Part 2

There were a few, however, who did not take this view. The first to suggest that some might go away was Marcus Colonus. He spoke of it to a little group of his friends while they were in the forest cutting wood. Sylvius, whose wife and children were killed when the stones fell, and Urso the shaggy hunter, who never feared anything, man or beast, and Muraena the metal-worker, a restless fellow who knew that he could get a living wherever men used plows and weapons, all agreed that if Colonus went they would go. If ten heads of households joined the party, it would make a clan. But first the head of the village must be consulted.

Old Vitalos was the grandfather of Marcus Colonus and related in one way or another to nearly every person in the village. When his grandson came to him and told what he had in mind, the old chief stroked his long white beard and did not answer at once. He seemed to be thinking, and he thought for a long time.

Before written histories, or pictured records, or even songs telling the history of a people, were in use, the memories of the old folk formed the only source of information that there was. As old men will, they told what they knew over and over again, and those who heard, even if they did not know they were remembering it, often remembered a story and told it over again, when their time came. The experiences and the wisdom that old Vitalos had gathered in the eighty years of his useful life were stored in his mind in layers, like silt in the bed of a river. Now he was digging down into his memory for something that had happened a long time ago.

When he had done thinking, he spoke.

“My son,” he said, “you tell me that you desire to go forth and make your home in another land.”

“I desire it not, my father,” said Colonus, “unless it is the will of the gods. I have thought that it may be best.”

He did not know it, but while the old man’s mind was busy with the past, his keen old eyes were busy with the strong, well-built figure, the stubborn chin and the fearless eye of this man of his own blood. Colonus walked with the long, sure step of the man who knows where he is going. The fingers of his hand were square-tipped and rugged, the kind that can work. He was Saturn’s own man, made to work the land and produce food for his people. He would not give up easily, nor would he be dismayed by difficulties.

“And where will you go?” was the chief’s next question.

“That I do not know,” said Colonus. “Yet something I do know. The mountain folk are not friends to us, and we should have to fight them. Their land is all one fortress, not easy to take. To the sea we will not go, for we know nothing of the ways of the sea-tamers. Perhaps our gods would not help us in those things, which are strange to our lives. There remains the plain beyond the marsh, where the river runs out of the valley. I have been there only once, but I remember it. Around it are mountains, and the plain itself is broken by low hills, as we have seen from our heights. In such a land we might live according to customs of our forefathers. The little hills can be defended, and if enemies come we can see them from far off. Is this a good plan that we make, my father?”

The patriarch looked at the fire on the altar, which burned in his house as in every other house of the village; then he looked keenly at his grandson.

“There are two ways of living in a strange place, Marcus Colonus,” he said. “One is, to live after the manner of those who are born there, obey their gods, learn their law, eat their food, work as they do, join in their feasts and their games. The other is to fight them, and drive them away, or make them your servants. Which is your choice?”

Colonus hesitated. “My father,” he said, “to take the first path, I must change my nature and become another man, which I would not do even if I could. Here or in another country, or in the moon if men could go there, I should be Colonus, the farmer,—not a sailor, or a trader, or any other man. To take the second way I must be leader of many fighting men, and this is not possible, since if we go we must take our wives and children. It is in my mind, my father, that there may be a middle way. If we hold to our own customs and are faithful to our own gods and to one another, surely the gods should keep faith with us. If we hurt not the people of the land where we go, but stand ready to defend ourselves against any who try to attack us, they may allow us to live as we please. If not, then must we fight for the right to live.”

The old chief smiled. “My son,” he said, “you are wise with the wisdom of youth. Yet sometimes that is better than the unbelief of age. It is better to die fighting strangers than to die by starvation, or to fall upon one another, and I have had fear that one or the other might happen here, for truly the land is changed. It may be that this plan of yours shall end in new branching out of our people, the Ramnes, and in new power to our gods,—and if so, surely the gods will lead you.

“Now I have a story to tell you, and you will give careful heed to it, and not speak of it lightly, but store it away in the secret places of your mind. Sit down here, close to me, for I do not wish to be heard by any listener.

“Many years ago, before you were born, or ever the road was made over the marsh or the bridge across the river, our people were at war with a strange people from the north. My son, whom you resemble, went to fight against them and did not come back. Whether he died in battle and was left on some unknown field we did not know. We never knew, until in after years, one who was taken prisoner with him came back, his hair white as snow, and told what he had seen.

“In that country of which you have spoken, where a plain stretches away toward the sea, and is guarded with mountains and divided by a yellow river, there are people who speak a language like ours and are sons of Mars, as we are. Some live in the hills and some in the plain, and some on the Long White Mountain. Beyond the river the people are strange in every way and their gods are also strange and terrible.

“Now among the people of the Long White Mountain was a chief with two sons, and when he died the elder should have been ruler in his place. But the younger one, an evil man, stole into his brother’s place and killed his sons, and forbade his daughter to marry. Here my son was taken as a captive, and he became a servant to that chief.

“The daughter of the elder brother was a fair woman, and my son was a strong and comely man, and in secret they married. Then did my son escape, thinking to come back with an army and bring away his wife with their twin boys. But the wicked chief discovered what had been done, and killed the mother and the children, and sent a war party after my son to kill him also. He could have escaped even then, for he crossed a river in flood by swimming. But when they called to him that his wife and her two sons were dead, he returned across the river and fought his pursuers until they killed him. Then he went to find his beloved in that unknown country which is neither land nor water and is full of ghosts.

“Now it is in my mind that if that evil chief is dead, the people of his country may welcome you among them. Or if he is not dead, and the elder brother still lives, he may be your friend, since we are of one race and speak one language. In any case it is well for you to know what has happened there in other days, for before we plant a field we desire to know whether wheat, or lentils, or thistles, or salt was last sown there. I was told also that the evil man who killed the mother and the babes declared that the father of the children was the god Mars himself, not wishing that any kinswoman of his should be known to be a wife to a captive and a stranger. Now, my son, go, and peace go with you.”

Colonus rose and bowed to the old man, and went home.

Now the way was clear to prepare for the emigration, and from time to time others came to talk about it and join the company. Besides the four men who had made the plan in the first place, there were finally seven others,—Tullius, who knew all the ancient laws and customs well, Piscinus the fisherman, Pollio the leather worker, Cossus, an old and wary fighter, the two Nasos, quiet and able farmers (all of whose children had the big nose that marked the family), and Calvo, whose great-grandfather had bequeathed to his descendants a tendency to grow bald young. Calvo already had a little thin spot on the crown of his head, though he was not much over thirty. Among them they had all the most necessary trades and could supply most things they needed. But every one of them was also a good farmer; in fact, in such migrations the settlers were most generally known as _coloni_ or farmers. They had to understand the care of the land in order to get through the first years without starving to death, for there were no cities where they went.

Muraena could make unusually fine weapons, and he took care that each of the party should be provided with the best that he could make. The grain was chosen with care, for when they found the place for their settlement they would want it for seed. The finest animals were chosen to stock the farms. The women who were not going made gifts of their best weaving to the housewives who were. The lads who were old enough to fight gave especial attention to their bows and their slings, and spent a good deal of time practicing.

All the men who had agreed to go had sons and daughters except Sylvius, and most of the children were old enough to do something to help. They were very much excited, and secretly most of them were rather scared.

There was no priest in the company; that is to say, there was no man who had nothing else to do, for that was not the custom among the Ramnes. They chose a man they all trusted for this office. Tullius was chosen priest by the _coloni_. It was due to his advice that the water jars and the leather bottles for water-carrying were well selected, strong and numerous. It was a hobby of his, the drinking of pure water, and he believed it had more to do with health than any other one thing. He also believed that the gods do not protect the careless and the lazy. For instance, if a man were to pray to Mars to keep his house from being destroyed by fire, and then burn brush on a windy day in summer, when the wind was blowing that way, and a spark happened to light on the thatch, Mars would not be likely to put it out. He would let it burn. If the gods went to the trouble of saving people from the consequences of not using common sense, they would show themselves to be fools, and not in the least god-like. Tullius prayed at all proper times, but when he was working he worked with his head as well as with his hands. He said that that was what heads were for.

III

THE SACRED YEAR

In the month of spring when day and night are equal, and the young lambs frisk on new grass, a company of young men and girls went slowly out from a little town on the eastern side of a great mountain range. The long narrow country stretching out into the sea, which is now called Italy, is divided by this range lengthwise into two parts, and in the earliest days of the country the people on one side had hardly anything to do with those on the other. On the coast toward the sunrise were many harbors, and seafaring men from other countries came there sometimes to trade. On the other side, the young people who were now setting their faces westward did not at all know what they would find.

They were all of about the same age, and they looked grave and a little anxious; some of the girls had been crying. The day had come when they were to leave the place where they had been born and brought up and go into an unknown world, and it was not likely that they would ever come back.

They belonged to the Sabine people, who used to live on the banks of the rivers not far from the coast, and kept cattle and sheep and goats, and raised grain and different kinds of vegetables, and had vineyards. The land was so rich that they had more food and other things than they needed, and used to trade more or less with the strangers from other countries. So many strangers came there and settled in course of time that the first inhabitants were crowded back toward the mountains, away from the sea. Then war parties of Umbrians from the north came pushing their way into the country, and the peaceable farming folk were obliged to retreat still farther up the rivers into the mountain, and clear new land and settle it. This happened all a long time ago. It was not easy to live there, and they were poorer than they used to be, for so much of the land was rock and forest that they had to spend a great deal of their time getting it into a fit condition for either grain or cattle or anything else. But they learned to do most things for themselves, as mountain people do; they were not afraid of hard work or danger, and although they lived plainly they were comfortable.

But even here they were not let alone. About twenty years earlier, before any of these boys and girls were born, the Umbrian war parties came up into the higher valleys, and the Sabines had to fight for their very lives. They won the war and drove back the invaders in the end, but it began to seem that some day they would be wiped out altogether and forgotten.

After this war there were some hard years. Many of the men had been killed, and the fields had been neglected when the fighting was going on. Where the enemy came they trampled down and ruined the vineyards, and burned houses and barns, and drove off the flocks and herds for their own use. That one year of war almost ruined the work that had been done in half a lifetime. If they were to be obliged to spend half their time defending what land they had, every year would be worse than the last.

Finally Flamen the priest, the man most respected in the central and largest of the towns, spoke of an old custom called the “sacred spring.” It was a method of making sacrifice to the gods when things came to a very evil pass indeed. In a way it was a sacrifice, and in a way it was a chance of saving something from the general ruin. Flamen believed that if they kept a “sacred spring” their guardian god, Mars, would help them. All this happened a long time before the calamity that drove the emigrants to set out from the Mountain of Fire. There are all sorts of reasons why people change their place of living and begin new settlements in a strange country, but in those days it was a much more serious matter than it is now, and it took almost a life-and-death reason to make them do it.

When villages agreed to keep a sacred year, as these finally did, they gave to the gods everything that was born in that year. The cattle, sheep, goats and poultry were killed in sacrifice, when they were grown. But the children born that spring were not killed. They were taught that when they were old enough they were to go out and build homes for themselves in another land, trusting in the great and wise god Mars to show them where to go. If this was done, even though the Umbrians attacked the country again and again, and killed off the people or made them slaves, there would still be Sabine men and women living in the old ways, somewhere in the world. And now the time had come for them to set out to find their new home.

Flamen the priest gave a daughter in the year of the sacred spring; Maurs the smith gave a son. Almost every family in all the country round had a son or daughter or at least a near relative who was going. Some of the young people were married before the day came for them to go; in fact, there were a great many brides and grooms in the party. The parents had given their children plenty of seed grain and roots and plants, cuttings of shrubs and trees and vines, animals and fowls to stock their farms, provision for the journey, and whatever clothing and other goods they could carry without the risk of being delayed or tempting plunderers to kill them for their riches. Everything that could be done was done to make their great undertaking successful.

At daybreak on the day that had been decided upon, the farewell ceremonies began. Hymns were sung and a feast was held, prayers and sacrifices were made; there were all sorts of farewell wishes and loving hopes and instructions. Nothing, however, could make it anything but a very solemn occasion. The young people must go beyond the mountains, for on this side they could have no hope of finding any place to live. No one knew what awaited them. But whatever happened, no one would have dreamed of breaking the promise made to the gods. A pledge is a pledge, and not the shrewdest cheat can deceive the gods, for they know men’s hearts.

Flam’na, the wife of young Mauros the maker of swords, looked back just once as they lost sight of the village. Then she led in the singing of the last of the farewell songs. She had a beautiful voice, clear and strong and sweet; her husband’s deeper tones joined hers, and then all the young voices took up the song as streams run into a river. The fathers and mothers heard the wild music of their singing floating down from the mountain forest as they climbed the narrow trail. They were following a path which the young men knew from their hunting expeditions, which led around the shoulder of the mountain to a pass through which they could cross and go down the other side. Now that they were fairly on their way, the care of the young animals they were driving, all of them full of life and not at all used to keeping together in strange woods, took up most of the attention of the whole party.

On the western slopes, as far as the hunters had ever gone, there were no people living in villages—only scattered woodcutters and hunters, and here and there a poor ignorant family in a little clearing. If they went far enough down to reach the upper valleys of streams or rivers, they might find just the sort of place they wanted for their new home. Others must have done this in the past, or there would never have been the custom of the sacred spring, for the emigrant parties would have been all killed off or starved to death. The young men said that what others had done they could do, and they went valiantly on, chanting a marching song.

In these spring days, as time passed, the mornings were earlier and the twilights later. They lived well while their provisions lasted, and there was game in the forest and fish in the little streams. They always carried coals from their camp fires to light the next fires, and in the cool evenings the leaping flames were pleasant. They also kept wild beasts from coming too near.

There were three groups of the young people, from three different villages. At night they gathered in three camps; each “company” which ate bread together was made up of relatives and friends. After they had crossed the mountain pass and before they had gone very far on the other side, they halted for a day to talk matters over and decide what to do next. It was very important now to take the right course.

The youths gathered under a huge oak to hold a council while their wives and sisters and cousins busied themselves with affairs of their own. The men would have to do the fighting, and the girls were quite willing to leave the general plans to them. They were a sober and serious group of young fellows as they sat there in the dappling sunshine. It was enough to make any man serious. Mars had brought them so far without any serious mishap, and he might go on protecting them all the rest of the way; but the question was, how to discover what was best to do. All the ways down the mountain looked very much alike, and yet one might lead into a country inhabited by fierce and cruel enemies, and another into a barren rocky waste, and another to a fertile valley.

Mauros was their leader, so far as they had one, but he called on each man in turn to say what he thought. There seemed to be a good deal of doubt about the wisdom of so large a party traveling together. The chances were against their finding a valley large enough for all to live in. They were not likely to find so much cleared land or good pasture in any one place. If they were to separate, and each party took a different direction, one or another certainly ought to be able to find the right sort of place. Perhaps all of them would. Even one of the camps was strong enough to defend itself against any ordinary enemy. They were all young and strong, active and full of courage, and as time went on they would be traveling lighter and lighter, for the provisions would be eaten up and the spare animals killed for food. They decided to do this, to offer a sacrifice to Mars and pray to him to direct them. The next morning all were ready to go on and waited only for a sign.

Each of the gods had certain favorite animals, birds and plants. Mars had plenty of servants he could send to do his will, and surely he would show them what to do.

Flam’na stood with her cousins, watching Mauros as he stood in the center of the silent group under the great oak tree. The fires were flickering slowly down to red coals, and a little wind blew from the west. Suddenly their lead-ox, the wisest of the team, lifted his head and sniffed the breeze, pawed the earth, bellowed, and plunged down a grassy glade, followed more slowly by the other oxen and the whole party in that camp. The ox was one of the beasts of Mars. Nothing could be clearer than this. Mauros turned and waved a laughing farewell to the other camps, and raced on to make sure that the ox did not get out of sight. Before they had gone very far they came to a tiny brook, which went chuckling on as if it knew something interesting. They followed it downward and began to find more and more grass as the valley widened and the trees grew less thick. Finally they found a place where the water was good and the soil rich, and there was room for all their beasts to graze. They called the town they built there Bovianum, after the ox of Mars. They were sometimes called by their neighbors the Bovii, the cattlemen, for herds of cattle were not very common in that part of the country.

In the camp to the right of this, not long after the departure of the ox, one of the girls saw something red moving high up on the trunk of a tree, and pointed it out to her brother. His eyes followed hers, and soon all the company gathered in the edge of the woodlands, watching that scarlet dot among the thick leaves. Then, with a sudden rush of little wings, a green woodpecker flew down from the tree top and perched on a bough just over their heads. He looked down knowingly into the upturned, eager faces, and with a cheery call flew away down a ravine, and alighted again. Breathless, wide-eyed and silent, they ventured nearer. He beat his tiny tattoo on the bark as if he were sounding a drum, and flew on. Now scarlet was the color of Mars, the drum was his favorite instrument of music, and Picus the woodpecker was his own bird. Following their little feathered guide, they went farther and farther north until they found a home among the spurs of the Apennines. They called themselves the Picentes, the Woodpecker People, and their children all knew the story of the sacred spring and the bird of Mars.