cloak. By chance there was one among them who was at the exposing
of the children, and was one employed in the office; he, seeing the
trough and knowing it by its make and inscription, guessed at the
business, and, without further delay, telling the king of it, brought in
the man to be examined. Faustulus, hard beset, did not show himself
altogether proof against terror; nor yet was he wholly forced out of
all; confessed indeed the children were alive, but lived, he said, as
shepherds, a great way from Alba; he himself was going to carry the
trough to Ilia, who had often greatly desired to see and handle it, for
a confirmation of her hopes of her children. As men generally do who
are troubled in mind and act either in fear or passion, it so fell out
Amulius now did; for he sent in haste as a messenger, a man, otherwise
honest, and friendly to Numitor, with commands to learn from Numitor
whether any tidings were come to him of the children's being alive. He,
coming and seeing how little Remus wanted of being received into the
arms and embraces of Numitor, both gave him surer confidence in his
hope, and advised them, with all expedition, to proceed to action;
himself too joining and assisting them, and indeed, had they wished it,
the time would not have let them demur. For Romulus was now come very
near, and many of the citizens, out of fear and hatred of Amulius, were
running out to join him; besides, he brought great forces with him,
divided into companies, each of an hundred men, every captain carrying a
small bundle of grass and shrubs tied to a pole. The Latins call such
bundles manipuli and from hence it is that in their armies still they
call their captains manipulares. Remus rousing the citizens within to
revolt, and Romulus making attacks from without, the tyrant, not knowing
either what to do, or what expedient to think of for his security, in
this perplexity and confusion was taken and put to death. This
narrative, for the most part given by Fabius and Diocles of Peparethus,
who seem to be the earliest historians of the foundation of Rome, is
suspected by some, because of its dramatic and fictitious appearance;
but it would not wholly be disbelieved, if men would remember what a
poet fortune sometimes shows herself, and consider that the Roman power
would hardly have reached so high a pitch without a divinely ordered
origin, attended with great and extraordinary circumstances.

Amulius now being dead and matters quietly disposed, the two brothers
would neither dwell in Alba without governing there, nor take the
government into their own hands during the life of their grandfather.
Having therefore delivered the dominion up into his hands, and paid
their mother befitting honor, they resolved to live by themselves, and
build a city in the same place where they were in their infancy brought
up. This seems the most honorable reason for their departure; though
perhaps it was necessary, having such a body of slaves and fugitives
collected about them, either to come to nothing by dispersing them, or
if not so, then to live with them elsewhere. For that the inhabitants
of Alba did not think fugitives worthy of being received and
incorporated as citizens among them plainly appears from the matter of
the women, an attempt made not wantonly but of necessity, because they
could not get wives by good-will. For they certainly paid unusual
respect and honor to those whom they thus forcibly seized.

Not long after the first foundation of the city, they opened a sanctuary
of refuge for all fugitives, which they called the temple of the god
Asylaeus, where they received and protected all, delivering none back,
neither the servant to his master, the debtor to his creditor, nor the
murderer into the hands of the magistrate, saying it was a privileged
place, and they could so maintain it by an order of the holy oracle;
insomuch that the city grew presently very populous, for, they say, it
consisted at first of no more than a thousand houses.
But of that hereafter.

Their minds being fully bent upon building, there arose presently a
difference about the place where. Romulus chose what was called Roma
Quadrata, or the Square Rome, and would have the city there. Remus laid
out a piece of ground on the Aventine Mount, well fortified by nature,
which was from him called Remonium, but now Rignarium. Concluding at
last to decide the contest by a divination from a flight of birds, and
placing themselves apart at some distance, Remus, they say, saw six
vultures, and Romulus double the number; others say Remus did truly see
his number, and that Romulus feigned his, but, when Remus came to him,
that then he did, indeed, see twelve. Hence it is that the Romans, in
their divinations from birds, chiefly regard the vulture, though
Herodorus Ponticus relates that Hercules was always very joyful when a
vulture appeared to him upon any action. For it is a creature the least
hurtful of any, pernicious neither to corn, fruit-tree, nor cattle; it
preys only upon carrion, and never kills or hurts any living thing; and
as for birds, it touches not them, though they are dead, as being of its
own species, whereas eagles, owls, and hawks mangle and kill their own
fellow-creatures; yet, as Aeschylus says,--

What bird is clean that preys on fellow bird ?

Besides all other birds are, so to say, never out of our eyes; they let
themselves be seen of us continually; but a vulture is a very rare
sight, and you can seldom meet with a man that has seen their young;
their rarity and infrequency has raised a strange opinion in some, that
they come to us from some other world; as soothsayers ascribe a divine
origination to all things not produced either of nature
or of themselves.

When Remus knew the cheat, he was much displeased; and as Romulus was
casting up a ditch, where he designed the foundation of the citywall, he
turned some pieces of the work to ridicule, and obstructed others: at
last, as he was in contempt leaping over it, some say Romulus himself
struck him, others Celer, one of his companions; he fell, however, and
in the scuffle Faustulus also was slain, and Plistinus, who, being
Faustulus's brother, story tells us, helped to bring up Romulus. Celer
upon this fled instantly into Tuscany, and from him the Romans call all
men that are swift of foot Celeres; and because Quintus Metellus, at his
father's funeral, in a few days' time gave the people a show of
gladiators, admiring his expedition in getting it ready, they gave him
the name of Celer.

Romulus, having buried his brother Remus, together with his two foster-
fathers, on the mount Remonia, set to building his city; and sent for
men out of Tuscany, who directed him by sacred usages and written rules
in all the ceremonies to be observed, as in a religious rite. First,
they dug a round trench about that which is now the Comitium, or Court
of Assembly, and into it solemnly threw the first-fruits of all things
either good by custom or necessary by nature; lastly, every man taking a
small piece of earth of the country from whence he came, they all threw
them in promiscuously together. This trench they call, as they do the
heavens, Mundus; making which their center, they described the city in a
circle round it. Then the founder fitted to a plow a brazen plowshare,
and, yoking together a bull and a cow, drove himself a deep line or
furrow round the bounds; while the business of those that followed after
was to see that whatever earth was thrown up should be turned all
inwards towards the city, and not to let any clod lie outside. With
this line they described the wall, and called it, by a contraction,
Pomoerium, that is, post murum, after or beside the wall; and where they
designed to make a gate, there they took out the share, carried the plow
over, and left a space; for which reason they consider the whole wall as
holy, except where the gates are; for had they adjudged them also
sacred, they could not, without offense to religion, have given free
ingress and egress for the necessaries of human life, some of which are
in themselves unclean.

As for the day they began to build the city, it is universally agreed to
have been the twenty-first of April, and that day the Romans annually
keep holy, calling it their country's birthday. At first, they say,
they sacrificed no living creature on this day, thinking it fit to
preserve the feast of their country's birthday pure and without stain
of blood. Yet before ever the city was built, there was a feast of
herdsmen and shepherds kept on this day, which went by the name of
Palilia. The Roman and Greek months have now little or no agreement;
they say, however, the day on which Romulus began to build was quite
certainly the thirtieth of the month, at which time there was an eclipse
of the sun which they conceive to be that seen by Antimachus, the Teian
poet, in the third year of the sixth Olympiad. In the times of Varro
the philosopher, a man deeply read in Roman history, lived one
Tarrutius, his familiar acquaintance, a good philosopher and
mathematician, and one, too, that out of curiosity had studied the way
of drawing schemes and tables, and was thought to be a proficient in the
art; to him Varro propounded to cast Romulus's nativity, even to the
first day and hour, making his deductions from the several events of the
man's life which he should be informed of, exactly as in working back a
geometrical problem; for it belonged, he said, to the same science both
to foretell a man's life by knowing the time of his birth, and also to
find out his birth by the knowledge of his life. This task Tarrutius
undertook, and first looking into the actions and casualties of the man,
together with the time of his life and manner of his death, and then
comparing all these remarks together, he very confidently and positively
pronounced that Romulus was conceived in his mother's womb the first
year of the second Olympiad, the twenty-third day of the month the
Egyptians call Choeac, and the third hour after sunset, at which time
there was a total eclipse of the sun; that he was born the twenty-first
day of the month Thoth, about sun-rising; and that the first stone of
Rome was laid by him the ninth day of the month Pharmuthi, between the
second and third hour. For the fortunes of cities as well as of men,
they think, have their certain periods of time prefixed, which may be
collected and foreknown from the position of the stars at their first
foundation. But these and the like relations may perhaps not so much
take and delight the reader with their novelty and curiosity, as offend
him by their extravagance.

The city now being built, Romulus enlisted all that were of age to bear
arms into military companies, each company consisting of three thousand
footmen and three hundred horse. These companies were called legions,
because they were the choicest and most select of the people for
fighting men. The rest of the multitude he called the people; one
hundred of the most eminent he chose for counselors; these he styled
patricians, and their assembly the senate, which signifies a council of
elders. The patricians, some say, were so called because they were the
fathers of lawful children; others, because they could give a good
account who their own fathers were, which not every one of the rabble
that poured into the city at first could do; others, from patronage,
their word for protection of inferiors, the origin of which they
attribute to Patron, one of those that came over with Evander, who was a
great protector and defender of the weak and needy. But perhaps the
most probable judgment might be, that Romulus, esteeming it the duty of
the chiefest and wealthiest men, with a fatherly care and concern to
look after the meaner, and also encouraging the commonalty not to dread
or be aggrieved at the honors of their superiors, but to love and
respect them, and to think and call them their fathers, might from hence
give them the name of patricians. For at this very time all foreigners
give senators the style of lords; but the Romans, making use of a more
honorable and less invidious name, call them Patres Conscripti; at first
indeed simply Patres, but afterwards, more being added, Patres
Conscripti. By this more imposing title he distinguished the senate
from the populace; and in other ways also separated the nobles and the
commons,--calling them patrons, and these their clients,--by which means
he created wonderful love and amity between them, productive of great
justice in their dealings. For they were always their clients'
counselors in law cases, their advocates in courts of justice, in fine
their advisers and supporters in all affairs whatever. These again
faithfully served their patrons, not only paying them all respect and
deference, but also, in case of poverty, helping them to portion their
daughters and pay off their debts; and for a patron to witness against
his client, or a client against his patron, was what no law nor
magistrate could enforce. In after times all other duties subsisting
still between them, it was thought mean and dishonorable for the better
sort to take money from their inferiors. And so much of these matters.

In the fourth month, after the city was built, as Fabius writes, the
adventure of stealing the women was attempted; and some say Romulus
himself, being naturally a martial man, and predisposed too, perhaps, by
certain oracles, to believe the fates had ordained the future growth and
greatness of Rome should depend upon the benefit of war, upon these
accounts first offered violence to the Sabines, since he took away only
thirty virgins, more to give an occasion of war than out of any want of
women. But this is not very probable; it would seem rather that,
observing his city to be filled by a confluence of foreigners, few of
whom had wives, and that the multitude in general, consisting of a
mixture of mean and obscure men, fell under contempt, and seemed to be
of no long continuance together, and hoping farther, after the women
were appeased, to make this injury in some measure an occasion of
confederacy and mutual commerce with the Sabines, he took in hand this
exploit after this manner. First, he gave it out as if he had found an
altar of a certain god hid under ground; the god they called Consus,
either the god of counsel (for they still call a consultation consilium
and their chief magistrates consules, namely, counselors), or else the
equestrian Neptune, for the altar is kept covered in the circus maximus
at all other times, and only at horse-races is exposed to public view;
others merely say that this god had his altar hid under ground because
counsel ought to be secret and concealed. Upon discovery of this altar,
Romulus, by proclamation, appointed a day for a splendid sacrifice, and
for public games and shows, to entertain all sorts of people; many
flocked thither, and he himself sat in front, amidst his nobles, clad
in purple. Now the signal for their falling on was to be whenever he
rose and gathered up his robe and threw it over his body; his men stood
all ready armed, with their eyes intent upon him, and when the sign was
given, drawing their swords and falling on with a great shout, they
ravished away the daughters of the Sabines, they themselves flying
without any let or hindrance. They say there were but thirty taken, and
from them the Curiae or Fraternities were named; but Valerius Antias
says five hundred and twenty-seven, Juba, six hundred and eighty-three
virgins; which was indeed the greatest excuse Romulus could allege,
namely, that they had taken no married woman, save one only, Hersilia by
name, and her too unknowingly; which showed they did not commit this
rape wantonly, but with a design purely of forming alliance with their
neighbors by the greatest and surest bonds. This Hersilia some say
Hostilius married, a most eminent man among the Romans; others, Romulus
himself, and that she bore two children to him, a daughter, by reason of
primogeniture called Prima, and one only son, whom, from the great
concourse of citizens to him at that time, he called Aollius, but after
ages Abillius. But Zenodotus the Troezenian, in giving this account, is
contradicted by many.

Among those who committed this rape upon the virgins, there were, they
say, as it so then happened, some of the meaner sort of men, who were
carrying off a damsel, excelling all in beauty and comeliness of
stature, whom when some of superior rank that met them attempted to take
away, they cried out they were carrying her to Talasius, a young man,
indeed, but brave and worthy; hearing that, they commended and applauded
them loudly, and also some, turning back, accompanied them with good-
will and pleasure, shouting out the name of Talasius. Hence the Romans
to this very time, at their weddings, sing Talasius for their nuptial
word, as the Greeks do Hymenaeus, because, they say, Talasius was very
happy in his marriage. But Sextius Sylla the Carthaginian, a man
wanting neither learning nor ingenuity, told me Romulus gave this word
as a sign when to begin the onset; everybody, therefore, who made prize
of a maiden, cried out, Talasius; and for that reason the custom
continues so now at marriages. But most are of opinion (of whom Juba
particularly is one) that this word was used to new-married women by way
of incitement to good housewifery and talasia (spinning), as we say in
Greek, Greek words at that time not being as yet overpowered by Italian.
But if this be the case, and if the Romans did at that time use the word
talasia as we do, a man might fancy a more probable reason of the
custom. For when the Sabines, after the war against the Romans, were
reconciled, conditions were made concerning their women, that they
should be obliged to do no other servile offices to their husbands but
what concerned spinning; it was customary, therefore, ever after, at
weddings, for those that gave the bride or escorted her or otherwise
were present, sportingly to say Talasius, intimating that she was
henceforth to serve in spinning and no more. It continues also a custom
at this very day for the bride not of herself to pass her husband's
threshold, but to be lifted over, in memory that the Sabine virgins were
carried in by violence, and did not go in of their own will. Some say,
too, the custom of parting the bride's hair with the head of a spear was
in token their marriages began at first by war and acts of hostility, of
which I have spoken more fully in my book of Questions.

This rape was committed on the eighteenth day of the month Sextilis, now
called August, on which the solemnities of the Consualia are kept.

The Sabines were a numerous and martial people, but lived in small,
unfortified villages, as it befitted, they thought, a colony of the
Lacedaemonians to be bold and fearless; nevertheless, seeing themselves
bound by such hostages to their good behavior, and being solicitous for
their daughters, they sent ambassadors to Romulus with fair and
equitable requests, that he would return their young women and recall
that act of violence, and afterwards, by persuasion and lawful means,
seek friendly correspondence between both nations. Romulus would not
part with the young women, yet proposed to the Sabines to enter into an
alliance with them; upon which point some consulted and demurred long,
but Acron, king of the Ceninenses, a man of high spirit and a good
warrior, who had all along a jealousy of Romulus's bold attempts, and
considering particularly from this exploit upon the women that he was
growing formidable to all people, and indeed insufferable, were he not
chastised, first rose up in arms, and with a powerful army advanced
against him. Romulus likewise prepared to receive him; but when they
came within sight and viewed each other, they made a challenge to fight
a single duel, the armies standing by under arms, without participation.
And Romulus, making a vow to Jupiter, if he should conquer, to carry,
himself, and dedicate his adversary's armor to his honor, overcame him
in combat, and, a battle ensuing, routed his army also, and then took
his city; but did those he found in it no injury, only commanded them to
demolish the place and attend him to Rome, there to be admitted to all
the privileges of citizens. And indeed there was nothing did more
advance the greatness of Rome, than that she did always unite and
incorporate those whom she conquered into herself. Romulus, that he
might perform his vow in the most acceptable manner to Jupiter, and
withal make the pomp of it delightful to the eye of the city, cut down a
tall oak which he saw growing in the camp, which he trimmed to the shape
of a trophy, and fastened on it Acron's whole suit of armor disposed in
proper form; then he himself, girding his clothes about him, and
crowning his head with a laurel-garland, his hair gracefully flowing,
carried the trophy resting erect upon his right shoulder, and so marched
on, singing songs of triumph, and his whole army following after, the
citizens all receiving him with acclamations of joy and wonder. The
procession of this day was the origin and model of all after triumphs.
This trophy was styled an offering to Jupiter Feretrius, from ferire,
which in Latin is to smite; for Romulus prayed he might smite and
overthrow his enemy; and the spoils were called opima, or royal spoils,
says Varro, from their richness, which the word opes signifies; though
one would more probably conjecture from opus, an act; for it is only to
the general of an army who with his own hand kills his enemies' general
that this honor is granted of offering the opima spolia. And three only
of the Roman captains have had it conferred on them: first, Romulus,
upon killing Acron the Ceninensian; next, Cornelius Cossus, for slaying
Tolumnius the Tuscan; and lastly, Claudius Marcellus, upon his
conquering Viridomarus, king of the Gauls. The two latter, Cossus and
Marcellus, made their entries in triumphant chariots, bearing their
trophies themselves; but that Romulus made use of a chariot, Dionysius
is wrong in asserting. History says, Tarquinius, Damaratus's son, was
the first that brought triumphs to this great pomp and grandeur; others,
that Publicola was the first that rode in triumph. The statues of
Romulus in triumph are, as may be seen in Rome, all on foot.

After the overthrow of the Ceninensians, the other Sabines still
protracting the time in preparations, the people of Fidenae,
Crustumerium, and Antemna, joined their forces against the Romans; they
in like manner were defeated in battle, and surrendered up to Romulus
their cities to be seized, their lands and territories to be divided,
and themselves to be transplanted to Rome. All the lands which Romulus
acquired, he distributed among the citizens, except only what the
parents of the stolen virgins had; these he suffered to possess their
own. The rest of the Sabines, enraged hereat, choosing Tatius their
captain, marched straight against Rome. The city was almost
inaccessible, having for its fortress that which is now the Capitol,
where a strong guard was placed, and Tarpeius their captain; not Tarpeia
the virgin, as some say who would make Romulus a fool. But Tarpeia,
daughter to the captain, coveting the golden bracelets she saw them
wear, betrayed the fort into the Sabines' hands, and asked, in reward of
her treachery, the things they wore on their left arms. Tatius
conditioning thus with her, in the night she opened one of the gates,
and received the Sabines in. And truly Antigonus, it would seem, was
not solitary in saying, he loved betrayers, but hated those who had
betrayed; nor Caesar, who told Rhymitalces the Thracian, that he loved
the treason, but hated the traitor; but it is the general feeling of all
who have occasion for wicked men's service, as people have for the
poison of venomous beasts; they are glad of them while they are of use,
and abhor their baseness when it is over. And so then did Tatius behave
towards Tarpeia, for he commanded the Sabines, in regard to their
contract, not to refuse her the least part of what they wore on their
left arms; and he himself first took his bracelet of his arm, and threw
that, together with his buckler, at her; and all the rest following,
she, being borne down and quite buried with the multitude of gold and
their shields, died under the weight and pressure of them; Tarpeius also
himself, being prosecuted by Romulus, was found guilty of treason, as
Juba says Sulpicius Galba relates. Those who write otherwise concerning
Tarpeia, as that she was the daughter of Tatius, the Sabine captain,
and, being forcibly detained by Romulus, acted and suffered thus by her
father's contrivance, speak very absurdly, of whom Antigonus is one.
And Simylus, the poet, who thinks Tarpeia betrayed the Capitol, not to
the Sabines, but the Gauls, having fallen in love with their king, talks
mere folly, saying thus:--

Tarpeia 'twas, who, dwelling close thereby,
Laid open Rome unto the enemy.
She, for the love of the besieging Gaul,
Betrayed the city's strength, the Capitol.

And a little after, speaking of her death:--

The numerous nations of the Celtic foe
Bore her not living to the banks of Po;
Their heavy shields upon the maid they threw,
And with their splendid gifts entombed at once and slew.

Tarpeia afterwards was buried there, and the hill from her was called
Tarpeius, until the reign of king Tarquin, who dedicated the place to
Jupiter, at which time her bones were removed, and so it lost her name,
except only that part of the Capitol which they still call the Tarpeian
Rock, from which they used to cast down malefactors.

The Sabines being possessed of the hill, Romulus, in great fury, bade
them battle, and Tatius was confident to accept it, perceiving, if they
were overpowered, that they had behind them a secure retreat. The level
in the middle, where they were to join battle, being surrounded with
many little hills, seemed to enforce both parties to a sharp and
desperate conflict, by reason of the difficulties of the place, which
had but a few outlets, inconvenient either for refuge or pursuit. It
happened, too, the river having overflowed not many days before, there
was left behind in the plain, where now the forum stands, a deep blind
mud and slime, which, though it did not appear much to the eye, and was
not easily avoided, at bottom was deceitful and dangerous; upon which
the Sabines being unwarily about to enter, met with a piece of good
fortune; for Curtius, a gallant man, eager of honor, and of aspiring
thoughts, being mounted on horseback, was galloping on before the rest,
and mired his horse here, and, endeavoring for awhile by whip and spur
and voice to disentangle him, but finding it impossible, quitted him and
saved himself; the place from him to this very time is called the
Curtian Lake. The Sabines, having avoided this danger, began the fight
very smartly, the fortune of the day being very dubious, though many
were slain; amongst whom was Hostilius, who, they say, was husband to
Hersilia, and grandfather to that Hostilius who reigned after Numa.
There were many other brief conflicts, we may suppose, but the most
memorable was the last, in which Romulus having received a wound on his
head by a stone, and being almost felled to the ground by it, and
disabled, the Romans gave way, and, being driven out of the level
ground, fled towards the Palatium. Romulus, by this time recovering
from his wound a little, turned about to renew the battle, and, facing
the fliers, with a loud voice encouraged them to stand and fight. But
being overborne with numbers, and nobody daring to face about,
stretching out his hands to heaven, he prayed to Jupiter to stop the
army, and not to neglect but maintain the Roman cause, now in extreme
danger. The prayer was no sooner made, than shame and respect for their
king checked many; the fears of the fugitives changed suddenly into
confidence. The place they first stood at was where now is the temple
of Jupiter Stator (which may be translated the Stayer); there they
rallied again into ranks, and repulsed the Sabines to the place called
now Regia, and to the temple of Vesta; where both parties, preparing to
begin a second battle, were prevented by a spectacle, strange to behold,
and defying description. For the daughters of the Sabines, who had been
carried off, came running, in great confusion, some on this side, some
on that, with miserable cries and lamentations, like creatures
possessed, in the midst of the army, and among the dead bodies, to come
at their husbands and their fathers, some with their young babes in
their arms, others their hair loose about their ears, but all calling,
now upon the Sabines, now upon the Romans, in the most tender and
endearing words. Hereupon both melted into compassion, and fell back,
to make room for them between the armies. The sight of the women
carried sorrow and commiseration upon both sides into the hearts of all,
but still more their words, which began with expostulation and
upbraiding, and ended with entreaty and supplication.

"Wherein," say they, "have we injured or offended you, as to deserve
such sufferings, past and present? We were ravished away unjustly and
violently by those whose now we are; that being done, we were so long
neglected by our fathers, our brothers, and countrymen, that time,
having now by the strictest bonds united us to those we once mortally
hated, has made it impossible for us not to tremble at the danger and
weep at the death of the very men who once used violence to us. You did
not come to vindicate our honor, while we were virgins, against our
assailants; but do come now to force away wives from their husbands and
mothers from their children, a succor more grievous to its wretched
objects than the former betrayal and neglect of them. Which shall we
call the worst, their love-making or your compassion? If you were
making war upon any other occasion, for our sakes you ought to withhold
your hands from those to whom we have made you fathers-in-law and
grandsires. If it be for our own cause, then take us, and with us your
sons-in-law and grandchildren. Restore to us our parents and kindred,
but do not rob us of our children and husbands. Make us not, we entreat
you, twice captives."  Hersilia having spoken many such words as these,
and the others earnestly praying, a truce was made, and the chief
officers came to a parley; the women, in the mean time, brought and
presented their husbands and children to their fathers and brothers;
gave those that wanted, meat and drink, and carried the wounded home to
be cured, and showed also how much they governed within doors, and how
indulgent their husbands were to them, in demeaning themselves towards
them with all kindness and respect imaginable. Upon this, conditions
were agreed upon, that what women pleased might stay where they were,
exempt, as aforesaid, from all drudgery and labor but spinning; that the
Romans and Sabines should inhabit the city together; that the city
should be called Rome, from Romulus; but the Romans, Quirites, from the
country of Tatius; and that they both should govern and command in
common. The place of the ratification is still called Comitium,
from coire, to meet.

The city being thus doubled in number, one hundred of the Sabines were
elected senators, and the legions were increased to six thousand foot
and six hundred horse; then they divided the people into three tribes;
the first, from Romulus, named Ramnenses; the second, from Tatius,
Tatienses; the third, Luceres, from the lucus, or grove, where the
Asylum stood, whither many fled for sanctuary, and were received into
the city. And that they were just three, the very name of tribe and
tribune seems to show; each tribe contained ten curiae, or brotherhoods,
which, some say, took their names from the Sabine women; but that seems
to be false, because many had their names from various places. Though
it is true, they then constituted many things in honor to the women; as
to give them the way wherever they met them; to speak no ill word in
their presence; not to appear naked before them, or else be liable to
prosecution before the judges of homicide; that their children should
wear an ornament about their necks called the bulla (because it was like
a bubble), and the praetexta, a gown edged with purple.

The princes did not immediately join in council together, but at first
each met with his own hundred; afterwards all assembled together.
Tatius dwelt where now the temple of Moneta stands, and Romulus, close
by the steps, as they call them, of the Fair Shore, near the descent
from the Mount Palatine to the Circus Maximus. There, they say, grew
the holy cornel tree, of which they report, that Romulus once, to try
his strength, threw a dart from the Aventine Mount, the staff of which
was made of cornel, which struck so deep into the ground, that no one of
many that tried could pluck it up; and the soil, being fertile, gave
nourishment to the wood, which sent forth branches, and produced a
cornel-stock of considerable bigness. This did posterity preserve and
worship as one of the most sacred things; and, therefore, walled it
about; and if to any one it appeared not green nor flourishing, but
inclining to pine and wither, he immediately made outcry to all he met,
and they, like people hearing of a house on fire, with one accord would
cry for water, and run from all parts with buckets full to the place.
But when Caius Caesar, they say, was repairing the steps about it, some
of the laborers digging too close, the roots were destroyed,
and the tree withered.

The Sabines adopted the Roman months, of which whatever is remarkable is
mentioned in the Life of Numa. Romulus, on the other hand, adopted
their long shields, and changed his own armor and that of all the
Romans, who before wore round targets of the Argive pattern. Feasts and
sacrifices they partook of in common, not abolishing any which either
nation observed before, and instituting several new ones; of which one
was the Matronalia, instituted in honor of the women. for their
extinction of the war; likewise the Carmentalia. This Carmenta some
think a deity presiding over human birth; for which reason she is much
honored by mothers. Others say she was the wife of Evander, the
Arcadian, being a prophetess, and wont to deliver her oracles in verse,
and from carmen, a verse, was called Carmenta; her proper name being
Nicostrata. Others more probably derive Carmenta from carens mente, or
insane, in allusion to her prophetic frenzies. Of the Feast of Palilia
we have spoken before. The Lupercalia, by the time of its celebration,
may seem to be a feast of purification, for it is solemnized on the dies
nefasti, or non-court days, of the month February, which name signifies
purification, and the very day of the feast was anciently called
Februata; but its name is equivalent to the Greek Lycaea; and it seems
thus to be of great antiquity, and brought in by the Arcadians who came
with Evander. Yet this is but dubious, for it may come as well from the
wolf that nursed Romulus; and we see the Luperci, the priests, begin
their course from the place where they say Romulus was exposed. But the
ceremonies performed in it render the origin of the thing more difficult
to be guessed at; for there are goats killed, then, two young noblemen's
sons being brought, some are to stain their foreheads with the bloody
knife, others presently to wipe it off with wool dipped in milk; then
the young boys must laugh after their foreheads are wiped; that done,
having cut the goats' skins into thongs, they run about naked, only with
something about their middle, lashing all they meet; and the young wives
do not avoid their strokes, fancying they will help conception and
child-birth. Another thing peculiar to this feast is for the Luperci to
sacrifice a dog. But as, a certain poet who wrote fabulous explanations
of Roman customs in elegiac verses, says, that Romulus and Remus, after
the conquest of Amulius, ran joyfully to the place where the wolf gave
them suck; and that in imitation of that, this feast was held,
and two young noblemen ran--

Striking at all, as when from Alba town,
With sword in hand, the twins came hurrying down;

and that the bloody knife applied to their foreheads was a sign of the
danger and bloodshed of that day; the cleansing of them in milk, a
remembrance of their food and nourishment. Caius Acilius writes, that,
before the city was built, the cattle of Romulus and Remus one day going
astray, they, praying to the god Faunus, ran out to seek them naked,
wishing not to be troubled with sweat, and that this is why the Luperci
run naked. If the sacrifice be by way of purification, a dog might very
well be sacrificed; for the Greeks, in their lustrations, carry out
young dogs, and frequently use this ceremony of periscylacismus as they
call it. Or if again it is a sacrifice of gratitude to the wolf that
nourished and preserved Romulus, there is good reason in killing a dog,
as being an enemy to wolves. Unless indeed, after all, the creature is
punished for hindering the Luperci in their running.

They say, too, Romulus was the first that consecrated holy fire, and
instituted holy virgins to keep it, called vestals; others ascribe it to
Numa Pompilius; agreeing, however, that Romulus was otherwise eminently
religious, and skilled in divination, and for that reason carried the
lituus, a crooked rod with which soothsayers describe the quarters of
the heavens, when they sit to observe the flights of birds. This of
his, being kept in the Palatium, was lost when the city was taken by the
Gauls; and afterwards, that barbarous people being driven out, was found
in the ruins, under a great heap of ashes, untouched by the fire, all
things about it being consumed and burnt. He instituted also certain
laws, one of which is somewhat severe, which suffers not a wife to leave
her husband, but grants a husband power to turn off his wife, either
upon poisoning her children; or counterfeiting his keys, or for
adultery; but if the husband upon any other occasion put her away, he
ordered one moiety of his estate to be given to the wife, the other to
fall to the goddess Ceres; and whoever cast off his wife, to make an
atonement by sacrifice to the gods of the dead. This, too, is
observable as a singular thing in Romulus, that he appointed no
punishment for real parricide, but called all murder so, thinking the
one an accursed thing, but the other a thing impossible; and, for a long
time, his judgment seemed to have been right; for in almost six hundred
years together, nobody committed the like in Rome; and Lucius Hostius,
after the wars of Hanibal, is recorded to have been the first parricide.
Let thus much suffice concerning these matters.

In the fifth year of the reign of Tatius, some of his friends and
kinsmen, meeting ambassadors coming from Laurentum to Rome, attempted on
the road to take away their money by force, and, upon their resistance,
killed them. So great a villainy having been committed, Romulus thought
the malefactors ought at once to be punished, but Tatius shuffled off
and deferred the execution of it; and this one thing was the beginning
of open quarrel between them; in all other respects they were very
careful of their conduct, and administered affairs together with great
unanimity. The relations of the slain, being debarred of lawful
satisfaction by reason of Tatius, fell upon him as he was sacrificing
with Romulus at Lavinium, and slew him; but escorted Romulus home,
commending and extolling him for a just prince. Romulus took the body
of Tatius, and buried it very splendidly in the Aventine Mount, near the
place called Armilustrium, but altogether neglected revenging his
murder. Some authors write, the city of Laurentum, fearing the
consequence, delivered up the murderers of Tatius; but Romulus dismissed
them, saying, one murder was requited with another. This gave occasion
of talk and jealousy, as if he were well pleased at the removal of his
copartner in the government. Nothing of these things, however, raised
any sort of feud or disturbance among the Sabines; but some out of love
to him, others out of fear of his power, some again reverencing him as a
god, they all continued living peacefully in admiration and awe of him;
many foreign nations, too, showed respect to Romulus; the Ancient Latins
sent, and entered into league and confederacy with him. Fidenae he
took, a neighboring city to Rome, by a party of horse, as some say, whom
he sent before with commands to cut down the hinges of the gates,
himself afterwards unexpectedly coming up. Others say, they having
first made the invasion, plundering and ravaging the country and
suburbs, Romulus lay in ambush for them, and, having killed many of
their men, took the city; but, nevertheless, did not raze or demolish
it, but made it a Roman colony, and sent thither, on the Ides of April,
two thousand five hundred inhabitants.

Soon after a plague broke out, causing sudden death without any previous
sickness; it infected also the corn with unfruitfulness, and cattle with
barrenness; there rained blood, too, in the city; so that, to their
actual sufferings, fear of the wrath of the gods was added. But when
the same mischiefs fell upon Laurentum, then everybody judged it was
divine vengeance that fell upon both cities, for the neglect of
executing justice upon the murder of Tatius and the ambassadors. But
the murderers on both sides being delivered up and punished, the
pestilence visibly abated; and Romulus purified the cities with
lustrations, which, they say, even now are performed at the wood called
Ferentina. But before the plague ceased, the Camertines invaded the
Romans and overran the country, thinking them, by reason of the
distemper, unable to resist; but Romulus at once made head against them,
and gained the victory, with the slaughter of six thousand men; then
took their city, and brought half of those he found there to Rome;
sending from Rome to Camerium double the number he left there. This was
done the first of August. So many citizens had he to spare, in sixteen
years' time from his first founding Rome. Among other spoils, he took a
brazen four-horse chariot from Camerium, which he placed in the temple
of Vulcan, setting on it his own statue,
with a figure of Victory crowning him.

The Roman cause thus daily gathering strength, their weaker neighbors
shrunk away, and were thankful to be left untouched; but the stronger,
out of fear or envy, thought they ought not to give way to Romulus, but
to curb and put a stop to his growing greatness. The first were the
Veientes, a people of Tuscany, who had large possessions, and dwelt in a
spacious city; they took occasion to commence a war, by claiming Fidenae
as belonging to them; a thing not only very unreasonable, but very
ridiculous, that they, who did not assist them in the greatest
extremities, but permitted them to be slain, should challenge their
lands and houses when in the hands of others. But being scornfully
retorted upon by Romulus in his answers, they divided themselves into
two bodies; with one they attacked the garrison of Fidenae, the other
marched against Romulus; that which went against Fidenae got the
victory, and slew two thousand Romans; the other was worsted by Romulus,
with the loss of eight thousand men. A fresh battle was fought near
Fidenae, and here all men acknowledge the day's success to have been
chiefly the work of Romulus himself, who showed the highest skill as
well as courage, and seemed to manifest a strength and swiftness more
than human. But what some write, that, of fourteen thousand that fell
that day, above half were slain by Romulus's own hand, verges too near
to fable, and is, indeed, simply incredible; since even the Messenians
are thought to go too far in saying that Aristomenes three times offered
sacrifice for the death of a hundred enemies, Lacedaemonians, slain by
himself. The army being thus routed, Romulus, suffering those that were
left to make their escape, led his forces against the city; they, having
suffered such great losses, did not venture to oppose, but, humbly suing
to him, made a league and friendship for an hundred years; surrendering
also a large district of land called Septempagium, that is, the seven
parts, as also their salt-works upon the river, and fifty noblemen for
hostages. He made his triumph for this on the Ides of October, leading,
among the rest of his many captives, the general of the Veientes, an
elderly man, but who had not, it seemed, acted with the prudence of age;
whence even now, in sacrifices for victories, they lead an old man
through the market place to the Capitol, appareled in purple, with a
bulla, or child's toy, tied to it, and the crier cries, Sardians to be
sold; for the Tuscans are said to be a colony of the Sardians, and the
Veientes are a city of Tuscany.

This was the last battle Romulus ever fought; afterwards he, as most,
nay all men, very few excepted, do, who are raised by great and
miraculous good-haps of fortune to power and greatness, so, I say, did
he; relying upon his own great actions, and growing of an haughtier
mind, he forsook his popular behavior for kingly arrogance, odious to
the people; to whom in particular the state which he assumed was
hateful. For he dressed in scarlet, with the purple-bordered robe over
it; he gave audience on a couch of state, having always about him some
young men called Celeres, from their swiftness in doing commissions;
there went before him others with staves, to make room, with leather
thongs tied on their bodies, to bind on the moment whomever he
commanded. The Latins formerly used ligare in the same sense as now
alligare, to bind, whence the name lictors, for these officers, and
bacula, or staves, for their rods, because staves were then used. It is
probable, however, they were first called litores, afterwards, by
putting in a c, lictores, or, in Greek, liturgi, or people's officers,
for leitos is still Greek for the commons,
and laos for the people in general.

But when, after the death of his grandfather Numitor in Alba, the throne
devolving upon Romulus, he, to court the people, put the government into
their own hands, and appointed an annual magistrate over the Albans,
this taught the great men of Rome to seek after a free and anti-
monarchical state, wherein all might in turn be subjects and rulers.
For neither were the patricians any longer admitted to state affairs,
only had the name and title left them, convening in council rather for
fashion's sake than advice, where they heard in silence the king's
commands, and so departed, exceeding the commonalty only in hearing
first what was done. These and the like were matters of small moment;
but when he of his own accord parted among his soldiers what lands were
acquired by war, and restored the Veientes their hostages, the senate
neither consenting nor approving of it, then, indeed, he seemed to put a
great affront upon them; so that, on his sudden and strange
disappearance a short while after, the senate fell under suspicion and
calumny. He disappeared on the Nones of July, as they now call the month
which was then Quintilis, leaving nothing of certainty to be related of
his death; only the time, as just mentioned, for on that day many
ceremonies are still performed in representation of what happened.
Neither is this uncertainty to be thought strange, seeing the manner of
the death of Scipio Africanus, who died at his own home after supper,
has been found capable neither of proof or disproof; for some say he
died a natural death, being of a sickly habit; others, that he poisoned
himself; others again, that his enemies, breaking in upon him in the
night, stifled him. Yet Scipio's dead body lay open to be seen of all,
and any one, from his own observation, might form his suspicions and
conjectures; whereas Romulus, when he vanished, left neither the least
part of his body, nor any remnant of his clothes to be seen. So that
some fancied, the senators, having fallen upon him ill the temple of
Vulcan, cut his body into pieces, and took each a part away in his
bosom; others think his disappearance was neither in the temple of
Vulcan, nor with the senators only by, but that, it came to pass that,
as he was haranguing the people without the city, near a place called
the Goat's Marsh, on a sudden strange and unaccountable disorders and
alterations took place in the air; the face of the sun was darkened, and
the day turned into night, and that, too, no quiet, peaceable night, but
with terrible thunderings, and boisterous winds from all quarters;
during which the common people dispersed and fled, but the senators kept
close together. The tempest being over and the light breaking out, when
the people gathered again, they missed and inquired for their king; the
senators suffered them not to search, or busy themselves about the
matter, but commanded them to honor and worship Romulus as one taken up
to the gods, and about to be to them, in the place of a good prince, now
a propitious god. The multitude, hearing this, went away believing and
rejoicing in hopes of good things from him; but there were some, who,
canvassing the matter in a hostile temper, accused and aspersed the
patricians, as men that persuaded the people to believe ridiculous
tales, when they themselves were the murderers of the king.

Things being in this disorder, one, they say, of the patricians, of
noble family and approved good character, and a faithful and familiar
friend of Romulus himself, having come with him from Alba, Julius
Proculus by name, presented himself in the forum; and, taking a most
sacred oath, protested before them all, that, as he was traveling on the
road, he had seen Romulus coming to meet him, looking taller and
comelier than ever, dressed in shining and faming armor; and he, being
affrighted at the apparition, said, "Why, O king, or for what purpose
have you abandoned us to unjust and wicked surmises, and the whole city
to bereavement and endless sorrow?" and that he made answer, "It
pleased the gods, O Proculus, that we, who came from them, should remain
so long a time amongst men as we did; and, having built a city to be the
greatest in the world for empire and glory, should again return to
heaven. But farewell; and tell the Romans, that, by the exercise of
temperance and fortitude, they shall attain the height of human power;
we will be to you the propitious god Quirinus." This seemed credible to
the Romans, upon the honesty and oath of the relater, and indeed, too,
there mingled with it a certain divine passion, some preternatural
influence similar to possession by a divinity; nobody contradicted it,
but, laying aside all jealousies and detractions, they prayed to
Quirinus and saluted him as a god.

This is like some of the Greek fables of Aristeas the Proconnesian, and
Cleomedes the Astypalaean; for they say Aristeas died in a fuller's
work-shop, and his friends, coming to look for him, found his body
vanished; and that some presently after, coming from abroad, said they
met him traveling towards Croton. And that Cleomedes, being an
extraordinarily strong and gigantic man, but also wild and mad,
committed many desperate freaks; and at last, in a school-house,
striking a pillar that sustained the roof with his fist, broke it in the
middle, so that the house fell and destroyed the children in it; and
being pursued, he fled into a great chest, and, shutting to the lid,
held it so fast, that many men, with their united strength, could not
force it open; afterwards, breaking the chest to pieces, they found no
man in it alive or dead; in astonishment at which, they sent to consult
the oracle at Delphi; to whom the prophetess made this answer,

Of all the heroes, Cleomede is last.

They say, too, the body of Alcmena, as they were carrying her to her
grave, vanished, and a stone was found lying on the bier. And many such
improbabilities do your fabulous writers relate, deifying creatures
naturally mortal; for though altogether to disown a divine nature in
human virtue were impious and base, so again to mix heaven with earth is
ridiculous. Let us believe with Pindar, that

All human bodies yield to Death's decree,
The soul survives to all eternity.

For that alone is derived from the gods, thence comes, and thither
returns; not with the body, but when most disengaged and separated from
it, and when most entirely pure and clean and free from the flesh; for
the most perfect soul, says Heraclitus, is a dry light, which flies out
of the body as lightning breaks from a cloud; but that which is clogged
and surfeited with body is like gross and humid incense, slow to kindle
and ascend. We must not, therefore, contrary to nature, send the
bodies, too, of good men to heaven; but we must really believe that,
according to their divine nature and law, their virtue and their souls
are translated out of men into heroes, out of heroes into demi-gods, out
of demi-gods, after passing, as in the rite of initiation, through a
final cleansing and sanctification, and so freeing themselves from all
that pertains to mortality and sense, are thus, not by human decree, but
really and according to right reason, elevated into gods, admitted thus
to the greatest and most blessed perfection.

Romulus's surname Quirinus, some say, is equivalent to Mars; others,
that he was so called because the citizens were called Quirites; others,
because the ancients called a dart or spear Quiris; thus, the statue of
Juno resting on a spear is called Quiritis, and the dart in the Regia is
addressed as Mars, and those that were distinguished in war were usually
presented with a dart; that, therefore, Romulus, being a martial god, or
a god of darts, was called Quirinus. A temple is certainly built to his
honor on the mount called from him Quirinalis.

The day he vanished on is called the Flight of the People, and the Nones
of the Goats, because they go then out of the city, and sacrifice at
the Goat's Marsh, and, as they go, they shout out some of the Roman
names, as Marcus, Lucius, Caius, imitating the way in which they then
fled and called upon one another in that fright and hurry. Some,
however, say, this was not in imitation of a flight, but of a quick and
hasty onset, referring it to the following occasion: after the Gauls who
had taken Rome were driven out by Camillus, and the city was scarcely as
yet recovering her strength, many of the Latins, under the command of
Livius Postumius, took this time to march against her. Postumius,
halting not far from Rome, sent a herald, signifying that the Latins
were desirous to renew their former alliance and affinity (that was now
almost decayed) by contracting new marriages between both nations; if,
therefore, they would send forth a good number of their virgins and
widows, they should have peace and friendship, such as the Sabines had
formerly had on the like conditions. The Romans, hearing this, dreaded
a war, yet thought a surrender of their women little better than mere
captivity. Being in this doubt, a servant-maid called Philotis (or, as
some say, Tutola), advised them to do neither, but, by a stratagem,
avoid both fighting and the giving up of such pledges. The stratagem
was this, that they should send herself, with other well-looking
servant-maids, to the enemy, in the dress of free-born virgins, and she
should in the night light up a fire-signal, at which the Romans should
come armed and surprise them asleep. The Latins were thus deceived, and
accordingly Philotis set up a torch in a wild fig-tree, screening it
behind with curtains and coverlets from the sight of the enemy, while
visible to the Romans. They, when they saw it, eagerly ran out of the
gates, calling in their haste to each other as they went out, and so,
falling in unexpectedly upon the enemy, they defeated them, and upon
that made a feast of triumph, called the Nones of the Goats, because of
the wild fig-tree, called by the Romans Caprificus, or the goat-fig.
They feast the women without the city in arbors made of fig-tree boughs
and the maid-servants gather together and run about playing; afterwards
they fight in sport, and throw stones one at another, in memory that
they then aided and assisted the Roman men in fight. This only a few
authors admit for true; For the calling upon one another's names by day
and the going out to the Goat's Marsh to do sacrifice seem to agree more
with the former story, unless, indeed, we shall say that both the
actions might have happened on the same day in different years. It was
in the fifty-fourth year of his age and the thirty-eighth of his reign
that Romulus, they tell us, left the world.

COMPARISON OF ROMULUS WITH THESEUS

This is what I have learnt of Romulus and Theseus, worthy of memory. It
seems, first of all, that Theseus, out of his own free-will, without any
compulsion, when he might have reigned in security at Troezen in the
enjoyment of no inglorious empire, of his own motion affected great
actions, whereas the other, to escape present servitude and a punishment
that threatened him, (according to Plato's phrase) grew valiant purely
out of fear, and dreading the extremest inflictions, attempted great
enterprises out of mere necessity. Again, his greatest action was only
the killing of one king of Alba; while, as mere by-adventures and
preludes, the other can name Sciron, Sinnis, Procrustes, and Corynetes;
by reducing and killing of whom, he rid Greece of terrible oppressors,
before any of them that were relieved knew who did it; moreover, he
might without any trouble as well have gone to Athens by sea,
considering he himself never was in the least injured by those robbers;
where as Romulus could not but be in trouble whilst Amulius lived. Add
to this the fact that Theseus, for no wrong done to himself, but for the
sake of others, fell upon these villains; but Romulus and Remus, as long
as they themselves suffered no ill by the tyrant, permitted him to
oppress all others. And if it be a great thing to have been wounded in
battle by the Sabines, to have killed king Acron, and to have conquered
many enemies, we may oppose to these actions the battle with the
Centaurs and the feats done against the Amazons. But what Theseus
adventured, in offering himself voluntarily with young boys and virgins,
as part of the tribute unto Crete, either to be a prey to a monster or a
victim upon the tomb of Androgeus, or, according to the mildest form of
the story, to live vilely and dishonorably in slavery to insulting and
cruel men; it is not to be expressed what an act of courage,
magnanimity, or justice to the public, or of love for honor and bravery,
that was. So that methinks the philosophers did not ill define love to
be the provision of the gods for the care and preservation of the young;
for the love of Ariadne, above all, seems to have been the proper work
and design of some god in order to preserve Theseus; and, indeed, we
ought not to blame her for loving him, but rather wonder all men and
women were not alike affected towards him; and if she alone were so.
truly I dare pronounce her worthy of the love of a god, who was herself
so great a lover of virtue and goodness, and the bravest man.

Both Theseus and Romulus were by nature meant for governors; yet neither
lived up to the true character of a king, but fell off, and ran, the one
into popularity, the other into tyranny, falling both into the same
fault out of different passions. For a ruler's first end is to maintain
his office, which is done no less by avoiding what is unfit than by
observing what is suitable. Whoever is either too remiss or too strict
is no more a king or a governor, but either a demagogue or a despot, and
so becomes either odious or contemptible to his subjects. Though
certainly the one seems to be the fault of easiness and good-nature, the
other of pride and severity.

If men's calamities, again, are not to be wholly imputed to fortune, but
refer themselves to differences of character, who will acquit either
Theseus of rash and unreasonable anger against his son, or Romulus
against his brother? Looking at motives, we more easily excuse the
anger which a stronger cause, like a severer blow, provoked. Romulus,
having disagreed with his brother advisedly and deliberately on public
matters, one would think could not on a sudden have been put into so
great a passion; but love and jealousy and the complaints of his wife,
which few men can avoid being moved by, seduced Theseus to commit that
outrage upon his son. And what is more, Romulus, in his anger,
committed an action of unfortunate consequence; but that of Theseus
ended only in words, some evil speaking, and an old man's curse; the
rest of the youth's disasters seem to have proceeded from fortune; so
that, so far, a man would give his vote on Theseus's part.

But Romulus has, first of all, one great plea, that his performances
proceeded from very small beginnings; for both the brothers being
thought servants and the sons of swineherds, before becoming freemen
themselves, gave liberty to almost all the Latins, obtaining at once all
the most honorable titles, as destroyers of their country's enemies,
preservers of their friends and kindred, princes of the people, founders
of cities, not removers, like Theseus, who raised and compiled only one
house out of many, demolishing many cities bearing the names of ancient
kings and heroes. Romulus, indeed, did the same afterwards, forcing his
enemies to deface and ruin their own dwellings, and to sojourn with
their conquerors; but at first, not by removal, or increase of an
existing city, but by foundation of a new one, he obtained himself
lands, a country, a kingdom, wives, children, and relations. And, in so
doing, he killed or destroyed nobody, but benefited those that wanted
houses and homes and were willing to be of a society and become
citizens. Robbers and malefactors he slew not; but he subdued nations,
he overthrew cities, he triumphed over kings and commanders. As to
Remus, it is doubtful by whose hand he fell; it is generally imputed to
others. His mother he clearly retrieved from death, and placed his
grandfather who was brought under base and dishonorable vassalage, on
the ancient throne of Aeneas, to whom he did voluntarily many good
offices, but never did him harm even inadvertently. But Theseus, in his
forgetfulness and neglect of the command concerning the flag, can
scarcely, methinks, by any excuses, or before the most indulgent judges,
avoid the imputation of parricide. And, indeed, one of the Attic
writers, perceiving it to be very hard to make an excuse for this,
feigns that Aegeus, at the approach of the ship, running hastily to the
Acropolis to see what news, slipped and fell down, as if he had no
servants, or none would attend him on his way to the shore.

And, indeed, the faults committed in the rapes of women admit of no
plausible excuse in Theseus. First, because of the often repetition of
the crime; for he stole Ariadne, Antiope, Anaxo the Troezenian, at last
Helen, when he was an old man, and she not marriageable; she a child,
and he at an age past even lawful wedlock. Then, on account of the
cause; for the Troezenian, Lacedaemonian, and Amazonian virgins, beside
that they were not betrothed to him, were not worthier to raise children
by than the Athenian women, derived from Erechtheus and Cecrops; but it
is to be suspected these things were done out of wantonness and lust.
Romulus, when he had taken near eight hundred women, chose not all, but
only Hersilia, as they say, for himself; the rest he divided among the
chief of the city; and afterwards, by the respect and tenderness and
justice shown towards them, he made it clear that this violence and
injury was a commendable and politic exploit to establish a society; by
which he intermixed and united both nations, and made it the fountain of
after friendship and public stability. And to the reverence and love
and constancy he established in matrimony, time can witness; for in two
hundred and thirty years, neither any husband deserted his wife, nor any
wife her husband; but, as the curious among the Greeks can name the
first case of parricide or matricide, so the Romans all well know that
Spurius Carvilius was the first who put away his wife, accusing her of
barrenness. The immediate results were similar; for upon those
marriages the two princes shared in the dominion, and both nations fell
under the same government. But from the marriages of Theseus proceeded
nothing of friendship or correspondence for the advantage of commerce,
but enmities and wars and the slaughter of citizens, and, at last, the
loss of the city Aphidnae, when only out of the compassion of the enemy,
whom they entreated and caressed like gods, they escaped suffering what
Troy did by Paris. Theseus's mother, however, was not only in danger,
but suffered actually what Hecuba did, deserted and neglected by her
son, unless her captivity be not a fiction, as I could wish both that
and other things were. The circumstances of the divine intervention,
said to have preceded or accompanied their births, are also in contrast;
for Romulus was preserved by the special favor of the gods; but the
oracle given to Aegeus, commanding him to abstain, seems to demonstrate
that the birth of Theseus was not agreeable to the will of the gods.

LYCURGUS

There is so much uncertainty in the accounts which historians have left
us of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta, that scarcely anything is
asserted by one of them which is not called into question or
contradicted by the rest. Their sentiments are quite different as to
the family he came of, the voyages he undertook, the place and manner of
his death, but most of all when they speak of the laws he made and the
commonwealth which he founded. They cannot, by any means, be brought to
an agreement as to the very age in which he lived; for some of them say
that he flourished in the time of Iphitus, and that they two jointly
contrived the ordinance for the cessation of arms during the solemnity
of the Olympic games. Of this opinion was Aristotle; and for
confirmation of it, he alleges an inscription upon one of the copper
quoits used in those sports, upon which the name of Lycurgus continued
uneffaced to his time. But Eratosthenes and Apollodorus and other
chronologers, computing the time by the successions of the Spartan
kings, pretend to demonstrate that he was much more ancient than the
institution of the Olympic games. Timaeus conjectures that there were
two of this name, and in diverse times, but that the one of them being
much more famous than the other, men gave to him the glory of the
exploits of both; the elder of the two, according to him, was not long
after Homer; and some are so particular as to say that he had seen him.
But that he was of great antiquity may be gathered from a passage in
Xenophon, where he makes him contemporary with the Heraclidae. By
descent, indeed, the very last kings of Sparta were Heraclidae too; but
he seems in that place to speak of the first and more immediate
successors of Hercules. But notwithstanding this confusion and
obscurity, we shall endeavor to compose the history of his life,
adhering to those statements which are least contradicted, and depending
upon those authors who are most worthy of credit.

The poet Simonides will have it that Lycurgus was the son of Prytanis,
and not of Eunomus; but in this opinion he is singular, for all the rest
deduce the genealogy of them both as follows:--

                           Aristodemus
                            Patrocles
                              Sous
                             Eurypon
                             Eunomus
            ------------------------------------------
Polydectes by his first wife           Lycurgus by Dionassa his second.

Dieuchidas says he was the sixth from Patrocles and the eleventh from
Hercules. Be this as it will, Sous certainly was the most renowned of
all his ancestors, under whose conduct the Spartans made slaves of the
Helots, and added to their dominions, by conquest, a good part of
Arcadia, There goes a story of this king Sous, that, being besieged by
the Clitorians in a dry and stony place so that he could come at no
water, he was at last constrained to agree with them upon these terms,
that he would restore to them all his conquests, provided that himself
and all his men should drink of the nearest spring. After the usual
oaths and ratifications, he called his soldiers together, and offered to
him that would forbear drinking, his kingdom for a reward; and when not
a man of them was able to forbear, in short, when they had all drunk
their fill, at last comes king Sous himself to the spring, and, having
sprinkled his face only, without swallowing one drop, marches off in the
face of his enemies, refusing to yield up his conquests, because himself
and all his men had not, according to the articles,
drunk of their water.

Although he was justly had in admiration on this account, yet his family
was not surnamed from him, but from his son Eurypon (of whom they were
called Eurypontids); the reason of which was that Eurypon relaxed the
rigor of the monarchy, seeking favor and popularity with the many.
They, after this first step, grew bolder; and the succeeding kings
partly incurred hatred with their people by trying to use force, or, for
popularity's sake and through weakness, gave way; and anarchy and
confusion long prevailed in Sparta, causing, moreover, the death of the
father of Lycurgus. For as he was endeavoring to quell a riot, he was
stabbed with a butcher's knife, and left the title of king
to his eldest son Polydectes.

He, too, dying soon after, the right of succession (as every one
thought) rested in Lycurgus; and reign he did, until it was found that
the queen, his sister-in-law, was with child; upon which he immediately
declared that the kingdom belonged to her issue, provided it were male,
and that he himself exercised the regal jurisdiction only as his
guardian; the Spartan name for which office is prodicus. Soon after, an
overture was made to him by the queen, that she would herself in some
way destroy the infant, upon condition that he would marry her when he
came to the crown. Abhorring the woman's wickedness, he nevertheless
did not reject her proposal, but, making show of closing with her,
dispatched the messenger with thanks and expressions of joy, but
dissuaded her earnestly from procuring herself to miscarry, which would
impair her health, if not endanger her life; he himself, he said, would
see to it, that the child, as soon as born, should be taken out of the
way. By such artifices having drawn on the woman to the time of her
lying-in, as soon as he heard that she was in labor, he sent persons to
be by and observe all that passed, with orders that if it were a girl
they should deliver it to the women, but if a boy, should bring it to
him wheresoever he were, and whatsoever doing. It so fell out that when
he was at supper with the principal magistrates the queen was brought to
bed of a boy, who was soon after presented to him as he was at the
table; he, taking him into his arms, said to those about him, "Men of
Sparta, here is a king born unto us;" this said, he laid him down in
the king's place, and named him Charilaus, that is, the joy of the
people; because that all were transported with joy and with wonder at
his noble and just spirit. His reign had lasted only eight months, but
he was honored on other accounts by the citizens, and there were more
who obeyed him because of his eminent virtues, than because he was
regent to the king and had the royal power in his hands. Some, however,
envied and sought to impede his growing influence while he was still
young; chiefly the kindred and friends of the queen mother, who
pretended to have been dealt with injuriously. Her brother Leonidas, in
a warm debate which fell out betwixt him and Lycurgus, went so far as to
tell him to his face that he was well assured that ere long he should
see him king; suggesting suspicions and preparing the way for an
accusation of him, as though he had made away with his nephew, if the
child should chance to fail though by a natural death. Words of the
like import were designedly cast abroad by the queen-mother
and her adherents.

Troubled at this, and not knowing what it might come to, he thought it
his wisest course to avoid their envy by a voluntary exile, and to
travel from place to place until his nephew came to marriageable years,
and, by having a son, had secured the succession; setting sail,
therefore, with this resolution, he first arrived at Crete, where,
having considered their several forms of government, and got an
acquaintance with the principal men amongst them, some of their laws he
very much approved of, and resolved to make use of them in his own
country; a good part he rejected as useless. Amongst the persons there
the most renowned for their learning all their wisdom in state matters
was one Thales, whom Lycurgus, by importunities and assurances of
friendship, persuaded to go over to Lacedaemon; where, though by his
outward appearance and his own profession he seemed to be no other than
a lyric poet, in reality he performed the part of one of the ablest
lawgivers in the world. The very songs which he composed were
exhortations to obedience and concord, and the very measure and cadence
of the verse, conveying impressions of order and tranquility, had so
great an influence on the minds of the listeners, that they were
insensibly softened and civilized, insomuch that they renounced their
private feuds and animosities, and were reunited in a common admiration
of virtue. So that it may truly be said that Thales prepared the way
for the discipline introduced by Lycurgus.

From Crete he sailed to Asia, with design, as is said, to examine the
difference betwixt the manners and rules of life of the Cretans, which
were very sober and temperate, and those of the Ionians, a people of
sumptuous and delicate habits, and so to form a judgment; just as
physicians do by comparing healthy and diseased bodies. Here he had the
first sight of Homer's works, in the hands, we may suppose, of the
posterity of Creophylus; and, having observed that the few loose
expressions and actions of ill example which are to be found in his
poems were much outweighed by serious lessons of state and rules of
morality, he set himself eagerly to transcribe and digest them into
order, as thinking they would be of good use in his own country. They
had, indeed, already obtained some slight repute amongst the Greeks, and
scattered portions, as chance conveyed them, were in the hands of
individuals; but Lycurgus first made them really known.

The Egyptians say that he took a voyage into Egypt, and that, being much
taken with their way of separating the soldiery from the rest of the
nation, he transferred it from them to Sparta, a removal from contact
with those employed in low and mechanical occupations giving high
refinement and beauty to the state. Some Greek writers also record
this. But as for his voyages into Spain, Africa, and the Indies, and
his conferences there with the Gymnosophists, the whole relation, as far
as I can find, rests on the single credit of the Spartan Aristocrates,
the son of Hipparchus.

Lycurgus was much missed at Sparta, and often sent for, "for kings
indeed we have," they said, "who wear the marks and assume the titles of
royalty, but as for the qualities of their minds, they have nothing by
which they are to be distinguished from their subjects;" adding, that in
him alone was the true foundation of sovereignty to be seen, a nature
made to rule, and a genius to gain obedience. Nor were the kings
themselves averse to see him back, for they looked upon his presence as
a bulwark against the insolencies of the people.

Things being in this posture at his return, he applied himself, without
loss of time, to a thorough reformation and resolved to change the whole
face of the commonwealth; for what could a few particular laws and a
partial alteration avail? He must act as wise physicians do, in the
case of one who labors under a complication of diseases, by force of
medicines reduce and exhaust him, change his whole temperament, and then
set him upon a totally new regimen of diet. Having thus projected
things, away he goes to Delphi to consult Apollo there; which having
done, and offered his sacrifice, he returned with that renowned oracle,
in which he is called beloved of God, and rather God than man; that his
prayers were heard, that his laws should be the best, and the
commonwealth which observed them the most famous in the world.
Encouraged by these things, he set himself to bring over to his side the
leading men of Sparta, exhorting them to give him a helping hand in his
great undertaking; he broke it first to his particular friends, and then
by degrees gained others, and animated them all to put his design in
execution. When things were ripe for action, he gave order to thirty of
the principal men of Sparta to be ready armed at the market-place by
break of day, to the end that he might strike a terror into the opposite
party. Hermippus hath set down the names of twenty of the most eminent
of them; but the name of him whom Lycurgus most confided in, and who was
of most use to him, both in making his laws and putting them in
execution, was Arthmiadas. Things growing to a tumult, king Charilaus,
apprehending that it was a conspiracy against his person, took sanctuary
in the temple of Minerva of the Brazen House; but, being soon after
undeceived, and having taken an oath of them that they had no designs
against him, he quitted his refuge, and himself also entered into the
confederacy with them; of so gentle and flexible a disposition he was,
to which Archelaus, his brother-king, alluded, when, hearing him
extolled for his goodness, he said, "Who can say he is anything but
good? he is so even to the bad."

Amongst the many changes and alterations which Lycurgus made, the first
and of greatest importance was the establishment of the senate, which,
having a power equal to the kings' in matters of great consequence, and,
as Plato expresses it, allaying and qualifying the fiery genius of the
royal office, gave steadiness and safety to the commonwealth. For the
state, which before had no firm basis to stand upon, but leaned one
while towards an absolute monarchy, when the kings had the upper hand,
and another while towards a pure democracy, when the people had the
better, found in this establishment of the senate a central weight, like
ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium; the
twenty-eight always adhering to the kings so far as to resist democracy,
and, on the other hand, supporting the people against the establishment
of absolute monarchy. As for the determinate number of twenty-eight,
Aristotle states, that it so fell out because two of the original
associates, for want of courage, fell off from the enterprise; but
Sphaerus assures us that there were but twenty-eight of the confederates
at first; perhaps there is some mystery in the number, which consists of
seven multiplied by four, and is the first of perfect numbers after six,
being, as that is, equal to all its parts. For my part, I believe
Lycurgus fixed upon the number of twenty-eight, that, the two kings
being reckoned amongst them, they might be thirty in all. So eagerly
set was he upon this establishment, that he took the trouble to obtain
an oracle about it from Delphi, the Rhetra, which runs thus: "After that
you have built a temple to Jupiter Hellanius, and to Minerva Hellania,
and after that you have phyle'd the people phyles, and obe'd them into
obes, you shall establish a council of thirty elders, the leaders
included, and shall, from time to time, apellazein the people betwixt
Babyca and Cnacion, there propound and put to the vote. The commons
have the final voice and decision. " By phyles and obes are meant the
divisions of the people; by the leaders, the two kings; apellazein,
referring to the Pythian Apollo, signifies to assemble; Babyca and
Cnacion they now call Oenus; Aristotle says Cnacion is a river, and
Babyca a bridge. Betwixt this Babyca and Cnacion, their assemblies were
held, for they had no council-house or building, to meet in. Lycurgus
was of opinion that ornaments were so far from advantaging them in their
counsels, that they were rather an hindrance, by diverting their
attention from the business before them to statues and pictures, and
roofs curiously fretted, the usual embellishments of such places amongst
the other Greeks. The people then being thus assembled in the open air,
it was not allowed to any one of their order to give his advice, but
only either to ratify or reject what should be propounded to them by
the king or senate. But because it fell out afterwards that the people,
by adding or omitting words, distorted and perverted the sense of
propositions, kings Polydorus and Theopompus inserted into the Rhetra,
or grand covenant, the following clause: "That if the people decide
crookedly, it should be lawful for the elders and leaders to dissolve;"
that is to say, refuse ratification, and dismiss the people as depravers
and perverters of their counsel. It passed among the people, by their
management, as being equally authentic with the rest of the Rhetra, as
appears by these verses of Tyrtaeus,--

These oracles they from Apollo heard,
And brought from Pytho home the perfect word:
The heaven-appointed kings, who love the land,
Shall foremost in the nation's council stand;
The elders next to them; the commons last;
Let a straight Rhetra among all be passed.

Although Lycurgus had, in this manner, used all the qualifications
possible in the constitution of his commonwealth, yet those who
succeeded him found the oligarchical element still too strong and
dominant, and, to check its high temper and its violence, put, as Plato
says, a bit in its mouth, which was the power of the ephori, established
one hundred and thirty years after the death of Lycurgus. Elatus and his
colleagues were the first who had this dignity conferred upon them, in
the reign of king Theopompus, who, when his queen upbraided him one day
that he would leave the regal power to his children less than he had
received it from his ancestors, said, in answer, "No, greater; for it
will last longer."  For, indeed, their prerogative being thus reduced
within reasonable bounds, the Spartan kings were at once freed from all
further jealousies and consequent danger, and never experienced the
calamities of their neighbors at Messene and Argos, who, by maintaining
their prerogative too strictly, for want of yielding a little to the
populace, lost it all.

Indeed, whosoever shall look at the sedition and misgovernment which
befell these bordering nations to whom they were as near related in
blood as situation, will find in them the best reason to admire the
wisdom and foresight of Lycurgus. For these three states, in their
first rise, were equal, or, if there were any odds, they lay on the side
of the Messenians and Argives, who, in the first allotment, were thought
to have been luckier than the Spartans; yet was their happiness but of
small continuance, partly the tyrannical temper of their kings and
partly the ungovernableness of the people quickly bringing upon them
such disorders, and so complete an overthrow of all existing
institutions, as clearly to show how truly divine a blessing the
Spartans had had in that wise lawgiver who gave their government its
happy balance and temper.
But of this I shall say more in its due place.

After the creation of the thirty senators, his next task, and, indeed,
the most hazardous he ever undertook, was the making a new division of
their lands. For there was an extreme inequality amongst them, and
their state was overloaded with a multitude of indigent and necessitous
persons, while its whole wealth had centered upon a very few. To the
end, therefore, that he might expel from the state arrogance and envy,
luxury and crime, and those yet more inveterate diseases of want and
superfluity, he obtained of them to renounce their properties, and to
consent to a new division of the land, and that they should live all
together on an equal footing; merit to be their only road to eminence,
and the disgrace of evil, and credit of worthy acts, their one measure
of difference between man and man.

Upon their consent to these proposals, proceeding at once to put them
into execution, he divided the country of Laconia in general into thirty
thousand equal shares, and the part attached to the city of Sparta into
nine thousand; these he distributed among the Spartans, as he did the
others to the country citizens. Some authors say that he made but six
thousand lots for the citizens of Sparta, and that king Polydorus added
three thousand more. Others say that Polydorus doubled the number
Lycurgus had made, which, according to them, was but four thousand five
hundred. A lot was so much as to yield, one year with another, about
seventy bushels of grain for the master of the family, and twelve for
his wife, with a suitable proportion of oil and wine. And this he
thought sufficient to keep their bodies in good health and strength;
superfluities they were better without. It is reported, that, as he
returned from a journey shortly after the division of the lands, in
harvest time, the ground being newly reaped, seeing the stacks all
standing equal and alike, he smiled, and said to those about him,
"Methinks all Laconia looks like one family estate just divided among a
number of brothers."

Not contented with this, he resolved to make a division of their
movables too, that there might be no odious distinction or inequality
left amongst them; but finding that it would be very dangerous to go
about it openly, he took another course, and defeated their avarice by
the following stratagem: he commanded that all gold and silver coin
should be called in, and that only a sort of money made of iron should
be current, a great weight and quantity of which was but very little
worth; so that to lay up twenty or thirty pounds there was required a
pretty large closet, and, to remove it, nothing less than a yoke of
oxen. With the diffusion of this money, at once a number of vices were
banished from Lacedaemon; for who would rob another of such a coin? Who
would unjustly detain or take by force, or accept as a bribe, a thing
which it was not easy to hide, nor a credit to have, nor indeed of any
use to cut in pieces? For when it was just red hot, they quenched it in
vinegar, and by that means spoilt it,
and made it almost incapable of being worked.

In the next place, he declared an outlawry of all needless and
superfluous arts; but here he might almost have spared his proclamation;
for they of themselves would have gone after the gold and silver, the
money which remained being not so proper payment for curious work; for,
being of iron, it was scarcely portable, neither, if they should take
the pains to export it, would it pass amongst the other Greeks, who
ridiculed it. So there was now no more means of purchasing foreign
goods and small wares; merchants sent no shiploads into Laconian ports;
no rhetoric-master, no itinerant fortune-teller, no harlot-monger or
gold or silversmith, engraver, or jeweler, set foot in a country which
had no money; so that luxury, deprived little by little of that which
fed and fomented it, wasted to nothing, and died away of itself. For
the rich had no advantage here over the poor, as their wealth and
abundance had no road to come abroad by, but were shut up at home doing
nothing. And in this way they became excellent artists in common,
necessary things; bedsteads, chairs, and tables, and such like staple
utensils in a family, were admirably well made there; their cup,
particularly, was very much in fashion, and eagerly bought up by
soldiers, as Critias reports; for its color was such as to prevent
water, drunk upon necessity and disagreeable to look at, from being
noticed; and the shape of it was such that the mud stuck to the sides,
so that only the purer part came to the drinker's mouth. For this,
also, they had to thank their lawgiver, who, by relieving the artisans
of the trouble of making useless things, set them to show their skill in
giving beauty to those of daily and indispensable use.

The third and most masterly stroke of this great lawgiver, by which he
struck a yet more effectual blow against luxury and the desire of
riches, was the ordinance he made, that they should all eat in common,
of the same bread and same meat, and of kinds that were specified, and
should not spend their lives at home, laid on costly couches at splendid
tables, delivering themselves up into the hands of their tradesmen and
cooks, to fatten them in corners, like greedy brutes, and to ruin not
their minds only but their very bodies, which, enfeebled by indulgence
and excess, would stand in need of long sleep, warm bathing, freedom
from work, and, in a word, of as much care and attendance as if they
were continually sick. It was certainly an extraordinary thing to have
brought about such a result as this, but a greater yet to have taken
away from wealth, as Theophrastus observes, not merely the property of
being coveted, but its very nature of being wealth. For the rich, being
obliged to go to the same table with the poor, could not make use of or
enjoy their abundance, nor so much as please their vanity by looking at
or displaying it. So that the common proverb, that Plutus, the god of
riches, is blind, was nowhere in all the world literally verified but in
Sparta. There, indeed, he was not only blind, but like a picture,
without either life or motion. Nor were they allowed to take food at
home first, and then attend the public tables, for every one had an eye
upon those who did not eat and drink like the rest, and reproached them
with being dainty and effeminate.

This last ordinance in particular exasperated the wealthier men. They
collected in a body against Lycurgus, and from ill words came to
throwing stones, so that at length he was forced to run out of the
marketplace, and make to sanctuary to save his life; by good-hap he
outran all excepting one Alcander, a young man otherwise not ill
accomplished, but hasty and violent, who came up so close to him, that,
when he turned to see who was near him, he struck him upon the face with
his stick, and put out one of his eyes. Lycurgus, so far from being
daunted and discouraged by this accident, stopped short, and showed his
disfigured face and eye beat out to his countrymen; they, dismayed and
ashamed at the sight, delivered Alcander into his hands to be punished,
and escorted him home, with expressions of great concern for his ill
usage. Lycurgus, having thanked them for their care of his person,
dismissed them all, excepting only Alcander; and, taking him with him
into his house, neither did nor said anything severely to him, but,
dismissing those whose place it was bade Alcander to wait upon him at
table. The young man who was of an ingenuous temper, without murmuring
did as he was commanded; and, being thus admitted to live with Lycurgus,
he had an opportunity to observe in him, besides his gentleness and
calmness of temper, an extraordinary sobriety and an indefatigable
industry, and so, from an enemy, became one of his most zealous
admirers, and told his friends and relations that Lycurgus was not that
morose and ill-natured man they had formerly taken him for, but the one
mild and gentle character of the world. And thus did Lycurgus, for
chastisement of his fault, make of a wild and passionate young man one
of the discreetest citizens of Sparta.

In memory of this accident, Lycurgus built a temple to Minerva, surnamed
Optiletis; optilus being the Doric of these parts for ophthalmus, the
eye. Some authors, however, of whom Dioscorides is one (who wrote a
treatise on the commonwealth of Sparta), say that he was wounded indeed,
but did not lose his eye with the blow; and that he built the temple in
gratitude for the cure. Be this as it will, certain it is, that, after
this misadventure, the Lacedaemonians made it a rule never to carry so
much as a staff into their public assemblies.

But to return to their public repasts;--these had several names in
Greek; the Cretans called them andria, because the men only came to
them. The Lacedaemonians called them phiditia, that is, by changing l
into d, the same as philitia, love feasts, because that, by eating and
drinking together, they had opportunity of making friends. Or perhaps
from phido, parsimony, because they were so many schools of sobriety; or
perhaps the first letter is an addition, and the word at first was
editia, from edode, eating. They met by companies of fifteen, more or
less, and each of them stood bound to bring in monthly a bushel of meal,
eight gallons of wine, five pounds of cheese, two pounds and a half of
figs, and some very small sum of money to buy flesh or fish with.
Besides this, when any of them made sacrifice to the gods, they always
sent a dole to the common hall; and, likewise, when any of them had been
a hunting, he sent thither a part of the venison he had killed; for
these two occasions were the only excuses allowed for supping at home.
The custom of eating together was observed strictly for a great while
afterwards; insomuch that king Agis himself, after having vanquished the
Athenians, sending for his commons at his return home, because he
desired to eat privately with his queen, was refused them by the
polemarchs; which refusal when he resented so much as to omit next day
the sacrifice due for a war happily ended, they made him pay a fine.

They used to send their children to these tables as to schools of
temperance; here they were instructed in state affairs by listening to
experienced statesmen; here they learnt to converse with pleasantry, to
make jests without scurrility, and take them without ill humor. In this
point of good breeding, the Lacedaemonians excelled particularly, but if
any man were uneasy under it, upon the least hint given there was no
more to be said to him. It was customary also for the eldest man in the
company to say to each of them, as they came in, "Through this"
(pointing to the door), "no words go out."  When any one had a desire to
be admitted into any of these little societies; he was to go through the
following probation, each man in the company took a little ball of soft
bread, which they were to throw into a deep basin, which a waiter
carried round upon his head; those that liked the person to be chosen
dropped their ball into the basin without altering its figure, and those
who disliked him pressed it between their fingers, and made it flat; and
this signified as much as a negative voice. And if there were but one
of these pieces in the basin, the suitor was rejected, so desirous were
they that all the members of the company should be agreeable to each
other. The basin was called caddichus, and the rejected candidate had a
name thence derived. Their most famous dish was the black broth, which
was so much valued that the elderly men fed only upon that, leaving what
flesh there was to the younger.

They say that a certain king of Pontus, having heard much of this black
broth of theirs, sent for a Lacedaemonian cook on purpose to make him
some, but had no sooner tasted it than he found it extremely bad, which
the cook observing, told him, "Sir, to make this broth relish, you
should have bathed yourself first in the river Eurotas."

After drinking moderately, every man went to his home without lights,
for the use of them was, on all occasions, forbid, to the end that they
might accustom themselves to march boldly in the dark. Such was the
common fashion of their meals.

Lycurgus would never reduce his laws into writing; nay, there is a
Rhetra expressly to forbid it. For he thought that the most material
points, and such as most directly tended to the public welfare, being
imprinted on the hearts of their youth by a good discipline, would be
sure to remain, and would find a stronger security, than any compulsion
would be, in the principles of action formed in them by their best
lawgiver, education. And as for things of lesser importance, as
pecuniary contracts, and such like, the forms of which have to be
changed as occasion requires, he thought it the best way to prescribe no
positive rule or inviolable usage in such cases, willing that their
manner and form should be altered according to the circumstances of
time, and determinations of men of sound judgment. Every end and object
of law and enactment it was his design education should effect.

One, then, of the Rhetras was, that their laws should not be written;
another is particularly leveled against luxury and expensiveness, for by
it it was ordained that the ceilings of their houses should only be
wrought by the axe, and their gates and doors smoothed only by the saw.
Epaminondas's famous dictum about his own table, that "Treason and a
dinner like this do not keep company together," may be said to have been
anticipated by Lycurgus. Luxury and a house of this kind could not well
be companions. For a man must have a less than ordinary share of sense
that would furnish such plain and common rooms with silver-footed
couches and purple coverlets and gold and silver plate. Doubtless he
had good reason to think that they would proportion their beds to their
houses, and their coverlets to their beds, and the rest of their goods
and furniture to these. It is reported that king Leotychides, the first
of that name, was so little used to the sight of any other kind of work,
that, being entertained at Corinth in a stately room, he was much
surprised to see the timber and ceiling so finely carved and paneled,
and asked his host whether the trees grew so in his country.

A third ordinance or Rhetra was, that they should not make war often, or
long, with the same enemy, lest that they should train and instruct them
in war, by habituating them to defend themselves. And this is what
Agesilaus was much blamed for, a long time after; it being thought,
that, by his continual incursions into Boeotia, he made the Thebans a
match for the Lacedaemonians; and therefore Antalcidas, seeing him
wounded one day, said to him, that he was very well paid for taking such
pains to make the Thebans good soldiers, whether they would or no.
These laws were called the Rhetras, to intimate that they were divine
sanctions and revelations.

In order to the good education of their youth (which, as I said before,
he thought the most important and noblest work of a lawgiver), he went
so far back as to take into consideration their very conception and
birth, by regulating their marriages. For Aristotle is wrong in saying,
that, after he had tried all ways to reduce the women to more modesty
and sobriety, he was at last forced to leave them as they were, because
that, in the absence of their husbands, who spent the best part of their
lives in the wars, their wives, whom they were obliged to leave absolute
mistresses at home, took great liberties and assumed the superiority;
and were treated with overmuch respect and called by the title of lady
or queen. The truth is, he took in their case, also, all the care that
was possible; he ordered the maidens to exercise themselves with
wrestling, running, throwing the quoit, and casting the dart, to the end
that the fruit they conceived might, in strong and healthy bodies, take
firmer root and find better growth, and withal that they, with this
greater vigor, might be the more able to undergo the pains of child-
bearing. And to the end he might take away their over-great tenderness
and fear of exposure to the air, and all acquired womanishness, he
ordered that the young women should go naked in the processions, as well
as the young men, and dance, too, in that condition, at certain solemn
feasts, singing certain songs, whilst the young men stood around, seeing
and hearing them. On these occasions, they now and then made, by jests,
a befitting reflection upon those who had misbehaved themselves in the
wars; and again sang encomiums upon those who had done any gallant
action, and by these means inspired the younger sort with an emulation
of their glory. Those that were thus commended went away proud, elated,
and gratified with their honor among the maidens; and those who were
rallied were as sensibly touched with it as if they had been formally
reprimanded; and so much the more, because the kings and the elders, as
well as the rest of the city, saw and heard all that passed. Nor was
there any thing shameful in this nakedness of the young women; modesty
attended them, and all wantonness was excluded. It taught them
simplicity and a care for good health, and gave them some taste of
higher feelings, admitted as they thus were to the field of noble action
and glory. Hence it was natural for them to think and speak as Gorgo,
for example, the wife of Leonidas, is said to have done, when some
foreign lady, as it would seem, told her that the women of Lacedaemon
were the only women of the world who could rule men; "With good
reason," she said, "for we are the only women who bring forth men."

These public processions of the maidens, and their appearing naked in
their exercises and dancings, were incitements to marriage, operating
upon the young with the rigor and certainty, as Plato says, of love, if
not of mathematics. But besides all this, to promote it yet more
effectually, those who continued bachelors were in a degree
disfranchised by law; for they were excluded from the sight of those
public processions in which the young men and maidens danced naked, and,
in wintertime, the officers compelled them to march naked themselves
round the market-place, singing as they went a certain song to their own
disgrace, that they justly suffered this punishment for disobeying the
laws. Moreover, they were denied that respect and observance which the
younger men paid their elders; and no man, for example, found fault with
what was said to Dercyllidas, though so eminent a commander; upon whose
approach one day, a young man, instead of rising, retained his seat,
remarking, "No child of yours will make room for me. "

In their marriages, the husband carried off his bride by a sort of
force; nor were their brides ever small and of tender years, but in
their full bloom and ripeness. After this, she who superintended the
wedding comes and clips the hair of the bride close round her head,
dresses her up in man's clothes, and leaves her upon a mattress in the
dark; afterwards comes the bridegroom, in his every-day clothes, sober
and composed, as having supped at the common table, and, entering
privately into the room where the bride lies, unties her virgin zone,
and takes her to himself; and, after staying some time together, he
returns composedly to his own apartment, to sleep as usual with the
other young men. And so he continues to do, spending his days, and,
indeed, his nights with them, visiting his bride in fear and shame, and
with circumspection, when he thought he should not be observed; she,
also, on her part, using her wit to help and find favorable
opportunities for their meeting, when company was out of the way. In
this manner they lived a long time, insomuch that they sometimes had
children by their wives before ever they saw their faces by daylight.
Their interviews, being thus difficult and rare, served not only for
continual exercise of their self-control, but brought them together with
their bodies healthy and vigorous, and their affections fresh and
lively, unsated and undulled by easy access and long continuance with
each other; while their partings were always early enough to leave
behind unextinguished in each of them some remainder fire of longing and
mutual delight. After guarding marriage with this modesty and reserve,
he was equally careful to banish empty and womanish jealousy. For this
object, excluding all licentious disorders, he made it, nevertheless,
honorable for men to give the use of their wives to those whom they
should think fit, that so they might have children by them; ridiculing
those in whose opinion such favors are so unfit for participation as to
fight and shed blood and go to war about it. Lycurgus allowed a man who
was advanced in years and had a young wife to recommend some virtuous
and approved young man, that she might have a child by him, who might
inherit the good qualities of the father, and be a son to himself. On
the other side, an honest man who had love for a married woman upon
account of her modesty and the wellfavoredness of her children, might,
without formality, beg her company of her husband, that he might raise,
as it were, from this plot of good ground, worthy and well-allied
children for himself. And, indeed, Lycurgus was of a persuasion that
children were not so much the property of their parents as of the whole
commonwealth, and, therefore, would not have his citizens begot by the
first comers, but by the best men that could be found; the laws of other
nations seemed to him very absurd and inconsistent, where people would
be so solicitous for their dogs and horses as to exert interest and pay
money to procure fine breeding, and yet kept their wives shut up, to be
made mothers only by themselves, who might be foolish, infirm, or
diseased; as if it were not apparent that children of a bad breed would
prove their bad qualities first upon those who kept and were rearing
them, and well-born children, in like manner, their good qualities.
These regulations, founded on natural and social grounds, were certainly
so far from that scandalous liberty which was afterwards charged upon
their women, that they knew not what adultery meant. It is told, for
instance, of Geradas, a very ancient, Spartan, that, being asked by a
stranger what punishment their law had appointed for adulterers, he
answered, "There are no adulterers in our country."  "But," replied the
stranger, "suppose there were ?"  "Then," answered he, "the offender
would have to give the plaintiff a bull with a neck so long as that he
might drink from the top of Taygetus of the Eurotas river below it."
The man, surprised at this, said, "Why, 'tis impossible to find such a
bull."  Geradas smilingly replied, "'Tis as possible as to find an
adulterer in Sparta."  So much I had to say of their marriages.

Nor was it in the power of the father to dispose of the child as he
thought fit; he was obliged to carry it before certain triers at a place
called Lesche; these were some of the elders of the tribe to which the
child belonged; their business it was carefully to view the infant, and,
if they found it stout and well made, they gave order for its rearing,
and allotted to it one of the nine thousand shares of land above
mentioned for its maintenance, but, if they found it puny and ill-
shaped, ordered it to be taken to what was called the Apothetae, a sort
of chasm under Taygetus; as thinking it neither for the good of the
child itself, nor for the public interest, that it should be brought up,
if it did not, from the very outset, appear made to be healthy and
vigorous. Upon the same account, the women did not bathe the new-born
children with water, as is the custom in all other countries, but with
wine, to prove the temper and complexion of their bodies; from a notion
they had that epileptic and weakly children faint and waste away upon
their being thus bathed, while, on the contrary, those of a strong and
vigorous habit acquire firmness and get a temper by it, like steel.
There was much care and art, too, used by the nurses; they had no
swaddling bands; the children grew up free and unconstrained in limb and
form, and not dainty and fanciful about their food; not afraid in the
dark, or of being left alone; without any peevishness or ill humor or
crying. Upon this account, Spartan nurses were often bought up, or
hired by people of other countries; and it is recorded that she who
suckled Alcibiades was a Spartan; who, however, if fortunate in his
nurse, was not so in his preceptor; his guardian, Pericles, as Plato
tells us, chose a servant for that office called Zopyrus,
no better than any common slave.

Lycurgus was of another mind; he would not have masters bought out of
the market for his young Spartans, nor such as should sell their pains;
nor was it lawful, indeed, for the father himself to breed up the
children after his own fancy; but as soon as they were seven years old
they were to be enrolled in certain companies and classes, where they
all lived under the same order and discipline, doing their exercises and
taking their play together. Of these, he who showed the most conduct
and courage was made captain; they had their eyes always upon him,
obeyed his orders, and underwent patiently whatsoever punishment he
inflicted; so that the whole course of their education was one continued
exercise of a ready and perfect obedience. The old men, too, were
spectators of their performances, and often raised quarrels and disputes
among them, to have a good opportunity of finding out their different
characters, and of seeing which would be valiant, which a coward, when
they should come to more dangerous encounters. Reading and writing they
gave them, just enough to serve their turn; their chief care was to make
them good subjects, and to teach them to endure pain and conquer in
battle. To this end, as they grew in years, their discipline was
proportionably increased; their heads were close-clipped, they were
accustomed to go bare-foot, and for the most part to play naked.

After they were twelve years old, they were no longer allowed to wear
any under-garment; they had one coat to serve them a year; their bodies
were hard and dry, with but little acquaintance of baths and unguents;
these human indulgences they were allowed only on some few particular
days in the year. They lodged together in little bands upon beds made
of the rushes which grew by the banks of the river Eurotas, which they
were to break off with their hands without a knife; if it were winter,
they mingled some thistle-down with their rushes, which it was thought
had the property of giving warmth. By the time they were come to this
age, there was not any of the more hopeful boys who had not a lover to
bear him company. The old men, too, had an eye upon them, coming often
to the grounds to hear and see them contend either in wit or strength
with one another, and this as seriously and with as much concern as if
they were their fathers, their tutors, or their magistrates; so that
there scarcely was any time or place without someone present to put
them in mind of their duty, and punish them if they had neglected it.

Besides all this, there was always one of the best and honestest men in
the city appointed to undertake the charge and governance of them; he
again arranged them into their several bands, and set over each of them
for their captain the most temperate and boldest of those they called
Irens, who were usually twenty years old, two years out of the boys; and
the eldest of the boys, again, were Mell-Irens, as much as to say, who
would shortly be men. This young man, therefore, was their captain when
they fought, and their master at home, using them for the offices of his
house; sending the oldest of them to fetch wood, and the weaker and less
able, to gather salads and herbs, and these they must either go without
or steal; which they did by creeping into the gardens, or conveying
themselves cunningly and closely into the eating-houses; if they were
taken in the fact, they were whipped without mercy, for thieving so ill
and awkwardly. They stole, too, all other meat they could lay their
hands on, looking out and watching all opportunities, when people were
asleep or more careless than usual. If they were caught, they were not
only punished with whipping, but hunger, too, being reduced to their
ordinary allowance, which was but very slender, and so contrived on
purpose, that they might set about to help themselves, and be forced to
exercise their energy and address. This was the principal design of
their hard fare; there was another not inconsiderable, that they might
grow taller; for the vital spirits, not being overburdened and oppressed
by too great a quantity of nourishment; which necessarily discharges
itself into thickness and breadth, do, by their natural lightness, rise;
and the body, giving and yielding because it is pliant, grows in height.
The same thing seems, also, to conduce to beauty of shape; a dry and
lean habit is a better subject for nature's configuration, which the
gross and over-fed are too heavy to submit to properly. Just as we find
that women who take physic whilst they are with child, bear leaner and
smaller but better-shaped and prettier children; the material they come
of having been more pliable and easily molded. The reason, however, I
leave others to determine.

To return from whence we have digressed. So seriously did the
Lacedaemonian children go about their stealing, that a youth, having
stolen a young fox and hid it under his coat, suffered it to tear out
his very bowels with its teeth and claws, and died upon the place,
rather than let it be seen. What is practiced to this very day in
Lacedaemon is enough to gain credit to this story, for I myself have
seen several of the youths endure whipping to death at the foot of the
altar of Diana surnamed Orthia.

The Iren, or under-master, used to stay a little with them after supper,
and one of them he bade to sing a song, to another he put a question
which required an advised and deliberate answer; for example, Who was
the best man in the city? What he thought of such an action of such a
man? They used them thus early to pass a right judgment upon persons and
things, and to inform themselves of the abilities or defects of their
countrymen. If they had not an answer ready to the question Who was a
good or who an ill-reputed citizen, they were looked upon as of a dull
and careless disposition, and to have little or no sense of virtue and
honor; besides this, they were to give a good reason for what they said,
and in as few words and as comprehensive as might be; he that failed of
this, or answered not to the purpose, had his thumb bit by his master.
Sometimes the Iren did this in the presence of the old men and
magistrates, that they might see whether he punished them justly and in
due measure or not; and when he did amiss, they would not reprove him
before the boys, but, when they were gone, he was called to an account
and underwent correction, if he had run far into either of the extremes
of indulgence or severity.

Their lovers and favorers, too, had a share in the young boy's honor or
disgrace; and there goes a story that one of them was fined by the
magistrates, because the lad whom he loved cried out effeminately as he
was fighting. And though this sort of love was so approved among them,
that the most virtuous matrons would make professions of it to young
girls, yet rivalry did not exist, and if several men's fancies met in
one person, it was rather the beginning of an intimate friendship,
whilst they all jointly conspired to render the object of their
affection as accomplished as possible.

They taught them, also, to speak with a natural and graceful raillery,
and to comprehend much matter of thought in few words. For Lycurgus,
who ordered, as we saw, that a great piece of money should be but of an
inconsiderable value, on the contrary would allow no discourse to be
current which did not contain in few words a great deal of useful and
curious sense; children in Sparta, by a habit of long silence, came to
give just and sententious answers; for, indeed, as loose and incontinent
livers are seldom fathers of many children, so loose and incontinent
talkers seldom originate many sensible words. King Agis, when some
Athenian laughed at their short swords, and said that the jugglers on
the stage swallowed them with ease, answered him, "We find them long
enough to reach our enemies with;" and as their swords were short and
sharp, so, it seems to me, were their sayings. They reach the point and
arrest the attention of the hearers better than any. Lycurgus himself
seems to have been short and sententious, if we may trust the anecdotes
of him; as appears by his answer to one who by all means would set up
democracy in Lacedaemon. "Begin, friend," said he, "and set it up in
your family."  Another asked him why he allowed of such mean and trivial
sacrifices to the gods. He replied, "That we may always have something
to offer to them."  Being asked what sort of martial exercises or
combats he approved of, he answered, "All sorts, except that in which
you stretch out your hands."  Similar answers, addressed to his
countrymen by letter, are ascribed to him; as, being consulted how they
might best oppose an invasion of their enemies, he returned this answer,
"By continuing poor, and not coveting each man to be greater than his
fellow."  Being consulted again whether it were requisite to enclose the
city with a wall, he sent them word, "The city is well fortified which
hath a wall of men instead of brick."  But whether these letters are
counterfeit or not is not easy to determine.

Of their dislike to talkativeness, the following apothegms are evidence.
King Leonidas said to one who held him in discourse upon some useful
matter, but not in due time and place, "Much to the purpose, Sir,
elsewhere."  King Charilaus, the nephew of Lycurgus, being asked why his
uncle had made so few laws, answered, "Men of few words require but few
laws."  When one blamed Hecataeus the sophist because that, being
invited to the public table, he had not spoken one word all supper-time,
Archidamidas answered in his vindication, "He who knows how to speak,
knows also when. "

The sharp and yet not ungraceful retorts which I mentioned may be
instanced as follows. Demaratus, being asked in a troublesome manner by
an importunate fellow, Who was the best man in Lacedaemon? answered at
last, "He, Sir, that is the least like you."  Some, in company where
Agis was, much extolled the Eleans for their just and honorable
management of the Olympic tames; "Indeed," said Agis, "they are highly
to be commended if they can do justice one day in five years."
Theopompus answered a stranger who talked much of his affection to the
Lacedaemonians, and said that his countrymen called him Philolacon (a
lover of the Lacedaemonians), that it had been more for his honor if
they had called him Philopolites (a lover of his own countrymen). And
Plistoanax, the son of Pausanias, when an orator of Athens said the
Lacedaemonians had no learning, told him, "You say true, Sir; we alone
of all the Greeks have learned none of your bad qualities."  One asked
Archidamidas what number there might, be of the Spartans; he answered,
"Enough, Sir, to keep out wicked men."

We may see their character, too, in their very jests. For they did not
throw them out at random, but the very wit of them was grounded upon
something or other worth thinking about. For instance, one, being asked
to go hear a man who exactly counterfeited the voice of a nightingale,
answered, "Sir, I have heard the nightingale itself."  Another, having
read the following inscription upon a tomb,

Seeking to quench a cruel tyranny,
They, at Selinus, did in battle die,

said, it served them right; for instead of trying to quench the tyranny
they should have let it burn out. A lad, being offered some game-cocks
that would die upon the spot, said that he cared not for cocks that
would die, but for such that would live and kill others. Another,
seeing people easing themselves on seats, said, "God forbid I should
sit where I could not get up to salute my elders."  In short, their
answers were so sententious and pertinent, that one said well that
intellectual much more truly than athletic exercise
was the Spartan characteristic.

Nor was their instruction in music and verse less carefully attended to
than their habits of grace and good breeding in conversation. And their
very songs had a life and spirit in them that inflamed and possessed
men's minds with an enthusiasm and ardor for action; the style of them
was plain and without affectation; the subject always serious and moral;
most usually, it was in praise of such men as had died in defense of
their country, or in derision of those that had been cowards; the former
they declared happy and glorified; the life of the latter they described
as most miserable and abject. There were also vaunts of what they would
do, and boasts of what they had done, varying with the various ages, as,
for example, they had three choirs in their solemn festivals, the first
of the old men, the second of the young men, and the last of the
children; the old men began thus:

We once were young, and brave and strong;

the young men answered them, singing,

And we're so now, come on and try;

the children came last and said,

But we'll be strongest by and by.

Indeed, if we will take the pains to consider their compositions, some
of which were still extant in our days, and the airs on the flute to
which they marched when going to battle, we shall find that Terpander
and Pindar had reason to say that music and valor were allied. The
first says of Lacedaemon--

The spear and song in her do meet,
And Justice walks about her street;

and Pindar--

Councils of wise elders here,
And the young men's conquering spear,
And dance, and song, and joy appear;

both describing the Spartans as no less musical than warlike; in the
words of one of their own poets--

With the iron stern and sharp
Comes the playing on the harp.

For, indeed, before they engaged in battle, the king first did sacrifice
to the Muses, in all likelihood to put them in mind of the manner of
their education, and of the judgment that would be passed upon their
actions, and thereby to animate them to the performance of exploits that
should deserve a record. At such times, too, the Lacedaemonians abated
a little the severity of their manners in favor of their young men,
suffering them to curl and adorn their hair, and to have costly arms,
and fine clothes; and were well pleased to see them, like proud horses,
neighing and pressing to the course. And therefore, as soon as they
came to be well-grown, they took a great deal of care of their hair, to
have it parted and trimmed, especially against a day of battle, pursuant
to a saying recorded of their lawgiver, that a large head of hair added
beauty to a good face, and terror to an ugly one.

When they were in the field, their exercises were generally more
moderate, their fare not so hard, nor so strict a hand held over them by
their officers, so that they were the only people in the world to whom
war gave repose. When their army was drawn up in battle array and the
enemy near, the king sacrificed a goat, commanded the soldiers to set
their garlands upon their heads, and the pipers to play the tune of the
hymn to Castor, and himself began the paean of advance. It was at once
a magnificent and a terrible sight to see them march on to the tune of
their flutes, without any disorder in their ranks, any discomposure in
their minds or change in their countenance, calmly and cheerfully moving
with the music to the deadly fight. Men, in this temper, were not
likely to be possessed with fear or any transport of fury, but with the
deliberate valor of hope and assurance, as if some divinity were
attending and conducting them. The king had always about his person
some one who had been crowned in the Olympic games; and upon this
account a Lacedaemonian is said to have refused a considerable present,
which was offered to him upon condition that he would not come into the
lists; and when he had with much to-do thrown his antagonist, some of
the spectators saying to him, "And now, Sir Lacedaemonian, what are you
the better for your victory?" he answered smiling, "I shall fight next
the king."  After they had routed an enemy, they pursued him till they
were well assured of the victory, and then they sounded a retreat,
thinking it base and unworthy of a Grecian people to cut men in pieces,
who had given up and abandoned all resistance. This manner of dealing
with their enemies did not only show magnanimity, but was politic too;
for, knowing that they killed only those who made resistance, and gave
quarter to the rest, men generally thought it their best way to consult
their safety by flight.

Hippias the sophist says that Lycurgus himself was a great soldier and
an experienced commander. Philostephanus attributes to him the first
division of the cavalry into troops of fifties in a square body; but
Demetrius the Phalerian says quite the contrary, and that he made all
his laws in a continued peace. And, indeed, the Olympic holy truce, or
cessation of arms, that was procured by his means and management,
inclines me to think him a kind-natured man, and one that loved
quietness and peace. Notwithstanding all this, Hermippus tells us that
he had no hand in the ordinance; that Iphitus made it, and Lycurgus came
only as a spectator, and that by mere accident too. Being there, he
heard as it were a man's voice behind him, blaming and wondering at him
that he did not encourage his countrymen to resort to the assembly, and,
turning about and seeing no man, concluded that it was a voice from
heaven, and upon this immediately went to Iphitus, and assisted him in
ordering the ceremonies of that feast, which, by his means, were better
established, and with more repute than before.

To return to the Lacedaemonians. Their discipline continued still after
they were full-grown men. No one was allowed to live after his own
fancy; but the city was a sort of camp, in which every man had his share
of provisions and business set out, and looked upon himself not so much
born to serve his own ends as the interest of his country. Therefore,
if they were commanded nothing else, they went to see the boys perform
their exercises, to teach them something useful, or to learn it
themselves of those who knew better. And, indeed, one of the greatest
and highest blessings Lycurgus procured his people was the abundance of
leisure, which proceeded from his forbidding to them the exercise of any
mean and mechanical trade. Of the money-making that depends on
troublesome going about and seeing people and doing business, they had
no need at all in a state where wealth obtained no honor or respect.
The Helots tilled their ground for them, and paid them yearly in kind
the appointed quantity, without any trouble of theirs. To this purpose
there goes a story of a Lacedaemonian who, happening to be at Athens
when the courts were sitting, was told of a citizen that had been fined
for living an idle life, and was being escorted home in much distress of
mind by his condoling friends; the Lacedaemonian was much surprised at
it, and desired his friend to show him the man who was condemned for
living like a freeman. So much beneath them did they esteem the
frivolous devotion of time and attention to the mechanical arts
and to money-making.

It need not be said, that, upon the prohibition of gold and silver, all
lawsuits immediately ceased, for there was now neither avarice nor
poverty amongst them, but equality, where every one's wants were
supplied, and independence, because those wants were so small. All
their time, except when they were in the field, was taken up by the
choral dances and the festivals, in hunting, and in attendance on the
exercise-grounds and the places of public conversation. Those who were
under thirty years of age were not allowed to go into the marketplace,
but had the necessaries of their family supplied by the care of their
relations and lovers; nor was it for the credit of elderly men to be
seen too often in the marketplace; it was esteemed more suitable for
them to frequent the exercise-grounds and places of conversation, where
they spent their leisure rationally in conversation, not on money-making
and market-prices, but for the most part in passing judgment on some
action worth considering; extolling the good, and censuring those who
were otherwise, and that in a light and sportive manner, conveying,
without too much gravity, lessons of advice and improvement. Nor was
Lycurgus himself unduly austere; it was he who dedicated, says Sosibius,
the little statue of Laughter. Mirth, introduced seasonably at their
suppers and places of common entertainment, was to serve as a sort of
sweetmeat to accompany their strict and hard life. To conclude, he bred
up his citizens in such a way that they neither would nor could live by
themselves; they were to make themselves one with the public good, and,
clustering like bees around their commander, be by their zeal and public
spirit carried all but out of themselves, and devoted wholly to their
country. What their sentiments were will better appear by a few of
their sayings. Paedaretus, not being admitted into the list of the
three hundred, returned home with a joyful face, well pleased to find
that there were in Sparta three hundred better men than himself. And
Polycratidas, being sent with some others ambassador to the lieutenants
of the king of Persia, being asked by them whether they came in a
private or in a public character, answered, "In a public, if we
succeed; if not, in a private character."  Argileonis, asking some who
came from Amphipolis if her son Brasidas died courageously and as became
a Spartan, on their beginning to praise him to a high degree, and saying
there was not such another left in Sparta, answered, "Do not say so;
Brasidas was a good and brave man,
but there are in Sparta many better than he."

The senate, as I said before, consisted of those who were Lycurgus's
chief aiders and assistants in his plans. The vacancies he ordered to be
supplied out of the best and most deserving men past sixty years old;
and we need not wonder if there was much striving for it; for what more
glorious competition could there be amongst men, than one in which it
was not contested who was swiftest among the swift or strongest of the
strong, but who of many wise and good was wisest and best, and fittest
to be entrusted for ever after, as the reward of his merits, with the
supreme authority of the commonwealth, and with power over the lives,
franchises, and highest interests of all his countrymen? The manner of
their election was as follows: the people being called together, some
selected persons were locked up in a room near the place of election, so
contrived that they could neither see nor be seen, but could only hear
the noise of the assembly without; for they decided this, as most other
affairs of moment, by the shouts of the people. This done, the
competitors were not brought in and presented all together, but one
after another by lot, and passed in order through the assembly without
speaking a word. Those who were locked up had writing-tables with them,
in which they recorded and marked each shout by its loudness, without
knowing in favor of which candidate each of them was made, but merely
that they came first, second, third, and so forth. He who was found to
have the most and loudest acclamations was declared senator duly
elected. Upon this he had a garland set upon his head, and went in
procession to all the temples to give thanks to the gods; a great number
of young men followed him with applauses, and women, also, singing verses
in his honor, and extolling the virtue and happiness of his life. As he
went round the city in this manner, each of his relations and friends
set a table before him, saying, "The city honors you with this
banquet;" but he, instead of accepting, passed round to the common table
where he formerly used to eat; and was served as before, excepting that
now he had a second allowance, which he took and put by. By the time
supper was ended, the women who were of kin to him had come about the
door; and he, beckoning to her whom he most esteemed, presented to her
the portion he had saved, saying, that it had been a mark of esteem to
him, and was so now to her; upon which she was triumphantly waited upon
home by the women.

Touching burials, Lycurgus made very wise regulations; for, first of
all, to cut of all superstition, he allowed them to bury their dead
within the city, and even round about their temples, to the end that
their youth might be accustomed to such spectacles, and not be afraid to
see a dead body, or imagine that to touch a corpse or to tread upon a
grave would defile a man. In the next place, he commanded them to put
nothing into the ground with them, except, if they pleased, a few olive
leaves, and the scarlet cloth that they were wrapped in. He would not
suffer the names to be inscribed, except only of men who fell in the
wars, or women who died in a sacred office. The time, too, appointed
for mourning, was very short, eleven days; on the twelfth, they were to
do sacrifice to Ceres, and leave it off; so that we may see, that as he
cut off all superfluity, so in things necessary there was nothing so
small and trivial which did not express some homage of virtue or scorn
of vice. He filled Lacedaemon all through with proofs and examples of
good conduct; with the constant sight of which from their youth up, the
people would hardly fail to be gradually formed and advanced in virtue.

And this was the reason why he forbade them to travel abroad, and go
about acquainting themselves with foreign rules of morality, the habits
of ill-educated people, and different views of government. Withal he
banished from Lacedaemon all strangers who could not give a very good
reason for their coming thither; not because he was afraid lest they
should inform themselves of and imitate his manner of government (as
Thucydides says), or learn any thing to their good; but rather lest they
should introduce something contrary to good manners. With strange
people, strange words must be admitted; these novelties produce
novelties in thought; and on these follow views and feelings whose
discordant character destroys the harmony of the state. He was as
careful to save his city from the infection of foreign bad habits, as
men usually are to prevent the introduction of a pestilence.

Hitherto I, for my part, see no sign of injustice or want of equity in
the laws of Lycurgus, though some who admit them to be well contrived to
make good soldiers, pronounce them defective in point of justice. The
Cryptia, perhaps (if it were one of Lycurgus's ordinances, as Aristotle
says it was), Gave both him and Plato, too, this opinion alike of the
lawgiver and his government. By this ordinance, the magistrates
dispatched privately some of the ablest of the young men into the
country, from time to time, armed only with their daggers, and taking a
little necessary provision with them; in the daytime, they hid
themselves in out-of-the-way places, and there lay close, but, in the
night, issued out into the highways, and killed all the Helots they
could light upon; sometimes they set upon them by day, as they were at
work in the fields, and murdered them. As, also, Thucydides, in his
history of the Peloponnesian war, tells us, that a good number of them,
after being singled out for their bravery by the Spartans, garlanded, as
enfranchised persons, and led about to all the temples in token of
honors, shortly after disappeared all of a sudden, being about the
number of two thousand; and no man either then or since could give an
account how they came by their deaths. And Aristotle, in particular,
adds, that the ephori, so soon as they were entered into their office,
used to declare war against them, that they might be massacred without a
breach of religion. It is confessed, on all hands, that the Spartans
dealt with them very hardly; for it was a common thing to force them to
drink to excess, and to lead them in that condition into their public
halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they
made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs, forbidding
them expressly to meddle with any of a better kind. And, accordingly,
when the Thebans made their invasion into Laconia, and took a great
number of the Helots, they could by no means persuade them to sing the
verses of Terpander, Alcman, or Spendon, "For," said they, "the masters
do not like it."  So that it was truly observed by one, that in Sparta
he who was free was most so, and he that was a slave there, the greatest
slave in the world. For my part, I am of opinion that these outrages
and cruelties began to be exercised in Sparta at a later time,
especially after the great earthquake, when the Helots made a general
insurrection, and, joining with the Messenians, laid the country waste,
and brought the greatest danger upon the city. For I cannot persuade
myself to ascribe to Lycurgus so wicked and barbarous a course, judging
of him from the gentleness of his disposition and justice upon all other
occasions; to which the oracle also testified.

When he perceived that his more important institutions had taken root in
the minds of his countrymen, that custom had rendered them familiar and
easy, that his commonwealth was now grown up and able to go alone, then,
as, Plato somewhere tells us, the Maker of the world, when first he saw
it existing and beginning its motion, felt joy, even so Lycurgus,
viewing with joy and satisfaction the greatness and beauty of his
political structure, now fairly at work and in motion, conceived the
thought to make it immortal too, and, as far as human forecast could
reach, to deliver it down unchangeable to posterity. He called an
extraordinary assembly of all the people, and told them that he now
thought every thing reasonably well established, both for the happiness
and the virtue of the state; but that there was one thing still behind,
of the greatest importance, which he thought not fit to impart until he
had consulted the oracle; in the meantime, his desire was that they
would observe the laws without any the least alteration until his
return, and then he would do as the god should direct him. They all
consented readily, and bade him hasten his journey; but, before he
departed, he administered an oath to the two kings, the senate, and the
whole commons, to abide by and maintain the established form of polity
until Lycurgus should be come back. This done, he set out for Delphi,
and, having sacrificed to Apollo, asked him whether the laws he had
established were good, and sufficient for a people's happiness and
virtue. The oracle answered that the laws were excellent, and that the
people, while it observed them, should live in the height of renown.
Lycurgus took the oracle in writing, and sent it over to Sparta; and,
having sacrificed the second time to Apollo, and taken leave of his
friends and his son, he resolved that the Spartans should not be
released from the oath they had taken, and that he would, of his own
act, close his life where he was. He was now about that age in which
life was still tolerable, and yet might be quitted without regret.
Every thing, moreover, about him was in a sufficiently prosperous
condition. He, therefore, made an end of himself by a total abstinence
from food; thinking it a statesman's duty to make his very death, if
possible, an act of service to the state, and even in the end of his
life to give some example of virtue and effect some useful purpose. He
would, on the one hand, crown and consummate his own happiness by a
death suitable to so honorable a life, and, on the other, would secure
to his countrymen the enjoyment of the advantages he had spent his life
in obtaining for them, since they had solemnly sworn the maintenance of
his institutions until his return. Nor was he deceived in his
expectations, for the city of Lacedaemon continued the chief city of all
Greece for the space of five hundred years, in strict observance of
Lycurgus's laws; in all which time there was no manner of alteration
made, during the reign of fourteen kings, down to the time of Agis, the
son of Archidamus. For the new creation of the ephori, though thought
to be in favor of the people, was so far from diminishing, that it very
much heightened, the aristocratical character of the government.

In the time of Agis, gold and silver first flowed into Sparta, and with
them all those mischiefs which attend the immoderate desire of riches.
Lysander promoted this disorder; for, by bringing in rich spoils from
the wars, although himself incorrupt, he yet by this means filled his
country with avarice and luxury, and subverted the laws and ordinances
of Lycurgus; so long as which were in force, the aspect presented by
Sparta was rather that of a rule of life followed by one wise and
temperate man, than of the political government of a nation. And as the
poets feign of Hercules, that, with his lion's skin and his club, he
went over the world, punishing lawless and cruel tyrants, so may it be
said of the Lacedaemonians, that, with a common staff and a coarse
coat, they gained the willing and joyful obedience of Greece, through
whose whole extent they suppressed unjust usurpations and despotisms,
arbitrated in war, and composed civil dissensions; and this often
without so much as taking down one buckler, but barely by sending some
one single deputy, to whose direction all at once submitted, like bees
swarming and taking their places around their prince. Such a fund of
order and equity, enough and to spare for others,
existed in their state.

And therefore I cannot but wonder at those who say that the Spartans
were good subjects, but bad governors, and for proof of it allege a
saying of king Theopompus, who, when one said that Sparta held up so
long because their kings could command so well, replied, "Nay, rather
because the people know so well how to obey."  For people do not obey,
unless rulers know how to command; obedience is a lesson taught by
commanders. A true leader himself creates the obedience of his own
followers; as it is the last attainment in the art of riding to make a
horse gentle and tractable, so is it of the science of government, to
inspire men with a willingness to obey. The Lacedaemonians inspired men
not with a mere willingness, but with an absolute desire, to be their
subjects. For they did not send petitions to them for ships or money,
or a supply of armed men, but only for a Spartan commander; and, having
obtained one, used him with honor and reverence; so the Sicilians
behaved to Gylippus, the Chalcidians to Brasidas, and all the Greeks in
Asia to Lysander, Callicratidas, and Agesilaus; they styled them the
composers and chasteners of each people or prince they were sent to, and
had their eyes always fixed upon the city of Sparta itself, as the
perfect model of good manners and wise government. The rest seemed as
scholars, they the masters of Greece; and to this Stratonicus pleasantly
alluded, when in jest he pretended to make a law that the Athenians
should conduct religious processions and the mysteries, the Eleans
should preside at the Olympic games, and, if either did amiss, the
Lacedaemonians be beaten. Antisthenes, too, one of the scholars of
Socrates, said, in earnest, of the Thebans, when they were elated by
their victory at Leuctra, that they looked like schoolboys who had
beaten their master.

However, it was not the design of Lycurgus that his city should govern a
great many others; he thought rather that the happiness of a state, as
of a private man, consisted chiefly in the exercise of virtue, and in
the concord of the inhabitants; his aim, therefore, in all his
arrangements, was to make and keep them free-minded, self-dependent, and
temperate. And therefore all those who have written well on politics,
as Plato, Diogenes, and Zeno, have taken Lycurgus for their model,
leaving behind them, however, mere projects and words; whereas Lycurgus
was the author, not in writing but in reality, of a government which
none else could so much as copy; and while men in general have treated
the individual philosophic character as unattainable, he, by the example
of a complete philosophic state, raised himself high above all other
lawgivers of Greece. And so Aristotle says they did him less honor at
Lacedaemon after his death than he deserved, although he has a temple
there, and they offer sacrifices yearly to him as to a god.

It is reported that when his bones were brought home to Sparta his tomb
was struck with lightning; an accident which befell no eminent person
but himself, and Euripides, who was buried at Arethusa in Macedonia;
and it may serve that poet's admirers as a testimony in his favor, that
he had in this the same fate with that holy man and favorite of the
gods. Some say Lycurgus died in Cirrha; Apollothemis says, after he had
come to Elis; Timaeus and Aristoxenus, that he ended his life in Crete;
Aristoxenus adds that his tomb is shown by the Cretans in the district
of Pergamus, near the strangers' road. He left an only son, Antiorus,
on whose death without issue, his family became extinct. But his
relations and friends kept up an annual commemoration of him down to a
long time after; and the days of the meeting were called Lycurgides.
Aristocrates, the son of Hipparchus, says that he died in Crete, and
that his Cretan friends, in accordance with his own request, when they
had burned his body, scattered the ashes into the sea; for fear lest, if
his relics should be transported to Lacedaemon, the people might pretend
to be released from their oaths, and make innovations in the government.
Thus much may suffice for the life and actions of Lycurgus.

NUMA POMPILIUS

Though the pedigrees of noble families of Rome go back in exact form as
far as Numa Pompilius, yet there is great diversity amongst historians
concerning the time in which he reigned; a certain writer called
Clodius, in a book of his entitled Strictures on Chronology, avers that
the ancient registers of Rome were lost when the city was sacked by the
Gauls, and that those which are now extant were counterfeited, to
flatter and serve the humor of some men who wished to have themselves
derived from some ancient and noble lineage, though in reality with no
claim to it. And though it be commonly reported that Numa was a scholar
and a familiar acquaintance of Pythagoras, yet it is again contradicted
by others, who affirm, that he was acquainted with neither the Greek
language nor learning, and that he was a person of that natural talent
and ability as of himself to attain to virtue, or else that he found
some barbarian instructor superior to Pythagoras. Some affirm, also,
that Pythagoras was not contemporary with Numa, but lived at least five
generations after him; and that some other Pythagoras, a native of
Sparta, who, in the sixteenth Olympiad, in the third year of which Numa
became king, won a prize at the Olympic race, might, in his travel
through Italy, have gained acquaintance with Numa, and assisted him in
the constitution of his kingdom; whence it comes that many Laconian laws
and customs appear amongst the Roman institutions. Yet, in any case,
Numa was descended of the Sabines, who declare themselves to be a colony
of the Lacedaemonians. And chronology, in general, is uncertain;
especially when fixed by the lists of victors in the Olympic games,
which were published at a late period by Hippias the Elean, and rest on
no positive authority. Commencing, however, at a convenient point, we
will proceed to give the most noticeable events that are recorded of the
life of Numa.

It was the thirty-seventh year, counted from the foundation of Rome,
when Romulus, then reigning, did, on the fifth day of the month of July,
called the Caprotine Nones, offer a public sacrifice at the Goat's
Marsh, in presence of the senate and people of Rome. Suddenly the sky
was darkened, a thick cloud of storm and rain settled on the earth; the
common people fled in affright, and were dispersed; and in this
whirlwind Romulus disappeared, his body being never found either living
or dead. A foul suspicion presently attached to the patricians, and
rumors were current among the people as if that they, weary of kingly
government, and exasperated of late by the imperious deportment of
Romulus towards them, had plotted against his life and made him away,
that so they might assume the authority and government into their own
hands. This suspicion they sought to turn aside by decreeing divine
honors to Romulus, as to one not dead but translated to a higher
condition. And Proculus, a man of note, took oath that he saw Romulus
caught up into heaven in his arms and vestments, and heard him, as he
ascended, cry out that they should hereafter style him
by the name of Quirinus.

This trouble, being appeased, was followed by another, about the
election of a new king: for the minds of the original Romans and the new
inhabitants were not as yet grown into that perfect unity of temper, but
that there were diversities of factions amongst the commonalty, and
jealousies and emulations amongst the senators; for though all agreed
that it was necessary to have a king. yet what person or of which
nation, was matter of dispute. For those who had been builders of the
city with Romulus, and had already yielded a share of their lands and
dwellings to the Sabines, were indignant at any pretension on their part
to rule over their benefactors. On the other side, the Sabines could
plausibly allege, that, at their king Tatius's decease, they had
peaceably submitted to the sole command of Romulus; so now their turn
was come to have a king chosen out of their own nation; nor did they
esteem themselves to have combined with the Romans as inferiors, nor to
have contributed less than they to the increase of Rome, which, without
their numbers and association, could scarcely have merited the name of a
city.

Thus did both parties argue and dispute their cause; but lest meanwhile
discord, in the absence of all command, should occasion general
confusion, it was agreed that the hundred and fifty senators should
interchangeably execute the office of supreme magistrate, and each in
succession, with the ensigns of royalty, should offer the solemn
sacrifices and dispatch public business for the space of six hours by
day and six by night; which vicissitude and equal distribution of power
would preclude all rivalry amongst the senators and envy from the
people, when they should behold one, elevated to the degree of a king,
leveled within the space of a day to the condition of a private citizen.
This form of government is termed, by the Romans, interregnum. Nor yet
could they, by this plausible and modest way of rule, escape suspicion
and clamor of the vulgar, as though they were changing the form of
government to an oligarchy, and designing to keep the supreme power in a
sort of wardship under themselves, without ever proceeding to choose a
king. Both parties came at length to the conclusion that the one should
choose a king out of the body of the other; the Romans make choice of a
Sabine, or the Sabines name a Roman; this was esteemed the best
expedient to put an end to all party spirit, and the prince who should
be chosen would have an equal affection to the one party as his electors
and to the other as his kinsmen. The Sabines remitted the choice to the
original Romans, and they, too, on their part, were more inclinable to
receive a Sabine king elected by themselves than to see a Roman exalted
by the Sabines. Consultations being accordingly held, they named Numa
Pompilius, of the Sabine race, a person of that high reputation for
excellence, that, though he were not actually residing at Rome, yet he
was no sooner nominated than accepted by the Sabines, with acclamation
almost greater than that of the electors themselves.

The choice being declared and made known to the people, principal men
of both parties were appointed to visit and entreat him, that he would
accept the administration of the government. Numa resided at a famous
city of the Sabines called Cures, whence the Romans and Sabines gave
themselves the joint name of Quirites. Pomponius, an illustrious
person, was his father, and he the youngest of his four sons, being (as
it had been divinely ordered) born on the twenty-first day of April, the
day of the foundation of Rome. He was endued with a soul rarely
tempered by nature, and disposed to virtue, which he had yet more
subdued by discipline, a severe life, and the study of philosophy; means
which had not only succeeded in expelling the baser passions, but also
the violent and rapacious temper which barbarians are apt to think
highly of; true bravery, in his judgment, was regarded as consisting in
the subjugation of our passions by reason.

He banished all luxury and softness from his own home, and, while
citizens alike and strangers found in him an incorruptible judge and
counselor, in private he devoted himself not to amusement or lucre, but
to the worship of the immortal gods, and the rational contemplation of
their divine power and nature. So famous was he, that Tatius, the
colleague of Romulus, chose him for his son-in-law, and gave him his
only daughter, which, however, did not stimulate his vanity to desire to
dwell with his father-in-law at Rome; he rather chose to inhabit with
his Sabines, and cherish his own father in his old age; and Tatia, also,
preferred the private condition of her husband before the honors and
splendor she might have enjoyed with her father. She is said to have
died after she had been married thirteen years, and then Numa, leaving
the conversation of the town, betook himself to a country life, and in a
solitary manner frequented the groves and fields consecrated to the
gods, passing his life in desert places. And this in particular gave
occasion to the story about the goddess, namely, that Numa did not
retire from human society out of any melancholy or disorder of mind.
but because he had tasted the joys of more elevated intercourse, and,
admitted to celestial wedlock in the love and converse of the goddess
Egeria, had attained to blessedness, and to a divine wisdom.

The story evidently resembles those very ancient fables which the
Phrygians have received and still recount of Attis, the Bithynians of
Herodotus, the Arcadians of Endymion, not to mention several others who
were thought blessed and beloved of the gods; nor does it seem strange
if God, a lover, not of horses or birds, but men, should not disdain to
dwell with the virtuous and converse with the wise and temperate soul,
though it be altogether hard, indeed, to believe, that any god or daemon
is capable of a sensual or bodily love and passion for any human form or
beauty. Though, indeed, the wise Egyptians do not unplausibly make the
distinction, that it may be possible for a divine spirit so to apply
itself to the nature of a woman, as to imbreed in her the first
beginnings of generation, while on the other side they conclude it
impossible for the male kind to have any intercourse or mixture by the
body with any divinity, not considering, however, that what takes place
on the one side, must also take place on the other; intermixture, by
force of terms, is reciprocal. Not that it is otherwise than befitting
to suppose that the gods feel towards men affection, and love, in the
sense of affection, and in the form of care and solicitude for their
virtue and their good dispositions. And, therefore, it was no error of
those who feigned, that Phorbas, Hyacinthus, and Admetus were beloved by
Apollo; or that Hippolytus the Sicyonian was so much in his favor, that,
as often as he sailed from Sicyon to Cirrha, the Pythian prophetess
uttered this heroic verse, expressive of the god's attention and joy:

Now doth Hippolytus return again,
And venture his dear life upon the main.

It is reported, also, that Pan became enamored of Pindar for his verses,
and the divine power rendered honor to Hesiod and Archilochus after
their death for the sake of the Muses; there is a statement, also, that
Aesculapius sojourned with Sophocles in his lifetime, of which many
proofs still exist, and that, when he was dead, another deity took care
for his funeral rites. And so if any credit may be given to these
instances, why should we judge it incongruous, that a like spirit of the
gods should visit Zaleucus, Minos, Zoroaster, Lycurgus, and Numa, the
controllers of kingdoms, and the legislators for commonwealths? Nay, it
may be reasonable to believe, that the gods, with a serious purpose,
assist at the councils and serious debates of such men, to inspire and
direct them; and visit poets and musicians, if at all, in their more
sportive moods; but, for difference of opinion here, as Bacchylides
said, "the road is broad."  For there is no absurdity in the account
also given, that Lycurgus and Numa, and other famous lawgivers, having
the task of subduing perverse and refractory multitudes, and of
introducing great innovations, themselves made this pretension to divine
authority, which, if not true, assuredly was expedient for the interests
of those it imposed upon.

Numa was about forty years of age when the ambassadors came to make him
offers of the kingdom; the speakers were Proculus and Velesus, one or
other of whom it had been thought the people would elect as their new
king; the original Romans being for Proculus, and the Sabines for
Velesus. Their speech was very short, supposing that, when they came to
tender a kingdom, there needed little to persuade to an acceptance; but,
contrary to their expectation, they found that they had to use many
reasons and entreaties to induce one, that lived in peace and quietness,
to accept the government of a city whose foundation and increase had
been made, in a manner, in war. In presence of his father and his
kinsman Marcius, he returned answer that "Every alteration of a man's
life is dangerous to him; but madness only could induce one who needs
nothing and is satisfied with everything to quit a life he is
accustomed to; which, whatever else it is deficient in, at any rate has
the advantage of certainty over one wholly doubtful and unknown.
Though, indeed, the difficulties of this government cannot even be
called unknown; Romulus, who first held it, did not escape the suspicion
of having plotted against the life of his colleague Tatius; nor the
senate the like accusation, of having treasonably murdered Romulus. Yet
Romulus had the advantage to be thought divinely born and miraculously
preserved and nurtured. My birth was mortal; I was reared and
instructed by men that are known to you. The very points of my
character that are most commended mark me as unfit to reign,--love of
retirement and of studies inconsistent with business, a passion that has
become inveterate in me for peace, for unwarlike occupations, and for
the society of men whose meetings are but those of worship and of kindly
intercourse, whose lives in general are spent upon their farms and their
pastures. I should but be, methinks, a laughing-stock, while I should
go about to inculcate the worship of the gods, and give lessons in the
love of justice and the abhorrence of violence and war, to a city whose
needs are rather for a captain than for a king."

The Romans, perceiving by these words that he was declining to accept
the kingdom, were the more instant and urgent with him that he would not
forsake and desert them in this condition, and suffer them to relapse,
as they must, into their former sedition and civil discord, there being
no person on whom both parties could accord but on himself. And, at
length, his father and Marcius, taking him aside, persuaded him to
accept a gift so noble in itself, and tendered to him rather from heaven
than from men. "Though," said they, "you neither desire riches, being
content with what you have, nor court the fame of authority, as having
already the more valuable fame of virtue, yet you will consider that
government itself is a service of God, who now calls out into action
your qualities of justice and wisdom, which were not meant to be left
useless and unemployed. Cease, therefore, to avoid and turn your back
upon an office which, to a wise man, is a field for great and honorable
actions, for the magnificent worship of the gods, and for the
introduction of habits of piety, which authority alone can effect
amongst a people. Tatius, though a foreigner, was beloved, and the
memory of Romulus has received divine honors; and who knows but that
this people, being victorious, may be satiated with war, and, content
with the trophies and spoils they have acquired, may be, above all
things, desirous to have a pacific and justice-loving prince, to lead
them to good order and quiet? But if, indeed, their desires are
uncontrollably and madly set on war, were it not better, then, to have
the reins held by such a moderating hand as is able to divert the fury
another way, and that your native city and the whole Sabine nation
should possess in you a bond of good-will and friendship with this young
and growing power?"

With these reasons and persuasions several auspicious omens are said to
have concurred, and the zeal, also, of his fellow-citizens, who, on
understanding what message the Roman ambassadors had brought him,
entreated him to accompany them, and to accept the kingdom as a means to
unanimity and concord between the nations.

Numa, yielding to these inducements, having first performed divine
sacrifice, proceeded to Rome, being met in his way by the senate and
people, who, with an impatient desire, came forth to receive him; the
women, also, welcomed him with joyful acclamations, and sacrifices were
offered for him in all the temples, and so universal was the joy, that
they seemed to be receiving, not a new king, but a new kingdom. In this
manner he descended into the forum, where Spurius Vettius, whose turn it
was to be interrex at that hour, put it to the vote; and all declared
him king. Then the regalities and robes of authority were brought to
him; but he refused to be invested with them until he had first
consulted and been confirmed by the gods; so, being accompanied by the
priests and augurs, he ascended the Capitol, which at that time the
Romans called the Tarpeian Hill. Then the chief of the augurs covered
Numa's head, and turned his face towards the south, and, standing behind
him, laid his right hand on his head, and prayed, turning his eyes every
way, in expectation of some auspicious signal from the gods. It was
wonderful, meantime, with what silence and devotion the multitude stood
assembled in the forum in similar expectation and suspense, till
auspicious birds appeared and passed on the right. Then Numa,
appareling himself in his royal robes, descended from the hill to the
people, by whom he was received and congratulated with shouts and
acclamations of welcome, as a holy king, and beloved of all the gods.

The first thing he did at his entrance into government was to dismiss
the band of three hundred men which had been Romulus's life-guard,
called by him Celeres, saying, that he would not distrust those who put
confidence in him, nor rule over a people that distrusted him. The next
thing he did was to add to the two priests of Jupiter and Mars a third
in honor of Romulus, whom he called the Flamen Quirinalis. The Romans
anciently called their priests Flamines, by corruption of the word
Pilamines, from a certain cap which they wore, called Pileus. In those
times, Greek words were more mixed with the Latin than at present; thus
also the royal robe, which is called Laena, Juba says, is the same as
the Greek Chlaena; and that the name of Camillus, given to the boy with
both his parents living, who serves in the temple of Jupiter, was taken
from the name given by some Greeks to Mercury, denoting his office of
attendance on the gods.

When Numa had, by such measures, won the favor and affection of the
people, he set himself, without delay, to the task of bringing the hard
and iron Roman temper to somewhat more of gentleness and equity.
Plato's expression of a city in high fever was never more applicable
than to Rome at that time; in its origin formed by daring and warlike
spirits, whom bold and desperate adventure brought thither from every
quarter, it had found in perpetual wars and incursions on its neighbors
its after sustenance and means of growth and in conflict with danger the
source of new strength; like piles, which the blows of the rammer serve
to fix into the ground. Wherefore Numa, judging it no slight
undertaking to mollify and bend to peace the presumptuous and stubborn
spirits of this people, began to operate upon them with the sanctions of
religion. He sacrificed often, and used processions and religious
dances, in which most commonly he officiated in person; by such
combinations of solemnity with refined and humanizing pleasures, seeking
to win over and mitigate their fiery and warlike tempers. At times,
also, he filled their imaginations with religious terrors, professing
that strange apparitions had been seen, and dreadful voices heard; thus
subduing and humbling their minds by a sense of supernatural fears.

This method which Numa used made it believed that he had been much
conversant with Pythagoras; for in the philosophy of the one, as in the
policy of the other, man's relations to the deity occupy a great place.
It is said, also, that the solemnity of his exterior garb and gestures
was adopted by him from the same feeling with Pythagoras. For it is
said of Pythagoras, that he had taught an eagle to come at his call, and
stoop down to him in its flight; and that, as he passed among the people
assembled at the Olympic games, he showed them his golden thigh; besides
many other strange and miraculous seeming practices, on which Timon the
Phliasian wrote the distich,--

Who, of the glory of a juggler proud,
With solemn talk imposed upon the crowd.

In like manner Numa spoke of a certain goddess or mountain nymph that
was in love with him, and met him in secret, as before related; and
professed that he entertained familiar conversation with the Muses, to
whose teaching he ascribed the greatest part of his revelations; and
amongst them, above all, he recommended to the veneration of the Romans
one in particular, whom he named Tacita, the Silent; which he did
perhaps in imitation and honor of the Pythagorean silence. His opinion,
also, of images is very agreeable to the doctrine of Pythagoras; who
conceived of the first principle of being as transcending sense and
passion, invisible and incorrupt, and only to be apprehended by abstract
intelligence. So Numa forbade the Romans to represent God in the form
of man or beast, nor was there any painted or graven image of a deity
admitted amongst them for the space of the first hundred and seventy
years, all which time their temples and chapels were kept free and pure
from images; to such baser objects they deemed it impious to liken the
highest, and all access to God impossible, except by the pure act of the
intellect. His sacrifices, also, had great similitude to the ceremonial
of Pythagoras, for they were not celebrated with effusion of blood, but
consisted of flour, wine, and the least costly offerings. Other
external proofs, too, are urged to show the connection Numa had with
Pythagoras. The comic writer Epicharmus, an ancient author, and of the
school of Pythagoras, in a book of his dedicated to Antenor, records
that Pythagoras was made a freeman of Rome. Again, Numa gave to one of
his four sons the name of Mamercus, which was the name of one of the
sons of Pythagoras; from whence, as they say sprang that ancient
patrician family of the Aemilii, for that the king gave him in sport the
surname of Aemilius, for his engaging and graceful manner in speaking.
I remember, too, that when I was at Rome, I heard many say, that, when
the oracle directed two statues to be raised, one to the wisest, and
another to the most valiant man of Greece, they erected two of brass,
one representing Alcibiades, and the other Pythagoras.

But to pass by these matters, which are full of uncertainty, and not so
important as to be worth our time to insist on them, the original
constitution of the priests, called Pontifices, is ascribed unto Numa,
and he himself was, it is said, the first of them; and that they have
the name of Pontifices from potens, powerful, because they attend the
service of the gods, who have power and command over all. Others make
the word refer to exceptions of impossible cases; the priests were to
perform all the duties possible to them; if any thing lay beyond their
power, the exception was not to be cavilled at. The most common opinion
is the most absurd, which derives this word from pons, and assigns the
priests the title of bridge-makers. The sacrifices performed on the
bridge were amongst the most sacred and ancient, and the keeping and
repairing of the bridge attached, like any other public sacred office,
to the priesthood. It was accounted not simply unlawful, but a positive
sacrilege, to pull down the wooden bridge; which moreover is said, in
obedience to an oracle, to have been built entirely of timber and
fastened with wooden pins, without nails or cramps of iron. The stone
bridge was built a very long time after, when Aemilius was quaestor, and
they do, indeed, say also that the wooden bridge was not so old as
Numa's time, but was finished by Ancus Marcius, when he was king, who
was the grandson of Numa by his daughter.

The office of Pontifex Maximus, or chief priest, was to declare and
interpret the divine law, or, rather, to preside over sacred rites; he
not only prescribed rules for public ceremony, but regulated the
sacrifices of private persons, not suffering them to vary from
established custom, and giving information to every one of what was
requisite for purposes of worship or supplication. He was also guardian
of the vestal virgins, the institution of whom, and of their perpetual
fire, was attributed to Numa, who, perhaps fancied the charge of pure
and uncorrupted flames would be fitly entrusted to chaste and unpolluted
persons, or that fire, which consumes, but produces nothing, bears all
analogy to the virgin estate. In Greece, wherever a perpetual holy fire
is kept, as at Delphi and Athens, the charge of it is committed, not to
virgins, but widows past the time of marriage. And in case by any
accident it should happen that this fire became extinct, as the holy
lamp was at Athens under the tyranny of Aristion, and at Delphi, when
that temple was burnt by the Medes, as also in the time of the
Mithridatic and Roman civil war, when not only the fire was
extinguished, but the altar demolished, then, afterwards, in kindling
this fire again, it was esteemed an impiety to light it from common
sparks or flame, or from any thing but the pure and unpolluted rays of
the sun, which they usually effect by concave mirrors, of a figure
formed by the revolution of an isoceles rectangular triangle, all the
lines from the circumference of which meeting in a center, by holding it
in the light of the sun they can collect and concentrate all its rays
at this one point of convergence; where the air will now become
rarefied, and any light, dry, combustible matter will kindle as soon as
applied, under the effect of the rays, which here acquire the substance
and active force of fire. Some are of opinion that these vestals had no
other business than the preservation of this fire; but others conceive
that they were keepers of other divine secrets, concealed from all but
themselves, of which we have told all that may lawfully be asked or
told, in the life of Camillus. Gegania and Verenia, it is recorded,
were the names of the first two virgins consecrated and ordained by
Numa; Canuleia and Tarpeia succeeded; Servius afterwards added two, and
the number of four has continued to the present time.

The statutes prescribed by Numa for the vestals were these: that they
should take a vow of virginity for the space of thirty years, the first
ten of which they were to spend in learning their duties, the second ten
in performing them, and the remaining ten in teaching and instructing
others. Thus the whole term being completed, it was lawful for them to
marry, and, leaving the sacred order, to choose any condition of life
that pleased them; but this permission few, as they say, made use of;
and in cases where they did so, it was observed that their change was
not a happy one, but accompanied ever after with regret and melancholy;
so that the greater number, from religious fears and scruples, forbore,
and continued to old age and death in the strict observance
of a single life.

For this condition he compensated by great privileges and prerogatives;
as that they had power to make a will in the lifetime of their father;
that they had a free administration of their own affairs without
guardian or tutor, which was the privilege of women who were the mothers
of three children; when they go abroad, they have the fasces carried
before them; and if in their walks they chance to meet a criminal on his
way to execution, it saves his life, upon oath made that the meeting was
an accidental one, and not concerted or of set purpose. Any one who
presses upon the chair on which they are carried, is put to death. If
these vestals commit any minor fault, they are punishable by the high-
priest only, who scourges the offender, sometimes with her clothes off,
in a dark place, with a curtain drawn between; but she that has broken
her vow is buried alive near the gate called Collina, where a little
mound of earth stands, inside the city, reaching some little distance,
called in Latin agger; under it a narrow room is constructed, to which a
descent is made by stairs; here they prepare a bed, and light a lamp,
and leave a small quantity of victuals, such as bread, water, a pail of
milk, and some oil; that so that body which had been consecrated and
devoted to the most sacred service of religion might not be said to
perish by such a death as famine. The culprit herself is put in a
litter, which they cover over, and tie her down with cords on it, so
that nothing she utters may be heard. They then take her to the forum;
all people silently go out of the way as she passes, and such as follow
accompany the bier with solemn and speechless sorrow; and, indeed, there
is not any spectacle more appalling, nor any day observed by the city
with greater appearance of gloom and sadness. When they come to the
place of execution, the officers loose the cords, and then the high-
priest, lifting his hands to heaven, pronounces certain prayers to
himself before the act; then he brings out the prisoner, being still
covered, and placing her upon the steps that lead down to the cell,
turns away his face with the rest of the priests; the stairs are drawn
up after she has gone down, and a quantity of earth is heaped up over
the entrance to the cell, so as to prevent it from being distinguished
from the rest of the mound. This is the punishment of those who break
their vow of virginity.

It is said, also, that Numa built the temple of Vesta, which was
intended for a repository of the holy fire, of a circular form, not to
represent the figure of the earth, as if that were the same as Vesta,
but that of the general universe, in the center of which the
Pythagoreans place the element of fire, and give it the name of Vesta
and the unit; and do not hold that the earth is immovable, or that it is
situated in the center of the globe, but that it keeps a circular motion
about the seat of fire, and is not in the number of the primary
elements; in this agreeing with the opinion of Plato, who, they say, in
his later life, conceived that the earth held a lateral position, and
that the central and sovereign space was reserved for some nobler body.

There was yet a farther use of the priests, and that was to give people
directions in the national usages at funeral rites. Numa taught them to
regard these offices, not as a pollution, but as a duty paid to the gods
below, into whose hands the better part of us is transmitted; especially
they were to worship the goddess Libitina, who presided over all the
ceremonies performed at burials; whether they meant hereby Proserpina,
or, as the most learned of the Romans conceive, Venus, not inaptly
attributing the beginning and end of man's life to the agency of one and
the same deity. Numa also prescribed rules for regulating the days of
mourning, according to certain times and ages. As, for example, a child
of three years was not to be mourned for at all; one older, up to ten
years, for as many months as it was years old; and the longest time of
mourning for any person whatsoever was not to exceed the term of ten
months; which was the time appointed for women that lost their husbands
to continue in widowhood. If any married again before that time, by the
laws of Numa she was to sacrifice a cow big with calf.

Numa, also, was founder of several other orders of priests, two of which
I shall mention, the Salii and the Feciales, which are among the
clearest proofs of the devoutness and sanctity of his character. These
Fecials, or guardians of peace, seem to have had their name from their
office, which was to put a stop to disputes by conference and speech;
for it was not allowable to take up arms until they had declared all
hopes of accommodation to be at an end, for in Greek, too, we call it
peace when disputes are settled by words, and not by force. The Romans
commonly dispatched the Fecials, or heralds, to those who had offered
them injury, requesting satisfaction; and, in case they refused, they
then called the gods to witness, and, with imprecations upon themselves
and their country should they be acting unjustly, so declared war;
against their will, or without their consent, it was lawful neither for
soldier nor king to take up arms; the war was begun with them, and, when
they had first handed it over to the commander as a just quarrel, then
his business was to deliberate of the manner and ways to carry it on.
It is believed that the slaughter and destruction which the Gauls made
of the Romans was a judgment on the city for neglect of this religious
proceeding; for that when these barbarians besieged the Clusinians,
Fabius Ambustus was dispatched to their camp to negotiate peace for the
besieged; and, on their returning a rude refusal, Fabius imagined that
his office of ambassador was at an end, and, rashly engaging on the side
of the Clusinians, challenged the bravest of the enemy to a single
combat. It was the fortune of Fabius to kill his adversary, and to take
his spoils; but when the Gauls discovered it, they sent a herald to Rome
to complain against him; since, before war was declared, he had, against
the law of nations, made a breach of the peace. The matter being
debated in the senate, the Fecials were of opinion that Fabius ought to
be consigned into the hands of the Gauls; but he, being forewarned of
their judgment, fled to the people, by whose protection and favor he
escaped the sentence. On this, the Gauls marched with their army to
Rome, where, having taken the Capitol, they sacked the city. The
particulars of all which are fully given in the history of Caminus.

The origin of the Salii is this. In the eighth year of the reign of
Numa, a terrible pestilence, which traversed all Italy, ravaged likewise
the city of Rome; and the citizens being in distress and despondent, a
brazen target, they say, fell from heaven into the hands of Numa who
gave them this marvelous account of it: that Egeria and the Muses had
assured him it was sent from heaven for the cure and safety of the city,
and that, to keep it secure, he was ordered by them to make eleven
others, so like in dimension and form to the original that no thief
should be able to distinguish the true from the counterfeit. He farther
declared, that he was commanded to consecrate to the Muses the place,
and the fields about it, where they had been chiefly wont to meet with
him, and that the spring which watered the field should be hallowed for
the use of the vestal virgins, who were to wash and cleanse the
penetralia of their sanctuary with those holy waters. The truth of all
which was speedily verified by the cessation of the pestilence. Numa
displayed the target to the artificers and bade them show their skill in
making others like it; all despaired, until at length one Mamurius
Veturius, an excellent workman, happily hit upon it, and made all so
exactly the same that Numa himself was at a loss, and could not
distinguish. The keeping of these targets was committed to the charge
of certain priests, called Salii, who did not receive their name, as
some tell the story, from Salius, a dancing-master born in Samothrace,
or at Mantinea, who taught the way of dancing in arms; but more truly
from that jumping dance which the Salii themselves use, when in the
month of March they carry the sacred targets through the city; at which
procession they are habited in short frocks of purple, girt with a broad
belt studded with brass; on their heads they wear a brass helmet, and
carry in their hands short daggers, which they clash every now and then
against the targets. But the chief thing is the dance itself. They
move with much grace, performing, in quick time and close order, various
intricate figures, with a great display of strength and agility. The
targets were called Ancilia from their form; for they are not made
round, nor like proper targets, of a complete circumference, but are cut
out into a wavy line, the ends of which are rounded off and turned in at
the thickest part towards each other; so that their shape is
curvilinear, or, in Greek, ancylon; or the name may come from ancon, the
elbow, on which they are carried. Thus Juba writes, who is eager to
make it Greek. But it might be, for that matter, from its having come
down anecathen, from above; or from its akesis, or cure of diseases; or
auchmon Iysis, because it put an end to a drought; or from its
anaschesis, or relief from calamities, which is the origin of the
Athenian name Anaces, given to Castor and Pollux; if we must, that is,
reduce it to Greek. The reward which Mamurius received for his art was
to be mentioned and commemorated in the verses which the Salii sang, as
they danced in their arms through the city; though some will have it
that they do not say Veturium Mamurium, but Veterem Memoriam, ancient
remembrance.

After Numa had in this manner instituted these several orders of
priests, he erected, near the temple of Vesta, what is called to this
day Regia, or king's house, where he spent the most part of his time,
performing divine service, instructing the priests, or conversing with
them on sacred subjects. He had another house upon the Mount
Quirinalis, the site of which they show to this day. In all public
processions and solemn prayers, criers were sent before to give notice
to the people that they should forbear their work, and rest. They say
that the Pythagoreans did not allow people to worship and pray to their
gods by the way, but would have them go out from their houses direct,
with their minds set upon the duty, and so Numa, in like manner, wished
that his citizens should neither see nor hear any religious service in a
perfunctory and inattentive manner, but, laying aside all other
occupations, should apply their minds to religion as to a most serious
business; and that the streets should be free from all noises and cries
that accompany manual labor, and clear for the sacred solemnity. Some
traces of this custom remain at Rome to this day, for, when the consul
begins to take auspices or do sacrifice, they call out to the people,
Hoc age, Attend to this, whereby the auditors then present are
admonished to compose and recollect themselves. Many other of his
precepts resemble those of the Pythagoreans. The Pythagoreans said, for
example, "Thou shalt not make a peck-measure thy seat to sit on. Thou
shalt not stir the fire with a sword. When thou goest out upon a
journey, look not behind thee. When thou sacrificest to the celestial
gods, let it be with an odd number, and when to the terrestrial, with
even."  The significance of each of which precepts they would not
commonly disclose. So some of Numa's traditions have no obvious
meaning. "Thou shalt not make libation to the gods of wine from an
unpruned vine. No sacrifices shall be performed without meal. Turn
round to pay adoration to the gods; sit after you have worshipped."  The
first two directions seem to denote the cultivation and subduing of the
earth as a part of religion; and as to the turning which the worshipers
are to use in divine adoration, it is said to represent the rotatory
motion of the world. But, in my opinion, the meaning rather is, that
the worshiper, since the temples front the east, enters with his back to
the rising sun; there, faces round to the east, and so turns back to the
god of the temple, by this circular movement referring the fulfillment
of his prayer to both divinities. Unless, indeed, this change of
posture may have a mystical meaning, like the Egyptian wheels, and
signify to us the instability of human fortune, and that, in whatever
way God changes and turns our lot and condition, we should rest
contented, and accept it as right and fitting. They say, also, that the
sitting after worship was to be by way of omen of their petitions being
granted, and the blessing they asked assured to them. Again, as
different courses of actions are divided by intervals of rest, they
might seat themselves after the completion of what they had done, to
seek favor of the gods for beginning something else. And this would
very well suit with what we had before; the lawgiver wants to habituate
us to make our petitions to the deity not by the way, and as it were, in
a hurry, when we have other things to do, but with time and leisure to
attend to it. By such discipline and schooling in religion, the city
passed insensibly into such a submissiveness of temper, and stood in
such awe and reverence of the virtue of Numa, that they received, with
an undoubted assurance, whatever he delivered, though never so fabulous,
and thought nothing incredible or impossible from him.

There goes a story that he once invited a great number of citizens to an
entertainment, at which the dishes in which the meat was served were
very homely and plain, and the repast itself poor and ordinary fare; the
guests seated, he began to tell them that the goddess that consulted
with him was then at that time come to him; when on a sudden the room
was furnished with all sorts of costly drinking-vessels, and the tables
loaded with rich meats, and a most sumptuous entertainment. But the
dialogue which is reported to have passed between him and Jupiter
surpasses all the fabulous legends that were ever invented. They say
that before Mount Aventine was inhabited or enclosed within the walls of
the city, two demi-gods, Picus and Faunus, frequented the Springs and
thick shades of that place; which might be two satyrs, or Pans, except
that they went about Italy playing the same sorts of tricks, by skill in
drugs and magic, as are ascribed by the Greeks to the Dactyli of Mount
Ida. Numa contrived one day to surprise these demi-gods, by mixing wine
and honey in the waters of the spring of which they usually drank. On
finding themselves ensnared, they changed themselves into various
shapes, dropping their own form and assuming every kind of unusual and
hideous appearance; but when they saw they were safely entrapped, and in
no possibility of getting free, they revealed to him many secrets and
future events; and particularly a charm for thunder and lightning, still
in use, performed with onions and hair and pilchards. Some say they did
not tell him the charm, but by their magic brought down Jupiter out of
heaven; and that he then, in an angry manner answering the inquiries,
told Numa, that, if he would charm the thunder and lightning, he must do
it with heads. "How," said Numa, "with the heads of onions?"  "No,"
replied Jupiter, "of men."  But Numa, willing to elude the cruelty of
this receipt, turned it another way, saying, "Your meaning is, the hairs
of men's heads."  "No," replied Jupiter, "with living"--"pilchards,"
said Numa, interrupting him. These answers he had learnt from Egeria.
Jupiter returned again to heaven, pacified and ilcos, or propitious.
The place was, in remembrance of him, called Ilicium, from this Greek
word; and the spell in this manner effected.

These stories, laughable as they are, show us the feelings which people
then, by force of habit, entertained towards the deity. And Numa's own
thoughts are said to have been fixed to that degree on divine objects,
that he once, when a message was brought to him that "Enemies are
approaching," answered with a smile, "And I am sacrificing."  It was he,
also, that built the temples of Faith and Terminus and taught the Romans
that the name of Faith was the most solemn oath that they could swear.
They still use it; and to the god Terminus, or Boundary, they offer to
this day both public and private sacrifices, upon the borders and stone-
marks of their land; living victims now, though anciently those
sacrifices were solemnized without blood; for Numa reasoned that the god
of boundaries, who watched over peace, and testified to fair dealing,
should have no concern with blood. It is very clear that it was this
king who first prescribed bounds to the territory of Rome; for Romulus
would but have openly betrayed how much he had encroached on his
neighbors' lands, had he ever set limits to his own; for boundaries are,
indeed, a defense to those who choose to observe them, but are only a
testimony against the dishonesty of those who break through them. The
truth is, the portion of lands which the Romans possessed at the
beginning was very narrow, until Romulus enlarged them by war; all whose
acquisitions Numa now divided amongst the indigent commonalty, wishing
to do away with that extreme want which is a compulsion to dishonesty,
and, by turning the people to husbandry, to bring them, as well as their
lands, into better order. For there is no employment that gives so keen
and quick a relish for peace as husbandry and a country life, which
leave in men all that kind of courage that makes them ready to fight in
defense of their own, while it destroys the license that breaks out into
acts of injustice and rapacity. Numa, therefore, hoping agriculture
would be a sort of charm to captivate the affections of his people to
peace, and viewing it rather as a means to moral than to economical
profit, divided all the lands into several parcels, to which he gave the
name of pagus, or parish, and over every one of them he ordained chief
overseers; and, taking a delight sometimes to inspect his colonies in
person, he formed his judgment of every man's habits by the results; of
which being witness himself, he preferred those to honors and
employments who had done well, and by rebukes and reproaches incited the
indolent and careless to improvement. But of all his measures the most
commended was his distribution of the people by their trades into
companies or guilds; for as the city consisted, or rather did not
consist of, but was divided into, two different tribes, the diversity
between which could not be effaced and in the mean time prevented all
unity and caused perpetual tumult and ill-blood, reflecting how hard
substances that do not readily mix when in the lump may, by being beaten
into powder, in that minute form be combined, he resolved to divide the
whole population into a number of small divisions, and thus hoped, by
introducing other distinctions, to obliterate the original and great
distinction, which would be lost among the smaller. So, distinguishing
the whole people by the several arts and trades, he formed the companies
of musicians, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers, shoemakers, skinners,
braziers, and potters; and all other handicraftsmen he composed and
reduced into a single company, appointing every one their proper courts,
councils, and religious observances. In this manner all factious
distinctions began, for the first time, to pass out of use, no person
any longer being either thought of or spoken of under the notion of a
Sabine or a Roman, a Romulian or a Tatian; and the new division became a
source of general harmony and intermixture.

He is also much to be commended for the repeal, or rather amendment, of
that law which gives power to fathers to sell their children; he
exempted such as were married, conditionally that it had been with the
liking and consent of their parents; for it seemed a hard thing that a
woman who had given herself in marriage to a man whom she judged free
should afterwards find herself living with a slave.

He attempted, also, the formation of a calendar, not with absolute
exactness, yet not without some scientific knowledge. During the reign
of Romulus, they had let their months run on without any certain or
equal term; some of them contained twenty days, others thirty-five,
others more; they had no sort of knowledge of the inequality in the
motions of the sun and moon; they only kept to the one rule that the
whole course of the year contained three hundred and sixty days. Numa,
calculating the difference between the lunar and the solar' year at
eleven days, for that the moon completed her anniversary course in three
hundred and fifty-four days, and the sun in three hundred and sixty-
five, to remedy this incongruity doubled the eleven days, and every
other year added an intercalary month, to follow February, consisting of
twenty-two days, and called by the Romans the month Mercedinus. This
amendment, however, itself, in course of time, came to need other
amendments. He also altered the order of the months; for March, which
was reckoned the first, he put into the third place; and January, which
was the eleventh, he made the first; and February, which was the twelfth
and last, the second. Many will have it, that it was Numa, also, who
added the two months of January and February; for in the beginning they
had had a year of ten months; as there are barbarians who count only
three; the Arcadians, in Greece, had but four; the Acarnanians, six.
The Egyptian year at first, they say, was of one month; afterwards, of
four; and so, though they live in the newest of all countries, they have
the credit of being a more ancient nation than any; and reckon, in their
genealogies, a prodigious number of years, counting months, that is, as
years. That the Romans, at first, comprehended the whole year within
ten, and not twelve months, plainly appears by the name of the last,
December, meaning the tenth month; and that March was the first is
likewise evident, for the fifth month after it was called Quintilis, and
the sixth Sextilis, and so the rest; whereas, if January and February
had, in this account, preceded March, Quintilis would have been fifth in
name and seventh in reckoning. It was also natural, that March,
dedicated to Mars, should be Romulus's first, and April, named from
Venus, or Aphrodite, his second month; in it they sacrifice to Venus,
and the women bathe on the calends, or first day of it, with myrtle
garlands on their heads. But others, because of its being p and not ph,
will not allow of the derivation of this word from Aphrodite, but
say it is called April from aperio, Latin for to open, because that this
month is high spring, and opens and discloses the buds and flowers. The
next is called May, from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom it is
sacred; then June follows, so called from Juno; some, however, derive
them from the two ages, old and young, majores being their name for
older, and juniores for younger men. To the other months they gave
denominations according to their order; so the fifth was called
Quintilis, Sextilis the sixth, and the rest, September, October,
November, and December. Afterwards Quintilis received the name of
Julius, from Caesar who defeated Pompey; as also Sextilis that of
Augustus, from the second Caesar, who had that title. Domitian, also,
in imitation, gave the two other following months his own names, of
Germanicus and Domitianus; but, on his being slain, they recovered their
ancient denominations of September and October. The two last are the
only ones that have kept their names throughout without any alteration.
Of the months which were added or transposed in their order by Numa,
February comes from februa; and is as much as Purification month; in it
they make offerings to the dead, and celebrate the Lupercalia, which, in
most points, resembles a purification. January was so called from
Janus, and precedence given to it by Numa before March, which was
dedicated to the god Mars; because, as I conceive, he wished to take
every opportunity of intimating that the arts and studies of peace are
to be preferred before those of war. For this Janus, whether in remote
antiquity he were a demi-god or a king, was certainly a great lover of
civil and social unity, and one who reclaimed men from brutal and savage
living; for which reason they figure him with two faces, to represent
the two states and conditions out of the one of which he brought
mankind, to lead them into the other. His temple at Rome has two gates,
which they call the gates of war, because they stand open in the time of
war, and shut in the times of peace; of which latter there was very
seldom an example, for, as the Roman empire was enlarged and extended,
it was so encompassed with barbarous nations and enemies to be resisted,
that it was seldom or never at peace. Only in the time of Augustus
Caesar, after he had overcome Antony, this temple was shut; as likewise
once before, when Marcus Atilius and Titus Manlius were consuls; but
then it was not long before, wars breaking out, the gates were again
opened. But, during the reign of Numa, those gates were never seen open
a single day, but continued constantly shut for a space of forty-three
years together; such an entire and universal cessation of war existed.
For not only had the people of Rome itself been softened and charmed
into a peaceful temper by the just and mild rule of a pacific prince,
but even the neighboring cities, as if some salubrious and gentle air
had blown from Rome upon them, began to experience a change of feeling,
and partook in the general longing for the sweets of peace and order,
and for life employed in the quiet tillage of soil, bringing up of
children, and worship of the gods. Festival days and sports, and the
secure and peaceful interchange of friendly visits and hospitalities
prevailed all through the whole of Italy. The love of virtue and
justice flowed from Numa's wisdom as from a fountain, and the serenity
of his spirit diffused itself, like a calm, on all sides; so that the
hyperboles of poets were flat and tame to express what then existed;
as that

Over the iron shield the spiders hang their threads,

or that

Rust eats the pointed spear and double-edged sword.
No more is heard the trumpet's brazen roar,
Sweet sleep is banished from our eyes no more.

For, during the whole reign of Numa, there was neither war, nor
sedition, nor innovation in the state, nor any envy or ill-will to his
person, nor plot or conspiracy from views of ambition. Either fear of
the gods that were thought to watch over him, or reverence for his
virtue, or a divine felicity of fortune that in his days preserved human
innocence, made his reign, by whatever means, a living example and
verification of that saying which Plato, long afterwards, ventured to
pronounce, that the sole and only hope of respite or remedy for human
evils was in some happy conjunction of events, which should unite in a
single person the power of a king and the wisdom of a philosopher, so as
to elevate virtue to control and mastery over vice. The wise man is
blessed in himself, and blessed also are the auditors who can hear and
receive those words which flow from his mouth; and perhaps, too, there
is no need of compulsion or menaces to affect the multitude, for the
mere sight itself of a shining and conspicuous example of virtue in the
life of their prince will bring them spontaneously to virtue, and to a
conformity with that blameless and blessed life of good will and mutual
concord, supported by temperance and justice, which is the highest
benefit that human means can confer; and he is the truest ruler who can
best introduce it into the hearts and practice of his subjects. It is
the praise of Numa that no one seems ever to have discerned this so
clearly as he.

As to his children and wives, there is a diversity of reports by several
authors; some will have it that he never had any other wife than Tatia,
nor more children than one daughter called Pompilia; others will have it
that he left also four sons, namely, Pompo, Pinus, Calpus, and Mamercus,
every one of whom had issue, and from them descended the noble and
illustrious families of Pomponii, Pinarii, Calpurnii, and Mamerci, which
for this reason took also the surname of Rex, or King. But there is a
third set of writers who say that these pedigrees are but a piece of
flattery used by writers, who, to gain favor with these great
families, made them fictitious genealogies from the lineage of Numa; and
that Pompilia was not the daughter of Tatia, but Lucretia, another wife
whom he married after he came to his kingdom; however, all of them agree
in opinion that she was married to the son of that Marcius who persuaded
him to accept the government, and accompanied him to Rome where, as a
mark of honor, he was chosen into the senate, and, after the death of
Numa, standing in competition with Tullus Hostilius for the kingdom, and
being disappointed of the election, in discontent killed himself; his
son Marcius, however, who had married Pompilia, continuing at Rome, was
the father of Ancus Marcius, who succeeded Tullus Hostilius in the
kingdom, and was but five years of age when Numa died.

Numa lived something above eighty years, and then, as Piso writes, was
not taken out of the world by a sudden or acute disease, but died of old
age and by a gradual and gentle decline. At his funeral all the glories
of his life were consummated, when all the neighboring states in
alliance and amity with Rome met to honor and grace the rites of his
interment with garlands and public presents; the senators carried the
bier on which his corpse was laid, and the priests followed and
accompanied the solemn procession; while a general crowd, in which women
and children took part, followed with such cries and weeping as if they
had bewailed the death and loss of some most dear relation taken away in
the flower of age, and not of an old and worn-out king. It is said that
his body, by his particular command, was not burnt, but that they made,
in conformity with his order, two stone coffins, and buried both under
the hill Janiculum, in one of which his body was laid, and in the other
his sacred books, which, as the Greek legislators their tables, he had
written out for himself, but had so long inculcated the contents of
them, whilst he lived, into the minds and hearts of the priests, that
their understandings became fully possessed with the whole spirit and
purpose of them; and he, therefore, bade that they should be buried with
his body, as though such holy precepts could not without irreverence be
left to circulate in mere lifeless writings. For this very reason, they
say, the Pythagoreans bade that their precepts should not be committed
to paper, but rather preserved in the living memories of those who were
worthy to receive them; and when some of their out-of-the-way and
abstruse geometrical processes had been divulged to an unworthy person,
they said the gods threatened to punish this wickedness and profanity by
a signal and wide-spreading calamity. With these several instances,
concurring to show a similarity in the lives of Numa and Pythagoras, we
may easily pardon those who seek to establish the fact of a real
acquaintance between them.

Valerius Antias writes that the books which were buried in the aforesaid
chest or coffin of stone were twelve volumes of holy writ and twelve
others of Greek philosophy, and that about four hundred years
afterwards, when P. Cornelius and M. Baebius were consuls, in a time of
heavy rains, a violent torrent washed away the earth, and dislodged the
chests of stone; and, their covers falling off, one of them was found
wholly empty, without the least relic of any human body; in the other
were the books before mentioned, which the praetor Petilius having read
and perused, made oath in the senate, that, in his opinion, it was not
fit for their contents to be made public to the people; whereupon the
volumes were all carried to the Comitium, and there burnt.

It is the fortune of all good men that their virtue rises in glory after
their deaths, and that the envy which evil men conceive against them
never outlives them long; some have the happiness even to see it die
before them; but in Numa's case, also, the fortunes of the succeeding
kings served as foils to set off the brightness of his reputation. For
after him there were five kings, the last of whom ended his old age in
banishment, being deposed from his crown; of the other four, three were
assassinated and murdered by treason; the other, who was Tullus
Hostilius, that immediately succeeded Numa, derided his virtues, and
especially his devotion to religious worship, as a cowardly and mean-
spirited occupation, and diverted the minds of the people to war; but
was checked in these youthful insolences, and was himself driven by an
acute and tormenting disease into superstitions wholly different from
Numa's piety, and left others also to participate in these terrors when
he died by the stroke of a thunderbolt.

COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYCURGUS

Having thus finished the lives of Lycurgus and Numa, we shall now,
though the work be difficult, put together their points of difference as
they lie here before our view. Their points of likeness are obvious;
their moderation, their religion, their capacity of government and
discipline, their both deriving their laws and constitutions from the
gods. Yet in their common glories there are circumstances of diversity;
for, first, Numa accepted and Lycurgus resigned a kingdom; Numa received
without desiring it, Lycurgus had it and gave it up; the one from a
private person and a stranger was raised by others to be their king, the
other from the condition of a prince voluntarily descended to the state
of privacy. It was glorious to acquire a throne by justice, yet more
glorious to prefer justice before a throne; the same virtue which made
the one appear worthy of regal power exalted the other to the disregard
of it. Lastly, as musicians tune their harps, so the one let down the
high-flown spirits of the people at Rome to a lower key, as the other
screwed them up at Sparta to a higher note, when they were sunken low by
dissoluteness and riot. The harder task was that of Lycurgus; for it
was not so much his business to persuade his citizens to put off their
armor or ungird their swords, as to cast away their gold or silver, and
abandon costly furniture and rich tables; nor was it necessary to preach
to them, that, laying aside their arms, they should observe the
festivals, and sacrifice to the gods, but rather, that, giving up
feasting and drinking, they should employ their time in laborious and
martial exercises; so that while the one effected all by persuasions and
his people's love for him, the other, with danger and hazard of his
person, scarcely in the end succeeded. Numa's muse was a gentle and
loving inspiration, fitting him well to turn and soothe his people into
peace and justice out of their violent and fiery tempers; whereas, if we
must admit the treatment of the Helots to be a part of Lycurgus's
legislations, a most cruel and iniquitous proceeding, we must own that
Numa was by a great deal the more humane and Greek-like legislator,
granting even to actual slaves a license to sit at meat with their
masters at the feast of Saturn, that they, also, might have some taste
and relish of the sweets of liberty. For this custom, too, is ascribed
to Numa, whose wish was, they conceive, to give a place in the enjoyment
of the yearly fruits of the soil to those who had helped to produce
them. Others will have it to be in remembrance of the age of Saturn,
when there was no distinction between master and slave, but all lived as
brothers and as equals in a condition of equality.

In general, it seems that both aimed at the same design and intent,
which was to bring their people to moderation and frugality; but, of
other virtues, the one set his affection most on fortitude, and the
other on justice; unless we will attribute their different ways to the
different habits and temperaments which they had to work upon by their
enactments; for Numa did not out of cowardice or fear affect peace, but
because he would not be guilty of injustice; nor did Lycurgus promote a
spirit of war in his people that they might do injustice to others, but
that they might protect themselves by it.

In bringing the habits they formed in their people to a just and happy
mean, mitigating them where they exceeded, and strengthening them where
they were deficient, both were compelled to make great innovations. The
frame of government which Numa formed was democratic and popular to the
last extreme, goldsmiths and flute-players and shoemakers constituting
his promiscuous, many-colored commonalty. Lycurgus was rigid and
aristocratical, banishing all the base and mechanic arts to the company
of servants and strangers, and allowing the true citizens no implements
but the spear and shield, the trade of war only, and the service of
Mars, and no other knowledge or study but that of obedience to their
commanding officers, and victory over their enemies. Every sort of
money-making was forbid them as freemen; and to make them thoroughly so
and to keep them so through their whole lives, every conceivable concern
with money was handed over, with the cooking and the waiting at table,
to slaves and helots. But Numa made none of these distinctions; he only
suppressed military rapacity, allowing free scope to every other means
of obtaining wealth; nor did he endeavor to do away with inequality in
this respect, but permitted riches to be amassed to any extent, and paid
no attention to the gradual and continual augmentation and influx of
poverty; which it was his business at the outset, whilst there was as
yet no great disparity in the estates of men, and whilst people still
lived much in one manner, to obviate, as Lycurgus did, and take measures
of precaution against the mischiefs of avarice, mischiefs not of small
importance, but the real seed and first beginning of all the great and
extensive evils of after times. The re-division of estates, Lycurgus is
not, it seems to me, to be blamed for making, nor Numa for omitting;
this equality was the basis and foundation of the one commonwealth; but
at Rome, where the lands had been lately divided, there was nothing to
urge any re-division or any disturbance of the first arrangement, which
was probably still in existence.

With respect to wives and children, and that community which both, with
a sound policy, appointed, to prevent all jealousy, their methods,
however, were different. For when a Roman thought himself to have a
sufficient number of children, in case his neighbor who had none should
come and request his wife of him, he had a lawful power to give her up
to him who desired her, either for a certain time, or for good. The
Lacedaemonian husband on the other hand, might allow the use of his wife
to any other that desired to have children by her, and yet still keep
her in his house, the original marriage obligation still subsisting as
at first. Nay, many husbands, as we have said, would invite men whom
they thought like]y to procure them fine and good-looking children into
their houses. What is the difference, then, between the two customs?
Shall we say that the Lacedaemonian system is one of an extreme and
entire unconcern about their wives, and would cause most people endless
disquiet and annoyance with pangs and jealousies? The Roman course
wears an air of a more delicate acquiescence, draws the veil of a new
contract over the change, and concedes the general insupportableness of
mere community? Numa's directions, too, for the care of young women are
better adapted to the female sex and to propriety; Lycurgus's are
altogether unreserved and unfeminine, and have given a great handle to
the poets, who call them (Ibycus, for example) Phaenomerides, bare-
thighed; and give them the character (as does Euripides) of being
wild after husbands;

These with the young men from the house go out,
With thighs that show, and robes that fly about.

For in fact the skirts of the frock worn by unmarried girls were not
sewn together at the lower part, but used to fly back and show the whole
thigh bare as they walked. The thing is most distinctly given
by Sophocles.

--She, also, the young maid,
Whose frock, no robe yet o'er it laid,
Folding back, leaves her bare thigh free,
Hermione.

And so their women, it is said, were bold and masculine, overbearing to
their husbands in the first place, absolute mistresses in their houses,
giving their opinions about public matters freely, and speaking openly
even on the most important subjects. But the matrons, under the
government of Numa, still indeed received from their husbands all that
high respect and honor which had been paid them under Romulus as a sort
of atonement for the violence done to them; nevertheless, great modesty
was enjoined upon them; all busy intermeddling forbidden, sobriety
insisted on, and silence made habitual. Wine they were not to touch at
all, nor to speak, except in their husband's company, even on the most
ordinary subjects. So that once when a woman had the confidence to
plead her own cause in a court of judicature, the senate, it is said,
sent to inquire of the oracle what the prodigy did portend; and, indeed,
their general good behavior and submissiveness is justly proved by the
record of those that were otherwise; for as the Greek historians record
in their annals the names of those who first unsheathed the sword of
civil war, or murdered their brothers, or were parricides, or killed
their mothers, so the Roman writers report it as the first example, that
Spurius Carvilius divorced his wife, being a case that never before
happened, in the space of two hundred and thirty years from the
foundation of the city; and that one Thalaea, the wife of Pinarius, had
a quarrel (the first instance of the kind) with her mother-in-law,
Gegania, in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus; so successful was the
legislator in securing order and good conduct in the marriage relation.
Their respective regulations for marrying the young women are in
accordance with those for their education. Lycurgus made them brides
when they were of full age and inclination for it. Intercourse, where
nature was thus consulted, would produce, he thought, love and
tenderness, instead of the dislike and fear attending an unnatural
compulsion; and their bodies, also, would be better able to bear the
trials of breeding and of bearing children, in his judgment
the one end of marriage.
Astolos chiton, the under garment, frock, or tunic, without anything,
either himation or peplus, over it.

The Romans, on the other hand, gave their daughters in marriage as early
as twelve years old, or even under; thus they thought their bodies alike
and minds would be delivered to the future husband pure and undefiled.
The way of Lycurgus seems the more natural with a view to the birth of
children; the other, looking to a life to be spent together, is more
moral. However, the rules which Lycurgus drew up for superintendence of
children, their collection into companies, their discipline and
association, as also his exact regulations for their meals, exercises,
and sports, argue Numa no more than an ordinary lawgiver. Numa left the
whole matter simply to be decided by the parent's wishes or necessities;
he might, if he pleased, make his son a husbandman or carpenter,
coppersmith or musician; as if it were of no importance for them to be
directed and trained up from the beginning to one and the same common
end, or as though it would do for them to be like passengers on
shipboard, brought thither each for his own ends and by his own choice,
uniting to act for the common good only in time of danger upon occasion
of their private fears, in general looking simply to their own interest.

We may forbear, indeed, to blame common legislators, who may be
deficient in power or knowledge. But when a wise man like Numa had
received the sovereignty over a new and docile people, was there any
thing that would better deserve his attention than the education of
children, and the training up of the young, not to contrariety and
discordance of character, but to the unity of the common model of
virtue, to which from their cradle they should have been formed and
molded? One benefit among many that Lycurgus obtained by his course was
the permanence which it secured to his laws. The obligation of oaths to
preserve them would have availed but little, if he had not, by
discipline and education, infused them into the children's characters,
and imbued their whole early life with a love of his government. The
result was that the main points and fundamentals of his legislation
continued for above five hundred years, like some deep and thoroughly
ingrained tincture, retaining their hold upon the nation. But Numa's
whole design and aim, the continuance of peace and good-will, on his
death vanished with him; no sooner did he expire his last breath than
the gates of Janus's temple flew wide open, and, as if war had, indeed,
been kept and caged up within those walls, it rushed forth to fill all
Italy with blood and slaughter; and thus that best and justest fabric of
things was of no long continuance, because it wanted that cement which
should have kept all together, education. What, then, some may say, has
not Rome been advanced and bettered by her wars? A question that will
need a long answer, if it is to be one to satisfy men who take the
better to consist in riches, luxury, and dominion, rather than in
security, gentleness, and that independence which is accompanied by
justice. However, it makes much for Lycurgus, that, after the Romans
deserted the doctrine and discipline of Numa, their empire grew and
their power increased so much; whereas so soon as the Lacedaemonians
fell from the institutions of Lycurgus, they sank from the highest to
the lowest state, and, after forfeiting their supremacy over the rest of
Greece, were themselves in danger of absolute extirpation. Thus much,
meantime, was peculiarly signal and almost divine in the circumstances
of Numa, that he was an alien, and yet courted to come and accept a
kingdom, the frame of which though he entirely altered, yet he performed
it by mere persuasion, and ruled a city that as yet had scarce become
one city, without recurring to arms or any violence (such as Lycurgus
used, supporting himself by the aid of the nobler citizens against the
commonalty), but, by mere force of wisdom and justice, established union
and harmony amongst all.

SOLON

Didymus, the grammarian, in his answer to Asclepiades concerning Solon's
Tables of Law, mentions a passage of one Philocles, who states that
Solon's father's name was Euphorion, contrary to the opinion of all
others who have written concerning him; for they generally agree that he
was the son of Execestides, a man of moderate wealth and power in the
city, but of a most noble stock, being descended from Codrus; his mother,
as Heraclides Ponticus affirms, was cousin to Pisistratus's
mother, and the two at first were great friends, partly because they
were akin, and partly because of Pisistratus's noble qualities and
beauty. And they say Solon loved him; and that is the reason, I
suppose, that when afterwards they differed about the government, their
enmity never produced any hot and violent passion, they remembered their
old kindnesses, and retained--

Still in its embers living the strong fire

of their love and dear affection. For that Solon was not proof against
beauty, nor of courage to stand up to passion and meet it,

Hand to hand as in the ring--

we may conjecture by his poems, and one of his laws, in which there are
practices forbidden to slaves, which he would appear, therefore, to
recommend to freemen. Pisistratus, it is stated, was similarly attached
to one Charmus; he it was who dedicated the figure of Love in the
Academy, where the runners in the sacred torch-race light their torches.
Solon, as Hermippus writes, when his father had ruined his estate in
doing benefits and kindnesses to other men, though he had friends enough
that were willing to contribute to his relief, yet was ashamed to be
beholden to others, since he was descended from a family who were
accustomed to do kindnesses rather than receive them; and therefore
applied himself to merchandise in his youth; though others assure us
that he traveled rather to get learning and experience than to make
money. It is certain that he was a lover of knowledge, for when he was
old he would say, that he

Each day grew older, and learnt something new,

and yet no admirer of riches, esteeming as equally wealthy the man,--

Who hath both gold and silver in his hand,
Horses and mules, and acres of wheat-land,
And him whose all is decent food to eat,
Clothes to his back and shoes upon his feet,
And a young wife and child, since so 'twill be,
And no more years than will with that agree;--

and in another place,--

Wealth I would have, but wealth by wrong procure
I would not; justice, e'en if slow, is sure.

And it is perfectly possible for a good man and a statesman, without
being solicitous for superfluities, to show some concern for competent
necessaries. In his time, as Hesiod says, --"Work was a shame to none,"
nor was any distinction made with respect to trade, but merchandise was
a noble calling, which brought home the good things which the barbarous
nations enjoyed, was the occasion of friendship with their kings, and a
great source of experience. Some merchants have built great cities, as
Protis, the founder of Massilia, to whom the Gauls near the Rhine were
much attached. Some report also that Thales and Hippocrates the
mathematician traded; and that Plato defrayed the charges of his travels
by selling oil in Egypt. Solon's softness and profuseness, his popular
rather than philosophical tone about pleasure in his poems, have been
ascribed to his trading life; for, having suffered a thousand dangers,
it was natural they should be recompensed with some gratifications and
enjoyments; but that he accounted himself rather poor than rich is
evident from the lines,

Some wicked men are rich, some good are poor,
We will not change our virtue for their store;
Virtue's a thing that none call take away,
But money changes owners all the day.

At first he used his poetry only in trifles, not for any serious
purpose, but simply to pass away his idle hours; but afterwards he
introduced moral sentences and state matters, which he did, not to
record them merely as an historian, but to justify his own actions, and
sometimes to correct, chastise, and stir up the Athenians to noble
performances. Some report that he designed to put his laws into heroic
verse, and that they began thus,--

We humbly beg a blessing on our laws
From mighty Jove, and honor, and applause.

In philosophy, as most of the wise men then, he chiefly
esteemed the political part of morals; in physics, he was very plain and
antiquated, as appears by this,--

It is the clouds that make the snow and hail,
And thunder comes from lightning without fail;
The sea is stormy when the winds have blown,
But it deals fairly when 'tis left alone.

And, indeed, it is probable that at that time Thales alone had raised
philosophy above mere practice into speculation; and the rest of the
wise men were so called from prudence in political concerns. It is
said, that they had an interview at Delphi, and another at Corinth, by
the procurement of Periander, who made a meeting for them, and a supper.
But their reputation was chiefly raised by sending the tripod to them
all, by their modest refusal, and complaisant yielding to one another.
For, as the story goes, some of the Coans fishing with a net, some
strangers, Milesians, bought the draught at a venture; the net brought
up a golden tripod, which, they say, Helen, at her return from Troy,
upon the remembrance of an old prophecy, threw in there. Now, the
strangers at first contesting with the fishers about the tripod, and the
cities espousing the quarrel so far as to engage themselves in a war,
Apollo decided the controversy by commanding to present it to the wisest
man; and first it was sent to Miletus to Thales, the Coans freely
presenting him with that for which they fought against the whole body of
the Milesians; but, Thales declaring Bias the wiser person, it was sent
to him; from him to another; and so, going round them all, it came to
Thales a second time; and, at last, being carried from Miletus to
Thebes, was there dedicated to Apollo Ismenius. Theophrastus writes
that it was first presented to Bias at Priene; and next to Thales at
Miletus, and so through all it returned to Bias, and was afterwards sent
to Delphi. This is the general report, only some, instead of a tripod,
say this present was a cup sent by Croesus; others, a piece of plate
that one Bathycles had left. It is stated, that Anacharsis and Solon,
and Solon and Thales, were familiarly acquainted, and some have
delivered parts of their discourse; for, they say, Anacharsis, coming to
Athens, knocked at Solon's door, and told him, that he, being a
stranger, was come to be his guest, and contract a friendship with him;
and Solon replying, "It is better to make friends at home," Anacharsis
replied, "Then you that are at home make friendship with me."  Solon,
somewhat surprised at the readiness of the repartee, received him
kindly, and kept him some time with him, being already engaged in public
business and the compilation of his laws; which when Anacharsis
understood, he laughed at him for imagining the dishonesty and
covetousness of his countrymen could be restrained by written laws,
which were like spiders' webs, and would catch, it is true, the weak and
poor, but easily be broken by the mighty and rich. To this Solon
rejoined that men keep their promises when neither side can get anything
by the breaking of them; and he would so fit his laws to the
citizens, that all should understand it was more eligible to be just
than to break the laws. But the event rather agreed with the conjecture
of Anacharsis than Solon's hope. Anacharsis, being once at the
assembly, expressed his wonder at the fact that in Greece wise men spoke
and fools decided.

Solon went, they say, to Thales at Miletus, and wondered that Thales
took no care to get him a wife and children. To this, Thales made no
answer for the present; but, a few days after, procured a stranger to
pretend that he had left Athens ten days ago; and Solon inquiring what
news there, the man, according to his instructions, replied, "None but a
young man's funeral, which the whole city attended; for he was the son,
they said, of an honorable man, the most virtuous of the citizens, who
was not then at home, but had been traveling a long time."  Solon
replied, "What a miserable man is he! But what was his name?"  "I have
heard it," says the man, "but have now forgotten it, only there was
great talk of his wisdom and his justice."  Thus Solon was drawn on by
every answer, and his fears heightened, till at last, being extremely
concerned, he mentioned his own name, and asked the stranger if that
young man was called Solon's son; and the stranger assenting, he began
to beat his head, and to do and say all that is usual with men in
transports of grief. But Thales took his hand, and, with a smile, said,
"These things, Solon, keep me from marriage and rearing children, which
are too great for even your constancy to support; however, be not
concerned at the report, for it is a fiction."  This Hermippus relates,
from Pataecus, who boasted that he had Aesop's soul.

However, it is irrational and poor-spirited not to seek conveniences for
fear of losing them, for upon the same account we should not allow
ourselves to like wealth, glory, or wisdom, since we may fear to be
deprived of all these; nay, even virtue itself, than which there is no
greater nor more desirable possession, is often suspended by sickness or
drugs. Now Thales, though unmarried, could not be free from solicitude,
unless he likewise felt no care for his friends, his kinsmen, or his
country; yet we are told he adopted Cybisthus, his sister's son. For
the soul, having a principle of kindness in itself, and being born to
love, as well as perceive, think, or remember, inclines and fixes upon
some stranger, when a man has none of his own to embrace. And alien or
illegitimate objects insinuate themselves into his affections, as into
some estate that lacks lawful heirs; and with affection come anxiety and
care; insomuch that you may see men that use the strongest language
against the marriage-bed and the fruit of it, when some servant's or
concubine's child is sick or dies, almost killed with grief, and
abjectly lamenting. Some have given way to shameful and desperate
sorrow at the loss of a dog or horse; others have borne the deaths of
virtuous children without any extravagant or unbecoming grief; have
passed the rest of their lives like men, and according to the principles
of reason. It is not affection, it is weakness, that brings men,
unarmed against fortune by reason, into these endless pains and terrors;
and they indeed have not even the present enjoyment of what they dote
upon, the possibility of the future loss causing them continual pangs,
tremors, and distresses. We must not provide against the loss of wealth
by poverty, or of friends by refusing all acquaintance, or of children
by having none, but by morality and reason. But of this too much.

Now, when the Athenians were tired with a tedious and difficult war that
they conducted against the Megarians for the island Salamis, and made a
law that it should be death for any man, by writing or speaking, to
assert that the city ought to endeavor to recover it, Solon, vexed at
the disgrace, and perceiving thousands of the youth wished for somebody
to begin, but did not dare to stir first for fear of the law,
counterfeited a distraction, and by his own family it was spread about
the city that he was mad. He then secretly composed some elegiac
verses, and getting them by heart, that it might seem extempore, ran out
into the place with a cap upon his head, and, the people gathering about
him, got upon the herald's stand, and sang that elegy which begins
thus:--

I am a herald come from Salamis the fair,
My news from thence my verses shall declare.

The poem is called Salamis, it contains one hundred verses, very
elegantly written; when it had been sung, his friends commended it, and
especially Pisistratus exhorted the citizens to obey his directions;
insomuch that they recalled the law, and renewed the war under Solon's
conduct. The popular tale is, that with Pisistratus he sailed to
Colias, and, finding the women, according to the custom of the country
there, sacrificing to Ceres, he sent a trusty friend to Salamis, who
should pretend himself a renegade, and advise them, if they desired to
seize the chief Athenian women, to come with him at once to Colias; the
Megarians presently sent of men in the vessel with him; and Solon,
seeing it put off from the island, commanded the women to be gone, and
some beardless youths, dressed in their clothes, their shoes, and caps,
and privately armed with daggers, to dance and play near the shore till
the enemies had landed and the vessel was in their power. Things being
thus ordered, the Megarians were allured with the appearance, and,
coming to the shore, jumped out, eager who should first seize a prize,
so that not one of them escaped; and the Athenians set sail for the
island and took it.

Others say that it was not taken this way, but that he first received
this oracle from Delphi:

Those heroes that in fair Asopia rest,
All buried with their faces to the west,
Go and appease with offerings of the best;

and that Solon, sailing by night to the island, sacrificed to the heroes
Periphemus and Cychreus, and then, taking five hundred Athenian
volunteers (a law having passed that those that took the island should
be highest in the government), with a number of fisher-boats and one
thirty-oared ship, anchored in a bay of Salamis that looks towards
Nisaea; and the Megarians that were then in the island, hearing only an
uncertain report, hurried to their arms, and sent a ship to reconnoiter
the enemies. This ship Solon took, and, securing the Megarians, manned
it with Athenians, and gave them orders to sail to the island with as
much privacy as possible; meantime he, with the other soldiers, marched
against the Megarians by land, and whilst they were fighting, those from
the ship took the city. And this narrative is confirmed by the
following solemnity, that was afterwards observed: an Athenian ship used
to sail silently at first to the island, then, with noise and a great
shout, one leapt out armed, and with a loud cry ran to the promontory
Sciradium to meet those that approached upon the land. And just by
there stands a temple which Solon dedicated to Mars. For he beat the
Megarians, and as many as were not killed in the battle he sent away
upon conditions.

The Megarians, however, still contending, and both sides having received
considerable losses, they chose the Spartans for arbitrators. Now, many
affirm that Homer's authority did Solon a considerable kindness, and
that, introducing a line into the Catalog of Ships, when the matter was
to be determined, he read the passage as follows:

Twelve ships from Salamis stout Ajax brought,
And ranked his men where the Athenians fought.

The Athenians, however, call this but an idle story, and report, that
Solon made it appear to the judges, that Philaeus and Eurysaces, the
sons of Ajax, being made citizens of Athens, gave them the island, and
that one of them dwelt at Brauron in Attica, the other at Melite; and
they have a township of Philaidae, to which Pisistratus belonged,
deriving its name from this Philaeus. Solon took a farther argument
against the Megarians from the dead bodies, which, he said, were not
buried after their fashion but according to the Athenian; for the
Megarians turn the corpse to the east, the Athenians to the west. But
Hereas the Megarian denies this, and affirms that they likewise turn the
body to the west, and also that the Athenians have a separate tomb for
every body, but the Megarians put two or three into one. However, some
of Apollo's oracles, where he calls Salamis Ionian, made much for Solon.
This matter was determined by five Spartans, Critolaidas, Amompharetus,
Hypsechidas, Anaxilas, and Cleomenes.

For this, Solon grew famed and powerful; but his advice in favor of
defending the oracle at Delphi, to give aid, and not to suffer the
Cirrhaeans to profane it, but to maintain the honor of the god, got him
most repute among the Greeks: for upon his persuasion the Amphictyons
undertook the war, as, amongst others, Aristotle affirms, in his
enumeration of the victors at the Pythian games, where he makes Solon
the author of this counsel. Solon, however, was not general in that
expedition, as Hermippus states, out of Evanthes the Samian; for
Aeschines the orator says no such thing, and, in the Delphian register,
Alcmaeon, not Solon, is named as commander of the Athenians.

Now the Cylonian pollution had a long while disturbed the commonwealth,
ever since the time when Megacles the archon persuaded the conspirators
with Cylon that took sanctuary in Minerva's temple to come down and
stand to a fair trial. And they, tying a thread to the image, and
holding one end of it, went down to the tribunal; but when they came to
the temple of the Furies, the thread broke of its own accord, upon
which, as if the goddess had refused them protection, they were seized
by Megacles and the other magistrates; as many as were without the
temples were stoned, those that fled for sanctuary were butchered at the
altar, and only those escaped who made supplication to the wives of the
magistrates. But they from that time were considered under pollution,
and regarded with hatred. The remainder of the faction of Cylon grew
strong again, and had continual quarrels with the family of Megacles;
and now the quarrel being at its height, and the people divided, Solon,
being in reputation, interposed with the chiefest of the Athenians, and
by entreaty and admonition persuaded the polluted to submit to a trial
and the decision of three hundred noble citizens. And Myron of Phlya
being their accuser, they were found guilty, and as many as were then
alive were banished, and the bodies of the dead were dug up, and
scattered beyond the confines of the country. In the midst of these
distractions, the Megarians falling upon them, they lost Nisaea and
Salamis again; besides, the city was disturbed with superstitious fears
and strange appearances, and the priests declared that the sacrifices
intimated some villanies and pollutions that were to be expiated. Upon
this, they sent for Epimenides the Phaestian from Crete, who is counted
the seventh wise man by those that will not admit Periander into the
number. He seems to have been thought a favorite of heaven, possessed
of knowledge in all the supernatural and ritual parts of religion; and,
therefore, the men of his age called him a new Cures, and son of a
nymph named Balte. When he came to Athens, and grew acquainted with
Solon, he served him in many instances, and prepared the way for his
legislation. He made them moderate in their forms of worship, and
abated their mourning by ordering some sacrifices presently after the
funeral, and taking off those severe and barbarous ceremonies which the
women usually practiced; but the greatest benefit was his purifying and
sanctifying the city, by certain propitiatory and expiatory lustrations,
and foundation of sacred buildings; by that means making them more
submissive to justice, and more inclined to harmony. It is reported
that, looking upon Munychia, and considering a long while, he said to
those that stood by, "How blind is man in future things! for did the
Athenians foresee what mischief this would do their city, they would
even eat it with their own teeth to be rid of it."  A similar
anticipation is ascribed to Thales; they say he commanded his friends to
bury him in an obscure and contemned quarter of the territory of
Miletus, saying that it should some day be the marketplace of the
Milesians. Epimenides, being much honored, and receiving from the city
rich offers of large gifts and privileges, requested but one branch of
the sacred olive, and, on that being granted, returned.

The Athenians, now the Cylonian sedition was over and the polluted gone
into banishment, fell into their old quarrels about the government,
there being as many different parties as there were diversities in the
country. The Hill quarter favored democracy, the Plain, oligarchy, and
those that lived by the Sea-side stood for a mixed sort of government,
and so hindered either of the other parties from prevailing. And the
disparity of fortune between the rich and the poor, at that time, also
reached its height; so that the city seemed to be in a truly dangerous
condition, and no other means for freeing it from disturbances and
settling it, to be possible but a despotic power. All the people were
indebted to the rich; and either they tilled their land for their
creditors, paying them a sixth part of the increase, and were,
therefore, called Hectemorii and Thetes, or else they engaged their body
for the debt, and might be seized, and either sent into slavery at home,
or sold to strangers; some (for no law forbade it) were forced to sell
their children, or fly their country to avoid the cruelty of their
creditors; but the most part and the bravest of them began to combine
together and encourage one another to stand to it, to choose a leader,
to liberate the condemned debtors, divide the land,
and change the government.

Then the wisest of the Athenians, perceiving Solon was of all men the
only one not implicated in the troubles, that he had not joined in the
exactions of the rich, and was not involved in the necessities of the
poor, pressed him to succor the commonwealth and compose the
differences. Though Phanias the Lesbian affirms, that Solon, to save
his country, put a trick upon both parties, and privately promised the
poor a division of the lands, and the rich, security for their debts.
Solon, however, himself, says that it was reluctantly at first that he
engaged in state affairs, being afraid of the pride of one party and the
greediness of the other; he was chosen archon, however, after
Philombrotus, and empowered to be an arbitrator and lawgiver; the rich
consenting because he was wealthy, the poor because he was honest.
There was a saying of his current before the election, that when things
are even there never can be war, and this pleased both parties, the
wealthy and the poor; the one conceiving him to mean, when all have
their fair proportion; the others, when all are absolutely equal. Thus,
there being great hopes on both sides, the chief men pressed Solon to
take the government into his own hands, and, when he was once settled,
manage the business freely and according to his pleasure; and many of
the commons, perceiving it would be a difficult change to be effected by
law and reason, were willing to have one wise and just man set over the
affairs; and some say that Solon had this oracle from Apollo--

Take the mid-seat, and be the vessel's guide;
Many in Athens are upon your side.

But chiefly his familiar friends chid him for disaffecting monarchy only
because of the name, as if the virtue of the ruler could not make it a
lawful form; Euboea had made this experiment when it chose Tynnondas,
and Mitylene, which had made Pittacus its prince; yet this could not
shake Solon's resolution; but, as they say, he replied to his friends,
that it was true a tyranny was a very fair spot, but it had no way down
from it; and in a copy of verses to Phocus he writes.--

--that I spared my land,
And withheld from usurpation and from violence my hand,
And forbore to fix a stain and a disgrace on my good name,
I regret not; I believe that it will be my chiefest fame.

From which it is manifest that he was a man of great reputation before
he gave his laws. The several mocks that were put upon him for refusing
the power, he records in these words,--

Solon surely was a dreamer, and a man of simple mind;
When the gods would give him fortune, he of his own will declined;
When the net was full of fishes, over-heavy thinking it,
He declined to haul it up, through want of heart and want of wit.
Had but I that chance of riches and of kingship, for one day,
I would give my skin for flaying, and my house to die away.

Thus he makes the many and the low people speak of him. Yet, though he
refused the government, he was not too mild in the affair; he did not
show himself mean and submissive to the powerful, nor make his laws to
pleasure those that chose him. For where it was well before, he applied
no remedy, nor altered anything, for fear lest,

Overthrowing altogether and disordering the state,

he should be too weak to new-model and recompose it to a tolerable
condition; but what he thought he could effect by persuasion upon the
pliable, and by force upon the stubborn, this he did,
as he himself says,

With force and justice working both one.

And, therefore, when he was afterwards asked if he had left the
Athenians the best laws that could be given, he replied, "The best they
could receive."  The way which, the moderns say, the Athenians have of
softening the badness of a thing, by ingeniously giving it some pretty
and innocent appellation, calling harlots, for example, mistresses,
tributes customs, a garrison a guard, and the jail the chamber, seems
originally to have been Solon's contrivance, who called canceling debts
Seisacthea, a relief, or disencumbrance. For the first thing which he
settled was, that what debts remained should be forgiven, and no man,
for the future, should engage the body of his debtor for security.
Though some, as Androtion, affirm that the debts were not canceled, but
the interest only lessened, which sufficiently pleased the people; so
that they named this benefit the Seisacthea, together with the enlarging
their measures, and raising the value of their money; for he made a
pound, which before passed for seventy-three drachmas, go for a
hundred; so that, though the number of pieces in the payment was equal,
the value was less; which proved a considerable benefit to those that
were to discharge great debts, and no loss to the creditors. But most
agree that it was the taking off the debts that was called Seisacthea,
which is confirmed by some places in his poem, where he takes honor to
himself, that

The mortgage-stones that covered her, by me
Removed, --the land that was a slave is free;

that some who had been seized for their debts he had brought back from
other countries, where

--so far their lot to roam,
They had forgot the language of their home;

and some he had set at liberty,--

Who here in shameful servitude were held.

While he was designing this, a most vexatious thing happened; for when
he had resolved to take off the debts, and was considering the proper
form and fit beginning for it, he told some of his friends, Conon,
Clinias, and Hipponicus, in whom he had a great deal of confidence, that
he would not meddle with the lands, but only free the people from their
debts; upon which, they, using their advantage, made haste and borrowed
some considerable sums of money, and purchased some large farms; and
when the law was enacted, they kept the possessions, and would not
return the money; which brought Solon into great suspicion and dislike,
as if he himself had not been abused, but was concerned in the
contrivance. But he presently stopped this suspicion, by releasing his
debtors of five talents (for he had lent so much), according to the law;
others, as Polyzelus the Rhodian, say fifteen; his friends, however,
were ever afterward called Chreocopidae, repudiators.

In this he pleased neither party, for the rich were angry for their
money, and the poor that the land was not divided, and, as Lycurgus
ordered in his commonwealth, all men reduced to equality. He, it is
true, being the eleventh from Hercules, and having reigned many years in
Lacedaemon, had got a great reputation and friends and power, which he
could use in modeling his state; and, applying force more than
persuasion, insomuch that he lost his eye in the scuffle, was able to
employ the most effectual means for the safety and harmony of a state,
by not permitting any to be poor or rich in his commonwealth. Solon
could not rise to that in his polity, being but a citizen of the middle
classes; yet he acted fully up to the height of his power, having
nothing but the good-will and good opinion of his citizens to rely on;
and that he offended the most part, who looked for another result, he
declares in the words,

Formerly they boasted of me vainly; with averted eyes
Now they look askance upon me; friends no more, but enemies.

And yet had any other man, he says, received the same power,

He would not have forborne, nor let alone,
But made the fattest of the milk his own.

Soon, however, becoming sensible of the good that was done, they laid by
their grudges, made a public sacrifice, calling it Seisacthea, and chose
Solon to new-model and make laws for the commonwealth, giving him the
entire power over everything, their magistracies, their assemblies,
courts, and councils; that he should appoint the number, times of
meeting, and what estate they must have that could be capable of these,
and dissolve or continue any of the present constitutions,
according to his pleasure.

First, then, he repealed all Draco's laws, except those concerning
homicide, because they were too severe, and the punishments too great;
for death was appointed for almost all offenses, insomuch that those
that were convicted of idleness were to die, and those that stole a
cabbage or an apple to suffer even as villains that committed sacrilege
or murder. So that Demades, in after time, was thought to have said
very happily, that Draco's laws were written not with ink, but blood;
and he himself, being once asked why he made death the punishment of
most offenses, replied, "Small ones deserve that, and I have no higher
for the greater crimes."

Next, Solon, being willing to continue the magistracies in the hands of
the rich men, and yet receive the people into the other part of the
government, took an account of the citizens' estates, and those that
were worth five hundred measures of fruits, dry and liquid, he placed in
the first rank, calling them Pentacosiomedimni; those that could keep an
horse, or were worth three hundred measures, were named Hippada
Teluntes, and made the second class; the Zeugitae, that had two hundred
measures, were in the third; and all the others were called Thetes, who
were not admitted to any office, but could come to the assembly, and act
as jurors; which at first seemed nothing, but afterwards was found an
enormous privilege, as almost every matter of dispute came before them
in this latter capacity. Even in the cases which he assigned to the
archons' cognizance, he allowed an appeal to the courts. Besides, it is
said that he was obscure and ambiguous in the wording of his laws, on
purpose to increase the honor of his courts; for since their differences
could not be adjusted by the letter, they would have to bring all their
causes to the judges, who thus were in a manner masters of the laws. Of
this equalization he himself makes mention in this manner:

Such power I gave the people as might do,
Abridged not what they had, now lavished new.
Those that were great in wealth and high in place,
My counsel likewise kept from all disgrace.
Before them both I held my shield of might,
And let not either touch the other's right.

And for the greater security of the weak commons, he gave general
liberty of indicting for an act of injury; if any one was beaten,
maimed, or suffered any violence, any man that would and was able, might
prosecute the wrongdoer; intending by this to accustom the citizens,
like members of the same body, to resent and be sensible of one
another's injuries. And there is a saying of his agreeable to this law,
for, being asked what city was best modeled, "That," said he, "where
those that are not injured try and punish the unjust as much as those
that are."

When he had constituted the Areopagus of those who had been yearly
archons, of which he himself was a member therefore, observing that the
people, now free from their debts, were unsettled and imperious, he
formed another council of four hundred, a hundred out of each of the
four tribes, which was to inspect all matters before they were
propounded to the people, and to take care that nothing but what had
been first examined should be brought before the general assembly. The
upper council, or Areopagus, he made inspectors and keepers of the laws,
conceiving that the commonwealth, held by these two councils, like
anchors, would be less liable to be tossed by tumults, and the people be
more at quiet. Such is the general statement, that Solon instituted the
Areopagus; which seems to be confirmed, because Draco makes no mention
of the Areopagites, but in all causes of blood refers to the Ephetae;
yet Solon's thirteenth table contains the eighth law set down in these
very words: "Whoever before Solon's archonship were disfranchised, let
them be restored, except those that, being condemned by the Areopagus,
Ephetae, or in the Prytaneum by the kings, for homicide, murder, or
designs against the government, were in banishment when this law was
made;" and these words seem to show that the Areopagus existed before
Solon's laws, for who could be condemned by that council before his
time, if he was the first that instituted the court? unless, which is
probable, there is some ellipsis, or want of precision, in the language,
and it should run thus, -- "Those that are convicted of such offenses as
belong to the cognizance of the Areopagites, Ephetae, or the Prytanes,
when this law was made," shall remain still in disgrace, whilst others
are restored; of this the reader must judge.

Amongst his other laws, one is very peculiar and surprising, which
disfranchises all who stand neuter in a sedition; for it seems he would
not have any one remain insensible and regardless of the public good,
and, securing his private affairs, glory that he has no feeling of the
distempers of his country; but at once join with the good party and
those that have the right upon their side, assist and venture with them,
rather than keep out of harm's way and watch who would get the better.
It seems an absurd and foolish law which permits an heiress, if her
lawful husband fail her, to take his nearest kinsman; yet some say this
law was well contrived against those, who, conscious of their own
unfitness, yet, for the sake of the portion, would match with heiresses,
and make use of law to put a violence upon nature; for now, since she
can quit him for whom she pleases, they would either abstain from such
marriages, or continue them with disgrace, and suffer for their
covetousness and designed affront; it is well done, moreover, to confine
her to her husband's nearest kinsman, that the children may be of the
same family. Agreeable to this is the law that the bride and bridegroom
shall be shut into a chamber, and eat a quince together; and that the
husband of an heiress shall consort with her thrice a month; for though
there be no children, yet it is an honor and due affection which an
husband ought to pay to a virtuous, chaste wife; it takes off all petty
differences, and will not permit their little quarrels
to proceed to a rupture.

In all other marriages he forbade dowries to be given; the wife was to
have three suits of clothes, a little inconsiderable household stuff,
and that was all; for he would not have marriages contracted for gain or
an estate, but for pure love, kind affection, and birth of children.
When the mother of Dionysius desired him to marry her to one of his
citizens, "Indeed," said he, "by my tyranny I have broken my country's
laws, but cannot put a violence upon those of nature by an unseasonable
marriage."  Such disorder is never to be suffered in a commonwealth, nor
such unseasonable and unloving and unperforming marriages, which attain
no due end or fruit; any provident governor or lawgiver might say to an
old man that takes a young wife what is said to Philoctetes
in the tragedy,--

Truly, in a fit state thou to marry!

and if he finds a young man, with a rich and elderly wife, growing fat
in his place, like the partridges, remove him to a young woman of proper
age. And of this enough.

Another commendable law of Solon's is that which forbids men to speak
evil of the dead; for it is pious to think the deceased sacred, and
just, not to meddle with those that are gone, and politic, to prevent
the perpetuity of discord. He likewise forbade them to speak evil of
the living in the temples, the courts of justice, the public offices, or
at the games, or else to pay three drachmas to the person, and two to
the public. For never to be able to control passion shows a weak nature
and ill-breeding; and always to moderate it is very hard, and to some
impossible. And laws must look to possibilities, if the maker designs
to punish few in order to their amendment, and not many to no purpose.

He is likewise much commended for his law concerning wills; for before
him none could be made, but all the wealth and estate of the deceased
belonged to his family; but he, by permitting them, if they had no
children, to bestow it on whom they pleased, showed that he esteemed
friendship a stronger tie than kindred, and affection than necessity;
and made every man's estate truly his own. Yet he allowed not all sorts
of legacies, but those only which were not extorted by the frenzy of a
disease, charms, imprisonment, force, or the persuasions of a wife; with
good reason thinking that being seduced into wrong was as bad as being
forced, and that between deceit and necessity, flattery and compulsion,
there was little difference, since both may equally suspend
the exercise of reason.

He regulated the walks, feasts, and mourning of the women, and took away
everything that was either unbecoming or immodest; when they walked
abroad, no more than three articles of dress were allowed them; an
obol's worth of meat and drink; and no basket above a cubit high; and at
night they were not to go about unless in a chariot with a torch before
them. Mourners tearing themselves to raise pity, and set wailings, and
at one man's funeral to lament for another, he forbade. To offer an ox
at the grave was not permitted, nor to bury above three pieces of dress
with the body, or visit the tombs of any besides their own family,
unless at the very funeral; most of which are likewise forbidden by our
laws,@ but this is further added in ours, that those that are convicted
of extravagance in their mournings, are to be punished as soft and
effeminate by the censors of women.

Observing the city to be filled with persons that flocked from all parts
into Attica for security of living, and that most of the country was
barren and unfruitful, and that traders at sea import nothing to those
that could give them nothing in exchange, he turned his citizens to
trade, and made a law that no son should be obliged to relieve a father
who had not bred him up to any calling. It is true, Lycurgus, having a
city free from all strangers, and land, according to Euripides,

Large for large hosts, for twice their number much,

and, above all, an abundance of laborers about Sparta, who should not be
left idle, but be kept down with continual toil and work, did well to
take off his citizens from laborious and mechanical occupations, and
keep them to their arms, and teach them only the art of war. But Solon,
fitting his laws to the state of things, and not making things to suit
his laws, and finding the ground scarce rich enough to maintain the
husbandmen, and altogether incapable of feeding an unoccupied and
leisurely multitude, brought trades into credit, and ordered the
Areopagites to examine how every man got his living, and chastise the
idle. But that law was yet more rigid which, as Heraclides Ponticus
delivers, declared the sons of unmarried mothers not obliged to relieve
their fathers; for he that avoids the honorable form of union shows that
he does not take a woman for children, but for pleasure, and thus gets
his just reward, and has taken away from himself every title to upbraid
his children, to whom he has made their very birth
a scandal and reproach.

Solon's laws in general about women are his strangest; for he permitted
any one to kill an adulterer that found him in the act; but if any one
forced a free woman, a hundred drachmas was the fine; if he enticed her,
twenty; except those that sell themselves openly, that is, harlots, who
go openly to those that hire them. He made it unlawful to sell a
daughter or a sister, unless, being yet unmarried, she was found wanton.
Now it is irrational to punish the same crime sometimes very severely
and without remorse, and sometimes very lightly, and, as it were, in
sport, with a trivial fine; unless, there being little money then in
Athens, scarcity made those mulcts the more grievous punishment. In the
valuation for sacrifices, a sheep and a bushel were both estimated at a
drachma; the victor in the Isthmian games was to have for reward a
hundred drachmas; the conqueror in the Olympian, five hundred; he that
brought a wolf, five drachmas; for a whelp, one; the former sum, as
Demetrius the Phalerian asserts, was the value of an ox, the latter, of
a sheep. The prices which Solon, in his sixteenth table, sets on choice
victims, were naturally far greater; yet they, too, are very low in
comparison of the present. The Athenians were, from the beginning, great
enemies to wolves, their fields being better for pasture than corn.
Some affirm their tribes did not take their names from the sons of Ion,
but from the different sorts of occupation that they followed; the
soldiers were called Hoplitae, the craftsmen Ergades, and, of the
remaining two, the farmers Gedeontes,
and the shepherds and graziers Aegicores.

Since the country has but few rivers, lakes, or large springs, and many
used wells which they had dug, there was a law made, that, where there
was a public well within a hippicon, that is, four furlongs, all should
draw at that; but, when it was farther off, they should try and procure
a well of their own; and, if they had dug ten fathom deep and could find
no water, they had liberty to fetch a pitcherful of four gallons and a
half in a day from their neighbors'; for he thought it prudent to make
provision against want, but not to supply laziness. He showed skill in
his orders about planting, for any one that would plant another tree was
not to set it within five feet of his neighbor's field; but if a fig or
an olive, not within nine; for their roots spread farther, nor can they
be planted near all sorts of trees without damage, for they draw away
the nourishment, and in some cases are noxious by their effluvia. He
that would dig a pit or a ditch was to dig it at the distance of its own
depth from his neighbor's ground; and he that would raise stocks of bees
was not to place them within three hundred feet of those which another
had already raised.

He permitted only oil to be exported, and those that exported any other
fruit, the archon was solemnly to curse, or else pay an hundred drachmas
himself; and this law was written in his first table, and, therefore,
let none think it incredible, as some affirm, that the exportation of
figs was once unlawful, and the informer against the delinquents called
a sycophant. He made a law, also, concerning hurts and injuries from
beasts, in which he commands the master of any dog that bit a man to
deliver him up with a log about his neck, four and a half feet long; a
happy device for men's security. The law concerning naturalizing
strangers is of doubtful character; he permitted only those to be made
free of Athens who were in perpetual exile from their own country, or
came with their whole family to trade there; this he did, not to
discourage strangers, but rather to invite them to a permanent
participation in the privileges of the government; and, besides, he
thought those would prove the more faithful citizens who had been forced
from their own country, or voluntarily forsook it. The law of public
entertainment (parasitein is his name for it) is, also, peculiarly
Solon's, for if any man came often, or if he that was invited refused,
they were punished, for he concluded that one was greedy, the other a
contemner of the state.

All his laws he established for an hundred years, and wrote them on
wooden tables or rollers, named axones, which might be turned round in
oblong cases; some of their relics were in my time still to be seen in
the Prytaneum, or common hall, at Athens. These, as Aristotle states,
were called cyrbes, and there is a passage of Cratinus the comedian,

By Solon, and by Draco, if you please,
Whose Cyrbes make the fires that parch our peas.

But some say those are properly cyrbes, which contain laws concerning
sacrifices and the rites of religion, and all the others axones. The
council all jointly swore to confirm the laws, and every one of the
Thesmothetae vowed for himself at the stone in the marketplace, that, if
he broke any of the statutes, he would dedicate a golden statue, as big
as himself, at Delphi.

Observing the irregularity of the months, and that the moon does not
always rise and set with the sun, but often in the same day overtakes
and gets before him, he ordered the day should be named the Old and
New, attributing that part of it which was before the conjunction to
the old moon, and the rest to the new, he being the first, it seems,
that understood that verse of Homer,

The end and the beginning of the month,

and the following day he called the new moon. After the twentieth he
did not count by addition, but, like the moon itself in its wane, by
subtraction; thus up to the thirtieth.

Now when these laws were enacted, and some came to Solon every day, to
commend or dispraise them, and to advise, if possible, to leave out, or
put in something, and many criticized, and desired him to explain, and
tell the meaning of such and such a passage, he, knowing that to do it
was useless, and not to do it would get him ill-will, and desirous to
bring himself out of all straits, and to escape all displeasure and
exceptions, it being a hard thing, as he himself says,

In great affairs to satisfy all sides,

as an excuse for traveling, bought a trading vessel, and, having
obtained leave for ten years' absence, departed, hoping that by that
time his laws would have become familiar.

His first voyage was for Egypt, and he lived, as he himself says,

Near Nilus' mouth, by fair Canopus' shore,

and spent some time in study with Psenophis of Heliopolis, and Sonchis
the Saite, the most learned of all the priests; from whom, as Plato
says, getting knowledge of the Atlantic story, he put it into a poem,
and proposed to bring it to the knowledge of the Greeks. From thence he
sailed to Cyprus, where he was made much of by Philocyprus, one of the
kings there, who had a small city built by Demophon, Theseus's son, near
the river Clarius, in a strong situation, but incommodious and uneasy of
access. Solon persuaded him, since there lay a fair plain below, to
remove, and build there a pleasanter and more spacious city. And he
stayed himself, and assisted in gathering inhabitants, and in fitting it
both for defense and convenience of living; insomuch that many flocked
to Philocyprus, and the other kings imitated the design; and, therefore,
to honor Solon, he called the city Soli, which was formerly named Aepea.
And Solon himself, in his Elegies, addressing Philocyprus, mentions this
foundation in these words--

Long may you live, and fill the Solian throne,
Succeeded still by children of your own;
And from your happy island while I sail,
Let Cyprus send for me a favoring gale;
May she advance, and bless your new command,
Prosper your town, and send me safe to land.

That Solon should discourse with Croesus, some think not agreeable with
chronology; but I cannot reject so famous and well-attested a narrative,
and, what is more, so agreeable to Solon's temper, and so worthy his
wisdom and greatness of mind, because, forsooth, it does not agree with
some chronological canons, which thousands have endeavored to regulate,
and yet, to this day, could never bring their differing opinions to any
agreement. They say, therefore, that Solon, coming to Croesus at his
request, was in the same condition as an inland man when first he goes
to see the sea; for as he fancies every river he meets with to be the
ocean, so Solon, as he passed through the court, and saw a great many
nobles richly dressed, and proudly attended with a multitude of guards
and footboys, thought every one had been the king, till he was brought
to Croesus, who was decked with every possible rarity and curiosity, in
ornaments of jewels, purple, and gold, that could make a grand and
gorgeous spectacle of him. Now when Solon came before him, and seemed
not at all surprised, nor gave Croesus those compliments he expected,
but showed himself to all discerning eyes to be a man that despised the
gaudiness and petty ostentation of it, he commanded them to open all his
treasure houses, and carry him to see his sumptuous furniture and
luxuries though he did not wish it; Solon could judge of him well enough
by the first sight of him; and, when he returned from viewing all,
Croesus asked him if ever he had known a happier man than he. And when
Solon answered that he had known one Tellus, a fellow-citizen of his
own, and told him that this Tellus had been an honest man, had had good
children, a competent estate, and died bravely in battle for his
country, Croesus took him for an ill-bred fellow and a fool, for not
measuring happiness by the abundance of gold and silver, and preferring
the life and death of a private and mean man before so much power and
empire. He asked him, however, again, if, besides Tellus, he knew any
other man more happy. And Solon replying, Yes, Cleobis and Biton, who
were loving brothers, and extremely dutiful sons to their mother, and,
when the oxen delayed her, harnessed themselves to the wagon, and drew
her to Juno's temple, her neighbors all calling her happy, and she
herself rejoicing; then, after sacrificing and feasting, they went to
rest, and never rose again, but died in the midst of their honor a
painless and tranquil death, "What," said Croesus, angrily, "and dost
not thou reckon us amongst the happy men at all?"  Solon, unwilling
either to flatter or exasperate him more, replied, "The gods, O king,
have given the Greeks all other gifts in moderate degree; and so our
wisdom, too, is a cheerful and a homely, not a noble and kingly wisdom;
and this, observing the numerous misfortunes that attend all conditions,
forbids us to grow insolent upon our present enjoyments, or to admire
any man's happiness that may yet, in course of time, suffer change. For
the uncertain future has yet to come, with every possible variety of
fortune; and him only to whom the divinity has continued happiness unto
the end, we call happy; to salute as happy one that is still in the
midst of life and hazard, we think as little safe and conclusive as to
crown and proclaim as victorious the wrestler that is yet in the ring."
After this, he was dismissed, having given Croesus some pain,
but no instruction.

Aesop, who wrote the fables, being then at Sardis upon Croesus's
invitation, and very much esteemed, was concerned that Solon was so ill-
received, and gave him this advice: "Solon, let your converse with kings
be either short or seasonable."  "Nay, rather," replied Solon, "either
short or reasonable."  So at this time Croesus despised Solon; but when
he was overcome by Cyrus, had lost his city, was taken alive, condemned
to be burnt, and laid bound upon the pile before all the Persians and
Cyrus himself, he cried out as loud as possibly he could three times, "O
Solon!" and Cyrus being surprised, and sending some to inquire what man
or god this Solon was, whom alone he invoked in this extremity, Croesus
told him the whole story, saying, "He was one of the wise men of Greece,
whom I sent for, not to be instructed, or to learn any thing that I
wanted, but that he should see and be a witness of my happiness; the
loss of which was, it seems, to be a greater evil than the enjoyment was
a good; for when I had them they were goods only in opinion, but now the
loss of them has brought upon me intolerable and real evils. And he,
conjecturing from what then was, this that now is, bade me look to the
end of my life, and not rely and grow proud upon uncertainties."  When
this was told Cyrus, who was a wiser man than Croesus, and saw in the
present example Solon's maxim confirmed, he not only freed Croesus from
punishment, but honored him as long as he lived; and Solon had the
glory, by the same saying, to save one king and instruct another.

When Solon was gone, the citizens began to quarrel; Lycurgus headed the
Plain; Megacles, the son of Alcmaeon, those to the Sea-side; and
Pisistratus the Hill-party, in which were the poorest people, the
Thetes, and greatest enemies to the rich; insomuch that, though the city
still used the new laws, yet all looked for and desired a change of
government, hoping severally that the change would be better for them,
and put them above the contrary faction. Affairs standing thus, Solon
returned, and was reverenced by all, and honored; but his old age would
not permit him to be as active, and to speak in public, as formerly;
yet, by privately conferring with the heads of the factions, he
endeavored to compose the differences, Pisistratus appearing the most
tractable; for he was extremely smooth and engaging in his language, a
great friend to the poor, and moderate in his resentments; and what
nature had not given him, he had the skill to imitate; so that he was
trusted more than the others, being accounted a prudent and orderly man,
one that loved equality, and would be an enemy to any that moved against
the present settlement. Thus he deceived the majority of people; but
Solon quickly discovered his character, and found out his design before
any one else; yet did not hate him upon this, but endeavored to humble
him, and bring him off from his ambition, and often told him and others,
that if any one could banish the passion for preeminence from his mind,
and cure him of his desire of absolute power, none would make a more
virtuous man or a more excellent citizen. Thespis, at this time,
beginning to act tragedies, and the thing, because it was new, taking
very much with the multitude, though it was not yet made a matter of
competition, Solon, being by nature fond of hearing and learning
something new, and now, in his old age, living idly, and enjoying
himself, indeed, with music and with wine, went to see Thespis himself,
as the ancient custom was, act; and after the play was done, he
addressed him, and asked him if he was not ashamed to tell so many lies
before such a number of people; and Thespis replying that it was no harm
to say or do so in play, Solon vehemently struck his staff against the
ground: "Ay," said he, "if we honor and commend such play as this, we
shall find it some day in our business."

Now when Pisistratus, having wounded himself, was brought into the
marketplace in a chariot, and stirred up the people, as if he had been
thus treated by his opponents because of his political conduct, and a
great many were enraged and cried out, Solon, coming close to him, said,
"This, O son of Hippocrates, is a bad copy of Homer's Ulysses; you do,
to trick your countrymen, what he did to deceive his enemies."  After
this, the people were eager to protect Pisistratus, and met in an
assembly, where one Ariston making a motion that they should allow
Pisistratus fifty clubmen for a guard to his person, Solon opposed it,
and said, much to the same purport as what he has left us in his poems,

You dote upon his words and taking phrase;

and again,--

True, you are singly each a crafty soul,
But all together make one empty fool.

But observing the poor men bent to gratify Pisistratus, and tumultuous,
and the rich fearful and getting out of harm's way, he departed, saying
he was wiser than some and stouter than others; wiser than those that
did not understand the design, stouter than those that, though they
understood it, were afraid to oppose the tyranny. Now, the people,
having passed the law, were not nice with Pisistratus about the number
of his clubmen, but took no notice of it, though he enlisted and kept as
many as he would, until he seized the Acropolis. When that was done,
and the city in an uproar, Megacles, with all his family, at once fled;
but Solon, though he was now very old, and had none to back him, yet
came into the marketplace and made a speech to the citizens, partly
blaming their inadvertency and meanness of spirit, and in part urging
and exhorting them not thus tamely to lose their liberty; and likewise
then spoke that memorable saying, that, before, it was an easier task to
stop the rising tyranny, but now the greater and more glorious action to
destroy it, when it was begun already, and had gathered strength. But
all being afraid to side with him, he returned home, and, taking his
arms, he brought them out and laid them in the porch before his door,
with these words: "I have done my part to maintain my country and my
laws," and then he busied himself no more. His friends advising him to
fly, he refused; but wrote poems,
and thus reproached the Athenians in them,--

If now you suffer, do not blame the Powers,
For they are good, and all the fault was ours.
All the strongholds you put into his hands,
And now his slaves must do what he commands.

And many telling him that the tyrant would take his life for this, and
asking what he trusted to, that he ventured to speak so boldly, he
replied, "To my old age."  But Pisistratus, having got the command, so
extremely courted Solon, so honored him, obliged him, and sent to see
him, that Solon gave him his advice, and approved many of his actions;
for he retained most of Solon's laws, observed them himself, and
compelled his friends to obey. And he himself, though already absolute
ruler, being accused of murder before the Areopagus, came quietly to
clear himself; but his accuser did not appear. And he added other laws,
one of which is that the maimed in the wars should be maintained at the
public charge; this Heraclides Ponticus records, and that Pisistratus
followed Solon's example in this, who had decreed it in the case of one
Thersippus, that was maimed; and Theophrastus asserts that it was
Pisistratus, not Solon, that made that law against laziness, which was
the reason that the country was more productive,
and the city tranquiller.

Now Solon, having begun the great work in verse, the history or fable of
the Atlantic Island, which he had learned from the wise men in Sais, and
thought convenient for the Athenians to know, abandoned it; not, as
Plato says, by reason of want of time, but because of his age, and being
discouraged at the greatness of the task; for that he had leisure
enough, such verses testify, as

Each day grow older, and learn something new

and again,--

But now the Powers of Beauty, Song, and Wine,
Which are most men's delights, are also mine.

Plato, willing to improve the story of the Atlantic Island, as if it
were a fair estate that wanted an heir and came with some title to him,
formed, indeed, stately entrances, noble enclosures, large courts, such
as never yet introduced any story, fable, or poetic fiction; but,
beginning it late, ended his life before his work; and the reader's
regret for the unfinished part is the greater, as the satisfaction he
takes in that which is complete is extraordinary. For as the city of
Athens left only the temple of Jupiter Olympius unfinished, so Plato,
amongst all his excellent works, left this only piece about the Atlantic
Island imperfect. Solon lived after Pisistratus seized the government,
as Heraclides Ponticus asserts, a long time; but Phanias the Eresian
says not two full years; for Pisistratus began his tyranny when Comias
was archon, and Phanias says Solon died under Hegestratus, who succeeded
Comias. The story that his ashes were scattered about the island
Salamis is too strange to be easily believed, or be thought anything
but a mere fable; and yet it is given, amongst other good authors, by
Aristotle, the philosopher.

POPLICOLA

Such was Solon. To him we compare Poplicola, who received this later
title from the Roman people for his merit, as a noble accession to his
former name, Publius Valerius. He descended from Valerius, a man
amongst the early citizens, reputed the principal reconciler of the
differences betwixt the Romans and Sabines, and one that was most
instrumental in persuading their kings to assent to peace and union.
Thus descended, Publius Valerius, as it is said, whilst Rome remained
under its kingly government, obtained as great a name from his eloquence
as from his riches, charitably employing the one in liberal aid to the
poor, the other with integrity and freedom in the service of justice;
thereby giving assurance, that, should the government fall into a
republic, he would become a chief man in the community. The illegal and
wicked accession of Tarquinius Superbus to the crown, with his making
it, instead of kingly rule, the instrument of insolence and tyranny,
having inspired the people with a hatred to his reign, upon the death of
Lucretia (she killing herself after violence had been done to her), they
took an occasion of revolt; and Lucius Brutus, engaging in the change,
came to Valerius before all others, and, with his zealous assistance,
deposed the kings. And whilst the people inclined towards the electing
one leader instead of their king, Valerius acquiesced, that to rule was
rather Brutus's due, as the author of the democracy. But when the name
of monarchy was odious to the people, and a divided power appeared more
grateful in the prospect, and two were chosen to hold it, Valerius,
entertaining hopes that he might be elected consul with Brutus, was
disappointed; for, instead of Valerius, notwithstanding the endeavors of
Brutus, Tarquinius Collatinus was chosen, the husband of Lucretia, a man
noways his superior in merit. But the nobles, dreading the return of
their kings, who still used all endeavors abroad and solicitations at
home, were resolved upon a chieftain of an intense hatred to them, and
noways likely to yield.

Now Valerius was troubled, that his desire to serve his country should
be doubted, because he had sustained no private injury from the
insolence of the tyrants. He withdrew from the senate and practice of
the bar, quitting all public concerns; which gave an occasion of
discourse, and fear, too, lest his anger should reconcile him to the
king's side, and he should prove the ruin of the state, tottering as yet
under the uncertainties of a change. But Brutus being doubtful of some
others, and determining to give the test to the senate upon the altars,
upon the day appointed Valerius came with cheerfulness into the forum,
and was the first man that took the oath, in no way to submit or yield
to Tarquin's propositions, but rig