Part 3

By right of the might of her wonderful armies, Rome made herself “Mistress of the World.” So the patricians and the freemen looked with contempt upon other nations and said to themselves, “To be a Roman is greater than to be a king.” The patricians were the proudest Romans, and the Cæsars were among the haughtiest patricians. Their family belonged to the rich, ruling class when little Julius was born.

Of course, there was no such thing as the Christian religion in Julius Cæsar’s day. The only believers in the one true God were the Jews, who lived in the little, far-off country now called the Holy Land. The best educated Romans believed in Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Venus, and many other deities who, they imagined, were ruling over them, and who were as selfish and cruel as the Romans themselves.

There were no public schools for children in Rome. Instead of millions of printed books, there were a few rolls of parchment on which Latin words were printed very slowly by hand. Instead of using paper to write on, the Romans scratched their letters and messages on tablets of wax with large needles. As there were no newspapers then, the people learned what was going on in the world by word of mouth from speakers in the Forum, an open city square with a stone platform, around which crowded thousands of listeners.

The highest ambition of the youthful Julius Cæsar was to speak well to the people in the Forum and to win their friendship. He grew to be a tall, handsome, brilliant young man. He was not rich, and while his friends led lives of ease and pleasure, this young Cæsar studied hard. He learned to read and speak Greek, because then the greatest poems, orations, and plays were in that language. He traveled thousands of miles, to Greece and Asia Minor, to learn to be a good speaker and writer. And though he was a patrician, his real sympathy lay with the poor and the middle class, whose side he took almost from boyhood.

The Romans governed themselves, in some ways, as the people of the United States do to-day. That is, their consuls, or governors, were elected by the patricians and the free men. Sometimes the patricians were in power; at other times, the people of the middle class succeeded in electing their leaders. But in those cruel times the winning party sometimes killed the chiefs on the other side, and treated them all as if they were enemies at war. The uncle of Julius Cæsar had been one of the chiefs overthrown in such a civil war, and the young man inherited his uncle’s love for the cause of the common people.

The first deed of Cæsar that brought him into public notice took place while he was traveling in the East. A crew of pirates, or sea robbers, captured him and held him prisoner until a large sum of money, or a ransom, should be paid. Julius Cæsar succeeded in raising the amount and paid it to them to set him free. But before he left the pirates he told them that if he ever caught them he would have his revenge. Then he went and collected men and ships, caught his former captors, won back his ransom money, and ordered the ring-leaders crucified. Crucifixion was the Roman penalty for pirates and other thieves.

From the time Julius Cæsar was thirty years old, he was constantly in one office or another in the Roman republic. One early position was that of director of shows and sports. The Romans had theaters, with seats of stone rising one behind another from the central space, like the seats in a circus or college stadium. Here thousands of people could see and hear actors, poets, orators, and debaters. One of these theaters was so large that eighty thousand people could witness the games at one time. Instead of football and baseball, the Romans had running races and wrestling matches by athletes and fighters who came from all parts of the world. Most of them were slaves. Among them were men called gladiators, who fought each other with swords until one or the other was killed. The cruel Romans liked this part of the sport best.

Julius Cæsar provided such splendid shows and games that he made himself very popular with the people. He was elected to one office after another; and finally, after being sent as a kind of governor to Spain, was chosen one of the two consuls. The office of consul was the highest in Rome, and was somewhat similar to our president. When his term expired, Cæsar was made governor over the Gauls, a half savage people who lived in the country that is now northern Italy, Switzerland, and France.

During the nine years while Cæsar was in Gaul, he had to fight many battles and conquer many dangerous tribes. Besides that, he crossed to the island of Britain, now called England. But Cæsar was kind to his enemies and prisoners. His “Journal,” which tells of his wars in Gaul, is read to-day as one of the simplest and best books ever written.

His wonderful victories and great kindnesses made Cæsar the idol of the people. But he had enemies at home, and a rival, another great general named Pompey. The Senate were on the side of Pompey, and at last they decreed that if Cæsar did not give up his command and dismiss his army by a certain day, he would be called an enemy of the country. Pompey and the Senate were against the poorer classes, and Cæsar knew that if he yielded to this command, the common people, whose friend he was, would lose their freedom. So instead of disbanding his army he marched it to the borders of Italy. He stopped on the bank of a little river called the Rubicon. Anyone who crossed that river with an army was considered an enemy of Rome. When Cæsar decided to cross the river and advance with his army against the city, he exclaimed, “The die is cast!” His words meant that he could no more go back than a die, once thrown out of the dice-box, can be taken back. Nowadays, when a man decides to do something which may bring great loss to him if he does not win, and from which he cannot draw back, once he has begun, he is said to have “crossed the Rubicon.”

Cæsar’s fortunes, however, did not desert him, and he succeeded in driving Pompey away and finally conquering him. Within three years, after many victorious battles in Greece and Egypt and Asia Minor, he returned to Rome in triumph. By this time the Senate were willing to do anything for him that he wanted, and the adoring people chose him Dictator for ten years. That meant that although he was not called king he had almost the same power as a king.

Two of Cæsar’s sayings are often quoted. Once, when he was pursuing Pompey, he started on a voyage when a storm seemed to be coming up. The sailors were afraid to cross the sea, but he said to them, “You carry Cæsar and his fortunes!” They set sail at once and reached the other side in safety. At another time he caught an escaping army in Asia. He announced this victory in three words: “Veni, Vidi, Vici,” the meaning of which was, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

By his policy of kindness to the people as dictator, Cæsar so won their love that they came even to worship him as one of their gods. The month in the year in which he was born was at this time named in his honor, for our word July is a shortened form of Julius. He governed Rome well and made many useful changes. One thing that he did was to arrange the calendar, which before this time was very clumsy. It was he who divided the year into months of so many days each, very much as it is divided now.

The climax of Cæsar’s popularity was reached when he was offered a crown, to show that the people of Rome wished him to be their king. He refused this honor three times in public. But not all the men of Rome shared in this admiration of Cæsar, for one party, some of whom had been his friends, felt that his growing power was not good for Rome. They wanted their country to be a republic, and not to be ruled by a king. So they began to plot against Cæsar.

On the fifteenth of March, 44 B. C., just as Cæsar was about to take his seat in the presence of the Roman Senate, a group of men gathered round and began plunging their daggers into his body. Among them was Marcus Brutus, for whom Cæsar had done many kindnesses. When Cæsar saw Brutus with his dagger raised to stab him to the heart, he exclaimed with a sad smile, “And thou too, Brutus!” Then, covering his face with his mantle, he fell down and died. Of the twenty-three knife wounds that were found in Cæsar’s body, Shakespeare wrote that the stab of Brutus was “the most unkindest cut of all.”

Although Cæsar was murdered to keep him from bearing the name of king, the mightiest monarchs of modern times took the name of Cæsar as the highest title a king could have--as the “Kaiser” of Germany and the “C-zar” of Russia. When these two recent Cæsars were put down, there remained no ruler in Europe who believed in governing by the cruel Roman law that “Might makes Right.”

HEROES OF THE MIDDLE AGES

THE CHRISTMAS CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE

About twelve hundred years ago, thousands of Saracens, who were among the followers of Mohammed, crossed the narrow strait from Africa into Spain. The world was then coming out of those centuries of ignorance and fear which are known as the Dark Ages. The dark-skinned people--Arabs and Africans--who followed Mohammed, went about converting people by making them prostrate themselves with their faces turned toward the East and repeat the Mohammedan creed. Those who refused to bow down and repeat this creed were killed. Of course everyone was very much afraid of missionaries who used such methods as these, and large parts of Asia and Africa had come under Mohammedan control. When they reached the shores of Spain, they thought they were going to convert and conquer Europe, too.

The Saracens marched north through Spain and into the country of the Franks, whose great-great-great-grandchildren are the French people of to-day. Here the victory of the invaders ceased to be so easy, for they were met by a certain Duke Charles, who beat them in a great battle near Tours and drove them back. For his bravery in saving Europe from these dark-skinned enemies, Duke Charles was named Martel, the Franks’ word for “hammer.”

Charles the Hammer had a son, Pepin, who was called the Short, because he was not a tall man. But though he was small, Pepin had a big, brave heart. He fought for his country against the Lombards, a savage people in North Italy, and he was rewarded for his valor and success by being made king of the Franks.

When Pepin was crowned by the Pope, he had a son Charles, twelve years old. This Charles was so ambitious that, even while a boy, he began to dream of conquering other nations, and becoming king not only of France but of other lands as well. All through his boyhood he dreamed of what he would do if he were king. It was not many years after his father’s death, when he became king in fact, before Charles Martel’s grandson had conquered so many nations in the south and so many savage tribes in the north of Europe that he became a king of kings, or emperor, and received the title of Charlemagne, which means Charles the Great.

Perhaps the best thing that Charlemagne ever did was to keep Alcuin, a scholar from Britain, at his court as a trusted friend and teacher. In those days such men in other kings’ palaces were merely chaplains or religious teachers, but Alcuin taught the king, the queen, and the princes grammar, spelling, arithmetic, and other common branches. This Palace School proved to be such a good thing that the emperor ordered that not only any child of a nobleman, but even of the poorest peasant, could come to it if the boy showed talent for learning. The books in the Palace School were printed very slowly with a pen, sometimes in bright inks and gold. As there were no public libraries in those days, Alcuin searched the world for books for his pupils. These parchments were rare and very costly. Instead of Charles’s children going to school, the Palace School went with the children, as the emperor moved from place to place and from palace to palace.

Charlemagne’s armies were led by brave knights called paladins. The foremost of these paladins were Roland and Oliver, who fought in combats and tournaments. They were both of heroic size, eight feet tall, and performed the same feats, so that one could not be distinguished from the other. A story is told of these two having fought five days on an island in the River Rhine without either of them gaining the least advantage over the other; so now, when two men are equal in some great struggle, people exclaim--“A Roland for an Oliver!”

Roland, also called Orlando, was the chief hero, and Oliver seems to have been his reflection or shadow. Roland was a nephew of Charlemagne. He is described in the “Song of Roland” as having a wonderful horse, a miraculous saber, and a magic horn, which he blew so that it could be heard thirty miles. The greatest story told of him is that he commanded the rear guard of Charlemagne’s army as they were returning from Spain through a pass in the Pyrenees Mountains. Set upon by 100,000 Saracens, Roland blew his magic horn so that his uncle the emperor heard it eight miles away.

In the advancing guard with Charlemagne, however, lurked an evil genius, who told the anxious emperor that Roland’s horn was not a signal of distress, but that his nephew was hunting stags in the mountains. Roland fought until the 100,000 Saracens were slain, and he had only fifty of his 20,000 soldiers left. Then 50,000 more Saracens came out of the mountains and killed the brave paladin and his fifty men. While Roland was dying of his wounds, this legend goes on, he threw his magic sword into

a poisoned stream. Another version of the story is that Roland died of starvation while trying to find his way, wounded and alone, through the mountains to catch up with the army.

Charlemagne and his valiant paladins rode and fought in all parts of Europe, beating the savage Germans beyond the Rhine, and conquering tribes and peoples all over Europe almost as far as Constantinople, the great capital of the Eastern Empire. At last the dream of the twelve-year-old lad at his father’s crowning came true, when Charlemagne himself was crowned at Rome, the city of the Cæsars, as Emperor of the Western World, on Christmas Day, in the year of our Lord 800.

It is written that the crowning of Charlemagne was prepared as a surprise to him by the Pope and his people in Rome. While Charles and his sons were kneeling before a shrine very early on that Christmas morning, Pope Leo appeared in the great church with a crown of gold set with many precious gems, and placed it on the head of the kneeling king, thus proclaiming him Emperor of the Western World. In an instant the Pope, the cardinals, the priests, and the people rose from their knees and chanted these words:

“To Charles the Augustus, crowned of God, the great and pacific emperor, long life and victory!”

Charlemagne was a wise and good emperor who did many things to help his people. He built a lighthouse at Boulogne to guide ships to port, encouraged farming and made wise laws. He was kind to scholars and his favorite recreation was talking to them. He spoke several languages very well and wrote a great deal. Among his writings were a grammar, poems in Latin and many letters.

ALFRED, THE GREATEST OF THE SAXON KINGS

Over one thousand years ago, the king of the West Saxons on the island of Britain, now England, had four sons. Alfred, the youngest of these, was his father’s favorite. When this boy was only five, his royal father sent him to Rome to be confirmed by the Pope. After Alfred came back his queen-mother died, and the father made a pilgrimage, or religious journey, to Rome, taking young Prince Alfred, with many court gentlemen, soldiers, and servants.

On their way the king and his train were given a royal welcome by the king of France. Alfred’s father fell in love with the beautiful young daughter of the French king, and asked her hand in marriage. Her father consented, so the royal wedding took place on the Saxon king’s return from Rome.

Alfred’s new mother soon became very fond of him. Young as he was, he had learned to play the harp. But when he was twelve years old, Alfred had not been taught to read. Saxon kings and princes thought most kinds of learning were for priests and lawyers. When gentlemen made contracts or signed law papers, they did not write their names, but “set their signs and seals thereunto,” as is done to-day in legal documents. All the books were written on parchments in Latin.

One day Alfred saw his French stepmother reading a roll of parchment on which Latin words were printed by hand in many colors. As the lad admired it, the queen told him she would make him a present of the scroll as soon as he learned to read and understand it. He went right out and coaxed a monk, or priest, to teach him Latin, and he soon became the happy owner of the beautiful parchment.

Learning to read opened a new world to Prince Alfred. He wrote verses and songs for his harp, and began to compose both words and music of hymns to be sung in the cathedral near his father’s palace.

When Alfred was fourteen his father died. Each of his three older brothers became king, one after another, and died within a few years.

Alfred was twenty-two when the last brother died and left him to be king. Some rough people, called Danes, from the north countries across the sea, had landed on the island of Britain, and the Saxons were compelled to give battle to them so as not to be killed or made slaves to those rough Northmen. So Alfred had to fight to keep on being king. When he began to reign, he ruled like all the other kings he had known. His father and brothers had treated the people as if they were made only to work and pay their way, like cattle; so Alfred did the same at first.

The fierce Danes kept coming over in larger numbers. In a hard-fought battle, Alfred was defeated and most of his army was slain. Flying for his life, the young king found a hiding place in the hut of a swineherd, a man who tends hogs. This man knew who Alfred was, but kept the king’s secret from his wife, who thought the stranger was a poor soldier from the Saxon army.

Many stories are told of what the king did while he lived in the hut of this swineherd. These tales have changed so much, all the hundreds of years which have passed since Alfred’s time, that they are called legends. The best known of these is the story of the king and the cakes. Once when the housewife was going out to do some work, she asked him, while he was fixing his bow and arrows, to mind the cakes she had left baking in the ashes of the fireplace. The distracted king’s mind was on higher things than coarse meal cakes. When the woman came in she found them burning. She was so angry that she called Alfred a good-for-nothing beggar, and added that if he could not pay for what she gave him to eat, he ought at least to look after her cakes a little while.

Alfred had the good sense to see his own conduct through the poor woman’s eyes. So, instead of being angry or telling her who he was, he said gently, “I am sorry I was so careless. I will try not to forget again.”

“A soft answer turneth away wrath,” Alfred had read in the roll of Proverbs in his Latin Bible. It may have been during the long months he spent in the home of this shepherd that the humbled king decided to translate the best parts of the Bible into the Saxon language so that the people could read it.

Another story is that Alfred stayed in the hut alone while the family were away fishing. He had only a loaf of bread to last until their return. A beggar came and asked for bread. Alfred broke his little loaf in two, gave the man half, and ate his half with the beggar. The swineherd returned that day with fish enough for a family feast. In the night the beggar of the day before appeared, as an angel, to the captive king, and said that God had seen how Alfred had humbled his heart so that he was now fitted to rule his people wisely and well.

The Danish army was now encamped not far from the king’s hiding place. Encouraged by the vision of the shining pilgrim, Alfred started out to see for himself how strong the enemy were and what they were going to do. So he disguised himself as a wandering musician, playing a harp. He played and sang for the Danish soldiers, and was soon taken before their fierce leader, like David, with his harp, before King Saul. The Danes were so pleased with him and his music that they asked him to stay with them. As soon as he had found out all he wanted to know, he took up his harp and left the camp of the enemy. The Danes invited him to come again.

Hurrying back to the swineherd’s hut, Alfred sent word to the leaders among his people that he was alive and ready to go on with the war against the Danes. The people had been in despair, for they had believed that their brave young king was dead.

The Saxon chiefs came at once and knelt to King Alfred. When the poor woman realized who her guest was, she fell on her knees and begged him to forgive all she had said to him. Alfred lifted her tenderly from the ground, and told her he would reward her and her loyal husband when he was safe on his throne again.

The Danish army was astonished, early one morning, to hear three trumpet blasts, and to see a great army of Saxon soldiers marching to meet them, led by that wandering minstrel! Of course, the Saxons gained the victory and made the Danes promise not to come and attack them again. They agreed, but did not keep their word long. After that, instead of waiting for the Danes to land in Britain, King Alfred fitted up a fleet of ships so that he could go out and fight them on the sea. This has been called “the beginning of the British navy.”

Then Alfred improved the years of peace by making laws which allowed the people more rights and privileges. He invented a simple clock of candles, by which the people could tell the time of day. He rebuilt the towns that had been destroyed in the war and trained his people not only to fight but to till their farms. He made wise laws and did much to educate his subjects by having books translated from the Latin into Anglo-Saxon, the language of the Saxons. Best of all, he translated the Bible into the language of the people. Because of all the acts which taught the people how to make their lives better and happier he is known in history as Alfred the Great. In one of his histories, King Alfred wrote what he tried to do in his own life:

“My will was to live worthily as long as I lived and, after my life, to leave to them that should come after, my memory in good works.”

HOW WILLIAM OF NORMANDY CONQUERED A KINGDOM

When the first son was born to Robert, Duke of Normandy, and Arlette, the daughter of a tanner, the nurse laid the day-old baby on the straw carpet of the castle. In those days most of the floors of the houses, whether huts or castles, were of earth or stone, covered with straw which could be cleared out, as from a modern stable, to allow fresh straw to be laid down. When placed on the floor in his little blanket, Baby William reached out and clutched some of the straws so tightly in his small pink fists that one of those who noticed smiled and said, “He will take fast hold on everything he lays his hands on when he grows up.”

When William was seven, Duke Robert, his father, being about to make the voyage to the Holy Land, called some of his nobles together and said, “I am resolved to journey to the place where our Lord Christ died and was buried. But because I know this journey is full of dangers, I would have it settled who should be duke if I should die.”