Part 7

6. But this Aryan troop that went southward is less interesting to us than companies that departed westward, for in these westward marching bands went the primeval forefathers from whose venerable loins we ourselves have proceeded. They passed into Western Asia, and from Asia into Europe--each migrating multitude impelled by a new swarm sent forth from the parent hive behind. At the head of the Adriatic Sea an Aryan troop had divided, sending down into the eastern peninsula the ancestors of the Greeks, and into the western peninsula the train destined to establish upon the seven hills the power of Rome. Already the Aryan pioneers, the Celts, on the outmost rocks of the western coast of Europe, were fretting against the barrier of storm and sea, across which they were not to find their way for many ages. Already Ph[oe]nician merchants, trading for amber in the far-off Baltic, had become aware of the wild Aryan tribes pressing to the northwest--the Teutons and Goths. Already, perhaps, upon the outlying spur of the Ural range, still other Aryans had fixed their hold, the progenitors of the Sclav. The aboriginal savage of Europe was already nearly extinct. His lance of flint had fallen harmless from the Aryan buckler; his rude altars had become displaced by the shrines of the new gods. In the Mediterranean Sea each sunny isle and pleasant promontory had long been in Aryan hands, and now in the wintry forests to the northward the resistless multitudes had more recently fixed their seats.

7. In the Macedonians, the Aryans, having established their dominion in Europe, march back upon the track which their forefathers long before had followed westward; and now it is that the Hebrews become involved with the race that from that day to this has been the master-race of the world. It was a contact taking place under circumstances, it would seem, the most auspicious--the venerable old man and the beautiful Greek youth clasping hands, the ruthless followers of the conqueror baffled in their hopes of booty, the multitudes of Jerusalem, in their robes of peace, filling the air with acclamations, as Alexander rode from the place of prospect, upon the heights of Zion, into the solemn precincts of the Temple.

8. The successors of Alexander the Great made the Jews a link between the Hellenic populations that had become widely scattered throughout the East by the Macedonian conquests, and the great barbarian races among whom the Greeks had placed themselves. The dispersion of the Jews, which had already taken place to such an extent through the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, went forward now more vigorously. Throughout Western Asia they were found everywhere, but it was in Egypt that they attained the highest prosperity and honor. The one city, Alexandria alone, is said to have contained at length a million Jews, whom the Greek kings of Egypt, the Ptolemies, preferred in every way to the native population. Elsewhere, too, they were favored, and hence they were everywhere hated; and the hatred assumed a deeper bitterness from the fact that the Jew always remained a Jew, marked in garb, in feature, in religious faith, always scornfully asserting the claim that he was the chosen of the Lord. Palestine became incorporated with the empire of the Seleucidæ, the Macedonian princes to whom had fallen Western Asia. Oppression at last succeeded the earlier favor, the defenses of Jerusalem were demolished, and the Temple defiled with pagan ceremonies; and now it is that we reach some of the finest figures in Hebrew history, the great high-priests, the Maccabees.

9. There dwelt at the town of Modin a priest, Mattathias, the descendant of Asmonæus, to whom had been born five sons--John, Simon, Judas Maccabæus, or the Hammer, Eleazar, and Jonathan. Mattathias lamented the ravaging of the land and the plunder of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes, and when, in the year 167 B. C., the Macedonian king sent to Modin to have sacrifices offered, the Asmonæan returned a spirited reply. "Thou art a ruler," said the king's officers, "and an honorable and great man in this city, and strengthened with sons and brethren. Now, therefore, come thou first: so shalt thou and thy house be in number of the king's friends, and thou and thy children shall be honored with silver and gold and many rewards." But Mattathias replied with a loud voice: "Though all the nations that are under the king's dominions obey him, and fall away every one from the religion of their fathers, yet will I and my sons and my brethren, walk in the covenant of our fathers. God forbid that we should forsake the law and the ordinances! We will not hearken to the king's words to go from our religion, either on the right hand or the left."

10. An heroic struggle for freedom at once began, which opened for the Jews full of sadness. An apostate Jew, approaching to offer sacrifice in compliance with the command of Antiochus, was at once slain by Mattathias, who struck down also Apelles, the king's general, with some of his soldiers. As he fled with his sons into the desert, leaving his substance behind him, many of the faithful Israelites followed, pursued by the Macedonians seeking revenge. The oppressors knew well how to choose their time. Attacking on the Sabbath-day, when, according to old tradition, it was a transgression even to defend one's life, a thousand with their wives and children were burned and smothered in the caves in which they had taken refuge. But Mattathias, rallying those that remained, taught them to fight on the Sabbath, and at all times. The heathen altars were overthrown, the breakers of the law were slain, the uncircumcised boys were everywhere circumcised. But the fullness of time approached for Mattathias; after a year his day of death had come, and these were his parting words to his sons: "I know that your brother Simon is a man of counsel; give ear unto him always; he shall be a father unto you. As for Judas Maccabæus, he hath been mighty and strong even from his youth up; let him be your captain and fight the battles of the people. Admit among you the righteous."

11. No sooner had the father departed, than it appeared that the captain whom he had designated was a man as mighty as the great champions of old, Joshua and Gideon and Samson. He forthwith smote with defeat Apollonius, the general in the Samaritan country, and when he had slain the Greek he took his sword for his own. Seron, general of the army in C[oe]le-Syria, came against him with a host of Macedonians strengthened by apostate Jews. The men of Judas Maccabæus were few in number, without food, and faint-hearted, but he inspired them with his own zeal, and overthrew the new foes at Bethoron. King Antiochus, being now called eastward to Persia, committed military matters in Palestine to the viceroy, Lysias, with orders to take an army with elephants and conquer Judea, enslave its people, destroy Jerusalem, and abolish the nation. At once the new invaders were upon the land; of foot-soldiers there were forty thousand, of horsemen seven thousand, and as they advanced many Syrians and renegade Jews joined them. Merchants marched with the army, with money to buy the captives as slaves, and chains with which to bind those whom they purchased. But Judas Maccabæus was no whit dismayed. Causing his soldiers to array themselves in sackcloth, he made them pray to Jehovah. He dismissed those lately married, and those who had newly come into great possessions, as likely to be faint-hearted. After addressing those that remained, he set them in the ancient order of battle, and waited the opportunity to strike.

12. The hostile general, fancying he saw an opportunity to surprise the little band of Hebrews, sent a portion of his host against them, by secret ways at night. But the spies of Judas were out. Leaving the fires burning brightly in his camp, to lure forward those who were commissioned to attack him, he rushed forth under the shadows against the main body, weakened by the absence of the detachment. He forced their position, though strongly defended, overcame the army; then turned back to scatter utterly the other party who were seeking him in the abandoned camp. He took great booty of gold and silver, and of raiment purple and blue. He marched home in great joy to the villages of Judea, singing hymns to God, as was done in the days of Miriam, long before, because they had triumphed gloriously.

13. The next year Lysias advanced from Antioch, the Syrian capital, with a force of sixty-five thousand. Judas Maccabæus, with ten thousand, overthrew his vanguard, upon which the viceroy, terrified at the desperate fighting, retired to assemble a still greater army. For a time there was a respite from war, during which Judas counseled the people to purify the Temple. The Israelites, overjoyed at the revival of their ancient customs, the restoration of the old worship in all its purity, and the relief from foreign oppressors, celebrated for eight days a magnificent festival. The lamps in the Temple porches were rekindled to the sound of instruments and the chant of the Levites. But one vial of oil could be found, when, lo, a miracle! the one vial sufficed for the supply of the seven-branched golden candlestick for a week. This ancient Maccabæan festival faithful Jews still celebrate under the name of the Hanoukhah, the Feast of Lights.

14. Judas subdues also the Idumeans of the southward, and the Ammonites. His brethren, too, have become mighty men of valor. Jonathan crosses the Jordan with him and campaigns against the tribes to the eastward. Eleazar is a valiant soldier, and Simon carries succor to the Jews in Galilee. But at length the Macedonian is again at hand, more terrible than before. The foot are a hundred thousand, the horse twenty thousand; and as rallying-points, thirty-two elephants tower among the ranks. About each one of the huge beasts is collected a troop of a thousand foot and five hundred horse; high turrets upon their backs are occupied by archers; their great flanks and limbs are cased in plates of steel. The host show their golden and brazen shields, making in the sun a glorious splendor, and shout in exultation so that the mountains echo. In the battle that follows Fortune does not altogether favor the Jews. In particular, the champion Eleazar lays down his life. He had attacked the largest elephant, a creature covered with plated armor, and carrying upon his back a whole troop of combatants, among whom it was believed that the king himself fought. Eleazar had slain those in the neighborhood, then, creeping beneath the belly of the elephant, had pierced him. As the brute fell, Eleazar was crushed in the fall. Judas was forced to retire within the defenses of Jerusalem, where still further disaster seemed likely to overcome him. Dissensions among themselves, however, weakened the Macedonians. Peace was offered the Jews, and permission to live according to the law of their fathers--proposals which were gladly accepted, although the invaders razed the defenses of the Temple.

15. The peace was not enduring. New Macedonian invasions followed; new Hebrew successes, the Maccabees and their partisans making up, by their fierce zeal, their military skill, and dauntless valor, for their want of numbers. But a sad day came at last. Judas, twenty times outnumbered, confronts the leader Bacchides in Galilee. The Greek sets horsemen on both wings, his light troops and archers before the heavier phalanx, and takes his own station on the right. The Jewish hero is valiant as ever; the right wing of the enemy turns to flee. The left and center, however, encompass him, and he falls, fighting gloriously, having earned a name of the most skillful and valorous of the world's great vindicators of freedom.

_James K. Hosmer. "The Story of the Jews."_ _Putnam's "Stories of the Nations" Series._

ROMAN RECORD.

_XXVI.--TARQUIN THE WICKED._

1. For his tyranny King Tarquin was banished from Rome about 500 B. C., and after his expulsion he sent messengers to Rome to ask that his property should be given up to him, and the senate decreed that his prayer should be granted. But the king's ambassadors, while they were in Rome, stirred up the minds of the young men and others who had been favored by Tarquin, so that a plot was made to bring him back. Among those who plotted were Titus and Tiberius, the sons of the consul Brutus; and they gave letters to the messengers of the king. But it chanced that a certain slave hid himself in the place where they met, and overheard them plotting; and he came and told the thing to the consuls, who seized the messengers of the king with the letters upon their persons, authenticated by the seals of the young men. The culprits were immediately arrested; but the ambassadors were let go, because their persons were regarded as sacred. And the goods of King Tarquin were given up for plunder to the people.

2. Then the traitors were brought up before the consuls, and the sight was such as to move all beholders to pity; for among them were the sons of Lucius Junius Brutus himself, the first consul, the liberator of the Roman people. And now all men saw how Brutus loved his country; for he bade the lictors put all the traitors to death, and his own sons first; and men could mark in his face the struggle between his duty as a chief magistrate of Rome and his feelings as a father. And while they praised and admired him they pitied him yet more. This was the first attempt to restore Tarquin the Proud.

3. When Tarquin saw that the plot at home had failed, he prevailed on the people of Tarquinii and Veii to make war with him against the Romans. But the consuls came out against them; Valerius commanding the main army, and Brutus the cavalry. And it chanced that Aruns, the king's son, led the cavalry of the enemy. When he saw Brutus, he spurred his horse against him, and Brutus did not decline the combat. They rode straight at each other with leveled spears; and so fierce was the shock, that they pierced each other through from breast to back, and both fell dead.

4. Then, also, the armies fought, but the battle was neither won nor lost. But in the night a voice was heard by the Etruscans, saying that the Romans were the conquerers. So the enemy fled by night; and when the Romans arose in the morning, there was no man to oppose them. Then they took up the body of Brutus, and departed home, and buried him in public with great pomp.

5. And thus the second attempt to restore King Tarquin was frustrated. After the death of Brutus, Valerius, the remaining consul, ruled the people for awhile by himself, and began to build himself a house upon the ridge called Velia, which looks down upon the forum. So the people thought that he was going to make himself king; but when he heard this, he called an assembly of the people, and appeared before them with his fasces lowered, and with no axes in them, whence the custom remained ever after, that no consular lictors wore axes within the city, and no consul had power of life and death except when he was in command of his legions abroad. And he pulled down the beginning of his house upon the Velia, and built it below that hill. Also, he passed laws that every Roman citizen might appeal to the people against the judgment of the chief magistrates. Wherefore he was greatly honored among the people, and was called _Poplicola_, or _Friend of the People_.

6. After this Valerius called together the great assembly of the centuries, and they chose Spurius Lucretius, father of Lucretius, to succeed Brutus. But he was an old man, and not many days afterward he died, and Marcus Horatius was chosen in his stead.

7. The temple on the Capitol which King Tarquin began had never yet been consecrated. Then Valerius and Horatius drew lots which should be the consecrator, and the lot fell on Horatius. But the friends of Valerius murmured, and they wished to prevent Horatius from having the honor; so, when he was now saying the prayer of consecration, with his hand upon the door-post of the temple, there came a messenger who told him that his son was just dead, and that one mourning for a son could not rightly consecrate the temple. But Horatius kept his hand upon the door-post, and told them to see to the burial of his son, and finished the rite of consecration. Thus did he honor the gods even above his own son.

8. In the next year Valerius was again made consul, with Titus Lucretius; and Tarquin, despairing now of aid from his friends at Veii and Tarquinii, went to Lars Porsena of Clusium, a city on the river Clanis, which falls into the Tiber. Porsena was, at this time, acknowledged as chief of the twelve Etruscan cities; and he assembled a powerful army and came to Rome. He came so quickly that he reached the Tiber, and was near the Sublician Bridge before there was time to destroy it; and if he had crossed it the city would have been lost.

9. Then, a noble Roman, called Horatius Cocles, of the Lucerian tribe, with two friends--Spurius Lartius, a Ramnian, and Titus Herminius, a Titian--posted themselves at the far end of the bridge, and defended the passage against all the Etruscan host, while the Romans were cutting it off behind them. When it was all but destroyed, his two friends retreated across the bridge, and Horatius was left alone to bear the whole attack of the enemy. He kept his ground, standing unmoved amid the darts which were showered upon his shield, till the last beams of the bridge fell crashing into the river. Then he prayed, saying, "Father Tiber, receive me, and bear me up I pray thee." He then plunged in, and reached the other side safely; and the Romans honored him greatly: they put up his statue in the Comitium, and gave him as much land as he could plow round in a day, and every man at Rome subscribed the cost of one day's food to reward him.

_Liddell._

10. This story is told in very spirited verse by Macaulay, in his poem of Horatius:

HORATIUS.

1. Fast by the royal standard, O'erlooking all the war, Lars Porsena of Clusium Sate in his ivory car. By the right wheel rode Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name; And by the left false Sextus, That wrought the deed of shame.

2. But when the face of Sextus Was seen among the foes, A yell that rent the firmament From all the town arose. On the house-tops was no woman But spate toward him and hissed; No child but screamed out curses, And shook its little fist.

3. But the consul's brow was sad, And the consul's speech was low; And darkly looked he at the wall, And darkly at the foe. "Their van will be upon us Before the bridge goes down; And if they once may win the bridge, What hope to save the town?"

4. Then out spoke brave Horatius, The captain of the gate: "To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods!

5. "Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul With all the speed ye may; I, with two more to help me, Will hold the foe in play. In yon straight path a thousand May well be stopped by three. Now, who will stand on either hand, And keep the bridge with me?"

6. Then out spoke Spurius Lartius, A Ramnian proud was he: "Lo, I will stand on thy right hand, And keep the bridge with thee." And out spoke strong Herminius, Of Titian blood was he: "I will abide on thy left side, And keep the bridge with thee."

7. The three stood calm and silent, And looked upon the foes. And a great shout of laughter From all the vanguard rose: And forth three chiefs came spurring Before that mighty mass; To earth they sprang, their swords they drew And lifted high their shields, and flew To win the narrow pass.

8. Aunus from green Tifernum, Lord of the Hill of Tines; And Seius, whose eight hundred slaves Sicken in Ilva's mines; And Picus, long to Clusium Vassal in peace and war, Who led to fight his Umbrian powers From that gray crag where, girt with towers, The fortress of Nequinum lowers O'er the pale waves of Nar.

9. Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus Into the stream beneath; Herminius struck at Seius, And clove him to the teeth; At Picus brave Horatius Darted one fiery thrust, And the proud Umbrian's gilded arms Clashed in the bloody dust.

10. But meanwhile axe and lever Have manfully been plied, And now the bridge hangs tottering Above the boiling tide. "Come back, come back, Horatius," Loud cried the Fathers all. "Back, Lartius! back, Herminius! Back, ere the ruin fall!"

11. Back darted Spurius Lartius; Herminius darted back: And as they passed, beneath their feet They felt the timbers crack. But when they turned their faces, And on the further shore Saw brave Horatius stand alone, They would have crossed once more.

12. But with a crash like thunder Fell every loosened beam, And, like a dam, the mighty wreck Lay right athwart the stream; And a long shout of triumph Rose from the walls of Rome, As to the highest turret tops Was splashed the yellow foam.

13. Alone stood brave Horatius, But constant still in mind; Thrice thirty thousand foes before, And the broad flood behind. "Down with him!" cried false Sextus, With a smile on his pale face. "Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena, "Now yield thee to our grace."

14. Round turned he, as not deigning Those craven ranks to see; Naught spake he to Lars Porsena, To Sextus naught spake he; But he saw on Palatinus The white porch of his home, And he spake to the noble river That rolls by the towers of Rome.

15. "Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber! To whom the Romans pray, A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, Take thou in charge this day!" So he spoke, and speaking sheathed The good sword by his side, And with his harness on his back Plunged headlong in the tide.

16. But fiercely ran the current, Swollen high by months of rain; And fast his blood was flowing; And he was sore in pain, And heavy with his armor, And spent with changing blows: And oft they thought him sinking, But still again he rose.

17. And now he feels the bottom; Now on dry earth he stands; Now round him throng the fathers, To press his gory hands; And now with shouts and clapping, And noise of weeping loud, He enters through the River-gate, Borne by the joyous crowd.

18. And still his name sounds stirring Unto the men of Rome, As the trumpet-blast that cries to them To charge the Volscian home; And wives still pray to Juno For boys with hearts as bold As his who kept the bridge so well In the brave days of old.